CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 41, 17 February 1880, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

CANDID FRIENDS. To the Editor of thb , • Evening If ail.' ; Sir— Allojr me to express surprise at tb« admission into New Zealand papers of sansational items touching labor depression in the colony. You little think kow much ia made of inch one-aided and only partially, true statements over here. I am continually being confronted with such paragraphs, and my general testimony as to the value of New Zealand as an emigration field is thereby damaged. Of course we all know the real meaning of these temporary depressions, and that they do not in the least affect tba argument as to the general value of the colony as an emigration field, but it is otbtrwiie with the timid and unreflecting Englishmen. Before statements as to tbe distress among workmen in New Zealand are admitted to the papers it should be ascertained whether the " distressed " workmen are really working men or mere town loafers. It would be well lurther to know whether or not these men had been offered work at a price wbicb would at least enable them to live. Imm sorry to say that my somewhat extensive acquaintance with working men has rsvealed two prominent characteristics among them — a disposition to take an unfair advantage of the employer, and a jealousy of new arrivals in the labor market. I detected both these failings in the New Zealand working men, notably in those employed a year ago on your harbor improvements. I venture to think the Press should be superior to all such influences, and should not directly or indirectly lend them its mighty power. I might add a word as to .the personal bearing of this question of newspaper candour. I have been, sines my return Home, almost unceasingly engaged in trying to do good to New Zealand by inducing capitalists to emigrate thither. 1 judge of my surprise, then, when a Colonist was forwarded to me, in which I was stigmatised as a " slandertr " of the colony! Surely no honorabl* man could have stooped thus to designate on* who bas earned the title of a " New Z«aUnd enthusiast " here in England. Had your contemporary read my Daily Newt lettsrs? Such wretched journalistic blundering is ruinous to either a country or a cause. I am, &c, Arthur Clatdbk. 13 Tavistock Square, London, W.E., December 31, 1879.