NEW ZEALAND AS AN EMIGRANT FIELD.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2355, 20 October 1881, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND AS AN EMIGRANT FIELD.

[“ European Mail.”]

The deputation which wont out to New Zealand last autumn for the purpose of reporting on the state of agriculture have returned home, and express themselves thoroughly pleased with their visit. Mr Edward Herring has already made known some of his views in connection with farming in New Zealand in an agricultural contemporary, and we have no doubt that his remarks will lead many British farmers to make up their minds M ho himself has done—to proceed to Now Zealand in the spring and settle there. Mr Herring does not advocate a wholesale emigration of English agriculturists. Speaking generally, he says men who cannot invest £IOOO ought not to trust themselves and families in the colonies, the present prices of produce being so much lower than in the past; and us to the prospects for general laborers, they are not any better. Many a good farm hand, he states, has to tramp many a weary mile, and endure considerable hardships, before he may find employment. This is hardly consistent with the following sentence that 80 or 90 per cent, of the laborers he met up country and in town were "idle, dissipated, roving follows, who wore such at home, and came out to the colonies under the system of free emigration, believing they could literally pick up a good living.” If 80 or 90 per cent, are idle and dissipated, how is it that many a good farm hand has to tramp many a weary mile for employment ? We do not deny that there are many “swaggers” or “loafers” in the colony, but we cannot agree with Mr Herring that only 10 per cent, are good and 90 per cent, are bad. Mr Herring does not wish the old and experienced agriculturists who have farmed highly and bred first-class stock here, and who cannot be expected to create farms abroad out of the rough, to think that there is no opening for them in New Zealand. He points out that there are thousands of acres suitable for them around Oamaru and extending to Tire am, which the owners would aell in any sized farms—land that is already under the plough, or sown down, clean, in high native fertility, close to railways and •hipping ports, capable of growing any crop and stock to perfection, in a fine bracing climate. To sum up, Mr Herring is satisfied that both Australia and New Zealand offer every inducement to the sheep and arable farmer of Great Britain, but the moist climate and running streams in Ne w Zealand will always give it the preference in an agricultural point of view. The report which Mr Herring and his associate will make to the body of English capitalists who sent them out will clear up some of the questions left open by the Lincolnshire delegates, Messrs Grant and Foster, and there is no doubt that when these two documents are studied by the agricultural class throughout Great Britain that a very large and valuable addition will be made to the English farming element already located in Australia and New Zealand.