The Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 6, 1876.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 196, 6 December 1876, Page 2

The Evening Mail.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 6, 1876.

" Worst* are thinsrs. and a drop of ink falling upon a ttwrajjhll may produce ihat which makes thousands think."

" The cry is still they come!" It -would appear the tide of immigration is to hare no cessation, bat like the river in song is to "flow on for ever." Notwithstanding the hard straggle throagh which this Province as wcil as other part 3 of the Colony has jost passed, and even now at the very busiest and best time of the year, with men glad to secure work at five shillings a day, taking the chance of broken weather, no instructions seems to

have been forwarded to the Immigration Department to cease the chartering of vessels, at least for a time. On the contrary, the exodus appears to have recommenced with renewed vigor, and at the present time there are considerably over one thousand immigrants consigned to our shores. Under date November 22, tbe Agent-General telegraphs the departure of the following vessels :—For Wellington, the Leicester, with 340; for Otago, the Marlborough, having 239 on board; the Waipa and Wellington, for Canterbury, with CGO ; and the Hurunui, whose destination is not stated. Sow we, in Otago, have had pretty good experience within the past few months of the great dearth of employment which has existed, and although hitherto there has been ample field for female labor, unfortunately other portions of the Colony arc beginning to cry out against the glut in market. In Auckland female domestic servants are so plentiful at the present time that it defies the registry offices to find employment for them, and many young women who are out of engagements are in destitute circumstances in consequence- The local papers endorse these leports, and further add that several servant girls have recently accepted engagements at less than half the usual rate, owing to their being utterly without the means of subsistence. With female labor so much in demand at this end of the Colony, it is hard for us at a distance to understand why the reverse should be the case in the North Island ; but that it is so is indisputable. We have repeatedly protested against the injudicious flooding of the labor market, regardleas of its overstosked state. We are perfectly aware that a healthy stream of population is mo3t desirous for a young Colony ; but to be of service it must be properly regulated, so that it may prove a blessing instead of the reverse. Even though it be granted that there will be plenty of work both bj' the shearing and harvesting for the next three months, t'.iose immigrants will just arrive at the time when the great rush of the year i.s almost completed, and with the older hands thus thrown out of employment, they stand but a poor chance in a strange country.