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Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 555, 11 February 1878, Page 2

The delay that has occurred in securing the Oamaru immigrants per ships Wellington and Piako, and the inconvenience which that delay has occasioned to those requiring farm labourers, suggests the necessity for making some arrangement whereby such delay and its attendant evils may be obviated in the future. We cannot see that there would be any difficulty in booking immigrants at Home for Oamaru, which would fit once get over the trouble. The Assistant Immigration Officer stationed here would, a3 usual, forward to head quarters at Wellington a requisition stating the classes of immigrants likely to be necessary to meet the demands of this district aiid the number of each class. The Immigration authorities at Home would be instructed from Wellington in accordance with this requisition, and it would be their duty to forward from time to time the immigrants intended for Oainaru to say Port Chalmers, to be brought on by the first steamer taking its departure from Port Chalmers for Oamaru after the arrival of the immigrant vessels. There would then be none of the expense of sending immigrants to Caversham, to be crowded together as though they were so many sheep, or as culprits in a '-'Black Hole." The accommodation for immigrants at the Caversham barracks may be good and sufficient for those intended to find temporary accommodation there, but it is quite incapable of decently accommodating the numbers that are sometimes unnecessarily crowded iritj it. In addition to being unsatisfactory in every other respect, it is positively inhumane to cram the majority of the immigrants arriving for this provincial district into the small compass within the four walls (jf the Caversham barracks. This is a state of things that calls for some reformation, and the method we have suggested of overcoming the difficulty we submit is reasonable, and one that has been followed in regard to Invercargill, where it has worked well, It is faulty management, indeed, that would render it necessary for the farmers of this district to travel a hundred miles or thereabouts for the purpose of engaging their harvest laborers ; but that is evidently what the following advertisement in the Otago Daily Times means ; " Ship Wellington, from Glasgow, and Piako, from London,—The single men and women, and married couples, will be open for engagement at Caversham Depot on Saturday, 9th February, at 11 o'clock, a.m.— Colin Allan, Immigration Officer." Not only would this prove costly and take our farmers away from their farms at their busiest season, but, as it would probably be two or tln'ee .days after the announcement appeared in a Punedm paper before settlers requiring labourers could reach Dunedin, those living in the immediate vicinity of the city would have the first choice, which would mean that they were to be satisfied with farm servants who were not good enough for their more fortunate brethren. But the employers of labour must eitlier go to Dunedin and choose their labourers after the immigrants have been culled by others—even those that were intended for our district—or they must just bide the convenience of Mr. AII;4N. who, apparently, forwards them a portion of what remains of a decent shipment when he iljinks proper. Our settlers elect to do the latter, as being quite aa satisfactory as the former in its results, and much less expensive. The management of these matter? is not half so good as it might be.