NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3569, 4 June 1880, Page 2

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

i'feom the home news.) EMIGRATION ON THE INCREASE.

Emigration has lately, it appears, increased enormously, not, unfortunately, in the direction which the Colonies, especially those of Australia and New Zealand, would prefer. Of the 23.0C3 personß who hate lately left England in < the last three months, nearly.all hare gone to the United States. No doubt this is mainly due to the strong revival of trade in America, but it must also be stated that emigration to our own Antipodes is never brisk in the winter months , v when the length of. the voyage and the chances of bad weather enter gerious^aV into the calculation of this country. ■ The question is whether the State should interfere more directly to divert the stream of emigrants upon our Colonies. • Mr M'llwraith, the Queensland Premier, \ who is at present in this country, strongly advocates this. Unfortunately for him he has arrived at a time when there is an interregnum in Government, and he will probably- find no one to listen to him in Downing street. Nor is it likely that,the • ■ew Colonial Secretary will view his proposal with any great favour. A Liberal Government generally husbands the . national finances with something like ' parsimony, and it will hardly agree to put the Exchequer to the cost of peopling Queensland, even though the security be excellent and the advantage of the Colony immense. After all, emigration to be healthy should be spontaneous; those new countries do not thrive the best which are peopled by artificial means. The great natural' attractions nhioh our colonies offer must in the long run be thoroughly well known. If for the present the United Stated are more popular it is from recognisable causes, and these will not necessarily continue in force. Moreover, if the stream flows lons. with the same force across the , Atlantic it will some day glut the American labour mavkets. When these are over-supplied the comparative openness of the Colonial must be appreciated, and emigration will not as now go all one way.