IMMIGRATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3192, 14 May 1873, Page 3

IMMIGRATION.

To the Editor.

Sir, —The immigration question excites so much interest here, and is evidently considered of such vital importance to the Colony, that I need not apologise for offering some remarks of a practical kind on the subject, There can be no doubt, I take it, that any eob :r and respectable English workingman, of average skill in his trade, will find himsTf infinitely better off here than in Enrland. His wages will be much higher, while his expenses will not increase in anything like the same ratio as his wages. One important item of expendi‘urc—meat—he •will find cheaper than at Home. His prospects will be such as ha could never hop o for in hngland ; and, if he has a family, ho may look forward to seeing them take their rank among the first people in the Colony, Nothing can be more tempting than the inducements held out; but he has to make a three or four months’ voyage before he c*n begin to realise them. The United States and Canada offer him baits just as tempting, and they are within ten days’ or at most a fortnight’s steaming. Th i vo* age in the one case will cost him L 6, and in the other LIB to L2O. He will bn entitled to a grant of lapd in America or Canada, and in the States he will have the additional advantage of becoming a citizen of the most “ free and enlightened,” Ac., upon earth. No wonder that the emigrants to those countries are counted by hundreds of thousands. Now, if New Zealand means to compete with the United States and Canada, she must make immigration as attractive as possible. No sensible working map in good health, able to face an English winter, would dream of coining here, when he can reap every advantage which New Zealand offers at half the expense of travelling and outfit. I suppose no sane person relishes the idea of a three months’ voyage in a sailing ship ; ami to suppose that, at the present time, when work is so abundant and wages are so high in England, this Colony will be able to procure any large number of such immigrants as flic wishes to have, on the present system, is a complete delusion, which six months’* resi dence in England would dispel. Of course you can get such people ns the bulk of the Brogdenitcs have been—they arc only too glad to get rid of them at Home ; and, lam quite ?ure, every facility will be offered for shipping any number of them. But if yon want, as you unquestionably da, the industrious, sober, respectable working man, you must osef blip further inducements than you do at present. With respect to land grants, I sbaT say noihing, because that will lead me into the domain of po'itics ; and with New Zealand politics I don’t mean to have anything to d >, if lean help it. My motto is, fie tutor ultra crepidaifl. Aa to passage money, it is perfootly certain that you will never get any large immigration unless jou piy the whole passage money. Even then New Zraland would hardly be on a level with the States, because the additional outfit for a long sea voyage, and tho dread of the voyage itself would more than counterbalance the small payment required for emigrating to America. Now, I arn not speaking on this point without. experience. When I was in Trinidad I had, as health officer of shipping, to examine all the immigrant ships from India on their first arrival in tho Colony, and I know the details of the Trinidad immigration system well. It costs that Colony just as much to bring a coolie from India to Trinidad as it would to bring an Englishman from England to New Z-aland ; and I suppose that at the very least the average Englishman will do as much work as six average coolies. Yet Trinidad was ruined, absolutely rumed, before she adopted this immigration s> stem, and land was almost valueless. I myself bought 218 acres of beautiful land, with quantities of hardwood timber on it, and a fresh water stream running into the sea through it, for—ls. I know of three sugar estates which were bought a few years ago f r LB.OU0 —not the price of the machinery— mules and cattle on them, and I was told last yc.-ir hy the manager that these three estates have been bringing in for some years a net annual revenue of L2(i,000 ! So it pays Trinidad to import coolies, paying the whole cost of their passage, givi g them an outfit, and paying their immigyation agent in Calcutta L2,sU(lt (two thousand live hundred pounds) a year, bpsides some very nice little pickings. Of course they have to pay recruiters, clerks, apd all sqrtsof people besides. They pay th»ir Surgeana-Superiu-tondent qne pound pey bead fur each immigrant (child or adult) landed alive, instead of ten shillings for each statute adult, as New Zoalaud di'es.

'i hey have a depdt at Calcutta, into which all intending emigrants are received and kept while they are waiting for a ship. While there they are examined by a doctor employed by tho Emigration Agent, and when a cargo is ready for shipment, the SurgeonSuperintendent Txarainea each individual carefully, and has power to reject any he may think unhealthy. This is a system I would most atrogly urge on the New Zealand Government. If I had had the power, 1 should have rejected between twenty and thirty of the passengers by the Charlotte Gladstone at a glance, without any further examination. They were obviously unhealthy persons, There were a good many wen who would never have passed any proper examination of their chests. The system of inspection at present adopted is a farce. The Government medical officer (a very nice, gentlemanly man), comos on board at Gravesend, and the emigrants pass before him in Indian file. If he sees any one with what he thinks is infectious disease, ho stops him or her, and makes a more minute examination in the cabin ; but he takes no account of anything but in feetious disease. They may all be consumptive for anything ho cares. He stopped one girl because she bad nettle rash ; but when L remarked to him what a sickly, underfed lot they were as a rule, he only said, “Oh they’ll improve on the voyage.” But there he was mistaken ; they did not improve on the voyage. Now, if the New Zealand Government had a depOt at Plymouth, two good results would be attained. The people could be properly examined, and the sickly or unsuitable ones weeded out, and the most trying part of the voyage— that of the Engish Channel—would be avoided. 1 have bo hesitation in saying

that the ten days we spent knocking about in the channel had a most detrimental ii.fln ence on the health of the Weakly women were completely prostrate Sy the prolonged sea-sickness and confinr ment down below in the close air of tl 'tween decks. I was obliged to serve on ■ wine to all the women. if we had startc< from P ymouth we should have had hardh \ny sea-sickness, and wo should have starte. fair for the voyage, which would have heei ten days shorter. A dopfit at Plymouth would enable the Surgeon-Superintendent to become % litth acquainted with the emigrants before em harkation, and he would be better able to judge whom h* should appoint constables, &c. The ship, too, would be fully prepared for the reception of the emigrants. lam aware that, according to the charter party everything might to be in order twentyfour hours before tho time named for tho embarkation ; all the cargo stowed away, and everything in readiness But from what I hear, this is never thr case. The owners arc always taking in cargo until the last momeut, and the scene of confusion down below in mdcscribai le. 1 know it was so on board the Charlotte Gladstone. I had often heard from other medical men of the confusion and disorder before starting, but 1 never firmed the faintest idea of what it was until I saw it. I have no hesitation in saying that all this was quite needless, and that everything might be done without any disorder. We lay in the docks for two days taking in cargo. During this time the utter anarchy that prevailed made the ship a perfect pandemonium. I wrote to the Emigration Commissioners on the second day, as I found that no one would attend to anything I said. The following extracts from my diary are a feeble picture of what was going on :

“ October 29.—Dame on board at twTve noon. Ship in great confusion ; carpenters at work all about—berths and partitions [bulkheads] not comp’ote. Single females compartment unfinished. Hospitals blocked up with stores ; no medicine chest on board. No food is-ued until six p.m.—then tea and bread and butter.” This was the day appointed for the embarkation of the emigrants, wh© came in over three hundred strong, amidst the carpenters and the stevedore’s men who were stowing away the cargo. At night a very large proportion of my emigrants were drunk. The noise, the swearing. the obscene language, the glaring lights of the stevedores, Mho were at work till midnight, made up together such a scene as I hope never to see again. “ 30th.—Confusion still very great. Two married couples, one with two children, one single man, and four single females, had no berths last night. Taking in cargo all day. At night still several berths wanting: four S. F.’s (single females) obliged to sleep on tables No sugar or milk issued to infants this morning. Hospitals still choked up. When I ask* d to have them cleared out, could not be done—nowhere else to put the stores ! A great many complaints about meals. “ 10 p m. —No. 72 in bed with boots on ; two single men without bertha. “31st, 8 a.m. —Went round and gave directions about cleaning the ’tween decks. Children have had neither milk nor arrowroot ; no one to give it out, etc. Started for Gravesend.” It was ten days after we embarked before the children got their proper rations. The stores for passengers had been buried beneath cargo. Now, is it to be supposed that this sort of things can go on without exercising a most serious influence on emigration ? The people nearly all wrote home, and I am sure that not one but would urge their friends in the strongest terms not to emigrate. For my part, there is nothing on earth would induce me to go home as a steerage passenger. —I am, &c., R H. Bakewepp, M.D. Bolgrave Chambers, Princes street, May 7.