NEW ZEALAND AS AN EMIGRANT FIELD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 248, 18 October 1881, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND AS AN EMIGRANT FIELD.

[[European Mail,'] The deputation which went out to New Zealand last Autumn for the purpose of reporting on the state of agriculture have returned home, and express themselves thoroughly pleased with their visit. Mr Edward Herring has already made known some of his views in connection with farming in New Zealand in an agricultural contemporary, and we have no doubt tbat his remarks will lead many British farmers to make up their minds— as he himself has done— to proceed to New Zealand in the spring and settle there. Mr Herring does not advocate a wholesale emigration of English agriculturists. Speaking generally, he sayß men who cannot invest f 1000 ought not to truet themselves and families in the colonies, the present prices of produce being so much lower than in the past; and as to the prospects for general laborers, they are not any better. Many a good farm hand, be states, has to tramp many a weary mile, and endure considerable hardshipp, before he may find employment. This is hardly consistent with the following sentence that 80 or 90 per ceot,_ of the laborers he met up country and in town were " idle, dissipated, roving

fellows, who were such at home, and came out to the colonies under the system of free emigration, believing they could literally pick up a good living." If 80 or 90 per cent, are idle and dissipated, how is it that many a good farm hand has to tramp many a weary mile for employment? We do not deny that there are many " swaggers " or " loafers " in the colony, but we cannot agree with Mr Herring that only ten per cent, are good and 90 per cent are bad. Mr Herring does not wish the old and experienced agriculturists who have farmed highly and bred first-class stock here, and who cannot be expected to create farms abroad out ofthe rough, to think that there is no opening for them in New Zealand. He points out that there are thousands of acres suitable for them around Oamaru and extending to Timaru, which the owners would seli in any sized farms — land that is already under the plough, or sown down, clean, in high native fertility, close to railways and shipping ports, capable of growing any crop and stock to perfection, in a fino bracing climate. To sum up, Mr Herring is satisfied that both Australia and New Zealand offer every inducement to the sheep aud arable farmer of Great Britain, but the moist climate and running streams in New Zealand will always give it the preference in an agricultural point of view. The report which Mr Herring and his associate will make to the body of English capitalists who sent them out will clear up some of the questions left open by the Lincolnshire delegates, Messrs Grant and Foster, and tliere is no doubt that when these two documents are studied by the agricultural class throughout Great Britain that a very large and valuable addition will be made to the farming element already located in Australia and New Zealand.