Chapter V.

EMIGUATIOlSr.

Circumstances under which Emigration may be desirable—-Habit

of non-interference on the part of Government—Private asso¬
ciations for promoting Emigration—Settlement in South Africa
—Number of Emigrants from this Kingdom, 1820-1834—
Arrivals of Emigrants at Quebec and New York, 1829-1834—
Distribution of Emigrants in British America, 1834—^Transporta¬
tion of Criminals to New South Wales—Suggestion for their
employment in British America—Number of Convicts trans¬
ported, 1825-1833—Convict establishment in the Bermudas. '

In every country which is making any considerahlc pro¬

gress in the arts of life, changes will from time to time
occur in the sources of employment for particular classes
of the peo])le, which must he felt as a hardship by indi¬
viduals, although to the country at large they are produc¬
tive of great and permanent good. The introduction of
the power-loom, which has. so vastly increased the pro-
-Tftictive force of the kingdom, has worked, and still is
working, injuriously to a numerous body of haud-loom
weavers, who cannot find employment in other branches
of industry without suffering great inconveniences and
privations, and who are liable to he thrown wholly out
of employment, or, at best, are obliged to submit to a
scale of wages very inadequate to their wants.
It can scarcely he doubted, that in this and similar
cases, a well-digested plan of emigration, under (he sanc¬
tion or direction of the government, might be rendered
efficacious to repair the evil. It is true, that the mis¬
chievous effect of any such changes may he but transi¬
tory ; that the increase made to the national wealth,
and the additional calls for labourers in other branches,
 CH. V.j EMIGRATION. 125
which are caused by the very circumstance that has
brougjit about the misery of the few, would speedily
absorb all, and more than all the hands which have
been at first rendered idle. But the misery is not on
that account less real while it lusts. Itxpcrience has
shown that uneducated men pass Vith difficulty and
unwillingly from occupations to which they have been
long accustomed, and that the compulsory state of idle¬
ness to which they are for a time reduced by the failure
of their wonted employment, too frequently becomes
habitual. When this lamentable effect has been pro¬
duced, the unfortunate victims become, almost irrevo¬
cably, permanent burthens upon the coimnunity; and
their wretchedness is made a theme for declaimers, who
would fain jiersuade mankjud that the sacrifices neces¬
sary for the onward ])rogres8 of society are too great for
the advantage, if indeed they arc willing to admit that
what is attained deserv^ in reality to be called an
advantage. •
If at the moment when the usual source of emjdoy-
ment l)ecame stinted, and while yet the labourers pos-,
sessed the energies of their minds unimpaired, some well-
an-anged plan of emigration were ollercd to them uudew
the sanction of government, so ns to give a reasonable,
assurance of future maintenance, it is probable that a
large proportion of them would gladly embrace the offer,
and the advantage to the proportion who might remain
would be scarcely less certain, through the lessening
of the number of comjietitors for emiiloymcnt. It may
be doubled, however, whether the degree of watchful
care here supposed on the part of government, if it were
directed to another channel, might not sometimes be so
employed as to secure a greater good to the community
at large,'not only at a smaller cost to the country, but
M 3
126 POPULATION. [sec. t.

also at a less present sacrifice on the part of the ^lestitute

labourers. If a Board of intelligent men were appointed,
in the metropolis, to -whom representations of distress
arising from want of employment might be made by
parochial authorities, while demands for labouring hands
were made to then'i by manufacturers or others in dif¬
ferent parts of the country, who might be in the opposite
condition, a much smaller outlay would suffice to restore
the equilibrium of labour than would be called for to con¬
vey the unemployed to distant colonies, while the persons
BO transferred would be subjected to fewer cares and
hardships, and would be called upon to make fewer sacri¬
fices of feeling than must always attend the renunciation
of one’s native land, endeared as it is even to the poorest
and humblest by the ties of consanguinity and friend¬
ship, and by those early habits and associations to which
men cling with the pertinacity of instinct.* Times and
occasions might, and sometin^f s would arise, when the
redundancy of labourers in one district could not be met
by openings in other quarters, and then it might be true
..economy on the part of the nation to provide the means
required for emigration, and so to direct its course as to
add to the prospective strength and welfare of the empire.
It has been too much the practice of successive go¬
vernments in this country to deal with this question upon
the principle of non-interference, and to leave the various
disarrangements of society to right tliemsclves. This
undoubtedly they may at length do in every country, and
the sooner in proportion to the general diffusion of intel-

* The plan here proposed has lately been acted upon with the
best result by the Poor-Law Commissioners, through whose in¬
strumentality some of the superahundaut agricultural laboureis
of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire have been removed to
Lancashire, where they have been immediately fuiuished with
employment.
CH, V.] EMIGRATION. 121
ligence among the people; but it is a true, although trite
remark, that all governments are instituted for the
beneSt of the people ; and it would be difficult to show
that it is not as much the duty of rulers to provide, as far
as they can, for the removal of a domestic calamity, as it
is to guard the people entrusted \o their care from
foreign outrage. *
England has not much to boast of in regard to its
experiments in colonization. With the exception of
the penal settlements in Australia, and that of Sierra
Leone, which partakes of the same character, our colo¬
nics have all been the fruits of conquest. A few ill-
considered efforts made during the last fifteen years arc
all that the government has done for, the advancement of
distant colonies, and one or two trifling grants, obtained
from parliament at seasons of extraordinary pressure,
constitute the only direct pecuniary assistance that has
been rendered for the sanje purpose. Recently we have
witnessed schemes for encouraging emigration set on
foot by private associations for their own profit, the in¬
terference of government having been for the most parr
limited to the sale to the associations, of districts which
might otherwise have continued valueless deserts for
ages.
In the early part of the present century, although the
cry of distress was occasionally loud and urgent on the
part of the labouring classes, that distress was occa¬
sioned more by the dearness of provisions than by any
deficiency of employment, as a remedy for which, if it
had occurred, the ranks of the army were at all times
open. The return of peace threw back in ctinsiderablc
numbers upon the community the surplus labourers who
had been thus absorbed, two deficient harvests occurred
consecutively in aggravation of this inconvenience, and in
128 POPULATION. [sec. t.

the year 1820, the evil had grown to so great » height

that the government undertook tlic task of conveying
settlers, and locating them in South Africa. The fol-t
lowing table shows the number of persons wlio since
that time have emigrated from the U nited Kingdom to
the British American colonics, the tjnited States of
America, the Cape of Good Hope, and the British settle¬
ments in Australia respectively.

Britixh United Cape of Austialian

Years.
North Stales of Good Setllc- Total.
American America. Hope. nieuts.
Coiuolcs.

1820 17, 921 1,063 18,984

1821 12,470 404 320 13,194
1822 11. 282 192 87.) 12,,349
182.1 8, 133 184 .543 8,860
1824 7, 3H 119 780 8,210
1825 8,741 114 4 8*) 9,310
1S2C 111, 818 116 903 13,837
1827 12, 648 \\4 715 13,477
1828 12. 084 „ 135 1,0,)0 1.3,275
1829 13, 607 197 2,016 15,820
1830 30, 574 204 1,242 .32,020
1831 49, 38,3 ' 58 42.) 49,864
18:i2 66,339 32,980 202 3,792 10.5,31,3
1833 28,808 29,225 517 4,134 62,684
1834 40,060 33,074 288 2,800 76,222

The foregoing statement is given on the authority

of Custom-house returns, and is of course euncct, as far
as the knowledge of the officers of that department
extends. From other documents, crjually authentic, we
llnd, however, that the Custom-house returns are ex¬
ceedingly defective. The following statements trans¬
mitted by the chief agent for emigrants at Quebec, and
by the British consul at New Y6rk, exhibit numbers
greatly exceeding in some years those contained in the
former table.
CH. V.] EMIGRATION. . 129

Number of Emigrants who have arrived at Quebec in

each of the six years from 1829 to 1834.

1829 isr.o 1831 1032 1333 1834

From
England and Woles. ..4. 3,f)G5 6,799 10,343 17,481 5,198 6,799
Ireland. 9,014 18,300 34,135 i28.2l'4 12,013 19,206
2,043 2,450 5.^4 4,196 4,591
Hamburg and Gibraltar ... ' 15
Nova Scoliu, Newlound-
luml, West Indies, &c. ..
] 123 451 424 546 345 337

Grand Total, 193,034 ... 15.945 28.000 50,2r>6 51.746 21,752 30,933

Number of Emigrants who have arrived at New York in

each of the six years from 1829 to 1834.

1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834

From
Englurd and Wales. 8.U0 l(;,:!r)0 13,808 18.947
Ireland... 2.413 3,4971 fi,721 G,o:.o 116,100 26,540
Scotland... 948 1,.584‘ 2,078 3,280

Grand Total, 126,462 ... Il,50f21,43fa3,607 98.283 16,100 26,540

By the returns transmitted from Quebec we are made

a(i([uainled with various interesting particulars concern¬
ing the course of emigration towards that quartei.
Among other things a list is given of the ports in Eng¬
land, Ireland, and Scotland, w'hcnce emigrants have de¬
parted in the four years from 1831 to 1834 ; a statement
distinguishing the number of men, women, and children
who arrived at Quebec and Montreal in each month
of 1834, separating those who emigrated by means of
parochial aid from those who defrayed their own ex¬
penses ; and we have further a statement of the distribu¬
tion after their arrival of the emigrants of 1834. These
interesting documents, the first of them abridged by
classing together thq^smaller ports in the different divi¬
sions of the kingdom, are here given.
Names of Ports whence Emigrants depaled for Quebec and Montreal, during each of the years from 1831 to 1834.

Total from Scotland. 5,354 5,500 4,19G 4,591

cn. V.] EMIGRATION. 131
Table showing the monthly arrival of Emigrants, from
the United Kingdom, at Quebec and Montreal during
thc*}'ear 1834, specifying the number of Males and
Females, and Children under 14 years of age, distin¬
guishing also the number of Emigrants who defrayed
their own expenses from those \vho received paro¬
chial aid.

Chiblren FmiRrants
under
Months. Males. Kom. foiiitetMi at their with
own purocliial Total.
yeai s ol
ajie. expense. (lid.

May.. 4,408 3.245 2,611 9,357 907 10,264

Juno , 3,343 2,347 1,777 7,027 440 7,467
July .. 2,342 1,762 1,356 5,021 439 5,466
Aiiifu.st 2,674 1,816 1,517 5,938 69 6,007
Sept... 501 333 272 1,085 21 1,106
October 297 184 148 613 16 629

Total 13.505 \),6S7 7,681 2!), 041 30,931

1

Distribution of the Emigrants* who arrived at Quebec

and Montreal in the season of 1834.
Loweh Canada.
City and Distnei of Quebec . . • 1,500
IJistrict of I’iiree Rivers . . . .'i50
nistrift of St. Francis and Eastern Townships 040
City and District of Montreal . . . 1,200
Ottawa District ..... 400
- 4,090
Uri'EH Canada.
Ottawa, Bathurst, Midland, and Hastcrn Dis¬
tricts, as far as Kiiifrston, included . 1,000
District of Newcastle and Township, in the
vicinity of the Bay of Quinte . . 2,050
Toronto (late York) and the Home District, ex- ’
chidiii)* settleurouts round Lake Siinco 8,000
Hamilton, Guelph, and llurou Tract, and situ-*
alions adjacent .... 2,660

Carried forward .... 14,310