A GREAT MISTAKE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1797, 15 August 1906, Page 42

A GREAT MISTAKE

It is supposed that the s.s. Mamari, which arrived from London on Aug. 13, will bo the last steamer to bring “navvy" immigrants to this colony under the arrangements made by the late Premier. The cancellation of this schemo of immigration was one of the first acts of the Hon. Mr Hall-Jones when ho became Premier. The scheme, as thought out by Mr Seddon, who sought to introduce a number of unskilled labourers of the right sort to meet the demands made by the many public works in progress, and particularly the more rapid prosecution of railway works, was quite right in theoiy; but, through bungling in London, the men were told something far removed from actual fact about tho conditions of life in the “back-blocks’’ (where the bulk oi them have gone to railway track construction works), the cost of living, and other important matters affecting their immediate interests at this end. The scheme was practically condemned from tho outset, yet each steamer brought its quota of men more or less unfit for pioneering work in virgin country in wintertime. Further, men were sent out without a single penny to “bless themselves with," and so much “up against the world" that the Labour Department had fo supply the poor wretches with blankets as some sort of stay against the rigours of mid-winter at Ohakune. Tlie greatest mistake of all was the sanctioning of the immigration of penniless married couples with families of young children, all having been primed with exactly the reverse idea of tho conditions they had to face in this country. No fewer than five married couples, without a single shilling and all with children, arrived the other day by the Morayshire, and were duly supplied with blankets and deported to Ohakune, which is at this time of the year, from all accounts, a place that Edgar Allan Poo would revel in describing in his misery -drenched language. Tliere was no one with a knowledge of what really was taking place but did not bless Mr Hail-Jones’s prompt action in the matter, which dammed back the flow of grocers, clerks, and poor city-bred folks who were only too ready) to grope their way out of the social miasma of England’s great cities, at the expense of tackling work in another land for which half of them were totally unfit. Doubtless, many of those who did come along under tho colony’s great “wanted” advertisement will find avenues that will lead to a brighter and happier life than they could ever hope to win in England, but that does not in the least justify the cruel hardship that many women and children immigrants have suffered and aro suffering in the centre of this island.