The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2109, 8 February 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1870.

The Melbourne Argus, following in the •wake of the Fall Mall Gazette, comments upon a petition to Her Majesty, from the working men of England, the prayer of which is, that the Colonies may he preserved to the Empire, as the common inheritance of Englishmen. As a matter of course, there is in the term “ inheritance ” a considerable amount of bunkum. It conveys the idea that they have nothing to do but to enter into and possess the lands that in their imaginations are lying desert wastes. They apparently have no notion of the restrictions placed upon colonisation by Waste Lands Boards, Provincial Councils, and General A»-

semblies. They will have to come to Otago to learn the difference between “ settlers” and “ squatters,” and to learn that the settlers will not allow a lessee to make the best of his land for the common good of the country; but ordain that, if he will improve it, he must first buy it. The European Mail states that that petition had received 30,000 signatures. It is somewhat remarkable that this movement amongst the working classes should have occurred at the very time when the Ministry of the Empire had busied itself in loosing the bonds that connect the Colonies with the Mother Country. "We do not know that there is anything very intelligent in the movement. It has been originated by MiEddy, an old Tasmanian, By what means he has contrived to disseminate his views, we are not informed. In all probability he had no great necessity for effort in that respect. England has not recovered from the blow to industry given by the Prusso-Austrian war, and the pressure of want leads men naturally to turn their attention to countries wliere there are wider fields for labour and better prospects of success. Thirty thousand men longing to be away have signed the petition. This is a number ascertained. It is possible that a few of them may have been led to sign it, through holding the theory that the Colonies should not be severed from the Mother Country. These would form a very small fraction of the number, and it must be remembered that the thirty thousand themselves must be regai’ded as representing the opinions and wishes of many times their number who have no opportunity of expressing them by appending their names. It matters little by what mismanagement so many are led to desire to leave their native land. It is needless at this distance from Britain to discuss, or even to point out how the giant monetary monopoly of the Bank of England harasses trade, and perpetuates the sad effects of those frequently recurring crises that act so disastrously upon theinterests of thewoi-king classes. The final effects of it are to disperse the language, manners, and free institutions of Britain over the world, bycrippling the means by which the emigrating population might have been retained at Home. These are the very men we want—men willing and anxious to work, wanting only room for the full exercise of their pent-up energies. There is not a Colony in Australasia that has not felt the effects of the error that has been committed in ceasing to assist immigration j and Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania are rousing themselves to retrieve their steps. The Melbourne Argus urges co-operation with the promoters of the movement at Home, but points out the difficulties of the question. One of the chief has been the unwillingness and unfairness of one Colony paying for the passage of immigrants who, in less than a month, may leave it and find their way across the border into another. This has been notoriously the case in Australia, South Australia and Tasmania were drained of immigrants, who flocked to the Victorian and New South Wales Goldfields. Queensland bid liberally •for population, who no sooner arrived there than they “converted” their land warrants, and crossed the border to New South Wales and Victoria. Immigration, in New Zealand, has been left to the Provinces, most of which have been very slow to spend money in the matter, notwithstanding the high price of labor and the difficulties resulting from it. Tills indifference has arisen fiom a similar cause. Otago may pay the passage of immigrants who soon forsake it for Canterbury, Nelson, or Auckland ; and vice versa. Systematic immigration is thus rendered almost impossible; for no man likes to pay for seed of which another reaps the harvest. The Melbourne Argus urges this as a strong reason for a federation of the Colonies; and there is great force in the argument. The group is rapidly extending, and in proportion to that extent the difficulty will be increased. A man just arrived from England may choose to disappoint the hopes of those who brought him by wending his way to Eiji. Although the following extract'is intendod to apply to the Australian continent, it is equally pertinent to the relation in which New Zealand and Eiji stand to it. The Argus concludes :

The individual Colonies know, and have known for the past five years, that systematic immigration has passed beyond any solitary effort they can make, 'the occasional ship-load of immigrants landed at Melbourne or Brisbane is only a casual feeder. It is not pretended to be either the precursor or the continuation of a regular influx of labor. Regularity we can never have —a steady adequate supply we can never have —without sonic combination among the Colonics. For the new comer this continent is virtually one province—so it ought to be in the eyes of its rulers ; so it ought to be in the eyes of the mother country. As a field for labor, Australia should be able to present herself to England and to Europe as a united, homogeneous state. For the Briton who quits his native shore there should be but one new Britain in the Southern Ocean ; for the immigtant there should be one uniform mode of reaching these shores ; for the intending settler there

shouldho but one land law ; for the merchant there should bo but ouo Customs law ; for all of us there should be but one nationality. The future destiny of Australia lies in the one word—Federation.