THE NEED FOR STEAMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13725, 15 April 1908, Page 6

THE NEED FOR STEAMERS.

Although the shipping companies of the colony have done yeoman service and are organisations of which we have every reason to be nationally proud, it must be confessed that they are not keeping pace with the demands being made upon them both by passengers and traders. Overcrowding has become so common on the coast that it is almost accepted as an inevitable state of affairs, whereas it ought to be an exceedingly exceptional and occasional happening. It is to be hoped that the management of our leading coasting companies will take the matter into practical consideration, for there is not the slightest evidence that the past and present seasons are in any way extraordinary, but every reason to anticipate that they will be repeated year after year. What is true of the coasting services is equally true of the more extended run to the Commonwealth. The Auckland-Sydney steamers are perpetually crowded, and are not now the class of steamers which progressive ideas lead travellers to expect. The Sydney steamers, although usually good of their class, are relatively inferior to those which make somewhat similar runs in other parts of the world. The tourist traffic of the Dominion undoubtedly suffers from the absence of highclass steamer connection between New Zealand and the great liners which' make their final port in Sydney, as much as it does from the comparative hardships of' rail and steamer travel within and upon our coasts. It would be greatly to the advantage of the colony, and should be equally to the advantage of the companies, if services adequate to the various runs were provided and provided in a permanent and reliable instead of in a temporary and spasmodic way. While dealing with the steamer service to Australia, it must be noticeable to everybody that there is an unduly and extraordinarily large emigration in the steerage from New Zealand to the Commonwealth. There is ajways a certain drift to "the other side" at this season of the year, but it would be much less than it is if land were available to those would-be

settlers who seek it here but cannot find it. Every industrious man who goes away when we might have kept him with us is a distinct loss to the State, and this emigration is not creditable to the Government nor advantageous to the community. It ■emphasises the urgent need that exists for a more vigorous land settlement policy. While recognising the efforts that are being made by the Government to open up land for occupation, it is notorious that their efforts fall far short of meeting the clamorous demand. For this there is no reasonable excuse. The Government have the means at their command of enormously increasing the rate at which land settlement is progressing, and if they were in earnest would employ them without stint. The pressing want of New Zealand is more population, but population only flows to those new countries where land can be easily and readily obtained. The Government, therefore, are really retarding the advancement and prosperity of the Dominion by their dilatory and unbusinesslike methods of dealing with the land available for settlement.