by Thomas Jordan

“ This being a part of my daily occupation, I was naturally led to look at the tables of emigration, and to consider at what rate that tide of living beings has been running out from our shores. The circumstances of a country sometimes render this a question of peculiar importance to it. The labour of a country is of course paralysed without capital to employ it and to make judicious arrangements for it, and these two require a third great instrument of production, viz. land, before these advantages can be gained. ”

“ The great business of a new country is agriculture, and therefore the agricultural population of our country must be best adapted to it. But the advantages of emigration do not appear to be confined to these; for when you go into the lanes and alleys of our city you find hundreds starving, who are the very classes described as desirable for the colonies. In a publication printed in 1853, by order of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, under the head of "Demand for Labour" almost all the trades are mentioned that suggest themselves to us here. ”

“ The principle of emigration may be briefly stated. An individual and his family find that a new country affords a more prosperous field for their industry than their own, and accordingly they choose to sever the ties of home and kindred, and to become exiles for the sake of bettering their condition. ”

“ Here, however, as in other parts of economic science, there is a perfect identity of individual and public interest. The emigrant and his family who improve their condition abroad confer a double advantage on the country they have left. It is obvious how great the advantage is to a commercial people like ourselves, to meet in distant parts of the world with men of our own race, of the same language, living under similar institutions, and governed by nearly the same laws. Commerce is much facilitated by being carried on with countries which differ from ours only in soil and climate. ”

“ Like the ghosts described by the poet on the banks of the fabled stream with the plains of Elysium in view, they may stretch out their hands in entreaty, praying a passage across, but effect it themselves they cannot. ”

“ If we consider emigration as a desirable thing for them, they are not able of themselves to accomplish it. However fair or however rich a distant land may be, they are unable to reach it without help. ”

“ Mendicancy would not be encouraged. The intending emigrant would be put into the way of realising the glorious privilege of being independent; and, as we showed before, his fellow-countrymen, though not relieved directly by the same individual or association, would be so indirectly. In this manner there could be a thorough investigation into the eligibility of each person—an investigation much more efficient than can possibly be made by the Emigration Commissioners, whose transactions must necessarily be on a large scale. ”

“ The Emigration Commissioners, we learn from the Colonization Circular, are enabled to grant passages for the present to New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, to persons strictly of the labouring class, who may be considered eligible emigrants. The sum to be paid in advance in England, if the intending emigrant be one of the most desirable class, is about £1, and in addition to this he must provide himself with an outfit of clothing. There is also aid to emigrants under the Poor Law Board in special circumstances. ”

“ Not only in this way does the emigrant profit his country; but also, by diminishing at home the existing pressure of population against food, his fellow-countrymen have fewer competitors for employment, and find the avenues to the various trades and avocations less choked up by needy applicants. When some of the trees are removed from the crowded forest, those that remain thrive better by having freer air and a more extensive soil. The voluntary exile in a similar manner profits his remaining countrymen. ”

“ Of course any one will allow that the new countries are more immediately adapted to our country population, and that the latter are more generally suited to the foreign lands than those who live in our towns. ”

“ In showing the impracticability of emigration being efficiently carried out by a private company, this writer suggests the following course:—"The only other resource is the voluntary contributions of parishes or individuals, to rid themselves of surplus labourers, who are already, or who are likely to become, locally chargeable on the poor-rate. Were this speculation to become general, it might produce a sufficient amount of emigration to clear off the existing unemployed population, but not to raise the wages of the employed ”

“ It may be questioned whether there is not as much aid as can safely be given from the public funds, and whether to increase it might not be doing evil. A large government emigration might, like the bleeding of the human body, produce only a temporary effect, and in doing so might induce recklessness, and destroy vigilance, activity and prudence. ”

“ The old statutes of apprenticeship often entailed ruin on the tradesman, by preventing his entering as a competitor into a new employment when the one he had long pursued failed. Modern science has shown the evil as well as injustice of such regulations, and points out the fair as well as profitable course in such a case, viz. to leave him at liberty to seek a new employment. ”

“ In like manner, when a country or a city does not afford the industrious a fit and proper field for their industry, the just as well as expedient course is, that their industry should be transferred to those lands or towns that do offer such an opening. ”

“ When the rod has been bent too much in one direction, it may be bent too far in the opposite way, in the effort to make it straight. We have no doubt but that it is so in the case before us, and that emigration is now receiving less attention from the people than it deserves.
That the emigration of the past years has been of the greatest benefit to the laboring classes appears from two obvious circumstances, viz., the decrease of pauperism and the rise of wages. ”

“ The productions of America reach us not only at a cheaper rate, but in a much more convenient manner, by their being procured from British and Irish settlers, than if they were produced and sold to us by persons of a less civilized class. ”

“ In this street there are at least eight rooms in each house, and in a room there are from four to eight and often more persons living; from thirty to fifty beings in one house. There are other streets in the same neighbourhood with about the same number of inmates living in them, but with their houses in still worse repair. The very dwellings alone tend to crush energy, life and spirit. ”

“ The attractions of home institutions and home connexions are so powerful, that a strong motive alone (either in the form of great necessity at home or great prospects abroad) can induce them to such an undertaking. ”

“ That this increase of wages is an advantage cannot be denied by any who reflect at all with care on the subject. The miserable condition of our countrymen has arisen in great part from this very cause; for in other countries, where the wages of labour are very different, our countrymen are found a different class of men ”

“ Many, for instance, we all know, are now occasionally assisted in our towns by benevolent individuals or associations. How much more effective might not this relief be, if instead of being given in small sums, it were bestowed at once and with the special view of enabling its objects to take advantage of the offer of the Emigration Commissioners. ”

“ Besides, a very large deportation of such people by the Government does not seem very desirable. Unless very much more were done for them than merely to convey them to another country, there would neither be an act of mercy done to the emigrants, nor of justice to the foreign country. ”

“ Persons who wish to obtain their services are requested to make written application, on which printed 'authorities' are transmitted to approved applicants, who, on presenting them at the depôt, are at liberty to make arrangements with the immigrants by mutual consent, the women receiving such advice and information as they may require. ”

“ No person is permitted to hire any female from the 'depôt' without the 'authority' above-mentioned; and as this is only sent to those who are known to be suitable employers, no young woman can fall into improper hands on first arrival in this colony. ”

“ It is not so much new laws that are required, not so much more extensive charities, as a more judicious application of the old.
↑ For these observations on the rise of wages I am indebted to a valuable Essay on Ireland's Recovery, by Mr. Locke, Fellow of the Statistical Society of London. ↑ "The most urgent demand is for housemaids, cooks, nursery-maids, needlewomen, laundresses, and general servants. Large numbers of such women could at once find employment at high wages, and in situations at least as comfortable as those usually obtained in England."—Colonization Circular, 1855. ”

“ There is said to be, from a combination of various causes, a most urgent necessity for working people of all kinds, both male and female. "The pressing occasion," says the writer of this publication, "for domestic servants of all kinds, both male and female, must be particularly adverted to. ”

“ Large numbers of these persons would obtain immediate and very advantageous employment in every part of the colony. It is scarcely possible to express too strongly the great want which exists of servants of all kinds, both male and female. ”

“ It would appear also that in most parts of the country the wages of artizan tradesmen have improved in a still higher ratio than those of the common laborer." Since this report of 1854 a very much larger rise in wages has taken place in every part of the country. ”

“ Johnson defines "oats, a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland it supports the people." The bad food of the Scotchman was the effect of his low wages. The superior food of the Englishman was the effect of his better wages. ”