The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3502, 14 May 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1874

Mr Reid’s explanation with regard to the immigrants hy the Asia is so far satisfactory that it lets the public know that no very large proportion of them are of an altogether undesirable description; and that many of them are quite suitable and of a superior class. Still, as he said, “it is quite clear that thirty-three of them have come from some union workhouse, or reformatory.” It can hardly be thought that these thirty-three persons will, under any circumstances, develop into good and useful colonists—still less that the people of New Zealand ought to pay a large sum to induce them to take up their abode in the Colony. If we understand the Public Worksand Immigration Scheme aright, the principal objects aimed at through it are to construct railways which shall develop the resources of the country, and, by opening up communication between its remoter parts and the principal centres of population, to virtually increase to a very great extent the amount of land tit for maintaining population; and then to introduce people to profitably occupy this increased area, and to assist, as taxpayers and contributors to the revenue,

in paying for the public works which have rendered the land available for settlement. It is evident that if the part of the scheme which relates to Immigration is to be a paying concern, the persons introduced into the Colony must be of such a description that they will be likely to become successful colonists; in other words, they must be healthy and they must be industrious ; if either of these two qualifications are wanting, they will do no good to the Colony or to themselves—without them they are by no means likely to become effective contributors to the revenue. We say effective , because many persons who are neither healthy nor industrious help to increase very considerably the amount of money received as duty on spirits, and so far manfully do their best for their adopted country; but then these are just the people on whose account the greatest expenditure is incurred for judges, magistrates, gaolers, and policemen. As in the case of the Irishman’s famous blanket, what is added to the top is cut -off from the bottom. All this is self-evident, but it can scarcely be too often insisted on, as there is a tendency to estimate the progress of the Immigration scheme towards a final successful issue, by the mere counting of heads. It cannot be too often insisted upon that unless the immigrants to be brought into the Colony are of a thoroughly suitable class, the Colony ought to prefer “ their room to their company.” It is therefore of very great importance that the Home agents should be made to understand that their success is to be gauged not by the mere number of people they can succeed in sending to New Zealand, but rather by the character of those who are induced by their efforts to come to our shores. It is very fortunate that we have in Scotland at the present moment a most able advocate of the claims of New Zealand as a field for emigration in Dr Begg. This gentleman appears to have been most favorably impressed with the present capabilities and future prospects of this Colony, and more especially of Otago ; fortunately too Dr Begg is likely to have the greatest influence over the minds of exactly the class of people we require. Persons would listen to him, who would turn the deafest of ears to the voice of the charmer, if he charmed never so wisely, when this charmer appeared in the form of a paid emigration agent. The result of Dr Begg’s lectures will probably be that large numbers of desirable persons who are intending to emigrate will have their attention turned to New Zealand, and especially to Otago; and that consequently it will not be necessary for the Home agents, in order to keep up the stream of immigration, to have recourse to union workhouses, or reformatories. We do not, of course, mean to imply by the above remai'ks that Scotland should be the principal source of our supply of immigrants, to the exclusion of Ireland and England; on the contrary, it is very desirable that our population should be of a mixed character as far as nationality is concerned. History shows that the greatest nations have nearly always sprung from a mixed ancestry. There can be very little doubt that the people of New England of the present day would have been by no means less amiable than they are, if they had had amongst their ancestors a fair sprinkling of Cavaliei’s and Irish Roman Catholics. Nor is it improbable that an admixture of Scottish Covenanters with the ultra-Royalists of some of the more southern States of America would have given an energy to the inhabitants of those States which they certainly do not possess. \ ! i