✨ Provincial Government Report
OTAGO
PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
GAZETTE.
*PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.
- All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereto annexed are to be considered as Official Communications made to those Persons to whom they may relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.
JOHN L. G. RICHARDSON, Superintendent.
Vol. IV.] SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1862. [No 153.
REPORT OF SELECT COMMITTEE OF PROVINCIAL COUNCIL UPON MESSAGE No. 3, FROM HIS HONOR THE SUPERINTENDENT.
Your Committee have carefully considered the subjects of His Honor the Superintendent’s Message, No. 3, and have taken a variety of evidence bearing upon those subjects, and have now to report—
I. ON THE SUBJECT OF IMMIGRATION.—His Honor suggests the abandonment of the system of assisted passages hitherto in use, except to a limited extent upon the guarantee of responsible parties in the Colony, and the adoption, or, as His Honor has more fully explained in his evidence to your Committee, the substitution in the main, as the means of bringing in population, of the “Special Settlement system,” similar to the system adopted in the Province of Auckland, and by which free grants of land would be given to all qualified Immigrants paying their own passage to the Colony, subject to certain conditions of residence—such grants being given upon production of Land Orders issued by agents appointed for the purpose in various parts of the United Kingdom. As this proposal involves a radical change in the whole principles and system of Immigration under the encouragement and assistance of Government, your Committee have directed their inquiry—first, to the alleged defects in the system heretofore in use; and secondly, to the merits of the system proposed to be substituted. In reference to the system heretofore in use, there appears to be no question that the immigrants from the home country under it have proved on the whole of a highly satisfactory character; that the business of the home agency has been carefully and efficiently performed; and that as many more similar immigrants may be procured as the funds provided will admit of. On the other hand, it is urged as an objection, and in the opinion of His Honor, an insuperable and fatal objection, to that system, that there is great difficulty in obtaining payment of the money advanced, and that serious evils must result from the indebtedness of a large body of people to the Government. It appears from the statement furnished by the Immigration Agent, that these payments are greatly in arrear, and it is probable that a considerable amount may be wholly lost, in consequence of the death or departure from the Colony of the indebted parties. Apart from such cases, there does not appear reason to apprehend a serious ultimate loss of public money by non-payment;
Next Page →
Otago Provincial Gazette 1862, No 185
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
🛂 Report of Select Committee on Immigration Message
🛂 Immigration10 May 1862
Immigration, Special Settlement system, Land Orders, Population
- JOHN L. G. RICHARDSON, Superintendent