EMIGRATION. [From the Times April 27.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 328, 20 September 1848, Page 3

EMIGRATION. [From the Times April 27.]

1 The dangers of a revolutionary era are more ■ than what lie on the surface. If there is auI dacity on the one side, there is panic on the I other. The party of the movement takes fresh ■ breath and spirits; the more conservative class lof minds become engrossed by the instincts I of holding, protecting, stopping, and doing no I more than can possibly be helped. They that I have anything to lose, whether in property or i position, see a scramble before them and be1 gin to calculate, with a natural anxiety, the 1 comparative advantages of the status quo and 9 a fresh start. It is quite evident how the" I great majority of people in the metropolis, I and, indeed, in all our cities, have settled this I very home question.' Every man with either I house, or land, or money, or stock of goods, aor credit for a month, or a reasonable pros- ■ pect of employment, or a good friend, or anyI thing at all to depend upon, is almost overI powered by the dread of losing that dependBence, whatever it is, and is ready to turn out ■ and fight for it. Every such man dreads a a great change or experiment, lest it should de1 prive him of his little all, and leave him j§ aground. It is impossible to wonder at this ■ apprehension. A strait of only twenty miles 1 separates us from a nation of thirty-five mil1 lions going to the dogs with a rapidity unexSampled in human affairs. Confidence, capital, I traile, employment — everything by which men I live in this vulgar world, is there fast disapEpearing before the irrational despotism of an narmed mob. Peace is purchased with ruinous 8 sacrifices. We do justice to such men asLa1 martine, and admire them ; but a month may | show that they had better have perished in the ■ dull defence of an odious monarchy than lent ■ their names to measures neither justified by Kg principle nor redeemed by success. With i such a prospect in view, of course all England lis afraid. It is a salutary fear ; but there are a other things besides revolution to be afraid of, 9 and when we have assured ourselves that we i are not likely to follow France down the pre- ■ cipice, we may as well take them into our H serious consideration. M First, then, it is a very wholesome and proifitable question. " What is it that has a third 1 time revolutionized France ?" It is her myHriads destitute of profitable employment. In ■ the most luxurious capital in the world, in the I midst of everything that can fire the senses, ■ kindle the ambition, impart activity to the inBtellect and refinement to the tastes, — among ■ palaces, gardens, theatres, and picture galleries, 1 were lately not less than a hundred thousand ■ men unemployed, homeless, and hopeless. | The 24th February did not pass without wriiting on the very face of the catastrophe itssoI cial and industrial character. Louis Philippe B was driven from his throne not so much by ■ conspirators and disappointed politicians, S though they had much to do with his downfall, ■as by hungry operatives and labourers. Say ■ what we will about loyalty and order, let us ■ urge them ever so much as pai amount duties, ■ still the truth must be confessed, — What is a 1 crown to the starving ? What are institutions Bto the outcast ? What are .princes to those i whose own children cry for bread? And what. Bis public order to him who beholds in it no- ■ thing but a serried phalanx of the prosperous 1 classes marshalled against him ? In the best j times, and under the wisest Governments, S there are and ever must be a miserable secition who view society as it were from without. I There always must be the incompetent, the I unfortunate, and the disgraced, — men who ■ cannot be helped, because they will not help I themselves. But it is the highest interest and I duty of Government to diminish these danger1 ous classes. In Paris it has long been a I matter of remark that they had acquired a gill gantic and almost incredible proportion., I Writers of ail parties on this side the Channel I have long pointed out the fearful bearings of I this fact. In France the tree has at length I borne its fruit. It is now our turn to look to lour own country. | There are in this United Kingdom some 1 millions who possess neither property, nor 1 comfortable tenure, nor regular employment | sufficient for a decent existence. Were this £ the case only in Ireland, that would not be an inconsiderable affair, and we might properly urge it on the gravest consideration of the Legislature. But it is the case in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland ; and in no trifling degree in this wealthy metropolis. These men, as a body, will be revolutionists in one form or another. Call themselves what they will, Repealers or Chartists, they only want ,a system which will feed, and clothe, and house them better. They sue the state in formd pauperis, and say, " Give either employment, or such political rights as will enable us to procure employment for ourselves." It is their fixed belief that a state is bound to find them either food or work. This principle ' they have adopted, not because they are naturally addicted to political speculations, or because the principle itself is natural, but because they adopt' the theory most convenient

and conformable to their position. A destitute man will generally be an exigent and positive philosopher. He will think he ought te have what he wants. His axioms are the necessities of nature, and his first postulate is that those necessities must be satisfied. Try your logic, and convince him, if you please, that he is bound to respect existing institutions. His reason may be mystified, but his bodily senses, and, more than all, his domestic feelings, continually revolt against an adverse conclusion. He forgets the argument, but his stomach does not forget that it is empty, nor his skin that it is rigid with cold ; nor can his eyes forget that wife and children are pining around him. There are myriads, nay millions, of such in the country. The 10th instant was no victory over them. The special constables have routed Feargus O'Connor, and sent back the Kidds, Joneses, the Cuffeys, the Reynoldses, and the Shaws, to their original insignificance, but they Lave not vanquished hunger or extirpated nakedness. We have lavished our money, humanized onr laws, strengthened our defences, and sent over all the soldiers we could spare. Lord Clarendon may have the courage of a hero, the patience of a saint, and the wisdom of a sage. He may le prepared for any outbreak ; but the sorrowful fact survives too stubborn for soldiers and viceroys, and even for occasional alms. The population of Ireland is miserably poor ; we may stop the mouth of Repeal this year, and the next, and for twenty years to come, but the destitution will remain. Why do we repeat these topics, so often urged, so little regarded ? Because we think that now is the time for a more emphatic recognition, on the pah of the state, of its duty to give the destitute either relief or employment. Is that demand for employmeut so unreasonable and so impossible to be met ? It is true that these islands are very thickly peopled, and that there is, especially in Ireland, a large excess of men, compared with the existing disposition of land and operations of agriculture. But in our colonies we possess the means of employing any excess of population. Nature herself points out that mode of relief which, since 300,000 souls left Ireland in one year, has acquired a providential character. It is no longer a question whether emigration should be encouraged. Emigration is now indisputably shown to be the great outlet for these islands. As surely as the Niagara relieves the inland seas of America, emigration is the door of safety for pur human redundance. But wo to the state -that watches unconcerned the spontaneous remedies and escapes of a miserable crowd. As it values its own safety, it must take the matter in hand, direct the method, and guide the issues of the mighty operation. Future ages may rue the present neglect. Let emigration be fairly taken up by the Legislature a-- an auxiliary of the great proposition, " Employment or relief." It is admitted and undeniable that myriads annually apply to their unions for employment, who .ask it honestly and sincerely, with no sinister intention. They are forthwith either imprisoned in a bastile, — Mr. Cochranes tomfoolery shall not rob us of the word, — or terrified by that threat into a miserable resignation to their fate. Give them, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, the alternative of emigration, and prepare the colonies for the additional influx by an increased staff, by public works, and by a liberable system of government, calculated to attract the capital, the enterprise, and the education of the mother country. Our hope is, that such an opening once provided for the excess of our industrious and able population, there will not be that overwhelming pressure on the funds of charity at home, and it will be more practicable to discriminate between innocent and criminal destitution. But the crisis is imminent. The disorder gains ground. At any rate, find homes and occupation for houseless myriads. We cannot wait till the tedious processes of the law have divided Irish properties. How many generations must pass away before Lough Neagh gives a thousand more acres to the plough ? Six weeks and as many pounds suffice to plant the poor peasant where neither title-deeds, nor mortgages, nor judgment bonds, nor county cess, nor standing water, shall interfere with his axe or spade. The Imperial Legislature knows at last that it must do something, and it will not grudge the money.