XXI. 1826. 28; Parl. Deb. xiv. CHAP. Visitations of Providence, both countries, and especially Scotland, have enjoyed a career of unbroken industrial prosperity. Never, perhaps, did a private individual, not wielding the powers either of legislation or government, confer so great a blessing on his country as Sir Walter 1 Ann. Reg. Scott did on this occasion; and it called forth from the 1826, 26, Chancellor of the Exchequer an ironical compliment to 1318, 1319. Scotland, veiled under the words of eulogy, which showed how sorely their defeat had been felt by Government.1* "The miserable," says Miss Martineau, "are always Commence- restless: hunger roams from land to land as pain tosses Emigration on the bed it cannot leave. The poor of Ireland every question. year, and, when food or work fall off from other causes, the grave and decent poor of England and Scotland also, wander away, shipping themselves off to the westward, or to our farthest settlements in the East. The subject of EMIGRATION must sooner or later become of interest and importance to every civilised, and soonest to Martineau, an insular kingdom." 2 The great emigration from the 26. ment of the Thirty British Isles, which since has become so immense, and has come to exercise so important an influence on the fortunes of this country and of the world, may be dated from this period: as the notes were drawn in, the poor began to go out. The number of annual emigrants from the United Kingdom, which had sunk to 8000 during * "But, sir, I confess that when I have been passing in review all the signal triumphs which Scotland has achieved in all that adorns, and ennobles, and benefits the human race; when I have recalled the grace, the originality, and the genius of her poets, the eloquence, the accuracy, and research of her historians, the elaborate lucubrations, and the profound discoveries of her philosophers; when I have watched their progress, either when they traversed the delightful regions of fancy, or penetrated the depth and recesses of history or science, I never thought of including among her worthies the members of the Excise Board. Our present measures, dictated alone by the necessity of judicious retrenchment, may indeed be represented as punishments inflicted on an innocent and unoffending people, and the wrath of Scotland may be denounced against their author; but as long as I am armed with the consciousness of seeking to diminish the burdens, and to increase the happiness of the people, I can look without terror at the flashing of the Highland claymore, though evoked from its scabbard by the incantations of the first magician of the age."-Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr ROBINSON), Feb. 13, 1826; Parl. Deb., vol. xiv., pp. 1318, 1319. XXI. 1826. the prosperous years of 1823 and 1824, rose rapidly CHAP. after the monetary measures of 1826, until, in the year 1832, when the Reform Bill passed, it had reached the then unprecedented number of 103,000.* This emigration, though not a third of what it has been for some years past at this time (1854), was more than five times. what it had ever been before, and spoke volumes as to the suffering felt by the working classes, which had thus come to overbear feelings the most powerful, and obliterate attachments the most profound. "The restlessness which forces upon us the question of emigration," says Miss Martineau, "is of course greatest in seasons of adversity; and in the adversity of the year 1826 it was 1Martineau, fierce enough to originate what may prove to be an im- i. 371. portant period in our national history." 1 27. ment of a on emigra How little inclined soever Government at this time. were to give any public encouragement to emigration, Appointand however imbued with the popular doctrine that committee improvidence must be left to its own punishment, and tion. misery, like other things, find its own level, the cry of distress which arose from all parts of the empire in the spring of 1826 was so piercing that they were compelled to make a show at least of doing something on the subject. Nothing more was attempted than to appoint a select committee to inquire into the expediency of encouraging emigration from the United Kingdom. In 1823, during the severe distress produced by the Bill of 1819 contracting the currency, a committee had been appointed, and an experimental grant of £50,000 voted for the removal of emigrants to Canada; and Mr Wilmot * EMIGRANTS FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM 1820 TO 1833. -Parliamentary Returns; PORTER's Progress of the Nation, 128, 3d edit. XXI. 1826. CHAP. Horton, one of the under-secretaries for the colonies, who now moved for a fresh committee, reported that two hundred and sixty-eight persons had availed themselves of the Government offer, who had been settled in Canada at an average expense of £22 a-head. Several eminent political economists, however, and in particular Mr M'Culloch, had given strong opinions before the former committee against any Government grant on the subject—a doctrine which met with the cordial approbation of the 1 Parl. Deb. Lords of the Treasury, and was re-echoed by many whose intelligence and principles might have led them to a very different conclusion.1 xiv. 1362, 1363. 28. the subject in the House of In moving for this committee, Mr Wilmot Horton, Debate on whose efforts on this subject are deserving of the very highest praise, observed: "I do not pretend to say Commons. Whether Mr M'Culloch's doctrine is right or wrong; but all events, the very first principle of emigration is, that the persons sent out should be assisted by the mother country for a certain time, until they receive such an impetus as will enable them to go forward themselves. Nor can the assistance thus afforded be considered as so much lost or thrown away, for the mother country will share its eventual advantages, and the capital thus employed, though transferred to another place, still remains within the empire. The question of emigration mixes itself up with our whole colonial system: both parties are benefited; and by increasing emigration we shall be increasing the aggregate profits of the empire. Is the system of our ancestors to be departed from or not? Is a measure which seems calculated to convert a riotous peasantry into a class of industrious yeoman and farmers not deserving of consideration at this present time, when we are devising improvements in our criminal code, and endeavouring to lessen crime?" "Give the poor man £20," said Mr Hume in reply, "and he will establish himself as well in Ireland as anywhere else. Mr M'Culloch said that sending out one hundred thousand XXI. 1826. persons would be no more than a drop of water in the CHAP ocean. Five hundred thousand might have some effect, provided reproduction could be prevented; for otherwise, in two or three years we should have the same number 1 Parl. Deb. again." The committee was agreed to in a very thin 1364. House, which narrowly escaped being counted out.1 xiv. 1363, on this sub portance. From such small beginnings did the great question of 29. emigration take its rise, which has now assumed such Reflections colossal proportions! What would the members who ject, and now slipped away to dinner, or their clubs, the moment its vast imthe subject was mentioned, have said if they could have foreseen that in less than thirty years this was to become the question of questions to the British empire and the whole globe; that three hundred and sixty thousand emigrants were for a course of years together to leave the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, and five hundred thousand annually those of Europe; that our exports to our colonies were to rise to thirty millions annually, and to one-that of Australia, not yet numbering five hundred thousand inhabitants-reach the enormous and almost incredible amount of £14,500,000, while it yielded to the local government a revenue of £3,600,000 a-year!* In this overlooked and neglected question was to be found the remedy, and the only remedy, for the manifold ills of Ireland-a source of daily increasing strength to the British empire, and the great means by which the ends of Providence, for the dispersion of mankind and the civilisation of the world, were to be carried into effect. A signal error, accompanied by the most disastrous consequences, long prevailed on this subject. This was the opinion, which was all but universal at that period, * EXPORTS TO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND AUSTRALIA. Perhaps it is impossible to exhibit the wonderful influence of the gold regions of California and Australia so clearly as by these figures. XXI. 1826. 30. errors on CHAP. and is only now beginning to be abandoned, that the migration of the poor should be left to their own resources, and that any attempt to give an impetus to it by Prevailing the assistance of Government was unwise, and might the subject. come to be pernicious. There never was a more erroneous opinion. Admitting that the strength of a State is at all times to be measured by its numbers, coupled with their well-being, what is to be said to the condition of a country which is overrun with paupers, who cannot by possibility find a subsistence, and must, in one way or other, fall as a burden on the more prosperous classes of the community? Emigration, when they have it in their power, is, in such circumstances, their only resource; and if it is left to the unaided efforts of the working classes, what is to be expected but that the better conditioned of these classes will go off, and leave the destitute and paupers behind? Thus the holders of small capital, whether in town or country, the little farmers, the small shopkeepers, the workmen who have amassed ten or fifteen pounds in other words, the employers of labour-disappear, and none are left but the rich, who will not, and the poor, who cannot, emigrate. No state of things can be imagined more calamitous; and it only becomes the more so when measures are in progress through the Legislature calculated to diminish the price of commodities, and consequently lessen the remuneration of industry, and passions afloat among the people which lead them to long passionately for a general, and, it is to be feared, unattainable felicity. 31. The common sophism, that it is useless to send the Continued. poor abroad, because their place will soon be supplied by others from the impulse given to population at home, admits of a short and decisive answer. It takes a week to send a poor man abroad; it takes twenty years to supply his place. In the interval between the two, the supply of the labour market is lessened, and the pressure on the working classes diminished. Even, therefore, if every |