THE SEDGWICK SCHEME.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 298, 9 May 1913, Page 6

THE SEDGWICK SCHEME.

LETTER FROM MR. BEDGWICK. The following letter has been addressed by Mr. T. E. Sedgwick to each of the" party of fifty town lads brought out by' him two years ago to work on New Zealand farms:— , 33 Oriental St., Poplar E. t March 28, 1013. Dear Comrades,—Three years ago today I first landed in New Zealand to plead the cause of town lads before the Government. A, year of letter-writing had produced no result, as the overseas Governments did not know the abilities, strength and adaptability of town lads,' and their London respresentatives therefore all said "they had no instructions." As we look back we cannot help exclaiming, "Praise be to God"! And whyf Town lads have come into their own. They are recognised as an Imperial force—for production, for defence and for consumption of manufactures and imports, as centres of immigration, and as future settlers and beads of families, the Empire's truest and greatest wealth. The Agent-General for Victoria wrote to me in June, 1909, that he had tried to get an experiment made with town boys, but: had been unsuccessful. . Later on, some West Ham unemployed boys were sent, and now they will give a £7 fare to 3000 such British lads, provided they are equally good, but their system of ' placing out does not approach the. perfec-, tion of New Zealand's, whose example will, I hope, be adopted throughout the Empire. Other overseas Governments are taking up the question, and I hope that town lads will before long be going to all the provinces of Canada and States as. Australia,'as well as to New Zealand. TJie Home Government lias never been Imperial, except in war time, and the English people are Imperially mouthed and not Imperially minded. Consequently we have no Imperial department of migration, trade or communication. If we do not get more Britishers in Canada and South Africa, they will no longer be British after the next few years, but will be American and Boer-Dutch. Wages in New Zealand seem to have gone up since you boys arrived, but if a few more parties had since arrived wages would be still higher, as a boy's consumptive capacity in clothes, food, etc., is enormous. Although we have had a so-called "'boom" in trade, we have had a solid mass of unemployment, not seasonal, but permanently, for the last t few years, and the boom will soon be followed by a period of depression in trade, when unemployment will increase. The preve'n-. tive for unemployment is the Imperial migration of the best. This leaves the second-rate jobs to second-rate workers, and saves their being unemployed. Otherwise employers get first-class workers at second-rate pay. T hope you chaps write home regularly—people do so look and long for letters from absent ones. I hear from some of your fathers and mothers that they get"letters very regularly; others think they might be better supplied with news. Keep up our motto, "Thorough." Your affectionate friend and brother, THOS. E. SEDGWICK.