D.—s

20

labour market, but also the introduction of a large population and settling the same upon the waste lands of the Crown, and thus securing through the length and breadth of the Colony an industrious and thriving population. This can only be done by setting aside blocks of land, and forming settlements throughout the Colony, upon well-devised schemes, involving large expenditure in purchase money for such lands, and in construction of roads and erection of bridges. In this Province I should recommend that two or three blocks of land should be selected in the Wairarapa, between the Scandinavian camp above Masterton and the Manawatu Gorge, surveyed and laid off in sections ; that the road from Masterton to the Gorge, passing through these selected blocks, should be proceeded with energetically, and that immigrants arriving should be employed in making such roads, and should have sections of land allotted to them, such land to be paid for by instalments. In this way the public works of the Colony will be constructed, and the people settled down upon the lands. I would also suggest that on the west side of the Province a block should be selected (say the Paraekaretu Block, twenty miles from Wanganui) to be dealt with in a similar manner. On this block the Provincial Government would propose to spend £10,000 or £12,000 in roads, &c. If a scheme of settlement such as suggested in this letter should be adopted, I feel that this Province can easily find employment and secure the settlement of all immigrants now on their way, and of 500 a month, as requested in my letter of the 16th February Last; but if no scheme for settlement is agreed to, then I submit that providing for the immigrants to arrive within the next few months requires the serious consideration of the General Government. I have, &c., William Fitzherbert, The Hon. the Minister for Immigration. Superintendent.

No. 52. The Hon. the Ministee for Immigeation to His Honor the Supebintendent, Wellington. Sib, — Immigration Office, Wellington, 7th April, 1874. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th inst., upon the question of dealing with immigrants who may be landed in the Province during the next few months, and of providing land for them to settle upon. 2. I was about to address your Honor, when I received your letter, as I had already addressed the Superintendents of Canterbury and Otago, respecting the employment of immigrants during the winter months, so as to ascertain whether your Honor is confident of the ability of the Provincial Government to give occupation to such immigrants should private work not be offered, or whether you would like the General Government to set apart some public work on which employment would be .available to day labourers at rates slightly below those offered by contractors, so that while the Government would not be competing with contractors, immigrants would not be able to complain of wanting the means of livelihood. 3. Tour Honor's letter raises this question, and I think it preferable to deal with it apart from that of special settlements, or of putting aside land for occupation by immigrants. 4. I shall be glad if your Honor will give me a reply to the alternative question stated in paragraph 2. 5. Further, I shall be glad if your Honor will consider whether the want of house-room has not become so pressing, that it would be desirable to have a number of portable cottages made, which would be available for erection in differents parts of the Province to which carriage can be obtained with facility. Some of those cottages might be erected as the nuclei of villages in the neighbourhood of public works, and be let to immigrants. lam aware that your Honor, in response to my circular letter of 7th February, has applied for authority to construct two cottages; but I think that the question requires to be more energetically dealt with, and that it is necessary a number of cottages should be provided. 6. With respect to your Honor's remark that "a great deal must be done" in connection with immigration, " beyond what has hitherto been done, namely, landing a lot of people on our shores," I have to say that I agree that something yet requires to be done, though I do not agree that more could have been done in the past. The great scarcity of labour in several of the Provinces —the large works for which contracts have been and are being let—made the supply of available labour one of the largest necessities of the Colony. Without it, in fact, there was risk of the ordinary industries of the country being paralyzed ; and notwithstanding the number of immigrants that have been introduced, the scarcity of labour continues so as to be injurious, to some extent, to private interests. To have unduly forced settlements upon land in the face of such a demand upon the labour market, would have been a mistake. 7. But I recognize, and have recognized, that as immigrants arrive and supply the ordinary wants of the labour market, it is desirable that there should be afforded to those who wish it, the opportunity of settling upon land. The best proof that I have done this, is to be found in the letter I addressed to your Honor on the 2nd February, 1874, to which I have not yet received a reply beyond a bare acknowledgment of its receipt, unless I am to consider that the letter in answer to which I am now writing is meant as such reply. In that letter I stated — " The vote taken for immigration is for ' location' as well as for ' introduction ;' besides that, there are various provisions in the Public Works and Immigration Acts which evidence the approval of Parliament to what has always been regarded by me as a part of the immigration and public works policy —the promotion of settlement. "That special settlements, with the exception ofthe Scandinavian and Colonel Feilding's, have not been more actively promoted, is to be attributed to the very great demand, in the settled districts, for the immigrants who have already arrived. The time will shortly come when employment may not be so immediately and so generally available to newly-arrived immigrants, and it will be important to have special settlements in course of formation ready at once to receiye them."