IMMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2218, 23 October 1907, Page 2

IMMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND.

[Tj tub Editor.] Sir. —With regard to tho enormous influx of people into Canada as contrasted with tho few this country receives, 1 would like to point out that Canada can offer intending settlers advantages wo can never liopo to equal. No land law we have ever hid (either freehold or leasehold), or are ever likely to have, can compare with the homestead system at Canada anil the United States m its attractiveness to the landless people of Europe. A practically tree <'ift of ICO acres of good open land will draw them despite the rigorous winter climate. A man with very small capital or even without capital can take up a homestead and by fulfilling the easy homestead duties .get tho title-deeds in three years. All that the State gets from him is in Canada 10 dollars and m the United (States .15 dollars alien . uie first, registers his claim, and, 1 think, a small sum when he gets the deeds. Those who wish to start in a larger way—and Canada gets thousands ol them every year, mostly from the Middle-Western States —can buy from the railway companies, the Hudson Ray Company, or school ,lands at an average price ot o dollars an acre. At least that a s about the ruling rate three or ipur years ago, when 1 lia'd some first land knowledge of land matters in that country. Now, how is tlie laiulseeker situated when ■he comes .o New Zealand? Wo have no farm land to give away. Nearly every acre of this quality that the State is ill a position to offer lias been secured at liigli prices, and therefore a stiff renit is demanded, and competition for it is so keen that many men have travelled from ono land ballot to another for months, even years, without securing a section. If the new-comer is in a position to ■bitv a place outright, the present .price of” farm land is .so great that about- the only advantage we could offer to a farmer from Europe is perhaps a slightly better climate. As .to unimproved land, any tliat rs &\\ Zealand has on hand just now is of such a nature that very few of the people who have been led to these shores by tlie Government s advertising, could have a hone of making a home on it. It is steep, heavily wooded country, cut into sections seldom loss than 1000 acres, ‘and though ail outlay of a*t least lUs per acre is required to convert it into grass land it is not given away bv any means. The lifo anil work, too, in New Zealand’s back-blocks, severely taxes the hardiest Australasian hushiiiau’s endurance, and 1 consider it would be nothing sliont of gross cruelty to entice people to come hero iu tlie fond belief that this is ail (J isy country to live. ill. A good many people from Britain have come here lately through, the advertising tho country lias had there. ' Most of them having little money, we gave them —a job on tho Main Trunk line. I believe the Government badly wanted men there, hut at the same time it seems rather .1 low-down trick to induce people to come half-way round tlie world and find nothing hut the most brutal toil to keep body, and soul together. It is all very well to say that we need population. New Zealand carries less than a million- people, but she also carries over twenty million sheep. There lies our country’s fatal weakness. Sheep eo dominates everything else here that New Zealanders seem ill a fair way to being reduced to living on bread (some of it made from imported flour) and inferior mutton (we export the best to England). Sheep pay so well that on an average barely enough wheat is grown to support our present scanty population, and the •price of bread is soaring sky-high. Fruit-growing and poultry-raising receive little attention. These are paltry industries, beneath our notice; we must have sheep. I know men who pay £2 an acre rent for land, stock it with sheep to the utmost and buy potatoes. I suppose they know their own business, but this sort of farming will never support 20.000,000 people in New Zealand. The lordly sheep-farmer will have to withdraw from the level country if we are to reach even half that figure. United States is quoted as a country whose example wo should shun. But she could teach us all th it is worth learning about liow t make a country carry a big popu lntion. When, like her, we import no fooil-stuffs that we can _ easil. grow ourselves, when we train ou: hoys in ineclinieal skill as nearly a:_ young 'Americans are trained, and, ■ when we think enough ot our owi people to huy their manufactures i; preference to those of people on th other side of the world, we will liav< some right to take our place anion; the really progressive people.—l am etc., H. J. PLANER. Gisborne, October 21.