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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4246, 29 October 1874, Page 2

The Tasmanian Tribune, a Hobarton newspaper, has a well-written article on the immigration question, in which the mischief which results from over-coloring, by the colony's agents in Europe, is very forcibly pointed out. Mr. Buck, :it appears, tvho was commissioned to Germany, wrote a pamphlet on the resources of Tasmania, which was translated into the Danish and Swedish languages, and largely circulated. This pamphlet, the .Tribune states, "purporting to " convey a true description of our "resources, natural and artificial, " was never exceeded by any production " of mere fancy, so far as; its mere pic- " torial character is concerned." Mr. Buck's efforts were not very successful, owing to the Franco-German war, but he mantged to send several hundred persons, whose accession to the Tasmanian poptlation at the time, we remember, was not rery agreeable to the public journals of tie colony. The bulk of the immigrants were stated to be persons ', in delictte health, or married couples with, families of helpless children. A few years pass by, and we have further light throvn upon the German immigration by the Tribune. We quote from its issue of October 10 :

Some three or four Hundred individuals were induced lo seek the new Eldorado of Mr. Buck's imagination,. and out of this number, short as; the time has been since their first arrival in the colony, not less than three-fourths of these imported and deluded foreigners have left us for the other colonies. The same may be said of the Scotch immigrants by the Persia, and of seven-eighths of the entire number, the cost of.-whoso passages and temporary support this colony is still taxed to provide the repayment. The desertion of the colony by those we have tempted and paid for coming among us is but a portion of the penalty our Nemesis exacts for the original fraud we committed by Imposing upon innocent and ignorant persons, and placing inducements before them which it was not in OU7 power to realise. The colonists, as well as the colony, were denounced by the tongues and voices of every escaped emigrant to the other colonies, and not a mail steamer ever crossed the ocean on its way to the Old World -that did not convey letters to the friends and relatives of our subsidised but deceived immigrants, denouncing us as a colony of cheats and swindlers, and cautioning all connected with them to beware of the tempters and circulators of unreliable publications in reference to Tasmania as a Held for emigrants.

This is not an encouraging result certainly, nor is the picture improved by the further statement, which is only too true, th<it native born Tasmanians, male and female, leave the colony for one or other of the Australian communities as soon as they can raise sufficient money to take them. There is no opening, we are told, for " small capitalists." The Crown land has been "sold to the land-sharks, whose " first care is that no industrious farm " laborer, small capitalist, or honest " domestic servant shall ever become free- " holders of the soil if they can help it." The condition and prospects of Tasmania are not without warning to us in New Zealand. We have, as a community, inaugurated a scheme of colonisation far greater than any which Tasmanian statesmen contemplated in their most energetic mood ; arid,'so far, with favorable results. But. there are weak points in our scheme, and these must be seen:to without delay or the colony will riot derive the fulles't benefit from its expenditure in promoting immigration. The crowning defect 'in- the Tasmanian system is the impossibility of the majority of the immigrants ever rising above the condition of day laborers ; the great weakness in the New Zealand scheme is, that while freeholds may certainly be obtained by industrious men, who save a little money, the Government has made no provision whereby the settlement of a small proprietary class on the Crown lands may be facilitated. Population is introduced and assisted to find employment, while the Provincial Governments are encouraged to compete with each other in the sale of the residue of the public estate to capitalists. This is a blemish, and a serious one, in oiir colonising policy. The people are not tied to the soil, as they might be ; and as in the case of Tasmania, when pressuro comes, as come it must in the natural order of things, many of our free immigrants will certainly leave tho colony for other places where they hope their labour may be better remunerated. Presently there is ho stint to the demand for labor; but facilities should be given to industrious men to obtain small farm sections, anywhere in the colony, and thus lessen competition in the labor market, and attach an industrial arid producing population to the soil.

Wo commend'this subject to the serious consideration of the Commissioner of Immigration and Lands. It will tax his ingenuity to/devise a - comprehensive measure for the entire colony, because any arrangement of a partial character cannot be satisfactory or assuring.