IMMIGRATION, No. III.

Southland Times, Issue 1021, 14 September 1868, Page 2

IMMIGRATION, No. 111.

(TO TOT BDrtOB O» THB S"OTOHLiHD HUM). Sib— As in all probability the question of Immigration will occupy, the earnest attention of the Provincial Council during its next sitting, I make no apologT for resuming the subject, which I allowed to drop on learning that the sitting would be postponed from ifuiy to the end Or this month. In my letter of 20th May last, I stated that I'had reason to believe that persons at home interested largely in the Province would purchase^ from 40 to 50,000 acres of land, were thejjr assured i that the funds derived frond Biich would be alienated from the ordinary revenues of the Province, and invested inalienably for the purposes of Immigration ; and proposed anon political Board of Commissioners to manage the fund, which would be vested in them in trust, who, from their position, would be ntofd likely to obtain a reimbursement frpw the Immigrant of the advance for thti passage money, when due, than presently obtains in most Provinces. In my second letter on the 28th of the same month, I argued the necessity of introducing populati on, on the grounds that no young colony could remain stationary without deteriorating, physically, intellectually, and morally. That without a steady stream of Immigration, national wealth could | not inereasej and that without stioni,,4 continual increase everything muit resolve 1 itself into a state oi: stagnation, paralyzing every branch of industry. There is another object to be gained by the introduction of fresh blood — the capital it brings. The United States of America furnish a remarkable instance of this and of the wonderful difference a constant stream of immigration makes in a country. It has been mathematically demonstrated that if there had been no immigration to the United States sine© the year 1800, the population in iB6 6* increasing from natural causes splely* would have numbered Only i0;463,000j including free, whitey and coloured, tir one-third of the whole population. It is estimated that of the whole population in 1863, the immigrants of the present century, and their descendants number more than 21,000,000,. or two-thirds of the whole. To this is her wonderful development mainly due, as' may $c gathered from the fact that in one state alone, Indiana, incorporated into the union, in 1816, there were in 1866 132,000 farms averaging 124 acres. each; more than 8,000,000 acres of improved, and the same number of unimproved but enclosed lands ; giving a total of 16,000,000 acres to about 1,250,000 of population, or sixty acres at least to every head of a family. As td the capital introduced into the country, the United States officials calculate that of the 5,063,414 immigrants which haye landed in ,the, United States.from 1820 to 1860 the large sum oi^BW,UUO^flH*| (eighty millions) sterling has been introduced by them, not including the superior values represented by their physical, intellectual, and moral powers. Erom returns obtained from amongst fte poorest class of immigrants it is calculated that each brings with him an average sum of £13 12s sterling. The governments of Prussia and Bavaria estimate that the emigrants from thence to 1 , the United States carried an average amount of £36 each; and this from a country where the laboring population is by no means well off. If such wag the amount of capital introduced into a new country by the poorest class 'of immigrants^ it may be fairly concluded that the average amount taken out by cabin passengers was much higher. This is exactly what we require. At present we are, and have been for some time living upon ourselves, a process which must eventuate in commercial prostration, at no very distant period. "We want not only labor at a price which" will enable its employment to prove reproductive, but men of moderate means to accompany it \ that while on the one hand the small capitalist can find a profitable means of investing, and turn to useful account the many untilled acres in the province, the laborer will obtain a field of employment at a rate sufficiently moderate to ensure its steadiness. Such a state of things can only be obtained where a continued and systematic stream of immigration is in operation. The same vessel which brings out the steerage passenger will carry wealth in the cabin to employ him/ irrespective of the labor which at a remunerative price could find employment from those already settled in the Province, and the amount of sold, but uncultivated land, speaks of the urgency of the demand for such, Nor is the sum total of the wealth brought in the steerage to be despised, irrespective of the thews and sinews, as American statistics show, and the personalexperience of many ,settled in the Province can testify. — I am &c, ,V, ; " WALTEEH. PEABSOff. Invercargill, 10th September 1868.