STATE AID TO IMMIGRATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4193, 28 August 1874, Page 3

STATE AID TO IMMIGRATION.

(From the Melbourne Argus.) When the advocates of a policy of stagnation or retrogression in this Colony wish to be particularly emphatic in their denunciations of state aid to immigration, they exclaim, “ Look at America ! She does not spend a penny in paying for the introduction of population from Europe ; and yet immigrants pour into that country at the rate of a quarter of a million per annum.” All which is perfectly true, but then it is only a half truth. For, by the Homestead Act, Congress virtually presents every family landing in New York, and willing to push into the interior, with an allotment of the value of £4O. When it is proposed in Victoria to devote about half that amount from the laud fund to enable each ■of a few thousands of suitable families to migrate hither, a violent outcry is raised, and. we are solemnly assured that it amounts almost to a high crime and misdemeanor to attempt to introduce British labor into a British Colony. It is, forsooth, a violation of the principles of free trade and numbers of the very men who make these absurd assertions have been provided with employment for many years past by British capital, borrowed for the execution of public works. It is sinful, in the estimation of these wise logicians, to wish to increase that wealth-creative agency known as labor, and to augment our powers of production and consumption ; but it is a perfectly righteous transaction to import from the other end of the world as much as we can conveniently borrow of that other wealth-creative agency called money. What admirable consistency ! The result of this short-sighted selfishness may be readily foreseen. We are steadily adding to the magnitude of our public burdens, while we are perversely abstaining from taking any steps to lighten their individual incidence by increasing the number of contributors to the general revenue.

Some of Mr. Vogel’s critics in Victoria lift up tlieir heads and their eyes in mournful amazement at the fact of New Zealand having incurred a national debt as large as our own ; but the Treasurer of that Colony is doing his best to multiply his channels of income by his immigration policy. If be can quadruple the population of those Islands during the next few years, the pressure of their financial obligation will be no greater than our own; and New Zealand, bisected from north to south by a trunk line of railway, bringing the produce of every district into direct communication with all the principal seaports, will have a magnificent future before her. We, however, are to bo contented, it seems, with the natural increase of our population; and a young country which is thus situated is, of necessity, heavily handicapped when brought into competition with -rivals which are building up their strength from -without. In. the former case, fourteen or fifteen years must elapse before each accession to the population can become, though in ever bo slight a degree, a bread-winner and a taxpayer; while a large percentage of the children born in the country die before they aro ten years old. But in the latter case, every industrious adult landing in a British Colony, or in the United States, becomes a producer and a contributor to tire revenue forthwith. Viewed merely as a machine, we might assess the cost ■to the mother country of every ablebodied man who emigrated from her shores at something like £2OO. And as he is confessedly the most valuable of all machines, because his physical strength and acquired skill or experience are supplemented by an active intelligence, it might be imagined that any community of practical Englishmen settled in a new country would regard his acquisition as dirtcheap, if it involved an outlay of only onetenth of that amount. This is the common-sense view of the immigration question which is taken by the Legislature and the people of the United States. And their reward has been a political growth which has had no parallel in ancient or modem times, and the enjoyment of a degree of material prosperity which is' equally unprecedented. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the Northern States could have conducted the civil war to the issue they did hut for the immense influx of immigrants from Europe, who not only filled up the gaps in the Eederal army, but replaced those who had been drafted away from the field and the workshop to fight against _ their fellow - countrymen " down South ;” while it is certain that the collapse of the Confederate cause was accelerated by the impossibility of recruiting the diminishing ranks of the secessionists from without.

Our correspondent in New York, who has investigated the arrangements made with the sanction of Congress for the reception, protection, and distribution of the five millions and a quarter of immigrants who have lauded in Castle Carden since 1847, has furnished us with a credible testimony to their efficiency, and to the almost paternal watchfulness of the Board of Immigration, which was constituted by an Act of the Legislature, but is not a Government department. It expends about £IOO,OOO per annum, and the funds are raised by a capitation tax collected from the shipowners. Thus the institution is self-support-ing, and the immigrant pays for the advantages he receives when he buys his passageticket in England or Ireland. Several bureaux are organised, each for a special work, by the board; and one of these takes charge of all applications for employment, and answers the inquiries of employers. Last year, wo are told, over 25,000 immigrants, both male and female', obtained employment through the instrumentality of thisbureau. “All this is done,” writes our correspondent, “ in a manner which a first-class passenger seldom meets from the officialsat whosemeroyhe is left. Butheredoes not end the activity of the board. The immigrant is considered as such for the first five yearn of his residence in the United States, and during the whole of that period he is at liberty to fall back upon tho board whenever he becomes sick or unable to obtain occupation. After that time he is considered a naturalised citizen, and has to apply for relief to the charities of the state he resides in.” If the navigation company bring over cripples,-or persons more than sixty years of age, they are bound to maintain every such person for five years, under the penalty of £IOO, supposing the unwelcome intruder should be unwilling to return to his port of embarkation. It will thus be seen how thoroughly erroneous is the popular notion in this Colony that America is doing nothing to encourage, subsidise, and - facilitate immigration ; and it ought to shame ,our own people into the abandonment of that policy of isolation and retrogression which cannot be much longer persisted in without subjecting us to serious injury as a community. A correspondent of the Argus .writes as follows on the same subject : Along-with many others, I am awaiting with anxiety for this Colony’s future the result of the effort it is rumored will soon be made in Parliament to revive an immigration policy. I would ask those benighted people ,who so steadfastly set their faces against an increase

to our population from without, whether Victoria would be what she now is but for the tens of thousands that were attracted to her shores by the discovery of gold ; and if such an increase of population has proved so great an advantage in the past, ’why should it not do so in the present and future ? I can well remember the alarm created in Victoria by the - efflux of people to New South Wales consequent on the discovery of gold there, and the great joy with which they were welcomed back again on the discovery of our own fich goldfields. These anti-immigrationists would not, I imagine, carry their theory so far as to show pleasure at the loss of any portion of our present population. Then, if such loss’’ would be disadvantageous, I would ask, is it. •. not common sense to suppose that an in- ' crease would, on the other hand, be advantageous ? More population means more consumers and more consumers means more employment and general progression, and as,you so forcibly pointed out in the article to which I have already alluded, the burdens of the state are by an increase of colonists individually lessened. Surely this reason ought to weigh with those who so selfishly wish to keep this fine Colony all to themselves. I only hope these latter 'will after all be found in the minority, and that Parliament will strongly express itself shortly in favor of a vigorous immigration policy, so that Victoria may be enabled to hold, her own and not see herself outstripped in the x~ace of Colonisation by so young a Colony, for instance, as New Zealand.