"SNARING" IMMIGRANTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 174, 25 July 1907, Page 4

"SNARING" IMMIGRANTS.

The revelations concerning the methods of the Immigration League in Australia make very unpleasant reading. We need not hesitate to accept the assurance of the State and Commonwealth authorities that they disapprove the dodges re-

sorted to by Dr. Arthur, President of the Sydney branch of the League, and all the more readily because the exposure is likely to act as a warning and a preventive; but the fact remains that many people must have been induced to emigrate to Australia by improper representations. There can be no valid excuse for the advice given by Dr. Arthur to his colleagues in Melbourne. . The letter, the substance of which appeared in our cable messages on Tuesday, is a fine piece of heartless cynicism. " Don't mix up immigration and land settlement in your pamphlet in,the immigrationbook," writes the worthy Doctor; " everything must be cbuleur de rose —no hint of difficulty about getting land. You needn't be afraid that you will be rushed; even when Queensland offered cheap farms in London there was only one applicant. As regards land settlement for home (Victorian) constimption, you can be as pessimistic and indignant, as you like—the blacker the better; though don't get too much on the line, 'Where is the use of inviting immigrants here when we have nothing to offer them ?' That would choke off subscriptions [to the League!]. Anyhow, don't do anything to frighten off immigrants, because competition for,them is so severe in Europe, and even if the conditions changed for the better in Victoria you might find that it was of no avail, as you had given the place a bad reputation." Dr. Arthur, when he was taxed with the impropriety of writing this letter, explained that he was dealing with the matter in a "colloquial " fashion, just as a politician who has committed an apparently gross breach of Parliamentary etiquette pleads that he spoke* in a Pickwickian sense.

Unfortunately it is only too well known that this sort of colloquialism is made to look like truth in the eyes of the likely immigrant, and he leaves the Old Country only to find on arrival at Sydney or Melbourne that the only vacancy for him is in the janks of the unemployed. Australia is a country of immense possibilities, • and there is room there for many millions of people; but it is not big enough for one man of the wrong sort, of the sort not fitted to adapt himself to the con-, ditions prevailing, or to overcome them. There is no need to particularise, because we have had even in New Zealand instances that sufficiently illustrate the: point. - The Government of this country, has never, so far as we know, induced people to come here by representing the chances of employment or investment to lie other than they were and are; but we have more than once been in danger of getting the thing done for us by semi-official or soi disant agents,1- particularly in America. The utmost vigilance should be exercised in checking this' most insidious evil. The position laid down by the Acting-Premier of Victoria, though it may be a theory in some parts of the Commonwealth—we have reason to think it is exiremely theoretical in Western Australia-—should always be a matter of "stern practice with us . The-Victorian .J^Einister said, in reference to the Arthur episode:—"l utterly disapprove of any method which w.ill not bear tho closest scrutiny. The position should be stated exactly as it exists, and then no newcomer can say that he was. deceived, either by our painting things too attractively or by the suppression,of facts." This is admirably put, and worthy of being remembered.