A PLEA FOR PAUPERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 53, 27 January 1872, Page 12

A PLEA FOR PAUPERS.

Theorists and others, who undertake to discourse upon subjects of which they have no practical knowledge, are in the habit of turning up their eyes in pious horror at the base mention of pauper emigration; and who yet view with complacency, if not with admiration, any project for shoveling on to our shores ship-loads of unprotected females i with the vain object of transforming them into domestic servants. In our opinion the one project is not one-half so shocking, or one-half so likely to prove delusive as the other. In addition to paupers there is another class of persons to whom Provincial Governments and Immigration Boards have insuperable objections. This class consists of those persons who have passed the prime of life, and whose passages, therefore, it is too hastily assumed, are not worth paying for. With regard to each of these cases these theorists and officials labor under an egregious delusion. There are undoubtedly a certain class of paupers and some elderly persons whom it would be very undesirable to introduce into the colony at the public cost, while there are young unmarried women who would, when accompanied by their friends, make most desirable immigrants. Having made this admission we shall not make any others in the same direction. The premium offered to interested parties for the shipment to this colony of unprotected females from the Continent of Europe, and the rule which excludes paupers and elderly persons, under any circumstances, from the benefit of the Government's Immigration Regulations, are both highly impolitic, and may prove also most mischievous. We will take the case of elder'.y people first. There are very few persons who have passed the prime of lite who would be disposed to emigrate if they had thenpassages paid in full, unless they were to be accompanied by their children; who would probably themselves not be disposed to emigrate without them. Is it wise, then, to exclude such persons, in such cases, from the benefit of the Government regulations? There are very few elderly people who could be induced to emigrate even if their children had resolved upon taking this step, and if some of those children should chance to be grown up, unmarried daughters instead of preventing, inducements should be offered their parents to accompany them. Secondly, as regards female emigration. There are very few young women, likely to make good domestic servants, who would be willing to have their friends come alone and unprotected! to a distant colony ; and there are stil few who would emigrate for any such object. There is a very great difficulty in procuring good domestic servants even in England. Mere wages will not accomplish this object anywhere. The crowded condition, mixed society, and enforced idleness of an emigrant ship are not favorable for the healthy development of character.

Now, with regard to pauperemigrants. The worst class ofpaupers would not emi orate if they could. Those mentally, morally, or physically infirm, should not be permitted to do so if they would. Exclude these two classes and we shall have a large number of paupers to select from. They will consist, first, of families whom accident, misfortune, sickness, machinery, or free-trade has thrown temporarily on the poor rates ; second, of widows and widowers left with large families, who have been constrained to accept out-door relief; and, third, of orphan or deserted children, who will probably be inmates of the 'workhouse. Many of the first class would comprise agricultural laborers and loom weavers, and others, whose wages would not enable them to provide against a rainy day. They would, nevertheless, make a desirable class of immigrants. The larger number of the children could, on their arrival in the colony, be either sent to domestic [service or Japprenticed to useful

trades. The widows might become mid-wives, monthly nurses, laundresses, or charwomen, and thus supply a want more keenly felt by the wives of our settlers than any other they have had to submit to. The widowers would not be worse men for their misfortunes, and in any case would prove perfect godsends compared with those scamps and scapegraces who by the kind aid of friends and immigration agents are annually shipped to the Antipodes Let only due care be exercised in their selection and it will then be found that these paupers will prove an acquisition and not a burden to the colony. It would of course only be fair and reasonable to insist that a portion of their passages and the whole of their outfits should be borne by the union from which they were drafted.