NELSON AND ENGLISH MIDDLECLASS IMMIGRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1879, Page 2

NELSON AND ENGLISH MIDDLECLASS IMMIGRATION.

TO THE E»ITOH OF THE ' EVENING MAIL' Sib,— ln your able and interesting New Year's article to day you refer to " the growing favor which this town and the surrounding district is finding in the eyes of men of independent means who have families/' &c. Allow me, a9 an Englishman who has felt this attractire power, to say a few words by way of encouragement to your citizens to go on adding to the unparalleled natural attractions of their beautiful city. I have been considerably interested in New Zealand immigration at home during the last fire years, having long felt that it was the proper second home of Englishmen. Contradictory reports as to the welfare of the laborers whom we have sent you have long made me desirous of obtaining correct information by

personal observation. I have already touched at all the leading Neflr Zealand ports and the 1 ! result of my extensive enquiries, which I have embodied in a communication to the English Press, is entirely satisfactory. I am convinced that no finer emigration field for the surplus population of England exists than New Zealand. Your remarks, however, point in a direction which my thoughts have taken during my brief sojourn in Nelson. I refer to the middleclass emigrant and the pre-eminent attraction which thischarming part of New Zealand has for him. As I walk through your only partially inhabited district and revel amid the euchanting scenery, witnessing the prodigality with which nature seconds every effort to develop the natural resources, and inhaling the delicious atmosphere, I feel that there are thousands of English homes where a revelation of such varied attractions would come as a second gospel. The English middle-class are just now subjected to unwonted financial pressure. Owing to Bank failures, business depression, and other causes, multitudes of small capitalists are at their wits' end to know how to maintain their social status Especially ia this so in the agricultural districts where my life has been principally spent. The 3uccess with which Mr Arch's movement among the English' farm laborers has been crowned in adding some thirty per cent to their wages has re-acted disastrously upon the employers with limited resources. I have long seen that their one hope lies in the direction taken by their men— emigration. Two or three years ago I visited the Southern States of America with the view of seeing how the old English colony of Virginia would meet their case. I could not, however, report favorably of the district. But I have a growing conviction that here they might find their home to the mutual advantage of themselves and your hospitable citizens. Nature apnears to me to have fitted this district for a market garden for the Southern Hemisphere, and what is needed is an importation of practical men with a little capital to do on a large scale what is beinff done already on a small one, develope the natural resources. I spent an hour this morning in the garden of Mr Lightband, and the splendid crops of fruit which I there witnessed proved most conclusively that Nelson possesses in its fruit growing power an infinitely more valuable mine of wealth than any goidfield could furnish. Your most pressing necessity appears to me to be increased railway accommodation. A T o rest should be thought of untill there is direct and continuous communication with the South. No fruit like yours can be grown in Otago, and yet with the growing wealth of that flourishing province there must be an ever growing demand for the delicious luxury. But as I before said a sort of first necessity is the agricultural capitalist to plant and till your laud, and I would recommend some energetic action in the direction of encouraging English middle-class emigration hitherwards. lam hopeful that what I have been able to testify as to the unique advantages presented by the colony to English agricultural laborers may still further stimulate the exodus of that invaluable agency in this direction, and I shall be glad if I am able in any way or degree to further the coming of their employers. I am, &c, Arthdk Clayden. Waimea Road, Nelson, Jan. 1, 1879.