EMIGRATION FROM AN ENGLISH POINT OF VIEW.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 217, 11 September 1872, Page 2

EMIGRATION FROM AN ENGLISH POINT OF VIEW.

{The Titncs, June 27). Could matters be estimated- at their real , value, nothing that has come before Parliament or the British public this year would be found- to surpass the importance of a very handy- little blue book, entitled the thirty-second general report of the emigration commissioners. It tells us how the inhabitants of these isles are increasing and multiplying, how they are replenishing the earth, bow they are doing this quietly, safely, and at the cost of those benefiitted by the process, how a progeny of new states all over the world is fast growing to maturity, and what a choice of opportunities is afforded to those who have the spirit to embrace them. A quarter of a million annually leave our ports for fertile regions, enjoyable climates, and institutions scarcely less settled than our own. Whatever a man- can reasonably desire, and even if he should have some wishes beyond the limits ~ of a just expectation, he can seek to realise them with much more prospect of success in a score or more colonies, dependencies, and states, once British plantations, now, independent and something more. Take* all these objects supposed to bo nearest and dearest to the heart of an Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman, and, at a cost of a few pounds and a pleasant voyage in a fast and well-appointed steamer, it is easy to obtain any one of them, or all of them. Wages dictated by the workman to the For remainder of news see fourth page. ■_■_— _»_»_"ff»l I I — »_—^_W<WW___M

employer, say lOs. ft day ; land for next to nothing; gardens; pigs 'and 'cows ad libilumi lib game laws, the ballot, and the pleasure of being governed by your own workmen and servants, should you chance to have any*— all this is now within an Englishman's reach. The only difficulty is to choose where everything is so goodr The greater part of our fellow-subjects settle this embarrassing question by taking themselves off to the United States. The . commissioners confess a lingering sentiment in favor of our own colonies, and they extenuate the ill-look of the choice by noticing that the United Slates' agencies are much more active than the colonial. They are, indeed, everywhere at work, pointing out the advantages of emigration, and smoothing the way. The commissioners themselves, however, do their duty manfully by enforcing the provisions of the emigration acts, and so securing tbat the passage shall be safe and comfortable. Notwithstanding the perils of the deep, and the very severe weather to which emigrant ships must be exposed at some seasons of the year, the average mortality of the British emigrant on board ship is considerably less than that of the population at home, even, in the healthiest portions of these islands. Thus do we seem to stand on our own shores at once welcoming the visitor and speeding the voluntary exile. "Do just what you please," England seems to say. " Come here if you like; stay if you like, and go if you like. We will not interfere with your taste. We will even help you to consult it. Please yeur self, and we are pleased." In the course of last year no less than 252,435 persons went as emigrants from British ports. The sum total is a little less than those of the two preceding years, but when we come to the nationalties it becomes evident that emigration is a fact •ff growing importance. The English emigrants in 1871 were 102,452, near twice tbe number only four years ago. Th 9 Scotch were 19,232, also an increase on the average of eight years. In the same period of eight years Irish emigration has fallen from 115,428 to 71,067. The foreign emigration passing through this country has risen in eight years from 16,942 to 53,246. It is to be admitted that the Irish emigrants still bear a much .larger proportion to tbe population of Ireland than the English to, the population of England, for this island has yet to see such an outpouring of people as that caused by the Irish famine. But it is remarkable that eight years ago the Irish emigration was numerically twice as great as the English, and last year the English was nearly half as large again as the Irish. It cannot be accident or impulse, or political feeling that now sends away more than 100,000 persons of English birth. They go on sober speculation, on well assured grounds, to friends who have invited them, and to promised employments. If we take ag an example the colony most natural and convenient, for six guineas a loyal British subject can get from his nearest English port to Toronto iv fourteen or seventeen days j the voyage to Montreal or Quebec being done by steamer, and the onward journey by railBut, whatever we may wish as to Canada, and whatever may be the fact as to the United States, we may still remind those about to take wing of the great British Empire under our feet. It is only just a little more effort, a trifle more cost, and two or three months instead of two or three weeks, and the British laborer or artisan will find himself in the very world of his fancy. He will find an England or an Ireland as it should be. without waiting for a tedious succession of difficult reforms, and without haying lo fight for it. Take Melbourne for example. Forty-five years ago, the sole occupants of that soil were a few savages, kangaroos, and prairie dogs, and now there is a beautiful city -with 200,000 inhabitants, many handsome public buildings, beautiful suburbs, and a prosperous port and harbor, and roadsteads full of shipping from all parts of the world. The population of the colony, including 17,813 ' Chinese and 859 Aborigines, is 710,982; while the disproportion of the sexes among the Europeans is fast diminishing, tfiere being 329,016 women to 381,966 men. * ■;*>'** * As there are stilr in that colony alone nearly fifty million acres of land waiting purchasers, it cannot be for, want of land that only: the third of one . million was; Bold last year, nor could its price be any obstacle, as it is evident that any agricuitui'.-lvlaho.ojce.r: or .artisan .could save enough j in three or fout 1 years: to buy • a nice little^(Mta!_^ , ■■.vThe ;',trni.h ''jA that the great "majority o£t^ find their labor more valuable and marketable than land; 'and liave no wish to cEajpige placet, wtli farmers; and landowners. ; The: "Phinese, who area sensible race after their own fashion, wbrkhord-fprjtljiree or four .years, savea hundred, pounds, and return m*mmmmmmmmmmmm mmm mmmmytfmm

China as^oorasrthey'leftit. : Such is the picture bt' an Englishman's'jifat hopes and expectations, as drawn, not with the pencil of imagination by orators and Internationalists, but by a department of -he State, collecting and arranging dry returns, pre- . seating facts and figures, and leaving people to draw their own inferences. Tbe inference we draw is that it is at least more sensible to go where all this can" be got at once, and where one will be welcome, than tb try'to turn things topsy-turvy here ou the mere chance that something better will come out of it.