ERRORS OF IMMIGRANTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 41, 18 October 1851, Page 7

ERRORS OF IMMIGRANTS.

No. 2. DESULTORY EFFORTS. There is great danger lest the fair promise even of the buoyant-spirited immigrant should come to nought, through the absence of scheme and system, or of a definite object, in his first labours in the colony. He has exchanged his position in England, perhaps in many respects an enviable one, for one which he hopes will prove still more so. There was some drawback in his social condition in the old country, from which he hoped to escape when he left its shores. It might have been that he was between two castes, unable to reach the higher, unwilling to descend to the lower. Or his "little property 5, sufficient for his own need, would effect little when divided among his children, and he has come for their sakes to a land where he may turn its outlay to advantage. Or he is a son of toil, and felt the pressure of that artificial and unnatural state of things in England, under which the fruitful earth yields but few of its good things for the laborious tiller of it. But in either case, whatever his condition and prospects, his ultimate success depends mainly, first upon the formation of a good plan, and secondly upon the steady and persevering pursuit thereof.

It is not our province here to treat of mistakes committed previously "to emigration. Doubtless many men emigrate who are totally ignorant of the kind of life a colonist must lead. Many do so without any very distinct idea of what they are to do on arriving, without even a passing thought of some two or three occupations, in choosing from which they must be guided by circumstances. Some men, brought up from their boyhood in the monotonous round of a single business, find themselves completely nonplussed when they discover that there is no opening in the colony for the exercise of that business. Of two such, one may be intelligent and quick, and apply himself to'the exercise of some new kind of labour for which a demand exists, the other may have no self reliance, and declare an inability to do anything but that to which he has been accustomed. While the skilful carpenter is readily caught up, and the veriest bungler that ever broke a saw finds employment; while the practical farm-bailiff and the sturdy delver find room to play their respective parts in reclaiming the wilderness, the weaver, the cotton spinner, and beyond a certain proportion, even the man of education, find that they are among those for whom there is no place in the new settlement, —in their original characters at least,—and that they must adapt themselves to a society which it'is impossible for the present to adapt to them. Still, whether they pursue their old callings, or adopt new ones, their labour must be husbanded by a plan, and directed to an object. The mark which the poorer colonist should

strive to attain, is, in a word, independence. The employer possesses money, the employed either skilled or strong labour, as his capital; The one is liable to losses from a variety of causes, the other retains his stock in trade until sickness deprives him of it. A continual exchange must go on between the one class and the other, from which both may hope to derive benefit. Now one of che advantages of a colony to a working man, is, that the due use of his sinew and his experience can hardly fail in time to make him also a capitalist, small indeed, it may be, but yet a capitalist. In England scarcely any working man can realise this. He is forced to live as it were from hand to mouth, and with his head so barely above water, that the most trifling additional burden is sufficient to sink him. In his new position he may hope at least to swim freely, if not to reach, as he probably will, the terra, firma of worldly independence. But the man who acts without a plan, who spends his earnings as he gets them, who lives upon his capital until it is exhausted, or who delays to become a producer as well as a consumer, is nipping in the bud every hope of the kind. We will try to shew the working man, whom we chiefly address, how he may do better, leaving other classes to profit by inferences and analogies. Suppose that, instead of living up to his weekly wages in support of himself and those resting upon him, a course which would continually keep him dependent, and necessitate the purchase of every article of consumption in small quantities, the immigrant forms and rigidly adheres to a plan for accumulating a portion of his receipts, to enable him to purchase his supplies in more wholesale quantities and at cheaper rates, a system happily common in colonial towns. This will be at first a struggle, but a worthy and profitable one, and as the plan is carried out, it will become less and less difficult. The amount thus saved, and which should be carefully calculated, lest it should be thought trifling, may be devoted to the purchase and stocking of a garden, or be invested in such other profitable manner as the tastes and knowledge of the immigrant may determine upon. If the cultivation of the soil be his forte, he will be supplied with proper employment for his spare time, and something to prevent his days being altogether wasted during any temporary loss of paid employment. And thus may a course be commenced that, steadily followed, will become increasingly productive of good. Some will object that they have not the necessary knowledge to enable them to turn the earth to any good account, that they are unhappily debarred from pursuing this method of bettering their condition. But surely, in a country essentially agricultural, the requisite knowledge for a beginning may be readily attained, while experience will be gained in time. In this country, even the practical fanner finds that he has much to learn, and is not so very far above the babe in such matters as some might suppose. But the well-disposed immigrant will be sure to alight upon some method of multiplying his pence until they become pounds, and that in a manner suitable to his capabilities. The savings of immigrants may be made still more productive, by the formation of themselves into small partnerships for the accomplishment of any definite object. Of this kind are the Nelson Working- Man's Sheep Association, or the Auckland Land Association. We felt a hope, some time since, that a Building Society would have been established here, for the benefit of non-capitalists, but as yet see no signs of its fulfilment. We are anxious, and we think reasonably so, to see every settler a grower to a greater or less extent. Every kitchen garden, every poor man's acre, in course of tillage, we hail as an additional reason to hope for prosperity as a settlement. Everything depends upon the extent to which we are producers. The dweller on the plains, the inhabitant of the town, and the sheep fanner on his distant run. ure one and :ill interested in this. And we will go farther, and say that much of our prosperity and soundness as a settlement depends upon*che infusion of the^ element of peasant proprietors, an element in which our mother country is at this moment grievously deficient, but from which her boasted yeomen must have sprung in the first instance. If we are to have a community of patriots, our colonists must all have a stake, more or less, in the country. If we are to re-

fleet glory upon the land that gave us birth, our poorer colonists must be taught to raise themselves to that sound independent condition which sets the tongue free to speak, and the hand free to write in defence of truth, and which opens the heart for the admission of a train of rirtues. We would not seek to rear a community of misers, but of men whose hearts shall expand with prosperity, and acknowledge Him who has blessed their efforts, by liberality to their fellow-creatures. Such a state of things can only be brought about by the exercise of system in the first struggles of our immigrants, and of a method in aIF things, which he who spends his hard earnings in the nightly carouse may despise, but which will be the earthly salvation of him who practises it.