The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, MAY l, 1800.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9092, 1 May 1890, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, MAY l, 1800.

That waa an instructive Conference iu London the other day about colonisation. There are, as all the world, knows, a good many people in the world who are still sanguine enough to behevo that the Colonies of Great Britain in the temperate zone present large fields of colonisation. To these fields they look as the factor which is to solve the problem of population by making places for the congested millions of the great centres. Henry George may prate of nationalisation of the land ; Liberals who ought to bo Tories may preach about “ three acres and a cow Socialists may demand the settlement of the whole surplus population on the lauds. These are as nothing to the believer in emigration, who has of late years acquired considerable force and influence. He has indeed founded a school which must be reckoned in any solution of tho labour question that may bo proposed. One of tho strong points in tho platform of this school is that the Colonies must necessarily always be with them. Their groat want is population: they never lose an opportunity of advertising this want: it is the continual boast of the Australasian Colonists that their countries' will carry millions where now they carry hundreds of thousands. From these repeated boasts, it is a legitimate conclusion that tho Colonies will be found ready to assist any groat, well-considered scheme of colonisation as soon as it is given to tho light. Our own repeated assertions have given the emigration school the right to count on our support whenever they have a scheme of colonisation to carry out. Colonial assurance has made them doubly sure.

To this school the Conference must have been peculiarly and especially instructive. The representatives of these Colonies that are dying for more people hummed and ha’d in the most provoking manner when the question of a colonisation scheme was raised. Colonisation really seemed to afreet them very much as the flogging did the soldier in the story. He did not like it high, he did not like it

low, he did not like it half-way, he did not like in any shape or form. The advocate of emigration must have a shrewd suspicion that the Colonies do not want an increase of population from without at any price, on any terms whatever. The excuses of the Agents-Geneval were so very thin and queer. The representative of Queensland bluntly told the Conference that there was no more land available in his Colony for European colonisation. An astonished member seems to have remarked, in a gasping sort of way, that he had always understood there were large quantities of waste lands still in the hands of the Crown in that dependency. To which the Agent-General seems to have answered that it was quite true the waste lands were extensive, but that not one acre was situated under a climate fit for European labour. All the country fit for European labour has passed into private hands ; the rest, which is only fit for kanakas, coolies, or negroes, forms the area of the waists lands. Of course, this statement was quite contrary to fact, and the Queensland Agent-General, if he made it, as reported, deliberately said what he knew to be untrue. As people who enquire and mark nowadays know a good deal more than the same class had the opportunity of knowing some years ago, it is probable that the emigration school knew that the Queensland Agent-General was deliberately telling a falsehood. What a commentary on the boasted desire for more people. Inow South Wales supplied another experience. Sir Saul Samuel declared that no immigration could be sanctioned by the Government of his Colony, unless the approval of these Colonists was left in the hands of the agents of the Government. This is no more than any Colony has a right to demand, and it is, no doubt, also not more than any colonisers with a scheme would bo prepared to exact. But Sir Saul Samuel went on to say there were too many unemployed in his Colony, and to declare that people with colonising schemes, even if acting in concert with the British Government, might not have the same facilities in the purchase of land as are accorded to the people of the Colony. The squatter, it seems, can acquire acres by the hundred thousand (to the great disorganisation of a good deal of the banking business of the Colony) ; but the British public, which once owned the land, and handed it over in trust to tho Colony for the benefit of mankind, must be content to bo kept back.

The Colonial authorities are quite right to be very careful in this matter. They cannot allow any kind of riff-raff to be thrown on their shores with nothing before them but to join the already too great army of the unemployed. The Colonies are not precisely the places where rubbish can be shot by whoso listeth. If the Colonists regard with some suspicion people whose primary object is to get a useless population out of their country, and thank Heaven they are rid of them, such suspicion is but natural. This is but reasonable caution. At the same time Colonists have no reason to go beyond reasonable caution. They ought to be glad to accept any good schema of colonisation, and welcome any body of colonists that may bo brought out under it, having reasonable prospect of supporting themselves under it. That is the logical consequence of our own repeated words; it is also the natural course of events for a country which, carrying a small population, is able to maintain one twenty times the size. We should be prepared to meet all colonising schemes half-way, with the smile of welcome that is given to benefactors, retaining the right to cross-question and examine, in*order to be sure that hare-brained enthusiasts have not imposed upon everybody, including themselves. But this is not the attitude of the AgentsGeneral at the Colonising Conference. Those who spoke seemed to be rather Sliding reasons for refusing to have anything to say to any possible sort of a scheme .of colonisation, One of

them strained his inventive powers to keep the colonising people from looking at his another frankly said he did not think they would get fair play. In the face of these things it would! not be surprising if there came a. revulsion of feeling at Home against Australasia and everything Australasian. That is the reason why men are realising that when the lands were handed over to the various Colonies' they were cut off indeed. It is also' the reason why there is such strong: opposition to the demand of Western Australia for Home Rule.