WHAT THEY SAY OF NEW ZEALAND AT HOME.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 185, 5 August 1880, Page 4

WHAT THEY SAY OF NEW ZEALAND AT HOME.

(From the Birumgham Daily Pest, Bth May.) A correspondent ee&ds the following extracts (rom letters written from New Zealand by a putty of Birmingham artizana wbo left here in October lest. Thrse letters tell such a plain and pitiful stpry of the condition of that country that intending emigrants may well pause and consider before poing there. : The first extract is from a letter written 31st January, 1880; — "I am sorry to tell you this land of promise ia quite different to what we expected. There are hundreds, I tnay say thousands, out of work here; these who are at work in shops arß working short time, and glad to get that. We have walked miles upon miles to get work of any sort, and cannot. I have trieJ all \o my power to gat worlr, but.it is all no use. And then the labor agenSs, if you go lo {hero, they post up advertisements tor raon wanted, they get 2$ 61 from you, sand .you forty or fifty miles about thfl country, and wheu you got thare you are not wanted; or they send five or six after oue job. Their harvest ia when a Jresh ship comee in, and ships keep lan ling fresh passengers. I ana sure I cannot think what is to become ot us; men in all brauches, willing fo work, but caunot. get it. Be sure aotJ tell all who think of eotniag out here to well consider before they start, I wißh you could Ist the papers. soe this. J bw not running the country down ; living is cheep, but the labor market ia overstocked, oud there 'serins no possibility of getting work." Tbe next extract is from a letter writtf-n in February, 1880:—^ I. nm almost, broken-hearted; without -fooii or shelter. I aa-i sure Ido not know what will become of me» I have only dove three days' wen-k sinco I hev.e been here. If there is a job thore are hundreds after i«, if you aro seen asking food you a* 1 © soot to prison; ifc is worse than bt home. I have walked from one end cf lha island to the other ; it is as bail everywhere. God. knows it ia hard to be wiilmg to work, but. impossible to get it. I never knew it so bad in England; and this is their l.u*y time. It. is hard titr.Pß here — ' sleeping in the bush or under, straw k stneke, which there are scores of us obliged to do. I should like the emigration agents io hove to undergo what I have had to this last six weeks. . . I oould seed a list of over 100 names of men who are walking about who came out in the three last ehipe. A tradesman who comes out here comes to his ruin. I am sitting down to rest after a tramp of eighty miles for work, only to be deceived, tbs job being stopped for want of money." Extracts from letter written on the 12(h Marob, 1880:— <' It is sotnelbicg fearful out here. There is a petition being signed by the unemployed in this place— about a thousand have signed— asking the Government to give as em. i ploymcnt to keep us from starving. They keep all this out of the papers, but there is a new one, just started, We ha.ve:meetings every; dAEi bui-jet no w.ork. They ask — Why, send, money, to Ireland while we are starving here ? But this is done as a blind for the English people. ITbjs^is .a s^d r <]ife, without hope or prospect of its "being any better. You must not expect to hear from me so often, as it costs sixpence. Ail good thinking people hero i say it is a pity the Home Government are not made acquainted with the true state of things here,"