The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3050, 5 April 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1881.

The report by the ifanawatu Times concerning vbs abandonment of (he Norsewood set would scarcely aarprise anyone sbouM it turn out to be true. Nor«ewoo.~ \\as not been a success. About :iine yeara ago the public works and immigration policy having j UB t been iti.tiated and a loan raised, it was deeme-) necessary to spend the money as speed"W as possible. The late Dr. ~\aa sent home to England, and he h* i no eooner Fettled down in London a? ►X^ent-General when be began to be by the Government of this colony <<> send out emigrants. Failing in England to obtain as many as the greed of the colony demanded, he established agencies *t the several ports of northern Europe Tt may be said tbat he went out into tho highways and byeways and compelled them to emigra'e. Up to rbe time of tl.<s cornmerjce'oent of f he borrow and squander policy the forest landa of tho conniry had been mostly neglected tor the clear ground where the plough c i:id be put in without trouble, and where cheep und cattle could be grazed without being lost. With the initiation of the vavr scheme it was I thought that unassisted.by skilled labor we should be unable to destroy our virgin forests with suffidtnT, speed, so Dr. Featberston was applauded when he •lespatchcd to this country sundry ship -GRcis of people wh?\ tor want of a heuer j iiame, were termed u'.'.indinavmn*. Now, it was well kuow-i that Scindinavi-mn oame from the α-uih of Europe, and everybody was eqt:; My well aware that that part of the w-rid supplied Englav-d with a timber kniwn to the trade a* Baltic pine. New Zealand possessed pice timbers; who. uen, could be more suitable for the der-'iction of our forests and for the deveh>utnent of a timber trade than Scinditi viaus? Thus it was that when the first shipload of foreigners arrived in Hawke'.s Bay the passengers were immediately transported to the Seventy-mile Busb. It v»as of no moment to the sapient Government of the day that these unfortunate people were as ignorant of the use of the axe a 8 any shopkeeper iv Copenhagen ; it was sufficient that they were classed as Scandinavians, whether tl.ey came from Denmark, Holland, Sweden, or Norway. And' so they were pitched into the Seventy-mile Bash. It is true that the Government found a sort of temporary shelter for them til; they could erect huts of their own; land—forest-covered—was surveyed for theta, which they were allowed to take up upon easy terms of deferred payment, and employment was provided tor them in the shape of roadmaking." These roncessions, for they were such as has o not ac a rule been given to English seti?srs, may be accepted as a set-off to tlw roily tbat was perpetrated in forcing ."tWement. But while tbeae people road-making their bush holding remained in a etate of nature, and the motley they earned as laborers scarcely did more than sustain their wires and children. Although they bad come from the north of Europe very many or these settlers had never seen such a fiing as a natural forest in their lives; they had been unaccustomed to rough manual labour; they had been unasquainted with hardship ; very many of them did not come from amongst the 1 «Loring classes. All through the time uf the road-making their lives were one long misery. And yet they were fated to experience harder times. When Government labor ceased, when the road was fiwished, they had to fall back upon the resources of their land. Then their I'.rdships commenced. What little they ha-J saved from their earnings had gone t •> pay for their sections, and they found themselves without money and without work. The land produced them m thing, or next to nothing. And so fathers of families, and the grown-np sods and daughters, hac to leave the settlement *o seek employment miles away, in order to find the necessaries of life f-sv their wives and the little ones dependent upon them. Others remained and cleared the bush off their land, but as they bad no market for their timber the trees were cut down and burnt, and what in after years would have been of great value was destroyed for the sake of a sickly crop of oats, or a miserable patch of potatoes. But while the oats, or the potatoes, or whatever it was that could be got to grow the wretched foil tbat was disclo3f;d when the natural vegetation was cleared off, the family waa living upon credit. Deeper and def-per into debt did the settlement annually become, and the money that was raised by mortgaging the had was not expended in the improvement of the ground, but actually upon the necessaries of life. A drive through the r>?ftleineot at this very day will show the nature of the struggles with which the seeders bad to contend. They bad no capital to commence with, and were totally unfitted by previous experience to copt with the difficulties they were unexpectedly called upon to meet. It is not ;heir fault that they have failed. They are very much to be pited ; and if they emigrate in a body to trie United States of America we can only wish them better luck than that which they have met with in this colony.