IMMIGRATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 29, 12 August 1871, Page 11

IMMIGRATION.

“ The selfishness of the manufacturer was only surpassed by the selfishness of the importer.” This was the remark made by a bystander when the United States tariff was under discussion in Congress. It is probably applicable to other parties besides those named, and to other countries besides the United States. It could, in any case, be applied with equal truth, pertinency, and force to the advocates and opponents of immigration. The selfishness of the working classes in opposing any scheme of immigration by the State, is only surpassed by the selfishness of the classes by whom it is supported. They may, ancl"do differ on almost every other subject, but they agree upon this. Nor is this surprising, as a narrow selfishness controls the opinions of both. They are both alike convinced that a large scheme of immigration would effect a sweeping reduction in the rate of WithD out stopping here to enquire whether an exorbitant rate of wages, by promoting alike voluntary and involuntary idleness, and thus checking production, is not detrimental to the country ; or whether it is not still more injurious to the laborers themselves, by seriously diminishing that demand for labor which would otherwise exist; it may be confidently asserted that a large and permanent reduction in the current rate of wages will not be effected by immigration, for the simple reason that in anew country there are causes in full activity to counteract, in a great measure, any such results. Amongst the chief of these are the facilities which prevail for the absorption, the diversion, and the emigration of labor, and for enabling laborers to live without the necessity of laboring for hire. It is the knowledge that there are such facilities for the attainment of land and future independence, which is the great incentive and motive power amongst the working classes to emigration. When such facilities are withheld, the colony ceases to be an attractive emigration field in the eyes of British emigrants. Laborers may be even then brought to the country, though at a great and useless expense, for they will leave it again as soon as an opportunity presents itself. This fact is so well known as not to require to be here dwelt upon; and yet it is because it is ignored that so many immigration schemes have proved failures, and that the colony, as regards population, has made such little progress. Instead of attempting, by legislation and other artificial means, to diminish these facilities, the aim should be to clothe them still more attractively, to render the attainments of independence, as the reward, of honest labor still more certain, and thus to secure to the colony the pink of the emigrating classes. It is gratifying to find that the wisdom of such a course has been recognised by the present Ministry. The assertion of Ricardo, that whatever increases wages necessarily reduces profits, would be quite true if the fund out of which wages and profits are paid was a fixed quantity ; or if wages were invariably paid out of profits. The truth would be as evident as that two added to two make four; for in either case whatever increased the gross wages would decrease the net profits. ■ But the fund out of which both wages and profits are obtained is not a fixed but a variable quantity j and, however it may

be in theory, it is frequently found in practice that high wages and high profits, low wages and low profits, accompany each other. In a new country, at all events, instead of high wages being incompatible with high profits, high profits and low wages cannot co-exist. When profits are high, and wages low, men will cease laboring for hire, and commence farming, or some other busi-

oess, on their own account. When the contrary is the case, they may cease working for themselves, because it would then pay them better to work for others, and thus a certain equilibrium between the rate of wages and the rate of profits is maintained. This may not always happen : because men generally would prefer working on their own accounts to working for hire, though the latter might be the more profitable course for them to adopt. When land is abundant and labor scarce, wages must necessa-

rily be high ; and any attempt to artificially reduce the one, and increase the other, must prove futile ; as the means taken to diminish one will have the effect of diminishing both. Cheap land and high wages are, in fact, inseparable ; as inseparable as high interest and high profits. No man will accept low profits when he can get high interest; and no man low interest when he can get high profits. As in the case of wages and profits, so in the case of interest and profits. When profits are relatively greater than the rate of interest, they will be reduced by competition ; when relatively less, men will withdraw from business and lend on interest; and thus an equilibrium between the two is maintained, the rate of interest in this case being the exact measure of profits, it must he distinctly understood, however, that this reasoning only holds good where land can be obtained without difficulty, or when the laborer can remove to where it can be thus obtained ; when, in short, he can accept the advice of the late Lord Brougham, and withdraw from the labor market when it becomes overstocked. To prevent him doing this, by preventing land from being thus obtained through raising artificially its price, was the one grand object of the advocates of what has been called “ systematic colonisation.” To effect the same object by less open and honest means, has been the aim of their successors. The high-priced land system discouraged alike immigration and land monopoly. The system which succeeded it encouraged land monopoly, destroyed the land fund, and still more effectually locked up the country from settlement. Emigrants, under the one system, could not be attracted to the colony ; and, under the other, no inducements were held out for them to remain in it after their arrival. Under the one system we retained the land, if we did not secure a land fund; under the other, we killed the goose which laid the golden eggs by sacrificing both the land and the land revenue. The sufficient price system would have furnished the means, had the land been sold, of opening it, by means of roads, bridges, and surveys, for occupation and settlement; and until sold it could have been occupied as runs or commonage, while it would have constituted one of tbe most valuable of our colonial assets. Under the cheap land system, as administered in this province, it may be safely affirmed that, save in a few exceptional instances, it has secured none of these advantages, nor any others in lieu of them. It has retarded the progress of the province, shut up more than one rich, extensive, and fertile district from actual settlement, and injured those most it was designed chiefly to benefit. Neither system has succeeded in securing the grand object of reducing wages, while between the two the colonisation of the country has been artificially retarded. Had it not been for the goldfields, the population of both islands would not have been a fourth of what it now is, or a tithe of what it would have been, had the aim of our-legisla-tion been not to foster land monopoly, but to encourage settlement. The policy of the present Ministry will effect a radical alteration in this respect; and for the first time in the history of the colony there is a prospect of colonisation, on true principles, being successfully inaugurated. That policy, by uniting railways, public works, and special settlements with immigration, will make New Zealand, like the United

States, a field of never-failing industrial enterprise lor the best class of immigrants from the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It seems to us impossible that the settlers generally can be aware of the advantages conferred upon a new coun try by a large and regular stream of immigration, attracted to it by the prospect of independence, which cheap land or highly remunerated employment holds out to them, and which the railways, public work, and special settlement proposals of the Ministry will be sure to establish in New Zealand. They view the subject in a different light in the United States. It is a significant fact that though the report of the Immigration Bureau enters into most minute statistical details, as to the advantages which immigration has conferred on the United States, it nevei once refers to the effect it has had in reducing, or keeping down, wages. It shows that nearly every immigrant is worth somethingto his adopted countiy , while, in certain exceptional cases, he has actually proved invaluable. I. he average amount of money brought by each immigrant is put down at 68 dols ; but it must not be imagined that this is all the wealth he brings with him; or that all the profit the State gets out of him is the amount he contributes to the revenue. Mr Young, the Immigration Commissioner, points out that his industry constitutes a hidden mine of, riches. An immigrant with strongthews and industrious habits is considered to be worth, in capital value, 800 dollars to the country of his adoption, He will consume in tea, coffee, sugar, flour, &c„ an amount easily made out in figures, and in order to consume he must produce more than an equivalent. Thus the single year 1870 is said to have added 285 millions ofdollars to the national wealth of the States by this one means alone. But how, Mr Young asks, can a proper estimate be made of the value to the Republic of those immigrants who brought with them not only a purse, or even stout arms and energy, but educated minds, cultivated taste,'artistic skill, aud, most of all, inventive genius? He instances the case of Captain Ericsson, the designer of the celebrated steam-ram Monitor? Mr Young says truely, that the value of such an immigrant can only be fairly computed at millions of dollars. It is in this way immigrants are valued in the United States, and not as to the effect they will have in reducing the rate of wages, or in augmenting the Customs revenue. It is in this way immigrants should be estimated in New Zealand. We shall then, as is proposed by the Government, offer sufficient inducements and facilities for them not only to come to the country, but to settle in it. With these words we concluded a leading article on this subject in the Independent more than fifteen years ago ! So long atimehave the most obvious truths to v r ait, after publication, before they get a chance of being generally recognised !