The Star. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1869.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 490, 23 December 1869, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1869.

; "Who is " Rusticus ? " We have heard the question r sked some half-dozen times, and all the satisfaction we can "give anxious inquirers ia to say that i •* Rusticua " ia either some actual individual wlio has had the misfortune to write a letter or two to the JPress, or a Mrs Harris which our contemporary has called into being for the expxeaa purpose of writing it. We incline to. the latter opinion for several reasons which it is unnecessary to trouble the public with. The Press has been pounding away at the immigration question for the last inonLh or two, at the rate of three or four articles a week, and it ia just possible that " .Rusticua" was created thy the purpose of representing the public who ought to be interested in the matter. Our contempoJary is oppressed with an idea thafc farm labourers are very scarce in this province, and thafc they are distressingly plentiful in England. W t e are sorry to differ from our cont^aporary, bufc we don't believe either irrextreme scarcity here or extreme plenty of the right sort in Englaud. Ifor do- we think the condition of th»« English farm labourer is so very degraded as some people would try to

make out. About this, however, we give no positive opinion. "What moßt concerns the people of this province is, the persistent efforts of oue or two people to spend the public money in introducing immigrants for the purpose of interfering with the labour market. "We protest against this idea althogether ; we protest against any large sum of public j money being spent on immigration till! something is done to secure the settlemenl of those whom we bring in. If the makers of agricultural machines in Christchurch and elsewhere find their men asking for higher wages, and getting it, they must take some other plan j of meeting the change thau raising the price of their manufactures. Suppose they were to content themselves with I a smaller profit. That don't seem to have entered their heads at all. Perhaps it will some day. They prefer, in the meantime, to cry to Jupiter, in the shape of^ the Provincial Government, and their cry simply amounts to this — bring j in more men of the sort we want in order that our profits may not be curtailed. As to the country districts being in want of agricultural labourers — that's all bosh. The Press seems to have forgotten that it was a representative of the farming interest in the Provincial Council who brought forward the resolution by which the work of immigration is to be mainly confined to the introduction of single women. Mr Knight knows very well, as a rule, what he is about, and it would be an insult to suppose that in a matter specially affecting his constituents he displayed ignorance. If Mr Knight's constituents had been of opinion that he did them an injury by proposing the resolution on immigration, they would not have invited him to a public dinner in acknowledgment of his services. "We advise the Press to stop its twaddle about immigration, and to let that poor " Rusticus " alone — if there is such a being.