CHAPTER V. EMIGRATION.
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CHAPTER V.
EMIGRATION.
"I could not abide to live in the Colonies;" and, "If he can't get on at home, send him out to the Colonies."
These two sentences represent the feelings of most people at home as regards the Antipodes. One thinks of colonial life as semi-barbarous and full of hardships; whilst another looks upon it as having a magic influence in replenishing the empty purse, or in reforming the hopeless youth.
In "Macaulay's History," and "Smiles' Lives of the Engineers," a sorry picture is indeed presented to us of the condition of England, Ireland, and Scotland, within the last two centuries. People even are alive now who would be recalled to the memory of what they themselves have seen in Great Britain in their youthful days, if they were to travel in the wilds of the Colonies; but in very many towns and districts of Australasia, the necessaries and even
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luxuries of life are supplied as in England. It is in fact no great hardship to become a Settler at the Antipodes.
The other subject is a much more important one. The resident settlers throughout Australasia feel deeply the absurd manner in which young men are sent out; and I cannot do better than insert a few passages from an article published in the Canterbury Press, of March 8th, 1862. The writer refers chiefly to his own Province, but what he says is equally applicable to all the Colonies.
"The Colonies now are not regarded generally as gaols or houses of correction, but as reformatories or penitentiaries.
"If any young gentleman has kicked over the traces, scandalized his respectable parents, overdrawn on his mother's love and his father's pocket; ......if, in short there be one in a family who, from natural infirmity or vicious propensity, has frustrated all endeavours to find a niche for him in England, upon that youth a family council is forthwith held, and it is determined that he shall try his fortune in a colony...... It is the fact, that no ship arrives that does not bring some one or more young men, brought up in the social rank of gentlemen, but without money, intellect, cultivation, learning, capacity for labour, good behaviour, or any feature of mind or body which can enable them to retain in England the position in life their fathers filled.
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These men are not only uselees in a colony; they become the pests of its society.
"Parents and guardians should learn this truth by experience, if they could not arrive at it by the ordinary process of reasoning, that if any young man has a tendency to go wrong in England, he will be certain to do so in a colony; that all the restraints which the usages of polite society, the intercourse with friends, the influences of home, the company of refined and educated women, impose upon the manners and conduct of a young man,--that all such restraints are greatly weakened in a colonial community. That the whole standard of social manners is somewhat lower in a colony than in England, and that a young man may do many things here without losing the respect of his equals, which he could not have done at home. If a man has a tendency to drink in England, he will probably die of delirium tremens here; if he has accumulated debts which he could not pay in England, he will acquire money under false pretences here. In short, whatever a man is at home, he will be 'more so' here...... It is too often the case that all the parents or guardians want is to get rid of the boy altogether. The feeling is, let him carry himself, and his vices, and his difficulties, where they may be heard of no more...... Off he goes. They have buried their dead out of their sight. If the man have something in him after all, and rises in the new world, they take credit for their
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sagacity in finding the right career for him; if he becomes a brutal, drunken, blaspheming, godless, bullock-driver, and at last dies in a ditch, then it is, 'Poor John, we did all we could for him.'
"But there is another chapter in the story. The father has got a friend in the colony, or a friend of his has got a friend, who has got a friend who has a friend in the colony. A letter is written to ask the colonial friend to take the young cub into his home, or see that he is put somewhere where he will be looked after. We have seen hundreds of such letters; and the coolness with which scapegraces are consigned to colonial families, in the assumption that they will be welcome guests, is amazingly complimentary to our Christian hospitality...... A man landing here without money is, in nine cases out of ten, a day labourer; if he is a 'gentleman,' he is worse off than a day labourer. For nine out of ten such, there is no career at all, and no prospect at all, but the labour of their hands...... But real labour is what this class of men shirk...... They pick up odd jobs at sheep driving, cattle driving, or bullock punching; and withal they drink every sixpence they can command, at the public houses, which now cover the country; and we meet them, ten years after they have arrived, with every mark of a gentleman effaced--hard-featured, coarse-grained, vulgar-tongued men, whose whole talk is of bullocks, and
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sheep and horses; not a penny richer; not a whit better off in externals, but far lower in all those internal quahties that make a man, than when they left their father's house.
"Let us not be understood to speak indiscriminately. A young man who has a small capital, or will have a small capital at some future time, has a distinct career before him. But for young men of the higher classes without fortune, there is absolutely no career but daily labour."
Such are some of the ideas of an experienced colonist and an educated gentleman on this important subject; and, indeed, even I can add my testimony to their truth, from what I have seen and heard in the Australasian colonies. I know of a retired Captain in the army, engaged to wipe up glasses in a public-house. I have seen the hut in which another Captain (whose face was not unknown to me in England) is living in a state of almost delirium tremens. A Commandant of a garrison told me that thirteen officers had died of drink there; and I know of an educated gentleman who, a few nights after his arrival in one of the colonies, was locked up as drunk and incapable. Such cases I could easily multiply, but these are sufficient.
On the other hand, a young bullock-driver has been pointed out to me who is the son of a very poor clergyman, and is honestly and soberly working at that lowly employment to help in supporting
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his parents and sisters. Such cases as these, too, might be multiplied.
The only conclusion to which these remarks are intended to lead is, that the very same energy of mind and body, and the same good principles, are as much, if not more, necessary in the Colonies than at home.
Now, for the classes below the grade of gentleman; what is to be done with them? I firmly believe that really strong, respectable, hard-working men and women, and especially married couples without children, will find abundant employment in any of the Colonies. The inducements held out by the Governments of the various Colonies to emigrants of the bona fide labouring classes are principally assistance on the passage out, or grants of land. For instance, the Colony of Queensland gives land-grants of the value of 18l. to each adult emigrant of the bona fide labouring class, immediately after landing. These grants may be transferred by order of the emigrant to any one who has defrayed his or her passage. After a residence of two years in the Colony, a further grant of land to the amount of 12l. is made. 1 New South Wales gives passage-certificates for the intending emigrants, obtainable only by residents in the Colony. A male between twelve and forty years of age will be charged 5l., and a female 3l., for the "certificate," which is only
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available by the Emigration Commissioners' ships, and is not transferable. Victoria gives "passage warrants" on very similar terms.
South Australia, I believe, offers free passages to those persons whom their Agent in London selects.
Tasmania gives bounty tickets of certain value, a proportion of which the emigrant must agree to pay, if he leave Tasmania within four years after his arrival. This ticket private shipowners will take in part payment of the passage money.
Each of the Provinces of New Zealand, as regards emigrants, may be looked upon as separate colonies. Auckland, Canterbury, and Otago have agents of their own in Great Britain, and there is one also for New Zealand generally. The passage-money to Canterbury is 17l., and the Provincial Government give assistance equal to the sum paid in cash by the emigrant. Any balance necessary to make up the 17l. will be advanced on the security of the passenger's own promissory note. Residents in the Province are also assisted by the Government in a similar way, in helping their friends to emigrate from home. 2
The temperatures and the capabilities of the different Colonies vary, and therefore every person can select the place he fancies most suitable. In the Appendix is a Table of Temperatures; and the
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following is a list of the principal rural employments:--
Queensland--pastoral, cotton-growing, coal and probably copper mining.
New South Wales--pastoral, agricultural, coal, copper, iron, gold and silver mining, also cotton-growing.
Victoria--pastoral, agricultural, gold-digging.
South Australia--pastoral, agricultural, and copper-mining.
Tasmania--pastoral, agricultural, and timber-cutting.
New Zealand--pastoral, agricultural, gold-digging, and timber-cutting.
I know so very little of Western Australia, that I cannot give any advice about it.
My last point is the emigration of young boys and girls.
In course of conversation with competent authorities in the Colonies, it appeared that numbers of the inmates of our Reformatories and Refuges have turned out very badly in Australasia. The reason given is, that they become contaminated in the passage out; or when they arrive at their destination, they are idling about the ports or towns for some time before they get employment. Mr. Segar, of the Canterbury Police, told me that he would most willingly assist in engaging situations for lads before they arrived, so that they might go at once to their
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destination on landing, if the persons interested in them at home would forward, via the overland mail, a full account of their capabilities, ages, and characters. In that way much of the evil would be remedied as regards boys.
With reference, however, to the young single women, the subject is much more difficult, and I hope Miss Rye will be able to do something. I am afraid her disclosures on returning will be fearful. In the Colonies it is by no means an extraordinary circumstance to hear of a vicious or incompetent Matron on board a female emigrant ship, or of very dissolute practices having been allowed. I knew a gentleman who said that the Matron in his ship behaved at last so disgracefully, that the saloon passengers really took notice of the matter themselves. These remarks have reference to mixed emigrant ships; but under the Government Female Emigration System, where a Surgeon-Superintendant is vested with the authority, I believe, of a Dictator, proper order and strict discipline is kept. To send out a single and unprotected female in a mixed ship, is an actual sin. The chances are strongly in favour of her ruin.
