IMMIGRATION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2123, 23 October 1875, Page 2

IMMIGRATION.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sir,—Were I in receipt of £2 per week I should write such an article on those out of work, and the colony in general, as you have done. Now, what the labouring men complain of here is, that only one side of the question is taken up by th« papers ; but directly they want to prove the facts they are not allowed space in the papers, and their only resource is a public meeting. I have no wish for public meetings, nor public commotions. My only wish is to raise the condition of the labouring classes, that by so doing I may better my own. To do that our case must be understood, which I say is not by men who do not earn their living by manual labour. For some four months in the year '50 I have earned in Victoria £2 per day ; in the year '63 I have been receiving £6 or £7 per week; in the year '51, when wages were so high, every one was doing well. In '63 I hare seen as much squalid misery in Melbourne as I have seen in London. Now to your remarks. You give a higher rate of wages for the agricultural classes at home than I expected, and I shall be contented to say no more about the wages here if you, sir, will show that an agricultural labouring, man, either here or in any of the other provinces, as a rule, will average half the work bs would get at home. In my former letter I called your attent on, or rather tried to, to the fact that Mr Atkinson alluded to a meeting having been held of the " so-called" unemployed in Dunedin, so that I have been alluding to Dunedin in my former letter as well as here. Sir, I would not trouble you, but this is so serious a matter to not only ourselves but future generations. The question that arises to my mind is, shall we be satisfied to see the same amount of misery, crime, and destitution in this colony as we read of in New York and London* without trying to keep it from our doors ? My feeling is, that were a new country properly governed we could not have the same chance of the two extremes which people leave the home countries to escape, and find they are only coming to the Fame if not worse than they left. If some new arrivals would give their experience-say men who have not done their apprenticeship in the colony-—I have no doubt they would tell you..sir, that they could save more money at home at the end of a twelvemonth by honest hard labor, than they can here ; and as to what you state about the price of meat, and men not being able to get it at home only once a week, I have known men, and know men now, who cannot buy meat here ofteuer. —lam, &c, Peo Bono Publico.

P.S.—I was down South last year, and have earned 10s. per day there, and while I was at work I havo seen men in want of food, and given it them, and find myself as well off here as there.

[We scarcely can get at the bottom of what " Pro Bono " wants to prove : perhaps our readers can. As to the statement at the beginning of the letter that "directly" they (laboring men) want to prove the facts they are not allowed space in the papers," it is a gratuitous falsehood so far as the Star is concerned; and no one knows it belter than " Pro JJojiq."

Until he admits this he need send no further communication on any subject. —Ed.] - '