The Evening Star. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3604, 10 September 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1874

We cannot compliment the City Council on the reception given by them to the Superintendent’s letter regarding the proposition to erect houses for immigrants. Their observations were neither sound in principle, nor courteous in tone, nor humane towards the immigrants. They had a ring as if a number of speculators held a few sections of land, the value of which they feared would be interfered with by houses being built, which are absolutely needed foi giving shelter to the incoming,lpopulation. When Mr Walter said It was driving in the thin edge of the wedge, what did he mean? Assuming that the report of what he said was imthat it is for those who fill in the omission, we presume he meant that it was the beginning ot an interference by one legislative body in the affairs of another. Tet whaft was the proposition 1 To ttidW a fdw ntiat in thb

place of some unsightly and not very creditable shanties, and after their cost had been recouped—which it' would have been in three or four years—to hand them over unconditionally to the Corporation, and make them Civic property. Councillor Walter may know more about “wedges” than we; but were we owners of a landed estate on which laborers’ cottages were needed, we should be very glad to have them erected on such terms. We have no doubt whatever that the Executive would very willingly pay such a ground rental to the Corporation as would secure it in its rights as landlord, were it needed ; but since every structure built on another’s land belongs of right to the landowner, we think the offer liberal enough. Mr Fish’s theory is that neither the Government nor the Corporation has any business to build cottages for immigrants. Mr Fish is very often right, but by no means seldom wrong in bis political theories. Had he said Governments should not compete with private enterprise, and had he shown that private enterprise was equal to, or employed in providing house accommodation for the in-coming population, there would have been something plausible, to say the least, in his argument. And had there been any disposition shown to provide suitable dwellings for the class now needing house-room, the Government would have been only too glad to have left the matter untouched. But Mr Pish seems to us to carry theories, in themselves of questionable soundness, to extravagant lengths, and thereby to weaken that influence which his undoubted talent would otherwise command. In present circumstances we consider him in error in assuming that it was the function of neither the Corporation nor the Government to erect cottages for those they are bringing into the country. In fact we hold it to be the duty of both to co-operate in the matter. Stuart Mill remarked : But enough bus been said to show that the admitted functions of Government embrace a much wider field than can easily be included within the ring-fence of any restrictive definition, and that it is hardly possible to find any ground of justification common to them all, except the comprehensive one of general expediency ; nor to limit the interference of Government by any universal rule, save the simple and vague one that it should never be admitted but when the case of expediency is strong.

Dr Hearn, whose work on plutology is now considered a text-book of economic science, holds a similar view. He says : Even in those settlement* which men of advanced civilisation have founded, the proper function! of Government are extended far more widely than in the parent country. But even in England, the highest existing type of social development, the duties undertaken by the State are very multifarious; and the limits of the interference by no means settled. Of those who concede that there are many matters with which, notwithstanding many precedents to the contrary, the State . ought not to interference ; but at the same time contend for an enlarged sphere of State activity, no one has succeeded in defining the point at which that activity should cease. There arc in a new country other duties (than th* maintenance of rights) of transcendant importance, which, although they do not involve strict jural relations, the State is bound to perform. Lord Durham remarks that there is no difference in the machinery of government in the old and the new world that strikes a European more forcibly than the apparently undue importance which the business of constructing public works appears to occupy an American Legislation. ***** -To older communities that have passed, although very slowly, through the corresponding period of national existence, such discussions seem unworthy of the dignity of a Legislature. Yet however different from their own duties these proceedings may be, they are in the circumstances no less necessary, and therefore no less suitable. These are the opinions of men of the highest attainments, whose lives have been devoted to the investigation of those principles which tend to benefit society, and of the duties that the Government should or should not undertake. Applying, then, those tests to our present position, we consider that the Government would not be doing its duty were no effort made to provide habitations for those who have been brought into the country through its agency. It is as idle to attempt to separate the Government from the people, as it would be to draw a distinction between the authorised act of an agent and his principal. Governments under representative institutions are but agents for carrying out the wishes of the people. In their name and at their desire they have brought large numbers here for the purpose of doing good to the community and to themselves ; and now that they are here, the Corporation propose to turn round, and by their adverse action thwart the very end and purpose proposed by immigration. His Honor the Superintendent, during the interview the Mayor and deputation had with him yesterday, said he regretted that private enterprise had not been induced to erect suitable cottages for immigrants, We think there are good reasons for it. The cost of building and material is so great, and the influx of population has been so sudden, that it may well be doubted whether rents for small houses will remain sufficiently high for a period necessary to recoup the cost. To a Government or a Corporation this is of less importance. The duty of both is to settle the people so comfortably as to enable them to remain. Their work and contributions to the revenue more than repay the necessary additional outlay to them j neither of which can be calculated upon being received by the private investor. Mr Walter is mistaken too in imagining this influx a “temporary influx of population.” At least if it be “ temporary,” the end and purpose of the scheme will be defeated. The object of immigration is development of town and country, and Mr Merger is utterly misfektfn whfca ka sTaid “it was taking

bread put of the citizens’ mouths” to provide cottages for the incomers. His own profits and the wages of every working man have been advanced by their coming, and it is just as much the duty of society, and consequently of the Government as its agent, to provide accommodation for those who have come by their invitation as it was to provide the means of transit. Nor will owners of property be injured. The more populous the town becomes, the more valuable will that property be. The height of insanity could not go further than in driving all newcomers away ; and in that direction the Corporation is proceeding.