ENGLISH EXTRACTS. EMIGRATION A HOPE FOR THE LABOURER.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 254, 4 November 1848, Page 5

ENGLISH EXTRACTS. EMIGRATION A HOPE FOR THE LABOURER.

To the Editor of the Times. Sir. — I cannot say with how much satisfaction I regard the efforts you are making to promote emigration to the colonies. We want in these districts bold and able men, well acquainted with llie colonies, and the state of the poor ken; to come down and lecture far ami wide amongst us; men who <an show to our labourers tlid evils of their present lot, and prive to them how, by the mere patient bearing of a voyage across the seas and a little present inconvenience, they can find a country in which they may claim and obtain fair wages for fair work. They want to be instructed in the nature of what they will gain by the change, aud to be assured of protection in their efforts to gam it, fiom the Government of this country. They have been so lon» kept in a stale of ignorance and of low anim.il apathy to all social comfort or industrial independence, that it requires strong and pati Mit efforts to touse them to tiavel from home to seek fair treatment, l.ither than stay tyhere they ate bound by the law of settlement to live in ciowded communities in which vice is fostered by circumstances they cannot avoid, and their labour value depressed by causes against which they Inve no power 10 contend. Thcie was a time when I should have started from the idea of seeking to send the poor from among us, from the land cf churches, clmpjls, schools nnd ebmi t ; CS) — this hnd whose soil has become one great works'lop for the production of food, the producing of which would appear to require (he active energies of every single labouier, — this land in which every poor man is supposed to have a right to relief in destitution, at, or neur to, his own door. But, Sir, &ad, and lengthened experience has convinced me that the pioducer of bread by the sweat of his brow, for his body's sake and his soul's take, can be placed in no woise portion tlian he is «t horne — in merry England, (?) Christian England, (>) England the nurse of industry, the very hotbed of philmihropy (?) Late, very late, personal experience, Knowledge acquired far nnd near from those in whom 1 can putttu6t, facts of which 1 amcognzuit Jrom hource^. winch defy contradiction, all piove tome that ia huudicds of our villages the social condnion of man is below that of any country of which I have ever lead ; that vice is increising with a speed and of a cliaracier which would justly call down any, the moit awful judgments ; that the labou rr is defrnuJed of his lure, oppiessed aud ill tieated in a way thut 15 u shame to our national cliaructer. I hear mu n h of the politiral gricvinces of Die people; these aictbe stock in trade of every pu le dcclaimcr. It requires no courage to attack a Government, or to vilify a party opponent. Political plulan thrnpy w a cheap article und »\cars well — hence m> many array themselves in it. Sympahy for a convicted felon, or that spurious and diivaliic cbirity which would do anything lor a Pole, but nothing for a Dorfrpl, Somci^ct, or Wil's Inborn <i ; that mKsionaiy spirit which exposes the abomnmi us of foreign hea-iiii-n land I',1 ', but shrinks fiom unveiling the licentious i.ifamy ofoui own loud ;— these aie piotitable and nleasmt occupations, and many theie are who woik theieal* I challenge one and all to piove to me that tl>eie is one single mere political evil, any one class of God's creatures., in any land on eaitb, the cone< tion of which, or the social amendment of whom, it quire Mich uigent instant attention as does the evil condition, the physical and men al abasenii'iit, of ills labourtrs in agriculture in the south- weetern and many other countiics. Believe me ( Sir, I am almost tiied of repeating thin oft 101.l talc ; had 1 not seen something like a chance of escape for some of these poor creatures liy means of < migration, I should not now have again troubled you. If the Government could be persuaded to make, bold libeial efforts to assist families disposed to go to Australia, I can point its attention to more than oils (-pot where the so doing will be the greatest boon to the rebpectable and would be industrious labourer; it wou'd not only give him hope in this world, but it would enable him to remove his family fiom so iieis which, J am teadtf to i>iovc, exceed in vire any of which we huvu recorded in history, sacred or profane. S. G. 0.