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No. 17. The Hon. J. Vogel to the Aoent-Gexehal. (No. 239.) Sic, — Immigration Office, Wellington, 25th October, 1573. In communicating to you the fact already announced by telegram that I am acting as Minister for Immigration, allow me to express the hope that our relations will be of a cordial character, and that you will endeavour to give effect to the instructions it will be my duty from time to time to send you. Should you not wholly agree with those instructions, but at the same time see no radical objections to giving them effect, you should defer to the instructions rather than to your own personal views. Bnt if you do see serious objections to any instructions sent you, then 1 will ask you, unless they are wholly unimportant, not to make them the subject of a correspondence, which, from the distance, must bo protracted, but to state your objections by cablegram, and to abide the reply. I beg you to believe that in thus writing I have been guided by the friendly desire to avoid difficulties which I am aware have previously arisen. I proceed to give you my views on the subject of immigration. I may remark that they have been submitted to Cabinet, and received the approval of my colleagues who are present in Wellington. I sent you a few days since a telegram, copy of which is forwarded you by separate letter, directing you to grant free passages to emigrants until further instructed. In coming to the conclusion to grant free passages, the Government were guided by the conviction not only that an increased number of immigrants was. necessary, but also that it was desirable you should have and should exercise the largest power of selection. 2. Believing, as the Government do, that one suitable immigrant is worth any number of unsuitable immigrants, you will readily understand that any expense that a careful selection would entail is regarded by the Government not as additional expenditure, but as an exercise of economy. 3. I do not wish you to think that I am finding fault with the emigrants you have already sent. As I understand, your approval of emigrants now depends upon written certificates of character they furnish you. lam not aware if you verify these by personal inquiry. I should be glad to know if you do, and indeed I should be obliged by your sending me indiscriminately a batch of certificates and correspondence relating to a number of emigrants. It suggests itself to me that with the larger number of emigrants we require, you may find mere correspondence insufficient, and personal investigation desirable. Especially I think this will be the case with the very large number of recommendations or nominations you will in future receive. 4. I am causing inquiries to be made of emigrants who arrive here as to the reasons that induced them to emigrate. I have not had a sufficient number of answers to enable mo to come to a conclusion as to whether the experience of those from whom I have information is the experience of the bulk of the immigrants, but, as yet, I am led to believe that the majority of immigrants come to New Zealand because they have friends or relations there, because they have friends at homo with relations there, or in consequence of advertisements they have seen in Reynolds' or Lloyd's weekly papers, tho Telegraph, or the Labourer'1 s Union. lam unable to discover that tho local agents do much work ; very rarely they seem to be applied to for information, and then they give it cheerfully; but they do not induce or seek immigrants, nor, in the majority of the cases, do tho immigrants seem aware of their existence. 5. I should like your opinion as to whether it would not be well to gradually do away with tho local agents, substituting in their place your own paid agents, assigning to each a district, with instructions to travel through it periodically. The principle of paying agents at so much per emigrant is not a sound one, when you consider that an agent's duty should not bo to send all who apply, but to reject those whom he considers unsuitable. 6. I feel also that you are at a disadvantage, and that the Colony suffers through there being no one besides yourself connected with the Agency who possesses a competent knowledge of Xew Zealand. To some extent, I ought, perhaps, to except Mr. Carter and the Row Mr. Barclay. The want of persons acquainted with the Colony is so much felt here, that the various Provinces are sending homo, at their own expense, local agents. Ido not disguise from myself that, in tho absence of recognized discipline, these agents may cause you trouble and annoyance. 7. I invite you, therefore, to consider the subject, and advise me, if you do approve of my suggestion, to appoint paid agents instead of those you have at present. As I havo said, their cost will be an economy if they are the means of preventing unsuitable immigration. 8. I am of opinion that by diffuse advertising, by the assistance of those who, having already emigrated, will advise their friends to do tho same, and by the very largo number of nomination papers we will send you, you may place your local agents in the position of having an immense number of emigrants from whom to select. The task of selection would be most responsible and important; and I lay great stress upon the instructions sent you in a telegram already forwarded, to have always in depot emigrants ready to sail in advance of the ships. lam aware that this may be productive of expense ; but the plan of allowing the emigrants to come up only as the ship sails, and, if the ship is detained, of allowing them to find lodgings anywhere, must frequently entail the loss of some of the most desirable emigrants. On the other hand, a few days in depot, with submission to the routine and discipline prescribed, will do the emigrants good, and insure their leaving in a cleanly condition. Careful recruiting through the country, and depots for receiving the emigrants, should enable you to fill up all the ships you require to send. 9. The locale ot' the depot or depots you must yourself judge, as also whether or not more than one is necessary. You will bear in mind that the Government lay great stress on some of the ships sailing from Glasgow, Belfast, and Queenstown. The London ships would all call at Plymouth if you wished it. Ton will observe by a separate letter which I have written you, that I recognize the possibility, in the face of an oppressive, monopoly, of your suspending all shipping from London. 10. 1 take the opportunity of bringing under your notice several other questions connected with emigration.