such contingency; and I particularly
called attention to the necessity of keeping this circumstance in view as affecting
the success of future trips.

I found this anticipation borne out to
a greater degree than I had expected.
Immigration from Great Britain had to a
large extent become suspended, and the
effects were more apparent than had
generally been looked for, in consequence
of the majority of the vessels with passengers making unusually long voyages,
thus causing for several weeks (ending
only a few days before my departure) an
almost total suspension to the influx of
labor, and thereby rendering a proportionate benefit to those who would otherwise
have suffered from the competition
of the new arrivals.

At the same time no less than five
new diggings were discovered which
proved attractive to large numbers. Two
of those were in the immediate neighbourhood of Geelong, and the temptations held out by the mere twenty or
thirty miles distance had entirely cleared
out the surplus population there, causing
a corresponding advance in the position
of those who remained behind.

Another source of filtration was going
on, caused by the monetary pressure
which for some months past had been
felt severely by many of the large land
speculators. In order to raise money
they have been obliged to offer the most
tempting conditions to force the sale of
some portions of their estate. I looked
in at one of these sales, comprising
several hundred small blocks of land,
belonging to a speculator who had been
reputed one of the most fortunate of his
numerous class. The estate was within
a few miles of Melbourne, and the
allotments were so varied in size as to
suit the poorest purchaser. The price
realised for the few blocks sold, just
large enough for the erection of a small
cottage, was some five or six pounds
each, payable by a deposit of one pound
down, and the residue in instalments of
five shillings per week. Similar descriptions of sales, upon almost as easy terms,
are now taking place every day in numbers of the petty auction rooms, tending
to locate in the suburban districts many
of the working population who would otherwise be elbowing each other in the town.
These and probably many other circumstances, have reduced very considerably the number of persons whom want
of employment compels to seek for another home; and of these the large ma-

jority are in too indigent a state to pay
much towards the cost of their passage.
To meet this contingency, the owners of
the Belle Creole had authorised me to
take promissory notes, payable in three
months after their arrival at Wellington,
and I found it absolutely necessary to
avail myself of this authority in almost
every instance.

(3) The third obstacle to my success
was the competition I found going on between the agents of the various Provinces
in New Zealand.

I enclose a string of advertisements
which appeared almost daily in the papers. While some of the other settlements were offering entirely free passages,
I could only offer assisted, and to whom
the class of indigent persons would finally
apply requires no large amount of foresight to discover. The Wellington
and Auckland Provinces possessed one
advantage over those of Nelson and Canterbury, in that their agents had personal
knowledge to communicate, which is always of importance in such efforts; but
it required very little penetration on my
part to discover that the majority of those
who applied for information were cognizant of the more liberal immediate inducements held out by the agents of the above
two southern settlements, in the shape of
gratuitous passages. Another difference
in the system pursued by them, and also
by Auckland, is, that the passages of emigrants are not limited to any particular
vessel, and the agents being always on the
spot, are able to avail themselves of whatever vessels may be proceeding to their
respective Provinces.

I learnt from Messrs. Willis Merry & Co.,
the Agents of the Belle Creole, that
almost as many applications were made after my departure on the first voyage as
there were during the time of my stay, and I
have little doubt but that such will be the
case this trip, thus proving that the limited
time which is afforded by the necessary
detention of one vessel in port is not
sufficient to reap the full harvest which
time legitimately produces as the result
of the expense and energy bestowed on
the scattering of the seed during my
limited visit.

Having thus detailed what has happened in the past, I am irresistibly led
to confirm the recommendations before
made as to the desirability of adopting one
plan for the whole of the Southern Provinces, and entrusting its execution to a
resident agent, whose local knowledge of
them should inspire confidence in the ap-