SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE NECESSITY FOR CONTINUING TO FACILITATE VOLUNTARY EMIGRATION
[Image of page 97]
SOME OBSERVATIONS
ON THE NECESSITY FOR
CONTINUING TO FACILITATE VOLUNTARY EMIGRATION,
BY MEANS OF MODERATE CHARGES FOR
CHIEF AND FORE-CABIN PASSAGES TO NEW ZEALAND,
IN A LETTER TO
JOSEPH SOMES, Esq.
GOVERNOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.
MY DEAR SIR,
I address the following observations to you, because I am well aware of the anxious desire you have always evinced to give your support within the New Zealand House, and your influence without, to whatever measures are calculated to promote the prosperity of the colony; and as I believe the observance of economy in the charges for passages to New Zealand is calculated to produce the most beneficial results, I am naturally desirous of securing your concurrence with the remarks I am about to lay before you, convinced that if I succeed in so doing--if I am fortunate enough to enlist your energies in favour of what must at present be deemed an experiment, I shall have done much to secure the continuance of a system which bids fair to be productive of the happiest consequences to the colony, the prosperity of which you have, I know, so much at heart, and which you have already, in every way, so much promoted.
I must observe at the very outset, that the views I am about to submit to you, must not be taken as the mere solitary opinions of the individual who now addresses you. They are shared by a very large number of persons connected, or likely to be connected with the colony; including
[Image of page 98]
many of the shareholders of the New Zealand Company, and a still larger number of owners of land within the Company's territory. If, indeed, I had been alone in the views I am about to unfold, I should scarcely have deemed myself justified in taking up your time; but I can safely say, that there is no subject connected with the colonization of New Zealand wherein so perfect an unanimity exists--a truth which must have come within your own observation.
For many years past, before the colonization of New Zealand had been thought of, the high prices charged for passages to the Australian colonies have been a subject of complaint. The East Indian voyage seems to have been the standard according to which the prices have been fixed; and the table furnished has been more distinguished for costly luxuries, than for a plain but wholesome bill of fare. A great deal of art has been practised to enlist the ordinary prejudices and weaknesses of society in favour of an extravagant scale and an exorbitant charge, and against frugality and economy. "Gentility" has been variously defined. The standard erected by the Quarterly Review, namely, "keeping a gig," has been often referred to; the brokers connected with Australian shipping would wish us to believe that it consists in drinking (or perhaps merely paying for) champagne and claret every day. The champagne is made the excuse for every deficiency and for every extravagance. I recollect once making my passage from America in a ship which was very shabbily provided with necessaries. We experienced a prevalence of easterly winds, and our passage was somewhat protracted, which was a reasonable excuse for some short comings; but making all allowances, there was a great and culpable neglect of comfort. We were out of fresh provisions, of tea, and ultimately even short of water, and the potatoes put on board were insufficient even for a very short voyage; but we had champagne twice a week! and when I ventured to complain of the short supply
[Image of page 99]
of potatoes, I was silenced by the remark that I must be a person very difficult to please, inasmuch as champagne was allowed twice a week in the cabin; in fact, the last Sunday we were on board, our dinner consisted of red herrings and champagne--the charge, as may be supposed, being measured by the champagne, rather than by the red herrings.
Where the charge of seventy or eighty guineas has been objected to, the broker is always ready with his remedy of an intermediate passage, with a "comfortable cabin," and a "liberal dietary," for half the money; but the unfortunate who permits himself to be entrapped into the alleged "comforts" of the intermediate cabin, finds that he is poked into a confined hole; and although he may not be abridged of the stipulated quantity of those maritime luxuries, salt beef, pork, and hard biscuit, they are so uncomfortably served, with so little attention even to cleanliness, that the health of the passenger's family suffers materially during the voyage. As far as space, ventilation, and cleanliness are concerned, the free emigrants sent out under the controul of the Company, are infinitely better provided than the intermediate passengers by many private ships, and the two bottles of porter or (not and) one bottle of wine (and what wine!) a week, are but poor compensation for foul air and want of cleanliness every day.
But this is not all. The champagne standard of gentility is brought to bear against the intermediate passenger, albeit far superior in many instances to the "aristocracy of the cabin." A correspondent 1 of the New Zealand Journal points out the conduct which is frequently practised towards the passengers of the class in question, and I have myself 2 seen the evils which arise out of the invidious distinction between cabin and intermediate passengers. The interme-
[Image of page 100]
diate passenger is not allowed to walk on the poop-deck of the vessel, except while the cabin passengers are at breakfast. The captain never speaks to him, but the crew do, and taking their cue from the captain's silent contempt, not always in the most courteous manner. The second mate, and perchance even the steward, honours the daughter by making love to her; and "on landing in the colony," says Tasman, "the intermediate is never recognised by the cabin passenger; and were the latter questioned whether they did not come out together, he would probably reply, 'I hardly know, he certainly was not in the cabin.' "The conduct of ignorant and vulgar-minded cabin passengers and ship masters, towards those who are often their superiors in everything except the senseless craving for distinction by the only means within their reach, namely, a lavish expenditure, is sufficiently annoying even to the strongest mind; and many excellent men have not the moral courage to contend against this false assumption of superiority, aided by the ridicule of economy with which it is accompanied. I recollect one case which came within my own knowledge, that of an intermediate passenger returning from Canada, whither he had emigrated a few years before, but being ill adapted for the life of a settler, was returning much disgusted, and evidently much impoverished, to his own country. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word, was well educated, and well informed, and had taken a high degree at his University; he had a mild, sensible, and amiable wife, and their two children were extremely well brought up. They were companions for any one; but they were treated as inferiors by the coarse grog-drinking captain, and the "aristocracy of the cabin;" until a better example was set by a military officer of rank and his lady, aided by one or two others, whose sympathies were more in unison with the poor gentleman than with the thriving, and in the main, not ill-natured traders with whom the cabin was for the most part filled. If, however, these two or three persons of unequivocal
[Image of page 101]
station had not stepped forward to give their countenance to the poor "intermediate," he would have been made unhappy for the voyage, and his gentle wife would perhaps have been subject to the impertinences of some of the "gentlemen" of the cabin. His discomfort, however, would have been over in three or four weeks: where, as the case of the New Zealand voyage, it lasts four months, it becomes almost unendurable.
Whilst we condemn in the strongest terms this assumption of superiority on the part of cabin over intermediate passengers, the feeling which prompts the passenger in moderate circumstances to shrink from subjecting himself, and perhaps a tenderly nurtured family thereto, cannot be disapproved of. A decent pride of station is the parent of many virtues. Men who guard their position in society with watchful jealousy are not very likely to bring disgrace upon themselves and families; and he who is callous to inferiority of position, even though that inferiority be conventional or ideal, is not likely to be very sensitive touching distinctions which carry with them real degradation. To the right-minded, therefore the intermediate passage must and ought to give pain; and I have the means of knowing that many have been deterred from emigrating by the impossibility of sparing two or three hundred pounds for cabin passage, and by their indisposition to submit to the stigma of the intermediate berths. Yet these are the very men most likely to promote the rapid progress of the Company's settlements, by becoming active producers from the very moment of their arrival in the colony.
It is for these considerations that the first effort of the New Zealand Company to reduce the price of cabin passages, and to afford means for the emigration of a substantial yeomanry, by chartering the Phoebe, has met with such universal approval, not merely among those who are likely to reap the direct advantage of the system, but among all who are related to the Company as owners of the land or shareholders. Even among men of "gentle birth" and of refined
[Image of page 102]
education and habits--men with means sufficient to command the respect of the vulgar--I hear the praises of the Company perpetually expressed. Contemplating emigration to the Company's settlements, they rejoice in the opportunity thus afforded them of economising their means without disparagement to their station in life, and without abatement of substantial comfort.
It must be of the greatest importance to those who emigrate to New Zealand to reach the colony with their resources as little reduced by the expense of transport as possible. We must not look for the emigration of large capitalists-- they can find comfort at home. The class of persons most likely to resort to emigration are those who have a few hundred pounds, or at most two or three thousand, for which they cannot find safe and profitable employment here. The small capitalist cannot sustain a ruinous competition with the large capitalist, and therefore he removes to a more advantageous, field where he is secure against such fatal competition. The charge of seventy or eighty guineas for each adult member of his family precludes the idea of emigration to New Zealand, and drives him perhaps, to Canada, whilst a charge of about half that amount not only renders New Zealand attractive to him, but saves his capital, with only a small diminution, for immediate production on his arrival. But the positive advantage of a saving of capital is not all. The old system promoted the acquisition of luxurious and expensive habits, which many have found it difficult to throw off, after their arrival; and I have no doubt that the rivalry in show and expense, which is so conspicuous in some of our newest colonies, may be partly traced to the new standard of gentility established on board the Australian ships. This is a very great evil, and great indeed should be the gratitude of the colonists towards the New Zealand Company, that they have boldly laid the axe at its very roots.
Hitherto I have for the most part confined myself to the
[Image of page 103]
comfort and convenience of the passengers themselves. I know you would bear with me in this course, as you have always permitted that consideration to have great weight in the measures to which you have given your sanction and support. Let me now ask your attention to a few observations as to the beneficial effect of economical passages upon the interests of the colony and of the Company.
One of the most conspicuous results of the first trial of the economical system is the large number of persons who have availed themselves thereof, who would not have emigrated at all unless under the new system. The Thomas Sparks sailed with three or four cabin passengers only; the Indus had only two: the Phoebe, on the other hand, had twenty-five adults, besides twenty-three in the fore cabin, with ten or eleven children to each class. Does any one pretend to say that half or even a quarter of these could have emigrated at all under the old system?--and yet they constitute, in every sense of the word, a valuable body of settlers. 3 In the fore cabin, as well as in the chief cabin, there is scarcely an individual who has not some capital. I believe it is well known to some of the Directors that one of the families in the fore cabin had with them not far short of one thousand pounds; and although no means exist for ascertaining the aggregate amount of capital they carried out, I know that it was considerable. Thus both classes of passengers will become producers and employers of labour from the very moment of their arrival, and not as many of the former cabin passengers have been--mere hangers on about the town, seeking some compendious mode of making a fortune, and when disappointed, swelling the current of discontent.
The fore cabin passengers by the Phoebe constitute a truly valuable class of settlers. Although many, perhaps most of
[Image of page 104]
them, possess some capital, and a few have good capitals for a young country, scarcely any of them will abstain from actual labour. They have been habituated to industry from their infancy, and they will not easily throw off a deeply engrafted habit. Some of these must be classed as labourers, with some small means, whilst others may be considered as substantial yeomen, who can and will put their hands to labour with those whom they employ. The labourers with small means will continue to labour for hire, contracting for all sorts of jobs, such as ditching, fencing, well-sinking, and so forth, hiring a companion labourer or two if it be necessary for the completion of their contract. The fore cabin passengers, with larger means, must be classed as employers; but they will themselves labour with their men, whom their industry will encourage by the powerful stimulus of example. Many of the chief cabin passengers, too, will give effect to their own capital by the labour of their hands. On the whole; I can scarcely conceive a more valuable body of settlers than those which the Phoebe carries out; and should any check upon so useful a class take place, I know that many would deplore it as a deep misfortune to the Company's settlements. I regard the Phoebe's rich freight of honest industry as the most valuable boon the Company ever conferred on the colony. She conveys to Nelson and Wellington the elements of future greatness, in a higher degree than any previous ship, except, perhaps, those which conveyed the first colony to Port Nicholson--an emigration unprecedented in the annals of colonization.
Another great advantage to the colony is, that the large number of employers of labour which the Phoebe conveys to the colony, and which indeed the system will have a perpetual tendency to convey thither, must have the effect of improving the proportion between employers and employed, and therefore of keeping wages at a remunerating rate. This, I know, is a great recommendation to you personally, as well
[Image of page 105]
as to many of the Directors. Colonization would be unworthy of notice were it not a means to improve the condition of the industrious classes; and that colonization is the most so which best fulfils its appropriate function. An apprehension has been entertained by some of the Directors that mere labour has been introduced rather too rapidly into the several settlements. I have watched the rate of wages pretty closely in Wellington and Nelson, and have not perceived any indication that the apprehension in question is well founded; neither do any of the letters from labouring men themselves show that their condition betrays excess. Nevertheless, it is a proper subject for vigilance. Capital should bear such a proportion to labour as to secure the comfort of the labourer; the stoppage of the emigration of labourers is but a rude and clumsy mode of improving the proportion; the better method is to facilitate the emigration of capitalists, by every means at the Company's disposal. What so simple a method as to continue to dispatch ships on the economical principle? Although all cabin passengers are not employers, neither are all steerage passengers labourers, yet if the Company would lay down a rule as to the proportion of steerage to cabin passengers which they would furnish, they would soon be able to ascertain its practical working. I once made a calculation that for the first 300 cabin passengers, 1200 emigrants of the labouring class were not sufficient to prevent a great scarcity of labour. I am inclined to think that if six free emigrants, of all ages, were sent out to every cabin passenger of adult age, there would be no indication of too rapid an introduction of labour. In the case of the Phoebe, it may be thought that the capitals taken out will be more moderate, individually, than the capitals of other cabin passengers. I do not think so; but if the Court should be of that opinion let the proportion be fixed at five instead of six, and there need be no fear of too rapid supply of labour to the Company's settlements. The
[Image of page 106]
five steerage passengers would scarcely supply two labourers, the rest constituting the labourers' wives and children; and as to the fore-cabin passengers, they would supply rather a larger proportion of employers than of employed. Supposing, however, that among the fore-cabin passengers the capital was just equal to keep employed the labour conveyed--and that, I think, would be a safe assumption--the twenty-five adult cabin passengers by the Phoebe would have justified the transmission of 125 free emigrants, if five to one be the proportion adopted, or of 150, if six to one be the rule. Of course, exactness of proportion is impossible of attainment; but so long as wages continue at a remunerating rate, the Company might assume that they are on the safe side. By the Phoebe, the actual number of free emigrants sent out was 115, 4 a number far within the proportion I have fixed; indeed, as the Phoebe had forty-eight adult passengers with more or less capital, and only seventy-one persons assumed to be labourers without capital, it is right to conclude that the proportion of employment to labour has been greatly improved.
It may now be seen how easy it will be for the New Zealand Company to regulate the proportion between capital and labour, so as to keep a constant supply of the latter without impairing its remuneration, and without resorting to the miserable expedient of stopping emigration. A rule may be established that, for a certain number of chief-cabin passengers, a certain proportion of free emigrants of the average ages be furnished. If the above proportion be adopted, the Company should furnish fifty steerage passengers for every ten in the cabin. This, we believe, would keep wages at a highly remunerative rate; and if, at any time, there should arise any ground for the apprehension that labour was sup-
[Image of page 107]
plied in excess, a reduction of the proportion to four to one would restore the proper ratio in favour of the labourer.
The power of regulating the proportion between employers and employed, might be retained by the Company, not merely in the case of the ships chartered by themselves, but in that also of ships dispatched by private owners. In the latter case, where a shipowner could show that he had ten cabin passengers engaged, the Company might agree to furnish fifty free emigrants, under their own regulations. But it would be better if the Company retained the whole controul, regulating even the chief-cabin passages, by chartering the ship. The public have great confidence in the Company: it is well known that the utmost attention is paid to the comfort of the passengers of all classes; three years' experience has made the Company's officers as skilful as they are zealous in the performance of their respective duties, and the general accommodation of the free emigrants is scarcely susceptible of further improvement. In the case of private traders, on the other hand, the passenger is always beset by a lurking fear that, even in the quantity as well as the quality of the provisions, to say nothing of the little comforts which cannot be comprised in a printed dietary, the interest of the passenger must frequently yield to that of the owner. It will therefore be far better if the Company continue to charter the ship, as in the case of the Phoebe, making such modifications as to price and regulations as the experience acquired by the first trial may show to be necessary. Under a system which is obviously so attractive to small capitalists--which promises to send out from thirty to forty employers of labour by every ship, the Company need be under no fear of supplying labour too rapidly, or of a reduction of wages in the colony. If they send out ship after ship with between one and two hundred free emigrants, and only three or four in the cabin, as in the case of the Thomas Sparkes--or one cabin passenger and
[Image of page 108]
his wife, as in the case of the Indus--a glut of labour may be brought about; but so long as their ships are filled as the Phoebe was, with more employers than labourers, the deficiency will be the other way.
There is another consideration which should weigh with the Company, and that is the effect of the new system on the demand for land. Where a ship has twenty-five adult chief-cabin passengers, and nearly as many fore-cabin passengers, all of them possessed of some, and some of them of considerable means, a demand for the Company's land cannot fail to spring from their emigration. The direct demand previous to their departure (though that I am told was larger than arose out of the departure of any previous ship during the present year) may not be large, but the indirect demand cannot fail to be considerable. Even if no one of the Phoebe's passengers had purchased a whole allotment, their demand for lands at second-hand in the colony--for parts of sections, both town and country, will soon send a wholesale demand to the Company's land offices. You are well aware that a land association exists at Wellington, composed of men of the working class, who invest their savings in small holdings; others will no doubt spring up in all the Company's settlements; the class of passengers by the Phoebe are the very men to extend such associations, nay, they are themselves sufficiently numerous to establish one among themselves. I may mention in this place, that a very intelligent friend of mine, who is about to proceed to New Zealand by one of the earliest ships, has matured an admirable plan for building societies, which is especially adapted to the same class of passengers, and which will promote a demand for land in small sections. Now, these small demands have a tendency to exhaust the marketable supply of land in second hands. It is the aggregate of these small demands which creates the larger demand which reaches the Company. Each country section disposed of in small lots
[Image of page 109]
may be regarded as a section withdrawn from the supply on hand, for immediate use. It is analogous to merchandize taken out of bond--the merchant no longer regards it as forming part of the supply--it is in course of consumption. The demand for small sections is, in fact, the really effective demand; and it is for this reason that I assert that no ship during the present year has carried out so large a demand for land as the Phoebe, without reckoning the whole allotments purchased in this country. Indeed, I believe she has carried out a larger immediate demand than that of all the ships of the present year taken together.
If this system had been thought of, and carried into execution, when the first emigrant ships for the colony of Nelson started, the effect would have been very conspicuous; there would have been three or four times as many employers; there would have been between two and three hundred fore-cabin passengers, yeomen and labourers with some means; Wellington would have received its share of both classes of passengers; production would have been much greater than it is at present; there would have been more buildings in Wellington and Nelson--and they would probably have been of a more substantial character; and though last not least, the great result of the whole would have been an increased demand for the Company's lands; in short, it is my firm belief, that the Company has never yet tried a measure so abundantly fraught with the elements of prosperity to the colony, and of advantage to themselves, as the system under notice.
I believe a reduction in the cabin fares to New Zealand, and to Australia, would be more profitable to shipowners than they are disposed to believe. All traders know that an extensive trade, at moderate rates of profit, generally yields a larger aggregate profit than a limited business at a large rate of profit; and I am assured that many shipowners are well disposed to fall in with the system originated by the Company. Even in the East India trade, a reduction in the
[Image of page 110]
price of cabin passages is proposed, and I think it may be clearly traced to the example set by the Company. The following advertisement lately appeared in The Times:--
"Passage to India for sixty guineas, including wines and a liberal table. --Cadets and other passengers proceeding to India may have their passages secured for sixty guineas, in a very fast-sailing first-class vessel, with excellent accommodation, which will sail from Portsmouth punctually on ------, on immediate application being made to ---------------, where every information on Indian and colonial matters may be obtained."
I do not pretend that the private shipowners can afford to provide cabin passages at the Phoebe's rates; but I have made diligent enquiry, and I find that for £50. the ordinary cabin table, without wines, can be furnished, with a prospect of a better aggregate profit than by taking a few cabin passengers at the old rates. A well-informed correspondent of mine assures me that for that sum the cabin fare should consist of fresh meat every day, and enough for all; poultry occasionally; tea, coffee, sugar, and other articles of the best quality; bread baked every third day; and a cow to afford milk; and I believe that the increased number would far more than make up for a reduced rate of profit per head.
As the New Zealand Company is deeply interested in the continuance of the system, the Court might lay down a strict rule not to supply free emigrants to any ship wherein the chief-cabin charge exceeded £50., without wine; and where some fore-cabin accommodation was not afforded to the yeomanry class. The effect of this rule, in combination with that which provides for a certain proportion between steerage and chief-cabin passengers, would be to cause the system to be fairly tried; and although the Directors may at present meet with opposition from persons connected with shipping, I have no doubt that in a twelvemonth from the present time, the Company would receive the thanks of the very persons who now erroneously consider their interests to lie
[Image of page 111]
in a high price. If as many passengers could be obtained at the high as at the moderate price, they would be correct; but the effect of cheapness is in all cases to increase demand; passengers would be induced to emigrate to Australia, who now go to North America; and the result would be a large increase of business to the shipowners engaged in the Australian trade. The Company will, I doubt not, exhibit on this occasion that firmness which the public has been accustomed to expect from them; and the general result will be the greatest benefit to themselves, and the advantage of all connected with them.
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
H. S. CHAPMAN.
Farrar's Buildings, Temple,
30th November, 1842.
