NEW ZEALAND IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Evening Star, Issue 3230, 27 June 1873, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

During the debate on Mr Macfie’s motion, in reference to the Colonies, Mr KnatchbullHugessen, after alluding to the activity digp’ayed by various Colonial Gov»rnments in bringing out immigrants, remarked that the crowning act of liberality came from New Zealand, which had reduced the passage money of immigrants of certain specified classes to L 5 per head. He then read the following extract from a letter from Wellington :—“lmmigration is the all-absorbing topic with us just now. Never before in the history of the Colony has there been so great a pressure for laborers here. Ample employment, high wages, cheap food, and land at a low price on easy terms, are some of the inducements which now present themselves. The public works in progress create directly and indirectly an immense individual demand for all occupations and trade. The 7,000 immigrants of the past year are but a drop in the ocean.of our requirements. The sheep-farmers with their pockets full of money, are pressing on their improvements in every direction. People we must have—people at any price our own countrymen if they can be made to move ; if not, any that we can persuade to come. Weare now offering a ticket for a passage round the globe for a L 5 note, and sundry little extras are given in. Is our reputation so doubtful still that the very name of our Colony suggests the vision of a tatooed savage hungering for a well-fed immigrant ? We hav<; put the Maori of the present day through a course of mutton and rum, beef and beer, tobacco and tea, and tax our ingenuity in a thousand ways to make him the wealthiest savage that ever yet came into contact with civilised man. The Maori, consequently, is civilising himself off the face of the earth so rapidly that we are at our wit’s end to know how to fill the vacuum fast enough.” The writer adds that the Agent-General of the Colony in London has carte-blanche, to offer as liberal terms as may be necessary to secure the number required. In reply to the suggestion that the Imperial Government should organise and encourage emigration, Mr Knatcnhull-Hu-gesaensaid that the Colonial Governments were doing this far more effectually than the Home Government, because they knew the kind of emigrants they wanted, and those who would be likely to prosper in the Colony. Sir C. Adderley remarked that the emigrants in different parts of the world, who had prospered, were sending home not Ipsa than L 1.000,000.000,000 a-year tfi their friends and relatives irf the United kingdom to assist them to go out ana join them, 3he London correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Post, after giving the above information, observes: —“ Thera must be many of your readers of all ranks and classes wno will peruse these lines with the wish that their children should enjoy the ease, comfort, and prosperity which may have been denied to themselves. To such, 1 may render a service by giving the name and address of the Agent-General of ivew Zealand in London—l. E. Featheraton, Esq., 7 Westminster Chambers. IS. W. One of his most welcome and urgent duties at the present moment is to give information to intending emigrants, and no one need hesitate to write to him as to the clivus pf emigrants who ca?i Obtain foj L 5 a-head.”