The Southland Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1875.

Southland Times, Issue 2054, 18 January 1875, Page 2

The Southland Times. MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1875.

"Expedience teaches fools," the proverb says; but it must be admitted that there are exceptions. Some people will not learn on any terms. Nothing has been more clearly shown, as the result of repeated trials, than that the introduction of population into a new country promotes the general prosperity of the community. Work becomes abundant, wages rule high, and trade is brisk, so long as the vivifying stream of population continues to flow in. There can be no doubt about the fact. The experiment has answered wherever it has been tried. Yet, there are people who persist in decrying immigration. They profess that they are afraid it will bring down wages. It is of little use to appeal to facts which prove diametrically the reverse. Facts have no weight with such wise- ! acres ; their own fancies and reasoniugs are better guides, in their opinion, than all the lessons of experience. Sometimes such teachers gain the ear of a community, and manage to shape its public policy for a time. The neighboring Colony of Victoria furnishes just now an instructive example of the results of such political quackery. The policy of that country has been for some years past to exclude, as far as possible, both the productions and the producers of the home country from competition with its own native industry. The result is strikingly brought out by the Argus, in a recent article, in which the late presentation by the Girvan weavers of this district to the -Rev. Mr Coeson is made the text of an excellent homily on the good results of a well-conducted immigration policy. There is no doubt the Argus is right, Contrast the position of these meu now with their lot in the old country. Aud who, we should be glad to know, has suffered by the process which has made the Girvan weavers prosperous settlers in New Zealand, instead of what they were ? Not their fellow -colonists, certainly. On the contrary, the presence of such a number of good colonists has been a gain to the community in which they have made their homes. The emigration of the Girvan weavers was not thought a very promising experiment, and yet it furnishes an admirable proof of the soundness of the immigration policy, aud its good results, both for the immigrants themselves aud the country to which they come. But there has been co immigration for some years to Victoria, and it the anti-immigration theorists are right, that country should present a picture of prosperity as compared with New Zealand, which lor the past three years has pursued the policy of immigration with all the resources at her command. Bat what are the facia? How does New Zealand compare with Victoria in all the essentials of national prosperity? The answer is instructive. New Zealand is advancing with rapid strides, while Victoria, for the present^ remains but a laggard in the race of progress. In New Zealand wages are higher than in Victoria; population is increasing, the revenue is increasing, and ""he savings of the people are increasing, l . ra^ to which Victoria can offer no nariUeY" The 1 commercial and social lotivity of the people, a 8 shown by telegraph and postaJ statistics, is also very appreciably gmti? in New Zealand than in the 'larger and mgye populous Colony. The opponents of an enti^tpapd immigration policy could hardly have a better aower tp itheir a,bß,urd theories than the comparison dya-wU- by the Argus between the two colonies at i\ie present time. Reason and argument, hosier, are thrown away upon people who argue

as if it were possible to import; what they call " labor" in the abstract. "We caunot have labor without mea, and men, while they may represent so much " labor," represent so much consumption also. The human body is not entirely composed of hands and arms, for the pur- { poses of labor, as these gentlemen seem to think. There are mouths to feed, and in the case of the working man, generally more mouths than his own. A demand for house accommodation, for clothing, for the thousand and one articles which go to compose the "little" which man wants here below, are all the necessary concomitants of what is called, in a onesided way, the introduction of labor. Hence the solution of the apparent paradox, which puzzles the theorists — that the introductioa of population to a new country does not lower the rate of wages, but rather tends to increase the general prosperity of the community. Perhaps the most striking illustration of difference in the present condition of the two Colonies that has yet been furnished, will be found in a telegram in another column. Five thousand persons are willing to transfer themselves and their labor from Victoria — the land of protection and freedom from the competition of free immigration — to New Zealand. Comment on this remarkable fact is unnecessary.