WHAT THEY SAY OF NEW ZEALAND AT HOME.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2295, 26 July 1880, Page 2

WHAT THEY SAY OF NEW ZEALAND AT HOME.

(From the “ .Birmingham Daily Post,” MayS.) A correspondent sends the following extracts from letters written from Yew Zealand by a party of Pirminghaui artisans who left here in October last. These loiters tell such a plan and pitiful story of the condition of that country that intending emigrants nui} - well pause and consider before going there. . The first extract is from a letter written Jan. 31, 1880: —“ I am sorry to tell you that this land of promise is quite different to what we expected. There arc hundreds, I may say thousands out of work here; those who arc at work in shops arc working short time, and glad to get that. We have walked miles upon miles to get work of any sort, and cannot. I have tried all in my power to get farm work, but it's no use. And then the labour agents if you go to (hem they post up advertisements for men wanted, they get 2s (kl of you, send j-ou forty or Jifty miles about the country, and when you get there you arc not wanted ; or they send live or six after one job. Their harvest is when a fresh ship comes in, and ships keep landing fresh passengers. I am sure I cannot think what is to become of us; men in all branches, willing to work, but cannot get it. lie sure and tell all who think of coming out here to well consider before they start. I wish you could let the papers sec this. lam not running the country down ; living is cheap but the labour market is over-stocked, and there seems no possibility of getting work.”

The next extract is from a letter written in February, 1880 : —“ I am almost brokcu-licarted ; without food or skelter. I have only done three days’ work since I have been here. -If there is a job there are hundreds after it, and if you arc seen asking for food you arc sent to prison ; it is worse than at home. I have walked from one end of the islaud to the other ; it is as bad ererywherc. God knows it is hard to be williug to work, but impossible to get it. I never knew it so bad in England; and this is their busy time. It is hard lines here—sleopiug in the bush or under straw stack , which there are scores of us obliged to do. I should like the emigration agents to have to undergo what I have had to this last six weeks % # # I could send a list of over* 100 names of men who are walking about, who came in the last three ships. 4 tradesman who comes out here comes to his ruin. lam sitting down to rest after a tramp of eighty miles for work, only to be deceived, the job being stopped for want of money."

Extracts from letter written March 12, 1880 . —“ It is something fearful out here. There is a petition being signed by the unemployed in this place—about a thousand have signed—asking tho Government to give us employment to keep us from starving. They keep all this out of the papers ; but there is a new one just started. We have meetings every day, but get no work. They ask—Why send money to Ireland while we are starving here ? But that is done as a blind for the English people. This is a sad life, without hope or prospect of its being any better. You must

not expect to hear from me so often, as it costs sixpence. All good thinking people here say it is a pity the Home G-overnnient are not made acquainted with the tru6 state of things here.” Attention has several times been called to the distressed state of emigrants to Hew Zealand, owing to the manifestly overstocked condition of the labor market in the colony. The correspondent who sends us the extracts * says that “ they tell a pitiful story, ’g and those who read them will agree with him. It is pitiful to read of industrious men, willing to work, tramping 80 miles in search of employment, failing to obtain it, and them being glad to lie down to rest in the hush, or to sleep in the open air upon straw. It is possible of course, that the colony is passing through a period of special depression, and that after a time the unemployed labor may he absorbed ; hut it seems clear that this can ho expected only as the result of stopping the supply of emigrants, whereas, according to the writer above referred to, fresh supplies arc constantly pouring in, and making tilings worse. Plainly, if these letters arc to ho trusted —and they arc confirmed by many others we have received—New Zealand is no place for workmen from the Midlands. It may suit people who have money to invest in land and to pay for labor to cultivate it, but for ordinary emigrants it is obviously quite unfitted. Even farm work, the writer saj's, cannot ho obtained. “ Hundreds of men (he tells us) are after one job,” and a weary walk of many miles ends only in heartbreaking disappointment. The writer speaks very strongly about the representations of emigration agents—one passage of hitter indignation, indeed, we have thought it hotter to omit. His complaint, we think, should he taken into serious consideration by those who are promoting wholesale emigration to Xow Zealand. Those who do so without having satislied themselves that the emigrants have a reasonable ehauee of employment, incur a most serious moral responsibility. However, these letters will serve to put intending emigrants upon their guard ; they enforce a lesson often repeated—that no man should emigrate without making himself well acquainted with the circumstances of the colony to which he desires to go, or without having a lixed prospect of work when he gets there.