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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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vagabonds, almost unavoidably and by the force of circumstances, but by far the largest portion are represented to be anxious to live honestly, as they ever have done, and to be exceedingly desirous therefore of the means of emigrating to countries where they might have better prospects of maintaining themselves. It thus appears that if ever a large and systematic emigration could be resorted to as a measure of national relief, there has been no period at which it could have been undertaken with so much advantage to all classes of the community as at the present moment; to the rich as relieving them from permanent and onerous charges upon their estates, to the poor, as placing them where their labour can be profitably employed.

If we turn to Canada, we find that the benefit which will accrue to both provinces from a rapid augmentation of their inhabitants is not less clear and decisive. Both require labour for the development of their almost infinite resources. Both require strength for their protection from foreign incursions, and in one of them an immediate infusion of a British population has become a measure of the highest political expediency. There is but one doubt on the subject which the experience of the past suggests, namely, as to the means which may exist for retaining the people in the country to which they have been removed, and preventing the re-emigration of labourers to the states beyond the border, where the high wages and regular employment form a source of powerful attraction. But this is a point on which we shall presently offer such observations as we have to make.

Since, then, emigration onfa most extensive scale would appear to be an object so highly desirable for the interests of this country, and of the colonies in question, we turn to the consideration of the means by which it can be effected. It would appear at once that as the benefit will be mutual, the burden should be so likewise. In this view, the resources which would pre- sent themselves are as follows:

1st. The public funds of this country, if Parliament should think fit to make a grant.

2nd. Parochial funds in England and Ireland.

3rd. The colonial land funds, so far as they may be applied to this pur- pose by those who have the control over them.

4th. Contributions from corporate land companies interested in Canada. 5th. Contributions from private proprietors at home, desirous of clearing their estates.

them.

We propose to treat of these heads in the order in which we have placed

1. The first is a parliamentary grant.

This is the means of aid to which all are the most willing to look, but it is also the one which to us would appear to demand the most caution as to the principles on which it should be invoked.

We conceive that to justify a demand upon the public revenue of the whole country, there must be a public and strictly national object in view. Now, it is not our wish at present to enter upon the wide and controverted question, whether it would be possible, by grants or advances of public money, to conduct emigration upon a scale sufficiently extensive to remove from the United Kingdom the burden of over-population. If, indeed, it were now in contemplation to provide for a general relief of the labour market of the United Kingdom, in whatever part of it pressure might happen to arise, the →→ discussion on the subject might turn upon points of practicability or of expe- diency, but there could no longer be any doubt that the ends aimed at con- cerned the country at large, and that to a benefit in which all were competent to share, all might fairly be called upon to contribute. But in the present instance, there is no idea of calling for a vote adequate to the general relief of the United Kingdom. All that the Government has before it consists of applications on behalf of particular classes, who from the vicissitudes of trade, and it may be, from local redundancy in the population, have been reduced to want. And while the case most urged upon the Government appears to us a very strong one, and deserving of all sympathy, it is not to be concealed that many other strong claims would not be wanting. We may instance the hand loom weavers in England. In Ireland, it is needless to say how numerous and well founded would be the claims for similar relief, if the principle were

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once admitted. We confess, therefore, that we should see great difficulty in applying at present to Parliament for an emigration grant, of which relief should be the primary object; although, if we shall presently show other motives for making such a grant, the relief it might afford would no doubt be an additional recommendation of the measure.

The benefit done to the Canadas, in an economic point of view, would not appear a sufficient reason for a grant from Parliament. For it would seem unfair to select one or two colonies upon which to bestow the advantage of this public aid, and to leave it to others to recruit their population out of their own resources. Certain we are that, if such a motive could be supposed to have prevailed, the inhabitants of other colonies would feel that an injustice had been done to them, and would press upon the Government for their quota of the emigrants sent out at the public expense. We might mention especially the colonists in New South Wales, whose relations with the Government are peculiar and complicated, and who from the exhaustion for the present of their land fund, and the withdrawal of convict labour, are threatened with a severe check in their career of prosperity.

One ground alone remains on which we think that Parliament could with propriety be asked, in the present instance, to contribute a considerable súm towards emigration. It is a public one, and it is peculiar to Canada. We allude to the consideration that a large increase of British population is essen- tial to the security and tranquillity of the province, and, as a consequence of that tranquillity, to the large saving of expense which will be effected by a dirninution of the forces at present quartered there. Upon this ground, we think that Parliament might be asked, and very properly asked, for a vote of money in aid of Canadian emigration; and we will endeavour before we conclude to fix the sum which may be sufficient under the present circum-

stances.

Looking to the object of the vote, we would most strongly recommend that under no circumstances should the Government defray any part of the expense of conveying emigrants, unless there should appear every probability either of their employment within the colonies as labourers, or, in cases where that could not be relied on, of their settlement upon land. The estimate adopted by Lord Durban is that sixty out of every hundred of the emigrants from the United Kingdom remove to the United States at some short period after their arrival in Canada; and it is obvious that this re-emigration would be fatal to the object which the Legislature would have in view in granting any money for the purpose. With reference to this point, we are informed that most of the public works in the states adjoining Canada have been stopped in consequence of pecuniary embarrassments; a circumstance which will of course render the present year remarkably favourable to the encou- ragement of Canadian emigration.

Before leaving the present head, we ought, perhaps, to observe that it is an evil incident to public contribution towards the expense of emigration, that

it is likely to impair private exertions for that object, both on the part of the rich and the poor. We have little doubt that the expectation which appears to have so generally arisen that Government intended, this year, to grant pecuniary aid towards the emigration to Canada, has tended to check the spontaneous flow which would otherwise have been directed there. This evil, however, may be met to a certain extent, partly by making the aid NEVER purely gratuitous, but always contingent on a contribution from the parties, and partly by an early publication of the limits of the whole amount of the Government fund for assistance.

II. In turning now to the second source from which we concluded that money might be forthcoming for purposes of emigration to Canada, namely, parochial funds, we would remark, that it appears to us more just that the rate-payers and owners in parishes should use, for purposes of emigration, the powers of local taxation vested in them by law, whenever the surrounding district is suffering from a permanent redundancy of population, than that Parliament should be required to relieve them out of the funds of the nation. The Poor Law Commissioners have stated to us that they are extremely favourable to emigration, and that they will do everything in their power to promote it. We cannot doubt, therefore, that some funds will be forthcoming