Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1909. SYSTEMS OF IMMIGRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, 30 January 1909, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1909. SYSTEMS OF IMMIGRATION.

CANADA AND AUSTRALASIA CONTRASTED. AT every turn we are confronted with the absolute need of greatly increased population as vital to the further development and progress of Australasia, yet our immigration methods are the least effective of any adopted by countries that seek people from other places. As a result it has taken more than a hundred years to make the population of Australia a little over four millions — about half the number of greater London; while iv Now Zealand British occupation of nearly a century has given a population aa yet below tho million. Both Australia and New Zealand are capable of maintaining, the ono as other as many as the British Isles, many as the United Spates, and the But oven to-day fully 77 per cent, of tho increase in Australia is due to births within the country, while the conditions in New Zealand are not dissimilar, tie net yearly incoming of new people being countable in mere hundreds. Yet, even the few hundreds of desirable immigrants that are brought here periodically at comparatively long intervals are not greatly encouraged or assisted. Some came out to the, order of relatives. Othera bring a little money with tlfcm, and are left to look around and find settlement or work for themselves. Others again sock an opening in their various callings, and if there be no such oponings, they are prepared to take anything they can do for a livelihood, thus inoreasing virtually the ranks of unskilled labour. It was humiliating the other day when representatives of labour unions whiningly interviewed the relatively fow immigrants by the lonic and Whakatane, and told them that there was nothing for them to do oxcept take tho bread out of the mouths of labour already in the Dominion — this, too, in a country larger than the British Isles, and having a population all told of less than that of a moderate-sized European city. • • • • * Turn from the spectacle of those Dunedin "Little New Zealanders" industriously acting as "Job's comforters "'and giving the new arrivals their first imgneseiong of the Dominion, so highly discouraging and depressing, to Canada, and we realise why it is that, strive as wo majf, we cannot attract dosirable immigration in tho proportion we need. Canada last year was spending £200,000 on emigration. For this sum she will receive abont 170,000 now citizens. The cost of each immigrant to Caijada for the year, therefore, is about £1 3s 4d a head, against a coat of about.£7 to £10 a hjsad to Now Zealand, and £7 to New South Wales. Canada won 277,0.00 now people by her immigration policy. In 1909, by a policy, of deliberate retsriction, she is/curtailng' the previous record by about 40 per cent. But despite this the area of Dominion Government lands taken up by fresh settlers toil] bs equal to that taken up in 1907. • ■■■»»•# • Only one conclusion can bo arrived at after inquiries at the Canadian Emigration Office in London and the study of the reports of -"agents in England and the Continent of Europe — that emigrants of a good type are easy to obtain. Apart A from Canada — which, by the byoj has a grievance against the United States for taking some of the . British immigration which should be hers, and causing the least desirable to-tfrift across the frontior — in the seven years, from 1901 to 1907, the American Republic took out of Great Britain 922,320 new citizens, whilo in tire same period Canada obtained only 519,845. Those figures, says a London correspondent, worry Canada more than she will ever be worried by the advance made in the figures telling of immigration to Australasia. Iv passing, it may be mentioned that the existing depression in tlio United States has boon responsible for a falling off iv the num-

)er of mM yofiT'B immigrants by> (ri(i,:?2P., compared with 1007, whilo ?00,U0U persons, chiefly Italians, havo led their nr>w country, and returned liomv. In Australasia we doinand that the immigrant shall possess some, cash, or be sent for by relatives, or have a calling. When the newcomor arrives he may be given a bit of land — but he has to go far afield for it. The principle of occupation beforo settlement has always appealed to the average parochially-minded politician as especially charged with- hidden virtues. Tho intending settlor is required to spend a dozen of the best years of his life hewing out his home and blazing the trail of his road to market — and then Legislatures indignantly marvel why people will hang about population centres insteajd of going into tho country! Truly, we have "country" to attract them away from the towns— virgin forest or trackless plain of the ' ' backblocks,-" which is for tho most part all the "land" endowment Australasia has offered the desirable immigTant. But Canada has taken for immigrants chiefly poor men. Describing tho system and development of settlement in Canada a London correspondent says: — Comparatively few of those she has attracted have possessed capital. Her grand army of developmental muscle has landed in the Dominion almost entirely unsupported by cash. Thus her immigrants nearly all began by labouring for wages. Primarily Canada has had cheap land — limitless areas of farming, land. Beforo 'beginning on her great immigration policy the Dominion was marked by a big local bursj; of agricultural development. The wheat-grower went west in wave after jvavo; each year saw thousands of additional miles of prairie rooted up by tho plough. The-' older pro vincos in the past supplied a growing force ofvagpr young pioneers for the boundless West. Thousands more crossed hungrily into ;tho Dominion from tho United States. Work was abundant, tho demand for labour became abnormal; wages ran high. Land was eieap, enough money to start on a farm could be speedily put together by stoady men. Each year saw a largor forco of farmers from tho State?, with capital and stock and working plant; each year saw more and moitf labourers qualifying for the status of independent farmers; each j'oar saw *i still greater demand for labour. The advance of the producer was often accompanied, in fact, wa9 often preceded, by great railways, and again more lucrative labour was provided. This is tho explanation of Canada's fearless recruiting of the poor man. Canadian immigration has been .a co1or«i1 snowball rolling rapidly into the wide North-west. While, however, desirable emigrants are plentiful, they cannot be had without sustained wortc and perfect organisation. Canada cannot afford to bo without either. Such a -sweeping condemnation and expression of disapproval as made by Count Mornor, tho Consul-General for Sweden, at Perth recently, are rendered impossible with regard to Canada, for tiio. very good; rqaeon that, being so close to England and tho Continent, the tales of the dissatisfied would carry quickly and soon be verified if needed. Canada has had to work for every individual man or woman sho has gained. Tho outstanding feature of all her work is its combination. It is one big machine, with every wheel, from the commission agent in Scotland to the receiving agent in the vanguard of the Prairie Settlement in the. closest harmony and sympathy. Each part knowa what the other part is doing. If the emigrant is told that such and such a thing will be done for him when ho steps out of the train thousands of miles away from his home, he may be sure that thing will be done in detail The policy followed by the department seems to be well in accord with the remark with which Lord Strathcona, the High Commissioner, concluded his last annual report. He said: "I have thought it well on all occasions to impress upon tho agents of you* department as well as upon those private enterprises which are engaged in obtaining labour in Groat Britain for Canada, the desirableness of keeping well withiu the mark, when representing to persons of suitable classes who may Jjo contemplating emigrating, the great advantages offered by the Dominion."