Why Not New Zealand?

Bruce Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 42, 30 May 1910, Page 1

Why Not New Zealand?

OUR POSITION IN THE IMMIGRATION* MARKET. AN AGENT'S CRITICISMS, London, April 15. While in Glasgow this week I look the opportunity of making some inquiries into the trend 0, emigration from the Clyde, which has sent sj many or the best class of settlers to the New Zealand field, At the present moment emigration from the United Kingdom 10 North America and Aus* tralasia is, or is supposed to be, unusually brisk. Every day the tariff reform papers make an object lesson of this exodus, which has now for the first There are probably many hundreds of Scots settlers in New Zealand who are personally acquainted wi;h Mr Buchanan, at present the best known emigration agent north of the Tweed. I found him in his office in Renfield street up to his eyes with coi respond* encc and callers Tncre was no mistaking the significance of all this activity, and 1 lunged to hear that New Zealand was getting her share ot the fine manhood and womanhood which Scotland is now pouring forth to the new countries of the \V\st.

Yet it was nut to be so. (l No," said Mr Buchanan, with decision, " New Zealand is tapering off. They are all going to Queensland, West Australia, and Canada/' " But New Zealand stands well at home. Why do we rrot pet >»ur share ?"' " I put ii. down to the action of th.New Zea and Governmen; that emulation is being luneeo a ide. In the lint place, they canci Ted asxbt.:d passages except during three months <>( the. year, and even when ihey are in operation they atetlv poorest terms in the whole if Australasia. The New Zealand Government, too, does not guarantee: emigrants employment when they land. They simply have to shift for themselves- Then wi- hv.- had some very bad reports as t<> he at'itude of ihe Labour Party in New Zealand. Tin y ev;r ! '. ntly obj ct to m.c'.anics and unskilled labour, is g >ing inlu ,he country. ''But .":•.-..h r reason ot die fa'me of N'\v to secure a pr >per share of the emie.ia-Us is :hc ah niaiion of the. general ion ,ie nt- '>y die recent fcatvial in 'he 0 v r meat office in London, and bv\ T .*v Zealand's lefjsal to give any i\ cogrTion for nomirated passage.-." The first of these two d IT) allies, Mr Buchanan remark*, d, had been over* come. The second was a very serious one. Queensland he cited as a striking

instance of the success of a liberal im« migration ] olicy. New Zealand, in spite of ev.. ything gets a -e*v families, but nothing like Queen-hnd, for which Mr Buchanan is booking an average of 300 passengers per month. At the 2nd of next month a special train will conn vey 180 emigrants booked by him down to the port of departure. What Queensland does is to take a man with his wife and family under eight years of age, for a single payment of on the sole condition that the father carries with him of capital They are all given a week's accommodation by the Government on landing and provided with positious. "See those .bundles there," he added, pointing to three piles of correst poudence, " they are all for Queensland. There's New Zealand over I there " —and my heart sank at the I shallowness of the pile. " The nomination system cuts into our New Zealand business horribly. If a father goes out first and then nominates his whole family for assisted passages, we get nothing for the family. You can come here as often as you like and yell about the advantages of one.colony over another, The emigrants are in our hands. You cannot be here always. You are entirely dependent on us, and we can send them practically where we want to. The first thing New Zealand should do is to cease that nominated business on the present terms. I tried to get them to do it, but they refused, so I simply obliterate everything about nomination from the literature. .Not a single pamphet recommending nomi«« ! nation goes out of this office. They j are simply wasting their literature, sending it to me with nomination schemes. The Australian States are all the same in this respect. West : Australia is not to bad, because it pays a bonus on the wife and family j when they arrive, New S)U h Wales I pays the bonus only if the man is wot king on the land. Queensland I does not yet give a bonus on nominated passages, but the Queensland assisted passages are so cheap that the J who'e family usually g-'es out at once. Canada pays full commission on the family as if they had gone out with the man. The nomination system, I am convinced, has done more harm for Australia than anything else.' We are net going to work for nothing," Mr Buchanan instanced regretfully a New Zealand case which had just come to hand that day. The father had gone out to New Zealand in advance and he now wanted his wife and family to be nominated. He was sorry to have to " turn down " such a case, but it was quite unremunerative business for the agents. Then in the matter of passagemoney New Zealand was a very unattractive proposiiion. An ironmaster with £i.ooo capital gets to Queensland with his wife and family for Another with a family of eleven, of whom three are over eighteen years of age, gets the whole lot to Queensland for and they are accommodated until established in positions. Look, on the other hand, at some New Zealand cases. A father with a family of eight, of whom three are over eighteen, had t0 P°y £9% ' n passage money. Another with a family of five pays £95. Ar.d it is not only the poo er class who appreciate the difference. Men with (npital are just as keen to save on their passage money as those without, They are gnirig chiefly to West Aus* tralia and Queensland, because they ■ue offered good te ins. New South Wcres, Mr Buchanan says, is practically dead.

" But," I object, " we in New Zealand cannot possibly make the offers of land that Queensland and West Aus« tralia can. - ' " I consider that a secondary consideration. The question is the cheap-' ening of tiie pasages. If we only had e decent scheme for New Z> aland, I hcli ve we could gjt a large number to g■> diere in preference to Xuura'ia. N--w Zealand has a good n me here, •and lam su-e i i; *he passage money th it keeps them from going."