IMMIGRATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 14, 2 August 1873, Page 9

IMMIGRATION.

Fbom a memorandum of Mr O'Rorke to Dr. Featherston, under date of sth July, we make the following abridgment : — " Your letter of ,-Btb April last, in which you " submit that the expectations as regards ..promoting emigration to New .-Zealand whioh you held out to the (Government had been more than realizad, and that the system of emigration inaugurated by you has been, on the whole, attended with satisfactory results, and promises better results in the future," opens Up the whole question of the present state of emigration to New .Zealand, and compels the Government to express their full and free .opinion thereon. I was very much struck by the paragraph No. 1 of this letter, in cwhich you state that the earliest specific instructions you received $a regard to emigration did not reach you until Ist February, 1872 j

without instructions either oral or written on the subject of emigration from the date of your appointment in Wellington .Ist April, 1871, until the date above referred to, Ist: February/ i 872. l It may be trne to the letter that you were without specific instructions till Ist February, but it is clear that you were not insensible to the spirit of th« instructions that would be communicated to you by the Government on the subject. Nearly three montha before you received what you term your earliest specific instructions in regard to emigration', you informed the Government, by letter of 16th November, 1871, that since your arrival <in England, at the latter end of July, your tice had been mainly devoted to emigration, believing, as Mr Vogel said, "that the keystone of sucess of the Public Works policy is the contemporaneous increase of the population of the Colony ;" and you add, " I telegraphed on -the 4th instant from Frankfort — 'Emigration during next two years of 6,000 Germans and Scandinavians arranged.' You will perceive, from the brief report I now make of my proceedings, that I have acted more from my knowledge of the mind of the Ministry, than from any positive or definite instructions." With this knowledge of the mind of the Ministry, coupled with the fact that, in November 1871, you felt yourself armed with sufficient power to arrange for an emigration of 6,000 souls from Germany and Scandinavia, I am at a tloss to conceive how eighteen months after, in April, 1873, you can attribute the smallness of emigration to the Colony during thai period to the absence of any specific instructions till February, 1872. It appears to me, from the general tenor of your early correspondence, (that you felt yourself perfectly unfettored in promoting in whatever manner seemed best to you, emigration, not only from Great Britain, but from the Continent. I admit to (be full the difficulties you had to contend with in entering on your duties in finding yourself surrounded with different sets of Emigration Regulations for the several Proriuces. I am not able to say whether I agree with you that no other Australasian Colony has ever attempted emigration on such a scale as New Zealand has -for the last two yeans ; but this I can say, that it is patent to everyone that -the supply of immigrants is lamentably short of the requirements of the Colony, and of the number ordered by the Government during the last two years. I may add that, if my memory does not mislead me, the forty-acre system established in the Province of Auckland, tome fifteen years ago, under the Superintendency of Mr John Williamsen, yielded ,in the course of fifteen months, without pecuniary cost to the Province, some 4,000 souls, which contrasts favourably with the dribblets-;- they cannot be called a stream — that have been up to the present flowing to the entire Colony. Tou lay such stress in your correspondence upon having sent out 6,974 souls or 5,923 statute adults between July, 1871, and 31st December, 1872, that it is requisite to analyze the figures in order to ascertain the precise number of these emigrants directly due to your agency. Of the ;5,923 statute adults above referred to, there areNominated immigrants ... ... ... 661 Brogdea's immigrants „, ... ... 1,860 Total 2,721 — leaving 3,202 as the direct contribution of the Colonial Agancy 0 with its large staff and ample funds at its disposal. I confess I find it difficult to reconcile the assurances which you have repeatedly given the Government that you would establish a large stream of emigration to the Colony with the statement you now make, that you never held out to the Government the expectation that you could execute an order for any specific number of emigrants within a give*i time. Had that announcement been made to the Government when it assumed office, .it would have been .their duty to have taken steps to insure the arrival of the number they thought requisite for sthe Colony during the year 5 but your promises Qf a large flow of immigrants buoyed them' up, and prevented them sending home special agents to collect the number and class of immigrants deemed absolutely necessary to meet the demands for labor throughout the Colony. The Government cannot, with the stream of emigration amounting to a quarter of a million flowing annually from the United Kingdom, and with the command of sufficient money at your disposal for the requirements of the year, admit that the execution of their order for 10,000 or 13,000 emigrants should have presented insuperable difficulties. It remains for me to say, that while your letter states that you never held out to the Government the expectation that an order for any specific number of emigrants within a giyen time could be executed, a telegram of more recent date, 25th April, 1873, conveys the gratifying intelligence that the " emigration order will bo executed during current year." It remains to be seen whether the promise in the telegram is not as delusive as the others.