DECREASE OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 380, 25 June 1856, Page 5

DECREASE OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION.

(From the New York " Times.") It is estimated by persons familiar with the rate of immigration, that if tl:e average be no greater the next six months than the past, there will be a falling off in 1856: of ■ some. 150,000 to 180,000 in the number of foreigners arriving on our shores. This js a weighty fact, and deserves careful consideration from those who, in business or morals, are speculating on the future of our country. Probably 80,000 of those who stay at home are Germans ; the rest of the deficit is made up almost entirely of Irish. If each of these immigrants had consumed or spent four dollars in New York as he passed through, itwould make a difference next year to the city of some 700,000 dollars in income. If each had possessed, in ready money, the aveivgs which the returns from Castle Garden show at present —namely, about 80 dollars —it would diminish the import of specie into the country by about 13,500,000 dollars ; money which is not even an exchange, but is so much clear addition of wealth. Then all these people consume our products ; they rent our houses ; they wear our cloths ; they eat our corn, wheat, and rye ; our beef,'.mutton, and fish ; they buy our timber and brick, our iron and coal ; they read our books, and papers, and magazines. Setting down the average cost of living as .2 dollars a week to each man, woman, and child —which would be a low estimate—and supposing that they, at least, earn all they consume by their labour, we have a loss next year to the producers of the country —to the farmers, the grocers, the builders, the clothiers, the houseowners, the brickmakers, the coalminers, the editors and booksellers—of 17,000,000 dollars. If these estimates be correct, we have a direct loss next year to the country in this decrease of immigation of over 30,000,000 dollars.

,We cannot easily appreciate this loss until we take some corresponding destruction'of value in our more apparent wealth; People do not readily see loss and grain on a great scale. It lias taken centuries to make the mass understand that a farthing or a penny duty on a pound of some foreign article imported is an immense'loss to their own pockets. , Texas was thought a valuable acquisition by

many in its rich farms, though we paid a round price for it; yet the value of all the farms in Texas, and Arkansas besides, is no greater than the value lost by this year's decrease of immigration. New York and Pennsylvania boast themselves of rich crops of wheat, but the whole worth of their crops, if no greater tiian in 1850, would be 2,000,000 dols. short of the worth to us of those immigrants who stay at home for a single year. It would seem a fearful blow to the country if, by war, or fire, or any calamity, our whole exported manufactures—all those to cherish which v/e have been paying so long —should suddenly be utterly destroyed; yet the loss would be 4,000,000 dollars less, taking the value in 1854, than the loss, this year, from impeded immigration. The quick destruction of all the flour and corn, a id the products of agriculture, which we usually export, which bring wealth to so many thousands, would be but little greater than the destruction, this year, of value imported by the immigrants. If one-third of the cotton crop of last year had been lost, what lamentations would have re-echoed from one end of the Union to the other! How many would have been bankrupt'; how many would' have, felt poorer! Or, if the whole Indian com crop last year of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware. Maryland, and the district of Columbia had perished, what a jeremiad of mourning would have arisen! To appoint a new fast would have been the least which our governors could do. Yet the first of these supposed losses is no greater, and the last is less, than what we shall silently bear this year from decreased immigration. Will not some good Knownothing governor institute a fast ?

The country will feel the deep injury done to its prosperity by this diminution of immigration, even if it does not see its source. Every man who owns tenement houses, the shipbuilder, the shipowner, the cheap grocer, the butcher, the railway companies, the thousands who own stock in them, will feel it. The householder will pay higher soon for his carpenter, his plumber, his painter ; the house-mistress must after a time give more for her cook or her laundress. The farmer must offer higher wages to his men, and put a higher price on his cattle, his milk, his potatoes, and wheat. Less new land will be broken, and those who have invested in Western lots must be disappointed in their plans. Business at the great depots of commerce in the West will be less active, because there are fewer hands to help it. Not so many railroads, or canals, or steamboats, or flatboats will be built, bepause there is less travelling over them, and less labour at hand to build them. The cost of new cities, of schools, churches, stores, and dwelling-houses will be greatly increased, because there are fewer workmen, at higher rates. Each professional man, after a time, must feel this ; the client can pay less; the church-goer less ; the patient less. High wages to labouring men are not in themselves necessarily an advantage ; they depend on their relation to the value of foo<i, clothing, and means of living. With fewer hands to labour in this country, every article of living would be more expensive, while the impeding and stoppage of business would not be compensated by the higher rates to the working man. The wellbeing of each class in a country like this depends on the wellbeing of every other. If the workman gets foui dollars a day who before got two dollars, he gains nothing if his bread and clothing cost double ; and be loses, if there are just half the means for business enterprises as there were before. There will be less work for him, and all that he uses will cost more.

Under this falling off of immigration will cease something of that almost incredible spring of enterprise and prosperity which has thus far characterised our communities. It will thus be seen that this wonderful progress was not a mysterious blessing conferred by an unexplainable. Providence, or altogether the fruit of the old Scandinavian and Saxon blood. It will be found not altogether due to our rich virgin soil, or our wide territory, or our deep rivers, or entirely to our puritan industry, or our republican government, or our isolated position. We shall see, then, perhaps too late, or perhaps after a deep depression of every branch of industry and commerce, that these squalid imbruted Irishmen, landing in tatters or homespun ; these foreign, guttural, garlicky Germans, with their nut-brown faces and broad shoulders; these conceited Englishmen and hairy Frenchmen, these out o'elbows Scotchmen, and sharp-eyed Welshmen, and ragpicking Italians, all had some part, and no small part, in building up this grand structure of our prosperity. We shall feel then—and that at no distant time—that ye depend on them as well as they on us-, that their hard-earned florins and sovereigns, their tough hands and brawny muscles, even their very patience of drudgery and disagreeable work, are all rich importations to our national wealth.

We. shall then see in every dirty shipload poured forth upon our dock, not so many intruders, or idlers, or beggars, or dependents, but so much invaluable addition to^ the riches of tie country. And perhaps then, also, as we have missed the ready ingenuity, the cheerful toil, the natural taste, the social happiness of these foreign artisans—as we have se,en that our country was becoming less a

blessing to humanity—depressed and degraded— than to the Anglo-Saxon races, we may be ready to welcome the poor foreign labourer with a more humane and a broader charity, feeling that both were placed by Providence to be of good to each other. If this result finally comes of our diminished immigtation, then we shall not so much regret it.

The gentlemen forming Lord Clarendon's official staff are—lhe Hon. Mr. Spencer Ponsonby, (his lordship's private secretary), Hon Mr. Spring Rice, Mr. John Bidwell, Hon. Mr. Vivian, and. Mr. Villiers Lister. Lord Cowley's staff consists of the gentlemen of the embassy, viz., Hon. Mr. Howard (chief secretary oflegataiion), Mr. Stewart, Mr. Petre. Mr. Lytton, Mr Eaile, Mr. French, Mr. Ford, and his lordship's private secretary. Mr. Atlie. The Paris correspondent of the Indejiendance Beige says :—" Russia concedes the non-recon-struction of Bomarsunri,but desires the neutralisation of the Isle of Heligoland, and wishes, in order to avoid their destruction, that the works on the north side of Sebastopol be considered as a land fort, the complete ruin of the south side of the city having removed all that affects its moritime character. As to Nieolaieff, Russia, it is said, does not expect that the suppression of this important dockyard (which can be devoted the more exclusively to merchant vessels, since it was at Sebastopol that the vessels were hitherto armed) will he insisted upon. Nicolaieff can no more he considered as belonging- to the coast of the Black Sea, than Rouen, in Fiance, to that of the ocean. Besides, the consuls of the moritime powers would be ab]p to ensure a rigorous observance of the treaty.

Piunce Paseiewixsch.— This celebrated man died on the Ist of February. He was born at Pultowa on the 12th of May, ]782, and was consequently in his 74th year. At an early age he entered the corps of Pages, and after having distinguished himself by a brilliant course of study, was appointed a lieutenant in the Guard, and aide-de-camp to the Emperor Paul. In 1805 he made his first campaign as captain in an auxiliary corps, which was sent to the assistance of Austria against the French. In 1806, he served in the army acting against Turkey, and through the Whole time occupied by that expedition —1807 to .1815—he was remarked for the exhibition of great military talent. The Prince was several times employed in missions to Constantinople. When hostilities with Turkey ceased in 1812, and war broke out between France and Russia, the grand annv of Napoleon advanced into the heart of the' Czar's dominions. General Paskiewitsch was appointed to the command of the 26th Division of Infantry, which formed part of the corps of Prince Bagration, and was present at the battles of Dachkofka, Soultanofka, Sniolensko, and the Moskowa. In 1813 he commanded in chief the blockade of Modlin. In the month of September of that year he was in the battle of Culm ; in-the following month,at that of Dvesden,\vhere he commanded the advanced guard ; and then, at Leipsic, where his conduct procured his promotion to the rank of lieutenant-general. He was subsequently employed successively in the blockades of Magdeburg and Hamburg; in 1814 he was entrusted with the command of the 2nd Division of Grenadiers, then in France, and at the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube he had a hprse killed under him. Ou his return to Russia, in 1815, he married Mdlle. Giiboyedoff, a lady of noble family in Moscow. In 1817 he accompanied the Grand- Duke Michael on his tour through Germany, Holland, and Italy, and on leaching home, in 1820, he was appointed a chief of a division of the Imperial Guard. When, in 1826, war broke out between Russia iind Persia, Paskiewitsch was nominated second in command of the army of the Caucasus, at the special request of General Yennaloff, the general-in-chief. Here he rendered such important services, particular at Elsavctpol, that he was presented by the Emperor Nicholas with a sword mounted in diamonds, and bearing the inscription—"To the Conqueror of the Persians at Elsavetpol." In the next year General Paskiewitsch succeeded Yeimaloff in tlie chief command, which he retained till peace was concluded with the Shah on the 10th February, 1821.' In the war with Turkey which followed, Paskiewitsch captured Kurs an'l Erzenuiin, and was inarching upon Trebizond, when hostilities were put an end to by the signature of a treaty. The Polish insurrection was-'the next great occasion qu which Marshal Paskiewitsch distinguished, himself, Having succeeded to th§

command on the death of General Diebitsoh, he signally defeated the Poles and capiured War* saw —services for which he was raised to the dignity of Prince of Warsaw, with the title of Highness, and the power of transmitting it to his heirs. He was, moreover, apppohited Lieutcnint of the Kingdom of Poland, and has now concluded his long and honourable career in that high position.

Birth.—On Saturday, June 21st, at Christchurch, the wife of the Rei\ H. Jacobs, of a son.