STATE AID TO EMIGRANTS.

A REPLY TO LORD BRABAZON.

To all who take an interest in the great problem of the right means for relieving the pressure caused by the rapid increase of the population of Great Britain, the opening of the pages of this Review and other leading periodicals to a discussion on all sides of the question cannot but be deemed of the utmost importance; indeed, to some of us outside the strife of political contests, whether Liberals or Conservatives, of far greater present necessity than some of the so-called 'burning questions' of the day.

This privilege has been granted to me on several occasions in connection with emigration, which, although one branch only of this pressing question, has claimed, and must for many reasons continue to claim, a prominent place in all discussions or practical efforts for diminishing the pressure. That this end is likely to be gained by fair trade, when we look at the present condition of the countries that indulge in protective duties, or that the difficulty can be met by Mr. Hyndman's something better than emigration,' we may well doubt. The former is far too shadowy and uncertain in its prospects, and the goal of the latter seems far too remote to be reached by the present, if even by succeeding generations. For however rapid may be the extension of so-called Democratic or Socialist views, one thing, I think, is absolutely proven by the experience of the United Statesviz. that universal prosperity and equality are not to be gained by the application of laws regulating the distribution of wealth.

Without undervaluing all the other mighty influences, social or political, which are, or have been, in operation for the amelioration of the condition of the masses of the English people, I have a profound belief in the necessity and benefit of emigration alike to those who stay and those who go. Not indeed that I raise it on a pedestal to be worshipped, or regard it as the sole or even most potent agency for benefiting the unemployed thousands in England.

It was therefore with considerable interest that I noticed the article by Lord Brabazon in the November number of this Review entitled 'State-directed Emigration a Necessity,' and it is with no

small regret that after reading it I am compelled (1) to express dissent not merely from Lord Brabazon's scheme for State-aided English emigration, but also (2) to take exception to several of the statements contained in his severe strictures upon Irish State-aided emigration, a fuller acquaintance with which would, I feel assured, have led Lord Brabazon to a very different estimate of its value.

Leaving the consideration of the results of this Irish emigration to be dealt with subsequently, it seems right, on behalf of the common cause which we both desire to serve, to state why, after an experience gained during the past four years of emigration work, I cannot encourage Lord Brabazon's glowing hopes of the feasibility of relieving the pressure of our great cities by any large and sudden colonisation scheme. I say this with more than common reluctance, for I also have been enthusiastic about colonisation from Ireland, and if Lord Brabazon will do me the favour to turn to the Nineteenth Century for February, 1881, he will there find a detailed plan for Irish colonisation somewhat on the lines of his own scheme. This plan I was reluctantly compelled to abandon, although it was designed for a purely agricultural population accustomed to land, and not for the dwellers in our cities.

Lord Brabazon's proposals, briefly stated, are as follows:—

1. Removal of the only hindrance to the more rapid colonisation of Greater Britain by placing the redundant population of London on farms of 160 acres in Canada or elsewhere.

2. The said population being without means, Government to advance the same, under proper guarantee to amount of one million-the sum estimated to remove 10,000 families (50,000 souls)—and that the sums so lent would be repaid by colonists in annual instalments, to be used again for a like object, and thus without recurring expense the nation to be permanently relieved.

3. That the Government in conjunction with colonial Governments. shall draw up a scheme for carrying out the above objects.

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I wish I could bring myself to believe with Lord Brabazon that the only hindrance to the more rapid colonisation of Greater Britain lay in the difficulty of traversing the intervening ocean,' and that by legislation or mere advance of money we could properly dispose of 'the redundant populations' of London and other large towns, and that Lord Brabazon's. scheme was a really practicable one. Is it possible that 10,000 city families wishing to emigrate could be found who are really fitted to undertake an entirely new existence, to undergo the hardships of a colonist's life, and further whose moral. condition is such that they would repay in annual instalments the money needed to be advanced in each case?

The experience gained by Bishop Ireland in Minnesota and Mr.. John Sweetman in Iowa, in their very interesting colonisation experiments, has distinctly proved that small cultivators of land from VOL. XVII.-No. 96.

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Ireland, without means of their own, placed upon 80 or 160 acre farms with the most liberal terms as to repayment-terms almost identical with those described by Lord Brabazon-are not at once fitted for the great change. Indeed, so largely have these experiments failed, that both gentlemen have been compelled after a large sacrifice of money entirely to alter their plans, and to accept as colonists those only who have some stake of their own to put into the land. For the inability to look forward, the promise of high wages for labour, with present payment and possession of cash, have led nearly all those without means to throw up their lands and leave the precious inheritance which a few years of toil would have given them free and unencumbered.

Lord Brabazon supports his argument for the success of his great scheme by the evidence supplied by the well-doing of the crofters sent out by Lady Gordon Cathcart from the North of Scotland. Even if the status and position of these emigrants were in any way similar to the redundant population' of the East of London, would it be quite safe to infer from it that tens of thousands of the families of the London poor could be equally successfully treated in a similar way? But the circumstances are evidently quite different, as will be more clearly seen from the following extracts from a statement recently furnished me by Lady Gordon Cathcart's agents as to the circumstances of the twelve families who left in 1883 and the forty-five in this year, together about 300 persons:

'The head of each family is generally a small farmer or crofter with several cattle and sheep on his holding, which of course he disposes of when he emigrates, and has generally means sufficient to pay the passage out of himself and his family to Canada. Some of our crofters had a balance of their own after paying their passages, besides a loan of 100l., which gave them a better start. The crofters generally can read and write, and are a class above the common labourer.'

The crofters were in fact agriculturists, and acquainted with the use of the plough, the cropping of land, and charge of cattle; and most of them had some means of their own.

With the great care taken by Lady Gordon Cathcart, not only in the selection of families, but also in the selection of favourable sections of land in Canada, it would seem difficult to suppose the cannie Scot' should not succeed; and from all I have heard from those who have visited the districts and have seen the superior class of men thus selected and their intelligent appreciation of the advantages of their new position, I cannot doubt that they will succeed like their compatriots at Selkirk. To assist 10,000 of such families would be one thing, and could doubtless be accomplished with the minimum of failure; but it is instructive to note that twelve families only were sent during the first year as pioneers, and were even then followed by not more than forty-five families.

Nor does it appear that the case of the Paisley weavers-of whose success as colonists Lord Brabazon says the Marquis of Lorne spoke publicly-has any bearing upon the success of colonisation, though distinctly so as to that of emigration. Indeed, if it were wanting, their case furnishes very strong evidence in support of the view I advocate-namely, that unless in very special and selected cases, the placing of the emigrants where work is to be obtained is a wiser course than the attempt to settle them on farms. Having recently inquired into this case, I find from the Reports of the Government Immigration Agents in Canada for the year 1865, that the circumstances were shortly as follows:

In the summer of 1864, 557 Paisley weavers were assisted to emigrate by various public and private societies from their native town. On arrival in Canada they were dispersed throughout four counties, and placed for the most part in old Scotch settlements where work— not settlement on 160-acre farms-was provided, many of them being employed in cotton and woollen mills. Thus the method of emigration adopted for these Paisley weavers, the success of which Lord Lorne has spoken of so favourably, was conducted on the lines of the Irish State-aided emigration which Lord Brabazon so severely

censures.

The letters of the Rev. Harry Jones addressed to the Guardian in November last give most interesting, and in many ways encouraging evidence of the benefits resulting from East-end colonisation; but, amidst it all, I think it is impossible to avoid seeing the necessity of adopting the motto of 'hasten slowly' when the destinies of thousands of our fellow-creatures are at stake. Look how widely the emigrants are spread-a circuit of twenty-five miles is needed to pay visits to five families:

The peasant (says the Rev. II. Jones) begins with a knowledge of his tool. The townsman has to lay down his and take up another. Some will have a hard pinch, but I think they will win.

The agricultural labourer, if intelligent, steady, and industrious, has considerable openings; but if he brings no capital, he must labour somewhere till he saves enough to get his quarter section. The mere townsman, used to a cookshop round every corner, is often sorely tried when put down alone on his grassy lot, which, as it has no visible boundaries, is seemingly the boundless prairie. Thus the change may be too much for him.

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Moreover, he has been accustomed not only to a quick return for his labour,' but he does not realise the slow repayment of nature.' 'The breaking of the prairie sod promises too distant a wage. This accounts for the long faces which some pulled; . . . but they all spoke with hope, and not one wished to return,' and he was told by an expert that "they would all worry through." These statements seem to me both encouraging and at the same time inciting to great caution. The loss arising from failure to pay the annual instalments and the cost of collection would, I am persuaded, be enormous, for the

emigrants must be scattered over the vast area of the North-West Territory, the destinations depending upon the amount of labour offered to the girls and younger members of the family in each district, and, what is even of the greatest importance, where work could be obtained for the head of the family during the early days of settlement in the country. One of the chief causes which led to the non-acceptance of the scheme of the Canadian Government in 1880, quoted by Lord Brabazon, page 771, arose from the practical difficulty which at once became apparent as to the collection of the instalments due from the proposed Irish colonists. Had the Dominion Government been willing to assume the responsibility of annually collecting these loans to colonists, it is more than probable that the scheme would have had a trial. But as this was entirely declined by the Dominion Government, partly on the above ground, and even more strongly on account of the political difficulties which it was apprehended might arise from its being placed in the position of landlord, the English Government wisely declined to attempt that which the Canadian Government did not see their way to undertake. This objection is still felt by the Dominion Government to be an insuperable obstacle. I may perhaps be allowed to speak with some certainty on this question, as I was permitted to confer with Sir John Macdonald, Sir Alexander Galt, and other members of the Dominion Government at Ottawa in the autumn of 1880, and subsequently to discuss the subject with members of the Home Government on my return to England.

We now come to the last of Lord Brabazon's suggestions-viz. that the British Government shall, in conjunction with the Colonial authorities, draw up a well-considered scheme of emigration and colonisation.

The readers of Lord Brabazon's article will perhaps feel as much surprised as I have been to find, notwithstanding his severe and unhesitating condemnation of the Government in its one experiment of

State-aided Emigration from Ireland,' that he proposes to apply to this same Government to 'draw up a well-considered scheme.' It is true it is to be in conjunction with the Colonial Governments, but equally so has been their former work.

It would, however, seem to me somewhat premature to apply to the British Government until some further experience has been gained as to the most effectual methods of dealing with the emigration of these town families. I do not wish to say one word in discouragement of State-aid to emigration, if it can be shown that such aid can on all grounds be properly given, but it is impossible not to perceive that the difficulties which surround State-aid to emigration in England are so great that thoughtful men may well hesitate before they apply to the Government for assistance in this direction. I say so the more freely as I have strongly urged that aid for emigration should be