The Lytterlton Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1868.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2292, 28 April 1868, Page 2

The Lytterlton Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1868.

The opponents of immigration lay great stress on the plea that it should not be paid for out of taxes generally, but provided for by those who specially require it. We are not sure that the objection is sound, but will waive its discussion and accept asa woiking rule the principle it implies. It may be regarded as a sufficient proof of how little the subject of immigration has been studied by those who lately agitated it, and by the one or two demagogues who tried to float themselves on the tide of the late demonstration, that such an objection should have been brought forward in this province. No immigrants have ever been introduced save by the contributions of those who require their labour, and no one, so far as we can recollect, has ever proposed that it should be otherwise. To state

the same thing in other words—the uniform practice has been, to provide for immigration out of the land fund, and the uniform demand of those who urge increased immigration has been made upon the same terms. In fact, the continuance of a system of immigration is essential to honest dealing, and to our keeping faith with the purchasers of the waste lands, 'lhe reasons why a high price is charged for these lands are purely economical. One reason is, that the land speculator may not buy up the whole country and retain it for his sheep, or dribble it out at high rates among the actual cultivators of the soil. No man can afford to buy large blocks of land at two pounds an acre, and leave them waste. He must cultivate them, in order to get anything like an adequate return for his money. And to cultivate means to employ labour. The other reason agrees intimately with the one just stated. It iB, that the money is placed in the hands of the Government to be expended for the benefit of the purchasers, but on a regular system, and so as to suit at the same time the general interests of the settlers as a body. The man who buys a section of land has a right to eipect that it shall be surveyed and marked out. He has also a claim to be provided with reasonable means of access, by roads and bridges, or otherwise. He is further entitled to have sufficient labour provided at a fair rate. It is on this point alone that differences of opinion have lately shewn themselves. And these differences have, after all, not concerned the fact so much as the extent and character of the labour to be provided. Oq this, however, a fair understanding might easily be come to, satisfactory aud equitable to all classes. Perhaps it is owing to the want of a fixed aud recognised rule that the recent complaints, based upon misconception, have arisen.

Were the Government to apportion a fired share of the land fund to immigration, it is possible that all miaunderstandingg and complaints would cease. If, out of every forty shillings paid to the Government for an acre of land, ten shillings, or onefourth, were applied to immigration, all parties might be satisfied. An adult immigrant costs the Government, on an average, fifteen pounds, if we add office and barrack expenses to the usual passage money. This sum is equivalent to what would be obtained, at the proposed rate of ten shillings per acre, from thirty acres of land. Now, if a man purchases thirty acres, we may fairly assume that he has been

himself a working man, and that Mb labour is now withdrawn from the market. It is time, therefore, that his place should be supplied. If, on the other hand, a larger quantity of land is purchased, the buyer necessarily requires labour for its cultivation somewhat in this proportion. Of course, a large importation of farm labourers and domestic servants requires a certain number of workpeople of other descriptions to supply their various wants. But the rate of immigration now proposed may be allowed to provide sufficiently for this also. We do not press for anything beyond a reasonable and just apportionment of labour to the demand, and this seems to be indicated in the arrangement suggested. Such a plan has a two-fold advantage. It provides labour for those who have a right to expect that it should be provided, and it introduces immigrants only in proportion to the employment. A certain discretionary power ought always to rest with the Government, or rather with the Provincial Council, as to the time and the extent of immigration. A sudden depression in business might call for a temporary cessation, but ought not to be allowed to cause any diversion or misappropriation of the fixed proportion of the funds. A sudden rise in prices of all kinds, from a rapid and general prosperity, might call for immigration to a larger eitentthan usual, although not beyond the just limits which the state and prospects of the land fund warranted.

At no period has the coat of living been ao cheap in this pro?ince as at the present time, and yet wages hare not

sensibly fallen. Living is as cheap here as m England, all things conn* deredj while the difference between the wages of agricultural labourers here and in England is most remarkable, ft was lately remarked, as a notable indication of the improved state of things in Norfolk-one of the best paid agricultural counties in England—that the wages of the farm labourers there, who, in many if not most cases had families to maintain, had been raised from twelve to thirteen shilling a week. There is an enormous difference between that rate and thirty shillings a week, which is usually thought very low wages in the colony. Now, anything like an approach to the reduced rates of English wages, would be a sign of very bad times for every class of society in the colony, and no reflecting man could wish to see them brought to so low a pass. But the extreme which has always threatened and often injured this province has been on the other side. Farmers have many a time hesitated about cutting down their crops at all, because wages were out of all keeping with the low prices they got for their grain, Such a state of things isjust as ruinous as the other. It may reasonably be maintained, therefore, that there is more need for an agitation such as has been for some time maintained in the neighbouring settlement of Otago, in behalf of increased immigration, than for any agitation to suspend or reduce it. No man need fear an importation of labour which brings only one colonist for every thirty acres of land purchased in the settlement.