BRITISH EMIGRANTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 488, 12 July 1890, Page 5

BRITISH EMIGRANTS.

AUSTRALIA THE BEST PLACE FOR THEM.

A London cable message to the New York papers says :—The statement that only about 100,000 square miles of land suitable for settlement by emigrants remains in the United States has come like a revelation to Engli hrnon, most of whom have been clinging to the belief that America was only half settled as well as only partially civilised. The statement referred to has just been made before a select committee of the House of Commons on colonisation, together with the announcement that in Australia thore are 500,000 square miles, and in Manitoba 400,000 suitable for colonising purposes. Tho records show that since 1815 12,500,000 people have left tho United Kingdom, of these 9,000,000 since 1853, of which 7,000,000 were of British and Irish origin. Two-thirds of these emigrants went to the United States, whoso population, if it increased in the same ratio as in the past 100 years, would be at tho end of another 100 years 1,000,000,000, or about 500 persons per square mile of habitable portions of the country. Since 1876 against 3,050,000 British people who have emigrated there have been not quite 1,000,000 immigrants into this country. The total immigration has amounted to about one-half the excess of births over deaths. This array of figures has convinced the committee that emigration from the British Isles is no longer as desirable as formerly, and the committee will recommend in their report that stimulated and assisted immigration be discontinued except to Australia.