The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 29, 1872.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 257, 29 October 1872, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 29, 1872.

In the telegrams that reach us daily, and keep us posted up in all events of importance that occur throughout tbe colony, there may frequently be noticed the arrival from England of shiploads of immigrants, and from the fact that no complaints reach our ears of the labor market being over-stocked in the provinces to which they are consigned, it may fairly be presumed that the large majority of those conveyed to our shores fiad employment immediately upon their arrival. This, however, is a state of things that cannot last very long, and those who give the matter a thought must come to tbe conclusion that there is a danger of the influx of immigrants of the laboring class becoming disproportionate to that of the capital which is to provide means for their employment. It is true tbat we are borrowing largely, and that for the few years over which the expenditure of the loans is to be spread, a fictitious prosperity may be expected to prevail. It is also argued, and reasonably so, that out of the wages received by those engaged upon publio works, the more thrifty will contrive to save a small sum that wiil possibly be sufficient to give them a start when the time arrives for them to acquire that ' to which so many look forward as the height of their ambition, a small property of their own. Thus it is hoped tbat the country will eventually become settled, and the burden of taxation rendered lighter individually, by being spread over a larger surface. There is, however, another class of persons to whom every inducement should he held out to emigrate to our shores. We refer to those who, in possession of but limited incomes, have hitherto been able to live in some degree of comfort in England, but upon whose shoulders falls the real weight of the enormous advances that bave recently taken place in the prices of all the necessaries of life in the old country. The present seems a most favorable time for impressing upon such persons the advantages that would attend their removal to a colony such as New Zealand. From private sources, and from the public prints, we learn that the complaint is universal that for the man with a fixed income of 35400 or £500 a year it has become almost impossible to live in England, at all events with that degree of comfort and respectability to which he has been accustomed. It appears at first sight strange that, in a period of almost unexampled prosperity, such should be the case, but, nevertheless, there remains the fact that it is so. The artizan and the laborer have, by repeated efforts, succeeded in forcing their employers to raise their wages in something like proportion to the advanced prices of food and other necessaries, but the man of small and fixed income finds that his expenditure is nearly doubled, while his means remain the same. To such as. him, New Zealand must surely offer very great attractions, which only require to be more generally known than they are at present to induce hundreds to come over and cast in their lot witb us. .We will here quote from a recent leader in the Melbourne Argus wherein is, described in a few words the existing - state of things at home, for the correctness, of which we are prepared to answer after the perusal of several letters from the class of persons referred to, in all of which; there occurs the same lament that it is becoming' impossible for such as they to continue to li ye in the mother country. 7" Coal! and meat,'' says the Argus, " are at famine prices. The price of iron ia something fabulous, and of course the prices pf: hard ware have' advanced in pro- ; portion. 7700a17i5, .oil/, the average of all 1 'vkindß, -50 'per-, oenty'-' 'dearer-; tßaii7f;it , '/waß_ "a, - year ;a^ been i-V_.tb.at'-. period*: doubled. Iron -bars, 7J*?J7<- : £- ), J*7'| The various commodities included under the head of hardware have on the average C : fißei-i7-ab^t^^ .' ' thirt^ only 'do as muoh as twenty (.hillings would;: -have <flone in the i.parchaße of those classes

price of meat has riaen in a still higher degree, and the consequent pressure is more seriously felt. Fifteen shillings for a quarter of lamb is simply prohibitory," and fifteenpence a pound for beef and mutton is a price sufficient to arouse the bitterest indignation of the much enduring public. It is not, therefore, surprising (hat great popular excitement prevails in some of the large centres of population, and the increased cost of living is very acutely felt by persons of small and fixed incomes." To how many of these would not a change ito New Zealand prove beneficial in the highest degree ? They could choose their climate, for. the colony from its geographical position offers them almost every variety; they could live in either town or country, in the latter particularly, at a far less cost than that entailed upon them at home; while, as the country is gradually opened up, there will be ample scope for the children growing up around them. Nelson, especially, we 7 believe, would profit by the influx of such a class of population into the colony, as, wiih her unrivalled climate, bhe would hold out advantages such as none of the other provinces can offer. But it is not in the interests of any one particular district that we would desire to see the immigration on a large scale of this description of settler encouraged, as every province in the colony must indirectly benefit by the introduction of such a class of colonists,