INVERCARGILL: FRIDAY, NOV. 21, 1873

Southland Times, Issue 1821, 21 November 1873, Page 2

INVERCARGILL: FRIDAY, NOV. 21, 187 3

Tt is by no meaDS pleasant to solicit as £ favor what we are entitled to demand as a riiiht, yet it appears that in the mattei of immigration we are regarded as troublesome suppliants whom it is advisable, after a fashion, to pacify by ar instalment and a promise of better treatment in future. We were led to understand by the communication received bj the "Railway and Immigration Committee from His Honor the Superintendent, thai one hundred immigrants should be for warded to this district from the immigrant vessel arriving first at Pori Chalmers after the date of His Honor's communication. This much for ; promise, which served for the time tc soothe impatience, and to arouse hope and doubtless many persons upon tilt faith of this promise indulged in some pleasing anticipations as to the progress they would be able to make with tht ranks of their laborers recruited as thej trusted they would be. What are the facts of the case ? The Lady Jocelyr. brought to Port Chalmers two hundrec immigrant's (or thereabout), and of thai number thirty-seven only were forwarded to Southland by the Wanganui. We do noi intend to use the appeal ad misericoi'diam in reference to the matter, but to stand upon the question of right, and point tc the conditions of reunion, which expressly provide that one vessel in every three arriving in the Province with immigrants shall land its passengers at the Bluff, In the face of such a violation of the conditions as has been practised towards the district, we feel, however, more than ever gratified that we had no band in bringing about reunion. We should uol have written thus strongly upon the matter, had any large number of the immigrants by the Lady Jocelyn been nominated immigrants, but such was not the case, and it was quite within the power of the Government to have fulfilled its promise to Southland. We are told of the wants of other portions of the Province, and we freely admit that there is much truth in the representations, but we argue that all matters which could affect the conditions, were, or ought to have been, duly weighed before conclusion, and the representatives of Otago proper were men sufficiently clear in their judgment and foresight to have understood well the undertaking upon which they entered. However we are told, and perhaps exI pected to believe, that the thirty-seven who were sent to us represented the whole of the immigrants by the Lady Jocelyn who could be persuaded to come to Southland, but why any persuasion should have been necessary, seeing they were not noaiinatod, and wo suppose (although the conditions of reunion have been violated) Southland is now an integral part of Otago, is more than we can", understand. As might have been expected the whole of the arrivals were |at once absorbed, and the immigrants certainly have no reason to regret that they were" persuaded to come" to Southland. There would have been no difficulty in the immediate placing of the hundred had they been sent, and the action on the part of the Provincial Government would at least have tended to allay the existing sense of their ill-treatment and neglect of the district. We much 'regret the course which has been taken, it being far more easy to occasion discontent than to remove it, and in the meautime the pressing necessity under which we exist will, we hope, prove a stimulus to increased exertion and watchfulness, our treatment up to the present being such as fully to satisfy us that we have nothing to hope from the spontaneous consideration of the Provincial authorities, and that if we are to be dealt with in fairness, and in accordance with the conditions of our agree ment, it must bo by the exercise of a continual pressure.