CO885(1-2) — Page 269

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference:

885

1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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EMIGRATION.

teen years between 1816 and 1834 the emigration to British America almost always exceeded the emigration to the United States; and of 669,725 persons who proceeded to the American continent 402,301 went to British America, and only 267,424 to the United States. In 1835 the course changed, and from that time to the present the emigration to the United States has always exceeded, some- times in the proportion of more than 7 to 1, the emi- gration to British America. Of 3,053,294 persons who have emigrated to America in the twenty-one years between 1835 and 1855 inclusive, 2,323,312 have proceeded to the United States, and only 729,982 to British America.

It is not difficult to conjecture the causes which led to this result. While the emigration was small, and the United States comparatively unknown, it was natural that British subjects should rather pro- ceed to a British colony than a foreign country; but as soon as the numbers began to exceed the number that could be absorbed by Canada and New Brunswick (the power of the former being much circumscribed by her large French population), it became necessary for the emigrants to look for employment to the more extended labour market of the United States. At first, no doubt, they found their way to the United States to a great extent through Canada, but the resort thither once estab- lished, the emigration began to proceed direct, assisted in so doing, no doubt, by the superiority of the vessels employed on the New York line, by the greater activity of the American agents, and by the comparative shortness of the voyage. It may be assumed likewise that, as the emigration became more exclusively Irish, the disposition to escape from British dominion amongst the discontented part of the population would be stronger, and the foreign territory would be selected because it was foreign. And as the first Irish emigrants drew after them friends and relations, and found the means of paying for their emigration, it was natural that the resort to the United States, which at first had been adopted from necessity, should be continued from

Preponderance to British North America.

Preponderance to

United States.

Causes of the change.

Irish emigration.

lation.

EMIGRATION.

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choice, and that the proportion of the whole emi- gration which proceeded thither should go on con- tinually increasing.

In respect to Irish emigration, there is no reason to doubt that oven in the earliest times it formed a considerable proportion of the whole, although the records of early years give us but little information on this point. But in the recent emigration, up to 1854, it is certain that the Irish constituted at least four-fifths of the whole of that which proceeded to

the American continent, and that to the extent of

Its effect on popu- this emigration may in a great measure be attri- buted the decrease in the population of Ireland between 1841 and 1851, as shown by the census

Vide Report of

1852.

Remittances from

abroad.

of the latter year. The total of that decrease was 1,659,330, and it has been shown that the total Irish emigration during those ten years was pro- bably not less than 1,289,133. This diminishes very largely the effect attributed to the famine of 1847, and the general distress of the whole decennial period, in reducing the population. In 1854 the proportion of Irish in the American emigration fell to a little more than seven-twelfths of the whole. In 1855 it has amounted to little more than one-half.

The expense of the Irish emigration has for many years been principally defrayed by remittances sent home by those who had already emigrated. We have no return of such remittances before 1848, nor can we consider the returns since that date as by any means representing all that is sent home. Wo depend for our information on the courtesy of the mercantile houses and banks in connection with America at the principal outports, who havo sup- plied us with statements of the sums remitted through them. The amount so returned to us was, in round numbers,--

£ 460,000

in 1848

1840

540,000

1850

057,000

1851

$90,000

1852

1,404,000

1853

1,438,000

1854

1,730,000

Total

£8,520,000