GERMANY AND SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR.,—May I reply to your query why more Southern Ger- mans do not emigrate to Southern Australia? The distance is decidedly a deterrent against wholesale European emigra- tion to Australia. But the chief reason why there is not "an outflow of a hundred thousand South Germans a year," is probably that, in Germany, agitation for the promotion of emigration, either in the Press, on the public platform, or otherwise, is severely interdicted by the Government. Only a few months ago, I endeavoured to arrange some lectures in Germany with the object of encouraging vignerons and others to go to the vineyards and irrigation-colonies of Southern Australia, and I received a sharp rebuff for my pains. Notwithstanding the above circumstances, however,
it is perhaps not generally known that the Germans are very numerous in Australasia. Take the province of South Australia as an example. A considerable proportion of its population consists of Germans. Adelaide, the capital, pub lishes a German newspaper. Tanunda, near Adelaide, and. the location of the Adelaide Wine Company's magnificent cellars, which were visited by Miss Shaw, is an entirely Ger- man town, and nearly the entire population of the surround- ing district are Germans. There are several other towns and districts in the Province that are almost exclusively German Poverty among the German settlers is, I believe, unknown. I never saw it, at all events; few among them are not prosperous and on the high road to competency, while many of them are in affluent circumstances. They are still arriving from the Fatherland, every mail-steamer bringing a contingent. Fritz, at any rate, has proved that Southern Australia is the para- dise that Miss Shaw represents it to be, and, despite the in- terdict, the consequent ignorance, and the distance, many of Germany's sons manage to get there and flourish, to the advantage of themselves and the Colonies. Would that more Englishmen of similar calibre would do likewise.—I Sir, Scc., B.
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