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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4269, 25 November 1874, Page 2

A very large number of the immigrants who have arrived in Nelson by the ship Ocean Mail, it is stated, are natives of the Orkney and Shetland Islands. What could have induced Dr. Featherston to consign these immigrants to Nelson it is very ’hard to conceive. Orkneymeu and Shetlanders, though they do a little, a very little farming and wool-growing, and breed ponies, are all fishermen, and are mainly dependant upon the sea for their support. They are of the class fitly described as having . 1 One foot on land, and oiic on sea, To one thing constant never. In Nelson there is no field for them, either on shore or at sea. In Port Chalmers, or Lyttelton, or even Wellington, they would have been much more at home, and wotald have at once become useful colonists. At Nelson they will be literally lost, for even as mere farm laborers —which would not be at all congenial to their true nature—that province is unable to absorb them. This is clearly another blunder of the London agency.