THE FAMILY COLONISATION SOCIETY. [From the Daily News.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 851, 28 September 1853, Page 4

THE FAMILY COLONISATION SOCIETY. [From the Daily News.]

On Tuesday afternoon, in the back room of a small office in Bucklersbury, a few gentlemen, comprising 'two or three of the principal Australian merchants, Mr. Sydney Herbert, Lord Shaftetbury, and other philanthropists, assembled with marvellous little ceremony, and without those preparations which * are- usually made for rank and wealth, received a report of the Family Colonization Society, extending over a period of ■three years. The report was brief and obscure; there were no speeches ; the business was transacted in a conversational tone ; and in the absence of a secretary, a luxury in which the society has not yet indulged, the needful penmanship was done by the right hon. chairman. Yet the -announcements and the business transacted were of a kind which has seldom, if ever before, fallen to the lot of any society that has meddled in the difficult and unsatisfactory work of colonization. Within the last ten years, at least half a dozen societies and colonising companies have commenced operations under the auspices of most imposing names, with flamiug prospectuses, gorgeous offices, fashionable secretaries, dinners, breakfasts, itinerating orators, advertisements, placards, pamphlets, lectures, handbooks, and loud-sounding flourishes'from zealous supporters in the press. And yet, all of them have either expired after a brief flare, leaving a most unsavory odor behind, or subsided from '* the heroic work of colonisation " into mere absentee land-jobbing associations.

The New Zealand Company is dead, leaving a most unsatisfactory set of assets for its administrators. The Canterbury Company is only sufficiently alive to maintain a suit in Chancery. The Colonial Reform Society is interred in the same grave with the Colonisation Society of Charing-Cross, after having occupied the same chambers, enjoyed the patronage of the same Peers and M.P.'s, and died of the same disease, —the indifference of the public to a sham with a grand name, v But the Family Colonisation survives with an ample balance in its exchequer and a large credit iv the colonies, after having effected reforms in the practical details of emigration, which are

■now bearing good fruit, and will continue to fructify long after the necessity for any such society has ceased to exist. It therefore deserves a few words of explanation. gjjjjThe society was founded early in 1850 by Mrs. Chisholm to teach the working classes how to emigrale on their own resources, without resorting to the pauperising machinery of government emigration ; to reform the abuseswhich prevailed on board emigrant ships ; and to promote the reunion of successful settlers in Australia with their relations in this country. By ihe aid of a few friends £500 to £800were raised. The small house accupied by Mrs. Cbisho.'m became the office. Captain Chisholm gave up his time to the correspondence. The secretary of a great railway company and two eminent actuaries took the management of the accounts uuder their care. A well known author of authority on Australian questions devoted himself to making known at private and public meetings the claims of Mrs. Chisholm to the confidence of the emigrating classes, and the merits of her plans. Thus the expenses of machinery, which in new undertakings is usually enormous, by the devotion of the Chisholms and the gratuitous services of their friends, became almost nominal. This kind of zeal is infectious; and noble and right honorable members of the committee, and their wives, were to be found jammed on the stairrase of a third-rate house in Islington on ' Group meeting nights,' with artizans and servant-maids seeking to hear the great apostle of emigration. The first ship was despatched in September' 1850, with 156 aduhs, 66 children and 11 in" fants, to whom the society lent £864. Since that period, up to July, 1852, the Society have despatched six ships, with upwards of 2300 indivi1 duals, who have contributed towards their own 1 passage £19,000, and received on loan from the i Bociety for the period of two years from the sailing of each ship about £3800. In each ship successive improvements were made in separate cabins for families, in scientific ventilation, in baths and washhouses, quality and quantity of provisions, and amount of space allotted to each passenger, before unknown in ships devoted to third class passengers. When the fourth ship had been despatched, as there were no funds available for engaging a competent agent to receive the emigrants and arrange for the repayment of loans, and the forwarding remittances from colonists for relatives in Englaud, Captain Chisholm proceeded to Adelaide and Port Phillip, at his own expense, and has since, at a great sacrifice of domes'ic comfort, during the crisis produced by the gold discoveries, been engaged in carrying out the plans devised for the reunion of families. Through his means upwards of £600 of the loans granted to the society's emigrants has been paid, and £9000 I from other emigrants, who availed themselves of i Captain Chisholm'sgood offices to send for relaI tives, of whom two hundred and eighty-nine have already sailed for the colony. In February, 1852, a party of Australian merchants joined the society, and subscribed several thousand pounds to its iunds, as the best means of stimulating the emigration needed to supply the blank in the Australian labour market caused by the gold discoveries. In July following the new City committee appeared to" have become alarmed at the magnitude of the business forced upon them, and they decided not only f discontinue chartering vessels "and granting loans, but receiving the weekly instalments passage-money, which formed so important a part of Mrs. ChishoWs plan. The result of the society's operations, as explained on Tuesday last, is as follows. A total subscription towards colonisation of about £8000 has produced contribuiions from emigrates and settlers sending for relatives, of about £29,000. A great reform has been effected in sliip accommodation, partly by the agitation of Mrs. Chisbolm acting on shipowners' competition, and partly from the effect of a recent act of parliament. The working classes have begun to understand and practise the powers of association and mutual loans. And the society finds itself with a clear balance of £3000, a vote of £10,000 from the Legislative Council of New South Wales at their disposal, and debts due to them from emigrants of about £2000. Under these circumstances the committee has been reorganised, with Mr. Sydney Herbert as chairman, and has under consideration a plan of female emigration, suggested by Mrs. Chisholm.