[CONTENTS]
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CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION................v
CHAPTER I--BRITISH AMERICA.
Sect. 1. Canada. Boundaries--Provinces--Government--Inhabitants.........1
Sect. 2. Lower Canada. Extent--Divisions--Natural Features--Quebec--Montreal...........2
Sect. 3. Lower Canada, continued. Geology--Soil--Productions--Population--Educational Institutions.........6
Sect. 4. Upper Canada. Boundaries--Inhabitants--Divisions...........10
Sect. 5. Upper Canada, continued. Toronto--Kingston -- Canals...........14
Sect. 6. Upper Canada, continued. Geology--Soils.........17
Sect. 7. Upper Canada, continued. Population--Educational Institutions..........19
Sect. 8. Canada. Climate.............23
Sect. 9. Canada, continued. Commerce...........27
Sect. 10. Nova Scotia and Cape Breton............32
Sect. 11. New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Inland............34
Sect. 12. Newfoundland...................39
Sect. 13. Advice to Intending Emigrants. Who may Emigrate?.............41
Sect. 14. Advice to Emigrants, continued. Passage Charges--Victualling, Cautions regarding Provisions...........43
Sect. 15. Advice to Emigrants, continued. Best Period for Sailing--Cautions as to the Selection of Vessel-- Emigrant Agents--Arrival--Directions regarding Landing--Conveyance up the Country..........48
Sect. 16. Advice to Emigrants, continued. Emigrants with Capital--Purchase of Land--Prices--Titles-- Cleared Land--Wild Land--Expense of Clearing--Land Offices--Profits on Grazing--Tillage--Expense of Erecting Houses--Wages of Labourers..............60
Sect. 17. Advice to Emigrants, continued..............7l
Sect. 18. Accounts given of these Provinces by Settlers..........76
Sect. 19. Conclusion. Emigration to British America...........101
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CHAPTER II. --AUSTRALASIA.
Sect. 1. Australia...............108
Sect. 2. Australia Felix.................132
Sect. 3. South Australia.............135
Sect. 4. Western Australia...........150
Sect. 5. New Zealand.............158
Sect. 6. Opinions of a Settler...............178
Sect. 7. Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania............198
Sect. 8. Conclusion of Australasia............202
CHAPTER III. --AFRICA AND SOUTH AMERICA.
Sect. 1. Cape of Good Hope..............204
Sect. 2. Falkland Islands.................213
APPENDIX.
No. I. Abridgment of Act for Regulating the Carriage of Passengers in Merchant Vessels...........217
No. II. Colonial Markets..............236
[INTRODUCTION]
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INTRODUCTION.
THE subject of Emigration has been from year to year increasing in importance to this country, and certainly it never was of greater interest and importance than at the present moment. The depressed state of trade and manufactures, and the consequent overstocked state of the labour market, has forced attention to emigration to our extensive and valuable colonies as a means of relief. Thousands of the labouring classes, unable to find constant employment, or a sufficient reward for their labour when employed, and of those having small capital, who find it impossible to use their little capital with profit in this country, are looking anxiously to the shores of Canada, and of our Australasian settlements, as fields where their labour and their exertions will be duly rewarded.
The purpose of the following work is not to advise or persuade to emigration. The necessity of this being extensively resorted to, has become too apparent to require this; and the benefit to the sober and industrious emigrant so indisputable, as no longer to require evidence to establish its truth. The great benefit likely ultimately to arise to this country from extensive emigration to her various colonies is now also generally admitted. The removal of the superabundant labourers who at present overstock the market at home, while it must incalculably benefit them, opening up to them the means of attaining by industry and
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sobriety a comfortable independence, will benefit in two ways those left behind:-- First, by the withdrawal from the market of the competition of labour, which cannot find employment except at reduced wages, and with difficulty even then; and, Second, by the creation of new markets for our manufactures; for it is certain that every emigrant, however poor in this country, who finds his way to Canada or our Australasian colonies, becomes in a very short time a consumer of British goods.
Neither is it our object in this work directly to advise the emigrant to one colony over another. We have no partiality for one more than another--no desire to give an undue preference; or to depreciate one colony at the expense of another. This has been too much practised; and several valuable colonies have been seriously injured by unjust statements made, and unfounded prejudices created regarding them for the benefit of others, possessing in no way superior advantages. Our object has rather been by detailing facts to give the intending emigrant ample means to guide him in mailing a proper selection for the scene of his future exertions. Emigration--the removal from the scenes around which ail our affections have hitherto been concentrated, is a matter of grave importance, and one which ought to be deliberately and seriously considered, and the choice of the colony which the emigrant is to make the scene of his future home, are equally entitled to careful and deliberate consideration.
The labouring man, in so far as emigration depends on his own exertions, is in the mean time, in a great measure restricted in his choice among the British colonies, to Canada or the other provinces, belonging to Great Britain, in North America. The expense even of a steerage passage to Australasia, puts it far beyond his power to seek any of these colonies, however strong his desire may be to do so. Indeed, Canada has been emphatically called the "Poor Man's Home," and in the extended regions there, belonging to Great Britain, the sober and industrious labourer or
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mechanic is certain of having his labour duly rewarded. We do not certainly hear of such ample fortunes being made in Canada, as have been realized in Australia; but we have sufficient evidence to show that after a very short residence in any of the British North American provinces, the exertions of the labouring man, if steadily and soberly pursued, will lead to comfort and independence.
The effects also of the late changes on the British Tariff must be of immense benefit to this important colony, and cannot fail to give a great impulse to Canadian agriculture. But this is not all. There seems now no longer any reason to doubt, that in the course of the present session, a measure will be proposed to Parliament for the admission of Canada-grown wheat and flour into Great Britain at a merely nominal fixed duty. The only obstacle to this hitherto, in the words of lord Stanley, was the local position of Canada with reference to the wheat-growing districts of the United States, and the admission of that staple into Canada free of duty. The Canadian legislature, however, have just passed a law imposing a duty of 3s. per quarter on all United-States-grown wheat brought into the colony; and there is every reason to think, that the consequence will be the free admission of Canadian wheat and Canadian manufactured flour into Great Britain. Canada will thus really be--what all our colonics ought to be--an integral part of the Empire. It will in fact be another great county added to Great Britain, and the improvement and extension of its agriculture must be great and immediate. The manufacture of flour too, will be greatly increased and improved, and the extensive water-power which Canada affords, will be more fully opened up. To the emigrant of capital, as well as to the labourer, this colony will now offer a field for exertion, it has never yet done.
Where there are such numbers of working people unemployed as is at present the case in this country, it is impossible that our valuable Australasian colonies
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can be allowed to languish as some of them are doing for want of labourers. Means must be adopted either by the government, or by joint stock companies for supplying the wants of these colonies by an extensive and general system of emigration--and thus benefiting them, while we relieve the pressure at home. Various means have been for a time acted upon, with advantage, for sending out labourers free to our Australasian colonies, and various suggestions have been made for a more extended and general system of free emigration. To be successfully carried into effect, however, it must, we strongly suspect, be undertaken by government; and it is to be hoped that the absolute necessity of taking some measures for the relief of the wide spread distress at present prevailing in this country, by emigration at the public expense, will be forced upon the attention of the legislature. In the mean time, however, every exertion should be made by means of joint stock companies, to give facilities of removal to eligible emigrants to these distant but valuable colonies. And it would be well that parishes and landlords would look more to emigration as a relief from poor's rates, than they have hitherto been inclined to do.
The following plan has been suggested to us for carrying out a system of emigration from this part of the country, by means of a Joint Stock Company. We give the plan in the words of the gentleman with whom it originated, without pledging ourselves to the propriety of all its details; but there can be no doubt, that by some such mode, much relief might be afforded to the unemployed labouring population, and at the same time, an opening be made for the profitable investment of capital:--
1. That a joint stock company should be formed in Scotland, having its central committee of management in Glasgow, for the purchase of a block of land in New Zealand, or Australia, say 100,000 acres; which the government were in the habit of selling to the New Zealand Company, on certain conditions at 5s. per
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acre, who sell it out again at 30s. per acre, and expend a third of this in sending out emigrants and surveyors.
2. Were such a company formed in Scotland, it is proposed, in place of sending out emigrants free, that this company should advance the money for taking out the emigrants to the colony, on condition that the emigrants who apply to be sent out, shall unite in parties of six or ten, binding themselves jointly and severally, to repay the company by monthly instalments, say the sum of 30l. sterling for each, within two years from the time of their landing in the colony. If paid within one year, a discount of 10 per cent, to be allowed, or if the party purchase land from the company for the purpose of cultivation, the money to be allowed to lie for five years upon the security of the land, the parties paying 7 per cent, interest.
3. That none shall be eligible as emigrants above 36 years, unless married and having a family, when 40 years shall be the limit, additional payment being made in proportion to the number of children, a preference being given to young married couples.
4. That besides being sent out to the colony in well-provided vessels, an outfit of not less than five pounds in clothes, tools, &c., be given to each.
From the above outline of the scheme, it will be seen that the first outlay of the company will be in the purchase of land from the government, which cannot amount to a large sum at the outset; and the first purchase of the company being sold, they will have it in their power to extend their purchases from government.
It is probable that such a scheme would give rise to the formation of other companies, such as a company for prosecuting the whale fishery--which is at present almost wholly in the hands of the Americans and French, who find it an extremely lucrative trade--thus giving employment to our shipping from the Clyde; while emigrants, joining in parties of their own selection, and becoming jointly and severally bound together
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for the repayment, will ensure a superior body of emigrants, to the present mode of selecting them. Indeed, from the nature of the obligation to be come under by the emigrants, making each individual responsible for the whole, we should think so much caution would bo used by parties themselves, to ascertain the real character of the companions they select, that little or no risk would attach to capitalists lending their aid to the above scheme, while they would have a profitable employment for their present idle capital--and as the season for action has now arrived, we sincerely hope that some of our public-spirited townsmen will step forward, and at least make the attempt of ameliorating the condition of thousands of their unfortunate, but not less deserving, countrymen who are desirous, but unhappily want the opportunity of exertion.
While we have refrained from giving advice regarding the selection of a British colony, leaving the matter to the choice of the emigrant from the facts we have detailed, we feel called on to warn small capitalists and labourers against emigration to the United States. We do not speak of the total abandonment of every national feeling, and the adoption of a foreign nation as his future home, --and with one who has severed so many ties as the emigrant must do, this is no light matter; neither would we urge, that by emigration to a British colony, the emigrant in reality only removes to a more distant portion of the Empire, where the state of society is no way essentially different from what he has been accustomed to at home; but we would emphatically call his attention, in addition to what is elsewhere stated on this subject, to the following solemn warning from Mr Buckingham, in his recent work on the United States. This gentleman is one of those cosmopolitan philosophers who look with equal eyes on all nations, and who consider love of country as a mere prejudice. He recommends emigration to the United States, while he shuts his eyes to the rich districts of Canada, lying open to the emigrant; but he cannot shut his eyes to the fate of num-
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bers of our unfortunate countrymen, led to the United States by representations such as his, which they unhappily do not find realized. The following is the warning he has given, and we would recommend intending emigrants to read it in connexion with what we have elsewhere given on the question of emigration to the United States.
The improvement of the condition of the emigrants themselves would be as great and as certain as that of the two countries, if they pursued a right course: and that, with good advice, and proper regulations, could almost be ensured. At present, as soon as they land in the sea-port town, they are beset with as many harpies as surround the unhappy sailor when he first touches the shore, especially by the keepers of low taverns, and dram-shops. By them they are decoyed to their houses, made drunk under the pretext of a welcome and hospitality, their money taken from them if they have any, and if they have not, a debt for board and drink contracted against them. They then roam about the city in search of employment, where little or none is to be had: they become inspired with a distaste for the country, where alone a sure and certain harvest awaits them; and like the moth which lingers around the flame until consumed by what dazzles it, they hang about the skirts of the cities and the grog shops, till their poverty tempts them to crime, when they become the inmates of the poor house or the prison, and there end their days in neglect and misery.
"It is ascertained as a fact, that more than ONE-THIRD OF THE EMIGRANTS FROM EUROPE, DIE WITHIN THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF THEIR RESIDENCE IN THIS COUNTRY, THOUGH THEY GENERALLY COME OUT IN THE FULL VIGOUR OF LIFE!"
Note. --In our notice of the Falkland Islands, we have mentioned the recent appearance of an advertisement announcing the intention of government to
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colonize these islands, and stating the terms on which this is to be done. Since this, a paragraph has appeared in the Times, in which it is said they are authorized to state, that this advertisement has not emanated from government, that it was published without the authority of the Emigration Commissioners. Although, however, this advertisement may have been prematurely issued, and its details incorrect, it seems almost certain that measures will be speedily taken by government to colonize these islands.
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