The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3876, 27 July 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1875.

One after another the canaA’ds issued from the central depot are disposed of and shown to be baseless. The two last that were shown up were the stupid one regarding the borrowing restrictions laid by Messrs Rothschild on the Colony as a condition of undertaking to float the four million loan, and, that which had the greatest air of probability, the stoppage of free immigration. The Ministry very soon disposed of them by giving them flat denials. Since then invention seems to have flagged, most probably because Parliament being in session time is not allowed to give currency to a falsehood before its being exposed. As it is now clearly understood that immigration is to be prosecuted, the Colony is deeply interested in securing the very best class that can be procured. Amongst the Parliamentary papers received by the last mail from the North are four large-sized books containing copies of correspondence relating to immigration. The period covered by these volumes is but twelve months. They necessarily contain much that is merely formal. A very cursory glance at the numerous letters is, however, sufficient to show that while the AgentGeneral has a very onerous task to perform, and that therefore every allowance should be made for the inherent difficulties of conducting emigration satisfactorily on so large a scale, there has been much mismanagement. Nor do we think it has been confined to emigration, as from the manner in which railway and other plant has been shipped, there is evidence of the absence of organisation in the department that has occasionally caused no little perplexity, confusion, and pecuniary loss to the Colony. It may be fairly conceded that the Agent-General cannot attend to every detail of his multifarious duties. He cannot inspect every emigrant, test the soundness of his health, or dive into the mysteries of his previous life, so as to form an estimate of his moral worth; nor can he personally superintend the shipment of railway plant, and see to it that separate portions necessary to each other’s usefulness do not find their way to different ports—say the wheels of carriages to one Province and the bodies and framework to another; or the rails required for a certain line to one port and the chairs to another some hundreds of miles away. All these details must be left to agents to see to, and, as human nature is fallible, occasional errors will occur. We can quite understand too that even the most careful agent might despatch a Mongol or a Scimitar with the seeds of disease amongst the emigrants. Pmt when such errors occur so frequently as almost to cease to be exceptional, the conclusion is inevitable that the head of the department is deficient in capacity for organisation. This is evident from many little circumstances calculated to cause great inconvenience, apart from the more expensive blunders we have alluded to, and which have been far from uncommon. Any mercantile firm despatching vessels to consignees, with one or two days to spare, would have taken care to have had the ship’s papers ready for the outgoing mail. Yet the very first page of the Agent-General’s correspondence puts forth the shortness of time prior to the departure of the mail—in one casfl one, in another two days—as satisfactory reasons to himself why “the ship*ebooks” were not forwarded. Even is not a valid excuse for so glaring iin absence of business arrangements. “ It was impossible,” says the Agent-General, “to get the ship’s book corrected, completed, and fairly copied in time to forward by the mail.” A merchant would have taken care to have sent at- least a rough draft, subject to subset juent correction, copied by machine in a few minutes,

so that the consignees might not be left in the dark, The truth seems to be that the officials at Home calculated upon the next mail arriving before the ships, and the Agent-Gene-ral seems to think it quite excuse enough to say: “The circumstance that these twe ships (the Mongol and Scimitar) arrived before the statements relating to them reached the Government is clearly owing to the fact that the vessels made unusually rapid passages, an( l to no neglect on the part of this office.” There needs no further evidence to show that Dr Featherston has not yet learnt the value of punctuality and method in the despatch of business.