OUR PROSPECTS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2463, 27 February 1882, Page 4

OUR PROSPECTS.

[From the " Weekly Press."] It will not be disputed that the prosperity, or ptherwise, of a community—especially a young one like our own—depends almost ontirely on the suoceisful working of the soil. But to do this to the best advantage, it is necessary that the cost of labor shall be kept within reasonable bounds ; and this oan only be achieved by the continuous introduction of a suitable class of farm laborers, men who have been bred to the business, and whose deiire, in coming to a new country, would be to settle upon the land. Unfortunately, too little discrimination has been used in the selection of emigrants by our agents, hence the country has been flooded with a olass of persons totally unsuited to our requirements, whose minds have been filled with visions of enormous wages and short hours of labor. Everyone knows what the result has been, especially those who have to do with the tilling of the soil. No country commencing its oareer can afford to neglect the encouragement to its shores of the nuoleus of a stalwart peasantry, as the prosperity of a nation depends largely upon the character of its rural population. Practical farmers will be ohary about coming to settle amongst us if they, by inquiry, find the labor market in an unsatisfactory condition. There has not been within the present century a time when English farmers were more disposed to seek new homes than at the present, and every legitimate effort should be used to attract the attention of this olass of persons to our shores—men of large agricultural experience. It is the misfortune of all colonies to be in their infanoy overrun by those whose only object is to seoure for themsolves, in the shortest possible time, a competency, utterly regardless of those who follow them. Hence, we in common with most other young countries, possess a large number of farmers who have over-taxed the resources of the land by over-cropping, till the worn-out soil refuses to bring forth anything but the ecanliest and weakest yield. And then the ory is raised " farming won't pay." Is it not a matter for reproach to hear such complaints ? When we refleot that in the old country, whose lands have been tilled from time immemorial, there still exists a prosperous peasantry, we have not to seek long for a cause. The difference lies in a profligate and extravagant use of means, and a conservation of resources based on scientific principles. The successful farmer in the homo country is to a considerable extent a scientist; he studies hit land and its requirements, the result being,. as a rule, favorable. He rotates his orops, manures his soil, eoonomises hia labor by the use of labor-saving machinery, and every acre is tilled with a view to its capabilities. In the colonies the system of farming, if indeed it may be dignified with this term, is, as a rule, wasteful, and conducted without regard to the first principles of agrijulture. We can boast of a climate unequalled in the southern hemisphere, with a naturally fertile soil; many broad acres of unoccupied land ready for the farmers' hand ; let us than use every means in our power to induce men with a thorough knowledge of modern agriculture, and possessed of some little means, to settle amongst us. Such are the colonists we need, not the class of emigrants too numerous already in our midst. The mistake wo have made ia the drafting of tho surplus of manual labour from the too orowded oentres of population unaccompanied by a corresponding increase of oapital and ■kill. What we require is more knowledge, more experience, and more economy. Hundreds of English farmers are at the present moment betaking themselves to Canada and tho Ear West. It is just as well that we should be made acquainted with what our friends at home think of us. Eor this pur • pose we give an extract from a leoture delivered recently in Yorkshire by a farmer of large experience, who lately visited New Zealand for the purpose of ascertaining what pronpects the oountry held out as a field for emigration, and the reasons why so many of his countrymen have turned their thoughts towards the far West and Canada—" The numerous derogatory accounts from New Zealand, published in all our agricultural, and in many daily, papers, for example : The enormous national debt, land monopoly, private indebtedness of farmers, the extortisnate oharges of brokers and agents, price of land, laudatory pamphlets issued by laud speculator?, &o. These statements, read alongside of satisfactory news of a quickly decreasing national debt, and other signs of good government, with continued prosperity in the Ear West—a oountry near home, with only a short sea-voyage, and reached at little expense, will continue to direct the stream of emigration to the well-nigh boundless continent of the New World."