LORD STANLEY ON EMIGRATION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 25, 27 August 1842, Page 99

LORD STANLEY ON EMIGRATION.

On the order of the day being moved in the House of Commons [fortthe second reading of the Australian and New Zealand Lands Bill, on the 14th of April, Mr. S. O'Brien made some suggestions to Lord jStanley, expressing a wish that more than fifty per cent of the proceeds of land should be devoted to purposes of emigration. Lord Stanley in reply stated, that he could not agree to any plan which would have the tendency of flooding the colonies with immigrants at one period, but advocated the keeping up a continued stream. " His lordship said that, as regards New Zealand, it had been asked why the Government had refused to sanction a set&ement in the Middle Island? Now the Crown of England had claimed the sovereignty of New Zealand, the settlement of the colony having taken place in a most irregular manner; and it had consequently become necessary to investigate prior claims to land in that colony. A Commissioner 'of Claims had been sent out, and he was regularly and sedulously engaged in deciding those claims. Under these circumstances, it had been thought unwise to encourage the dispersion of settlers over two or three islands where prior claims might exist ; and it had been considered much better to confine a settlement to that part where the claims had been already settled. The Government, it seemed to him, had exercised a wise discretion in endeavouring to restrain the settlement to the Northern Island, instead of encouraging it to extend it to the Middle. [Mr. S. O'Brien said they had settled there.] The New Zealand Company had, he knew, but not with the wish of the Government j and they were subject to the establishment of prior claims of the land ; and indeed, all that the Government had positively refused was, a settlement in a part of the Middle Island where there was a prior claim, f On the 19th, H^l. Stewart said that, as many thousands oFlHßbonstituents, who were now unhappily unemployed at horns, were anxious, if means were available, to proceed to our colonies in search of labour, which they understood received there a much higher remuneration than it did at-home, he trusted that his noble friend the Secretary for the Colonies would excuse his (Mr. Stewart's) seeking information on two points. First, he wished to know whether it was the fact that in all or any of our colonies there was a great demand for labour; and, secondly, whether it was the intention of Government to facilitate in any way emigration to those colonies ? In speaking of emigration he did not allude to the sending out of persons under coercion, but to volunteers; nor, in speaking of facilities, did he point at grants of public money. His object, with respect to the latter point, was to know whether, in our other colonies, the system pursued in Australia of appropriating the proceeds of Crown land sales to emigration purposes, was likely to be carried \ out. Lord Stanley, who spoke with his ha^a^ to the gallery, and in so low a tone of voice t&riH we could hardly catch his sentences, was un^| derstood to say that the question of the hon.V gentleman was a most important one, and he v trusted that the house would, in consideration I of its importance, allow him to give not only a 1 direct answer, but a somewhat detailed one. The first question of the honourable gentleman, was, whether there was hot, at the presant^ time, a great demand in the colonies of 'Gfc'jlfl