EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 637, 22 May 1852, Page 3

EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA.

[From the " London Tunes," Decembei, 19.] No more significant phenomenon can be recorded for our instruction and astonishment than the present unwillingness to emigrute to the Austnlian colonies. Inhabited by an Anglo-Saxon race, possessing an un limited quantity of fertile soil, a climate whose charms those'who have experienced it tells us they can never forget, a native race utterly incapable of impeding the advance of civilization, cheap provisions, high wages, and abundant fuel, thej would seem to offer the nearest approximation which the earth can afford to a working man's paradise. Unchilled by the long and pinching winter, undelibitated by the feverish and oppressive summer of North America, the Australian settler finds an enjoyment in tbe mere sensation of existence of which the inhabitants of less favoured lands can form no conception. And, as if to crown the advantages and allurementsof this highly -favoured land, nature has reaeived beneath her soil a wealth which throws all the riches hitherto realized from its surface "mio ■% c shade. The miners consider him unlucky indeed who does not realize a pound a day, and ihe prizes which may fall into their grasp are of course enormous. How is it that while a quarter of a million of the natives of these islands transport themselves annually at their own expense, to the United States of America, free passages to tho Australian colonies are a gift which no one cares to accept ? The greater length of the voyage is alone quite insufficient to explain this marked repudiation of the one country and preference to the other. The understanding of the true reasons of this repulsion is extiemely impoitant, for unless something be done, and that speedily, to supply the present demand for labour, unprecedented even in countries where such a craving is always more or less felt, the supply of the raw material of the manufactures of We-t Yorkshire will be seriously diminished nnd the quantity of our woollen fabrics proportionately cvi tailed. Unfoitunately the causes which lead to this appaiently invincible repugnance for our own and preference for our neighbours' dominions are only too obvious. They consist in central and arhitraiy government, in difficulties purposely thiown in the way of the acquisuioH of land in deference to the principles of an exploded sys.

tern: and, lastly, and in by far the greatest degree, in tbe continuance of transportation to these colonies, in violation of the most solemn promises and of the clearest policy. By a return just printed by order of the House ol Commons, it appears that on the 3lst of December, 1849, there were in Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island, 22,487 male and female convicts; while on the I 31st of December, 1850, the number was diminished by 1,150, and amounted only to 21,45r. The same return informs us that between the 9th of August and the 13th of December, 1850, there were landed on the shores of Van Diemen's Land 1611 male and female convicts, from which the impoitation during the whole year 1850 would seem to be something more than 4000. Here, then, is a remarkable phenomenon. 4000 felons are imported in a single year, and yet tbe aggregate amount of persons under sentence in the island is diminished during the year by no less a number than 1150. Van Diemeu's Land is like the vessel of the Dauaides, which empties faster than we can fill it. How has this been brought about 1 ! The thing would be utterly incomprehensible if we did not learn from other sources that the Government has adopted a plan of pardoning criminals immediately on their arriving on the island whither the British public is led to believe that they are transported for the purposes of punishment or probation. The rate of wages in Van Diemen's Land, is at this moment, on a rough calculation, about half what can be obtained on tbe Australian continent. To pardon a felon, therefore, and to ensure hiy emigration to New South Wales, Victoria, or Australia, is really the same thing. We have solemnly promised not to transport criminals to these colonies, and the letter of that promise we observe by carrying them in the fiist instance to Van Diempn's Land; but as soon as they have arrived there we take measures which we know must, and mean shall have the effect of transferring criminals whom we will not suffer to contaminate the air of England into the very bosom of these rising societies, without supplying any trace of their origin or any mark to guaid the unwaiy Against their habitual and systematic depiavity. Thus by an union of selfishness, tyranny, and bad faith, do we rob our colonies of that simplicity and innocence which naturally attends on the rural life of young communities, and transfer to them because they are weak, a burden which we do not choose to bear, because we are strong 1 . This is no question between the mother country and penal colonies, it is the deliberately extracting from our own body politic the most destructive and noxious elements and inoculating with them the veins of communities whose rights are as sacred and whose feelings as entitled to respect as our own. That we may not be accused of dealing in vague generalities, we will mention an instance. The convicts by the ship Nilp, which reached Van Diemen's Land on the 3rd of October, 1850, received pardons immediately on their arrival. Where are these men now? Mixed up and absorded in the free Australian communities, foiming each the centre of a little circle for diffusing corruption and contamination. Statistics show that nine-tenths of the ciime of these colonies is committed by persons originally transported from this country, and it is easy to guess though impossible to prove, that a considerable proportion of tbe residue is the result of their persuasion and example. Now, upon whom are these crimes perpetrated, and who is it that bear, in fact, the whole weight of the present penal system of Great Britain? Sometimes, no doubt, tba drunken and brutal fury of the convicts may direct their violence agninst each other, but as a general rule it will be found that it is the unoffending and peaceful emigrant who is selected as a safer and easier victim than men hardened and suspicious, and ready to avenge one crime by another. It is upon the emigrant population that we let loose without remorse and without reflection those hordes of barbarians armed with all the resources of civilization whom we dare not tolerate within these islands. It is on the lives, the persons, the property of the free settlers of the humbler class that these men are sent lo satiate their ferocity, their cupidity, and their lust. The most respectable peasant cannot escape daily and hourly contact with men steeped to the lips in every species of villany. Tn thoir society must he perform his work — under their influence must be bring up his children. Expeiience has proved how little the highminded and generous British public, which has sympathies for every race and colour except its own, which weeps over the woes of Kossuth and squanders millions in the suppression of the slave tiade, sympathizes with the miseries it inflicts on the inhabitants of us distant colonies. Their case is hopeless here, and they must bear our wrongs as they may until they bec6me strong enough to wring from our fears tbe redress in vain demanded from our justice. But with regard to future emigration the case is different. We m\y ill-treat those who are already gone with impunity, but we cannot force others to follow them with the prospect of a similar fate. We have induced a laige number of emigrants to settle in Australia by the promise of freedom from convict contact, and, that promise we systematically break. Why should we wonder that the bad faith of the lare we have employed v\ ill deceive no more ; the Government is at last seen through, and that s<> far from the convict system being a relief to the labour market of the Australian colonips, experience shows that it is to this cause above all others that the inadequate supply of labourers is to be traced. It is but a short-sighted policy which bell-eves that good is done by the supply of convict labour, which deters twenty times its own amount of free emigration. Let the woollen manufactures of Yorkshire look to it. The supply of their raw material depends mainly on the resumption of free emigration to Australia, and the first step tovvaids that resumption ia the cessation of transportation.

(From the Times, December 23.) In enumerating the causes which impede the natural tendency of the labour of this country to find its way to the gold-fields of Australia, we mentioned as amongst the most prominent the high price of land. 13y the sth and 6th Victoria, c. 36,— an act which the colonial legislators have no power to repeal, — no land can be sold in the Austialisin colonies for less than one pound per acre, and to this is added the very unnecessary and superfluous pi oviso, that such a sale must be by auction. How this law came to be passed, by what sinister and indirect influences the land system of the Australian colonies was overthrown to support their self-sustaining sister of South Australia we have before shown ; and we have pointed out the fatal effects on the prosperity and developement of these rising communities which have flowed from this illjudged measure. With these subjects it is not now our intention to deal, but simply to call attentii n to the effects of this law, in turning the stream of emigration from the shores of Australia, and directing it to the United States of America. The contrast is startling enough. While Ireland is actually depopuli ting herself at the rate of some twenty or thirty tboi sand souls a yeai, passing over in voluntary multitud s to people the wilds of America —the great difference in the cost of passage limits the number to but'a few thoufand annually to Australia, and these only as they can be paid for by the land funds of the several colot ies ; and even this scanty supply seems likely to fail altogether. The Land and Emigration Con missioners offer, in addition to a free passage, a bonn y of a pound a bead to their agents for eveiy emigrant whom they can enlist ; nay, so low are they fallen that they have betaken themselves to the desperate expedient of paying lecturers to canvass for emigiant-, in order that the Board may appear to do something to earn the £12,000 a year which they receive from the LJiitish public. The truth is that these gentlemen begin at tbe wrong end. They seem to imagine that in order to secure abundant emigration, nothing is required but ships, outfit, and provisions for the voyage, provided at the public expense. They forget that these are mere facilities tor locomotion, and that an adequate motive for change mu&t exist before such facilities will be required at all. There are a thousand omnibusses ready to carry us to the Bank, but nevertheless, we do not go there unless business or pleasure point tbe way. So the mere providing the means of transport will never people tbe Australian colonies, unless some strong attraction induces people to avail themselves of them. Now, there arp two consider; tions one moral and one material, which exeicise great influence on the mind of every working man. He is anxious to know with what associates he and his family will be brought into contact if they leave their native land, and what facilities he will find'for that whicb is to an Englishman, whether rich or poor, the ultmate object of labour and ambition— the acquisition of an independent landed property, to be enjoyed by inn self, and to be bequeathed to lus descendants. How the government meets the fiist of these reasonable requirements, what manner oi associates, c >mpnnions, and neighbours it provides for the intended cmigiants we have already shown, It offers to the future Australian colonist a reunion with all whom he has ever known as base and vile, and, if it waft him acioss the sea for nothing, takes care that, on hie landing, he shall feel in its most degrading shape, the presence of Imperial sway. To the second requirement the answer is equally unsatisfactory. It being an undoubted fact that most men emigrate for the sake of obtaining land,

it has been the care of the Colonial Ofiicp to rende that inducement as slight as possible. The pouni which will procure the iee simple of four or five acres in the United States muat be exchanged for a smgl< acre of Australian land. Our Government has takei upon itself to exercise the vocation ot Inndseller. Ir this business it has to enter into the competition witl an adveisary in the United States, whose commodity ii much more accessible from its proximity to the densely peopled paits of the world, and fiom the splendid sys tern of lake and river navigation, wiiich carries tin emigrant smoothly and swiftly to his intended home The land sale system of the United btates is wel known, and has been too long and too firmly established — too thoroughly tested by experience and confirmed by success, to render any change in it, in the slightest degree, probable. Jt might well be thought that te offer land in Australia on the same terms on which il can be obtained on the banks of the Missouri and Mississippi, was to expose it to an unfair competition and to force intending emigrants to go in preference te America. Had, however, the price of land been equal in both countries, it is not improbable that the immense superiority in climate and natural pasture would have turned the scale in favour of Australia, and that hundreds of thousands of strong hands and stout hearts which have gone to raise the greatness of America would have peopled the inviting solitudes of our southern colonies. Such, however, was not the pleasure of the Colonial Office. Whether from design or inadvertence it is little profit now to enquire, — it deteitnined to load the balance pgainst our colonies, and it lias done its work effectually. Seeing that Australia, from its greater dibtance and want of internal navigation, was heavily weighted in the race against America, the British Government has augmented that weight five-fold. The desire to possess an acre of Australian land being barely equal to the desire to possess nn acre of American land it has pleased the wisdom of Parliament, undei thediiection of the Colonial Office, to make the possession of the Australian acre five times mure difficult than that of the American. Suppose two tradesmen, one in a first rate situation, the other in a comparatively remote and obscure one, and suppose them to deal in the same article, and suppose the tradesman in the woist situation, to demand five times the price lequiied by the tradesman in the better. Nobody can doubt for which of the two the public would decide : and it would little avail the worst situated and deaier tiadesman to lure lecturers, to fee touters, or to engage omnibuses to cai ry people gratis to a shop at which, when they had arrived, they were certain to buy nothing. Yet this is exactly the case of Australia and America. The commodity in which they both deal is land, and we have the folly to expect that people will leave what is chrap and neir, to seek what is dear and remote. Without entering into the merits of the Wakefieldian theory, without speculating on the impending fate of the Canterbury Settlement, without dwtlling on the enormous present difficulties and future dangers of a state of society like that of Austialia, where so much of the waste land is occupied, not as fieehold, but as leasehold, under the Crown, we may assert this without fear of contiadiction — that whatever be the opinion of any school of speculative men as to the price of wild lands in new colonies, that price, from the advantages of position and the boundlessness of supply, must practically be regulated by the terms demanded by the United States of America. It is impossible to obtain more for an article than tin price at which an infinite quantify of it can be supplied This impossibility we are endeavouring 1 to carry inti effect in Australia, and the consequence is, that wlnli our neighbour shop is frequented, ours is desertid. One would have thought that no expeiience was required to prove that people will not go four times as fai to pay five times as much in Australia for land as thej must pny in America. Fact and theory in this iiwtanc< go together, but the law remains unaltered, and tin treasuies of a new California are as yet spread before our labouring population in vain. To the moral anc religious who would seek their home elsewhere, w< offer infant societies, which we have caipfully inncula ted for their use witli the choicest extract of couvic venom, and we invite the far sighted and prudent t< enter into a hopeless competition for population aiu wealth against a State, in whoise favour our Govern ment has imposed upon the land a discriminating dutj of five hundred per cent.