ENGLISH LAND LAWS AND EMIGRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 166, 16 May 1879, Page 4

ENGLISH LAND LAWS AND EMIGRATION.

The following is an extract from a recent address by Lord Derby: — We may probably have changes in Ihe land laws within the next few years, but though Ihey may lead to more careful ond profitable cultivation of thp toil, they ore very unlikely to lead to a lareer number of persons being employed upon i. Tbe small freeholder aod tha very smell occupier have never held thoir own in England any more than tbe handloom weaver against the competition of the powerloom. I think it will be so still For my part I think the future will in that respect be like the past, but many people take a different view, and to them I any experiment is very easily* tried. There are plenty of acres to be ' had and plenty of owners willing to sell | let those wbo bave faith in what is called "pleasant proprietorship" go into tbe market, form a company, buy land and divide it into lots of thea'z*. they think most suitable. If they f.i to And purchasers we shall know that the supposed demand does not exist ; if they succeed, they will have done useful service; and iv any case tbey wijl have practically tested the soundness of a theory that has never yet be.n eithere verified or refuted. Thongb I do not hold that there is much of an opening for working men on the land at home, I do not says the same of land elsewhere. I think it is a very fair question whether in this little island of oars we are not gctving packed too closely, and whether we have not ■ suffered from the comparative stoppage of emigration in the last few years. Emigration is for a people like ours a natural and even necessary outlet. You may p.ss what law you please, you may lighten the burden of taxation, until the working men are practically exempt; but as long as there are more of them than can get work, and as long as two men are looking after one employer, neither votes nor freedom from taxes, nor anything else that politicians can do, nor yet any experiment of their own for producing artificial scarcity of labor in special employments, will in the long run prevent them from being badly off. I am not contending that any of you should start for the New World without inquiry as to the chances when you get there. Just now the Americans have their troubles as well as ourselves; but with their boundless 'soil they are rapidly accumulating capital, and with their exceptional energy they are sure to rally before long, and, indeed; I believe the rally has already begun. There are children living who will probably see the United States numbering 200 millions of inhabitants, and I do not tbink there is any subject to which leaders of working men can more usefully turn their attention than the supplying to tboso who want it here here accurate and trustworthy intelligence as to their chances beyond the Atlantic, either north or south of the Canadian bouodaty line. We shall always have men enough left at home, and even if emigration were to go to the length of checking the increase here, which it almost certainly will, it is better to have thirty-five millions of human .beings leading useful and 'intelligent lives than forty millions struggling - ; painfully for a bare subsistnece. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) There are many person., I know, who will object on the ground that though emigration may be good for tbe individual, it weakens tbe State. I cannot take tbat view. A contented people goes a long way towards making a State powerful, and I have. always been .convinced that a great deal of our freedom from international trouble in this country, which we sometimes ascribe to national character and sometimes to our political constitution, is really due to the various outlets which both in past and present times we have created for ourselvea beyond sen, . They are our safety valves, and if they get choked, I should expeot the result to be uncomfortable.