The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21. FOR NEW ZEALANDERS ONLY?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8064, 21 March 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21. FOR NEW ZEALANDERS ONLY?

I The bosoms of the Trades luml labor Councils oF New Zealand are filled with anguish. The cabled news that Agent-General Beeves is about to send out live hundred English navvies is the cause. It seems a small thing to worry about. England has about forty million people, and New Zealand has not one million. The crying need of New Zealand is population. The crying need cf England is a wide) - scope. " New Zealand for the New Zealanders" is a selfish, stupid' cry, and, although it is much to be deprecated that false impressions are givon to English people of this country, we want plenty of Englishmen here -of a sort. There have been many men who have conic to . the colony lately who have "gone under." * * * » Tub rather quaint idea that farmers are waiting on the wharves to give : the first hairdresser a job at ploughing, the first London clerk a position as manager of a sheep-station, and the first draper's assistant a billet , breaking in colts, seems to get hold of intending immigrants. In fact, we ask for bread and the agents at f Home give us a stone. When we ask r for navvies, and navvies begin to show up on the horizon, Trades and Labor Councils work themselves up into a perspiration. There really is [ no need for anything of the sort, but j there is much need of the grafter who is a real grafter, London agents are very seriously to blame for sending people to this country under falsa pretences. To tell a man in the Old' Country that one has only to land I f here in order to be scooped up as a worker is a sin. To tell an agriculturist that he can get land at his own s price is a he. To say that he will be assisted in any way to go on the land is stretching the truth, f * * * * Un<;w;stion\\l!J.v the Government is not altogether without fault in this , direction. In the lirst place, the Go vernment has the utmost. dilKculty in » satisfying the "land-hunger" that exists among the people now in the colony. In a feeble way, however, something is done in the direction of l " satisfying it. The Government has e enormously increased the nominal l ' value of the land during late years. Having increased the rateable value , of the land, the fortunate owner ' spends his life 111 paying off the mort- < gagee. The nominal value of the land having been raised, the Government, as a buyer, is in the same posi- . tion as the land-hungry New Zealander and the British agriculturist who is looking for a farm, The Government has to buy great estates at the values itself has created. The „ State is for land that should never have been alienated. The ' position is a similar one to that, of J the gentlem an w ' lo ' lo rrowed a horse, . worked him to death the first day, ( . and paid forjum afterwards by inslahnents. I'' lo " dead horse" sys stem prevails. * * » * y Tiie inducements thrown out to the - , Britisher at Home to put his money t into New Zealand agricultural land a are very great. Naturally, he is very much surprised when he gets - here to find that the inducements did not come in the same boat with him. If he wants to buy land he can get it —at considerably over its fail - value. If lie wants to become a Government >. lessee, he has to take a thousand to J one chance at the ballot. The land ballot is a greater gambling machine than the totalisator, with fewer compensations. The New Zealand Government will give a person who writes from Home every information that booklet can supply and large stafls of clerks scour up. It does not take any note of him when he is here, and as it cannot supply land quickly enough for the people now here, what sort of a chance has it of dealing with , the land-hungry from afar off <? There are eight million acres of nativo lands in the colony, and many of the owners of this land, much of which is fertile and would support thousands of people, as well as the' Maoris, make a bare existence out of it. The s solution of the Maori problem is in - the proper and just cutting up of this land. Many Maori part-owners of huge areas to-day are mere scratchi.'is of the soil. Their hope iies in intense cultivation of these vast areas, not only by the Maori, but by the white man equally. The apatiiy of the large, but poor, land proprietor is in the bonys of the Maori. * l * * And supposing that all the available lam! in New Zealand could be cut up and cultivated, don't you think it is . a bit too much for a million of people to tackle its cultivation'( The Land Commission set up before last session, at very large expense, sat and left the land question where it was before. The only change in the condition of things is that the values are going up enormously throughout the colony. l On these grounds alone, and although we want population more than we .. want anything else, it is a sin to cajole "small " men from Home into this country. The Government is not prepared to deal with a large in- . flux of agriculturists. It is better I prepared to deal with a large influx . of tourists, who, on the whole, don't . matter a bit in comparison witn the I settler. If the country wants navvies and it can't get them in New Zealand, it most certainly lias a good right to get'them from the Old Coun- • try. It is ridiculous to suppose that railway works should stand still because a few Trades and Labor people want jobs for colonials who can't be found. Tl.e immigrants who are a ! charge on the community are the people who have lived in a groove in England, and imagine that they will be offered Urge wages to do something they know nothing about. Many, nay most, of this class, get gradually assimilated into the working life of New Zealand, but it is during their period of probation that tliey arc rather a trouble to themselves anil others. We presume that when the cable says navvies, it means navvies, and not shipping clerks or drapers' assistants. When we hear of a thousand or two thousand tried workers coming to the colony we quglit to try, "Welcome, fellow liritisher 1" We want; all the British workmen we can cram into the country, to make the Chinamen feel lonely, and with a desire (o go home.