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through the High Commissioner in the case of British emigrants, and we are very particular in the matter and the High Commissioner of the Colony here is most careful and thorough, he does not make a superficial examination, but a thorough examination into every instance of people desiring f Jto come to our country. If they are accepted, then we pay a sufficient portion of the passage money to reduce the passage to New Zealand to 10/. We are in the position of being the most distant of the self-governing Colonies from England, and the passage to our Colonies is probably a good deal higher than it is to the more fortunate Colonies that are close to the Old Land. We make a reservation that each person we assist must have some money, and we guard ourselves by doing that in order to ensure that, in the ordinary sense he would be able to look round for himself after he has arrived in our Colony with a view to obtaining suitable employment, or embarking in anything he desires. We fixed the amount at one time at 50/., but have since reduced it to 201. We do not make it a hard and fast rule that that is the only class of immigration we assist. We have a system of nominated immigration by which the people of our country make their own selection, and then upon their arrival in our Colony the immigrants are taken in hand by their own friends, and in that respect the State Departments are relieved of any direct assistance to them in the way of helping them to find employment. We also in such a case give a contribution passage money to reduce it to 10/. That we do with all lines of steamers trading to our Colony. I may say that in two years from the Old Country itself under a system of selected immigration, 6,632 people came to New Zealand, and brought with them the sum of 275,046/. So, while anxious to see the peopje in our'country increase legitimately, we are working rather from a different standpoint to that which I take it the Old World or Canada and Australia are doing. We are working in the direction of getting some of your people who have a limited amount of means into our Colony with a certain amount of capital to ensure that they become good colonists and be a valuable asset to our country generally. To enable those 6,632 people to come out to New Zealand we paid 22,382/. to the steamship companies to help them. Quite outside of those whom the High Commissioner selects and sends to our country, and of the nominated system to which T have referred, we have a class who come to New Zealand of their own accord, who are quite welcome to come to our country without means at all, or with means, as the case may be. From that source we get the larger proportion of those who come to New Zealand and settle there. Within a period of years we haye had over 50,000 people coming in that way. An examination into the statistics of our Colony shows that over a period of years we have retained them permanently, and we have lost only 1,000 against 60,000 coming in during that period of years. Tn our country, which is expanding, and which requires to have outside suitable labour from time to time drawn to it, we are working upon the principle of gradual expansion and gradual increase suitable to the requirements of our people, and we are prepared to assist upon the lines T have indicated in order to bring- that about. T think Tarn right in saving that indiscriminate emigration under the auspices of any organisation in the Old Country would not be approved in New 7ealand. Here T would remark that there is an opening for farmers with a little capital, and also for domestic servants, but T hesitate to advise unskilled labourers who have neither means nor vocations, to come out to our country in large numbers, for the reason that we do not want to have the wrong impression conveyed which Mr. Deakin has referred to. Whatever the position in our country we desire the truth to be stated for the cruidance of those who desire to come to our country. We do not want a large number of unskilled labourers coming to New Zealand, because with the possibility of the dislocation of the labour

Sixth Day. 25 April 1907.

Emigration. (Sir Joseph Ward.)