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“The world is a
well-furnished table
Where the guests are promiscuously set;
We all fare as well as we’re able,
And scramble for what we can get.
My simile holds to a tittle:
Some gorge, whilst some scarce have a taste;
But if I am content with a little,
Enough is as good as a feast.”
DAME BRITANNIA is at the
present time pretty much in the same predicament as was the celebrated old
lady who lived in a shoe—she “has so many children, that she doesn’t know
what to do.” A good mother, she wishes to act fairly towards them all; but
she doesn’t appear to see her way very clearly, and keeps on demanding, in
piteous accents, “What’s to be done with the children?”
The answer would seem plain
enough. If you can’t find work for them at home, assist them to emigrate.
Did your first-born only do their duty, instead of the portionless brats of
the family having to be got rid of by hook and by crook, there would be a
cry for more helpers.. But the prosperous are seldom open-handed, and those
who talk the loudest of the obligations of nobility are too often the first
to forget the obligations of wealth.
Although it is of the
Gentleman Emigrant— his joys and sorrows, his pleasures and his pains—that
we are about to write, a few words on the emigration of the masses will, we
think, be hardly out of place; they will serve as an introduction.
Whatever may be done for
our poorer brethren, it is but little after all; and that in great and
wealthy England men should be suffered to die for lack of the common
necessaries of life is infamous. “If a man work not, neither shall he eat,”
is a sound maxim; but then, work must be given when demanded.
There is, we hold, one
thing which every man has a right to demand of his country—work. One thing
which Fatherland has the right to demand of every man—his services as a
soldier for national defence. If work cannot be found at home, it should be
found abroad, and the nation be charged with the expenses. The cost ought
not to be considered for an instant. So long as money is forthcoming in
abundance for the conversion of the heathen, who have no claim upon our good
offices, money can be found for our starving poor who have. We may laugh at
Brigham Young and his Mormon absurdities; but one portion, at least, of the
address which he is or was accustomed to deliver to newly arrived emigrants,
shows sound common sense.
“Your first duty, my
friends, is to learn how to build a hut, to grow corn, to plant potatoes, to
raise your garden stuff—in a word, your first duty is to live.”
Turn and twist the matter
as you will; bring the Scriptures, or the Fathers of the Church, to prove to
the contrary—if so it seems good to you—one conclusion must ultimately be
arrived at by all save the stupid, the perverse, and the bigoted—man’s first
duty is to live. It is his country's duty that he be put in the way of doing
so; and how this can best be effected is a matter for the most serious
consideration. To transport a number of penniless families to Australia,
Canada, or New Zealand, and there to leave them with nothing more than a
“Good luck to ye,” would be little less cruel ( than to land them on some
sterile rock in mid* ocean.
Can anything more pitiable
be imagined than a score of families with boxes and bundles of bedding piled
around them, seated on the beach or jetty, where they have been landed, and
staring about them in a helpless, bewildered manner, not knowing what on
earth to do in that far country, where everything seems so new and strange.
We have witnessed such scenes before now, and we sincerely trust that we may
be spared the pain of ever having to witness them again.
So long as the
transportation of emigrants is a private concern, almost altogether in the
hands of a few Liverpool, London, and Glasgow shipowners, no radical change
can be effected. No matter how overstocked the labour market may be, the
shipowner is always ready to affirm that never was there so great a demand
for labour, and had he a vessel on the berth for Patagonia, would assure the
applicant that it country was, as a field for emigration, second to none.
Colonial emigration should,
we opine, be to some extent under Government control. When vessel succeeds
vessel in rapid succession, the labour market is glutted, the “ Home” is
overcrowded, and the immigrant is obliged either to accept a lower rate of
wages than his fellow-labourers, or to live upon his own little capital
until such time as the balance is restored. He often prefers the latter
course, and pays the penalty for so doing. Hundreds and thousands of men who
would have succeeded in life, had they only obtained remunerative employment
on first landing, have, from being obliged to wait their tarn, fallen into
habits of idleness and dissipation, and become a public charge. Much has
been done of late years in the United States and elsewhere for the
protection of the newly arrived immigrant; but still the task of the various
immigration commissioners is but half complete. Immigrant dep6ts and homes
are admirable institutions, insomuch that they afford temporary shelter to
the stranger, and prevent his falling—for a time at least—into the clutches
of the harpies who are on the watch for him. Further than this, they are not
of much service. Like Sailors Homes, there is more of the hotel about the
asylum. To be of any real utility, they should be conducted in the same way
as are our hospitals—the patient admitted, and not discharged until
cured—that is to say, until such time as work shall have been found him, he
being properly lodged and fed in the interim.
Instead of the emigrant
being packed off as heretofore, to this or that colony to take his chance,
he should be duly invoiced, John Bull, with correspondents in every British
colony, himself conducting the business, like a fine old merchant prince
that he is. His ledger might be kept in very simple fashion—on one sheet,
the orders on the other, the expenses incurred for the completion of the
same. To order received on such a date, from Otago, New Zealand, six hundred
emigrants, of sorts, as follows:—Twenty carpenters, ten blacksmiths, &c. &c.
To the fitting out of H.M.S. Speedwell, so much; to provisioning the same,
so much. There would he as little difficulty in the despatch of six hundred
souls to order, as in the shipment of six hundred puncheons of rum.
But it is not our intention
to rush headlong into statistics. We know too well what would be the result
of any attempt on our part to give even an approximate estimate of the
numbers likely to apply at Uncle John’s emigration office, or of the sums he
would be called upon to disburse. We should have a score of amateur
statisticians down on us like a shot. It will answer our purpose that X and
Y, two unknown quantities, represent the emigrants, and the moneys to be
expended, it will be at the reader’s discretion to add what figures he may
think fit.
Emigrants may be divided
into five classes. Firstly, emigrants with a considerable capital; secondly,
emigrants with a small ditto; thirdly, working farmers and respectable
mechanics, who can afford to pay their own passage; fourthly, artisans and
labourers who are unable to raise the entire amount demanded for a passage
ticket, but who are ready to contribute something towards it; lastly, those
who are totally unprovided with funds, and who would have to be conveyed at
the public cost. It is only for the last two classes that Uncle John would
have to loosen his purse-strings, and this he would have to do for them did
they remain at home. Is it too much to say, that under a proper system ot
emigration the entire number could be easily absorbed by the different
British colonies throughout the world ? We think not. If in England an
ever-increasing population means pauperism, it means wealth in a new
country. Provided that the tide of emigration be under proper control, the
more the merrier. There can be no two opinions as to the advantages which
must ultimately accrue to any colony from a steady influx of emigrants. The
only question is, what arrangement can be made, so that the primary expenses
may not be too grievously felt by either the Home or Colonial Governments ?
This must ever be a matter of special agreement between the respective
colonies and the mother country; but if we were willing to pay one-half the
expenses of transport, and a small capitation tax for each statute adult,
the colonists would have every reason to be satisfied. If they went to work
in a practical way, their share of the expenses ought to be but little the
heavier of the two. Huts having been erected, and provisions stored prior to
the arrival of the immigrants, they would, immediately upon landing, be
started up country to the scene of their future operations—some tract of
country, miles away from the high road, in the heart of the bush or
wilderness. Instead of each man going to work on “his own hook”—digging a
patch of ground here, cutting down a tree there, without having the remotest
idea of what he was after—all hands would at once be set about the task of
converting the rough log-road or bush track, over which they had so recently
toiled with their packs and bundles, into a broad and substantial Macadam.
There are many reasons why road-making should take precedence of all other
labours. Employing the immigrant for the first few months on public works
gives him breathing time, and allows his greenness to wear away. Were he to
be at once given his lot of ground, and told to go to work and put in his
crops, he would have, until those crops were harvested, to be fed at
Government expense—a very bad beginning. Let the immigrant only once get it
into his head that it is the duty of the Government to provide for him, and
his wants are never ending. Make him thoroughly understand that everything
he gets at the store must be paid for, and instead of subsiding into a lazy
mendicant, he becomes a thrifty, self-reliant man. Paid a fair wage for
road-making, and purchasing every requisite at cost price from the
Government store, not only would the immigrant be able to provide for his
family, but to save a little money into the bargain. Unless a very lazy,
helpless lot, his family ought to be adding something, if never so little,
to the common stock. They might not be able to fell trees or wield the
pickaxe, but they ought to manage to collect sufficient provender for a cow,
and to plant squash, cabbages, and a few bushels of potatoes.
Over and above the grant of
the land, the only expenses likely to be incurred by the Colonial Government
would be for hut building, the first year's seed, and farm implements, with
perhaps the further donation of a cow and pigling to each family. A
log-house or split cedar hut can be erected at a very small cost, especially
when the future proprietor thereof gives his labour gratis; farm implements
suitable for bush work are of a very inexpensive description; the seed would
be a mere bagatelle; the gift of a cow would not be ruinous. Supposing half
the lots to have been reserved for sale, their increased value would more
than counterbalance the money sunk on the remainder. The construction of a
good road should double, or even quadruple the value of the land in its
immediate vicinity. No people are more fully alive to this fact than the
Americans. For the concession of a certain quantity of land on each side the
track, a company will often engage to lay down a line of railway through a
howling wilderness. It is all outlay and no profit at first start, but the
promoters well know that it must pay eventually, and they patiently bide
their time. First one lot is taken up, then another, and before very many
years have rolled away, the surrounding country is thickly populated, and
the line paying a handsome dividend. Civilization may not advance with such
giant strides in a colony where a macadamized road has to serve in lieu of a
line of railway; but it must be indeed a poor spot where “opening up” the
country is found to be a losing game, and where the lots along a new line of
road do not forthwith double in value.
Installed in his hut, or
shanty, and his first year’s crop garnered, the settler ought to be able to
get along without any further assistance. Many a prosperous farmer with whom
we have conversed in Canada and the United States has assured us, with a
blush of honest pride, that he began life without a “red cent” in his
pocket. It was generally the same story. Unable to purchase a quarter
section of land, even at government price, he had one fine morning humped
his pack, and, accompanied by wife and children, struck boldly into the
wilderness. For years he had wrestled with the forest, backing all his
supplies into the woods, and existing he hardly knew how. But, little by
little, he had managed to clear the land near his shanty; field had been
added to field, bam to barn, bullock to bullock, the land upon which he had
been a squatter upon sufferance had been purchased outright, and, thanks be
to God, he has prospered. If men can thus make headway without assistance of
any description, “Assisted” emigrants ought surely to be able to do the
same. It is the absence of a road that disheartens and retards the settler.
Not only would the government emigrant have a road past his door, but he
would have neighbours to assist him, and would begin his new career at a
stage which could only be reached by the ordinary settler after long years
of anxiety, toil, and privation.
"With proper men at the
wheel, Colonial Emigration, on the reciprocity principle, could hardly fail
to be a great success; but it would have to be a national undertaking.
Private Emigration Associations are of little use. They are spasmodic in
their action, faulty in their organization, expensive in their working; and
as their assistance is only extended to men of irreproachable character,
whilst relieving us of the thrifty, industrious mechanic, whom we would
desire to keep at home, they considerately leave us the unskilled and the
improvident, with whose presence we could readily dispense. It would never
do to send out only picked men. The vicious we are in honour bound to keep
at home—we have the hulks, ready for their reception—but that the country
should reap some benefit from the transaction, the good and the indifferent
would have to be shipped in fair proportions. When we say the indifferent,
we mean those who are so owing to circumstances beyond their own control;
for there is many a man amongst us classed as a vagrant, who would be ready
and willing to work if the chance were only given him. The genuine loafer
would decline to emigrate, for he knows right well that it is only in
densely populated England that his peculiar dodges for obtaining a living
without labour can avail him aught.
If a National Emigration
scheme be ever laid before Parliament, there would be, it seems to us, but
some half dozen questions for consideration.
"Would the Colonies,
according to their respective size, consent to take annually so many
thousands of our surplus population? Would not the supply always exceed the
demand? Would not the existence of a National Emigration Fund put a stop to
the working of all independent emigration societies and clubs, and tend to
increase, rather than diminish, the improvidence of our labouring classes?
Would not an emigration tax be excessively unpopular? and if not, in what
manner should it be levied ? The funds in hand, how should they be expended
? Of how many members should the emigration board be composed, and what
should be the powers confided to it?
As regards the first
question, it is merely a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. The
colonists want emigrants, but they naturally object to paying all the
expenses incidental to their transportation and settlement. If we are
benefited by the advent of your unemployed poor, they argue, so are you by
their exodus. The advantage being mutual, it is but fair that the expenses
should be so too. What offer do you feel disposed to make us ? If it be only
a fair one, we shall be happy to close with you at once, and . you can send
us a first instalment of emigrants - as soon as convenient. If the money be
forth-coming, on our side there will, we feel assured, be no backing out on
the part of the Colonies.
That the number of
applicants would be overwhelming, is, we think, highly improbable. There
would doubtless at first be a great demand for free and assisted passage
tickets, and every man who had no work to do would declare his willingness
to be off by the first ship to the Antipodes. But it would only be for a
time. Write and lecture as one may on the charms of colonial life,
emigration will never be really popular with the masses. The British workman
is a home-loving mortal; if he can obtain work he has no desire to leave Old
England. If he cannot, he will consent to emigrate—under protest. There is
besides, a certain amount of pride about the British workman. Unless he be a
very bad specimen of his class, he hates the very name of charity. He wont
go into the “ House” until driven to it; he will subsist on a crust rather
than ask relief. Were it his desire to emigrate, he would sell his clothes
and his tools rather than be carried at public cost. He has his faults, but
sponging is not one of them. The applicants at a government emigration
office would consist chiefly of artisans who had neither work nor the
wherewithal to raise sufficient money for their passage ticket, bankrupt
tradesmen, servants of all work, ill-paid, poorly fed, agricultural
labourers, with large families, and a fair proportion of “Micawbers”— men to
whom any change is a godsend. Of those physically disqualified for colonial
life—sinewless mill operatives, effeminate clerks, shopmen, &c.— no account
need be taken, nor yet of our Irish fellow-countrymen; not because they have
not as much right to government aid as the English and the Scotch, but that
the vast majority of them would infinitely prefer paying their own passage
to the United States, where their brethren have already “possission of the
flure,” to being carried gratis to Australia or New Zealand. Notwithstanding
the existence of a National Emigration Office, the tide of independent
emigration would roll on as before. The United States would still continue
to receive her tens of thousands yearly—a new channel would have been
opened, but it would only receive the overflow, not drain the country. Far
from a National Emigration Board putting a stoppage to the working of all
independent emigration societies and clubs throughout the country, it ought
rather to increase their number and efficiency. What has hitherto been the
greatest stumbling-block in the way of all such Associations P That not one
of them has been on a scale of sufficient magnitude to enable it to make the
most of the funds at its disposal. A few families, all that could be
despatched at a time, the incidental expenses were necessarily enhanced, the
passage tickets had to be purchased at the highest rates, and the club money
was dribbled away. A National Emigration Board once established in London,
all the disadvantages under which these clubs labour would be removed; for
to it would be confided the most onerous part of the business— that of
providing the ships and embarking the emi- 2 grants. The duties of the
different provincial clubs might be confined to the collection of
subscriptions and to the despatch to London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, of such
members as had been elected by their respective boards. As each club would
have the right to nominate members only in proportion to the amount it had
paid into the general account, no misunderstanding could possibly arise.
What that sum should be per head, and what the government subsidy, would be
a matter for further Imperial legislation. If shipowners can afford to carry
emigrants to Australia for thirteen or fourteen pounds per statute adult, a
government with any number of ships (rotting for want of use) at command,
ought surely to be able to do it at a considerably lower figure. Let the
amount demanded of the emigrant be only moderate, and instead of a National
Emigration Fund tending to augment the improvidence of the British workman,
as has been predicted, it will have just the contrary effect; for it is the
very magnitude of the sum that he has been required to raise—the time that
it has taken to accumulate that has hitherto disheartened him and made him
reckless. If that sum were only in lair proportion to his earnings, he would
go to work with a will, and save every penny, until his little purse was
made up.
That the enterprise might
be in a great measure self-supporting, as it ought to be, and, still
further, to prevent that “improvidence” which is so dreaded, seventy-five
per cent, of the entire number of emigrants despatched might be Club or
Government nominees (assisted passages), the remaining twenty-five being
composed of such impecunious families, orphans, &c., as should have been
recommended by the different Poor Law Guardians throughout the country. In
this way the special emigration tax which would have to be levied would be
comparatively insignificant. That it would be unpopular is highly probable j
all taxes are, but the diminished poor-rates would soon reconcile the
wrathful taxpayer to the imposition. The amount required would have to be
raised by direct taxation, for there are many reasons why parochial
ratepayers should vol. I. c not be called upon to bear the entire burden. If
parishes were to be mulcted in proportion to the number of inmates in their
respective workhouses, some would be surcharged, whilst others would escape
scot free. A tax upon all cultivable lands allowed for purposes of sport to
remain uncultivated, would perhaps be the fairest of any. That every man has
a right to do what he likes with his own, holds good only so long as the
exercise of that right does not interfere with the commonweal; which is not
the case when lands which, if properly cultivated, would find employment for
a large number of people, are left uncultivated in order to minister to the
sporting proclivities of the owner ; and the man who can afford to allow any
portion of his estate to remain unproductive as covert for the fera natura,
can afford to send the men who are thereby thrown out of employment to some
colony where work is plentiful and where there is “room enough for all.”
There may be a thousand ways of mitigating the sufferings of our unemployed
poor, but only one, we feel assured, by which their perfect cure can be
effected—by a well-organized system of Government emigration. The remedy is
sharp, but it is effective. It is, no doubt, a hard thing to be forced to
leave the land of one’s birth, and to go forth into the world to seek a home
amongst strangers. But the emigrant can have this assurance to console
him—that, in all our wanderings, we have never yet come across an
unsuccessful immigrant whose misfortunes could not be distinctly traced
either to laziness, intemperance, imprudence, or else to some one or other
of those unforeseen disasters from which, alas! there is no escape. That
there should be at the present moment thousands of people starving in New
York, Boston, and other large American cities, proves nothing. Men who are
so gregariously inclined that they cannot tear themselves away from the
great cities, must pay the penalty. When we speak of settlers, we mean
bona-fide settlers—those who have had the good sense to turn their attention
to the cultivation of the soil; Such men, we repeat, be they only sober and
industrious, are almost sure to prosper.
But before advising any man
to emigrate, we would first put to him the following questions. If a
gentleman by birth and education, have you a strong right arm and a sound
constitution? Can you divest yourself of your gentility, and take it
rough-and-tumble with those similarly circumstanced to yourself?
No?
Well, then, have you the
equivalents of bone and muscle—Capital?
You have not? Then stay at
home. You would be almost certain to go to the wall in a new country.
If a working man, what has
been the nature of your employment? Has your constitution been impaired by
the noisome atmosphere of factory or workshop, or from bending over the
loom, the desk, or the counter are your muscles relaxed, your tissues
wasted, and your shoulders rounded?
Yes? Then stay where you
are. You would only be in the way in the colonies.
The only men. likely to
succeed in the colonies are, besides household servants and skilful
mechanics, capitalists, both large and small, and those of iron thews and
sinews. |
