INDIA AND AUSTRALASIA. [From the Indian News.]

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 27, 10 September 1842, Page 108

INDIA AND AUSTRALASIA. [From the Indian News.]

[It affords us great pleasure to copy the following article. The scheme proposed is one which we earnestly wish to see carried into effect? as it must necessarily confer many benefits on all parties. When the excellence of our climate becomes more generally known, it will doubtless draw to us a large number of individuals of the class spoken of below — men whose society alone would make their presence welcome in a new colony, independently of the accession of capital that would be gained by their settling amongst us.] There is no doubt that England has arrived at that point in her history — a point which is the fate of all old and prosperous countries — when it is necessary to get rid, in some way or ! other, of the plethora in her population. It is needless to question the existence of this redundance — to calculate the area of the soil, and demonstrate the maximum of its resources: we must take things as they are, not as they might be ; we must sacrifice the theoretical to the practical, and admit in our reasonings what is only too familiar to our eyes — the difficulty of living increasing in nearly the same ratio with the capital of the country. Our workhouses are full, and, as might be expected (for destitution is the prolific mother of crime), our gaols are full. We have candidates for both — eager, anxious candidates, presenting themselves daily at the police offices of the metropolis ; and, as if all this were not enough, we are horrified every now and then with cases of death from actual hunger. But if the business of throwing out offshoots from our redundant population into the wilderness were intrusted solely to Government, it would not be an affair of emigration, but of transportation. Emigration among a free people must of course be voluntary ; it must be determined upon from considerations of personal and family expedience; and, if the Legislature interfere at all, it should merely be by holding out substantial inducements to tempt the wanderers into the channel indicated by national policy. We are alvvays glad, therefore, to hail the progress of associations for this purpose, rising from among the people themselves. It is a puerile absurdity to suppose that it can be the object of such associations to deceive. Theirs is no speculation of the minute, the fate of which maybe determined one way or other by a temporary popularity or the reverse. They invest then: capital in an adventure, the profits of which depend upon the prosperity of the settlers in the aggregate ; and this prosperity becomes, in like manner, inextricably interwoven with the interests of the company. A. Government colony may be carried on, for political purposes, independently of individual success: but a settlement established by private parties, with a view to ulterior advantage, resembles a great joint-stock concern, in which the holder of the most trifling stake is — to use an expressive colloquialism — in " the same boat" with the wealthiest capitalist.

This is no place, however, to consider the general question of emigration : the subject suggests itself with strict reference to our own clientellej and, in calling the attention of our readers towards it, we but labour in our usual | vocation. The earlier migrations from this country were undertaken with but little reference to the difficulty of living at home ; after these, the most pressing need of emigration was felt by the classes dependent upon their daily labour for support; and it maybe said that, till our own time, prospective views of family policy had no extensive influence in determining men to plant their roof-tree on a foreign soil. In these last days, however, we no longer seek for freedom, either of soul or body, in a new country ; and it is no longer the mechanic and cultivators alone who find themselves compelled to change their abiding place upon the earth. THe cost of living in England has become too great even for the comparatively wealthy; and the difficulty of finding employment, and establishing children in the world, has reached even the comparatively influential. Men with small fixed incomes are no longer independent. The cost of living has risen above their means. They find themselves in alowet grade of society than heretofore, and children, who before were a blessing, are now a source of endless anxiety. The professions are full to overflowing, and employment in the counting-house is more frequently than otherwise granted as a favour till the youth has added experience to his other qualifications. In the case of daughters, marriage is in like manner an aflair of increasing difficulty,; and the elegant education which formerly stood in lieu of a dowry, is now relied upon as a means of gaining at best a precarious support by the drudgery of teaching. There are no men who feel more keenly the changes which time has made in this country than officers in the Indian army and navy, and even, in the civil service ; and we may- add, there are no men who have it more completely in their power to protect themselves and families from their influence. The luxuries with which, they are habitually surrounded in India, and^the j rank they hold in society, have no charms for them. They long ardently for home— the home ! formed by their families and. friends; and they are aware that a residence in the burning climate of the East, if only dangerous to their youth, must be fatal to their age. They possess a fixed income, but, generally speaking, too small for high-spirited and highly educated men in Ebgland ; they have money, but not more

than enough to open respectably a banker's account, which has no future source of supply. What are they to do > They linger on, year after year, and at length, in very many 'cases, .die where they have lived, and without hawing enjoyed the reward of all their labours and sufferings, a competence' a£ home. Rut England has extended her soil, and is ,now within their reach f English homes smile in the southern seas, where an abundant table is spread for them and theirs, and where they will be among the most honoured of the guests. Their small fixed incomes will there constitute them the very princes of the rising colony ; and their little banking hoard will multiply itself rapidly, even by means of interest, if not more actively employed. They will hear the tongue and live under the laws of their own country ; their families will be educated in the refinement and the religion of England ; and when at length the settler is called to yet another home, he will obey with the cheering idea that he leaves his children an inheritance waxing -year by year with the wealth and power of the colony. We have no intention of entering into the relative merits of the Australasian settlements ; and if we mention in a more especial manner New Zealand, it is simply because we have lately been favoured with the perusal of a letter, addressed by Mr. Ross D. Mangles to Mr. C. Prinsep, of Calcutta, on the subject we are now adverting to. We are not aware, however, whether the New Zealand Company has been the first to extend a welcoming or a beckoning hand towards India; but, if so, we think the example well worth following by the other asaociations. " The object of interest to me," says Mr. Mangles, " and the object for which, as you are aware, I joined with you and others in an association — formed with a complete a priori conviction that we should be losers, in a pecuniary point of view, by the scheme — for the purpose of facilitating the intercourse between Calcutta and Australasia, was to encourage the resort of Anglo-Indians, in search of health, to our splendid colonies in that quarter, in order that such a connexion might gradually be established between the torrid shores of India and the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere as might lead to the permanent settlement, in the Australasian colonies, of many retiring officers, of both the civil and military services. * * • • I always looked towards our southern colonies as affording an admirable field for the employment of the time, capital, and energies of those whom failing health might compel to retire from India in the prime of life, or who might prefer to gather their children round a domestic hearth, and to superintend then* education in person, to the acquisition of greater wealth, at the expense of a lengthened separation from them, whilst they felt that their income did not warrant them in acting upon this scheme in England/ 1 He then proceeds to the immediate purpose of his letter. " You are aware, I dare say, that I have lately~become a director of the New Zealand Company, and that I take an active part in the management of its affairs. It is in that Company, therefore, that I feel the strongest interest, and it is to that I would direct the atten--tion of the Anglo-Indian public; and to the eligibility involved in the connexion subsisting between the beautiful islands of New Zealand and a wealthy and powerful Company in this country, having the strongest and most direct interest in giving their cordial and strenuous assistance to the development of the great natural resources of the settlements founded by their instrumentality. '* With the same view, they desire to establish a connexion with Calcutta, and would be extremely glad if it could be found practicable to form a board there (under the authority vested in us by our charter), which should be the medium of such a relation. If such a board could be formed, and its immediate management were intrusted to parties in whom the directors could feel confidence, they would be disposed to place powers in their hands, which they might exercise with great advantage to the Anglo-Indian community. For example, they would empower them to grant certificates, stating the amount of passage-money paid by parties procgeging from Calcutta to New Zealand, with the intention of buying land at public auction from the Company, the production of which to then* principal agents in the colony would entitle the party to whom such, certificate was granted to a drawback, not exceeding 25 par cent, upon the amount of the purchaeermoney, nor, in any case, the amount paid for his passage. The directors would also authorize the Union Bank of Australasia (which has branches at Wellington and Nelson) to receive, with the concurrent guarantee of the New Zealand Company, all money remitted with the cognizance and sanction of the Calcutta Board, for the purchase of land from the Company ; and would further permit their principal surveyor, or other responsible officer, to select and purchase the land, at public auction, on account of the party thus making a remittance. These are only two instances, out of many, of the way in which. 1 conceive that the Company could facilitate and render reciprocally beneficial the connexion, which I much desire to 6ee established. Other modes of convenience and advantages would, doubtless, suggest themselves as the scheme advanced into maturity, or got into actual operation ; the groundwork of this conviction, and of my motive* for writing at all, being that the directors have far too great a stake in the general aad permanent prosperity of New Zealand, and, therefore, in establishing a lasting connexion with British India (which would so materially conduce to that end) r to render it worthy their while, even if they were utterly without principle or character, to grasp at any tempo*

A

rary unfair profit, or other advantage, to the certain destruction, by the reaction of such shortsighted conduct, of all hope of a largelysuccessful issue. - I will only* add upon this subject, that I have authority -to state that th^ two powers above mentioned, in illustration of ■my views, would be immediately conferred hy the directors upon the managers of a respectable association formed in Calcutta, in connexion with the New Zealand Company ; which also, as I have stated, they would constitute a local board, under their charter." Such is the manner in which the New Zealand ■ Company, through their public-spirited director,, Mr. Mangles, have broken ground on this interesting subject. The letter will, doubtless, beprinted, and widely circulated in India; but wehave thought it our duty, in the meantime, thutff briefly to advert to the topic here, for the purpose of directing the attention of the friends' and families of Indian officers to a question of ' paramount importance. 1

Sweeping the Streets by Machin«uy. — We have this week witnessed in Manchester the very streets swept hy machinery. The machinery in question is in the form of a cart drawn by one horse, the motion of which impels a number of revolving brushes, which take up the dirt into the ! body of the cart itself, as the receiver— upon the same principle, substituting brushes for buckets, as ,the dredging machine in our, docks.— Liverpool Paper. Tkvm Nobiiity.— He who Is lord of himself, and exists upon his own resources, is a noble but a rare being. f