has been, and is, verified literally over and over again in New Zealand; but the "eight bob a day" cannot be called an ordinary wage. A man must be worth his salt and something over to get it, and will not do so unless labour is scarce and in much demand. Those who contract, or do work by the piece, often make as much and more if they are first-rate workers; and that kind of engagement is preferred by both employers and employés, as a rule.
All sorts of skilled labourers get high wages. Carpenters and blacksmiths will get ten and twelve shillings a day with their keep; and when they have saved a little money, and can go on the job by themselves, they may earn an advance on that.
I have already noticed the great demand that there is for female house-servants, and the high wages they can get. Girls cannot be relied on to stop in a situation very long, as they are sure to receive numerous matrimonial offers; hence there is a perpetual seeking after new domestics. Marriage is an institution that turns out uncommonly well here. There is no such thing as a descent to pauperism for those who will work. By little and little the working couple thrive and prosper, and as their family—New Zealand families run large, by the way—multiplies and grows up round them, they are able to enjoy the comforts of a competence they could never have attained at home. Some settlers, who originally came out, man and wife, as government immigrants drawn from the peasant class, are now wealthy proprietors of broad acres, flocks, and herds; and are able to send their sons to college and their daughters to finishing-schools; the whilom humble servant girl now riding in her carriage, and wearing silk and satin if she list. Such are the rewards that may tempt the peasant here. Difficulties there are in plenty, but they lessen year by year; while comfort and competence are certain in the end, and wealth even is possible to the industrious.
Occasionally it happens that among a body of immigrants are one or two who are decidedly unsuitable. There is an example among our particular ship-load. Here is a woman, purblind, decrepit, looking sixty years old at least, and, by some incomprehensible series of mistakes, she has found her way out here as a "single girl!" What was the Agent-General in London about, and what could the Dispatching Officer have been thinking of, when they let this ancient cripple pass them? Yet here she is, a "single girl" in immigrant parlance; and work she must get somehow and somewhere, for there are no poorhouses or paupers here as yet. But even she, useless to all seeming as she is, and unable to bear her part in the energetic industry of a new country, will find her billet. A good-natured farmer takes her off, judging that she may earn her keep in his kitchen, and if not—well! he is prosperous, and should be generous too. And so old granny toddles away amid the friendly laughter of the crowd, satisfied enough to find there is a niche even for her in our Canaan.
The great question that of late years has been continually asked of old colonials in England is, what are the prospects afforded by New Zealand to men of the middle classes? The answer is usually unfavourable, simply because many colonials cannot disassociate the idea of a gentleman adventurer from that of a scapegrace or ne'er-do-well. Secondly, they look at the questioner's present condition; and never take into consideration the power he may have of adapting himself to totally different circumstances. I think this view admits of considerable enlargement, and my experience has led me to believe that many a man, who struggles through life in the old country in some exacting and ill-paid sedentary occupation, might have been benefited by emigration. The colonies have been inundated with ruined spendthrifts, gamblers, drunkards, idle good-for-nothings, who have been induced to emigrate in the belief that that alone was a panacea for their moral diseases. Very very few of them have reformed or done any good, so that colonists are naturally prejudiced against their class, and look upon gentleman-new-chums with great suspicion. Again, some go out who are too delicate or sensitive to stand the roughnesses they are bound to undergo, and these break down in their apprenticeship the first year or two, and, if they can, go home again to speak evil of the colony ever afterwards.
One thing is certain, the educated man has the advantage over the uneducated, and his abler mind will sooner or later be of use to him, although his physique may be weaker than the other's. The gently-nurtured individual finds the preliminary trials of colonial life very hard indeed—he is heavily handicapped at the start—but there is no reason why he may not do well after a time. Gentlemen-immigrants usually think they may find work of a congenial sort, such as clerking, assisting in a store, or some occupation of the kind in the city. That is a mistake; while yet they are new-chums there is but one thing for them to do—to go away into the bush and labour with their hands. Of new-chums, only artisans are absorbed into the city population as a rule; all others have to look to manual labour of some kind, and generally up-country, for a means of subsistence. All the clerks, counter-jumpers, secretaries, and so on, are either old colonials, or colonists' sons. Very rare is it for a gentleman new-chum to find a berth of that sort, perhaps he may after he has become "colonized," but at first he will have to go straight away and fell bush, chop firewood, drive cattle, or tend pigs. About the best advice I ever heard given to middle-class men, who thought of emigrating to New Zealand, was couched in some such terms as these.
"What are your prospects here? If you have any, stop where you are. But if you have no particular profession, nothing better before you than laborious quill-driving and the like, at eighty pounds a year, and small probability of ever rising so high as two hundred, however many years you stick to the desk, or the yard-measure, then you may think of emigrating. If you are strong and able-bodied, somewhere between sixteen and twenty-six years of age—for over twenty-six men are generally too old to emigrate, I think—I say, emigrate by all means, for you will have a better chance of leading a healthy, happy, and fairly comfortable life. But you must throw all ideas of gentility to the winds, banish the thought of refinement, and prepare for a rough, hard struggle, and it may be a long one, too. You may please yourselves with the prospect of competence, comfort, and even luxury in the distance, but you must look at it through a lengthy vista of real hard work, difficulty, and bodily hardship. Success, in a greater or lesser degree, always follows patient industry at the Antipodes; it can scarcely be said to do so in Britain.
"Now, Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte, and the worst time you will have is at the first; also, it is only for the start that you need advice, after you become 'colonized' you can look out for yourselves. If you have any particular acquaintance with a useful trade, so much the better; if you have not, and can do so, learn one before you go—carpentry, boat-building, blacksmithing, tinkering, cobbling; it will help you through wonderfully. It doesn't matter twopence how you go out, whether saloon, intermediate, or steerage, so far as your future prospects are concerned. If you can compass the means, go saloon—the extra comfort on a long voyage is well worth the extra price; besides, you might have some returning colonist as fellow-voyager, whose friendship would prove useful. When you land, bank any money you may have brought with you—whether it be ten pounds or ten thousand, I say the same—and resolve not to touch it, however you may be tempted, for two years at least. Then go about freely, get into the bush away from the city, make friends with every one everywhere, and let it be known that you are in search of work. Very soon you will hear of something or other. Take the job, the first that comes in your way, and stick to it till something better turns up. Don't be afraid of it whatever it is; don't imagine anything will hurt you or lower your dignity in the slightest so long as it is honest. Even if they make you a street-scavenger, remember that is better than loafing. In one year, or two, or three, you will be perfectly at home in the new life, and able to see, according to your abilities, the path that offers you the best prospect of the greatest success. During your new-chum days of apprenticeship you must consider yourself as a common peasant, like the men you will probably have to associate with; don't be disconcerted at that, just work on, and by-and-by you will get ahead of them. You will meet plenty of nice gentlemanly fellows in any part of New Zealand, and they will think all the better of you if you are earnestly and energetically industrious. Lastly, don't run away with the notion that you are going to jump into luck directly you land. Wages are high to the right people, but you are not among those at the outset. You may be satisfied if you do anything more than just earn your keep, for the first six or twelve months."
I think that that is, upon the whole, pretty sound advice for the class of men to whom it is addressed; but I will go further, and point out what advantages the average middle-class "young gentleman" may reasonably look forward to from emigration to New Zealand. In the first place, he may expect to enjoy robust health, more perfect and enjoyable than he could hope for if tied down to a counting-house stool in the dingy atmosphere of a city. He will exchange the dull monotony of a sedentary occupation in the chill and varying climate of Britain, for a life of vigorous action in a land whose climate is simply superb. When he gets through the briars that must necessarily be traversed at the outset, he will find himself happier, freer from anxiety, and, on the whole, doing better than he would be if he had remained at the old life. He will "feel his life in every limb," and, remote from the world, know naught of its cares. If he be anything of a man, before ten or a dozen years are gone he will find himself with a bit of land and a house of his own; he will be married, or able to marry, his earnings will suffice for existence, while every pound saved and invested in property will be growing, doubling, and quadrupling itself for his age and his children. There is something to work for and hope for here: independence, contentment, and competence. It is not a stern struggle from year's end to year's end, with naught at the finish but a paltry pension, dependence on others, or the workhouse. The gentleman-colonist we are talking of is working for a home, and, long before his term of life draws to its close, he will find himself, if not rich, at any rate, in the possession of more comfort and happiness than he could hope for in the old country.
I am not an emigration-tout, and have no interest in painting my picture in too vivid colours, and in these remarks I have transgressed against some of the ordinary colonial views on the subject; but I have done so with intention, because I consider them not entirely in the right. The colonist says—we don't want gentlemen here, we want MEN! But he forgets that the unfortunate individual he disparages has often more real manhood at bottom than the class below him. Therefore, the middle-class emigrant must remember the qualities most required in him—pluck, energy, and resolution.