THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi.` WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2120, 20 October 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi.` WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1875.

The statement made by Major Atkinson concerning immigration seems to have been regarded by the House generally as satisfactory, and putting,on one side the objectionable system of taking promissory notes from those would-be immigrants who had more than three children, which system Major Atkinson himself condemns, ought to be generally wellreceived throughout the Colony. There are some obvious inaccuracies in the statement itself as published in the papers, but these we do not intend now to go minutely into, as they have probably arisen through some confusion caused by the determination of the Government to take no more of these objectionable promissory notes, and in place of the tsventyfive thousand adulfc immigrants ordered by Sir Julius Vogel, to have no more than the thirteen thousand originally determined on. Thus we have immigrants assigned to each province in the following proportion :—Auckland, 2,000; Taranaki, GOOO-, Hawke'3 Bay/ 1000; "Wellington, 2000; Mariborough, Nelson, and Westland 400 each ; Dunedin, 2000; . and Canterbury 3000 ; or a total of seventeen thousand four hundred immigrants assigned to nine provinces, a truly difficult matter to perform when only 13,000 are to be forthcoming. It is, however, probable that the number assigned to Taranaki will explain this inaccuracy. But, as we have said, we do not care much for this inaccuracy more than merely to remark that it is one- which ought never to have occurred in any oflicial report, if it did so appear ; it will be quite enough if the 13,000 on their arrival are distributed in the same proportion as if they had numbered 17,400 (with the exception of Taranaki); and this change in the figures it will be-very easy to make. A writer in our columns of yesterday under the signature of " Pro bono publico" takes evidently a very different view of the immigration statement from that of the House f .generally, and quotes, or .rather refers to a leader which app e peared in our issue of the 13tb, and the''statement made, he \ says, .by the Mayor to :Ithe; effetet that he was obliged through the scarcity of work to discharge old hands so as to give all a chance of work in their turn, to prove that the labouring man —by which term nre choose here to mean that class of men who are. employed in" manual agricultural labour, and work of that kind — is '* instead of being any better off here

than at home, if anything far worse unless he have means to keep him -when he his ©ut of work." Now it were very easy to show how unfair is the reasoning adopted by the correspondent who writes, as he says, "for the public good" were that, necessary. It needs not many words to show that it is not right or just to pick one particular community out of a colony, and that too when that especial community is suffering under what we hopo is but a temporary period of depression, and argue that because work is scarce and hard to be had there, therefore is it hard to be had all over the Colony, and therefore the labourer in New Zealand "instead of being any better off than he is at home is if any thing, far worse off unless he have means to keep him when he is ' out of work," and consequently the immigration scheme is a failure, and Government swindlers for inducing men to leave their homes in England and come out here to die in this wilderness. Such reasoning, if reasoning it can be called, condemns itself; its refutation is unnecessary. Take tho. facts of tho case as they really are. Facts which can be- gathered from the official records of the wages of labourers, compiled with great care for the Government at home; and from the known rate of wages paid to the same class of men, for the same sort of work in New Zealand. Exclusive of artizans and that class which may bo denominated as skilled labourers; such as gardeners and the like, tho highest rate of wages paid all the year round—or as they would term it, an upstanding wage— is from seventeen and sixpence to seventeen and ninepence a week paid to tho labourers of Northumberland. This sum is made up bf a small cash payment, a free house, use of a cow, and other payments in kind,'such as Romany bolls of wheat, oats, &c, The lowest rate of wages, paid also by the year, is from ten-and-ninepenee to eleven-and-threepencc a •week paid to the labourers of Essex and Hertfordshire. These are the highest and iowest wages paid in counties, the way in which they arc divided in the official reports. A high average county would be Kent, with a rate of wages at sixteen shillings a week; a low average, Cambridgeshire, with an average rate of fourteen shillings. Taking it as a whole—though the returns do not go so far as to say this—the entire average wages for,a laborer throughout England may be taken to be about fifteen shillings a week when the last returns were issued. There may be very, likply those who will disagree with these figures, and point to instances which they themselves know of, where labourers earn as much as a pound or mox*e a week, oras little as eight or nine shillings only. Even in different parts of the same the wages are by no means uniform, but the figures we hare given are taken from published facts which are as a whole accepted as correct. Now take the position of. the laborer in New Zealand—his average weekly wage cannot be said to be less thau two pounds a week, and it is often a good deal more. "From the facts we have given it is certain that through the low rate of wages .now given in England, any average working man can come out here with a certainty of being able to obtain at least double waget if he be content to work fof it. As to the cost of living, house-rent, and clothes, they are no doubt dearer here than they are at home, but that is amply compensated for by the lower price of meat, which at its present exorbitant price at home many labourers, especially those' with families, hardly ever,see exception Sundays. JSo ! much for working men. \ve have no wish to lessen or ses lessened, as long as the works of the colony are not brought to a stand still, the wages now paid for labour, but so long as such high wages "are notoriously being- paid it is ridiculous to institute comparison between the state of the colonial labourer and his brother in England.