New Zealand Emigration a Governmental Duty.

To the Editor of the Birmingham Daily Post.

Sir,—As I have ever found in your columns a true sympathy with the claims and yearnings of our common humanity, I venture to solicit space for a few thoughts which have been suggested by what I have seen in New Zealand and heard from England. You appear to be passing through a season of deep social depression. Business is stagnant, and myriads of your breadwinners are at their wits' end to know how to keep the wolf from the door. It is idle to speculate as to the causes of the depression. I prefer suggesting a remedy. As T. push my investigations here as to the general welfare of those who have immigrated during the last few years, I am repeatedly forced to enquire, "Why are not tens of thousands of those hungry toilers sent over here under wise management and at the public expense, to develop the hidden wealth, and to share the abundant food?" In a Nelson paper of only yesterday's date I saw an advertisement of two hundred legs of mutton, averaging nine pounds each, for one shilling and threepence each. The remaining portions of the sheep would be melted down for tallow, In the same paper there were, only a few days ago, advertisements for labourers—pick-and-shovel men—that is to say, mere unskilled labourers—at nine shillings per day of eight hours. Now, sir, putting these two things together, arid then looking at them in the light of the sad statements in your English journals, how is it possible to avoid the conclusion I have suggested by the heading of this communication? By building workhouses and establishing a Poor-law Board, Government recognises an obligation towards the people. Why should not that sense of obligation lead to an infinitely better mode of relief, such as the removal of people from one part of the realm where workers are in excess of the work, and eaters are in excess of the food, to another part, where the conditions are exactly reversed. And this is all that emigration to our colonies really means. It is in no sense a British loss, but rather a clear gain. The home starveling, without power of purchase beyond the barest necessaries of life, becomes out here not only a consumer page 65 of twice as much food, but a purchaser of three or four times as much furniture, clothing, tools, and all other home manufactures.

In the vessel by which I came out there were several New Zealanders who fifteen or twenty years ago were poverty-stricken Englishmen, utterly destitute of spending power, but what were they then? Prosperous merchants and landowners returning from the old country laden with costly purchases. One successful fellow had bought machinery to the extent of some thousands of pounds. Another had actually engaged a lot of London house decorators to come out and finish off, in first class style, a fine mansion which he is building here. A third had ordered an expensive marble tombstone to go over his son's grave. And so on all through the ship. I should say the purchases of that one ship's passengers would be more than a hundred thousand pounds' value; and the probability is that, a quarter of a century ago the same men would not have been able to buy a hundred thousand farthings' worth. It is easy, therefore, to calculate the probable returns which would flow from an outlay of, say, a million sterling on emigration. Ten thousand Englishmen might be taken from their poor famished English homes, where they are without the power to buy a shilling's worth of Birmingham manufactures from year's end to year's end, and, removed to New Zealand homes, where with two or three pounds a week coming in, and only one going out for absolute necessaries, they could indulge in a set of tools and a score of other useful articles, which would be sure to come from Birmingham, Sheffield, or Manchester.

One hears a good deal of the "Imperial" policy of your present Government, and Reuter's telegrams tell us what it means—millions upon millions of the nation's wealth being fooled away in military expeditions to Cyprus, or Cabul, or Natal, and thousands of Englishmen being killed either by unhealthy climate or infuriated savages. There may be something sublime in all this, perhaps, but unless Birmingham men are sharing in the moral paralysis which seems to have stricken down the manhood of the rest of the British public, leaving them the helpless victims of a political charlatan, I hardly think it possible they can have been brought to realise the sublimity. As an Englishman, pretty well acquainted with the working page 66 populations of England, I am wondering how much longer the present disastrous regime is going to last, and how much further towards destruction the millions of "dumb-driven cattle" called the British public are willing to go. If I were an anarchist I should be content to wait, but as I do not believe in doing evil that good may come, I suggest the safety-valve of State emigration. I shall be thankful if someone at home is found willing to take up the suggestion. Why should not some of those lumbering absurdities, your war ships, be employed in emigration work? The ennui-devoured loiterers on board might thus experience the new sensation of being of some use in the world. An idle and surfeited aristocracy would be much more tolerable if its younger branches were thus employed in useful service.