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Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 696, 11 August 1870, Page 2

While admitting the vast benefits that have accrued to this Colony from immigration from the Mother Country, there may still exist a great variety of opiuion as to the best method in which future assisted immigration may be fostered, and as to the extent to which it is desirable that it should be extended. They who cite no better reason for the introduction of population than that labor may be abundant, and not subject to a varying price when harvesting operations are necessary or the wool season is on, are not likely to gain many adherents from the ranks of those who are entirely opposed to tho system of assisted immigration ; and if the introduction of people on a greatly increased scale were chiefly intended as a means of increasing the value of lands alienated from the Crown, by the demand that would arise for areas suitable and available for settlement, and which have to a great extent already passed into the hands of private individuals ; if it were also sought to create a more extended market for the produce of these lands, and to stimulate their cultivation by an extensive supply of cheap labor, the desirability of expending large sums of money in this direction, might be very fairly questioned, although their contributions to the general revenue would greatly exceed the sum expended in attracting a population to the country. Although all reference to the probable effect of an extensive system of immigration in respect to the cheapening of labor has been avoided, there can be' little doubt that such will be the direct consequence of an influx of people greater than the Colony can absorb. It is upon the method in which immigrants are introduced must depend the success or otherwise of the scheme, careful provision being always made that the population may become absorbed in the Colony without giving rise to undue competition in the matter of labor. A moderate amount of immigration, and the prosecution of the public works of the Colony, will tend most beneficially to the settlement of the country, by rendering large tracts of land available for a population, which, at the present time, owing to the absence of proper means of communication, cannot be occupied. When completed, the railways would open up couutry capable of supporting a very large number of people, and in the North Island the introduction of a settled population would tend more than anything else to a speedy and final settlement of the Native difficulty. The subject has long been one which should have been treated as a Colonial rather than a Provincial question. The fact of rival immigration agents representing various Provinces, competing for population in

the mother country, and who, with a view of enhancing the special claims of one portion of the Colony, used their best endeavors to misrepresent the circumstances of all other portions of the Colony, was not calculated to inspire a feeling of confidence in the minds of intending emigrants. After being informed that, on arriving in one portion of the country they would be sent to fight the Maoris, the pay being 23 6d per day and rations, and a forty acre crown grant that he might occupy at the risk of being tomakawked, and elsewhere that the labor market was overcrowded, the Province being compelled to find work for the superabundant population, at a minimum rate of wages, it is by no means improbable that the applicant would seek some other field for emigration, It is by these mis statements and exaggerations, evils also arising out of Provincialism, that New Zealand has become to be unfavorably regarded by the laboring class at home for the purpose of settlement. The question, however, if treated altogether apart from Provincial considerations, and the population introduced only where they may be profitably employed and advantageously settled, will be productive of very excellent results to the Colony.