The Southland Times. FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1875.

Southland Times, Issue 2092, 26 March 1875, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1875.

How to increase most rapidly and permanently the population of New Zealand is one of the most important questions that her statesmen have had to determine. This truth is felt keenly throughout the colony, and no other portion of the great scheme for advancing its prosperity is more closely or jealously watched than that which touches Immigration. It would be superfluous to speak of our need of more people, whether we look to the present or to the future. The almost immediate disappearance of every fresh importation and the excessive rates which labor continues to command are the best testimony to our existing wants. We seem to be far from the point when the influx of workers shall have overtaken the demands, even of industries that are already established. An advance into new fields must be looked for by all who are acquainted with the character and resources of the country. But thia advaace is contingent mainly on the condition of the labor market. We are no foes to the prosperity of the working-man ; but there is such a thing as the commodity which he has to dispose of obtaining rather more than its share of what it contributes to produce. Until something like an equilibrium be established between the claims of the capitalist on the one hand and of the laborer on the other, there will be no free development of the industrial life of the coUmy. Such a balance can be restored only by the continuance of Immigration, i At another point' we feel, somewhat sensitively, our lack of numbers. The coat of a Government so elaborate in ita

method and' so manifold in ita aims as I the one among us falls with depressing weight on a small community. What can or ought to be done iri.the way of retrenchment of our administrative expenditure is not the question that we desire to discuss now. Judging from past experience, the effort at reform will not be a hopeful one, and we must look rather to the resource of finding new colonists, who will divide our burdens while assuring, -as we" trust, their own prosperity. Every man — of the .right stamp at least— coming to a new country is an accession of wealth. A laborer, in Borne capacity, possibly a capitalist, and at least a tax-payer, he is an addition to the body politic that it is worth an earnest effort, even at some cost, to secure. We are entitled to congratulate our-. selves on the success that the Groverny ment's Immigration Policy has alread" achieved, and on the respectable figures that now represent our population. It is quite true that quality is an element not to be overlooked in the estimate, and that exception may be fairly taken to the quality of some of our importations. But too much may be made of this, and in any great scheme for attracting population we must lay our account to receiving a proportion that, in the beginning at least, will be neither our ornament nor our strength. Let us trust that, on the whole, we have acquired what will prove a sound as well as a large addition to the commonwealth. We find it stated that during the year 1874 no fewer than 44,954 immigrants were landed in New Zealand, and that, adding these to the European inhabitants in the colony at December, 1873 (and not reckoning, we presume, the nataral increase of the followiug year), there was shown at the end of 1874 a total of 340,900 souls. A nucleus this for an imposing population at no very distant day. Attention is apt, at present, to fix itself exclusively on immigration ; but we turn with far greater confidence to natural increase as the " promise and potency" of the future. The children born and to be born in the country must be looked to as our hope and dependence. Some year* it was ~««^uuued thafe one-half the existing population of Victoria had been bora on the soil, This fact gives an idea of the force with which mere natural increase tells on the numbers of a people. But we are not to be measured in this respect even by Victoria, Not to dwell on what we believe to be the more prolific character of the British race settled in these islands, it is notorious that we have a climate that spares children in such a way as to make a comparison in this respect a sad one for Victoria. That this country maintains the European race in a vigor probably beyond that known in any other quarter of the globe is another fact that may warrant us in putting a high estimate on our future numbers. It is calculated by political economists that, in ordinary circumstances, a population may be expected to double itself in twenty-five years. But the population of New Zealand is in circumstauces propitious to a degree far beyond the average ; and, without pretending to a precise calculation, it may not be too sanguine to reckon that, under the combined influences of continued immigration, natural increase, and a favoring climate, the point of duplication may be reached in fifteen years ; giving us at the lapse of that period a population of about 700,000. This is a consideration to make our hearts light in looking to the future, and we may as well take all the encouragement.