DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 784, 19 October 1853, Page 3

DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES.

[From the “Australian and New Zealand Gazette," May 21.J We have on many occasions pointed out to the intending emigrant the necessity of caution as to his choice of a future home in the Southern World; warning him more especially against being led too hastily hy the alluring prospects of sudden wealth—realized but by few to be required in Victoria, and urging upon him the steady reaifeeation of independence by supplying with the necessaries of life those for whom the gold lottery presents a tempt ition too strong to be resisted. Such as have taken our advice will be all the better for having done so, and many who have emigrated on an opposite principle, will nevertheless be compelled to take it, whether they will or not. It must be evident that there is a poipt beyond which a continuous influx of immigrants into any one colony ceases to be advantageous to the community generally. Even though as m the colony of Victoria —capital be largly created out of the bowels of the earth, it cannot be beneficially distributed amongst all in the ratio of its production. The steady distribution of large capital over the whole mass of the population, is the characteristic of an old country, in which the employment of capital has become systematized; never of a new one, which has to find the held for more extended employment, before it can be scattered beneficially over the surface. There can be no greater fallacy than that because a country has suddenly become enormously rich, every one emigrating to that country must oecome rich also.

Victoria has reached that point, as we have long since predicted. The accounts from that colony plainly show that a very large proportion of the immigrants cannot find that remuneration for their capital and industry which their sanguine hopes on leaving their native country had led them to expect. This is no fault of the colonies—in which wealth exists in inexhaustible abundance; but it is their own fault in crowding to one spot, instead of distributing themselves over an extended surface. The result is so. natural, that the slightest, exercise the reasoning faculty is sufficient to anticipate it. Within two years the colony of Victoria has presented two points in view,—lst, that no longir ago than that period there was not a man who could be called poor throughout the length and breadth of the land; 2ndly, as recent accounts assure us, “cases of death from exhaustion and destitution are commonly occurring,” whilst hundreds are making their way to the neighbouring colonies. There can be no more forcible evidence of the truth of what we have advanced than this. But the evil goes further: there are hundreds who cannot get away, but only land to die—by deaths, it is true, less lingering than are those from exhaustion and destitution, but even more certain in their operation. Pestilence does its work none the less surely because its course is a rapid one. Two veal’s ago, Melbourne was one of tne most delightful and most salubrious of the cities of the southern world; —now, from the unnatural influx of population within its boundaries, it has become a pest city, in which adequate sanitary preparations for that population are as impossible as the fatal results arising from their neglect, in a hot climate, are sure. No commander of an army, who values the health of his troops, will ever permit that army to he encamped in one spot longer than he can possibly avoid; knowing that, from the ahsense of those precautions which to large bodies of men are as necessary as is their daily bread, his men could not be preserved in health. Melbourne has scarcely better sanitary arrangements than has the camping ground of an army, and the consequence is, that of the monthly tens of thousands who crowd to this one spot, a large proportion fall victims to their own mistaken avarice and folly.

Yet for what purpose do men crowd thus together at Melbourne? Thinking men should have a good reason why they expose themselves and their families to such baneful influences. There can only be two reasons why a man should emigrate to Australia: the one to get his share of the gold which is so plentifully strewn over its surface; the other, to better his fortunes by the steady pursuits of social industry, w'hich are better remunerated in a colony than at home. Let us examine these points for a moment.

The most reliable accounts from Australia inform us, that notwithstanding the large yield of gold in Victoria, and the comparatively small yield in New South Wales, yet in the latter colony the gold miner is, on the average, about four times better remunerated for his labour than is the gold miner of Victoria; and this independently of th'! price of provisions, which, at the Victoria mines is enormously high, whilst at those of New South Wales it is extremely moderate. In New South Wales, again, the miner is under no anxiety for his personal safety, or for his health, whilst in Victoria neither life nor property are safe, and health is placed on the most precarious footing. This want of safety and health arises from the crowding of immense numbers to one spot, and that for no better reward than gaining a much less average remuneration than might be obtained by gold mining in New South Wales. Emigrants evidently mistake numbers for success; all th 3 world is rushing to the Victoria mines, and they must rush there also without so much as asking themselves the question —why they do so, If we turn our attention to the other source of the staple wealth of Australia, the chances of wealth at the gold mines to the labouring emigrant. Al l, or nearly all the land within reasonable distance of the towns of Victoria is already in the hands of men from whom the emigrant can only obtain it on their own terms. Whilst the large mass of the population has been locking after its interests at the gold mines, the large landowners and squatters have been looking after theirs nearer home; being well aware that when the miner is satiated with or has acquired wealth at the mines, lie must come to the land in the vicinity of the lar e towns in the end. The gold miner has no chance with these squatters and landowners, for they are the lawmakers and regulators of the system of Government. What chance, then, has the emigrant with the small capital which lie has saved from the wreck of his fortune in England ! A reference to the past numleri of our paper will show that the price of land in the vicinity of the towns has risen to a degree of extravagance which places fair remuneration for cultivating it altogether out of the question; whilst to the majority of small capitalist emigrants, it is quite unattainable. What, then, can attract such to Victoria, when in neighbouring c domes land is easily procured, and the Melbourne market by sea is almost equally available! Even had not the land of Victoria been thus monopolized, the emigrant could not compete successfully with the prudent gold digger, who must buy land, as the only means of investing his money with safety. This alone would add greatly to its price, raising the latter almost to a par with the price of land in old countries. We need not wonder when we read that from the rush of this class of emigrants to the - neighbouring island of Van Diemen’s Land, the price of land has, within a few weeks, risen 400’ per cent. With such facts as these before him, surely it would be to the advantage of the intending emigrant to turn his attention to some of the other colonies of the Pacific, which must all, more or less, partake in the distribution of Victoria gold. If he intend to become a gold miner himself, it is certain that New South Wales will give him a better chance of individual success, as is shown by the results produced by the handful of goldminers already there. If he wish to become an agriculturist, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand offer to his notice a more genial soil and climate, with the certainty of a profitable market for his produce. At any rate, intending emigrants should think seriously of the advantage of distributing themselves as nearly as may be in localities where they are wanted, and not crowd themselves together in one spot, where their first operation will, in all probability be, to become emigrants a second time, to the manifest loss of their time an' capital,