Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1884. IMMIGRATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 177, 24 June 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1884. IMMIGRATION.

There is a medium m the control of affairs that it should be the greatest object of the Legislature to obtain, whether m regard to the taxation of the land, or the introduction of men to settle upon it ; and any departure, be it ever so small, towards either extreme, must result m plunging the country into such a state as is neither profitable nor desirable. But m the matter of encouraging and aiding people to leave their homes and surroundings m the mother country to settle m this colony, the danger of too much or too little action on the part of the ftnyernmenfc.-isnp^ T that _is^ ereaterand more formidable than m most other matters m which the Legislature is called upon to use a wise judgment and exercise a careful policy. In a young country like New Zealand there is, first of all, the fact staring us m the face that some of tKe finest land m the world lies untilled and uncultivated and often uninhabited, except perhaps by a sprinkling of sheep or cattle. Here is land that would m the old country be worth an annual value of many pounds per acre, and deplorable yet true, is only bringing m literally as many shillings. The cause is plain. The country is not peopled; there are not sufficient local markets to make wheat-grow-ing a payable enterprise, and the outside markets are so low and changeable, and the cost of labor so high, that farmers find it safer to lay out less capital, take the land as they found it, and graze off it and grow wool. Were there more breadconsumers m the colony, there would also be more demand for wheat and other products, and these would be grown and more labor be employed, and so money would cir"culate and the true aim of political economists, viz. "the circulation. of capital " be accomplished. This is the first view of the question. Looking at it from another side, it js, easy to see that to ciycluate capital, one of the first requirements is the capital itself. If there is capital m a country, it does not follow that it will be m active circulation, much as it may be desirable that it should be ; but if there is an absence of capital, it is an obvious matter of impossibility to induce its circulation. In New Zealand, we unfortunately find the partial absence of capital, and consequently, until we can offer sufficient inducements to capitalists to bring money into the colony, we may look m vain for that active circulation of it, that employment of labor by it, and that completing of machinery, which, when properly worked, would bring about the $t#te of things which we all so much desire to s,ee, viz., plenty of work at good wages for the workers, and good remunertiye priges ans fair promts for the employees. The system, of stateaided immigration has been tyied, and the results have Jiardly been q success. People have been assisted to come here, certainly, when hard times and no work at Home made die Colonies- a (Grod-send, and New Zealand a haven of refuge; but the class that is so aided are entirely workers, and people of no means whatever. This would be satisfactory enough— for we require hardworking, steady, persevering men — were the other class of immigrants also imported to an extent sufficient to equalize, the influx of the workers. In other words, if labor is brought into a country, capital, to a certain proportion, must accompany it, or the result will be a large increase of laborers, and no growth of employers, with a further result m the shape of bad times. Then bad times,

with such a large class os colonials, mean depression m business, and so the evil goes on, from one to another like an epidemic, rapid m spreading, difficult to check. The matter lias been brought up by Dr Nkwman m Parliament already, and it is fortunate, so that the next Government may take the bull by the horns, and, while aiding working men and their families to come and settle on our vast tracts of lands, still bring the affairs of the colony into such a settled state, as will tempt men of capital to also cast their lot amongst us, and thus introduce the wherewithal to employ the- labour-sellers— the capital to balance the labor, the money to pay the wages, and to be put into circulation.