IMMIGRATION IN SISTER COLONIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4210, 17 September 1874, Page 3

IMMIGRATION IN SISTER COLONIES.

Immigration has’ lately been a prominent topic in the Press and on the platform in tho other Australasian Colonies, as xvell as in Now Zealand. In New South Wales, Mr. Nelson, the member fox*. Ox-axxge, addx-essed his constituents, aud there are some passages in his speech which express a widely diffused opinion in regard to immigration. He said -“ Tlxex-e was a great want of laborers in the Colony. We had a large territory axxd only a handful of people. He would like to see a few thousands landing hero every yeah There was plenty of room for men of the light class—judiciously selected. It was neoessax-y to.have a judicious selection, and he believed those selected hy Sir Charles Oowper and sent to this, Colony had given every satisfaction as to respectability of character." . The Premier, when referring to the same subject, spoke more cautiously as to Government interfex-ence. He said :—“ I have no fear whatever for the steady progress of this Colony of ours. What we have really to do is to spread the people over the face of tho country ; and if there were three nxillions of people in the country at the present moment, brought here in the natural courae of things,' every one of those three .millions would be better off than every one of the half million we have hex-e xxow are, Tx*avel the wox-ld over and you will not find a spot where there are so many resources which are only waiting .for the thrifty, industrious, intelligent, and enterprising to develop them.” Of the same sxxbjeet, in Victoria, the Melbourne correspondent" of the leading Sydney paper says ; Our anti-inunigration policy is part and parcel of our protectionist policy. ' The same narrow selfishness which demands protection against the competition of British' or other outside manufacturers demands also protection against new competitors in tho labor market, and it is almost to bo wondered at that the associated trades who are such ardent jprotectionists, have xxot insisted on a capitation ■ tax oxx .every skilled ox- .unskilled competitor ax--x’iving in tho Colony. Thex-o is some hope, however, that this craze is wearing itself out, or that .its -authors are gradually becoming ashamed of it. In tho Upper House a motion in fax’or of the resumption of assisted immigration has been under discussion, and the mover of it is Mx-. Jemxer, one of the fathers of the *px-otectionist movement. Ho has been backed up by petitions from the farmers in several

of the country districts, who feel the effects of the present scarcity of labor. The movement has been left pretty ..much to the party with whom Mr. Jeuher has been identified,- and the merchants and free-traders have merely looked on admiringly at the adoption of their views by their quondam opponents. The question, however, has been gradually ripening in the public mind, and the probability is that a more general agitation will be shortly commenced for the purpose of reviving the old system, or establishing some still more effective method for briuging population into the Colony. The friends of assisted immigration would probably have commenced long ago to agitate in its behalf, but that they had a' desire to sustain the present. Ministry, and it was felt that any present attempt to raise a debate on this question would prove embarrassing. It may not be less embarrassing now, but public feeling will scarcely bear repression on this account much longer, for any continued inaction mearn the loss of another year. The policy which is covering the Colony with railways must prove a disastrous one financially if wc get no accession to our adult population. Even now, with the present depressed state of trade the question is forcing itself upon cur attention, for noth a hundred and odd extra miles of railway open the returns of several weeks past have scarcely equalled those of the corresponding period of last year, and it is vain to expect that our present population will travel over all the new lines as well as the old so as to make them remunerative. Some of the new branches which are now being surveyed extend into districts which can never with their present population support a railway; but the resources of those districts could be largely developed if we had the people wherewith to do it.