GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO TARANAKI.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 106, 13 April 1863, Page 2

GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO TARANAKI.

[From the Nelson 'Examiner, March 17- J Most of our readers are aware that Mr. F. Felling left by the last mail steamer for Europe, to arrange for an immigration from the North of Germany to the Northern Island of New Zealand. We do not think that his instructions have been officially published, but we are informed that the general scope of them is as follows. He is to procure 3000 immigrants, that is to say. 1000 ablebodied young men, with their wives and families not to exceed on an average two to each man. Their passages out are to be advanced, on their giving a note of hand for the amount, repayable within a limited time. An allotment of twenty acres ofland wil be made to each, for which a free grant will be given if the immigrant serves a period of five years in the Militia ; otherwise it will be charged at the rate of £2 per acre ! We cannot learn that there is any general gurantee of employment, or of rations on arrival. It is difficult to imagine that apart from the personal credit and amiable manners of the agent, it will have any sort of attraction for men of sense and honesty. What class of people can possibly embrace such an offer ? Not the labouring man whose muscles and industry are his wealth ; time must elapse before his land, be it never so fruitful, will yield him subsistence. The immigrants must be capitalists ; that is they must at least have accumulated wealth enough to feed themselve till they can get returns out of the ground—for twelve months at the very least. Will persons, in so far independent, accept an offer such as Mr. Felling is instructed to make if accompanied by that faithful representation of the country to which they are invited, which an agent of government ought to tender, and which Mr. Rolling is too honorable a man to withhold? The invitation is to come and occupy land too hot for its present inhabitants, and to pay for it four times the price which they have paid. We believe there is but one fatal drawback to the Taranaki country for which the draft of first immigrants is destined. Were it open for colonization—were it not necessary to till ft with “ the plough-stilts in one hand and the rifle in the other”—it is a country which would repnv tlm labor of as large a population as any spot‘on the globe of an equal area. Even without any improved commercial facilities, it would have made progress as rapid and as sound as any part of New Zealand. But immigrants at the present moment must be informed of the drawback. If they com© as soldiers, or something like it—if they are attracted by great prospective advantages to overlook the precarious present—well and good ; but tho

bargain to have practical validity must be made •with open eyes. It may be that some day Taranaki forest land, which is the only laud open for the location of these people, will be prized, and it may be a reasonable estimate to say that, compared with other land, it is intrinsically worth the price said to have been put on it. But our bargains with people at the antipodes must bo like our bargains with people at hand j they must be regulated by the conditions of supply and demand—by the market value of things here. And does any one say that 405., or even 10s. per acre, is the present market value of this land. Although then, we may be satisfied in our own minds that the bargain offered is good, we must not dream it will be satisfactory to the immigrant when, on his arrival, he shall see the real condition of things ; and if he is not satisfied, the bargain is really null. Por the colony cannot commence suits for specific performance against a thousand people ; it cannot compel residence or acceptance of terms obviously below the rates, or exact damages for non-performance from men of narrow means and familiy resposibilities. The men will scatter unless they are substantially contented, as has happened fifty cases before, and the liabilities for repayment of passage-money will be a name, a piece of waste paper. Mr. Domett and Mr. Bell must surely have bad experience enough of the work of planting large bodies ol people in a wild country, to know that whatever the colonizing body may bargain to do, it will assuredly be obliged to organise, assist, and relieve all that class who have no realised wealth to fall back upon. Taranaki at this time is truly, in respect to immigration, an unopened country. There is no market for labour, its own present inhabitants are more there is capital and confidence to employ. The New Zealand Company, in founding this Province of Nelson had to find-.twelve months employment for its labouring immigrants and then many of them were but imperfectly established, and murmurings were abundant. The same will inevitably be the case again. The Governor of a British community cannot and will not suffer a largo body of its people to go through the horrors of famine ; bargain or no bargain, the very nature of the national union forbids it. We shall have to maintain these people; no silence can avoid the responsibility. Why not at once face it, and have the credit of offering with good will to be as liberal as we shall assuredly' have to be?

Can Mr. Domett, or any member of his .Ministry, be blinking, or tiding to blink, the real purpose of this immigration ? We are far move than “ half sick of shadows,” and we earnestly beg attention to ihe substantial fact that we ought to be importing a temporary militia army. We want physical support for the Government. The best and cheapest way of getting it is to enlist in Europe. The best way of paying is by gifts of land attaching the men to the soil, in addition to wages sufficient to keep them from want. The best way to employ them is, not to any great extent in unproductive military duties so called, but in opening and improving communications through the country where they are located, and in rendering themselves independent of Government pay when their term is at an end. But the leading idea must be that they are soldiers, men every one of whom must be at the command of the Government. If we lose sight of this, and try to import into weak parts of the colony people who at option may serve or not, we are only adding to our weakness aud prospective burdens. Is any so weak as to fancy that in the present distraction of the colony more evil will accrue from plainly avowing what all know and feel. All immigration in the North is primarily needed for physical support to the Government and no extra jealousy will arise amongst the Natives, or ought to deter ns from beginning with that organized increase of population which will most directly serve this first end.

We have at the present moment a little sentimental objection to importing assistance from Germany for a colony principally British in its composition. This, however, is, after all, a little matter and purely sentimental. But there is another reason which would have made us wish to turn rather to England than to any other country for support. The offers to be made by the colony ought to be attractive at least to men in great strait, and we cannot but wish that, stretching its liberality to the utmost, the Government had made the offer in the first instance, or in part, to our own countrymen in Lancashire. A finer class of men, we feel persuaded, can not be found than there. Eesolute endurance and good sense are for all purposes, in the early life of a colony, immensely valuable even in comparison to bone and sinew, and t/ieso great requisites the Lancashire operatives have shown in a rare degree. As civilian soldiers they would equal any race that could be brought here, and we should be doing double good by the offer. Is it yet too late for this P To conclude. It may be argued in favour of an illiberal scheme, that as yet the means in the hands of Government are not assured. The loan is not gnuranteed and not raised. Such an argument is good to contract or set aside the scheme, not to make it shabby and unpractical. We shall bo only too glad to find our information on the whole matter incorrect, and that Mr. Domett’s Ministry hold and avow our views.