EMIGRATION TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
To the EDITOR of the READING MERCURY.
SIR,—On the arrival of the September mail, I was surprised to find the enclosed extract among the advertisements, containing the statement,—‟Special notice.—A very great demand exists in the Colony for persons of all callings, wages are high, and provisions and clothing very moderate in price.” A statement which the Government Agent ought to have been in the position to know was for the most part incorrect. And as I have a great interest in the welfare of the inhabitants of Reading and its neighbourhood,—being intimately connected with a large portion of the labouring classes in the parish of St. Giles and the included hamlet of Whitley, having laboured among them to the best of my ability for two years, as curate to the Rev. J. C. Grainger,— I am induced to write to you in order that, through the medium of your Paper, I may prevent any of my old parishioners from thinking of emigrating to this Colony for at least a year to come.
Taking the above statement by detail, I assert that it is untrue that there is ‟a very great demand” in the Colony for persons of all the callings mentioned. For good indoor servants there is a good demand, but they must be really efficient, the number of inefficient servants being very large, and many are out of place.
Again, I will admit that the very highest-class artisans in the several departments of labour will probably find work to their hands; but the market is already full of indifferent tradesmen, calling themselves what they are not.
With regard to all other branches of labour, emigrants will at the present time, and for months to come, find great difficulty even in getting work, for the following reasons:—The money market is very tight at present, and probably will be so for some time, and the impetus which the building trades experienced last year is not, and cannot be, sustained; shepherds are travelling all over the country in search of employment, owing to the drought of last season having driven them from their billets; the farmers are in a strait, because they have as a body not sold their last year’s crop, and must now sell at a great depreciation—consequently, as far as possible, they will do their own labour. All other branches of trade are suffering from the general depression; and as I know there are many poor shoemakers about Reading, I will mention that there are many good hands in that trade out of employ here now.
The next point requires but a short notice: ‟Wages are high.” I admit that wages are high—a labourer gets 6s. to 7s. per diem. A good tradesman may make from 10s. to 15s. per diem, and I believe in some instances more. But the next statement is not true, namely, ‟provisions and clothing very moderate in price.” Clothing is either slop-work—cheap, indeed, but good for nothing, or it is good and very dear, averaging 30 percent, above the English prices. Again, with respect to provisions, we have till just lately been paying 9d. and even 1s. for beef; mutton has for months ranged between 6d. and 8½d. per lb. Till the last month, fresh butter has been ranging (for six months) between 2s. 6d. and 3s. per lb.; vegetables and fruit proportionately expensive. Thank God bread has been cheap, ruling between 6d. and 8d. the 41b. loaf, or I know not what many families would have done. Bacon, also, has been very high—1s. 4d. per lb.; eggs, 3s. per dozen milk, 6d. per quart. Just at the present time, dairy produce is much cheaper, but high prices always rule in dairy produce from November to May.
Thus far for the statements put forth in the advertisements. Whether my statements are correct or not, you can, if you think fit, determine by reference to any file of South Australian Papers between January and July, 1866.
Let me add one piece of information cruelly withheld, namely, that a miserable tenement, at most times with only brick or earth floor, containing two rooms, cannot be rented under from 5s. to 7s. per week. For size and want of ventilation, they only compare with the worst tenements in Silver-street and Coley, as I knew them in 1855. In very many instances, also, the occupiers have to buy water during four or five months of the year, at prices ranging from 1s. to 2s. 6d. per cask. I myself, in a good house, have to pay 3s. per cask in the middle of summer, though I have rain-water tanks—a luxury unknown to most cottagers. I would also add, as a matter of serious consideration to fathers of families, that they cannot put a child to school here under from 6d. to 9d. a week, if indeed they can get to school at all.
I have written the above from the earnest desire I have that none who know me, and the interest I had and still have in them, should leave their homes, where they are well known and respected, for the purpose of entering this colony at present. If they do, they will find themselves deceived. Let them wait for nine months or a year, when, please God, we shall be all right again. Till then I say to all in Reading and its neighbourhood, who are thinking of emigrating to South Australia —‟Don't Come!”
Trusting that you will deign to give this a place in your columns,
I am, Sir, yours obediently,
THOMAS FIELD,
Late Curate of St. Giles's, Reading,
and of Petersfield, Hants.
St. Peter’s Glenelg, South Australia,
Sept. 26th, 1866.