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Numb. 66. 603

THE
NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

Published by Authority.

WELLINGTON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1870.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Wellington, 18th November, 1870.

THE following Letter from the New Zealand Com-
missioners, with enclosures relating to Emigration
and Railways, in connection with a recent visit to
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and North Germany, is
published for general information.
W. GISBORNE.

London, 9th September, 1870.

SIR,-Enclosed we do ourselves the honor to forward
a memorandum on Emigration and Railways, in con-
nection with a recent visit to Norway, Sweden, Den-
mark, and North Germany.

This memorandum will acquaint you with the steps
we have taken towards inducing emigration from
those countries to New Zealand.

We have, &c.,
F. D. BELL,
I. E. FEATHERSTON,
The Hon. W. Gisborne.
} Commissioners.

Memorandum on Emigration and Railways.

NOTES of a Trip to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and
North Germany, with a view of making inquiries
respecting Emigration and narrow-guage Railways.

Emigration.-In Norway, the following information
was obtained at Christiania, the Capital of the
country. The average number of emigrants from
Norway (the chief ports of embarkation being Chris-
tiania and Bergen) is about 12,000 souls a year.
Last year it amounted to 15,000; but emigration has
during the present year very materially slackened,
owing to the reports from their friends in America
being less favourable than formerly. Both Nor-
wegians and Swedes emigrate almost exclusively to
Chicago, and the neighbouring States of Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and Illinois, where there are large settle-
ments of their countrymen, who have apparently done
well, for they remit annually large sums to enable
their relatives and friends to join them. They move
in large bodies or rather in whole communities, or as
one party expressed it, "in whole church congrega-
tions." Old and young, single and married, able-
bodied and the most infirm. Very few go from the
towns. They are chiefly agricultural labourers or
small farmers. They are first-rate axemen and saw-
yers, and understand the lumber trade thoroughly;
expert boat and ship builders and fishermen; first-
rate sailors (the Norwegian mercantile navy being
the third largest in Europe); excellent joiners and
carpenters; in short, owing to the suspension of all
agricultural operations during so many months of the
year, they are obliged to turn their hands to all kinds
of indoor work, and to learn and follow some trade or
other. They are represented as being extremely
honest, frugal, and industrious, and all are more or
less educated: for education is compulsory, and all
are obliged to undergo an examination when they
present themselves at about sixteen years of age for
confirmation (a rite to which great importance is at-
tached). If they fail to pass the examination, con-
firmation is refused, and they are obliged to attend
the schools until they have attained the required
standard; and until confirmed they cannot marry,
and are subject to other disabilities. They seem to
have great facility in acquiring the English language,
and in habits, manners, and customs resemble very
closely our own countrymen, especially the Scotch.

They pay the whole cost of their passage from
Norway to New York, and thence to the State to
which they are destined; in fact they are not allowed
to land in any port of America unless they have the
means of defraying the cost of their journey inland.
They nearly all (at least four-fifths) go by steamer;
the cost of the passage to New York is £7, or to
Chicago £10. By sailing vessels they pay rather
over £3 to New York; but they find their own pro-
visions, and have only deck accommodation-the
expense of the journey inland being, as already
stated, about £3.

The emigration season commences in April and
terminates at end of October, most of the ports by
that time being closed by the ice.

In seeking to divert a portion of this stream of
emigration from America to New Zealand, two diffi-
culties presented themselves. First, the inability of