SCIENTIFIC EMIGRATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14819, 24 October 1911, Page 5

SCIENTIFIC EMIGRATION.

MR. SEDGWICK'S HOPES. DEFINITION OF " DOMESTIC." [FROM our OWN correspondent.] Londox, September 15. Mr. T. E. Sedgwick has written a letter to the boys in New Zealand who .formed his first party. In it ho says :— In some directions Trade and Labour is doing itself harm in New Zealand and Australia by objecting to even a scientific system of immigration. If all vacancies are first thrown open to New Zealandeas, and then only a number representing 75 per cent, of the balance are assi4*ed out to the Dominion on work at full wages being guaranteed for twelve months, the boom that would follow would bo unprecedented. More money would circulate and more work would bo available both in manufactures and public works. Even you fifty boys require £500 worth of clothing every year. The real danger to labour conditions in New Zealand and Australia lies in the shiploads of town men going out to look for certain forms of urban occupation -without knowing whether there is such work requiring their services or whether they would be likely to prove suitable for it. These are not assisted by the Government, but are often misled by the lies told them by some passenger agents who batten on the commission paid on the fares.

Thousands of good working girls who have been trained in housework in orphanages and other schools (including some of your own sisters) will welcome the chance of being apprenticed to mistresses in New Zealand when the Government decide to extend the scheme to girls for domestic service. There are also numbers of girls who are in teashops, but would like to go out to service, but as the law at present stands assisted passages are allowed only to girls who have worked for wages in domestic service at Home, some of whom go to tea'shops in New Zealand. I know three out of one party of 43 who did so. For certain places young widows with one child, or married couples, the man knowing all about horses, would be likely to prove most satisfactory. When the present limited interpretation of a " domestic servant" is expanded no New Zealanrl mother or householder need fear that they will not be able to get suitable labour at fair wages, and women will also come out for charing if required by the halfday. What this means to all classes only those who know their New Zealand can well realise. Perhaps the next Parliament will include an immigration reform in its propaganda. The money which the New Zealand Farmers' Union have so generously presented to me towards my expenses is all being devoted to further development of the scheme and to its extension to girls for domestic service. Other nations of Britons overseas contemplate following New Zealand's example, and I am developing as far as possible an emigration spirit amnog our authorities at Home. Mr. Sedgwick is also anxious to further a scheme for the emigration of telegraph boys who have to leave the service at a certain age and are handicapped in obtaining a livelihood in London. The official reply from the Postmaster-General for financial aid was unsympathetic.