The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1872.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2782, 17 January 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1872.

The difficulties that have stood in the way of immigration are beginning to manifest themselves now that it is made a Colonial instead of a Provincial matter. They appear to be mainly twofold : those created by ourselves ami those arising from the selhsh action

of the people at Home. The obstacles 1 of Colonial creation have mainly arisen from jealousy arising out of our Provincial system. The agents ot the Provinces seem to have been animated by a spirit of rivalry that prevented concerted action, and led to a ludicrous crying up of the Province they were paid to represent, and a crying down of every other part ol the Colony. Canterbury, or Auckland, or Wellington, is in turn praised by them as a land flowing with milk and honey, and blown upon as a wilderness where there is no food nor water. It is bad enough to have jaundiced letters sent Home telling a garbled story of Colonial miseries by some vagabond loafer, published in some local journal believed in by some twenty or thirty thousand people; but we think it is worse to have rival immigration agents flitting about the country saying,

“ The shop I travel for has the best “ goods—there’s nothing decent' to be “ had in any other in the Colony.” These agents are generally men of character and standing ; and what are people to believe when they listen to conflicting statements of that kind ? We are not to suppose that everybody sees M. Chevalier’s pictures, and longs to visit scenes .of such surpassing beauty as he has drawn for Home inspection. The inevitable conclusion that people anxious to better themselves would arrive at would be, since one respectable agent says “ go here ” and another “go there, if « you would prosper,” we do not know what to believe—we will stay where we are rather than move upon such uncertain and unreliable information. Were there no other ground on which to remit our whole immigration - ±l*:,-.

arrangements to a common agency, this difficulty forms quite a sufficient motive. But there are other reasons, and strong ones. Provincial expenditure in this •direction cannot secure Provincial settlement. The means of travelling from one portion of the Colony to another are so numerous and cheap compared with what they were when Provincialism was established, that if Otago imports a number of immigrants, before six months have passed away they may be very snugly working underground at the Thames. Thus Otago may be at the expense of peopling Auckland } and this consideration should be conclusive in favor of immigration being made a Colonial rather than a Provincial duty. But more than tiiis. It is very plain that as far as possible all the worthy*men and women will be retained at Humo, and all ■the scapegraces and those-who hay.o disgraced their families will be sent out

here. Our friends at Home seem to look upon the Colonies as the means of disposing of second-hand clothes and penitent sinners. It is for us to refuse to take what they want to be rid of. If the people qf England and Scotland had made one quarter the efforts to educate the people that have been made in Otago, they would mt have had so many who, through ignorance and immorality, have become burdensome to them. No doubt it is very ki n d—very benevolent on the part of the Reverends P. Barclay and David Bruce —to push boys remitted for training or correction to industrial schools, or young women from reformatories, upon the Colonists; but it is just one of those developments of benevolence we never could understand. Why should one country be contaminated in order to save a few outcasts belonging to another 1 Why should thousand's be exposed to danger for the sake of a hundred or two 1 We know

all the jargon that is talked about removing them from scenes of temptation and the influence of wicked associations. No doubt there is somethingin it so far as the individual is concerned ; but what about the danger of jablution to the many 1 As a Colony we object to be treated as moral schoolmasters for all the degraded and fallen of Great Britain. We want the wives of the settlers to be pure minded .and virtuous; the mothers of the future race to be abje to say that they brought a good name to the Colony with them, and they look to their children to maintain and transmit it to generations to come. We do not want emigration to New Zealand to be looked upon as a disgrace, and the colonists merely' associates for outcasts. We wish it to have repute as a place to which the industrious may look with the certainty of success, and the rich and refined with the consciousness that here they will meet their equals in morals and education. We are glad to find that Dr Featherston has taken the stand he has done in the matter. It is high time that the people at Home learned to look upon the colonists in the light of equals instead of inferior’s. So long as tire notion prevails that “ any tiring “ is good enough for the Colonies,” so long will emigration be looked upon as jbliq last resource of those who cannot get ,on at Home : when it is found that New Zealand will only have the best, it may become a fashionable place to resort to.

Mayor’s Court.—There was no case of importance at the Mayor’s Court this morning. George Galloway was fined Is and costs for removing filth from premises in Princes-stroet after the hours specified in the Act. Aculimitization. — The Southland Acclimitization Society have voted £SO to defray the expense of an experimental shipment of salmon ova on a new plan, namely, that of packing the ova in wet moss on a tin case placed in another case, the space between the two cases being filled with sawdust.

Immigration. —Despatches from Dr. Feathcrstou intimate that a mixed scheme of Provincial and Colonial emigration does not answer. The agents of the different provinces in their endeavours to induce emigrants to choose that represented by each, damage as far as possible the claims of all the rest. This has taken place in Cornwall and also in Scotland. In Dr Featherston’s endeavor to act in conjunction with Mr Anld, the agent for Otago, they put themselves in communication with two clergymen, the Revs. P. Barclay and David Bruce, and a committee of ladies. They suggested as suitable emigrants women who had been in reformatories and boys from industrial schools. Dr Featherston, however, declined to aid persons of that class finding their way to New Zealand. As he has not been so successful as he desired in Great Britain, he has arranged for the emigration at intervals of some six thousand —Swedes, Germans, and Danes, at favorable rates of passages. One ship was to sail in December for Wellington, another for Canterbury in January. The rates of passage are LlO for each man, Ll4 for each unmarried women. It is expected this arrangement will secure a large proportion of the latter. Mr Auld had arranged to visit Dr Featherston in London, in order to arrange some plan likely to establish a system of emigration advantageous to the Colony. Snobbery. —Our readers will no doubt wonder why we have not informed them about the reported arrangements for the Italian Opera Company expected here. We may say simply that we conclude the agent does not think the readers of the Evening Star worth bis consideration. It is quite true that tluir money is as good as other people’s, their position as good, and their number far greater than the readers of any other New Zealand journal; but they, like ourselves, must submit to be told by the agent for the Cagli troupe that the readers of the morning journals only ore worthy of being invited to patronize the Italian Opera. This was the intimation given to our manager yesterday. It does not matter that this is contradicted by the fact that the Auckland and Wellington evening papers were considered sufficiently aristocratic to be made the means of communication with the public. With that we have .nothing to dp. We do not quarrel with the agent : he has a right to take his own com’se. If he can do without the publicity obtainable through the Erenlng Star , the Star can do equally well without his advertisements. It is not the paper that is injured, it is the large class of readers who depend solely on the Star for information who arc insulted. They are in effect told by the agent “we do not want your patronage.” This being the case, however glad pur thousands of readers might be to hear something concerning artists of whom the public of Dunedin know .nothing, we niust decline saying a wprd about them until they ask public patronage through our columns.' This explanation is due to our readers for an apparent neglect, The High School will be re-opened on Monday, January 29, at 9 o’clock. The first competition for the Artillery Champion Belt will take place at the Andersens Bay Range at’ 5.30 a.m. sharp on Friday, 19th inst. Tfj-E concert in aid of the building fund for the Episcopal Church at Blucskin, will take place in the Masonic Hall to-night, at 8 o’clock. Persons had better make early application (for seats ,tp Mr West, Princes street, for we understand they are being rapidly disposed of.