POU!
Inscellaneous
No 1xb-
EMIGRATION TO CANADA.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference -
ETC.O. 885
1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
My Lord,
To Lord John Russell, &c. &c.
2, Middle Scotland Yard, 21st April, 1840-
pro-
IN obedience to your Lordship's directions, we have attentively con- sidered the various proposals made to your Lordship by parties interested in effecting a systematic emigration to Canada, and we have conferred with all persons from whom it appeared likely that we could obtain useful and practical information on the matter. We have also ourselves looked at the question in the two points of view in which it naturally presents itself, namely, of relief to the United Kingdom, and of benefit to the Canadian vinces. And we now beg leave to report to your Lordship the conclusions at which we have been able to arrive upon the whole subject before us.
I. As regards relief,-we find that there never was a period in which there seemed to prevail a greater anxiety for emigration throughout the three countries of the United Kingdom. From every part of England we are daily receiving applications from individuals of the labouring classes who are anxious to be assisted in their emigration to any of the British colonies. In the case of South Australia, the only colony to which we at present have an opportunity of conducting a free emigration, we find that the number of eligible candidates very far exceeds the means which we possess for their conveyance. In Ireland, the system now so generally adopted by the land- lords of consolidating their estates, and of dispossessing the small holders, lias increased to a great amount the number of the Irish peasantry who are willing and anxious to seek in the colonies the means of a comfortable subsistence, which are beyond their reach in their own country. This desire to emigrate is moreover at the present moment stimulated and encouraged by the proprietors who are apprehensive of the amount of charge which may be thrown upon them by the Poor Law, which is now coming into operation. In some parts of Scotland a large portion of the population is entirely destitute of employment, and dependent for actual subsistence upon the charity of the proprietors on whose estates they are living We are informed that there were at least 100,000 in this predicament in the islands, and on the north- western coast. Some of these people have become depredators and
* In a memorial which has just been forwarded to us from the Glasgow Committee on Highland distress, the number of destitute prople is computed so high as 150,000, and the expense of removing them calculated at one million sterling-
B