The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-15 00:00:00

EMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND.

The Correspondent of The Times, writing from Wellington,
New Zealand, on May 1, says
- •

"Mr. Holloway, of the Warwickshire Agricultural
Labourers' Union, is in the South Island visiting
Otago and Canterbury. It is a trying position for a
"man of the people" to be filed and courted and
almost toadied as he has been, as being the medium
through which we may gain what we very much
desire, provided that when weighed in Mr. Holloway's
balance we are not found wanting. Mr. Holloway
declares Otago must entirely alter its land laws before
he will have anything to do with it, affirming that till
this is clone there are few chances for the working man
to rise there. It is difficult to understand thisas against
the fact that at every moment Mr. Holloway must have
been brought into hourly contact with working men
who have so risen. They, in fact, constitute the great
majority of the landholders in New Zealand.
"Both Mr. Arch in Canada and Mr. Holloway in
New Zealand look at the emigration question too much
from a newly-arrived immigrant's point of view, and
in doing so their verdict must be against emigration
except to setttled districts or towns. An English
ploughman or an ordinary labourer set down with his
.arcily in wet weather in a somewhat out-of-the-way
i place n any colony is for a while the most wretched
object in creation; yet, if the land he is on be good,
the chances are that the best thing which could happen
to the party is that they should not be able to get
away. If the successful colonists who came out as
family men were canvassed as to tlkir early experiences,
they would almost all affirm that for the first month or
two of their colonial life it was only the difficulty of
return that made them stay. The immigrant, whoever
he may be, whether working man or one with a small
capital, who goes to a new country, has, in the nature
of things, much to encounter at first that is uncomfort-
able and trying. The English workman, if he goes out
into the unsettled or partially settled districts that he
may have an opportunity of acquiring land, has many
hardships to endure for a time, and he has to educate
himself up to the level of the older colonists' experience.
These early hardships and this necessity for a new edu-
cation are the inevitable price which has to be paid for
the almost certainty of future comfort and indepen-
dence; and the man who is not prepared, for himself
and for his family, to endure these early hardships,
which, after all, in a country and with a climate like
this, should rather be classed as discomforts, had better
stay at home. If either Mr. Arch or Mr. Holloway
expects, as they seem to do, that the men they represent
can jump into comfortable homes and a good freehold
farm at once on arrival in the colony, or think that they
ought to refrain from emigrating because theylose some
of the comforts and appliances of civilization for a time,
the Warwickshire labourers will be very badly ad-
vised. _

"I see that the tide of emigration from the United
Kingdom is setting in this direction. It is quite time
that it should. We have ample room and remunera.
tive employment for a very much larger number of
men than are in the colony, and fresh resources are
daily developing as the public works progress. There
seems to be a fear in England that the best men of the
old country are moving away to the new. The ex-
perience out here is that we have a very fair share of
an inferior quality of biped among our imports. A few
days ago the following notice appeared in one of our
leading papers :
There Is probably some subtle pleasure in our immigration
agents in England making up their invoices of assisted im-
migrant*, in those neat and compendious forms which are '
faithfully reproduced by the officers in charge at the various
barracks, both before and after the arrival of our intending
colonists. Thus- -three carpenters, two school teachers, 15
farm labourers, two clerks, one artist. These no doubt look
better than when afterwards re-assorted and re-classified,
somewhat after the following manner :—One baked-potato
man, two umbrella menders, five habitual drunkards, one
showman, two thimble-riggers, two cork-cutters, one feather
dresser, two dolls-eye makers, one 'Chelsea bruiser,' three
loafers pure and simple), two good men and true, Then
the beautifully indefinite description of ' terse married
couples and 15 servants girls, divided, probably on their own
representations, into so many housemaids, cooks, and nurses,
leaves no excuse for more particular inquiry. It must yet be
an open question which country is most benefited by the Im-
portation of these people. The irgenuity which made up the
contra account against the Imperial Government some seven
years ago might begin to lot down a few items of conse-
quential damage with the view to preferring a claim for
Indemnity against the British Government by and by. The
branch of the immigration scheme which so far presents
security for 'natural selection' is that of nominated pas-
sages. Peoplo here who have managed to better themselves,
and are possessed of a desire to better their relations and
friends, will not likely oontribute to the influx of discredit-
able persons. There is a fund of security in British well.
doing, which Indiscriminate packing cannot afford.'
" This is, of course, slightly exaggerated, but there
is very much truth in it, especially in the system of
granting free passages has been in vogue, and since
peremptory orders were sent to our Agent-General to
push out men by thousands per month. quality has
to be sacrificed to quantity. To require, as was done
before, that the intending emigrant should be the
owner of a little money, however small the amount,
was virtually to make use of a natural process of selec-
tion ; for the working man in England who could save
money must have some good qualities. It is, however,
comforting to see how great and how rapid a change is
wrought on many men's character by a sense of posses-
sion or even by the prospect of proprietorship either
of land or anything else, but especially of land. The
man who in England worked only for Saturday night,
and began the world again on Monday morning, sees
in the colonies a possible object of attainment beyond
the day and alters his tactics accordingly, and the
great and satisfactory difference which undoubtedly
does arise in the transformation of a new chum ' into
an ' is undoubtedly due to this.

he Tines has also the following leader on the above
letter
In a letter we publish, our New Zealand Correspon-
dent tells us that Mr. Holloway, the agent of the Warwick-
shire Agricultural Labourer's Union, has been visiting Otago
and Canterbury, the two principle Provinces of the Southern

Island_ The object of Mr. Holloway's mission to New Zea-
land is to judge how far the colony is suited to receive emi-
grants from the body of agricultural labourers he represents.
and, like Mr Arch in Canada, he does not seem to have found
matters altogether to his liking. What he thinks of Canter-
bury we do not yet know, but of the neighbouring and most
flourishing Province of Otago we are told that he declares it
must entirely alter its land laws before he will have anything
to do with it, since under the existing system the working
man has little chance of bettering himself. As the New
Zealand Colonist considers their islands, and not without
some reason, to be about the best place in the world to which
an English agricultural labourer can emigrate, this unfavour-
able verdict must have caused a good deal of surprise in
Otago, which, like the other Provinues, abounds with farmers
who have been working men. Our Correspondent professes
himself unable to reconcile it with the fact that Mr. Holloway
must have been brought at every moment of his tour into
contact with working men who had done well ; he reminds on
that working men constitute the great majority of the land-
holders of the colony, and makes some very sensible and
practical remarks on the etnigrant's lot. Even in the best of
colonies, the newly-arrived emigrant does not, as some would
seem to suppose, come into his good fortune at once, like a
young heir on the day he is twenty one. He does not as soon
as he lands find a comfortable house and a freehold farm of
his own. These come by degrees, and he has to work very
hard for them - harder, probably, than he has ever worked in
England.

We are speaking of the labouring man without capital.
The colony does not make him a free gift of his Indepen-
dence; he must earn it by dint of hard work and self-denial,
and he will be very much mistaken if he goes to New Zealand
or anywhere else with the idea that he is to step at once into
an easy, prosperous sort of existence. First of all, he has to
adapt himself to eolonial ways of living, which in a great
many respects— at least, in the newly-settled districts, which
offer him the best chance—are very comfortless. He has also
to adapt himself to colonial ways of doing work, and he will
probably find them of a much more arduous and makeshift
character than those which belonged to his farm or work-
shop life in the old country. Before he can begin to make
his fortune he has to gain his experience, and this is not a
matter of a day. Before he can be his own master and live upon
a farm of his own he must save money, and he can only do
this by dint of hard work and frugality. When at last lie is
his own master, living in his own house, and ploughing and
sowing his own •• section " of land, he will not find that he
has by any means attained to a happy state of life in which
there is much to get and little to do. He will probably still
be working harder than he ever worked in the old country,
and every pound he puts Into the Bank will be well earned by
the sweat of his brow. To be sure, his labour will be sweet-
ened by the thought that it is for himself that he works, and, if
he will have to bear some hardships, he will have at least
plenty to eat. Above all, he will be independent ; and,
whatever report Mr. Holloway may bring home of unfavour-
able land laws or other matters, there is not the slightest
doubt that New Zealand does otter this prize of indepen-
dence to every emigrant who can and will work for it. In
a young country there is a chance for every one, and,
even without becoming his own master, the labouring
man finds many small social ameliorations in colonial life.
On the other hand, in the midst of plenty. he will miss not a
few of the little comforts of his old.country home, however
humble it may have been. Towns are pretty much the
same all the world over, but we suppose our emigrant;to be
seeking his fortune where it is to be found—in the more thinly.
settled districts. The wind and the cold will make them-
selves felt through weatherboards and shingles as they never
did through brick and thatch ; the noble trees and green
fields of his native landscape will be changed, perhaps, for
the yellow •• tussocks" of a timberless and desolate-looking
though fertile plain, and the parson or squire's lady for the
squatter's overseer, drawing bridle before his door to threaten
to impound his cows if he toes not keep them on his fifty
acre block; Ilowever prosperous and free and independent,
the labouring man will tincl,.his New
_Zealand life some-

what bare and barren, and afflicted with a want of neigh-
bours and gossip mid amusements, which will create a gap
ill filled by the annual race-meeting or ploughing match of
his district. Ile will have left all his friends and relations,
all that were kin and kind to him, on the other side of the
world. In the new country, too, he may perhaps find that
It takes longer to make friends than it does to make money,
every one being busy at work 'for his own hand," and his
life being solitary anti separate, except in thickly-settled
districts. But, after all, it is the little things he will miss
whiie he will gain the great ones. Of Benefit and Burial
Clubs, and of all the other petty endeavours of our village
poor to ward off starvation and need, he will have no care;
and from dread of a workhouse, and from fear of marrying,
and from privations attendant upon the numerous family
which he will surely have in a country so prolific of every-
thing, he will be entirely set free. We are supposing that
he is frugal and industrious and quick-witted—three quali-
ties without which he will go to the wall, for there is no part
in the world in which the improvident and idle and foolish
can better perfect their misery and ruin than in the
Australian Colonies. In a new country a man has but little
help from others. Ile has to stand upon his own feet and
fight his own way, and if he cannot do so his last state will
be worse than his first. His opportunity, and little else, is
given to him ; and as well as an opportunity for success he
has an opportunity for failure. If, for instance, he is a
drunkard, every means is afforded to him of being a
drunkard still, and drunkenness means ruin in New Zea-
land just as mach as it does in England.

Looking at the matter selfishly, of course we at home would
rather rid our labour-market of its bad material than lose
the good ; but our Corre-pondent's letter makes it evident
not only that New Zealand will not have our bad material,
but that our bad material would be no better for going
there. We must, therefore, work it up at home. It Is bad
partly became it Is crowded out of the market, and we can
afford to make room for it by sparing a little of the better
sort. A dozen or twenty shiploads of emigrants a year to New
Zealand, even if they were all agricultural labourers, would
not make much difference to us, but would make a great
difference to the men themselves and to the country„they
went to. We camalford at present to export emigrants, just
as we can afford to export coal, and for some time to come
we may be sure there will be as good men in England as ever
went out of it, despite all that Trades' l'nions and Agents-
General can do. The harvests will still be gathered, and if
labour should get scarce in the country districts, we may
trust the towns to pay back some of the population they
have no long been drawing to themselves. We have no
wish at all to hinder this new alliance between Trades'
Unions and Colonial Emigration Agents; we would, on the
contrary, further it and aid it in every way, as a mode of
action entirely legitimate, and one which may in time bring
about a healthier state of things. We wish to send our
Colonies none but good meu, and we would advise none but
good men to go there. We do not say, as a piece of general
advice to good agricultural labourers: or to good workmen of
any sort, "Emigrate." Emigration is not entirely a matter
of pounds, shillings, and pence. To leave one's country and
friends and go to the other side of the world needs a strong
heart as well as strong hands. We ',advise no labouring man
who is in a condition of moderate comfort, who can save
money and bring up his family respectably, to break up his
home and go to New Zealand. But to the able and honest
agricultural labourer or mechanic who, in our Correspon-
dent's words, finds himself in a condition in which he can
work only for Saturday night, and has to begin the world
again every Monday morning, we do say "Emigrate ; "
and we believe there is no better place for him than New
Zealand.

The Standard has published the following letter

Sir,--After a twelve years' sojourn in New Zealand,
during which time I have had the usual "ups and
downs" incidental to Colonial life, the following facts
may be useful to those desiring information respecting
that colony. Being most of that time ia the Province
of Auckland, I will now give what the rates of wages,
&c., are there. Farm labourers, 20s. to 255. a week
with board; bushmen engaged in a timber bush, 255.
to 305., hours from six till six with one hour for dinner;
mill (saw) hands, 255. to 30s. ' • stoker, 30s. ; engineer
£3 to £4 10s., found house but not board; navvies,
wharf hands, 7s. to 6s. ; store porters, £2 to £2 108. ;
sailors for coasting, 23 per month ; miners, Os. to
10s. for eight hour shifts ; carman, 7s. to Ss. ; domestic
servants, Os. to lls. per week. When board is found
it is good-- meat and tea with every meal. Pi °visions
are cheap—beef, 313.; mutton, 20. ; flour, 2d.;
butter, Is.; tea, 2s. ; sugar, 41. to sd. ; tobacco, ,
Is. 6d. per lb; potatoes and pumpkins, 4s. per 1121b5.;
fruit is over-plentiful, for 63. you can buy two buckets
of peaches. Houses of four rooms, with enough land
to keep the house all the year with vegetables and
fruit, from 6s. tel Os. per week. Clothing, no ap-
preciable difference in price than here. Climate in
Auckiand Province not to be equalled in the world.
Persons thinking about settling there should be pre.
pared for roughing it, and giving the place at least a
trial for five years, not thinking before they start how
they shall get back if they do not like it; such people
had better remain here. Men of bone and sinew,
character, energy, and prrseverance, ready and willing
to overcome any obstacle that may cross their path,
like the pioneers of Victoria, who, in Melbourne, possess
one of the best-built cities of the world—such men are
building up our colonial empire every day, and when
the Fijis are annexed will be found in the van, ready
and willing to convert what is now a wilderness into
cotton plantations, &c—cotton which brings the highest
price here, as may be seen by your reports to-day—viz,
1253. per lb. Persons expecting not to have to work
aslard there as here will be muchly " mistaken.
Colonials work harder, longer, and "spurt "more than
here. The above are not paper quotations or the ides
of an emigration agent, but what I have seen and ex-
perienced myself during my twelve years' sojourn there
—a part of which time I was engaged in the timber
business. It is my intention to return as soon as pos-
sible. I shall be glad to give any one any further par.
ticulars.—l am, your obedient servant, EKENA.
3, Camden-road, August 6.