NOTES ON EMIGRATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3117, 14 February 1873, Page 2

NOTES ON EMIGRATION.

* We {Bruce tier old) are permitted to publish the following extract from a private letter received by last mail from a gentleman long connected with emigration, and whose opinion we believe is entitled to very considerable weight I send you by book post some papers bearing upon the subject of emigration to Ontario, which will let yon see what I am duing for that Province. The reference to the number ot my applications (1G,(J0(1) for information is no bounce. I have from 60 to 117 letters every day from enquirer* for information regarding assisted emigration to that province, and all this as the result of one advertisement in the Weekly Scotsman and two in the People's Journal', The fact is that emigration to Australia and New Zealand is done, so far as I am concerned. 1 am sending more passage tickets to bring people home from Australia than' I am sending persons out. In the meantime, as I regard it, emigration of the right daw to both these places is done. 1 would not be bothered with Dr Featherstone. A single man comes in to me asking a hundred quesr tions regarding New Zealand and the cost of an assisted passage . My inclination is to shut him up and to book him for some other place, supposing, however, that he is r’etermiued to go to New Zealand and will notgo elsewhere, 1, having.answered his questions, and he having ausweieJ mine satisfactorily, get a form of application for him, enter in Jus name, age, occupation, county where born, name and address of last employer, and time in his employment, then get a certiti; cate sheet and repeat all the entries, then shew him where he has to sign his own name/ where two householders, a doctor and a magistrate or clergyman have to sign theirs, then tell him to get it completed and returned to pie." Well, about orie M four or five return the form, possibly week or two afterwards. I post it- to Dp F., who issues an approval circular nallW for payment of the sum required About one out of three sends up the money to Df. F,, and actually embarks. Well, three or iour months after wans I am permitted to send up an account for’five shillings to Dr ¥i for commission, and in a month or two sfr» having done so I am rewarded with five sbij iiu.s- little more than nav vies! wages for the time occupied anil work done. If, omthja contrary, the perm bad gone to OntanojT

would have got hie deposit at once, have him his ticket and made seven shillings and sixpence sure in ten minutes time, whether he went or not, besides HO * for five months* salary from Ontario, and LSO for printing, advertising and travelling expenses. Do you see it now !' Is anything farther necessary to be said to shew the contrast? Yes, there is, I expect L2OO this year, and L7O or ! 80 for expenses. I can assure you that it actually cost me a severe straggle to turn my back on Now Zealand with you two there, and hundreds of schoolfellows and acquaintances, and one province (Canterbury), of which was worth about L2OO a year to me for a year or two; I was loath indeed to thi"k of disconnecting myself from it. Why, I had even stumped the Canterbury aad Auckland schemes from Inverness to Edinburgh, and had given addresses in many of the intervening towns and villages. “But the best of friend? must part.” I considered that there was only one way of working up New Zealand in Scotland, and I thought, and still think, that I could have done it better thank any other person in Scotland. “ Lo, 1 turned to the Gentiles.” I am now glad, however, ’that Dr. F. and I d d not come to terms, as both he and I would have been-disappointed. I am now firmly convinced that 1 could not have made it popular, and the reason of this is, the bad accounts which persons in this country receive from their friends resident there ; and until things improve there and good accounts are received by friends, you may take my word for it that the best thing New Zealand can do is to stop its expensive and effete organisation for pushing emigration, recall Dr. F., and give, instructions to MrOttywellto conduct matters quietly and at little expense until things take a turn. You cannot say honestly that you want out people to share the general prosperity with you Is it not the fact that yon want capitalists to come pqt and help you to pay the taxes f while you are paying exhorbitant sums for penniless laborers, many of them of questionable character. I am sorry to have to write in so discouraging a strain, hut I only write what I honestly believe. Had it not been for the spurt that Canada is making, and my connection with it, I believe I could lately hare sent about 8 or 10 farmers from the North of Scotland to New Zealand. All of these had some money, and are now doing well in Ontario, and there are about 15 or 20 others that I know of to whom they have written, and who are to follow in April It is because 1 love New Zealand that I write thus. 1 feel that lam part of it, and that my vo ce ought to be heard. I was the best friend Canterbury had in Scotland, I am not sure but I was the best friend New Zealand had in Scotland for some years. Now, lam in earnest; mark my words and see if they do not come to pass. The best thing you can do in emigration is what I have stated. You could not get a better man than 0 tty well; there is no better.