THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1907. BRITISH EMIGRATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13493, 21 May 1907, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1907. BRITISH EMIGRATION.

The movement to secure co-opera-tive action between the various emigration agencies of the United Kingdom and . the colonial Governments has received some encouragement from both Mr. Deakiri and SixJoseph Ward. It must be confessed, however, that the matter remains in a very nebulous condition, and that we are still very far removed from the establishment of a - concrete method and satisfactory system. In the case of the Commonwealth, this is ascribed by Mr. Deakin to the necessity for looking to the various State authorities for land; in the case of New Zealand it is largelydue to the stubborn determination of the Administration to force upon our settlers a form of tenure which is hopelessly obnoxious to all true agriculturists. As long as this attitude is persisted in by our New Zealand Government we must expect to see Canada, South Africa, and the Commonwealth, in spite of their climatic disadvantages, much more popular than this colony among intending British emigrants. * At the same time, the population needs of New Zealand are so great and its capacity for absorbing labour so per- • sistQct, that we may hope to benefit by '-the increasing pressure which is compelling our British kindred to look v for . better opportunity 4 oviSr seas. At the Imperial Conference both Sir Joseph Ward and Mr. Deakin frankly informed Lord Elgin that under no circumstances would they consent to waive the colonial right to discriminate against immigrants I whose influx might endanger the national character of our colonial settlement. That this contention is as much in the interests of the people of the United Kingdom as of the people of these colonies can be easily seen by reference to the extraordinary situation which has arisen at Home. Under any. circumstances, when population increases at a more rapid rate than employment there must always be a pressure making for emigration, but a very considerable part of the present British emigration movement is unmistakably due to the blind indifference of British statesmen to alien immigration. From 1903 to 1905, inclusive, over 300,000 European immigrants took up their residence in the United Kingdom, as against some 800,000 persons of British birth who emigrated from their native land. The kindred Teutonic nations of Europe contribute but little to this' continental colonisation of our Mother Country, the alien influx being almost wholly composed of what we may fairly term the inferior nationalities against whom the United States is now endeavouring to bar her long-open doors. England is thus being steadily denationalised— multitudes of her own sons and daughters being driven abroad, not by the normal increase of 'the population, but by the thrusting of alien hordes against whose capacity to thrive without the ordinary comforts of civilisation no English class can possibly compete. The same fate would befall our colonial populations if we abjured our national instincts and made no racial distinctions at our ocean ports.-

j Whatever the actual causes may be, there has been a steady growth 'in British emigration during the past ten years, nor has this yet reached its possible maximum, for the in-1 crease of population by excess of births over deaths, in the United Kingdom, is about half-a-million annually, enough" to duplicate numerically, every decade, the entire present population of British Australasia. In the last decade, British emigration has lifted from under 150,000 to nearly 300,000 annually, but though it has practically, doubled, there is still every prospect of its doubling itself again if our colonial Govern-1 ments can only reach the right men and women and can smooth their j passage from the Old Land to the new ones. Canada has systematically exerted itself in this direction ; aided by its comparative nearness and by its tremendous tracts of arable land it has scored a phenomenal success. The rise in wheat j will be as advantageous to the Do-' minion as the' establishment of the butter export trade was to New Zealand, and the increased prosperity of her farmers will naturally prove an attraction to the British multitudes who are now in personal com[munication with friends and relatives

on Canadian soil. The same recovery from unprofitably low prices, lif sustained, will have an encouraging effect upon emigration from England to the wheat-growing districts of Australia and South Africa. Nor is this in any way detrimental to our New Zealand immigration, if the Government is wise enough to keep our claims steadily in front of the British public. For the great difficulty is to persuade the man whose family j has been for ages in one spot, who has been bred amid associations It-hat bind him with a thousand ties, to think of living his life out in a distant land. How much example |assists in this persuasion may be judged by the very limited areas which contribute the great majority of British emigrants. Emigration fosters emigration when emigrants succeed, for ' L . makes men and women dissatisfied with the constrained conditions that surround them and turns their thoughts to the possibilities and opportunities of colonial I life. And of New Zealand it can truthfully be said that no industrious man need be idle, nor fear that his children will not have fair opportunity ; and that it offers ample and promising employment, in a score of ways, for capital and talent. We could wish that our Government would cease legislative experimenting and confine its industrial attentions for a time to such commonplace matters as railway trucks. But we all know that the great body of our colonists is so deeply concerned in the maintenance of our prosperity that even legislation, will never be allowed to go very far astray. So that, by constant advertising of our unique advantages—of climate, of nationality, of assured and steady progress—and by adequate reduction in cost of passage, we may reasonably expect to gain a considerable increase of population from the British emigration movement. And every intelligent colonist knows that unless we very considerably increase our British population we cannot hope to permanently hold New Zealand as a British colony.