UNJUST PRINCIPLE OF THE GOVERNMENT SYSTEM OF EMIGRATION. (From the London Mercantile Journal, Oct. 31.)

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 300, 14 April 1849, Page 3

UNJUST PRINCIPLE OF THE GOVERNMENT SYSTEM OF EMIGRATION. (From the London Mercantile Journal, Oct. 31.)

On the subject of emigration the Government appears to us to have committed two cardinal gins against the middle and working classes of this country ; for it is evidently doing what it ou?bt not to do, and is refusing to undo what it ought to have undone many years ago. It is moreoTer an aggrading- feature of the latter sin, th it the nature of it being far from g6in'r.»!l» known, it has become to those who are disposed to emigrate a delusion and a snare. "We wish that the explanation we are about to give of it may, by the asbisUnce of our ProrincM contemp navies, fiid iti way amongst thoie classes who are more especially interest -d in peifeotly understanding what emigration, on the present principle of the Government, really means. We need hardly say, that however loud tin cry for emigration to Australia may be in this country just now, it originated at first fin Austialia itself. Ihe small agriculturist cipitalist, the redundant farm labourer, and the inadequately paid operative ami mechanic, were not the initia>ori of tin? movem'>nt ; but, on the contrary, it was the Urge eaoitalists of Australia who, under the pressure of a fcarciiy of labour, nnd an exceisive rate of wages, for their own pu poses invited the surplus labour at home to emigrate, with the templing prospect of attaining a similar pitch o* prosperity. Let us a^k what are the notions which, on this subject, are generally ent ruined here by the middle and working classei, and, if these notions are thoroughly misMkeu let us also ask whether the Go-ve-nmviit h not highly culpable for n< t having taken effectual means to undeceive them ? What is the motive which impels the small forme" 1 with a fund of fr- M two to fivn hundred pouuds, tj leave his nalivo la.'d, because th>re his capital is too mull to work a sufficient (jnantty of land for his maintenance ? Is it not the expectation, and the assurance, that for a trifling outlay, he may become the proprietor of a po.-tion of the unoccupied soil of Australia, and by dint of that hard toil, and the help of that imall capital, by which he can hardy command here a scanty subsistence, he ra«y there acquire for those who come after him an independent pioperly ? Well, with these expectutions he transfers bimbelf and his 'iitle all to Sydney, and applies to the authorities for a quantity of land proportionate to his capital. But what doe» he then find out to bii utter dumay ? Why that the Government will not sell him less than a block of 640 acres, at a minimum price of £l per acre— a condition which of course pruhibitt him from buying at all. This is what is called a JVakefield system, and the ezpre s object of it is to compel as many emigranti as possible to ferve at labourer! to the large colonial capitalists, by rendering the acquisition of land impossible to all who are not in some degree of their own stamp and class. But the man with a small capital of from £200 to will hardly consent to this degradation from the position he held at home ; and the consequence is, that instead of becoming a producer, he takes U some huckstering trade in the capital of the colony ; and the majority of his class deing the lame thing, they live as it were upon each other until the whole of their funds are consumed. We cannot do better than illustrate the effects of this system by an example from Sydney's Australian Hand-book. 11 South Australia (Adelaide District) was founded in 1835 by a party ot Mr. Wakefield's moit devoted disciptts; and the whole conduct of the colony Was intrusted to commiss'oners after Mr. Wakefield's own heart. * * * Emigrants established themselves there to the amount of 200 in 1836; 7420 in 1838 ; and 14,610 in 1810. But in that yeai, so far from the majority being engaged iv growing crops or rearing cattle, the proper avocation of colonists, 8489 were living in the town of Adelaide on trading and scheming, and, like Kilkenny cats, devouring each other. Several intimate friends of mine were entirely ruined by thin bubble. " In the fit st instance wages were preposterously high ; a team of bullocks would earn £18 a week f But in 1841 the labour ng population were reduced to pauperism. Colonel Gawler, who was an enthusiastic Wakefieldite, staved off the evil day by grand government works, in which he incurred a debt of £405,133, of which the home government was obliged to pay £285,736 ; und when Captain Grey succeeded him, he w«s compelled to borrow jg.i.OOO from the treasury of New South Wales to enable him to carry on the government. In 1842 the redundant population had so fur disappeared by emigration to other colonies, that the Governor was obliged to grant the use of the military to get in the crops. In 1843 all the respectable 1 people in the colony were hard at work getting through i the Insolvent Court with all possible speed, when the ; great Buna Burra mine was found ; without this discovery half at leait of the emigrants would have reemigrated to other colonies. As it was, these copper ! mines offered a new source of prosperity. Yet in the ! ninth year of a colony iv which millions had been spent and 18, 60 souls werj living, it was only by the most wond rtul exertions that £20,000 was raised to pay for that miuo, &ad keep the property in the colony. Thin the practical end of Wakefield's system was — in <he first years, exorbitant wages; in the ensuing, universal pauperism of the labouriny classes, followed b'j universal iaaulvenci/ among the capitalists ; and in the last year, a total absence of capital.'' Such are the resuls, to emigrants of small capital, of the unjust system of land allot men', which, under the influence of large monopolising capita, uts, the Government still refuse to abandon ; and to the emigrant labourer it is fetill more p -rniciou3. Wagei may continue high there for some time to come, and u labourer mly in five or six years accumulate M l 5O ; but what can he do with that sum ? He cannot command any land with it, and his savings are therefore gene* rally dissipated iv the least possible reproductive way. "At preseni," s*ys Mr. Sidney,, "our servants are wandering vagabonds, chiefly single men, with no tie to any one spot, with no settled abide, and with few means of inverting any accumulation ot wages. Titty accumulate £50, £U)0, or £200; but savings' banks do not exist in the bush ; the only shop is a grog shop ; and, after toiling tor months or years, Uie fruits of praiseworthy industry are frequently difcsipa'ed in one drunken debauch. I have known many instances; of labouring men starting to go t> Sydney, und even to KnijUnd, wnh savings amouutin^ to some .£11)0, and spending every farthing at the hist public hou a c ou the road. But if waste lands were sold at their cunenr. vtlud, in lo's. ot forty acres, these accumulation* would be expended on a plot on which a hut would he built, corn and vegetables would be grown, a wife would b« wanted, and if possible obtained, and a win bring vagabond converted into a permanent member of ths settlement. Bat Mr. Wakefield's theory lO'bids tin transmutation of land and labour into fertility and. decency." t We must conclude our remarks upon, this subjectf fj he present, by expressing our full concurrence wan the doo nnes laid dowu by Me. Sydney, nam-ly,-*-First — That do plan of emigration can »ucceed wbicU does not eiil-st the sympathies of the great body ot the working erases. ' And aecondly—Th it this can never be obtained by the present Australian land sy»iem, which n ba*ei upon the principle of excluding the man of iinull capita) iruua the po»bes->ion of land.