WHY NOT NEW ZEALAND?

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13743, 26 May 1910, Page 8

WHY NOT NEW ZEALAND?

OUR POSITION IN THE IMMIGRATION" MARKET. AN AGENTS CRITICISMS. (fbou otte own correspondent.) LONDON, April 15. While in Glasgow this week I took tho opportunity of making some enquiries into the trend of emigration from -tho Clyde, which has sent so many of the best class of settlers to the New Zealand field. At the present moment emigration from the United Kingdom to North. America and Australasia is, or is supposed to be, unusually brisk. Etery day the tariff reform papers make an object-lesson of this exodus which has now for the first time been brought to light.

There are probably some hundreds of Scots settlers in New Zealand who arc personally acquainted with Mr Moses Buchanan, at present the best-known emigration agent north of the Tweed. I found him in his office in Ronfield stiect up to his eyes with correspondence and callers. There was no mistaking the significance of all -This activity, and I longed to hear that NewZealand was getting her share of the fine manhood and womanhood which Scotland is now pouring forth to the new countries of the West.

Yet it was not to be so. "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 not get our share '(" "I put it down to the action of the New Zealand Government that emigration is being turned aside. In the first place, they have cancelled assisted passages except during three months of tho year, and even when they are in operation they are the poorest terms in the whole of Australasia. The Aew Zealand Government, too, does not guarantee emigrants employment when they land. They simply' havo to shift for themselves. Then we have Had some very bad reports as to tho attitude of the Labour Party in New Zealand. They evidently object to mechanics and unskilled labourers going into the country.

"But another reason of tho failure of New Zealand to secure a proper share of the emigrants is tho alienation of the general emigration agents by the recent, scandal in the Government office in London, and by New- Zealand's refusal to givo any recognition for nominated passages."

The first of these two difficulties, All Buchanan remarked, had been overcome. Tho second was a very serious one. Queensland he cited as a striking instance of the success of a liberal immigration policy. New Zealand, in spite of everything gets a few families, but nothing like Queensland, for which Mr Buchanan is booking an average of 31)0 passengers per month. At the end of next month a special train will convey 180 emigrants booked by him down to tho port of departure. What Queensland does is to take a man with his wife and family under eight years of ago, for a single payment of £5 on the sole condition that the fathor carries with him £50 of capital. They are all given a week's accommodation by tho Government on landing and provided with positions. "See thoso bundles there," he added, pointing to three piles of correspondence, "they are all for Queensland. There's New Zealand over there"—and my heart sank at the shallowness of tho 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, wo Bet nothing for tie family. You can come hero as often as you liko and yell about tho advantages of one colony over another. The emigrants are in out hands. You cannot be here always. You are entirely dependent on us, and we can send them practically where we want to. Tho first, thing New Zealand should do is to cease that nominated business on the present terms. I tried to got them to do it, but they refused, so 1 simply obliterate everything about nomination from the literature. Not a single pamphlet recommending nomination goes out of this office. They are simply wasting their literature, sending it to mc with nomination schemes. 'Tho Australian States are all the same in this respect.- "West Australia is not so bad, because it pays a bonus on the wife and family when they arrive. New South Wales pays tho bonus only if the man is working on the land. Queensland does not yet give a bonus on nominated passages", but the Queensland assisted passages are so cheap that the whole family usually goes out at once. Canada pays full commission ou the family as if they had pone" out with the man. The nomination system, I am convinced, has dorio more harm for Australia than anything else. We are not going to work for nothing." %Mi Buchanan instanced regretfully a New Zealand case which had iust come to hand that day. Tho father had gone out to New Zealand in advance, and ho now wanted his wife and family to bo nominated. He was sorry to havo to. have to "turn down" such a case, but it .was quite unromuncrativc business for the agente. Then in the matter of passage-money Now Zealand was a very unattractive proposition. An ironmaster with £1000 capital gets to Queensland with his wife and family for £5. Another with family of eleven, of whom threo.are over eighteen years of age. gets the s>S°. i *° Queensland for £20, 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 to pay £98 in passage-money. Another with a family of five nays" £95. And it is not.only the poorer class who appreciate the difference. Men with capital aro just as keen to save on then- passage-money as those without. They are going chiefly to West Australia and Queensland, because they are offered good terms. New South Wales. Mr Buchanan says, is practically dead.

,! But," T object, "wo in Xcw Zealand cannot possibly make the offers of land that Queensland and West Australia can."

" T consider that a secondary consideration. The question is the cheapening of the passages. If we only had a decent scheme for New Zealand, I believe we could get a large number to go there in preference to Australia. New Zealand has a good name here, and I am sure it is tho passage-money that keeps them from going."