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task, and it would probably be very favourably received in the commercial world, in evidence of which I give a letter of an eminent stockbroker in London. [See App. No. 2.]
At the present stage it appears unnecessary to discuss the number that ought to be emigrated in order to effect the ultimate pacification of Ireland, because I think it would be more prudent that a novel scheme of this kind should not be adopted in the first instance on a larger scale than would be necessary to give it a fair trial. I put this number at 10,000 families; and what I have therefore to show is only that the emigra- tion of such a number in, say, two years, would not be beyond the requirements of the case. For this purpose, I would ask your Lordship to refer to the Agricultural Statistics of Ireland, 1881, p. 20. There it will be seen that there are 50,000 families occupying not more than one acre each, 67,000 not more than five acres, and 164,000 families not more than 15 acres each, and this, let it be remembered, is in a country devoid of native industries (excepting the linen trade) beyond the cultivation of the soil, and that, too, subject to a climate that causes cattle rearing and dairy produce to be the most profitable, probably the only profitable form of cultivation.
These incontrovertable facts prove at least that the emigration of 10,000 families in two years would not be too many.
Now 10,000 families at 2001. a family would absorb 2,000,000, the amount of the advance required for the first experiment on a scale large enough to give it a fair trial, and on probably the maximum advance that would at any one time be required throughout a continued development of the system. For should this sum fail to be repaid, or should the settled lands fail to afford adequate security, the experiment would be discontinue.l. But in the event of the advances being repaid or adequately secured (which is pretty much the same thing) they need only be replaced from time to time by fresh advances, so that there would never be at one time more than 2,000,0001, unpaid and unsecured.
The foregoing is an outline of the important measure I beg to submit with great confidence to your Lordship's consideration.
I have given it freed of details, in order that the broad principle on which it rests may stand out in clearer view, which is this: That State-assisted emigration ought to be, and can be, made self-supporting; and if so, I shall be able to show in another letter, that it furnishes the Government with the most powerful instrument for working out the contentment and permanent pacification of Ireland.
In my anxiety to lose no time in bringing the subject before your Lordship as Colonial Minister, I have determined in this letter to limit myself to a bare statement of the measure, and reserve for another letter my reasons for holding that there is no other measure of relief capable of effecting these results for Ireland.
I would be glad of a personal interview to lay before your Lordship the details of the measure which I have worked out in conjunction with experienced Colonists.
I consulted all the Agents-General of the Australian Colonies, and a written statement of an analogous plan has been submitted to the consideration of the Government of New South Wales by the Agent-General at his request.
I am alive to the obstacles that stand in the way of such negotiations between the Home and the Colonial Governments, but I believe they can be overcome by tact and judgment so eminently at your Lordship's command.
I had repeated interviews with the Right Hon. Thos. McIlwraith, in 1881 Premier of the Government of Queensland. He entered warmly into the scheme, declared that it would be well suited to the Colony of Queensland, and that if our Government could be induced to adopt it, he would go so far as make it a Cabinet question, were his colleagues not in favour of it.
At my instance he saw Lord Kimberley on the subject, just the day he left for Queensland, and afterwards myself, and I promised I would not relax my efforts to promote the measure; in fulfilment of which I am now addressing your Lordship. And if your Lordship were to open negotiations with the Queensland Government, I feel so deeply interested in the object, I would proceed to Queensland on such a mission if agreeable to your Lordship.
I am, &c.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Derby.
E. T. WAKEFIELD.
DEAR SIR,
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APPENDIX I.
ESTIMATE referred to for emigrating a Family of six.
80 acres of land under the Queensland Government Sea passage
Conveyance of the family to the port of embarkation, and from
the port of debarkation
Erection of a wooden house (the timber cut-up by a locomotive
steam-engine on the spot
House furniture -
-
Agricultural implements, seeds, &c.
Food for nine months
998
10
65
5
35
-
10
15
60
£200
APPENDIX II.
Hookfield Grove, Epsom, September 22, 1882.
*
I think your proposal to take up land in Queensland to let out or sell in small parcels to emigrants is not unlikely to take with the public, especially if you can get a few leading men, like Lord John Manners, Mr. Laing, and I may add, Sir Philip Rose, to take part in it.
No 2.
I am, &c.
ISAAC BRAITHWAITE.
E. T. WAKEFIELD, Esq. to the RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY.
Union Club, London,
February 28, 1883. submitted to your Lordship's
MY LORD,
In a former letter,* posted on the 25th ult., consideration & scheme of self-supporting State-assisted emigration that has been a long time under careful consideration, and expressed a wish of laying before you in another letter my reasons for believing that this is the only measure capable of bringing about
permanent pacification of Ireland.
the
I will begin by observing that the necessity of devising some means of affording a more ready escape for the surplus unemployed population of Ireland has been for years my firm conviction. But any attempts before this to induce Irish landlords or others to recognize the necessity met with scant support. Their shortsightedness is now costing them dear.
My idea was that younger sons of landowners might have formed the heads of Colonial settlements, leading out, with Government help, the surplus population from their Irish
estates.
I was convinced that, if some such systematic relief were not afforded, sooner or later the crisis would come, and at the last elections I felt a certainty of its nearness. Some of the speeches then made and which followed were eminently calculated to fire the train, as I wrote to some of their authors, stating that there were many now alive and well in Ireland who, I feared, would be laid in their graves in consequence of these speeches; and I had an interview with a then Cabinet Minister, in which I earnestly advocated this measure of relief for Ireland.
I have rarely lost an opportunity of advocating it, and have of late received much encouragement and promises of support from men of various politics.
I do not dissemble the fact that there is more than one cause of disaffection, differences of race, of religion, traditions of conquest, and the like; but these are inaccessible to legislative remedy, and would die out if unsupported by physical
* No. 1.
A 3
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