BRITISH JOURNAL. JANUARY TO JUNE, 1853. VOL. III. LONDON: JOHN MORTIMER, PUBLISHER, 141, STRAND. MDCCCLIII. BRITISH JOURNAL. LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA. WHEN daily accounts are reaching us of the excitement caused -and naturally caused-in Australia by the constantly increasing discoveries of gold fields; each apparently yielding more abundantly than the last-when we are told that the flocks, on which her prosperity depends, are dying for lack of shepherds to attend them; and that the harvests are rotting on their golden stalks for want of husbandmen to gather them-it were indeed time, under any circumstances, to bestir ourselves, and, if possible, to spare some portion of the overflowing population of the mother-country in order that they might assist her colonizing children in their hour of need. But when we consider the treble advantage which would be derived from organised systems of emigration--the benefits which would be reaped by the colonies, the over-wrought mother-country, and the individuals carrying their energies to a new land; the only question which arises to our minds, is a wondering enquiry why some more effective measures than those already in operation have not been, and are not still being, systematically pursued? It cannot be sufficiently regretted that this question should ever be made a party movement, as has, but too often been the case. On a broad and general basis it appears to us that the only question to be asked, is the question of the poet : "Is there no beggar at your gate? Nor any poor in all your lands? And until that question can be as satisfactorily answered as the constitution of human nature will permit, the inquiry-shall emigration to our colonies cease to be encouraged must be considered as still an open one. We have said as satisfactorily as the constitution of human nature will permit, because we are painfully aware that there exists that, in the first principles of which society is constituted, which precludes the possibility of any congregation of men being without its quota of spirits, who, from lack of industry, perseverance, and energy, defy every attempt to raise them from the lowest depths of poverty. Beings in whose natures the seeds of self-respect-even if sown-seem unable to germinate and take root. But it is not with this unhappy, and, we earnestly trust, rapidly decreasing minority, that we have now to do. Our present task lies with those whom a sufficient stimulus would excite to help themselves -with those who need no such stimulus, who ask but the most moderate extension of the helping hand-and above all with those whose youth, rendered even yet less manful by their education, unfits them for dependence on their own energies. It is not our intention, even to attempt to grasp this question in all its world-wide bearings. Bearings, which may task the comprehension of the most clear-headed of statesmen. Still less is it our intention to enter on the large questions of political We trust that, ere long, parliament will be called upon to examine whether some portion of the five millions with which Britain economy. VOL. IL. B |