CO885-(1-2) — Page 279

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Thir

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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to obtain information. It may therefore be safely assumed that the whole amount, either remitted or paid for passages on the other side of the Atlantic was in reality considerably more than we have put

down.

It seems scarcely possible to doubt that a grant of public money would very much interfere with contributions from private sources, whether those of the emigrant himself or his friends. Every man would consider himself as much entitled as his neighbour to share in such a grant, and would look to it as his main assistance. At present individuals are, it is said, often sent out by contributions from the members of their family, in order that they may afterwards send home funds to take out the con- tributors. This is evidently a very healthy emigra- tion, and one that deserves encouragement. But what chance is there that any would submit to the privations inherent in such a system when there was a Government grant to fall back on? And even those who had means of their own, and who, under ordinary circumstances, would pay their own way without difficulty, would hold back so long as they had any hope of obtaining a share of the grant. The continual frauds practised on the emigration agent at Quebec, by persons applying as paupers for assistance up the country; and the experience of the year 1847 in Ireland, afford sufficient means of estimating the light in which a Government grant towards emigration would be viewed. Those must

be very sanguine who believe that it would not relax the exertions of individuals, or interfere with the present flow of emigration.

But it will be said that free passages would of course not be given; that a proportion only of the passage-money would be granted to make up the means of the emigrant himself, or his friends. As- sume that proportion, for the sake of argunient, at one-half. Then if what has been said above is true, the total paid for passages last year out of private sources having excceded 1,000,000%, a grant of 500,000l. would only keep the emigration at its present amount, displacing an equal sum which would have been contributed from private sources. A grant exceeding half a million would increase emi- gration, but in proportion to its excess only. But a grant of less than half a million would actually

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