A FIELD FOR IMMIGRATION AGENTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3183, 19 April 1872, Page 2

A FIELD FOR IMMIGRATION AGENTS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir—A gentleman long resident in this Province recently arrived from Scotland, after sojourning there for fourteen months. Remaining only for a short time in his native place, he resolved to visit some of the northern counties, that he might ascertain the social condition of the people, and their views on emigration to this Colony. On his travels he met with ample materials for colonisation—crofters, fishermen, stout young men and women, passing a semi-idle existence, and mostly in poor circumstances. In his journeys the sight of flesh meat was a great rarity, the high price ruling for that commodity precluding the people from indulging in it. The staple necessaries of life were the inevitable oat meal cakes, potatoes, and fish, and among the poorer classes little of either. Much ignorance prevails about New Zealand and its resources. In some parts of of Inverness-shire, which he visited, many had never heard of the Colony, and others associated it with Maori cannibalism. One day last summer, the gentleman in question entered a respectable house in the' County of Ross, in which he .found an aged couple with grown-up sons and daughters, in complete idleness, and very poor, their whole worldly possessions consisting of a few articles of furniture and a solitary cat. Accepting of their hospitality for anight, he requested the neighbours to be collected, that he might give them information about this Province and the Colony in general. They were greatly surprised when told of the climate, the price of land, and the comforts enjoyed by the poorest here, and declared with one accord that they would gladly emigrate as assisted passengers, but were totally at a loss how to obtain the necessary instruction. Many thousands are in the same position, and my informant recommends that the Agents be supplied with Gaelic tracts for distribution among the people of these northern counties. But the great barrier to emigration from thence is the want of funds to defray their expenses to the port of embarkation. Nearer the centres of industries he found considerable prejudices existing against the Province, no doubt in consequence of the discouraging letters sent occasionally to the newspapers. Last week a few Highlanders who deplore the condition of many of their countrymen, many of whom are in indigent circumstances, met privately, and it was thought desirable to send a memorial to the General Government, praying for the same conditions being

granted to poor Highlanders asljScaiuKnavians. It was also suggested thatiKighlana: Society be formed here for thp.Jpurpose of rendering assistance in clothing, and defraying their expenses to the port of embarkation. In the meantime, it was suggested that the matter should be ventilated in the Times, and your able assistance obtained to advocate the cause, —I am, &c, Old Identity.