THE PRESS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1870.

Press, Volume XVI, Issue 2162, 23 March 1870, Page 2

THE PRESS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1870.

The Provincial Council was employed upon the immigration question again last night, and a thin House decided against the amendment that immigration should be carried on by the General Government. The debate, though not very long, was dreary. The principal speeches had been made on the former evening, and the speakers who followed seemed to have no fresh information or argument to contribute. An hour or so was spent in tedious iteration of a few phrases. The cuckoo cry of " the land fund in danger " was raised as usual; and the Council was assured by several members, with a confidence not supported by facts, that the Northern provinces were decidedly averse to immigration. The only gleam of animation that enlivened the debate was due to a tinge of personality imparted to it by the Provincial Solicitor, who taxed the mover of the amendment with seeking to arrive at his object by a side wind. The charge, as was eagerly pointed out, was entirely unfounded. Mr Knight brought forward his motion originally as a substantive resolution, but withdrew it, with the consent of the Government, avowedly with the intention of moving it as an amendment to /the Government resolutions, so that the whole subject of immigration might come before the Council at the same time. As to the alarm expressed for the safety of the land fund, until some one shows how the proposed change in the immigration system would throw it in the i—t. CAi.~ rx ~i r\ _„. T— lare justified m assuming that the danger exists only in the imagination of the alarmists. As to the other point, the alleged disinclination of the Northern provinces to admit immigrants, it was equally uncorroborated, and is at variance with the fact that the leading journals in the island deplore the stoppage of immigration, and call on the General Assembly to take it up as a matter of vital importance to the whole colony. But even if the ease were sp ; if parts of the North Island were as ill disposed towards immigration as has been represented; it would be none the less desirable. The advantage to the colony of having the peace of the North Island secured by an increase of tha European population ; the advantage to the Middle Island in particular of the consequent reduction of the defence expenditure and of the proportion of its contributions to the general revenue; are none the less obvious and none the less worth trying after. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect members of a Provincial Council to extend j their views one inch beyond their own province. But when we hear them descanting so glibly on the benefits of immigration, declaring it an absolute necessity and the only means of raising the province out of depression,we cannot help wishing they would recollect how every argument they use on behalf of immigration here applies with force to other provinces as well —that they too are in a state of depression, that for them too immigration is a necessity and the only means of restoring them to prosperity — that until they escape from their present state they will be a burden on provinces more fortunate —and that even for the interests of Canterbury it would be better not to dwell exclusively on the affairs of this single province, but to give an occasional thought to what will best serve the interests and advance the progress of the whole colony.