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Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 759, 16 September 1878, Page 2

There will soon be a crowd of immigrants here ; that is, if we are treated fairly. Tho first lot should arrive in Port Chalmers at the end of this month in tho ship Timaru, to be followed at short intervals by the Invercargill and others. What preparations have been made for their reception ? None, so far as we can learn. If the Immigration Officer in Dunedin keeps his promise and carries out the avowed intention of the Immigration department, we shall have no le3s than sis or seven hundred immigrants, male and female, to provide for within the next few months, in batches of over a hundred at a time. We are not grumbling at the number. The more the merrier. It is about time., that we were delivered out of the misery wrought out by the paucity, and laziness of the ynale' and female laborers ot this district. Our object in writing is to give timely warning of difficulties ahead that may be avoided. It must not be urged as an excuse for not fulfilling promises, when the time arrives for this distrust to receive its dividend, fv.o.rn, the immigrant ships, that there is no accommodation to warrant Oamaru's portion being sent unbroached from the ship instead of being filtered through the Caversham Barracks. If any difficulty is to be anticipated, now is the time to see to its rectification. In the first place, adequate shelter must he provided. \t will never do to u.rowd immiijViUits like sheep in a pen. In the next place, rations should be provided for them. Wo arc now within a fortnight or so of tho time when the Timaru should arrive, and yet no tenders have been called for ratiiuw. We »uppoe : e that the usual mode of procedure must be observed, and tenders invited for two or three weeks in the public papers, and seeing that the time iu so abort, the sooner it is done the better. jSTeglect to attend to this matter would necessitate the local crticiu' absenting himself from the bar- | i cks just when his presence was most i-uc)uired, in order to procure the nepeiisary provisioay a r i the uheiipeyi; market : or he would be compelled to enter into arrangements with a grocer and a butcher that would not only be unfair to the other grocers and butchers, but would be disadvantageous to the Government. We take some trouble in writing about the administration of the immigration department in so far as it affects us, because we feel that it has been botched \o, tha past and gives/ little s ; ub.'st?,ntiaj promise as yet of being better in the future.