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THE
SETTLER’S NEW HOME:
OR
THE EMIGRANT'S LOCATION,
BEING
A GUIDE TO EMIGRANTS IN THE SELECTION OF A SETTLEMENT,
AND THE PRELIMINARY DETAILS OF THE VOYAGE.
BY
SIDNEY SMITH.
BRITISH AMERICA,-CANADA :
EMBRACING NOVA SCOTIA, NEW BRUNSWICK, CAPE BRETON, PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND,
EASTERN CANADA, WESTERN CANADA.
THE UNITED STATES:
INCLUDING NEW ENGLAND, THE WESTERN STATES, THE SLAVE STATES, TEXAS,
CALIFORNIA, HUDSON'S BAY SETTLEMENTS,
COMPREHENDING OREGON, AND VAN COUVER'S ISLAND.
LONDON:
JOHN KENDRICK, 4, CHARLOTTE ROW, MANSION HOUSE,
1849.


THE
UNIVERSITY OF CATCA 6:0
E 158
LIBRARIES
868
CHICAGO, ILL
COMPANIONS FOR THE VOYAGE, THE HUT, AND THE FRAME
HOUSE.
.
The Emigrant may be removed from society without being deprived o
companions. Even if he sequesters himself from the company of the
living, he may have on the lonely ocean, the distant prairie, or in the
solitary wood, communion with those who never die. The mind, for want
of a better social circle, has been glad in the sea calm, or at the cattle
station, to pore over a series of old almanacks. Before it be too late
wo would warn emigrants to provide against solitude by securing to them-
selves the intercourse of books, of which the best happen also to be the
cheapest. In the colonies they will always sell for double what they cost
in the mother country, while the purchaser has had the use of them into the
bargain. To supply this desideratum we have requested our publisher to
select a list of books from his stock suitable for settlers, and to append their
prices. These will be found at the end of the volume.
for
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1223147
INTRODUCTION.
If that which is true cannot be profane, Voltaire may almost be
pardoned for the sentiment, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary
to invent Him.” “Man never is, but always to be blest;" he cannot live
in the now and the here; he must fill the heart's aching void with a
heaven and a hereafter. So little to the meditative “in this life only is there
hope,” so soon to the reflective and spiritual do “the evil days draw
nigh” in which they are constrained to say in weariness of very life,
they have no pleasure in them;" that without the assurance of a God,
a heaven, and immortality, earth would be but one vast bedlam. In an
inferior but analogous sense what immortality is to time, foreign lands
are to space. Colonies are “the world beyond the grave” of disap-
pointed hopes. The antipodes are the terrestrial future, the sublunary
heaven of the unsuccessful and the dissatisfied. The weaver in his
Spitalfields garret who tries to rusticate his fancy by mignionette in his
window-box, and bees in the eaves, bathes his parched soul in visions of
prairie flowers, and a woodbine cabin beside Arcadian cataracts. The
starving peasant whose very cottage is his master's, who tills what he can
never own, who poaches by stealth to keep famine from his door, and
whose overlaboured day cannot save his hard-earned sleep from the
nightmare of the workhouse, would often become desperate, a lunatic, or
a broken man, but for the hope that he may one day plant his foot on
his own American freehold, plough his own land, pursue the chase with-
out a license through the plains of Illinois or the forests of Michigan,
and see certain independence before himself and his children. The in-
dustrious tradesman, meritorious merchant, or skilful and enlightened
professional man, jerked perhaps by the mere chance of the war of com-
petition out of his parallelogram, and exhausting his strength and very
life in the vain struggle to get back again into a position already filled ;
compelled by the tyranny of social convention to maintain appearances
unsuited to the state of his purse; plundered by bankrupt competitor's
or insolvent customers, and stripped of his substance by high prices and
oppressive taxation, would often become the dangerous enemy of society
or of government, but for the consideration that, in South Africa, in
America, in Australia, or New Zealand, he may find repose from anxiety
in independence, rude and rough though it may be, emancipation from
the thraldom of convention, and an immunity from any compulsion to
keep up appearances, and to seem to be what he is not.
nothing,” said the French king, “ for these clubs, plots, attempts upon
my life; but I have thirty-four millions of restless spirits to find food and
employment for, and I have no colonies." The redundant enterprise ;
the surplus energy; the fermenting spirit of adventure with which the
“I care
B


INTRODUCTION.
population of these kingdoms teems, would, like the figure of sin in
Milton, have long since turned inward to gnaw the vitals of its parent,
but for the “ample scope and verge enough” it finds in the romantic
life of our sailors, or the trials, perils, hopes and fortunes of emigration.
“Ships and colonies," the time-honoured toast of monopolists, have
stopped many an emeute, and saved many a rebellion. We are not sure
that they have not more than once averted a revolution. Hampden,
Pym, and Cromwell, turned back by a king's warrant from the emigrant
ship in which they had already embarked, remained to decapitate their
sovereign, and establish a commonwealth. The unsettled boil off their
superfluous mischief in the prospect of a fixed home in the bush or the
backwoods; the discontented find comfort and rest in the conviction that
“there is another and a better world” in the genial south, or the re-
gion of the setting sun. /It is always in our seasons of greatest com-
mercial distress and social privation that the largest export of emigrants
takes place. The misery and disaffection which otherwise would make
themselves formidable to constituted authority, hive off into the repose
of peregrine settlements, and, sluicing themselves into new channels, save
the overflow of the parent stream.
The wandering Arab, the vagrant gipsy, the restless discoverer and
circumnavigator, the pioneer of the backwoods, who no sooner has civi-
lized the forest and the prairie, by the plough, and the enclosure, and
human habitations, than he disposes of his home, and hews ou for him-
self further and still further removed from man, and settled society, a new
resting place in the remote woods, these are all but types of an instinct
and rooted tendency in human character, which, if it do not find its
natural outlet in colonial settlements and naval enterprise, will invent the
occupation it cannot find, in disturbing the peace and interrupting the
order of our domestic social fabric. If we do not inake war upon the
forest we will make war upon mankind; if we do not subdue the wilder-
ness, we will conquer one another. It is in vain that we call upon the
governing power to employ our people at home, and to reclaim our own
waste lands rather than send our necessitous abroad. Few colonists leave
their country without the mixed motive of necessity and inclination. The
love of the romance of adventure is strong in many of the rudest and
apparently least imaginative minds. There is an instinct of vagabondism,
so to speak, in many otherwise well-regulated intellects, which must find its
vent in wandering over the face of the earth. The drudgery, the want
of elbow room, the absence of property in the soil one tills, rob a holding
on the moor of Scotland, or the bogs of Ireland, of everything which
can satisfy the activity and energy of the men whose tendencies present
the best materials for colonization. And whatever may be the interest of
the government or of the settled community in this regard, it partakes
somewhat of mere sentimental cant to pity the hard necessity which
drives the poor from misery at home, to colonial independence, and de-
prives the peasantry of the privilege of starving in their native parish;
that they may leaven the primeval curse with its promise of daily bread,
in the abundance of a foreign location.
Let this sentiment be examined by the manly common sense of the
country, not whined over by its Pecksniffs, and inacle the hobby horse of


INTRODUCTION.
3
antiquated prejudice, and sentimental hurnbug. Every soldier, every
sailor, including members of the highest and richest classes of society, is
liable to expatriation at any time the duties of the service render it ne-
cessary he should go on a foreign station or on a lengthened cruise. The
whole civil officers of our colonies, embracing Hudson's Bay and Sierra
Leone, Calcutta and Jamaica, sustain a virtual banishment from home,
and the perils of the most rigorous climates, added, in many cases, to
imminent danger from the barbarity of savage aborigines.
The mer-
chant who sends his sons abroad to establish foreign houses, and open up
new channels of commerce, driven to that necessity by the absence of
any proper opening for them at home. The squire who exports his bro-
thers to the East Indies, provided with a cadetship, or a writership, the
lord who places his relatives at the head of a colony of tenants, to fell
the woods of Canada or pasture the plains of Australia, are consulting
the real interests, not only of the mother country, but of the objects of
their care. It is not the rulers who misgovern us, or the legislators who
mismanage our affairs, upon whom are made to fall the consequences of
their folly or corruption. It is the industry and labour of the country which,
at the bottom, have to sustain the whole burden of maintaining all the other
orders of society. It is the working classes who produce every thing by
which all others profit, or are sustained in their position. The opera-
tives and the peasantry are the real honey bees to whom the hive owes
all its stores; they ultimately make the wealth by which the £10,000,000
of our poor-rates are found, they sustain the burden of finding food and
lodging for the 81,000 Irish vagrants who even now cast themselves on
the eleemosynary compassion of the metropolis. Upon their wages fall
the depreciation produced by the competition of a redundant population.
Out of their ten fingers, sweat and muscle, must be ground the local and
imperial taxes, wasted in the prosecution of crime, caused by want or
ignorance, or the abandonment of children by their parents. So long as
a man can maintain himself and those for whose support he has made
himself responsible, no one has a right to dictate to him either his mode
of occupation or his locality of life. But when, either by misfortune, or
his own fault, he has to call upon his fellow labourers to support him as
well as themselves, then he gives a title to society to say to him as well
as to the soldier, the sailor, the sprig of quality, or the farmer, You
are not wanted here, go thou there where thou art wanted.”
This is not a dispensation of rose water and pink satin. Here is no
Lubberland, wherein geese ready.roasted, fly into our mouths, quacking,
“Come eat me!” It is a hard, working-day, unideal world, full of forge
culm, and factory smoke. The millions of our towns and cities have
to go into unwilling exile from honeysuckle, swallow-twittering eaves and
meadow scented air. The chief ruler among us is the hardest worker of
us all; nor can one easily conceive of a life more approximating to a
cross betwixt that of a gin-horse and the town-crier, than a Lord High
Chancellor or a barrister in full practice. Paley could not afford to keep
a conscience, and mankind cannot indulge in the luxury of mere senti-
mental patriotism. Nostalgia is a most expensive disease; home sick-
ness a most thriftless virtue; and the most elevated sentiment sinks into
sentimentality when it is indulged at other people's cost. And when this
B 2


4
INTRODUCTION.
attachment to father-land becomes mere “sorning" upon useful Industry
at the sacrifice of that manly independence without which the expatria-
tion of the citizen would be the gain of the community, it ceases to com-
mand respect or merit sympathy. It is a very small portion of the pop-
ulation of any country which can consult their taste, or study the fancy
of their mere inclinations, either in the choice of an occupation, or the
selection of their local habitation. Least of all should those dictate to
the toil worn but independent sons of labour the condition on which they
shall sustain the burden of their subsistence.
There are tens of thousands of the children of this country, who,
either abandoned by or bereft of their parents, or worse still, taught to
lie and steal, are let loose upon our streets, to find a living in begging
or petty larceny. They have no home but the jail, the union, the penį-
tentiary or the ragged school. Why should not society, in mercy to them
and in justice to itself, gather all these together and help them, under
careful superintendence, to colonize some of our healthy foreign posses-
sions ? Besides the enormous masses of Irish vagrants and British men-
dicants, who infest every town and county in the kingdom, there are yast
numbers of habitual paupers, maintained in all our unions, whose very
condition is a virtual assertion, on their parts, that there are no means of
finding for them regular and legitimate employment. If society offers to
these men a good climate, a fertile soil, high wages, cheap living, a de-
mand for labour, and good land for the tilling, what justice, sense or
reason is there in permitting these objects of the public bounty to reject
the means of independence, and to compel the people to continue to bear
the charges of being their perpetual almoners ?
There are thirty one millions of us swarming in these islands, 265
to the square mile. We reproduce to the effect of a balance of births
over deaths of 465,000 souls per annum; requiring, to preserve even the
existing proportion betwixt territory and population, a yearly ac-
cession of soil to our area of 1754 square miles, of the average
fertility of the kingdom, or an enlargement of our boundary equal, annually,
to the space of two or three of our larger counties. In the single year
ending 5th January, 1848, we were compelled to import no less than the
enormous quantity of 12,360,008 quarters of corn, to supply the defici-
ency of our domestic production, whịch amounted to quite an average
crop, and for this additional supply we had to pay £24,720,016
Live Animals 216,456
432,912
Meat 592,335 cwts.
1,480,837
Butter 314,066 cwty..
1,256,264
Cheese 355,243 cwts.
888,132
Eggs 77,550,429.
1,292,507
Being an enormous aggregate of £30,070,668
spent to meet our domestic deficiency of supply of the barest necessaries
of life. As our population, at its present point, will increase five millions
in the next ten years, and proceed in a geometrical progression thereafter,
it has become demonstrable that the plan of carrying the people to the
raw material which is to be manufactured into food, is a wiser and
more practicable proposition than that of bringing the food to the people
.


INTRODUCTION.
in its manufactured state. By emigration they cease to be an element in
the overcrowding of our numbers; they go from where they are least, to
where they are most wanted; they are no longer each others' competitors
in the labour market; but speedily become mutual customers, and recip-
rocate the consumption of each others' produce. So long as it shall con-
tinue an essential feature of our constitutional policy to foster, by arti-
ficial enactments, an hereditary territorial aristocracy, the laws of pri-
mogeniture and entail will rapidly diminish the proportion of our pop-
ulation dependent on the possession or cultivation of the soil for their
subsistence. Within the last fifty years the yeomanry and peasantry of
the country have alarmingly decreased, not relatively merely to other
classes, but absolutely (see Returns, pop. 1841, and Porter's Progress of
the Nation,) and the great mass of our people are maintained on two or.
three branches of manufacturing and mining industry which, when they
droop and languish, throw the whole kingdom into a state of turbulent
discontent, and the most perilous distress. / To maintain the producers of
food in something like a fair proportion to the other classes of the com-
munity, it therefore becomes essential that the surplus population, in
place of being forced into trading or manufacturing pursuits, should be
drafted off into our colonies : and it is demonstrable that a large expen-.
diture for the purposes of emigration, disbursed at the outset, will super-
sede the necessity of any future efforts, except such as voluntary enterprise
can effectually supply. If half the annual ten millions of poors' rates
levied in these kingdoms, were expended for four consecutive years, in
transmitting to our foreign possessions those who are unable to maintain
themselves and their families at home, colonization would, for ever after,
be a self-supporting measure. Every man that locates himself in our
colonies becomes the pioneer of his relatives and neighbours. He en-
courages them to follow by bearing his testimony to his own improved
condition, by giving them information on which they can depend, in re-
ference to climate and condition; by offering them a home in his own
cabin, till they can find one for themselves, and by sending them his sur-
plus gains, to enable them to defray the expenses of the voyage. (Through
Baring, Brothers alone upwards of half a million has been remitted for
this purpose in twelve months, and a nearly equal amount through other
lk uses.) Emigration emphatically grows by what it feeds on. 506,000
colonists who have last and this season taken with them probably
£2,000,000 sterling, will earn four times that amount before a year has
ended, and will remit quite as much as they have taken away in less
than eighteen months. The expenditure of £10,000,000 in feeding the
Irish people last year, ceases of its effect with the mere lapse of time,
leaves the recipients of the imperial bounty more dependent, and there-
fore more destitute than ever, and establishes a precedent for a renewal
of government profusion, whenever the return of the potatoe rot, or a
failing harvest, brings with it a renovation of the necessity for support.
Paupers are not got rid of, but, on the contrary, are perpetuated by
being relieved. The only effectual means of reducing pauperism is by
colonizing paupers, sending them to new and fertile wilds, where food is
redundant and labour scarce, from an old and settled country, where
food is scarce and labour redundant. There let them increase and mul-
B3


MOTIVES FOR BMIGRATING.
go cold."
tiply, to make the wildernoss and solitary places glad, and the desert to
rejoice and blossom like the rose. When the whole parish of Cholesbury
was occupied by two farmers, the peasantry having no interest in the
soil, 119 were paupers out of 139; the farmers became bankrupt, the
parson got no tithe. The Labourer's Friend Society divided the land
among those very paupers in parcels of five to ten acres per family, and
in four years the number of paupers was reduced to five decrepid and
old women, and all the rest were in a high state of prosperity, affording
even to pay a rate in aid to the neighbouring parish. As “faith without
works is dead, being alone,” so is land without labour, and labour with-
out land. Bring these two together, and the earth is conquered, and the
world served. Here we produce plenty for the back and little for the
belly. There the stomach is filled, while
“ Back and side go bare, head and feet
Nothing is wanted to complete the circle of mutual accommodation, but
that dispersion of population, and diffusion of occupation which it is the
object of emigration to effect.
Let us not then, whine over the mere unmanly and irrational senti-
mentalities of home and country. Reason and conscience are para-
mount to the tenderest associations of the heart. Independence is better
than home “for behold the kingdom of heaven is within you ?" He
best serves his country who serves mankind. The natural history of
society shows human migration to be an instinct, and therefore a neces-
sity. It is indeed by earthly agents that providence works its inflexible
purposes ; but when, by some supernatural soliciting, we go forth to
subdue the earth and make it fruitful, it is less in subjection to a hard
necessity than in obedience to a law of nature, that hordes and tribes and
races leave exhausted soils, or inhospitable regions, and wander westward
to the region of the setting sun, or forsake the hyperborean tempest, for
the climate of the milder south. Of all animals man alone has been
framed with a constitution capable, universally, of having his habitat in
any latitude ; and when he leaves scarcity behind him, and goes forth to
adorn, with useful fruitfulness, the idle waste and inhospitable wild, he
but fulfils the great object of his destiny. As then his Creator made him
his heir of all the earth, let him enter with thankfulness upon the length
and breadth of his goodly inheritance.
MOTIVES FOR EMIGRATING,
That strange world madness called war has with so few intervals of
peace or truce, raged over the earth, that some philosophers have con-
cluded the natural state of mankind to be that of mutual devouring.
The train of reasoning by which a declaration of hostilities is arrived at
is so ludicrously inconsequential, that the misery of its results is the only
consideration which saves the tragedy from being farcical. That because
two kings, or a couple of diplomatists should differ in opinion, two hun-
dred thousand men, one half in red and the other half in green or blue,
abould assemble with iron tubes to feed powder and carrion crows, with


MOTIVES POR EMIGRATING.
7
1
!
each others carcases, seems to partake to so great an extent of Partridge's
favourite element of logic called a non sequitur, that one cannot help
suspecting that battles arise rather from the universal spirit of pugnacity,
than from any solicitude to find out a more rational apology for them.
Invasions, plagues, the small-pox, famines, are still considered as so
many substitutes for Malthus's prudential check to population. The pro-
gress in civilization, the improvements in science, which have so greatly
diminished these sources of mortality, are regarded by the cynical as a
thwarting of the tendencies of nature. They point to our thirty-three
years of peace and its effects in intensifying the pressure of population on
the means of subsistence, and the miseries of encreasing competition and
poverty, as a proof that over civilization defeats its own end, and that
social and scientific progression contains within itself the seeds of its own
destruction. They darkly hint at War, Pestilence, and Famine, as
scourges to the human race, which are as yet essential to the fulfilment of
the designs of providence, and silently point to warriors and destroyers
as virtually regenerators of mankind. And truly when a prime minister,
rubbing his drowsy eyes, calls to mind, as he awakes each morning, that
1,277 more subjects of the sovereign that day require bread, than when
he laid his head on his pillow the night before, it is not wonderful that he
should fall into antiquated habits of philosophising upon the best and
speediest means of getting rid of them. Nor can they themselves be less
interested in the practical result of this enquiry. All Europe has been
shaken to its very foundation by neglect of any endeavonr to furnish a
rational solution of the question. The very existence of civil society is
perilled. Class is rising against class-crime is spreading with unerring
consequentiality upon the heels of misery; we repose at the mouth of a
volcano; like snakes in an Egyptian pitcher each struggles to rear his
head above the rest for sheer air and breath; and a crowning selfishness
seizes on us all, in the struggle to preserve ourselves from sinking in the
crowd of competition for bare life, and from being trampled to death in
the contest for existence.
It is true we have still standing room in these islands, although how
long that will be possible, with an increment of five millions in every
ten years, and not a square inch increase of soil in a century, it is not
very difficult, by the help of Cocker, to predicate. But that is not life-
scarcely even vegetation-but a mere sickly and sluggish hesitative nega-
tion of dying. The Spitalfields weaver, the pale artizan, the squalid
labourer, the consumptive sempstress, classes that count millions in the
census, what optimist of us all can venture to say that that is God
Almighty's dispensation of the life of immortal creatures gifted with dis-
course of reason ? Or the starved clerk, with the hungry children and
the pinched wife, nailed to the desk of the dingy office from year's end to
year's end-or the poor wretch that breaks highway mettle by the mea-
sure, losing a meal by pausing a single hour, ,-or the spindle shanked
peasant, paid in truck with tail wheat, and the very marrow drudged out
of his rheumatic bones, until toil is ended by a premature old age in the
workhouse these are ceasing to be mere exceptions, and gradually be-
coming a rule of our population. The tradesman, the merchant, the
professional man, what one of all of these who reads these pages, can tell


8
MOTIVES FOR EMIGRATING.
any but one history, that of continual anxlety to sustain himself in his
existing position-of a total inability to save anything for his children or
the decline of life, of a war to maintain his place against the encroachment
of his neighbour, a mote troubling his mind's eye with the spectre of pos-
sible misfortune and contingent destitution. It was intended that we
should toil to live, but never that we should live simply to toil; yet mere
work! work ! work! is literally the exclusive elernent of our existence.
Rousseau's preference of the savåge to the civilized state was not entirely
utopian. If the pride of our civilization would let us, a modest hesitancy
might well whisper the question, whether the Cossack, the Kalmuck, the
New Zealander, the Otaheitian, the Hottentot, or the North American
Indian, is in very many substantial respects in a state of less dignified
humanity, or of less amplo enjoyment of the rights and priviliges of sen-
tient existence, than not a few of the mere drudges and scavengers of our
toiling population.
“God made the country, man made the town,"
and such a town! Wherein a man ceases to be a man, and is drilled
and drummed into a machine of the very lowest mechanical function,
spending a whole life in making a needle's eye, or exhausting an existence
in putting the head upon a pin ! Look at that begrimed beer syphon a
Blackwall coal heaver, or his archetype the dustman, handling his paint
brush,
,” in doing a bit of "fancy work round a corner"-or the handloom
weaver throwing his weary shuttle for eighteen hours a day, to charm the
daily loaf in to his crumbless cupboard 1-or think of the pinched drudge
“in populous city pent,” who sees the sun only through the skylight of
the dingy office, and hears nothing of the fields but the blackbird in his
wicker cage on the peg, and scents the morning air only of the fuent
gutter, whose world boundary is the parish march, whose soul is in his
ledger, and whose mind is a mere mill for figure grinding—the slave of a
dyspeptic huckster, and thirty shillings a week, whose, and whose child-
ren's fate hangs upon the price of greengrocery and open ports-
-or call
to mind the lodging-house maid of all work, or the cit's nursery gover-
ness, or the trudging peasant, who is, indeed, in the country, but not of
it, who cannot leave the high road for the open field without a trespass,
or kill a hare without transportation, or eat the grain he sowed and
reaped without a felony, or pluck fruit from a tree, or a flower from a
shrub, without a petty larceny-or last of all picture the Irish cateran in
a înud pigsty, without bad potatoes enough for a meal a day, dying of
starvation while exporting the very food he raised, and after that turned
out of his only shed, and his children's sole shelter, into the nearest bog,
there to find some ditch that will shield their naked skeletons of carcases
from the wintry wind-think of these pictures, and compare with them
that of nature's freeholders, that work only for themselves, and only
when they have a mind, who are monarchs of all they survey, who fell
the nearest tree when they want a fire, and shoot the fattest deer or spear
the largest salmon when hunger bids them, to whom every soil is free,
every fruit, seed and herb, belong for the gathering-every forest yields
a house without rent or taxes, who never heard of a workhouse, and never
saw a game certificate, and cannot conceive of a gaol or a gibbet--com-


MOTIVER FOR EMIGRATING.
9
pare these archetypes of sophisticated civilization, and the rudest barbar-
ism, and which of us can, without hesitancy, determine that social better
than savage man enjoys the privilege of sentient existence, develops hu-
manity, fulfils the earthly purpose of his mission into this present evil
world ?
To talk of the love of country to the man whose sole outlook into it is
through the cracked and papered pane of the only window in his Liverpool
cellar, wliose youngest and oldest conception of England is that which the
coal seain in which he has spent his life presents; the only inspiration of
whose patriotism is the dust cart he fills; the union in which he is
separated from his wife, or the twopence-halfpenny she earns for stitch-
ing shirts for the slopsellers, is to display more valour than discretion.
The cry of some that there is no need of enigrating, that there is abun-
dance of food and einployment at home which would be accessible to all
but for oppressive taxation, unwise restrictions in commerce, and a
defective currency, does it not partake a leetle of fudge, and not too much
of candour ? Is not the objector thinking of his own pet panacea, when
he should be remembering that “while the grass grows the steed starves ?”
A sound currency and cheap government are goodly things, but then the
Greek Kalends are a long way off, and, meanwhile, the people perish. Why,
the very insects teach us a wise lesson; it is not food and capital alone they
desiderate ; the bee must have room to work; latitude and longitude with-
out unseemly jostling. What is swarming but emigration upon a system;
an acted resolution, that whereas there is not space and verge enough
for all of us here, therefore let some of us go elsewhither. There is no
conceivable state of social circumstances which can make general inde-
pendence, ease, and comfort compatible with a dense population crowded
together in two small islands, and sustaining the incursion of a daily
increment of 1,277 new competitors for work, food, and clothing. If to
that evil be added, the circumstance that only one person in evəry 108
can boast of the possession of even a rood of the soil of the country,
that scarcely one-fourth of the population has any industrial connexion
with its cultivation, that the great mass, both of the numbers and the
intelligence and enterprise of the nation exist in a state of the most
artificial mutual dependance; that their prosperity is contingent on the
most sophisticated relations of circumstances, and that their very ex-
istence in a state of civil society hangs upon the most complicated and
the least natural arrangements of human occupation, industry, and sub-
sistence, little reflection can be necessary to induce the conviction, not
only that emigration is essential to the relief of the majority who remain
at home, but to the safety and happiness of those who are wise enough
to see the prudence of shifting their quarters. When a revolution in
France destroys the means of living of millions in England, when the
very existence of many hangs upon the solution of the question of the
currency; when the fixing of the rate of discount seals the fate of
thousands, and a panic in Capel Court or Lombard Street, may empty the
cupboards and annihilate the substance of half a kingdom, he is a wise
man who looks out over the world for a freehold on God's earth which
he may have, and hold, and make fruitful, and plant his foot upon, and
call his own, in the assurance that, let the world wag as it may, he at
1


10
MOTIVES POR EMIGRATING,
-
least is inexpugnably provided for. What after all is at the root of social
existence and the basis of human industry and thought? The craving the
maw that daily cries “Give!” the empty stomach with its tidal fever,
punctual as the clock, which must be filled else “chaos is come again.
But this, the preliminary condition of society, the fundamental postulate
of life itself, is almost overlooked among us, and nothing is perhaps less
seriously regarded than the appalling fact that twenty-one millions out
of twenty-eight of our population, have literally no more interest in or
concern with the soil, on whose productions they depend for bare being,
than if they were denizens of the arctic circle. Sweep away the leather
and prunella of civilization, credit, a government, institutions, exchange
and barter, manufactures, and what would become of the people in this
artificial cosmogony ? Neither iron, copper, coal, nor gold; neither
cotton, bills of exchange, silk nor leather, neither law, medicine, nor
theology, can do much to save them from a short shrift and a speedy
end. No, plant a man on his own land, though it were a solitude;
shelter him in his own house, though it should be a log hut; clothe him
in self-produced integuments, though they were the skin of the bear he
killed, of the deer he hunted, or the sheep he tends; and what contin-
gency can give him anxiety, or what prospect bend him down with
care ?
“ Poor and content, is rich, and rich enough.
But riches fireless are as poor as winter
To him who ever fears he shall be poor.”
Revolutions of empires, reverses of fortune, the contingencies of com-
merce, are for ever threatening the richest with poverty, the greatest
with insignificance, the most comfortable with every physical desti-
tution. At this very hour how many thousands are there who, by
revolution in France, or monetary crisis in England, after being racked the
with anxieties, have been prostrated in the most helpless destitution! In G
densely populated countries where the great body of the people live the
dependants on mere artificial contingencies, and destitute of any direct
relation with the soil, half the mortality is traceable to a purely mental
cause,
the fear of falling out of the ranks of one's neighbours, of losing
place, customers, or money, the dread of poverty, or the terror of starva-
tion. But in America it is rightly said that there are, properly speaking,
no poor; no man dependant for life or happiness on any other man;
none without a freehold, or the immediate access to one, which would
amply supply him and his with all that is truly essential to the due en-
joyment of the glorious privilege of sentient existence on that beautiful
earth which every day in sky and sea, in sunrise, meridian, and sunset,
in cloud, and moon, and star, acts before us a succession of scenes to
which all that wealth, power, or genius can add, is less than nothing and
vanity. What are the hardships of the backwoods to the corroding cares
of the crowded city, or what the toils of the body to the anxieties of the
inind?
To the man whose very constitution has become cockneyfied, who has
long taken leave of nature, whose soul has become moulded in the arti- ?
ficial and conventional; to whom Warren's blacking has become a neces-
sary of life; who cannot exist without hail of the newsman, or out of


MOTIVES FOR EMIGRATING.
11
sight of the town clock; whose tranquillity is dependent on the posses-
sion of the orthodox number of pots and kettles, and who scarcely con-
ceives how water can be accessible except it is “ laid on by the new
river company, it may appear an unconquerable difficulty, and the most
calamitous vicissitude to be placed at once in immediate contact with nature
and the earth, to be called on to use his bodily faculties in the discharge
of the functions for which they were originally designed, to make war on
the elements, and to provide for his wants. But to him who yet has
left about him human instincts and manly intrepidity, his thews and sin-
ews, his ten fingers, his hardy limbs will soon find their right use. Το
stand in the midst of one's own acres, to lean on one's own door-post,
to plough or sow or reap one's own fields; to tend one's own cattle; to
fell one's own trees, or gather one's own fruits, after a man has led an old
world life, where not one thing in or about him he could call his own;
where he was dependent on others for every thing; where the tax gath-
erer was his perpetual visitant, and his customer his eternal tyrant; where
he could neither move hand nor foot without help that must be paid for,
and where, from hour to hour, he could never tell whether he should
sink or survive, if there be in him the soul of manhood and the spirit of
self assertion and liberty, it cannot be but that to such a one the destiny
of an emigrant must, on the whole, be a blessing.
As hounds and horses may be " overbroke," and wild beasts have been
even overtamed, so man may be over civilized. Each player in the
Russian horn band blows only a single note, and that merely when it comes to
his turn. Division of labour, however cut and dried a principle it may
be in political economy, cuts a very poor figure in the science of mental
development. We are so surrounded with appliances and “lendings,
that none of us is able to do any thing for himself. We have one man to
make our shoes, another cobler to mend them, and a third to black them.
Railways and steam boats, gas lights, county constables, and macadam-
ised roads have extracted the adventurous even out of travel. Almost
without a man's personal intervention he is shoved in at a door, and in
three hours is let out at another, 200 miles off. Our claws are pared; we
are no longer men, but each some peg, cog, piston or valve in a ma-
chine. The development of our individual humanity is altogether ar-
rested by the progress of the social principle: we get one man to clothe,
another to feed, another to shelter us. We can neither dig, nor weave,
nor build, nor sow, nor reap for ourselves. We neither hunt, nor shoot,
nor grow what supports us. That variety of mental exertion, and of
intellectual and physical occupation which creates a constant liveliness of
interest, and cheerful healthiness of mind, is sorely neglected amongst
us, and nervous diseases, mental depression and the most fearful pros-
tration of all our over stretched or under worked faculties, is the conse-
quence. We abdicate our human functions in promotion of the theory of
gregarious convention. We lose the use of our prehensiles, and forget the
offices of our limbs. We do not travel, but are conveyed. We do not
support ourselves, but are fed. Our very manhood is no longer self-
protective. We hire police to defend us, and soldiers to fight for us.
Every thing is done for, scarcely anything by us. That universality of faculty
which is the very attribute of man is lost in the economy of exaggerated
1
1


12
MOTIVES FOR EMIGRATING.
civilization. Each of us can do only one thing, and are as helpless and
inutually dependent for the rest, as infancy itself. We spend our lives in
introspection ; turning our eyes inward, like Hindoo devotees, we look
only on our own navel ;" the mind becomes diseased from monotony of
thought, and we vegetate rather than live through life's endless variety
of scene, incident and occupation. It is not royalty alone in Jerusalew
palace that sighs, “Oh! that I had wings like a dove! for then would I
fly away and be at rest .. then would I wander far off, and remain in
the wilderness." There the necessities of present life, the every day
calls upon our industry and action, the constantly shifting scene of la-
bour and activity, the rural cares which become comforts, bid us to live
out of ourselves in the world of external realities. There our friends are
not our rivals, nor our neighbours our competitors. The sight of “ the
human face divine,” sickens us not with a sea of the squalid visages of
multitudinous population, but brightens our own countenance with wel-
come to a brother. The mind has no time to canker within itself: we have
to grapple with the palpable realities of the physical elements, and the
earth that is around us, not to wrestle with the diseased anxieties of the
brooding minil; the nervous energy which in populous city life, festers in
the brain, and eats into the heart, is exhausted in the healthful activity
of inuscular exertion; the steers have to be yoked, the cows low for
milking, the new fallen lambs bleat their accession to our store ; the
maple yields its sugar, the sheep its fleece, the deer their skin for our
winter integument; the fruit hangs for our gathering.
There is no ex-
ciseman to forbid our brewing our own October, or making our own
soap and candles. With the day's work, the day's cares are over : the
soul broods not, but sleeps. Tired nature bids us take no thought for to-
morrow, for we have the promise that seed time and harvest shall never
fail, our house and land are our own, and we have fuel for the felling.
Children become a blessing and helpers to us. Nature is within and
above and around us. “ Behold the lilies how they grow, they toil
not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these."
If then the splendours of a royal
court are as nothing to those natural glories which God, in the
fields, by the rivers, and on the mountain side, has made accessible to the
meanest and poorest of us, and which we may drink in at every sense,
what is there in the crowded city, or the populous centre of wealth and
civilization that we should really prefer to the enamelled prairie, the
echoing forest, the contemplative waterfall, or the fertile valley.
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar."
Let him to whom a daily paper is an indespensable requisite, and
whose evening's happiness depends on the cooking of his dinner, who
has within him no mental resources, no self help, to whom the simplicity
of nature is nothing, and who is made up of conventionalities, who
“must have every thing done for himn,” and “cannot be put out of his
way,” let such an one, whether rich or poor, stick to the sound of Bow
bell, and keep within the bills of inortality. Futile idleness, and worth-


MOTIVES POR BMIGRATING.
13
"The spurns
less ineffectuality may prevail upon folly to mistake its pretentious bus-
tle for useful service; but it could not so impose upon the settlers in the
backwoods, or the prairie farmers. Riches can do but little for the lux-
urious in colonial settlements, where every man is master of his own
freehold, and will not own the service of any one. The tutor or gover-
ness that would rather bear
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,"
than plough his own land, or milk her owl cows, let them, too, stay at
home and wait upon providence. The man who has no internal resour-
ces, and no moral intrepidity, who has no external activity, and no spi-
ritual energy, to whom work and physical labour of any kind are a real
hardship, whose whole feelings, habits and sympathies are trained in the
sophistications of high civilization, and who so
“ Heeds the storm that howls along the sky,”
that he cannot encounter it, even to be made
“ Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye','
such an one needs no advice from us to deter him from emigration. No
doubt the life of a settler has its drawbacks, We cannot carry the con-
veniences of Cheapside, nor the roads of Middlesex with us into the
backwoods. To the member of the middle classes there will be found
the absence of the same obedience and servility in servants and labourers
to which he has been accustomed. His frame house will not be so fine
as the brick one he has left behind him. He has not at his elbow, the
shops, the social helps with which he was surrounded. He must often
serve himself where he was formerly ministered to by a hundred alert
appliances, he must oftener do as he can, than do as he would, and he
must not be ashamed to work with his own hands. His wife must lay
her account with often being deserted by her servants, and of being com-
pelled always to make companions of them. The doctor, the apothecary,
the blacksmith, the saddler, the carpenter, will not be so nearly within
hail as in England. Furniture will not be so good, nor ordinary appliances
and wants so easily supplied.
But if a man prefers toil to care; if he would rather have fatigue of
body than anxiety of mind; if he would train himself in that cheerful
self denying intrepidity which
“ The clear spirit doth raise,
To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"
if he would rather lie harder that he may sleep sounder, than slumber
fitfully in troubled dreams, under the Damocles' sword of “thought for
to morrow;" if he would prefer his children's happiness to his own pre-
sent convenience, or
“A lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless continuity of shade,"
to life in the noise, strife, struggle and danger of multitudinous civilized
sophistication, then there can be little hesitation as to his choice.
To the thoughtful parent of the middle classes, whose social position
can only be maintained by keeping up appearances, and who inust either


14
MOTÍVES POR EMIGRATING.
submit to be the slave of convention, or to see his family condemned to
the proscription of their class, it is in vain to preach
“Certes, men should be what they seem,
Or those that be not, would they might seem none."
In England to seem is to be. An exterior is an essential element of bus-
iness expenses.
A man must spend an income, if he would earn a sub-
sistence. Even life insurance cannot meet his case, because before he can
die, he may lose the means of paying the annual premium. Where
every advertisement for a secretary, a manager, a book keeper, a buyer,
a traveller, is answered by two thousand applicants; where hundreds are
standing by, gaping for dead men's shoes, or envying the snug births of
the living, and offering to supply their places for half the money; where
the slightest slip, or the most innocent misfortune, like a tumble in a
crowd, crushes the sufferer out of his place, or tramples him out of ex-
istence; frugality and thrift, which curtail the imposture of appearances,
become absolutely short sighted improvidence. The citizen must for ever
bethink himself of Mrs. Grundy. As he can leave his children nothing
which, divided amongst them, will enable each to sustain the position he
is compelled to hold, he must spend his substance in the lottery of mat-
rimonial speculation for his daughters, or in surrounding himself with
connexions who may be useful in pushing his sons into life. When he
dies, his girls have the fate of the poor buffeted governess before
them, and his boys sink into the precarious existence of eleemosynary
employment. In Australia the former would become invaluable trea-
sures, and if they chose, already brides before they had reached the har-
bour. And even where the material and merely outward prospect is fairer,
what are not the thousand moral te mptations and spiritual hazards to
which a family of sons is exposed in the gay vice, the unthinking extrav-
agance, the reckless dissipation of European cities !
How many pros-
perous parents have their whole happiness poisoned by the misconduct or
spendthrift thoughtlessness of pleasure hunting boys, whose hearts, per-
haps, in the right place, and whose principles sound and true at bottom,
have their heads and fancy turned and captivated by the follies of the
hour, and the “ pleasant sins" of metropolitan gaiety. In the bush, on
the prairie, at the colonial farm, if the attraction be less, the safety is the
greater. The hot blood of youth sobers down in the gallop over the
plain, or falls to its healthy temperature as he fells the forest king, or
“Walks in glory and in joy, behind his plough upon the mountain side."
Where all women are reverenced, and respect themselves, the gay
bachelor can fix his regards only where he is ready to repose his pros-
pect of happiness for life; and where vice presents no artificial gilding,
and debt and dissipation are equally despised, there is small temptation
to improvident extravagance, no inducement to leave the beaten path
of useful industry, and the vigorous restraint of public opinion and
vigilant social propriety, to enforce respectability of conduct, and ensure
the observance of a healthy moral discipline. Emigration saves many a
pang to the anxious mother's heart, and renders the duties of a parent
easy and pleasant many a thoughtful husband; nor, while the bubbling
hell-broth of European convulsions still turns up its poisoned scum, and


MOTIVES POR EMIGRATING.
15
momentous social questions allow mankind no rest until they are solved,
although as yet no Sphynx can be found with inspiration enough to solve
thein, will parents fail to reflect on the tranquillity of the transatlantic
solitude, or the hopeful security of young society in Australian Arcadia.
No man can deliberately reflect on the fact that our population has
doubled since the commencement of the nineteenth century; that every trade
and occupation is so overdone that there are thousands of applicants for
every vacant situation; that the social fabric of all Europe has been shaken
to its very centre; that internal discontent festers in every community,
that monetary panics and commercial crises recur at increasingly proxi-
mate intervals, and that the condition and prospects of the great body of
the people are becoming yearly a less soluble problem, without having the
doubt suggested as to whether mere prudence and security are not con-
sulted by removing onesself from European vicissitudes, and taking up
the impregnable position of a freeholder in a new country and a fertile
wilderness. The science of accumulation comes to some perfection among
us—but the philosophy of distribution seems every day to become more
retrogressive and confused. The few get richer, the many get poorer, and
all are dependent even for their existing position upon such contingent
circumstances and precarious conditions, that a grave thought crosses the
mind of the possibility of England having reached its climacteric. A
scanty population on a fertile soil and abundance of land, can stand a great
deal of mislegislation and bad government; but when the population be-
comes dense, and the territory proportionately scanty, so that subsistence
no longer depends on natural production, but is contingent upon artificial
relations, every increase of population makes the management and sup-
port of such numbers more difficult, and any economical blunder in the
shape of an imperfect distribution of wealth more fatal. A people who
are all planted on their own land in a fertile country, and themselves the
producers of what they consume, are independent of the contraction of
issues by the bank, of unfavourable exchanges, of panics, and of reverses
in trade. To people who have no rent, and only nominal taxes to pay,
even the want of customers becomes little better than an imaginary hard-
ship. To the man who grows and weaves the wool for his own coat, who
fells his own fuel, builds his own house, kills his own mutton, bakes his
own bread, makes his own soap, sugar, and candles, it is obvious that a
dishonoured bill, or the refusal of credit at the bank, is scarcely to be
regarded as a matter of substantial consequence. But the man who has
to buy all these things, and who has rent to pay for his house and lands,
is, without. money or credit, the most destitute and helpless wretch of
whom it is possible to conceive.- Place many such in this predicament,
and there will be disorder and sedition; make it the case of a nation, and
sooner or later it must produce a revolution. In our own time we have
seen the whole of Europe scourged by the incarnate mischief of a great
military dictator; more recently we have witnessed not only thrones, prin-
cipalities, and powers, but whole classes of society, ruined and undone.
We have seen such kingly vicissitudes as to persuade us that life was a ro-
mance, and stern realities stranger than the most improbable fiction,
until the appalled heart and the sickened soul have sighed for the solitude
and rude safety of the backwoods, or the security and certainties of the
c2


16
GENERAL ADVANTAGES OP EMIGRATION.
lonely prairie, where food and raiment, however rough and simple were
sure, and---
“Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful and successful war
Might never reach us more !"
Even where anxieties are imaginary, still they are anxieties. The
competition of the competent among each other, the struggling jealousy,
ambition, and rivalry of those, who in other regions would be friends, all
the more for being neighbours, the difficulties of setting up and getting
off sons and daughters---the perpetual round of unnatural drudgery in
the counting house with its risks, or the lawyer's chambers with their
galley slave work, or the thousand offices which minister to the needs of
society--do not they suggest the question, whether, under the most
favourable circumstances such avocations can stand a comparison with the
healthy and athletic activities of agriculture, the freedom and leisure of
the settler, with his plough, his spade, his rifle, his horse, his salmon
spear,
and canoe. Is not life in the crowded city lost in the struggle to
live,---does not the faculty of enjoyment pass from us before we have
leisure for its fruition, has not existence rolled past before we have begun
to study how it may be made happy--have we not put off retirement, until
it has ceased to please? We greatly mistake if these considerations have
not sunk deep into the public mind. The powers of steam, and the im-
provement in navigation are yearly, or rather monthly tempting better
classes of men to quit what some think a sinking ship, and to venture
their fortunes in the land of promise. America is within twelve days of
us, the Cape within forty, Australia within sixty-two, passage money has
become very moderate, and the previous emigration has facilitated every
thing necessary for the reception and settlement of after comers. As
families get settled they can offer a home to which others may at once
repair on arrival, and while their own experience gives them the authority
of the most unexceptionable witnesses, they acquire money and remit it
home to aid the emigration of their relatives. As colonies become more
populous, they offer new inducements to colonise, and the tide is likely to
set in and know no retiring ebb. At last colonies become mighty kingdoms,
and either sustain the greatness of the parent country, or become its
rival. But in either case retain its language, habits, sympathies and
wants, and become its most valuable customers.
GENERAL ADVANTAGES OF EMIGRATION.
Every new country where land is cheap, the soil fertile, and the cli-
mate agreeable, offers to the poor man this obvious advantage. The
cheapness of the land makes every man desire to possess it, and to culti-
Ivate his own acres rather than to be the servant of another. If he can
fell trees he can always be his own master, and find his own, and that a
profitable employment. Hence the supply of hired labour is far below
the demand, and wages, even for the most indifferent service, are consia
derable. The labourer, who in this country has the utmost difficulty to
procure employment even at the lowest rate of wages, is sure of an on-


GENERAL ADVANTAGES OP EMIGRATION,
17
gagement in a new country at a remunerative price. The vast produc-
tion of fond renders subsistence at the same time easy. We observe that
Indian corn is sometimes sold in America at 6s. 8d. per quarter, whole
hams for 6d. each, meat in retail at from a halfpenny to twopence per
pound, whisky at ls. per gallon, and other articles of prime consump-
tion in proportion. A comfortable log hut may be purchased for £20,
and a frame house of six rooms for £90. Taxes are nominal---water is
at the door---fuel is to be had for the felling---he can brew his own beer,
distil his own spirits, dip his own candles, boil his own soap, make his
own sugar, and raise his own tobacco. These are incalculable advan-
tages to the poor man. But their benefits are not confined to him.
For all practical purposes four shillings will go as far under such a state
of prices in America as twenty shillings in England. Substantially then
the emigrant finds £250 of as much value in Illinois or the Cape as
£1,000 would be in England, and if his family be large and his expendi-
ture upon the bare necessaries of life bear a considerable proportion to
his whole outlay, the difference in the value of money will be even greater.
Although the usury laws are in force in most of these new countries, it is
understood that the purchase of land may in general be so managed as
to yield from nine to twelve per cent. with perfect security for that return.
The state stock of Pennsylvania yields upwards of 7 per cent. on the
present price; and money has been borrowed on undoubted security, at
as high a rate as from 20 to 25 per cent.
From these data it is evident that besides the benefit of the exchange
in favor of British money which would add nearly £150 to every £1,000
carried out to America, or most of our colonies, £1,000 may be fairly
expected to yield in any of these settlements from £90 to £100 per an-
num, while that income will command about as much as £200 yearly in
this country. To the small capitalist therefore, without the desire or
design to become a farmer, or to enter into business of any kind, emigra-
tion offers the advantage of an easy independence.* The facility with
which by such a step be can provide for the prospects of a family is not
the least of the benefits which colonization is calculated to confer. It is
true that he cannot surround himself with the luxuries of life there, so
cheaply as in an old settled country. The same amount of money will
not give him abundant and good society in the prairies or backwoods,
• “Money may be lent on good mortgage security in this state (Ohio), at 8 per
cent. payable hali yearly. I thought it probable that the high rate of interest, and
the facility of obtaining small portions of land transferable at a mere trifle of ex-
pense would hereafter induce a class of persons to emigrate, whose aim would be
not to work hard for a liviug, but to live easily on a small capital already acquired.
We have hundreds of tradesmen in our towns who cannot continue in business
without the fear of losing all and who have not accumulated sufficient money to
retire upon. A man of such a class in England cannot live upon the interest of
£1,000 ; but here for £200, he could purchase and stock a little farm of twenty-five
acres, which would enable him to keep a horse and cow, sheep, pigs, and poultry,
and supply his family with every article of food, while his £800 at interest would
give him an income of £64 a year. He could even have his own sugar from his
own maple trees, to sweeten his cup and preserve the peaches from his own fruit
trees, and almost all he would need to buy, besides clothes, would be tea, which
may be had of good quality at from 1s. 9d. to 2s. per lb. Still further west he could
have ten per cent. interest for his money."-Tour in the Uuited States, by ARCHI-
BALD PRENTICE, 1848.
c3


18
GENERAL ADVANTAGES OP EMIGRATIOX.
nor good roads, nor bridges, nor walled gardens, nor well built brick or
stone houses, nor medical advice at hand. Above all, no amount of
money will there supply him with good, respectful, and obedient servants.
A new country is the paradise of the poor---but it is the pandemonium
of the rich, and especially purgatory to the female branches of all who
are well to do. Those artificial and conventional advantages, those con-
veniences whose value is only known when they are lost, those endless
fitnesses and accommodations which are gradually supplied in an old
country as their need is perceived, the emigrant travels away from, and
will strongly feel the want of. The mere cockney will be thoroughly
iniserable in the new mode of existence which every emigrant must enter
upon. The nightman, the shoeblack, the newsman, the omnibus, the
two-penny post, he will see little of. The water will not be laid on, nor
the drain connected with the soil pipe. Wooden houses have chinks---
logs are not so convenient as coa)---rooms are small, and not very suug
--the doors and sashes do not tit---the hinges and floors creak---house-
hold secondary luxuries are dear---and the whole family must be very
much their own servants. Nobody will cringe and bow to them, and
just bring to their door the very thing they want, when they want it. But
then the real needs and requisites of life will be indefeasibly theirs. If
their house and its contents be inferior, they are as good as their neigh-
bour's, a consideration which takes the sting out of many disappoint-
ments. They fear no rent day, nor poor-rate or assessed tax collector---
neither game nor fish are preserved, nor licenses needed---around them
on their own freehold are ainple means of subsistence, and a little money
supplies all the rest. They need have no care for the morrow except the
consciousness that each day their clearing is more improved and of
greater value. They have leisure, independence, peace, security. If
they can serve themselves, help each other, find pleasure in the useful
activities of self help and country life, and possess internal resources of
mind and occupation, then all such in emigrating change for the better.
If their society is bad, they can do without it, if an occasional qualm of
home sickness and the claims of fatherland come over them let them
think of the toils, fears, and anxieties they leave behind them, and be
grateful for the change.
To persons in the middle ranks of life, emigration is social emanci-
pation. Convention is their tyrant; they are the slaves of mere appear-
ances; they are never able to escape from the necessity for an answer to
the question, “What will Mrs. Grundy say ?” They must implicitly
conform to the world around then, even to the number of rooms in their
house, the servants they keep, the hats and gowns they wear. They can-
not be seen in their own kitchen, to make their own markets, to carry
their own luggage. Their clothes must be superfine, and the seams in-
visible. They inust not condescend to work, however willing and able.
A glimpse of their wife at the wash-tub would be ruin to the family. Is
it nothing to wise and worthy people to escape from all this thraldom ?
The idleness, listlessness, total vacuity which produce in our daughters
and sisters so much disease of body and of mind, can find no place in the
settler's life. The weak spine, the facility of fatigue, the sick headache,
the failing appetite, the languor, the restless dissatisfaction which result


GENERAL ADVANTAGES OF EMIGRATION.
19
from romance reading and the polka, are speedily put to fight by the
exercise of cow-milking, butter-churning, baking, cheese-pressing, and
stocking-darning. To the man whose world has been his desk or his
counter, who can go nowhere without an omnibus, and do nothing for
himself, what a new world must be opened by his rifle and the woods, or
his rod. and the waterfall! What new life and vigour may he not draw
by breaking his colt or yoking his oxen, or scampering over the prairies,
or sleighing from house to house in the way of good neighbourhood
when the bright snow has made a universal road! Think of the liberty
of wearing hob-nails and frieze cloth; of living, down to one's own in-
come in place of living up to one's neighbours; of walking abroad in
primitive defiance of a hiatus in the elbow or armpits of his coat; of
the luxury of serving one's self; of making war upon appearances by a
second day's beard or a third day's shirt, or a running short of shoe
blacking. Loneliness! monotony! not an hour, not a minute without
its occupation, compelling the mind to objectivity, and saving it from sub-
jectirity, that brooding on itself, which finally eats into the heart and
graws life away. Shelves have to be put up and hinges screwed, and
panes to be put in; a table has to be attempted, perhaps shoes have to
be cobbled. The young colt has to be broke; the larder is empty, more
game is wanted; the rifle must be got ready, or the rod for a dish of
fish; the sugar has to be made from the maple, or honey to be got by
watching the bees in the wood; the cider, the beer, grape wine have to
be brewed, or the whisky or brandy to be distilled, or the soap or candles
to be made; or, in fine, the whole offices of the farmer have to be per-
formed; the plough, the wagon, the seed time, the harvest, the cattle,
the sheep, the horses, the fences, the fuel, the cleared land and the wood
land, all cry out upon the sluggard, and promise to crown industry with
its just reward. Every work done is a hoarded comfort; every new
operation is prospective wealth ; every difficulty conquered is ease ac-
complished, and a care chased away. You look around and whisper, I
vanquished this wilderness and made the chaos pregnant with order and
civilization, " alone I did it!” The bread eats sweetly, the fruit relishes,
the herb nourishes, the meat invigorates, the more that myself have
subdued it to my uses. I feel myself a man with a reasonable soul and a
contriving intellect; I am no longer a small screw in a complicated ma-
chine ; my whole powers are put forth, and every faculty put to its
providential use. To-morrow I am richer than to-day in all that is
worth living for; until the fixed and firmset earth shall perish, and the
“clouds shall return no more after rain,” no human vicissitude can
deprive me of that, which, to have, is to possess all that a wise man should
covet.*
• LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS.-Although liable to an accusation of barbarism, I
must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wil.
derness of the Far West; and I never recall, but with pleasure, the remembrance of
my solitary camp in the Bayou Salade, with no friend near me more faithful than my
ride, and no companions more sociable than my good horse and mules, or the atten-
dapt cayute which nightly serenaded us. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs
on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the
valley far and near, and exhibiting the animals, with well-filled bellies, standing


GENERAL ADVANTAGES, OF EMIGRATION.
In such a state of being independence may be literally absolute. The
savage has retired to his remote fastnesses; the wild beasts and noxious
animals have followed him. In many parts of America the old custom
still prevails among many respectable, well educated, almost refined
families, of producing every thing which they use and consume. In the
winter the woollen and linen yarn is spun and woven into cloth; the
garments are homely, but comfortable and decent; the furniture if
inelegant suits all useful purposes; the sheep yields her fleece, the deer
and cattle their skin and leather; the fowls their feathers; the materials
of light, heat, cleanliness, even of sober luxury, are all around them
within their own freehold; sugar, fruit, wine, spirits, ripe October, may
be commanded on the spot; they may enjoy the moderate indulgences
of civilization by the work of their own hands without the possession of
even the smallest coin.
And if they are not competent to the production of all this, or do not
desire the labour, they may acquire a freehold just large enough for the
supply of their own wants, while a small yearly surplus of money will
furnish them easily with all the additional comforts they can reasonably
desire. Every addition to their family is an accession to their wealth;
no man is a rival or competitor, but only a companion of the other; and
all neighbours are, in the most material sense, friends. The poor man
is always welcome, because he is never a pauper, but a helper, a sharp-
ener of the countenance of his fellow man. There is wealth to the com-
munity in his thews and sinews; a mine in his productive energy and
cunning skill. If he would still serve, his wages are high, and abundant
food found for him ; if he too would be a freeholder, the wages of a day's
work buy an acre of fat soil. Nor let it be forgotten that with the in-
heritance of the Illinois prairie, the Canadian clearing, or the Australian
plain, the settler is also the heir of European civilization. With the
science of agriculture, the habits of industry, and the development of in-
telligence, he may command if he desires it, his parish church, his dis-
trict school, the cheapest and best literature. He marries the advantages
'of both hemispheres, and leaves behind him the cares of sophistica-
tion.
What room is there for hesitancy? “Dulcis reminiscitur Argos.” He
cannot forget his country; his wife and daughters
“ Cannot but remember such things were
That were most dear to them."
The thought of change
contentedly at rest over their picket fire, I would sit cross-legged, enjoying the ge-
pial warmth, and pipe in mouth, watch the blue smoke as it curled upwards, building
castles in its vapoury wreaths, and, in the fantastic shapes it assumed, peopling the
solitude with figures of those far away. Scarcely, however, did I ever wish to
change such hours of freedom for all the luxuries of civilized life : and, unnatural
and extraordinary as it may appear, yet such is the fascination of the life of the
mountain hunter, that I believe not one instance could be adduced of even the
most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets of its attend-
ant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not regretting the moment when
he exchanged it for the monotonous life of the settlements, nor sighing and sigh-
ing again once more to partake of its pleasures and allurements.--RUXTON.


GENERAL ADVANTAGES OP BMIGRATION.
21
"Makes cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."
Women that never did any thing for themselves, and rotted mind and
budy in ease, if not in comfort, grumble at being compelled to do that
which will give health to both; mistresses accustomed to void their temper
upon submissive drudges, find themselves forced to respect humanity if
they would have its cheerful service. Masters before whom man, made
abject by dependence, had reverently to cringe, are disciplined to the
bitter lesson of doing homage to the nature which God had made only a
little lower than the angels, and for the first time are taught the infinite sig-
nificancy of a human soul. We are made to do that for ourselves which
others did for us, and to deny ourselves much that was never truly worth
the having. In nature's school we are set the tasks necessary for the
mind's sanity and the body's health, and we grumble like the urchin
that we are made to know that which will one day make a man of us.
Which is the really richer, he who has most appliances or the fewest
wants ? Riches take to themselves wings and flee away; moth and rust
corrupt; thieves break through and steal. We have seen within the year
merchant princes beggared by the hundred; royalty teaching a school;
kings running from their kingdoms without so much as a change of
linen; the whole wealthy classes of a great nation reduced to beggary;
but he who can say omnia mea mecum porto, whose whole resources are
within bimself, who never acquired a taste for that of which others could
deprive him; who has learnt quantum vectigal sit in parsimonin, who
never wants what he may not have, what are the world's vicissitudes to
him ? Some emperors are wise enough to discipline themselves to
denial. The autocrat of Russia lies on a truckle bed, lives frugally,
labours industriously, sleeps little. Peter the Great worked in Deptford
Dock-yard; are they not wise in their generation ? What is there in a
Brussel's carpet, down pillows, damask curtains, French cookery, stuffed
chairs, silver forks, silks, or superfine cloth, that we should break our
hearts for the want of them, and suffer the very happiness of our lives to
depend upon the milliner, the jeweller, the tailor, or the upholsterer?
Out of doors, man's proper atmosphere, does the turf spread a finer
carpet, the flowers yield a sweeter perfume, the lark sing a more melo-
dious song, the sun rise with greater lustre, or the heavens fret their
roofs with more golden fire for the peer than for the peasant? Will the
salmon come better to his hook, or the deer fall faster to his rifle ? How
little more can money buy that is really worth the having, than that
which the poorest settler ean command without it? He has bread, and
meat, a warm coat, a blazing hearth, humming home-brewed, the
“domus et placens uxor," children that
“ Climb his knees the envied kiss to share;"
a friendly neighbour, and if he would have society, Plato, Shakespeare,
the dear old Vicar of Wakefield. Burns, lielding, Scott, or Dickens, will
join the fire-side with small importunity. “The big ha' bible” and the
orisons of the peasant patriarch, will they whisper less soul confort, or


29
COLONIZATION.
97
impart less instruction than the bishop's blessing or the rector's sermon?
Or will He, who long ago taught us that neither on Mount Gherizim nor
yet at Jerusalem should he be alone found, be less effectually worshipped
in the log cabin, or
under the canopy,”
“ ['the city of kites and crows,”
than in the long drawn aisle and fretted vault of the consecrated cathedral ?
The conditions of true happiness, depend upon it, have been made com-
mon and accessible to all. Cry not, Lo here! lo there! for, “behold the
kingdom of heaven is within you!" It is not on the rich
“ The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew."
Luxuries, money, and money's worth, are man's invention, not nature's
“ 'Tis not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower."
If you are well, leave well alone. If the world prospers with you in
England, and you see the way to moderate independence; if care is not
tearing your heart out, and thought for to-morrow poisoning the happi-
ness of to-day, we need not unfold to you the incidents of emigration.
But if you have troops of marriageable daughters, and sons whom you
know not how to settle, and a struggle to keep the wolf from the door,
why should you, like the frightened hare, be overtaken by misery in
your form, when by running from the hounds you may find shelter in
the backwoods, or safety on the prairie ? “ Friend, look you to't.”
work;
COLONIZATION.
What emigration is to the private individual colonization is to the state.
It means wholesale migration on a settled plan. It is undoubtedly a
systein which has many advantages denied to individual removal. To
lift up half a parish, with its ploughmen, blacksmiths, carpenters, cob-
lers, tailors, a parson and a schoolmaster, next door neighbours and rela-
tives, transport them from Wilts or Bucks, and set them all down to-
gether on the prairie of Illinois, or the fat plains of New Plymouth, is
to surround them with every home comfort and necessary appliance, with
the addition of a better climate, and farms in fee simple. They do not
go among strangers ; they do not leave society; they do not lose the ad-
vantages of divided labour. They cheer each other with mutual sym-
pathies ; they scarcely leave their country, when they take with them
those who made their country dear. The capitalist may have his old
servants and tradesmen inured to each others habits and modes of
thought. They inay locate their cottages in the order of their former
contiguity. The doctor, who knows their constitutions, may be in the
midst of them; and the pastor, who knows their hearts, speak the old
words of comfort. It was thus the Highland clans went to Canada; that
the lowland Scotch now go to Otago, and the men of Kent to New Can-
terbury. Engagements are thus secured to the poor before they go out;
a house and food and the exact spot where they are to settle, are fixed


COLONIZATION.
23
beforehand. The capitalist is assured of his old labourers; friends are
kept together; the vessel and the voyage are arranged in the best man-
ner for the safety and comfort of all. Our last letter from Auckland says,
“We have every reasonable comfort we can desire but society and old
friends." Colonization supplies this want, and obviates many greater
hardships. All is prepared beforehand on a well considered plan, by per-
sons who know the country and its requirements. The necessaries of life
and those appliances, the want of which, form the first difficulty of
settlers, are anticipated. The helpless are assisted and advised; the des-
ponding cheered. Civilization is transferred to the wilderness, and even
frame houses are carried out in the ship. The first division arrived and
located, the second can venture with confidence, where they will be re-
ceived with welcome, and England itself is made to re-appear in the
wilds of New Zealand. As this system becomes better understood, it is
more generally followed. Numerous families of the middle and higher
classes agree to emigrate together; single capitalists freight a large ship,
and take out a whole colony on their own venture. Associations in pop-
ulous districts advertise for companions and canvas for fellow-voyagers;
agreements are made with ship owners, on an advantageous plan; each
contributes his fund of information and advice to the common stock,
resulting in greater comfort and economy. Younger sons of squires, ca-
dets of noble families go out at the head of their tenant's and cottier's
sons and families. It is indeed a somewhat ominous circumstance that
the Peels, the Carlisles, the Stanleys send their scions to the new world,
or the fifth section of the globe, as if they did not know how soon it
might be necessary to look out for new quarters and a quieter life than
amidst Irish rebellions, chartist risings and European revolutions.
But the great purpose of state colonization must be to relieve tho
mother country of its most obvious redundances in the shape of popu-
lation. Lord Ashley has had a conference with a large deputation of the
thieves of London: they desire to change their mode of life, to which
so many have been driven by social neglect or “necessity of present life,
to which their poverty and not their will consents.” They earnestly de-
sire removal to where they are not known, to work out reformation and
independence by industry and the right direction of a perverted ingenuity.
In 1847 the number of persons committed for serious offences in the
united kingdom was 64,847 ! All of broken fortunes, what more good
can they do to society or to themselves at home? In the same year the
total number of paupers relieved, was 2,200,739, at a cost of £6,310,599.
If to these be added the middle class of persons of broken fortunes, we
have a mass of population who, manifestly, in the existing arrangements
of society, are so much surplusage among us, a burden to themselves and
to the nation. When we add that these numbers nearly equal the entire
nation of the Netherlands, or Denmark, or Switzerland or the Roman
States, or Tuscany, or Scotland, and that the annual cost of prosecutions,
of jails, penitentiaries, hulks, workhouses, hospitals, added to the poor
rates, is upwards of £5 per head on paupers and criminals, a sum that
would carry the whole of them to Quebec or New Orleans, provisions
included, the half to the Cape, or one fourth to Australia, we need
scarcely ask whether a case is not made out for gigantic self supporting


24
COLONIZATION.
colonization. Add to these means the proceeds of the sale of lands to
capitalists attracted to the colonies by this prodigious supply of labour,
and the suis expended by them in wages, and it is clear that the prac-
ticability of the measure is demonstrable.
Hitherto, from the absence of any well digested system of coloniza-
tion, both the labour and capital of emigrants have been in a great mea-
sure lost to us. Out of 258,270 emigrants in 1847, 142,154 went to the
United States. Left to the freedom of their own will, and unassisted by
any previous preparation in the colonies for their comfortable reception
and absorption, they naturally took refuge in the popular and prosperous
American Republic. What is wanted to be devised, is this :--Let a large
tract of good land, in a favorable district, be properly surveyed and divi-
ded, its roads laid out, good water frontage being an essential desidera-
tum. Let substantial frame houses be erected in proper situations on
each section of 640 acres, and comfortable log cabins be put up in easy
contiguity, furnished with barely necessary household utensils, labouring
tools, and rations until harvest, for the family. Let labourers and capi-
talists, masters and men, make their contracts here, and go out in the
same ship together. Let the employers retain such a portion of
the wages agreed upon as will repay, in eighteen months, to the govern-
ment the cost of the various items supplied to the labourers, and let this
fund be applied to the surveying and dividing and housing and hutting
other tracts in the same manner. At first this must be executed on a
most extensive scale, and as emigration grows by what it feeds on, we
have no doubt that, largely and liberally carried forward at the outset,
the result will be such that government assistance will soon be rendered
unneccessary A railway from the interior to the best shipping port,
would be constructed at a cost less than that of the mere labour spent
upon it. The land would be had for nothing; the property on the line
could well afford to defray a share of an expense which would so inuch
enhance its value; timber could be had for the cost of felling, and the
rails might quite practicably be made of logs, while in regions where the
winter is long and the frost steady, the closing of the lakes would not
obstruct traffic, which could then be carried on by rail. In many parts
of the United States the cost of a single tramway does not exceed £1,200
In our North American colonies the work could be executed
quite as cheaply. In Denmark and Norway the troops of the line are lo-
cated on regimental farms, under their officers, and made by their labour
on them to pay all their expenses, in place of destroying their own
habits and the morals of their neighbourhood in idleness. We need not
be at the cost of a single regiment in our colonies, if we would but, on
a systematic plan, send our army and navy pensioners there, and locate
them in proper cantonments. Here their pensions cannot maintain them,
there all the necessaries of life could be obtained by them without cost,
and their pensions would enable them to live in the highest comfort.
Our Navy entails a heavy burden upon us. Mr. Cobden's exposure of
the way in which our fleet is disposed, proves that our sailors are not
trained as they ought to be, by being sent to sea to keep their sea legs, and
to be exercised in navigation. To what use could they be half so well
applied, even for maintaining the efficiency of the service, as in carrying
per mile.


EMIGRATION FIELDS.
25
mor
detachments of emigrants to our colonies. Our steam ships could reach
Halifax from Liverpool, in nine days, or the Cape in forty, and at the
latter place they could be met by steamers from New Zealand and Aus-
tralia, for emigrants to these localities, coal of excellent quality having
been found in abundance in many districts of those settlements.
The Wakefield system of Colon zation is, it is hoped, now universally
exploded. The plan of compelling labourers to continue in the capa-
city of mere servants to capitalists by so enhancing the price of land as
to render its possession inaccessible to the poor, is clearly unjust and de-
rably impracticable. It is calculated to frustrate the very end it
aims at, by discouraging the emigration of labour. Capitalists after
having paid forty shillings an acre for land become insolvent, their pro-
perty is thrown upon the market, and sold for two shillings or three shil-
lings per acre, while the solvent purchaser finds that his settlement is
depreciated to the same extent by the glut of land thus forced upon the
market. The annual revenue derived from the sale of Crown lands in
Australia, when sold at 5s. an acre, was £115,825. When the price was
raised to twenty shillings it sunk to £8,000, emigration fell off in the
same proportion, and universal depression was the result. Peasant pro-
prietors are the life and marrow of every state, and all other objects
should be postponed to the one great end, of making labourers freehold-
The great stream of emigration from this country has been to
Ca da and the United States, where the upset price of land varies from
5s. to 8s. per acre.
ers.
EMIGRATION FIELDS.
A very small number of the host of publications which profess to treat
of emigration are really written with the single view of enabling intend-
ing emigrants to form a sound judgment on the subject of the choice of
a destination, The authors are biassed in favour of the particular region
over which they themselves have travelled. Others have an interest in,
or have relatives in the colony described. Some have political prejudices
which warp their comparison of the merits of a settlement in a foreign
state, in the American republic, or in British Colonies. Not a few take
it for granted that no British subject would migrate to the possessions of
a foreign power. Land jobbers everywhere insinuate their lies into the
public mind, against every locality but that in which they have sections to
sell, and too many settlers who find they have made a foolish choice, seek
to mitigate the calamity of their position by trying to bring others into the
same scrape. A writer is well paid for writing up Texas, and the press is
bribed to spread the delusion. Merchants write home to their London
correspondents to get up an agitation” in favour of their colony, and
straightway deputations are delegated, and public meetings called all over
the country. The New Zealand Company sets its powerful machinery to
work. The Canada Land Company gets its Union Workhouse settlers to
write home their unsophisticated letters to their parents, which are in-
stantly published by the County paper, the “Cape and its Colonists” have
a whole republic of authors scribbling away on their behalf, while the
66
D


26
EMIGRATION FIELDS.
.
2
land sharks of the United States stir up the bile of the Chartists and
other simpletons in favour of the model republic and no taxation. As
the most recent and glaring specimen of this sort of constructive decep-
tion we may instance the article Emigration in the British Almanac for
1849. In answer to the question " whither should emigrants go,” it
blinks the United States, it slurs over Canada with a kick at its rigorous
climate, it does not even mention the Cape of Good Hope, and devotes
nearly the whole of its space to South Australia. It shall be our object
to maintain the strictest impartiality in giving a candid and practical ac-
count of the ious regions which offer inducements for emigration; and
to afford an intelligible and well digested view of the various features of
each district.
The climate of our West and East Indian possessions is so inimical to
the European constitution that we need say nothing more of these locali-
ties than to condemn them. Ceylon, Singapore, Sarawak, Labuan offer
great inducements to the store merchant, but not to agricultural settlers.
British Guiana adds to a good climate the advantages of a beautiful
country and a fertile soil, but is not yet in a condition for the proper set-
tlement of emigrants. The same may be said of the islands in the South
Sea, of the regions on the shores of the Pacific, and the other possessions
in North and South America not in the tenure of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Van Couver's Island, that splendid acquisition of the Hudson's Bay
Company, combines' every advantage of soil, climate, aud production,
and will at some future day become one of the most valuable appendages
of the Crown; but its remoteness, its unsettled state, the uncertainty of
its position, the scantiness and uncivilised character of its European in-
habitants, combined with the precariousness of its existing elements of
trade and production, render removal thither at present unadvisable. To
California and other recently acquired annexations of Mexican territory
by the United States the same objections apply. Black Feet, Cumauches,
trappers, and herdsmen are not comfortable neighbours, and are uncer-
tain customers. Oregon, the Falkland Islands, and Astoria may be dis-
missed with similar brevity; and it has only to be remembered that the
Auckland Islands are considerably nearer the South Pole than the south-
ernmost point of New Zealand, in order to dispose of the question of the
ineligibility of those islands as a field of emigration for any except such as
are fonder of whales and cold weather than of fruits, flowers, and a genialsun.
The only fields of Emigration which can at present be offered for the
choice of a settlement, are, 1. Canada and our other North American
colonies in the Atlantic; 2. The United States; 3. The Cape of Good
Hope, and Natal; 4. New Zealand ; 5. New South Wales ; 6. Van Die-
man's Land; 7. South Australia ; 8. Australia Felix; 9. Western Aus-
tralia; 10. North Australia.
Before proceeding to describe these regions in detail, it is however
necessary that we should, having discussed the general reasons which
should determine the question of the propriety of emigrating at all, now
consider the various particulars which should fix the choice of a
locality, and review those suggestions of detail which are applicable to
the subject under all circumstances. Where you are to go is the first
problem to be solved. How you are to go is the second.


CLIMATE.
27.
CLIMATE.
Every other advantage of a settlement is secondary to that of climate.
Without health, there cannot merely be enjoyment, but even subsistence.
To a man who expatriates his wife and family, the responsibility he un-
dertakes in this regard is serious, and any material error in his choice,
fatal to his happiness. To save the life of some members of his family
he may be compelled to leave his location, perhaps to return to the mo-
ther country and make shipwreck of his fortunes. He himself may be
stricken down, and his helpless children left desolate in a strange land.
His wife may pine away while subjected to the process of acclimation.
The mortality among settlers is proverbially great. Tens of thousands of
the poorest have left competency and abundance, and returned to misery
and starvation in England, to remove themselves from the influences of a
bad climate, after perhaps having buried all their relatives. Every ship
which returns from North America brings back travellers of this kind of
all ranks. Stricken with disease in our own country we never blame the
climate, but when the husband and father has taken his family to a
strange land, every malady is attributed to the fatal step of leaving home,
and home is their only specific for a cure.
Climate then ought to be the first consideration of all emigrants. In-
deed it is inferiority of climate, which is the great preventive of emigra-
tion; millions have been deterred from joining their friends abroad by
reports of disease and denunciations of the climate.
We have been at much pains to gather and compare the testimony
given on this point ; and the result of most anxious study and enquiry,
we shall now proceed to lay before the reader :-
New Zealand appears to possess for the European constitution, the
finest climate in the world. It has no extremes of temperature, and no
sudden changes of weather. At all times, both night and day, mild and
equable, it is subject neither to excessive droughts nor excessive rains---
labour can be at all times pursued in the open air---two crops in the year
are yielded, the leaves never wither but are pushed off by their suc-
cessors, and no diseases seem indigenous. It must be excepted, how-
ever, that this description applies only to the northern island---the tem-
perature at the southern extremity being sometimes rigorous; it has also
to be observed that, although the prevailing winds are unobjectionable
they are very high---that a degree of humidity exists sufficiently re-
markable to characterize the region, which may be unfavourable to
some constitutions, and that scrofula and consumption are, from what-
ever cause, common among the natives. Still as it is the most agreeable,
so on the whole it is the most healthy climate, in the world---presenting
scarcely any drawback, except the prevalence of earthquakes, at no time
infrequent, and very recently alarming, and even partially destructive.
Next in order of eligibility is Tasmania or Van Dieman's Land. This
island, in climate, possesses all the excellences and most of the charac-
teristic features of that of Great Britain. The winter is milder and of
shorter duration, and the summer is perfectly temperate, with less variaa
bility.
D 2


LIMATE.
Australia Felix also possesses excellent climatic qualities, and although
the heat is greater than in Tasmania, pleasant breezes, a sufficiency oi
water, a rich soil, and well sustained forests, render it very agreeable and
highly salubrious.
The constitution is in South Australia subjected to a much greater ex-
tremity of heat than in the settlement above noticed, although somewhat
mitigated by a pleasant sea breeze, which sets in regularly every day dur-
ing the arid season. We are bound to add, however, that we have re-
ceived unfavourable accounts of this district, and especially of Adelaide.
Of Western Australia very favourable accounts are given, from which
we would be led to believe that the climate is more temperate than that of
the Southern colony. Still arrow root, sugar cane, pines, bananas, the
cotton tree, which all luxuriate here, indicate a temperature, almost tro-
pical in its character, although satisfactory testimony is borne to its
salubrity.
The statements relative to New South Wales are not so concurrent. It
is said that in the course of a single day the temperature varies thirty
degrees, and Mr. Martin states that siroccos frequently occur, which raise
the thermometer to 120° Farh., and set vast forests and vegetation in a
blaze of fire, killing birds, beasts and men. It has, notwithstanding, to
be observed that Europeans enjoy excellent health in this colony: at some
of the military stations not so much as a single man having died in seven
years, and of 1,200 settlers, not more than five or six having been sick at
one time.
Port Natal, it seems conceded on all hands, possesses a climate much
resembling that of Australia Felix, enjoying abundance of most luxuri-
ant vegetation, valuable forests of timber, and a sufficiency of water.
The climate of the Cape of Good Hope partakes much of the charac-
ter of New South Wales, or of Southern or Western Australia. The
heat is often intense and most oppressive; periodical droughts burn up
and destroy vegetation; and opthalmia, dysentery and influenza, the
maladies of excessive aridity, occur periodically. But still, with regard
to all these settlements, it is to be admitted that the concurrence of testi
mony in favour of their superior salubrity, is nearly unanimous. In
them all the human constitution can sustain exposure to the weather at
all times with greater impunity than in any others embraced by our
enumeration. The average of health and life is higher; the diseases are
fewer; the recoveries from maladies contracted in other countries are
more numerous. These regions for persons having consumptive tenden-
cies, must obviously be excellently adapted, and they are said to be very
favourable to the recovery of dyspeptic patients.
The evidence with reference to the climate of the fields for emigration
in North America, is much more conflicting. It may be assumed, how-
ever, as indisputable, that in no part are they so favorable to health and
the enjoyment of life as the localities before enumerated. They are sub-
ject to sudden extremes of heat and cold, except in the regions of yellow
fever, where the heat is as great, and the climate as dangerous as in
Jamaica or Calcutta. As a general feature of the North American Con-
tinent it may be observed that it is remarkably dry without being arid.
The sky is seldom overcast, except for a few hours; the atmosphere is.


CLIMATE,
29
delightfully clear, and throughout the winter the sun shines out without
a cloud, making the earth brilliant. Diseases produced by humidity,
especially asthma, we should expect to find rare. The sudden changes
in the Eastern States, produce, however, consumption, while fever and
ague of an aggravated character, annoy and sometimes scourge the pop-
ulation. Nowhere, can any freedom be used with the constitution inured
to habits of civilization, and there are few maladies incident to the old
world, which do not also ravage these parts of the new. “The climate of
America,” observes Mr. Buckingham, " is much more pleasurable to the
sight, and feelings than the climate of England. Whether it be as favor-
able to health and longevitymay be doubted.” The highlands of Virginia
and the Southern Slopes of Kentucky, extending from the Potomac to
Alabama, are highly praised for their beauty and their delightful climate.
But in both the cold of winter is intense, and although they escape fever
and ague, except near the Lakes, the intensity of the summer heat pro-
duces, every fifth or sixth year, a considerable mortality. The New Eng-
land States are, as a general rule, not so healthy or agreeable as those
which are farther west ; but the pulmonic and inflammatory diseases
produced in the former, probably do not create a greater amount of dis-
ease than the fevers and epidemics which occasionally scourge the
latter.*
We find an universal concurrence of opinion in attestation of the
remarkable salubrity of our American colony of Prince Edward's Island,
and we feel no hesitation in characterising it as the healthiest region in
all the Anglo-Saxon portions of North America. Its small size, its com-
plete environment by the sea, the absence of mountains or heights, and
of fogs, of forests (those nurseries of snow and ice,) to any but a moderate
extent, of the extremes of temperature which prevail in all the other re-
gions of America, coupled with a fine soil, à moderate winter, and a
temperate summer, make it so favourable to longevity, that invalids from
other districts make it a common place of resort to recruit.
To a good sound constitution Lower Canada presents a climate which
is healthy enough; but its winter is so long and so severe, that it is
“*Our New York friend said • Ah! you are now coming to our elastic atmosphere.
[1st June, New York.]“ One of the Newspapers says, "The temperature is delight-
fully cool, the thermometer is only 75 deg. in the shade. We should call that pretty
hot in the old country, but I find it exceedingly pleasant, and shall not complaiu ir it
do not exceed ten deg. higher.
[3rd June.)“82 deg. in the shade. Mr. Brooks and I do not find the heat oppressive.
[7th June.] Baltimore. The weather, hitberto, has been delightful, the heat having
been felt oppressive only in the middle of the day at Philadelphia, when the ther-
mometer stood at 85 deg. in the shade. We are told that persons coming from
England do not feel the first summer's beat so oppressive as the second. Our indi-
vidual experience has been that of a temperature exceedingly favorable for a
pleasure excursion. Musquitoes have not yet introduced themselves.
(13th June, Cincinnati.] “We are beginning to speculate how we shall feel,
when people acknowledge that it is hot. The evening air is balmy and delicious
but we do not desire at noon day to go out a hoeing potatoes,
[22nd June, Louisville, Kentucky.) “Hitherto we have not suffered from the heat,
although it has stood higher than 30 deg., and the mornings and evenings have been
of a delicious temperature.
(22nd July, Gloucester.] “ Nothing could be more delightful than the weather.
93 deg. at Boston, only 82 deg. here, and the air so pure and so elastic that to breathe
it was a positive at once felt luxury."--Prentice.


CLIMATE.
As &
adapted to the robust alone. As the traveller moves towards the Upper
Province he finds that the further he goes west the shorter is the winter,
and the less rigorous the seasons. But it is said he, in the same degree,
approaches nearer the region of epidemics, of fever, and of ague.
general rule, with reference to this continent it may be observed, that as
you remove from the lakes and the forest, you recede also from disease,
and that the more barren any district is, the less unhealthy it proves to
'be. It may be right to add that from an extensive series of medical statistics
it has been proved that the rigour of the Canadian winter is favourable
to the constitution, and that our troops enjoy as good health as in our
American provinces, at any station at which they are posted.
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, are less rigorous than
Lower Canada, but subject to the same extremes as Upper Canada, with
the addition of more frequent fogs, a longer winter, and tremendous gales
of wind. These districts appear to prolong the health of sound constitu-
tions, but are not so favourable to general longevity as Prince Edward's
Island. Newfoundland is the hyperborean ultima thule of these pos-
sessions, and totally unadapted for the purposes of emigration.
The climate of Texas has nearly an even balance of testimony for and
against it. The high authority of our emigration commissioners warns
emigrants of its insalubrity, and certainly its tropical productions do not
argue a region favourable to the European constitution. Independantly
of the doubtful character of the climate, the population is of a character
too lawless and unsettled to render it an eligible choice for any class ex-
cept such as at home are significantly reported to have"
gone to
Texas.”
We have considered climate with its reference merely to health ; but
for the proper end of existence its effect upon comfort and happiness,
although it ought to form the second, it should form by no means
a secondary consideration. In both respects we must assign the pre-
ference to New Zealand, particularly to the northern island. The long
spring, summer, and autumn, the short winter, a temperature which ad-
mits of two crops in the year, the absence of droughts, the presence of
abundant and excellent water and running streams, and of a sun which
warms but never scorches or oppresses, place it without a rival.
Tasmania possesses a warmer climate, but the depth of soil, and the
sufficiency of moisture, exempt it from any serious inconvenience which
the greater heat might otherwise engender. Australia Felix, Southern
and Western Australia, New South Wales, and the Cape, partake of a
character of greater torridity than New Zealand and Van Dieman's Land;
but, nevertheless, they are all calculated for the pleasurable enjoyment
of physical existence.
It seems to be generally agreed that, although the extremes to which
most parts of the United States are liable, render that region less favour-
able to health than Great Britain; the weather is very much more
pleasant there than it is with us. An exception however must be made
in reference to those states which march with our lower Canadian frontier,
where the summer heat is very great, and the winter's cold is intense,
and of long continuance.
With reference to British North America, the decided preference is to


TRANSIT.
31
be given to Prince Edward's Island, from the greater equability of its
temperature. Its freedom from fogs is an important negative excellence,
but the whole of our possessions in America, except the western boundary
of Upper Canada, are objectionable on account of the great length of the
winter and the absence of spring. Much misrepresentation has indeed
misled emigrants in reference to this field of settlement; some assert that
winter prevails for seven months in the year; others reduce it to six
weeks in the most western parts; it has however to be observed, that the
want of definitions may account for much of the discrepancy. What is
winter ? iu England no two persons agree in their estimate. We pass a
whole year with scarcely a sign of it; at other times the Thames is frozen
for weeks at London Bridge. We have examined journals of the weather
in Canada, from which we would be led to the conclusion that frost
begins in November and ends in February, with intervals of mild wea-
ther. The balance of evidence would lead to the conclusion that nowhere
in Canada does winter outlast six months, and that in the Upper West
province it scarcely exceeds three, being contracted, in the extreme
west to six weeks.
The rigours of the Canadian weather are not without their offset ; the
winter is the healthiest, indeed a very healthy, season; the air is singularly
dry, and catarrhal complaints are little known; the snow storms, although
certain, are few; it seldom rains, and a brilliant clear sky, with a blazing
sun, impart universal cheerfulness, and great out-of-doors enjoyment.
From the general absence of wind, the frost, although thermometrically
intense, does not pierce to the bone as the black frosts and eastwinds of
England do. In short it looks colder than it feels. Still the winters are
so long and so intense as to detract from the advantages of this field
of emigration, in comparison to Australia, New Zealand, and the
Cape.
TRANSIT.
In regard to transit, wo must reverse the order of the advantages of
the various fields of settlement.
Canada by steam is within ten days' sail of England; by ordinary
packet within thirty days. New York is within eleven and forty days;
the Cape within thirty and eighty-two days; Australia within sixty-two
and 125 days, and New Zealand within seventy and 130 days. These are
the distances which the productions of these places are from their
market.
The passage by sea is a serious consideration with many; its perils in-
• In Canada cattle have to be housed in winter, and great quantities of hibernal
food provided and stored for them. In Australasia and South Africa stock can
at all scasons find their own food, and the farmer is saved the cost of buildings
and of labour in making provision for them; but the perpetual vegetation of
which the seasons admit in these regious must, we apprehend, exhaust the soil;
and, indeed,' in England it is observed that too much luxuriance enfeebles and
sometimes kills trees, shrubs, or plants, and renders the succeeding crop scanty.
The rest which the soil derives from a long winter, .gives It new strength, and
the action of frost upon the earth and its productions is notoriously favourable to
the promotion of its fertility,


32
ALLEGIANCE.SOCIETY.
deed do not always increase in the ratio of its length, because diverse
voyages encounter various kinds of weather, and accidents seem to be less
frequent on the Australian than on the American station, although the sea
passage of the latter is only one-third of the length of the former. To some
persons, especially females, sea-sickness is mortal when long protracted; to
others a sea voyage is eminently disagreeable, especially where it involves
the care on shipboard, of a young and large family. In June, July, and
August, it is quite possible by steam to make the voyage to Halifax or
New York without encountering even a ripple on the ocean. This can-
not be promised in reference to long protracted voyages. The American
liners are remarkably swift sailers, and distinguished by absence of acci-
dent, and the great infrequency of shipwreck. To those who emigrate
with the ultimate intention of returning to their native country, it is
obvious that greater proximity to Europe is an item of consideration in the
fixing of their destination.
It would of course be ridiculous to exaggerate the advantage of mere
shortness of voyage in reference to emigration; but to persons not over-
burdened with capital, it must be a consideration that the passage to
America can be undertaken for about one-fourth of the expense of that
to Australia, and for less than one-half of that to the Cape. Where a large
family has to be taken out, this is a desideratum; but against this has
to be balanced the longer inland journey, which has to be made by the
American settler, and in the case of the labouring man, it has to be re-
membered, that if he have money enough barely to land him at the
Cape, New Zealand, or Australia, he will be hired at high wages literally
before he touches the shore-an advantage which he will not enjoy in
America.
ALLEGIANCE.-SOCIETY.
To a British subject it must in general be a matter, not entirely of in-
difference, in the choice of a location, that it should place him under our
own laws, and government. Before he can become an American citizen,
he must forswear his allegiance to England, and be prepared to fight
against his own countrymen if necessary. Except in the higher Ameri-
can circles, there is, in the States bordering on Canada, a prejudice against
the Britishers, as we are called, almost fanatical. We shall afterwards
have occasion to expose this trait more at large. Here it is enough to
say, that to persons of the middle classes, the manners and habits of the
British Americans, the Cape, New Zealand, and Australian settlers, will
be much more congenial than those of the model republic. The emi-
grants of a poorer grade, but whose object is to farm, will, in some locali-
ties in the Western States, have a struggle to make against the quirky
and litigious spirit of the native Americans, who themselves boast that
they would go to law with their father for a shilling.
In British America, in New Zealand, the Cape, and the various Aus-
tralasian dependencies, the society is thoroughly English. But in the
Cape and New Zealand, dangerous and powerful savages keep up a con-,
tinual ground of anxiety to settlers, and in our penal settlements where so


CHOICE OF A SHIP.
33
many discharged convicts have risen to social importanco, and where the
disproportion of the sexes is very great, the tone of society is low, and
the number and unscrupulousness of sharpers in trade is very great. Nor
ought it to be forgotten that in Australia and Van Dieman's Land “the
blacks” have been troublesome, often very dangerous.
CHOICE OF A SHIP.
To persons in the middle and higher ranks of life it is scarcely neces-
sary to give a caution against runners, touters, and sharkish shipping
agents. But the instances are so numerous, and so recent, in which
poor men have been swindled out of all their money, without even pro
curing a passage in a ship, or in which the contract made by them with
the shipper has been shamefully violated, that it may be useful here to
observe that no excuse exists for the encouragement of the tricks of the
vagabonds, who have so successfully preyed upon the simple.
The Government have appointed the following Emigration Agents to
watch over the interests of all Emigrants :---
LONDON---Lieutenant Lean, 70, Lower Thames Street.
LIVERPOOL---
---Lieutenant Hodder.
PLYMOUTH---Lieutenant Carew.
GLASGOW and GREENOCK---Lieutenant Porrest.
DUBLIN---Lieutenant Henry.
CORK---Lieutenant Friend.
BelPAST---Lieutenant Stark.
LIMERICK---Mr. Lynch, R.N.
SLIGO, DONEGAL, BALLINA---Lieutenant Shuttleworth and Lieuten-
ant Moriarty.
LONDONDERRY---Lieutenant Ramsay.
WATERPORD, and NEW Ross---Commander Ellis.
These gentlemen are bound by Act of Parliament, without fee or re-
ward, to procure and give information to every person who applies to
them, as to the sailing of ships, and means of accommodation. They
are obliged to see all agreements between ship owners, agents, or masters,
and emigrants performed---that vessels are sea-worthy, sufficiently sup-
plied with provisions, water, medicines, and that they sail punctually.
They attend at their office daily to afford, gratuitously, every assist-
ance to protect emigrants against imposition, and to enforce redress.
We enjoin all intending emigrants of whatever class, whenever their
resolution is formed, therefore, to go straight to the nearest government
agent according to the above given enumeration, and state exactly what
they want. Make no bargain with any shipper except through the
agent, and act implicitly on his information and advice. He it is, also,
who can give intelligence of every particular regarding each colony, and
the method of procuring a free passage. Where persons have fixed upon
a particular vessel, or have even chartered a ship, let them still apply for
the intervention of the government agent to complete the negotiation. It
has an oxcellent moral effect upon the ship agent. Let them also scek
the government advice in reference to the taking of their money, sea


CHOICE OF A SHIP.
2
11
2
stock, clothing, implements, &c., &c., and get from the agent the ad-
dress of the government agent resident at the port of debarkation, so that
they may have every assistance and advice from him the moment they
land.
The Cunard and also the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company's Steamers may be perfectly relied on for accommodation and
safety. So may the American liners, including both sailing and steam
vessels. Ships chartered by the New Zealand Land Company may also
be regarded as unexceptionable.
But it will be as well with reference to sailing vessels, to see that they
have side lights, and are at least six feet and a half in height between
decks.
Cuddies are so often carried away in a heavy sea, and, unless the
scuppers and fore-part of the ship are very free, are so apt to ship more
water than can get away, that although very comfortable, they may be
dispensed with, as besides, they break up the range of the deck walk.
High bulwarks, if combined with perfect facilities for heavy seas get-
ting away if shipped, add greatly to comfort, and the safety of persons
while on deck. They form a shelter against cutting winds, and the
spray of a rough sea. For steerage passengers an easy access to the
cooking apparatus, and abundance of other necessary accommodation
should be seen to, We differ from those who would appropriate a sepa-
rate cooking galley to the steerage passengers. Cooking requires a fire,
and on board ship no fire should be allowed except' such as is immedi-
ately under the eye of the steward and cook of the ship. The fate of the
Ocean Monarch ought to be a solemn warning against permitting passen-
gers (steerage passengers especially), to have any lights, ignited pipes, or
other combustible material at their independent command. The Emi-
grants from Berwick-in-Elmet give an interesting account of accidents on
the voyage from permitting steerage passengers free access to the fire.
Safety, speed, and comfort are best consulted by the choice of a large ves-
sel not too deeply laden, nor yet too lightly. The character of the captain
and chief mate for successful voyages, and kindness to passengers, should
be carefully tested. But at all times rather take a sulky captain who is
a thorough seaman, and has a good ship, than the most gentlemanly offi-
cer who does not stand so high in these respects. We need not add that
on the construction of the cabin, and sleeping berths, much of tho com-
fort of the passenger will depend, and that the nearer the centre of the
ship the latter are, the less violent will the motion be felt to be. Have a
written agreement as to berth, diet, and all other stipulations, requisite
---let this be revised by the captain, and it will doubtless keep him to
the contract during the voyage. See that it is a fixed regulation of the
ship that no smoking is to be allowed, and that no candles or fires are on
any account to be permitted except under the direct regulation and su-
pervision of the officers of the ship. Persons of the working classes are
very careless about the carrying about of ignited materials, and a drunken
man may peril the lives of all.
Great care ought to be used to see that the ship has abundance of
water, and a superabundance of provisions in proportion to the number
of persons embarking. Potatoes are not to be relied on, as they inay rot,


CHOICE OF A SHIP .
35
1
and we saw an American ship with German emigrants, whose stores of
biscuits, meat, flour, meal, &c., &c., having been purchased from a ship
contractor at Antwerp, proved on her putting into Ramsgate by stress of
weather, to be entirely unfit for use. Had the 150 passengers put to sea
before making this discovery, they would have been reduced to extremity.
No person should trust himself in any ship which does not regularly ply
on the line of her then destination. It is from want of thorough know-
ledge of the British Coast and channel, on the part of the captain, that
most of the disastrous shipwrecks have occurred. The tedium and peril
of the channel navigation are avoided by embarking at Southampton or
Plymouth.
When emigrants “ find themselves,” the Custom House officers exa-
mine the quantity they take on board, and compel the passengers to ship
enough to last comfortably during a long voyage. If they rely on the
captain selling to them what they require, they should have the price
fixed by a written agreement with him before embarking. When provi-
sions are included in the passage money, have a fixed dietary, specifying
quantity, rotation, and quality, written and signed by the captain.
An Act (5 & 6 Vic., c. 107), for the protection of passengers, and the
proper regulation of ships, has been passed ; two copies must be kept
on board of every passenger ship, and exhibited on demand for inspec-
tion by any one. In case of grievance, let this be consulted, and the
captain required to conform to its provisions.
Where emigrants lay in their own stores, they should as much as pos-
sible confine themselves to provisions which are easily cooked, and can
be eaten cold. Kippered or pickled salmon, salt or red herrings, and
anchovies, potted meats and shrimps, ham, tongues, hung beef, portable
soup, will be found best; a little flour to make an occasional pudding,
with currants, raisins, and lard ; tea, coffee, and sugar, of course, hard
biscuit, butter and cheese, salt, pepper, mustard in bottles, vinegar,
pickles. Much of the French bread will keep for a considerable time,
and if steamed when required for use, will taste as if newly baked. Pos
tatoes of the best quality will be useful to correct the effect of the salt
provisions ; peas, rice, suet, and salted pork, may be added ; vegetables
which will keep, as onions, carrots, turnips, beet root, also oatmeal and
molasses will be useful medicinally, especially where there are children.
The proper quantities for the voyage may be ascertained from the ship or
emigration agent. As much new bread and fresh meat as will keep
should be taken on board for consumption during the early part of the
voyage; do not forget bottled porter, which is highly grateful at sea,
especially to those. liable to be sick.
A chest properly divided will be required for provisions in use at the
moment, for condiments and groceries, and for cooking and eating uten-
sils. Nothing of glass or crockery should be taken-wooden or pewter
trenchers, and wooden or tin basins, cups, tumblers, and jugs, a tin teapot,
kettle, and coffee pot, (with hooks to hang on to the ribs of the grate
when necessary), knives, forks, spoons, a frying pan, and where there
is a family, a tin slop pail, a mop, broom, and other necessary utensils.
of tin, should be particularly seen to. Also a keg to hold three days
allowance of water, and a tin jug to carry it from the tank,


36
THE VOYAGE AND THE SEA.
The berths, especially for children, should have a board up the fi'ont,
to prevent the sleeper from rolling out. Where an air inattress cannot be
afforded, one of straw is best ; have as many changes of sheets, &c., ae
you can afford; a bag for dirty clothes, and all clothes not to be used at
sea, should be well aired, put up in chests, and all chests protected from
the wet floor by two strips of deal nailed along their bottom. Old worn
out clothes are good enough for contact with the tar, sea water, nails and
other wear and tear of a ship. Stout warm clothing in sufficient quan-
tity should be provided, as it is colder at sea than on shore. We cannot
advise the emigrant to lay in a great surplus quantity in this country, in
the idea of its being much cheaper here than abroad. It is now reason-
ably cheap everywhere, and in the region to which he goes, he will find
the best selection of clothing of the kind most adapted to the habits of
the people, and to the climate. Indeed he should encumber himself with
as little luggage, and land with as much money as he can. For medicines,
except a few aperient pills, he should apply to the captain or ship sur-
geon, and be very careful how they are administered.
As to his money, let himn take the advice of the Government Emigra-
tion Agent as to its custody or conversion. Emigrants may steal from
each other, or they may be swindled by sharpers when they land. On
the American lakes and rivers the steamers and canal boats swarm with
miscreants, who lie in wait either to steal the emigrant's money or to cheat
him out of it. Let passengers take nothing but sovereigns, Bank of
England notes, or safe Bills of Exchange; these should never be out
of their sight until they are taken to the Colonial Agent at the port of
debarkation, and his advice taken as to how they may be exchanged. By
purchasing a sett of exchange” that is three drafts for the same suin,
giving one to the agent in England, another to the captain of the ship,
and keeping the third himself, the passenger can, in the event of losing
his own, receive payment on presenting either of the others. Tako
no American Bank notes in exchange for British money. The Canada
Company, or New Brunswick Land Company will give bills on
their transatlantic agents. The emigrant, will in all cases be entitled, in
exchanging English money for the money of the country, to a greater
nominal sum than he pays over. In Prince Edward's Island a sovereign
is worth 30s. currency.
Besides sharpers on shore at both ends, beware of sharpers among you'
fellow passengers.
THE VOYAGE, AND THE SEA.
Individuals who have once made a sea voyage, we observe rarely hesi-
tate to make a second. This is the testimony which experience gives to
the fact that a sea voyage is by no means so formidable an affair as is
imagined. Besides the crew and officers, who spend whole lives, at all
seasons, on the same passage to America or Australia (in steam ships to
New York once every month), actors, actresses, singers, dancers, authors,
take the trip across the Atlantic and back, again and again, without the
slightest repugnance. Noblemen and squires go for mere pleasure, and


THE VOYAGE, AND THE SEA.
37
66
timid women make the voyage to New Zealand and back to Europe,
without any scruple, two or three times. To good ships well found
manned, and officered, it is amazing how seldom any serious accident
happens, and still more remarkable how frequently life is saved in ship-
wreck. Many persons considered the President too weakly constructed
from the first; and Mr. Joseph Sturge, who was on her very track in an
American liner, and encountered the very same storm, sea, and passage
at exactly the same time, arrived at New York without any accident. It is
very seldom that the violence of a tempest overcomes a good ship, well
laden, and properly navigated. Cases of foundering are of very rare
occurrence to staunch ships. Shipwreck is almost always caused by nau-
tical blunder, to which captains accustomed to the passage, and to the
trim of their ship, are very little liable.
During the earlier part of the voyage,” observes Mr. Marshall ti-
mid people suffer a good deal from fear; should the wind blow hard, and
the sea run high, they will be likely to over-rate the danger; especially
at night, when the crew is busy reducing sail ; the trampling of the sai-
lors over their heads; the loud voice of the commander and mates giving
orders; and the careening of the vessel, very naturally create alarm.
This will be increased by hearing other passengers express their fears..
Fear begets fear, and the steerage very often presents a scene of great
confusion, without the least just cause for it. Passengers should always
bear in mind this simple rule, “ Never be alarmed until the captain is."
“A ship is one of the safest modes of conveyance in the world. Let
the passenger remember this, and it will relieve him in many a moment
of anxiety. In proof of it, the insurance companies insure the liners
and first class transient ships at about five per cent. per annum : less
than one per cent. for each passage between Europe and America. At this
rate they make good profits, which shows how small the risk is. The
insurance companies understand the matter of course, for they make it a
business.
“ Look at the thickness of a ship's sides. People talk about there
being but a frail plank between the sailor and a watery grave.
This is all
Take a liner for instance. Her outer planks are of solid well
seasoned white oak, at least four or five inches thick. These are spiked
on to solid live oak ribs of great thickness, which are placed so near toge-
ther, that they would almost keep out the water if the outer planks were
torn off. Inside of all this is another close shcathing of solid, well sea-,
soned oak plank, some four or five inches thick, spiked on to the ribs
with heavy spikes. We measured the sides of the splendid line ship
Liverpool a few days since, and found them to be eighteen inches in thick-
ness of solid tough seasoned oak. It is so with almost all the liners, and
some of the transient ships. It should be remembered too that this
thickness of plank and timber is caulked together inside and outside, and
secured with all sorts of bolts, clamps, knees, breast hooks, beams, and
the like. It would puzzle a sailor to tell how to break up such a solid
mass of wood, iron, and copper, as this.
“ A few years since Government sold an old vessel to a private indivi.
dual, who wished to break her up for the sake of the iron and copper
filstenings. The difficulty of doing so was so great, that he had to pur-
nonsense.


38
THE VOYAGE, AND THE SEA.
1
1
3
2
2
2.
chase a large quantity of fire wood, which he placed inside the vessel to
burn her up. The strength of a well built ship is equal to any stress of
weather. On this point let the passenger dismiss all fear.
“The passenger should remember that a ship is as well adapted to the
water, as a sea-gull is. Both are made expressly for the water, and both
survive buoyantly, naturally, and safely, upon it, let the wind blow high
or low.
“ As for upsetting, let the passenger put on his night cap and go to
sleep without any concern. There is not a liner afloat, nor a first class
transient ship, if properly loaded, but would carry away every one of her
masts before she could upset. And, of course, when her masts had gone,
she could not upset. The danger of capsizing therefore is scarcely among
the possibilities. It never has happened to the modern and better class
ships, and it will be a pity if ships grow worse in this respect. Let her
roll, roll, roll, till she spills your soup, and cheat you too out of your
broth, and take no heed to it.” “To travel by the better class of ships
is less dangerous, than to travel the same distance by land, in any con-
veyance under the pun.”
Sea-sickness is undoubtedly a very painful malady; where there is
great liability to it in a violent degree, its incidence may form no minor
reason for going to Canada or the United States, rather than a greater
distance, and for choosing steam and the finest period of the year for the
voyage. But it is very seldom dangerous or of long continuance; and,
indeed, by straining the system, and cleaning it thoroughly out, it almost
invariably renovates and invigorates the whole constitution. In general
it will disappear in a few days; time and patience are the best cure for
it, and as a rule it is best borne lying in your berth.
Home sickness is the more pernicious malady of the two, and much the
most lasting; indeed, so inveterate is it, that few leave their native
country without the design to return to it, however ill they have fared or
been treated while it was still their home. Women especially very rarely
become reconciled, even to the most eligible circumstances, which sepa-
rate them from the land of their birth. Nothing can be more injurious
to their prospects, either of happiness or prosperity, than this pining
nostalgia. It robs them of the stimulus to make the best of their new
condition, and it sheds the permanent gloom of settled discontent upon
their lot. Let wife and daughter, if they value their own interest and
comfort, beware how they damp the energies and depress those hopes
which stir up the soul of husband or brother to exertion, by complaining
of their adopted country, or hankering after that which they have left.
It makes the whole family miserable, exaggerates the disadvantages of
their new condition, and renders them blind to those of its excellences
from which so much contentment and enjoyment may be derived. Let
them beware also of sneering at or depreciating their new home to its
native inhabitants, or carrying their English prejudices among their new
neighbours. Everywhere they will find kindness, advice, and help, if
they cheerfully enter into the spirit, customs, and character of the
society amongst which they settle. Give their neighbours respect, and
enter upon intercourse with them in a cordial and cosmopolitan temper,
and all will go well with them. Settle among them for the purpose of


THE VOYAGE AND THE SEA.
39
looking down upon or avoiding them, and they will find they have entered
& pandemonium. As no civilized man can be independent of the services
and sympathy of his neighbours, so no one can afford to neglect con-
ciliating their good will.
No sentiment can be more venerable than that of love of country.
A man whose sound heart is in the right place, may well
“Cast one longing ling'ring look behind."
-gaze on the receding shore until he can make it no bigger than a crow,
and then turn his eyes and weep. The word LAST, applied to objects
to which we have been long accustomed, even when they had become
disagreeable to us, falls like a knell upon the soul. We exaggerate
the good, and forget the evil of that to which we have been long habi-
tuated when we are to “know it no more for ever.” We call to
mind
"All trivial fond records
All forms and pressures past".
associated with our youth, and early friends, and season of poetry and
young enjoyment, and because the place suggests pleasant memories, and
gay fancies, and happy thoughts, we think it is the place that makes
them. But be more rational ; think that it is God's earth you tread and
work upon, whether you are in the new world or the old; that the same
firmament canopies all; that wherever men are, there are your brethren
and God's children, stamped with the broad arrow of our common human
nature; that your own freehold and independence of the world, and de-
fiance of its cares, are a better home, and truer friends, and a fairer
country, than any you left behind you ; that, handsome is that handsome
does; and that love of country, or home sickness, will neither fill your
empty purse, nor make your pot boil. The God of nature is everywhere;
if he places you by the meditative waterfall, or opens the song of birds,
or strews in your path the prairie flowers, or awakens the echoes of the
leafy forest, or tempts you to the hills with verdure clad,” or sends
you where sits darkling the linnet “low down in the vale, or launches
you upon the moonlit lake, or leads you among the “hairy fools” of
the bosky dell or opening brake, and at eventide sends you to a comfort-
able house you can call your own, and with a welcome from a busy
housewife “plying her evening care" to make you happy before your
blazing hearth and abundant meal, where should be your home and
country, if that will not content you? And is it not the native home of
your children; the country where you know you already see the cer-
tainty of their easy independence ? “We speak as unto wise men, judge
ye what we say ?”
Are we not too prone to take for granted that there are great differ-
ences betwixt our past and our new condition, and to exaggerate va-
riations into contrasts ? Green fields and the “rooky wood,” the flowing
river and the “cloud-capt” hill, the sunbeam and “the majestical roof
fretted with golden fire,” may be diverse in their aspects in different
countries indeed, as they vary in the different regions of the same
country. But after all where, at least in the same zone, should the lover
B 2


40
ON EMIGRATION.
WORKS
of nature feel himself far from a home? A Canadian or a Yankee, speak-
ing the language of Shakespere, and proud of the ancestry of Milton,
an Anglo-Saxon like ourselves, when you break off him the first crust of
custom and local habits, or break in yourself to look under these to his
inner soul, do you really find anything so strange about him and his ten-
dencies, that you can never feel he is your friend and neighbour, merely
because he was not born in England ? Clear all this nonsense out of
your head, and be assured that it is nonsense. A foreigner is a man;
approach him in the spirit of your common humanity, and doubt not
but that everywhere you will find a home and a fellow-citizen.
WORKS ON EMIGRATION.
We have already had occasion to expose the disingenuousness which
characterizes most works on emigration. Vamped up by persons either
hired or interested to cry up one locality in the general competition for
settlers, the authors are not worthy of trust in reference either to the ex-
cellences of the colonies they praise, or tbe faults of those they depreciate.
The patron of Canada describes it as a Valparaiso, while the hack of the
New Zealand speculation pronounces our North American colonies as a
slice off the arctic circle. Mr. Mathew, the appraiser of Auckland and
Wellington, takes it for granted that, because Canada has a long and
severo winter, he may venture to say that it will scarcely produce any
thing; forgetting that the hyperborean regions of the Baltic are the gra-
nary of Europe, while New Zealand has never yet fed its own population.
He prophecies that such an inhospitable region will soon be deserted, in
the face of the fact, that the population in ninety years has increased
twenty fold; that in twenty-three years it has received 736,308 emi-
grants, and that in 1847 nearly three times as many settlers arrived there
as in any former year, and twenty-four times as many as found their way
to all our other colonies put together, amounting to 109,680. Were we
to characterize the statements of many of the writers who, under pretence
of giving an impartial view of the general subject of emigration, set out
from the beginning with the fixed design of crying upon one field of set-
tlement at the expense of every other, and of truth into the bargain, we
would apply a very short word to most of their misrepresentations. We
shall content ourselves however with merely cautioning the inquirer
against putting any reliance whatever upon a single statement of their
own, and advise him simply to extract from their works such facts as
are authenticated by competent testimony, and substantial internal evi-
dence. Let us pass on at once to the proper object of this work, which,
founded on a careful collation of all treatises published on the subject of
the various emigration fields before enumerated, proposes to lay before
the reader a comprehensive, practical, and trustworthy detail of the
whole subject.


BRITISH AMERICA.
41
BRITISH AMERICA.
Of all British North America it may be observed that it has the ad-
vantage of greater proximity to, and easier access from Europe, than
any other settlement. By the finest and safest steam vessels in the world
Halifax may be reached by the Cunard mail packets in ten days from
Liverpool-or the American steam ships between Southampton and New
York, will convey passengers to the latter port, from whence they may
reach Canada in eleven or twelve days from port to port. The fare by
the Cunard line is £35, and by the American line £31 10s., includ-
ing provisions and steward's fee. The second class fare is £20 by the
American steamers. We are not aware that the Cunard line carries second
class passengers. At certain ascertained seasons the finest weather may
be calculated on so as to avoid sea sickness. In June and July this may
be expected. The American liners from Liverpool and London to New
York, Philadelphia, Boston, Halifax, Quebec, are of the very best and
safest description. Their accommodations are of the first order, they are
expressly built for speed and safety, and they have appointments quite
unequalled for excellence. The cabin fare including provisions varies
from £18 to £25; the distance is from 3,600 to 3,800 miles (to New
Orleans, 4,300), and the average passage about thirty-five days or up-
wards, of 100 miles a day. By good transient ships we see it stated by
the emigration commissioners the average passage to Quebec is forty-six
days—to Prince Edward's Island forty days— Nova Scotia thirty-eight
days. The fare by these vessels is, to Quebec, New Brunswick, or Hali-
fax, from English ports, or the Clyde, cabin, including provisions, £12
to £20; intermediate, £6 to £10; steerage, £4 to £5; from Irish
ports £10 to £12; £5 to £6; £4 to £5; and to the nearest United
States ports, nearly the same.
The quickest passages are made in April and May, and these are the
periods when it is most advantageous to a settler to commence his new
mode of life. All necessary preliminary information will be found in the
Colonization Circular, No. 9, published by Charles Knight, 90, Fleet
Street, by authority, price 2d.
North America, as a place of settlement, has the obvious advantage of
being easily, speedily, and cheaply reached, of being within easy dis-
tance of Europe, and of being nearer to the great market of all colonies
than any other locality. The freights deduct less from the profits of
goods, the returns are quicker, the risks of competition in the market
with arrivals from other colonies are less than they can be in reference to
any other district. The country is comparatively settled—there are no
natives to battle with-credit and trade are steady--above all, labour is in
fair supply, and at a moderate price in comparison to capital—and all
the necessaries and comforts of life are accessible at a rate very much
below what they cost in the more distant colonies. In answer to this, it
indeed may be said that in the same degree labourers must be indifferently
remunerated, and the profits of the producer must be small. But cheap-
ness argues the pressure of abundance both of labour and of food; and
E 3


42
BRITISH AMERICA.
these, by forcing the investment of capital, must inevitably make a
country prosperous and happy.
Sugar, soap, candles, tobacco, flax, and wool, timber, are all manu-
factured and produced on the spot. Tea, 2s., sugar, 4d., butter, 5d.,
cheese, 4d, coffee, 10d., meat, 2d., per lb.; eggs, 3d. per dozen ; fowls,
6d. per pair; venison, 1d. per lb. ; salmon of good size, 2s. each; and
other fish very cheap ; as also fire wood-Indian corn, 8s. per quarter;
clothing and servants wages as low in price as in England. A sovereign
yields 25s. in Canada, and 30s. in Prince Edward's Island. A comfort-
able farm house with fifty acres of cleared and enclosed land may be had
for £300, or rented for £25 per annum ; taxes are infinitesimal. To all
practical purposes, therefore, a man who can retire upon £150 per an-
num, would, by going to Prince Edward's Island, live quite as well as
upon £300 a year in England, and if he has a large family, they could
live infinitely better; if they chose to raise their own produce, for which
a farm of fifty acres would furnish them with all the means, they would,
except for clothing and a few groceries, be really independent of the need
of current coin altogether. Emancipated from the tyranny of conven-
tion, and liberated from the necessity of consulting mere appearances,
they may renovate the constitution by following the healthful activity of
a country life. They will be under British institutions and essentially in
British society, and among English customs; they will encounter little
of that mere Yankeeism, against which so many entertain so great a pre-
judice. The tone of social life is not there indeed very high, and man-
ners are more simple than polished. Settlers will not be quite as well, or
so obsequiously served as at home, they will find everything of a coarser
and plainer, and less perfectly convenient construction, and all around
they will be reminded of a ruder and less advanced state of society;
roads rarer and rougher, doctors further off, shops not so near, nor so
well supplied, conveyance and intercourse imperfect, life monotonous,
and company, news, incidents, scarce. Ladies especially, will miss many
appliances which they have been accustomed to, regard as indispensable,
and husbands may lay their account with a house full of patients, la-
bouring under the home sickness. Much must be done by, which has
hitherto been done for them-and much must be left undone, which they
believed they could never do without. Never mind—“Resist evil, and
it will flee from thee.” Defy the women, and they will become resigned.
To horse! He may be had cheap, and kept at a cost little beyond his
shoeing. Take your rod, and bring home a dish of fish-shoulder your
Joe Manton, or your rifle, and bring down a wild turkey or a deer—there
is no license to pay for, and no gamekeeper to stop you at the march ; or
in the winter evenings, bring a book from the town, and while all work
round the blazing hearth, do you read for the company. Make the
house more comfortable and neat within-more trim without-do what
you can for the garden, and inspire in the womankind a taste for botany
and flowers. You must be the jobbing carpenter, and locksmith, and
butcher, and gardener, and groom, and doctor sometimes—the executor
of commissions, the brewer, the wood-cutter, plasterer, and glazier, the
man of all work. And leave every other job to make the house pleasant
to the female eye, and replete with the amenities of civilization. That is


BRITISH AMERICA.
43
the first thing which will reconcile your wife and daughters to their
adopted country. Interest them in your bee-hives, get broods of chick-
ens and ducks and geese, and all the accessaries of the dairy, and place
these under their dominion. Urge your friends and neighbours to join
you in your new location, and “make the solitary place glad” with con-
siderate kindness, well chosen acquaintances, and the fixed idea that that
is once for all your only home and final resting place.
To us it appears that the colonies are the especial field for men to re-
tire to from the wear and tear of life, with a small hoard that could do
little for them in the old world, but everything in the new. It is the
very place for a small capitalist to afford to be idle in. The literary man,
who is spinning his life out at his brains, the surgeon or attorney, whose
head work is eating the coat out of his stomach, the merchant, or clerk,
or warehouseman, or tradesman, whose anxieties and confinement, and
town life, are pushing consumption, or heart disease to their incipient
stage, and who with a family staring them in the face, know not where to
turn- let these men take stock, and if they can convert their possessions
into £2,000 or £3,000, let them take flight in time to the colonies, where
they may recover their health, and the tone of their minds, and add
twenty years to their lives. They will make room for others in England,
they will increase population where there is not enough, they will enjoy
existence on what they have, in place of throwing it away on the struggle
for more.
Let it not be said that---
“No man, of aught he leaves, knows what it is to leave betimes.”
These, if they be not mere mechanical unimaginative Bow Bell cocknies,
ought to be the very men to enjoy the country life of the settler. They
have intellectual resources seldom vouchsafed to the mere farmer, they re-
quire to change mental exhaustion for physical exertion, the most
healthful, as well as exhilirating of occupations---and, surfeited with social
sophistications, their palled senses may gladly“ doff the world and let it
pass.”
The surgeon-apothecary may do well in any of these colonies, espe-
cially if he adds a knowledge of the veterinary art, and can dispense
medicines for cattle, horses, &c.
The professional farmer may get a productive farm in fee simple for
little more than the amount of one year's rent of the farm he left in
England, with scarcely any taxes to pay. Every expense except that of
labour will be much less, and if he gets but a small price for his pro-
duce, he has no rent day to meet, or steward's wrath to propitiate, and
need care little for a failing crop, where he has few liabilities to encounter
which a scanty and ill paid harvest will not easily meet.
All these classes, capitalists in a greater or less degree, establish this
obvious advantage by emigration. They are emancipated from the ne-
cessity of keeping up appearances---they may live exactly as they please
---a frame or even a log house costing from £35 to £85 will lodge them
quite as securely as a brick one, which in England cost as much by the
year's rent---they gain ten per cent. on the exchange, converting £1,000
into £1,100, the second conversion from sterling into currency_gives
them from 25s. to 30s. for every sovereign according as they go to Lower


44
BRITISH AMERICA.
or Upper Canada, or Prince Edward's Island, and they remove their
capital entirely from the operation of a taxation which amounts to at
least £35 per cent upon the whole property of England.
To those who have little or, still worse, nothing, the necessity and ad-
vantages of emigration are still greater. The sturdy but simple farmer,
beaten by the times, by a bad farm or a high rent, need only to resolve
to be industrious and keep up a stout heart, to work out an early inde-
pendence. If he must begin by serving, a single day's wages will buy
an acre of good land; he may rent a farm on the simple condition of
giving the proprietor one third of what he raises; or he may get land of
his own immediately, at a cheap rate, and on the very easiest terms of
payment. A little capital, if judiciously laid out, will go a great way,
and if he have a family, especially of sons, ready and willing and able to
labour, he may reckon himself already independent.
The farm labourer, inured to greater hardships and privation, more
accustomed to hard work and the manipulation of agriculture, will be
still better off if he cultivates industry and sobriety.
To the carpenter, blacksmith, mill and cartwright, and bricklayer, the
very best circumstances concur in these colonies, where wages are fair,
employment certain, food cheap and rent moderate.
The tradesman who understands his business, and has capital to buy
goods for cash, is sure to make a speedy independence, by keeping a
store. The store-keepers are indeed the chief men in these colonies.
Mere money lending is highly profitable: on good security, it will
sometimes bring 25 per cent. In bank stock it will readily produce 12
per cent, and by the buying and selling of land even larger profit may
be made. In seasons of temporary depression, such as the present,
cleared farms may be purchased at a very cheap rate. It is indeed sug-
gested that high profits of money are scarcely compatible with perfect
security; but if farms are purchased cheap, or even unimproved land, in
favorable localities, the investment may indeed be subject to temporary de-
pression, but the tide of emigration flows so fast towards these colonies,
the unsettlement of Europe gives such an impetus to the transfer of cap-
ital to the new world, and a young country such as Canada, must so cer-
tainly progress for many years, that we conceive the security better
than even that of land in Europe at present prices. The mortgagees of
Ireland would too fully corroborate this. Nor ought it to be forgotten
that the law expenses of conveyance, either for large purchases or small,
amount in our colonies, to not as many shillings as they do pounds in
England, that the title is clearer, and that there is no stamp duty on the
transfer, of any moment. Were the colonization of these dependencies
systematic, as government is about to make it, so that the emigrants
should, at once, on arrival, be placed in a position of comparative com-
fort, the filtration which percolates to the United States, would not take
place, and we should retain all the increment we acquired.
Referring the reader to the colonization circular, No. 9, for a detailed
statement of the rates of wages in these colonies, we may observe gen-
erally that for all kinds of handicraftsmen, they range about the same or
are somewhat more moderate than in England. Carpenters, blacksmiths,
millwrights, and bricklayers, from 5s. to 6s. Bakers, tailors, shoemakers,


BRITISH AMERICA.
painters, shipwrights, from 35 to 4s. Labourers and quarrymen 25. to 3s.
Dress makers ls per day, without board. Cooks and dairywomen from
13s. 6d. to 27s. per month and found. Or by the year with board and
lodging, women servants from £9 to £12. Gardeners from £22 to
£27. Labourers from £16 to £20. Where food, rent and taxes are so
low, of course these wages are virtually much greater than they are
here. We think they offer great inducements to operatives to remain at
their employment for some years, in order that they may save capital,
and either become masters in their own trade, or start as farmers, with a
good sum in hand.
All authorities concur in strenuously recommending every emigrant to
fix, before he sets out, upon the district in which he resolves to settle, and
when he reaches America at once to go to the spot, and not to loiter
about the towns, where his little all will soon be squandered or stolen.
They are unanimous also in urging him at once to accept of such wages
as may be offered him, until he has had time to look about him and see
where he can get better. Until he has become accustomed to the pecu-
liar mode of labouring practised in the country, his services are not of
much value.
The balance of opinion is very greatly in favour of the rule that no
emigrants from Britain should take uncleared land. The best of them
make very indifferent woodsmen, and the felling of trees is an art.
The woods are not healthy, and until the body becomes acclimated, great
caution is required in the treatment of the constitution, even of the
robust. Clearing land is very laborious, and the extremes of heat and
cold to which North America is every where subject, joined to a degree
of exposure to which in England the body has never been accustomed,
place the new comer in danger of contracting disease, if his labours
are very heavy. * To new settlers ten acres of cleared land are worth fifty
of wood, nor should it ever be forgotten that in the backwoods, for the
• Referring the reader to the observations of Mr. Prentice, which will be found
in subsequent pages, relative to the incautious exposure to which emigrants often
subject themselves in the Western States, we regard the following advice as valuable.
"In the new countries of the West,” observes Mr. Marshall, it is important that
breakfast be eaten before the person is much exposed to the air. It is well known,'
says Dr. Combe,' that the system is more susceptible of infection and of the influ-
ence of cold, miasmata, and other morbid causes, in the morving before eating, than
at any other time; and hence it has become a point of duty with all naval aud milis
tary commanders, especially in bad climates, always to give their mess breakfast
before exposing them to morning dews, and other noxious influences. Sir George
Ballingall even mentions a regiment at Newcastle in which typhus fever was very
prevalent, and in which of all the means used to check its progress, nothing proved
so successful as an early breakfast of warm coffee. In aguish countries also, espe-
rience has shown that the proportion of sick among those who are exposed to the
open air before getting any thing to eat is infinitely greater than among those who
have been fortified by a comfortable breakfast.' The writer has had great personal
experience of the most sickly climates, Batavia, Sumatra, China, the forests, lakes,
and rivers of North America, and he is convinced that particular attention should be
paid to the suggestion of Mr. Combe,"
It is also most important to observe that nature dictates a great reduction in the
consumption of animal and stimulating food during the ardent heats of an American
suinmer. The inhabitants of India confine themselves to a purely, vegetable diet,
and colonel T. P. Thomson, by doing the same, never had so much as a bead-ache
during his whole period of service with his regiment in India, and as governor of
Sierra Leone,


PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
head of a family to have a long sickness, is famine and ruin, and to the
capitalist, who may thereby be prevented from looking after his labour-
res, it is an immense loss. It is indeed said that wood land is always
productive, while much that is cleared is impoverished by cropping.
But the remedy for this is to examine the soil, and, if need be, to rent
at first, with the option of purchase if approved. A capitalist can, at
all times, purchase a cleared farm for one-third less than it cost to im-
prove it, and considering the inexperience of new settlers, and that they
know, at once, their whole outlay, when they buy a cleared farm, there
is no room to doubt the prudence on the score of health, economy, and
profit, of the course we recommend.
It is also especially desirable that in all cases the emigrant should
avoid buying more land than his capital will easily enable him to culti-
vate. The poor man should have a sovereign to put against every acre
of uncleared land he buys, and the capitalist at least £4. If possible
let neither run into debt, but pay the purchase down. From the store
keeper they will buy goods much cheaper, and sell produce much higher,
by avoiding barter or credit, and introducing cash into all transactions.
The store keepers are the usurers of Canada, and squeeze terrible interest
out of the needy.
Colonial Commissioners advise emigrants to keep their contract tickets,
carefully, till the conditions have been fulfilled, by their being fairly
landed; to provide themselves with food sufficient for their maintainence
until they reach the interior ; to take no tools or furniture with them;
to set off from England in the middle of March; to remember that they
are entitled to be maintained on board for forty-eight hours after their
arrival in port; to avoid drinking the water of the St. Lawrence, and to go
to Quebec, if Canada be their destination, and to Halifax, if for the other
colonies. It may be questioned whether passengers for the Upper
Province might not more conveniently reach it by New York. The
government agents at Quebec or Montreal, and the emigration societies,
at New York will give ample advice and information as to route, convey-
Emigrant sheds, and medical advice are provided gratis at
all the principal towns. From Quebec to Hamilton, Upper Canada, 667
miles, the steerage passage is 29s. currency; time about eight days. To
Toronto it is 228., exclusive of provisions, for persons above twelve years.
Half price for those between twelve and three, all under, free. The ex-
pense of a log hut, is from £5 to £12, and if the chief labour be per-
formed by the emigrant, it will cost less. By New York a person in good
circumstances may reach Toronto in three days, at a cost of £4 16s. 34.
It is not our purpose to include in this work information which is
more properly the object of a mere gazetteer. But as some distinctive
features belong to each of the North American settlements, we shall no-
tice thein in their order.
ance, fares.
PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
This island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is 140 miles long, at, its
greatest breadth 34 miles, and contains 1,360,000 acres, of which all but
10,000 are fit for tillage. It is indented with numerous hays and harbours,


PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
47
and possesses many rivers. The soil is of excellent quality, and very
productive of all crops, which thrive in England. The coast and rivers
abound with fish : the country is very level, and easily farmed. Its in-
habitants are chiefly Scotch and presbyterians. It is divided into King's,
Queen's and Prince's Counties. The population is upwards of 40,000,
and it has a governor and legislature of its own. Charlotte Town, the
capital, is neat and pretty.
From the absence of mountains and its proximity to the sea, the island
is quite free from fogs, and is very dry, with a climate more temperate
and mild than any other in North America. The inhabitants are remark-
able for health and longevity. In all these points every writer on the
subject concurs, and we incline to the opinion, that for every class
of emigrants, this, on account of its salubrity, and the superior character
of its soil, is the most eligible locality of all our American possessions.
Ague is unknown, and fever is accidental, not incidental.
The island contains a colony of old-fashioned, jog-trot folks, who
would never set fire to the Thames, nor let the Thames drown them.
Life seems easy to all classes, wages moderate, provisions and clothing
cheap. From the perfectly reliable authority of a member of the colo-
nial legislature, whose letter is dated so recently as August, 1848, we
glean the following particulars. “ The climate of the island I regard as
very healthy. The summers are very fine; the winter, times, very
severe, but generally clear and bright, and I do not think, except during
snow storms, that the cold is felt to be a serious inconvenience. The
island is esteemed to be so beneficial to persons out of health in the
other provinces, that it is no unusual thing for them to come here to
recruit. Indeed the general report and impression of its salubrity is very
prevalent. I know of no case of asthma, and the governess who came
from England with me, used in England always to wear a respirator, but
never used it while in this country. Consumption is, I believe, com-
mon to all parts of the world, but certainly not more so here than else-
where. I know of no case of ague. Fever is an accidental intruder at
times, but not more than in England. With respect to the state of
society, it is perhaps as good as in any colony, for a good many English
families have, within the last ten years settled in the island, bringing
property with them, and having by their superior means and number
obtained some little influence in the place, they have improved the char-
acter of society in it."
“There would be no difficulty either in leasing or purchasing a small
farm or a small house according to the views and fancy of the settler, as
the enterprise of the people of the colonies finds its vent principally in
building, &c. &c. in the expectation to sell, and proceed through the
same course over again. From £200 to £400 sterling would do all that
moderate wants would require.
“The currency of the island is at a depreciation of fifty per cent. in con-
sequence of an issue of paper money, and increase of debt at the same
time, which is now better understood, and put under restraint; but it
has become established as the fixed rate. A sovereign is therefore
£1 10s. of this currency, and an English shilling, in like manner, passes
for 1s. Ed. With £200 per annum a man may live here far better than


48
NOVA SCOTIA AND CAPE BRETON.
with £300 in England, and so in proportion. The price of the chief ne-
cessaries of life, as stated in the gazette, August 1st, is as follows (and it
must be remembered that we are this year experiencing the bad effects of
two years' failure of the potatoes, and a very bad years' crop of wheat
and oats last year.) Beef 20. to 3d. per lb.; mutton 1}d to 3d. ; veal ld.
to 2 d.; flour 2d. per lb.; butter 4 d. to 6 d.; cheese 3d. to 5d.; po-
tatoes 2s. to 28. 4d. per bushel; eggs 3 d. to 4d. per dozen; fowls 6 d.
to 92d.; pair of chickens 6!d. to 8d.; cod-fish, mackarel, haddock at
very low prices; salmon of fine flavour and good size, 2s. to 3s. Od. eaca.
By this it will be seen that a little money with managenient may be
made to go a great way here; tea, sugar, &c. are at low prices, and
clothing as cheap as in England.
“ There is very little difference between this and England, as far as
respects domestic servants, save that their wages are rather less; agricul-
tural labourers are generally paid 14s. per week, finding themselves, or
£16 per annum boarded in the house."
Bouchette, Macgregor, and Macculloch describe the island as well
wooded with spruce, fir, birch, beech, and maple. Flax grows luxuri-
antly, the pastures are excellent, and cattle and sheep thrive eminently.
Only 100,000 acres are under cultivation, but all authorities concur in
stating that the settlement is admirably adapted in every part for suc-
cessful and even luxuriant cultivation, and indeed that it is capable of
feeding the whole of the neighbouring colonies.
It is obvious that the moderate price of labour and of land, and the
low price of all the necessaries of life, make this place of pure English so-
ciety and inanners, highly eligible to the capitalist or to persons in the
middle ranks of life, while its temperate climate ought also to allure the
labouring man. Indeed, it appears to us that the insulation of the place,
and the easy manageability of the soil, have made it too snug, and the
acquisition of competence too easy, to stimulate the energies of the sober
population. A little fresh blood infused amongst them, and some more
capital, will doubtless, at no distant date, make this a most desirable
colony; the only drawback seems to be the length of the winter. Seed
time begins at 1st of May, and harvest ends in October 31st.; snow falls
at Christmas, and remains until the 5th of March.
#1
R
NOVÁ SCOTIA AND CAPE BRETON.
These islands are under the same government, and are only separated
by a narrow strait; they are also within fourteen miles of New Bruns-
wick. Nova Scotia is 300 miles long, and of various breadth, containing
an area of 15,620 square miles; 10,000,000 acres, whereof 5,000,000 are
arable, 400,000 under actual cultivation, and a population of 165,000
souls. Cape Breton is less than a third of this size, and both partake of
the same character, abounding in coal, gypsum, iron, salt, and other mi-
nerals, having numerous rivers teeming with salt and fresh water fish,
and carrying on a very large trade in all the more common sorts of
timber, in the curing of fish, in ship building, and in mining.
The eastern division of the island consists principally of a strong,
loamy clay, productive of good wheat crops, while rich alluvial in-


NOVA SCOTIA AND CAPE BRETON,
49
tervales are still more fertile. In the Pictou district seven crops of
wheat are taken in succession without any manure. Towards the north
west rich alluvial marshes are reclaimed from the sea, producing from
5 to 7} quarters of wheat, and three tons of hay per acre.
The average
produce of farm land per acre is twenty-five bushels of wheat, forty of
oats, 200 of potatoes, 21 tons of hay. Good dairy farms are found in the
north-west division; the population is chiefly Scotch, and is ruled by a
governor, a council, and a legislative assembly elected by forty-shilling-
freeholders. The prevailing religion is protestant, of various denomina-
tions, and the provision for education seems to be ample. Taxation is very
light amounting to about 6s.8d. per head; the upset price of the public lands
is ls. 9d. per acre, 100 acres or £8 15s. worth, being the smallest quan-
tity sold.
For miners, coopers, fish curers, sawyers, lumberers, ship
carpenters, fishermen, tanners, and farm labourers, the demand must be
considerable. The yearly shipping amounts to 800,000 tons.
The changes of temperature are sudden and extreme; the severe
weather sets in in December, and the frost breaks up at the beginning of
February; the severity of the winter ends in March, when chill, damp,
east winds prevail till the end of April. It is often the close of May be-
fore the spring fairly covers the fields with verdure. May and June are
foggy; July and August are warm, clear, and serene; September and
October, are like ours; but November, and even December, produces
days equal to the loveliest of our English May. Consumption and in-
flammation are somewhat common, but fever and ague are unknown;
and on the whole these islands are very healthy, the inhabitants living to
a great age. That Indian corn can here be raised successfully, pumpkins,
all our culinary vegetables, and all our fruits abundantly and of good qua-
lity, as also excellent clover and meadow grass, are facts which warrant the
belief that the climate must be by no means of the hyperborean character
which some have represented. The land abounds with lime, free, and
slate stone, and brick earth, the rivers with salmon and trout, the sea
board with white and shell fish. There are here manifestly the elements
of great comfort and prosperity, which the progress of society, the in-
crease of steam navigation, and immigration from the mother country,
cannot fail to develop.
It is our duty however to qualify this favourable report with the
caution, that, although, as in most rigorous climates, this is a healthy, it
cannot be said to be a very pleasant locality. To people from Scotland
of average constitntion, we think it would be suitable; for healthy work-
ing men it is very well adapted. Persons of enterprise and activity, who
must follow some occupation as the means of subsistence, will hera find a
better scope than in Prince Edward's Island; but it is not so temperate,
it is liable to fogs from which the latter is free, and for the middle classes as
a place to retire to and save in, it is not so eligible. Having more bustle
and life about it, 15,000 tons of shipping, and an aggregate of £1,000,000
in exports and imports, it is obviously better adapted for the young as a
field of exertion, and, by its command of coal, joined with its proximity
to New York, where steam navigation produces such a large consumption
both of that article and of iron, we can scarcely doubt that it must now
rapidly increase in wealth and the pursuits of industry.


50
NEW BRUNSWICK.
NEW BRUNSWICK.
This province, possessing an independent legislature and government,
is situated on the mainland of North America, forming the south-eastern
coast boundary of Lower Canada; it has a population of 200,000 souls,
16,500,000 acres of area, whereof 11,000,000 are arable, and is said to be
capable of supporting at least 3,000,000 inhabitants.
The upset price of unreclaimed land is 2s. 8d. per acre; 50 acres is the
smallest quantity sold, price £6 13s. 4d. The soil is fertile, several ac-
counts concurring in the statement that in the Stanley settlement wheat
is produced weighing 70 lbs. per bushel, which is superior to the best
produced in England. It is highly recommended to emigrants, especially
of the labouring classes; it is very rich in minerals, especially coal, and in
river, lake, and sea fish of all kinds; from its dense forests, it has a vast
timber trade, and carries on fish curing and whaling to a large extent.
Saw mills and ship building, for which it possesses superior capabilities,
afford increasing means of employment and commerce.
The province is said to be very healthy, and the climate much to re-
semble that of Nova Scotia, not being subject to the great extremes of
Lower Canada, nor to the fevers of the Upper Province. But, the fact
that it is the boundary of Lower Canada, and the eastern boundary too,
leads us to expect that it must be more subject to the rigours which cha-
racterize that region, than has been represented. The density and extent
of the forests to which the sun cannot penetrate, must make them har-
bours for immense masses of snow, which cannot fail to render the currents
of air extremely cold, and to compel winter to linger much longer than
might be argued from the state of the sky and sun. We observe that
15,000 emigrants settled in the province last year; that they were easily
absorbed, and that wages did not fall in consequence. These facts argue
a high estimation of the colony, and a rapid progress in prosperity. Im-
proved farms are said to cost £5 per acre, and near the towns as much
even as £20. Succession is wisely determined by the law of gavel
kind.
Led away by what the St. John's Chronicle calls the “ timber mania,"
the population have neglected the more important pursuits of mining,
fishing, and above all agriculture. Lumbering is notoriously a demora-
lizing employment, and ultimately much less certain and profitable to
the community at large than other fields of enterprise.
An American, met by Mr. M'Gregor in 1828, near Frederic Town, in-
formed him he had been settled in the district seven years, and, com-
mencing without a shilling, had, in that short time, cleared three hundred
acres, and acquired a great flock of sheep, horses, oxen, milch cows,
swine, and poultry. He lived in a large and comfortable dwelling house
well furnished, with his family, and a number of labourers, had a forge,
trip hammer, fulling, saw, and grist mills, driven by water power, raised
large crops, grew and manufactured excellent flax, and grew as much as


CANADA.
51
ninety bushels of Indian corn on a single acre. He talked in high teruis
of the rich interior country.
As evidence of the state of the climate the fact here stated, of the
existence of prolific crops of Indian corn is very important. In refer-
ence to Lower Canada, Mr. Shirreff observes that “the climate is too
cold for the cultivation of Indian corn, whieh only occasionally comes
to maturity in the most favoured spots.” Indian corn is a very tender
plant; to come to maturity it must be sown early, and it never becomes
ripe until the middle or end of October. If then it is successfully culti-
vated in New Brunswick, it is apparent that the spring must be earlier,
and the commencement of winter considerably later than in Lower
Canada.
The prices of improved land in this, and all emigration fields vary
much according to the temporary state of the district. In hard times,
for which an emigrant should wait, good cleared farms with suitable
buildings, may for cash be had for 30s. or 40s. per acre. At this season
of depression great bargains are to be made. We have examined the
files of the colonial newspapers (a most useful study for an intending
emigrant), and from their advertisements we observe that, good farins
are to be had in all the provinces at prices varying from 20s. to 100s. per
acre.
CANADA.
Lower Canada, or Canada East as, since the union of the two pro-
vinces, it is called, contains an area of 132,000,000 acres, and is divided
into five districts, and twenty-one counties. The population, which is
chiefly French, amounts to upwards of 1,000,000 of souls. It contains
several handsome and prosperous towns, and possesses the best river and
lake communications of any country in the world. Its cities, Quebec
and Montreal are very populous, commodious, and picturesque, and the
scenery of the region is altogether very fine. Abundance of land of ex-
cellent quality is every where to be had on easy terms, the upset price of
uncleared land, ranging from 3s. to 5s. per acre, and improved farms
with suitable offices even in the neighbourhood of the chief towns, be-
ing purchaseable, at prices, varying from £20 to £5 or even £3 per acre.
The country is well settled---the institutions for government, jurispru-
dence, religion, and education, matured, and ample, and the state of
society not uncongenial to the British taste or habits. Roads, bridges,
canals, coaches, steam and ferry boats, hotels, hospitals, &c., are more
numerous and better arranged and appointed in this than in the other
provinces, and the conveniences of civilized life are here more readily
attainable. Shipping and commerce are prosperous, and transactions are
conducted less by barter and more through the medium of a currency
here than in the other districts, or the Western United States. The
working population are simple and inoffensive in their habits, and more
respectful in their manners than elsewhere. Produce yields a better price
and is more easily convertible into cash also, and wages are fair but not
excessive. The proportion which arable land, and soil of superior
P 2


52
CANADA.
quality, in the settled parts of this province, bears to the whole tor-
ritory is very high, and the better classes of timber, which it bears in
perfection (oak, maple, beech, elm, walnut, cedar, and ash), as also the
quality and quantity of the wheat (forty busliels per acre), sufficiently
indicate its superiority.
Let us here premise what is necessary to be observed in reference to
climate, both in its effects upon animal and vegetable life. Other things
being equal, that is to say cleanliness, drainage, food, household and
clothing comforts, occupation, and medical assistance, persons are heal-
thiest and longest lived in cold climates, and even in temperate regions
they are healthiest at the coldest season of the year. The Poles, the
Russians, above all the Cossacks, occupying the steppes of the Ukrain,
are the healthiest and longest lived people in the world. The Norwe-
gians, Danes, and those Germans who live in the regions where winter is
long and severe, are alse long lived; so are the Dutch. As you rise into
the mountainous districts of warmer countries, you find the population
stronger and more healthy. The Caucasians and Balkans have given
Russia more trouble than all her other enemies. It is then quite to be
expected that Lower Canada, longer settled, more extensively cleared,
surrounded better with the appliances of civilization, with a drier air,
fewer swamps, and a longer and severer winter than any other part of
North America, should also be healthy, and remarkable for the robust-
ness and longevity of its inhabitants. More subject, however, to ex-
tremes than the eastern dependencies, and to sudden alternations of tem-
perature, it has its drawbacks to the sophisticated or delicate constitution;
and considering that the length of winter and its severity endure for
from six months in the eastern, to five and a half in the western extre-
mities of the province, we regard the district as altogether unsuitable for the
fair enjoyment of life and nature, and ill adapted for the successful pro-
secution of agriculture; no spring, summer and autumn insupportable,
are conditions for which to our taste no commercial advantages can compen-
sate. Every thing sealed up and made dead by frost and snow, bird, beast,
and creeping thing absconded or perished, the thermometer standing
thirty degrees below freezing point, water, nay whisky, freezing within a
foot of the fire, boiling water when thrown up falling in icicles, milk pro-
duced in lumps, meat having to be thawed before it can be eaten, the
dead even being kept for months before being buried, and this enduring,
not occasionally, but for a lengthened period,--these are phenomena of
which we cannot recommend to any the practical experience. We are
bound to state that the air is so dry, the sky so clear, and the zephyr
so light and genial, that the cold looks very much greater than it feels.
The blood is so well oxygenated with the pure and exhilirating atmos-
phere, that an improved circulation, by generating great animal heat, de-
fies somewhat the external rigour. Still the mere time which winter
lasts is an intolerable nuisance to all who enjoy nature and out door life.
The same observations apply to vegetation; the cold countries of
Europe are its granaries. Polish, Tamboff, and Dantzic wheat, are the
best which come to our market. Rye, oats, barley, beans, are produced
in abundance in those frigid climes, and Holland condemned to an arctic
winter, is the dairy store of England. But for pasture and store farm,


CANADA.
ing, a six months winter forms a serious drawback, especially where
labour is expensive ; large quantities of food have to be stored for the
cattle, they have to be properly housed, their meat prepared and set
before them, their houses kept sweet, and themselves carefully tended ;
and this in a country where manure is regarded as not worth the cost
of spreading and ploughing in, is manifestly a heavy deduction to be
made from other advantages.
Major Tulloch in his military reports states, that “of all the colonial
stations occupied by our troops, rheumatic diseases affect them least in
Canada. Neither acute diseases nor deaths are so numerous by one-half
in winter there, as in summer. Remittent and intermittent diseases are
much less prevalent in Lower than in Upper Canada, and not very fre-
quent in either province; but in July the deaths in the lower province
amounted to 4,068, and in January to only 2,365. The constitution of
the soldier is not affected in any material degree by the extreme severity
of the North American winter; on the contrary, the degree of health there
enjoyed is not exceeded in any quarter of the globe.”
“ The summer heat,” observes the backwoodsman,“ of Upper Canada
generally ranges towards 80 degrees, but should the wind blow twenty-
four hours from the north, it will fall to forty degrees. One remarkable
peculiarity in the climate is its dryness---roofs of tinned iron of fifty
years standing are as bright as the day they came out of the shop; you
may have a charge of powder in your guns for a month without its hang-
ing fire; or a razor out and opened all night without a taint of rust.
Pectoral or catarrhal complaints are here hardly known. In the cathe-
dral of Montreal, where 5,000 persons assemble every Sunday, you will
seldom find the service interrupted by a cough, even in the dead of win-
ter and in hard frost; pulmonary consumption is so rare in Upper Canada
that in eight years residence I have not seen as many cases of the disease
as I have seen in a day's visit to a provincial infirmary at home. The
only disease annoying us here, to which we are unaccustomed at home,
is intermittent fever, and that, though abominably annoying, is not by
any means dangerous : indeed, one of the most annoying circumstances
connected with it is that instead of being sympathised with, you are
laughed at. Otherwise the climate is infinitely more healthy than that of
England.
Though the cold of a Canadian winter is great, it is neither distress-
ing nor disagreeable. There is no day during winter, except a rainy one,
in which a man need be kept from work. The thermometer is no judge
of temperature. Thus, with us in Canada when it is low, say zero, there
is not a breath of air, and you can judge of the cold of the morning, by
the smoke rising from the chimney of a cottage straight up, like the
steeple of a church, then gradually melting away into the beautiful clear
blue of the morning sky; yet it is impossible to go through a day's march
in your great coat, whereas at home when the wind blows from the north
east, though the thermometer stands at from 50 degrees to 60 degrees,
you find a fire far from oppressive. During the Indian summer (three
weeks of November), the days are pleasant, with abundance of sunshine,
and the nights present a cold clear black frost; then the rains commence
-then the regular winter, which if rains and thaws do not intervene is
F3


54
CANADA.
1
very pleasant---then rains and thaws again until the strong sun of mid-
dle May renders everything dry and green.”
The author of Hochelaga (Mr. Warburton) corroborates these obser-
vations, and Mrs. Jameson, although in the outset of her work slie gives
the gloomiest picture of a Canadian year, winds up, after three years ex-
perience, in high spirits, the best health, and with the most favourable
opinion of Canada “and all which it inherits.” Indeed, although com-
plaining, on her arrival, of very delicate health, she undertook long ex-
cursions down the lakes and rivers in open canoes, resting in rude tents
during the night, and suffered neither from fatigne, nor an exposure,
which most English ladies would regard as suicidal, and which undertaken
in England would be decidedly hazardous.
It is not the rigour of the winter which is so formidable in Canada,
but rather the summer heats and the sudden changes of temperature.
An Aberdeenshire gardener, settled at Montreal, observes, “the garden is
surrounded by high brick walls, covered with peach and nectarine trees;
the peaches grow to a great size, and ripen excellentiy in the open
air; the grapes bear well on the trelisses in the garden; I had a fine crop
of them, superior to any I saw in the houses at home; and the melons
are also surprisingly fine; I cut 300 melons from ground not twenty feet
by twelve, some weighing fifteen pounds; they require no attention;
just sow the seed and this is all you have to do. We sow cucumbers
about the ditches, and they produce abundantly. Gourds here weigh
fifty pounds. The thermometer stood for three months at 99 degrees all
day in the shade, and 86 all night. I thought I should be roasted alive,
being obliged to take my bed out of the house and lie in an open shed,
with nothing on but a single sheet, and after all I perspire very freely.”
In winter observes Mr. Montgomery Martin and Mr. Evans (on Cana-
dian agriculture), “ all the feathered tribe take the alarm, even the hardy
crow retreats; few quadrupeds are to be seen, some, like the bear, re-
maining in a torpid state, and others, like the hare, turning to a pure
white." “ The country is covered with snow; within doors the Cana-
dians are well secured from the cold---the apartments being heated with
stoves, and kept at a high equable temperature.
Winter is a season of
joy and pleasure, slediges, curricles fixed on skates, convey over the rivers,
lakes, and roads, visiting and pleasure parties, and dining, supping, and
balls fill up the evenings. Even the St. Lawrence is frozen over from
Quebec to Montreal."
The authoress of the “Backwoods of Canada,” after giving a glowing
account of the aspect of the country around Quebec, observes, under date
17th of August, “ the weather moderately warm (this on board ship op-
posite Montreal), and the air quite clear; we have emerged from a damp
atmosphere to a delightful summer. The further we advance the more
fertile the country appears; the harvest is ripening under a more genial
climate than that below Quebec. We see fields of Indian corn in full
flower---the farms and farm houses are really handsome places with
clumps of trees to break the monotony of the clearing. The land is
nearly an unbroken level plain, fertile and well farmed. The country
between Quebec and Montreal has all the appearance of having been long
settled under cultivation, but there is a great portion of forest still stand-


CANADA.
55
ing; many herds of cattle were feeding on little grassy islands. Some
miles below Montreal the appearance of the country became richer, more
civilized, more populous ; in the lower division of the province you feel
that the industry of the inhabitants is forcing a churlish soil for bread
in the upper, the land seems willing to yield her increase to moderate ex-
ertion. August 21.—The weather is sultry hot, accompanied by fre-
quent thunder showers; I experience a degree of langour and oppression
that is very distressing.”
Mr. Patrick Shirreff, an East Lothian farmer, who visited Canada in
1834, expresses an indifferent opinion of the country in every respect,
and a great preference for Illinois. But on comparing his narrative with
that of a very great many reliable and eminent authorities, and with
facts stated by himself, and looking to the spirit in which he views every
thing, we are not inclined to place implicit reliance on his estimate. Na-
turally of a morose temper, and tainted in his view of external appear-
ances by mere political impressions, we are more inclined to judge from
his facts than his mere dicta.
“Around Cornwall” he admits, “and more particularly from Coteau
de Lac to the Cascades, much excellent wheat was growing on clay soil,
formed into very narrow ridges. Other crops indifferent, and choked up
with perennial thistles.”
“I experienced much pleasure at finding my friends and former neigh-
bours possessing so many more old country comforts than the backwood
settlers in Upper Canada, and all enjoying good health and spirits. This
is quite an East Lothian colony; four farmers who have settled here dined
with us, and there are blacksmiths, sailors, &c., without number in the
village. The township of Hinchinbroke is a thriving settlement, and in
point of climate perhaps the best in Lower Canada. The banks of the
river are free from wood-good farms are seen.” “ The Chateauguay is
here joined by the Hinchinbroke, Trout River, and Oak Creek, the banks
of all of which are settled and abound in good situations.” Grass was in
many situations excellent, red and white clover abounding without being
sown.” “ The houses consist of wood; a log house consists of rough
logs piled above each other; dove-tailed at the corners, and the intervals
filled up with clay or other material. A block house is square logs classed.
A frame house is sawn boards nailed on a frame, lathed and plastered in-
side with pitched roofs, slated with shingles.”
“ Land in Hinchinbroke district sells moderately ; a friend bought two
hundred acres, with a frame and log house for £270 currency; another,
three hundred acres with ninety cleared, for £237.” “ The general as-
pect of the country from St. Therese to Montreal, a distance of forty
miles, closely resembles the finest parts of England. I do not recollect
of having travelled over the like extent of continuous good wheat soil in
any part of the world.”
“ Clover seeds are never sown, yet cow grass and
white clover every where abound, and often attain the utmost luxuriance.
Heaps of manure were seen dissolving to earth on the way sides." Mr.
Shirreff states that the farming is of the most wretched description, and
the sheep, cattle, and horses very inferior. The Canadians live in large
block houses, clean and neat, but deficient in orchards and the ornament
of trees. They are extremely respectful and civil. Another East Lothian


56
CANADA.
farmer, who had recently settled, told him his purchase was very cheap,
and he was in high hopes and spirits. He gives a most favourable ac-
count of the Montreal district, and recommends market gardening there
as highly lucrative. A milch cow can be grazed for the season for 4s. 3d.
The price of land on the island of Montreal varied from £10 to £20 per
acre, according to quality, situation, and buildings. Labour is cheap-
crops are reaped at 7s. 6d. per acre. An East Lothian ploughman got £12
a year, house, garden, firewood, cow's keep, oatmeal, potatoes, and peas.
Mr. Joseph Pickering, in his “ Inquiries of an Emigrant,” more than
corroborates this favorable account. He speaks of the great number of
houses and farms on the banks of the Lower Canada rivers, the neatness,
cleanliness and orderliness of the appearance of the French population,
and of the great excellence of the Canadian horses. “If not for the
extremes of climate, this might be considered almost a paradise.” At-
tended a cattle show, a few good Leicestershire sheep, good bulls. cows
indifferent, very useful English and Canadian brood mares.” “ Manure
produced splendid grass, but so disregarded that men were hired to cart
it to the river.” “The goodness and cheapness of the old cleared land,
(£5 to £6 only the acre,) low price of labour, (30s. to 35s. per month,)
point this place out as eligible for farmers with capital, as there are no
taxes.” Hemp grows very luxuriantly.” “Winter wheat is little sown;
but a Canadian informs me that he knew a small piece this season that
answered extremely well, much better than spring wheat.
The snow
would preserve it.” At Quebec district, land is good, grass fields luxu-
riant. Pasture had a fresher appearance the lower I came down the pro-
vince, attributable to the dampness of the climate, for there have been
more misty foggy days since I have been in Quebec, than I saw all the
time I was in the Upper Province.” Attended two agricultural meet-
ings. Very fine vegetables exhibited, and also fruit; excellent plough-
ing by settlers, (Irish and Scotch,) and very good cattle.
The Aberdeenshire gardener states, that in Montreal bread is cheap,
6 lbs. for 8d. ; beef 4d., pork 6d., mutton 31d. per lb.; eggs 5d. per
doz. Labourer's wages, 2s. 6d., currency; joiners 5s., masons the same;
tailors 7s. 6d.; blacksmiths 4s. 6d. Clothes dear, 30s. for making a dress
coat; 6s. for trousers ; shoes the same price as in Scotland, but not so
good.
Such is an eliptical account of the various more important particulars
relative to the lower province, which it is important for emigrants to
know. The character and topography of the various sub-districts, it is
not necessary they should learn until, being on the spot, they can inform
themselves of the minutest particulars. Here it is our object only to
supply such information as may enable them to form a general idea of
the suitableness of the province for their taste and circumstances. Our
own conclusion from the facts is, that for handicraftsmen, and persons
not proposing to follow agriculture, the chief towns of Lower Canada
form the preferable location; and that for agriculturists the Upper Pro-
vince is very much better adapted.


UPPER CANADA.
UPPER CANADA.
The area of the Western Province is 64,000,000 of acres, and the white
population is principally British, amonnting to upwards of 500,000 souls.*
It contains thirteen districts, twenty-six counties, six ridings, and 273
townships.
The climate of Canada becomes milder, and the winter shorter, the
further west the emigrant goes; “So much so," observes the report of the
government agent, that although the frost generally commences in No-
vember at its eastern extremity, and continues in that neighbourhood till
the middle of April, it rarely commences on the shores of Lake Erie
before Christmas, and usually disappears between the 25th March and
the 1st of April. On a comparison with the climate of Great Britain,
the summer heat is somewhat greater, but never oppressive, as it is
always accompanied with light breezes. There is less rain than in Eng-
land, but it falls at more regular intervals, generally in spring and
autumn. The winter's cold, though it exceeds that of the British Isles,
is the less sensibly felt on account of its dryness, and seldom continues
intense for more than three days together.” A writer in the colonial
magazine observes that “the climate is brighter, clearer, drier than
Great Britain, but neither so much warmer in summer, nor so much
colder in winter, as to prove disagreeable: it is neither scorched by the
sultry summers of the south, nor blasted by the biting winters of the
north.” There is, at least, the difference of a month or six week's dura-
tion of winter between Quebec and Lake Ontario.
Mr. Pickering's diary gives an exact account of the climate for each
day of three years. A few extracts will convey a more precise idea than
any general description. August 16, (1825.) Harvest finished, -rain
all day. Sowed wheat from beginning of September to 5th October.
Cut Indian corn 20th September. December 10. Summer and fall
remarkably dry, and still continues. November was mild and pleasant, at
times too warm. 21. Snow not half an inch deep, but sharpish frost.
January 1st, (1826.) A few very sharp, frosty days, with a little snow.
February 12. Steady frost three or four weeks. Last winter hardly any
frost in Western Province. 26. Quite moderate of late ; quite mild and
thawing. March 12. Frost out of ground, ice off lake; rain; foggy.
19. Three severe cold days, and snow storms, gone again with thunder;
26. Frosty, cold, wet, mild ; thermometer up to temperate, and below
* The total population of British America, appears to be 1,639,715, including New
Foundland and Honduras. The latest account assigns 623,649 to Lower Canada,
and 506,855 to Upper Canada. We are therefore not a little perplexed to find it
stated by the Honorable J. H. Boulton of Toronto, M. P. for the county of Norfolk,
in Canada, that Canada alone contains a population fast approaching to 2,000,000.
It is still more inexplicable to reflect that if the return be correct which gives only
1,199,704, to the two provinces, that of that amount no less than 767,373 are made
up of emigrants direct from the mother country; a number greater than the whole
existing British population of the provinces, if it be true as stated in the last ac-
counts, that the native Canadian habitans muster upwards of 500,000, souls, This
fact would certainly give countenance to the received impression that upwards of
60 per cent. of ali emigrants to British America, find their way, ultimately, to the
United States.
66


58
UPPER CANADA.
freezing point. April 2. Fine pleasant days, some frosty nights. 8. Partly
wet and cold, partly fine and pleasant. Sowing spring wheat and clover;
sheep lambing; calves and cows turned out to grass. 15. Three rather
severe frosty days; 17, 13 then 53 degrees above Zero. Sowing peas,
kidney beans, garden turnips. 22. Cold. Spring later than usual;
spring wheat coming up. 29. Heavy rain; fruit, wheat, grass begin to
bud. May 6. Stormy and cold; one very warm day; 71 deg. at noon,
generally 48 deg. to 62 deg.; peas up. 13. Warm growing week, 65 deg.
morning, 81 deg. noon. 20. Dry, warm, 60 deg. to 65 deg. Planted
Indian corn. June 4. Foggy; Indian corn and oats up; potatoes planted.
6. 81 deg., 88 deg. at Montreal. 10. Very hot week; cutting clover;
wild grapes in blossom. 18. Rain and cool, 55 deg. to 67 deg. 24. Rainy.
July 1. Fine and temperate. 22. Harvest general. 29. A cool week,
70 deg.; mornings rather cold. Aug. 5. Another mild week. 12. Very
hot; no wind; 83 deg. 19. Hot week; 75 deg. to 85 deg. 26. From
this date to 14th September, very fine weather, 58 deg. to 76 deg.
16. Warm; nights cold ; 53 deg. morning, 71 deg. noon. 23. Some
thunder and rain ; all fruits ripe, and potatoes plentiful and ripe. Oct.
1. A beautiful day, serene sky; still air; covered with flowers. 8. Very
fine week, 45 deg. morning, 60 deg. noon. Potatoes all up. 14. Some
rain, but fine and pleasant week. 55 deg. to 63 deg. 21. Frosty morn-
ings, days warm. Nov. 1. Mild and pleasant; a little rain; 50 deg. and
60 deg. 4. Snows and sleets all day. 5. Thaw to day. 8. Heavy rain;
snow washed away. Dec. 5. Fine pleasant day. 25. Frost has set in
sharp; plenty of snow, six or eight inches. Feb. 23, (1827.) A beautiful
clear day; snow wasting. March 25. Open weather; some days mild
and pleasant; ice off the lake, frost off the ground, snow all gone.
April 1. mild air, cloudless sky. 2. Beautiful and warm. 5. Wheat
grows and looks well.
9. Spring in all its beauty. June 1. Frosty
nights, warm days. 10. dry and warm ; wheat in ear. July 2. Pleasant;
sultry. 23. Harvest general. August 1. Mild, moderate, some rain.
Sept. 10. Weather of late fine and pleasant. Few very hot days. Oct. 1.
For a fortnight cloudy and coldish. Winter 1827-8, open and dry. Wet,
cold spring, but without snow of any consequence.
Summer 1828.
Various; some very hot days, but generally pleasant, with showers.
Indian corn excellent. Fall of 1828. Sickly. May 1, 29. Winter
mild, open, till 11th February, when a little snow, sharp frost, no rain,
snow off in the end of March; showers to 1st of April. May rather hot,
86 deg. at times. June and up to July, cool and pleasant, 76 deg.
The lady who writes letters from the backwoods observes, under date,
November 20.-"My experience of the climate hitherto is favourable.
Autumn very fine, slight frosts on September mornings; more severely
in October, but during the day warm and cheerful. November in the
beginning soft and warm ; latterly, keen frosts and snowfalls, but bright
and dry. May 9, 1833, snows of December continually thawing; not a
flake on 1st of January ; couldn't bear a fire; weather open till 29th of
January, then cold set in severely. 1st of March, coldest day and night
I ever feit, even painful ; 25 degrees below Zero in the house; breath
corigealed on the blankets, and metal froze to our fingers ; lasted only
three days, and then grew warmer. 19th of March, snow lay deep till a


UPPER CANADA.
59
fortnight ago, when a rapid thaw has brought a warm and balmy spring.
Though the Canadian winter has its disadvantages, it has also its charms;
the sky brightens ; air exquisitely clear and dry; I enjoy a walk in the
woods of a bright winter day, when not a cloud, or the faint shadow of a
cloud, obscures the soft azure of the heavens above; and but for the
silver covering of the earth, I might say, 'It is June, sweet June.' May
10th, the weather oppressively warm ; I am glad to sit at the door and
enjoy the lake breeze; black flies and mosquitoes annoying ; forest trees
all in leaf; verdure most vivid. November 2, 1833, changeable seasons;
spring warm and pleasant; from May to middle of harvest, heavy rains,
cloudy skies, moist hot days; autumn wet and cold; I must say at pre-
sent I do not think very favourably of the climate. March 14, 1834,
you say the rigours of a Canadian winter will kill me; I never enjoyed
better health, nor so good as since it commenced; there is a degree of
spirit and vigour infused into one's blood by the purity of the air that is
quite exhilarating; I have often felt the cold on a windy day in Britain
more severe than in Canada. There are certainly some days of intense
cold, but it seldom endures more than three days together; and blazing
log fires warm the house, and when out of doors you suffer less in-
convenience than you would imagine while you keep in motion. July
13th, winter broke up early, by end of February snow disappeared ;
March mild and pleasant; last week of April trees all in leaf. 16th of
May, cold sharp winds; heavy storms of snow nipped the young buds
and early seeds. November 28th, winter fairly setting in; I do like the
Canadian winter."
“You ask me if I like the climate of Upper Canada; I do not think it
deserves all travellers have said about it; last summer very oppressive ;
drought extreme; frosts set in early ; very variable; no two seasons alike
owing to clearing of the forest; near the rivers and lakes the climate is
much milder and more equable.”
Mr. Shirreff estimates the duration of winter in Upper Canada at four
months, and observes: “Upper Canada differs from the lower province in
climate by having a longer summer and a shorter winter ; while the ex-
tremes of heat and cold, as indicated by the thermometer, are nearly the
same in both provinces. The waters of the St. Lawrence and lakes, in-
clining to the north-east, the climate improves in ascending the waters
till reaching Amhersthurgh in about 42 degrees of latitude. The pro-
vince, as far as it is accurately known, has not an eminence of sufficient
height to affect temperature, and the climate of different situations may
be estimated according to their latitudes. In the most southerly parts,
near the head of Lake Erie, the length of the winter varies from two to
three months; ploughing commences about the 1st of April, and cattle
and horses are allowed to roam in the woods during winter, a practice
which marks the mildness of the climate, and also perhaps the laziness of
the inhabitants. The climate of Upper Canada is as healthy as the lower
province, although the inhabitants are more liable to sickness from the
surface not being so well cleared of forest."
We have here given in detail a complete narrative of the incidents of
the climate of Canada with perhaps some prolixity, and exhibited it as it
affects a practical farmer of the country, an occasional visitor, and a lady


60
UPPER CANADA.
settler. To us it appears the most important inquiry connected with
these settlements, because, except on the score of climate, they present
far greater advantages of soil, productions, communication, supply of
labour, and proximity to markets, than any other.
It is obvious that Upper Canada is by no means so agreeable a climate
as those which we shall have afterwards occasion to notice; nor perhaps
is it, on the whole, so free from causes of disease. Regions which can
produce two crops in the year, which can receive all seeds without risk
of destruction by frost, and can raise fruits and other vegetables of almost
a tropical character, cannot fail also to offer great facilities to the agri-
culturist, store farmer, and wool grower. They are also much less liable
to the fever and ague which produce such annoyance in countries liable
to extremes, and to great deposits of vegetable alluvion on the shores of
lakas and rivers.
But while these differences ought to be duly appreciated, it appears to
us from the foregoing vidimus of the Canadian weather, that the climate
of Upper Canada, especially towards the north and west, is by no means
so objectionable as has been represented ; that its rigours are not so for-
midable, and that every day the progress of settlement is diminishing
their severity. A certain degree of rigour is protective of health; it
effectually kills corruption, pulverizes the soil, and braces the system;
the complaints of sickness are not so great anywhere in Canada as in the
United States. The aspect of the people is less sodden and parched; the
flesh is more rounded, and consumption is not so common as in the
eastern states, or fever so frequent as in the western.
We ought however to state our impression, that both here and in
the Western States, much is attributed to the climate with which it has
nothing to do. The depression which attacks new settlers at the thought
of having parted with their native home, renders them liable to attacks
which would otherwise not affect them; the despondency which weighs
upon them as their first difficulties arise, assists other febrile causes; the
fatigue and exposure they encounter ; the want of that care to provide
against the physical consequences of contact with the elements, and of
the temporary deprivation of those means of comfort which they before
enjoyed, have all to be taken into account. Delicate females, gentlemen
who never before handled an axe, cannot all at once entirely change
comfort for privation or toil, without being affected by the transition;
but we believe the greatest mortality to arise from the sudden and com-
plete change experienced by starving peasants, from famine in Ireland
or want in England, to a country where whisky is to be had for 3d. per
bottle; where butcher's meat is served to the labourer three times every
day; and where there are pickles and sauces, and preserves, and pies,
and fruits, and kinds of bread and vegetables innumerable, at their com-
mand, to any extent to which their consuming power may reach.
It is our decided opinion that, if all classes would be as careful of avoid-
ing unnecessary exposure in Canada as the same persons were in England,
and if they would be as moderate in their eating and drinking, both as
to quantity and (especially) quality, they would enjoy better health in the
dry atmosphere of Upper Canada than in the humid climate of England.
But daily whisky, hourly tobacco, in smoke, or juice, long sauce, short


UPPER CANADA.
61
sauce, sour pickles, pork, pumpkin pie, Johnny cake, corn bread, and
bread in every indigestible shape in which it can be devised, acid fruits
in high summer, every variety of vegetable in every forın of cookery,
medicine and advice miles distant, changes of clothing after exertion, or
the broiling of a hot sun not very accessible; these are incidents which
would make a “stomach doctor's” hair stand on end, and would in this
country kill off a greater number than in Canada. Even in England typhus
and other intermittents carry off an enormous mass of our population,
while consumption, a disease little known in Upper, and not very much
in Lower Canada, is our perpetual scourge. Cholera, influenza, are
more fatal here than in the colonies, and the observations made by our
military physicians with regard to the health of our troops at our dif-
ferent stations, where all other circumstances are precisely the same, lead
to the conclusion that they enjoy as good health in Canada as in any
other colony.
A great contrast exists betwixt the condition of the Canadian popula-
tion, and that of the inhabitants of the United States. The conter-
minous republicans are greatly more industrious, active enterprising,
and prosperous, than the colonists-indeed, so much more so, that while
the emigrants from the United Kingdom to all parts for the twenty-four
years ending 1848, numbered 1,985,686, the proportion which went
direct to the United States, was 1,040,797, and in 1848 alone, 188,233,
while those to our colonies, in that year, only numbered 59,856, and
of those who yearly land in Canada great numbers (sixty per cent.),
percolate to the neighbouring republic. From New Brunswick alone we
are informed that 20,000 souls removed to the States last year, and from
Bremen the migration thither is 60,000 souls yearly. Our French ha-
bitans, a simple but unenergetic race, are ill adapted to inake a stirring
colony. The enormous tracts of land granted to absentees and reserved
to the clergy, intervene betwixt the “ clearings” of the settlers, and ob-
struct that concentration of population which is necessary to effective co-
operation. The absence of entire self-government in the colonies has the
necessary effect of rendering publie spirit apathetic, nor can it be stimu-
lated, by that sense of nationality which energizes an independent po-
pulation. Above all, the mutual co-operation of eighteen millions of
people, spread over a surface raising every variety of produce, and
commanding every variation of climate, must necessarily be much moro
effective than that of a million and a half of a mixed race inhabiting a
region where there is no diversity, either of production, climate, or
circumstances. Undoubtedly also, for the mere production of wealth,
the southern and the most western states, with a very short winter,
vast prairies, large tracts of alluvial valley, and seasons, which in many
districts bring tropical productions, and in all Indian corn, to perfection,
are better adapted than our colonies. In proportion, however, nearly to
their productiveness, is their unhealthiness. The valley of the Mississippi,
along a great part of its course, is a mere grave, and as a general rule it
would appear to hold true that the milder the climate, the more prevalent
is fever and ague. It is also worthy of notice that not only are the prices
realised for produce in Canada better than they are in the Western States,
in comparison to the cost of transit, but that the greater proximity of
G


LOCATIONS.
03
lot, and bear with sprightliness that burden which becomes light when it
is well borne.”
LOCATIONS.
Mr. Perguson recommends Toronto as the head quarters of those who
intend making a purchase of land. There he is sure to meet with nu-
merous offers of farms, and, in inspecting the plans of the public land,
he will be enabled to avail himself of the valuable advice and assist-
ance of the superintendent. The rich and heavy land of Upper Canada
is not to be found in general on the immediate banks of lakes or rivers.
The Gore, Niagara, London and Western districts of the Western sec-
tion of the province, Mr. Bouchette regards as the most eligible for
settlement, having a pleasant climate, excellent land, and numerous
useful rivers. The Simcoe district is equally recommended, and re-
garded as more free from ague. Mr. M'Grath speaks highly of
the township of Adelaide in the London district, where he preferred
the “ bush” to cleared land. Mr. Sommerville, of Mayfield, town-
ship, of Whitby, near Windsor Bay, gave £260 for one hundred acres
in that district (fifty-nine cleared), and from his account it would
appear that it is most desirable to purchase land partly cleared, as a
mere question of profit and loss, to say nothing of the comfort.
His neighbour, an emigrant from Scotland purchased two hundred
acres, and although he commenced without capital, and also once lost all
his property by fire, he had at the end of twelve years three hundred
acres cleared, and was worth £3,000-while another of three years
standing had increased £500 to £1,200. The backwoodsman regards the
London and Western districts as the garden of Canada, and concurs with
several authorities in thinking the Huron Tract as the most eligible, of
the best quality of soil, of large extent, (thus affording choice of selec-
tion), superior water privileges, and water conveyance to carry away the
produce. It is also very healthy, and the prevailing westerly winds,
blowing over the lake, which never freezes, temper the rigour of the
frosts and summer heat. It has also good roads, and is becoming rapidly
settled. Mr. Evans says the whole tract is alluvial in formatlon, of a
rich deep vegetable mould intermixed with sandy loam.
To intending settlers this general description of the districts is better
than minute details which can be more precisely ascertained at Toronto
or other head quarters, brought up to the most recent date, in a country
where changes from wilderness to population are very rapid and
capricious.
* "Lower Canada was left out of the comparison (between Canada and the
States), on account of its long and severe winter. There was a general agreement
that the triangular territory of which two sides are formed by Lakes Ontario, Erie,
and Huron, is as fertile as any tract of the same extent in the States."
“ It is probable that the, as yet, very thinly populated, but fertile district on the
lakes, may take great strides in advance of the rest of Canada ; and a well informed
farmer, who is settled twenty miles back from Toronto, told me, that a British far-
iner, possessing from £200 to £500, accustomed to work and plain living, could not
fail to do well. I asked how a man with a £1,000 could do. He could do any,
G 2


64
CHOICE AND COST OF LAND.
CHOICE AND COST OF LAND,
.
The government price of land in Upper Canada is bs. 7d. per acre,
and not less than one hundred acres can be sold to each individual. Clergy
reserves Is. 6d. ; the Canada Company charge from 7s. 4d. to 35s. per
acre for wild land according to situation. The expense of clearing land
ranges from £3 10s. to £4 10s. per acre. Mr. Butler gives an estimate
of the expense of clearing twenty acres, and the concurrent profit for the
first three years cropping, from which it would appear, that by the pro-
cess of chopping, the mere clearing would be £80, seed, labour, &c., &c.,
£37 10s., and the profit £165, leaving a balance of £47 10s. By “slash-
ing" the cost would be £133 14s., and the gross profit £201.
A farm of good land can be purchased, says Mr. Pickering, about
Talbot district, or almost anywhere in the Western part of the province,
at from lls. 3d. to 22s. 6d. per acre.
A farm of two hundred acres,
seventy cleared, with a good log or small frame house, a barn, and a
young orchard, &c., &c., say at 18s, per acre, or £180 ; (£22 10s. down,
and so forth yearly), may settle very comfortably a farmer with £200,
and cover all necessary outgoings. Stocking the farm, furnishing the
house, and paying the first deposit, would cost £148 10s. A year's ex-
pehses would be £126 13s. 6d., and gross profits £260 5s. “With the
beef and vegetables allowed in the calculation, 282 dollars will
keep a family of four or five persons well during the year,
leaving a clear profit of 200 dollars, or £45, besides the improve-
ment of the farm; and if hemp and tobacco were made part of the
productions, the profits probably would be larger.” Mr. M'Grath cal-
culated the cost of purchasing and clearing an acre of land at £6 6s., and
the proceeds at £8 15s., leaving a first year's profit of £2 8s. 3d. Mr.
Ferguson, in his practical notes, calculates that a farmer, with a capital of
£500 in the township of Nichol, would clear £200 the first year, £380
the second, £420 the third, and £600 the fourth, besides a cleared farm,
fenced, and with the necessary stock and buildings, being equivalent in all
to £1,200 in four years. This calculation is indeed severely criticised by
Mr. Shirreff, who considers that at the end of the fourth year the settler
is only worth £427 8s. 2d. after paying all expenses.
But we think this
writer is not borne out by other authorities upon the subject.
Mr. M‘Grath gives the preference to the plan of buying uncleared land
to that of buying a cleared farm. It is secured against having been run
out, and the title is unquestionable. No doubt it would be a useful
precaution in taking a cleared farm, to have it for a year on trial, so
that the purchaser may satisfy himself of the good heart of the soil —
but with that precaution and with proper care, in seeing to the title, there
can be no doubt of the superior advantage of taking cleared land by in-
experienced persons accustomed to a European life.
thing! be said, He could be either a farmer or a dealer. Bless yon, sir, £1,000 of
your money makes a considerably snug man, cither in Canada or ti. Slites.
gether (at Toronto), there was as much outward appearance of advancement, as in
the towns on the States side."'-PRENTICE
Alto.


LIFE IN CANADA.
65
The rent of a cleared farm in fine situations is from 10s. to 20s. per
acre, and in less populous places from 5s. to 10s. The most common
method is farming on shares, the proprietor receiving one half or one
third of the produce. The erection of a GOOD LOG HOUSE costs from
£35 to £60; a frame house about £90; barn and stables from £30 to
£40. The Emigration Commissioners calculate the profits on farming
at thirty per cent. on the capital.
LIFE IN CANADA.
A Scotch settler emigrating to Lower Canada with £300, purchased
300 acres (50 cleared,) with a log-hut and a good framed barn, price
£300 by annual instalments of £100 the first year, and £50 each of the
others, with interest at 16 per cent. A yoke of oxen cost £15, three
cows £15, ten sheep £5, a horse £7, agricultural implements, furniture,
kitchen utensils, pigs, poultry, &c. The first year he put in a small crop,
raised fences, cleared 3 acres of woodland, which he sowed with wheat
in September, and occupied the autumn with his late oats, potatoes, and
Indian corn; he hired another man to cut the trees into lengths to burn,
and by the 10th of April he had completed the clearing of 30 acres, be-
sides splitting rails and making firewood. In spring he had only £50
left, and £200 yet to pay; his 30 acres of crop looked indifferent; there
were great falls of rain, his horse died, his sheep were devoured by
wolves, and an old sow gobbled up all his goslings. But it soon cleared
up, his felled timber became very dry and easily burned; he planted
20 acres of Indian corn between the stumps, and 10 acres of oats and
wheat. The rest of his money was spent on clearing 5 acres of wheat,
and in turning his oxen into good pasture for Montreal market in winter;
his crops were good, his potash from his burnt timber sold well; he pur-
chased another yoke of oxen, and got in his fire-wood before winter. The
result was that, in a few years, his property was worth not less than
£3000; he received letters from his brothers located in Illinois, which
gave a deplorable account of their health and condition.
Another emigrant, from Beith, Ayrshire, travelled through the Western
States, and gave a most favourable account of Illinois, but a very in-
different report of the climate as indicated by the appearance of the
people. But we are inclined to suspect that both statements in this
respect are prejudiced or interested by the fact of these persons being
Canadian settlers; and it ought not to be forgotten that, in all countries,
England as well as others, epidemics seize whole counties. It was but
the year before last that influenza was so universal that the death column
of the Times was five times its usual length, and that institutions and
schools were entirely closed from the universal prevalence of disease.
The last emigrant, above mentioned, purchased a good farm in Upper Ca-
nada, and reports favourably of his own prospects and those of his
neighbours. He also says that farms to let, yield to the proprietor a return
of upwards of 10 per cent.
A Scotch settler speaks highly of Sandwich in the Western District, as
possessing a very fine soil and excellent markets, particularly at Detroit;
0 3


66
LIPE IN CANADA.
“but what chiefly fixed his determination was the salubrity of the cli-
mate, which is immeasurably superior to most other places.” Another
in Zorra cautions emigrants against States' notes, and observes that,
although his health had been very bad in Aberdeenshire, in Canada he
had not had an hour's sickness in ten months of hard work, and a very
rough life of it, and that it is a very fine country. A settler at St. Clair
recommends New York as the best port of debarkation; he speaks most
favourably as to health, calls the climate moderate, not having been pre-
vented for a single day from outdoor work, and never housing cattle in
winter ; he dissuades all from going to Lower Canada, Halifax, or
St. John's, on account of the severity of the winter. And although he
landed without a shilling, his prospects soon rose to such a point that he
became proprietor of 200 acres of land, and £22 in money. A clergy-
man at Perth U.C. says: “As to farming, with a family able and willing
to work, your friend may live very comfortably. Few people accustomed
to home comforts like this place at first, but most settlers become fond of
it after a short residence."
The lady emigrant describes the district of Peterborough as eligible,
and the society, composed to a great extent of British officers, as excellent.
They keep stores, cultivate farms, and they-and their families cheerfully
put their hands to any kind of work. She likes the manners, and parti-
cularly the tendencies of the United States' settlers, which, though,
extremely cold and simple, are really polite and kind.* She gives a less
favourable account of those of British settlers of the lower classes, parti-
cularly Irish and Scotch, who are too apt to mistake rudeness and even
insolence for independence. Settlement in the bush is earnestly de-
precated from the many hardships it at first entails; supplies run short;
there are no, or very bad, roads; cattle are lost, cows die of a hard winter,
pigs trespass everywhere, and you have to put up with a shanty for
a year or two. After making their purchase of a “lake lot,” the
lady and her husband, “through bush and through briar,” reach it with
difficulty, and are welcomed by, and become the temporary guests of, the
kindest neighbours. A “bee" is called to build the house, which con-
sists of friendly meetings of neighbours who assemble at your summons
to raise the walls of your buildings. You provide abundance of food and
plenty of whisky, and everybody considers himself bound to turn out to
help the stranger. It was the end of October; sixteen good Samaritans
assembled; the work went merrily on, with the help of plenty of whisky.
Huge joints of salt pork, a peck of potatoes, a rice pudding, and a loaf
big as Cheshire cheeses, formed the feast. In spite of the differences of
rank, the greatest harmony prevailed, and by night the outer walls were
raised.” “A nice small sitting-room with a store-closet, a kitchen
# " The look and demeanour of the men in the United States is rather staid and
aristocratic than otherwise; self-introductions are made respectfully but with-
out grimace, or the affeeted gesture of an overstrained courtesy.'
“I could not help marking the quiet and gentlemanly demeanour of the company,
a great portion of whom were talí, fine-grown men, with a very intellectual cast of
countenance. As we did not find two seats together, a gentleman said courteously,
You are strangers. you would like to sit together; I will fiud another seat for my-
self.' There was no hurry—the Americans do not seem to be in a hurry--but they
get on.' "-PRENTICE.


LIFE IN CANADA.
67
pantry, and bed-chamber, form the ground floor; there is a good upper
foor that will make three sleeping rooms; a verandah to the south with
slopes adorned with beautiful parasitical plants, forms a summer dining-
room; the parlour is warmed by a Franklin stove, and the furniture
simple, useful, and neat, adorns the dwelling with humble comfort. The
Indian summer is succeeded by walks through the snow-clad woods, and
spring brings round the manufacture of sugar from maple sap,
“ little if
at all inferior to muscovado." Then comes oppressively warm weather,
and with it black flies and mosquitoes, and their consumers the lake
fish, masquinonge, salmon-trout, white fish, black bass, and many
others. Fishing and shooting the myriads of wild fowl which re-appear
at the breaking up of the ice, combine pleasure with profit; then came a
logging bee to burn up the timber felled on the clearings for potash ; the
ground fenced and crops of oats, corn, pumpkins, potatoes, and turnips
raised, which however are regarded as less profitable than the rearing of
stock, as a labourer receives ten dollars a month and his board, while
wheat fetches only from 3s. to 4s. per bushel. The return of winter
brought scenes of picturesque beauty and exhilirating pedestrian and
sleighing excursions to cordial neighbours and Indian villages, and all
seasons in their turn brought their interest to the ornithologist and
botanist in the profusion of the flowers and the variety of the birds. Then
came in the usual course a farm cleared, a new house built, numerous
new settlers, roads cut, a village, mills, and a steam-boat on the lake.
Fever and ague laid the family prostrate, but only for a short time; and
their crowning luxury was a garden producing every variety of fruit and
vegetable in perfection.
A clergyman planted himself in the bush with his family; their fare
was salt pork and potatoes three times a day; often no bread, except
made of crushed corn from a bad hand-mill; their cow died of the hard,
fodderless winter; a shanty imperfectly kept out the cold; next year a
block-house improved their comforts; after a general ague and many
privations, clearings made progress, the tide of settlement set in; a saw
mill was built; then a grist mill, two stores, and at last a village. Land
rose in value; a congregation restored the parson to his proper duties,
and all has gone well with him.
The letters of the Magrath family are well deserving of perusal. “Being
informed,” they proceed, “at Toronto, that the emigrant can purchase
wild land at 5s. or 10s. an acre, the writer proceeds to inspect--for
fifteen miles in a public coach; then by a hired wagon, and a guide, and
roosts for the first night in a settler's shanty. Ill refreshed, he starts
next morning, and at length is told by his companion, this is the lot.'”
He returns to the shanty where the settler is ready to share his last loaf
with a new neighbour. Engaging accommodation for his family at the
nearest farm, he conveys them by a new purchased wagon and horses,
with provisions for six weeks to his lot. Men, oxen, sleighs are pro-
cured, a brush road made, a wooden camp erected, bedding and provisions
deposited in it, and a frying-pan, dinner of pork and paste cakes con-
sumed. A log-hut is then erected, and the family planted. The expense
of all this, of clearing ten acres, and buying two hundred, is stated at
£178; for £29 more he may at once find a lot partially cleared; ten


68
LIFE IN CANADA.
arable acres in good heart, house, and offices ready built, including a
dairy, wash, and fowl-house and garden; “thus enjoying, in his first
year, many necessaries and comforts (and of his own production,) that
could not be grown till the second in the bush, and being enabled to
purchase others at a moderate rate, in an established settlement, which
in a new one must be procured at an advanced price.” Mr. T. W. Ma-
grath purchased 700 acres in the bush eighteen miles from Toronto, for
£325, and with the aid of seventy kind neighbours, they erected a house
of three stories, a verandah, a barn 60 feet by 36 and 18 feet high, an ice
and root house, and dairy, at the cost of good will, 12 dollars, and 2s. 10d.
worth of nails. The family, with the aid of two carpenters, finished the
inside handsomely. Twenty acres were meanwhile cleared with hired
help, planted with wheat between the stumps, and sown down with
timothy, grass, and clover. After wheat, hay is the only crop taken, till
the removal of the stumps, when the plough has room to enter. Of this
two tons are cut per acre with the cradle scythe, which gets through from
two to three acres a day.
The man who has land and seed, leaves the management of them to
the labourer on shares, who takes half the produce, and draws the rest
into the barn of the proprietor. On taking logs to be sawed, one half are
left for payment; and wool is carded, spun, and woven into cloth, on the
same plan of taking part in payment of the rest.
“ When we first came here,” observes Mr. Magrath, our hands were
delicate, unused to manual labour, but seeing every one round us, inagis-
trates, senators, councillors, and colonels, labouring steadily, we fairly set
to. Charles can make a great gap in a field of corn, and James can cut
two acres of rye before dinner. He makes all the waggons, sleighs,
harrows, &c., and I shoe the horses, make gates, fences, chimney pieces,
and furniture, -an ivory tooth for my girl, and an iron one for my
harrow,--work in the potatoe field in the morning, and figure at the
Toronto ball at night."
Mr. Radcliffe, his brother and their friends settled in the Huron tract,
in the bush, and gave ten shillings per acre for uncleared land. His
house, 46 feet by 16 feet, and consisting of a parlour, drawing room, hall,
kitchen, five bed rooms, two stacks of chimneys, and Cantalievre roof,
cost £50. His brother's large log house cost £25. Their farms in the
Adelaide district were beautifully situated and of fine soil, well timbered.
Venison brought to the door at a half-penny per lb., mutton, beef, fowls
and potatoes. Butter 7d. Cattle do not stand the winter in the woods
well, at least the first year. Clearing by task is done at 28s. per acre;
but care should be taken to have a written agreement at the sight of
arbitrators. “Now my dear A.,” he continues, as to advising you
vhether to come out or not, as I promised to do, I can safely say from all
I have seen and heard, that if you can contrive to reach my house with
£500 in your pocket, you may, with your present experience, insure your-
self a certain and gentleman-like independence.”
“We are now comfortably settled, and should have little to complain
of if the state of the roads would permit me to haul my luggage up from
the lake; but the mildness of the winter prevents this, as there has not
yet been sufficient frost and snow to admit of sleighing. What render's
66


LIFE IN CANADA.
69
We are
this settlement peculiarly agreeable is, its being peopled by British fami-
lies of respectability, living within a few minute's walk of me.
making rapid advances, and there is every reason to look forward to the
future with the happiest anticipations.
“ Whenever you have money to transmit, lodge it to my credit with
the London agents for the bank of U. C., as it will be paid by the bank
at York, with the benefit of exchange. Bank stock is now upwards of
12 per cent.”
These letters contain many animating descriptions of sport, in hunting,
fowling, and fishing, from which it would appear that Canada abounds
with game of all kinds; and they conclude with a caution against being
deceived with the high nominal wages given. In comparison to the
superior value of the work done, and the cheapness of food, it is not
considered that the wages in Canada are very much greater than those in
England, while it has to be remembered that a Canadian shilling is much
less than an English one, and that wages are often paid in truck, by an
order on a store, for goods which are charged at a high rate of profit.
We have already observed upon the dry-haired grumbling depreciation
which runs through Mr. Sherriff's account of Canada, and which appears
to have been poisoned by political animosities. He is flatly contradicted
by nearly every authority on the subject, and we place small reliance on
his dicta. He states that game of every description is so scarce as hardly
to be said to exist, while we find it a universal statement that it is so
abundant. Wolves, bears, cat-a-mounts are generally complained of
by the farmer. Beavers, racoons, martens, deer, hares, partridges,
pigeons, ducks, wild turkeys, quails, a great variety of fish are abundant.
Any person of the slightest reflection must see that this must be so, from
the vast expanse of forest and prairie, the large space of uncleared land,
and the great extent of water. Snakes of many, some of dangerous kinds,
are found in particular districts, but they do not seem to produce much
annoyance. A much more troublesome vicinage is that of black flies
and musquitoes, and also, for vegetable life, the wheat and turnip fly.
A large farming capitalist, in the township of Yorra, grows more and
more enthusiastic in favor of the country: climate delightful,-neigh-
bours excellent and obliging,-would not, for twenty thousand pounds,
return to Scotland. I rise at five; while the servants manage breakfast,
I light the fire, to have all ready by daylight. My shoes are not blacked,
but greased. I have cut down twenty acres, --seven axes getting through
an acre a day. As currency goes as far here as sterling in England, I am
a gainer of more than a fifth; with the high rate of interest, cheapness of
living, and exemption from taxes, I am at least three times as rich a man
as I was at home."
These pages are written not for the purpose of forming a vade mecum
to a settler after he is located. He will get far better advice and infor-
mation as to details on the spot from his neighbours than any to be found
iu books. Minute directions as to distances, routes, conveyances, fares
are also much inore accurately afforded at Quebec or New York, by
Emigration Agents or Societies, who can supply the most recent informa-
tion, and who, from the increased facilities which every day presents for
locomotion, can promise the emigrant quicker and cheaper transport


70
LIPE IN CANADA.
than even the latest news to Europe could supply. We have abstained
also from giving all cut and dried tables of the various items of the cost
of settling, and carrying, and farming operations, as the sum total is the
only thing which can be usefully communicated to the emigrant here;
and these estimates vary as to particulars, sometimes to a bewildering
extent. The regulations of Emigrant ships are always to be found on
board--and with regard to these it is enough to say that they form an
ample provision for the protection of the voyager, who has only to see
that they are rigidly enforced in his own favour.
Our aim has been to present the emigrant, of any degree or pursuit,
with such a general, yet complete view of the position and prospects of
a settler in Canada, of the kind of life he will lead, and of the country
which he may adopt, as to enable him to form a sound judgment of his
chances of success and happiness; and to regulate his choice as to the
place of his destination. All accounts agree in the assurance of the en-
counter of certain hardship, and early privations-and in making hard
work, great industry, cautious frugality, and sobriety, and courageous
perseverance, indispensable conditions of success. Very few of the cor-
respondents who write home appear to have escaped fever and ague, but
not one appears to have sustained any serious inconvenience from the
visitation, except in very unfavourable situations. Of other diseases
there appear to be few, especially of the thoracic viscera; and the mea-
sure of health enjoyed by the population appears to be rather greater
than in England. The extremes of heat and cold seem to be intense only
for two or three days at a time either way—but the fact that the cold frost-
bites off the toes of poultry, shows that occasionally the low temperature
must be intolerable. We incline to the impression that Canada is a more
healthy, but less pleasant climate than that of the United States; and
the fact that such vast numbers of emigrants who go expressly to Canada,
move forward to the States, is to our mind demonstrative of the supe-
rior advantages of the latter. Still it must not be forgotten that there has
also been a considerable immigration of Yankees into Canada, that the
large influx into our American colonies from England is a proof of their
advantages, that extensive improvements, especially in water commuui-
cation, are continually in progress in the provinces, that a thoroughly
English society of a pleasant and congenial kind is to be found in all the
settled districts of Upper Canada, that the people are little distracted by
the excitement of politics, and that they are the most lightly taxed peo-
ple on the face of the earth, possessing at the same time, ample provision
for defence, education, and religion. So rapidly does the climate improve
by settlement, that colonization, on an extensive scale, cannot fail ma-
terially to mitigate the rigours of the region; and we feel convinced
that nine-tenths of the privation, hardship, annoyance, and disease of
which emigrants complain, might be effectually obviated by settlement
on a large and liberal plan, and in a well digested systematic form. An
outlay of four or five millions a year for a few years, advanced by gov-
ernment on the credit of the poor rates, which would be ultimately saved
by colonizing the paupers, would relieve the mother country of unpro-
fitable subjects, and give us profitable consumers of our manufactures on
the other side of the Atlantic. It is in vain that Mr. Muntz and other


VOLUNTARY EMIGRATION.-STATE COLONIZATION.
71
crotcheteers urge that, if this or that were to happen, or the other were
to be done, which does not happen, and will not be done, there would be
no need of emigrating, and there would be abundance of employment
for double our existing population. We have not treated of emigration
as a banishment or a necessity—and whatever its effect may be on those
who remain at home, there can be little doubt that it is a relief to the
starving and desperate condition of those who go abroad. We are sim-
ple enough to believe that a freehold, and the life of a farmer in Canada
is preferable to the condition of a miner, or scavenger, or handloom
weaver, or navigator, or road maker in England, even if he could be
guaranteed constant employment. We believe that if our constitutional
policy could admit of the masses of our people being distributed over
our own soil as yeomen, the population would be far happier than they
are, and would consume three times the quantity of manufactures that
they do. As that is impracticable, or is at least not done, the next best
thing is to make them yeomen elsewhere. Let this be done on a truly
national scale, and we make no doubt that a great and happy people may
be called into existence in Canada, and that our exports to that colony
would amply repay all the expense which an efficient system of coloni-
zation would temporarily entail.
VOLUNTARY EMIGRATION.-STATE COLONIZATION.
us.
Migration has tacitly become recognized as a national necessity with
In 24 years 1,985,786 of us have taken it for granted, that we are
not wanted here, and may be useful, at least, to ourselves elsewhither.
767,373 have landed in Canada, of whom half have proceeded onward
to the model republic, 1,040,797 have gone direct to the United States,
153,195 to Australia, and 24,321 to other dependencies. In 1847,
109,680 landed in Canada, and in 1848, only 31,065; whereas, the num-
ber to the United States were, in 1847, 142,154, and in 1848, 188,233.
It is deliberately stated in the latest circular of the Emigration Com-
missioners (No. 9), with reference to all our North American Colonies,
that the demand for labour is limited and has inaterially fallen off.
Now the temper in, and the circumstances under which, emigrants
leave their native country, make all the difference betwixt their con-
tinuing well affected to their fatherland, and being converted into its bit-
terest enemies. We believe that the most rancorous of the war party in
the United States, the fiercest denouncers of England, are those of our
own countrymen, especially from Ireland, and their descendants, who
have been starved out of Britain by want of employment, or by landlord
ejectments, without one helping hand having been held out to them by
the state, to render their path smoother, and make their new location a
place of rest and comfort to them. Those, also, who having escaped
from famine in this country, find, when (no thanks to their own sove-
reign), they have crawled to Canada, that there is nothing to do, no pro-
vision made to establish them on a clearing, and that they must escape
for bare life to the States, can entertain no other sentiments, either to


72
THE UNITED STATES.
their country or to their countrymen but detestation and contempt: in-
deed, their own recollection of both is, that they have beggared and done
nothing to help them. If a collection of their letters could be made, it
would be found that the nearly universal sentiment was that of enmity
to the British Government, and congratulation on their having shaken its
dust for ever from their feet.
In 24 years Canada has lost 1,400,000 most valuable settlers by our
idiotic neglect of the means of colonization by the State. We cannot
without indignation reflect on the self sufficient complacency with which
the Colonial Commissioners announced the transmigration of British
subjects to the States, and the falling off in the Canadian demand for
employinent, in a province which has millions upon millions of acres of
the finest land in the world waiting only for labourers to make it fruitful,
the colony great, the mother country happy, by supplies of food in ex-
change for her manufactures. This is not an indifferent matter; the
capital, year by year more considerable, carried by these emigrants, from
the mother country, is by such supineness, lost to our colonies and given
to our rival ---useful and valuable colonists are converted into grudging
and active enemies, and worst of all, by settling in the States they turn
the whole tide of emigration thither, and foster among the friends and
relatives they leave at home disaffection to the State, contempt for our
institutions, and a determination in intending emigrants to settle, not in
our colonies, but in the States among their connections. We have else-
where shown that Western Canada contains the finest tracts of unre-
claimed land in the world, crying out for culture. In place of sending
our subjects thither, we squeeze them out of these islands, drive them
away from the very soil that clamour's to be tilled, and promises abun-
dance, and compel them by neglect and discouragement to throw them-
selves into the arms of a rival power to which common gratitude for
shelter, employment, and final independence, must bind their hearts and
conciliate their best affections. Such a scandalous abdication of the pa-
ternal duties of Government cries shame upon us all; and we call
upon the nation to enforce upon the executive the necessity of adopting
immediate measures for securing to our North American possessions, the
full advantage of that tide of population which alone is wanting to ren-
der them the happy home of our redundant numbers, and the fostering
granary, and best market for the manufactures, of the mother country.
THE UNITED STATES,
As the object of this work is confined to the supply of such informa-
tion as may be necessary to enable intending emigrants to judge of the
sligibility of the various fields of settlement, it is not our purpose to su-
persede the functions of a gazetteer; we shall not therefore give a minute
geographical description of the United States of North America-but,
referring the reader to the map and to its topographical explanation, we
shall proceed to inform him of what in reference to the selection of a
resting place it may be desirable for him to know.


THB EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES
73
GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS.
The Eastern States bordering on the Atlantic, and bounded on the
west by the Alleghanny range, comprise New England, inhabited by the
Yankees proper, the descendants of the English puritans. The Western
States range between the western slope of the Alleghannies, and the east-
ern side of the Rocky Mountains; to the west of these again, on the
western side of the Rocky Mountains is California, the recent acquisition
of the United States, abounding in gold, quicksilver, cattle, and a fertile
soil. The southern or slave states form the southern boundary of the
western and eastern states. To the southern states has lately been an-
nexed the territory of Texas.
THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
We have already seen that the easternmost portions of British America
have the coldest and longest winters, and the fiercest summers, and that
the further west you go to the extreme point of Upper Canada, the cli-
mate gets more temperate, until the winter, which, at Quebec, endures for
six months, is reduced at the westernmost point to little more than six
weeks. Although the eastern states of the neighbouring republic are
further south than Canada, they are quite as far east, and consequently
the winters are rigorous, and the summer heats torrid. They are also
subject to more sudden extremes of temperature, which, combined with
greater atmospherical moisture, render them more productive of con-
sumption and other pulmonary affections. They have been settled for
200 years, and are the oldest and most populous districts of the Union.
With the exception of those located in the aguish districts along the flats
and lakes, the population of New England are nearly as robust as the
inhabitants of Great Britain. The bracing air of its winters fits it well
for manufacturing industry; and persons of European descent there dis-
play more energy and faculty of work than in the West or South. The
regular Yankees of the working classes migrate to other districts where
they may be their own masters, or dispense with manual labour. For the
European labourer or artizan, there is therefore left open an excellent
field of employment in the Atlantic cities and farming districts.
Cobbett, writing from Long Island, New York, states that “from
December to May there is not a speck of green. The frost sweeps all
verdant existence from the face of the earth. Wheat and rye live, but
lose all verdure. In June crop and fruits are as in England, and harvest
is a full month earlier than in the south of England.” His weather jour-
nal thus reports : “6th May. Very fine day as in England. 7. Cold, sharp
east wind. 8. Warm day, frosty night. 9. Cold shade and hot sun.
10 Dry, grass grows a little. 11. Thunder and rain. 12. Rain, then
warm and beautiful. 13. Warm fine day. Lettuces, carrots, onions and
parsnips just coming up. 14. Sharp-dry,--travel in great coats. 15.
Warm and fair; Indian corn planting. 16. Dry wind and warın; cherries
in blooin, --elder in flower. 17. Warmer than yesterday. 18. Fine.
н


74
THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
-warm.
19. Rain; grass grows, - potatoes planted. 20. Warm. 21. Fine, warm
morning, and evening coldish. April 8own oats up. Rest of the month
warm and dry,--every thing coming in blade, leaf, or flower. 1st June.
Warm, but a man covers his kidney beans for fear of frost. 2. Warm
rain. 3. Fine cold night. 4. Fine rain. 5. Rain. 6. Fine. - 7. Warm.
8. Hot. 9. Rain all day. 10. Fine. 11. Finer. 12. Not a cloud in
the sky. 13. As hot as English July in common years. 14. Fine and
hot but always a breeze. 15. Rain. 16 to 20. Fine. The whole garden
green in eighteen days from sowing. Green peas and cherries ready to
gather. 21 to 30. Two very hot days,- two of rain, the rest fine. July.
Six fine days,--seventeen fine, but very hot, -eight fine, but “broilers,
85 deg. in shade, but a breeze,-two rain. Never slept better in all my
life. No covering,--a sheet under me and a straw bed. The moment
ayrora a pears I am in the orchard. It is impossible for any human
being to live a pleasanter life than this. Ist August. Same weather; two
shirts a day wringing wet. Twenty tumblers of milk and water every
day. No ailment, -head always clear. Very hot and close ; often not a
cloud. 28 and 29. Windy and cold. 30th August to 11th September,
hot and fine. 12. Rain. 13 and 14. Cloudy and cool. 15. Fair and
cool-made a fire. 16. Rain,-
17 to 30. Very fine, but a little
rain on two days. October 1 to 16. Very fine,--56 deg. in the shade.
17. Warm,-smart morning frost. 18. Rain at night. Beautiful day.
19 to 31. Very fine days, but frost in the mornings, and warm rains
occasionally. Thermometer 56, 67 and 70 deg. in the shade. Indian
corn harvest. Gathered last lot of winter apples. Pulled up a radish
weighing twelve lbs., and measuring two feet five inches round. Novem-
ber 1 to 30. Occasional warm rains, but splendid weather throughout,
like an English June. 63 deg., 61 deg., 69 deg., falling gradually to 55
deg. in the shade. Left off my coat again. White and swedish turnips
grow surprisingly,- loaved lettuces, endive, onions, young radishes, cauli-
flowers. Rye fields grow beautifully. December 1 to 15. Open, mild
weather, with more rain. 16 and 17. Sharp nor'wester, hardish frost.
18 and 19. Open and mild. 20. Hard frost. 21 and 22. 22 deg. below
freezing point. 23. Milder. 24. Thaw. 25. Rain. 26. Fine, warm,
27. Cold. 28 and 29. Ditto. 30. Rain. 31. Mild and clear. January
1 and 2. Same. 4 to 16. Hard frost and some snow. 17 to 21. Moder-
ate frost and clear. 22 to 2nd February. Hard frost with occasional thaw.
3 to 25. Frost with occasional snow and thaw. 27. Complete thaw.
28. Very warm. March 1 to 31. Open weather, with some dry warm
days, except 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 28th and 29th when frost. We have had
three months' of winter. In England it begins in November, and ends
in March. Here we have greater cold,—there four times more wet. I
have had my great coat on only twice. I seldom meet a waggoner with
gloves or great coat: it is generally so dry. April 1 to 17. Fine, warm,
occasionally rain. 18 to 23. Cold, raw and cutting. 24. Warm night;
warm and fair day. My family have been more healthy than in England.
We have had but one visit from the doctor. This is a better climate than
that of England.” Such is the account by an acute and practical ob-
server, by one who toiled and worked in the field and garden, of the cli-
müte and weather of the Eastern or New England States of America. At


THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
75
the same time we are bound to add, that the more general account given
of this region leads to the conclusion that the extremes of heat and cold
are more excessive and sudden than this diary would lead us to infer.
Consumption is the natural accompaniment of such an atmosphere,
although that tendency is not aggravated, as in the case of England, by
an excess of moisture. The weather, as a whole, is here evidently much
more pleasant than that of England, being drier and clearer, and much
more favorable to the growth of vegetable productions. But it is univer-
sally admitted that the appearance of the people is more sodden, sallow,
spare than that of the British ; having little of the freshness and
roundness of form which predominate in England.
Writers gene-
rally remark that there is in the Eastern States, a somewhat lower average
of health than in these islands. Every body talks about their health, -
the healthiness of his location ;--and betray much sensitiveness to any
doubt expressed as to its salubrity. The chief professional men of the
country not unfrequently complain of dyspepsia and broken health, and
Europe is with them a general resort at not rare intervals. * This how-
ever, we are satisfied, is less the result of the climate than of the in-
tensity of the American mind, the provocations to mental excitement and.
• Life INSURANCE IN THE UNITED STATES.
(From a Correspondent of the Emigrant's Journal.)
You recently referred, in your 'Journal,' to the rate of assurance premiums as af-
fording a criterion of the relative rate of mortality in the United States. On that
point I have had occasion to make inquiry, and find a considerable difference in the
of ,
give the result of inquiries addressed to them. One names 5s. per cent. as the extra
premiuni for residence in New York; another fixes 5s, per cent, for the first year in
Iowa, with 2s. 6d. per cent. subsequently. The Colonial Office, if I mistake not, in-
cludes the latitude of lowa in the table of ordinary assurances; and another London
office allows residence there without extra premium. It is an established fact, that
the rate of mortality bears no fixed proportion to the rate of sickness ; and he comes
to an unsound conclusion that, because ague prevails in the western States, therefore
life is sborter. Ague there is certainly, but then consumption is unknown; and,
bearing in mind that a majority of the settlers there have left sedentary occupations,
the fair presumption is, that the ratio of mortality is less with them than it would be
were they to remain in this country, or in the eastern cities. Everything depends on
a settler's judgment in the choiee of his location. Personally, I can say, that in the
western States I have encountered with impunicy circumstances which in my native
land would prove speedily fatal.
T, s.
The tables of the Mutual Insurance Company of Baltimore
For 100 DOLLARS.
Age.
Annual Premium. Annual Premium
For one year,
For seven years.
Annual Premium. Annnal Premium
For life,
For life.
Without profits.
With profits.
21
25
30
35
40
45
50
60
Dollars.
0.80
0.97
1.10
1.25
1,44
1.65
1.87
3,46
Dollars.
0,96
1.07
1.21
1.37
1.56
1.78
2.10
4.34
Dollars.
1.69
1.90
2.19
2.53
2.96
3.47
4.21
6.68
Dollars
1.82
2.04
2.36
2.75
3.20
3.73
4.60
7.00
H2


76
THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STA :E8.
emulation which their institutions everywhere present, -the greater diffi-
culty in commanding domestic comforts of house and service than we ex-
perience,--and above all the dietary arrangements of the country. The
abundance and universal accessibility of everything that can provoke the
appetite, the long sauce and short sauce, the preserves and fruits, the
infinite varieties of bread, all baked in a way to lie heavy on the stomach,
the endless array of wines and liquors, the interminable diversities of
meats, taken at least three times every day, acting upon a people whose
brain runs away with the nervous energy required by the stomach to di-
gest such high seasoned meals, give the assimilating organs no chance of
fair play at all. Dr. Caldwell tells us that the amount of sheer trash,
swallowed every week by an American, is greater than would be consumed
in a year by an inhabitant of Europe.
Great diversity of opinion exists with reference to the comparative
physical energy of Europeans and Americans. Cobbett, and with him
several others, declare that the latter work much harder and to far better
purpose than the English, while others contend that they are very indif-
ferent labourers, the native Americans generally procuring the services of
Europeans for all their rough hard work. For our part we entertain no
doubt at all on the subject. The native Americans are infinitely better
educated, housed, clothed, paid, and fed, than the inhabitants of Europe.
They have conquered the wilderness with their axe, and made it fruitful
with their spade and plough; they have set their broad mark over half
a continent, and made themselves a great, powerful and wealthy nation.
The very nature of their social system demands from each individual
more self help, fertility of resources, and physical intrepidity than are re-
quired from any other people, and the result is and could be no other
than that they should produce the best labourers and workmen in all the
world. “They are,” says Cobbett, “ the best labourers I ever saw. They
In addition to the above, the Trenton Mutual Assurance Company of New Jersey
advertises to effect Assurances at 25 per cent. under other offices. Thus, to insura
100 dollars for one year at 25 years of age, the insurer pays 75 cents, instead of 97
cents, as in the above table, and so on in proportion.
By comparing these with British Life Insurance Companies, I have found that the
premiums paid on the “yonnger” ages in the American companies are smaller tha2
in the British; and, on the other hand, those on the “older” ages are higher. Ang
nexed are the rates of the Royal Insurance Company-[British.]
EXTRACT FROM THE RATES OF PREMIUM.
Rates of
Rates of
Age. Premium, with Premium, with-
Profits.
out Profits,
Rates of
Rates of
Age. Premium, with Premium, with
Profits.
out Profits.
15
20
25
30
35
£ $. d.
1 15 2
I 194
2 4 2
2 9 9
2 16 2
£ s. d.
1 10 11
1 14 11
1 19 7
2 4 10
2 11 0
40
45
50
55
80
£ S, d.
3 4 1
3 14 6
4 8 3
5 8 6
6 14 4
£ s. d.
2 18 6
3 8 5
4 1 7
5 1 1
6 6 0
Percy M. Dove, Manager.
Thus, by comparing these two tables, it will be found that, by the American table,
lower premiums are paid until the age of forty, when the British are lower, and cone
tinue so to the end.


THB EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
77
men.
mow four acres of grain, or two and a half of heavy grass in a day. The
men are tall and well built,-bony rather than fleshy,--and live, as to
food, as well as men can live. Every man can use an axe, a saw, and a
hammer; mend a plough, waggon, or rough carpentering, and kill the
meat. These Yankees are of all men the most active and hardy. They
will race a pig down ; are afraid of nothing, and skip over a fence like a
greyhound.” His description of the New England labourers will shew
that no skulkers from work are likely to succeed there; but good hands
of any kind, especially agricultural labourers or gardeners, will find
abundant employment at high wages in all the Eastern States, and as to
comfort and luxury, will be surrounded with many more advantages than
they can hope for, either at home or in the unimproved districts of the
Western States. There seems to be a concurrence of opinion that these
are the healthiest regions in the republic ; and the more fresh coloured
and fleshy appearance of the inhabitants, coupled with their greater rela-
tive progress in power, intelligence and wealth, than those of the south
or west, form data from which it may be safely inferred that the climate
is more favorable to the physical system there, than in the other terri-
tories. “I never saw,” observes Mr. Prentice, writing from Philadel-
phia, “ in an assemblage of 300 or 400, so many fine, tall, noble looking
It might have seemed that their constituents had chosen them as
the Israelites did Saul, for their stature. One half of the members over-
looked me, although I have not usually need to look up to many. Some
dozen were six feet two,--two or three were six feet four,-and two were
six feet six."
A farm not more than sixty miles distant from the great eastern cities,
with a good farm house, barn, stables, sheds and styes; the land fenced
with post and rail, woodland being one tenth of the whole, with a good
orchard, and the whole in good heart, would cost £13 per acre, or £1,300
for a farm of 100 acres. The house a good deal better than the general
run of farm houses in England. The cattle and implements are cheap.
The wear and tear not half so much as in England; the climate, soil,
docility of the horses and oxen, the lightness and tough material of the
implements, the simplicity of the harness, and the handiness of the
labourers effect this. Horse shoeing is the most serious expense.
House rent is about the same as in England-wheaten bread one third,
and butcher's meat, and poultry one half below the London price. Cheese
excellent and cheap-groceries far less than half our price, candles, soap,
wax tapers, especially. Fish, of which fifty or sixty sorts are seen in
New York market, are hawked round the country, and in cold weather
may be had as low as a farthing per pound, and 3d. in the hottest. No
white person will eat sheep's head or pluck-oxen heads are never sold,
or seldom used at home-calves heads, and whole joints are often, in hot
weather, left on the shambles for anybody to take away. Fruit is delicious
and diet cheap. Strong ale, ls. 2d. per gallon, or less than 4d. per quart.
French wine, brandy, and rum, one-sixth of the English price, and the
common spirits of the country 3s. 6d. per gallon. Wearing apparel
dearer, and furniture cheaper, than here. So far Cobbett.*
The wages of common labour, at New York, are about 50 per cent. higher
than
in England, and the price of food one third less. Kent, clothes, and coal, are 50 per
H 3


78
THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
“In America,” observes Buckingham, speaking of the Eastern States,
“the occupier of a farm is, almost, invariably the owner, and knows
nothing about conditions of culture, rent raising, ejectments, or clerical
magistrates. No tithes, or poor-rates, workhouses, or jails, exist in the
rural districts where there is plenty to eat, and wages are high. The
Ainerican country gentry and farmers are much better off, and happier
than the same class in England, scarcely anything ever occurring to ruffle
the serenity.of a country and happy life, in the well settled parts of
America. There is not a single labourer on the farm who receives less
than a dollar a day-and when they are residents on the farm they have
as good living as prosperous tradesmen of the middle classes in England.
Three substantial meals a day, and at harvest time four, with abundance
and variety at each-excellent schools, almost gratuitously, neat little cot-
tages, a plot for gardening. They are well fed, dressed, and educated,
intelligent, and agreeable in manners. On Mr. Delevan's farm (New
York), scarcely a labourer who had not money out at interest. The
deaths do not reach two per cent. per annum, and the ages extend to
eighty and ninety ordinarily,' on account of the spread of temperance
principles.”
In the Eastern region, the high lands of Pennsylvania - creatly re-
commended for their salubrity and fertility. The climate is mild, pas-
ture and timber luxuriant, the mineral wealth very great, the population
comparatively dense and settled, and the prices obtained for produce'
much higher than in the west. Mr. Emerson describing the level penin-
sula lying between the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay, observes that the
farms have been comparatively deserted, from exhaustion by over crop-
ping, and that as they are to be had cheap, a European farmer, applying
his skill, and a little capital to them would find a more profitable return
for his enterprise, than in the west, from the much higher price given for
every kind of agricultural produce. In Delaware, Maryland, and Vir-
ginia, he knew many European farmers who had grown very prosperous.*
cent. higher, but when a man has scarcely earned more than has kept him in food
the change, by coming here, is decidedly to bis advantage. If he earned 3s. in Eng.
land, he win earn 4s. 6d. here. At home, his food has cost him 12s. a week, and his
rent, clothes, and coal, 6s , absorbing all his wages. Let him live in the same style
here, and he will pay 8s. for his food, and 9s. for his rent, clothes, and coals, leaving
him 10s. a week of clear savings. The misfortune is, whisky is ls. a gallon, very
wretched stuff, but men get drunk for a trifle, and either die or starve, or seek refuge
in the almshouse. Irish labourers, who save a few pounds, enter into some small
street trading, take a store, and their sons become respectable merchants, a process
we never observe in Manchester."-Prentice. The author has here touched upon
worst and weakest point of American legislation, their protective system,
by which they actually impose an import duty of 6s. 8d. per quarter on wheat, and
25 per cent, on cloth, raised to 50 per cert. when manufactured into garments.
There are twenty millions of inhabitants in the states-on a moderate computation
they spend at Icast £4 10s. per head, per annum on clothes, 50 per cent. whereof
protective duty, or 30s. is equal to a tax of no less than £30,000,000 sterling! There
is no such drawback in Canada, which is, in every respect far more lightly taxed
than its neighbour the model republic.
* "In the immediate vicinity of the city (Louisville Kentucky), much of the land
is in market gardens, and sells for, from £20 to £30 an acre. I believe that land
might be purchased in Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, to pay a large return for
the capital invested. Extensive tracts are to be obtained cheap, and there are in-
stances of great profit for the growth of articles of food. Kentucky is the garden
of the republic."--PRENTICE.
the


THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
79
In the immediate neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Mr. Sherriff found the
price of good cleared land in high heart from £20 to £25 per acre. Ор
the east bank of the Hudson, Mr. Ferguson was offered 350 acres of the
finest quafity, including 100 of wood, at £7 10s. per acre, returning
about £182 per annum, certainly no very great profit. Another of 275
acres, rented at £63, was offered at £1,300, or about 5 per cent. One
of 106 acres returned £50 clear, and the price was £530, about 9} per
cent. A fine farm of 118 acres, with good buildings, was offered for
£400, and would give a profit of £40, or 10 per cent. Colonel Grant's
of 300 acres was rented at £67 10s., and was sold for £1,500, or 4) per
cent. In the neighbourhood of Baltimore, rents appear to have been
very high if Mr. Pickering's account be correct—but as a general rule it
is stated that in all parts of America, farms may be had at 16 or 17 years'
purchase on the rental. We have seen that Cobbett states the price of a
fine farm in New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, not more than 60
miles from a populous town, at about £13 per acre, so that a fine cleared
farm of 100 acres, with good house and buildings, would cost £1,300.
Kentucky is universally described as a state of great beauty, fertility,
and comparative salubrity, well settled, and highly fertile, picturesque,
and fitted for pasture. Still more delightful is the climate of the high-
lands of Virginia, where many fine farms may be had cheap, on account
of their being deserted for the regions of the west. In this latter district,
large profits are not to be expected- but the small capitalist of Europe,
desirous of living cheaply on his interest, under a very pleasant climate,
would here find a charming retirement. *
." Having resided several years in Virginia, though not in the western district,
and having remained a short time in one of the north-western states, and also tra-
velled through some of the other states, I can with confidence recommend Virginia
to intending emigrants to the United States, as a desirable field in all respects, and
far preferable in any part to any of the Western States. Although Virginia
is a slave-holding state, there are very few, if any, slaves in the western districts,
they beiog in the eastern part only."-E. $. Manchester
“Iu Western Virginia it is generally healthy, though foreigners and citizens of the
United States who come among us sometimes take the fever and ague, though there
are Englishmen now living in our county, and have for the last ten or twelve years
who have never been sick since they came here.
“A good log-house for dwelling in may be erected and finished in this county, say
thirty feet long by twenty in breadth, two stories high, with stone or brick chimney,
covered with shingles, completely finished for about 300 dollars, or a frame one of
like dimensions, lathed and plastered, for 350 or 400 dollars. Buildings for cattle,
sheep, hogs, &c., may be built for a mere song, as any labouring man can build
such buildings without employing mechanics, as they are generally built of small
logs, and covered cabin fashion, that is, with clap-boards fastened with rib poles.
The clearing of land in this county is from three to ten dollars per acre; it de-
pends upon how you have it cleared ; if you take off all the timber. it costs more;
if you deaden the large timber, and remove the small, it costs less.
The price of horses here is from 25 [the pony] to 100 dollars, and respectable
horse-mules are not used in Western Virginia, though they can be got in Kentucky
for from 60 to 100 dollars each; common milch cows can be got from 10 to 15 dollars
eaeh-sheep may be got from 75 cents to 1 dol. 50 c. each, the quality varying from
coarse to fine. Čorn is now selling at 25 cents per bushel, wheat at 66 cents per ditto;
cheese 6 cents per pound, butter 10 cents per pound.
The present price of clothing is considered cheap here, though I suppose 100 per
cent higher than in England (Judging from my own experience, I should say that
the price of clothing was not more than 50 per cent higher, E. S.] Blankets vary
from 2 to 10 dollars a pair; feathers, 25 cents per pound; metal articies sell low,


80
THB BASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
Although, for labourers without capital, the Western States are gene-
rally regarded as most desirable for settlement, we are not sure but, that
on the whole, they would do better in the east. Gardeners, well trained
agricultural labourers, good waggoners, would always find full employ-
ment in the east at fair wages, paid in money. They would have to en-
counter no privations, and run little risk of disease. They would be sur-
rounded with superior comforts, a great security for health, and endure
none of the hardships of inexperienced persons in a new country. A
good house, near markets, medical attendance, and the accessories of
civilization to which they have been accustomed at home, they would be
sure to meet. They would not, indeed, rise to the position of proprietors
of land, easily, or so soon emancipate themselves from service—but ser-
vice is only an evil where it is coupled with dependence and precarious
employment. If they have wives and families even, it may indeed be
true that, ultimately, their children, where their farms were well cleared
in the western states, would be in an independent position--but they
would all have to pass through much privation, the sickness incident to
early hardships in a new country, much present anxiety, and even at the
last they would have fewer of the comforts of European civilization, than
as well paid labourers in the more settled eastern states. Skilful car-
penters, millwrights, blacksmiths, shipwrights, shoemakers, hatters, en-
gineers, tailors, would never have any difficulty in procuring good en-
gagements in the east, and, although, the cost of food and rent is higher
there than in the west, they get money wages, and procure elothing and
many other articles cheaper than in the west. We do not think it de-
sirable to give any detailed account of the amount of wages, because these
fluctuate much, and, nominally, are very different from what they are
really. As a general rule, however, employment is in New England con-
stant, wages fair, and the cost of living a good deal less than in Great
Britain. We learn from Mr. Stuart that women earn 3s. and men 4s. per
day, at farm work. The hours, invariably, are from sunrise to sunset,
with proper intervals for meals—but it is to be remembered that the
hours of daylight are longer in winter, and shorter in summer than in
England.
farming implements cheap: green tea. 1 dollar per pound ; coffee, 8 cents per pound;
sugar, brown, first quality, 4 cents per pound; refined sugar. 124 cents per pound;
flour, 4 dollars per barrel ; fruit, peaches, peeled, 2 dollars ; un peeled, 1 dollar; ap-
ples, 50 cents per bushel ; candles, 10 cents per pound; soap, 5 cents per pound;
bacon, 6 cents per pound; beef, 24 to 3 cents per pound: mutton, 2 cents per pound;
potatoes, 25 cents per bushel, generally, though now 50 cents, owing to scarcity.
think there are farms of 100 or 150 acres with an improvement of from 30° to 50
acres, with a tolerable house, barn, stable, and outbuildings, and other improvements,
can be got for 1,000 or 1,500 dollars.
A family of ten persons in Guyandotte or its neighbourhood, having the necessary
household and kitchen furniture, might live well and plentiful on 200 dollars a-year,
even if they had to rent the premises. Bread and meat in our country are cheap, as
well as all kind of vegetables ; if six acres were judiciously managed, it would
more than supply all needed vegetables ; it would go far towards supporting a family
of the size before mentioned. If you lived in Guyandotte, you would use coal, which
can be got for 7 cents a busbel; but, if you lived in the country, you would use wood
which would cost
you nothing but having it cut. William McComas Cabbell, Court-
house, Western Virginia (a land owner).


THE EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
81
« The New England villages," observes the same writer, “ are proverbial
for their neatness and cleanness; in space, freshness, and air of comfort,
they far exceed anything I have seen in any other country. I have
passed in one day six or seven of these beautiful hamlets, for not one of
which have I been able to recollect an equal in all my European travel-
ling.” At Boston Mr. Stuart found mild weather till 1st of January, when
the frost became so intense as to freeze ink and oil even beside a great
fire, and to congeal the breath of hautboy players, so that it fell from
their instruments like icicles. It continued cold till the middle of
March.
“It is more advisable,” says Mr. Stuart," for an emigrant to pay high
for land lately cleared, than risk health in clearing; let him not buy land
impoverished by cropping, and which has lost its vegetable mould; en-
quire particularly about the water, which is often bad in New England.
Maize is the first crop (generally very abundant) sown; at the building
of the first log-house, which is superior in accommodation to that of a
farm overseer in Britain, all the neighbours assist, and the permanent
dwelling houses are very superior and comfortable, always placed near
a spring, with an ice-house, ornamental trees of great beauty, an
orchard, and a garden which from the fine climate produces every thing
in perfection. A grave-yard is a very common accessory to every farm;
in the northern part of New York a great deal of land is stili uncleared,
and farmers after cropping out their farms, sell them freely at 15 to 30
dollars an acre, and remove to the bush to clear another. After the ve-
getable matter is cropped out, the produce of all grain, except maize, is
nearly a half less than on similar soils in Britain. Hay is easily made
from the fine weather, and the rapidity with which rain dries up. Maize
is an invaluable crop; hay and other crops are never damaged from
bad weather ; live stock is much healthier than with us, on account of
the prevalence of dry weather; the pastures are indifferent, except near
rivers, where they are very fine; orchards are extremely productive of
apples (cyder being very profitable,) melons, pumpkins, &c. &c., and silk
worms can be well bred here. Flour averages 5 dollars per 196 lbs.; In-
dian corn, 2s.; oats, ls. 2d. ; barley, Is. 6d. per bushel. When land or
pastures are let, it is on the bargain that the landlord shall provide half
the seed or stock, and receive half the produce. Except at the melting
of the snow, the roads are pretty good from the prevailing dryness of the
weather; the expense of turnpikes is trifling ; horses and cattle are of
good average quality, never starved, and never over pampered; the meat
is inferior to the very best in England, but there is none of bad quality;
it ranges from 2d. to 5d. per lb.; sheep are little attended to, although,
from the dry climate, they might become excellent; swine and poultry
are excellent, and very cheap, even in New York; eggs a dollar per 100;
good cheese, 4d. per lb.; implements of husbandry are well adapted to
their purposes, and the cheapness of timber brings them within a reason-
able price.”
The wages of mechanics vary from £2 to £2 10s. per week; those of
labourers from 4s. to 58. per day. In the Atlantic and other larger
cities, there is good demand for foreign workmen; in the country places,
although the wages are a little less, tha ismore than compensated by


82
THB EASTERN, OR NEW ENGLAND STATES.
the cheaper rate of living. In the Southern States the wages are highest
and living is cheap, except in the seaboard cities; but the inferior health-
iness of the climate for a European labourer, renders these states ineligible
for this class of emigrants. Manufactures of all kinds daily increaso, espe-
cially in the east, and the factories are models of elegance and comfort, and
distinguished for the good treatment and superior circumstances of the
hands, both men and women. The sexes are separated in the factory, and
nearly all have considerable sums out at interest. In Rhode Island Mr.
Buckingham regards health as superior to what it is in Boston and New
York. For 10s. 6d. per week superior board and lodging can be commanded
by the working man; three meals a day, including at each hot meat and
vegetables, fish, new bread, rolls and butter, poultry, tea and coffee, all
sorts of pies and puddings, fruit, salads, and every variety of sauce. A
large family, sons or daughters, is a fortune rather than a burden to the
parents. Girls from 12 to 14 get from 2s. to 4s. 6d. per week and
board, and boys from 12 to 16 from two to three dollars per week.
Schools are everywhere good and cheap. A journeyman brass founder
writing from Schenectady states, he earns 6s. per day, and pays 16s. per
week for board and lodging for self and wife, with meat three times
a day, steaks and chops for breakfast, pork sausages and hot buck-
wheat cakes, with tea and coffee, stewed peaches, apples, pears, wild
honey, and molasses. He is in the highest degree of comfort, and works
from about seven to four o'clock. Mr. Buckingham regards the western
part of New York, Rochester, and Buffalo, as more temperate than on
the seaboard. The breeze from the great lakes reduces the heat ten do-
grees. Mr. Sherriff gives a very unfavourable account of New Jersey,
but speaks in high terms of the country around Philadelphia, both for
beauty and fertility. There, land of fine quality and in high condition,
may be obtained for from 100 to 120 dollars per acre, and the price of all
farm produce is high. Labourers are allowed as much as 2s. per day in
lieu of board, and yet by the piece they will mow an acre of rye for 3s.
Mr. Sherriff thinks an American may go through moro work than an
Englishman in any given day, but not more taking the year through,
the apparent health, strength, and climate of the latter being superior.
The country near Geneva is reported to be highly favourable for sheep
and cattle breeding. A farm of 280 acres, cleared, fenced, subdivided,
with good dwelling house, suitable offices, and a large orchard, was
offered for £7 5s. 10d. per acre, the whole taxes amounting to about 20
dollars a year. The Genessee district is highly spoken of for wheat, and
the flats afford the richest pasture in the world.
The letters of settlers in the eastern states are of one uniform character.
From Albany a voice cries, “ This is the finest country in the world, come
by all means; day labourers get 1 dollar a day, mechanics 10s. to 128.;
America for ever for me !" (J. Parks.) Another from Philadelphia re-
commends Pennsylvania for agriculturists, and Massachussets for manu-
factures. In the former provisions are reported as cheap, and land near
the capital £10 to £20 per acre, but abundance in the more remote
districts of that state at 58. per acre.* Although the extremes of heat
* The recent work of Mr. A. Mackay (Western World), describes the mineral
wealth of Pennsylvania as superior to that of England; and be regards the riches


THE WESTERN STATES.OHIO.
83
and cold are described by settlers as greater in New than in Old
England, it is a feature of all their letters, that they either do not speak
of the climate, or notice it without complaint, à circumstance from
which we would draw the inference that it presents no serious incon-
venience to the European constitution. We need not add that emigration
being rarely resorted to by such as have any means of doing well at
home, discontent and prejudice against the country they have left, are apt
rather highly to colour the superior advantages of the country of their
adoption.
From the southern, or slave states, our information is comparatively
scanty; and it is a circumstance significant of their inferior attractions,
that few Europeans settle there. Nevertheless, the institution of slavery
may have decided many without reference to other considerations, and
the superior commercial advantages of the east, and the agricultural fa-
cilities of the west, may have much to do with the avoidance of the
south. It is said the highlands of Virginia open a beautiful country,
and enjoy a very fine climate; cleared land is cheap ; living moderate,
and for the small capitalist who can live on the interest of his money, we
incline to think that these regions present a desirable location. Some of
the islands to the north of New Orleans are described as being beautiful,
fertile, and healthy-most desirable places of retirement from the world
for persons of limited means.
THE WESTERN STATES.
The “Western Country,” as it is called, embraces the States of Ohio,
Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Of these Ohio is fur-
thest to the east and north, having a rigorous winter of upwards of five
months; while that of Southern Illinois, to the west, does not exceed six
weeks. To Ohio, the best port of debarkation is New York. To Illinois,
New Orleans is the most convenient. The Steam Mail West India Packets
now touch at New Orleans, or Mobile Point, and present great induce-
ments for the preference of the western emigrant who can afford the
higher passage money.
These packets sail from Southampton every
month.
OHIO.
Ohio, the longest settled of the Western States, is comparatively popu-
lous, possesses a civilized and orderly society, and an intelligent, religious,
and respectable population. Chiefly devoted to agriculture, its inhabi-
tants partake of the decent, quiet, and honest character, of a rural people,
and they have a great horror at being confounded with Yankees, whom
they regard as we do Yorkshiremen, as somewhat “sharp practitioners.”
The state is eminently prosperous, and very productive, although it also
in that state as so great, that her bonds are as safe an investment as any securities
in the world, Miners, colliers, and engineers, cannot fail to receive great encou-
ragement there.


84
OHIO.
contains much poor soil. But the summer heats and winter colds are in-
tense, and both approximate somewhat too nearly to the climate of the
western parts of Lower Canada. This, however, is only in the exposed
parts of that great table land which rises from 600 to 1000 feet above the
level of the sea. In the vallies the climate is mild and temperate, evi-
denced by the fact that, on the whole, the state produces more wheat and
of finer quality than any other in the union, and is celebrated for the
number and quality of its sheep. With a good deal of swamp and marsh,
in some districts, it contains extensive, beautiful and fertile prairies, and
abounds in minerals and thriving manufactures in its numerous towns
It is regarded, especially towards the south, as very healthy, and produces
good wine, abundance of silk, and excellent tobacco. It presents all those
advantages of civilization and long settlement which form, to Europeans,
the recommendation of the New England States. Its roads are good,
its rivers, canals and railways conveniently open up easy communication
with the populous parts of the union; its farms and farm buildings are
well cleared and convenient; and it has all the appliances, in the shape of
markets, inns, places of worship and education, which can be reasonably
desired.
These advantages, of course, have their price. The good land, in
favorable situations, is to a great extent occupied, and bears a price cor-
responding to its superior value. The comparative density of the popu-
lation, makes wages not quite high as they are further west. Towards
the north the winters are long and severe, and the summers are hot and
productive of snakes. To the labouring or operative emigrant, this
state offers abundant employment, in a great variety of occupations.* To
the moderate capitalist, it offers good farms at a not immoderate price.
We have before us now the details of the price of a farm of 150 acres,
with good farm house, barns, and offices, situate on an eminence fourteen
miles from Lake Erie and Cleveland City, fronted by the Worcester State
road, containing 100 acres of meadow, 18 under crop, 30 timber, 500
maple sugar trees, orchards, gardens, lawns, wells, and springs, for £600,
or about 19 dollars per acre. We questioned the proprietor, a native of
Middlesex, as to his state of health while in America, and we cannot say
that his answers were altogether satisfactory. Fevers and ague are not, by
any means, strangers to the region, and the oppressive heats of summer,
appeared somewhat to affect the digestive powers. The man himself had
a very sodden and dried up appearance.t
* “In walking out, (at Cincinatti,) we saw a man shovelling out large stones.
"You are from Ireland I hear?' . Indeed I am!. 'Have you any wish to return ?":
• Return! Would you have a man go from a dollar a day to 8d.? I left Ireland
because I was turned out of my little farm for voting against my landlord. I would
not go back, even if I could get my farm again, much less to work at 8d. a day with
dear 'taties and meal. You can live cheap here, I suppose?' I pay two dollars a
week, and am well lodged, and get whatever I like to eat. • So that after paying for
your meat and lodging, you have 16s. left.' It is 16s. 8d,” “Can you stand the heat.'
*Indeed I can sir. it gives me no trouble at all. I wish it was summer all the year
round, for then I get a dollar a day, and only 3s. 4d. in the winter.' Then this is a
rare place for a working man?' 'Deed it is sir; a man that can do hard rough
work, and keep from drink, need never look behind him."-PRENTICE.
+"Further up still the valley widened, the river becoming a small stream, flowing
through well cultivated fields, with here and there a thriving, well built, cheerful


ILLINOIS.
85
ILLINOIS.
This seems the chief of the Western States, in every thing that relates to
agriculture. More recently settled than Ohio, it possesses fewer of the
advantages of civilization, and is more scantily peopled. But its climate
is far superior, in a six week's winter, a lengthened and beautiful
spring, a productive summer, and a delightful autumn. Less rigorous
and uniformly milder in all its seasons than the neighbouring states, in
these respects it holds out unrivalled advantages; but when we add that
with a superior climate is combined a greater quantity of uniformly fine
soil, of unbounded fertility, than any other territory of the same extent
in the world, and vast prairies of alluvial mould, ready at once for
plough and seed, we have said enough to prove it to be the very best of
locations for the emigrant. The cost of fine land, either cleared, as in the
prairies, alternated with wood and clearings, as in the skirts of the
prairies and the openings, or timbered with wood of fine quality, and of
heavy soil, is so low, from one to four or five dollars per acre, that whe-
ther for the capitalist who can begin at once, or the labourer whose high
wages and very cheap living enable him to purchase an acre of cleared
freehold land with the labour of a day, we can scarcely conceive of a more
desirable place of settlement. Bilious fevers and ague are no doubt com-
mon in unfavorable situations, or under adverse circumstances of excess
in eating and drinking, mental depression from a feeling of loneliness in
a new country, inattention to proper comforts, or absence of the precau-
tion of anticipating the effects of acclimation by a few doses of calomel
or other proper medicine. But if situation is wisely chosen, and a set-
tlement is made in populous and long established districts, we appre-
hend that sickness may, to a great extent, be escaped ; and indeed many
travellers avouch from the testimony of hundreds of settlers, that the
very best health is enjoyed in Illinois. "People,” observes Mr. Pren-
tice, concur in the opinion that the heat is more moderate west of the
Alleghanies than on the Atlantic shores, and that the winters are milder.”
In this State, Indian corn, the best food for man, and all kinds of stock
and game, grows with unfailing luxuriance. All descriptions of cattle
roam at large over the unappropriated land, free of charge, brought back
to the owner, whenever he pleases, by his well known cry and its accom-
paniment of feeds of salt. The seasons are so mild that live stock are
never housed, summer or winter, and food is so abundant that they are
always in condition. But without reference to domestic animals, families
may live luxuriously on the abundant game every where to be found, and
little town, amongst which Wanesville and Xenia were the most attractive, In this
beautiful part of the country I found that a farm having the rich alluvial soil all in
a state of cultivation and the woodland partially cleared, with a good substan-
tial farm house, and the necessary farm offices might be bad at from £7 to £8
per acre. A well informed farmer was in the train with us who said, “If a young
man comes on uncleared land, he is completely worn out before his work is done;
but he escapes almost all the hardships if he begins with a good bit of cleared
land, and has a house to go into, and a shed for his cattle." I asked him what an
English farmer could do who should bring £1000 into such a country?
said, "Why he could buy and stock a farm
of 100 acres
of capital land, and live like a
gentleman.” Land partially cleared can frequently be had very cheap.-PRENTICE.
66
" Do?" he
I


86
ILLINOIS.
the fine fish which crowd the rivers, while the command of the finest
timber renders the rearing of houses and offices cheap and easy. Good
board and lodging can be had for persons even of the middle ranks for
£26 per annum, and the ways and means of life are so inexpensive and
accessible, that with the exception of the fastidious and finical, settlers may
be said to be relieved from all but the merely imaginary cares of life.
We repeat that this work is not intended to supersede a gazetteer, but
to supply the place of a friendly adviser to the stranger and British emi-
grant. We do not, therefore propose to enter into minute details, but to
present a view of the general features of the country which may enable
the reader to judge for himself as to the choice of his destination, leaving
to himself, on his arrival, those enquiries which can only be satisfactorily
answered on the spot.
In the neighbourhood of Springfield and Alton, the emigrant will find
himself amongst his own countrymen, and English habits, modified by
local necessities. The Sangamon territory for health, fine soil, and long
settlement, is much recommended. Peoria is a very fine locality, but the
greatest amount of testimony concurs in fixing on Jacksonville, as in
every respect, the most eligible location in Illinois. For manufacturing
and mechanical pursuits, all the principal towns, of which there are
many, are highly spoken of. For agriculture, the neighbourhood of the
mineral district of Galena promises ready money, large consumption, and
the best prices. But the inhabitants are persons of rude, and even des-
perate character, and this forms, in our opinion, a decisive objection
against this district. In other regions, except near the large towns, money
is scarce--all are sellers of produce, and few buyers. Prices are, there-
fore, very low, and, occasionally, farm produce is unsaleable. Truck is
done by barter with store keepers, who pay little, and charge large pro-
fits. Money fetches as high as 25 per cent. interest, a sure sign of the
low price of other articles. Even labour is more nominally, than really
high, as it is mostly paid in truck, or by orders on a storekeeper. But
these very causes make subsistence so cheap and easy, that life is passed
without care, and in the enjoyment of substantial independence. No
man can indeed get rich in mere money under such a system-but he may
and does, easily surround himself with all the primary means of life, food,
a house, plain furniture, coarse, perhaps, but perfectly comfortable cloth-
ing. Even the capitalist can here make money go a far way, and in the
erjoyment of leisure, of nature, and of the pursuits of horticulture, bo-
tany, agriculture, he is assisted by a never failing soil, and a climate which
brings every sort of vegetable production to perfection, without trouble.
The opening o the English market to the unrestricted import of food
will probably raise the price of Illinois products materially, and emanci-
pate the farmer from the exactions of the storekeeper.
To persons of asthmatical or consumptive tendencies, the whole west-
ern region presents the greatest attactions. The mildness combined
with the dryness of the climate, all travellers consider as an effectual cure
of these tendencies, and as making them strangers to natives. A farmer's
wife, an emigrant from Leeds, states, that she had been afflicted with
asthma for twelve years, and, although on her arrival in Illinois, she had
to work hard, to submit to much exposure, and to great hardships, her


ILLINOIS.
87
complaint entirely left her, and she and her family, enjoyed excellent
health. Mr. J. B. Newhall, indeed, observes that the proportion of
prairie land to wood land, and the great quantity of too level prairie ren-
der Illinois more liable to bilious diseases than Iowa or Wisconsin-but
then the emigrant may find, near Peoria or Jacksonville, a prevailing un-
dulation, and either there, or in the neighbourhood of Springfield, according
to general testimony the situation is declared to be healthy. The geniality
of the climate, undoubtedly, would suggest the propriety of a much more
decidedly oriental system of dietetics than prevails here. Tempted by
the cheapness of all sorts of liquors, the abundance and variety of food,
and the extensive resources of confectionary, preserves, nd made dishes,
emigrants accustomed to the regimen of colder climates, continue a diet
unsuited to any, especially, a warm climate. Disease feeds on the poison
of an overfed system. In Turkey and India, wine is forsworn from the
unsuitableness of stimulants to a high state of heat-a populous nation
lives on rice for the same reason—and during the warm season the diet in
Illinois should be of the most temperate description.
“There is no country in the world,” observes Mr. Sherriff, an author
rather prone to depreciation, than exaggeration, where a farmer can com-
mence operations with such a small outlay of money, and so soon obtain
a return as in Illinois. This arises from the cheapness of land, and the
facility with which it is cultivated, and will appear more evident from the
following statement :-Suppose a settler, with sufficient capital to pur-
chase and stock a farm, and maintain himself for six months. The farm
to consist of 200 acres, 35 forest, and the rest prairie. If the purchase
were made in spring, the expense might be thus stated :-
dollars cepis.
Purchasing 200 acres at 11 dollars ...
250
Fencing two fields of 40 acres, with eight rail fence
80
Ploughing by contract 80 acres at two dollars
160
Seed for 80 acres Indian corn, ten bushels, at 15 cents
1 50
Cutting and thrashing Indian corn, at three dollars per acre 240
Seed for 80 acres wheat, after Indian corn, 45 bushels at 45
cents
20 25
Harrowing wheat
20 0
Cows, four at eight dollars, young cattle, eight at five dol-
lars, pigs, ten
82
Buildings and household furniture
600
Maintenance of family six months, vegetables, seeds, potatoes,
and poultry
150 25
Total
dollars 1604
0
With an expenditure of £340 17s. sterling, is obtained the dairy produce
of four cows, and the improvement of eight cattle, grazing on the prairie,
and 3,200 bushels of Indian corn, besides vegetables, and the improve-
ment of a lot of pigs and poultry.
The attention of the settler is supposed to be confined to the cultiva-
tion of vegetables, tending the cows and pigs, and planting and husking
Indian corn.
66
12


88
ILLINOIS.
“In the spring of the second year eighty additional acres would be
fenced, ploughed, planted with Indian corn, and harvested at the same
expense as the first year ..
dollars 481 50 cents
Harvesting 80 acres of wheat at 3 dollars
240 0
Total
dollars 721 50 cents
Supposing the Indian corn of the second year equal to the first crop, the
wheat to yield 22 bushels per acre, and cost 2} bushels in thrashing, the
farmer, in eighteen months, would have expended 2325 dollars 50 cents
or £484 4s. 6d. In the same way he would have roaped 6,400 bushels of
Indian corn, and 1,600 bushels of wheat, and enjoyed abundance of ve-
getables, dairy produce, beef, pork, and poultry. With this produce, and
expenditure, the farmer does not perform any laborious work. The cal-
culation of the produce is much under what Illinois is said to yield, and
the expenses are stated at much higher than an industrious and frugal
occupier need lay out. A person with £130, and his own labour might
be settled in 80 acres, house, furniture, &c., &c., and, besides feeding well,
raise 2,406 bushels of corn, and 675 bushels of wheat. The cost of cul-
tivating an acre is £2 2s. 7d., the profit, £3 10s. 7d., leaving 28s. for
profit, and to meet the cost of fencing, thrashing, and marketing-calcu-
lating the nett profit at 10s. per acre, here is £100 a year on 200 acres,
and food into the bargain, on an outlay altogether of £340 17s. An or-
dinary farm labourer in Illinois, gets the value of 80 acres of land yearly
in Britain, after deducting his board, one-tenth of an acre; comparing
wages with land, the former is 800 times better off than the latter.
“ In Springfield, market butter is worth 4d., beef, 1 d., pork, ld. per
Ib., and much cheaper by the carcase ; eggs, 3d. per dozen, wheat Is. 6 d.
oats, 9d., corn, 5d. per bushel ; good Muscavodo sugar, 5d., coffee, 10d.
per lb. Illinois abounds in all kinds of fruit in perfection. Honey, cot-
ton, wine, castor oil abound. Game of all kinds is in perfection."
We have here given a very meagre account of Mr. Sherriff's detail of
the infinite advantages of Illinois in coal, merchandise, and manufactures.
A most interesting corroboration of his statements has been presented in
“A true picture of Emigration” by the wife of a farmer who emigrated
from Leeds, and settled about fifty miles from the town of Quincey. Placed
in a remote district, they suffered privations, and were reduced by fires and
law suits nearly to beggary. But commencing with £20 they so increased
in substance, that in twelve years they had “ a good house, abundant fur-
niture, no lack of good food, as beef, pork, butter, fowls, eggs, milk, flour,
and fruits, twenty head of cattle, seven horses, two foals, pigs, sheep; and
poultry innumerable, 360 acres of very productive improved land in three
farms, two of which are let at a dollar an acre per annum. We have seen
a neighbourhood grow up about us, and every convenience of civilized
life come to us and surround us."
This narrative, which combines the truth of history with the tender in-
terest of romance, teaches a most wholesome lesson to European emi-
grants. The worst class of Americans, scouted out of honest society, re-
treat into the remoteness of the back settlements, where the population is
scanty, and where the absence of police, officers of justice, and neighbours,


ILLINOIS.
89
leaves them at liberty to pursue their brutal, violent, and dishonest ten-
dencies without restraint. The innocent and ignorant emigrants from
Europe are without defence against these wretches, who combine the forces
of personal violence, and lawlessness, with a dexterous use of all the quirks
of American law. Both these means of persecution were effectually in-
Aicted on this Yorkshire family, and we are convinced that no European
families should settle in thinly peopled districts, but that if they cannot
obtain land cheaply in a well settled neighbourhood, they had far better
hire themselves to employers in fully populated localities, than encounter
the dangers and hardships of the back woods.
Dr. John Thomas, of St. Charles, in Northern Illinois, a learned and
most intelligent writer and physician, observes, “ On the streams it is
more or less aguish-on the prairie more healthy than in the woods, but
Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, are as healthy as any country on
earth-more so than the British isles. There is not a more eligible coun-
try than Fox River Valley. It would cost a man three times as much to
improve wild land, as to buy farms of 200 or 300 acres, which are to be
had in abundance, at the bare cost of the improvements. If you know
any likely to purchase a good stock farm, mine is 285 acres, 40 under cul-
tivation, a good frame house 30 feet by 40, a large garden and barn, and
commands a beautiful and extensive view, price £575. It is drier than
in England -warmer in summer, colder in winter. In this prairie coun-
try there is always a refreshing breeze. We have some hot days occa-
sionally, but they do not continue, soon becoming agreeable. In spring,
the weather is very variable—the autumn beautiful- and when the winter
is cold it is invigorating, clear as crystal, and sharp as edge of glass, last-
ing from the 5th of November to the 15th of February. If capitalists
did but know our advantages, they would certainly vest some of their
money in improvements here. Money yields readily 12 per cent. on secu-
rity of improved farms, and on which interest, a family may live and en-
joy life undisturbed by taxes.
“This country is distressingly healthy. There is much less ague than
there used to be. I should advise you to come and see for yourself; you
can have respectable board for 78. a week. About 1,500 dollars would
get you well under weigh,” Mr. Newhall gives a detailed account of the
cost of completely settling in a farm of 80 acres, including a house, family
expenses, implements, stock, and land, from which it appears that a be-
ginner may be well established for £80.
“An European emigrant,” observes Mr. Flower, “ first coming to Ame-
rica, changes his pounds sterling into dollars, and a dollar in America
goes as far as a pound in England. A cow worth £15 in England, is worth
15 dollars in Western America. Land in the old states is worth as many
dollars as pounds in England. In the Western States land is much
cheaper, clothing and labour dearer, bread, meat, and fuel, much cheaper.
Let all who think of emigrating come in time, and not wait till they have
lost their all. Those who have saved £1,000 will find it will count 4,444
dollars, and for all purposes of life will go as far as so many pounds in
England.”
This intelligent writer, after twenty years personal experience of the
life of a settler in Albion (Northern Illinois), and an intimate acquaint-
13


90
ILLINOIS.
ance with the history and circumstances of hundreds of English families
who accompanied or followed him, reports that they have enjoyed a higher
measure of health than they ever did in England, and have, with scarcely
an exception, risen from the narrowest circumstances to comfort, compe-
tency, and independence. For his charming and graphic descriptions of
the beauties of nature, and the easy minded happiness of prairie life, we
are sorry we cannot find room, but they will well repay perusal. When
Messrs. Birkbeck and Flower had been settled for a few years, their state-
ments fell under the lash of William Cobbett, who, under an affected
friendliness, virtually called them impostors, and their statements an inte-
rested cheat. In the face of thousands of English settlers, witnesses to
his statements, Mr. Flower is enabled, after twenty years experience, to give
even a more flattering account of the stable prosperity, and contentment of
his neighbours than at first; and Mr. Stuart, the factory commissioner, him-
self a large landowner, and one of the most skilful grain and stock farm-
ers in Scotland, in his admirable work on America, more than corrobo-
rates, from minute personal inspection, all that has been said on the sub-
ject. A fact is worth a thousand theories and mere fancies of individuals.
That fact, that 85 per cent of the whole emigrants from Europe at large,
and Great Britain in particular, settle in the United States, and at least
65 per cent. of these in the Western States, is worth all that ever was writ-
ten as evidence of the eligibility of the location. It is by friends and re-
lations writing home, and giving the testimony of witnesses to their con-
dition, that that tide of emigration is produced.
Mr. Stuart went over the Military Tract and Sangamon territory. He
examined the farm of Mr. Wilson, an Englishman, who in ten years had
raised himself to even wealth, on a farm three feet deep in soil, never ma-
nured, never yielding less than eight quarters of wheat to the acre. Mr.
Hillam he found in a farm near Jacksonville, (surrounded by 25 York-
shire families,) in eighteen months made productive and profitable, and
with gardens yielding the finest fruits and vegetables. Messrs. Alisons',
settlers of seven years standing, and the Rev Mr. Brick, from Cheshire,
were already almost wealthy. Mr. Kerr, a journeyman carpenter, from
Edinburgh, was in possession of a fine farm of 500 acres, commanding
every comfort, and all of these settlers enjoyed excellent health. Mrs.
Pritchard, an English quakeress, proprietress of a beautiful estate, reported
that all the companions of Mr. Flower had attained a comfortable inde-
pendence, except such as carried large capital, recklessly spent, with them.
- Mr. David Thompson, a gardener, from East Lothian, had a splendid
farm near Albion.
“I had the pleasure,” says Mr. Stuart,“ to accompany Mr. Flower over
his farm. He considers May nearly equal in climate and forwardness of
vegetation to the Devonshire June, and considers the changes in England
from wet to dry, as more unhealthy than those from heat to cold in
America. He lends money at 10 per cent. on the best security, which is
lower than the current rate. His family are delighted with their position.
Labourers with a little money to buy a bit of land, mechanics, store-
keepers, and farmers, are pretty much on a level as to rank in society.
Mr. and Mrs. Flower made light of this as an offset against the more
natural state of intercourse which it produced. There is perfect freedom
1


MICHIGAN.
91
from anxiety in this country, so far as regards circumstances in life, and that
feeling makes them happy. He knew every child of his would be well
provided for. He must, indeed, eat with his servants. No one should
emigrate who cannot change his mode of life. Difficulties as to servants
he must be prepared to meet; but in one respect servants are far superior
to British, there is never any pilfering among them. Improved land
with fences already put up, may be had for four or 5 dollars, (17s. to 21s.)
per acre."
MICHIGAN.
This state presents a greater variety of surface than Illinois or any of
the Western States. More than half the area is covered with dense
forests, and the rest is prairie, burr oak openings, marshes, and pine
groves. The north is bold and rocky, broken by mountain and valley.
The centre is marshy. The south has much fine land and abuts on the
Erie canal. There is abundance of game and fish. The immense forests
and swamps of the state give rise to a variety of fevers and miasmatic
and bilious diseases. The charming sketches of Mrs. Kirkland, the
Goldsmith of America, describe this as a beautiful country, inhabited
by a rude but simple minded people.” But fever and ague figure too fre-
quently in her pages, and we consider the state as not well suited to the
British emigrant. “I felt,” says Mr. Sherriff, “ considerable disap-
pointment at the general aspect of the country, which, with the exception
of about twenty-five miles next Detroit, was found to consist of oak
openings, chiefly sand, and exhibiting few marks of fertility. The sur-
face is gently undulating, and from the thinness of the trees, and fre-
quency of streams, lakes, and prairies, highly picturesque. White Pigeon
is a pretty village, in neatness and comfort resembling those of New
England. An old farmer from New England exclaimed, “Surely this
must have been the place where Adam and Eve resided.” It is said
many English farmers are settled here who have good threshing ma-
chines. These prairies are not fully occupied, and land sells at. from
3 dollars to 6 dollars per acre.” Towards the southern part of the state
Mr. Sherriff indicates a more favorable opinion of the country. Mr.
Fergusso employed by the Highland Society to survey the states,
gives a more favorable account of Michigan. “The climate is tem-
perate and healthy, with four months of winter, and is more congenial to
the European constitution than the other Western States." He gives
from the experience of settlers the following estimate of a location:
160 acres at 11 dollars per acre
£45
Seed, labour, rail fence for 15 acres at 6 dollars
202 10s.
Harvesting at 2 dollars ....
67 10s.
Dwelling house, stables, &c..
180
£495
Returns.
Produce of 150 acres, at 20 bushels per acre, one dollar
per bushel...
£675
Profit
£180


92
INDIANA, WISCONSIN.
Detroit, the capital of Michigan, is the Constantinople of the West.
The influx of emigrants is immense. It will be seen from the foregoing
items that the produce of land is only a half what it is in Illinois; but tho
price seems to be nearly double. We entertain doubts, however, whether
33s. 4d. per quarter can be long obtainable for wheat, either here or any
where else in America. All are producers,--the consumers are few, the
cost of shipment is great, and the European markets offer grain at a
much lower price.
INDIANA,
Between Michigan and Illinois, is to the south of the former, and to the
north of the latter, which it more resembles in climate and soil. It is
mostly prairie, and is well watered. Mr. Owen's settlement of New Harmony
is in this state, which had been occupied by a colony of Germans, who
moved from it to Illinois. Mr. Flint describes this part of it as high,
healthy, fertile, and in the vicinity of small rich prairies. Mr. Stuart
observes, “Mr. Flint is of opinion that the metropolis of the republic
will be in the Western States. He recommends Europeans to pay great
attention to health, the first season, by the use of repeated doses of calo-
mel, by which they escape bilious diseases, and when acclimated become
healthy. Freedom from consumption, from the great purity and clearness
of the atmosphere, gives them a great advantage.” “The soil both of Ohio
and Indiana is highly productive; but as the prairies are not so extensive,
as in Illinois, and the soil in Illinois is certainly the most fertile in the
union, it appeared to me to be unnecessary to make a minute inspection
of any part of the other Western States. Plenty of improved land is to
be had in the neighbourhood of Cincinnati, varying in price according to
distance."*
WISCONSIN.
This territory adjoins Michigan, and is on the northern boundary of
Illinois. It is a uniform level, abounds in prairie, and being to the north
of Illinois, is more healthy and less subject to ague and bilious diseases.
It abounds in small lakes and rivers, and is intersected with creeks. It
commands the navigation of the Mississippi, Lake Michigan, and the
Canadian lakes, is very fertile, and produces wild rice in abundance. It
abounds in coal and other minerals, and is in course of very rapid settle-
ment, being the southern boundary of Upper Canada. Mr. John Cole,
a farmer from Somersetshire, settled in the district of Racine, in this
territory, and his account is fully corroborated by a gentleman who
•"I have heard ample testimony to the healthiness of Indiana. The winter is
not so cold, and the summer not so hot as in Canada. Ague is disappearing. Avoid-
ing the undrained prairie, and swampy woodland, the British labourer would greatly
improve his condition by a removal to that state, and with care might become inured
to the climate without much previous sickness. Much of the illness is from want of
caution, and much from poverty. A decent house, sheds for horses, that they may be
found when wanted, instead of being hunted through the long wet prairie grass,
would cave mapy a fit of ague,"-PRBNTICE.


IOWA.
93
He says;
acre.
arrived from that country in England, in 1843.
It is by far
the best place in the world for the English farmer or rural mechanic,
with small capital. There is now plenty of land near this handsome sea
port, (Racine,) at 5s. an acre, deeds included; and improved farms, with
house, out-buildings, and fenced in, at from 3 dollars to 6 dollars per
The land here is the best I have ever seen ; black loam for six
inches to two feet deep, all prairie, with timber in clumps, like a gentle-
man's park, and suited to every crop. Garden vegetables grow in per-
fection, as well as English fruits and flowers. It is the best country in
America for game, fish and water; there is plenty of living water on every
farm : wells can be got anywhere, and every kind of timber. Wild fruits
of all kinds. The crop is thirty to forty bushels wheat, thirty to sixty
Indian corn, forty to sixty oats, and barley, and flax, and buckwheat in
proportion per acre. The best pasturage for cattle and sheep; hay three
tons per acre. No country can be more healthy, being open, high prairies
in a northern latitude. No persons are ill from the climate, only ague in
the swamps. We have a good cash market; hay, 2 dollars to 4 dollars
per ton; working cattle, £8 to £12; cows, 12 dollars; sheep 6s. to 8s.;
four 5 dollars per bushel ; wheat 3s. 4d. per bushel; Indian corn Is. 6d.;
barley, 2s.; oats, 1s. 3d.; buckwheat, 2s.; pork, 2d.; beef, 3d.; butter 8d.;
cheese, 4d. The expense of coming to this place from New York to
Buffalo, by canal, 3 dollars in seven days; by rail, 10 dollars in two days;
and by steam boat thence here 6 dollars in four days and a half. Up-
wards of a hundred farmers have come here in consequence of my former
letter; not one has left. We have all conveniences : shops, goods as
cheap as in England, places of Worship, saw and flour mills, daily news-
papers, and the New York mail every day. In short, every convenience
you could have near New York; and your produce will sell for nearly as
much, with double the crop on the new land."
IOWA.
This territory, which once formed part of Wisconsin is now separated
from it, and is the frontier territory of the west, and the ultima thule of
civilization. It is very healthy, very beautiful, very fertile, abounding
in fair uplands alluvial soil. But its population are rude, brutal, and
lawless, and possessing no settled institutions or legislature, it is obvious
that it will be avoided by all persons of character and orderly habits. Its
miners, like those of Galena, are worse than savages. We may dismiss
our account of this region, for which nature has done everything, and man
nothing, by the assurance that at present it is entirely unfitted for the
settlement of emigrants, except such as
"Leave their country for their country's good."
“He has taken Iowa short,” is the American phrase for a rascal who
has made other places “ too hot to hold him.”
The Western states abound in beautiful flowers, wild fruits, and birds
of every variety, and of the gayest plumage. The glow-worm and fire-
fly; and butterflies of every hue, are common, and the mosquitoes in the


94
GENERAL FBATURES OF WESTERN STATER.
shelter of the woods, are very annoying. Snakes are very numerous, of
great variety, and some of them exceedingly dangerous; yet few acci-
dents happen from their attacks. As we have elsewhere said, day and
night are more equally divided in America than in Europe, and in the
former there is an entire absence of twilight, or gray, still evening, dark-
ness hastening on the moment the sun sinks beneath the horizon. As a
general rule, roads are few and bad, and bridges still worse. Public con-
veyances are conducted in an inconvenient way, from the independence of
the conductors upon the custom of the public; and inns and steam boats
are indifferently regulated. In the former, the innkeepers bear them-
selves as the obliging parties, and often decline to serve customers when
it is inconvenient. The beds and bed-rooms are very badly managed,
and the houses over crowded. The balance of testimony is in favour of
the American character for evenness of temper, deference to women,
substantial good manners, with great plainness of speech and address, and
great and genuine kindness to the sick or the distressed, particularly
strangers, widows, and orphans. Commercial integrity is low, and there
is much over-reaching and sharpness in bargains, and mercantile con-
tracts. The litigious and pettifogging tendencies of the people, are the
result of their acuteness, logical intellect, and inferior sentimental en-
dowments. Law and lawyers are the curse of the country, and it is em-
phatically said that an American will go to law with his own father about
a penny. These features are not the result of the character, so much as
of the circumstances of the people. Character is not of much conse-
quence to a people who may be ruined a dozen times, and recover easily,
from the great facilities of getting a living, and of moving from one
locality to settle in another. Even repudiation is the consequence of
universal suffrage, and would occur, if we are to believe our conserva-
tive politicians, and Chartist orators, in the case of our own national
debt, if every male adult had a vote. A sponge to the debt is a favourite
remedy of the Chartists, and an “equitable adjustment” as it is called,
finds many supporters among ourselves. Indeed the Birmingham “lit-
tle shilling," is but a thin disguise for a composition of 15s. in the
pound; while Earl Stanhope, and his agricultural disciples, delibe-
rately propose the plunder of the national creditor, and of the church
as the alternative of the policy of protection. The Americans are the
best informed and educated people in the world. They possess, in-
tellectually, a great fund of gaiety and humour, veiled by a cool
sedateness of exterior. In our apprehension, their literature is of
the highest order, and their attainments in science, especially in its ap-
plication to practical purposes, are far beyond their opportunities. No-
thing can be superior to their promise in poetry—they have invented a
music of their own-their drama can boast its Cushmans and come-
dians—their historians, lexicographers, and Jurisconsults, are deservedly
of high reputation-their lighter literature has its Coopers, Irvings,
Sedgewicks, Sigourneys, and, above all, its Kirklands, and in moral and
theological disquisition they have not fallen behind the standard of Eu-
rope. Emerson, Parker, Ware, Channing, Norton, Dewey, Everett,
whom have we that we can place above such men; and for orators, to
whom shall we reckon Webster inferior ?


GENERAL FEATURES OF WESTERN STATES.
93
Every form of government has its excellences and its dangers. A re-
publican constitution is the only one which was ever practically possible
among a people who are all freeholders of ample lands, and entirely in-
dependent of each other. That which we regard as the peculiar safety of our
institutions, the absence of centralization, and the prevalence of local
self government, operates to even a greater extent in America. The
universal education and intelligence of her people, the deep root which
religion has taken among them, their love, almost conceit of country, and
their reverence for their really great men, joined with the boundless natural
wealth of their territory, and the comfortable circumstances of all, are
guarantees for the stability and prosperity of her order of society, to be
found nowhere else. Their extraordinary progress in every art of life,
and their superhuman conquest of nature over the amplitudes of a bound-
less territory, mark them out as the greatest nation that ever existed.
Contrasting their history and position with the recent annals of Europe,
it is impossible to doubt that the probabilities in favour of security from
anarchy, violence, and revolution, preponderate in favor of the transat-
lantic republic. United in patriotism, national sympathy, and federa-
tively, the people are yet so divided into independent communities, that
local convulsions do not affect the general tranquillity. The institution of
slavery only affects a portion of the republic, and will gradually sink
before the influence of public opinion, and moral dynamics. Her crav-
ing for war is providentially counterbalanced by regard for the dollars it
will cost, and the discovery of Californian gold, will restore her currency
to a state of health, and mitigate the evils of truck and barter. Of repu-
diation the settled states are ashamed. We do not believe any national
stocks in the world are so safe as those of New York, Pennsylvania, Mas-
sachusetts, Ohio, or Kentucky. The market of England is now opened
for the provisions and grain of the Western States, and we cannot enter-
tain a doubt, that for centuries to come, this great republic must pro..
gress in comfort, security, prosperity, and every good which can make
civilization desirable, and the institution of society, an element of human
happiness. *
* The contradictory accounts given of American character, arise to a great extent
from the prejudices of the writers. Some believe nothing good can come from a
republic, -others that it must be productive of every social excellence.
The ten-
dency of the human mind to classify where there is no warrant of resemblance, in-
duces many to attribute to a nation that which is true only of the individuals of
whom the writers have personal experience. If an Englishman is cheated by a
Yankee, he calls all Yankees rogues ;-if by an Englishman, he only attributes the
roguery to the individual.
Among the vulgar of our own country there exists a
superstitious prejudice against all foreigners, and a clannish combination against
them. Their helpless condition, their ignorance of our laws and customs, make them
the easy prey of our domestic scoundrels. The further you go into our thinly popu-
lated districts, the greater will be found the dislike of Yankees, Frenchmen, or even
Irishmen,
So must our emigrants expect to find it among the Americans, especially if they
carry the pride of John Bull and his natural contempt of every body else, on their
backs and in their bearing. Wherever Englishmen go, they grumble at every thing
that is not English. They abuse their own country at home, and depreciate every
other abroad. Is it singular that Americans should be animated by a similar instinct?
We ought not to be surprised that the rogues and scoundrels who infest America,
as they do our own country, should fasten upon the ignorant foreigner, as their
legitimate prey. Their knowledge of the quirks and quibbles of their own law,
will be readily used to cheat the helpless emigrant. But we have scarcely seen an


96
TEXAS.
TEXAS.
For the sake of completeness, we enumerate Texas among the regions
of emigration. We have carefully compared the testimony given to the
state and prospects of this territory, and read many contradictory accounts
of its character. The most recent narrative of emigration prospects is
that furnished by the late expedition of Icarians from France, which
gives a deplorable account of every thing connected with it. The cha-
acter of the leaders and projectors of the emigration, seems chiefly how-
ever chargeable with the failure of the scheme, the only very significant
fact, condemnatory of the district, being the circumstance that, all the
travellers have left it, and returned, some to the Western States, others to
France. But it is notorious that the French are deficient in fortitude,
hope, and perseverance, and never make good colonists. Our own Co-
lonial and Land Emigration Commissioners have inserted the following:
-“Caution respecting Emigration to Texas," in successive numbers of
instance in which this has been attempted, where the native Americans have not
assisted the stranger against the knave who sought to oppress him. Facts speak vo-
Jumes. Crime of eyery kind is far less in America than in England, or indeed in any
other country. The inciting cause of fraud and dishonesty does uot exist there.
The support of life is easy. There is no struggle for a living, nor any of that violence of
competition which tempts so many to realize Poor Richard's adage, “ It is hard for
an empty bag to stand upright." In the Western States, each man has his own free-
hold, and to him a neigłibour is a comfort and an increase of his wealth. We
ought not to believe all the statements made by those, who, not being contented
here, are not likely to find the customs of a new country, among strangers, in con-
formity with their own notions, There are many localities in which they may find
themselves surrounded by their own countrymen. If they place themselves in the less
settled districts, they will perbaps find Americans who themselves complain, as
grievously as they do, of bad neighbours. The emigrants from Elmet, near Leeds,
encountered a ruffainly neighbour in their remote location ; but he was as much de-
tested by the Americans, who combined to drive him from the district. Another
who tried to oust them by law from their holding, as many litigious men do in Eng-
land, was defeated by the native Americans, who defended the Yorkshireman against
their own countryman. Doubtless in the large cities, where the rascaldom of
Europe hide themselves, the simple foreigner will be taken in, as a raw man from
the country would be in London. Even in the country, where a stranger may be
little known, and his responsibility not ascertained, the natives may be sharp in
enforcing their contracts with him, as we would be in reference to a newcomer. But
the fact that in twenty-four years a million and a half of our countrymen have
settled in the States, is the best evidence of the treatment they receive from the
Americans, whose kindness to the sick, whose succour of the helpless, whose ready
help to the unfortunate are notorious. Proud of their country, trained to habits of
self respect, they will indeed not tolerate depreciation of the one, or superci ious
disrespect to the other. But it is universally conceded that their lower orders
are incapable of the pickery, theft, and embezzlement, which are too common here;
and that considering the motley and shifting character of the population, society
is singularly well ordered among them. We have heard loud complaints made by
those in this country who have had occasion to employ American attornies, and of
the great difficulty they have experienced in the eniorcement of debts, or the re-
covery of property due, or belonging to them on the other side of the Atlantic.
Americans. we fear, would too often have a similar story to tell of attornies and
debtors in England. Human integrity, every where, is too much graduated by the
ratio in which fraud can be detected, and punished.' The absent, like the dead, are
unable to tell tales. English attornies, stewards, partners, debtors, in the West or
East ludies, in Canada, in Australia, are persons from whom it is only possible to
get a reckoning by meeting them face to face.


TEXAS.
97
their circular. * Emigrants are warned that the statements recently cir-
culated, respecting the salubrity of climate, the fertility of soil, and the
richness of the mineral productions of Texas, are reported by authority
to be greatly exaggerated, and that British subjects, who may be induced
to emigrate to that country, are likely to fall into sickness and destitu-
tion.”
The southern position of Texas, and its capability of raising tro-
pical productions, argue a too torrid climate for a European constitution.
It is comparatively unsettled, it is a border debateable land, betwixt
Mexico an., the United States, and it is peopled by the scum and refuse,
tie daring, adventurous, and lawless, of all other countries. When fully
peopled, well settled, and placed under the vigorous controul of
permanent government, and institutions, its natural capabilities
will render it a desirable place of settlement. It abounds, if we are
to believe Mr. Kennedy. and other more questionable authorities, in
fine land, extensive prau ie, game, and fish; it is well calculated for
cattle, sheep, rice, cotton, and other tropical productions. It has scarcely
any winter, and is not subject to the sudden changes or great extremes
of climate which form the defect of the North American continent. Its
proximity to Europe may ultimately make it preferable to the Cape, or
Australia, which, in many respects, it much resembles. But at present
it does not hold out that security for life, property, and the quiet pursuit
of industry which is essential to the happy condition of a colonist, and
even still the Cumanchees, White-feet, half-casts, and trappers, make in-
cursions upon the cattle, and sacrifice the lives, of many settlers who live
in lonely or unprotected districts. Nor can we accept without quali-
fication even the attested panegyrics of the climate. The German settlers
speak of its swamps, its desarts, its yellow and intermittent fevers, even
its sudden alternations of temperature, and only except from unmeasured
condemnation, the uplands and mountain tracts. Even the “Practical
Farmer” admits that “towards the west there are vast prairies devoid of
water and timber, and eastward the coast is flat, wet, rushy, and worthless.
The country presents here and there arid and marshy tracts." We cannot,
therefore, recommend it as a field foremigration, except to such as all good
citizens would desire to rid the mother country of. “Gone to Texas ” has
become the proverb for a scamp. “The Texan stock of Americans,"
observes the New York Tribune, “such as I have seen thrown upon the
surface in this war, so far surpass in brutality and universal scoundrelism
all Mexican examples, as to set at defiance any attempt at comparison.
Rhetoric aside - Texas is a miserable country and its inhabitants a mi-
serable population. Grain, Texas cannot grow to any extent. Her
cotton trade must ever be next to nothing, and her sugar trade literally
nothing. Her grazing facilities are incomparably inferior to those of
the whole Western region north of latitude 36 deg. from the Alleghany
to the Rocky Mountains.
Except a small patch in Eastern Texas, she has no productive soil,
because she has no seasons. Like most of Mexico, the rains of heaven
are scarcely vouchsafed to her at all, and never in seasonable regularity.
He who sows has no confidence that he will ever be permitted to reap.
Not one season in five is profitably productive to the labourer. Irrigation
can only make the soil yield a sure return; and so small a proportion of


98
OREGON-VAN COUVER'S ISLAND-CALIFORNIA,
the whole is susceptible of this artificial and expensive adjunct, that it is
mere trifling to consider it. The same is true of New Mexico and Cali-
fornia. Texas is hopelessly bad, New Mexico, if possible, worse,
and
California worst."
OREGON. VAN COUVER’S ISLAND. CALIFORNIA.
From Texas to Oregon the emigrant would find a fall analagous to
that of, “out of the frying-pan into the fire.” The climate and soil are
unobjectionable -- but everything else is. Van Couver's Island, under
the protection and dominion of the Hudson's Bay Company, seems to
offer greater advantages to the adventurous. California has a good cli-
mate and soil, admirably adapted for cattle, and not unsuited to cereals.
It is notoriously the region of
gold, and also of that most desperate of all
classes of men, gold finders. To the bold and intrepid, to all who are
embued with the spirit of adventure, to that frame of mind which is es-
sentially gipsy, Kalmuck, and Arabian in its desire for a wandering and
restless life, these regions offer the inducement of a climate which admits of
constantly living in the open air, of productiveness which renders rough
subsistence easy with little labour, and of the chances of getting rapidly
rich by the lucky acquisition of the precious metals. We regard them
all however as the destination only of men of desperate fortunes, and as
a certain source of unhappiness to all persons of orderly, industrious,
prudent, and virtuous habits. Their ultimate fate will, in all probability,
be prosperous; and if the new projects for connecting the Pacific with
the Atlantic by canals joining chains of lakes and rivers, or by railways
or aquaducts at the Isthmus of Panama, be speedily realized, they may
become much more rapidly populated and settled than is, with the pre-
sent means, probable.
Perhaps we ought not to dismiss the subject of Oregon without stating
that, for persons already located at the upper end of the Missouri, or
Lake Michigan, and accustomed to the life of migration so common in
those regions, and to the transport of cattle and goods over ranges of
hills and through vallies, and across rivers, a settlement at Vancouver,
the Willamette, or Walhamet, offers the advantage of a very salubrious
climate, fine pasture, a good grain country, and untaxed goods, cheap
and of good quality. The government of the Hudson's Bay Company en-
forces good order, and good faith, offers encouragement, assistance, and
protection to all settlers, and manages its commerce so judiciously as to
surround its subjects with many of the advantages of civilization. As a
mere location, it is regarded by allas greatly superior to California, and the
migration through the Western prairies of America, although tedious and
long, is not accompanied with many difficulties. But a life that may
become easy to Americans on the borders of civilization, would be full of
anxiety and difficulty to a European, and ought not to be encountered
under any circumstances whatever,


APPENDIX.
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
Wages of labourers are 39. Mr. Cunard holds an estate in this island; he
extends roads through his waste lands, and lays out lots of fifty acres each along
the sides. He lets each of these farms to any respectable man, on a lease of
999 years, paying no rent for the first three years, then 3d., then 6d., then 9d.,
and then 1s. an acre, enabling the tenant at any time to purchase the freehold
at twenty years' purchase, with all the improvements. Instead of taking the
rent in money, he employs his tenants in making the roads ; thus receiving pay-
ment in labour, and improving the estate of the labourer. It answers the emi-
grant's purpose better to take his land than to receive a free grant, because, in
the one case, he would have to go into the wilderness to look for his grant, and
find it surrounded by wild land; while, in the other the roads to a market are
made, and he can select his land from a plan.
Mr. Cunard remarks,-
“Settlers are very apt to endeavour to get large tracts of land ; but I have
lately prohibited that on my lots; and when a poor man comes, I say, ' Fifty
acres is quite enougin for you, because I retain the adjoining lot for you to
increase your farm when your family gets up, and you can increase your farm
behind.' Within fifteen or twenty years they generally choose to purchase, un-
less a man is very fortunate in making some speculation, and then he is able to
purchase sooner ; but as I only charge five per cent. interest on the money, and
six per cent. is the rate of interest in the country, they are not disposed to pur-
chase. I cannot take it from them as long as they pay the rent; I think if a
man is sure of getting his fee-simple by-and-by, he works with more cheerful-
ness and spirit. I have been able to note the progress of many settlers from the
time of their taking the land, and have never known an industrious sober man
who has not succeeded. I would give land to 1,000 men at that price, if they
had £10 or £15 a piece. I should ask for none of it myself, but it would be a
kind of security that those men would not become burdensome the first year; I
mean taking the average of the family of each man with £10 at five indivi-
duals. I would not take paupers; I require men of good character. In harvest
time there is some labour to do; but I think a man with a few pounds would go
on his lot of land almost immediately. He would get some of his neighbours to
assist him in cutting down logs and erecting a log-house, sufficient for the fa-
mily till he is enabled to replace it with a good house. The price of provisions
is extremely low, and a sober man will always get a little credit to enable him
to go on."
Mr. Cunard further stated, that he believed the island would, if cultivated,
support ten times its present population, and that he had seen as many as seventy
vessels from the United States engaged in fishing round the island, lying in the
harbour at one time. He remarks, “ the climate is healthy, the soil good, the
production good; it is a beautiful spot, no one can visit it without admiring it.”
-EMIGRANT JOURNAL.
The following extract from a work, published some years since, affords a good
account of the seasons :
“ After a serene and usually dry October, the weather begins to get more un-
steady in the early part of November, and sometimes a sharp frost, with
showers of snow, takes place before the middle of that month ; but, when this
occurs, the October weather returns again, and commonly lasts about ten days
or a fortnight. This short interval is called the Indian Summer.' When it
K 2


100
APPENDIX.
occurs, the frost does not generally set in before the beginning of December;
but the cold weather more commonly begins about the 20th of November, and
gradually increases, until the ground resists the plough, which is ordinarily
about the second week in December. The cold now increases rapidly, and the
ground becomes covered with snow; and about Christmas the frost is as intense
as that experienced during the severest winters in England.
“During the months of January and February, the weather is usually steady,
with the thermometer very frequently below zero of Fahrenheit. But sometimes
a thaw takes place, and by laying the ground bare of its winter covering, occa-
sions great inconveniences.
“The weather is not so cold as to interfere with any outdoor occupations,
and the length of day at the winter solstice, by reason of the difference of lati-
tude, is about an hour longer at Charlotte Town than at London.
‘March, as in Europe, is a windy month, and is throughout very changeable.
About the close of this month, the snow rapidly melts, and the ice in the rivers
and bays gets rotten and dangerous to pass; and wholly disappears, except in a
late season, about the second week in April. Strong southerly winds now com-
mence, and the last vestiges of frost vanish. Ploughing generally commences
about the third week of this month ; and before the middle of the next, un-
less the season be unusually late, the greater part of the seed is committed
to the ground.
“The spring is short; and during the month of May the mean temperature is
little lower than is common during the same month in England, though there
are occasionally very cold and raw easterly winds. But towards the end of
this month steady weather is generally estabỉished.
“In the beginning of June the summer bursts forth; and the natural forest,
presenting to the eye every variety of vegetation, and filling the air with the
fragrant perfumes of the native herbs of the island, gives abundant evidence of
the fertility of the soil.
“The brilliancy of a summer night in the vicinity of the bays cannot be sur-
passed by that which the finest climates under heaven exhibit. The wind is
usually still, and the smooth surface of the water reflects the splendid lights of
the firmament; and wherever the current runs, the fishes are heard sporting in
the stream; and on the shore, whole acres are sometimes illuminated by the fire
flies, which emit flashes of light as they sport in the air; and now and then a
torch is seen displayed at the bow of the canoe of some Indian engaged in
spearing the eels.
“From this time, until the middle or the end of September, the climate re-
sembles that of the southem coast of England. The thermometer, occasionally,
during calm weather, shows a greater degree of heat than we experience in
this country; but the sea breeze seldom fails to lower the temperature by the
time the sun reaches the zenith, so that no inconvenience thence arises. But
during the prevalence of the south-west winds, throughout the greater part of
July, August, and September, the thermometer stands pretty steadily at from
75 to 80 degrees of Fahrenheit during the mid-hours of the day; and at night
the air is soft, wholesome, and agreeable.
“ The hay harvest commences about the middle of July; and the white crops
are usually cut between the middle and the last of August.
“About the middle of September, the evenings begin to get fout, and the au-
tumn properly commences. Nothing can exceed the beauty or the healthiness
of this season of the year. The atmosphere is exceedingly rarefied, the forest
presents scenery unsurpassed in beauty, or in the hopes of future plenty, by
anything to be met with in the old or new world.”
The intermittent fevers of the States are unknown, and the country people are
long lived. The general character of the soil is that of an unctuous loamy
mould. The ground is everywhere easily worked. Sometimes the settlers plough
with a pair of bullocks or one horse, and it is rarely necessary to use more
than a pair of light horses.
CANADA.
CLIMATE.-The official records show, that in the last eight years, 1840 to 1847,
there were, in West Canada, 770 days on which there was rain, 400 days on which
there was snow, and 1752 perfectly dry days; showing a yearly arerage of 965


APPENDIX.
101
rainy days, of 50 snowy days, of 219 perfectly dry days, wherein there was
neither snow nor rain. "If a particle of snow or rain falls during the twenty-
four hours, the day is respectively considered at the Observatory as a rainy or
snowy day.
WESTERN CANADA.-I had daily offers of beautiful farms, more or less im-
proved, some as low as 10s. per acre, up to £5. and £10. an acre, whilst £20.
per acre was asked for some suburban spots on the plank road. The buildings
about the towns and along the roads all seemed warm and substantial. The
field of enterprise, being so unlimited in Western Canada, there is no doubt our
English emigrants will prefer that country.-Rubio's RAMBLES,
PRICE OF LAND IN CANADA.-We extract the following from a Canadian ad-
vertisement, as the best price current of land cleared and uncleared. 254 acres,
165 cleared; large frame house, frame barn and out-houses, orchard, &c., situated
on the bank of the Grand River, four miles from Brantwood, and two from
Paris. Price £7 108. per acre-145 acres, 135 cleared ; very good log buildings,
six miles from Brantford, and within one mile of the plank road to London;
well fenced, and in good cultivation. Price £5 10s. per acre. 185 acres, 160
cleared, on the White Man's Creek, about six miles from Brantford ; frame
house, and barn. The farm is well cleared, and in a good vicinity. Price £1200.
350 acres, 270 cleared, frame and log house (containing six rooms and stone
cellar), two log houses, large frame barn, with mill shed attached, &c., &c.
Within three miles of Brantford, with a large frontage on the plank road to
London, price £2000, and terms accommodating 100 acres, cleared ; frame
house, barn, &c., six miles from Brantford, £625. 100 acres, 60 cleared; with
good log buildings, situated in the west part of Burford. An excellent lot of
hard-wood land, well cleared and fenced ; in a good neighbourhood,-£350.,
half cash. 100 acres, 54 cleared; frame house, frame barn, and sheds, and a
large bearing orchard,-situated on the Old Oxford Road, 17 miles from Brant-
ford, good land. £5 per acre. 3 acres, with a good frame house and barn, and
a large orchard, situated in Dumfries, about half way between Brantford and
St. George, and about five miles from Paris. This is a desirable little property,
and would suit a doctor or other professional person wishing to reside in the
country. Price £125. 280 acres, 30 cleared ; no buildings; frontage on the river
Thames, in North Dorchester. 6 dollars per acre. 100 acres, 35 cleared ; log
house, frame barn, orchard, &c., situated in Bayham, about six miles west of
Richmond. £200 cash.-EMIGRANT'S JOURNAL.
IRISH EMIGRATION TO CANANA.—The “Tee-total Settlement” was formed in
1842, by destitute emigrants from the south of Ireland. In a Report from the
Commissioners, dated 25th January, 1844, it is thus stated :-“Where, but two
years ago, stood a dense forest, there have been gathered by thirty-five settlers,
during the past autumn, 7,236 bushels of grain, potatoes, and turnips. The ac-
companying return shows an estimated value of £1,137 in buildings and clear-
ings; and when there is added to this, the market value of the crop, exceeding
£800, we have about £2,000 return (exclusive of the making four and a quarter
miles of road.) The north-eastern section of New Brunswick contains land
which seems to be better adapted for the growth of wheat than almost any
other portion of the province. In the county of Restigouch, which is the ex-
treme northern county of New Brunswick, premiums for wheat were awarded
in 1844, to several parcels weighing 64 and 65 lbs. and upwards, the Winchester
bushel; the barley was from 52 to 56 lbs. a bushel, and the best Siberian wheat
63 lbs. a bushel; the best black oats, 42 lbs., and the best white oats 47 lbs. a
þushel.-MR. M. H. PERLEY.
THE UNITED STATES.
AMERICAN MANNERS.—I do not think that democracy, is marked upon the
features of the lower classes in the United States; there is no arrogant bearing
in them, as might be supposed from the despotism of the majority; on the con-
trary, I should say that their lower classes are much more civil than our own.-
MARRYAT.
“For intelligence and correct deportment I unhesitatingly assert that the set-
tlers, as a body of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, are not surpassed by any
equal number of people of any country in the world.”-NEWHALL.
“ Affability, kindness, and good temper, are prevailing characteristics of the
K 3


102
APPENDIX.
Americans in every part of the Union. The rough backwoodsman possesses
these estimable qualities in as high a degree as a citizen of the Eastern
States."
“Consideration and kindness for the helplessness of Infancy, and the bereave-
ment of widowhood, is one of the most pleasing traits of the American cha-
racter.”-FLOWER.
“I found good breeding, politeness, frank hospitality, and every generous
feeling prevailing amongst them. I saw none of those open displays of depra-
vity which disfigure our large towns.
"Every man, rich or poor, seems on all occasions sedulously to give place
and precedence to females, and the meanest of them are exempt from those
masculine and laborious tasks which are assigned to the sex in our own
country.”-CAPTAIN BARCLAY.
AN EXTRACT PROM A LETTER FROM THOMAS THORLEY, BLACK-
SMITH, CREWE.
“Cirkland, Ohio, 25th December, 1848.
This is the healthiest place I was ever in. We all enjoy good health here,
thank my God! We love this country well. I will give you the prices of various
articles of food, in English money, that you may understand it better; beef l{d.
per lb., mutton 14d., pork lid., veal lt., flour 208. per barrel, Indian corn, first-
rate, ls. 6d. per imeasure, & turkey Is. 6d., hens 6d. each, sugar 31., and lump
5d., tea 28., coffee 5 d., butter 6d., currants, and raisins, about as with you.
Clothing, both men's and women's, much the same as at home. Farms of about
thirty acres, with house and premises upon it, for £80 or £90. Apples, as many
as you like to gather for nothing, we have had given to us; and hundreds of
bushels lay beneath the trees now rotting close by us. I might add for infor-
mation, that the amount of wages I had to start with was 150 cents, or 6s. 3d.
per day, and had the promise of more if I would stop. Of course, at the above
price of food, two days' work per week would keep my family ; milk also we
can have here for fetching, as much as we like. With reference to my own
prospects, one thought pays me for all my trials, viz., I have lost the fear of ever
wanting! or my children 1 There is plenty in abundance; take a case. We have
been here at this house seven weeks, during that time one quarter of veal, three
quarters of a sheep, two pigs, the one weighing 18 score 9 lbs., the other small,
about 40 lbs., so much for starvation! nearly all this is for work done. And
then there is liberty. I can take my rifle down, and fetch in a brace of large
squirrels to make a first-rate pie, or a wild duck; these I fetched in ten
minutes! There are also rabbits and quails, these I have never tasted yet, but
mean to do the first opportunity.
THOMAS THORLEY.
PENNSYLVANIA.
Venango County, Pine Grove Township, 20th October, 1848.
DEAR H.-My farm consists of ninety-four acres, sixty fenced with high timber
fences, sixteen of oats, two of wheat, ten tons of hay, sixteen acres in clover for
next year, fourteen of good meadow land, and forty of good timber, enough for
firing for many years, and enough to fence the farm for twenty years. The
house is well and warmly built. House-building costs nothing here: you only
have to give notice to neighbours round that you intend to raise a house on a
certain day, they all come, bring their tools with them, some a span of horses,
some a yoke of cattle, and they will set to work, fifty or sixty of them, or a hun-
dred, if you require a large house; they go to work and get it up in a day,
when they have put the roof on; you have to kill a sheep, which costs a dollar,
provide bread, and a few gallons of whisky for them (whisky twenty-five cents
per gallon), and you are expected to turn out and help when anybody else re-
quires a house or barn built.
I have a large barn, with mow large enough to hold 5,000 sheaves of corn,
thrashing floor, stables, cow-houses, pig-styes, blacksmith's shop, with stone
built forge and chimney. Steve and Henry cut the hay, and we made it amongst
uis, carried it with a pair of Richard's oxen; the boys then set about cutting
the sixteen acres of oats, which they got through; we all raked and bound
them into sheaves, shocked them into dozens in the field, and then with the
oxon drew them into the barn. There are 420 dozen sheavés; each dozen will


APPENDIX.
103
yield over a bushel of oats, so that when thrashed, which we shall begin soon,
we shall have over 450 bushels of oats, and about sixteen tons of straw. I've
sold 100 bushels of oats, at twenty-five cents per bushel, and one ton of straw
at eight dollars per ton, to be sent in before Christmas.' This farm property,
including all I have mentioned, such as ninety-four acres fencing, timber, out-
crop, hay, wheat, barn, stables, &c., blacksmith's shop, house, springs of running
water, &c. &c., for 600 dollars. Everything is very cheap here but labour, and
a few foreign goods, on which are placed a protective duty. I bought a cow and
calf when I came here for twenty dollars, equal to about £4 6s. 8d. English, a
sow and five pigs for three dollars, seven hens and one cock for one dollar. The
prices of things here are as follows:-Beautiful horses, such as would cost in
England fifty guineas, are here fifty dollars; cows and calves, fourteen dollars;
sheep, one dollar each; cheese, six cents the pound; butter, ten cents; chickens,
eight for one dollar; geese, two for one dollar ; turkeys, two for one dollar;
þeef, three and four cents the pound; whisky, twenty-five cents a gallon; to-
bacco, from ten to eighteen cents per pound; best French brandy, twenty-five
cents a pint; coffee, twelve pounds for a dollar, or equal to fourpence English
the pound; and very good sugar, six cents a pound. I bought forty bushels of
Indian corn the last time I was in Franklin, at 371 cents the bushel. Peaches
are twenty-five cents a bushel; potatoes the same. We are going on Monday
about twenty miles off for forty bushels of apples; they are selling them there
at eight and ten cents a bushel ; this is an article of food on table at every
house at every meal in the day throughout the year. Peaches are also much
used, and as well as apples are served up in many various ways.
Generally speaking, you never see a dish on a table at any house, but every
thing is put on in plates. The middle of the table is covered with perhaps a
dozen, which are poked on without any order whatever, and containing the
most promiscuous collection of eatables you can imagine. I could not get over
the admixtures for a long time; stewed peaches, salt fish, honey in the comb,
fried potatoes, butter, preserved plums, frizzled pork, apples in molasses, cu-
cumbers in vinegar, fried mutton, tomato jelly, biscuits, coffee, corn cakes, and
musk. I've seen some people take some of all these things on to their plates at
one time. The people are very unconcerned about their ordinary dress; some
of the wealthiest will wear many patches of different colours on their clothes ;
on Sundays some few will dress as well as English farmers. The people are
inclined to be very sociable, constantly visiting and walking in and out of one
another's houses without hesitation. The houses usually being not nearer to
each other than half a mile, if you should stay to supper, you are invariably
pressed to stay all night. I like the people very much; we have a few very
choice families in our neighbourhood ; intelligent, industrious, 'benevolent, hos-,
pitable, and sociable. One case happened in the middle of harvest: an English-
man who had been out here about a dozen years, was taken suddenly ill; the
neighbours all collected together, nearly thirty of them, and in two days got all
his corn into his barn for him. Politics engross much of their thoughts and
conversation, but they don't often get excited. I was at the election yesterday,
which for this township is carried on at Richard's house. He is town clerk,
and also holds several other official appointments. The face of the country and
the climate is fine; the foliage is grand; the flowers in the woods are beautiful;
our woods are teeming with game; our boys are shooting pheasants every
day; partridges are plentiful, deer numerous, though the season is too early to
get at them. Of wild, offensive animals, we are in no way short of-bears, ra-
coons, wolves, opossums, porcupines, and rattlesnakes; we have killed some of
each of the three last animals when we came over; at least Arthur killed two
rattlesnakes and one porcupine, and Richard one opossum. The old settlers
seem never to think of rattlesnakes when going through the woods, for they
wear a sort of shoes only, to the ankle, and loose trousers ; new settlers, being
more timid, wear strong leather boots up to the knee nearly; there is then no
fear, even if trod on, for they would snap low, and they cannot bite through a
strong boot; they could through a thin one such as is used in London.--Emi-
GRANT'S JOURNAL
“Buffalo, Sept. 21, 1848
My Dear Wife -I am receiving 128. a week, and pay 8s. for iny board
that I have 4s. a week left. This is not the whole of my earnings. "The rew
so


204
APPENDIX.
mainder runs up till December, when they pay us off.” Some say December in
the best time to come, for there are not so many coming in the winter as in the
summer. You can, in consequence, come much more comfortably. When there
are so many coming, it is very unpleasant. People are very apt, in crowded
ships, to have the ship fever. Then, again, you can come for one half the money,
and be better looked to than when there are so many coming. If I were coming
over again, I would start about January; for there are worse storms in the
spring than in January.
I can buy as good land as any there is in England for 58. an acre, with the
trees on it; and the timber on the ground will pay for the clearing and smooth-
ing over. And the land will want no manure for twelve years. I should never
want to come to England again, if it were not to see my relations. Though the
trade is worse in America just now than ever it was known before, yet there are
plenty of chances to do well in America. I am getting 6s. 3d. a day, English
money. When traffic is good, the wages run about two dollars a day, or 8s. 4d.
English money.
It would not take more to keep us both in living than it does to keep myself.
You can have a fat sheep for about 3s., and you can buy as nice a fat pig for
ld. a pound as ever you saw. You can buy a goose, eighteen pounds weight,
for 2d. A turkey, about twenty-eight pounds, for 28. The price of meat varies
from 1d. to 2d. a pound. It is considered dear this year. You can buy cheese
a whole one at a time, as good as any I ever tasted, for Id. a pound. But but-
ter runs from 2d. to 3d. a pound. Tea runs from 2s. to 3s. a pound. Sugar runs
from 2d. a pound upwards. The best sugar is 4d. a pound. It is a fine country
for tea drinkers. There is scarcely a man to be seen drunk. In America
drunkards are looked upon like dogs. Malt runs from 25. to 2s. 6d. a bushel.
Hops are 3d. a pound. You can buy the drink for a ld. a quart from the brew-
ery. Cider sells for 28. a barrel. Whisky, 10s. a barrel. There are thirty-two
gallons in a barrel. All other liquors are about the same, except brandy, which
is dearer. So that a man can get drunk for a little money. Tobacco is 6d. a
pound. Cigars from 3d. to 6d. a dozen. I have been a teetotaller these three
weeks. And I have had no tobacco yet. I think I shall be a teetotaller, for tee-
totallers are looked on well. Men are not kept under here as they are in Eng-
land. The masters talk to them like talking to one another.
You can buy potatoes for 6d. a hushel: and apples for 9d. a bushel. Peaches
can be got for 25. a bushel. Flour is 20s. a barrel just now. It is rather dear;
but it will be down next week to 16s. a barrel. They are bringing it into Buf-
falo by thousands of barrels a week.
The table at which I sit, is set off like gentlemen's tables in England. There
are fowl, cheese, butter, pies, rice puddings, peaches, and apple sauce and ice
creams. There are so many dishes that you cannot taste of all of them. It is
in general, as I like it to be. You have beef steak and potatoes for breakfast
and supper, as well as to dinner.-C. JONES.
FROM A CHARTIST.
Pittsburg, July 24th, 1848.
DEAR SIR, You know by Ann's letters that we live In Pensylvenia, we like
america first-rate; We find It all and more than all we expected; Wages high
and living cheap.' A beautyful and healthy country, perfect security to life and
property, honest and Inteligent persons for neighbours and associates, plenty of
trade for all who are willing to work, In fact, the United States Is the most
prosperous and flourishing country In the world where All the Inhabitants have
enough to eat, A fact that does not admit of contradiction. No begers disfigure
our streets, this is the land of plenty, Where Industry Is rewarded, and all
persons has to earn their livelyhood each one for himself, And not as In Eng-
land, where some role In luxury, while others Starve. The working man here
Is not robed of half his earning by taxation, here all men are equal No here-
ditary titles and distinctions, Such as lords dukes, and other nick-names have
existance here; no fat Bishops and State Church, to supply the rich gentry and
fag-end of nobility with large sallaries and nothing to do for It, unless it Is to
domineer over the working clurgy. I like the americans verry much, they are
agreeable kind of people; their politeness Is seen more in their actions than
words, there Is nothing artificial about them. I don't see scarcely any difference


APPENDIX.
105
In the appearance of things here and in England. It is much warmer here in
sumer and less rain, bright sun shiney days, without fog or clouds continually.
A summer day here is 2 hours shorter than in england. The cenery round pitts-
burg Is beautyful, Shut in by hills that slopes to the edge of the river, covered
with trees, looks charming from the smokey city. You would be surprised what
quantitys of steam boats you can see here, many of them 700 ton burden. They
run down to New Orleans and Intermediate towns and citys. There Is several
large cotton factorys here, And Iron works, Glass works, &c., Similar In Its
productions to the English Birmingham. House rent Is as dear here as In Lon-
don, and an empty house Is not to be seen or found.
Some things are cheap here; ham, 3d. per pound, as good as the best you could
gen in London, and beter; Beef, 3d., have It cut from any part of the beast.
Get A fowl for 9d.; mutton, 24d; ; veal, 3d.; Butter, 7d. per pound; sugar, moist,
3d. ; white, 5d. ; treacle, 2d. per quart; Tea, 3s. per pound, as good as you can
get In London for os., no duty on it here; Coffee, 6d. per pound; milk, 22. per
quart; vedgetables, much as the same as London market; Gardening is good
business here; I think Ann and John would do well here, the strawbereyes used
here Is enormous for making strawbereyes and cream, the reason why so much
Is used Is, All the Inhabitants can afford to have some. Fruit of all kind Is
abundant, not verry cheap, the cittisons buy so much. Servants girls get 89. &
week, And sometimes more. Servant Is a word never used here, nor master,
you can't tell which are lady's here, the women dress so fine, all of them, and
they literally hoop their fingers with rings and signets. Wages Is about 6s. a
a day for mechanics, 4s. for labourers. Flour 4s. and 7d. per bushel, things are
dear now. So the Inhabitants say, the Americans drink verry little Ale or
Spirrits, we don't have any ourselves It Is to hot here without that, water does
better.-JEM AND JANE POWELL.
IOWA ILLINOIS-WISCONSIN,
The state of Iowa contains a white population little if any short of 200,000
persons. The number is regularly increased at the rate of 12,000 a year. Three-
fourths of the whole state may be said to be quite ready for the plough, being
clear, and without tress. At the same time, in all districts, a sufficient quantity
of timber is found for every necessary purpose. The growth of grass is luxuri-
ant.
Mr. Bradford states that during a residence of six years in the state, he
scarcely ever ate butter that was not superior to the choicest that is to be pur-
chased in any of the eastern states. The mere up-turning of the plough, with
the most careless after tillage, is only needed to convert nearly the whole terri-
tory into a fruitful garden, Coal, lead, and copper are, in different districts,
found in immense beds, and in connection with ample water-power, mark the
future greatness of Iowa not less for manufacturing than for agricultural wealth.
The climate is as propitious to health as that of almost any country in the world.
Its remoteness from the ocean secures it from those insalubrious winds which
carry with them a host of pulmonary disorders on the northern sea-board;
while its high and dry soil, and pure atmosphere, preserve it from the fatal fevers
to which the flatter surface and the fervid sun of the Lower Mississippi often
subject the denizens of the south. The winter-extending from December to
March-is cold, but dry, bracing, and clear; the heat of summer is tempered by
genial breezes and refreshing showers; and the autumn is peculiar for its beauty
and serenity--the mellow softness of the climate, the beauty and grandeur of
the foliage, the balmy fragrance of the atmosphere, the serene sky, all combined,
form a picture calculated to excite the most pleasurable feelings.
The general aspect of Illinois and Wisconsin in many respects resembles Iowa
to which. however, both are decidedly interior. Illinois is deficient in its pro-
portion of timber to prairie, and, as a whole, cannot honestly be described as
equal to the desired standard in the item of health. Wisconsin, again, is colder
and has less water than lowa, with more inferior land.
Newhall, a resident in the state, shows, by a simple calculation, that, with
£80 on his arrival, an emigrant, with a moderately-sized family, will start with
a good prospect of success. The experience of the British Temperance Emigra-
tion Society has led its agents to name a similar sum. Marshalì, another settler
in the Far West, shows, in his "Farmer's and Emigrant's Hand-book,” that
with 200 dollars (£40), and with a team, farming tools, and household furniture,
a man may confidently commence his struggle with the world. Many a man
66


106
APPENDIX,
in the west is now comparatively rich, who commenced with a less sum. All
that is wanted is courage and industry-some would say luck, but luck almost
always follows industry.” Our own opinion is, that £106 in sterling money,
well expended, and tended with industry, will be found sufficient for making a
good commencement, even if the emigrant has not been accustomed to agricul-
tural labour.-EASTERN COUNTIES HERALD.--From a late resident.
IOWA-WISCONSIN, WESTERN STATES.
Average prices of cattle and farming implements for a beginner
Good milch cows, 10 to 15 dollars ; yoke of oxen, 15 dollars
Sheep, 87 cents to 1 dollar per head, 42 sheep
Farm waggon, 50 dollars
Harrow, 14 dollars,scythe, pitchfork,rake, shovel, chains, &c., 32 dollars
Double Log Cabin £15, seed corn 10 acres, potatoes, turnips, garden
seed, £1
Poultry and a young pig, 128., family expenses, three to five of a fa-
mily, 68. per week, for 30 weeks, £10
80 acres
prairie land, 58. per acre, £20; horse, cio ::
£ 8. d.
10 0 0
2 0 0
10 0 0
2 6 0
16 0 0
10 12 0
30 0 0
Total
80 18 0
For £80 the emigrant can be comfortably settled on his 80 acre tract, furnished
with every necessary, and 30 weeks provisions. If you do not happen to have a
home-sick wife, I can see no reason why, with patience and perseverance, you
should not prosper equal to your utmost expectations. If you have £20 left-
keep it. It is the error of emigrants to spend their last dollar for the acres a
the outset. If you have £500, purchase 320 acres, a half section.-NEWHALL
Hancock, Printer, Aldermanbury, London.


WHETHER TO GO,AND WHITHER?
OR,
THE CAPE
AND
THE GREAT SOUTH LAND.
BEING A
PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE WHOLE SOUTHERN FIELDS OF SETTLEMENT,
WITH FULL INFORMATION FOR INTENDING EMIGRANTS.
BY
SIDNEY SMITH.
1
1
Hackney'd in business, wearied at that oar,
Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit no more,
But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or seem to wish, they could forego;
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade.
1. Cape of Good Hope.
2. Port Natal.
3. New Zealand,
4. New South Wales.
5. South Australia.
6. Port Philip.
7. Western Australia.
8. Van Diemen's Land.
9. Auckland Islands.
10. Falkland Islands.
LONDON:
JOHN KENDRICK, 4, CHARLOTTE ROW, MANSION HOUSE.
1849.


CONTENTS.
PAGE.
3
7
17
21
24
26
INTRODUCTION.
Cape of Good Hope
Natal
New Zealand
Localities and Settlements
Nelson...
Wellington
Otago....
Canterbury
General Information
Australia .....
New South Wales Proper.
South Australia
Australia Felix, or Port Philip.
Western Australia
Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land.
The Auckland Islands....
The Falkland Islands...
Remaining British Colonies.
APPENDIX
38
40
44
48
63
74
87
85
OC
90
93
94
95
Just published, in one vol. 8vo., cloth, Price 58. 6d.
The SECOND EDITION of the PRINCIPLES of PHRENOLOGY.
By SIDNEY SMITH. Containing a Complete Digest of the Science, with Thirty
four Illustrations; a Cast of Rush, his Development and Character, with a
Chapter on Moral Responsibility and the Punishment of Death.
1849.
By the same Author,
The SETTLER'S NEW HOME, or the EMIGRANT'S LOCATION;
being a Guide to Canada and the United States. ls.
In the Press,
The MOTHER COUNTRY, or the Spade, the Wastes, and the Eldest
Son, an Examination of the Condition of England.


INTRODUCTION.
It is a "great fact” which strikes those who prefer to rely upon cir-
cumstantial evidence rather than to trust to the conflict of human testi-
mony, which at every step.confuses and confounds the enquirer into the
subject of emigration, that the great mass of persons who leave Europe
for America, give a direct preference to the United States as a place of
settlement. It is still more worthy of observation, that of those whose
original destination has been the British American provinces, upwards of
sixty per cent. remove ultimately to the neighbouring republic. No sta-
tistics, no interesting narratives of “ Life in Canada,” no geological sur-
veys of strata and soils, no unsophisticated letters of primitive settlers to
their “ dear parents,” or “Friends at Home,” are half so significant as
this. It amounts to the testimony of some 150,000 witnesses yearly, in
the shape, not of words, but of acts, and personal experience, in favor of
the superior advantages of the States. The winter in Canada, long and
severe, the absence of spring, the difficulty of bringing Indian Corn to
perfection, except in a mere per centage of seasons, the additional ex-
pences of clothing, fuel, housing for men and cattle, the encreased labour
and cost of house-feeding through a long winter, and the consequent ac-
cumulated obstacles to the easy acquisition of subsistence and enjoyment of
life, are doubtless all strong arguments in favour of a preference for the
western and some of the southern states of the Union. Their self-gov-
ernment, whatever other effects it may produce, has universally a tendency
to energize a people, and to increase the activity, enterprise, and asso-
ciative power of nations. But, added to these motives for the avoidance
of Canada, or for transmigration from British America, is the absence
b


iv
INTRODUCTION.
there of that which is generally the redeeming feature of a monarchical
government-stability and strength of the ruling power. The recent his-
tory of Canada has been that of organic changes effected by the govern-
ment itself, and rebellions and insurrections on the part of the people.
The influence of the mother country has every year become weaker. A
difference of race in the population, has rendered the elements of society
incoherent. A newspaper, recently established, and conducted with much
ability, and even temperance of spirit, proposes for its object, separation
from the mother country, and annexation to the neighbouring republic.
These principles find favor even with many British settlers, and persons
of substance and standing. The most sanguine cannot escape the con-
viction, that a long career of convulsion, agitation, and disorder is before
them, the source of insecurity, obstruction to the successful pursuit of
industry and commercial enterprise, and that social distraction, under
which no people can flourish.
Re hoved to the United States, the first step towards citizenship is an
express renunciation of allegiance to the British Crown. It is true that
strangers may settle in the country without becoming citizens. But
“ Britishers" will find that, until they have become citizens of the United
States, the country is no place for them. They will be universally ta-
booed by the natives. A system of petty, but very effectual, persecution,
will prove to them that they “ cannot serve two masters ;” and that the
last thing Americans can tolerate is the practical assertion that any rule,
or country, can be superior, or even equal to their own. Strange, as it
may appear, too, this is really a providential element in their character,
because their constitutional system is naturally so incohesive, that nothing
but a passionate patriotism could hold it together. Do as Rome does,
and the settler will be kindly treated, and generously helped. To “Sit at
Rome and strive with the Pope,” will speedily be discovered to be an im-
possible effortſ The Americans, by whom we mean the masses of the
Union, are essentially a vain, arrogant, conceited people. , Like all vain
men they cannot rest contented with the self conviction of their great-
ness, for which their own wonderful deeds give them ample warrant,
They live, feast, and gorge upon the praise and admiration of others.
John Bull is too proud to be vain. · Brother Jonathan is too vain to be


INTRODUCTION.
V
proud. He cannot wrap himseif up in his own self-sufficiency. Applause,
adulation, the assurance of others that he is a wonderful man, is essential
to his happiness. He is a glutton of admiration-and like all such, feed
him with grounds for self satisfaction, and he will prove himself good
natured, kindly, and generous. This is not American, but human nature.
All men, who are to a great extent the self creators of all that surrounds
them, magnify the work of their own hands to a bulk far beyond its real
proportions. There are many of the inhabitants of our own remote
towns who seriously believe that in all substantial respects, they and their
“Little Peddlington" are far superior to London, and that their country
balls or races, beat Almack's and Ascot hollow. The denizens of Aber-
deen pride themselves upon being the best speakers of English ; and the
worthy pastor of the parish, which embraces two small islands off the
coast of Ayr, was in the regular habit of praying for “the islands of the
Cumrass, and the islands of Great Britain and Ireland thereto adjoining.”
Nothing is more certain than that
“Home keeping youth, have ever homely wits."
The provincial mind is essentially provincial in its habits of thought; and
whether in Cornwall, or Springfield, at Glamorgan or Cincinnati, it will
be found that local poetasters or native Boanergeses, are reckoned far su-
perior to Wordsworth or Macaulay. The dress of the Americans, espe-
cially of the women, gaudy, conspicuous, expensive, eccentric, is evidently
devised to attract external attention, and forms as striking a contrast to
the quiet good taste of English costume, as the silent consciousness of
superiority of the Englishman, which neither courts nor almost accepts
admiration, is opposed to the uneasy, restless curiosity of the American,
to know what Mrs. Grundy says.”
A wise man, to whom the frailties of human nature are an interesting
study, rather than an abomination which grates upon his own prejudices,
“ Can look and laugh at all that."
He will soon penetrate beneath the offensive vanity of the American cha-
racter, to its many solid qualities, and real excellences. He will at once
assume and take for granted, that its foibles must be patiently borne with,


vi
INTRODUCTION.
and not rudely insulted. He will remember that no man is so manage-
able, even so kindly, as the vain, if you do not offend his self-love, or
wound his opinion of his own perfections. He will detect the substratum
of good sense and broad reason, which lurks beneath this worthless su-
persoil, and at last succeed in bringing Brother Jonathan to laugh at his
own failings, and to amend them.
But this is what many an Englishman cannot do. He is quite as
proud as other men are vain. He does not say, or show that he thinks
all other men are immeasurably inferior to him—but he certainly feels
it, and the loud complaints which reach this country from settlers in the
States, have their origin in the obstinacy with which our countrymen re-
fuse to concede equality of character or position to the inhabitants of the
States, and the pertinacity with which they sneer at the pretensions, and
wound the sensitive vanity, of an excitable and self-glorifying people.
For those who cannot make up their minds to “ answer a fool accord-
ing to his folly," but who pertinaciously insist upon adding one to the
fools of the company, America is no proper place of settlement. Our
women, especially, who cannot accommodate themselves without
many wry faces, to the new domestic habits which they may find,
even by a removal from Penzance to Manchester, or from Edinburgh to
London, find the United States often a miserable resting place, and are
generally clamorous in their complaints of habits, which are no otherwise,
objectionable, than simply that they are strange. However little they
may think of their own country while they are in it, they invariably mag-
nify its superiority the moment they are called upon to contrast it with
that of others—like the widow who lived a cat and dog life with her hus-
band; but found that he was a paragon of perfection the moment he was
taken away from her.
Persons of such tendencies are more and more turning their attention
to our southern colonies. In these they find British rule and British
feelings in their full vigour. The whole inhabitants, with few exceptions,
are emigrants like themselves. The regions are British realms-their
praises are congenial to all, because all take them to themselves.
They are at home in a foreign land, because the people there are
their own countrymen, anå fellow subjects. The union jack waives


INTRODUCTION.
vii
over them, loyalty to Queen Victoria is universal, the whole strength,
power, and genius of the greatest empire in the world, overshadow
them. They are still British, in a wide outlying English province.
Annexation, disorder, disaffection, rebellion, are unknown in the south.
No sympathizing neighbour fosters treason, or threatens invasion and
conquest. The arts of peace, the pursuits of industry, are not rendered
insecure by treason, uncertainty, or feebleness in the governing power.
But more than this, the southern settlers are entirely removed from all
the vicissitudes of European or transatlantic politics. Society begins
anew amid the profoundest tranquillity. Our people have a whole he-
misphere to themselves, thirteen thousand miles away from the fierce
conflict of sophisticated humanity, and are placed in a state of entire in-
dependence upon any other resources than their own.
“They are monarchs of all they survey,
Their right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,
They are lord of the fowl and the brute.”
They are the founders of a new empire, with the fifth part of the world,
and that the finest and richest, for a dominion. Ages may come before
the tranquil solitude of their quiet reign can be marred by the strife and
worry of rival powers or competitive humanity. The problem of social
questions they need not be called upon to solve for a thousand years.
The tempestuous sea of human life, and political passion, rages thousands
of miles off, while they repose upon the great emerald of the South, be-
calmed in the profound repose of the placid Pacific. To the fabric of
their laws they bring the experience of the jurisprudence of an ancient
kingdom, and may, by a knowledge of the errors and evils which have
cursed our European systems, lay deep in the foundations of official
aptitude and ample information, the basis of a stable constitution and
the wisest legislation. The rich treasures of Bentham are open to them.
Let them sagaciously apply them, and they will not be far from the
realization of a workable Utopia.
The conviction deepens itself into our mind, that colonization is still
but in its infancy. We do not believe that the population of the vast


viii
INTRODUCTION.
kingdoms of antiquity absolutely perished in their native territory. As
men became civilized, and geographical knowledge extended, the evils
of a dense population, oppressed, and miserable, were doubtless corrected
by migration. The Athenians to Sicily, the Romans to their conquered
provinces, the Carthaginians to the ports of the nations with which they
trafficked. Babylon, Ninoveh, Tadmor, Jerusalem, Tyre, Sidon, Persia,
Egypt, Arabia-Pharaoh, Xerxes—it is not conceivable that the vast
tide of life, which these names suggest, ebbed into their own sands, and
dried up in their native channels. Outraged humanity righted itself by
removal to strange lands and greater elbow room, and so will this modern
world of ours. ( No man who has caught but a glimmering of the
Christian system, who reverences humanity, and truly appreciates the
significancy of a human soul, can fail to feel uneasy at the contemplation
of the existing predicament of mankind. “The foxes have holes, the
birds of the air their nests, but the Son of man knows not where to lay
his head.” All nature, as it comes from the hand of God, and walks by
the unsophisticated instincts which he gave it in the place of reason, is
happy, and amply provided for. Every creature has its comfortable
home, and its sufficient food. It toils not, neither does it spin, except
spontaneously, for pleasure, and for itself. Work is but the variety of
its pastime. It sings, or cries, or chatters; it sports and plays in the ;
river, or on the surface, amid the flowers or in the sunbeam, on every
bough, in the meadow, by the quiet waters, on the rock or in the green
pasture, gratuitous activity, busy idleness, play or repletion, testify to
continuous enjoyment, ample provision, use without abuse of all the
necessary bounties of providence. “He hears the young lions when
they cry, feeds the raven, and gently leads those that are with young."
In winter those that cannot fly, sleep-those that have been busy in the
summer have their winter store-those that can neither hoard nor sleep,
follow the sun through a perpetual summer. None are houseless which
need a dwelling, none are foodless-few are orphans, none dependants,
servants, or slaves. There is abundant food for all—there is no starva-
tion-no thought for to-morrow-no anxiety for the day.
As human intelligence moves into clearer light, man will contrast his


INTRODUCTION
meyal curse,
own position with that of earth's other animals. He will see that every
year nature produces for his use a thousand times more than the whole
race can consume, and yet that there are millions who never know what
it is to have enough to eat. He will find that, in the most civilized
countries in the world, the fearfullest contrasts of wealth and poverty
are the greatest; that even in Great Britain, tens of thousands of fellow-
creatures perish yearly of absolute want—that those who toil hardest are
the worst supplied—that vice and crime increase faster than wealth and
intelligence, and that the idlest are the best fed.
Civilization! What a mockery! Ragged Paupers by the million--
millions more who work, worse fed, clothed, and lodged, than the
lazzaroni who do nothing. “In the sweat of thy brow,” said the pri-
" shalt thou eat bread.” " Thy brow shall sweat,” saith
our smug civilization, “and when thou askest for bread, we shall give
thee a stone.” Mothers shall poison children for the burial fees, starving
wives shall be beaten black and blue from the gin palaco door, that hus-
bands may drink up the Saturday night's weekly wages by the Sunday
morning. Children shall be famished, women abused and degraded into
the habits and thoughts of brutes, and man, battered and sucked dry of
the very substance of his bones by overlaboured and unrequited toil, will
envy the ox that draws his plough, and find himself worse housed and
nourished than the horse that he drives.
It never was, it never could be the intention of the kind Father of the
universe, that “the paragon of animals and the beauty of the world,”
should be the meanest and most abject thing in it. It is impossible to
conceive that the end of human existence should be what our mere
varnished and bespangled barbarism has made it. To break stones on
the highway, from years' end to years' end, and sunrise to sunset, with-
out any intermission; and to account it the greatest calamity when want
of employment shall force him to pretermit this degrading task-to
stitch shirts in a garret at threehalfpence per six hours--to begin life at
nine years old in shutting and opening doors in a coal pit, and go on to
the verge of existence glad that there are always coals to pick--to scavenge
through our gutters and cesspools, and get up a riot against those who


INTRODUCTION.
would gather filth by machinery-to heave fuel from lighters, and ply
the shuttle until the weaver falls famished in a faint out of his loom--to
plod four miles before six o'clock through rain and in rags to the turnip
field-and four miles back, after six at night, to a hovel of clamorous
brats, and an empty cupboard—“there is more in this than is natural, if
philosophy could but find it out!” This is not our view alone, but that
of the working classes themselves. Every letter from every colony,
chiefly treats of the social elevation to which the writer finds himself
raised by expatriation, and of the sense of the degradation in which his
order is sunk in the old countries of Europe. Is this an abnormal state
of European, or at least of English Society? Is it not the ordinary con-
dition of our masses? Can any honest self-searcher deny that the life of
the great body of the community is little more than a negation of death.
Is an existence of mere brute labour, machine work, horse toil, of pin-
heading or road-making, or tunnel-cutting—is that in any sense a ful-
filment of the purposes of rational, spiritual, immortal being ?—Was man
created to no other end than that? Is the daily miracle of sunrise and
sunset, of crescent and star, or the yearly draina of the seasons to be
acted before the senses, to no purpose of human instruction and enjoy-
ment, that our people shall be for ever divorced from the loveliness and
wisdom of excelling nature, and driven to drudgery like the herd of the
stall, with the whip of want in the manacles of an overmastering physical
necessity? Tell us not that we do wrong by such questions to make the
worker discontented with his condition. It would be the most forlorn
hope of progress and the soul's health were he contented with such a
dungeon doom as that.-"A machine," observes Mr. G. R. Porter, the
high-minded and just thinking secretary of the Board of Trade, "has
recently been invented and put to use for cleaning the streets of London.”
“An amiable person of the protectionist school observed.—'It makes my
heart ache to think what will become of the poor scavengers, if these
contrivances shall come into general use,' a remark which forcibly called
to my mind the very different view taken of the same case by the late
Mr. Deacon Hume, a man whose heart was ever alive to the finest im-
pulses of our nature, and who, while observing one of these pitied


INTRODUCTION.
xi
scavengers in the exercise of his calling, remarked to me that the time
would come when such degrading offices must be performed by the aid
of machinery, or that it would be necessary to bribe a man to the task,
by pay equal to that of a minister of state.”—Helots and serfs long ago,
were no other than what our hewers of wood and drawers of water are
now. They are slaves as they were slaves, by whatever fine name we
may choose to call them. No man who respects his own nature can
wrap himself in the cuticle of a moral rhinoceros, and gaze with unconcern
on the tide of life which flows past him turgid, muddy, stormful, saying
calmly, “flow thou on to the dead sea of eternity, and there lose thyself
in the indistinguishable immensity of waters.” It is not permitted to the
Christian to see humanity degraded into professional kennel raking, or
to the condition of the gin-horse-
“Dragging sand, till the sand in his hour glass stands still.”
The hell of thousands of our labouring families, with their dirty drunken
drabs, their brutal husbands, debased by toil, misery, insult, and the
most abject functions ; their savage lying, thieving children, all churned
up into one chorus of oaths, obscenity, incest, and murderous blows ;-
does not the heart sicken at it, and bid humanity “take any shape but
that?” Look abroad over God's fair earth, his smiling skies, his genial
climes, his fair uplands, his peaceful groves and fertile vallies,-contrast
what nature offers and what sophisticated man provides, and who can
believe that starvation, endless unendurable toil, wretched, slavish de-
pendence, and functions assigned to the lords of creation to which the
Creator does not condemn the meanest reptile, are normal dispensations
of providence ? Industry is a virtue, but not labour. To be useful is a
duty,—to submit to be a drudge is to abuse the purpose for which man
was designed by his Maker. The slaves in the West Indies ceased to toil
the moment they were declared free. The planters called them lazy,-
we call them wise, for having made labour the means to live, rather than
making life the mere means of labour. Call us revolutionary, accuse us
of being disorganisers as men may, we will not stand idly by and see the
mass of our fellow men degraded to the vilest offices, and debased to be the
instrument of the mere convenience of others, without protesting against



xii
INTRODUCTION
the foul dishonour which such base uses bring upon our common hu-
manity. Hardly entreated brother ! look over the wide earth, behold
those fertile wilds and fruitful woods; turn thy pale cheek to the sweet
south, and breathe the fragrance of that bank of violets : there is a
boundless and unappropriated freehold ;-scratch but the soil, and it be-
comes pregnant with easy life to thee. Nature is a liberal mistress, and
a kindly mother; here there are too many of us,—there the fruit falls
with none to gather. To labour is to worship,-but do thou labour for
thyself. Call no man master while thou canst be thine own. It were
better to be a savage in the free wilderness, than the Caliban of city Pros-
peros. Better be barbarous than a slave ;-better the uncouth denizen of
the prairie, than the human brute of the roaring ale house, or the stolid
starveling of the lane or the mud hovel.
What is civilization if it be not the discovery of the secret of securing
the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Aggregated results may
make a great kingdom, but diffused comfort is the only test of a great
people. A nation is not truly rich which can shew five thousand mil-
lions of property in the hands of a few, while the mass of its producers
have nothing. Your electric telegraphs and railroads, and steamboats,
your endless cotton mills, and fuliginous furnaces, your mines and ships,
what are they all but the means to an end of securing convenience and
abundance and ease to the millions. Nay, what is knowledge and power
if they are barren of the fruit of general prosperity?
“Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."
A few men of science do not make a nation intelligent. Nay, that all t
are ours, and yet that they exist in vain,--that they have not
the heart of our social system,-that they have
benefitted, but that they are scarcely kn
of our people,- is not
We are buz
nibals that do
life blood
the trut
vain t


INTRODUCTION.
xiii
republic. All the Trollopes, and Halls, and Marryatts, and other flunkey-
hood of literature, who go through a country like moles burrowing for
its worms, when they should be looking abroad over its sunlight, and
who have no more conception of the real significancy of the social organ-
ism of a nation, than so many Jeameses and Jenkinses, will not, by mere
book-making buffoonery, rail this broad fact away, that humanity receives
and enforces more respect, and enjoys more substantial comfort and in-
dependence there, than it commands in any other country. True civili-
zation is only to be found where the masses of a people are, or, at least, if
they will, may be, happy, reverence themselves, and receive the treatment
and deference befitting our common spiritual immortal nature. Better
that service should be less obsequious, the rich less able to command
menial obediencc, rank be less worshipped, and the upper classes be
rudely jostled by the herd, than that the dignity of man should fall be-
fore the Moloch of Mammon, and the image and superscription of God be
obliterated by the desecration by which our sophistication dishonours it.
To ourselves, indeed, it is infinitely convenient that we can get intelli-
gent and reasonable beings, ingenious, docile, cheap, to scrape our soles,
lick our dirty platters, scrub our gutters, and,
“Born for our use, to live but to obey us,”
But to the shoe black, the scullion, the nightman, it is not so convenient.
We would sooner see the fine ladies of America continue to be obliged to
serve themselves because their “helps had taken themselves off just when
they had company,”—we would infinitely prefer to be compelled to sub-
mit to the company of our Abigails in the parlour, or to sit down with
the waiters in the ordinary, than to perpetuate the slavery of our
wretched maids of all work, the insult, drudgery, and pollution of our
lodging house girls, or the buffetings of our poor governesses, and
“ the spurns,
That patient merit of the unworthy takes."
The wall of China is a grand work, but at what a cost of oppression
and life! The pyramids are a noble achievement, but how many were
robbed and worked to death to build them! And so the luxuries and


INTRODUCTION.
XV
and we never enjoy it. We know not what existence really is, who drag
it out in populous cities. The most polished and intelligent men ack-
nowledge that the highest reach of happi ness is to be found in savage
life, dwelling unconstrained amidst the freedom of nature. Of one such,
who had hunted for a summer with the Texan trappers, and who, after
years of city luxury and refinement, had been asked by these wild men
again to come among them, Mr. Sidney observes, “He looked upon the
western plains, and the strange, insatiable longing which fills men's minds
when they have once tasted of savage life, came over him.
He strug-
gled against this wild mystic feeling, pictured to himself the advantages
he would sacrifice by indulging it; the luxuries of civilization, the society,
the intellectual life, the friends of his youth, the prospects of a successful
and useful career, all to be relinquished; but the temptation was too
strong, a power that seemed stronger than his will drew him on: he
threw behind him all that men have accumulated and acquired by long
centuries of mental and physical toil, and went forth to live the life of
the savage.” “Of the inspiring character of thc upper mountain air,
where men seem intoxicated and joyous without cause, he spoke with a
degree of enthusiasm.” Alexander Selkirk, when restored to Largo and
his friends, wept for his “beloved island.” Ruxton, one of the most
elegant and intelligent of our modern writers confesses to the same de-
cided preference for savage over city life, and we question whether the
stockmen of Australia would exchange the bush and the cattle run, free
and unencumbered by convention, devoid of care, and joyous with the
pure air around them, for the most courtly blandishments of populous
and conventional society. Men awaken to the consciousness that the
citizen denies himself the chiefest enjoyments to which his being was
destined, that a town life cannot be a natural, or the happiest kind of
that God never made green fields, garden fruits and flowers,
mountain air, the valley and the waterfall, that men should run away
from them to lanes and bricks and mortar. The question ceases to be
“Whether to go,” and resolves itself into “Whither?”
We have partly answered this query already, and in the following pages
will be found an exhaustion of the subject, in so far as it can be interesting
to the general enquirer. Since the work was first given to the public, a
life;
с


xvi
INTRODUCTION.
criticism has been passed upon it, which it may be useful to notice. It is
objected that it does not enable the intending emigrant, very satisfactorily
to fix his future destination. In short, it is complained that the author
does not make up the reader's mind for him, but only gives him mate-
rials for determining his own mind.
This is a defect, perhaps inherent in the very nature of the subject.
In no department of certain knowledge is the fallibility of human testi-
mony so striking as in that of emigration. The witnesses are absolutely
as antipodal as the southern colonies are to the mother country. There
is not a single district in reference to which respectable testimony might
not be quoted, which is mutually destructive. Eye and ear witnesses to
the same fact, give a directly opposite account of it. Mr. Sidney pub-
lishes “The truth about New Zealand,” and presents a melancholy picture
of its soil and prospects. Mr. Terry is loud in his depreciation of it.
Mr. Power describes it as an impracticable and ungenial swamp. Captain
Cook on the contrary, Mr. Earp, Mr. Ward, Mr. Wakefield, assign to it
the character of an earthly paradise.
Mr. Mathew calls New
South Wales a tropical desert, while Mr. Sidney regards it as an el
dorado.
The first alarm excited by the New Zealand earthquakes has died
away Enquiry of the natives has satisfied the general mind, that these
visitants are, in any formidable degree, scarcely less accidental than the
great one at Lisbon. They were also partial in their range, and seem
to have been confined only to a portion of one island. We are not dis-
posed to assign too much importance to their occurrence; and, except,
for their existence, we cannot hesitate to assign a preference to New
Zealand over all the Southern colonies. The writers who depreciate it,
have been little better than birds of passage, travelling from Dan hur-
riedly to Beersheba, and, at a glance, declaring that all is barren. Those
who praise it, are persons who have fortified their opinions by a pro-
longed residence in the colony. “No one," observes the Bishop,
“knows what the climate is, till he has basked in the almost perpetual
sunshine of Tasman's Gulf, with a frame, braced and invigorated to the
full enjoyment of heat by the wholesome frost, or cool snowy breeze of
the night before. And no one can speak of the soil or scenery of New


INTRODUCTION.
xvii
1
Zealand, till he has seen both the natural beauties, and ripening harvests
of Taranaki."
Mr. Earp's new volume is well worth a careful study. He bears tes-
timony to the ease with which existence may be rendered comfortable in
New Zealand, to the satisfaction which even aristocratic families express
at their new condition, and to the social refinements which all may com-
mand. He warns voyagers of the tricks by which ship owners disap-
point them, and counsels them to contract only with the vessels of the
New Zealand Company. The emigrant is advised to take out a wooden
house with him, which may be had in London, at from £40 to £120
complete. The cottage gardens of New Zealand are described as far su-
perior to any in England, and spade husbandry used in small farms, is
pronounced to be eminently successful. It is affirmed that money in-
vested in cattle or sheep, doubles itself every third year in the colony,
where stock is subject to none of the diseases which, as Mr. Earp says,
reduce an owner worth 20,000 sheep in the morning, to 200 at night.
Settlers are advised to set themselves down in the immediate vicinity of
native tribes who are vouched for, as peaceable neighbours, and valuable
and cheap labourers. It is certainly a somewhat significant fact noticed
by the writer, that many Scotch have re-emigrated from Australia to
Otago—it is a better testimony to the superiority of the latter, than the
• tales of travellers."
Mr. Earp talks the usual description of nonsense which is all that
Wakefeld worshippers have got to say for themselves. It is satisfactory,
however, to find that he ably refutes himself. He admits that the soil of
New South Wales is dear at a penny an acre, and considers that of New
Zealand, as worth fifty times as much. He also concedes that of the 20s.
the purchaser pays for land, in the latter colony, only 5s. is paid for the
acre, while all the rest—15s. is paid for the immigration of labourers.
He also goes so far as to say that £5 should be charged for the 5s. worth
of soil, that abundance of labourers may add value to New Zealand acres.
But when this intelligent crotcheteer comes to treat of population, he is
brought to the naive confession that, although the unhappy proprietors
of Nelson for example, have paid £18,749 fur emigrant labourers, there
are fewer labourers in the settlerneut now, than there were when it was


xviii
INTRODUCTION.
first established, in the face of the most prolific marriages in the world!
One of his modes of accounting for this is, that the labourers re-emi-
grated for want of employment, there not being sufficient capital to em-
ploy them. Well-what is the cause of that, except that, if all the ca-
pitalist's money is taken from him before he begins to pay passage money
for labourers whom he never gets, he has nothing left to pay in wages.
And why did the labourers re-emigrate? Because the price of land was
so high that they could not buy it, and, consequently, not being tied by
the nexus of a freehold of their own to any place, they wandered about
like sheep in scanty herbage, and left the capitalists in the lurch. We
here repeat it-capital is a nuisance in New Zealand. It is capital which
raises wages beyond the level of profits. It is not labourers that are
wanted there, but labour. Capital can produce nothing there. It can
only pay dear for that which is, and can only be produced, without it.
The capitalist pays for that which he never gets-labourers. Out of his
own private pocket he is sending money out of the colony to the mother
country, to relieve it of its surplus population, and to populate the colony
without enriching himself individually. When the labourer, thus dearly
paid for, arrives, he asks treble the wages he ever earned, just because
capitalists are there to give it him. What good does the capital do ? If
the wages were not there, would the labourer not produce? The only
difference would be, that he would produce for himself in place of for a
capitalist; and, therefore, the colony would be quite as productive with-
out capital as with it. If a capitalist wants hands, let him pay for them,
and contract with them in his own way. Why should he be compelled to
hand over £750 out of every £1,000 to the government, or the company,
to lay out for him. They pretend to supply him with labour for it, but
they do not fulfil the implied contract; wages are extravagantly, unprofit-
ably high, and the capitalist has been forced by proxy to send three-
fourths of his money to the mother country, to relieve her of her pau-
pers at his expense.
An agricultural colony can only thrive by all its people becoming per-
sonally labourers. The only successful settlers are those who have toiled
with their own hands. Indeed, the sensible capitalists see this, because
they all come at last to be labourers themselves. The scheme, even as


INTRODUCTION
xix
66
proposed has entirely failed. Men will not labour for others when any
chance exists, by hook or by crook, of their getting land of their own,
which never can be effectually prevented, when the supply amounts to a mil-
lion times the demand. Bankrupt properties come into the market, and
bring the value of land to its level. If it is not to be had in one place,
the labourers, paid for by the resident capitalist, re-emigrate to where it
is to be had. A very large proportion,” confesses Mr. Earp, “ of the
labouring class now live entirely on the produce of their own land and
stock, and have ceased altogether to labour for hire. Others work for
hire occasionally, employing themselves in the interval on their own
grounds. Mechanics, who have not full employment in their trade, gene-
rally cultivate an acre or two in the town, in their spare time, though
many of this class, have abandoned their old calling entirely, and adopted
a country life.” This is as much as to say that they have taken the money
of the capitalist to buy his own land with, and to enable them to refuse to
supply him with the very labour which he paid to procure. Mr. Earp
further avers that these labourers, who have frustrated the whole purposes
of his pet system are the most successful colonists of all, and rise from
acre to acre gradually until they become large proprietors. 3 truth,
they are the back bone of every colony—the stimulus of wages is inade-
quate to evoke their real energies, and it should be the aim of wise
rulers to make them freeholders at once, even if they gave them land for
nothing. The idea that capital is necessary to concentrate labour, is op-
posed to the fact. It isolates families by setting them in the middle o.
large tracts of land at a distance from each other. In the United States,
whenever a settler places himself on a location, another joins him. Ano-
ther follows, until the solitary hut swells into a village, and all on the
plan of charging 5s, 8d. per acre, for land as fertile as that of New Zea-
land.
Mr. Earp enables us to announce that the site of Canterbury is fixed
at Port Cooper-and we venture to predict that further than the fixing
of the site it will not go. A more impudent and execrable imposture
never insulted the penetration of the public. Its projectors propose to
purchase of the New Zealand Company 1,000,000 acres of land. For
this they are to pay 10s. an acre, or £250,000 more than the block is


XX
INTRODUCTION.
worth, and to charge the proposing colonists £3,000,000 sterling, or
£2,750,000 more than the value of the land! And for what purposes ?
A sixth for the land
£500,000
A sixth for surveys, and “other miscellaneous expenses of
the Association,” (as much as for the land itself)
500,000
Two-sixths for labourers, without any security that they
will stay-or rather with the certainty that they will not
remain to pay £3 for what they can get elsewhere for 5s. 1,000,000
Two-sixths for “ ecclesiastical and educational purposes !!! 1,000,000
Total
£3,000,000
Now a million acres will only give 5,000 families 200 acres each,
and as six per cent is reckoned the current colonial interest, although it
is nearer ten per cent., £1,000,000 contributed by 5,000 families, is
equal to £60,000 a year, or £12 per annum per family, for saving their
souls, against £5 a year for their whole estates! Twenty churches to
5,000 families, £1,000 each, twenty parsonage houses and glebes, £500 a
piece, a college and chapel, £6,000, residence for bishop, archdeacon,
and principal of the college, £3,000, bishop's salary, £1,000 a year,
archdeacon's, £600 and his " residence,” twenty parsons, £200 a year
each, besides their parsonage and glebe, and only £100 for each
school, and £70 a year for each schoolmaster! The Augurs, it is said,
laughed in each others faces in the Roman streets. We wonder what
the parsons will do when they read this modest “prospectus.” We
are curious to know how economists expect a settlement to thrive
which at its very outset throws away a third of its whole capital on
its idlers and non-producers, and sends another third off to the mo-
ther country, before it even begins its work. In one sense, a man
does well who parts wiih everything to save his soul-but what are
we to think of a church which ai every step of its progress, practically
states its belief that the salvation of men is an affair of money, and
thrust, itself into every scherne, for bettering the human race, with a
demand for a third of the fruits of the hard earned labour of the in-
dustrious? We entertain all due respect for the occlesiastical zeal by


INTRODUCTION.
xxi
which the Canterbury speculators are deceived into the idea of its excel-
lence. But as a commercial scheme we emphatically denounce it as a
bubble, phlebotomising the poor, and blistering the rich simple-
tons who listen to the project for one moment. We earnestly advise
all colonists to guard the issues of taxation. Let them not submit
to be taxed and burdened before hand, and unconsciously to saddle
themselves with an extravagant established church, rendered by their
own folly entirely independent of all popular control. Have nothing
to do with this Canterbury. Its beginning is radically unsound, and
it will end in failure and folly. Bishops, archdeacons, and parsons
are not settlers. After they have amassed a competency, they will
carry it away from the colony. They are not improvers. They will
produce nothing. The profit is to be altogether overlaid by the cost,
and can end only in the ruin of the bladders whom it squeezes.
Our anticipations have been realized by the results of the experi-
ment of sending pensioners to the colony. Their presence overawes
the natives, gives confidence to the settlers, and raises the value of
property. The system should be largely extended, to the great advan-
tage of the mother country and the settlers.
Natal attracts increased attention, and emigrants thither advance in
numbers. Sir Harry Smith has induced great numbers of the Dutch
boers to retrace their steps, and return to the settlement. Still we
are not prepared to modify our opinion of the present undesirableness
of the colony as a place of settlement, although, ultimately, its fine
soil and climate, and its proximity to England must give it the prece-
dence of all the Southern colonies.
Van Diemen's Land we continue to regard as not second even to
New Zealand, in advantages. It steadily flourishes; and being fully
settled, labour is reasonable in price, and not difficult to procure.
Ship building is also pursued with great success, owing to the har-
bourage facilities, and the superior native timber.
The report for New South Wales, although, upon the whole, en-
couraging, still bears evidence of the absurdity of the land regulations.
While 322 town lots have been sold, and 59 suburban lots, only 13 per-
sons have, in 1847, pushed their way into the country to purchase


xxii
INTRODUCTION.
farms. In Port Philip there are only 48 new farms, while for sub-
urban lots of ten acres, 181 purchasers have been found, and for quar-
ter-acre town lots, 328. The whole quantity of cultivated land is
equal only to four-fifths of an acre per head of the population, against
three acres and four-fifths per head in Canada.
In the district of Western Australia, a new tract of 180,000 acres of
superior pasture land, has been discovered on the banks of the Bowes
river--and a valuable vein of lead ore, of good quality, in the bed
and on the banks of the Murchison.
Mr. Harris's work on Port Stephen corroborates all the objections we
have made to Australia as a pastoral district. He quite concurs with Mr.
Sidney in the opinion, that £5,000 are required to commence sheep farm-
ing, with any certainty of being insured against the contingences arising
from catarrh, rot, and scab. It seems, therefore, to be a point to be
assumed by intending emigrants, that if their capital be limited, they
ought to dismiss the idea of starting as sheep farmers. What temptation
there can be, for a man possessed of £5,000 to emigrate at all, or to
convert it into live stock, liable, yearly, to annibilation, when he can get
ten per cent interest in the colony, on undoubted security, it is for the
capitalist, himself, to discover. For our part, we should much prefer
£500 a year certain, in a fine country, to the chances of losing all, in the
hope of turning £5,000 into £20,000.
To persons of moderate means a new arrangement of transport, offers
advantages. Ships now proceed to Australia with only one class of pas-
sengers, charged at the moderate fare of twenty guineas uniformly. To
families of the middle classes, who object to go in the steerage, and yet
hesitate to pay the high rates of cabin passage, this arrangement pre-
sents many recommendations.
We observe that the commissioners state the steerage passage from
London to New York, 3,800 miles, at £2 15s, per male adult, and
from London to New South Wales, 13,000 miles, at £14, and £5 for
outfit, in all £19. Now the length of the voyage to the latter colony
is less than three times as much as that to the former, while the
freight, is more than five times as much. Is it not to be suspected that
the tax upon the south lands charged to carry out omigrants, has only


INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
the effect of exorbitantly raising freights ? The emigration to the
United States is altogether unaided, except by the voluntary remit-
tances of settlers. Yet it amounted to 188,000 in 1847, against 23,000
to the southern colonies, and was aided by spontaneous gifts from set-
tled relatives in America to persons in England, of £460,000, besides
large sums sent through Baring of Liverpool, of which 20 account
has been received,
A highly eulogistic report of the council of New Brunswick, of the
capabilities of that colony, states that it has 500 parishes, besides other
schools, 200 churches, excellent and abundant roads, every kind of
field and garden crops as in England, besides Indian corn.
It avers
that more persons die of cold in proportion to the population in the
mother country, than in the colony—that its salubrity is pre-eminent in
fertility—that winter endures from November to April—that the pro-
duce per acre is 40 bushels, wheat (some 68lbs. to the bushel), 40 bar-
ley, 60 oats, 75 Indian corn, 75 buckwheat, 40 peas, 1,000 tur-
nips, 800 potatoes, 30 tons carrots, 30 mangle wurtzel. But all will
not do. The whole immigrants of the year, and 5,000 of the settled
inhabitants, have cut and run to the United States, and Mr. Buchanan
has no better account to give of Canada. These circumstances pro-
bably account, to some extent, for the encreased emigration to the
southern colonies—and if not discouraged by imprudent obstructions
in reference to land sales, the tide may flow more rapidly and with a
larger swell.
But Mr. Earp gives some particulars of the fees paid to government
on the transfer and completed titles of land in New Zealand, which indi-
cate some gross abuses introduced by the ruling power, and shameful
impositions upon the colonists, which, probably, nothing but self-govern-
ment will correct. Mr. Graham, as part of an estimate of the cost of
cultivating land in New Zealand, states, as items in the purchase of 80
acres of land, the fee simple of which was £80, “Government fees on
ditto, £14 11s. 8d., surveying, £8,” or, in all, £22 11s. 8d., of mere
official cabbage, being 28 per cent on the purchase. Mr. Dilworth, on
30 acres, had to pay £15 of preemption fees, besides the purchase money
of £30; a tax of 50 per cent. * They manage these things better in


xxiv
INTRODUCTION.
France," where the government, on such a purchase, exacts only one per
cent. Such abuses as these exactions indicate, unless they attract the
praiseworthy vigilance of Mr. Hawes, are but too likely, as indeed they
ought, to turn the eyes of many to the United States, where the finest
land is sold for 5s. 8d. per acre, with a clear title, given at a cost of only
about 10s., and an immediate survey, so that the purchaser may be set
upon his location at once. He will not, indeed, have the blessing of a
bishop, an archdeacon, and a parson, at the rate of 20s. an acre, survey-
ors at 10s. an acre, and labourers on wages of double what they are worth,
sent to eat him up at a cost of 20s. an acre more. And, such is human
nature, the graceless man may think himself all the better off for being
bereaved of these blessings, and be only the more induced, on that ac-
count, to prefer the United States to our southern settlements. He may
even eagerly desire to seek protection under a responsible government,
controlled, by an acute people, from the plunder of ghostly harpies, and
the blundering maladministration of bungling official imbeciles. If we
venture to add that we think him very much in the right, we shall, per-
haps, turn up the pious whites of saintly eyes, and excite the loyal horror
of republico-phobiasts. But let our colonial blockheadism be warned
in time. The United States are creaming our skillets with a vengeance,
and leaving little else than skim milk for our own settlements. The
difference in the cost of passage betwixt New York and Australia will buy
80 acres of fertile American land in a well settled district. The emigra-
tion to America is self-supporting, while our colonists have to pay enor-
mously for every emigrant they import. The American colonists go to a
cheap government in place of our dear one. The capabilities of Wis-
consin and Iowa, but above all, of Tennessee, are beginning to be clearly
understood. If large numbers of our people settle in the same districts,
they may command an entirely British society for themselves and their
eminently thriving condition, and great influencein the mother country, is
best evidenced by the fact, that they remit probably little less than
£1,000,000 sterling every year for the emigration of their friends, and
are joined by a better and more wealthy class of settlers. Against such
fearful competition nothing but a radical change in our own system of
southern colonizing can at all bear up. Self government must at once


INTRODUCTION.
XXY
be conceded to Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. The price of
land must be reduced to a maximum of five shillings per acre, which
will speedily create a flourishing land fund. The expenses of government
must be reduced to a proportion commensurate with the means of each
colony, and all idea must forthwith be relinquished of saddling new set-
tlements, scantily peopled by poor settlers, with an established hierarchy,
to suck up the substance of labour, and with a college teach plough-
men Homer, or to make senior wranglers out of stockmen and clodhop-
pers. Two bishops and a free kirk foisted upon a poor colony of 14,000
souls, is enough to turn the stomachs of even an Inglis and a Plumptre.
We entreat our colonial fellow countrymen to consider their high func-
tions, and solemn responsibilities. They are called by their destiny to
lay in Australia the foundations of an empire, larger and more gifted
than that of all Europe. In New Zealand they are the rulers of a
kingdom, larger and finer than that of the mother country. In Tas-
mania they possess another, and more fertile, and sunny Ireland. They
have the benefit of all our experience in constitutional institutions, ju-
risprudence, a social system, education, religion, science. Let them not
be hurried blindly into institutions without their consent, and without
deliberation. Let them not be bamboozled by governors, or tricked by
speculators in sanctimony. Let them reserve full power and free right
to revise, alter, or abolish every arrangement which may be pressed upon
them. Until they have a free self-government, and a liberal franchise, a
responsible legislature, and an executive chosen by themselves, they
should bind themselves to nothing. When they have a free and nume-
rous assembly, representatives of every district, according to population,
in the election of whom every freeholder should have an equal voice,
then, and not till then, let them settle their institutions, lay down the
general principles of wise and simple laws, and thoroughly purge their
country of the accursed jurisprudence and insane abuses of the mother
country. Before they enter upon their functions they should collect the
codes of the various United States, of Napoleon, of Bentham, of the
Roman and Civil law. Even from Texas they may borrow some pro-
found and admirable maxims, and they will find wise rules in the legis-
lation of Iowa. They are the forefathers of the stupendous destinies of


xxvi
INTRODUCTION.
the south ; and will be, ultimately the masters and teachers of the east
Let them then “ rise to the height of this great argument,” show them-
selves worthy of the stock from which they spring, and prove that the
Saxon race are to be, not merely the rulers of the world, but the bene-
factors of mankind.


CAPE OF GOOD FOPE.
Our colonies in South Africa may be reached by the Peninsula and
Oriental Steam Navigation Company's mail packets in about thirty-five
days from Southampton. By ordinary sailing vessels, the voyage is ac-
complished in about seventy days. The cost of a cabin passage in a
sailing vessel, including provisions, is from £38 to £60; intermediate,
from £20 to £30; steerage, £12 to £16; children half price, infants
nothing.
The Cape Colony includes all South Africa, and is bounded on the
west south and east by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It contains a
territory of 200,000 square miles, and 1300 miles of sea coast. It is
divided into the western and eastern provinces by the ranges of moun-
tains, and intersected with high ranges of hills, peaks, and table lands.
In the east lie many vallies and plains of much fertility, but to the west
there is a great desart tract of mere drifting sand. As a general feature
of the country there is a great deficiency of water, and the rivers are
only lagoons frequently dried up, and generally inaccessible where there aru
deposits of water. The heat is at times extreme, and the cold piercing. In
the eastern division the summer is wet and inclement, and in the western
division it is the winter which is so. The climate is so healthy that the
mortality is only 1}ths per cent. per annum, and the white population
born in the colony are superior in every physical quality to the British
stock. The European bears only a small proportion to the coloured and
aboriginal population, and the great majority of the whites are Dutch.
The number of females to males is disproportionately small. The chief
productions of the colony are all the ordinary cerals of fine quality,
abundance of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and goats, wine, tobacco, wool
of the best description, and fish in great variety and plenty.
In the Western province the Cape division has a bad harbour, and is
deficient in water. Stellenbosch is better in these respects; Swellendam
is an improvement on both, but the district of George is much superior
to all the rest in climate, soil, and above all in abundance of water. The
best harbour in the colony is at George Town.
The Eastern province was the scene of the late Caffre war, and is the
habitat of the lion, river horse, panther, elephant, wolf, baboon, por-
cupine, quagga, antelope, ostrich, and the most deadly snakes. It
produces the tropical fruits in perfection, a sure sign of a nearly torrid
climate. The most eligible district for settlement seems the division of
Uitenhage, which is well watered, very productive, abounds in pic-
turesque and varied scenery, boasts the fine harbour of Algoa Bay, and
is settled chiefly by British emigrants. In the general absence of wood
and coal, cow-dung is made the fuel of the country. There is a demand
for about 4,000 labouring emigrants annually. Most of the labour of the
b
B


2
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
colony is performed by the coloured population, which is annually in-
creased by considerable importations of captured slaves. Labourers get
from 2s. to 3s.; mechanics, 5s. to 7s. per day; overseers, £25 to £40;
shepherds, £20 to £30; farm servants, £15 to £25; female servants,
£10 to £18; male ditto, £20 to £30 per annum and their food. The upset
price of government land in this colony and Natal, is 2s. an acre, 10 per
cent. down, and the rest in a month from the purchase. For every £100
paid for land, the purchaser will be entitled to free steerage passages for
seven persons of the class of farm labourers, mechanics, and small farm-
ers, or skilled labourers.
The captivating work of Mr. Pringle, descriptive of the country, the
people, and the life of the colonist, has induced many to migrate thither.
The account he gives of his father's settlement is certainly very en-
couraging. The air is so clear that it is quite easy to read books by
moonlight, the nature of the country admits of delightful scampers on
horseback over the plains, and the climate is so pleasant and genial that
Europeans newly arrived bivoriac in the open air for weeks together
without injury. In the settlement where Mr. Pringle's friends and rela-
tions were located, there were only three deaths in seventeen years, and
although none of them became rich, they enjoy freedom from care and
an easy acquisition of abundance of the necessaries of life. The Dutch
settlers are rough and unlettered, but substantially kind and hospitable.
They have as yet however surrounded themselves with few of the acces-
sories of European civilization, and although business is honestly con-
ducted everywhere, the European, especially the British population, is
too scanty, in comparison to the masses of the coloured races, to make
society or commerce very promising. Pauper migrations from the agri-
cultural districts of England have been more successful in a real im-
provement of condition than those of persons of capital or superior
prospects. Many of the former have risen to comparative comfort and
independence. Internal communication is very defective, as no navigable
rivers or lakes intersect and connect the different portions of the country;
water is nearly everywhere scanty; it is by the sea coast alone that traffic
can be carried on, and harbours are few and generally bad. Irrigation,
which may be usefully applied in the densely populated countries of
Europe, where labour is cheap and markets at the door, can yield small
profit where wages are high and settlements scanty. Periodical droughts
carry off great numbers of sheep and cattle, and fierce, resolute, and un-
tameable savages disturb industry, distract the colonists from their proper
avocations, and induce an unsettled and violent spirit among all. It is
not to be forgotten, that a chief source of the profits of the scanty emi-
grant population has been derived from the large sums spent by the
government in the colony. The costs of the Caffre war, although exor-
bitant, found their way into the pockets of the settlers. But a firm de-
termination exists on the part of the people of England to compel their
dependencies to become self-supporting, and the large custom hitherto
afforded to the inhabitants of the Cape through British money, will no
longer accrue to them. We regard the immediate future prospects of
mechanics, tradesmen, and store-keepers in this colony therefore as in no
degree promising, and should not recommend settlement there to such


NATAL.
3
classes. To shepherds and persons accustomed to the care of cattle, it
offers greater inducements. Its fine climate, its pastoral character, and
the abundance of stock, joined with its greater proximity to European
markets than the cognate colonies of Australia, may, under the free trade
system, open good markets for the butter, cheese, and salted meat and
fish, of which this region is so productive. Farm labourers may most
advantageously be removed from 9s. a week in Dorsetshire to the agri-
cultural districts of the Cape. They will be freeholders of a weather-
tight house, and abundance of land, and need never know what it is to
want a bellyful. We cannot say much for its promises to any other
class. We should add, that the titles to land in the Cape are very clear
and sound.
Although the general salubrity of the climate is undoubted, it is pro-
per to state that bilious fevers, and other serious epidemics, occur at
intervals, avi are very mortal in their character. “The climate," ob-
serves Mr. Mathew, “is also advantageous to people liable to pulmonary
disease, none of the native race, it is said, having ever been known to
cough. As a balance, inflammatory attacks and diseases, measles, small-
pox, and other cutaneous affections, are very infectious and dangerous.
The descendants of the Dutch colonists (Africaners) are a fine luxuriant
race; the men tall and large bodied, the females pretty and round.”
“The heat of the climate, and perhaps the abundance of animal food, has
also the effect to bring life to what we consider a premature close, and it
is said few burial grounds afford memorials of Africaners exceeding fifty
years of age.”
NATAL.
Natal, recently erected into an independent British colony, is to the
north-east of the Cape of Good Hope, extending 170 miles in length, and
130 in width, and contains an area equal to that of Scotland, or eleven
millions of acres. Its western boundary consists of high inaccessible
mountains, which form a natural wall on that side, and it falls along its
whole extent towards the Indian Ocean which bounds it on the east. On
the north and south it is flanked by two considerable rivers. It is there-
fore compact and well entrenched, being admirably sheltered from the
west, and well exposed to the rising sun. It is within ten days' sail of
the Mauritius, where there is an exhaustless market for all that Natal
can produce in the shape of fish, meat, rice, corn, vegetables, butter,
cheese, and ultimately coal. Cod fishing off the neighbouring sand
banks, promises a fine field of profitable maritime exertion.
A careful examination of all the testimony, official and private, which
has been adduced in reference to this colony, convinces us that its natural
advantages, as a field of settlement, are literally without a rival. It is
the most salubrious climate in the world. Uniformly mild, --subject to
no extremes of temperature, - with all the equability and none of the
atmospherical moisture of New Zealand, it is nearly as abundantly
watered, of far richer soil, and within half the distance of Europe. Its
productions, indeed, of coffee, rice, cotton, indigo, sugar aniseed, indi-
6
B 2


NATAL.
cate a somewhat warmer temperature than the former, but it is conceded
on all hands, that the heat is never excessive, or calculated to render field
labour very oppressive. Pulmonary and scrofulous diseases are quickly
cured by a residence in the district, and ague is entirely unknown. The
soil is capable of producing most of the vegetable treasures of the tropics,
and all those of the temperate zone in abundance, and of the finest
quality, particularly the cereals which flourish best in Egypt. Grass is so
thick and luxuriant, that it fattens cattle rapidly, and grows up to the
horse's shoulder. In the numerous clefts of the mountain streams and
gullies, fine timber is to be had. It produces cotton of the best quality,
and its cultivation is accompanied with unrivalled success. In short, it
seems to combine every advantage of New Zealand and Australasia, with
much greater proximity to England. The government surveyor-general
becomes perfectly eloquent in describing its character and excellences. The
successive governors of the Cape are equally emphatic in their praises;
public companies, both in England and Germany, endorse these
favorable opinions; and, to sum up all, merchants have largely ventured
their money in establishing settlers in its most eligible localities, and pro-
moting its culture of cotton. A Natal Emigration Association has been
established in London, offering for £25 to carry a labouring man to the
colony, transport himself and baggage to his place of location, give him
thirty acres of land, and maintain him for six months. Married couples
will, for £45, receive these advantages, and sixty acres of land, their
families being taken at £7 10s. and £5 each individual. Persons possessed
of £100 will receive from 50 to 200 acres of land. A fat ox costs £2 10s.;
working bullocks and milch cows, from £2 to £4; horses, £10; sheep,
6s. Provisions are at all times remarkably abundant and cheap.
With such advantages it may well excite surprise that they have not
as yet tempted the enterprise of Europe. It is very important to know
that this region was very fully settled by the descendants of the Dutch,
called Boers,.-a clear indication of its agricultural excellences. Jealous
of our supremacy at the Cape, they emigrated in thousands to this su-
perior region, and here they would have permanently settled, but for
their detestation of foreign, and particularly British rule. Men of pow-
erful frames, of resolute character, and intrepidity ; highly fed and little
worked, they were little educated, and of stubborn, proud, and daring
dispositions. They resisted our supremacy over their new home, as long
as they could, and when they were worsted, they abandoned the district,
and removed their whole population and establishments to the frontier,
beyond our territory. The first objection to the colony is, that it is
therefore depopulated of Europeans.
But the second, and more serious drawback is, that the colony is
surrounded by hostile, savage tribes, who maintained a constant and deadly
warfare with the Dutch settlers, and stole and burned their property and
dwellings, whenever they had an opportunity. These savages amount to
at least 100,000. Besides these, the colony swarms with refugees from
the tyranny and cruelty of the native chiefs. It may almost be said to be
occupied with escaped savages to an extent to outnumber, enormously,
any amount of white emigration likely to take place for a great many
years. A strong military force will be required for a great length of


NATAL.
5
time, to overawe the Boers and savages, and in the present economical
temper of the mother country, we entertain a strong conviction that the
expense will not be suffered.
We are indeed assured in this case, as in all others where colonies are
infested with savages, that the native population forms the most valuable
element of the district. They are, we are told, good herdsmen, tractable
to rude labour, and willing to undertake very simple duties. It is to us,
however, only certain that they are too numerous to be easily got rid of,
and too barbarous to be safe, either as domestics or as neighbours. We
do not believe in the practicability of civilizing savage blood. The wild
and fierce tendencies of the children of nature, have never yet submitted
to labour, or the plodding monotony of civilization. The red man has
been extirpated, not civilized in America, and nature seems to rule that
races, like rats, may eat out each other, but can never amalgamate. i In
this settlement are 4,000 Dutch Boers, only 2,000 British colonists, and it
is computed at least 100,000 Zula and Kaffir refugees, from the tyranny of the
native chiefs. The present military force required to overawe these, is 600
men, at an annual cost of £30,000. The colonial Commissioners report that
" the universal character of the natives is at once superstitious and war-
like; their estimate of the value of human life is very low; war and
bloodshed are engagements with which their circumstances have rendered
them familiar from their childhood, and from which they can be restrained
only by the strong arm of power; their passions are easily inflamed,
while, from their servile obedience to despotic rulers, they show
ready obedience to constituted authority." Sir Peregrine Maitland, in-
deed, states that “they are generally of a docile character;" but the sig-
nificant fact that Sir Harry Smith has ordered the removal of the coloured
population from intermixture with the white occupants of the land, “ so
that a distinct line may be established between the different races of Her
Majesty's subjects,” is a pretty clear indication of his sense of the danger
of employing savage labour, and of permitting the proximity of the na-
tives to the settlers.
This work is intended to be the friendly adviser of private individuals
in their plan of life and scheme of happiness,—it is not a government
project, or a political system. Were we merely to square our ideas with
the objects of the colonial office, the power of the mother country, or
the public purposes of government, we would strenuously advise every
one to go to Natal who had a mind to emigrate, because we are persuaded
that if this colony were fully settled, it would be nearly it not quite the
most valuable dependency of the British crown. But we are abundantly
satisfied that individual emigration to that colony would entail only
danger, anxiety and disturbance to the emigrant, and that the constant
necessity of watching his property, repelling aggression, and defending his
life, would render his exertions unprofitable, and his existence miserable.
Society in such a district must be of the rudest kind; the comforts and
appliances of civilization must be absolutely wanting. Even civilized
men rapidly degenerate into barbarism, amid barbaric circumstances,
and the very spirit of daring and adventure, generated by the vicinity of
danger, is inimical to orderly and settled habits. The antagonism of
races degenerates into a loss of respect for humanity and life; where
6
B 3


NATAL,
there is no power of enforcing respect for the law, each man must depend
on his bowie knife and revolving pistols. We, therefore, under the ex-
isting circumstances of Natal, regard emigration thither, as perfectly
suicidal, and as totally unfitted for individual adventure or private enter-
prise.
But we are loth to lose hold of such a splendid colony. We think it
is capable of being made much more valuable to this empire than any
other in our possession, and we are certain that it is quite practicable by
the use of the proper means of being fully and successfully settled.
In the first place a force fully adequate to overawe Boers and Kaffirs,
and to give confidence and security to the settlers, must be transmitted
to the colony. We have at home a large army of pensioners supported
at the public expense, and returning no service in exchange. In the
second place we have numerous war steamers, and sailing ships of war,
rotting in our harbours. Bring these two together, plant regiments of
these pensioners in cantonments in the colonies, giving to each man a grant
of 50 acres of land, with houses ready erected for them, and six months
rations, with seed and the necessary agricultural implements. They would
serve their country effectually for their country's pay,--serve themselves
and their families, and enjoy their health and prolong their lives, instead
of drinking their pay the moment they received it, and rendering all
around them miserable, as they too often do at home.
There are 1,700,000 British paupers, 250,000 Scotch, and at least
2,000,000 Irish, who are eating up the substance of the country, drag-
ging down the rate-payers to their own level, and creating a pernicious
redundancy in our labour market. The cost of their maintenance can-
not be computed at less than 8,000,000 sterling per annum. It has been for
some time observable that the “ Irish difficulty has been lately showing
a tendency to solve itself by the emigration of the inhabitants of whole
districts to America, and by the formation of societies in Scotland and
England, to take tracts of land in Ireland for farming on the British
system. This home colonization, fully carried out by a Saxon race, might
soon make other parts of Ireland what the province of Ulster now is, as
prosperous, orderly, and well cultivated, as any part of the British
empire.
In other colonies emigrants are absorbed into an existing civilized popu-
lation. At Natal, they only land to have to cope with strangers, the wil-
uerness, and savages. Emigration will not do there. Nothing but
wholesale colonization, upon a well matured, and orderly contrived plan
will answer. Frame huts and houses should be constructed in England-
a complete settlement with its main roads, and each individual farm staked
off should be surveyed, and mapped out-a fleet of steamers and war
ships should be prepared, and 20,000 settlers sent out at once. The cost
of mere transport would not exceed £100,000 if Government found the
vessels, and merchants would undertake the charter for £160,000. The
average cost of paupers in our unions is 2s. 10d. per week, per head, and
consequently 20,000 would swallow up, in one year, a sum of £147,333
6s. 2d., being little short of the cost of getting rid of them altogether,
and placing them in a condition to support themselves. To furnish them
completely with every necessary appliance until they could become useful


NEW ZEALAVD.
7
producers in the fine climate and soil of Natal, would require a further
outlay of £150,000. For this advance out of the poor rates, a flou-
rishing colony might be established which would quickly send us valuable
produce, and become profitable consumers of our manufactures. A like
consignment continued for five years, would establish a British popula-
tion in Natal of 100,000 souls, emigration would then, of itself, succeed
colonization, and become perfectly self supporting. In the absence of
any directing bias on the part of our government 188,233 emigrants found
their way to the United States in the year 1848 alone, and in the last 24
years no fewer than 1040,797 all at their own expense, and most of them
with capital more or less. Had the poor law unions, and the colonial de-
partment of the government organized any well settled plan of coloniza-
tion, most of these persons might have found their way to Natal, and by
this time established a great Africo-British empire on the halfway road to
India. From the Boers and savages any quantity of cattle might be
cheaply procured to stock the farms of the settlers, and the land requires
nothing but the plough to yield up its tribute to skilful industry. It is
perfectly clear to our mind that it is only by a wholesale plan of coloni-
zation, that it will ever become practicable to establish a flourishing settle-
ment at Natal, and until this can be arranged, we can advise none of our
readers to fix that district for their destination. We have shown that no
scheme can be so economical. No money is wanted from government.
The saving in poor rates would far more than compensate for the outlay,
and our navy is more beneficially employed in extending our colonial
empire, than by losing its seamanship and discipline, by nursing idle and
featherbed sailors in our depots and harbours at home.
NEW ZEALAND
66
At the antipodes of Great Britain, in the Southern Ocean, extending
from the 34th to the 48th degree of south latitude, and from the 166th
to 178th degree of east longitude, are three islands, New Ulster, the
northern, New Munster, the middle, and New Leinster, the southern,
comprehended under the general name of New Zealand. They have
3,000 miles of coast line, an area of 71,000,000 of acres (31, 46, and 1),
being one million more than that of Great Britain and Ireland (37, 19,
and 21.)
Estimating," says Mr. Matthew, the advantages of position,
extent, climate, fertility, adaptation for trade-all the causes which have
tended to render Britain the emporium of the world, we can observe only
one other spot on the earth, equally, if not more, favoured by nature, and
that is New Zealand. Kerrated with harbours securely insulated, hav-
ing a climate temperated by surrounding ocean, of such extent and fer-
tility as to support a population sufficiently numerous to defend its
shores against any possible invading force, it, like Great Britain, also pos-
sesses a large neighbouring continent (Australia), from which it will draw
resources, and to which it bears the relation of a rich homestead with a
vast extent of outfield pasturage. In these advantages it equals Britain,
while it is superior to Britain, in having the weather gauge of an im-
mense commercial field-the rich islands of the Pacific-the gold and


8
NEW ZEALAND.
silver regions of Western America, the vast accumulations of China and
Japan, all within a few weeks' sail.
“ The south temperate zone, from the excess of ocean, 'has a much
more equable temperature throughout the year than the north. New
Zealand participates in this oceanic quality, in an extraordinary degree,
and enjoys a finer, more temperate climate than any other in the world,
trees being only biennially deciduous, and presenting, as well as herba
age, a never failing verdure. The back bone ridge of New Zealand at-
tracting the clouds and vapour of the southern ocean, affords a constant
source of showers, and irrigation, and freshness to the lower country,
which under the most balmy atmosphere, and the generative influence of
a sun brilliant as that of Italy, produces an exuberance of vegetation
surpassing that of any other temperate country—the richness and mag-
nificence of the forest scenery, being only equalled by that of the islands
of the eastern tropical archipelago. The stupendous mountains, with in-
numerable rills pouring down their verdart slopes—their great valleys
occupied by the most beautiful rivers, their feet washed by the ceaseless
south sea swell, their flanks clothed with the grandest of primæval forests,
and their rocky and icy scalps, piercing the clear azure heaven, must go
to stamp a poetical character on the inhabitants.
The small portion
under cultivation, yields in luxuriant abundance and perfection all the
valuable fruits and grain of Europe, and stock of all descriptions fatten
in this favoured region at all seasons, upon the spontaneous produce of the
wilderness. The climate is most favourable to the development of the
human species. Of ninety individuals (missionaries and their families),
only one died in twenty-three years. Invalids,"
” observes the Rev. W.
Yate, “become well, the healthy robust, the robust fat. It has a perpetual
spring, the whole atmosphere seems impregnated with perfumes, and
every breath inhaled, stimulates the system.' The water privileges”
are great, the timber admirably adapted for naval and house building
purposes, being so workable and yielding the finest spars—the flax is of
the finest quality, and fishing, from the mackarel to the whale, has al-
ready attracted whalers from all parts of the world, and established the
islands as the head quarters of the South Sea fishery. The country is
destined also to become the granary of Australia and New South Wales,
where periodical exterminating droughts, occasionally reduce them to
the extremities of scarcity. There are no predatory animals, no reptiles,
not even venomous insects in the islands. While the number of rains
days in London is 178, in Wellington it is only 128, and by Justice Chap-
man's register, it appears the number of fine days is 222. “I have,'
says the chief surveyor at New Plymouth, “seldom or never suffered
from cold. I have been up to my middle in water in the swamps, and
laid down in the same clothes for several nights, and have never ex-
perienced any injury.”. Colonel Wakefield says, The bivouacking in
the end of winter, during eleven nights, had no bad effects on any of the
party. The night air, however humid, has not the same effects on the
lungs and limbs as in most parts of Europe."
The soil of New Zealand, although more variable, is not less excellent
than the climate. With the assistance of the latter, even poor land pro-
duces abundantly, and the rich, of which there is a very large quantity
1


NEW ZEALAND
9
is, in New Plymouth, in the Valley of the Hutt, and other districts, four
and five feet deep. Nothing so well indicates the adaptation of a colony
to the British constitution as the nature and quality of its vegetable pro-
ductions.“ Grain,” observes a Late Resident,'" of all kinds, fruits, and
vegetables, grow luxuriantly. To an English farmer, it will be praise
sufficient to say, that turnips, the mainstay of British husbandry, grow
with a vigour unsurpassed anywhere, and that beans, peas, and other
leguminous plants are equally successful. He will have nothing to un-
learn. His old familiar crops will be the crops of his new country, but
increased in luxuriance; his husbandry maxims will scarcely require
variation, except in the transposal of his seed time and harvest; the
gooseberries and currants of his garden, the apples and cherries
of his orchard, the hum of his bees, will all reproduce to his mind his
native country, endowed with a softer climate and a more bountiful soil.”
These facts, we apprehend, present circumstantial evidence of the per-
fectly British character of the islands, in all its best features, far more
reliable than the abstract panegyrics of witnesses, and stamp the country
as without exception, the most eligible for the location of English emi-
grants of any on the globe. The greater equability of temperature, and
prevailing mildness, may be said to double the value of labour, land, and
produce. In New Zealand it is quite practicable to raise two crops on
the same soil within the year, and in the garden, not a square inch of
ground need remain idle for any portion of time. As if but to remind
an Englishman of the country he has left, snow and frost occasionally
occur during the winter, and a little more frequently in the southern
(answering to our northern) island, especially about Otogo. High winds
occur regularly at the change of every moon, and there is, generally, a
moisture in the atmosphere, which continues the resemblance to the mo-
ther country. The islands, being of volcanic origin, sometimes experi.
ence slight earthquake shocks, which however seem so little appreciable
that they are not observed or recorded by ordinary settlers, and are re-
cognised by the scientific, rather by being watched, than very palpably
felt. Mr. Justice Chapman noticed 24 in 1846, and 16 in 1847, at Kaori,
Wellington.*
* Recent information renders it necessary that we should materially modify
chis observation. Geologists have found the islands of New Zealand to be of
volcanic origin. Extinct craters have been detected in various localities. Hot
springs indicate a considerable intensity of internal heat, the water being warm
enough to boil eggs. In December last the district of Wellington, where Justice
Chapman had made his observations, experienced a protracted series of violent
shocks of earthquakes, producing great undulations of and rents in the earth,
overturning trees, houses, and other buildings, and swallowing up a family
consisting of a man and his daughter. A vessel sixty miles from the shore, about
half way betwixt Auckland and Wellington, also distinctly felt the shocks, and
they were faintly perceived at the former town. We should not regard this
single occurrence as in itself any more significant than the earthquake at Lis-
bon, or the activity of the crater of Vesuvius. It might only occur once in cen-
turies, were it isolated, but taken in connection with Justice Chapman's ob-
servations, of slighter shocks to the number, on an average, of twenty in a
year, in the very same district, its manifest liability to casualities of tbis kind,
of greater or less severity, must be held to form a material deduction from the
advantages of the island, and its eligibility as a place of settlement. Tradition
among the natives does not seem to have recorded any striking prior instances
of earthquakes. In the Waikato district, and the southern island, there are


10
NEW ZEALAND.
Minerals of all kinds seem to be every where abundant, and compara-
tively easy of access. Coal, copper, tin, magnanese, lead, iron, and we
are afraid to say how many beside, are found almost on the surface.
Sulphur, alum, rock salt, cobalt, ochre, fuller's earth, &c., are very
generally distributed, marble and brick earth are abundant, and we have
already mentioned the great variety and excellence of the wood, bark,
and ligneous dyes.
Such a climate and soil present all the best qualifications of a pastoral
country, and both sheep and cattle thrive and multiply in this favoured
region with surprising rapidity. Wool, flax, ropes, and cordage, besides
whale oil, are in course of rapid production and export. Dressed timber
is also become an article of the commerce of the country, and the ale of
Nelson is excellent, a pretty good indication, by the way, of the adap-
tation of the country to the people who in all probability invented that
Saxon beverage.
The finest springs of cold, tepid, warm, hot, and boiling water in the
world, are found in the north island, and the time will come when invalided
Europeans from India, will recruit here, instead of proceeding home, and
when the population of those islands will become, practically,
the govern-
ors of Hindostan.
The European population of the three islands, does not probably ex-
ceed 14,000 souls. That of the natives is said to fall short of 110,000,
diminished every year by European diseases and the contamination and
vices of civilization. A chief source of the slow settlement of these
islands has been, as usual, the mismanagement of the home government,
and especially the tedious and intolerable delays offered by the survey-
ors in making such surveys and registers of the territory as would enable
colonists to settle on their locations, and confer upon them clear titles to
their property. Many of these difficulties have, no doubt, arisen from
the natives, at the convenience of the settlers, having been treated alter-
nately as civilized men capable of legal consent, and fully aware of the
nature and obligations of all contracts, and as barbarians whose property
could be seized without offending any civil obligations. The missionaries
volcanos in active operation: at the northern extremity of the northern islands
there are several extinct craters, and on the banks of the Thames, embraced in
the Auckland district, Mr. Williams observed indications of superficial undu-
lation, and violent sinkings of the soil, to the depth of 150 feet, which were
symptomatic of an earthquake at some remote period. The hot springs of Ro-
torua are in the centre of the northern island, at no very great distance from
Auckland. Although we have no desire to magnify the significancy of these
facts, and may set against them the silence of the natives on the subject, as
pretty conclusive evidence that for a considerable period, at least, there have
been no important geological convulsions, we think the recent shock is a reason
for, at least, other things being equal, fixing upon some other than the Welling-
ton district in determining the choice of a settlement. The New Zealand pa-
pers, make as light as possible of these shocks; but the recent speeches of the Gov-
ernor General treat them with very great concern, and lay much emphasis upon
the alarm which continued among the inhabitants, up to the date of the latest
advices, and upon the continued suspension of business which they caused. It
has been observed that wooden houses stood the shocks, while brick buildings
were thrown down. We are given to understand that Crieff and Comrie in
Scotland, experience shocks whenever there is an eruption of Vesuvius, and
that the latter town is nearly deserted, from the feeling of insecurity experi-
enced by the late inhabitants.


NEW ZEALAND.
11
in this, as in most other cases, practised the quirks of civilized law, on
the ignorance of savages, and claimed masses of the most valuable terri-
tory, as having been regularly sold to them for a few blankets. Unscru-
pulous adventurers set up equally dishonest pretences for maintaining
their right to thousands of acres of the best land in the islands, while the
moment the government asserted for the queen the primary property of
the colony, interminable squabbles arose with cunning and litigious
savages who had been too fully recognized as capable of comprehending
and exercising all the civil privileges of cultivated Europeans, to be dealt
with in the only way which the actual circumstances of the case rendered
practicable. Nothing could be more preposterous than the idea that 100,000
savages, scattered over these islands, capable of comfortably maintaining
50,000,000 of souls, should be heard to set up a title to the exclusive prop-
erty of 78,000,000 of acres, neither enclosed, cultivated, reduced to posses-
sion, nor even described, and to demand any price they chose for them;
or that Europeans should assert a right to an odd million or two of
acres on the strength of a title derived from a present of a rusty knife or
an old blanket to an old chief who could not himself qualify a property in
a square inch of it. A too great tender ness in dealing with these gentry
and their quirks, has led to a pernicious retardation of a settlement of
land titles, and to the encouragement of much presumption on the part of
the natives.
It must be confessed that these latter are the finest savages in the
world. Muscular, healthy, long lived, wonderfully intelligent and natu-
rally susceptible of education, of perceiving the advantages of civilization,
and of the most tractable docility, they have quickly acquired a know-
ledge of our religion, and agriculture, a taste for our music, dexterity
in navigation, and the art of reading. Unlike other savages, they have
become patient in labour, fond of industry, and dexterous in trading and
the making of bargains. They have almost abolished barter, and will
neither buy nor sell without the intervention of money. Their mental
activity is indicated by their incessant talkativeness, their quick percep-
tion of the ludicrous, their dialectic power, and their eloquence. In wai
they are generous, fearless without foolhardiness, and skilful in stratagem
As yet their numbers, courage, and intelligence have rendered them very
formidable to the handful of settlers, and have kept the latter in alarm
and insecurity. They gradually, however, die out, the emigrants become
more numerous, pensioners have been quartered in convenient canton-
ments, as subsidiary to the regular troops, and at no very distant date
all anxiety on this score will disappear. Cannibalism, which undoubt-
edly prevailed until a recent date, the natives are now heartily ashamed
of, and considerable bodies of them are under the full influence of the
christian religion, the only stop to the progress of which arises out of the
rival pretensions of the methodist parsons and the clergy of the English
church, another legacy of the endowment of colonial bishoprics. These
Maoris, as they are called, are excellent seamen and skilful whalers.
They soon become dexterous carpenters, and many cultivate their land
and breed stock with very great skill. The balance of population will
shortly be on the side of the Europeans, and then the natives will cease to
be a source of anxiety, and become auxiliary to our supply of labour.


12
NEW ZENLAND.
Nothing shows the natural advantages of the soil, and the energising
influences of the climate, more completely than the present condition of
these islands. With so small a European population, ships are not only
chartered as coasters and foreign traders, but built, corduge and canvas
manufactured, ale exported, mines worked, considerable exports and im-
ports effected, harbours constructed, newspapers published, churches and
institutions built, mills of all kinds erected ; tanyards, cooperages, canvas
manufactories in operation, and schools in requisition everywhere. Being
naturally much more productive than Australia, and subject to no
droughts, New Zealand is destined to enjoy in that vicinage a never fail-
ing and most profitable as well as convenient market for its surplus pro-
duce, and its timber trade, at no distant date must become important.
It possesses the raw material of ship building in unrivalled profusion, and
will probably ere long possess a considerable marine.
These very circumstances, however, point also to the great defect of
the arrangements of the colony. Peopled to some extent from Australia,
its inhabitants have partaken too much of the speculative character of the
European inhabitants of that country. Nothing can be more ridiculous
than the fact that town lots in various of the settlements have sold for a
higher sum than an equal area in London itself. This is gambling run
mad, and its consequence is, that the social prospects of the islands have
been subject to the greatest extremes and the most extravagant vicissi-
tudes. The absurd “ colonial system” as it has been pompously called of
Wakefield, has disturbed the natural settlement of property,and course of
emigration. Based on the system of charging 40s. an acre for land, the
real value of which was not forty pence, and which was actually sold for
much less, it defeated its own object of encouraging labourers to emigrate,
by making the soil unattainable to them, by refusing to sell it in smaller
sections than 120 acres, and by compelling the poor to continue to be the
servants of capitalists. The moment the price of the land found its real
level, by bankrupt capitalists throwing their purchases on the market,
then others found a depreciation of their property to the extent of 600
per cent. and thus the most speculative character was given to that which
ought to have been subjected to the smallest variations. The attention of
the colonists was diverted from the cultivation of the soil to the mere buying
and selling of it; and it will long remain a reproach to the good sense of
the settlers, that while they have been proclaiming the extraordinary fer-
tility of the soil, and the ease with which it can be tilled, the first neces-
saries of life have often been dearer at Auckland than in London, and
that at Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth, the most fertile and
agricultural districts, the retail prices current at last year's advices (Feb.
1848), were reported at a much higher rate than the average of the
United Kingdom in February, 1849. Beer, 2s. per gallon, in place of
1s., quarten loaf, 10d., instead of 6d., butter, 1s. 3d., against 10d., cheese,
1s. 4d.! eggs per dozen, 2s.! beef and mutton, 8d., new pork, 6d.,
poultry, 4s., and turkeys 13s. per pair! These are the prices quoted in
the New Zealand Spectator and Nelson Examiner, and materially vary
from those of the less reliable authority of the agent of the New Zealand
Company.
Now one of two conclusions are obvious from these facts---either the


NEW ZEALAND.
13
soil is barren, and the climate unfavourable to production, or the settlers
have entirely neglected their advantages. We see nothing but ruin in
such a system. The high rate of wages convinces us that capital is much
too abundant in comparison to the supply of labour, and that the Wake-
field forcing system is the most pernicious that can be devised. New Zea-
land, from its fine scenery, and British climate, would be the most desir-
able country in the world, for the retirement of European invalids, or
sınall capitalists who, on a high rate of interest, and a very low price of
provisions and living, might be tempted to settle in thousands, and create
Į an admirable state of society. But when it is seen that money will not
go so far for any purpose in the colony as in the mother country, per-
sons of means would be mad to prefer it to Illinois, where beef and
mutton are less than 1d. per lb., and wheat may be had for 2s. per bushel.
This state of things will be ultimately ruinous to the working man also.
Capitalists have no inducement of profit to go to a country where wages
run away with their gains, and of what advantage is it to a ploughman to
get 3s. 6d. a day, when the cost of his subsistence leaves him no surplus
saving. It may indeed be said that these high prices indicate a high re-
muneration to the farmer, and it is perhaps true that they arise from the
rapid influx of consumers having exceeded, for the time, the capabilities
of production. They may also ultimately have the effect of stimulating
cultivation, but we are persuaded that they, meanwhile, induce an un-
healthy state of things, and that colonists have no business with mining,
ship-building, canvas factories, fisheries, rope walks, breweries and other
rubbishing speculations, while they have no roads, few farms, limited
i tock, and a very deficient supply of the first necessaries of life. The
“ land question” being now settled, the turbulent natives quelled, and
the territory surveyed and staked off in selling lots, we cannot entertain
a doubt that the first attention of the settlers will now be steadily devoted
to agriculture; and we feel perfectly assured that as no country in the
world has so many natural attractions for British emigrants, so it is only
required that subsistence should be reduced to the lowest practicable cost,
to make New Zealand the great land of settlement for all who desire to
leave their native country. In time, it is also likely to be the chief resort
of Anglo-Indians, the invalid station of our Eastern and Chinese Army,
and the place to which nabobs may retire to spend their fortune when an
increase of society, and progress in the art of living, shall have added to
the natural advantages of the colony, the luxuries of Europe. To Otago
and Canterbury, the Scotch and English settlements, many persons of
property and character have gone, or are going, colonization, in a sys-
tematic form, having been carefully planned for these districts. We
know persons of large means who, attracted in a great measure by the
climate, have sold off their English estates, chartered ships, and gone
out in companies with proper establishments of servants, stewards, imple-
ments, and houses, so that society in these places will be thoroughly Bri-
tish not only in character, but in manners and classes. For persons in
the middle ranks of life, and especially females, nothing is wanting to re-
move the chief objections to an emigrant life, than that which is supplied
in the desiderata which are all to be found in these settlements; and we
can conceive no life more truly delightful than the freedom from thc fet-
с
с


14
NEW ZEALAND.
ters of convention, and enjoyment of all the utilities and beauties of life
and nature which can he commanded at New Zealand, combined with the
society and refinements of Europe.
Small as is the European population of New Zealand, it is not among
one of the signs of its improvement that it is a good field for the pursuit
of the profession of the law. The jurisprudence is that of England, from
whose bar the judges are selected. Any attorney or barrister practising
in the superior Courts of England, Scotland, or Ireland, is entitled to
carry on business before the New Zealand Courts. We can but earnestly
express the hope that a community which will have the power of mak-
ing its own laws, will emancipate itself from the huge curse of Euro-
pean, and, especially, English jurisprudence.
Mechanics and labourers of all kinds are in great demand at almost
extravagant wages. An unskilled labourer in food and wages earns £57
per annum, so that if he lands without a farthing, he possesses in his
thews and sinews that which is equivalent to a capital of £1,150. Fe-
male servants are very scarce, and consequently very highly remunerated.
These circumstances, together with the high price of food, and the
luxurious style in which servants demand to be entertained, form serions
drawbacks upon the settlement of capitalists in the country. When pro-
duce becomes more abundant, the cost of keeping servants will indeed
not be so great, but as subsistence will be more easy, they will be better
able to decline accepting engagements, thereby aggravating the scarcity
of the supply of labour; and as the profits of the producer will thus be
diminished, he will be less in a condition to afford high wages. On the
whole, we suspect that New Zealand, like other places where land is
abundant and labour scarce, will be a profitable location only to persons
who can do all the work by their own families, and to such capitalists
as can, by the high interest of money, and eventual cheapness of land,
houses, and food, make a little hard cash go a great way in a country
where there are no taxes to diminish the value of money.
To the labouring agriculturist or shepherd, this colony presents unri-
valled attractions. There is no winter to require housing of stock or the
collection of winter food, no season in which verdure ceases to fatten cattle
or stop the vegetation of crops, no day on which either cold, heat, rain,
or excessive drought interrupts out door employment, and, above all, no
diseases which weaken the constitution, or affect the pursuits of industry.
The equability of the climate saves the wear, and diminishes the require-
ments of clothing, and also prevents the weather from corroding houses,
fences, and implements, or affecting the health of live stock. The soil
also is friable, requires little drainage, and facilitates road making, while,
combined with the climate it yields successions of crops all the year
round.
Mr. J. Lethwaite, of Halifax, Yorkshire, who left Taranaki, in Fe-
bruary, 1845, states that the expense of clearing, breaking up, and
sowing the seed of an acre of timbered land there (no fencing), was £14
28., and of performing a similar operation on fern land was £3 28.
“Now timber land,” he observes, “ yields from 50 to 80 bushels per acre,
while fern land yields from 30 to 50, but when you consider that for the
sum required to cultivate one acre of timber, you can cultivate 4 acres


NEW ZEALAND.
15
£
S.
of fern, and instead of 80 bushels you reap 223, the advantage in the
latter is great and apparent.” At 3s. per bushel this would yield £33 158.,
at an expense of £13 19s., leaving £19 14s. for reaping, harvesting,
thrashing and marketing, the price of the land (£9), and profit. The
cost of fencing is not stated.
Mr. Ward from Kensington, a settler at Nelson, states that in 1847
the price of 50 acres within six miles of Nelson, would for flax land be
£3 per acre; inferior land from 20s. to 408.; if at a greater distance, less
proportionately. Rented, the cost would be from 6s. to 28. 6d. per acre
for each of the first seven years.
Fifty acres, rented at 5s. per acre per annum, would involve the fol-
lowing further outlay :-
d.
Wooden house, large enough for a family of six.
15 00
(A good substantial brick-house of the same size £30.)
4 working bullocks, £40, plough, £6, harrows and roller, £5,
cart, £12, gear and small tools, £7.
70 00
(2 horses would cost £50, harness, £6.)
Fencing a 10 acre field
10 00
If 50 acres fenced at once, then £25.
25 00
Seed for 3 acres wheat, 2, bushels per acre at 58..
1 15 0
Seed for 4 acres barley, 3 bushels to the acre, at 4s.
1 4 0
Seed for half acre potatoes
0 15 0
Garden seeds and plants..
5 0
1 cow, £12, pigs and fowls, £5..
17 0 0
Housekeeping expenses for 3 for 12 months, £50,
(After first 6 months, your own vegetables,
70 00
eggs, and fowls), furnishing house, and in-
cidental expenses
£20.
185 190
Say, including all casualties, £200, besides the farmer and his
family's labour.
Return first year :-
3 acres wheat, 30 bushels per acre at 58. straw paying ex-
penses
22 10 0
2 acres barley, 40 bushels per acre, at 4s..
16 0
Half acre potatoes, 4 tons, at £2....
8 0
Cow and calf, £15, pigs and poultry, £10, sold butter and
milk, £6, 2 pigs, £1, 20 fowls at 9d., 15s..
32 15 0
Bullocks, cart, plough, &c...,
66 10 0
House and goods .
30 0 0
Improvements, 10 acres fenced, £10, six in full cultivation,
£24....
34 0 0
4 acres cleared, ploughed, harrowed, and rolled.
8 0 0
Cow-shed, pig-sty, fowl-house, tool-house, £6; deduct for
boards, 325., nails, 6 lbs. at 7d., 3s. 6d., 35s. Od........ 4 4 6
221 19 6
с
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16
NEW ZEALAND
Return second year :
10 acres wheat, at £7., barley acres, at £8., potatoes,
2 acres, at £12.....
158 0
Increase and sale of cows and pigs.
49
Bullocks, cart, &c
66 10 0
House and goods, £30., improvements on land this and last
111 0 0
year, £80..
0
384 10
Deduct cost of barn, £15., housekeeping, £20., rent, £12 10s.,
sundries, £10..
57 10
0
Total value end of 2nd year....
327 0 0
In renting by lease, it is a stipulation that no rent shall be charged for
the first year, and that the tenant shall have the power to purchase the
freehold before the expiry of the term, at a certain price fixed in the
lease.
“I should go,” observes Mr. Ward, “to Nelson for farming pur-
poses, or New Plymouth may perhaps be as good; to Wellington for
mercantile pursuits; to Auckland for a storekeeper, or for a situation;
to Otago, Port Cooper, or Wariau, for sheep farming."
We should observe that the statements of prices and wages are very
conflicting in the various accounts, which however in places having no
communication with each other, of small population and transactions,
and where a ship load of emigrants will sometimes constitute a very large
proportion of the whole inhabitants, is not singular. A temporary re-
dundance in the supply of labour from this cause will suddenly reduce
wages, 400 new consumers of food coming at once on an unprepared
small market, will produce an extravagant rise in prices. and new
capital at once to be expended in stocking fresh lots, will quickly absorb
more than all the spare stock and agricultural implements, until new
importations equalize the supply with the demand, or perhaps exceed
the demand for the moment. On a minute examination of the actual
circumstances, we are indeed reassured that the high price of labour and
of provisions is not the result of defective powers of production. On the
contrary, we are bound to admit that these are continually overcoming
the temporary excess of demand for both. But we regard it as a great
evil that the enterprize and industry of the colony are so much dis-
tracted by secondary pursuits of mining, brewing, shipping, manufac-
turing, from the primary and all important object of farming and
rearing. The soil and climate are the real strength of the colony. The
Americans have frequently been reduced to the greatest distress by neg-
lecting agriculture to attend to other speculations, and no country can
possibly thrive until the necessaries of life are reduced to and kept at
that low price which is alone compatible with abundance. Thousands of
small capitalists who leave England and settle in the Channel Islands and
on the continent to retrench and save by the low cost of living, number-
less half-pay officers and small annuitants who wish to make their little
go a far way, would emigrate to New Zealand where their young families


LOCALITIES AND SETTLEMENTS.
17
would have at once a means of doing well, were they tempted by the
union of great cheapness and abundance, with the prospect of being
enabled to hire labour at a price which would leave them some profit on
the outlay of capital.
LOCALITIES AND SETTLEMENTS.
At the antipodes of course everything is the reverse in nature of what
it is here. The compass veers round and points to the south. June
is midwinter, January midsummer. The north is the warmest, the
south the coldest point, and the south-west wind answers in character to
our nor'-westers. The south island of New Zealand is uninhabited, the
middle island is the coldest of the two settled islands, and the north is the
warmest and most genial. From the fact of the New Zealand Company
having made choice of the middle island for their settlements, it might
be inferred that that was the preferable territory, if they made a judicious
choice. But that Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Otago, and other
places, should exhibit greater population, more trade, more extended
cultivation than the independent settlements, is only a proof that a
powerful and wealthy company fostered the former, and left the latter to
their own resources. The fact that that Company has not commercially
prospered is rather a proof that they have not made the wisest choice of
places of settlement. On the other hand, it is to be remembered, that
the seat of government, and of the chief government expenditure, is
Auckland, the independent settlement on the north island; and, consi-
dering the smallness of the population there, and its slow progress, it is
rather to be inferred that when the money of the mother country is with-
drawn from it as it will be, it is doubtful whether, for a long time at least,
it will be a self-sustaining settlement.
The census of the Nelson settlement for the five years, 1843-4-5-6 and
7, brings out this result:-
Births....
766
Deaths in an average population of 2,940 in five years
69
Excess of births.
697
Or, an average of 14 per annum, being less than a half per cent.
Yet the population in 1843 was 2,492, and in 1847 only
2,947; from which, deducting the increment by nett births,
it will be seen the population has decreased 692 in five years,
or about 23 per cent.
For the whole settlement we have only the returns for 1845 and 1846:-
The white population in 1845 was 13,242
1846 12,788
Being a decrement, in face of large increase by births, of 454
The census may have been erroneously taken, but if not, the result is
symptomatic of dissatisfaction with the prospects of the colony.
th
births increased in the ratio of those of Nelson, or 5 per cent. per an-
с
C3


18
LOCALITIES AND SETTLEMENTS.
num=660, and there was any material importation of settlers, it is
obvious that a considerable migration must have taken place to Australia
or other places, to account for the decrease of numbers. This conclusion
is however certainly not warranted by the census of the productive pro-
gress of the colony, at least so far as regards Wellington and Nelson, of
which settlements alone we have the returns, because, while in 1843, the
number of acres under crop was ...
1395
In 1847 they had increased to
5137
Horses.
Cattle.
Sheep.
Goats.
1843, 212
2484
10,005
408
1847, 794
7715
52,802
3131
Increase 582
5123
42,797
2723
AUCKLAND, situated at the head of the frith of the Thames, about the
centre of the eastern shore of North Island, has a good harbour, and is
beautifully land-locked by small islands a short distance from the mouth
of the harbour. It boasts the finest and most genial climate of all the
settlements, and as the seat of government commands the best society in
the colony. The surrounding scenery of gently undulating plains is very
beautiful, presenting much of the appearance of a gentleman's park.
For botanical and horticultural pursuits, its superior geniality must give
it an advantage over other places. The wind there, although high, has
no gullies as in other districts to concentrate its force, and produce
sevious annoyance or material damage. The absence of great superficial
irregularity, and the nature of the soil, facilitate the making of roads,
transit, and the reclamation of the land. The soil is said not to be quite
80 productive as at New Plymouth or Nelson. At no great distance is the
Bay of Islands, nearly at the northern extremity of the island, where a con-
siderable number of natives are congregated, and the chief whaling station
of the colony is established. But the natives have ceased to present any
reasonable ground for alarm to the settlers, while the great number of
ships from all quarters, constantly stationed at Bay of Islands, afford a
large demand for agricultural produce, and for all the commodities kept
at the Auckland stores, much to the profit of the townspeople. To per-
sons emigrating with no view to farming or business, we think Auckland
much to be preferred to any other district from the society it affords, the
settled institutions it already enjoys, and the comparative abundance in
which it possesses the appliances of European civilized life. The recent
advertisements which have appeared in its only newspaper, the Southern
Cross, inform us, that cultivated farms are for sale in the neighbourhood
at very cheap rates, and some lots of land at so low a figure as 2s. per acre.
It is obvious, therefore, that ample means are presented to all to raise
their own produce in great variety and profusion, and that after the first
twelve months it matters little to persons of some little annual income
what the price of provisions is there, as they have the remedy of self-
supply at hand. Every emigrant should take out with him flower and
fruit plants, and garden seeds of the best kind, packed by nursery and
seedsmen. They will all grow luxuriantly at Auckland, and be a benefac-
tion to the district. Do not forget hawthorn and holly. A living fenco
is the best, the most picturesque, the most English. Whenever a climate,


20
LOCALITIES AND SETTLEMENTS.
tening of cattle, but not so favourable for the rearing of sheep. In
short, it is better adapted for agricultural than for pastoral pursuits, and
its produce is more in excess of its consumption than that of any other
district, being exported largely to the less fertile settlements. The dis-
trict is not too far southward, and is considered as less objectionable for
high winds than some other settlements. Coal easily accessible and of
good quality and thickness, is found in the neighbourhood; and, although
the sea harbour is inconvenient, the river Waitera running through the
settlement is accessible from the sea by vessels of moderate burden, and
navigable a considerable way up the country, which is also well watered
by the Huatoki and the Emui. “The soil,” says Mr. Palmer, “is a
black vegetable mould four or six feet deep, the subsoil a yellow clay.
Wheat and Indian corn are finer here than in any other part of New
Zealand, as also potatoes.” Captain Liardet corroborates this statement,
and dwells upon the beauty of the scenery, and the great command of
water power. He mentions also a bridle road, connecting the settle-
ment with Auckland; and that the cost of clearing forest land was
£27 per acre. “Many persons," observes a settler at Port Nicholson,
are going into the bush with cattle; this is what they should have
done at first, for a settlement of merchants and shopkeepers can never
stand long. To raise the common necessaries of life is the great object.
If capital be continually going out of the colony for the necessaries of life,
there must be a break down. All we require is to raise the loaf, for then
nothing can stop us. With such a climate, and land, no place out of New
Zealand can keep pace with us.” The same writer states that fern land
may be cleared for less than £5 per acre, and although it is not pro-
ductive the first year, it yields well the second. Bush land is so
strong that he had to cut down his wheat twice before it would stand
up. He produced oats seven feet high, and peas, the pods of which grew
above his reach. His land was groaning with the finest green crops of
all kinds, and in the bush, cattle become very fat. Sheep breed twice in
the year, and from four goats he had twenty-five in less than two years.
He announces an excellent road, twelve miles long, from the town to the
Waitera river. Slugs and caterpillars are somewhat destructive occa-
sionally, but do not appear as yet to amount to a serious inconvenience.
“It is a land," writes a Tourist,“of rich mould, luxuriant wood, full clear
streams leaping to the sea. There are cottages after cottages with tasty
gardens trees and ferns left here and there to throw their shadows across
the thatch and neat gates, and compact fences ; and you mee, with all
the little civilities and kindly greetings of the west country peasantry.
We looked from a cliff over a huge hollow filled with the richest wood of
every shade and colour-a blue stream rushing and winding through the
midst, and beyond the clear dazzling cone of Mount Egmont. Then
came up the piping, gushing, and thrilling of birds."
We are satisfied
from the facts above stated, and the conversation of
travellers in New Zealand, that New Plymouth is at present the most eli-
gible locality for an agricultural settler. The only drawback arises from
its too great proximity to the scene of the recent earthquakes. “The
natives, says the Times,'" state that they have no recollection of any
previous earthquakes of such violence or duration, and this, coupled


NELSON.
21
with the universal immunity of the wooden buildings, and the circum-
stance, that the most severe shocks had been preceded by minor ones
which had given timely warning, had contributed greatly to promote a
return of confidence.” It has, fortunately, too bad a harbour to tempt
its inhabitants to abandon agriculture for any other pursuit; they are,
therefore, forced to devote their energies to tilling and cattle raising, and
facilities are thereby presented to a settler in the shape of cheaper food,
stock, and labour, than probably any other district can furnish. The soil
also is generous, and the climate entirely unexceptionable. We observe
that the proportion of wheat crop to the population, and the land under
tillage, are inuch greater here than in any other settlements.
NELSON.
Of this settlement we have recent authentic and well digestic accounts
by Mr. W. Fox, the late President, Agent of the New Zealand Company.
His report is candid and trustworthy.
Nelson is at the head of Tasman's Gulf, on the southern side of Cook's
Strait, and, consequently, on Middle Island. The harbour, which is at
the top of Blind Bay, “has always abundance of water for vessels of 500
or 600 tons, perfect shelter in every wind, and excellent holding ground.”
In this settlement are included three districts, not very naturally con-
nected with, or accessible from each other. Blind Bay, the seat of Nel-
son proper, consists of 60,000 acres of tolerably level land, whereof
scarcely one half is arable. Scarce of timber it is covered with fern, and
towards the sea with flax, which, it is now discovered, is indicative of a
very superior soil. Where the fern grows strong and high it also intimates
the presence of fine land; and although that production is an effectual
exterminator of pasture, cattle and sheep are no sooner put upon it than
grass begins to appear, and ultimately in great luxuriance. On this ac-
count the rapidity with which stock has here increased, has given a great
impetus to breeding and store farming.
Massacre Bay, about fifty miles from Nelson, is remarkable for the
beauty of its scenery, is heavily timbered, and possesses, out of 45,000
acres, about 25,000 of the finest quality of soil. It also abounds with
coal and lime easily workable, but is very defective in harbourage, except
for small craft, navigable up some of its rivers.
Cloudy Bay, with the Wairau plain and valley, and Wakefield downs,
is 110 miles south of Blind Bay, and contains upwards of 250,000 acres
of, for the most part, level land of fine pasture through its whole extent,
and perhaps the finest sheep runs in the world. It also possesses much
rich soil, eminently fitted for the production of grain, and is not only
the most extensive, but destined to become, by its splendid pastoral
qualities, the most valuable district in the settlement.
“No heavy clays,” observes Mr. Fox, “ or stiff marls are met with,
but the light lands break up as fine as garden ground.
“ The average produce of the settlement, under inferior management,
is 24 bushels wheat, 25 barley, 21 oats, 6 tons potatoes, 24 tons turnips
per acre.
The flax, and some of the fern land, will yield about fivo


NELSON.
quarters per acre of wheat. Except the wire worm in wet grounds, no
other destructive animal has affected the crops.”
The climate is said to be the best in New Zealand, and the wind
gives less annoyance than in the other settlements. The temperature is so
mild that Aocks lamb in mid-winter, which is never so severe as to check
the blossoming of geraniums, fuschias, and other English summer flow-
ers; while in spring and summer, “ days and weeks, occur of almost per-
fect calm, with brilliant sunshine by day, and magnificent moonlight by
night."
But for the operation of the Wakefield system, this settlement would
have progressed much more rapidly than it has done. To describe it in
little it is an artificial and forcing system. In place of allowing coloniza-
tion to take its natural course, and the balance of capital, labour, and
land, to adjust itself by the ordinary laws of social distribution, it made
land dear to prevent labourers from becoming owners. It paid for their
introduction to the colony by gratuitous conveyance; it made an arbitary
proportion betwixt capital and labour, founded upon mere theory, in
place of the real circumstances of society; and it supplied employment
and wages out of the funds of a wealthy company, in place of waiting
for the natural development of local wants and resources.
The conse-
quence was, fits and starts of prosperity and adversity, and at last vio-
lence and disorder among the labourers. Nature's cure has at last pre-
vailed. The labourers have become landholders, discontent has disap-
peared, and the settlement is now in a state of slow but certain progres-
sion.
The statistics of the settlement do not indicate a very flattering state
of things as regards population, which actually appears to have decreased,
and this in the face of a considerable increase of tillage, live stock, and
grain. The prices of all necessaries are ridiculously high, and until they
are much lower it is impossible that much substantial prosperity can
exist. That population, or in other words consumption, should fall off,
production increase, and prices remain high, is an anomaly in econo-
mics, only to be accounted for by the assumption of gross blunders in
the statistical returns. The preponderance of evidence would tend to
shew that there must be considerable exaggeration in the accounts given
of the increase of production, population having retrograded, and prices
having continued comparatively exorbitant. Much of this has doubt-
less arisen from the absurd policy of the New Zealand Company, which
has discouraged the settlement of labourers upon the land, by maintain-
ing it at an artificial price, and by diverting labour from the cultivation
of the soil, to engage it in the execution of public works. The diminu-
tion of the population, in the face of considerable immigrations from the
mother country, is a ludicrous commentary upon the Wakefield theory.
It shows that while capitalists have been paying large sums in the shape
of a high price of land to supply themselves with labourers, the inac-
cessibility of that land to the labourers has induced them to leave the
capitalists without hands, which they had paid a large sum to command.
It also shows that the only tie, which will bind labourers to a district,
that of the possession of a freehold of their own, having been systemati-
cally withheld, the labourers become migratory, and wander from place


NELSON.
23
to place according as they are tempted by wages. Had labourers at once
been made freeholders, their families would have been attached to the
district, and in due time supplied labour to the capitalists.
From the excellence of the barley and hops, the purity of the water,
and the adaptation of the temperature of Nelson for brewing, ale of the
finest quality is manufactured here.
The natives amount to 615, are peaceable, well disposed, ingenious
and industrious.
Mr. Tuckett, the company's surveyor, complains of the enormous
number and fecundity of the rats in the settlement ; a characteristic
however not confined to vermin, since while rats produced seventeen at a
birth, goats produced five kids, and sheep four lambs, and sometimes
more within the year.
We have carefully perused a great number of letters from Nelson
settlers in all conditions of life, and from these we learn,
1.–That the climate is most unexceptionable, the weather not being
accompanied, generally, with the very high winds which form the annoy-
ance of some other places.
2.-That there is rather a large proportion of swamp, (easily drainable,
however,) and a deficiency of timber.
3.-That in Massacre Bay there is an excellent whale fishing station.
4.-That there is an abundance of wild fowl for the table, a good sup-
ply of sea, and a fair supply of river, fish.
5.-That the climate is in the highest degree conducive to health,
mental elasticity, and bodily vigour, recovery of appetite, and the con-
valescence of the infirm.
6.-That the great curse of the country is not the want, but the super-
abundance of capital, artificially aggravated by the absurd and profuse
outlay of the New Zealand Company. Indeed we are irresistibly led to
the conclusion that the whole economical theory of the colony induces the
speedy transfer of the whole of the money of the capitalist from its
owner to those who have none, to the encouragement of idleness and
stagnation. When we read of the Western States of America raising
produce so abundantly that wheat may be had for 28., corn for 1s., and
oats for 1s. 3d. per bushel,--the most fertile land for 4s. 6d. per acre-
a good log hut for £5,-a frame house for £20, and every man prosper-
ous and independent, but eminently industrious, we turn with contempt
and disgust to those letters, which tell us of butter at 2s. 6d. per lb., -a
quarter of an acre selling at £200(what idiot boughtit?)- of a three roomed
mud house costing from £200 to £400,-of all sorts of food at rather
more than London prices, and of wages of men-botchers and bunglers,
the refuse of our towns,screwing out of capital from 78. to 14s. per
diem, for little more than half a day's work. All this is the sheerest
gambling and plunder, destructive alike to rich and poor, and entirely
incompatible with success. We find that even rent is forced up almost
to an English price, and that speculation, and the most reckless pur-
chases, equal to any of the stag transactions of Capel Court, disturb the
whole natural progress of society, and productive industry. We
maintain that capitalists can only be ruined by such a system,
and that labourers should be placed, at once, not in employment,


24
WELLINGTON.
out upon the soil, to cultivate it to the utmost point of produc-
tiveness.
All the letters, from every settlement, concur in this most favorable
point, that the voyage is a most pleasant and safe one. The number of
non-seafaring persons who not merely go out to the colony, but return to
Europe temporarily, and go back again, is surprising. Even women
wake light of the expedition, and frequently go and return two or three
times. In fact it is understood that fewer wrecks have occurred on this
line than even on the short trip to North America.
WELLINGTON.
This settlement of the New Zealand Company, is at the southern ex-
tremity of North Island, having Port Nicholson for its harbour, a safe
and commodious one, with good wharves, and affording a considerable
stimulus to commercial pursuits.
The longest settled, wealthiest, and most populous of all the settle-
ments, it also possesses, by far the largest number of live stock, having
4,381 settlers, 4,850 cattle, 24,352 sheep, 496 horses, 20 mules, and 911
pigs. But in agriculture it is far behind, having only 1674 acres under
crop, while Nelson has 3,355, and Auckland, by a much earlier return,
(1845), 1,844. Wellington includes the districts of Porirua, Karori,
Loury Bay, Wainuiomata, Wanganui, and Petre. The vicinity of the
town has the advantage of abundance of fine timber, and although the
Hutt valley is a mere funnel for increasing the force of the very high
winds which form the drawback of the settlement, it is very rich in pas-
turing qualities. The roads leading from the town to the various tribu-
tary districts, are reported as excellent, and, as a means of communica.
tion, of the utmost value.
The defect of the social and economical system of this district is an
exaggeration of the error committed in the rest. By artificial interfer
ence with the natural order of settlement, the attention, capital, and in-
dustry of the people have been diverted from their first duty and proper
sphere, the cultivation of the soil, to mercantile pursuits; all the neces-
saries of life are scarce and dear, wages are ridiculously high, and capi-
talists have been ruined. The only persons who seem really to have
prospered under so foolish an arrangement, are the hard working labour-
ers, who have managed to make capitalists “buy gold too dear.”
But
indeed the great error of most settlers, in all new countries, appears to
be to loiter about towns and to keep near the coast, in place of boldly
going back into the bush.
Mr. Bradey states that doctors, for want of patients, become farmers or
publicans.
Any man,
,” he continues,
“ with two or three hundred
pounds, may buy a snug freehold farm ; become a proprietor, and leave
his children independent. There are fine pickings for the capitalist,
either in the sale of land or merchandise, making frequently 150 per
cent. A great deal may be made upon loans on the best security.”
“ People,” observes a gentleman settler, “have land, but little money,
and are leading useless lives, because they have not enough to start.
We have not the class that go to Canada, who put before themselves the
66


WELLINGTON.
25
task of working in the bush. Life is too easily maintained here, and
even the fine climate wont tempt them.”
Mr. Wait speaks of an acre of land in Wellington which sold by
auction for £700 !-of land letting at 5s. to 7s. 6d. per foot of frontage!
--and acres cut up so as to realize very large rents; and these prices,
greater than are given for the best situations in Surrey, Middlesex,
Essex or Kent, are paid in a wild settlement where people are continually
complaining of want of capital to till the soil !
“Two fine districts,” says Mr. Tiffin,“ are now opening, Manewatu
and Wanganui, each containing 60,000 acres on the borders of two fine
rivers, navigable by coasting schooners.”
The settlement of the Wanganui River (Petre) is described as admitting
vessels of 340 tons; to be “as beautiful as valuable; six or seven fathoms
water in the river all along; fine clay for bricks and pottery; the river
full of fish; wild duck and teal abundant; and the climate not subject to
the high winds which prevail at Wellington, from which it is distant
about five days' walking journey. Warepara on the other (south) side of
Wellington, is highly extolled as a grazing country.
An intelligent settler avers that 20 per cent. is easily to be had for
loans on first rate security.
On the Manewatu, a river between Wellington and Wanganui, it is
said there is abundance of fine land, and the best natural arrangements
for water power.
Many letters complain that the want of roads, the delay in giving out
sections, and the aversion to the bush life, “have turned many a good
farmer into a bad storekeeper.” “I am sorry to say,” observes William
Dew, “there are but few who support cultivation; they seem to be
afraid of the bush, which is not half so fierce as it is represented.” And
we are satisfied that, so long as there are frequent new arrivals of green-
horn capitalists, with more money than wit, who will submit to be fleeced
by the old settlers in the way they have been, labourers who can get 10s.
for soleing a pair of shoes, which could be had new in England for 5s. or
10s., and the same sum for a short days’ lazy work at carpentering,
watch-mending, or sawing, will not be in a hurry to lose their aversion
to the bush. “Our town,” bleats out W. Dew, “is in a flourishing
condition; we have a great deal imported, but nothing exported, which
robs us of all the ready money. We want the cultivation to go
a-head.”
Dr. George Rees describes Wanganui as midway between Port Nichol-
son and New Plymouth, communicating with them, Manewatu, Otaki,
Porirua, by means of roads, and with Auckland, Bay of Islands, &c.
by the river. The farms of the district are of the finest description, and
white bait, cels, baracouta, karwi, plaice, soles, oysters, and harbouka
(the king of fish) abound. At the heads of our river you can see fish
weighing I cwt. each, in such quantities, that it is impossible to count
them. We have hanging in our smoking-room, hams, German sausages,
bacon, saveloys, fish, &c. In our salting-tub, pork, -we get pigeons,
ducks, snipes, &c. for shooting—to these we add from our own stock
poultry and eggs. In my own garden are peaches, apricots, plums, me-
lons, strawberries, cabbage, peas, beans, brocoli, carrots, cauliflowers,
dD


26
OTAGO.
turnips, sweet herbs, &c. &c. In short I can only say, 'Here one can
live in ease, without care or trouble, in one of the most genial and healthy
climates in the world, and where it only requires the hand of man to
make a paradise.”
“ Cultivation,” well observes J. While, “goes on very spare : the
reason is that most of the landholders are gentlemen's sons, and know
nothing about farming; two old English farmers would do more than
twenty of them. The land produces fine crops of corn, the worst
of it."
A small Devonshire farmer at Patoni, Port Nicholson “has no doubt
about the land being very superior to that of Devon-two crops in the |
year-wheat 60 bushels an acre, potatoes 16 tons; wages 30s. a week;
provisions little dearer than in the old country; a labourer better off
than a Devonshire farmer who pays £100 rent.
The evidence seems contradictory as to the qualities of the valley of
the Hutt, but on the whole we suspect it to be a very inferior place of
settlement.
OTAGO.
This is the youngest and the most southern of the European settle-
ments of New Zealand. It belongs to the Company, and is colonized
chiefly by 650 Scotch, promoted by the Free Church of Scotland. A
good number of English have also joined the adventure, and we know of
two gentlemen of large fortune who, for the sake of the climate for
themselves and families, have ventured their life and happiness in the
colony.
We have said that Otago is the southernmost point of settlement. It
is consequently the least genial and the most inclement. At times it is
extremely cold, and has by its detractors been said to be more unkindly
than the climate of Scotland itself. Mr. George Rennie observes, “Al-
though the winter at Otago may never be severe, there may not be
sufficient sun and dry weather to produce a fine quality of corn." An
Auckland correspondent of our own writes to us to expose the Otago
schemo--the place is wretchedly cold.” This gentleman merely speaks
however from hearsay, and from the presumption, that a point so far
south should be cold. We can more safely trust to the testimony given
on the subject of Otago than on that of any other settlement. There was
no object in the Free Church of Scotland making choice of that district
in preference to any other, except its real advantages. The committee
are men of the greatest prudence, great intelligence, and first-rate
business habits, whom it was not possible to deceive, and who were not
at all likely to proceed without ample inquiry and satisfactory evidence.
The letters from all the settlers are, upon the subject of climate, unani-
mously most favorable. Dr. Munro, Mr. Tuckett the Company's, and
Mr. Symonds, the government surveyor, Major Bunbury and Captain
Smith, and Messrs. Dean the extensive graziers, claim“ a superiority
for the east coast of the middle over the north island, in that it is greatly
less wet and windy. In the wet season the continuous heavy rains in the


OTAGO.
27
North Island, partake of a tropical character, and are comparatively un-
known at Otago and Port Cooper. Mr. Petre observed parroquets and
the cassowary flying about even on the southernmost island in the depth
of winter, and that the leaves and stalks of the potato were at that season
as green as in the height of summer. Dr. Deiffenbach concludes from
geographical and meteorological phenomena, that “ New Zealand has a
rainy climate," and Sir James Ross, from the same facts, regards it as
proved, that a much greater quantity of rain falls at the northern than
at the southern parts of the island." Captain Thomas, after twelve
months' residence in the settlement, says—“the climate is very healthy;
I should say more mild than that of the southern part of England.
Others consider it as mild as the south of France, both being in the same
latitude. In fact we regard the abundant evidence in favour of the mild-
ness and superior dryness of the middle island, as completely establishing
the fact.
This point being settled, we think there can be little doubt of the eli-
gibility of the settlement in other respects. At some distance behind the
town, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of the richest pasture land
ready cleared, and nearer Otago, plenty of soil, raising, of superior
quality, all the ordinary cereals.
We regard the fact of its being a Scotch enterprise as of the very high-
est value. We have carefully examined the details of the plan, and the
facts of the execution of the colonization of Otago, and we think they
fully bear out the character of our northern neignbours for forecast,
prudence, intelligence, and energy. The organization of the settlers
seems perfect. A scheme thoroughly matured, rules well weighed and
strictly carried out, needs anticipated and supplied, the different mutual
dependences of society perceived and maintained in the altered circum-
stances of location as nearly as possible, lift up a community as it stands
in Edinburgh or Glasgow, and set it down on its feet and in its places in
the Otago block. Capitalists, farmers, shepherds, tradesmen, handi-
craftsmen, labourers, doctors, clergymen, and schoolmasters, in the right
proportions, emigrate together in a spirit of sympathy, mutual help, and
with the associations of country and of neighbourhood. The clanship of the
Scotch will here find its best use. Neighbour will act on neighbour,
parish will communicate with parish, the pastors of the people acting as
their worldly advisers, will turn the tide of emigration from Scotland
to Otago, until the colony will become in very deed a mere outlying pro-
vince of Caledonia.
The very letters of the settlers are all of a superior class for intelli-
gence, interest, and good senso; and that wonderful ability for business,
and mastery of detail, which have enabled the ministers and lay members
of the Free Church to create, within a few years, the most admirable
ecclesiastical establishment that ever blessed a country, have been most
conspicuous in the management of this colonization. They refused to
budge a foot until they had got their charter of the land signed and
sealed by the crown. They would not move till the territory was sur-
veyed and divided ready for settlement; 2400 properties, included in
144,000 acres, are divided thus :-2,000 for sale to settlers; 100 for the
estate of the municipal government; 100 for religion and education ;
d
D 2


28
OTAGO
200 for the New Zealand Company. The price is 40s. an acre, or £289,200,
whereof, £108,750 are appropriated to Emigration and labour; £72,000 to
surveys, roads, bridges, improvements, and steam-boats; £36,150 to
religion and education; £72,300 to the New Zealand Company. 250,099
acres more are to be yielded on the same terms when required. Fo:
$120, 10s., each purchaser is to have a town quarter acre, 10 suburbaş,
acres, and 50 rural acres. For each property purchased an emigrant
may take out as steerage passengers, including full rations, three adults,
or two adults and two children. If he desires to apply the allowance to
himself, £15, for each property purchased, will be deducted from the chier
cabin passage money of forty-five guineas. Besides their lots, purchasers
have the privilege of pasturing their cattle and sheep upon the whole un-
sold land of the Company. It is with much satisfaction we observe
that the New Zealand Company, both with regard to this, and their
other settlements, have so far modified their original plan, as better to meet
the wants of the poorer classes of settlers. They are now prepared to dis-
pose of land in lots of 25 acres, accompanied with proportionate advan-
tages in the shape of allowances for passage money and free pasturage. This
is the way to keep labourers after they have got them. The vessels are of the
first class, admirably arranged for comfort and convenience, full manned,
excellently officered, with an experienced surgeon, a cow for milk to the
children, half a ton of free luggage to each passenger, and a first-rate dietary.
Extra freight, 50s. per ton. Judicious rules, binding on passengers, officers,
and crew, are strictly enjoined and enforced. All concur in stating that the
voyage is remarkably pleasant, little subject to sea perils, and very seldom
accompanied with accident. By sailing from Milford Haven the perils of
the Channel are avoided. The best time for starting is in the end of
July or August, as these are the calmest months in the northern hemis-
phere, while October and November, the months of arrival, are the early
summer at Otago. Money may be insured at 3 per cent. in the marine
insurance offices, or transmitted through the Union Bank of Australia,
38, Old Broad Street, to its Wellington Branch, or the New Zealand
Company by letters of credit on the Branches in the settlement at two
As from 3 to 4 per cent. is allowed in the colony on the ex-
change, the cost of transmission is thus more than covered. The passage
of the first two vessels occupied 93 and 115 days respectively, from land
to land, and 99 and 117 from port to port—the average being 120 days,
or 17 weeks. Persons who have made voyages to New York and to
Wellington, state they infinitely prefer the latter, notwithstanding its
greater length.
We regard it as of great promise to the success of the settlement, that
every pastor and flock of the free church of Scotland become interested in
it as a field of emigration. The “minister” is the family adviser of all
his congregation, and, consulted on the subject of emigration, will give
Otago the preference.
The scheme suggests that if three persons contributed £40 18s. 4d.
each, they would get a free passage, and an entire section of land. They
are also housed and fed for one month after their arrival in the colony.
The Scotch being the best colonists in Europe, and this scheme having
embraced the sending out of many thinking and energetic men, we hope
per cent.


OTAGO.
29
much for the comfort and assistance of future emigrants from the fore-
thought of those who have preceded them. They have a genius for gar-
dening and agriculture, which will find ample scope in their adopted
country.
The Otago block of 400,000 acres, is bounded on the north by the Otago
harbour, and on the south by the Matou or Molyneux rivers. It has
abundance of untimbered fertile land, and open grassy pastures, inter-
spersed with an adequate supply of wood, a navigable inland communi-
cation, runs up its entire centre. It has ample fields of coal, easily
workable ; an unbounded sheep-walk towards its mountains, and sixty
miles of sea line. Puerua, Koau, and many smaller streams, are more
or less navigable, the former by vessels of considerable burden.
Otago harbour is thirteen miles long, 2 miles wide, 6 fathoms deep, for
seven miles, and three fathoms up to the very head, perfectly sheltered,
and with a tide run of three knots an hour. The access and egress for
vessels is safe and easy. Along the shores, and for some distance inland,
there is abundance of fine timber. The harbour teems with the finest
fish, and the coast is an excellent whaling station, whalers of 600 tons
often lying in the harbour.
The Clutha, as the Matou, or Molyneux river is now termed, is a
quarter of a mile broad, and six fathoms deep, retaining these dimensions
for 60 miles up, as the crow flies. Its banks are singularly fertile, liable
in portions to be overflowed. Many extensive lagoons, lakes, and
streams, intersect the country in every direction, which will, ultimately,
be connected by canal, and afford a perfect internal communication.
l'ew topographieal difficulties present themselves to the connection of the
various districts by means of roads.
The stock fed only on the natural pastures, produces beef and mutton
of a quality which we are assured is quite unrivalled, even in England,
and is fattened with great rapidity, and to an extraordinary size. The
quality of the cereals is also stated to be very superior, and this is quite
what we should be led to expect from the nature of the climate.
It appears unnecessary to enter into a minute detail of the various lo-
cations, and of the aspect of the country. It seems enough to say that
in some districts it is deficient in wood, compensated by abundance of
coal, and by clear, open pasture, requiring no expense to subdue it to the
profitable purpose of store farming, for which the whole region seems
eminently adapted, and which presents a great advantage to the capital-
ist, from whose profits the high wages of the colony form a heavy de-
duction. Wages for artizans are fixed at 5s. per day, and the labourer
has 18s. per week, with a free house, fuel, and pasture for a cow.
The following extracts from the letters of settlers, are full of interest
and information. They are all dated from Otago, and the earliest is so
recent as April, 1848.
“The voyage most agreeably disappointed our expectations, so much
so, that at the close of it we said, were it to become a matter of necessity
that we should do so, we should not shrink from facing about and making
the same voyage back again. We were favoured with a great deal of very
fine weather, and to this we were indebted for the good health enjoyed
by the great proportion of the passengers. We had 87 children under
D3


30
OTAGO.
fourteen, and some of the very young amongst them suffered a good
deal; and to our sore affliction four little infants died. These were all
the deaths that occurred, and these from children's complaints, mostly
cutting of teeth. But in regard to nearly all the rest of the children,
they thrived prodigiously, and exhibited the most joyous spirits, causing
the deck to resound during the fine sunny afternoons and evenings with
their obstreporous glee. Every week day, except Saturday, we had a school,
forenoon and afternoon, of six or eight different classes : six or eight of
the passengers taught them, the schoolmaster superintending. I had
two classes for religious instruction, which I took charge of myself, one
for young men, the other for young women, and I made one ministerial
visitation of the whole ship.” “The harbour, throughout the entire 14
miles to which it extends, is one uninterrupted scene of most romantic
beauty. As we sailed up to the anchorage, some of our people exclaimed,
“ How like this is to the Trosachs and Lake Katrine.” The difference
is that Otago is on a larger scale, and of a blander character. Up at
Dunedin, at the head of the harbour, the country opens out into untim-
bered land, and continues of the same description of open grassy land
across to the foot of the snowy mountains running along the west coast.
The large river Clutha, (Molyneux of the maps,) rises out of three very
large lakes, situated near the foot of these mountains to the north west
of Dunedin, and so soon as it issues from the lakes, becomes at once a
very large stream, flowing through a widely expanded valley of grass
land, interspersed with timber blocks, admirably adapted for sheep
grazing. As to the present productions of the place, all our party can
bear most laudatory testimony in favour of the beef, mutton, and pota-
toes, the growth of the wilderness, and also as to the abundant supply of
fish of excellent quality. It only requires a sufficient supply of capital
and labonr to convert this into a very rich agricultural country. Such
are my first impressions from all the information I have been able to
gather from some of the oldest settlers, and from my own observation.
'My wife has stood the voyage remarkably well. The children have
improved in health and looks, greatly. We are all now in the enjoy-
ment of the best health and spirits, and delighted with Otago. Nothing
can surpass the romantic beauty of the views from the site of the port.
The whole harbour, from the Heads to Dunedin, 14 miles in length, is
bounded on each side by a succession of headlands, projecting a little
way into the water, forming little bays with a beach of hard dry sand.
The headlands rise up at once to a height of from 300 to 5000 or 6000 feet,
and are wooded from the water's edge to the very summit.
It is a re-
markable fact that whilst the soil on these hills, and all around generally,
is remarkably rich, consisting of dark vegetable mould, varying from
1, 15 to 2 and 3, and in certain places to 6 and 7 feet deep, if you ascend
to the tops of these hills, instead of finding, as you would in Scot-
land, little else than rocks and heath, you have here the same soil
as at the bottom of the hills, viz. black earthy mould with a sub-
soil of good strong clay. In some of the streams running into the
harbour there is solid freestone of good quality, through which the stream
has worn a channel for itself. A party of settlers are prepared to com-
mence brick-inaking immediately. They are well satisfied with the clay


OTAGO.
31
as they find it all around. Thus I hope to see our houses, at least some
of them, and the Church, for which I brought building plans from Edin-
nurgh, built of brick or stone from the outset.
On the whole, my pre-
sent impressions of the country, both as to beauty and richness of soil,
have greatly surpassed my expectations. All the Europeans here, with-
out a single exception, speak well of Otago. But I trust more to the
opinion of the surveyors, particularly that of Mr. Kettle, the principal
one, who speaks in the very highest terms of it. A large bullock, about
1000 lbs. weight, was killed at Dunedin for the use of the emigrants, and
though the beast never got a morsel of feeding but what it gathered in
the wilderness, yet the meat is uncommonly fine. We all think it far
better than any we ever tasted before-but this of course. But the John
Wickliffe's' people who have been here for a month, all declare they
never tasted better meat than the beef and mutton they have got here.
The fish too is excellent and abundant. The baracouta and the habouka
are the only two kinds I have tasted. The former like a cod but much
larger, the latter like a ling but longer and thinner.
“On Friday the 2nd of June I brought my family here finally from the
Philip Laing. The servant maid with the three youngest children, in-
cluding the baby, were in the luggage boat; there was not room for them
in the captain's gig. In the morning when we started, there was as
lovely weather as ever shone, but suddenly the sky became overcast, and
the wind blew right in our teeth. The gig pulled through in good style,
but the luggage boat could make no head against it; the consequence
was that poor baby, Fanny, and Annie, with the maid, slept all night in
the bush, the boat having put into a little bay, about three miles down
the harbour. Cold, cold it was, snow and frost,-by far the coldest night
we have had ; ice as thick as a shilling was seen next morning, though
ice and snow were both gone soon after breakfast. My poor wife was
most miserable all night. Next morning about 11 o'clock we were
delighted to see two sailors with Fanny and Annie on their backs, and
Jane Pattulo, the maid servant, all walking up to the manse door. The
children were not a whit the worse of it. One of the singular features of
this singular climate is, no matter how much you may be exposed to it,
you take no injury. Ever since, the weather has been enchantingly fine.
On Thursday and Friday last it blew strong from the N.E., and rained,
and was uncomfortably cold, but Saturday and yesterday, and to-day,
surpassed the very finest summer days in Scotland.
At the same
time whilst we were lying at Port Chalmers in the Philip Laing, we had
eight days of soaking rain, very cold and disagreeable; no fire on board.
The natives said we had brought the bad weather with us, for they never
had the like of it before. My estimate of the country has only risen
higher as I have become better acquainted with it.
"There is a very beautiful little bay called Deborah Bay, just opposite
the anchorage ground, where the large vessels lie at Port Chalmers. It
has very magnificent timber on it, with two beautiful streams, that would
each of them drive a large mill, running into it.
“The manse is weather boarded, lined with rough deal; canvas and
paper are ready to be put up in it. It stands at the very head of the
harbour on an eminenco clothed with evergreen bushes, down the almost


32
OTAGO.
perpendicular front to the water's edge, with a pretty little bay at the
bottom, where I mean to keep my boat (I bought the Philip Laing's life-
boat,) a very beautiful situation. It is as yet the prettiest and most
aristocratic looking place in the colony."
" Another settler observes :-"There extends for about 100 miles in
length, the widely expanded valley of the Clutha (Molyneux of the
maps), of the finest land, in general free of timber. The river rises near
the roots of the Snowy Mountains (which run along the brink of the west
coast), to the north of Dunedin; it flows out of three very large lakes,
and at once assumes the aspect of a broad deep river. The valley through-
out its entire length is represented to be of the richest description of land,
and adapted in the highest degree for sheep grazing, and will, all of it,
ultimately be made available for the purposes of tillage. The Clutha
flows into the sea on the east coast of the island, about sixty miles south
of Dunedin, and forms the southern boundary of the block of land pur-
chased for the Otago settlement. The beef and mutton fed in these wilds
is remarkably well flavoured; very fat—some think it too fat-but it is
in no respect like the fat of over-fed meat, but firm and high flavoured.
The Europeans squatting here all concur in giving the climate of Otago
a decided preference over that of Wellington, the boisterous character of
which seems to be its main fault. We have had hard gales since we en-
tered here. The peculiarity is, that these gales blow uniformly all the
year round either up or down the harbour, and never last beyond 48 hours
at a time, and are followed by weather of the most beautiful serenity,
finer, certainly, than our finest days at home. On the other hand, the
bad weather here seems to be just about as disagreeable as at home, with
this difference, that it never lasts longer than the time I have mentioned.
The winds are sometimes very cold: we have had the thermometer here
as low as 48 and 46 degrees. I dare say at home, and in the month of
November, we should find this not an uncomfortable temperature, but
coming off a four months' summer voyage through the tropics, we are
more affected by it. I am told that the amount of fine weather through-
out the year bears a large proportion to the whole.
“We were all most agreeably disappointed in the voyage. Instead of
one prolonged scene of hard endurance, as we anticipated, throughout
the great part of it there was a high degree of enjoyment. We had the
affliction of seeing four little infants die on the voyage, and a fifth since
we entered this harbour. With this exception, we had a great deal of
good health amongst our 250 emigrants, 87 of whom were children under
fourteen years, and 11 of these under twelve months. For this we were
mainly indebted, under God, to the remarkably fine weather we had, and
to the admirable way in which the medical superintendent enforced the
regulations as to order, cleaning, and ventilation. Order was so well ob-
served, and the arrangements made at the commencement so good, and
so little altered or modified up to the very last, that a history of one day
will be a history of the voyage. Here it is :-
At 6 A.M. the proper constable went along the steerage and warned
the people to rise. At 7} he had every soul on deck; when the roll was
called, the cleaning and scraping the floors and sprinkling with chloride
of lime commenced, and, if not finished before breakfast, was finished


OTAGO.
33
after, and before worship. At 8} the cabin passengers went to breakfast.
at 9 the steerage passengers began to have theirs served out to them. At
10} we had morning worship. At 11, or rather immediately after wor-
ship, the school opened, six or eight passengers taking each a class, under
the superintendence of the schoolmaster, Mr. Blaikie. At 2 P.M. the
steerage dinner was served out; the cabin dinner at 3. At 4 the after.
noon school. At 5} the steerage tea; the cabin ditto at 6}. At 7 evening
worship. The congregational library was opened once a week, when books
were returned and new ones issued. A newspaper in M.S., by a cabin
passenger, was published once a week : and another by a steerage pas-
senger as often. The time passed away, no one knew how. But before
* we were able to bring matters into such exact order, we had some serious
proceedings. The captain, the doctor, and the minister, a formidable
triumvirate, conducted several criminal jury trials with great formality,
and inflicted various punishments. Sometimes the proceedings were re-
ported in presence of the congregation, at the close of divine service, and
public rebuke administered. The state of discipline ultimately became
very thorough and to the rigour. Out of school hours it was a very joy-
ous scene to hear the obstreporous mirth of the children; and in the fine
tropical evenings, the entire body of passengers being on deck, sometimes
they practised church-music, sometimes Scotch songs were sung, the
cabin passengers listening on the poop, all forming a happy scene, and
under the finest sky, from which we used to withdraw with reluctance at
bedtime. With all this, it was a season that put poor human nature under
a most sifting process, and presented it under a most humiliating aspect.
Not an infirmity of temper, not a vicious habit, not an unseemly feature
of character, but was dragged forth into open day, and exhibited in all
its naked deformity, in the eyes of all.
"The natives are quiet, peaceful, harmless creatures. We shall probably
wish we had more of them by and by. There are herds of cattle, sheep,
and goats in the wilds all around.”
William Duff writes :-“ The appearance of the country is rather
wild, but everything is green as in the heat of summer. Carrots, pars-
nips, and potatoes, were newly sown and planted, and a settler, a Scotch-
man, at Port Chalmers, has a second crop of barley, which he expects
will ripen before winter. The soil is very rich, and I do not think it will
be ill to clear. There is a great deal of brushwood, and there is level
clear land a few miles back; but I have not been far in the bush. We
have a visit from some of the natives every day; they seem glad to see
us, and are very peaceable. Some of them are dressed in the native mat,
and are very wild looking. There are a number of Scotch settlers here;
some of them have been for a number of years. They seem quite at
home with the natives, and have no fear of them so far as I have seen.
The winter is beginning to set in. We have had heavy rains since we
came, and some of the warmest days we ever had in Scotland in the heat
of summer. The settlers who have lived here for some years say that
this and the next month ends their winter, and then I hope to commence
farming in earnest. There are plenty of horses here running wild.
Jones has between one and two hundred; their price is somewhere about
£20, but I see no market for them yet, so I do not think I will deal much


S4
OTAGO.
in horse flesh for some time. Mr. B. and Captain Cargill thinks there
will be a great demand for them so soon as the road is opened up between
the town and country sections. Provisions are not very dear; the Com.
pany have a store, and sell meal at 2s. 6d. per stone; flour at 3s. per
stone ; tea at 1s. 3d. per lb. ; sugar at 3}d. per lb. The wages to labour-
ers are 3s. per day; mechanics, 5s. per day."
James Williamson states that-"We all had to build houses of some
sort, but from my weakly state I was not able, and rent one from a Mr.
A., at about 58. per week for the winter, and then we will get to our sub-
urban section and put up a house there for myself. This Mr. A. is a
brother to Mr. A., George Street, the fishmonger, he and his wife are
very kindly people. By his help I have made a very fortunate choice of
my Town Site. The original price was only 108., and I believe if I were
to sell it I would get £100 for it ; this is turning the money. Our sub-
urban sections will not be fixed for choice for perhaps a month yet. We
mean to go there to reside, and clear what we can for the coming year's
crop of potatoes, which will about doubly pay the clearing, --so you see
it is soon brought to render a profit. The ground is very fertile; for in.
stance, from one seed or cut of potatoes, there will be an average produce
of about 55 to 58 potatoes, and large, many of them weighing upwards
of a pound English. Nothing like this could be produced in Scotland,
and they sell just now at £4 10s. per ton, an acre producing about four-
teen tons.
“When I make choice of my suburban section, which will be very soon
now, I intend to put up a good house, built from the wood of my own
property, but for this I must wait till my funds increase, as it will cost
me perhaps about £60, and this is more than I can spare at present. I
have too little to work upon just now, which deprives me of many advan-
tages, and I can get no return of money till I get it from the produce of
my ground. Please to send me in the place of cash, the following goods
which I can sell readily here for nearly cent. per cent. of profit :-very
strong boots, laced in front, such as the railway workers wear; they can
be made in Scotland for about 108. a pair, perhaps by contract cheaper,
but they must be stout and well made, and filled with small tackets and
shod on heels and toes with iron; they sell here at from 18s. to 208. a
pair. There is 10 per cent. now laid upon all British goods, and the
freight, 50s. per ton, dead weight, but notwithstanding there will be a
good profit. Cheese will pay well; it is selling here just now at 14d. to
18d. per pound. You could buy a lot of old Ayrshire cheese at perhaps
less than 6d. per lb., when bought in a lot in Scotland, and I could sell
them here wholesale to the stores for about 1s. per lb.. and perhaps
The prices are expected to rise as the other settlers arrive. You
must select them old, but whole and sound, as new cheese does not stand
the voyage so well as old, and they must be put into air-tight tin cases,
packed into a large wooden box; they must not be of the very large sizes,
just about a medium size, running about 25 lbs. each; these take whole
readily. Blankets, common, bring about 26s. a pair. Blue bonnets or
caps, such as the boys wear in Scotland, not the dandy kind with tassels,
but just a stout wool cap, take well and give a high price here, as nothing
else is worn. Hats are not worn at all. You will get the caps perhaps
more.


36
OTAGO.
tross and cape pigeon are the only ones of any importance I brought
down with the long range; we sometimes caught them with the line
and hook and a piece of pork; we had ten or twelve on deck at one
time, some of them ten feet from tip to tip of the wings. We hove
anchor and sailed right up the harbour to Port Chalmers. Ships from
six to eight hundred tons can anchor close to the shore : the John
Wickliffe,' nearly seven hundred tons, lay thero. The government
steamer Inflexible anchored opposite Musselburgh within the heads, and
she is from twelve to fourteen hundred tons. After we had been there
a day or two, the doctor, a few others, and I went out to shoot pigeons;
we met Old Fire, the Chief, and half a dozen of his tribe, sitting round
a fire, dressed in European clothes ; he made a bow, which we returned,
and passed on. We got into the bush as they call it, but bush means
forest, and came upon two natives sitting round a fire, roasting fish and
potatoes. Feeling hungry we sat down and joined them, and in return
gave them bread and cheese. They have no idea of fighting, and are
frightened at the sight of a gun. I have never seen a weapon in their
hands since I came. They are all dressed in European clothing, and
are very anxious to get work; their wages are 2s. 6d. per day to the
company, and 3s. to settlers. They were very handy in getting up
houses, &c., for the emigrants when we first came; they know the
value of money well; they come into the store for food, and speak
good English considering. I know that many parties in Britain are
frightened for the natives, but that ought to be the last thing they
should bother their heads about, for I would rather go from Dune-
din to Molyneux than through the streets of Edinburgh at night; if
you believe me the white men are more to be dreaded in New Zea-
land, for their bad principles and trickery, than the blacks. The land
has not been made for the New Zealander I think, but for the white
man, for the former is fast disappearing from its surface. The cli-
mate of the country is certainly very fine, beyond all doubt, for European
constitutions ; for my own part, if I had suffered the same privations
in Britain, as I have done in New Zealand, it must have been my death,
what with sleeping in the bush, and wet nearly up to the middle for
six or eight hours at a time, and yet without the slightest injury to
my health ; let the labour be what it may through the day, you get up
next morning quite invigorated; in fact, I thought the voyage was a
great means of restoring my health. To parties not strong, the air here
is pleasant, and there is something light and exhilarating in it; it does
not create that tickling sensation in the throat you experience in Britain,
which, I think, is often the means of bringing on consumption and other
diseases. This is the winter season, and we can sit in the house with the
In the morning I have often gone out with nothing but
trousers and boots on, and gun over my shoulder, to get a shot at the
ducks. Milch cows and calves are out winter and summer in the bush,
without any effect on either; no turnips or any artificial means to keep
the cattle here; in winter no byres, the only thing required is a stock
yard to drive them into to milk. Horses are treated the same as the
cows, winter and summer. Pigs thrive well from the great quantity of
fern root they eat; they are never put in styes, but allowed to roam about;
door open.


OTAGO.
37
we very much want a good breed of English pigs; they are quite easily
brought out, and should have plenty of water on board ship. On board
of ship, you have every thing you require, but you may take some pre-
serves and pickles if convenient, two good pillows and a mattress, as the
ship's ones are too thin, sheets and blankets, a tin washhand basin, a little
frying-pan and goblet, cinnamon, arrow-root and sago, and a few cabin
biscuits; mine were put below and only got at on arrival, but I sold them
for 7s. per stone, cost 3s. 6d.; also take a little oatmeal, you will find a
relish for it. Be sure and take care with whom you associate ; be atten-
tive and clean; keep near you some books, as well as your brush and
comb, knives, forks, and spoons; and purchase marine or salt water soap."
Robert Donaldson states that,-—“ Birds of every description are plen-
tiful; there are great varieties. There are, Ist. Five or six different sorts
of hawks, very numerous; 2nd. Touis, a bird like our blackbird, but
with two tufts of white hair under its throat, like a minister's band, hence
it is called the parson's bird ; 3rd. Robin Redbreasts, just like our robins
at home, only jet black with pure white breasts, shape and whistle alike;
4th. Pigeons, same as at home, but larger; 5th. Parrots in great variety,
splendid eating; I eat one to day; 6th. Wild Ducks, called “Paradise
Ducks,” nearly as large as a goose, splendid eating; 7th. Quails in great
abundance, delicious eating. I could tell you of a great many varieties,
but I don't know their names. We are surrounded by mountains round
and round, abounding in wild boars and pigs. I have not been so fortu-
nate, or perhaps unfortunate, as to meet any yet, but the old shepherd
met one in the swamp about three miles off, which gave him chace, and
he had to run for it. He proved to be an old foe known about this place
for a great many years; he has lost an ear, and is nearly as large as a
good sized donkey. They are very large and fierce some of the boars.”
Captain Cargill announces that, " The Schooner Eagle arrived within
the heads on the 30th ult,, her principal cargo being 30,000 feet of sawn
timber, but too late for the supply of our more urgent wants, grass and
clay houses having been already got up, with much delay, and at great
expense as regards their short duration. A few thousand feet have, how-
ever, been bought at 20s. per hundred; but as we have now five saws
established on the margins of the harbour, we shall soon have an abun-
dant supply of our own at moderate prices. And I have also established
an experienced quarryman, with one labourer, to turn out freestone on
the bank of the water, and within a mile and a quarter of our landing
place; whilst other parties are making brick and tile to bring to market
on their own account. I have therefore every confidence that my next
report will be of a more cheering and agreeable character than at one
time I could have anticipated, until the winter shall be over.”
In a letter from Mr. John Hutchinson, to the Secretary of the Asso-
ciation, he states that—“The crops of the Middle Island, whether we
take the 'grain' or the 'green,' are excellent and abundant; while the
grasses are rich and luxuriant, enabling the dairyman to produce butter,
better than any I have eaten in Ayrshire.
As to the provision made in support of religion and education by the
Otago Association, it is only necessary to refer to the scheme, as published
in your Journals, to insure at once hearty commendation.
(6
E


33
CANTERBORY.
“Regarding the passage to New Zealand, the more especially were I to
compare it to the St. Laurence or United States' one, I should say it was
but a summer trip, and I confess myself loath, after having experienced
an Atlantic voyage, and seeing the state of many of the passengers' ships,
again to take a berth on board of one of them; and still more would í
regret were I called upon to endure the cold of a long Canadian or
Northern States winter, while remembering that there is such a place in
the South Seas as New Zealand, where all can busy themselves from July
to June, at out door work; and where cattle at all times find abundant
pasturage, never requiring to be housed, and, when imported from Aus-
tralia, improve in appearance after running on the New Zealand pastures,
the same amount of land supporting three and even four times the num-
ber of sheep that the former does, and the stockman and shepherd being
no way annoyed by the herds of native dogs, or natives themselves, so
great pests to the Australian settler. The natives on the Middle Island
of New Zealand are a mere fraction, and even these are engaged in the
business of whaling."
We have been thus copious in our extracts, because they appear to us
to give a living picture of the settlement by trustworthy writers, and are
more satisfactory than'a mere meagre digest. We feel that nothing need
be added to them, and we therefore here conclude our notice of Otago,
with this single observation, that by the latest information the settlers
had started a newspaper; that they were very energetic in the pursuit of
the noble game of cricket; and that the prices of the necessaries of life,
all of which we are assured are producible in abundance in that colony,
were actually considerably dearer than in the London market. This last
phenomenon may be the result of the rapid influx of consumers, but it is
a very ugly circumstance which should be made to cease as soon as pos-
sible.
CANTERBURY,
Is a projected Church of England settlement, on the plan of that of
Otago. It is yet merely in embryo, and need not be further described.
We have now brought to a close our view of New Zealand as a Colony,
and we cannot hesitate to state our conviction that, under the present
circumstances of other fields, this, is in respect of climate, soil, produc-
tion, minerals, timber, internal communication, position, the most eligible
of all the British colonies. The contiguity of America to Europe, its
easy steam navigation, its settled laws, institutions, society, and its dense
population, present many advantages. It is quite as productive, and
land, labour, food, buildings, are much cheaper. The settler is, there,
also more entirely surrounded with the accessories of civilization. But it
is inferior in healthiness, in pleasantness of climate, and in weather,
adapted to the European constitution. It has superiority in the much
greater cheapness of freight to Europe and the quickness of its returns,
and cannot be made the victim official incompetency, possessed as it is
of the advantages of self government. On the whole, it is not easy to


CANTERBURY.
99
give the preference to either country as a place of settlement; and hay-
ing placed the condition of each candidly before the reader, he must be
left to his own decision. As to the sea voyage, that to America, if reached
by steam is easy and quick-but by sailing vessels it occupies from seven
to ten weeks, through much bad weather, and includes a long inland
journey to the Western States, both tedious and somewhat expensive.
The number of shipwrecks is much greater of American emigrant ships
than of Australian vessels—not perhaps, however, in proportion to the
greater number which undertake the voyage. We are bound also to add,
that these shipwrecks seldom occur from the mere bad weather, but are
generally the result of ignorance of the Channel, or of mistakes in
soundings, as it is not at sea that the accidents occur, but generally
near the coast, either in setting out, or on the approach to British
America. New Zealand is often reached without any weather worse than
a breeze.
Perfect candour and impartiality call upon us to observe, that opinion
is not absolutely unanimous on the subject of the excellence of New
Zealand. A friend of ours who resides at, and speaks in the highest terms
of the district of Auckland, considers the climate and capabilities of
Otago as very inferior. Mr. Terry, and others, denounce the whole
island as made up but of precipitous mountains, impenetrable scrub,
deep gullies in the place of vallies, and morass in the place of plains.
Among the foremost of its detractors is the editor of the Emigrant's
Journal, who speaks authoritatively from personal observation, and
whose great literary talents, and thorough acquaintance with the whole
subject, entitle his opinions to respect and attention. At the same time
we have observed a tendency in his Journal to one indiscriminate con-
demnation of every colony, except that of New South Wales, in which he
was, and, so far as we know still is, a large stock and land holder. At
all events, it is impossible to be a regular reader of his Journal without
being satisfied that its tendency, if not its object, is to applaud New
South Wales, and to depreciate the United States, the Cape, New Zealand,
and Canada, and to pass over Van Dieman's Land in silence. We con-
fess to being one of the "stay-at-home" writers on the Colonies, of
whom he expresses his contempt; but on that very account we consider
that we are more competent to marshal the testimony upon which the
decision of intending emigrants should be founded, than one who, after
all, is but one witness among many, and whose evidence, like that
of others, must be weighed with the rest. Had we ourselves been a tra-
veller to any one of the Colonies, we could to the emigrating public have
been no more than one voucher, more or less, for facts about which such
discrepancies of statement occur among personal observers, that it would
still have been necessary that we should quote the authorities which can
be cited from our colonial literature; and by individual inspection we
could have placed the public in little better a position to choose between
the whole fields of settlement, than if we had never seen any of them.
The intending emigrant has himself never been abroad; and he must
judge from a review of the whole evidence which can be procured. We
have endeavoured to place him in the position in which that judgment
ean most safely be made.
E 2


40
GENERAL INFORMATION
GENERAL INFORMATION.
If his posi-
To a settler, economy in all matters is most important.
tion in society and means enable him to go out in the chief-cabin, well
and good, by all means let him do so; but that feeling of false delicacy
and pride which would induce the expenditure of a larger sum than
can really be spared, should be carefully avoided. If your means are
limited, pack up your pride with your baggage, and consign it to the
bottom of the ship's hold; go out in a fore or steerage cabin, and your-
self and family will be all the happier in landing with the £50 or £60
thus saved, in your pockets.
If you have a large family, and are a mechanic, or an agricultural
labourer, write to the New Zealand Company, 9, Broad Street Buildings,
London, and if they cannot assist you,—the price of your passage will be
15 guineas each adult person fourteen years of age and upwards; the
passage of two children between the ages of one and fourteen, being rec-
koned equal to one adult, will cost another 15 guineas; three, 23 guineas;
four, 30 guineas, and so on.
As a general rule, take out your money in preference to articles for
sale; you may, by chance, do well if the articles you take with you hap-
pen to be in demand when you arrive in the colony ; but this is such a
chance, that it is by far preferable to avoid the risk. Ready money will
always command what you require; and though you may purchase
somewhat dearer than if the goods were taken with you, yet, in the long
run, you are most likely to act with the wiser economy by depending
upon the supply already there. In the old settlements, especially in Wel-
lington and Nelson, the merchants and traders are ever watchful to pro-
cure a supply of everything that may be in demand. The large markets
of New South Wales are within a fortnight's sail, and between them and
New Zealand a constant trade is being carried on.
To a new settlement, such as Otago, it would be well that a settler
took out with him the ironwork necessary for his house, including door-
hinges, locks, stoves, and fire-dogs--a few of the best description of tools
--and, if he intend farming, a small stock of implements. Cart-wheels,
wedges, beetles, and a blacksmith's forge, would, no doubt, be found
useful.
Many persons have taken out portable houses. This is proper only at
the commencement of a settlement; but to none of those already estab-
lished is such a proceeding recommended. In Wellington, Nelson, and
New Plymouth, houses or lodgings can be easily procured at a moderate
expense, and in all of them the Company finds shelter, for the first few
weeks, for the labouring emigrants whom it assists to send out. In Otago,
where houses and lodgings are perhaps not immediately available, the
Company have erected temporary shelter for the accommodation of all
classes.
Sheep and cattle are imported into New Zealand from New South
Wules, mostly to order, though cargoes are frequently arriving to be dis-


GENERAL INFORMATION.
41
posed of at public auction. Landed in the colony, the price of sheep
varies from 15s. to 20s., cows and young cattle from £6 to £12, and oxen
from £15 to £18 per head, according to the demand. Prices on extraor-
dinary occasions run higher. It is, however, a very considerably cheaper
way to buy sheep and cattle in Sydney and freight them down.
Horses are plentiful, and may be purchased at all prices, but there is
much labour done by bullocks : this one fact shows the necessity of a
settler using caution, and taking the best advice in his power. He might
take out harness for horses, and find himself obliged to use bullocks; or
he might provide himself for bullocks, and find it requisite to use horses.
It is well to take with you a supply of clothing : the strong and ser-
viceable should have the preference over the better attire worn in England.
Furniture, and other bulky articles, should not be taken, if it can pos-
sibly be avoided. Every requisite, of this description, can be made in
the colony, and large importations are occasionally taking place from
America.
“ADVICE TO A PERSON GOING TO NEW ZEALAND WITH £60
OR £100.
“1. Endeavour to go out free if you can. Make inquiries of the New
Zealand Company, and try to get out as an emigrant. If you cannot
go out free, the passage will cost you £20 (since reduced to 15 guineas ia
the Company's ships).
“Be careful on board ship not to mix up with any quarrels. Keep
yourself clean and respectable; the voyage will soon be over.
As soon
as you can after you go ashore, when you have had a little time to look
about you, see if you can buy five or ten acres of land; it will cost yon
£20 or £30, perhaps a little more, in the colony. I do not know whe-
ther the New Zealand Company would sell such a small quantity in Eng-
land or not; but, if they would, it would be much cheaper in England,
and besides, they would send you out free. But do not buy too much
land at first; reserve some money to buy a cow or two, and some pigs
and fowls. Having bought your land, build your house in the most con-
venient place for wood and water. The house would cost you £5 or £6,
if you assist yourself. Then commence cultivating half an acre of ground,
and put in some potatoes and cabbages, &c. Buy a cow or two if you
have the money, one or two pigs, and some fowls; and if you run short
of money at any time, you can work for other people—there is always
plenty of work and do not sell the cow, nor yet the calf. The cow will
cost you £10 or £12; but then she will bring you in, for butter and milk,
10s. or 12s. a week. If this should be in a new settlement, the cow will
cost you a little more perhaps; but then you will get double as much for
the milk and butter. The cow will cost you nothing to keep; she will
get her own food on the uncultivated land. You will have to fetch her
in night and morning ; but, if you keep her in at night, you must turn
her out early in the morning. The calf will cost you nothing until it
becomes a cow; the fowls will lay an extraordinary quantity of eggs, if
you give them a little Indian corn once a day; your pigs will get their
e
E 3


42
GENERAL INFORMATION.
own food; and if you want to fatten them, put them up and give them
some Indian corn for five or six weeks. Be sure and attend to your cow
after she has calved; for, if all is attended to as should be, she will have
another calf in twelve months ; so that, in twelve months, the increase
from one cow would make up £19;—that is, the cow £12, one calf twelve
months old, f5, and one calf five days old. £2-all this in addition to the
butter and milk-therefore keep your eye on the cattle.
June, July, and August is the time to sow wheat. Get an acre of land
cleared as soon as you can ; dig up the flax, cut and burn the fern, and
get a farmer to plough it for you if you can. It will cost £l an acre to
get it ploughed ; but, if you have not got the money, make an agreement
with the farmer to do so many yards of fencing for him, or work for him
ten days or a fortnight; that may suit you both—it would be quicker
than you can dig it up yourself. Try all you can to get in an acre of
wheat the first year; when your wheat is in, set to work again directly,
and try to get in an acre of barley. Of course, once ploughing will not
do; you must dig it and rake it about, and you will be sure to get a good
crop. Barley will do, if sown before Christmas, but the best time is July
or August. Potatoes must be set in November or December, but early
potatoes may be set in August. Turnips, onions, cabbages, and those kind
of things may be set all the year round. When all your crops are in-
which they ought to be by the 1st of January-set to work again, and get
some more ground ready to sow wheat in May ; so that the second year
you will be able to sow double the quantity you did the first, and your
expenses will not be half so much when you grow all your own food. By
the end of the second year, you will have some steers grown up fit to
work, or that you will have to look out for a plough and arrows, &c.; and
in a little time, if you persevere, you will soon want to increase the size
of your farm. Take out a few tools with you, such as hammer, saw,
gimlet, reaphooks, rubbers, and choppers to cut wood. My object in
writing this is to give an industrious man going out to New Zealand
such advice that he may profit by my own experience and information.
“ If you have not already made up your mind to go to New Zealand,
consider the matter over calmly, do nothing important in haste; in the
first place, consider your present place and prospects where you are ; if
you are well off, and comfortable, stop where you are, for New Zealand
is a long way off, and there are some difficulties to encounter ; but if
your prospects are bad—if you cannot see your way clear without slavery
and starvation, then I can safely say you would be ten times better off in
New Zealand, where, if you are able and willing to work, to keep your-
self sober, you would, in a little time bc surrounded with abundance of
bacon and eggs, bread, butter, milk and cream, puddings, fowls, and all
kinds of vegetables. There is no stinting there, 'cut and come again' is
the order of the day; this, I can assure you, is an absolute fact. I know
plenty of men in Nelson, who came out as labourers, without a penny,
who are now very well off; some of them have twelve or fourteen head
of cattle, worth on the average £7 or £8 a head, and a fifty-acre farm,
not their own (that is, only leased), with a great part under cultivation;
they use their own cart, plough, harrows, and other farming implements.
I saw in one man's house, six grcat sides of bacon, and fourteen hams;


GENERAL INFORMATION.
43
he had a nice cottage, five acres of land all his own, and cultivated, and
twenty sheep, worth at least £1 a head, besides three or four cows, pigs,
and things; but, understand me rightly, all the people who went out
there have not done so well as this; some have done badly, but mostly
through their own folly or want of industry; there is not the least fear in
the world, but that an industrious man will do well in New Zealand.
“ I have written the following directions, that a person going to New
Zealand may know how to act :- In the first place, you must endeavour
to go out free; you must write or apply to the New Zealand Company to
know whether they can send you out free, and when the ship sails ;--if
all goes right, and you know when the ship is going to sail, prepare your-
self in time for going on board, sell all your lumbering and useless goods,
and pack up safely all useful small household goods, such as cups and
plates, &c., and lash the boxes well with strong cord, and be in London,
or at the appointed place in time, and mind and do not let the ship sail
without you; after making all these preparations-all your provisions
will be served out to you on board the ship-you can take a little butter,
and three or four pounds of cheese with you, you will find it useful on
board ; the voyage will soon be over, but two or three days before you get
to New Zealand, collect your things together, ready to go on shore, and do
not leave them till the ship is at anchor, for then all will be bustle on
board, and you will not find half your things. The company will find
you a house to live in, for four or five weeks ;-if you are a labourer or
a shepherd, you must go to work as soon as you can, you will find plenty
of employment; you must get up a cottage as soon as you can, it will
cost you about £4 or £5; but the materials, wood, and nails, will only
cost £2, and if you can get a friend to help you for a day or two, you
could put it up yourself, then you must assist your friend in return; peo-
ple in the colony are very ready to assist one another. When your house
is up, buy some fowls and pigs as soon as you can, and when you have
sufficient money buy a cow, it will cost you nothing to keep; the cow
will bring you in 10s. a week if attended to well, and do not sell the calf,
even if you are short of money; you will be able to get plenty of work
at good wages. If you cannot buy a spot of land, rent four or five acres,
you can get it for 4s. or 5s. an acre, and the first year rent free-flax land
is the best land, that is, land that flax is growing on ; do not choose stony
bad land. Be cautious and do not make a mistake by trying to get on
too fast at first; begin and go on steady; put in some potatoes and vege-
tables in the garden, as soon as you can ;-labourers get the afternoon
on Saturdays to themselves, so you will have plenty of time to grow your
own vegetables; tea and sugar is cheap in New Zealand,-tea 2s. to 3s.
per lb. ; sugar, 3d. to 4d. per lb. ; clothes are as cheap as in England, the
climate is so good that you don't want half the clothes you would at
home.—Mind and keep yourself steady, and persevere for two or three
years, and you will be well off.
“ J. WARD."*
• Mr. Ward returned to Nelson this month in the "Bernicia,” with his wife
and several relatives.


44
AUSTRALIA.
AUSTRALIA.
We are addressing, and our counsel is intended for, Europeans. To emi-
grants, adaptation of climate is the first and most essential consideration,
For the absence of health, physical comfort, and mental elasticity, no ad-
vantages of gain-getting can compensate. To persons born and bred in
the temperate zone, a temperate climate is indispensable. Indeed, the
human constitution of all regions is best preserved by weather in which
extremes are sm and sudden alternations infrequent. The countries
at the antipodes are naturally much warmer than those of the north of
Europe- many of the southern regions are absolutely tropical. We have
already explained that on the other side of the globe, time, seasons,
nature, are reversed—the needle points to the south. June is midwinter,
and the west answers to our east wind. Hence it follows that there, as
the traveller proceeds northward, or furthest from the nearest pole, he
goes towards greater heat, and as he goes south, he comes upon more
temperate and colder seasons. Aridity will be the natural character of
the northernmost parts of the antipodal regions, and greater moisture, be-
cause less power of sun will exhibit itself, the nearer he goes to the south
pole.
It is on this account, if on no other, that we consider it advisable for
the British emigrant who makes choice of Australia, to fix upon its most
southern settlements, and that scarcely any consideration should induce
him to establish himself at its northern extremities. Van Dieman's Land
which is insulated at the southern extremity of Australia, appears to us
on that account still more eligible, and in proportion as the settler goes
further north, we think he deteriorates his condition in reference to
health, and physical comfort, and thereby, on a far sighted view, his
worldly prospects; because, where health is highest, human energy will
be greatest, and ultimately produce the greatest social results.
Australia is the largest island in the world. Its size is variously esti-
mated at from 3,000 to 2,000 miles long from east to west, and from
2,000 to 1,700 broad from north to south, lying between the 9 deg. and
38 deg. of south latitude, and 112 deg. to 153 deg. east longitude, con-
taining an area of 3,000,000 square miles, and being 16,000 nautical
miles distant from Great Britain. It has a coast line of 8,000 miles.
The general geological character of the country is that of immense level
plain, low ridges of hills, open forest, and in some places rich vallies,
scantily timbered, and spare in its verdure. Its rivers, great and small,
are liable to extensive inundations and droughts which dry them com-
pletely up, or leave only a few scanty pools. The grass, although bare
and coarse, is very nutritious. The soil, generally very thin, is either a
j'ed, sandy loam, or a coarse white sand, producing little vegetation, and
a little stunted timber. There are few quadrupeds, except the kangaroo,
opussum, and wild dog-no great variety of birds-very fine bees pro-
ducing the richest honey-some dangerous snakes, a few musquitoes, and
a rich assortment of populous fleas. Aquatic birds, including black
swans, frequent the rivers, which teem with cod, shrimps, mussels, and


AUSTRALIA.
45
oysters, and the coast seal and whale fishing could be made exceedingly
profitable.
Many portions of the island abound in the richest quality of minerals,
such as coal, iron, limestone, and potter's clay, besides the finest sand
for the manufacture of glass. The Burra Burra copper mines are cele-
brated all over the world.
There are aboriginal savages in the country, intractable but insigni-
ficant in numbers, and comparatively harmless now, although they have
been very troublesome.
The climate is dry, salubrious, and towards the north eminently
adapted to the cure of consumption. The hot winds of summer, how-
ever, approach almost to the character of the simoom, and the prevalence
of dysentery and opthalmia towards the north indicates great torridity.
In the hot season the thermometer rises to 146 deg. in the sun, and 95 in
the shade. Sometimes it is as high as 100 deg.
The island is intersected near its centre by the Tropic of Capricorn,
and all of it to the north of its centre is therefore within the tropics, and
entirely too torrid and too arid for settlement. Towards the south it is
more temperate, but in our apprehension the great defect of its whole ex-
tent is its proximity to the torrid zone. A scarcity of water is felt to a
greater or less degree through its whole extent; periodical droughts
sweep away millions of cattle and sheep; in many places, even the sites
of towns, there is cely enough of water even for domestic purposes,
and what there is of it is frequently of the very worst quality. In
Adelaide, for example, it is so detestable as to form one of the “. miseries
of human life.”
There is no colony about which the statements chiefly of interested
persons have been so contradictory and perplexing, as those with re-
ference to the various settlements into which this vast island has been
divided. Land companies, book makers, large colonial capitalists, dis-
appointed emigrants, settlers in rival colonies, have conspired to confound
and bamboozle the public mind. We have been compelled to form our
conclusions of the real value of the territory, and the actual state of its
prospects, rather from circumstantial evidence, than from reliance on
direct testimony, and there are certain facts which have dropped out
from the statements of all, which furnish much better conclusions on the
subject than the assertions of the writers.
The climate and soil of Australia seem considerably to resemble those
of the Cape of Good Hope. As a general rule the island is as salubrious
as one nearly tropical can be, the air presenting, in many districts, a de-
gree of elasticity to the sensations quite opposite to the relaxing influences
which might be expected from the mere temperature, which is very
high, although in Sydney, we have intelligence of great complaints
of lassitude and listlessness induced by the extreme heat. Soil, as
every one is aware, is created from the gradual increment of decayed
vegetation. But where the heat is very great, and there is little rain
and surface water, the entire vegetation, scantily supplied with sap, has
comparatively a very small amount of annual refuse, and that being so
completely burnt up as to alm charred, falling into mere powder
when rubbed between the fingers, a very slender material is afforded of


AUSTRALIA.
47
owing to a depression of the price of wool; and to convert them into tallow,
Mr. Sidney considers as perfectly ruinous. In short the trade seems
altogether a precarious one, as we hear every day of many men reduced
and elevated from immense nominal wealth to nothing, and vice versa,
and of not a few coming back to Europe penniless. It is very certain
that Australia is eminently favourable to the growth of wool of the very
finest quality. The increment of flocks is also very great, and pro-
ductive of great and rapid fortunes. The absence of roads is much less
felt in pastoral than in agricultural pursuits, and either wool or sheep
are more portable than agricultural produce. A greater value in com-
parison to bulk and weight can be transported of wool than of grain;
and the demand for the former, and the price, as a general rule, will in
Europe be less variable than for the latter. By the large quantity of ex-
portable material supplied by wool, tallow, and hides. It is obvious also
that the imports will be paid for in produce, and the money of the colony
kept within it. These advantages unquestionably are favourable to the
mere abstract commercial prospects of the colony. But it is quite evi-
dent that no man with small capital can ever be assured of permanent
success in pastoral pursuits in Australia, that the man who has none
must be contented to remain a shepherd, and that the man who has
much, could do better with it, than to barbarise himself in the bush. If
persons of these classes, however, affect the bush life, and make light of
the privation of the accessories of civilization to which they must submit,
and of the occasional torridity of the climate, they will always be secured
in the possession of plenty of beef and mutton, tea, and tobacco, and in
the enjoyment of exhilarating activity rather than hard labour. If they
are often left without flour, have neither butter, milk, nor cheese,
notwithstanding their vast herds, and never taste vegetables, it is only
because they regard cultivation of land and the milking of cows, as not
worth the while-a very savage conclusion, in which perhaps Cherokees
and Cumanchees but few other human beings would concur with them.
It must be conceded, however, that these views do not appear to be
very generally entertained. The increase of population in the island has
been rapid--the exports have largely advanced- the proceeds from the
sale of lands have been very considerable, and the revenue is healthy,
and by no means contemptible. To feed increasing numbers, and to
supply the various wants of communities rapidly acquiring wealth, great
encouragement is presented to agriculturists, mechanics, tradesmen, and
labourers. Nor ought it to pass unobserved, that some parts of the
territory must be well adapted for the farmer, because they are enabled
from their surplus, to spare a not insignificant proportion of grain for
exportation. If the rapidity with which money has been acquired and
lost, the reckless habits of the pastoral population, the wild life of the
bush, and the large proportion of the population branded with crime, or
their descendants, have much degraded the tone of society, it may be
hoped that ultimately, from the discontinuance of transportation to the
island, a better order of things may arise. But it will probably be a long
time before the population will recover from the demoralizing influences
which have resulted from the great disproportion of the sexes, which has
too long prevailed.


48
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
This penal colony, embracing 860 miles of seaboard, and of no great
extent inland, is the southernmost and therefore the least temperate of
the settled districts. It embraces a population of 196,404 souls, whereof
about one-third, or 50,000, inhabit Sydney the capital. We apprehend
that it owes its prosperity mainly to the fact that it commenced with a
forced population of convicts, and has been chiefly maintained by the
expenditure of a great annual amount of money supplied by the govern-
ment of the mother country, to meet the expenses of the penal ad-
ministration. Its stimulus to the settlement of free emigrants consisted,
to some extent, of the government expenditure; and in a greater degree
of the abundant and cheap supply of labour from the assignment of con-
victs as servants and labourers to the settlers, in any number, at merely
nominal wages, made to all intents and purposes slaves by the power
of punishment conferred upon the master, and by the severity with which
insubordination was visited by the executive. The receptacle for all the
unhanged capital criminals of Great Britain, brutalized by drink, and de-,
praved to the utmost degree by a disproportion of the sexes, to such an
extent that, in 1828, there were only 8,987 females in a colony of 27,611
males, and even in 1847 there were 118,927 males to 77,777 females,
some conception may be formed of the character of the population.
Transportation to New South Wales ceased in 1840, at which time there
were 26,977 convicts undergoing their sentence. It is said that those
have now diminished to 3,000, by the expiry of the various sentences,
and the consequent absorption of prisoners into the general society of the
colony. (The government return for 1845, gives 16,429 convicta.)
The escaped convicts filed to the wilderness, and became what is
called b'ishrangers, whose “hand was against every man,” and formed,
along with the savages, the terror of the country. We have already
noticed the character of the free colonists who follow pastoral pursuits,
and it must be confessed that a colony made up of such elements of po-
pulation, does not present any great inducements to the emigrant in the
shape of society. Mr. Sidney indeed assures us, that “there are no taxes
to pay—liberty exists in the most perfect sense of the term. Lynch-law,
bowie knives, and the brutalities of the backwoods, are unknown; the
climate is the most healthy in the world; and our population will find it
infinitely more to their advantage to settle among their own countrymen
than among the brutal population, and ague-begetting backwoods and
plains of the United States, where only land is to be obtained.” But we
must take leave to draw inferences which are inevitable from facts which
are incontrovertible, and to state our opinion that this attempt to cry up
the superiority of the white Cumanchees of the bush, and the felonry of
the city, above the educated and moral population of Ohio or Illinois, is
absolutely ludicrous, and will be entirely abortive. We know men who
have fought for their lives in the bush with these Australian desperadoes,
and the cases are not few in which masters of flocks have been got rid of
by their shepherd, and their disappearance accounted for by the state-
ment that they had gone to Europe. How, indeed, can it be otherwise


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
49
in a country so barren, parched, and scarce of water, that it is only fit
for rearing sheep in the proportion of one to every two or threo acres,
flocks and stations being necessarily at great distances from each other,
and their occupiers being entirely removed from the face of men for life,
except at half yearly intervals of a week, when they sell their fleeces, and
buy their supplies at the chief depot. “ I lived,” says Mr. Sidney,“ in
the far interior—the nearest of my stations being 300 miles from the
settled districts. I saw the Barwen change from a Savannah, well
watered by a broad and rapid river, to an arid desert through which
trickled a thin thread of water.” “I have encountered hundreds of wiid
blacks – raced and fought for my life with them.”—“I have been three
days in nine days without drinking-— privation under which one of my
stockmen, and two black guides, died of thirst.”-“I have had four men
killed by my side in fights with the blacks, and on the Macintyre alone
I read the burial service over twelve who, at different times, were as-
sassinated by the Aborigines.” We prefer to rely upon these facts rather
than on the writer's mere opinion, and it must be conceded that they do
not present the bright picture of “Life in Australia” he designs to
pourtray.
As to the salubrity of the climate, the testimony is conflicting. “I
rode,” says Mr. Breton,” 50 miles a day in a hot wind without more in-
convenience than I felt in England; and at night I have slept in the
open air, the breeze balmy, the sky cloudless, and I question whether
any thing is to be feared from night exposure.” Dr. Lang regards ·
expectation of life as higher in the colony than in England. A woman
at the age of 125 was still able to work. Mr. Butler saw several persons
upwards of 100. Out of 1200 convicts and soldiers at Moreton Bay, only
one was in the hospital in six months. In Bathurst district, 2,100 feet
above the level of the sea, only two persons are said to have died in
12 years. But against this evidence we must place the fact that the
region of Sydney grows tropical plants, such as cotton, that the hot
winds rise to the intensity of the simoom, burning every thing up, drying
in the largest and most rapid rivers, and producing periodical famines
for two or three seasons every twelve years. Dysentery is by no means
uncommon, and an intimate friend of our own, writing from Adelaide,
states that Dr. Bright, an experienced physician, and other settlers, emi-
grated on account of their conviction of the unhealthiness of that district
to New Zealand; that he himself is perfectly satisfied, that for Europeans
to pass the unwholesome Australian nights in the open air would be little
short of suicide, that he has no hesitation in pronouncing the glowing
accounts he had read in Europe of the climate to be perfectly false, and
that the sudden and extreme variations of temperature he had ex-
perienced, amounting to as much as 30 deg. in the course of one day,
were not compatible with these flattering statements. “ Dr. Bright,"
observes our correspondent, “considers the climate decidedly unfavour-
able to British constitutions. One thing is certain, the heat of summer
is very oppressive, the thermometer rising to 90 deg., and sometimes to
112 deg. during the day, although it is always cool in the evening. The
thermometer ranges betwixt morning and evening, not less than 20 deg.,
generally 30 deg., and occasionally 40 deg. The skin and internal
f


50
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
organs therefore become highly susceptible, and the least exposure to
cold produces dysentery. There are also many cases of fever, both com-
mon and typhus, opthalmia, erysipelas. The liver is extremely liable to
derangement, and glandular swellings of the neck and knees continue for
å month, and occasion great pain. The slightest abrasion of the skin,
which in England would heal in three days, continues a sore for a month
or six weeks." We should add that this letter was written during one of
the cycles of drought, when half a carrot in Adelaide cost 6d., a single
egg 5d., turnips the size of a walnut 2d., milk 5d. a quart, and that his
description may not represent the normal state of the climate. We should
add that, he perfectly ridicules the idea of Europeans, as a general rule,
sleeping in the open air with impunity, and states his confident opinion,
that in nine cases out of ten such a practice would be accompanied with
serious consequences.
Mr. Sidney calculates that of the whole island of Australia not more
than one fourth is fit for cultivation or corn grazing. As it maintains
300,000 souls, 2,000,000 cattle, 12,000,000 sheep, and 150,000 horses, it
obviously affords the means of considerable exports.
In New South Wales Proper there are 5,000,000 of sheep, 1,100,000
head of cattle, and a large number of horses. But the nature of the soil
may be gathered from the fact, that although it is the oldest settled of the
colonies, and contains upwards of one half of their whole population, it
is not yet able to feed itself; but besides large supplies of potatoes from
the neighbouring settlements, it has annually to import from £60,000 to
£250,000 worth of grain. The balance of trade is still against the
colony, the imports in 1846 being £1,630,522, against £1,481,539 of ex-
ports, and exhibiting an annual drain of £148,983. This, however, is
perhaps to be expected in a country where the number of immigrants
constantly arriving, bears a not insignificant proportion to the whole
population.
As, propably, at least one third of the population are dependent upon
foreign imports for their supplies of grain, it is obvious that New South
Wales is essentially a non-agricultural country; a result, indeed, to be
anticipated from the fact that it is the settlement lying nearest to the
tropics. Its people, therefore, consist of the inhabitants of the towns,
and of the stockmen, shepherds, and bushmen of the interior. Of the
former, the majority consist necessarily of convicts, free, or undergoing
sentence, and their descendants. We are informed that too many of the
inhabitants of all the towns of the island are characterized by a more
than Yankee sharpness in all their dealings, and, altogether a very lax
commercial morality. They are dexterous in trade, and very
awake” in all their transactions, partaking too much of the nature of the
“smart man" on the windy side of the law. As there are no manufac-
tures of any kind in the towns, it is obvious that the only pursuits are
those connected, not with production, or industry, but with exchange and
ingenuity. “Sydney,” says Mr. Byrne,“ is overrun with young and old
clerks and professional men, who are a complete burden to the commu-
nity.” It has a splendid harbour, and all the most desirable qualities of
e large shipping port~surrounded on three sides by water in the estuary
of Port Jackson, where hundreds of vessels of the largest tonnage lie in
ci wide


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
51
safety at the busy wharves, and are amply supplied with docks, stores
and warehouses.
The wages of shepherds and farm labourers range from £18 to £25 a
year, with 10 lbs. of flour, 10 lbs. of best meat, 2 lbs. of sugar, 4 ounces
of tea per week, and a hut. Domestic servants £15 to £20, married
couples £30 to £35, with house and rations. Artizans, for whom it is
right to say the demand is limited, from 5s. to 7s. per day. According
to the recent quotations of the Sydney newspapers, butter is 8d.,
cheese, 4d., hams 4 d. per lb.; eggs, 6d. per dozen; beef, 2d. to 3d.,
mutton, 1d. per lb.; bread. 5d. per quartern; rum, 3s. 6d. per gallon;
tea, ls. 9d., coffee, 10d., sugar, 2 d. per lb. With wages so high,
living so cheap, and convicts or their descendants so numerous, it was to be
expected that vice would, in Sydney, be of the most rampant kind.
Another reason is even more cogent. The pastoral population resort
once, or at most, only twice in the year to Sydney to sell their wool, get
the profits of a whole year's labour and produce paid at once, lay in a
return load of necessaries to take back again, and are entrapped by every
stratagem which cunning can suggest, to spend their whole earnings in
the capital, leaving them nothing to take home. The number of grog
shops is, accordingly, perfectly appalling, and the drunkenness both of
men and women frightful. It is an occurrence of every day for stock-
men to place £40 or £50 in the hands of the proprietor of a gin palace,
and direct him to apply them with all the liquor they and their friends
may call for, until the whole is spent.
Mr. Sidney quotes rent at £40 for a good house for a private family,
and the taxes trifling. Genteel board and lodging, 21s. per week-for
mechanics, including washing, 12s. He states the price of beef and
mutton at only 1d. per lb., whole legs of mutton 6d., ox tongues the same.
Flour, £10 per ton, wheat, 3s. 6d. per bushel, of 63 lbs.
Fortunes have been so rapidly lost and won in Australia, the colony
has been at one time in such high prosperity, and at another so entirely
ruined, that we suspect much of its apparent substance has been merely
nominal and artificial, as indeed was rather to be expected from a town
which produced nothing, but only exchanged and distributed, and a back
country which could not feed itself, without considerable importations.
We have reason to believe, that for some time to come, at least, how-
ever, considerable profits are to be made by stores in Sydney of goods of
all kinds well bought in the mother country. Clothing of antiquated
pattern, shape, and material, if of fair material, may be still new and
attractive to the bush population. Articles of an exploded construction,
or which are unsaleable in the mother country, from having been super-
seded by newer devices or inventions, stocks of books which have had
their hour's run in English circulating libraries, while the surplus copies
hang a waste paper burden on the bookseller's shelves—in all these com-
modities money is still to be made if the purchases have been very cheap
in Britain, and the Sydney market do not happen to be glutted by too
many having made consignments of the same description of merchan-
dise at the same time; a contingency too likely, when the customers do
not, at the outside, amount to above 40,000 male adults.
The disproportion betwixt the numbers of the sexes in Australia,
f
P 2


52
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
although gradually adjusting itself, is still very great, and without any
intentional offence to delicacy, we trust we may venture to state, that
respectable females, having no means of maintenance or protection in the
mother country, would find themselves at once comfortably provided for
in Australia, and greatly benefit the manners and morals of the colony,
by their settlement there. The greatest precautions should, in the first
place, be made by them to take out with them testimony as to their his-
tory and character, to place themselves under proper protection in the
ship, and to consign themselves to the care of persons of known respect-
ability in the colony. Bachelors of proper character, and, especially,
among the pastoral population in the bush, have a wholesome self-respect
and are fastidious in the choice of wives, so far as respectability is con-
cerned. The father of a family of helpless daughters would greatly con-
sult their independence, and his own, by taking them to Australia, where
they might get well married, and where by such connections he might be
assisted in his own views. So great is the demand for wives, and so es-
sential are they to the comfort and happiness of the bushmen and flock-
masters, that every emigrant ship is met at some distance from Port
Jackson by bachelors in boats who come to place themselves first in the
good graces of the female passengers.
The imports of British manufacture amount to £5 15s. per head of the
population, and £10 per head is the aggregate import, against £8 of ex-
ports per head, certainly a considerable amount for such limited numbers.
Within the boundaries of the crown territory and settled districts, are
twenty-one counties, but a great many stockmen squat beyond these
limits. We have stated that only about one fourth of the whole territory
is fitted for grazing, and a very much smaller portion is capable of agri-
culture. Of course, for the raising of crops, a sufficiency of water is
indispensable, and the farming districts are chiefly to be found at Hunter's
River and Hawkesberry to the north, and at Illawarra to the south of
Sydney, the territory about the capital being wretched. But nearly all
the good arable lands within the settlement are already sold and occu-
pied, or possessed under free grant of the crown by large freeholders.
Besides grain, the colony produces cotton and silk, but is likely, ulti-
mately, to be still more distinguished for its wines and brandy, which are
said even now to be of a superior quality.
The cattle run wild in the bush, and are collected once or twice a year
for counting, drawing the fat stock for market, and branding the calves.
Stockmen cannot be at the trouble of even milking a cow for butter,
cheese, or milk for tea, and the calves get all the cow has to spare. The
profits of stock can spare nothing for enclosures ; but cattle, when herded,
soon attach themselves to a run of country, especially, if in the vicinity
of water. The branding of the cattle does not prevent serious depreda-
tions. Sheep are herded by shepherds by day, and by watchmen by night,
to guard them from the attacks of the native dog. Besides the shep-
herds, there is at each grazing station a hut keeper to cook, move the
sheep hurdles, sweep the yards, and watch the homestead.
Where a
proprietor has large possessions, he fixes a home station for his own resi-
dence, his stores, rations, and the cultivation of grain for the whole.
Stockmen cannot be at the trouble to cultiyate vegetables even where


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
53
the land is good, but live on mutton or beef, green tea, and what in Scot-
land is known by the name of scones, being unleavened flour dough rolled
thin, and baked in the ashes. Sheep runs are let by the crown on lease
at a low rent, not being worth a tenth part of the price put upon them
by the Wakefield system. The increase of breeding ewes is said, by Mr.
Byrne, to be over 100 per cent. per annum, and of black cattle to ave-
rage, perhaps, half that proportion. The Australian breed of horses is
excellent, many travelling sixty miles a day for hundreds of miles, fed
only by the pasture on the way. They are highly prized in our Indian
market.
When stock is sold, the price generally includes the pasture and the
lambs under six months old. With station the price averages 8s., and
without it 6s. per head. Fat sheep average 62 lbs. weight, and fat
cattle bring 10s. per cwt. in Sydney. Milch cows from £2 to £4, work-
ing bullocks £6 to £10 per pair, herds of cattle, (the calves under six
months given in,) 25s. to 35s. per head. Draught horses £20, hacks £16.
Stock horses £10 per head.
We have already stated that, in obedience to the quackery of the
Wakefield system, the lowest price for land is 20s. an acre, and the
smallest quantity sold 640 acres. Another regulation of the colony is
that a free passage shall be given out of the land fund only to shepherds
or farm labourers, and persons accustomed to rural employments. That
valuable class of men who would bring into cultivation small grain farms,
is thus practically suppressed, and entire discouragement presented to
cultivators. Two classes are thus only possible in the colony, men of
large capital, and servants who have none, and no means of getting prop-
erty, except that slow, lingering process of protracted thrift, the tedium
of which induces the mass of labourers never to strive after indepen-
dence, but to squander their savings in the bush, by dissipation and vice
in Sydney, and to whom the best thing that can happen is that they
should quickly run through it, and turn home again. The scarcity of
women, rendering domestic happiness rare, adds to this recklessness.
Government servants even, have married convicts and blacks; and for
300 miles along the Barwen, Mr. Sidney avers there was not one white
woman, although, according to the same authority, bushmen make ex-
cellent husbands and fathers,-a fact we can easily believe from their iso-
lated and dependent state.
Although the demand for mechanics, as such, is very limited, there is
abundant employment for them in the leading pursuit of the colony.
They are said to be quite as capable of making good shepherds or hut-
men as farm labourers or shepherds properly so called, and they have
but on arriving at Sydney, to go out in any direction, to meet with a
hearty welcome, hospitable entertainment, and an immediate engage-
ment. Even young boys can be extremely useful in the care of stock,
and early become a source of profit to their parents. But under the
existing arrangements of the colony, if Mr. Sidney is to be trusted, the
acquisition of small arable farms for tho raising of cereals, is beyond the
reach of the labouring class, while successful sheep farming requires
large capital, and cattle or horse breeding brings a very slow return. We
are inclined to concur in his opinion, that the culture of cotton, the
f
F 3


54
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
olive, or the vine,-he might even more emphatically have added and
the pursuit of mining operations,-only distract the labour and capital
of the settlement from their primary and proper staple, the growing of
wool, the breeding of stock, and above all, the unfailing resource of
agriculture.
No mere adventitious source of wealth, such as the production even of
the finest copper and the best wine, can compensate a new country for
the neglect of an abundant produce of the chief necessaries of life. In
1835 the devotion of the people of the United States to manufactures
and con mercial speculations, and their temporary neglect of the culture
of their fields produced, even among them, the greatest depression and
distress.
For labouring emigrants, it will be desirable that they should set out
not earlier than August, nor later than October, in the double view of
taking advantage of the fine weather both here and at the colony, and
of arriving at Sydney at the time when the settlers come up from the
stock runs to sell their wool, and to take back their supplies and any new
hands they may require. Sydney is recommended as the landing port
even for those destined for other places, as it is there the best informa-
tion is to be acquired relative to any district and state of employment,
that every kind of goods and stores are to be had easiest and cheapest,
and that land, steam, and sailing communication with every other district
is most certain.
The chief imports of grain and potatoes are from Van Diemen’s Land,
and Port Philip, the indigenous potatoes being of very inferior quality.
The boiling down of sheep and cattle for tallow, except disease renders
the step imperative, is regarded as ruinous,-killing the goose in place of
keeping her for the eggs. But we are rather inclined to think that the
boiling down process, for the purpose of preserving meat, and getting
its concentrated essence as an article of export, might become highly
profitable. A friend of ours has been in the daily use of a supply of
this essence of meat which he has had in his house for four years, and
states it to be of the very best quality, and to continue still perfectly
sweet.
It has been already seen that no man can become a freeholder in New
South Wales of less than 640 acres, at the price of £640. Out of £1000
all that he would have left to build houses, barns, cattle sheds, and to
purchase live and dead stock, would be £360. In most cases, therefore,
the settler is driven to squatting beyond the boundary of the colony, or
to taking a lease of a cattle run, which is generally to be had for about
£10 yearly. His capital is thus necessarily invested in live stock,--the
most precarious and dangerous kind of security in which he can well re-
pose confidence. Sheep bought at 6s. or 8s. per head, may fall, by com-
mercial depression, as at this present time, to 3s., fleece included; drought
may annihilate the pasture, and destroy both the sheep and the run.
By catarrh,” observes a writer, “many a squatter has lost 1000 and
2000 sheep in a night, and scab is so expensive to cure, that the only
remedy is to consign its victims to the melting pot.* Mr. Sidney states
* An application has been just made to the Governor of Van Diemen's Land,
(Sir W. Denison) not to permit any mure shoes'.o be imported from Port Philip,
66


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
55
that small numbers of sheep do not pay; that profit is not perceptible
until 8,000 sheep are bred, and that 3,000 do not yield such a return as
to afford hired assistants. The washing and shearing, pressing and send-
ing wool to market, are all expensive processes. A sheep station requires
a superintendent's hut and store £35, kitchen £10, huts £5 each, wool
shed, press and yards, £200, milk yard bail, and bullock gallows, horse
paddock, grain paddock 4s. per rod of 11} feet, a barn £100, corn and
horse sheds, £12, a steel mill £4 10s., hurdles £7 per hundred. From
this it will be evident that sheep farming is not the pursuit of any man
without fair capital, and that the man of small means would be more
profitably engaged with cattle breeding. Cattle are little liable to dis-
ease, and the return from them is certain although slow. Still the hous-
ing and fencing required for the trade require no insignificant outlay,
and branding, herding, recovering strays, reclaiming the stolen, and
habituating the herds to the run, require great exertion and many
servants.
The poetical temperament of the adventurous who penetrated into the
Australian wilds, depicts “Life in the Bush,” in the most attractive
colours. The fact is that it is to the daring and unsettled that it is
attractive ; but ordinary plodding men, who seek not to gallop but to
trudge through life, do not realize those bright visions.
The squatter's
hut is wretched, its furniture rude and inconvenient, his bed a piece of
bark and a blanket, 500 or 600 miles from a market.
“ Many a settler's head sheep station is 30 or 40 miles from his nearest
neighbour; out stations may be 10 or 15 miles from the principal one,
and the routine of life is the following :-A shepherd starts soon after day-
light with his flock, having had his breakfast, and takes with him as much
bread and meat as he thinks he may require for the day; he drives his
flock, according to the pasture, over 8, 10, or 15 miles in the course of
the day, and in the evening returns towards sunset to head quarters or the
out station. The sheep were counted out to him in the morning, previous
to starting, and he counts them in at night to the hut keeper or watch-
man, and when penned or folded, the shepherd's occupation for that day
is over.
He takes his evening meal, solaces himself with his pipe, and
sinks to rest fatigued with his day's labour, and his appetite well satisfied
with tea, damper, and mutton chops.
“ The watchman takes charge of the flocks at night, and ought to be on
the look out to prevent a surprise from natives, or to protect the sheep
from being rushed by native dogs, rather troublesome visitors, and often
causing serious loss. Rushing a flock by native dogs is for a settler the
very devil to pay, and creates a scene that it is no joke to witness or de-
scribe; however no shepherd can expect to escape an occasional visit
for fear of the infection, as numbers of the settlers have lost every sheep they
possessed. One gentleman has lost as many as 19,000—another 20,000 !--some
10,000 up to 15,000; inflicting ruin upon their owners. An entire flock died in
the course of a night from the complaint. One gentleman in particular, had
gone from Port Philip to Sydney, leaving his flock quite healthy; on his return
the whole of the flock, with the exception of eight, were dead! The writer of a
letter states that he was at the time surrounded by 36,000 dead sheep, and in
momentary dread of the infection (catarrh) spreading to his own fiock.-BRISTOL
JOURNAL


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
of this kind. Daylight of another day finds him resuming the same rou-
tine of the preceding one, and again he starts with his dogs for his com-
panions and assistants. Wet or fair, --summer or winter-hot or cold,
makes no difference : day after day, week after week, and month after
month, it is the same thing over and over again.”
The various perils of the stockman, and his many trials, can only be
known by experience. Cattle are so frequently stolen and falsely branded,
that the purchaser of a herd may find them strangers to each other and
to the run, as wild and scattered as so many beasts of prey. Sheep may
be all tainted with incipient disease. Rushed by the native dogs, or
taken with an erratic fit, whole herds or flocks may irreclaimably dis-
appear in a single night. To bring them back, to count them, to keep
them within the run, are arduous duties, requiring unremitting exertion.
A paddock of 300 acres is required for a 10,000 sheep station, “ to
have five or six horses,” (Sidney,)“ ready at a moment's notice, in
case of a flock being lost. I have known many hundred sheep, irre-
trievably lost through the horses being away feeding, when they were
first missed.”
The following advertisement of the Australian Agricultural Company,
it will be seen obviates the obstructions which the Wakefield system pre-
sents to the settlement of small capitalists; still it charges perhaps more
for the land than it is in reality worth, and as it will ultimately fetch.
“ The Australian Agricultural Company, after having for the last 20
years confined its operations to cultivating and grazing estates (compris-
ing 1,000,000 acres,) which were selected with great care in New South
Wales, has determined on offering for sale or lease, all that portion con-
taining 500,000 acres, situated near the excellent harbour of Port Ste-
phen, (100 miles from Sydney and its 50,000 inhabitants). This estate is
bounded by the river Manning, intersected by other streams, and pro-
vided with roads and bridges, which have been constructed by the com-
pany at a cost of many thousand pounds. Also churches and schools.
A resident clergyman, school master and surgeon are paid by the com-
pany for the benefit of their servants. Farms and vineyards which have
been long in cultivation, with excellent homesteads attached will be
offered for sale at twenty years' purchase, on the estimated annual value.
The uncultivated land will be sold in lots of fifty acres and wards, at
£l per acre; each £50 paid in England entitling the purchaser to a
choice, and a free passage in one of the company's ships to Port Stephen.
Each lot will include a right of pasturage for stock on adjoining land at
a low poll tax. The company are willing to lease land for ten years,
with a right of purchase, at £1 per acre, during that term. They are
also able to offer cattle, horses, and fine woolled sheep, of the purest
breeds on advantageous terms. Cuttings, plants, and seeds may be ob-
tained from the company's gardens, orchards, and vineyards, Purcha-
sers, immediately on landing at Port Stephen, will be received by the
agents of the company, forwarded to the agricultural district, about twenty
miles--and allowed to occupy buildings belonging to the company, at a
trifling rent, for a reasonable period. Further information may be ob-
tained on application to the Secretary, George Engstrom, Esq., 12, King's
Arms-yard, London."


NEW South WALES PROPER
57
It must be conceded that these arrangements are excellent, and that
the roads, bridges, and other provisions of the company are calculated
materially to enhance the value of the land. If the soil and climate are
well fitted for agricultural purposes, the proximity of Sydney attaches
to the settlement great advantages; but Mr. Sidney very emphatically
expresses the opinion that all coast land in that quarter is more than
usually barren, and unproductive. The company dwell upon the fact
that a greater quantity of rain falls in the course of the year at their set.
tlements than at London,-but they also admit that it is only by largo
reservoirs and irrigation, a very expensive process, that it can be made
available-indeed, it is evident that without this remedy for the long
and intense drought, vegetation, for agricultural purposes, will be im-
practicable. It is, indeed, a striking feature in Mr. Sidney's Journal,
that he discourages all attempts at farming in this colony. He repeatedly
quotes an aphorism of the district, that it is cheaper to buy wheat than to
raise it, on account of the high price of labour ; and yet we have shown
that those who embark their all in pastoral pursuits may find their entire
flocks, however large, perish in a single night, or the price of their wool
fall so low, that stock keeping ceases to yield a profit.
The settlement at Port Stephen offers the advantage of planting the
emigrant on his location the moment he reaches the shore, and of placing
his produce within easy reach of a port of shipment. The number of
cleared farms with neat and commodious cottages, offices, outhouses, and
gardens which are for sale, form a valuable consideration to the capitalist
who would desire to settle in this healthy and cheap colony, escaping all
the irksome preliminary ordeal to which settlers are generally subjected.
The most fertile district and the most equable and temperate in New
South Wales appears to be that which comprehends Argyle, Bathurst,
Wellington, and Roxburgh Counties, about 120 miles from Sydney, at the
nearest point. Along the Macquanie river, which seems to contain abun-
dance of water at all seasons, the soil is particularly good, and its eleva-
tion imparts coolness to the air, and qualifies it with moisture.
From Sydney, good roads diverge to the various districts. To Para-
matta stages and steamers go several times every day. To Richmond,
Windsor, and Liverpool also the communication is easy, frequent, and
direct. Indeed, few colonial cities have so many subsidiary towns and
villages in immediate connection with them as Sydney can boast of, or
such excellent roads stretching out to the different provincial stations.
Considerable attention seems to have been paid to symmetry, elegance,
and comfort in the laying out, and also in the architecture of the streets
in these towns. Society, good, bad, and indifferent, is to be found in all,
and entertainments, exhibitions, theatres, elegant equipages, and all the
usual signs of luxury and refinement are to be found there, as well as in
our European cities.
* SOCIETY IN SYDNEY.-A few days after my arrival in Sydney, I received an
invitation to an entertainment, given on the occasion of consecrating the new
church of St. Stephen,-a handsome edifice built entirely by private subscrip-
tion, for the convenience of numerous families who live in the healthy and re-
tired neighl rhood of Cook's River. On this occasion I had an opportunity of
seeing a specimen of the best society in the colony, and I looked in vain for
any mark by which I could distinguish it from any refined or genteel com-


58
NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
As a circumstance to qualify the consideration of climate, it is not un-
important to remember that the surface of the country presents great di-
versity of elevation, and that, therefore, the settler may choose almost
any temperature he pleases. It is now the practice to acclimatize our
troops sent to India, by sending them on their arrival, first up to the
hills, where they find the vegetables of the temperate zone growing in
perfection. The Bathurst district of Australia, is at an elevation of 2,000
feet above the level of the sea, and the highest recommendation which we
can give to it is, that it is unfit for the production of any of the tropical
fruits which flourish in the lower regions of the colony.
The Emigrant's Journal contains elaborate, interesting, and most gra-
phic details of the whole duties and operations of sheep, cattle, and grain
farming in Australia, to which we gladly refer all who desire to form a
minute and precise idea of the life and occupations of a settler. Lands
consist of town lots, suburban lots, and country lots, the two former of
which in the hands of the government, can only be sold by auction;
while the latter after being once so offered, may be purchased at 20s. per
acre, in quantities of seldom less than 640 acres. But all the best land
having been disposed of, it is seldom that government land is worth nearly
the minimum price, and lots of a smaller size may often be purchased of
private persons for 2s. 6d. per acre, well improved land in a good locality
being frequently purchased at 20s. per acre.
Leases of cattle runs are granted by the governor, of fourteen years
(with power of tillage), capable of feeding 4,000 sheep, or 640 cattle, at
a rent of £10 per annum, and a poll tax of 1d. per head of lambs, 3d. per
head of cattle, and 6d. per horse, and a right, during the currency of the
lease, of buying any portion of not less than 160 acres of the run, at 20s.
Under such arrangements it is, obviously, better for the settler
to lease than buy, as he may purchase at any time, and has the use of his
capital and its interest in the meanwhile. Any man, it is said, may be a
shepherd who has sharp sight, and hearing—but his charge is an onerous
one, and to his employer, carefulness and fidelity are indispensable addi-
tional qualifications. The shepherd starts before sunrise that the sheep,
confined through the night by hurdles, may be led out to the dew. With
a jorum of strong tea, and a bellyfull of beef, or other meat, he protects
pany in England. The equipages were fashionable; the ladies were in general
pretty, and elegantly attired; and the gentlemen were equally unexceptionable
in their dress and demeanour. When the service was over, it being on a week
day, a portion of the company, to the number of two hundred, proceeded on
horseback and in carriages to the residence of a gentleman in the neighbour-
hood, where a collation was prepared. In front of the mansion, a lawn, tastc-
fully and ornamentally laid out, sloped gently down to the edge of the river,
across which the visitors were ferried in boats. The mansion itself, a large
cottage ornee, with an exterior verandah and colonnade, and snow white walls,
constituted the chief ornament of a very pleasing landscape, and presented a
lively contrast with the variegated and umbrageous foliage of a garden, rich in
specimens of the rarest plants, native and exotic, which had been scientifically
grouped according to their botanical characters. There was a library and an
aviary, and the walls were hung with Flemish and Italian paintings. On this
occasion, I had an opportunity of judging to what an extent the character of
Australian society has been misrepresented; and I rode into Sydney, impressed
with a conviction that the most fastidious judge of manners would find in the
higher classes of the community nothing that could shock his most tender sensi.
bilities. JAMIESON's New ZEALAND,
per acre.


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
39
his stomach against the morning air-calls his dog, lights his perpetual
pipe, counts the sheep out of the fold (800 or 1,000 to the flock), if ne-
cessary, keeps them in sight, and out of the scrub, hounds them out of
the bush, halloes the native dog from them, leads them towards water at
mid-day, and when they have drunk, and rested, he kindles a fire, boils
his tea for dinner, and has another supply of meat and bread. Should
he fall asleep, his flock may wander away and many be lost, they may be
rushed by the native dog, and totally disappear. Practically then, the
whole of the owner's capital is at the mercy of the shepherd. He may
take his gun and bring home kangaroos, or feathered game. At sun-
down he drives the flock to the fold where they are taken in charge by
the hut-keeper, who has properly placed the hurdles, and prepared a hot
supper for the shepherd. The shepherd goes to bed in the hut-the hut-
keeper fastens the hurdles if it be windy weather, or if calm, lies down
beside the sheep, and trusts the watch to his dog. In the morning he
shifts the hurdle ground, and after putting the hut arrangements right,
perhaps tills the garden. When the lambing season comes on the labours
of both are very heavy, in saving ewe and lamb, making them take to
each other, defending them from the eagle, hawks, native dogs, and
crows, &c., &c. Next come the toils of washing and shearing, the
sorting of the fleeces, and sorting into pressed bales. The shearers earn
from 20s. to 30s. a day, and with that, and building and fencing, often
make from £200 to £400 in about as many months.
How squatting should be managed by hiring a stockman, who will find
you out a good station, with a creek or river water, by engaging a drar-
man to help to put up houses, yards, and hurdles, to gather firewood, to
manage refractory or awkward bullocks, to help you to a good cheap dray
and team, by working like a slave yourself, by buying wheat at 26s. a
quarter, as better economy than growing it, by getting your station before
buying your flocks, and by using the greatest caution in the purchase of
the latter-all these are better ascertained in the colony than by reading
books in Europe.
Clearing and farming for cereal produce, with the collateral operations
of logging, burning, fencing, &c., seem to be conducted on much the
same plan as in America, with this only difference that the fencers will
extort about £100 each per month out of the employer for the work.
Having cleared the ground,” observes Mr. Sidney, “the next opera-
tion is ploughing, for which a much heavier machine is used than in Eng-
land, at least twice or three times as heavy; we clap eight or ten bullocks
to our ploughs for breaking up new ground. On coming near one of
these stumps the driver takes the bullocks quietly along, and the plough-
man lifts the plough clean out of the ground, entering in again when he
considers he is nicely clear of roots; small roots do no hurt, but if
you come in contact with a large one, and the bullocks do not stop quickly
when spoken to, ten chances to one you break your plough-no joke in
some places where there are no blacksmiths for five, ten, or fifteen miles.
For this reason, in the bush, and in all new countries, I think there is
nothing like the wooden ploughs of Cornwall, which you can make, break,
and mend yourself. We often plough the ground one way, the first year,
sowing the wheat first, and ploughing it in where the soil is loose. It is


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
done in a very rough manner, not being at all particular about drawing
straight lines. We then harrow it with a harrow, if we have got one; if
not, some boughs are dragged over it; but I used to prefer to either for
a flock of about 1,000 sheep, to be well dogged over it four or five times,
and consider this method far superior to any harrowing. In this rough
manner I used to get 600, 800, 1,000, and 1,200 bushels of wheat off a
paddock of thirty acres, capital white or red hamas, weighing sixty-three
or sixty-four pounds to the bushel, the quantity used to vary accordingly
to the season, but never the quality. We reap exactly the same as in
England, but, instead of the binders following the reapers, every man
works on his own hook, and reaping and binding for himself. Some set-
tlers never put up a barn. Our barns are made exactly the same as in
Buckinghamshire, of strong weather boards or slabs, with a thrashing
floor inside. But those who have no barns thrash on a floor, which I will
describe, and then carry the wheat into the hut, after winnowing it, on a
windy day, by letting it fall from a sieve, held in the air by a man stand-
ing on a stool; the chaff is thus carried away by the wind, and the wheat
falls clean on a tarpaulin, or blankets spread out to receive it. Colonial
thrashing floors are made the same as the hut floors, by removing the
sods outside of a piece of ground near the stacks, and then breaking up
the soil carefully, and mixing with it wood ashes and dry cow dung; you
then work it well up with water, and smooth it flat with a spade. The
sun soon dries it, and this forms a good solid floor for thrashing on, which
will last for years. On some farms the best English systems of agricul-
ture are in vogue, thrashing and winnowing machines are used; but this
expensive system does not pay in a country where wheat is sometimes as
low as 3s. 6d. a bushel, and only averages 4s.
It has fluctuated for many
years between 3s. 6d. and 8s. I have known it as high as £1, but this
was before there was much grown; and Parson Tom grew a lot of wheat
at the Cornish settlement, thirty miles from the market town of Bathurst
near Frederick's Valley, where the crops never fail in the driest seasons.
It is still very thinly populated, though there are thousands of acres fit
for the plough without a tree on them.
“ The only hay we ever grow is oaten hay; this only requires ploughing
and sowing once, as every year it grows up of itself, being self-sown.
have known a settler to get a crop of oaten hay for eighteen successive
years without sowing or ploughing, except the first year. Young bul-
locks are almost always broken in at plough; you run them into the
stockyard, put a rope round their neck, drag him up to a post, and yoke
him to a quiet bullock. You seldom put more than two young ones to a
team, and set them to work on the off side at first : when first yoked up
they kick, jump, and bellow sometimes awfully, but in a couple of days
they are generally quiet. When they have done working, they are hobbled
out; that is, their fore feet are confined in a kind of handcuff, colonial
called hobbles. If they refuse to work and lay down, the bullock driver
chains them to a tree, and gives them a good thrashing with his whip,
every stroke of which, if he likes, draws blood, and cuts through their
hide. In this way they are soon broke in; but the mischief is, the trou-
ble of finding them in the morning, as the young bullocks generally
separate from the old ones, and wander hobbled as they are into the bush.


NEW SOUTH WALES PROPER.
01
We work bullocks about eight hours a day at plough, and never give them
food till they have done their day's work.
“ Australia could well supply Europe with wheat ; for the droughts in
this country, are only partial, and, when one part of the colony is suffer-
ing from drought, another will be perfectly flourishing ; but there are
millions of acres where no drought has ever been known, beautifully
watered by springs and rivers, capable of furnishing millions of quarters
of wheat and Indian corn. Such is all the neighbourhood of Frederick's
Valley, King's Plains, Pretty Plains, the Cornish Settlement, Blackman's
Swamp, Emu Swamp, all near Bathurst, embracing an area of thirty
square miles at least. Then there is the whole of New England near the
Peel's river. Here you have boundless acres well watered with rivers and
springs; both these districts have a climate like the south of England;
the winter not quite so cold, the summer rather warmer. Then, again,
you have the whole of the district in the neighbourhood of Goulbourn ;
beyond this, Yass, the Port Philip district, Australia Felix, Gipps Land,
these districts are all wheat-growing districts, and occupy an area of
country larger than the United Kingdom. There are also hundreds of
millions of acres where wheat will not grow, or only in the most favour-
able seasons; such are the Macquarrie, the Darling, the Castlereagh, the
Barwen, the Narran, the Cookeraine, Mooni, Namoy, and many other
rivers; but these districts are invaluable as sheep and cattle rivers, and
though rain did not fall for two years, and not a blade of grass was to be
seen, you would find the sheep and cattle rolling in fat, feeding entirely on
the Myal bush, or trees, which makes the best beef and mutton in the
world, so bountifully has nature supplied these regions with the means of
subsistence to animal life.”
The position of the farmer struggling with his earliest difficulties, is
truthfully embodied in the following letter, which we quote from the
Journal :-
New South Wales, 1847.
“HONOURED SIR,-In accordance with my promise I write to let you
know how we get on. We went to the gentleman you told us of near
Bathurst, and found the land better than any we ever saw in our lives.
He let us have one hundred acres on lease, rent free, for seven years, in
consideration of our fencing it in with a three rail fence, building a barn
and a hut. Out of the one hundred there was about twenty acres without
a tree on it-a black loam--so we determined to take in thirty acres the
first. Father bought six bullocks, old workers, for £12., and borrowed
a plough from a neighbour. The people are very obliging; they will
lend you anything if you will do the same. Father and Tom then set
to work to plough the twenty acres, and right tough work it was. He
found we could not turn up more than half an acre a day, and work hard
at it. We hired an old fencer at 10s. a week and his grub, and in one
week with the cross-cut saw we felled all the trees on the ten acre
piece; so we found the land not at all heavily timbered—just a tree here
and there.
“Father and I and Tom then set to work after ploughing of an evening
to cut all the trees into smaller pieces, and then put them together,
the old fencer showed us how, and burned some off. We made large
bonfires all over the ten acre piece: one of us used to keep watch at
9
G


62
XEW SOUTH WALES FROPER.
night and keep the fires in, so that the logs never stopped burning
till they were all wasted away. When this was done we coaxed the
old fencer to hold the plough for a day or two, and show us how to
plough between the stumps; it was very easy when once you got into it,
but very liable to smash the plough all to pieces if you have not got the
nack of stopping the bullocks, and lifting the plough out directly you
come to a stump.
“It took us about three months to get the land all cleared and ploughed
twice over. We then sowed it all with wheat, but we had no harrow, so
we were obliged to use a colonial method of harrowing. Billy, the fencer,
saw us in a fix about the harrow, so he said, “Never you mind; just you
sow it, and I'll get it harrowed for you for a bit of negrohead tobacco.”
So when it was all sowed, at night Billy said he would go and sleep away
to-night, and fetch the harrow in the morning. So off he went, and
next morning, about two hours after sunrise, we heard a great shouting
and barking and baaing on the hill; down comes a great flock of sheep,
with Billy, the shepherd, and four or five dogs behind them. They
rushed the sheep over the paddock, dogging them backwards and for
wards for an hour, when Billy, the fencer, came to inquire what we
thought of his patent harrow; we then gave the shepherd a little tea and
tobacco for his trouble, and this was the way we got our first crop in.
The next job was to fence it in. Fences in this country are all made with
three or four rails. Fourteen miles from here, near the Connoboly
mountains, there is a fine vein of stringy bark, the best wood in the
colony for fencing or building. Billy and father went out there with
some rations, wedges, a maul and a cross-cut saw, and they commenced
getting fencing stuff for the paddock. Tom used to carry the rations to
them, and father sent me to Bathurst to look for a dray. I bought one
there, and two bullocks, from a man who was on the spree as they call it,
which means getting drunk and spending all their money, often selling
overything they have got. This man had sold fifty head of cattle for
£25, and a good mare and foal for £8, and spent the money; he wanted
me to buy the team of ten bullocks and dray, but I had not got money
enough, though I sorely wanted to have them. He offered them to me
for £18, which was only what the dray was worth, so at last I bought the
dray and two bullocks of him for £8; he was so pleased to get real
English sovereigns, he said he had given the dray away, which was really
almost true. I got the dray, a new tarpaulin, or dray cover, worth £5,
and yokes and bows for eight bullocks, for £8. I left my purchase at
Bathurst, and went home thirty miles to fetch the bullocks to bring it
home. Father was delighted, and the old fencer said “hean't new chummed
yet anyhow, young one." Tom and I now commenced to draw in the
stuff, and to lay it round the paddock exactly as it was wanted, and when
it was all got, the old man, and father, and Tom, came home, and put it
up. They digged holes eighteen inches in the ground, and put the posts
in them, ramming them tight with a rammer. All this time mother was
very uncomfortable. We were living, rather sleeping, in a bark gunnyer,
that is to say, we slept in a place made of bark, like a large dog kennel
in England, and used to cook, wash, and live, in the open air, but when
it rained it was very uncomfortable."


SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
Cattle and horse breeding seems to be accompanied with fewer risks,
but also with smaller profits than wool growing. Cattle and horses are
not so liable to disease as sheep, but at the same time they require closer
and better pasture to keep them in condition. For dairy purposes the
scantiness of the herbage renders cattle-keeping in New South Wales
impracticable. We suspect, too, the meat on account of the great heat,
cannot be salted for export; and that the only way in which the cattle
can be made available is by temporary exports of live stock to other
colonies, until they can breed for themselves, by boiling up the tallow,
and by extracting the concentrated essence of the meat as a jelly. There
are no tan barks available for the hides nearer than New Zealand. It is
obvious that, as it takes two or three years before a cow or ox can be
made commercially available, as the time of gestation is very protracted,
as the produce is scarcely ever double, and the risks of parturition in-
crease in proportion to the size of the animal and the difficulty of pro-
ducing milk from a spare herbage, the profits are not such as to offer
great inducements for embarking in the laborious and often hazardous
business of cattle rearing. Where food is so scanty, cattle must be very
wild to gather a subsistence, and must therefore be very troublesome.
The dairy cannot be attempted without heavy outlay for buildings, uten-
sils, and wages, and also without the presence of rich pasture land to
a considerable extent immediately round the location.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
We pass on to the description of this province, because the observations
which apply to New South Wales may be also extended to it.
This colony is to the west of New South Wales, and is bounded on the
west by Swan River settlement. It has an area of 300,000 square miles,
or 192,000,000 acres, reaching to the tropic of Capricorn on the north,
and bounded by the sea to the south. The Murray bounds it on the east
and Gulf St. Vincent on the west. Its capital Port Adelaide, is by sea
distant about 500 miles from Port Philip, 700 from Launceston, 800 from
Hobart Town, 1,100 from Sydney, and 2,000 from New Zealand. 37,000
acres were under cultivation in 1847, 95,000 enclosed, the population
amounted to 33,587, whereof the proportion of females was 25 per cent.
below that of males. The imports of 1847 reached £410,825, and the
exports £350,348.
It says much for the capabilities of this colony, that it has survived
the grossest mismanagement; that its income exceeds its expenditure,
and that it is the only self supporting colony connected with Great
Britain. It also is significant of the fertility of the soil, that it not only
feeds the population but spares an export of grain and flour to the value of
upwards of £40,000 per annum. Two causes have conspired to promote its
prosperity ;-it is not a penal settlement, and it possesses the richest
copper mines in the world, offering wealth to the capitalist, and well paid
customers to the farmer.
The land is sold at an upset price of 20s. per acre. The South Aus-
tralian Company lease their lands for 21 years for 4s. per acre yearly for
g
G2


64
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
the first seven years,—55. for the second, and 6s. for the third,-in farnis
of'not less than 67 acres. Runs may be leased for fourteen years, at £10 for
every 4,000 sheep or 640 cattle, with the right of buying 120 acres, at
20s. per acre.
“With regard to the productiveness of the soil,” observes Mr. Hewett,
a Devonshire farmer, “I have seen three harvests : the one at my arrival
was gathering in. I have ploughed and reaped two years, and am now
ploughing the third. There are three distinct soils, black, red, and white;
the black and red are preferred. Many of the flats are from a quarter to
three quarters of a mile broad, and many miles long, with no timber; at
other places, more or less, large gum trees. With a moderate quan-
tity of rain they are full of beautiful grass and flowers. Some of the
slopes and hills contain a deep and rich soil of black and red loam, with
more or less timber.
Lucerne grows natural, and in the broken up land
many of the English weeds are making their appearance. Swedish
turnips and mangel-wurzel grow well.
Corn, the great staff of life, grows well; where the land is ploughed
deep, and sown in season, the corn grows long and strong, both in stalk
and ear; yet it doth not corn as well as I have seen from some of the
BEST land in England;—but on the average, much better, and more
quantity, than the GENERAL crops in Devon. * No doubt remains with
the experienced men here, of the capabilities of this colony for grain.
With regard to cattle and sheep, no country can be better; we scarcely
hear of a disorder in cattle.
“I hesitate not to say, that I fully believe that this will, in a fer
years, be one of the best agricultural countries in the world.”
“In a new country,” continues Mr. Joseph Gould, “a great deal has
to be done before one can expect to reap the fruits of his labour; but as
the produce of a dairy is always saleable, many weeks did not pass before
I made a very handsome return from my cows. The natural grass in
this country is very nutritious, and both butter and cheese is made by us
of excellent quality.
“I brought about £500 with me into the colony, and laid out some-
thing more than £400 of that amount upon stock, which was of much
higher value at that period than now.
“I laid out nothing in building during the first year, but from the
profits of the dairy I have been able to build a house, barn, &c.; but
besides having now a comfortable dwelling house, I have got a good
stock-yard, sheep-pens, pigsties, and every other necessary requisite for a
farming establishment.
“ The land was all fenced in, before the expiration of the second year
of my lease; the first year I could only get about twenty acres fenced,
on which I grew four acres of wheat, which yielded about 30 bushels
per acre; one acre of potatoes, which was a fair crop, and the other
fifteen acres was in barley, which turned out very well. Last year I
had ten acres of maize, which was a failure, but the wheat and barley
turned out well ; indeed I never saw a crop equal to these in England.
I expect the return will be about 1000 bushels of wheat, and 500 bushels
of barley. My live stock have increased very fast, and I have
now 28 cows and 12 bullocks, besides 40 head of young cattle ; I have


SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
65
our summer.
also 40 pigs, 2 horses and 500 sheep. These, I consider, are worth
about £800; but two years ago they would have brought more than
double that amount. My ploughs, drays, and dairy utensils, are worth
£100; so that, in the course of two years, I find that my capital has
been doubled. I have not had things all my own way either, for some
of my cattle died, and others strayed, or were stolen ; besides, I lost a
considerable amount by a person who purchased some barley from me.
The Rev. T. Q. Shaw describes the soil as of the richest quality,
especially among the hills, and as to the climate observes :-
“Our latitude would lead you to expect hot weather in the height of
But there are many alleviations to the heat. It is not
humid; and consequently is not oppressive. The greater part of the
year is delightful : the winter is pleasant, and the autumn and spring are,
for mild and balmy sweetness, the perfection of climate. But you would
wish to know how this climate affects health as well as comfort. Two or
three years back, we had fears in this respect, as there was considerable
mortality. But our fears are quite gone. For years past the statistics
are most satisfactory. There has been but little sickness and few deaths.
As a minister of twenty years' standing, I can say that I have never
had in my congregation, in proportion to numbers, so little sickness as
since I have been here. We have no epidemics. Dysentery sometimes
occurs, but in isolated, and, for the most part, well accounted for, cases.
Infants suffer most. But this is in hot weather, when the heat and
teething are simultaneous. I need scarcely say that to consumptive
persons, our climate promises much, and that, in many instances, it has
checked the malady, and saved the sufferer.
“ We have no droughts, no season in which grain is not brought to
maturity. The rains are more frequent, and more certain as to seasons,
than in the more eastern parts of New Holland. In Adelaide, we have
never knoron the want of abundant water."
"A rain guage has been kept in Adelaide, and the results regularly
pablished the following is the summary for seven years, from 1839 to
1845, inclusive.
>
>
In 1839 rain fell on 102 days to the extent of 19.840 inches
1840
99
23.997
1841
93
18.045
1842
119
20•418
1843
105
17.212
1844
135
16.878
1845
114
17.557
2
>
>
>
being, on an average, 110 days annually on which rain fell—and the
average extent upwards of nineteen inches during the year. One fact is
particularly deserving of notice.—No one calendar month during these
seven years passed without rain."
In a publication of the South Australian Company, it is stated that the
mean temperature in the shade, is at 9 a.m., 64 deg.; at 3 p.m., 73 deg.;
at 9 p.m., 63 deg. That one day the heat reached 102 deg.; five days
100 deg.; 35 days upwards of 90 deg.; 67 days above 80 deg.; 105 days
g
G 3


06
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
above 70 deg.; and 110 days above 60 deg. Mr. James pronounces the
heat intolerable from November to March. “I have seen the thermo-
meter in a dark room thickly thatched, 96 deg., a dozen different days.
and in the sun 140 deg., drying up every thing, even garden vegetation-
the dust penetrating every where the Torrens vanishing, having only
a few water holes to save the country from the aridity of the desert.”
It is generally understood that there is a greater prevalence of rain
on the south coast of Australia than on the eastern, where New South
Wales lies, and the superior productiveness of South Australia, proved
by the fact of its having rapidly become an exporting colony for grain,
seems to afford evidence of this superior moisture, of a more satisfactory
kind than the rival testimony of competing companies.
An important fact is noticed by Mr. Simmonds, in reference to the
whole of the Australian continent. The grass grows in tufts,-the roots
being found only at intervals. But the effect of grazing it, and eating
it short down, has been to viridate the vegetating power,-to bring the
roots closer, and increase the verdure. The manure of the sheep and
cattle will greatly assist the fertilizing influences. Nothing is so well
calculated to retain moisture as manure, and when vegetation is so
strengthened that it entirely covers the soil, it protects it from the heat,
and keeps up a shade for it, which is reciprocated by importing greater
coolness to the plants. Hence we are satisfied that if small farms were
encouraged and highly manured, the cattle and sheep being fed in pad-
docks, and even soiled, if possible, the grass would grow much ranker,
and resist the ardour of the sun. “The two or three acres," observes
Mr. Simmonds, “ for a sheep, and a proportionate quantity for an ox, do
not now seem to be requisite; for the feed of the country has been
greatly increased in quantity and improved in quality, by the feeding
down of the grass, which no longer allows of being burnt off, by which
so much of the roots were injured or destroyed ; and the continued dis-
covery of springs and water holes, leaves very little to be desired on that
account.”
At the Adelaide Horticultural exhibition of 1848, prizes were awarded
for the best specimens of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, onions, grapes,
oranges, citrons, lemons, nectarines, apricots, peaches, apples, pears,
plums, green figs, melons, raisins, dried figs, Jordan almonds and other
dried fruits ; vegetables, vegetable seeds, bouquets, wine, butter, cheese,
honey, silk, and various other articles.
Several pieces of woollen cloth were exhibited, all of excellent texture,
manufactured from the wools of the colony, and dyed with indigenous
dyes. There were exhibited some specimens of copper ore, from the
Burra Burra mine, an ingot of copper, and some copper manufactured in
Sydney into RIBBONS. The beneficial influence of the mineral dis-
coveries and mineral operations on the agricultural interests of the
colony, is duly appreciated by the farmers.
Labourers earn 3s. 6d. from the government, and 4s. 6d. from private
persons per day, without rations, and are in such demand that the pub-
lic works are at a stand. Shepherds 10s. to 12s. per week, with rations,
a cottage and fuel free. Mariners 4s. 6d., reapers 12s. an acre, shearers
123. per 100 sheep, bullock drivers 24s. to 30s. per week, baker's 255.,


SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
67
blacksmiths 30s. per week; bricklayers and masons 7s., brickmakers 10s.
carpenters 6s., saddlers 8s. per day ; Gardeners £50 per annum, with
cottage.
Prices of provisions. -Wheat 3s. 6d. to 4s. ; barley 3s. 6d. to 48. oats
4s. per bushel : bread 1 d. per lb.; flour 1 d. per lb.; tea 1s. 6d. per lb.;
sugar 3d. per lb.; beef, mutton, and veal, 1 d. to 3d. per lb.; fowls 3s. 6d.
per couple; Butter ls. 4d. per lb. Clothing a very little dearer than in
England. Tools scarce and dear.
Emigrants who are married, are preferred for a free passage, not above
forty years of age, nor having more than two children under seven, or
more than three under ten years. Single men must be between eighteen
and thirty-five. Single women under eighteen, are not taken unless
accompanied by married relatives, or acting as servants to cabin passen-
gers. They are not eligible if above thirty-five years. Agricultural
labourers, shepherds, miners, mechanics, female domestic, and farm-house
servants, are alone entitled to a free passage, and must give evidence of
character and qualification. Unprotected female emigrants are taken to
a house in Adelaide, and placed under a matron, until employment is
provided for them by a committee of ladies. The length of the voyage
from three to four months, and the outfit costs from £3 to £4,-children
in proportion. The cost of erecting a labourer's cottage is from £10 to £15.
The steerage passage is from £15 to £20, intermediate £30 to £35, first
cabin £50 to £70. No serious accident has ever happened to any vessel
from England to Port Adelaide. Free emigrants must take (males,) six
shirts, six pairs stockings, two pairs shoes, two complete suits of clothes.
(Females) six shifts, two flannel petticoats, six pairs stockings, two pairs
shoes, two gowns. They must also bring their own sheets, towels, and
soap. All emigrants to keep their old clothes, which are as good in the
ship and the bush, as the newest cut of fashion, and more comfortable.
The mining prospects of the colony may be gathered from the following
letter of a settler:-
“On arriving at port, seven miles from Adelaide, I remained there
one week; I went to Kapunda mine, distant about fifty miles. Having
there got employ, we remained there about six weeks, and, hearing that
better earnings were to be made here, we travelled up forthwith, and
have remained here ever since. We are 100 miles from the city, and
107 from port. I feel persuaded that, had brother Nicholas come out
when I did, he would have done extremely well. There is here abundant
employ for all steady people, and likely to be for many years to come.
This mine is extremely rich, and considered the best in the world. There
are no less than 700 pair of hands earning a good living for themselves
and families. On my first coming to the Burra, I worked on tut-work,
after a month I worked on tribute, and worked very well. I belong now
to the bottom end, having taken a job. The average wages on tut-work
are from £1 15s. to £2 a week, and they are settled up once a month.
Tribute earn more if they are lucky; but this, of course, is chance work:
there are sixteen or eighteen other mines, but not all in course of work.
We have here a township of 300 houses, besides a church and chapel,
court-house, police-station, seven or eight good stores, four or five
butchers' shops, several schools, and a couple of public houses. Living


SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
of the best may be readily procured. Butchers' meat is abundant and
sells for 2d. or 3d. per lb., and we often give more to the blacks and dogs
than many families consume in Cornwall in a week. In fact, everything
is cheap and good. Flour is 12s. to 158. per hundred; tea 2s. per lb.;
coffee ls. ; sugar 4d.; and most vegetables may be procured for a trifle
in the winter. We have only two seasons. Summer begins about
October, and winter in May. In summer it is extremely hot, and at
times hot winds prevail, which do a great deal of damage to the corn,
and now and then swarms of locysts descend and devour all within
their reach.
“In summer, too, clouds of very fine dust darken the atmosphere for
miles, and swarms of flies, fleas, bugs, and mosquitoes are then very pre-
valent. The winter brings with it torrents of rain and abundance of
mud, often knee deop. Yet we soon get used to all these things and think
nothing of them, and we never hear of any one wishing to go back
home.”
The prospects of general operative emigrants seem sufficiently in-
dicated in the letter of Robert Walden :-
Dear uncle,-"I hope that some of my cousins will come here as soon
as possible; for, if they are industrious, they may have sufficient to live
on in their old days. Farmers' labourers get from 12s. to 15s. per week,
and their house-rent and firing, and twelve pounds of flour, twelve of
mutton or beef, two pounds of sugar, and half a pound of tea. Besides,
it is a free country; we have no tithes, taxes, nor rates of any kind. I
do not know of any licence for any one thing but beer and spirits, and
that I have not tasted since we came into the colony, and I hope that
God will keep us from it while we live. This is a beautiful country, and
about 3,000 miles across it; while England is hardly 300. We have but
one prison in the colony. We have no unions, nor yet any one going
about asking charity, for all are at work and are well paid for it. Trade
is increasing very rapidly, as there are a great many emigrants from
nearly all parts. We have no snow here, only a little rime frost. This
is now the middle of winter with us, and I have not seen any ice at all
since I left England. Our gardens grow green peas all the year round,
and cucumbers about nine months in the year. You may grow two crops
of potatoes and turnips a year. Onions and cabbages, turnips and po-
tatoes, the best I ever saw, and plenty of grapes, oranges and figs, almonds
and peaches in abundance, all grow in the open gardens.
“If any of you intend emigrating out here, make no delay. All that
come bring plenty of pots and kettles, earthenware, and such things as
you want in a house; such as you can well pack in your boxes. Bring
all the tools you possibly can, for they are very expensive here. Bring
plenty of hatchet handles and hammer handles; or for any tools that
may want handles. You will want them, as our wood will not suit for
that purpose, it splinters very much, a good riving hatchet, or as many
as you can get, you will find very useful, as they are very expensive
here : all tools are. You need not fear the passage, for it is a pleasant
If you were to send me a hundred pounds, and give me a house to
live in when I landed, I would not come back.
“I am earning between £2 and £3 weekly, and out of that I alluw
one.


SOUTH AUSTRALIA
09
dear."
into
ex-
12s. a week to the house for living, and my house is 8s. a week, and nouo
I can save more than I could earn at home. Female servants get from
6s. to 12s. a week according to their servitude; women that go washing
and chairing, from 3s. to 5s. a day, as servants are so very scarce, a great
many ladies have to do their own work themselves. Clothing is very
little dearer here than at home, according to wages. If any females
come, bring plenty of pins and needles, and such like, for they are very
But in regard to the prospects of the capitalist, we are of opinion that
the following statement of Mr. John Coghill presents a less promising
picture :---
“From the accounts which I have lately had from the colony, they
have had a great deal of rain, and the cattle and sheep are got
cellent condition; but the very high rate of wages is more than they can
afford to pay, and they will be obligel to boil down very large quan-
tities. I have no doubt that from 800,000 to 1,000,000 sheep will be
boiled down this year, and from 3,000 to 4,000 cattle.- If a greater
amount of labour were supplied in the colony, it would lead to the in-
vestment of a great amount of additional capital to follow that labour.
This must be the case. The persons that emigrate to a new colony have
very little capital. Men of property will not go; it is men of limited
means who wish to benefit themselves and their families, who go; but
they are not able to lay out a large sum of money at first, and, if labour
is not to be got easily, they are at once stopped in their operations. We
should cultivate arable land more extensively if we had labour; we would
do everything in a more extensive way if we had labour. For in-
stance, suppose I am living in a small house in the country, I would
build myself a comfortable place, if I could get anybody to do it, but I
cannot get labour at a rate that I can afford to pay. In putting up some
buildings I had to pay 128. 6d. a day to carpenters, and therefore, I
could not continue it very long. If the labour market were more abun-
dantly supplied, such a state of things would not continue; there would
be more cultivators of the land and a greater disposition to become pro-
ducers of wheat and other agricultural produce. If we had labour, there
is no doubt that a great deal of land would be brought into cultivation,
that is not in cultivation now, because they could raise wheat at a more
reasonable rate. Another advantage they would have, there would be
better roads. There would be a larger quantity of wheat grown in the
colony; if it failed in one part of the colony, we should have good crops
in another. The climate is very various. Along the coast the ground is
low, and you ascend up to Bathurst and Argyle two or three thousand feet.
While the drought is severely felt at Sydney, and along the coast, there is
perhaps abundance of rain up the country. But, at present, persons do
not cultivate to any great extent in that country, for these two reasons :
in the first place, they do not raise more than they want themselves, on
account of the great expense of labour; and, in the next place, they have
no roads to carry it."
A careful perusal of that most valuable and intrepid periodical the Emi-
grants' Journal, and of the other works devoted to the subject of Aus-
tralia, press home to us the conviction that now, and for a ong period it


70
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
will be quite unsuited for capitalists, or persons of the middle ranks.
These publications teem with exclamations of self-gratulation from work-
ing men on the happy change in their condition. Bullock drivers rejoice
in earning £10 or £20 a week-charwomen 58. a day, and full rations
-all kinds of labour in the same proportion. Now this is very paradi-
saical for those who receive the money, but in the same proportion it
must be ruinous to those who pay it. A farmer who gets only 32s. a
quarter for the best wheat, a grazier who has to part with fat bullocks at
1d. per lb., a flockinaster who has paid 20s. a head for ewes, and has to
sell them for 6s., has a very different story to tell. We can find no letters
from capitalists in all this pistolary glorification. The land, indeed,
flows with milk and honey, but it flows from a pocket which the stream
empties to another which it fills. It might, indeed, be assumed, that a
country must be very productive to afford such high remuneration for
labour. But it is not Australia but England, which affords it. Stop the
current of British capital into the “Great South Land” to-morrow, and
then it would be proved that its trade was not carried on at a profit,
wages would fall to their level, and a different story would have to be
told. It is impossible that any trade can afford such extravagant wages
as appear to rule in the colony; and we cannot avoid the conviction that
Australia is a place where a man who has any money goes to be stripped
of it by his labourers, unless he makes up his mind to descend to the class
of labourers himself. The lady must become charwoman herself, unless
she makes up her mind to pay to her substitute a sum, which with ra-
tions, is equivalent to a captain's pay in the British army! The gentleman
must squat on land where it is cheaper to buy bread than to raise it, invest
all his money in living creatures, liable to infinite accidents and fatal dis-
cases, and look to very uncertain profits to pay the wages and rations of
his hands-with this alternative, that he can only dispense with them by
becoming a journeyman himself
, and must be content with the small
profits which his own single labour can alone afford, Exorbitant wages
for labour, which is not very productive, is not the only evil. The
greatest is, that a moderate outlay will yield a very small, if any, return,
and that the investment of a large capital is scarcely prudent upon a pre-
carious commodity, such as sheep on a barren soil, subject to dangerous
droughts. The Wakefield system, which fixes so high a price for land,
and precludes the acquisition small portions, renders it difficult for
labourers, who have saved a little money, to settle as farmers on their own
account, and they therefore continue to pursue any kind of calling in
and about the towns, rather than devote themselves to the first great es-
sential in a new country, the settlement of the rural districts, and the
pursuit of agriculture. We are satisfied that the profits of sheep farming
are most grossly exaggerated. The value of the increase is calculated as
high as the original stock, while it is quite evident that the very fact of
the greatness and rapidity of the increase is destructive of its money
value. For a time, it would be better that there were neither large capi-
talists nor extensive stockmasters in Australia. Let every shepherd get
a grant of as much land as will graze fifty sheep, with the right of pas-
ture over the neighbouring run. With his hut, his fleeces, à cow, and
hiş annual increase, he could keep all his family comfortably, and devote


SOUTR AUSTRALIA.
71
himself to his little store until he could make it bigger. Careful tending,
nightly folding, would keep them healthy, and the hurdle placed near the
hut would raise luxuriant crops of grain and vegetables. Population
would be kept closer together--the crowds of the towns would spread
themselves over the country, and capitalists would devote themselves to
town speculations when wages became moderate.
At a future period, when the supply of labour becomes abundant and
cheap, we do not doubt that much may be done in New South Wales and
South Australia by irrigation. In the latter, the rain falls in torrents,
and produces the most perilous inundations, raising the water at the
flooding season 90 feet above its natural level, and rendering the country
as muddy as Egypt at the overflow of the Nile. It only needs that these
torrents should be preserved in vast tanks and reservoirs, and let out to
irrigate the soil at convenient seasons, to produce a high amount of fer-
tility, and to gather vegetative power sufficient to resist the action of the
heat, and to retain moisture when received. The Earl of Leicester was
enabled to create a vegetable mould on his sandy Norfolk acres by "high
farming," and by retaining them in grass after they had been once laid
down. Australia may be gradually fertilized by irrigation and manuring,
and to this end nothing would be more conducive than the encourage-
ment of small farms and settlers of small means.
From the report of Mr. Chauncey, it would appear that all kinds of
European fruits and vegetables grow in perfection in Australia, except the
currant, gooseberry, strawberry, and raspberry. Besides these, the almond,
orange, lemon, fig, guava, melon, pine apple, olive, pomegranate, flourish
luxuriantly, and all fruit trees grow with great rapidity. It is probable
that at no distant date fruit and wine will become important articles of
export.
The progress of the colony in agriculture, stock, and population, has
been undoubtedly rapid. The population of Adelaide, the capital, cannot
now be less than 10,000. The town, which is symmetrically laid out, is
divided by the Torrens, “a chain of ponds in summer, a rapid torrent in
winter.” Holdfast Bay, a fine land-locked harbour, capable of receiving
vessels of considerable tonnage, is the port, and is situated about seven
miles below the town. The Murray is described to be, for 200 miles of its
course, as broad and deep as the Thames at London Bridge. Extensive
and fertile flats are on its banks, and both on the course of this river, the
Torrens, and other streams, irrigation might be successfully and most
profitably pursued, by damming up the streams at a comparatively small
It is a great drawback to New South Wales and South Australia, that
neither can be called an agricultural country; and we incline to the im.
pression that so long as there is room in more productive and fertile set-
tlements, it is not desirable to squat in the first mentioned localities. In-
deed, we very much question whether they have been self-supporting;
and are induced to believe that the continued incursion of capitalists into
other locations, and the unnatural demand thereby created for stock for
New Zealand and other places, have raised prices to a point which is not
at all likely to be sustained. Mr. Carr, for example, gives the following
estinate of the profit on a small flock of sheep.
cost.


Pos Allow-
Cost and expenses of a flock of Sheep during sible in- anoe for
two years and a half,
Losses.
State and value of the Flock at the end of
two years and a half.
crease.
400
20
380
the
250
60
1st season
190
two year
66 10 0
250
60 SE
190
250
65
185
1
£ 8. d. £ s. d.
400 Ewes at 228. 440 0 0
6 Merino Rams £15.90 0 0
Outlay
Expense of
one
of
Shepherd for six
25 0 0
first six
months at £50,
months
per annum.
555 0 0 (Outlay
3 Merino Rams £15. 45 0 0
of
the
Expense of two
second
Shepherds
season
145 0 0
Outlay
of the
third
Expense of two
10000 100 0 0
season
Shepherds
Currency £800 0 0
310000
3rd season 2d season Ist season
250
65
185
Number of
£ s. d
Fleeces.
£ 8 d
original
at 218 399 0 0 760 at ls 3d 74 10 0
ewes
1st cross
237 10 0
ewes at 255
760 at ls 9d
two year Ist cross 190 00
wethers at 20s
one year
1st cross
231 50
ewes at 255
370 at Is 9d 32 10 6
one year 1st cross
138 15 0
wethers at 158
ewe
í lst cross 135 00
lambs
at 15s
ewe
2d cross
78 15 0
lambs 178 6d
wether Ist cross
90 00
lambs at 10s
wether 2d cross
45 90
lambs at 10s
original
at £121 108 00
27 at 5s od 6 15 0
rams
1653 5 0 Proceeds of Wool £153 2 6
153 2 6
250
70
180
112
22
3rd season 2d
90
250
70
180
112
22
90
9
70
9
2133
451
1679
Currency £1806 76 Total.


SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
73
This estimate gives nothing for expenses of house, offices, rent of
run, carrying wool to market, or other items. The result is the effect
solely of calculating the price of sheep, at from 10s. to 25s, which are
only worth 6s., and the account, if stated according to the range of
zxisting prices, would stand in the following less flattering position.
£
8.
Original cost of 400 ewes and 9 rams at 6s. a head
122 14
Shepherds
225 0
347 14
Value at the end of three years 1679 sheep at 6s.
a head
Wool
£503 14
153 2
656 16
838 2
But deduct cost of run £10, of hut, hurdles, car-
pentering, &c., &c.
50 0
There is left for three years' labour
£258 2
or at the rate of £86 per annum, which on an outlay of £122 is very
fair, provided it can be depended on. But a single night may annihilate
the whole stock, and leave the proprietor in a far worse condition than
his shepherds. Indeed, the prospect is so discouraging that Mr. Sidney
declares it to be useless to begin stock keeping with a smaller capital than
£2,000, and another settler declares that £300 would be a mere drop in
the bucket to begin with-a sum which would in America settle a yeo-
man comfortably, on an improved farm of 100 acres.
A number of interesting letters from mechanics in Adelaide will be
found in the Emigrant's Journal, from which the truth may be better
learnt, than from the books of travellers. About snakes, mosquitoes,
flies, fleas, bugs, and rats, they are compelled to speak. They cannot
put their thumb on the siroccos and hurricanes, upon the winter torrents
of rain, and floods which suddenly rise 90 feet above the level of the or-
dinary channel, and carry every thing away with them. These persons,
as we have said, naturally speak in high terms of a country where many
employers are competing for each labourer, and unnaturally forcing up
wages far beyond the chances of profit to the capitalist. No doubt many
bold, energetic, hardy, and laborious men who begin with nothing, bring
abɔut them flocks, herds, and lands, which they nominally appraise at
a high money value, and if their flocks escape catarrh, scab, and other dis-
eases; the owners may have something to show for life in the bush. But
these cases only show how little mere capital, and how much energy and
hard work can do in Australia; and the somewhat significant silence of ca-
pitalists, of the men who pay wages, and buy everything, in place of mak-
ing or rearing it, is not to be mistaken. Mr. Sidney well observes, that
“immense fortunes have been lost there” (in South Australia), “I have
no doubt that the immigration of capitalists will very soon be tempo-
rarily overdone.” “The greatest and safest fortunes will be made by
grog shops and stores, required by the labouring population.”
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74
AUSTRALIA FELIX.
AUSTRALIA FELIX.
may lie.
Port Philip is bounded on the north by the rivers Murray and
Hurne, Mount Kosciusko, and Cape Horne, and on the east and south
by the Pacific. It includes an area of upwards of an hundred thou-
sand miles.
The settlement is divided into three counties-1st, Bourke, embracing
Melbourne, the capital, which is on the banks of the Yarra Yarra, eight
miles from which is the port of William's Town, at which large vessels
The population of the capital exceeds 13,000 souls. 2nd.
Grant, in which is the rising town of Geelong, 45 miles from Mel-
bourne, on Port Philip Bay. 3rd. Normanby, which includes the har-
bour of Portland. Beyond the settled portions are Western Port, Mur-
ray, and Gipps's Land, Districts. The total population is, at present,
nearly 40,000.
Port Philip is somewhat further to the south than any other part of
Australia, and, therefore, much nearer to the nearest, (which is the south,)
pole. The defect of Australia being its aridity and excessive heat, it fol-
lows that that portion of it which is nearest to the pole, and furthest from
the tropics, partakes in the smallest degree of the defects of the island.
Accordingly Port Philip possesses a much more temperate, or Euro-
pean climate, than any other part of Australia. The fall of rain is
abundant, and at more continuous intervals than in the other districts.
-the quantity of lake, river, and surface water, is much greater the
cold, morning and evening, in winter, is sensibly felt, while the mildness
of the day is pleasant, and a boundless extent of rich and arable soil fit
for the plough, and adapted, not for sheep runs alone, but for the best,
cereal agriculture, may every where be found, especially for about 200
miles on Lake Colac, along Glenelg river, and around Portland and
Port Fairy. Abundance, over abundance, of fine timber is found all
through the settlement, a never failing sign both of fertility and moisture;
and gentlemen well acquainted with both England and Australia Felix,
regard the corn lands of the latter, and the crops, as quite as fertile and
luxuriant as those of Kent and Essex. At least 30,000 acres are at pre-
sent enclosed and under the plough, and the colony, in 1847, possessed
11,400 horses, 290,439 cattle, 5,867 pigs, and 2,996,992 sheep, an amount
of produce, which, considering that the first land sale only took place
ten years before, exhibits a progress totally without parallel. A large
export of grain to New South Wales and New Zealand is carried on,
and the exports vary from £130,000 to £180,000, while the imports
range from £250,000 to £400,000. Port Philip is a self supporting
colony; indeed, there is a balance in the treasury of £40,000.
We regard the prospects of this settlement as far superior to those of
the other colonies of this island. Its superior capabilities for maintain-
ing a large population upon a limited territory, by a soil and climate
which will enable farmers to cultivate grain rather than stock, and to
live in immediate contiguity with each other, affording the unity es-
sential to strength, are advantages which are already establishing the
pre-eminence of the district. We entertain no doubt that not only the


AUSTRALIA FELIX.
75
progress of population, but the advancement of society, and of civilized
institutions, will be far more rapid in this agricultural, than in the other
merely pastoral settlements, where even herbage is so scanty, and water
runs so scarce, as to render the wide dispersion of the inhabitants a
matter of physical necessity. It cannot be necessary that we should
point out the demoralizing influences of this over-solitude. The history
of the lumberers and trappers of America, who withdraw their conduct
from the supervision of public opinion, and the restraints of settled
society, is a sufficient proof of the importance of surrounding emi-
grants with the humanizing influences of social intercourse, and with
that discipline of friendship and neighbourhood, without which, civilized
man too quickly falls into the barbarous habits of the savage, and, at
last ends, by renouncing the virtues of civilization. Agriculture is the
happy medium betwixt the wild irregularity of the Arab, and the sophis-
ticated vice of Paris; betwixt the licentious freedom of human passions
left without the control of law, and the more pernicious contamination
of bad example, and the constraining pollution of the temptations of
populous and crowded life. There is something essentially irregular and
adventurous in the life of the mere drover or shepherd. He is but one
remove from the hunter. His calling has nothing of the methodical
order of that plodding industry which gives sobriety and reliableness to
the character of the gardener, or the ploughman. A nation solely of
shepherds, is but a tribe of Kalmucks, a congregation of trappers. Their
work is not steady, stated, punctual. It wants the discipline of rule.
Their outward appliances are rude, wild,“ hugger mugger," wanting in
the decent external symbols of self-reverence and personal respect. The
Dutch boers of the Cape are of the same stock as the industrious and
peaceable dairyman of Rotterdam and Dusseldorf, and the honest and
orderly farmers of the Hudson. In every physical quality they are
their superiors, but mentally and morally they have, under the influences
of inferior social discipline, lamentably degenerated.
On every account, therefore, we have no hesitation in declaring our
conviction that Port Philip is by far the most eligible of the colonies,
which are embraced within the island of Australia. It is beyond alí
question, better adapted by its more moderate temperature to the
European constitution—its superior fertility renders it best fitted for
agricultural pursuits—and its greater moisture and command of river,
spring, and surface water, both for domestic and pastoral use, gives it
advantages for farmers, stock keepers, and residents, to which none of the
other settlements can lay an equal claim. Even mere existence is made
more pleasurable by a cooler temperature, and by good water, a luxury
of which neither Adelaide nor Sydney can at all times boast. Private
emigration, therefore, and public colonization should, we apprehend, be
primarily directed to Australia Felix, where the nature of the soil favours
the concentration, in place of necessitating the dispersion, of population,
and where the steady and substantial pursuits of agriculture may encou-
rage peaceable, orderly, and industrious habits. On such a soil, the ac-
quisition of twenty or thirty acres of land will enable the small farmer
or peasant to establish himself in comfort. The soil will not, like sheep,
perish in a night, and seed time and harvest will not fail, even although
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76
AUSTRALIA PELIX.
66
scab should scourge, and catarrh cut off. The small capitalist also may
here live well on the produce of a small freehold, getting his extraneous
luxuries with the interest of his mortgage.
Here, as in other settlements, the upset price of land is 20s. an acre,
better worth the money than much in other districts is worth twenty
pence. Small quantities may be purchased from private speculators, and
a good farm may be rented on very moderate terms. In a letter dated
Melbourne, 19th June, 1841, Mr. Jolly says_“I like this country very
well since my arrival. My son William was hired as soon as we arrived
for £24 a year; and John, £12 a year; and James, £9 per year, and
everything found them. Me and my wife is hired for £65 per year, and
no house rent to pay nor fire wood to buy. The land in this country, the
upset price is £1 per acre. I could have rented 340 acres of good land
for £40 a year; and when you are travelling, you can go into any per-
son's house and get your bellyfull for nothing; and in parts of this country
they will keep you as long as you like to stop for company; as for small
beer, there is none in the country. The current price up market is, beef
ltd. per pound, mutton the same; tea, ls. 6d. per pound; sugar, 3d.
per pound; flour, for one bag weighing 200lbs., £1 58.--every other
thing in proportion."
A large capitalist, holding 305 square miles, and 30,000 sheep, in a
letter to Mrs. Chisholm, dated 25th of October, 1848, calls loudly for a
reduction of the minimum price for land to 5s. an acre, although he
states, as renting tenants, farmers would speedily “ accumulate wealth,”
become at once, well provided for, and be placed in the enjoyment of
abundance." “The immigration to Port Philip has been quite too tri-
fling. It will take 10,000 souls in one year to reduce the wages of an
unmarried shepherd to £16. Wages here are enormous, labour more
scarce than at any former juncture, yet almost all the immigration arises
in Sydney, where wages are lower.”
Agricultural labourers, engaged for a term, have a house provided for
them ; but the cost of erecting one ranges from £5 to £20, and the rent
of a town dwelling for a mechanic is from 4s. to 6s. per week. The ninth
number of the Colonial Circular, price 2d., to be had of all booksellers,
gives the most minute particulars as to ships, times of sailing, dietary,
free or assisted passages, ght, clothing, rules of the ship, sales of land,
and every other essential point of interest.
It is important that it should be known that by a circular, dated 5th
of April, 1849, it is announced that such is the immense accumulation
of applications for free and assisted passages, that the Colonial Commis-
sioners decline to receive any more for six months to come,
A very entertaining letter, dated Port Philip, 30th of July, 1848,
from a lady's maid, has been published by Mr. Sidney; she gives a
most graphic description of the voyage, with which she was so well
pleased, that she wept when she left the ship.
All her fellow pas-
sengers, especially the women, willing to accept service, were hired
at once at high wages, and had there been as many more, they
would have been gladly taken. She was at once engaged at £20 a
year, by the kindest master and mistress, at very easy work, and
declares herself quite happy. The female servants rapidly get married,


AUSTRALIA FELIX.
66
her two predecessors having been wedded to wealthy settlers, and visiting
their former mistress in their own carriages. 'Now,” she continues, “I
have such a romantic fancy for the bush, that nothing else will please me.
Had it been possible, J might have had four husbands; for I have really
been annoyed with the fellows; but I again swear I will think of no one
unless my hopes are blasted in regard to Charles. With respect to this
country I like it very much ; it is now the middle of winter, and we have
had some severe cold weather. You would scarce believe I have seven
blankets on my bed, and am sometimes cold withal; but the reason is,
my cottage, as I must call my room, is detached, built neatly of wood,
stands just inside of the garden fence ; it is about ten feet square. A lot
of English newspapers are pasted inside the boards, which overlay each
other to allow the rain to run off, of which sometimes we have a super-
abundance; the roof is lined with old canvas, and shaped like the old-
fashioned attics; then I have a little bed with curtains, and covered close
overhead, as a slight shield from mosquitoes, which abound here in hot
weather. I did not expect such weather as I understand there will be,
come Christmas. Strong men throw themselves down on the ground
almost dead from the effects of the siroccos, or hot winds, which some-
times sets the country in a flame; when waves of flame will be seen
consuming everything before it. I have seen numberless trees which
have been burned in this way, trees as large as an English oak, the half
of the trunk burned away. They say there is scarce anything green to
be seen in the summer, everything is scorched up; therefore now is the
pleasantest time. Most of the flowers are in bloom, and the weather so
beautifully bright, even when it rains it does not look so dull; but the
weather changes very suddenly, a wind may rise and cover every place
with dust in five minutes, and rain equally sudden.
“I have sat down several times to this letter; since I last sat to write
I have been crippled with rheumatism, as indeed, numbers in this coun-
try is said to suffer with it, the changes in the weather are so sudden. In
mercy's sake, do not persuade any more to come out, for there are several
persons in the three last ships not engaged, the wages have fallen very
low, and provisions will soon rise very high; we have emigrants now
from England, Ireland, Scotland, France, and Germany, and many more
expected, so the country will soon get as poor as England, if they do not
stop free emigration for a year or two; meal is almost the only cheap
article we have, and that will not be long, I fear. I dread the summer
coming, for the heat is excessive, and the flies swarm to that degree that
they blow the meat in your plate at dinner time. I am sorry to say that
I am still suffering with rheumatism; it takes away the use of my hands
and arms, but Dr. H.'s prescription has done me a little good I think.
Was I not with very kind persons I should be most unhappy: my lady is
now lying very ill. I earnestly hope she will soon recover, for I respect
her very much indeed. This part of the country is overstocked with
emigrants, and the next that comes in they are going to send to Portland
Bay. I expect a storm is coming on, the wind is ready to tear up the
large trees, and the air is filled with dust; oh! now it comes, farewell till
to-morrow.
“We had a most severe storm yesterday, and I was near being killed
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78
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
by a large branch of a tree falling as I was crossing the paddock, for the
wind tears the trees up by the roots very often; it has blown me down
twice when I have been on high ground, it is so powerful. The cold
weather is not yet gone, and it is now the middle of August : this is only
our spring.”
Port Philip is about to be separated from New South Wales, and erected
into the independant colony of Victoria.
In concluding our account of the province, it is desirable to observe
with reference to all the settlements, that females should be especially
cautious with whom they engage, either as servants or as wives. Em-
ployment is so easily obtained everywhere, that character is of compara-
tively small importance to any settler who has a mind to set good con-
duct at defiance. He has but to shift his quarters whenever he is found
out in misconduct, and thousands are ready to engage him. “Though
girls,” says the lady's maid, get married here immediately, I may say
still, there are a great many villains in this place, and many have left
their wives and married again, and taken their wives to the bush for a
time; if found out they run away, and nothing more is heard of them.”
At all the chief ports, committees of ladies have kindly undertaken, in
co-operation with the governor, to protect and encourage respectable
young women, provide rooms for their accommodation, and assist to pro-
cure them desirable situations.
Some interesting and instructive letters have been published by Messrs.
Chambers, regarding this colony, which fully bear out all that has
been said by other writers with reference to the impracticability of carry-
ing on stock farming to a profit on a small capital. With £500 the writers
found that nothing could be saved, and had to club stocks with two ac-
quaintances, so as to enable them to begin business with 1,000 ewes, for
which they paid 21s. each. Even then they had to do all the work them-
selves (four persons) and at the end of the third year only, they had paid
their expenses by the wool, having 2,000 lambs of increase for the profit
at 20s. each. It has to be borne in mind, however, that lambs fell to
about 58. a head, which upon a stock of 3,000 head, would leave them
£300 behind the original cost of the first thousand they purchased
After they commenced the bush life, their letters are full of complaints
of the climate, the fleas, the wild dogs, snakes, wretched huts, and rude
solitary existence; but subsequently, when they had become accustomed
to their pastoral duties, they write in high spirits, and with sanguine
hope.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
SWAN RIVER, KING GEORGE'S SOUND, PORT ESSINGTON,
KANGAROO ISLAND.
Western Australia, better known as Swan River, and including Aus-
tralind, occupies the south western portion of the great island of Austral-
asia, extending 1,280 miles from north to south, and 800 miles from
east to west. It is twenty days sail nearer England than Sydney, and is


80
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
less. I should say it was not the place to make a fortune; but at times
farms which have been some years in cultivation, may be bought on mo-
derate terms."
The regulations as to the sale of land, are the same in this as in the
other settlements. All descriptions of labour, especially connected with
farming, stock holding, and domestic service, are here very highly re-
munerated; and provisions, grain, meat, potatoes, are dearer than in the
other settlements, which still further enhances the cost of labour, as the
addition of rations uniformly constitutes a condition of service.
The statistics of the colony are very meagre, no writer appearing to
take any interest in its concerns. Th3 West Australian Land Company,
has wound up its affairs, and there are no doctored reports, nor vamped
up statistics, --not even mis-spelled letters from happy Corydons, nor a
single Wilts or Dorset pauper, transmogrified by the magic of colonial
jobbers, into an Arcadian Amaryllis, to pour out her transported soul in
bad grammar, in joy of her altered circumstances, and mutton at a penny
a pound. There is, instead, only the grumbling of capitalists fleeced by
their labourers of high wages and expensive rations, in requital of labour,
which the profits of the employment cannot afford.
All this is the natural effect of the Wakefield system. In a country
whose sole wealth is land and stock, capitalists should follow at a long
distance, but should not precede labour. What can capital do for such a
state of things, but make cheap things dear? In a new country if labour
is not fastened to the soil, by obtaining it in freehold, it will fly from
master to master, and settlement to settlement, according as it sees em-
ployers foolish enough to bid too highly for it. Sheep will breed no
faster, grass will grow no ranker, clouds will rain no oftener, for a mil-
lion of sovereigns, than for 20s. Capital, then, can only have the effect
of making every thing dearer than its natural value. It is not the capi-
talists who have become rich, but the labouring men who, inured to
work, have risen from small beginnings by personal industry. Unless
there be as much of the natural products of the country exported as will
pay for the imports, all the difference is loss,-a draw upon the colony.
If of £1,000 laid out by the capitalist, £750 is dissipated in the expense
of sending labourers to the colony, and only £250 worth of land received
for the whole, how is the individual capitalist benefitted ? He cannot
keep the labourers when they arrive. Nay the colony cannot keep them.
If wages are higher elsewhere, off they go, and leave their paymaster ir
the lurch. It is on this account that we so often see the population of a
settlement actually decreasing, by the emigrants running away to some
newer Eldorado, where some green capitalists are waiting impatiently to
be fleeced.
The latest news we have from the colony announce that speculators
were busily engaged with the timber trade. Sandal wood was being sent
to India at the rate of £10,000 for 1,300 tons. Industry, diverted from
cultivating the soil, was throwing away its energies upon that which
might bring temporary profit, but would lay no foundation for future
productiveness. South Australia running after mines, and Western Aus-
tralia after timber, neglect the true sources of permanent strength, and
may, one day, find themselves in the middle of a devastating drought,


WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
81
with no bread to eat, but a good supply of copper ore, and sandal planks.
America, the granary of the world, absorbed in manufactures and rail-
roads, discovered in 1835, that she must import wheat from England !
She has become wiser since; and we trust Australia may not have to pay
dearer for the lesson. The American capitalists do not, to this hour, be-
come farmers. They leave the soil and its products to working men; and
if they do buy farms, they farm upon shares, giving the practical worker
a third of the produce for his skill and labour.
Western Australia raises most of the vegetable productions of the tro-
pics, and it is, therefore, obvious that the climate must be tropical. It
has its hot winds, and we have seen by Mr. Hutt's account, that the heat
burns up all but the hardiest plants. It cannot be, therefore, but that at
certain seasons, the temperature must be all but intolerable. Nothing
can be more pernicious than the system which has prevailed, of scatter-
ing settlements all over this vast island. One should be fully occupied
before establishing another. We cannot advise settlers to go to any of
the settlements so long as there is room at Port Philip. There the soil,
climate, productions, adaptation to the European constitution, are all su-
perior to those of any of the other colonies, on the main continent, and
by concentrating energy, capital, and population, in that favoured dis-
trict, every class will be benefitted. A purely pastoral people speedily
degenerate from civilization. Agriculture is the main humanizer, to
which stock raising should only be auxiliary.
Mines are beginning to attract the attention of the colonists. We
have made it our business to procure from the most reliable sources, the
most recent information, brought up to May, 1849, received in reference
to this colony. Gentlemen of great intelligence, and of enlarged and
liberal views who have been long resident in the settlement, and exten-
sively engaged in its affairs, have imparted to us their views and knowledge
in a spirit of candour which has gained our confidence. At our request
they have favored us with the following statement of the present position
and prospects of Western Australia.
“CLIMATE, &c.—Dry and extremely healthy-no seasons of periodi-
cal sickness. Land and sea breezes constant. No drought has yet been
experienced—as too frequently felt in other parts of the continent; for
the westerly winds, bearing the rains of winter, visit the western coast un-
obstructedly from a boundless extent of ocean, while they are too frequently
exhausted in passing over the continent. Rheumatism and opthalmia
are less prevalent in this than in many surrounding settlements. The
climate of the Swan River the most delightful the writer of this ex-
perienced in Australia, or Van Diemen's Land.
“POPULATION, &c.--The census of 1848, taken on the 10th of Oct.,
gives a total of 4,622. It exhibits both a wonderfully small population,
and one that may be increased with great advantage to the immigrant,
and the country itself. It explains pretty clearly the cause of the slow
progress of that settlement, and gives the lie at once to the aspersions too
frequently vented against it. This number includes the military also,
who amount to one hundred and three only. The male population sadly
exceeds the female, being thus :-males, 2,818 ; females, 1,804.
“ The males wh' are single amount to 1,251, while the females who


WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
83
much to do, and a great and secure opening, for the agricultural capita-
list and labourer, particularly the latter?
“In 1848 we find an increase in the cultivation of nearly half as much
again as 1847. See following comparative statement:--
1842 1843 1844
1815 1846 1847 1848
No. of Acres 3,3645 4,5564 4,850 4,830 5,1374 5,784 7,050
among which we notice 114 acres of vineyard, and ten of olive-yard,
planted in 1848!
“It is astonishing to see the amount of property of the colonists, despite
their small forces. In 1848, we find-Horses, 2,095; horned cattle,
10,919; sheep, 141,123; swine, 2,287; goats, 1,431.
"There is a flourishing little bank, called the Western Australian
Bank, which has, for a long time past. yielded a dividend of 124 per
cent. The proprietary are residents of the colony, and they have a
London agency.
“ With regard to the extent of available land, it must be acknowledged
that this colony is surpassed by Port Philip, Adelaide, and even New
South Wales, but news has just reached England, by which we learn that
a splendid tract of country has been found to the northward of Swan
River, and open to location. So that with this and the great advantage
the settler has there, of a perfect climate, and the absence of seasons of
drought, we may fairly prognosticate that Western Australia, from her
geopraphical position, will be no mean rival to her sister settlements.
And from experience, the writer of this can assert, that with society, un-
surpassed in the southern regions, an unambitious and contented mind
could revel here in a delightful climate, and a country possessing many
great charms amid numerous though not uncompensated drawbacks.
“ All that Western Australia wants is one harbour on her coast, similar
to Sydney or Port Philip, and then it might be said with truth, she is
equal to them in all points.
“May 1st, 1849.
This paper affords another illustration of the evil of any colony begin-
ning to embark in trade, before they have taken care to provide themselves
with the common necessaries of life. This sandal-wood trade, may ulti-
inately do well as a secondary reliance for the employment of industry-
but to pursue it at the outset, is only to divert labour from the primary
object of settling, subduing, and civilizing the district, and to raise wages
far beyond the level of remuneration to any capitalist, who has the sense
to prefer the cultivation of the soil, to debasing the population, by the
demoralizing occupation of lumbering.
Mr. Mathew, in his most able and philosophical work, “Emigration
Fields,” and who has travelled over the whole continent, and made
its climate his careful study, seriously contemplates the possibility of its
being periodically left by droughts entirely without food; and urges upon
the attention of the inhabitants of all the settlements, the prudence of
erecting large store houses, where grain may be accumulated to be used
in the season of universal dearth. We have pointed out to many large
owners in New South Wales the great evil of encouraging stock raising
to the neglect of agriculture; but their answer is, that it will not pay to
export grain to Europe,-that for home use they raise more than they


84
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
can sell or consume,—that high wages cannot be paid without money
profits,—and that stock and wool are the only commodities that will yield
9 reinunerative pecuniary return. It is in pursuance of this logic, that
they have gone on breeding shoep until they have fallen to one fourth of
the price at which the original flock was purchased, and clipping of wool,
until even that staple English commodity has fallen below the point of
remuneration. We are satisfied that when agriculture is raised to the
first rank as the great settler and civilizer, the richness of the soil, and
abundance of the pasture may be greatly increased, and that the real
difficulty in the way is the Wakefield system, which prevents the acqui-
sition of land in small but adequate quantities, and the consequent settle-
ment of numerous labourers, who would be their own employers, and would
be independent upon capital, so long as the earth produced sufficient for
their subsistence without it. It is very true, that so long as wages are at
their existing high level, as agriculture requires the application of a
great amount of labour, to its successful pursuit than store farming, and
as it demands a greater amount of skill, and minute personal superinten-
dence than a shepherd life renders necessary, gentleman farming will be
pursued at a loss in the colonies, as it is in the mother country. But
farm labourers are the best farmers,-they require no wages when they
farm the land themselves, and that which the farm produces is sufficient
for themselves and for their families. They are yearly adding to the
value of the soil by its improvement, -the erection of buildings,-the
making of roads and gardens,—and they concentrate the population,
which naturally affects society, good fellowship, neighbourhood and
mutual co-operation. In America, where agriculture is the chief pur-
suit, no sooner has one man made a clearing in some wilderness, than he
finds himself speedily surrounded by neighbours, who prefer even an in-
ferior location with society, to a superior settlement where they have to
be scattered remote from each other. A hamlet soon rises to a village,
and a village to a town.
It is remarkable that it has never occurred to the crotcheteers of the
Wakefield system, that if three-fourths of the capital of colonists are
taken from them and sent out of the colony in payment of the tran-
sit of labourers, the amount is absolutely lost to the colony, and spent on
the shipping of the mother country, - that freights are artificially en-
hanced by a forced demand, and thereby voluntary emigration discour-
aged. The steerage passage to America is £4 10s. for a voyage of eight
weeks, and to Australia £20 for a voyage of sixteen weeks, -
- more than
four times the amount for only double the time of transit. The farce is
still more grotesque, if it be remembered that after the capitalist has paid
£750 out of £1000, for the import of labourers, he has no security what-
ever that he shall get them allocated to himself, and that he has to pay
higher wages to them than any other employer in the world. Perhaps
on their arrival at Sydney, the immigrants learn that high wages are
going at the Burra Burra mines or the sandal wood lumber trade, of
Swan river; and off they go to hire themselves to masters who have not
paid one farthing to the emigrant fund, but who make a profit by wiling
away the ploughmen to their own speculation.
Nothing is more remakable in the statistics of agricultural America,


TASMANIA.
85
than the steady and rapid increase of population in every settlement.
Nor can any thing present a more striking contrast to that state of things
than the aspect of the census in the New Zealand and Australasian colonies,
in nearly every one of which, population appears to have stood still, and
in general to have retrograded, in the face of highly coloured descriptions
of the salubrity of the climate, and of the fecundity of the human race.
The disproportion of females to males in these colonies, is the chief cause
of their demoralization, and of the unprogressive character of the popu-
lation, and that cause can not be removed so long as the mass of those
who require wives, are only squatters, or labourers having no permanent
property or interest in the soil. It is notorious that the men living in
the bush or squatting, marry wives, get tired of them, and then run
away to some distant station,-picking up a new wife where they can, and
abandoning the first. No man could do that, if he were settled on his
own freehold; because he could not abscond from his wife without
running away also from his own property. If capitalists had the sense
to see that after importing, at a great expense, large numbers of labour-
ers, the supply does not increase, because the labourers, when they land,
migrate to other places, they would soon become convinced that it was
their interest to fix and settle families, by granting them farms at a very
low price, so that the labour market should be supplied by their progeny,
who would have little inclination to wander from their native home, if
they could easily acquire land beside their parents, brothers, and sis-
ters. It may, indeed, be retorted that if freeholds were easily acquired,
the progeny of the first settlers would refuse to hire themselves to capi-
talists, and insist upon acquiring farms of their own. If that contin-
gency did happen, is it not obvious that that would be the very best result
which could occur for the progress, stability, and happiness of the colony,
by concentrating in place of scattering the population, and by inuring them
to plodding and orderly habits, instead of the wandering and unsettled
life of the shepherd or the squatter
TASMANIA.
Van Diemen's Land is an island 120 miles south of the southernmost
point of Australia, and extends 210 miles from north to south, and 150
miles from west to east, possessing an area about equal to that of
Ireland. It is separated from the greater island by Bass's Straits. Of
small size, surrounded by the sea, rugged and mountainous, and lying
between the 42 deg. and 45 deg. of south latitude, it has, every ad-
vantage of climate, abounds in the finest harbours, and possesses several
fine rivers, and numerous smaller streams, and inland lakes of some
extent.
The hilly character of the island, its insularity and its greater proximity
to the South Pole than the main island, have given it a climate greatly
resembling that of the south of England. It produces no vegetation of
a tropical character; but every production that thrives in Britain, thrives
better there, including not only grass, grain, and fruit, but trees, men,
and live stock. Water of good quality is every where to be found, and
rain is regular, frequent, and abundant.
I


TASMANIA.
One of the best signs of soil and climate is the abundance of the tim-
ber, which in Tasmania is of the choicest sorts, of great variety, and of
immense size. Here, as in America, farms cannot be cultivated until the
forest is cleared and felled, a tedious and expensive process, the cost of
which, however, is profitably returned by the great fertility of the land
which it has encumbered. Every where fine productive farms, well en-
closed, and supplied with excellent brick or stone-built houses and offices
are found. No part of the island can be further from the sea than
seventy-five miles, and the bays, creeks, and harbours, which abound in
every part of the shore, render the export of produce easy. Australia,
subject to devastating droughts, and possessing little fertile soil, has Tas-
mania for a rich granary, which will never fail in supplying its wants.
The cereals of Tasmania are of the best quality, and the produce is very
great. For consumers it has not only its own population, but the in.
habitants of the neighbouring continent, the fishing navy which frequents
those seas, and ultimately, probably, the inhabitants of China, India,
and the islands of the south and of the east.
The recent work of Count Strzelecki, on all hands admitted to be a
high authority on the subject, thus describes the climate and aspect of
the country.
“ Circular Head is found to have the summer of Prague, Lausanne,
Wurtzburg, Karlsruhe; the winter of New Orleans; and the annual
mean of Toulon, and St. Fe de Bagota.
“ The climate of Van Diemen's Land has never been shown to have
exercised any of those deleterious effects on the constitutions of Euro-
pean emigrants, which many climates, highly vaunted for their excel-
lency, have done.
“In Van Diemen's Land, the agricultural districts are superior in
appearance, to those of New South Wales. The details of farms and
farming are better understood and defined ; and the practical results
are such, that no country reminds the traveller so much of (the old
one) England, as Van Diemen's Land. There the tasteful and com-
fortable mansions and cottages, surrounded by pleasure grounds, gardens,
and orchards; the neat villages, and prominently placed churches,
forming, as it were, the centres of cultivated plains, divided and sub-
divided by hedge-rows, clipped or bushed, and through which admir-
ably constructed roads wind across the island, are all objects which
forcibly carry back the mind to similar scenes of rural beauty in England
and Scotland.
6. The farms of the Van Diemen's Land Company are in a most ad-
vanced state: the rotation crops, and mode of working the land being
truly admirable, and present, together with the farm buildings, the
residence and gardens of the company's chief agent, an entirely English
aspect. The sample of soil, taken from a field, is of a reddish-brown
colour. It is fine grained, of moderate cohesion, and friable; unctuous
to the touch, porous, and easily dries up. It does not crack during
drought, neither does it clog when wet. It is manured, and the prin-
cipal crop it produces is wheat, of which forty bushels is the average
return. The rotation is two crops of turnips, and then a fine crop of wheat.”
The following account of the seasons, and rotation of employment


TASMANIA.
87
will further illustrate the nature of the country and the mode of life of
the settlers.
“ JANUARY.-Warm weather and strong sea breezes near the coast.
Turnip seeds should be sown early, cauliflower, cabbage, and salad seeds.
Bud fruit trees. Sheep shearing over. Wheat harvest general.
“ FEBRUARY.-Dry weather, with occasional showers, gather garden
seeds, and seeds of plants, and shrubs in the bush.
“MARCH.-Dry weather, with alternate sea and land breezes. All
vegetable productions are now in perfection and plenty.
“ APRIL.-As frequent showers and heavy rains fall, take up and
store potatoes, carrots, &c. Sow wheat and barley in this month and
the next.
“MAY.-This and the month of June are the depth of winter in Van
Diemen's Land. Thrash out the corn, feed pigs and poultry, and make
use of the plough.
“JUNE.-Break up new ground. Plant out shrubs and trees. The
height of the lambing season. Black whale fishery is now in full force
and activity.
“JULY.-The average temperature of this month is 40 deg. of Fahren-
heit. The weather is occasionally wet, but the operations of the farm
may be carried on.
AUGUST.-The beginning of spring. Keep the plough and harrow
at work. Collect manure, and refresh the pastures.
SEPTEMBER.—The most laborious month in the whole year with the
farmer and gardener. Every description of seed should now be in the
ground. For grass land, barley should first be sown, and as soon as it has
put on its first blade, the grass seed should be sown, well mixed.
“ OCTOBER.—This month resembles April in England. Plant pota-
toes. Sow Swede turnips.
“ NOVEMBER.-Vegetation is now very rapid. Plant out cabbages,
&c.; young peas, potatoes, gooseberries, and straw-berries, are now in
season. Sheep Shearing is at its height.
“ DECEMBER.--Hay harvest general, and barley harvest begins at the
end of the month. Prepare the soil, manure and sow turnip land, thin
and hoe Swede turnips, and mangel wurzel. Hoe potatoes, cabbages,
&c. Clip hedges.”
These quotations speak volumes. They indicate an English climate in
all its best features, a thoroughly agricultural and well settled population,
a soil of the richest quality, abundance of moisture, and a temperature in
the highest degree favourable to the European constitution. Abundant
workable timber, every where accessible; wheat forty bushels, (five quar-
ters) to the acre, good roads, and substantial brick houses, are facts, -and
great ones too. Nothing proves the industrious, settled, and civilized
character of the population more than the habitual use of manure on the
farms, the successful cultivation of artificial grasses, the systematic atten-
tion to green crops, and canonical rotation of crops, as also the extent to
which barley is cultivated. Wise men see the advantage of rather raising
forty bushels on one acre, than twenty on two; of high farming on
a small holding, where soil and climate will admit of it, rather than bar-
barous scratching of the ground over a large surface; of rather having
I 2


88
TASMANIA.
eighty acres of fencing to uphold, where the enclosure will feed 1,000
sheep, than to have no fences but a crew of shepherds and dogs to herd
sheep, which must have 5,000 acres of scanty herbage to keep them in
existence.
The mountainous character of the country, besides making it pictur-
esque, varying the climate and habits of the people, and by the absence
of monotony, giving its inhabitants that love of home which is an in-
stinct of all mountaineers, must impart a certain hardiness to the popu-
lation, impart a British character to the scenery, and greatly facilitate the
process, both of surface and under draining.
We observe that a hut fit for a labourer costs from £10 to £15; a slab
(shepherd's) hut £5; a brick or stone house £20 to £25, and a town
lodging from 2s. to 3s. per week. According to the latest information,
(Colonial Circular, No. 9,) there is a great demand in this colony for free
labourers.” While in Australia, potatoes are 7s. per cwt., in Van Die-
men's Land they are only 3s., and wheat is 36s. per quarter,-a moderate
price to the consumer, and a fair profit to the producer. Beer, also, is
only ls. per gallon, against 4s. to 5s. in Australia. Wages, too, notwith-
standing the demand for labour, are thirty per cent. lower than in the
neighbouring colonies, but still higher than in England, and averaging
a fair remuneration to the labourer, and a moderate outlay to the capitalist.
Nothing can show the superior advantages of the colony better than this
fact, that wages are less in Tasmania, than on the main continent, because
it indicates that there is a greater influx of labourers to supply the mar-
ket, and that they are contented to submit to lower remuneration in
consideration of the preferable attractions of the colony.
The summer heat, according to Mathew, ranges about 70 degrees.
Occasionally, for a day, the sirocco raises it to 100 deg. Frost never
exists, except during the night, and disappears with the day's sun. It is
said that the change of temperature betwixt day and night is more
extreme than in England, and requires caution to avoid colds and rheu-
matisms. It would also appear that snakes of a somewhat dangerous
kind are rather numerous, but the progress of settlement, and the breed-
ing of hogs, which are the great enemies of snakes, will at no distant
date probably extirpate them. The trees are so fine, that some have been
found of 150 feet stem, free of branches and thick enough to render it
practicable to drive a stage coach from end to end of the stem.
“ There is a depression,” observes Mr. Mathew, "along the middle of
the island, commencing with the fine harbour, firth, and valley of the
Derwent on the south-east coast, and running at first north-west and then
north, along the valley of the Derwent, which flows south-east, and then
along the valley of the Tamar, which flows north till it meets the sea at
the mouth of that river, at Bass's Straits. This depression consists of
rich level land. It is chiefly in this protected low country, constituting
the double basin of the Derwent and the Tamar, that the cultivation of
wheat and potatoes is carried on; the mountain districts on both sides,
of inferior quality, being more suited for grazing.” Hobart Town, the
capital, is beautifully situated on the Derwent, twenty miles from its
mouth, boasts the finest anchorage, and admits any number of vessels of
the largest burden. It possesses noble wharves for the heaviest connage.
1
1
1


TASMANIA.
is embosomed amid groves and a fine amphitheatre of hills, and displays,
besides fine streets, many elegant suburban villas. Launceston, on the
north side of the island, is connected with Hobart Town by a fine road
121 miles long, and is situate forty-five miles up the Tamar, at the con-
fluence of the north and south Esk. It is in the midst of the finest land
in the island, and possesses an excellent harbour, capable of admitting
.vessels of 400 tons burden.
It is one of the drawbacks of this colony that all the best land in it is
already appropriated. But the Van Diemen's Land Company dispose of
lots of eighty acres, or even less at 40s. an acre in fine districts, and af-
ford every assistance to the settler in supplying him with stock, imple-
ments, seed, &c., at a reasonable rate. One half of the purchase money
must be paid down, with an allowance out of it of £20 for a passage to
the colony, the rest by instalments, spread over seven years. There are
no convicts employed on the company's lands, nor within 150 miles, and
the aboriginal natives were entirely removed from the island in 1830.
That Tasmania is a penal colony must always operate as an objection,
from the inferior morality attaching to such a class, and from the dispro-
portion of the sexes, which is its invariable accompaniment. But it is
not wise to exaggerate this disadvantage which the settlement of free emi-
grants is daily diminishing, and it affords an additional supply of labour,
and induces the expenditure of government money in the island.
The statistics of the island are somewhat meagre. The population in
1847, was 57,420. In 1841, the exports of wool to the United Kingdom
were 3,597,531 lbs. In 1840, the imports amounted, according to
M’Culloch, to £988,356, and the exports to £867,607. Tonnage out-
wards and inwards to 171,782. Produce of corn in 1838, 970,000 bushels;
sheep, 1,214,000 head; 75,000 cattle ; 9,650 horses; 2,409 goats. Re-
venue, £138,501 ; expenditure, £133,681. The upset price of land at
the public sales is 12s. an acre. The island is from six to eight days sail
nearer England than Sydney (800 miles), and freights and passage
money are proportionably less.
If the foregoing statistics by M‘Culloch are to be relied on, the exports
appear to have sustained a diminution, as they only amounted to
£582,585 in 1846. No less than £150,045 worth of corn was that year
exported to England and the neighbouring colonies. Only eight emi-
grants arrived in the colony in 1847, while 2,751 went from thence to
Port Philip in that year, a rather unfavourable symptom of the colony.
The average price of land was 22s. an acre, and of wheat 4s. 6d. a bushel.
From the limited size of the island, its comparatively long settlement,
its mountainous character, and the fact that a considerable proportion of
it is unfit for cultivation, land, in eligible districts, is proportionately
high in price, and farms, in good situations, are scarcely to be had at a
moderate cost. But we consider property here, worth all the difference
of the money which it costs on the main island, and as it may be had in
small parcels to suit the most moderate capital, we have no doubt that an
industrious labourer might raise as much on ten acres in Tasmania, as on
fifty in New South Wales. He will also be, generally, sure of fair prices
in consequence of the demand for cattle and grain in the less favored
neighbouring continent, the natural effect of Australian droughts, barren-
I 3


92
THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS
Auckland Islands twenty-two days. He describes Laurie Harbour as
perfectly land-locked, and a steep beach on the southern shore as afford-
ing great facility for clearing and reloading vessels requiring to be heaved
down for any extensive repair.
No species of animal is found on the Aucklands, except the domestic
introduced some years ago ; goats and rabbits, all which find ample
food on a curious vegetable. The climate is healthy and favourable to
vegetation.
The Colonization of the Islands will be contingent on
the success of the fishery; every acre of land will be put in requisition
for supplies for the ships of the Company and others touching at the
Island; consequently the Company will carefully reject all offers to pur-
chase land coming from persons who do not engage to bring it into im-
mediate use for the required purposes.
Mr. Enderby calculates that the annual expenditure of the Southern
Whale Fishery Company at the Auckland Islands, for the establishment
and for the re-equipment of thirty vessels for the fishery, cannot fall
much short of £40,000. “This sum will embrace the salaries to the
Company's officers and servants, and wages to sundry mechanics and
labourers employed in laying out roads, constructing wharves, storehouses,
houses, cottages, &c., together with the expenses incidental to the fishery,
such as for the capture of whales coming into the bays, boiling out the
oil, discharging the cargoes of the ships, storing, filling up, searching,
and coopering the oil, cleansing whalebone, and reshipping the whole on
board freighting vessels; setting up and coopering the casks intended to
replace those filled; repairing, when necessary, the hull, masts, rigging,
and sails of the whaling ships, and also the stores ; purchasing 900 tierces
of beef and pork, 150 tons of potatoes, 100 tons of biscuit, 50 tons of flour
and other stores, fresh meat, poultry, vegetables, grocery, cheese, butter,
&c. The above expenses may be estimated at £20,000., and if we add
the wages of 700 seamen, estimated at £20,000 per annum more, the
amount will be, as before stated, £40,000, the whole or greater part of
which will probably be expended on the island. Such a colony must
hold out a reasonable expectation to settlers that they will find there an
extensive and profitable demand for their labour and produce.”
In addition to this fixed expenditure, all the ports of the island will be
free to the whole world, and numerous vessels will find it profitable
to visit, and, consequently, to employ and spend money amongst the
Auckland islanders.
It is obvious from the foregoing description that these islands open a
very limited, but at the same time a somewhat eligible field of emigra-
tion. Climate, soil, water, harbours, access, markets, are entirely un-
exceptionable. Indeed, in regard to markets, they must be the best in
the world as the demand and consumption of agricultural produce, must
always and progressively exceed the possible supply. To Orkney, Shet-
land, and West, highlanders, inured at home to combine farming with
fishing, the settlement presents the greatest attractions, and it is evident
that emigrants from these localities must be very valuable settlers.
Mr. Enderbey, who discovered the islands in 1806, and received a grant
of them from the crown, has ceded them to a company in the view of
applying capital to their settlement, and the pursuit of the black and


THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
93
sperm whale fishing. The terms on which the lands are to be sold
appear to be not yet settled, but it is obvious that 100,000 acres, even if
all arable, could not settle comfortably more than 250 families, making
clear allowance for the wants of the future and rising generation-so that
it is probable the company will pick their own settlers.
THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
These are between lat. 51 deg. and 52 deg. 45 sec. South, and long.
57 deg. 20 sec., and 61 deg. 46 sec. West, about 1,000 miles S.S. West
from the estuary of La Plata, 240 N. E., Terra del Fuego, and 7,000
miles from London, occupying a position in the line of vessels bound to
double Cape Horn. There are 200 of them, but only two of any conse-
quence, 130 miles by 80, and 100 miles by 50. They possess a sufficiently
temperate, almost English climate, a soil excellently adapted for pasture
which is abundant, and plenty of good water. But no wood grows, nor
are the islands capable of producing corn with any degree of success.
Wild cattle, horses, pigs, goats, and rabbits, are large, fat, and exceed-
ingly abundant, and all sorts of European vegetables grow luxuriantly.
As stations for sheltering, refitting, and victualling ships, these islands
present great facilities in their safe and excellent harbours; but the fre-
quency with which they have been abandoned, proves that they can pre-
sent very few attractions to the settler. Two hundred Robinson Crusoes
might there find desert islands a piece, and nobody to disturb their
solitary sulkiness. Sea elephants, seals, and whales abound, as also
aquatic birds. The islands are the resort of whales and sealers of all
nations, and ships bound for Cape Horn. They present no other note-
worthy features. At the last accounts upwards of 200 settlers, mostly
Scotch, formed the population, chiefly engaged under Mr. Lafone in
taming the wild cattle, and preparing to supply fresh meat to ships, of
which upwards of one thousand pass the island yearly. A patent slip has
been constructed for refitting ships, of which very few visit the colony.


94
REMAINING BRITISH COLONIES.
REMAINING BRITISH COLONIES.
For the sake of completeness, we here present a Tabular view of the
number and state of our dependences, which scarcely come within the
sphere of regions desirable for settlement:
EUROPE.
Population. Imports. Expor.
Gibraltar ...
15,008 £1,049,567
Malta and Gozzo
105,456 200,009
Ionian Isles..
223,349 123,928
Heligoland
2,000
NORTH AMERICA.
Newfoundland ........
74,705 708,887 £853,390
WEST INDIES.
Antigua....
35,412 237,905 407,946
Barbadoes..
102,605 594,484 546,799
Dominica
18,660 56,416 67,183
Grenada ....
20,994
89,346
112,792
Jamaica..
37,3405 1,476,344 1,609,473
Montserrat
7,119 7,097 17,812
Nevis..
7,434 17,985 51,565
St. Kitt's....
22,482
St. Lucia.
14,179 135,816 177,145
St. Vincent.
27,122 65,637 101,361
Tobago
11,478
134,696 210,299
Tortola .
7 731 43,439 85,946
Virgin Islands
5,779 12,214
Trinidad..
39,328 437,411 403,826
Bahamas.
23,048 106,014 86,330
Bermuda.
8,933 131,844 25,143
Demerara
74,883 602,028 893,000
Berbice.
21,540 61,995 225,579
Honduras
7,935
Bermuda..
· 1,500
Anguilla
3,666
MISCELLANEOUS.
Mauritius..
135,197 1,132,731 1,021,694
St. Helena
4,736 21,006
Sierra Leone
44,935 203,125 227,694
Cape Coast Castle.
800,000 133,510
Ceylon....
1,241,825 1,464,787 372,561
Singapore, Hong Kong, Labuan..
EAST INDIAN EMPIRE.
Population,
British Proper...... 563,000 square miles ; 94,260,000
Allies and Tributaries 526,000 ditto 38,900,000
TOTAL...
Population. Imports. Exports.
138,612,181 £14,816,671 £12,611,064


95
APPENDIX.
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
In such a region where rain is rare, and dews almost unknown, the vegeta-
tion must, of necessity, be at all times extremely scanty: and in summer, when
the sun has dried the soil to the hardness of brick, it ceases almost entirely.
Except along the courses of the temporary rivers, which for the most part are
marked by a fringe of Mimosas, not a tree, nor a bush, nor a blade of grass,
decks the wide expanse of the waste. Low stunted shrubs resembling heath;
numerous species of fig, marigolds, and ice plants (mezumbryanthemum), Ghan-
na-bosch (salso la), gorteria asters, &c., some sorts of prickly suphorbia, and
other succulent plants; and bulbs, whose roots nature has fortified with a ten-
fold net of fibres under the upper rind, to protect them during the long droughts,
are alone able to subsist in the arid Karroo. During the dry season, even these
appear to be for the most parched into a brown stubble, thinly scattered over
the indurated or slaty soil; but in the early spring, when the ground becomes
moistened with the fall of rain, these plants rush into vegetation with a rapidity
that looks like enchantment, and in a few days millions of flowers of the most
brilliant hues enamel the earth. It is chiefly at this season, when the whole
dreary waste may be said to be transformed into a vast flower garden, that the
colonists of the Schnumerberg, the Nienwooldt, the Bokkweldt, and the Bogge-
veldt, whose alpine farms are then chilled with keen frosts and the piercing
mountain winds, descend into the Karroo to pasture their flocks and herds on the
short-lived vegetation."-(Pringle's Sketches, p. 297).
CLIMATE.-Though in general temperate, and healthy, the climate is neither
steady, agreeable, nor suitable for agricultural purposes. In the South West
districts, rains are in the cold season profuse, but in the summer they are of
rare occurrence, and during the greater part of that season the ground is
parched up with drought. The deficiency and irregularity of the rains are, in
fact, the great drawback on the colony. In some of the more northerly tracts,
bordering on the great Karroo, there has, occasionally, been no rain for three
years together; and even in the more favoured districts of Albany and Uiten-
hage, and, generally, throughout the greater part of the colony, the rain, when it
does come, descends in torrents, that swell the smallest streams to an extraor-
dinary magnitude, and occasion great damage. Sometimes the south-east wind
is really a species of simoom, and is not only excessively hot, but is loaded with
impalpable sand, which it is all but impossible to shut out; but as the breeze
continues, it gradually cools; and, usually, in about twenty-four hours becomes
supportable. The mean temperature of the year, at the Cape, is about 67} deg:
Fahrenheit, that of the coldest month being 57 degrees, and of the hottest 79
degrees. Cape Town is a customary place of resort for invalids from India, who
certainly benefit by the change; though, perhaps, they have been led to visit it
as much from its being within the limits of the East India Company's charter,
which entitles servants of the Company, resident there to full pay, as to its salu-
brity.-Macculloch's Geographical Dictionary.
SOUTH AFRICA.--PORT NATAL.
FROM A LABOURER.
“Port Natal, 15th Dec., 1848.
“ MY DEAR AND EVER Faithful. Wife,-I write to you, hoping these few lines
will find you in good health as this leaves me in at present, thank God for it.


96
APPENDIX.
1
BE
M
Dear Jane, I am employed at £4 a month and board, twelve miles from Port
Natal, but very unhappy without you. It is hard to get on here without some
money. The land here is as good for grass or for to till as ever I seen; tell
Lesly that it is easy to get land here, and about £40 or £50 worth of goods would
purchase 150 year old cattle, and you could sell them in twelve months for £3 a
piece. It is the best part of the colony; three yards of black calico will buy a
year old heifer; two yards of Caffer baize will buy a cow. Brass rings that
would go on the rust would exchange cattle; or blue beads about the size of a
marble would buy cattle. Any sort of brass rings, big or little, would get cattle
for them. It is not the nicest things that the Caffers like best. I will send you
a bit of the calico inside of the letter, but the lace is 4s. 6d. a yard here. You
inquire in the wholesale shops ; they know it by that name well. The Caffers
are quiet people ; you need not be afraid here of any one but the white people
I have known to attend me, both them and I find them very quiet now. Dear
Jane, when I left Algoa Bay I had £6. I paid £4 for my passage to here; I was
eight days idle here and hope to get on. I am so unhappy without you that I
am without any comfort now. Now, dear Jane, if you come here, bring no
clothes with you but what you have, they are cheaper here such as you want.
Take shoes, caps, and bonnets as much as you will well do for you. If I had
a little money I would get some cattle. The Caffer baize is black woollen cloth
with wool on one side and none on the other, be sure these things wonld get
you a fortune, if you could bring £15 or £20 worth, see and get out with some
family to the Cape or Algoa Bay, and you can get here for £6. There is few
houses here but wattle and dab; don't you expect to be so comfortable as at
home, but I think that there is a prospect for any one that would have a little
money. The place where you could get the cattle is five days' journey with the
wagon, and the man that came from there brought 250 cattle that he chinged
for goods, and a load of elephants' teeth that he sold for £150, so be sure there
is no fine land. The grass is as high that you would not be seen out of it,
Give my love to Mary and Ann. If you are not in place and I get your letter
I will send you the last shilling I have if you require it. Now excuse me for
this writing, for I cannot get any one here to write for me here. Now I con-
clude, and remain your ever fond husband,
JOHN MULLINS.
COTTON FROM Port NATAL.-On Monday week at the annual meeting of the
Manchester Commercial Association, two samples of cotton were exhibited, which
had been grown at Port Natal, by Mr. Sydney Peel, the brother-in-law of Mr.
John Peel, one of the directors of the association, on land belonging to the latter,
who holds a very large quantity of land in the colony. One of the samples is
of the indigenous cotton of the country; it is of a yellow colour, almost amount-
ing to “nankeen,” which could, however, be taken out by bleaching. The staple
is fair, but not very strong; it would be worth about 418 per lb. The other sam-
ple is grown from Sea Island seed; the colour is good, and the staple long and
silky; it is worth 6d. per lb. Both samples are hand-picked. The capabilities of
Port Natal for the growth of cotton and other agricultural produce, without the
expenditure of a heavy amount of capital and labour, may be judged of from
the fact that Mr. Peel had several hundred acres ,(we believe, we might say
thousands) of virgin land, through which the plough could be run without re-
moving the stump; and the whole is but thinly wooded.-Manchester Guardian.
“ The farms of the Boers have, then, chiefly passed by purchase into the hands
of English colonists from the Cape. A German Company is carrying on cotton
growing. A trade has been opened with Mauritius. Flour, we believe is for the
present, not grown, but imported. Nearly 200,000 natives are spread over the
country, subsisting on a little desultory cultivation, and herds of cattle, which
nearly all possess. They labour for very low wages, but their labour is not to
be depended on. At present, they are perfectly humble and harmless to white
men, although a warlike race; they are given to cattle stealing and abduction
of each other's wives and daughters; hence constant feuds. King Rendah, or
the northern borders, has a standing army of 60,000 men, and other sides are
tribes more or less powerful and numerous. The constant influx of fugitive
nations, escaping from the tyranny of their chiefs, is a cause of anxiety and dis-
putes. A British colonization, organized as a militia, will be the best security.
Natal appears a fair field for adventurous young men with small capital. Not
for labourers, black competition will render wages too low. Not fathers of young
families, the prospects are warlike and uncertain. Not for men of ample means,


APPENDIX.
97
the trade is too uncertain. If the difficulty of the native population can be satis-
factorily settled, and they can be induced to work regularly, Natal must, in a
few years, be a very fine colony. As there is plenty of game, from the pheasant
to the elephant, we hope some of our accomplished sportsmen will visit it soon,
and write the book we want.
A second company had been announced. The projectors of the first placed
their main reliance for an adequate supply of labour upon the German emi-
grants; the second proposes employ Zoolahs. The Zoolahs certainly are an
industrious race. The maize exported from Natal is exclusively raised by them.
Two vessels. which arrived at the Cape from Natal on the 13th and 16th of May,
brought between them 2843 bags of maize, and left as much as would amply
supply the place and afford two more cargoes for export. The soils on which
the cotton is grown are contiguous to the sea ; and therefore resemble those on
which the first class American cottons are raised. There is little jungle to clear;
the appearance of the country resembles that of Oliphant's Rock, bordering on
the sea in the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth, being here and there clotted
with mimosa trees, and showing a park-like appearance covered with luxuriant
verdure. All that is required is to put in the plough and turn up the soil. The
vicinity of the plantations to the sea will necessarily keep down expenses and
facilitate shipments. Experiments have been tried, which show that when
cotton has been sown there the quantity produced has been to the returns from
the same quantity of seed in America as six to four. This is reasonably ac
counted for; a virgin soil, such as that at Natal, will always produce more than
ground which has been worked. Land can be purchased from 2s. to 10s.; added
to which, indigo grows well. Tobacco, flax, maize, and all the products of the
East, as well as those of more temperate regions, are successfully culti-
vated.
NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND AND ITS PRODUCTIONS.—The exaggerated statements circulated
in England of the colony and its productions, soil, and climate, have led gene-
rally to the very erroneous impression and opinion, that the necessaries, and
even more, as regards food, would be abundant and cheap. But New Zealand
has neither a tropical climate, nor is it a country in which edible vegetables
and fruits, indigenous to such regions, grow and flourish spontaneously and
abundantly; nor is it a land inhabited by native animals, adapted for the food
of man, and easily obtained by the toils or chase. The islands of New Zealand
are uncultivated wastes-either of mountains covered with dense forests-of
plains and lowlands covered with impenetrable high fern and shrubs, or of
swamps and marshes covered with rush and flax, without any open spots of
grass land for pasturage, or of verdant downs and hills for sheep. In these
vast tracts there is not to be seen a living animal, wild or domestic. Whatever
is produced from the soil in New Zealand for the food of its population, either
of grain from arable land, or of stock from pasturage, must be the work of time,
by great labour and at much expense. The very nature and circumstances of
the country must render the progress of agriculture in New Zealand slow and
gradual. The reasons are, the scarcity and high price of European labour, for
the farmers can reckon on no other, the indispensable necessity and consequent
labour and expense of inclosing all cultivated areas, and the further cost of
time and labour in clearing the ground, whether of timber or of fern.-Terry's
New Zealand.
“Nothing,” says Mr. Tate, “can possibly exceed the exquisiteness of a morn-
ing concert as performed in the ample woods of New Zealand. One of the
greatest treats I enjoy is to be awakened in my tent by the loud and lovely
voices of the only musicians I have met with since I left the lark and night-
ingale behind us in England. Their song is too sweet to be of long continu-
ance; at the first dawn of day it commences and gradually heightens as the
light increases, but no sooner does the sun appear gilding the mountains with
his beams, than the performers, one after another retire, and all the lovely
sounds die away into profound silence.” Captain Cook says: “the ship lay at
the distance of a quarter of a mile from the shore, and in the morning we were
awakened by the singing of birds; the number was incredible, and they seemed
k
K


98
APPENDIX.
to strain their throats in emulation of each other. This wild melody was in-
finitely superior to any we had ever heard of the same kind; it seemed to be
like small bells most exquisitely
tuned.”
NEW ZEALAND:-Wellington District as an Emigration Field.-“Is, then
New Zealand adapted for colonization? Yes, although its capabilities for sup-
porting an export trade have been ridiculously overrated. The country will rise
to importance, but its rise will be slow. It will produce readily every article,
at least the staple ones for home consumption. Were a family put down upon
any part of its coast, they would soon, with industry, such is the moisture of
the climate, raise a subsistence from its poorest soil. This is high praise, and is
no more than New Zealand deserves. The seasons are sure, and the country
healthy; but it wants both level land to raise and markets whence to convey
grain, to enter into competition with the broad corn land of Europe and
America. Let no agriculturist, then, think of visiting these islands with a view
of realizing a fortune, and returning to spend it in Great Britain. This is quite
chimerical. No one will be benefited by emigration to New Zealand who is
unable or unwilling to work for a living. Those who go there must make it
their home. We are not speaking of men who go abroad to speculate in trade
and commerce, but to the class best adapted for the colonization of New Zea-
land; and these are the farmer, whose labour is within his household ; the small
capitalist, who, with his hands upon the plough, can afford to wait until he has
a return; and, lastly, for the poor of the mother-country. The mountains of
New Zealand are higher, the morasses deeper, and the forests denser than were
those of Britain. It is, in truth, a stubborn country, which only the nerve of a
peasant's arm will subdue. The poor man covets a piece of ground, and both
Government and the Company should facilitate its possession. A few acres
among the mountains are soon, by the labour of his family, transformed into a
garden. The ground is his property, and will be his children's when he is no
more. He is never wearied in adding to its beauty. The spot is the creation of
his own hands, hallowed by a thousand kindly recollections. From this source
will yet spring, in New Zealand, a numerous yeomanry and a bold contented
peasantry: Cottage farms are what the land is calculated for, and they are,
doubtless, the best means of subduing a wild hilly country.” — Wood's
TRAVELS.
The EARTHQUAKE AT_New ZEALAND.-The following is an extract from a pri-
vate letter from New Zealand, dated “Wellington, October 25, 1848,"descriptive
of the late appalling series of earthquakes in that colony. It appears in the
last number of the Inverness Courier. “As you will learn from the newspapers
that we have suffered severely in Port Nicholson from earthquake, I am anxious
to show you that I am still in the land of the living. On the 24th October, about
two o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by a most violent shake, which I
had no difficulty in discovering to be an earthquake, the most severe I had ever
experienced here. I was nearly thrown out of bed, and, expecting the chimney
to fall in, I got up to rescue a favourite bust that stood upon a bracket on the
wall. The bust, however, was thrown down, and the chimney stood. When
daylight came, the damage to the town was found to be considerable. Perhaps
one-fifth of the chimneys had fallen, and many of the brick buildings were rent
and shattered. This was on Monday morning, and, as on former occasions of
earthquake we had only one shock, we thought little more of the matter. The
following day, when a short distance from town, I felt the ground beneath me
rock to and fro; and, looking towards the town, I saw, from the dust, that some
buildings had fallen. Almost every brick building was in ruins, and two chil-
dren were thrown down and killed by a wall. The father of the children, an
old Waterloo soldier, was likewise so hurt that he survived only two days. On
Thursday evening, another violent shock destroyed nearly all the clay and
brick buildings—the hospital, the Wesleyan chapel, the gaol, the stores, &c.
Hundreds of houses were demolished. Since then we have had several smaller
shocks, but they are now dying off, and some days have elapsed since the last
severe one. The town of Wellington is, by this calamity, put back almost to its
first stage; for, although the wooden buildings have not suffered to any extent,
still, as the brick houses formed the principal stores of the leading merchants
and dealers, and also of government, the loss cannot be reckoned at less than
from £100,000 to £150,000. Many people have to begin the world again, and all
feel it in some degree. Consternation was on every countenance--no one knew


APPENDIX.
where it might end-and those whose houses were destroyed or injured went to
their neighbours and kept up the excitement and gloom. Many of the inhabi-
tants flocked on board the 'Subraon,' a ship bound for Sydney; and the captain
generously kept open table for all comers. His conduct has been much ap-
plauded, and from £70 to £80. has already been subscribed to present him with
ä piece of plate. Mr. Fitzherbert, one of the largest merchants here, has
suffered so much that he intends removing to Sydney, and great numbers will
follow his example. You will have heard that Colonel Wakefield died some
months ago. This calamity would have broken his heart. Even the natives are
deeply sorry for us. They say they have before had single shocks of earthquake
as heavy as those we experienced, but never such a succession of them in so
short a time. I have been going from house to house, encouraging the people,
and also visiting those on board the .Subraon.'
AUSTRALIA.-NEW SOUTH WALES.
The Voyage to AUSTRALIA.—The voyage from England to Australia, though
much longer, is actually safer than from England to America; and the differ-
ence in the length of the voyage is, in my opinion, a matter of very little conse-
quence. Once you get yourself, your boxes, and your books, on board the ship
in which you have taken your passage, give yourself no further concern about
her. Leave it to the captain and sailors to manage the rest. You sit to read
until you hear that the Sydney lighthouse is visible, or the anchor is let go in
Port Jackson. I can assure you that, for my own part, I was sorry when I was
interrupted in my studies, by the termination of upwards of five months' voyage.
It is good for a man to be occasionally shut out from the busy world, and com-
pelled, as it were, to hold communion with himself-thus affording him all the
advantages without the austerities of the monkish life.-Mackenzie's Guide.'
“ The unproductive nature of the soil in the immediate neighbourhood of
Sydney, causes kitchen vegetables and fruits to maintain a high price in the
Australian capital, whilst at the same time the inhabitants are little disposed to
stint themselves in the enjoyment of a good table, however high the price of
provisions may be. Fruits, therefore, and vegetables command a ready sale,
the supply being much under the demand; but in other parts of the colony thé
propinquity of garden soils render garden produce both abundant and cheap.
The swampy grounds near Botany Bay furnish a large portion of the vegetables
consumed in Sydney, and land adapted for the purpose is not reckoned exces-
sively dear at £100 an acre. The continuous moisture in such situations renders
them extremely valuable and productive, even in the driest season."- Jamie-
son's New Zealand.'
LIFE OP A SQUATTER IN AUSTRALIA.—The following is a specimen of the daily
life of the generality of the squatters at their stations in the bush. « On awak-
ing in the morning the squatter lights his pipe and smokes whilst his breakfast
is being prepared. This consists of a huge heap of mutton chops or a piece of
salt beef and damper, which he washes down with an ocean of strong green
tea, literally saturated with coarse brown sugar. After breakfasting, the squatter
again lights his pipe, mounts his horse, and sallies forth on his daily avocations
among his sheep or cattle; the short blackened pipe, his constant companion, is
frequently replenished in the course of the day His dinner is the counterpart
of his breakfast, viz., mutton-chops, or salt beef, damper, and tea. In the
evening the squatter smokes, reads, or writes until supper, when another vast
mass of meat and tea is again brought forward, and then, after smoking one
more pipe, he goes to bed. This rough and uncomfortable life is supposed to be
unavoidable, but many of them have their slab cottages kept in the most scru-
pulous state of neatness and cleanliness, whilst the table is supplied with fowls,
geese, and butter, cream, all kinds of vegetables, home-made beer, and pro-
perly made bread.”-Hodgson's Reminiscences.
HINTS TO LA BOURING EMIGRANTS WHO HAVE OBTAINED FREE PASSAGES TO AUS-
TRALIA.—The masters generally come down and engage you on board ship.
When making an agreement with a master, the servant stipulates for wages,
length of service, and rations; the usual rations are, 10 lbs. Hour, 10 lbs. meal,
12 lbs. meat, & lb. tea. 1. Ib. sugar, 2 oz. tobacco. The poorer emigrant with his
wife will be allowed by the regulations to remain twelve days on board ship to
give them time to choose a situation; after that time, if they refuse a fair offer,


100
APPENDIX.
1
19
they must look out for themselves. This class of persons easily obtain employ-
ment as shepherds, labourers, cooks, or to make themselves generally useful,
and their wives as assistants at their several stations (or houses ) Married
emigrants with large families meet with a little difficulty ; they are allowed the
twelve days, and then received into a benevolent institution and fed, till they
can provide for themselves, unless they refuse a fair offer, but those who have
families must not expect high wages, from £25 to £30., with rations according
to the number of your children. • Be sure and have everything put down in
black and white.' Young men will have only to arrive to find employment as
shepherds, labourers, or servants. £20 is excellent wages for a raw hand, as
you have your trade to learn; the second year you will perhaps get £25 or 630.
Stay at one place, and if in five years you have not saved £10., it is your own
fauit, avoid the grog bottle as you would a black snake. Let not-old hands who
look upon you as invaders of their harvest, deter you from the right way.
Single women, likewise, need only to land to obtain situations with respectable
families, either in the bush or in Sydney: Be careful on arrival; you will find
many enemies ready to assail you, but being allowed twelve days on board, you
ought to secure a situation. You will find plenty of admirers and suitors, but
do nothing rashly, find a respectable mate and know his character. Many
under a garb of temporary sobriety assume a style of life they never have nor
intend to have. You are a class of emigrants always required, be good, and
you will be happy, and never regret coming; but if you fall you go to ruin in a
moment, unpitied and friendless. Young folks, either boys or girls, from
fourteen years of age, will find employment readily, and receive wages at the
rate of £7 per annum for boys, and £5 or £6. for girls with rations. Bear in
mind you go to a land where you can never want, flour, meat, tea, sugar, and
excellent wages; where by patience, perseverance, and good conduct, you may
gather sufficient means in a few years to enter into business for yourselves.
But be not disappointed, the life is a novelty, to you, it improves upon ac-
quaintance, though few like it at first."-Reminiscences of Australia, by C. P.
HODGSON.
“ This is the statement of, of the parish of Menangle, in the county of Cam-
den; he had arrived on the 20th March, 1839. He says, “I left Sydney on the
2nd May, for the service of Dr. Bowman, brother-in-law to our present land-
lord. He gave us weekly thirteen pounds of flour, twelve pounds of meat, and
new milk as we wanted it, and £20 a year for the services of myself and wife.
I was a farm labourer, and my wife was house servant, but I did not allow my
wife to work the second year. I got £26 the second year, and sixteen pounds
of meat, eighteen pounds of flour, and as much milk as the children and our-
selves required. We were well and regularly paid ; had a good master. I
would sooner be on the farm than not. I have forty acres of land on a twenty-
one years' lease, by Mr. Macarthur's word; he is a man that his word does as
well as a bond. The first year I paid no rent, the second 28. 6d. an acre, ada
vancing 2s.6d, until it gets to 10s. an acre, when it is to remain at that price.
The land is very good, I grow wheat and corn. At present they have no school.
He wishes to have his relations sent out, and he gives the particulars of them.
His opinion of the country is this : This much I have got to say; I know I
should have never got a plough or set of bullocks in England ; not if I had
worked my eyes out of my head, and yet I was a very hard working man there,
and made a living. The wife says, 'I am of the same opinion as my husband
we could not have got these comforts at home. When we commenced this farm
I had £11 in cash, four bullocks, and ten bushels of wheat. After the first year's
service we had £4 clear. After we left we had the third year £29; but I
helped my sister.' Pointing to some flitches of bacon and hams on the roof of
the house, she said, “There is what we could not kill in England; a good gun
too-our own, and paid for. The only thing is that our house is not so good,
but we shall soon have a better.' This was a very good house. On the shelf
was a bottle of pepper, starch, mustard and currants. Those articles in that
country are expensive things. English mustard sells at 2s. a bottle. • We have
a cask of beef. I have been on the farm since February, 1844, and have cleared
thirty acres, myself and partner. We have had 400 bushels of corn, 225 of wheat,
averaging 25 bushels of wheat, and 45 to 50 of corn an acre. The wheat we
sold at 38. 2d. on the farm, with no expense whatever, and we have enough in
store to harvest. We have four pigs, nineteen hens and chickens, one cow and
a calf, and we have a team of bullocks.'
:


APPENDIX
101
« « The Show Garden' of the district, (Illawarra,) is the property of an enter-
prising man, who was long the master of a trading vessel.
Sailors always
make good settlers. This garden is situate in a warm hollow; and the approach
to it is by means of a rustic bridge, thrown over a clear and rapid stream, into
which droop the branches of a fine weeping willow. Passing the bridge we
enter an arbour covered with fuschias, the double white moss rose, and the
bignonia. The garden hedge is of lemon, laid and trimmed like a holly hedge.
On each side the middle walk, and fronting the visitor as he enters, is a mass of
plaintain stems, (here called the banana) full thirty feet in circumference, and,
in the season, laden with fruit. The stems are about twelve feet in height, and
from them depend the beautiful purple sheaths of the younger fruit. There are
many plots of them about the garden; and a bunch of the fruit sells in Sydney
for half-a-crown. On the sides of some of the walks are orange, lemon and
shaddock trees, the citron and the flowering almond; and on thesides of others,
standard peaches and apricots, and weeping nectarines, with occasionally mul-
berries, and the finest varieties of pears. The squares are filled with plum,
apple, cherry, and medlar trees. There are two very fine walnut trees, being
amongst the first that have borne in the colony. Other squares between the
walks, to the extent of three acres, are filled with vines in full bearing. Some
of the orange, lemon, and citron trees are from eighteen to twenty feet in height,
and have always two crops hanging on them, and often three. At eight or ten
years of age, each of these trees produce, in the course of the year, from 100 to
300 dozen. The pomegranates are in high perfection; and the hops are said to
vie with the finest from Farnham. The ground is covered with melons in every
variety ; while the asparagus beds would bear a comparison with those of
Battersea, Fulham, or Putney. I must not forget to mention the loquat rasp-
berries, cape-gooseberries. and filberts. In one corner of the garden, in a damp
spot, grow the osiers in which they make baskets for packing the fruit. Every
fruit is superior of its kind; and it appears that in this district, in the open air,
can be grown all the fruits of England, with all those of a tropical climate, the
pine apple excepted; but this succeeds in the open air, at Moreton Bay. I
must also except currants and gooseberries, which do not generally succeed in
the colony, except on high table-land. In the stream is English watercress;
and the hawthorn is grown in the garden as a memento of old England and her
green lanes. The walnut here bears in the tenth year, and the mulberry in the
third. Another settler has the following succession of peaches, bearing from
January to June, both inclusive:- The early Newington, “The Noblesse," "The
Roman, and the Late June,' which corresponds with the October peach in
England, and is here a delicious table-fruit, being highly improved in flavour,
by the effects of climate. He has • The Moor Park' apricot, and “The Blood
Nectarine,' (a colonial variety), “The Weeping Nectarine,' and the double-flow-
ering Chinese Nectarine,' which perfects its fruit here."-RAMBLES IN NEW SOUTH
WALES.
As to No. 1, we again quote from Count Strzelecki's work.-
“ That portion of the country which, from its system of working, and range of
tillable land, deserves to be included within the agricultural district, is confined
to the valley of the Karua, which is limited in the extent of its cultivated, but
not of its cultivable land, and of which the best tracts are in the possession of
the Australian Agricultural Company, to the valley of the Hunter, composed of
the confluent valleys of the Goulbourn, Pages, Patterson, and Williams Rivers,
&c. : the valley of the Paramatta . . . In these localities a good many farms are
in a very forward state ; many exhibit remarkable improvments, and some dis-
play only partial attempts, all of which are, however, in the right direction.
The farms of the Australian Agricultural Company, at Stroud and Booral, the
most northern farms of the colony, may be regarded as the first in the rank
of improvments. The farm buildings are of the best construction; the tilled
lands are almost entirely clear of timber and stumps, well fenced in, well
ploughed and worked, and presenting, on the whole, gratifying proofs of well
bestowed capital and labour.
“The orchards and vineyards of the company at Tahlee, (Port Stephens),
which produce the choicest grapes, oranges, and lemons, are not legs worthy of
notice." It is this orchard which shows most forcibly the extensive range which
the beautiful climate of New South Wales embraces in isothermal lines; as there
the English oak is seen flourishing by the side of the banana, which is again


102
APPENDIX.
surrounded by vines, lemon, and orange trees of luxurious growth. To the
southward of Port Stephen are a series of thriving farms, spread along the
Goulbourn, Pages, Hunter's, Patterson, and Williams Rivers, which comprise an
agricultural district of 2,000 square miles in extent. The excellent harbour of
Newcastle, good water and tolerable roads, a coal mine, a soil well adapted for
wheat, barley, turnips ; the vine and European fruits, and a situation the most
favourable to the application of irrigation, renders this district one of the rich-
est and most important in the colony. On crossing the Nepean to Camden
and Argyleshire, the farming, with some exceptions, does not improve. In the
list of exceptions, the estate of Camden, the property of Messrs. James and
William M'Arthur, stands prominently, being only surpassed by the farms of
the Australian Agricultural Company.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
66
$
The excellent work of Mr. Wilkinson on South Australia, is what its title im-
ports, a Working Man's Hand-Book. His description of Adelaide and its various
vicinities, would induce the conclusion that it is exceedingly eligible for all
emigrants, especially for those who desire, on a small capital, to enjoy some-
what of the description of life which they command in the mother country.
Parks, hotels, stage coaches, good roads, pretty suburban villas, fine views, and
neat farm houses, promise to renew at the antipodes the associations of home.
Ten per cent. is the current rate of interest on good freehold security, so that
£1000 would yield £100 a year in a settlement where food is at a very moderate
price, and fruit and vegetables abundant, and of the finest sorts. Mr. Wilkinson
has agreeably surprised us in his description of the adaptation of the district
for agriculture, and of the number of smiling farming homesteads everywhere
to be found on the main roads within twenty miles of Adelaide. This looks
something like stability and productiveness, and forms the best guarantee for
the future steady prosperity of the colony; It affords an excellent opening for
the small farmer or ploughman; wages being high, roads good, and fine land
398. an acre, the labourer being enabled to procure
the smallest quantity of land
which will suit the state of his purse, is presented with a much more secure
ineans of independence than even his richer neighbour in the bush. We gladly
make room for the following extracts :-
“Buy your land on or near a public road, and in a district where farming is
general ; for instance, at Mount Barker, or the Southern District. Choose more
than one section, and advertise those selected for sale through the government,
so that if any person bids higher for one section than you like, you may have
the other to fall back upon: by this mode there will be very little difficulty in
obtaining good land at a moderate price; for observe that all lands fit for grow-
ing good wheat, are well worth £l per acre.
“Having bought your land, and fixed upon the size of house that you require,
you agree with some party to build it for you, if you have a family; if not, at
once get upon your land, and, with a couple of men, knock up a hut of slabs,
to last until you have time and funds to build a better. This will serve for a
single man, but a wife requires a comfortable house of brick or stone, but
which need not cost more than $40 for one with six good rooms, or more than
two months to build. All this time, the family, living in town, will run away
with a good sum of money for board and lodging; but when the house is up,
the children will soon become useful, and compensate for the expense they have
put you to. You will have bought a good dray for £10; four bullooks for £20;
also tackle for the cattle, and a plough and harrow for £8; two cows and calves
£10; pigs and fowls, £4; a box of strong tools, £5; seed wheat, £10; and stuff
for fencing, £20; a brood mare, £20; twelve months' provisions, £30; amounting
in all, to £137. The land may cost £100 for eighty acres, and the hire of two
men for the first twelve months and their provisions, £70 more. Lodging in
town for a family, £20, and the house at the farm, £40; furniture, crockery, and
cartage, £30; in all about £400: this will leave the £500 man with €100 clear,
which money should be placed in the bank, at interest, until wanted.
“ Being now fairly on the land, ploughing must be at once commenced, if the
season suit; if not the fence must be put up, and an acre or so divided off, for
a garden. All this the labourers will do.
It requires but little care or know-
ledge to put up a strong fence; only make the rails fit well in the mortises of the
3


APPENDIX.
103
posts, and place the latter firmly in the ground. If the emigrant can get upon
his land before May, he will be able with his own teanı, by hiring two extra
bullocks for a few weeks, to turn up and sow about thirty acres of land; and
by the time this crop appears above the ground the fencing will be completed,
rendering it safe from the intrusion of cattle. This done he can look about him
and make any improvements required, such as building pigsties and fowl-house,
stockyard, and dairy, and collecting materials for the construction of a barn;
however, the second year will be time enough for the latter, as the weather is
generally such that the first crop may be thrashed in the open air. The return
of this thirty acres, averaged at twenty-five bushels, (sometimes, though rarely,
forty-five and fifty bushels to the acre are obtained,) at 3s. 6d. to the bushel,
will give him £131 58. clear profit; for the farmer and his two men can reap,
thrash, and carry to market the whole of this crop, without extra expense. In
this calculation I keep on the safe side for the emigrant, and give a low aver-
age crop at a low price ; thus instead of thirty-five bushels to the acre, (the
average throughout the colony in 1846,) I put down twenty-five, and the value
3s. 6d. per bushel, instead of 48. or 4s. 3a., the price quoted in February, 1848.
“Some parties who have never been in South Australia assert that farming
there does not pay; but this is untrue, for almost all the settlers within fifteen
miles of Adelaide, are agricultural farmers, and, in the moneyed sense, sub-
stantial men. Many of them pay a rent of 58. per acre for lands within five
miles of town, within which distance all lands are eagerly taken for agricultu-
ral purposes.
Unlike the other parts of Australia, this colony has never
suffered from drought, nor has there been any general failure of crops from
any other cause. The wheat here grown obtains a ready market both in New
South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and a great quantity is shipped to the
Mauritius and to Sincapore, besides what is brought to England, where it has
been pronounced equal to that raised in any part of the world.”
“In New South Wales, we are told that a smaller section than 640 acres is
not to btained from the government, and that this is a good reason why
persons with small capital should not go there. If so, it will be satiefactory to
parties to know that land in South Australia, well worth £l per acre to the
farmer, can be bought in blocks of from twenty to eighty acres from the govern-
ment, a price not too high, if good land be purchased, and of which there are
immense trncts not even surveyed, but which will be laid out on application to
the surveyor general. I do not hesitate to say that within a few years all the good
land, to a distance of twenty miles around Adelaide, will be laid out and cul-
tivated in farms, and that owners of sheep and cattle within that distance, will
be obliged to grow food for them. This opinion I form from my knowledge of
the splendid soil, and of the excellence of the wheat already grown there,
When first I went to Adelaide, in the year 1839, the whole country was uncul-
tivated, with scarcely a fence to be seen; but when I left, the road from the
town to the south was fenced in on both sides for some miles, and the land
under crop and agricultural farms were scattered about to a distance of thirty
miles. This was also the case more or less both to the north and east.
“Any party who will look at the names of farmers in South Australia, will
find that few of them in comparison have been brought up to their present mode
of life. For example, there are numerous agriculturists who were once sur-
geons, but whose returns now are as good as those of old English agricultural-
ists. I can say, from personal observation, that their fields are generally as
well cultivated. The same may be said of other professions and trades ; for if
a man with a little capital finds that he can do nothing else, he at once takes a
farm, as a sure method of properly investing his money. Some persons are
ruined by farming; but these belong to the class who leave others to act for
them, and spend their time and money in training horses for the race, driving
tandem, and living at hotels ; fond of what they call a quiet game of cards, and
going home in the morning without hat or boots, which have been as quietly
staked and lost; and so on, until they turn unfortunate and become acquainted
with 'Ashton's Hotel,' as the gaol is called. Such are not uncommon cases,
even in so small a community as South Australia ; and it is curious that you
may generally tell the habitations of these characters by observing their dwel-
lings surrounded with the remains of expensive furniture, broken shafts of gigs,
tools in abundance and much broken, expensive clothing, and piles of empty
bottles, which last are the only articles that make any return to the poor credi-


104
APPENDIX.
tors, for the land has been already staked and lost to some brother chip. These
are the men who lose by farming, and would lose by the richest mine that was
ever discovered; but even they afterwards find employment, and their good
seat on horse back, and 'devil-may-care' hunting propensities render them
valuable servants to the cattle owner, who engages them as stock keepers,
where they vegetate until a fresh supply of money comes out and enables
them to pursue the old game. However, there is no fear their case will discou-
rage the hard working sober man from engaging in the pursuit in which they
have failed.
“I was struck by an account in a late Adelaide paper, of a 'reunion,' or
“soiree,' that was held by half-a-dozen of these characters last May in the
town:
“A publican was leaving his business, and these worthies went to help off his
stock of beer and wine. They made away with all they could procure in the
house; and when no more remained they broke up the chairs and tables, and
made a fire of them. Calling now for the bill, they found that the amount was
less than they expected, and ordered the landlord to bring some trays of
glasses, which they smashed, until they made up the sum of £25.
Such is one
kind of high life in Australia."
ADVANTAGES OF EMIGRATION TO CANADA AND AUSTRALIA.
“The Canadas are within the distance of a six weeks' voyage from England;
they hold out many advantages to the British emigrant of good character,
more especially the Upper Province, into the heart of which he can easily
penetrate, through the facility afforded by a magnificent river, the Saint Law
rence, canals and immense lakes, in two months from the time of his leaving
home. There he will readily find employment at good wages the expense
of living moderate, most of the articles, the manufa are of his native
country, cheap, those of clothing, which alone are now dear, rapidly diminish-
ing in price.
«There he will find a climate healthy; a soil, when cleared of the timber
which covers it, capable of supporting a dense population. Much expense, not
less than £3 10s. per acre, is required to clear the forest, but the labourer will
gradually clear his own portion of it by the sweat of his brow, and sweet is the
bread of industry. There he will find a people speaking the same language and
professing the same religion as himself, and enjoying the same laws to which
he has been accustomed,
-laws which are the admiration and envy of the world.
If he is sober, industrious, and possessed of perseverance, he may look forward
to the certainty of seeing in a few years his family placed in the enviable situa-
tion of comfortable independence, the severity of the winter being the only
natural obstacle to the attainment of affluence.
“To the man who has through life been accustomed to labour and privation,
the degree of cold will appear but trifling; but there is one danger against
which the emigrant should be strongly cautioned, the ill effects of indulging in
the use of spirituous liquors, the cheapness of which is the bane of the colony.
From this his own judgment and resolution alone can preserve him.
“The scenery in the eastern townships of Lower Canada is finer than that of
the Upper Province, and therefore to the emigrant who can afford it, and wishes
to combine ornament with profit, many desirable locations present themselves.
The position is nearer to a market, but this advantage is more than counter-
balanced by the land generally being less agricultural, and by the greater length
and severity of the winter.
“In Australia, the emigrant, if he can overcome his objection to the greater
distance from his native land, and the inconveniences of a voyage of four
months, will find a climate the most delightful, free from excessive heat or
intense cold, and might almost say perpetual spring, where the flocks and
herds can roam at large throughout the year. A soil certainly more ge-
nerally adapted to pasturage than husbandry. Yet there is everywhere to
be found a sufficient quantity for agricultural purposes for the use of the
farm.
“In many places the country is devoid of timber, and consequently not re-
quiring the expense and great labour of clearing dense forests, as in Canada.


!
1


G.L. MARSHALL
Stationer.
El High St
SOUTHAMPTON
THE MOTHER COUNTRY.


CONTENTS.
PAGE.
DEDICATION...
Prologue
V
Introduction...
1
Chapter 1.-Home Colonization
5
II.-The State of the Nation
34
III.-The Disease and Remedy..
41
IV.-A Poor Law....
61
V.-A Peasant Proprietary..
65
VI.--Entail and Primogeniture
91
VII.-Corporations, Charities, Endowments, Church Property. . 107
VIII. -Peace..
111
IX.- Religion
.119
X.-Free Trade....
123
XI._Taxation
.129
-Communism
.134
XII.-A Paternal Government...
..141
....147
XIII.-The Age of Shams
Epilogue
.161


THE MOTHER COUNTRY:
OR,
THE SPADE, THE WASTES, AND THE ELDEST SON.
AN
Examination of the Condition of England.
BY
SIDNEY SMITH:
This is TRUE LIBERTY, WHEN FREE-BORN MEN,
HAVING TO ADVISE THE PUBLIC, MAY SPEAK OUT;
WHICH HE WHO CAN AND WILL, DESERVES HIGH PRAISE;
WHO NEITHER CAN NOR WILL, MAY HOLD HIS Peace.”
EURIPIDES.
LONDON:
WILLIAM S. ORR & CO., AMEN CORNER,
PATERNOSTER
ROW, and JOHN KENDRICK, 4, CHARLOTTE ROW,
MANSION HOUSE.
1849.


I


DEDICATION.
TO
BARON LIONEL ROTHSCHILD, M. P.
SIR,
With the progress of society has disappeared the custom of
Dedications. The public is the best patron of literature, and emanci-
pates the author from that dependance upon the favour of the great,
which degraded genius to the insincerity of adulation, and construed the
generosity of the liberal into the barter of gold for flattery.
Yet it would be unjust to the character of the age to impute to the
Corinthian capitals of the social fabric, an indifference to the humbler
elements of its architecture. The number of the private friends of the
man of letters, has not diminished in the ratio of the increase of his
general benefactors; and the customary prefatory acknowledgment which
the client may no longer want, may still be reserved for the less inter-
ested expression of his gratitude.
In return for much considerate kindness and many useful acts of
effective service, I have nothing to offer but this inadequate, though fer-
vent recognition of them; and I avail myself of this privilege of the press
-not in the hope that thanks can repay substantial obligation—but to
satisfy my own sense of the duty of this public acknowledgment.
It has been my good fortune to be permitted to be a gleaner in
that field of religious freedom, in which the great and the wise have
reaped the harvest of human progress and intelligence. If bigotry has
still left some stray ears to be gathered, and Christianity is yet dishon-
oured by the insensibility of its professors to the mildness of its spirit and
the catholicity of its charities, the cause of spiritual freedom has reason
to rejoice that in you it has found a representative of the rights of con-
science, in whom the purity of its principles. is sullied by no stain
upon its character, and the cogency of its claims is strengthened by the


DEDICATION.
eminence of your public station, and the unquestioned respectability
of a good and useful private life. That your abilities are equal to the
duties of the conduct of the most gigantic commercial system in the world,
is the best justification of the choice of your constituents.
In a work which treats of the accumulation and distribution of capi-
tal, I should miss the most striking illustration of their felicitous combi-
nation, did I fail to instance the history of your house. The man who,
by his skill and enterprise, produces what he possesses; who, in enrich-
ing himself, aggrandizes his country; and by his energy and assiduity
employs the labour and rewards the industry of his fellow citizens, sus-
taining, by the fertile resources of his brain, the life and comfort of
thousands of deserving families, establishes not only the clearest title to
the wealth which rewards his talents, but a just claim to the gratitude of
mankind. If, in asserting the rights of property, his benefactions prove
that he is alive also to its duties, to respect and defend him in the en-
joyment of his possessions, is best to maintain the fabric, and promote
the prosperity of society. No rank or title can add lustre to such a
station. Peers are but nati consumere fruges,-the contingent of re-
sources which the whole order of nobility supplies for the advancement
of the commerce, the promotion of the industry, the facilitation of the
intercourse, and the supply of the material wants of mankind, scarcely
exceeds that which is furnished by the stupendous establishment of
which you are the guiding element.
But in the very ratio of the importance of the position which the world
assigns to the great capitalist, is the danger of temptation to the abuse of
power. When the excitement of the hour has passed from the minds of
those whose generous sympathy with the struggles of liberty has, for the
moment, hurried them into forgetfulness of even higher principles, wise
men will do justice to those who in commerce, without being mercenary,
have been strictly commercial, and who have steadily refused to confound
the catholic and beneficent pursuits of the merchant, with the partial and
passionate influences of politics. Exalted as is your station, God forbid
that you should use your power to constitute yourself the arbiter of the
fate of nations. When the loan contractor shall become an exclusive
dealer; wh he shall look, not to his securities, but to his political pre-
dilections; when he shall presume to set up kings, or to put down par-


DEDICATION.
ties; when the private citizen shall venture to usurp the functions of the
rulers of the state of which he is the subject, and make war, shape con-
stitutions, ruin the solvency of kingdoms, decide the fortunes of factions in
foreign states by the breath that is in the nostrils of a single fallible mortal,
then capital will become a curse, credit a tyranny, and the liberties of na-
tions will become but the counters, against which wealth stakes its heaps.
To you the world looks for an example of the universal beneficence and
'peacefulness of commerce; of the compatibility of power with im-
partiality of blessing; of that moderation which can distinguish betwixt
the mercantile interests, and the public quarrels of states; of that prin-
ciple and sagacity which can steadily refuse to prostitute the functions
of the merchant to the purposes of politics. As the arts of peace can only
be safely pursued for the advantage of mankind by regarding money as a
commodity like iron or cloth, so the capitalist, like the manufacturer or
the trader, who shall set himself up as the judge, not of the security and
solvency, but of the morals of his customers, and shall hold himself
responsible, not only for fulfilment of his contracts, but for the purposes
to which his loans are applied, will become dangerous to the inde-
pendence of kingdoms, and the dictator of the standard of human virtue.
A reverence for freedom is not to be inspired by a differential duty, nor
sobriety to be increased by refusing to discount a distiller's bill. Muskets
will not be less deadly, because Birmingham ceases to make them, nor
will war come to an end, because Leeds or Manchester declines to
sell broad-cloth or calico to the colonels of marching regiments. It
would be a proud but a bad eminence, to which the possessor of millions
would be called, were he to wield the powers without any legal title to
the rights, or incurring the responsibilities of government; and the
friends of constitutional liberty would have reason to tremble for their
cause, were it possible to transfer to the hands of the private citizen the
prerogative of determining the destinies of nations. It is not by such
agencies that the divino spirit of humanity can spread the reign of peace
on earth, and good will among men. Capital is not the monitor of the
conscience, nor does virtue depend upon the rates of exchange. “The
people suffer when the prince offends”—but to retribute bankruptcy
upon a people for the sins of the sovereign, is a lesson in morals which
cannot tend to edification.


DEDICATION.
While I do not seek to identify your opinions with those which I have
sought to develop in the following pages, I know of no one whose autho-
rity could give them greater weight, or whose knowledge and experience
of the operation of the principles of which they treat, could enable him
to pass upon them a safer judgment. That they involve considerations
of the highest importance to the prosperity of the state, and to the pro-
gress of society, is a sufficient guarantee for their receiving from you the
patient investigation of a representative of the people, and your zealous
co-operation in the practical application of such of the doctrines they
expound as you may esteem calculated to promote the advantage of your
constituents.
I remain, Sir,
Your faithful and obliged Servant,
SIDNEY SMITH.
" Lord
His ye
bor dull
invent,
point th
If Mi
ours?
Lost, ti
was not
The b
Our 81
which
of the
of our
elegant
bounds
might
and foi
and we


PROLOGUE.
“Lords and Commons of England ! consider what nation whereof
it is ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation, not slow
nor dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to
invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any
point the highest that human capacity can soar to.”
If Milton could say this of his England, what may we not say of
ours ?
What were the highest flights of the fancy of the Paradise
Lost, to the solid fact of present British attainment? His very Satan
was not more omnipresent than our electric telegraph has made us.
The black art of his fallen angels was scarce so wonder-working as
our steam. We have achieved for ourselves the very promise with
which his Beelzebub tempted the Great Teacher. “ All the kingdoms
of the earth” are ours, viewed from the “exceeding high mountain”
of our power and greatness. Science, art, literature, intelligence, the
elegancies of life, and the comforts of civilization, wealth beyond the
bounds of human avarice, and a political and social supremacy which
might glut the ambition of even Lucifer's pride, all these are ours-
and for these, the Devil looks to see whether this nation “will fall down
and worship him," or, awakened from the intoxication of the gift, to
b 3


vi
PROLOGUE.
4
1
1
21
fidelity to the giver, will have strength of principle left to say, “Get
thee behind me, Sathanas !"
"Whoc could a man require more from a nation so pliant, and so
prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly
and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing
people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ?” We are
pliant, towardly, knowing. We are not prophets, sages, nor worthies,
as once we were. Logical, dexterous, ingenious, subtile, and piercing-
but we are in want of wise and faithful labourers. You are our
governors--but you have not governed us. You have ruled our for-
tunes, controlled our action, wielded our material destinies, shaped our
political course, fashioned our social system. But the mind and soul
of this people you have done little for-something even, against.
We complain of you, that you have used us but as a piece of living
matter. You have shaped the clay, but have not breathed into it the
breath of life. You have ordered us, in place of educating us. You
have made us for our institutions, in place of moulding our institutions
You have found a matrix, and melted us to the liquefaction of
its type. Your medieval architecture, and cricket, and sin of schism,
your bishops, and stereotyped creeds, and cast-metal prayers, and litur-
gies that make the Word of God of non-effect by your vain traditions,
your wearying heaven with calabash-ground prayers, as if you could be
heard for your much praying, and vain repetitions—there is little educ-
ing of the human spirit here. “ Where there is much desire to learn,
there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions;
for opinion, in good men, is but knowledge in the niaking. Under these
fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the zealous and earnest
for us.


PROLOGUE.
vii
thirst after knowledge and understanding, which God hath stirred up in
this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at; should
rather praise this forwardness among men to re-assume the ill-deputed
care of their religion into their own hands again." We cannot do with-
out leaders, for the world must be governed—is not fit to govern itself.
We do not want to dethrone our leaders, for, provided we are governed
well, we care little by whom-or rather, being fond of precedent, and
little given to gratuitous change, we would rather that we did not
change, if to let alone, were to let well alone.
But we must be led, and led forward, else we shall walk over our lea-
ders, and go on without leading. We pray you to mark that. Nor
can we be led back, or merely round. Life, either of persons, or of
nations, is a march-not “up the hill, and straightway down again."
Onward-each day to new ground, in different array, in a new order of
battle, a fresh tactic, a more modern style of marshalling.
Science has changed, art, literature, invention, trade, social structure,
material economy. Is it possible, if it were desirable, that classes,
orders, institutions, laws, constitution, political privilege, political power
should remain the same? It is said of the French noblesse, and priest-
hood, just before the access of the first revolution, and just when they felt
the first rumblings of the fast-coming all-devouring earthquake, that
they became religious all of a sudden.” They rushed to the churches,
they crowded the cathedrals, they hurried to confessional-beads were
counted, Friday was meagred, fasts and festivals kept, saints' days held,
as if they saw the walls of order falling, and could shove up the crumb-
ling masonry again to the perpendicular by their hands, and shoulders
with what success history has written in red ink. You, foo, we hear,


PROLOGUE.
ix
altered views change their very interpretation. Are you alone insensible
to the change?
In proportion as men are ignorant and savage, is tyranny absolate,
and submission slavish. Power, like everything else, is never idle, nor
unappropriated. An absolute dictator is the only possible government
of the barbarous—a theocracy is the appropriate thrall of superstition.
As more men become intelligent, and therefore powerful, they divide
government with the sovereign-but both king and nobles rule with an
iron hand, a people as yet unfit to govern themselves. As mankind
become more enlightened, the diffusion of power becomes inevitable-
when a nation are capable of becoming a law unto themselves, they
cease to suffer others to become a law unto them.
If we have arrived at that stage, is it not time that you had arrived at
a corresponding conviction ? “Old things have passed away, all things
have become new.” If you have found out that, have you also dis-
covered that the days of an aristocracy are numbered? This is not
revolution or if it be, it is the revolution of ages. The name of Duke,
Marquis, Earl, Baron, may remain the form may keep its shape-
but as we recede farther and farther from feudalism-as the commercial,
and trading, and money power becomes greater-as mortgages and debt,
close around the influence and pride of ancient families, and the need
and masterdom of capital, to consolidate authority become greater, the
mere retention of naked privileges, and an obsolete prestige, which are
fortified by no self-inherent political immunity and strength, can only
serve to bring the order into contempt.
An aristocratic hereditary order is now unnecessary to the purposes
of good government. Its concentric power, its compact executive


X
PROLOGUE.
energy, valuable to curb and consolidate the strength of, a semi-civilized
people, are now unnecessary—and what is superfluous, will not long
endure. An hereditary nobility, cannot exist as a distinct political
power in the state, without large fixed and permanent possessions.
Primogeniture and entail are indispensable to the existence of territorial
aristocracy; and the abolition of entail and primogeniture have become
essential to the well-being, and, ultimately, to the very salvation of
the state. The population of the peerage increases—its scions and slips,
and younger sons and daughters, have all to be provided for. They
have been quartered upon every department of the executive, but still
there are not nearly enough of places for them. To provide for them
has drowned the heads of the noble houses in debt. They must descend
lower and lower among the ordinary occupations of the people-ming-
ling their feelings, and combining their interests with the commonalty.
The prestige of the order must gradually melt away.
manufacturers, capitalists, tradesmen, growing richer and richer, will
swell into a class which will substantially transcend in influence and
power the hereditary peerage, until the nobility, nominally the second,
will become a third rate element of social influence. Dependent,
secondary, cringing to capitalists for loans, begging traders for time,
entering into joint adventures with merchants, clubbing resources with
trading houses for partnerships, it will become dangerous, it is always
dangerous, to intrust such a needy and trammelled class with irresponsi-
ble legislative powers for life. (Their vote will belong to, is too often even
now claimed by, those whom they dare not disoblige. They are no
longer socially predominant, and above and beyond the influences of
coercion and intimidation. They job in our unds, and dabble in our
Merchants
,
(


PROLOGUE.
xi
railways, and use their votes to squeeze good prices out of anxious
directors. As the necessities of their families increase, they must trim
their votes, and lodge their proxies in the direction of government
patronage. They can be no longer entrusted with the power of deciding
the fate of ministers, because they can no longer be independent, even
although they would.
Dare they forget the past, and look the future boldly in the face. Do
not they see that every new step in the world's progress demands a
change in institutions, and that feudality has had its day like other dogs,
and can no longer bite, however watchfully it may bark.-
« All that live must die
Passing through nature to eternity.'
All human institutions must pass away, with the causes which called
them into being. All forms of power must pass into new forms—all
the shapes of social influence must alter, as society, and thought, and
man become transformed. As the influence of intelligence, or material
power, of the spirit of christianity advances in the world, the ancient
classifications of mankind must be transmuted into a novel order.
Aristocracy is at an end over Europe-it cannot live alone in England.
Violence, force, disorder, revolution, even revolutionary but constitutional
agitation, will only embarrass and protract the change. It is the effect
of all violence to throw society back, in place of helping it forward-for
what is force, but barbarism ? '
- But to save us from violence, we must peaceably be led. Lords and
Commons of England, will you lead us ? Think that you are Christians,
more than you are peers. Think that you are men, as we are, and
that we have higher claims upon you, than your privileges and your.


PROLOGUE.
xiii
spoke, and his words were obeyed—and Olympus, and the Temple veil,
and Mars' Hill idols, Diana, and the most cherished of time-honoured
traditions, to which Norman ancestries are but as yesterday, all passed
away and perished.
Christ was the great reformer—the arch usurper, if you will—the
subverter—the revolutionist. Apis, Osiris, the Sphynx, Jupiter, Baal,
Rimmon, Odin, Thor, with his Druids and Monumental Oaks, the cloud
shadow of Gothic greatness, splendid, martial, grand, warlike, glorious
where are they all but crumbled in the dust, beneath the majestic spirit
of the gospel. These were all beautiful, were all needful in their time.
The rude earliest efforts of ignorant men to enkindle the religious
element in the soul in its gross material shapes—to govern the wild
passions of the barbarous by theocratic superstition—to awaken and en-
liven the love of country, the thirst for glory, the first shapeless aim
after immortal longings—“the times of this ignorance God winked
at—but now he calls upon all men everywhere to repent.” Feudal chiefs,
chivalries, ancient orders, Norman conquerors, lines of ancestry, his-
torical families,---must not these, too, yield to time and change, and that
cross which has not spared 'mightier things than these.
“The boast of heraldry, the
power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour
The path of glory leads but to the grave."
Eglinton tournaments will as soon bring back Cressy and Runnymede,
as cricket and painted windows, and white surplices, and medieval ar-
chitecture, will turn the hearts of mankind to your Anglican church, —
Nom
"All that's bright must fade, the fairest still the fleetest,
All that's sweet was made, to melt away when sweetest.”
pomp
of


xiv
PROLOGUE.
Do not think that we too “cannot remember such things were.” If the
progressive reformer would “wipe away all trivial fond records,” it is
not because he is insensible to the glories of the past, but because he
hears the peremptory call of the inexorable future.
“The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces
The solemn temples, the great globe itself;
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve.”
But man shall survive them all. His progressive spirit shall yet be
young, when the heavens themselves shall wax old as doth a garment.
You can no more make human society live within the forms of your old
constitutions, by keeping up feudal privileges and aristocratic families,
than you can bind its spirit to the faith of Thomas aʼBeckett, by keeping
Westminster Abbey in repair. The human race outlives all the forms of
governments-outgrows the wisest institutions. The human mind out-
strips the profoundest conceptions of statesmanship—the human soul
overleaps the most venerable churches—the human spirit reasons its way
beyond the most infallible of faiths.--Your litanies and liturgies, and ar-
ticles, and Act of Parliament stereotyped formal platitudes, chilling the
living aspirations of the heart in their way to the throne of the Hearer
and Answerer of prayer, these too have had their use when laymen could
not read, and even priests were ignorant and incapable, and bishops
feared that free inquiry and untrammelled thought might leave Canter-
bury in the lurch as well as Rome.
Open your eyes to all this. Float on a current which is too strong to
stem. Resign, with cheerfulness, what cannot be preserved without peril.
Ride on the whirlwind, and direct the storm. It is not the spirit of
innovation, but the essential requirements of society, which necessitate a


PROLOGUE,
XV
change. It is from no demagogue envy of rank and title, from no want
of reverence for the traditions of our history, from no absence of sympathy
with the glories of the past, that we point to the dangers which threaten
this noble kingdom, from this policy of adding field to field, of making
the poor poorer, and the rich richer. Here is a young marquis, the
heir of huge entailed estates. This does not content him. A countess in
her own right, entails a whole county on her line. These two come
together, and straightway the marquis rises to a duke, almost un-
bounded in his possessions. Even yet they are not satisfied. Their heir
of this Pactolus, hears of the neighbouring heiress of a conterminous
county. Another marriage, and a fresh entail, need but another heir,
already on the way, to concentrate on one worm of the dust the former
property of ten thousand yeomen, in a small island, teeming with thirty
millions of human beings, who increase at the rate of half a million per
annum. If you love nobility better than England, you will suffer this-
but England will not endure it-cannot. If you would know why-read
If you are wedded to your idols, shut the book—or burn it, lika
the Sybil'8—but think not that Fate will bate an atom of her hard terms.
As time flies, she will come to you again offering less, and exacting
If her prophetic fury wrings from her contortions, warnings
that are unheeded-at last she will return no more. When that dark
hour comes, the proudest of us will forget orders, and think only of
order-pray Heaven it be not then all too LATE.
on.
more.


INTRODUCTION.
CHAP. I.
WISE men, who love peace, sigh for security, and long for tranquillity
of heart, and the soul's quiet sunshine, begin to settle it as a fixed con-
viction, that these blessings are not to be found in any European country.
The very antiquity of the kingdoms of the old world, makes them, by
order of priority, the first in which the progress of society shall ne.
cessitate change, and force unsettlement. Beginning with the French
Revolution, the fierce passions of mankind have engaged them in a con-
tinual destruction of human life, a fatal interruption to the pursuits of
industry, devastations of property and territory which have carried ruin
and destitution to millions, and the dissipation of capital and resources
to an extent which has saddled nearly every kingdom with a hopeless
debt, which has to be ground out of the blood and bones of the masses,
and which has fearfully increased the relative value of money in its ex-
change for the fruits of skill and labour. Oligarchies and monarchies
sought to consolidate their power by a war with the democratic prin-
ciple; and the fruit has been the practical destruction of the very powers
which sought to establish themselves upon the subjugation of their
fellow creatures, through the continuance of that armed antagonism
which has been so well denominated, organized crime."
All Europe is one heaving mass of antipathies among classes. Peace
to the cottage, and war to the palace, again uplifts its hoarse throat
scream; and red republicanism, hand in hand with socialism, strives to
elevate spoliation into an infallible theory of society. We seem as yet to
be but at the beginning of a long reign of terror, insecurity, and social
distress. Commercial speculation cannot from day to day reckon upon
its returns. Fixed property, and vested capital, rush from blood heat
down to below zero, with every second edition,” or evening express.
A universal nervousness seizes mankind, and the enterprise upon which
labour is dependent for its very life, holds back its hand, afraid to make
the venture, in the face of so many fatal lessons. Thousands of the
middle classes, unequal to sustain the encounter of so many sources of
mental anxiety and agitation, are killed off by disease of the heart, or
congestion of a brain, unable any longer to hold out against so many
calls upon its firmness and resources and capitalists are glad to hazard
the chances of flying to ills they know not of, rather than endure any
longer the intolerable torture of bearing those they have.
b B


2
INTRODUCTION.
Another source of social inquietude, peculiarly English, aggravates in
this country the pressure on the energies and life-comfort of our middle
classes.
“No man, of aught he leaven, knows what it is to leave betimes.”
No room is made among us for the rising generation. We all stick to
business until our dotage. None of us know when we have enough.
Long after we have amassed a competency, we still drudge and slave,
adding field to field, and house to house. An establishment goes on
rearing story on story, putting wing to wing, department to department,
until it absorbs the profits and trade of fifty moderate concerns, and
forty-nine men have to stand starving, waiting for one dead man's shoes.
A lawyer allows himself now none of the elegant ease, the country retire-
ment of his library and his gardens, the assignment of his elder years to
the sublime pursuits of science and philosophy, which gave us the Utopia,
the Atalantis, the Novum Organon. So long as fees come to his withered
palm, he will keep all his brethren briefless, and use himself up in the
drudgery of gain getting. Doctors, merchants, tradesmen, bishops, and
deans, all hold on to the last. The capitalist will content himself with
three, or even two per cent, to the ruin of his poorer neighbour, who,
with smaller means, cannot even live without a higher return-until
money becomes a nuisance among us, and lays industry and intelligence
prostrate at its feet, to sell their brains and brow sweat for any pittance
he may chuck to them.
The laws of entail, primogeniture, and other accessories which have
consolidated estates, and consequently run farms together, have fearfully
aggravated this evil. One son gets a huge estate, and all his younger
brothers, who might have lived usefully in tilling their own landed in-
heritance, are driven into the towns to compete for the means of life with
the teeming crowds who are already there. The farmers, dispossessed of
their holdings by some huge agricultural monopolist, who swallows up
fifty smaller farms, are also driven to their wits' end--and the loss of
customers consequent upon the depopulation of the rural districts by
great lords, “who make a solitude and call it peace,” is rapidly extruding
the tradesmen from the rural villages and agricultural towns, and com-
pelling them to fly for bare life to the overgrown cities.
The state of the masses is heaping rates and local taxes upon the
middle and higher classes, already groaning under the burden of the
income and property imposts; while enterprise, in the direction either of
land purchases, or agriculture, is paralyzed by the dread of profits and
rents being swallowed up in the maintenance of paupers, and the sup-
pression of crime. Much as we esteem the genius, the intelligence, the
patriotism, the logical acuteness of those worthy citizens who press
forward economy, retrenchment, and reform, we have no sympathy with
their sneers at the precautions taken by the minister to suppress disorder,
and maintain the stability of England amid the howling waste of nations.
Nay, we must express our regret at the ungenerousness of those who,
having no responsibilities to encounter, criticize the caution of the
executive, but have no sympathy with the perils of the nation, and the


INTRODUCTION.
3
watchful prudence of its rulers, who have carried us through the most
trying period of our history,
“ Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds."
We may jeer the firemen who use a huge engine to put out a little fire ;
it may, indeed, go out of itself, but it may also reach a height which may
burn down the whole city. The labouring poor are not the less dis-
contented, the less formidable, the less perfect in their organization of
mischief, in Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and Manchester, and Norwich, and
Nottingham, and London, because we choose to shut our eyes to the
hazard in which even a causeless panic may place the value of property.
Nor will Irish sympathizers become less dangerous by weakening the
hands of power in making light of our calamity, “and scoffing when
our fear cometh.” “ The cause of this effect-or, rather, of this defect-
for this effect defected comes by cause,” is too palpable and pregnant to
escape the conclusion, that it must have its natural results. Three mil-
lions and a half-of paupers cannot long ferment in the very bosom of
society, without brewing mischief. The masses are miserable, and will
soon insist on knowing why.
These various considerations are sinking deep into the ruling thoughts
of thoughtful men. It might well appal the unmeditative to hear the
back parlour language of hundreds of our chiefest citizens, and reputed
most prosperous merchants. Their anxiety to get out of business, to
escape while they have something left, to remove even while they are
prosperous and thriving from a country in whose stability they begin to
lose confidence, is one of the most alarming signs of the times, and forms
the secret of the extraordinary European demand for American se-
curities. Where, formerly, the penniless peasant pauper alone thought
of emigrating, may now be observed the small farmer, the little trades-
man, the sons of the great merchant, even the slips of our nobility. The
sea is swarming with emigrant ships, cabin passengers, and cargoes of
capital. The country becomes drained, not only of her material, but of
her social resources; and while upwards of a quarter of a million of
British subjects annually take fright and then flight, they find them.
selves joined on the ocean or at the port of debarkation by even greater
numbers of substantial Germans, and Dutch, and Swiss, and French.
We cannot, we do not blame them; we think them wise in their gene-
ration to accept of the smaller certainties of migration, rather than to
abide the larger but more hazardous contingences of home revival and
success. We think they display a sagacious foresight in resolving to
emancipate themselves from the thraldom of Old World convention. It
is fashionable with economists to welcome the increase of luxury among
us. They forget that its indulgence only makes us greater slaves. We
have to toil harder to coinmand it; we have to remain longer in business
to maintain our increased expenses; we have to exclude younger men
from their fair share in the chances of success; we only surround our-
selves with greater artificial wants, and thereby increase our chances of
discomfort, from the added risks of being deprived of them. We have not
1
b B2


4
INTRODUCTION.
W
been watchful of the wise precept, “Have not what you do not want, lest
you may want what you cannot have." We forget the worldly wisdom
of those brave old philosophers who discovered that the richest man was
he who had fewest wants; who expounded the precious truth, quantum
vectigal sit in parsimonia, and who proclaimed their intrepid inde-
pendence in the boast-omnia mea mecum porto-'my hat covers my
property! We do not reflect that a suburban villa in the place of the
parlour over the shop, means more rent and taxes—that carpets and
sideboards, and silver plate, we would never have known the want of, is
had never had them--that our own extravagance spreads to our
wives, and sons, and daughters, and clerks, and shopmen, and customers
-and that they have all to be paid for in larger salaries, longer bills, and
fifty millions of bad debts per annum. We are more luxurious without
being substantially richer in surplus income-we are more anxious,
and must be more competitive, without being happier.
Let us not despise the wisdom of the man who seeks to withdraw him-
self from all this—to lie harder that he may sleep sounder-to serve
himself in security, rather than be served with a struggle to find the
wages of the servant. But we need more than one sluice for depletion,
While we bid God speed to those for their own sakes who meditate the
step of emigration, we must not forget to inquire into the causes which
have enforced its necessity, or to provide for the relief of those who re-
main behind. If it be a crime to despair of one's country, it is a greater
to witness her struggles, and to do nothing to relieve them. Ours is still
the foremost land in all the world, and rightly ruled will rise to a height
far beyond that which she has ever reached. In one view it is almost
scarcely to be regretted that we have been misgoverned. Hitherto we
have neither possessed the virtue nor intelligence to use as not abusing
the material greatness of which we are capable. Lightly taxed, purely
and honestly governed, wisely adjusted in our economical arrangements,
we might, by this time, have used up all our advantages, without pos-
sessing the steady head to look without giddiness from the height we
might have reached, or the well nerved hand to hold even the full cup of
our prosperity. “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Perhaps it has
subdued us to a more sympathetic temper-teaching the great the duty
of studying and cherishing the poor, and leading us all to cultivate the
humanities. It is well that we have yet many spare remedies for our
evils, which we have not exhausted. Oppression has at least this com-
pensating mercy--it enables us to enjoy with a keener relish the jubilee
of our relief--and perhaps it is wisely ordered by providence that there
should be an adjustment of our blessings to our capacity for making a
right use of them, and that we are no longer misgoverned than until we
deserve to be governed better, and are enabled worthily to apply the
advantages we achieve.
But the time seems to have arrived when, having outgrown our insti-
tutions, and reached a point of progress and intelligence which renders a
perseverance in an antiquated course of policy pernicious and dangerous,
it becomes essential that we should carefully review our whole position,
and resolutely address ourselves to th task of adopting large radical and
wholesome healing measures. Neither the people nor the age can await


HOME COLONIZATION.
5
the resolution of the cunctatory doubts of hesitative statesmanship.
The
world is out of joint, and may not brook any delay in setting it right.
Our people have been crushed wholesale out of existence—the welfare of
qur middle classes is in peril--the masses are uneasy and discontented.
“ The winter is passed, the summer ended-we are not saved.” “Let
us work while yet it is day, for the night cometh in which no man can
work.” We call all to hasten to the rescue, and to forget class dis-
tinctions and party prejudices, in the presence of a common danger. We
do not think so meanly of our nobility as to believe that they would not
even sacrifice their own order to save their country. We will not judge
so uncharitably of the masses as to suppose them insensible to sympathy
and kindness. We shall have occasion to call upon the former to make
large but essential sacrifices of their feudal privileges. But we believe
that they feel human nature to possess claims which are paramount to
patents of nobility; and what is necessary to the prosperity of the whole,
will be ungrudgingly conceded by every section of the social body.
CHAPTER I.
1
HOME COLONIZATION.
It is a fair ground of exception to any scheme of Emigration, that we
have not only idle labourers but idle lands, which have only to be brought
together, to relieve the one, and to enrich both. Indeed, Home Coloni-
zation is a condition precedent to foreign migration ; a condition which
has never yet been fulfilled. There are, besides 15,871,463 acres of our
home territory incapable of cultivation, no fewer than 15,000,000 acres
capable of improvement, which are at present lying absolutely waste,
viz. :-
In England..
Wales
Scotland.
Ireland
British Islands
13,454,000
530,000
5,950,000
.4,900,000
166,000
15,000,000
These, even at their present value, yield a return of £5,000,000, and
might, with great ease be made to contribute to the support of the
labourer and the profit of the capitalist, at least £15,000,000, an increase
quite sufficient to defray the expense of supporting our whole pauper
population.
The returns for the year ending 25th March, 1849, exhibit a sum total
of £7,941,778, expended in the shape of poor rates in the three king-
doms and of 3,561,382 paupers relieved. Why should these be a bur-
den on the community, and beat down the wages of the industrious,
when it is obvious that for each pauper there are nearly five acres of idle
b B 3


6
HOME COLONIZATION.
but cultivable land, clamouring for the spade, and needing only his skill
and labour to make it fruitful ? There is abundance of land at this mos
ment, yielding good crops, which is less naturally productive than much
that is lying entirely waste. What should hinder our Unions and gov-
ernment from establishing families upon these wastes, and making them
yield an increase? What might not draining, and manure, and ditches
and enclosures do for them ? Above all what might not be expected from
spade husbandry, deep trenching, and the extirpation of weeds? If, un-
der the allotment system, labourers can afford to pay 20s., 30s., 50s., 70s.
an acre for land, and compete with each other to get it, what might they
not do if they got land at a nominal rent, and in sufficient quantity to
keep them in constant employment ? Are we to be told it does not pay
to improve such land? Our answer is, that there is nothing to pay,
the plan be rightly gone about. It is not even necessary, in the first in-
stance, to erect cottages on the soil to be improved. Shepherd's houses,
which go on wheels, and resemble the wagons used for shows at country
fairs, are better habitations than many of the peasantry at present possess,
and might be drawn from place to place, as sections became improved,
and permanent dwellings became erected. Paupers cost nothing more in
these wagons than in the workhouse, and in this new employment there
is presented the best workhouse test. If a man cannot dig, he can break
stones for new roads, or he can weed, or hoe, or plant. So can his wife
and children, because there are simple operations to be performed about
a farm which any body may easily effect. When paupers apply for relief,
that is evidence that the supply of labour in the district exceeds the
demand. But by the absurd law of settlement, a family can only be
relieved in the parish where there are too many families already, and if
they remove to where they are more wanted, they lose the right to be
maintained unless they go back again. The cultivation of waste lands
would relieve the glut in the labour market whenever it was indicated by
applications for support. The paupers, in place of being retained in a
locality which is already over populated, would be drafted off to the
wastes, and at once become useful and productive, at no greater cost than
if they were saddled upon their original parish.
It is well known that the Swedish and Norwegian armies are made to
return part of the cost of their maintenance by being quartered on gov-
ernment farms, and under their officers, in regular gradations, made to
execute all agricultural operations, under a system of discipline. Some
such arrangement might, with great advantage, be applied to pauper
labourers on waste lands, who might, by energetic supervision, be com-
pelled to eschew that skulking strategy which made the employment of
labourers in Ireland degenerate into a farce. Task work might be use.
fully introduced, coupled with gratuities for diligence; and industry and
good conduct might be rewarded by settling well-doing families on the land
they had improved, at a small perpetual ground rent, sufficient to return
the expences of their previous maintainance, and the purchase money
of the soil in its unimproved state. We are no advocates of a large colony
of five or ten acre farms. Every population must be officered. The capi-
talist must be planted beside the labourer. We would have farms of all
sizes in each locality, so that the capitalist might have labour when he


HOMB COLONIZATION.
9
establishment. In the cow-house the cattle are supplied with straw for
bedding; the dung and moisture are carefully collected in the tank;
the ditches had been secured to collect materials for manure; the dry
leaves, potato tops, &c., had been collected in a moist ditch to undergo
the process of fermentation, and heaps of compost were in course of pre-
paration. The premises were kept in neat and compact order, and a
scrupulous attention to a most rigid economy was everywhere apparent.
The family were decently clad, none of them were ragged or slovenly,
even when their dress consisted of the coarsest material.
“In the greater part of the flat country of Belgium the soil is light and
sandy, and easily worked; but its productive powers are certainly inferior
to the general soil of Ireland, and the climate does not appear to be
superior. To the soil and climate, therefore, the Belgian does not owe his
superiority. The difference is to be found in the system of cultivation,
and the forethought of the people. The cultivation of small farms in
Belgium differs from the Irish : 1. in the quantity of stall-fed stock
which is kept, and by which a supply of manure is regularly secured;
2. in the strict attention paid to the collection of manure, which is skil-
fully husbanded; 3. by the adoption of rotations of crop. We found no
plough, horse, or cart-only a spade, fork, wheelbarrow, and hand-
barrow. The farmer had no assistance besides that of his family. The
whole land is trenched very deep with the spade. The stock consisted of
a couple of cows, a calf or two, one or two pigs, sometimes a goat or
two, and some poultry. The cows are altogether stall-fed, on straw,
turnips, clover, rye, vetches, carrots, potatoes, and a kind of soup made
by boiling up the potatoes, peas, beans, bran, cut hay, &c. which, given
warm, is said to be very wholesome, and promotive of the secretion of
milk. Near distilleries, and breweries, grains are given.
“Some sma!l farmers agree to find stall room and straw for sheep, and
furnish fodder at the market price for the dung. The dung and moisture
are collected in a fosse in the stable. Lime is mingled with the scour-
ings of the ditches, vegetable garbage, leaves, &c. On six acre farms,
plots are appropriated to potatoes, wheat, barley, clover, flax, rye,
carrots,
turnips, or parsnips, vetches, and rye, as green food for cattle. The flax
is heckled and spun by the wife in winter; and three weeks at the loom
in spring, weaves up all the thread. In some districts every size, from a
quarter acre to six acres, is found. The former holders devoted their
time to weaving. As far as I could learn, there was no tendency to sub-
division of the small holdings. I heard of none under five acres, held by
the class of peasant farmers; and six, seven, or eight acres, is the
more common size. The average rent is 20s. an acre. Wages 10d. a
day:
A small occupier, whose farm we examined near Ghent, paid £9. 7s. 6d.
for six acres, with a comfortable house, stabling, and other offices at-
tached, all very good of their kind—being 20s. an acre for the land, and
£3 78. 6d. for house and offices, This farmer had a wife and five
children, and appeared to live in much comfort. He owed little or
nothing."
Mr. Nathaniel Kent of Fulham, in his "Hints to Gentlemen of Landed
Property,” states, so far back as 1775, in reference to the “ Austrian


10
HOME COLONIZATION.
Netherlands,' that the state of that country is a proof “that agriculture,
when it is thrown into a number of hands, becomes the life of industry,
the source of plenty, and the fountain of riches to a country; but that
grasped into a few hands, it must dishearten the rest, lessen produce, and
tend to general poverty.
“Small farms let everywhere for at least 15 per cent. more than large
farms; the former affording this difference, by being worked by the
tenants themselves, by greater frugality, and by little advantages of which
large farmers will not stoop to avail themselves. Where small farms are
destroyed, we see a vast number of families reduced to poverty, the poor
rates increased, the small articles of provision reduced in quantity, and
raised in price, and the population reduced wholesale to the state of day
labourers.
“The mechanic and manufacturer next feel the blow. The market
wears a different face. The vast number of poultry, the quantity of
pork, and a variety of other small articles of provision, are no longer
supplied in their former abundance. The great farmer raises no more of
those than are necessary for his own consumption, because his wife and
children will not take the trouble and care of them, or condescend to
attend the market. He must neglect many small objects-and many
trifles added together make a large deficiency.
“ The case is different on a small farm. It behoves the tenant here to
make the most of every thing : it lies under his eye at all times; he
seizes all minute advantages, cultivates every obscure corner, accumu-
lates more manure in proportion to his land, and has a greater pro-
portion of animal as well as vegetable produce. He does his work with
his own hands more cheerfully, diligently, and zealously than for another.
His wife and children are of great service to him, especially in the
dairy."
“If these places were in greater plenty, farms would not be let at their
present exorbitant terms; while farms are few in number, people being
in absolute want of them, must give whatever is asked.”
The admirable work of Mr. Blacker demonstrates that the present
condition of Ireland is the result of the ignorance and misgovernment of
the people, and not of small farms. He gives case upon case of small
farms highly rented, on which the tenantry, by being put upon a proper
method of farming, rotation of crops, but above all of stall feeding,
have paid all arrears, met their rent punctually, and established them-
selves in comfort. He estimates the cost of keeping one horse at
£20 8s. 2d., considers two required for fifty acres, or £40 16s. 4d., which,
reckoning the existing wages at sixpence per diem, is equal to the sub-
sistence and employment of five labourers, or twenty-five persons. “All
small farmers ought to use the spade; it costs little more, does thé
business better, the crop is better. In all drill crops he may put in
a quicker succession of crops, and have one coming forward as the other
is ripening. In wet seasons he can dig when he cannot plough, and
its value in turning stiff clay lands, can scarcely be imagined.”
Among his tenants, "Greer holds 8 acres-rent £7 14s. 6d.; has
four cows, two calves, as much dairy produce as well supplies his family,
and spares as much as brings him in £11 4s, clear." Bruce “holds


HOME COLONIZATION.
11
eight acres, three cows, and a horse-sold £9 of butter, besides supplying
the family. This will more than pay his rent, and leave him the rest of
the produce besides.” Whittle keeps two cows, two heifers, and a horse
on 7 acres. Parks 41 acres, rent £4 9s. 2d., feeds two cows; after pro-
viding for family, got £7 for his butter. Thompson 11 acres, three
cows, a heifer, and a horse. Ingram twenty-three acres, rent £25., seven
cows, two heifers, one calf, two horses; sold £30 worth of butter, has
900 stacks of excellent oats, one acre of flax. I could make four times
my rent off my farm.” All these persons were in great prosperity, their
land in fine heart, and their manure abundant by stall-feeding. A host
of other cases are given by Mr. Blacker, which establish, beyond all
question, the superior productiveness, economy, and success of small
farms, as a means of supporting in comfort the greatest number of per-
sons upon a given quantity, and of yielding the largest and surest rent to
the landowner.
In England the same result is quite as fully realized. The “Philan-
thropic Magazine,” for May, 1828, instances the case of a poor York-
shireman, with fourteen children, who on three acres and a half of gra-
velly soil, and an old cottage at 50s. rent, maintained himself and family
in comfort, paid an advance of £10 in yearly rent, rebuilt his cottage,
and purchased the fee-simple of the holding out of the profits. Another,
with six children, began with renting one acre, saved the purchase money
of nine acres, and realized £1,500. A third paid 40s. an acre rent for
four acres, raised four tons of carrots on a quarter of an acre, with which
he paid his rent, feeding his pigs on the tops. A fourth refused £13 13s
for the produce of half an acre.
Sir Henry Vavasour instances a cottier tenant of his “who rented
three acres of land; his stock consisted of two cows and two pigs; he
cultivated his land with the assistance of his wife and daughter, twelve
years old, at their over hours. They subsisted on their daily wages at
other labour; paid their rent by the sale of their butter only; and were
in the habit of saving £30 a year out of the produce of the sale of their
crops.” Mr. Howard, of Melbourne Farm, had a tenant, who, at his
over hours, aided by his family, cultivated one acre and a quarter, includ-
ing the site of his cottage and fences. The land was at first so poor that
it was not considered worth 5s. an acre rent; in a few years, however,
care and industry had improved it so much that it yielded a crop worth
£10 17s. This poor man, before he had any land, had the greatest dif-
ficulty in maintaining his wife and three children. His family now in-
creased to seven children, and even his health became indifferent, yet
with his acre and a quarter of, originally, the poorest land, a cow, and a
pig, he maintained and brought up his increased family in comfort, with-
out requiring parish relief.”
Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke reports of his allottees in Northampton-
shire, that “they pay their rent with ease, and purchase decent clothing
and furniture-their allotments being in general, but one acre, half an
acre, or a quarter of an acre, according to what hands they have got to
cultivate; and thus are they enabled to rear and educate their families
however numerous, without so much as the apprehension of ever having
to apply for parish relief. For, additional mouths being thus accompa-


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HOME COLONIZATION.
nied by additional profitably employed hands, the balance is kept even,
or rather inclined in favour of the numerous families ; as, where there is
a garden, a cow, and pigs, children, who had else been burdensome to
their parents, or the parish, can be made useful at a very early age. In
no one instance has he found the allotment system fail."
At the Moor, near Malton, patches of five or six acres, let out to las
bourers, have raised them to comfort and independence; and so elevated
their morals and self respect, that pauperisın among them has almost
disappeared. Even boys of twelve years of age, tenants of Mr. Smith,
of Southern Warwickshire, on lots of one-fifteenth of an acre easily
paid him £5 an acre rent, and supplied fifteen families with abundance
of vegetables. So much has the cultivation improved the habits of the
boys, that though, previously, they were without anything better to do
than loiter about the streets, they are all now in full employ for daily
hire, and perform the work of their allotments at over hours; while, so
great is their pride and pleasure in their plot of land, that every weed and
insect is extirpated, and the crop is carefully watered whenever the
droughts are too continuous."
In Snettisham, Norfolk, the cottagers, whose lots have been absorbed
into large farms, have become pauperized, while all who have retained
them, have also preserved their independence. In Abringdon Pigots,
Cambridgeshire, even the common right to graze a cow saved the poor
from the union; while the result of depriving them of access to land, has
been to raise the poor rates enormously. In Shottisbrook, Bucks, while the
cottagers had a field and orchard at a fair rent, not a single pauper was
on the books; but on a change of owners depriving them of their hold-
ings, the rates rose to 3s. in the pound. At North Creek, near Burnham,
Norfolk, according as the cottagers, from being deprived of the use of
land, were obliged to give up their cows, the poor rate advanced from
1s. 9d. to 3s., and then to 6s, in the pound, till only two labourers re-
mained independent, by the tenancy of two acres, at 30s. an acre. These
two reared eleven children without relief, while for all the dispossessed
families, an allowance was required of 2s. per week for each child.
Lord Brownlow, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Duke of Nor-
thumberland, the Marquis of Stafford, the Earl of Beverley, Lord Car-
rington, Lord Stanhope, Sir John Rushout, Sir John Swinburne, Burden,
of Castle Eden, Babington, of Rothley Temple, and a host of others,
have submitted the experiment to extensive practice, and with such suc-
cess, that while a higher rent is charged, it is better paid, and parish
relief is diminished wherever these small holdings prevail.
Indeed, it stands to reason that in the existing circumstances of this
country, small holdings are essential to the regeneration of agriculture. An
extensive series of experiments of the comparative merits of plough and
spade husbandry, has proved to demonstration, the superiority of the
latter. Mr. Falla, of Gateshead, obtained, by the plough, thirty-eight
bushels of wheat per acre ; by the spade sixty-eight bushels and a half.
At Sherborne, in Warwickshire, Frederick Harris, a farm labourer, pro-
duced by the spade, sixteen bushels and a half of wheat, in 1834, on one
quarter of an acre, being at the rate of sixty-six bushels per acre.
Gedney, of Redenhall, near Harleston, holder of 300 acres, beginning
Mr.


HOME COLONIZATION.
13
with eighteen acres, increased his spade cultivation to fifty acres, encou-
raged by the luxuriant crops of all kinds of which it is the result; at a
cost for thorough digging, twelve inches deep, and pulverizing the subsoil,
and ridging it, of only £2 per acre. “ The pressure,” he observes, of
the plough in moist weather, frequently glazes the bottom of the furrows,
and prevents the passing off the water, the retention of which, in the
mould, which is intended for the reception of seed on heavy soils, is too
frequently succeeded by scanty crops, especially when sown with barley.
Deep forking brings up fresh soil for the young clover plants.” By this
method the allotment tenants of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, accord-
ing to his Lordship’s authority, “obtain produce to the amount of from
£16 to £20 an acre.' “ Their gardens act as a saving's bank for labour,
by securing the immediate employment of small spare portions of time
which would otherwise escape imperceptibly from their grasp, like savings
which are not placed, as soon as made, beyond the risk of being used
needlessly and improvidently.” “Spade husbandry," observes Dr.
Yelloly, “is not a system of expense or risk. Less capital is necessary
for it than ordinary husbandry, from the smaller number of horses and
implements required, while the advantages are speedily exhibited. Its
tendency is to diminish the poor rates, while it raises the amount of the
labourer's remuneration, and makes it dependent on steady habits of in-
dustry. By turning up or loosening the ground five or six inches deeper
than the plough goes, there is an opportunity afforded for the descent
and diffusion of the roots, which are often interrupted in their progress
by a hard and impervious subsoil; and with regard to wheat, I have
observed that the number and length of the roots, are much more con-
siderable in forked than in ploughed land: and the continual addition of
decomposed matter afforded by a succession of rooty fibres, must effect a
great and permanent improvement in its productive powers."
Mr. Feargus O'Conaor moderately estimates the keep of each horse at
£25. Its life, at the working age, is worth not more than seven year's
purchase, which, on a value of, say £35 is £5 per annum. Then its
shoeing, harness, plough, and harrow tackle, implements required for
horse husbandry, medicine and other expenses, can scarcely be taken at
less than £5 more, or £35 in all. In many English farms four horses are
used in ploughing—but take the number for fifty acres at only two, and
the services of a man to hold, and a boy to drive, the one at 78., the other
3s. 6d. per week, or 10s. 6d. in all, and we have her £96 13s., or we máy
safely say £100 in all for tilling fifty acres. This is equal to the wages of
nearly six labourers at 7s. per week, and as land can be let for digging at
£2 per acre, or £100 for fifty acres, it is clear that there is actually as
great economy in spade as in horse labour, besides feeding men in pre-
ference to brutes, and receiving a much more productive crop. Or to
try the calculations by another method. Sir John Sinclair reports as the
result of experiments, that a labourer can dig an acre in twenty days,
which at 313 working days, is as nearly as possible 16 acros in the year,
or 96 acres for six labourers' work. “A spade,” well observes Mr.
O'Connor, can be had for a few shillings, will find its way anywhere,
up hills, between rocks, where a plough cannot be used.” The ground
is made more level, the ceed more evenly covered, and therefore more
C C


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HOME COLONIZATION.
66
evenly ripened, not disturbed by horses' feet, weeds are better extirpated
by being effectually buried or taken up; and for thorough pulverization
“what is equal to a slap with the back of a spade ?"
The Bishop of Bath and Wells' soil was waste land, for which he got a
rent of 40s. an acre from spade husbandmen. The effect of these allot-
ments was, Ist. That the tenants at once ceased to be a burden on the
rates. 2nd. That their character greatly improved. 3rd. That not one
of them was ever taken before a magistrate. 4th. That the land was
greatly improved. 5th. That the demand for allotments became univer-
sal. 6th. That the system was extended by the Bishop to the wastes even
of the Mendip hills ; and the plan successfully adopted by all the neigh-
bouring gentry.
The parish of West Looe, Cornwall, allotted their waste (22 acres) at
20s. an acre, and so succeeded that they let 22 acres more. 'I went
over the land," observes Captain Chapman, “and found it in excellent
condition. The effect on the poor rate has been a diminution from 103.
to 3s. ; but the moral effect upon the poor is beyond calculation."
The high authority of Sir John Sinclair, founder of the Board of
Agriculture, in favour of the reclamation of waste lands by the spade,
and of small holdings, is supported by him with sufficing reasons.
“In early ages of society," he well remarks, “when oxen and horses
were cheap, when they were fed at little or no expense, when their stables
were little better than miserable hovels, when the wages of ploughmen
were low, and when labourers were not sufficiently numerous for carrying
on extensive cultivation by manual labour, it is not to be wondered at
that the invention of the plough should be accounted a valuable dis-
covery. But now horses are dear, their accommodation and food ex-
pensive, the implements of husbandry are costly, while labourers are
abundant and their wages low." 6 For porous soils, which have been so
highly cultivated by the small farmers of Flanders,” manual labour is
sufficient for the production of abundant crops,
" and turns up the ma-
nure which falls below the depth of the plough. The cost is not great,
being in Flanders 26s. an acre, 18 inches deep, 325. on strong lands, and
56s. for trenching two feet deep. For hilly land, which would cut up
horses severely, without ploughing effectually, the spade prepares hori-
zontal ridges which would retain the soil better in heavy rains. Trenching
is by far the most effectual method for reclaiming rugged wastes, deepening
soils, removing roots, and stones, mixing the various substances ofthe soil to-
gether, correcting inequalities of surface, and bringing the lands spee-
diest into cultivation. In the end it is the cheapest, two crops repaying
the cost; 20,000 acres in Aberdeenshire, and as much more in other
counties, have been thus reclaimed, stripped of weeds, and made very
fertile.” Sterile and stony waste lands in Forfarshire, and soils of a re-
tentive bottom, have, by trenching, produced, not only heavy grain
crops, but clover, potatoes, carrots, and other deep rooted plants. Mr.
Wardel, of Parkhall, Stirlingshire, thus trenched the wild common at
£9 an acre, and produced the finest turnips in the county, on land which
scarcely yielded a blade of grass. Mr. Portman, of Dorsetshire, re-
claimed and rendered highly productive his wastes at a cost of only £6 an
" Mr. Allison, of Glassnock, Ayrshire, by that means improved
acre.


HOME COLONIZATION.
15
66
bog of so soft a quality that horses could not be borne on it. The ex-
pense of delving the first year was £3, second year 358., including the
expense for carrying off the water. Four farms thus improved, let at
eight times their original rent." Mr. Warden, in 1817, trenched his
land, took three heavy crops without any manure, and laid it down in
fine pasture. Plantations may thus be planted with potatoes, greatly to
the advantage of tho trees. Mr. Warden had a field of ten acres so in-
fested with weeds and stones, that the plough entirely failed. After being
trenched at £9 an acre, it let for £14 an acre, yielded an abundant crop
of wheat next year,
and completely buried the weeds. Mr. Falla, by the
plan of taking two short spits, of five or six inches, was enabled to em-
ploy girls and old men in trenching at 33s. an acre. Thus,” continues
Sir John Sinclair, “women, boys, girls, and feeble old men, who are a
useless burden on the community, and whose existence is miserable from
inaction, may be employed in the cultivation of the soil. By this means
many of those miserable objects who are now pent up in workhouses
doing nothing, might be enabled to earn a maintenance ; and if such a
measure were generally adopted, there cannot be a doubt that the poor-
rates in England, might be considerably reduced.” He recommends the
assignment of small holdings to labourers working by the piece, road
makers, carriers, millers, country mechanics—to weavers to relieve their
sedentary occupation, to fishers who cannot go to sea in bad weather,
and the poor of villages and small towns, for milk, vegetables, health,
and as a stimulus to the collection of manure.
The cottage farmer, the tenant of Sir Henry Vavasour, drew up the
following statement of his profit and expenditure, on a three acre farm,
cultivated by the spade.
Produce
Value. A. R. F.
240 Bushels of potatoes
£24 0 2
60 Bushels of carrots
6 0 1
5 quarters of oats at 44s. per quarter
11
0 3 20
4 loads of clover, part hay, part cut green
12 1 0 10
Turnips
1 0 0 20
In garden stuffs for family, viz., beans, peas, cabba-
ges, leeks, &c.
0 0 0 30
£54
3 0 0
Deduct.
Rent, including house ..
Seeds, &c.
Value of labour
£. S.
9 0
3 0
10 10
£22 10.
Profit, exclusive of butter, if sold at market ... £31 10s.
“ It is,” continues Sir John Sinclair,“ almost incredible what two able
industrious labourers will perform in a year for only 10s. per week, or
£26 per annum each. The original price of horses, their annual decay,
the accidents to which they are liable, the cost of implements, the bills
CC2


HOME COLONIZATION.
17
proved their influence to be too powerful for the cries of nature, and the
requisitions even of obvious social duty. It is easier and less trouble-
soine for a land agent to collect rent twice a year from five large farmers,
than four or six times from fifty cottiers. The books are less compli-
cated ---the accounts for repairs come within a smaller compass. It is
part of our case that the farmers object to the small tenant system.
Their very plea is that small holdings render labourers too independent,
and the supply of hands scarce. It is in this very effect that we centre
the chief excellence of the system. It is nothing to tenants that labour-
ers come upon the rates. That keeps down wages, and rates tend only
to the depreciation of rent, as a burden upon the land. The Duke of
Northumberland gave up his small tenantries expressly at the instance of
the farmers, on the declared ground that they could not get hands to
work for them at reasonable wages. When peasants cease to beg for
leave to work, then is the condition of the masses in its best state, and the
country most secure from disorder and distress. Then are poor rates at
their minimum, and in fair process of entire extinction. We would
smother the sceptical with facts, as Tarpeia was by the bucklers of the
Gauls. We pray our countrymen to-
“Hear us for our cause, and be silent that they may hear."
The parish of Cholesbury, in Buckinghamshire, was entirely occupied
by two large farmers. Fertile, populous, within forty miles of the me-
tropolis, its cultivators, notwithstanding, fell behind. There were 139
inhabitants in the parish, but only two had an inch of the soil. Was not
this civilization run mad ? Was it not a glaring and staring evidence of
the monstrous abuse of the principle of private property, that only one
man out of 69 tillers of the ground, should have exclusive occupation of
the earth, which God made common to all, and the appropriation of
which can only be palliated upon the clearest proof of public advantage ?
What was the consequence of this beau ideal of politico-economical ar-
rangement ? Simply this--out of the 139 inhabitants, 119 were pau-
pers. The land monopolists became bankrupt, the parson got no tithes, -
the landlord's acres were in rapid course of being eaten up with rates,
and the whole property of the parish being unable to feed the inhabit-
ants, a rate in aid had to be levied on the neighbouring parishes, which
were rapidly degenerating into the same state. The Labourer's Friend
Society came to the rescue. They leased the land at a fair rent. They
parcelled it out among the very worst class of persons upon whose habits
to hazard the result of such an experiment. Some got five, some ten
acres, according to the size of their families; and what was the effect ?
At the end of four years the number of paupers had diminished from 119
to 5, and these were persons disabled from old age or disease-these pau-
pers afforded to pay a rate in aid to the neighbouring parishes--and it
was found that every one of them were in a state of independence and
comfort, each had a cow, many two or three, to which some added a
horse, others some oxen ready for the market, and all had pigs and poul-
try in abundance. No experiment could be more severe than this. Per-
sons once degraded to the condition of paupers, lose self respect, the love
of independence, the spirit of self help. One of the chief arguments
с с 3


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against the small farm system is, that although it is plausible in theory,
yet it will fail, because the poor are not fit to be their own masters, and
will not work for themselves as they would do, when compelled by the
necessity of earning wages. Indeed, this argument is not without weight,
and may suggest the expediency of not reducing the whole land in any
district to uniform small sub-divisions; but of interspersing farms of dif-
ferent sizes, so that the poor may be officered by the vicinity and example
of the rich. But this narrative proves that the Saxon peasantry of this
country are fit to be their own masters; and that even the worst class of
them only require the stimulus and opportunity of circumstances, to
rouse them to exertion, self command, and improvement. The failure of
pauper colonies is no argument here. These have always been made up,
not of the stationary and industrious poor, but of the vagrant class of
professional beggars, seized in the large towns of Holland and other
places, and all herded together in one district, without the benefit of the
vicinage, and example of the better classes. Even of these, many who
had been inured to country work, succeeded and prospered. But we
have only to look at the peasant occupiers of Belgium, Switzerland,
Lombardy, Bavaria, and Tuscany, in order to be satisfied, unless, in-
deed, we believe that our own Saxon ploughmen are inherently inferior
to these, that they may be safely trusted with independent action, and
that if they are aforded the opportunity of circumstances, they will, by
" patient continuance in well-doing in due season reap" the fruits of or-
derly and provident industry. This is a principle applicable, not to
English nature alone, but to human nature. Even Irish nature, debased
and made abject, callous, prejudiced, dogged by bad laws, and social mis-
management, is not deaf to the appeal to better feelings, and more gene-
rous treatment. Out of hundreds of cases cited by good Irish landlords,
we select, at random, an instance afforded by Mr. Blacker, of the
traordinary change of character which the first ray of hope produces in
the mind of a man sunk in despondency; and who, having fallen into
poverty and distress, has lost heart, from seeing no chance of extricating
himself from his unfortunate situation. A man awakened from this state
of torpor and depression of mind, becomes a new creature, when the
prospect of comfort and independence appears to be within his reach;
and the exertion consequent upon the introduction of the first gleam of
hope, is almost beyond the belief of those who have not had the oppor-
tunity of witnessing it. I have gone myself to see a poor man, the
tenant of less than four acres of land, whose name and residence í can
give, if required, who was threatened with an ejectment, being, as well
as I recollect, two and a half years in arrear. I found him sitting with
his feet in the ashes of a half extinguished fire, his wife and five children
nearly naked; want and misery surrounding him on every side-his
house and farm neglected—the fear of expulsion,preying upon his mind
and spirits, having destroyed his health ; and there he was awaiting the
beggary and starvation impending over himself and family, in a kind of
listless insensibility,-in short, the whole scene was one of actual despair,
and the man was evidently in such a state, that he was incapable of any
exertion whatever. As I explained to him the plan I had in view for his be-
nefit, it was easy to see the feelings with which he was agitated; with tears in
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ex-


HOME COLONIZATION.
19
his eyes he promised to do everything I required, and I left him to send
the agriculturist to point out to him what was first to be set about. He
faithfully made good his engagement, and did everything as he was di-
rected; and when turnips were ripe, I lent him out of the sum placed at
my disposal for that purpose, some money to buy a cow—the family had
previously lived on potatoes and salt, and for even this he was in debt.
This was his commencement, and in the short space of about eighteen
months afterwards, I found his house clean and comfortable looking, and
the place about equally so; in fact I could not put my foot upon a spot
that was not either in crop, or in preparation for one; and he himself,
with his health restored, actively employed in wheeling up earth in a
wheelbarrow from the bottom to the top of a hill in his land, where the
soil was shallow, in which his daughter, a fine stout little girl, was help-
ing him, pulling by a rope in front; and the whole was a picture of ac-
tivity and successful exertion. These two years past have not been fa-
vourable to the farmer, but he has continued to pay up all his arrears ;
and, although his diet and that of his family is of necessity at present
confined almost exclusively to potatoes and milk, they are all healthy,
happy, and contented. Another year, I expect, will enable him to pay
off his debts, and then, between the produce of his loom, and the in-
creased produce of his farm, he will be able to command almost all the
comforts which people in his line of life are so ambitious of. His rent is
£4 8s. 3d., which the butter from his cow will generally pay, leaving him
his pig and his crop, and the produce of his loom to himself.
And yet
this is the man, who, upon the same piece of land, and subject to the same
rent, was so lately upon the verge of beggary and starvation.”
There is no witchcraft in all this—nothing exaggerated—nothing which
need be characterized by the invidious distinction of “Irish facts.” Its
possibility, its probability, its easy practicability, are demonstrable. The
problem has been already worked out by the Dutch and Belgian farmers.
It may be seen every day proved in our allotments. Our market gardens
on many of the poor soils of Surrey, and even on Hounslow Heath in
Middlesex, establish it as an axiom. These gardens often produce as
much food on three acres, as a farmer does on twenty. It is true that
the one grows vegetables, while the other raises grain. But vegetables
are food as much as wheat is. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, leeks,
peas, beans, cabbages, cauliflower, require as much good soil and nou-
rishment as wheat or barley does-and are the appropriate raw material
of beef and mutton. They do not take so long to grow, and they admit
of many successions of crops within the year. It is indeed contended
that the gardens are very elaborately pulverized, and command any
necessary amount of manure-a desideratum which cannot be supplied
at a distance from population. Herein lies the whole point of the case :
the secret of Dutch and Belgian success consists in spade husbandry, and
the most watchful attention to manures. It has been proved by Liebeg,
that every animal yields as much manure yearly, as is sufficient to ferti-
lize the soil to an extent equal to the reproduction of as much food as is
necessary to its subsistence. Get animals, then, and they will feed them-
selves, and maintain a farmer's family into the bargain. Cattle, pigs,
sheep, are to be found in the country and in England, as well as near


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HOME COLONIZATION.
towns and in Belgium. The whole secret of Belgian, and Dutch, and
Scotch, and indeed all successful farming, lies simply in this, that the
dairy and cattle feeding, are the chief care of their farmers. In many
places in England, particularly in the neighbourhood of Brighton, land-
lords stipulate that one cow shall be maintained by the cottier on every
three quarters of an acre. “One acre,” observes Mr. Blacker, “ of good
clover and rye-grass, one rood of vetches, and three roods of turnips
(making up in all two acres, which are now allotted for grazing one cow
in summer,) taking a stolen crop of rape after the vetches, will afford
ample provision for three cows the year round. By sowing rape on a
seed bed, and transplanting it as the other crops came off the ground,
Mr. William Scott, a tenant of the Earl of Charlemont, obtained the
enormous produce of sixty-four tons per acre. One cow kept within
for twenty-four hours, will give as much manure as three cows which
are only kept in for eight hours, the food being assumed to be the same
in both cases; but it is quite evident that, if the cow kept within, should
be fed on turnips, and bedded with the straw which the others are fed on,
leaving them little or no bedding whatever, the calculations must
turn decidedly in favour of the animal which is well fed and bedded, both
as regards the quality and quantity of manure-so that it appears the
estimate I have made is decidedly under the mark.” Q. E. D. There is
really no room for doubt on the subject. And does it not prove volumes ?
Is there not here evidently far greater productiveness than, with the
large, plough-farmer, is possible? Is not here milk for the family, and
whey for the pigs, and butter, and cheese, and veal for the market town?
Is it not by these means that the Dutch, as heavily taxed pro rata as we
are, their agricultural taxes especially as great, their rent quite as high
as ours, their soil not better, their climate hot enough in summer to dry
pasture up, and cold enough for four months in winter to deprive them
of all use of the soil, are enabled to pay a duty of 20s. per cwt. on butter,
and 10s. Oil cheese, and after all undersell our English farmers in our
own markets ? Government interference, indeed, it is said is im politic.
The people it is contended should be left to private enterprize, and the
exertion of their own energies. But we do not do so; we interfere with
the natural distribution of property by primogeniture, entail, compli-
cated titles, and expensive conveyances. Above all, it is surely a greater
interference on the part of the executive, actually to buy food for the
people, and shovel it gratis down their throats, than to put them in a
way to raise it, and feed themselves and us too. Laissez faire is entirely
out of the question with the 3,561,000 poor helpless paupers of these
three kingdoms.
We could cry,
“Let us alone!" with the best of the
non-interference-with-private-enterprise statesmen. None more devoutly
than ourselves believe in the infallibility of those social instincts which
have been implanted in man, as in bees, or beavers, or wild cattle, or
prairie horses, or rooks, or deer, or starlings, to lead them to live in
harmony and happiness with one another. The curse of the world has
all along lain in too much law making. The wise impulses of our in-
stinctive nature have been overlaid and smothered by over-government.
We have substituted artificial state-craft for the wise economy of provi-
dence. We have over-civilized ourselves into a state of property run


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1811 was.
1821..
1831..
895,998
978,656
961,134
Being a decrease absolutely, not merely relatively to
population, in ten years, of families..
17,522
Estimating the average number in each family at five, this gives an
aggregate decrease of persons supported by an increase of culture equal
to 3,504,450 acres of 87,610. The next census is equally instructive. It
dropped the register of families, and substituted that of male adults-of
whom there were occupied in agriculture in
1831
1,251,751
1841
1,215,264
Being a decrease of
36,487
If we assume these to represent only one-half of the whole decrement of
the agricultural population, the falling off will be equivalent to that
of..
91,217
which, added to the decrease in the census of 1831. 87,610
is equal to a falling off to the extent of....
178,827
in the number of persons deriving subsistence from agricultural employ-
ment since the beginning of the century, in the face of an increase in the
total population of 8,192,713. The proportions of the population en-
gaged in agriculture, in comparison to the remaining classes of the
population, present even more ominous social phenomena. In 1811,
35 per cent. of the whole people were connected with cultivation ;-in
1821 only 33 per cent., in 1831 they had fallen to 28 per cent., and in
1841 to 22. That is to say, seventy-eight of the people out of every hun-
dred, are totally disconnected from the soil on which all depend for the
primary necessaries of life ; and the disproportion of agriculturists to the
whole, is every year becoming more remarkable. At the beginning of
the century the quantity of land under cultivation, divided among the
whole population, gave 23 acres to each. “The additions since made to
the cultivated land,” observes Mr. Porter," and to the population, have
been 3,504,450 acres (including Ireland,) and 9,427,020 inhabitants ; so
that, for every 100 individuals added to the population, only 37 acres
have been brought into cultivation, being not quite a rood and a half for
each person. If the whole breadth of land, now under cultivation, were
divided equally among the population, exactly one aere and four-fifths
would fall to the lot of each." We are very confidently told, indeed,
that these facts are only evidence of greater fertility. It never seems to
occur to economists that they may rather argue that a smaller quantity
of food falls to the share of each. That it says little for the agriculture
of the country is too obvious. Few candid men who compare the con-
dition of the rural population of England and Ireland, half a century
ago, with what it is now, will deny that their food is at present very
much more scanty, and that scarcity, and even famine, are beginning


HOME COLONIZATION.
23
more and more to assume the features of a normal state. In 1750 the
paupers of England and Wales amounted to 289,804, or about 4) per
cent. of the population. In 1800 they had increased to 667,524, equal to
7à per cent. In 1830 they numbered 1,391,633, or 10.1 per cent. Great
results were expected from the operation of the Poor Law, which effectually
weeded the systematized pauperism which had grown into a huge abuse,
so that all who were not absolutely beggared were driven from the parish
pay-table. But such is the progressive poverty of the people, that the
number of paupers relieved in the year ending 25th March, 1848, has in-
creased to..
1,876,541
or, in 18 years from 1830.
1,391,633
Or,
484,908
from 10.1 to 11.8 per cent. of the whole population. The needs of -
the destitute have become so clamant, that it has become necessary to
extend a poor law both to Scotland and Ireland, at a cost to the nation
of £7,941,778, and that not being enough, we have spent upwards of
8,000,000 in two years in feeding the Irish, and have still to levy a rate
in aid to make up a deficiency, so great, as to have consigned tens of
thousands to the grave, and driven some, it is said, in desperation, to eat
the dead bodies of their countrymen. Indeed, while the population of
Ireland in 1831 had increased 732,538 upon 6,801,827 in 1821, it had in
1841 advanced only 471,017 upon 7,734,365 in 1831 ; and while that of
Great Britain had advanced 15.5 per cent. in the ten years ended 1841,
that of Ireland had only enlarged to the extent of 6 per cent, an in-
dication of a degree of misery which it is impossible by any other illus-
tration so forcibly to describe. Nature has shrunk from its office-
disease and famine must have made fearful havoc to have diminished the
natural increment in ten years, from 12 to 6 per cent. The next cen-
sus will disclose a still more frightful picture, and still our statesmen
plead for “yet a little sleep, yet a little slumber, a little folding of the
arms to sleep!”
A still more significant sign of our increasing helplessness is to be
found in the returns of the exports of grain. In the ten years ending
1769, such was the ratio of production to consumption, that, besides
amply supplying our own population, we were enabled to spare 1,384,561
quarters of wheat for export to our neighbours. In the ten years ending
1779, we had to import 431,566 quarters ; 1789, 233,502 quarters; 1799,
3,216,096 quarters; in 1809, 5,747,518 quarters ; in 1819, 6,042,847
quarters; in 1829 3,682,316 quarters; in 1839, 9,013,091 quarters, or
nearly treble the quantity of the previous ten years--and while for the
year 1845, the quantity of grain of all kinds imported was 2,370,357
quarters, for the three subsequent years, during which nearly open ports
left the wants of the people to their natural development, the imports of
grain have reached the enormous quantity of 8,000,000 of quarters in
the year, and the proportion of wheat in each of these years imported,
has been as much as for the whole ten years, ended 1829. Indeed, in
the year ended 5th January, 1848, our imports of corn reached the alarmn-
ing amount of ...
12,360,008 quarttis.
Live animals.
216,456


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HOME COLONIZATION.
so.
Meat, cwts..
592,335
Butter
314,066
Cheese
355,243
Eggs, number.
77,550,429,
At an aggregate cost of at least.... £30,070,668.
It is in the face of these facts we are told the productiveness of our agri-
cultural skill has advanced in a greater ratio than our population or our
wants! What a story does this enormous import tell! Every ounce of
the additional import has been devoured by our hungry people. No one
pretends that they are yet over, or enough fed. They must, of long
years, therefore, have been supplied with far less than their real wants
required, so as never, indeed, since the days when we were exporters, to
have really had enough, or to have known as a nation, what it was to
have a bellyfull. We increase at the rate of 460,000 mouths per annum;
in ten years we shall add upwards of 5,000,000 to our population and
our wants. What is to become of us ?
But even this statement would afford a very inadequate view of our
actual condition. Great Britain is not only dependent upon foreign pro-
duce for a great proportion of her inadequate subsistence, but she has to
lean upon Ireland for a still greater quantity of food. It is to the facts
connected with this phenomenon that it is most important to call the at-
tention of the reader. Ireland is extremely wretched - has always been
Her soil has been partitioned among English court parasites, who
have kept at a safe distance from the people they oppressed; drawn
everything from her, and sent nothing back that they could keep in
England. Her people have been entirely detached from the property of
the land they render fruitful-men with love of country, but no country
to love-strangers and wayfarers on sufferance in the island of their
birth. But, with all this, nothing can be more false or unfounded than
the attribution of her misery to the fact of the minute subdivision of her
holdings. On the contrary, the slightest inspection of her statistics will
incontestibly prove that, in all the signs of productive power (we say
nothing bere of distribution,) the progress of Ireland in agriculture
has been more rapid than that of perhaps any other country in the
world.
We learn from Sir W. Petty, in his “Political Anatomy of Ireland,”
that in 1702 the population of Ireland was 1,100,000, embracing 750,000
labouring people. They lived in 200,000 houses (about five to each,)
whereof 16,000 had more than one chimney each, 24,000 but one ; "all
the other houses, being 160,000, are wretched, nasty cabins, without
chimney, window, or door-shut, even worse than those of the savage
Americans.” “By comparing the extent of territory with the number
of the people, it appears that Ireland is much under peopled; forasmuch
as there are above 10 acres of good land to every head in Ireland;
whereas, in England and France, there are but four, and in Holland
scarce one!" Up to 1727, the land was in such a small number of
nands, that primate Boulter was compelled to enforce the cultivation of
five acres, in every 100, by a penalty of 40s. Mr. Macculloch dates the
breaking up of large farms from the Bounty Acts of 1780, and adds that
a fresh stimulus was given to the partition of the soil by the emancipation


HOME COLONIZATION.
25
of the Catholics in 1792. It is then, notorious, to all readers of Irish
history, that our Hibernian neighbours were in the most wretched con-
dition of any people in Europe, when the occupation of the soil was in
the fewest hands. It could not therefore be that partition which pro-
duced their misery. In fact, no candid mind can deny, that the miserable
state of the people, is the result, not of the social arrangements and in-
ternal economy of the country, which are mere necessary effects of a
misgovernment which has destroyed commerce and manufactures, and
withdrawn the encouragement to industry which arises from confidence
in the justice and wisdom of rulers; but of the oppression, injustice, and
folly, of the British rule.
To demonstrate this it is only necessary to know, that the resources
and productive powers of Ireland have more rapidly and enormously in-
creased since the soil has become subdivided, than those of any country
in the world. In 1791, the last year of her large farm system, the
population maintained on her soil—
In houses....
701,102 was 4,206,612
In 1841.
1,384,360 was 8,175,124
Increase.....
683,258 3,968,512
80 that, in fifty years, under the small farm dispensation, the accommo-
dation of the people has nearly doubled, and the population has also
advanced in almost an equal ratio.
The first year of which we have an account of the exports of produce
from Ireland to Great Britain, is 1800. In that year a population of
about 5,000,000 spared us the large quantity of 3,238 quarters of grain
of all kinds. In 1811, 5,937, 856, sent 429,869 quarters. In 1821,
6,801,827, sent us 1,822,816 quarters. In 1831, 7,839,514, spared
2,429,182 quarters. And in 1841, 8,205,000 transmitted a surplus of
2,327,782 quarters. In 1842, 1,888,224 quarters.
Unfortunately it is impracticable to afford any accurate statement of
Irish exports and imports--because, except as regards grain, no record of
these has been kept since 1825, and the great bulk of both are transmitted
in the first instance to Great Britain, and go to swell the returns for that
island, while the produce to and from Ireland distinctively, constitutes a
portion of our coasting trade only, of which no record is preserved or is
indeed practicable. The exports to foreign parts direct from Ireland, of
which alone we have any account, amounted in 1848 to £294,813, and
the imports direct from foreign parts to £4,293,278.
The total annual value of the grain crops of Ireland is estimated by
Mr. Macculloch at
£28,200,834
and the value of live stock, according to the census, com-
missioners in 1841 at
20,105,808
Total. ......
£48,306,642
The imports for the three years ending 1790, amounted to £3,535,588,
the exports to £4,125,333. But for the three years ending 1826, the
last period of separate accounts for the sister kingdom, the imports had
increased to £7,491,890, and the exports to £8,454,918, or more than
cent. per cent. The quantity of hoine-made spirits retained for home
do


26
HOME COLONIZATION
consumption in 1790 was 866,525 gallons, and in 1846 7,605,196, to-
bacco 863,563 lbs. in 1790, and 5,871,888 lbs. in 1846, tea 57,745 lbs.,
and 6,618,211 lbs., coffee 14,790 lbs., and 994,521 lbs., sugar 72,035
cwts., and 414,998 cwts. The tonnage of vessels entered inwards in 1800
was 214,159 in 2,403 ships, and in 1846 2,320,982 in 20,320 ships. In
1835, 1627 vessels of 131,735 tons, and 9,282 men were registered, and
in 1846, or eleven years, they had increased to 2,251 ships, 247,696 tons,
and 13,968 men. The tonnage belonging to and registered at the Irish
ports in the three years ending 1799, was 112,333, and in the three
years ending 1845, 631,981, being an increase of 530,152, or nearly a
five-fold increase in forty-six years.
Now Great Britain is not enabled, with all her supposed agricultural su-
periority, to spare one ounce of any of the articles of agricultural produce
above enumerated, but besides being obliged to Ireland for nearly the whole
of the enormous supply, indicated in the foregoing specification, she has to
import, in addition, agricultural produce from abroad, to the value of up-
wards of £30,000,000 per annum. May we not well ask, whether there is here
any shadow of a pretence for the allegation that Ireland's miseries are trace-
able to a system under which her population has doubled and her exports of
the products of the soil probably sextupled within fifty years, leaving her
population no better off perhaps, but certainly not worse off than they were
under the large farm dispensation. The English census of 1841 shows only
1,215,264 adult males supported by agriculture, out of a total of 4,707,600,
while that of Ireland gives 1,277,054 out of 1,867,763. Irish small farms
therefore support 68 per cent. of the whole population, while English
large farms employ only 22 per cent. Let it be but imagined that, in the
absence of commerce and manufactures, Great Britain had to throw two
and a half times as many of her population for employment upon her
large farms as she can now maintain, and need we say that her peasantry
would be a great deal worse off than even the Irish cottiers ? Is it pre-
tended that small farms are the cause of the comparatively backward
state of Irish trade and commerce? It might be enough in answer to this
to say, that until the appearance of her small holdings, she had no ma-
nufactures, and scarcely any trade, and that these have prodigiously in-
creased since her large farms were subdivided. But it may be enough
here to answer, that the large proportion of her population engaged in
agriculture is the effect of her inferior commercial endowments; and that
these are to be traced to her abscnteeism, to the insecurity resulting from
religious persecution, and the consequent precariousness of the tenure of
property, and to the disorderly character of the people, rising and rebel-
ling against oppression.
What would these lickspittles of our aristocratic theory be at ? Ima-
gine the small holdings of Ireland abolished, the farms consolidated
the 5,000 acre farmer substituted for the 1,000 farmers of five acres,
How are the 999 to be employed? Will the large farmer find work for a
family of five upon five acres? He can, at the most, by substituting
horses for the spade, employ two upon every fifty acres. In England,
1,200,000 male adults barely find employment on thirty-four millions
of arable acres, being one to about every twenty-eight acres. In Ireland
1,200,000 male adults are employed on 12,000,000 acres, or about one to


HOME COLONIZATION.
27
overy 12 acres.
The question then recurs, on the hypothesis of Ireland
being thrown into large farms, and the cultivation followed as in Eng-
land, what is to be done with the farming population? One man em-
ployed on every twenty-eight arable acres, would give 432,000 for the
whole. What is to become of the residue of 845,000, being rather
more than two-thirds of the whole adult male peasantry? Are they
to find wages in trade and commerce? That channel is so entirely glutted,
that there are, in the chief mercantile country of Europe (England), nearly
1,900,000 paupers totally unemployed, and, commerce itself, threatened by
war and powerful competition, droops and languishes. Is the struggle
among the existing manufacturing population of Britain not great enough
already, but we must, by our new sagacious system of feudal politico eco-
nomy, aggravate it by the competition of a million and a half of paid off
peasants ? Is it not frightful enough that in these realms, out of 6,575,365
male adults, 3,592,336 have to seek work in trade and commerce, hav-
ing no hold whatever upon the soil, but we must still further sever the
connection betwixt land and labour, and throw our masses from the least
fluctuating and precarious stay of a nation, to its most hazardous and
capricious ? What is our manufacturing condition, but an alternate fever
and ague-to-day more to do than there are hands for-to-morrow, half
time, mills closed, owners bankrupt, and weavers conspiring in commu-
nist clubs, or hatching treason and conflagration, against the State and
civil society. Are not the wages of skilled labour low enough already,
but we must draw the peasantry off the land into the towns, to bring all
to the workhouse, and a universal devil to pay? Shall we foster that
sysiem of weaving and spinning which is ever either at a hunger or a
burst-for a few months keeping engines going night and day, and for the
rest of the year nothing to do, all the high wages spent, and the hands
starving, or perhaps, worse still, losing their pride of independence on
union fare? If the manufacturers were fed with fewer hands, they would
be compelled to diffuse their employment over the whole year, and keep
down production below the limits of demand. If less trade were done,
wages would be kept higher, custom would be more steady, profits would
fluctuate the less, and manufacturers would be secured against upstart
mills, rattled up in a season of great demand, to be sold at half the cost,
when the flush of work is over.
What is the use of our trade and commerce, if it be not to afford us
capital for laying the foundation of security, good order, comfort, and
plenty, on the solid basis of agricultural abundance, and territorial im-
provement? What railway, foreign loan, or American stock, is half so
good a saving's bank for a nation, as the soil of our own island, with its
31,000,000 of consumers, and its half million of new annual mouths to
fill?
We do not want rivals and competitors for our weavers, but customers
and co-operators. Where shall we find them half so conveniently, pro-
fitably, safelv, as in our own country, among our fellow workers, and
brother tax-payers. If we desire a home trade, let us be assured it is not
by increasing the number of that too numerous class who depend for sub-
sistence upon wages and the caprice of an employer, and not upon the
secure tenure of land occupied by themselves. The farm labourer class
dd 2


28
HOME COLONIZATION.
are not able to afford to spare any of their wages for clothing. They bcg
the cast-off garments of the Lord and Lady Bountifuls of the parish-if
they buy at all, it is uniformly second hand clothes; and the result of nu-
merous enquiries, promoted among the peasantry by the Anti-Corn-Law
League, has been to establish the fact that ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty
years, are often the term of life to which a single pair of breeches is re-
novated, refitted, and patched, in the Arcadia of Bucks, or on the plain
of Salisbury.
We cannot too strongly insist upon the great evil of having too great a
number of the population of any country in the condition of mere reci -
pients of wages, servants dependent upon the caprice and management of
others. They are, they must be, where they form the great bulk of the
community of any country, little better than white slaves. They make
masters few in comparison to servants—therefore there will be great num-
bers of servants seeking masters, and few masters seeking servants—they
will be the sport of combinations among employers--they will be the first,
and until distress reaches a certain point, the only class to suffer the con-
sequences of depression—they will be what all are who are not, by being
their own masters, trained to habits of self command, forecast, and gene-
ral management of resources, improvident, reckless, exhausting their
week's wages at the week's end, and reserving nothing for the crisis when
“the evil days draw nigh." We want a due proportion in the gradations
of society. Not too many masters—not too many servants—not the
mere production of wealth, to the neglect of its distribution-not abstract
riches at the expense of equable diffusion. He was not a poet alone, but
a sound philosopher who taught us the difference-
“Betwixt a splendid and a happy land,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”
It is not because the Irish cottier is his own master that he is reckless.
The peasant occupiers of Belgium, France, Switzerland, Norway, are the
most frugal and provident men in the world. On the contrary, the sav-
ing habits of the Irish, when they have the stimulus of object, have ex-
cited the astonishment of those who have watched their history. They
are desperate from insecurity--from the fact that the better they do, the
higher is their rent raised-from the frugal and foresighted, being, bythe
detestable and iniquitous policy of grinding masters, bound for the lia-
bilities of the lazy and self-indulgent neighbours of the same holding.
The safety of a state lies in the mass of the people, having and holding
the soil.
We are no advocates for huge wens and enormous towns.
That is a feature in the history of civilization which has uniformly
been the immediate precursor of national decay. Too much town, and
too little country, is like double or quits at brag, or the staking of a
whole fortune on one throw. It is placing the existence of the popu-
lation too exclusively upon one dependency, and a single condition.
Trade and manufactures are at all times precarious - but seed time and
harvest never fail. Commerce is the apex, the crowning Corinthian
capital of civilization-but to make it the sole or chief dependence of a
great nation is to begin building the house at the top. When custo-
mers flag, when wages stop, when mills stand still, and furnaces are


HOME COLONIZATION.
29
blown out, when discounts fail at the bank, and ships lie idle on the
wharf, a people relying for life on these artificial conditions, are in a
state of desperation. There is nothing for them to fall back upon. They
have set their fortunes on the cast of a single die, and all famish. But
the soil never fails them. When there are no wages, and little trade, the
cabbages and carrots, the cottage, the cow, the pigs, the poultry, are
still there. If they cannot find customers for the surplus, or if there be
no surplus from a failing harvest, still there is enough of something for
themselves. Even if wheat misgives, they dig it up, and plant potatoes
or turnips. If there be no winter crop, they can have substitutes by the
autumn. There is a less pressure on the towns. If there be not quite
so much accumulated capital, which, in itself is a nuisance, as may peri-
odically be seen by the industry with which its gatherers take fever fits of
throwing it away, there will be more real substance of support diffused
among the masses. Muscular extremities are as essential as a great heart.
Indeed, what is the use of a heart, but to diffuse the blood over the
whole social body. And if all the blood run to the heart, and leave no-
thing to the peasant but his fish mouth, and his spindle shanks, what
is left but cardial hypertrophy, and paralysis of the limbs? The British
Lion is indeed an ass, and the Union Jack has been flaunted till it be
little better than a dishclout. We cannot sympathise with the simper-
ing lyric, “Woodman, spare that tree,” or bellow at the market ordinary
the praises of the “ Brave old oak.” These are but “springes catch
woodcocks,” in the net of high rents, and feudal supremacy. But we
are profoundly impressed nevertheless with the sentiment, that
“God made the country, man made the town.”
and we detest that sophistication of humanity which makes man a ma-
chine, organises labour in regiments by rank and file, forgets the use of
a spade, and ceases to recognize the distinction betwixt a corn stalk and
a cabbage.
Is there any inaptitude in our soil to raise food, or feed cattle ? Is
our climate uncongenial to cereal production? Cannot we work more
days in our fields than any other people? Is there a day in winter in
which our cows cannot gather food, or an hour in summer in which the
sun is too hot, or the herbage too bare? What is there to discourage us
from devoting capital and industry to agriculture? Where can we buy
food more cheaply or easily than we should be able to raise it, if we only
went the right way to work ? Have we not, whether farming in the ab-
stract, be profitable or not, 3,561,382 human beings in the concrete, that
we know not what to do with, and must feed for nothing, if we cannot
put them in the way of returning us an equivalent in labour ?
What has been the effect of these large farms, and this dispossessing of
the petty yeomen and smaller tenantry? Simply this, that all our
purely agricultural towns and villages are gradually going to decay.
This, indeed, is to be inferred from the fact already pointed out, that
178,827 persons fewer were occupied in pursuits connected with agricul-
ture in 1841 than in 1821. But it also appears in a more positive shape
in the census of the purely rural parishes of some of the most fertile
do 3


30
HOME COLONIZATION.
districts of the finest counties. How many of our parliamentary boroughs
have lost their franchise from decaying numbers? What is York with all
its railways, its cathedral, its metropolitan privileges, to what it was at
the time of the massacre of the Jews ? What is Salisbury, what Arun-
del, or Wallingford, or Petersfield, or Lincoln, or Winchester? The
reason is not far to seek. One farmer of 5,000 acres absorbs the whole
profit which once formed a comfortable living for fifty farmers. These
represent families of 250 individuals, requiring 250 pairs of shoes in place
of five pairs-hats, coats, gowns, stockings, shirts, saddles, tea, and su-
gar, all in the same proportion. The huge monopolist food manufacturer
and his wife, and three children, get their clothes and groceries from the
distant large town, in place of the village, or neighbouring borough, and
only to the extent of the one-fiftieth part of the former custom. Where
is the wonder, then, that with the ousting of the fifty families, we should
see the village shoemaker close his stall—the tailor shut up shop, and
the grocer go into the gazette? If a duke draw into his own net
£300,000 a year, does any man believe that his custoin will be anything
equal to that of 600 gentlemen of £500 a year each? Can he wear
600 pairs of boots, or wear out 600 saddles, or need 2,000 domestic ser-
vants, or drive 600 gigs? We want no Procrustean bed for society, to
cut down or draw out incomes all to a length. We are no advocates of
Owen parallelograms, or Fourrier communities of
“Mirth and Innocence and Milk and Water."
We are no levellers—nature does not level. She has her hills, and
plains, and dales, her gradations of society, in infinite variety. What we
here protest against is an artificial policy which, "against the use of
nature," seeks to divide mankind into only two classes, the very rich and
the very poor-a few wealthy masters, and a huge population of unad-
stricted slaves. We say it is bad political economy. What is the pretence
for it? We are told it is more economical ; it is said that if there is only
one farmer to provide for on 5,000 acres, it is cheaper for the community
to maintain him than fifty families. But what is to become of these
fifty families? They are not got rid of by being turned out. They are
only reduced, with the tradesmen they supported, to the class of labour-
ers, a short step to the parish workhouse, where they will eat all, and
pay and produce nothing. If they are got rid of—if they are crushed
out of life, where are the customers of the 5,000 acre farmer? Where
are the cultivators of the soil ? If there are enough of ploughmen with-
out them, it may be contended that they will repair for employment to
the large towns. And what will meet them there? Two thousand answers
for every advertisement of a vacant clerkship--a siege of three or four
thousand messengers at every office where there is a scent even of
but a week’e job-tens of thousands of labourers already paid off, and
their employers balancing betwixt the loss of keeping their mills open
and shutting them up.
This economical gospel, according to J. R. Macculloch, is one of a
marvellous India rubber sort. It draws out and bounds back again, with
all the pliability of caoutchouc. It wants but one element of the con-
veniently elastic properties of gutta percha. It will not hold water. This


HOME COLONIZATION.
31
is the currency-any-thing-arian who can prove any monetary theory
that may be convenient for the Bank of England. Who has demon-
strated, if not to his own conviction, at least to the satisfaction of the
landed gentry, that absenteeism is no evil, and that when Irish landlords
spend £6,000,000 of Hibernian remittances in England and abroad, the
money in point of fact is laid out in Ireland. This is the free-trader and
apostle of laissez faire who has undertaken to show that a monopoly in
land is good, while a monopoly in trade and commerce is pernicious-
and that, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. The
latest escapade of this oracle, is equally characteristic of his consistency.
Objections have been made by the ignorant to the employment of ma-
chinery. Luddites, and ignorant operatives have broken machines, and
burnt down mills on the plea that they supersede human labour, and
leave the industrious without employment. What has been the answer?
True, we use machinery, but bg its means we have so greatly reduced
the cost of production, as at once to produce the best article at the cheap-
est rate, and so to increase demand and consumption, that a far greater
number of hands are employed at better wages, than were ever required
before the introduction of machinery. But when the principle is applied
to agriculture, there is a convenient shifting of the argument. In tilling
the soil we are told the test of excellence of culture is the throwing the
greatest number of hands out of employment. The better the farming,
the fewer people will get a living by it! And to follow out the syllogism
to its legitimate corrollary, we presume agriculture will have reached
the zenith of perfectibility, when it will support nobody!
“My grief is great because it is so small,
Then 'twould be greater were it none at all.”
To our simple thinking it would be better that mankind derived no
profit from employment, than that they should not be employed. That
primæval curse is, in this sixtieth century, a blessing, which declares
is in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread." If the anti-agrarian
economists can show us where or how our teeming population can be
more profitably employed than in subduing the wilderness, and making
the desert and solitary places glad, let them. We have three millions
and a half of unwilling idlers among us. Trade cannot employ thern-
manufacturers will not-commerce is over-done. There are 465,000
new candidates for work, wages, and food, pressing upon us every year,
Eight millions worth of hard-earned rates are squandered upon the local
unprofitable poor. £784,178 of annual charity have to be added to this
sum, besides, probably, not less than at least £1,500,000 more in eleemo-
synary almsgiving. All this is not enough. At one fell swoop, what
with Queen's letters, Irish and Scotch funds, contributions from every
part of the world, from the Grand Turk, to the Autocrat of Russia,
from the Pacha of Egypt to the Hudson's Bay Company, from Indus
to the Pole, to the amount of £603,535 8s. 2d. have been voluntarily
subscribed, and the state has advanced £8,000,000, all to feed those
whom we had not found out the way of helping to feed themselves. “In
the month of July” (1848,) observes the Report of the British Relief
Association, “upwards of 3,000,000 of persons were daily supplied with


32
HOME COLONIZATION.
food from the charitable fund." Nearly £19,000,000 of money given
away to paupers for no return, for worse than no return,--for debase-
ment, dependence, the bread of idleness, the abject and self-degraded
consciousness of importunate beggary, and £15,000,000 of acres of im.
proveable soil left without a single spade in it!
What might not this enormous capital have done for us, if it had been
spent and not squandered, laid out, and not thrown away? It would
have carried a million and a half to Australia, four millions to Canada,
two millions to Natal. Above all it would have reclaimed four millions
of acres of British waste lands, and established in comfort and inde-
pendence 500,000 peasant farmers and their families of 2,500,000 souls
in farms of sixteen acres each, three times the size of many that at pre-
sent maintain many Irish cottiers. Here are Mr. Martin of Galway's
estates of 200,000 acres for sale at £400,000, or 40s. an acre in fee
simple. Freeholds for 100,000 families, or 500,000 souls. Pauperism
grows by what it feeds on. The family relieved to day, come back to the
parish pay-table tomorrow. New brats are got, to starve, or beg, as
their parents did before them. Mendicancy is perennial—the acute
pauper ends in the chronic vagrant. When shall we learn sense? How
long shall the folly of rulers destroy the self-respect and self-reliance of
the people? Is not the way plain before us ? Our whole territory is
surveyed and subdivided into convenient parishes. In every one of these
are waste lands that cry out upon a spendthrift Board, 'Here are
Guardians, machinery, there are paupers knocking at the union door
yonder is the common, the moor, the outlying patch, the "unconsidered
trifles” of the soil, which yet have all their use. What hinders but our
own apathy, our own incapacity for the doable, that we should set
all these to work, for public abundance, and individual good?
“Give a man,” said wise Arthur Young many a long year ago, “ the
secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give
him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert."
Are we not even yet alarmed at the annual invasion of England and
Scotland ? The Irish landlords send over the food-what wonder that
the people should come after it? When will we take warning? The
Cowgate of Edinburgh, the Gallowgate of Glasgow, the Vennel of Dundee,
the back slums of Aberdeen, the cellars of Liverpool, the Little Irelan
of Manchester, the holes of Leeds, and Bristol, and London, the very
waysides of our rural districts, swarm with Irish. Down they batter
wages-lower still come our morals. Dirt, rags, recklessness, are in-
fectious, and the Saxon sinks to the level of the celt, while the celt sunk
deeper and deeper still,” fills our calendar with indictments, our jails
with convicts, our houses of refuge with inmates, our whole population
with fever and vice. Is there any invasion of the French, the Turks, the
Hulans, half so disastrous as this ? Let armies, and clouds of cossacks
come over upon us, and these Saxons would sweep thein swiftly into the
If we were conquered we would live apart from the victors, hating
their morals, burning with the desire of emancipation, eschewing their
customs, as the Jews did the Samaritans. But here are these men,
invaded' by celts in rags, dirt, and the importunity of beggary--they
kubdue us to their own condition, drive our labour out of its own
66
sea.


34
THB STATB OF THE NATION.
of Circassia. That turban of the Grand Turk was woven at his power
loon--and these bales of China silk are wrapped up in his webs. Let us
have our great towns, and our factories, but let us have our ploughmen
too. Let us scent the sweet country air, and not be altogether machinery
gone mad, and sophisticated civilization run to seed. We do but contend
for this, that as “God made the country and man made the town,"
we should still keep about us some of God's handiwork; and while we
worship the graven image of Art, we should bow down in our higher
soul, before the Great Spirit of Nature.
We maintain that a people, all, or in a very major part made up of
town, will become a tailor and flunkey people. We would mingle those
whose speech is of dollars, with those “whose talk is of bullocks.”
Even in the United States, the back bone of the Union is its farmers.
They are its life blood, its moral regulators, the guardians of its reason,
the depositaries of its principle, its sound mind in a sound body. A na-
tion made of Jeameses and Jefferson Bricks, and Jenkinses, and Rowdy
Journalists, and Bowery Boys, what can come of that but asthmatical
spasms, calveless locomotives, the nodosities of the oak without its
strength, and the contortions of the sybil without her inspiration? Give
us the charms of arc—the convenient and pleasant uses of multitudinous
society—and literature and science—and the thousand thoughtful and in-
genious appliances, the skilled contrivance, the orderly arrangement, the
well contrived conventions of popu city life-the thousand disciplines
which around and without us, yet impress upon the soul the elevating
intelligences of civilization. "Where virtue is these are more virtuous.”
But as man is something more than his clothes, as the life is more than
raiment, so would we not lose manhood in citizenship, and the primary
elements of humanity, in the mere integuments of civilized convention..
There is such a thing as breeding too fine. We would not lose instinct in
custom, or make habit, which is called a second nature, equal to the first.
We would not have ready made clothes horses instead of men. We do
not want mere bundles of rules and compasses, and needs and wants-cock-
nies to whom Warren's blacking is as much a necessary of life, as air and
water. God bless the clodhoppers--they are the true raw material of
humanity. Often a very raw material indeed—but still the right stuff
true in the grain--of substance to ake on the polish of civilization, with-
out losing the tough fibre of their native forests, and the vitality of the
living oak.
CHAPTER II.
1
THE STATE OF THE NATION.
Was Cobbett so far out in his reckoning, in his contempt for "feelo-
sophers ?” Or our namesake in his antipathy to those sucking Adam
Smith quacks, recommended by Scotch professors as “lads of conseeder-
| able tawlents ?” We have come to that pass, that the world begins to


THE STATE OF THE NATION.
35
believe there is nothing on earth that is great, except cotton bales, sugar
hogsheads, and a mercantile mania. Imports of raw material-exports
of manufactured goods, have of long years been their standard of great-
ness, and cash payments their sole_nexus of society. We do not despise
these things. It is wonderful what they have done. Doubtless in phy-
sical progression and material civilization they have performed miracles
far greater than ever filled the imagination of Archimedes, or heated the
fancy of the most scheming projector. But it is strange, and notewor-
thy, that the Utopia, the New Atalantis, the Arcadia, Plato's republic,
never looked for social perfectibility this direction. Were they wrong?
What have our electric telegraphs, our thousands of miles of thread per
minute machinery, our sixty miles an hour locomotion, and defiance of
wind, tide, and lee shore navigation, our steam press, and penny publi-
cation economy done for us? We are knowing, are we more really intel-
ligent ? We are more logical and philosophical, are we more rational
and wiser ? Homer sang when bards were the only newspapers of Greece,
and they could boast no better weavers than Penelope. Have we a better
poet ? Were there any factories in the days of Aristotle, Marathon,
Phidias, Praxiteles, Pericles, Socrates ? Xerxes and his host were far
more materially civilized than Epaminondas. Yet heroism and virtue,
were more powerfulthan knowledge. What trade had Rome when she de-
leted Carthage? Cincinnatus was but a ploughman, and Cato lived by
his wheat and bullocks. We had indeed a woolsack when Edward con-
quered France single handed—but did we know what to do with it ? And
More, Shakespeare, and Bacon, what were our exports and imports when
they founded our law, our poetry, and world-wide philosophy ? Charles
and Rupert took the town-Cromwell the country. Your discharged
tapsters and masterless serving men, and ambitious apprentices, were
knowing, and smart, and civilized enough. But those plaguy ironsides
from the plough tail, mounted each on his furrow horse, did they not
show fiddlesticks at Marston Moor, that made court cards skip, as never
they had done at Whitehall ? After all, we are but the heirs of the
splendid legacies of the past. Our physical and scientific achievements
sink to nothing as compared with the moral and social heroism of the
giants that were in those days. This House of Commons, this Magna
Charta, this Bill of Rights, this habeas corpus act, this reformation, this
unlicensed printing, and free speech ---these achievements, that have made
men of us, and given us leave to think, and room to work, and space to
act--clodhoppers did it all, and what better have we to show ? Even
Washington was a planter, and Toussaint flung down the hoe to revenge
he outraged honor of humanity – -an Afrite Spartacus, and like him a
lelver in the earth.
Yes—we are civilized—the spindles whirl over Europe and steam
clouds the entire old world sky. All can boast their statistical prosperity
-their progress in Board of Trade Returns—their millions of figures in
tonnage, revenue, and exports. Look but at figures-believe Custom
House clerks-take up but reports of Trade and Navigation, and the
world seems to have shot past the millennium, and got to the meridian of
the day of Pentecost, or caught the Greek kalends by the tail. Sugar,
tea, tobacco, ships, bales, hogsheads, wines, silks, wools, cottons, oils,


THE STATE OF THE NATION.
37
serf Poles who get no wagesand slave Irish in the ditches-and men
who have masters, and live by wages-and have no disposal of themselves.
Your sic vos non vobis gentry, are the troublesome customers of govern-
ments. And all this in the face of accumulated capital, healthy exchanges,
and increase of trade and means of comfort in the abstract. Let us see
how the account stands. The annual average consumption of meat in London
per head is 122lbs. ; in Brussels, 89; in Paris, 86. The imports of butter have
more than doubled in fifteen years. We consume twenty times as much
sugar as in 1700. Fifty times as much coffee as in 1801. Even since 1821,
the consumption of tea has increased from 23 to 47 millions of pounds-su-
gar from 350 to 560.- coffee, from 7 to 362-tobacco, from 15 to 27-
spirits, from 9,750,000 gallons to 24,000,000~malt, from 29,000,000 to
12,000,000 of bushels. Soap has advanced from 97,000,000 lbs. in 1821, to
186,000,000 in 1847-bricks, in ten years, from 1,000 to 2,000 millions-
paper, in the same time, from 61,000,000 to 127,000,000 of lbs. Con-
sumption of cotton in 1821, 137,000,000 of lbs., 1846, 428,000,000,
Wool, 10,000,000 to 65,000,000~ silk, 2 to 5 millions-flax, from
55,000,000 to 128,000,000 of lbs. In 1821, we exported £40,250,000
worth of produce, and manufactures-in 1846, £132,250,000. Our im-
ports in 1821 were £29,750,000—in 1846, £76,000,000. Our shipping
25,036 ships, 2,560,203 tons, 109,179 men in 1821, and 32,499 ships.
3,817,112 tons, and 229,276 men in 1846, besides an increase in our
coasters from 9,000,000 to 13,000,000 tons in thirteen years. The value
of property insured from fire has, in ten years, advanced from
£526,000,000 to £682,000,000. The deposits in the Savings Banks in 1831,
were £13,719,495, in 1841, £24,474,689, in 1846, £33,694,642. In 1815,
income from real property, above £50 a year, was £52,000,000, in 1842,
the income from real property above £150, was £82,250,000—from trades
in 1815, £35,000,000, in 1844, £60,000,000. The personal property an-
nually bequeathed, between 1797 and 1831, averaged £22,000,000, and
from 1831 to 1841, it averaged, annually, £42,250,000. In 1847, it was
£43,611,642, even Ireland swelling the average. Up to 1845, the expen-
diture on railways amounted to £70,000,000, to 1848, £170,000,000.
In 1839, a million and a half letters passed through the post office
weekly, and in 1848, six millions and a half. In 1839, £90,000 were
remitted through the post office, in 1848, £3,500,000.
The productive powers of Ireland are equally conspicuous. In 1847
she raised, of wheat, 2,926,733 quarters; of oats, 11,521,606; of bar-
ley, 1,379,029; of bere, 274,016; of rye, 63,094; of beans, 84,456-in
all of grain, 16,258,934 quarters, or upwards of sixteen bushels per an-
num for each inhabitant, besides 2,046,195 tons of potatoes, 5,760,619
tons of turnips, 2,190,317 tons of hay, 349,872 cwts. of flax, and 976,333
tons of other crops-being an average produce of five quarters of corn
per acre, seven tons of potatoes, fifteen tons of turnips, two tons of hay
equal to 698 lbs. of corn, and 561 lbs. of potatoes per annum to each
individual. The live stock consisted of 557,917 horses, 126,355 asses,
2,591,416 cattle, 2,186,177 sheep, 622,459 pigs, 164,043 goats, and
5,691,055 poultry. The land was held by 883,097 occupiers.
Does not Rigby here come out strong ? Red Tape seems here, un-
doubtedly, to have the best of it-and Monsieur Pigeon Hole puts dis-
e E


38
THE STATE OF THE NATION
tress and discontent quite out of court-upon paper. Never were seen
or heard of such results. We stand confounded at the magnificence, at
the grandeur, at the august and solid greatness they prefigure. It is
scarcely within belief that one nation can achieve it. What consum-
mate intellect, what daring enterprize, what skilful forecast, what pro-
found reason, what stupendous energy, combined to do all this ! Nor
head, nor aptitude, nor capital, nor opportunity, alone could ever have
accomplished it. These thousands of miles of road, and canal, and railway,
tunnelled through mountains, cut through hills, carried over lakes,
bridged and viaducted over straits, and vallies, with their million passen-
gers and millions of tons of goods a day-these steam boats, and sailing
ships, with their builders, and enginemen, and sailors, and lighters-
these unsummable bales of yarn, and cotton, and silk, and linen, and
woollen, and canvas, and cordage, their spinners, and weavers, and
piecers, and cutters, and machinists, and warpers, and dyers, and print-
ers, and designers—that uncommensurable mountain of iron, and cop-
per, and coal, and lead, and tin, and salt, and lime, with its miners, and
quarrymen, and smelters, and waggoners, its grinders, and polishers,
and cutlers, and platers, its hammermen, its boilers, and engines, and
rollers, and rivetters—that china, and pottery, that paper, and type-
founding, and printing—that no end of tea, and coffee, and sugar, and
cocoa, and wool, and oil, and tallow, and hides—those millions of quar-
ters of grain, and heads of cattle, and tons of cheese, and butter, and
eggs, and poultry, and provisions, and fish-their ploughmen, and farm-
ers, and shepherds, and drovers, and fishermen, and harness makers, and
cartwrights, and hoers, and dairy-women and ditchers—why the mind
stops for breath to take it all in like the conception of the infinite, or the
shadow of eternity! All the work of a single year, of the labourer proportion
of thirty millions of people. And these horny hands, and whipcord muscles,
and nimble fingers, and incessant minds, contrive to live somehow out
of it, and to spare a hunch from their loaf, and lumps from their sugar
bowl, and cuts from their beef, such as it is, to the tune of £62,000,000
a year to the recognised gentlemen tax eaters of these united kingdoms,
besides the irregular skirmishers in law, religion, physic, art, science,
literature, luxury, vice, education, pomp, and pleasure, to an amount
which our income and property tax returns set down at £142,250,000.
We are not mob butterers. Far be it from us to induce legs and arms to
tell the belly and the head, they are burdens of which they do not stand
in need. But, after all, it may be permitted to us to suggest that money
is of no use in the bank, nor are plans worth much, so long as they
merely float.in the anterior lobe of the cranium. The work that is really
seen, is all the doing of the mere worker. Skill and science have no
more concern with the achievement, than merely to say “Do it.” It is
labour which brings all out of the merely pregnant chaos of conception,
and separates day and night, and puts the sun and moon of attainment
palpably before men's eyes -and in answer to the call to “ Do,” does it.
Is it not a mighty attainment ? Were ever such workers seen before,
since the world began, or Babel saw its tower half finished ? If the la-
bourer be worthy of his hire, what shall be the hire of these labourers ?
Let us see-Fielding tells us of his hero Jonathan Wyld, that of a se-


THE STATE OF THE NATION.
39
lect company who sat down with him to a quiet game of cards, all had
money when they began, but every one as he rose declared himself a
loser. We obviously make money. Where does it go to? Wealth be-
yond the desires of human avarice has been produced and flowed in upon
us, in this model year 1849. What has become of it? The report of
the British Relief Association informs us that three millions of these
workers in Ireland were fed on charity, by rations served out to them by
the government. The poor law returns exhibit an aggregate, in addition
to those, of 3,561,600 workhouse paupers relieved at an expense of
eight millions sterling. The new Poor Law, while it has failed to check
pauperism, has, at least, served to prove that beggary is not a sham, but,
that, workhouse test notwithstanding, while the cost of pauper mainte-
nance has been reduced by open ports, the aggregate amount of rates has
in eleven years increased thirty-three per cent., a ratio even greater than
our increase of apparent wealth, In 1837 the poor rates of England and
Wales amounted to £4,300,000. In 1848, to £6,180,000. In 1849 the
numbers relieved are 100,000 more than in 1848, an advance of six per
cent., within the year. In 1848 the rates were £881,978 (or seventeen
per cent.) more than in 1840. Misery, literally, seems to advance in the
very ratio of our wealth--the more we get, the fewer get it--as the ag-
gregate swells, the proportion diminishes--and the greater our riches,
the lesser is the share of each. Nor is this the only test of our condi-
tion. The most precise returns, diffused over a long series of years,
place the criminal calendar in juxta position with the average price of the
quarter of wheat. From these returns it is demonstrable that the great
exciting cause of crime is poverty-because, just as the price of bread
rises, offences increase, and as food becomes accessible, the number of
convictions diminish. Taking crime then as the test of the condition of
the masses, we learn from Sheriff Alison, that over the whole kingdom
crime increases four times as fast as the population, and that “ in Lan-
cashire, population doubles in thirty years: crime, in five years and a
half." 'And all this while the suns spent in railway wages, have added,
probably, 50 per cent. to the whole payment of labour throughout the
kingdom. The convictions in England and Wales alone, in 1839, were
17,832, in 1847 they had increased to 21,582, and 173 per cent. above
those of, even 1846. In Ireland, the convictions alone, in 1847,
amounted to 15,257, and the trials to 31,209. The number of Irish
poor relieved in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, alone, in 1847, was
160,000. With all our enormous increase of apparent wealth also, in-
solvency and bankruptcy progress even faster. The Metropolitan Bank-
ruptcy Committee have proved by good evidence, that the amount of bad
debts made in England and Scotland is quite £50,000,000 a year. Where
then, does the money go to-what good does it effect-what evil does it
avert?
It is of no use that we prove progress in material wealth, if we also
establish an increase of real misery to a greater extent still. What are
all our imports, and exports, and accumulations, if we do no more with
them than swell the number of bankrupts, paupers, and criminals. This,
indeed, is the least consolatory view of our condition. We possess all the
materials which are supposed to lead to comfort, order, intelligence, and
E 2


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
41
soil, have been kept in single great families, to the grievous circum-
scription of real investment and agricultural enterprise. Corporations,
endowments, and the church, have conspired with the great barons to
monopolise the real property of the country, and to stop the natural
course of agricultural improvement. In fact the benefits of the increase
of population and wealth, which should have been diffused through the
whole people by whom the wealth was produced, have accrued exclu-
sively, to the owners of real property and the larger capitalists. Above
all, the absurd and idiotic law of settlement, has given landowners a
direct interest in depopulating their estates, and in driving the rural
population into the large towns, to seek work in competition with those
who have too little employment already. Our whole economical policy
has had a tendency to create too many producers of a few articles, and too
few home customers for them. Our taxation has been thrown too much
on the necessaries of life, consumed by the poor, and too little on the
property enjoyed by the rich. Our whole amount of taxation has been
excessive in proportion to our means. Indeed the best evidence of how
small a portion of our vast resources has been enjoyed by the masses of
the people, is afforded by the significant fact, that as our wealth has in-
creased, our revenue has exhibited symptoms of decay, and we have been
compelled, by loans, and a property tax, to make up continually recur-
ring defalcations in the exchequer. Our local taxation has been extrava-
gant, and tithes have enabled the church to draw exorbitant rents, not
merely from the land, but from the capital of the cultivator, without any
equivalent whatever.
CHAPTER III.
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY,
Our disease is monopoly,-our cure is free trade. We have been
meddled with by ignorant interference. We want to be let alone. Law has
dictated to us the direction of our enterprise--the channels through
which alone it will suffer our industry to flow. It has said to the
labourer, “If you stay here where you are not wanted, I shall support
you when you cannot support yourself—if you go elsewhither, where
you are wanted, to seek work, you shall lose all claim upon me, until
you come back to the parish where you are of no use." It has said
to the consumer, “You must be the customer of this man, although
he gives you a bad article at a high price, and takes little in return,
and you must take nothing from that man, although he offers to sell
to you cheap, and buy from you dear." Ít has said to the living,
“ This fair island is not yours—it belongs to the dry bones which
moulder in yonder charnel house —they have left behind them this
bit of shrivelled parchment, and declared that these fields shall belong
to all eternity, to the 'Tenth transmitter of a foolish face.'” It has said
to the soul itself, “Your faith is not betwixt God and your own conscience.
e


42
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
man reason.
I can entail creeds, as well as acres--and from the remote barbarism and
presumptuous ignorance of 200 years, I tell you that this nation shall
profess only what I believed, and my interpretation of the divine oracles
shall be paid for by you, in spite of all your progress criticism, in
knowledge, in catholicity, to the exclusion of every suggestion of truth,
intelligence, and reason." It has said to the artizan and manufacturer,
“ You and your skilful machinery must stay here, where there are too many
of you already. If you cannot dispose of yourselves here, you shall not
go elsewhither.” It has said to the producer, “I know better what is
for your advantage than you do yours - you must not pursue this
branch of profit, but devote yourself to that.” It has said to the mer-
chant, “Charter this ship, but not that,”—to the shipowner; “Buy your
timber and cordage, and build your vessels here, and not there, take
this shipwright, and this mariner, but have nothing to do with that.” It
has said to the housewife, “What! are you a patriot ? then buy this bad
coffee from Jamaica, but have nothing to do with better from Brazil
are you a Christian ? cast away those lumps of sugar, they were produced
by slaves-take this, free labour raised it-and, d’ye hear, drink tea--but
enquire first whether it was brought to you by an East Indiaman.” In
fine, it has said, “I cannot promise you justice, but you shall have plenty of
law—if you can pay for it. My Court of Chancery is the consummation
of human wisdom. My Common Law Courts are the perfection of hu-
To be sure you will be ruined whether you lose or gain your
suit—the expense of seeking your rights is greater than the rights to be
obtained-my judges know nothing of the law which they are paid so
highly to interpret, because, every day, decisions are upset on the ground
of misdirection of the judge, whose sole function is to direct-his bad
law will be corrected, not at his expense but at yours and the whole
titles to the land are involved in such inextricable confusion, that I am
about to appoint a commission of men of common sense to supersede
and set aside the courts which I have erected for the express purpose of
rendering rights secure, and titles clear-but then the glorious uncertainty
of the law is proverbial, and my judges are unbribable !” Some cart
loads of this dung, we have already cleared away, but we cannot be
right until the muck is entirely removed, and the augean stable scraped
clean out.
We are not Socialists. The gospel according to Fourrier is that of a
fool, and the followers of Blanc are blockheads.- French, or merely poli-
tical communism, is simply uncommon nonsense. Our New Testament,
indeed, tells us, that the first Christians held all things in common. The
wise old Jewish policy resumed at long intervals the property of the soil,
and gave it a new distribution, better adapted to the present wants of the
liring, than to the mere whimsical caprices of the dead-so that a con-
tinual new stimulus was given to all the members of society. But why
did the first Christians hold all things in common? It was, simply, be-
cause they were Christians. They owned a prior brotherhood in soul
and heart, and they might well, therefore, become brethren in possessions,
whose practice was self sacrifice,“ in honour preferring one another.”
But they did not make laws for a division of the spoil--they did not take
from the rich by force to give to the poor by fraudmtheir “ kindly af-


44
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
could do it all—or they might relieve each other, and spare time to the
rest for relaxation, study, health, the country. When men have attained
to the greater heights of reason, dukes and earls, millionaires, great
landowners, will begin to discover that, after all, they cannot enjoy the
best sources of elevated happiness by means of money or power—that
their acres are theirs only in parchment--that the glories of air, earth,
sky, and water, and sunset, and the majestical roof fretted with golden
fire, are the property of all who have eyes, and ears, and nostrils, and
lungs, and a sense of beauty and intelligence-and that the privilege of
looking on, and moving in the parks of peers, is as much a property in
them, as their legal possession is. A duke can but ride one horse at a
time, and eat one dinner--so can a draynian.
“ 'Tis not in them but in thy power
To double ev'n the sweetness of a flower."
What, indeed, are our British Museums, our National Galleries, our
public libraries, our royal parks, but a beginning of a sort of communism,
imparting to the whole community the rational luxuries which surround
the great, without the anxious cares of their possession ? Machinery is
but co-operation. The bible that cost £500 to the few, is to be had for
1s. by all. The gown and stockings of the kitchen wench are finer and
more elegant than the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth. Our coblers fly
from Glasgow to London swifter than the Flying Childers, and at a cost
suited to the profits of mere shoemending. Our weavers trip to Paris.
Our farm labourers push their fortunes at the antipodes. Our hod-men
read the news of the whole world, as early as the foreign secretary, The
public and the vulgar, see, and hear, and enjoy the best of everything.
The cheap library of the artizan, is superior to the former literature of
kings. In fact, the great possess no such luxuries, as those they have to
share with the million. And what is communism but carrying out
these economics to a larger application, with more searching frugality of
material, and a more fraternal mutuality of kindliness? To consider the
matter curiously, the great rich man is but a distributor, like the rest of
He cannot eat or drink, or wear £300,000 a year. When he gets
it, it is but to get rid of it. All his superfluity of possession, above the
comfortable supply of wants, is of no use to him, but to part with it.
The rest is mere fancy-a delusion—a disease. If he puts it in the bank,
it is there no more than an entry in a ledger--if he takes it out
he but scatters among flunkies and fiddlers, and artists, tailors, and
gamblers, wine merchants, cooks, and authors, what he has collected
from farmers, or gathered from tenants, or merchants. Could he be
surrounded with all these without possessing them, reason, when it mounts
higher, will tell him, that individual property in them can add nothing
to them or to him--and as for his parks, his gardens, and his house,
what can he do more than look at them, like any stray-sight-seer, or
poetical view-hunter, that perhaps envies him of that which he can enjoy
as thoroughly by the mere use of his eyesight. It is poverty, depend-
ence, and hunger which make men avaricious, and covetous, and strong
in the sense of property. When Cook discovered those happy Pacific
Isles, so blest by nature that man had but to stretch forth his hand and
us.


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
45
get food for the gathering, and needed no clothing or house, but the
kindly circumambient air, he found the sense of property dead within
them
“Monarchs are but the beggar's shadows."
“for behold the kingdom of heaven is within you.” Even Art, of
which Wealth used to be the only patron, is coming to depend more
and more upon the half crowns of the many,—and if Art could live
handsomely without the half crowns, it would begin to love itself for
itself, and for the gratitude and admiration of its fellows. When we be-
come Christians, that is to say, when highest reason shall be married to
highest virtue, we shall doubtless all be communists--there shall be no
law for those who can be a law unto themselves--there shall be no
rulers – for each man's conscience will be the governor of his passions.
We shall be frugal from perception of its fitness--because God and
Nature are frugal, losing nothing of what they have produced, but
making the dead flowers of this year nourish the next spring's bud,
“ gathering up the fragments that nothing may be lost.” We shall be
liberal, as providence, which is economical, can afford to be generous,
with a “hand open as day to melting charity.” We shall be industrious,
because labour will be a blessing, the body's health and the soul's, loving
to see the useful growing under our hands, and serving our fellow man,
who in turn will be serving us. We shall be studious, loving Art and
Science for themselves, and for the enjoyment and advantage they con-
fer on the community. We shall be religious, not for the bishop's
palace, but for the sake of man, and raise our orisons, not from the
fretted vault, but under “the majestical roof fretted with golden fire!"
Even now the wisest of the great ones of the earth draw their enjoyment
from those elements which can be commanded without their wealth.
What peer, indeed, without a poet's eye, can even now draw half the
happiness from his own domains, that the lover of nature can do, by
merely looking at them? What king can be so great, as he whose mind
is a kingdom to himself-who can be “bounded in a nutshell, and count
himself a king of infinite space." Communism is common sense--the
highest heaven of spiritualized intelligence--the consummation of reason
--the wisest economy--the most genuine philosophy--the truest happi-
But as Rassellas found that there never was a poet, so may we be
assured, that from the very perfectibility involved in the definition of
communism, there never was a communist. To call these blaring savages
of the faubourgs, these wild beasts of prey in blouses, led by unbelieving
dreamers of the gospel according to Fourrier, those “monkey tigers,"
whose New View of Society is merely speculation run mad, and a belly-
full from other folks' larder-to call such men capable of communion
with any other society than kites, crows, apes, or a "politic congre-
gation of worms,” is sadly to misapprehend the significancy of the
movement.
No. We are a long way off communism, because we have not yet quite
reached perfectibility. As yet, selfishness is the only stimulus to exer-
tion--and we must purchase exertion at the only price at which it is of-
fered to us. Physical attainment must long precede moral excellence.
It is the sense of property which produces all that distinguishes civiliza-
ness.


46
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
tion from barbarism, and we must be civilized, even upon that condition.
Men will not toil for others, and as we need toil, why they must e'en do
it for themselves. We need a stimulus to the intellect. If the mind will
only answer to the call of competition, then we must continue to com-
pete. If science, and art, and knowledge, demand the reward of indi-
vidual advantage, then, as these are the gain of the community, we must
agree to pay the price. In this universal scramble dispensation, it is in
vain to expect to evoke endeavour without the premium of property.
If skill, and ingenuity, invention, adventure, courage, labour, will an-
swer only to the call of self, and exclusive ownership, then private sel-
fishness becomes the motive power of public utility. The men who
amass, become the benefactors of the State, and the accumulating capi-
talist is a treasure to his country. The Rothschilds, the Barings, the
Wigrams, the Morrisons, better earn what 'is theirs, and more worthily
use it, than the poorest of us. They bring the tribute of the whole world
to our shores—they set half mankind in motion—they find employment
and wages, and food for millions—they draw within the circle of our
commerce, to our great profit, the business of the nations, and long may
they enjoy the riches they so abundantly diffuse, and so liberally impart.
It is right they should have large and exclusive possessions. Were these
not accumulated, they would be lost. Property must have custodiers,
else it would be dissipated-possessions must have possessors, and it is
fitting that they who produce them should be the trustees of their pre-
servation. So long as men are selfish and irrational, to make property
common, would only be to make it cease to be. Throw all that indivi-
duals have saved and gained, into the public treasury, and how long
would it exist ? Would the idle work when they could eat without brow
sweat ? Would any man sow, when others were to reap? Would the
provident save, when the accumulations of the frugal were to be squan-
dered by the profusion of the spendthrift? The labourer is worthy of
his hire--and if, without hire, he would not labour, it is better the hire
should be devoted to himself, than that he should not labour at all.
We begin at the wrong end of communism. We take hold of the tail
of mere material arrangement, before we have secured the head of moral
adaptation. We cannot dispense with selfishness in our present state of
inferior morality, until knowledge, and intellect, and industry, stimulated
by the hope of individual gain, have attained to a higher state of pro-
ductive power, and muterial skill. It is only by selfishness that we can
secure the physical excellence, and the abundant appliances, which are
essential to easy animal and social existence. And when these are at-
tained, we must reach a far higher range of moral excellence, before we
are fit to live in a state of communion of goods. Do not even Fourrier-
ists take for their cardinal sentiment brotherhood? And what does bro-
therhood imply, but the obliteration of selfishness-individual denial –
disinterested philanthropy-devoted catholicity--the absence of every
passion that can disorder society, disturb the mind's peace-inflict a
wound upon another's heart. When we are Christians we shall be com-
munists. “ The wisdom that is from above is first gentle, then peaceable,
full of good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” We shall
have the best society--for we shall have good manners by the instinct
a
1
up


48
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
future will find them without income or profit. Such enormous num.
bers are dependant upon the vicissitudes of commercial speculation and
manufacturing profit, struggling, competing, cutting out, undermining,
underselling each other, that no man is sure of his ground, and every-
body is afraid of the success of his neighbour. Your American farmers
have no such fear. They help one another. There are customers for
all—and if there be not, there are still their own broad acres for food
and raiment, and no rent to pay. The men of their towns have no such
fear. The ample expanse of their soil occupies so many in agriculture,
that those who pursue a town life, are not over-crowded with competi-
tors—and when they are, their numbers are thinned out to the prairies,
the plough, and the far west. We, too, should have more yeomen and
landowners—more farms--more land fit for the plough, more tenants,
more peasants. Let a man have the hold of a piece of his mother earth
that he can call his own, and you make him-
“Lord of the lion heart, and eagle eye,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."
Farming his own acres, if he be wise and frugal, satisfied with his con-
dition, proud of his honest sturdy calling, he will find to-morrow ever the
same as, or better than to-day. His custom can never fall away, for nature
calls ever on him. His fabric will never go out of fashion. He has no
rivals who an ever supersede his trade, and seed time and harvest never
fail. We want a larger class of this kind, to maintain the equilibrium of
occupation—to give solidity and a broad basis to the centre of gravity of
national character-to graduate the distance between the rich and the
poor. We need them, to abstract from the competition of other por-
tions of human pursuit, the superfluous number who are compelled all
to press into a narrow and overdone market of commerce and manufac-
tures. We require them to call into existence a new class of pre-
cioas customers to our home markets, who have, day by day, become
less numerous, and less able, profitably to consume. We want them to
officer our rural districts—to stand between aristocracy and democracy,
-to defy oppression and to resist anarchy. We need them to encourage,
and mingle with, the poor, and to curb the overbearing influence of the
great. Above all we want a green souled and fresh hearted, and healthy
minded, and stalwart bodied, middle class, to diffuse over the population
sound constitutions, and vigorous character, and less sophisticated con-
ventionalities; and to be the depositaries of the virtue, justice, truthful-
ness, the righteousness which exalteth a nation. The £170,000,000
spent in railways would have bought 56,665 farms of 100 acres each,
requiring five families each to cultivate, and settling for life 1,411,125
country customers to our manufacturers, tradesmen, and merchants,
besides feeding the country with a healthy and virtuous population.
Entail, and primogeniture, and Corn Laws, which unnaturally en-
hance the price of farm produce, and raise rent, have every year made
the number of landowners less. We must have these monopolies of the
soil eradicated, that the numbers of proprietors may become greater.
Our population, by means of high rents, and the law of settlement,
have been driven into the large towns. We require that they should be


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
40
more equally diffused over the country, to make it all fruitful, to
carry progress and improvement, and scientific agriculture everywhere.
But, especially, and as the vital element of the re-convalescence of
society, we require that a large reduction shall be made in the pro-
portions of our population dependant upon the caprices and fortunes of
masters, deprived of the means of self-development, by being the mere
slaves of wages, reduced to the condition of pegs, and cogs, and wheels
in the enginery of society, and that they shall be raised to the condition
of being their own masters, of being the architects of their own for-
tunes, of having the opportunity of ceasing to be mere instruments of
subdivided labour of others, of cultivating and educing their whole fa-
culties, and of becoming emphatically Men. In the time of need such a
population will become the bulwarks of the constitution, the fly-wheel of
society, the breakwater of democratic fury, the dyke of resistance to
oligarchical encroachment.
The number of mere labourers of any kind must be, relatively to the
whole population, diminished-the proportion in agricultural employ-
ment, of workers employed by others, must be changed-the waste lands
d
which are to be found in every parish in the kingdom, must be divided,
and erected into farms of various sizes, and we must call into existence a
large class of peasant proprietors, and small renters of land, interspersed
among other classes of the larger holders and occupiers.
It has been proved--we have demonstrated, that in proportion as
small holdings have prevailed in England, poor rates have diminished,
a spirit of independence has been evoked, a manful hopefulness and intre-
pid activity of exertion have taken the place of the stolid indurated despair
which has paralyzed the energies of the spindle-shanked drudge, who has
been made the shuttlecock of the farmers, who, ground down themselves,
trucked tail wheat and light barley, and reduced wages to just the point
above the apology for relief at the parish pay table. In Ireland, the
same result has been effected by other
In place of
being, as in England, merely dependant on wages, and having
all stimulus to exertion deadened within him by the consciousness
that, toil as he would, he could never better his condition, because
his wagus and his comforts would be regulated solely by what was
sufficient to enable his masters to deny him a claim to parish relief, the
Irish cottier has felt, that labour as he might, and improve as he would,
his rent would always be raised to an amount which he could not
pay, and that he was liable to be turned out of his holding, whenever his
industry had raised its value. Insecurity, dependance, hopelessness,
poverty, from which there could be no relief, have been the causes of the
pauperism of the English peasantry, and of the Irish tenantry at will,
or, more properly, at caprice.
These causes have frightfully deteriorated the character, the inan-
liness, the physical constitution of our rural population. The breed in
fast degenerating ; their pith and marrow are going from them. Stunted
growth, personal deformity, failing strength, broken constitutions, arx
everywhere observable in our rural districts. How can it be otherwise ?
Break men's spirits, stint their diet, deteriorate their food, and what can
be the result but pinched faces, dead eyes, fish mouths, and calveless
fr
means.


50
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
legs. When disease takes them, the absence of stamina carries them
rapidly off. In Ireland nature has shrunk from her office, and popula-
tion has fallen from its former increase 66 per cent. in ten years. In
England many of our rural parishes are smaller in their numbers than
they were twenty years ago. The increase of predial crime has rendered
a rural police indispensable. The commitments in Ireland have ad-
vanced in the year 1848 to 39,116. The reports on the state of our
agricultural population disclosed an amount of squalid wretchedness and
immorality which was appaling. Incest, and more brutal offences, have
become so common, that the magistracy have been compelled to wink at
them. Poisoning, like opium-eating, or drunkenness, has become an
almost ineradicable crime. Stolid sensuality, or wild passion, have
alarmingly increased. Pauperism has advanced, while “wealth accu-
mulates, and men decay.”
Is it too late to redeem the time, and save the country? The chief
objection to any scheme for creating a peasant proprietary and a small
tenantry is, that such a people are not fit to become their own masters—
that they cannot guide themselves, or command their passions—that
they would be idle and dissolute were the coercion of wages and em-
ployers withdrawn from them that they require the discipline of masters
and the guidance of others, on the old principle, " set a beggar on
horseback, and he will ride to the devil.” It is also contended that, as
a matter of fact, very small farmers do not farm well, and that little
holders do not possess the capital necessary to cultivate with profit and
advantage.
The last objection may be first, and very easily disposed of. In truth
it is unmitigated nonsense—the genuine offspring of the balderdash of
our friends the feelosophers. Surely, if there be capital to cultivate a
large farm, the greater must include the less, and there must be many
small capitalists in proportion to a few large ones. If farming requires
a capital of £10 an acre, there must be many more who can command
£50 for five acres, than the number who possess £1,000 to till 100 acres,
or £5,000 to till 500. The sum required for five acres is, indeed, in-
finitely less in proportion. A spade, rake, and hoe, a wheelbarrow and
dibble, may all be had for 10s. No horses, no harness, no wages, no
smith's work are required. Even if they were, it would be a wise economy
for the parish to find the money, as they have often done, and much to
their own advantage.
Is there no substance of self-help in our peasantry? Let us see; the
Unions cannot find paupers in food, fuel, and clothing, upon less than
2s. 10d. per week, or 14s. 2d. for a family of five. Yet, hundreds of
these, maintain themselves on 8s. a-week, and pay house-rent (1s. 6d. or
25. a-week) into the bargain. Hundreds more bring up families of six,
eight, and ten children, without ever applying for assistance out of the
rates. The heroism and virtue of these men, is not surpassed in classic
times, or in the age of heroes.
What may not be expected by increased opportunities, from such a
people! Look how unitormly they succeed and rise to independence,
many of them to wealth, when they are thrown upon their own re-
sources, as settlers in the colonies--escaping from misery in the mother-


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
51
country-landing at the antipodes without a shilling, and raising them-
selves to affluence when they become their own masters. But we do not
need to travel so far from home for examples. We have seen that Saxon
boys of twelve years old have worked at sixteenths of a garden acre, paid
a high rent, supplied their families with vegetables, and realized a sur-
plus profit. It has been shown that small allotments of an acre, or half
an acre, have taken a whole parish pauper population off the rates, made
them permanently independent, and produced a higher rent than was
yielded for better land by the neighbouring farmers. It has been de-
monstrated that 119 habitual paupers have been made comfortable and
independent, by being permitted to rent five acres per family, at a fair
rent, more punctually paid than ever it had been by large farmers. No
experiment could have been more severe. Accustomed to a life of de-
pendence on the public, it might have been anticipated that paupers
would have been unconscious of self-respect, and lost the faculty of self-
assertion. No result could be more triumphant. There was yet a bit of
green in the almost sapless Saxon heart, and it sprung up, under the
sun and air of kindly treatment, to a goodly tree. No time could be
more propitious for extending the test of the principle. We are no
sycophants of the aristocracy. We never flatter the mob. We tell both
their duties, their rights, their weaknesses, errors, faults. But our
English Barons are, as a class, great and able men. This rugged and
massive Saxon people could not have been ruled as they have been, had
their masters been a race of fools, white feathers, or imbeciles. No
class, for their numbers, have turned out greater, abler, wiser men. We
are willing to believe that they are also improving in their humanities,
In their own way they are bountiful, generous, considerate of the poor.
Their slips of junior nobles are not in the rear of the philanthropy which
begins to animate the age. They begin to devote themselves to social
questions—to the condition of the people. They help the factory hands
to shorter hours--if not wisely, yet let us hope with kindly meaning.
They search into our mines and collieries, they go into our cottages, they
inquire into the state of our peasantry. The sempstress finds her lot
bettered for them. The shopman closes his shutters the earlier for them.
The very thief is reasoned with, and asked what they can do for him,
that he may become an honest man. The little savage foundlings of our
streets, are caught up, and put into our ragged schools. The embryo
burglar, the nascent footpad, is visited in the jail, and reasoned with and
taught, and his soul led up from the kennel, and the flash house, the
fence, and the family man, to good deeds on earth, and a Father in
Heaven, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. No longer does
“grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
“The short and simple annals of the poor.”
Men see that there will be war to the palace, if there be not peace in
the cottage--that knowledge is power, but is not virtue-a power that
can destroy, if it be not too well conditioned to desire it. May not a
man be able to read, yet not have a shoe to his foot? Did we never hear
of learning without a shirt, and genius without a dinner ? Are no beg-
gars intelligent-may not men be full of knowledge, and destitute of
everything else? When a whole volume of wise literature is to be had
f F2


52
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
for a penny, and the News of the World may be compassed for three-
pence, let rich men beware of leaving readers without rations! The tree
of knowledge bore the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But if
intelligence leads men to see how the many have nothing, and how the
few have too much, they will whisper to one another, “evil be thou my
good.” Ignorance is not dangerous. A horse may be ridden by a child.
But men may be knowing, without wisdom-they may read, but not read
aright—they may have “a giant's strength," and incline“ to use it as a
giant.”—Nay, shall we say that intelligence abuses its function when it
sees itself in misery—that humanity is wronged, degraded, neglected,
outraged, no longer reverenced,-and uses its power to make itself for-
midable to oppression ? Revolution is an evil, but sometimes a neces-
sary evil. If we will forget the infinite significancy of a human soul, and
that it is immortal, and that man is fashioned in the image of God, whe-
ther cut in ebony or in alabaster-it is but to sacrifice the great future to
the ignorant present time, to deprecate even the violence and disorder
which become necessary to purchase happiness and peace. The hurri-
cane is calamitous, but it adjusts the balances of nature. The storm, and
the earthquake, and the volcano, spread destruction on the sea, and de-
solation on the shore-but the dead calm will never fill the shoulder of
the soil, and the incessant sun breeds pestilence and reptiles. “ If you
wrong us shall we not revenge ?” And does revenge always reason ?
Since, then, men will be intelligent, and knowledge is power, let us
beware of offending the powerful. Since they cannot be kept in igno-
rance of their wrongs, let us straightway cease our wrong đoing. Since
intelligent humanity will enforce the reverence it does not receive, let us
forthwith prove that we do it homage, and render it respect.
Our error has been that we insist upon feeding mankind with
a spoon. At nature's feast we put a slavering bib upon humanity, and cut
its meat for it, ard shovel it down its throat, in place of sticking the ladle
in its own fist, and bidding it feed itself. We have not the sense to see
that justice is not only better but cheaper than generosity. Heaven
knows that we are charitable enough that there is no end of charity-
that “whether there be tongues they shall fail, whether there be prophets
they shall cease—but charity never faileth”-our kind of charity, such
as it is. My Lady Bountiful is to be found in every parish, distributing
her flannel and coals, and good cheer at Christmas, and “good books,
and tracts, to show how much “excellent soup” may be made out of a
handful of oatmeal, and an ounce of dripping. In fact, duchesses take
cottage cookery quite out of goody Gubbin's hands, and countesses get
learned on the nutritive properties of sheeps' heads and bullock's liver.
Our gentry can prove, in a quite edifying manner, on how little the poor
might be made comfortable-but the hiatus in their accomplishments lies
in the direction of their not undertaking the task of showing how the
poor can get more. A hirsute barrister at law, in a “voice from Thieves'
Inn,” avers that the annual sum spent in private charity in these king-
doms, amounts to thirty millions-equal to a whole eternity of fees for
motions of course! Ten millions more of rates, and public charities,
swell our benevolence to an infinity of almsgiving. Now, the mere dis-
tribution of this must cost some money, and more trouble. Mendicity
9)


54
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
you shall be all the richer. You may even keep your Forty Millions,
and Labour be none the poorer. You may possess your broad acres, and
still receive even a better rent.
The secret of peasant prosperity lies in fostering the spirit of inde-
pendence. Nature and Man cry, “Let us alone.” Undo bad laws, and
leave land free. Saxons are still Saxon, although sorely battered.' In-
crease allotments--make small farms-improve waste lands--throw open
the soil to the people--have peasant proprietors-abolish the artificial
system which concentrates territory in the hands of the few-and make
it easily and securely accessible to all. Make the poor their own
masters, and keep them no longer in the leading strings of masters and
of wages.
“The bit of land has done it all.” What it has done for one man, it
will do for many, if we have but the wit to give it them.
We open a page in human history, which we hope will be read through
to the bottom, and with strong temptation to turn over the leaf-a new
leaf for governors. There shall be no prolixity. The words are not
ours, but those of village heroes—better worth reading. The matter is
not the speculation of the politician, but the facts of the annals of the
poor. They shall tell their own tale, which has spoken to our heart,
and will to yours, if yours be human. We have had tales of the Irish
peasantry. Here are stories of the English ploughmen, which contain
the highest strokes of art—those which are dashed off by the free pencil
of unsophisticated nature. But here we stand like a garrulous host at
the gateway, telling his guests of the cheer they will receive, when he
should be ushering them into the parlour, and setting them down to it.
We shall but premise that rent was in 1798 £45,000,000, in 1815 it was
£51,000,000, in 1841 it had reached £62,000,000, while wages have
fallen back, especially in the rural districts, somewhat in the ratio in
which rent has advanced.
The good Bishop of Durham found on Lord Winchilsea's estates in
Rutlandshire, in 1797, a day labourer, his wife and ten children, who, by
the use of two cows and a garden, lived in comfort and independence,
without costing a farthing to the parish. An old couple of fourscore,
who could not labour, were, by the same assistance, kept comfortable
without parish relief to the end of their days. An aged lone woman
was, by similar means, preserved in easy circumstances.
The Earl, encouraged by these results, was enabled subsequently to
report--"Upon my estate in Rutlandshire there are from seventy to
eighty labourers, who keep from one to four cows each. They manage
their land well, and pay their rent very regularly." Mark that-you
who have large farms thrown on your hands, or drowned in arrears.
“ From what I have seen of them I am confirmed in the opinion I have
long held, that nothing is so beneficial, both to them, and to the land-
owners, as their having land to be occupied, either for the keeping of
cows, or as gardens."-Spoken like a true earí.
“By means of these advantages the labourers and their families live
better, and are consequently more fit to endure labour; they are more
contented, and more attached to their situation” -
-no emigration in
their lieads—eh?.-"and acquire a sort of independence which inakes


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
35
them set a higher value upon their character”—no poaching-small
county rates-little call for the “blue police.”—“In the neighbourhood
in which I live, men so circumstanced are almost always considered as
the most to be depended upon and trusted; the possessing a little pro-
perty certainly gives a spur to industry; as a proof of this, it has almost
always happened to me, that when a labourer has obtained a cow, and
land sufficient to maintain her, the first thing he has thought of has been
how he could save money enough to buy another; and I have always
had applications for more land from those people so circumstanced.
There are several labourers in my neighbourhood who have got on in
this manner, till they now keep two, three, and some four cows, and yet
are amongst the hardest working men in the country, and the best
labourers.' That unhappy vagabond Swing would get little quarter
from the Winchilsea folks. Was ever heard the like! If you give these
peasants an inch, they would take an ell. One cow leads on to two,
two low for more company-three bellow for a fourth, for all the kine
can't keep the clover down! And so by steps and stairs, 7s. a-week go
on to 14s., and 14s. to a “bit o' land”-and a bit to a field-until at last
from merely a cottier, up creeps or crawls the large-calved, well-fed
labourer, to top boots, and the market ordinary among the farmers !
But we have not done with the Earl yet, God bless him! We wish
there were more like him—to put Cuffy and Duffy, and blatant phy-
sical force Chartism quite out of court.
“With regard to the profit they make of a cow, those who manage
well might clear Is. 8d. a-week, or £4. 6s. 8d. per ann. by each cow, sup-
posing the rent of land, levies, &c. to cost them £4, exclusive of house-
rent." Mr. Blacker can show them how to do it a good deal cheaper.
“This clear profit, may now be set down at £5 a-year at least; so as to
make the whole £9 a-year, on a supposition that all the produce is
sold.” “They keep sheep during winter on their cow pasture, at the rate
of two, and in some cases three, at 2s. 6d. each, for cow pasture.” “They
all agree that two cows are more than twice as profitable as one."
“They suckle calves, and buy supernumerary lambs from the farmers
bringing them up by hand.”—(He had “but one little ewe lamb which
lay in his bosom, and was to him as a daughter."-) “I know of several
labourers' widows, maintained by their sons, but could not otherwise
have lived without parish relief.”
His Lordship next becomes quite statistical. None of your dry haired
politico-economical regiments of figures, as if, when we had read on to
the Book of Numbers, we would never, in this life, reach to the next
title in the Pentateuch—but just enough to set bolt upright those im-
practicable characters called facts - the “stubborn chiels that winna’
ding.”
“In the parish of Burley, and the two adjoining parishes of Hamble-
don and Egleton, where there are a great number of labourers who keep
cows, the rate collected for the relief of the poor last year (1797,) did
not, on an average, amount to sixpence in the pound. No rents are
better, or more regularly paid on my estate, than those for the cottager's
land.”
Observe, squires, no arrears—no claims for abatement-no
grumbling at the times-no protection. "Ready money Jacks' every


56
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
one of them. “ There has not been, for several years back, any arrear
of them. In these parishes there are several labourers with very large
families, and several aged persons past work, who must have had relief
from the parish if they had not cows; they do not receive any parochial
aid ; the sums raised for the relief of the poor in those parishes being for
those who, from various circumstances, are not possessed of cows."
“ The following is an account of the number of inhabitants, and of the
sums raised for the poor, and also of the amount of poor rate per pound,
from Easter 1796, to Easter 1797 :-
Number of Sums raised Amounts
Inhabitants.
for the poor.
per pound.
d.
d.
Burley.....
225
38 12 1
3 »
Egleton ..
144
15 11 5
Hambledon.
335
74 16 6
s.
0
704
129
O average 5314"
In a Note to this report, Mr. Thomas Bernard observes that, in the
Dillon Enclosure Act (1781,) the cottagers were secured in the fee
simple of their cottages and garden, and in two acres for three lives.
“Mr. Holliday informs me, that during the sixteen years that have
passed since the enclosure, there has been hardly any instance of a
cottager who kept a cow, standing in need of, or seeking relief from, the
parish.” We wonder how Burley cum Egleton cum Hambledon fare
now? We have got a Duke-fighting, “British constitution” tinkering,
Protestant succession-mongering Earl of Winchilsea. We should like to
have his statement of the rates of 1849 in these parishes. If he is a
better man than his father, we should have him labelled in the British
Museum as a unique specimen of the genus Peer. “Whoever,” observes
the old Earl, “has travelled through the midland counties, and will
take the trouble of enquiring (as to the cause of the increase of Poor
Rates,) will generally receive for answer, that formerly there were a
great many cottagers who kept cows; but that the land is now thrown to
the farmers; and if he enquires still further he will find that, in those
parishes, the poors' rates have increased in an amazing degree.” No
doubt of it. And what does the farmer care ? Rates form a deduction
from rent, not from tenant profits--and the more destitute labourers
are, the cheaper are they forced to work. Verb. eap.
Mr. Samuel Weller the elder had “.
an objection to widows”-a dread
of them, we should rather say, and of their crimped caps and long be-
coming ear flaps-a true viduo-phobia. Now, considering that, if they
have been worth marrying once, it is to be presumed that they may be
worth any man's while to lead to the hymeneal altar again, this dread
of relicts seems irrational. Perhaps it was the very superiority of widows'
attractions which rendered them irresistible, and therefore all the more
dangerous to a susceptible Jehu of a long coach. But a widow, with a
whole census to herself, it undoubtedly requires some courage to un-
dertake. Here comes one however, that even Weller himself might
fancy. “John Way, Esq., of Hasketon, Suffolk,” thus introduces her.
“In 1799, a tenant of mine died, leaving a widow and fourteen children,


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
57
66
the eldest a girl under fourteen. He had held under me fourteen acres
of pasture land at £13 a-year, and had kept two cows, which, with
a very little furniture and clothing, was all the property. The directors
of the house of industry immediately agreed to take her seven youngest
children into the house. She said she would rather die in working to
maintain them; and that if I, her landlord, would continue her in the
farm, as she called it, she would undertake to maintain and bring up all
her fourteen children without any parochial assistance.” If the widow
of Hasketon did not wear the breeches, it is scarcely to be denied that
she proved the grey mare to be the better horse. Most manly widow !
She persisted in her resolution; and being a strong woman about 45
years old, (was it fair, Mr. Way, to blab ages ?) I told her she should
continue tenant, and hold it the first year rent free. At the same time,
though without her knowledge, I directed my receiver not to call upon
her at all for her rent, conceiving that it would be a great thing if she
could support so large a family, even with that indulgence.” Good John
Way, and wise as good ;-15 of a family, perenially in the workhouse, at
3s. a head, per week, is £117 per annum, and your share would probably
come to something over the rent.
“The result, however, was, that with the benefit of her two cows, and
of the land, she exerted herself so as to bring up all her children, twelve
of whom she placed out to service, continuing to pay her rent regularly of
her own accord. She carried part of the milk of her two cows, together
with the cream and butter, every day to sell at Woodbridge, two miles off,
and with her skim and butter milk, &c., supported her family. The
eldest girls took care of the rest; and, by degrees, as they grew up, the
children went into the service of the neighbouring farmers.” Oh ! Sam-
uel ! how little you know of widows! Fifteen peasants to fourteen acres,
less than an acre a piece. Not a man among them--except a woman.
Pray, reader, take an Irish bull kindly by the horns for once,-a most
truthful bull. Only two cows to fourteen acres. Why Mr. Blacker could
have taught them a way of keeping eighteen cows on the same quantity,
and made them nine times richer. What could not the fifteen have done
if they had known the use of a spade, a hoe, and a dibble! Or if a
sturdy and active labourer had been one of them, to teach the boys to
know how to set about it,” and to put some mettle into their hands and
heels, in place of packing them off to service, to glut the labour market,
and bring down labour and up rates ? Is it not obvious that there would
soon have come out of this Hasketon cottage, full fledged, a substantial
race of John Browdeys, with money in the sample bag, flitches in the
chimney, hearts in the right place, and heads that could contrive
anything?
At Humberston, near Grinsby, Lord Carrington, by this cow keeping
plan, kept the rates down to 10d. in the pound. Mr. Bernard, in a second
visit to the Rutland parishes, found“ eighty cottagers with cows, some with
seven, others eight, and some nine children, all healthy, clean, well fed, and
neatly dressed. None of them are become chargeable upon the parish. and
of all the rents on the estate, none are more punctually paid than those of
the cottagers' land.” Mr. Basset, steward to Lord Glentworth's Lincoln
Estates, “ accommodates the cottagere with a sufficient quantity of land


58
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY
to keep from one to two cows and no more. “I am convinced, from
thirty years' experience, that the result has been highly conducive to the
interests of the farmers, who have always a set of industrious labourers,
who do not become chargeable to the parish. The rates do not average
more than 8d. in the pound, for poor, church, constable, and highways."
Mr. Thomas Estcourt reports that a proposal was made in 1800 to the
poor of Long Newnton, Wilts, to substitute allotments of one acre and a
quarter, for their relief at the parish board, They were charged 32s. an
acre rent for land for which the neighbouring farmers paid 20s. Thirty-
two families gladly availed themselves of the offer, and the result was,
that while for the last six months before the gift of allotments, 1800-1,
the parish rates amounted to £212 16s., the rate for the six months,
1803-4, under the new system, fell to £?2 6s., whereof only £4 12s. 6d.
were spent on the poor. They paid up all their debts, and also their
heavy rent most punctually,
Sir William Pulteney does not, indeed, introduce us to another widow
-but for want of a better, a collier's wife, Mrs. Richard Millward, of
Shropshire, is an acquaintance worth courting. She has six children,
and an acre and one sixteenth of " cat-brain-the very worst soil”-dear
enough at the rent she pays, 3s. a year, and cribbed by Lady Malpas, off
Pully Common. What with manuring, and careful weeding, the wheel-
barrow, the spade, the fork, and the hoe, and without any live stock,
but a yearly pig, she beats all the farmers round the country, and raises
wheat, even in bad years, in the proportion of 70 bushels, or nearly 9
quarters to the acre, on the worst soil in Shropshire! Her straw and
potato haulm, and even weeds, make up abundance of manure—she has
enough of potatoes for the family, the pig, and next year's seed-she
sells early potatoes, and peas, and cabbages, in Shrewsbury, and, on the
same ground, grows late potatoes and turnips the same year, for the
family and the pig. She does all this with little help from her toil worn
husband, and takes the shine out of the biggest farmer in the county. A
truly notable woman. How many Jane Millwards might not England
boast, if fair play were given to her peasantry! Worthy Mr. Plumptre,
a Cambridge parson, gossips pleasantly through the history of Dick
Austin, of Cherry Hinton, who began a two story house, on twenty poles
of roadside common, with a capital of 14s. ; and finished it handsomely,
besides being well found in fruit and vegetables. He also tells us of others
who raised 50 bushels of potatoes on an eighth of an acre, equal to 400
bushels an acre at 48., or £80 an acre !
These results are not indigenous to England alone. The article on
Fleinish Husbandry in the volumes of the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge, observes, “When the land is cultivated entirely by the
spade, and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of
land, and entirely fed on artificial grasses and roots. All the labour is
done by different members of the family-children soon beginning to as-
sist in various minute operations, according to their age and strength,
such as weeding, hoeing, feeding the cows. If they can raise rye and
wheat enough to make their bread, and potatoes, turnips, carrots, and
clover for the cows, they do well, and the produce of the sale of their
rape seed, flax, hemp, and butter, after deducting the expense of manuro


THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
59
purchased, which is always considerable, gives them a very good profit.
Supposing the whole extent of the land to be six acres, which is not an
uncommon occupation, and which one man can manage, then a man,
his wife, and three children, will require 39 bushels of grain, 49 bushels
of potatoes, a fat hog, and the butter and milk of one cow; an acre and
a half of land will produce the grain and potatoes, and allow some corn
to finish the fattening of the hog, which has the extra butter milk;
another acre in clover, carrots, and potatoes, together with the stub-
ble turnips, will more than feed the cow; consequently, two acres and
a half of land are ufficient to feed this family, and the produce of the
other three and a half may be sold to pay the rent, or the interest of the
purchase money, wear and tear of implements, extra manure, and clothes
for the family. But these acres are the most profitable on the farm, for
the turnip, flax, and colza are included; and by having another acre in
clover, and roots, a second cow can be kept, and its produce sold. In a
farm of ten acres, cultivated by the spade, the addition of a man and a
woman to the members of the family, will render all the operations more
easy.”
We are tempted, even at the risk of converting the reader into an
exhausted receiver of accumulated facts, to present to him the two por-
traits, which we have hung up in our gallery. The first is a photograph
of a farm labourer, the servant of a great food manufacturer--the se-
cond is that of a small tenant, great only in being his own master. Look
upon this picture
“Here,” observes the Weekly Dispatch, “is the week's account of a
hard-working, honest, and efficient farm labourer of the county of Ox-
ford. He has to walk three miles and a half before six o'clock every
morning, to his work, and three miles and a half back again, when he is
ready to drop with the fatigues of the day-seven miles a day. This is
the result of the law of settlement, which induces landowners to pull
down all the cottages on their estates, and draw their labourers from the
neighbouring parish, that they may not gain a settlement in their own.
He has a wife and five children-seven human beings in all, and his wages
are 9s. a week in summer, and 7s. 6d. in winter, during the greater part
of which latter season he is without employment owing to the new-fan-
gled, pernicious system of hiring men by the week in place of the year.
From his own lips we take down the following account of the disposal of
his wagos :
d.
d.
Rent
13 Candle
0 0
6 gallons Bread
5 6 Cotton
00}
1 lb. Bacon
07 Thread
00
Half-pound Butter
05 Worsted
005
1 lb. Sugar
04 Quarter-pound Cheese
0 1
1 oz. Tea
0 3 Salt
0 0
Soap
02
Blue
00}
90
Starch
0 0.
Such is the welcome home of the poor spindle-shanked, pinched-nosed
8.
8.


60
THE DISEASE AND REMEDY.
wretch from a seven mile walk, and ten hours hard work in rain and
snow, in summer and winter. We were afraid to ask him where he got
his fuel. It will be seen that he is a munificent encourager of the home
trade-there is nothing for clothing-only an odd halfpenny for patch-
ing and darning. Nothing for shoes. This man gets no beer, loudly
as the farmers clamour about the burden of the Malt Tax. He has
only tasted fresh meat once in three years, on the occasion of the
neighbours sending his wife a little at her confinement. He begs the
cast-off clothes of the gentry, and pays for shoes out of a little extra
money earned at the hay and corn harvest, by longer hours and task-
work. Now this is not a new condition. This man has been thus treated
by the farmers along with hundreds of thousands more, when three years
ago they were getting 1058. a quarter for wheat. They were as shame-
fully paid in the palmiest days of Protection-in 1839, when the ave-
rages were 738. a quarter for the year.”
The genial oil painting of a small tenant, who calls no man master,
and who is always his own employer, is thus framed by the same limner.
“The scene of this biography lies in Middlesex-not a dozen miles
from Bow bell. The subject of it was one of those parish nuisances who
could not make up his mind to break road metal, and yet never got re-
gular work. He has a family, and took as much beer as ever, by hook
or by crook, he could come by. An eleemosynary worker, a sort of odd
man in the village, careful men mentally laid at his door all undetected
parochial peccadilloes. He cast his eyes upon the old worn-out gravel-
pit of the village on the neighbouring heath. There are two acres and a
half of it with a large water-hole in the middle. It was of no use to
anybody. He offered 12s. 6d. a year for the whole, and was duly installed
as tenant. He began his work in the spring, and got a loan of cabbage-
plants, of peas, and seed-potatoes. He discovered the hidden riches of
the water-hole. Load after load of fertilizing mud he hauled out of the
pond, and wheeled upon the land. He worked with his spade, early and
late-wife and children helping. A starved pony and truck carried his
vegetables every morning to market. He was always at it. Not a square
inch was idle for an hour. The cabbages were taken up, at sunrise, for
the market, and when he returned with the proceeds his family had
already planted the vacant space with a new crop. Even the water-hole
planted with osiers, brought the custom of the basket-makers. The
world throve with him, and as ambition saw the way cleared, it stimulated
self-respect. He became a teetotaller. The pony gave place to a horse.
He had crop enough to take to London, and brought back manure in the
return cart. Fertility and production increased. He got stronger and
healthier as he could afford to be better fed. He worked harder, earlier,
later. He devised new contrivances, and ventured upon more expensive
crops, until, at last, in ten years' occupation of two acres and a half of
an old gravel pit, we find him master of £300 in hard cash in the bank,
respected as a warm man, and a steady friend in the village, and is about
to treble the size of his holding, and start in the character of a prosperous
small farmer whom landlords will be glad to secure as a tenant ! He has,
he tells us, neighbours whose history is almost a counterpart of his own.
'Give a mau,' says Arthur Young, 'the freehold of a bare rock, and he


A POOR LAW.
61
will convert it into a garden. Give him a nine years' lease of a garden,
and he will turn it into a desert.' Let a peasant labour for himself, and
behold the result. Make him the drudge of another, at weekly wages,
and next winter you will find him begging weekly loaves from the Union.
We bury the virtues of the Saxon peasant when we make him a farmer's
slave. Set him on his own legs, on his own ground, and there is not a
moor or heath in England, that he will not make as productive as Ayles-
bury Vale or Romney Marsh."
How say you, gentlemen of the jury. Are we entitled to a verdict ?
Can you demur to our plea for the poor? Is not the case proved
already? We have bored you with witnesses. What has cross-exami-
nation done, but confirmed their testimony? These Saxon peasants are
a noble raco-although sorely battered with scant barley bread, and
dear tail wheat. Their legs have shrunk to drumsticks, and their hollow
cheeks to parchment, on 7s. a week, and the abject spirit of the pauper.
But in their inner heart burns still the divine spark of energy, and the
fire of manhood. Enkindle their soul flame by the breeze of hope, and
what may not they and England be! Bid them beg no more, but work
on their own land, and not another's farm, ard they will raise themselves
and us to the topmost pinnacle of humanity. They can be trusted with
independence-they may be left to be their own master. They need but
their cottage farm, and wise and humane rulers, to spurn charity, and rise
from sınall beginnings to the apex of society. In spite of neglect and
oppression, see what they have done. Treat them according to their
rich deserts and what will they not do? We sigh for no paradisaical
paralellogram. We do not want the varied beauty of the green lanes of
England to be squared, and ruled. We desire to revive the gradations of
society-raising an intermediary class between the very rich, and the miser-
ably poor. We would have farms, like ladder steps, for good men to
climb by, from the lowly cottage, up through the little farm, to the larger
homestead. We would not have the first step so high, that the needy
can not reach it, and must stand in despair at the bottom, gazing at a top
he can never find. We would have corporals, and serjeants, and subal-
terns, and captains among us, as well as generals, and full privates. How
are we to set about new officeering our army of industry
CHAPTER IV
A POOR LAW.
A Poor Law, we believe to be an unmitigated curse.
It makes men
paupers – it bribes them to laziness and improvidence. In the rear of
their minds it fosters the thought that they will be provided for some-
how, whether they be provident and industrious, or not. Scotland had
no relief, and her peasantry were, and are, the niost frugal, foresighted,
and comfortable wages-receiving men in the world. She is now saddled
& G


32
A POOR LAW.
1
with a poor law, and her people are losing their self-respect, their indus-
try, and independence. It makes the poor, poorer, because the industri-
ous have to pay for the support of the dissolute, until, at last, they take
their places by their side. It absorbs £8,000,000 of the capital of the
conntry, in that which yields no return, except an encreasing locust host
of unproductive beggars. It will speedily eat up all the land of Ireland
-and we are assured that the Martin estate in Galway, offered in the
market in fee-simple, at 20s. an acre, hangs on hand, and will not tempt
the enterprise of the capitalist, or improver, because she sees no pros-
pect from its cultivation, but that of suffering beggary to reap what
energy has sown. Poor rates are frightfully on the increase in England,
in the face of a pattern poor law; and everywhere, legalized relief shows
but one result, decreased comfort and substance-advancing crime,
squalor, idleness, and pauperism. “It was an observation,” says Mr.
Bernard, in his Report, dated 1801, "of the late Mr. Howard, that in
Switzerland and Scotland, he found the fewest prisoners. Mrs. Han-
nah More mentioned to me, that during the number of years the late
Mr. Henry Fielding presided at Bow Street, only six Scotchmen, as
he stated, were ever brought before him.” Now, Scotland has more
criminals in proportion to her numbers, than any country in Europe.
But if we are to have a poor law, it should be equal in its operation.
Why should the people of London pay more for the support of the poor,
than the inhabitants of Rutland, or Caermarthen? They are all subjects
of the same country-why should the duties of charity devolve more
on the one than on the other ? The vagabonds who have made the
rural districts too hot to hold them, hide themselves in the metropolis.
Why should Middlesex sustain the expense of thieves bred in Northamp-
ton, any more than the rate payers of Devonshire? The suppression of
crime, and the relief of distress, are equally the interest of the whole
nation. Why should one county sustain the burdens of all ?
The poor and county rates should be abolished. If local boards will
feel less interest in the frugal administration of a fund they have not
directly to pay for, let government superintendents check extravagance,
and show the provinces the right plan of management. We do not see
any want of interest in the reduction of the state expenditure—and the
spending it by local distributors, is not likely to increase the public apa-
thy to extravagance. By collecting rates with other taxes, a large saving
would be effected in gatherers and surveyors; and it is said an equal
rate of Is. 6d. in the pound would realize all that is required.
We ought to have no law of settlement. Wherever a man goes, from
where he is not wanted, to where he is—in that latter spot he should be
relieved—whereby parochial lawsuits would be stopped, and the costs
of transport from London to Land's End would be saved. To send a
pauper back to the place where want of work first pauperized him,
is only to aggravate the competition for employment where it is too great
already. If he has left his parish, that is only evidence that there is no
room for him there. Why then cram him upon those who cannot
give him work, and take him from the district to which he has gone to
seek it? Oh, John Bull! Who but an ass would carry coals to New-
castle! The unemployed labourer knows better where work is to


64
A POOR LAW.
would enable him to afford profitable employment to every member of his
family, from the youngest picking weeds, to the oldest milking the cow,
and churning the butter. These men have all a will,—we have proved that.
The only condition necessary to their success is that we should afford
them a way. We shall want no Dutch butter,-no American cheese,-no
Irish pigs, (let paddy eat them himself, -no French eggs,-
-no Holstein
cattle. Veal will again fall to 2d. per lb., as it did before our commons
were enclosed. A large farmer cannot afford to pay one family for the
management of a single cow, so he must send the cows out to pasture where
their manure is lost, and he ceases to make butter and cheese. He has not
refuse enough in his own family for a number of pigs, so there is no econo-
my in keeping them. He cannot gather eggs, or look after poultry, or
keep bees on a large scale, so he keeps none at all.
Half the economy
of farming is lost to him, because he has to pay for every service, eye
service, and eggs are easily scolen, and butter made lighter in the weight.
To the best and highest style of farming, an amount of supervision and
minute care is demanded which hired service will never render. The
stimulus of self interest is essential to the attainment of the greatest
amount of productiveness, and the keenest husbanding and cultivation of
all the resources of husbandry,—and these are only compatible with that
kind of agriculture which a single family can pursue without hired help.
A small farm is, essentially, a small market garden. There the spade,
hand, and hoe, do every thing; and it cannot be denied that it is quite
practicable to make up for the smallness of the space, by the greater num-
ber of crops which may be grown within the year, the division of the
chances of failure by the greater variety of the produce, the rapidity
with which blanks are filled up, the ease of transplanting, the greater
depth of soil resulting from spade trenching, and the cleaner and more
pulverized mould. The small farmer's sons are growing up. In place of
their coming up to town to beat down the labour market, they do not even
push themselves upon the large farmers, until wages rise to a tempting
price. The farmers again, fall back upon rent, and the landlord
compensates himself by the increasing demand for smaller holdings, pro-
moted by a steady decrement in poor and county rates. The cottage ten-
antry save money, and desire to buy what they rent, raising the price of
little freeholds, -all are benefitted, and all are contented.
It is better that money should go out of the country for food, than that
food should be scarce and dear. It is better that we should import thirty
millions worth of the necessaries of life in exchange for our manufac-
tures, than that our weavers should starve, and that our mills should
be idle. But it is better than either, that our town population should be
fed cheaply by our rural fellow-countrymen, and that a home trade should
render us independent of continental convulsions and foreign competition,
The scarcity of the supply of labour produced by the increased employ-
ment of the peasantry on their own holdings, will force up wages and
fairly bring down capital to its proper level. Cheap food will raise the
price of every thing else except money; and abundant wages, and large
savings among the cottage tenantry, will give a consuming power to the
masses, which may quite well double the demand for all species of manu-
factures. Whenever food is cheap and abundant, it is a fact established


66
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
pedient for employing money-dealers, to devise the means of circulating
money safely, by their superior knowledge of safe men. But if all de-
positor's could, without risk, and the roundabout ceremony of bills and
discounts, circulate their money rapidly themselves, or, in other words,
find out the men who could invent new methods of profitably employing
it, the uses of capital would become greatly more enriching to the com-
munity. This is seen when great confidence exists--when men can be
trusted-when there is no fear of failures and bad debts. Then everybody
is busy-all are actively employed in devising new sources of profit, and
new means of employment. But ready money, which truly means a
greater number of circulators, a more rapid transfer of coin and its re-
turn, is the most convenient method of ensuring confidence, because no
credit or trade trust is so safe as ready money. A man can sell cheaply
when the number of his customers increases, or, in other words, when he
turns over his capital rapidly; and the cheaper he sells, the greater is the
increase of his custom. Even the largest undertakings do not require
the concentration of capital. Our railways have been constructed by the
contributions of the many—and one of the evils arising from the under-
taking, has been the locking up of capital, or, in other words, the transfer
of the spare money of the many, temporarily into the hands of a few.
We cannot doubt that the reader has already applied this doctrine for
himself. It is better for a country that its wealth, without being arti-
ficially, should be somewhat equally, divided, than that a few should have
it all, and the many have none. What is a money qualification but a
confession, that good conduct, intelligence, and activity, are best secured
by the possession of capital ? The greater the number of capitalists, the
greater will be the industry, the sagacity, the energy, the inventive spirit
of a community. The Americans perform greater wonders than any
other people, just because a greater number of them, possess means more
or less, than any other people. Who can doubt that a community would,
in every respect, be richer and more prosperous, with 3,000 families
possessed of £100 a-year each, than with one Duke of Northumberland
and 2,999 Wiltshire ploughmen? The latter would soon eat up the sub-
stance of the former in rates, producing nothing in return-the active
brains of the others, would be continually devising new plans of en-
terprise and industry, profitable to all, and burdensome to none.
We must therefore not merely have much capital, but many capitalists,
placed in a position easily and effectively to produce more. They must
not be competitors of each other. They must not crowd markets which
are glutted already. They must not all produce one thing, or cut each:
other's throats by struggling to get above one another, and tearing their
common customers to pieces. They must be placed in an occupation
where, however much they produce, it will all be consumed.
What will do this half so effectually as by the transfer of the enterprize
of the nation to a branch of employment, which does not as yet produce
nearly enough to meet the demands of its customers ? That we export
more than one half of all the manufactures we produce, is a fact which
proves that that branch of industry is overdone. We have to compete in
neutral markets, not only with foreigners, but with each other. That
we import £30,000,000 worth of food, is evidence that our agriculture is


68
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
Australia. Nay, what success do they achieve at home, with the enccu-
rageu.ent of a moderate rent, and security of tenure. Mr. Allen, in his
“ Colonies at Home,” shows that a cow may be kept on half an acre.
Mr. Cobbett developes a plan whereby a rood may be made sufficient for
the purpose. Moses Greer, the winner of the first prize at the Market
Hill Agricultural Society's Meeting, for keeping four cows and two calves
on one acre and a half all summer, and having three roods of turnips,
and of rape for the winter, states, “I hold 8 acres of land, which I have
Ilow got into the highest condition; and I shall in future be enabled to
keep it so, without going to the expense in lime, which I have heretofore
been at, by reason of the great quantity of manure from my increased
stock of cattle, consisting of four cows and two calves. This stock has
been fed on clover and vetches, on the same piece of ground which, when
formerly in grazing, fed only one cow, and that poorly. My land is held
part at 23s., part 8s. 3d. an acre, and my rent amounts to £7 14s. 6d.,
and I have sold butter to the amount of £11 4s., clear of all deductions,
and have had enough of milk and butter for my family besides. The
abundance of manure has enabled me to set as many potatoes as my
neighbours, holding the same quantity of land, and I have as much crop
too, besides having my turnips likewise. By the soiling system, and four
course rotation, I derive, every year, greater advantages; my land being
now all perfectly clear, every inside ditch levelled, not a spot in the whole
that is not productive, and not any of it whatever in pasture."
Thomas Bruce, another Irish cottier, observes : “ When I came into
possession of my farm, in 1831, there was no more than about half an
acre of potato ground, and this in such a dirty bad condition, that it had
to be dug over with a grape, in order to clean it, before it could be sown
with grain and clover seed. The rest of the land was in a miserable ex-
hausted state, not fit to produce anything; and I was then possessed
of but one cow, and had no meat to feed more. That year I sowed
a few turnips upon what manure I had to spare, by employing lime
compost for my potatoes ; and the next spring, between compost and
cow-house manure, I was able to set an acre and a half of potatoes,
and half an acre of turnips. That year I was able to house-feed, upon
the clover and some vetches, two cows, and had plenty for them all
winter. Next spring I had so much manure, that, with some assistance
from lime compost, I was able to set two acres and a rood of potatoes,
and three roods of turnips; and, having sowed more clover, I was ena-
bled that season to keep three cows and a horse—which stock I still have
with the addition of a calf; and have fed them this season on five roods
of clover, two roods of vetches, and one rood of grazing; which, being
chiefly on a rocky bottom, cannot be broken up. And if an acre was
allowed for the keep of the horse, and twenty perches for the calf, this
would leave only one rood and four perches for the summer feeding
of each cow; and this, with one rood of turnips for each, during
winter (which would allow, at thirty-four tons per acre, near ninety
pounds a day for each for seven months), would only make eighty-
four perches, or little more than half an English acre for the year's
keep. And I have a rood of rape, as a stolen crop besides ; so that
I have plenty of food for them; and my land is improved to such a


A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
69
degree, that there is more than three times the return from it, than
what it formerly gave; and I shall now be able to keep it in heart
by the manure made by house-feeding, without any of the expense
for lime which I have been formerly at.”
James Bradford, said : “ When I came under Lord Gosford, I owed
£5 an acre of arrears; I had no property whatever, nor meat for
my family. I have now, thank God, and the assistance he has been
pleased to send me through Mr. Blacker, plenty of provisions to do
until next crop, though I had none then. I have also two cows and
a pig, and then I had neither one or other. My land, also, is now
in heart, and produces as much in one year as it then would in three;
and this season, I expect to pay up all arrears that are against me,
and I will only owe the purchase money of a small piece of land his
honour added to my farm, as an encouragement; and when I get
clear of this, I think I will be comfortable, and very thankful for all
that has been done for me."
John Hogg said, 'that he had been in distressed circumstances
before Lord Gosford bought the property, and was intending to go to
America; but having got encouragement from Mr. Blacker, he had fol-
lowed his advice, and his farm was now all under the four-course rota-
tion; he had two cows and a horse, had a cart and a plough; owed no
rent now, though he was deep in arrear formerly; had bought more
land, and was in the way of doing well. The new system kept himself
and family all busy, and paid them well for their labour. He formerly
had been obliged to pay £7 for potatoes for his family, and now he had
£3 worth to sell, owing to the manure from his turnips."
John Whittle stated that he had formerly only one cow and a horse
upon six and a half acres. He had since, for his exertions, got from Mr.
Blacker, the addition of another acre, and he now kept well two cows,
two heifers, and his horse. He had levelled all his ditches, and filled up
an old quarry, and covered rocks with soil, so as to gain a full rood of
land, on which he had this day a capital crop of turnips, and had his
rape after his grain, by stocking the grain crop in on one side of the
field, and sowing the other, and giving it the summer manure, which he
had plenty of.
Michael Clarke said : “When Mr. Blacker first came to my house I
had fallen into arrear; distress of mind, and ill health that it brought
on, had driven me to a state of despondency; I did not care what became
of me, or whether I was turned out or not. I was in despair ; and my
family in misery, surrounding me. He told me he would help me if I
would do as he directed, and that he would send a person to instruct
me, and that the place would be worth having if it got justice. I did
not believe that it ever would have turned out as he said it would : but,
as he was so kind, I promised I would take heart again, and do as I was
bid ; accordingly, Mr. Bruce came and pointed out what was to be done.
I got up my spirits, and my health got better. Mr. Blacker lent me a
cow, when I got clover to feed her on. The first year I was able to
pay nothing, but he saw I was doing my endeavour, and he did not press
The next year, I paid a year and a half; the one after, I paid ano-
ther year and a half; and the one following, I paid two years; and now
me.


70
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
I expect to be able to clear off all, and to have my cow and pig tomy-
self. I have a new loom besides; and all iny ditches are levelled, and
the whole farm in good heart. My health is got better, and I have no
more to say, gentlemen; but thank God and his honour, I am in the way
of doing well. I have meat for myself, and meat for my cow, and meat
for my family, all provided for the next twelve months, and it is
long since I was able to say so before."
James Jenkins said :~I am able to say, gentlemen, that since I have
followed the plan recommended by Mr. Blacker, I have been able to
change my stock, with considerable profit to myself, from a very bad
stock to a very good one, as my getting the first premium shows;
and, though I was then pinched to feed them poorly, I have now plenty
to feed them well; and, whereas, I had only two cows, a heifer, and a
pony formerly, I have now five cows, two heifers, and one good horse,
on my sixteen acres, kept on clover and vetches in summer, on cab-
bage at this season of the year, and turnips in winter and spring. I
prefer early York and sugar-loaf, and flat Dutch cabbage, to the curled
kail, for they give more food at this season ; and if the plants are put
in about three inches under the manure, the potatoes can be dug out
without injuring them; and as they grow into the trench they do not
overshadow or injure the potato as the curled kail does. I am also
happy to tell you, gentlemen, that I find the produce of the farm is in-
creased, as well as my stock. Formerly, I could manure but an acre
and a half of potatoes, and that but indifferently, but now I have, this
year, four acres of potatoes and turnips manured in the very best fashion ;
and you all know the more manured land you have in the farm, the more
grain you will get out of it. Many gentlemen, from distant parts, have
come to see my farm, and I am always glad to see them, and have
always something pleasing to show them. Gentlemen, I have nothing
more to say, but that I am well content, and determined to persevere in
the plan I have now been so much the better of.”
Samuel Parks, of Lurgyross, said :-“I hold 4 acres 2 roods, 20
perches of land, at a rent of £4 9s. 2d.; upon this I feed two cows;
and, after providing for my family, I have sold £7 worth of butter and
milk, being one half more than my rent. My cows are house-fed, and
in capital condition, as my getting a premium shows."
Joseph Thompson, of Grayhills, said :-“I have 11 acres 3 roods of
land, and on this I have three cows, a heifer, and a horse. The half of
my land was formerly in grazing, and my stock far inferior in number
and condition. I consider the four-course rotation as an excellent
plan, and mean to persist in it; and I think I will be able to in-
crease my stock next season, from the fine appearance my clover now
has.”
Mr. Ingram said :—"I hold twenty-three acres of land, and nobody
can say I hold it too cheap, when I tell them I pay £25 a-year rent.
My stock is seven cows, two heifers, one calf, and two horses, and
they are all in good condition; the butter has already produced £26,
which is a pound over the rent; and I expect to make it £30 before the
year is out, as th“ price is so high. And I will tell you more, gentle-
men, I had nine hundred stvoks of excellent oats, and an acre of flax,


72
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY
indulging the mere crotenets of economists; and we are no longer enti-
tled to excuse ourselves under the plea of the uncertain success of the
system. That the case may be made to run on all fours, however, we pro-
ceed to quote examples of its actual results.
We must premise that it is an indispensable preliminary condition of
peasant proprietaries, that the titles and conveyance of land in this
country, should be assimilated to those of France, the United States, or
our own Colonies. Our jurisprudence has only served to “darken coun-
sel by words without knowledge.” Law, whose only use is to render
rights secure, and titles clear, is the great source of uncertainty, inse-
curity, and utter unintelligibility. The tenure of land in the three king-
doms is so frail, that it is certain the deeds by which several of our most
eminent conveyancing judges hold their estates, are absolutely bad. In
Scotland, the slightest mistake in feudal ceremonies, such as giving sa-
sine of hasp and staple, in place of earth and stone, the erasure in the
date of a sasine, where the original deed was indefeasible, and a thousand
and one equaliy worthless quibbles, have reduced opulent families to
beggary. In England, the system is scarcely any better; and in Ire-
land, it is so incorrigibly bad, that Sir Robert Poel, in his plan for the set-
tlement of Galway, after proving case upon case where the law produced
nothing but insecurity, and flagrant injustice, proposes, as an essential
feature of his plan, that the jurisprudence and the courts of law, should
be entirely set aside, and the whole title to the soil should be settled, and
constructed by a lay commission.
What is wanted is this. Let the whole land of the kingdom, or at
least of Ireland, be technically resumed by the crown. Let a new, and
most precise survey of the whole be made, and reduced into parish,
county, and general registers. Let a commission be appointed to ex-
amine every freehold title, duly advertizing for rival claimants. Let
all be heard, and then a final decision having been come to, let the
person, declared to have the right, receive a scrip, declaring what the
property is, let his name and the description be entered in its proper
register, and then consign the whole parchments to the flames, making
the scrip and the entry a title, absolute and indefeasible for ever. Trans-
fers will be effected by giving over the scrip to the purchaser, and en-
tering his name below the original holder's in the register. Six millions
of properties are thus easily secured in France-double that number in
the United States, and not a few in Prussia and Belgium. No title can
be half so clear, and the system is made to yield a large revenue to
the state, in fees, with very small cost to the purchasers; besides re-
lieving the community of the wholesale plunder perpetrated by the law,
in making up titles, and then disputing their validity. What is prac-
tised in other countries, cannot fail to be practicable here; and land
would thus pass from hand to hand, like bank notes or railway scrip,
forming a most convenient means of speedy and safe investment. In-
deed, even in England, an approach has been made to this reform in
enclosure acts, and the apportionment of commons by commissioners. The
holders derive their title, not from complicated writs, but by a declara-
tiou in the Act of Parliament itself, which is justly regarded as the safest
title in the market.


74
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY,
bears a taxation of £45,000,000, as easily as she then did £10,000,000.
Of 132,646,091 acres of territory, only 9,146,091 are unproductive.
Her whole poor's rates and public charities in 1833, when her population
was about 31,000,000, amounted to no more than £3,412,452. In the
same year the English poor's rate alone, for 15,000,000 of people,
amounted to £6,317,255, besides nearly a million more in charities ! In
1844, the number of persons committed for trial in France, with a popu-
lation of 34,000,000, was 7,115. In England, in the same year, the
number so committed was 26,544, in a population of 16,000,000. In
1833 the number of persons relieved in France, was 1,120,981, in a
population of 31,000,000. In 1849, the number of persons relieved in the
United Kingdoms, out of a population of 30,000,000, was 3,651,000 !--
or, if we take England alone, 1,900,000 were relieved in a population of
17,000,000. “Mr. Moreau de Jonnes,” observes the author of the work
on the ‘Aristocracry of Britain,'" presented a comparative view of crime
in France and England in 1841. Correcting a misprint by the help of
the tables now before us, it stands thus :-
FRANCE, POPULATION 34,230,000.
Crimes.
Accused...
18,206.
Condemned
13,855..
Proportion.
.1 to 1,900.
.I to 2,500.
ENGLAND, POPULATION 15,901,000.
Accused....
.31,309...
Condemned
22,733..
1 to 500.
1 to 700.
It would appear that there is nearly four times as much crime among a
thousand Englishmen as a thousand Frenchmen. It is material to ob-
serve, also, that the French returns embrace the correctional Police
cases, while police cases are excluded from the English returns."
When we have quoted these figures, have we not said enough? He
who runs may read the effects produced upon human conduct by men
being attached to the soil by property, and by possessing something to
be forfeited by a departure from the paths of virtue.
“ To judge,” observes M. Dupin, “ of the advantages gained by the
present law of equal succession, it would be sufficient that those emi-
grants who returned to France in 1814, would recal to mind her con-
dition in 1791, when they left her. It is an erroneous idea that our
national strength or wealth have been diminished by the division of the
land into too small portions. Never before were our armies so powerful
and trustworthy, than since they have been composed, principally, of
citizens who, proprietors themselves, are personally interested in the de-
fence of our territory. Never before has order been more easily main-
tained throughout the country, or were travellers more safe, or, in fine,
the whole people more civilized and happy. The abolition of the law of
primogeniture, by establishing equality in all families, has caused a
greater intimacy of fathers with their children, and of the children with
each other. It has put an end to jealousies. All receive the same edu.


A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
75
cation, the same treatment, the same inheritance. There is now no one
of them born to wealth and power, and the others destined to compara-
tive privation, depression of rank, and unhappiness.
“ As to the land itself, every candid person will acknowledge that the
large entailed properties were the worst cultivated. How many lakes,
ponds, and marshes, have, within the last thirty years, been converted
into fertile pasturage! How many extensive improvements have been
carried into effect, which would never have been attempted by a proud
noble, or interested factor!
“The lands and forests belonging to religious and other public institu-
tions, were formerly wasted; for each incumbent naturally wished to
have the greatest amount of advantage to himself during his occupancy,
without any regard to the permanent benefit of the property. But now,
even the great proprietors themselves will admit, a far more perfect
system of management has been introduced, during the last twenty-five
years.
“A great impulse has been given to industry, and the accumulation of
property. The frequent transfer of land, while it has enriched the
treasury, has facilitated the adjustment of the boundaries of estates. The
economy of some, has made up for the prodigality of others. Cities
have been embellished, arts have been brought to perfection. Our
dwelling houses have not only increased in number, but have been built
more commodious, more convenient, and of a more handsome exterior;
and in fine, the effect of this new law has been so great, that, as if by a
new creation, our people have not only become vastly more numerous,
but so changed for the better, as to be altogether a new people, full of
learning, intelligence, and morality.” We might add to this pleasing
picture the further consideration, that the additional experience of twenty-
three years, has only served to make the prospect brighter. The revo-
lutionists and red republicans of 1849, are the people without land.
There are no socialists among the country freeholders. The violence of
disorder and revolution has been crushed by the ballot box, and the
conservative votes of six millions of landowners.
Even Mr. Macculloch, with all his prejudices, cannot shut his eyes to
the effect of the extension of small freeholds in Prussia by the edict of
1807. "It has,” he observes, “given a wonderful stimulus to improve-
ment. The peasantry, relieved from the burdens and services to which
they were previously subjected, and placed in respect of political pri-
vileges on a level with their lords, have begun to display a spirit of
enterprize and industry that was formerly unknown. Formerly, also,
there was in Prussia, as there has been in England and inost other
countries, a great extent of land belonging to towns and villages, and
occupied in common by the inhabitants. While under this tenure, these
land3 rarely produced a third or a fourth part of what they would pro-
duce, were they divided into separate properties, and assigned to in-
dividuals, each reaping all the advantages resulting from superior
industry and exertion. The Prussian government being aware of this,
has succeeded in effecting the division of a vast number of common pro-
perties, and has thus totally changed the appearance of a large extent of
country, and created several thousand new proprietors. The want of ca-


76
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
pital, and the force of old habits, rendered the influence of these changes
at the outset less striking than many anticipated : but these retarding
circumstances have daily diminished in power, and it may be safely af-
firmed that the country has made a greater progress since 1815, than it
did during the preceding hundred years.”
Norway, under a similar agricultural dispensation, exhibits the like
results. Nearly all the occupiers of land are also the owners; and so
comfortably provided, that according to Laing, little distinction appears
between the condition and establishment of the farmer and the profes-
sional man. The Norwegians are particularly frank, independent, intre-
pid, and strong-generally well educated, respectful and orderly.
In Bavaria the confiscation of the church lands, and the law of equal
succession have divided the land into 2,254,603 estates, and Macculloch is
constrained to admit, that by the “ confiscation of the church lands, and
the introduction of a more liberal system of government, a great deal of
waste land has been reclaimed, and an improved system of cultivation has
been introduced into various districts, and is diffusing itself over the
country.” “The produce of corn and turnips, is equal to what it is in
the best cultivated districts of England; and, notwithstanding the vast
consumption of corn in the breweries, Bavaria has, invariably, a large
surplus for exportation.”
" Switzerland,” observes the same authority, " is a country of small
proprietors. An estate of 150 or 200 acres elonging to an individual,
worth, perhaps, from £90 to £100 a year, would be considered large
everywhere." “The peculiar feature," continues Mr. Laing, “in the
condition of the Swiss population, the great charm of Switzerland, next
to its natural scenery, is the air of well-being, the neatness, the sense of
property imprinted on the people, their dwellings, their plots of land.
They have a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry about their houses and
little properties; they are perpetually building, repairing, altering, or
improving something about their tenements.”
surprised to see
the wife of such, good, even genteel manners, and sound sense ; and,
altogether, such a superior person to her station.” In Austria Proper,
in Lombardy, in Hungary, in Galicia, the holdings, although not free-
hold, are fixed in tenure, and small, averaging about 28 acres; and
nowhere is productiveness greater, or industry more energetic.
In fact, when we survey Europe, we see England almost left
alone in her large farm, and huge estate system ; and we may also
see misery and crime just increasing, in the ratio of the prevalence
of that arrangement of the soil. We have forgotten the condition
of our people, in seeking the abstract riches and power of the state;
and have not blushed for the description of our country as one “where
wealth accumulates, and men decay.” One only country remains to keep
us in countenance--Spain, and there it is that agriculture is more back-
ward than in any country in Europe. “Moral,” says Macculloch, have
had still more influence than physical causes, in retarding the progress of
agriculture in the Peninsula. At the head of the former must be placed
the vast extent of land belonging to the nobility, clergy, and corpora-
tions. These vast possessions are uniformly held under strict entail.”
“Luckily, however, the large estates that belonged to the church, have
+66 One


78
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
and by the perception of the sources of true happiness, and moral
wisdom. The time will come, indeed, when mankind, ennobled by
higher and more enlightened principles, will enjoy the beauties of na-
ture, and the delights of art, by merely looking at, without the desire
exclusively to possess them. We shall yet see the day, when it will add
nothing to the value of a statue, that it is unique, and when moulds
will be no longer broken, or copperplates destroyed, that a worm may
feel assured nobody possesses a copy but himself. When we become
ashamed of selfishness, we shall be fit to live in communities—but not
till then.
Let us then begin the new reign of social reform, by reclaiming and
colonizing our waste lands. If statesmen will not yet part with the
state craft of entail and primogeniture, they cannot, at least, object to dis-
tribute land, which is unprofitable, among those who will turn it to account.
Where men have no rent to pay, it is obvious that a smaller holding will
enable them to live well, than they would require if rent had to be deducted
from their gains. It is also clear that they would be animated to greater
industry, and encouraged to lay out more freely their savings upon a
soil that they can call their own, and from which they are emancipated
from the fear of eviction. Five acres are enough in Belgium, and
Guernsey, even for mere renters. In a country where customers are
more numerous, and more at hand, where roads are better, and the
profits of produce are higher, the same quantity of land in fee simple,
to an equally industrious and skilful race, should suffice. Indeed, we
have already proved that it is enough, and "an ounce of fact is worth
a pound of theory.” Mr. Porter informs us that the quantity of land at
present in cultivation, in the United Kingdom, is 46,139,280 acres, and as
the population now reaches nearly 31,000,000 it is obvious that our
existing allowance, under a defective system of husbandry, is not quite
an acre and a half per head. Spade husbandry and soiling cattle, by
increasing manure, would certainly improve the fertility of the soil by
one half; so that an acre per head should be sufficient. A family of
five, could not, among themselves, do entire justice to more than
five acres; because we see, that whenever the quantity is larger than
that, hired help has to be procured. The widow, whose case we for-
merly noticed, had only 14 acres ainong fifteen people, and five acres
would have produced quite as much, had one of her family been an
able-bodied labourer, capable of handling the spade.
We have carefully inspected the tables of the area, and the description of
land in the United Kingdom, country by country, county by county.
We find a considerable quantity of cultivable waste in every one of them.
Even in Middlesex, with 2,000,000 inhabitants, there are 17,000 acres
of improvable waste, capable of maintaining, and usefully employing,
an equal number of people at least. In Edinburgh there are 20,000, in
Dublin 49,000, in Surrey, 50,000, in Lanark, 195,000, in Lancashire
200,000, in Yorkshire 200,000 such acres. In the Channel, and other
British Isles there are 166,000. In all there are 15,000,000, capable o.
maintaining and employing 15,000,000 of souls, while our annual in-
crement is 460,000. And, to demonstrate, the effects of small holdings,
in France, there are only 9,000,000 acres of inprovable waste, while,


A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
79
under our large property system, there are fifteen millions, and four times
the number of proportionate paupers and criminals.
Our rail and common roads, our canals, our navigable rivers, and
larger extent of coast, afford enormous facilities to our agricultu rists in
carrying produce to market. Our equable and moist climate, enables
us to raise vegetables all the year through, so as never to require that
the soil should be vacant of a crop. The grass is grazeable even at
midwinter; and turnips and greens will then still grow. As a prelimi-
nary, we should cut national arterial drains throughout the extent of the
kingdom, which, from the extent of running water, would, in many
cases, form themselves into canals or running streams, carrying down
surface peat, and bog, as in the case of the Blair Drummond Moss. We
are no advocates of social paralellograms. We would not have all our
farms of one size, or two either. We would have large and larger in-
terspersed with small and smaller, but, as a security against consolida-
tion, we should insist that the law of Kent should be extended to the
case of all these waste lands. The natural wants and arrangements of
society would speedily readjust any huge inequality of holding. Where
in one family two far ms would be run into one, in another, one would
fall into four. We must have society officered—the capitalist, beside
the peasant, for mutual help and profit.
Now where is the difficulty of beginning ? Even if it were only an
experiment it could be made without cost, because we have 3,651,000
unemployed paupers, and their keep takes from us £8,000,000 a year,
without any return, besides much more given in private charity, which
is taken from us partly by the necessitous, and more by imposters
who never approach a work-house. We apply the rates for emi-
gration, why not for home colonization. We squander £8,000,000
in one year, in feeding 3,000,000 of starving Irish. With half the
money we could have set up 1,000,000 on their own freeholds for
life, and never hear more of them, except as useful producers of food
good tax payers, and large consumers of our manufactures. At the
most moderate calculation, an acre of cultivated land yields a gross
return of £6 per annum-on 15,000,000 acres this would bring a gross
return of £90,000,000 a year to the nation; and at three quarters only
to the acre, we would produce, in meal, or in malt, an equivalent to
45,000,000 of additional quarters of grain per annum, amply sufficient,
entirely to supersede importation, and to render our manufacturers inde-
pendent of the competition and fluctuations of foreign markets. When
we talk of the pauperism of the small continental holders, of their pri-
vations, of their misery, do we forget our own squalid peasantry, our do-
mestic locust host of beggars ? When was it, that in England, the num-
ber of beggars became so great, and so dangerous, that Acts of Parlia-
ment were passed to hang them ? Why, it was at the time when the only
freeholders in the country were the barons, the corporations, and the
clergy. Where are, even now the greatest hordes of beggars and ban-
ditti ? In Naples, Spain, und Italy, where the land is not yet suficiently
subdivided. What is a vagrant, but a man who has no home, who is not
fixed to the soil, by possessing it. Even in our colonies, where the
Wakefield system of dear land prevails, the population is migratory,


80
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
wandering from place to place, because they are not fixed down by pos-
session of the soil. But there is a most mean and unreflective intelligence
in those who characterize the small holders of the continent as poor, and
pinched, and miserable. They are uniformly virtuous. Crime is little
known among them. They include no paupers or destitute. Their
clothes are never ragged—they have plain, but whole furniture, in their
houses. The proof adduced in support of the charge of their wretched-
ness is this, that they never taste butcher's meat, and are unconscious of
sugar and tea. It never has occurred to the blockheads who sniff at all
foreign peasants who are unconscious of roast beef, plum pudding, beer
and rags, that thrift, self-denial, and frugality, are evidences, not of
wretchedness, but of the superior morals engendered by independence.
Foreign small farmers do not, like our labourers, lay out their earn-
ings on their belly—they do not live from hand to mouth, as the
improvident landless do, secure of the workhouse in time of need.
But these men save out of their appetite and stomach what will
make them capitalists, and there is the most conclusive proof in the
world that they are capitalists in the fact, that all the land in France
is purchased in small quantities, that twice the sum is afforded for
small freeholds that is offered for large estates, and that in the nine
years between 1826 and 1835, 600.000 small properties were thus pur-
chased by the peasantry. Frenchmen of £500 a year, who have no need
to live penuriously, fare, from choice, simply and sparingly. It is a ha-
bit of the country, and one which our poorer classes, at least, would do
well to follow.
By those who are bitten with the small farm phobia, it is, indeed, con-
tended that the cultivation of our waste lands should be undertaken on a
large scale, by men of huge capital; and that what is wanted in Ireland,
for example, is the consolidation of small farms, the introduction of
English farmers, and the change of the cottiers from the condition of oc-
cupiers, to that of day labourers at wages.
Now there are two very conclusive answers to this ignorant propo-
sition:-
1. It has come to be discovered in our colonies, that almost the only
successful agriculturists are those who begin without a penny, Capital is
found to be of scarcely any use except to raise wages far beyond their
proportion to living profits. In Australia, in New Zealand, in Van
Diemen's Land, a man who can work hard, and has been brought up to
labour, is found to be richer at the end of five or six years, than the ca-
pitalist who commenced with £1,000. Labour, stimulated by self inte-
l'est, is the one thing needful in the improvement of the soil. What, in.
deed, is the use of capital in agriculture, except to pay wages, and to
command labour, eye service, the least productive of all, Well does
Mr. Thornton observe, “the Irish (and he might add the English) pea-
santry, have quite labour enough at their own disposal. Their misfor-
tune is, that they have so much. Their labour would not be the worse
applied, because they worked for themselves, instead of for a paymaster.
So far is capital from being indispensable for the cultivation of barren
tracts, that schemes of this kind, which could only bring loss to a rich
speculator, are successfully achieved by his penniless rival. A capitalist


84
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
face of the existence of £6,000,000 of poor-rates, and two millions of
paupers The effect of the small farm and allotment system in af-
fording profitable employment to the labouring community is so noto-
rious, that the chief objection urged against it by the farmers is that
it has a tendency to produce a scarcity of day labourers. This is so
much an invariable effect of peasant proprietaries, that Mr. Scott, the
British Consul at Bordeaux, in his return to our Poor Law Com-
missioners, says in reference to France-"owing to the scarcity of
labourers, no distinction is made between the wages of an able bo-
died and a common labourer.” To the same effect the Quarterly Re-
viewer (No. 81) observes—“In the parish of Clapham, in Sussex,
there is a farm called Holt; it contains 160 acres, and is now in the oc-
cupation of one tenant. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
it seems to have been a hamlet in which there were at least twenty-two
proprietors of land; the documents relating to them are in a state
of perfect preservation. In 1400, the number of proprietors began to
decrease; by the year 1520, they had been reduced to six ; in the reign
of James I. they had been reduced to two; and soon after the restoration
of Charles II., the whole became the property of one owner, who let it
as one farm to one occupier. The population resident on this farm, and
subsisting upon its produce, between the years 1300 and 1400, could not
have been much less than 100 (it must have been at leaat 110;) the
number of persons immediately connected with the tillage of this farm
at the present time, does not, probably, amount to forty (twenty-six is
the proper allowance under the existing system ;) and, supposing ten of
them to belong to the farmer's family, there are thirty persons deriving
no part of their subsistence from the land-except as wages of daily labour."
Facts accumulate on us so rapidly, that we are placed in the French
dilemma of an embarras de richesse. Selection is our difficulty, not in-
stances to quote. The a priori presumption of the obvious excellences
of the allotment system is so conclusively clenched by the practical re-
sults, that we are only restrained by the terror of boring the reader
from pouring upon them the full tide of accumulated testimony. We
have but to say, that he mustn't be bored-or he must be contented to
suffer the infliction, and judge of the utility of the dose as housewives
do of medicine, by its wholesome unpalateableness. The British public
have been grossly deluded on the subject by Macculloch worship, and
the mistake of the cum hoc for the people's hoc. We desire once for all
to settle this question, because we believe that, upon its fate, hangs that
of this great country.
In Abringdon Potts, no poor rates existed prior to the appropriation
of the common. In 1770 the cottagers were deprived of their allot-
ments; the poor's rates began from that year, and bear a large pro-
portion to the rental. (Quar. Rev. 81.)
In Lidlington, the poor's rates were six-pence in the pound, in 1751.
The cottagers were then robbed of their common rights, and the rates
rose to four shillings, in 1801, and are even now on the increase. (Ibid.)
In 1828 Sir Robert Sheffield's bailiff was enabled to report to his em-
ployer, “We have no poor here,” in reference to several entire villages
and hamlets, in consequence of the allotment system. (Ibid.)


86
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY.
and grateful tenants; not a six-pence was deficient at the annual audit, last
Michaelmas."
Oh! English nobles ! how little do you know what noble men you
govern! Oh! Norman barons ! how precious is that Saxon race who
suffered you to conquer them from worse native slave masters!
Keep
them still the serfs you found them, by battering them down to the
squalid abjectness of beggary, and they will again sink to the stolid dul-
ness of the iron dog collar, and the despairing passivity that cares not
what comes of country or of home. Raise them to the free spirit of in-
dependence, which is the natural atmosphere of their lives,- let them
but be free to own the land they till,-to toil for themselves, as nature
meant them, and on every moor they will conquer another Agincourt,
and on each barren waste, achieve a nobler victory than their ancestors
gained for you at Cressy and Poictiers !
Lord Braybrooke began the allotment system in 1830, in Suffolk,
--has 77 tenants, and finds the net profit on an outlay of £14. 16s. 8d.
to be £27. 158. 4d., or nearly 200 per cent. A gentleman in Wilts has,
by the same means, reduced the rates in his parish, from £2074. ls. 8d.
in 1819, to £1424. 185. in 1830, with an increasing population, —the
soil being the worst land, and the holders paying, punctually, 30 per
cent more than the large farmers.
The Bath Journal mentions a case of twenty-nine acres of land thrown
up by a farmer at rent of £15 a year. The vicar of Box let it thirty
families who, thereby, have “kept 176 individuals free from parish relief;
and are rendered respectable and happy.” “As to the improvement of the
land and its far greater productiveness; when first let to these people, the
farmer left it rather than pay more than 10s. an acre; it is now worth,
by spade cultivation, nearly £10. an acre.
“ The whole land,” observes John Denson of Waterbeach, "of the pa-
rish of Milton, is 1200 acres, divided into ten farms, fully maintaining in
comfort, 300 or 400 souls, and pays a rent of from £2 to £4 an acre, and
£300 a year direct taxes ; —no redundant population." This is equal to
about 3} acres of light land to each inhabitant, or 15 acres to a family
of five. Eighteen acres of common, at Woburn, not worth £3.
a year, were let by the Rev. Mr. Beard to 133 occupiers. Every one
paid 168. an acre, or £14. 8s., to the very hour, and have on the land £300
worth of produce. At Springfield, Essex, an eighth of an acre produces
a profit to the labourer of £3. 5s., or £26. an acre. At Condall, (Sussex,)
150 acres to 120 holders, produced equally good results. At Basingstoke,
the profits were £10. an acre. Lord Chichester's 25 tenants on ten acres,
at Falmer, realized a profit of £138. ls. At Toddington, Beds. 83 ten-
ants found the results equally satisfactory. So also is Lord Sherborne's
Report for his Glo'ster estates.
A sickly labourer, near Bristol, could not induce the farmers to em-
ploy him. Engaged at 10s. a week by a gentleman, he asked to rent
two acres of rough waste, which were let to him at full value.
a few months he and his wife cleared it, burnt the furze, spread the ashes
and planted four perches with potatoes. The clothing of the family
improved, health became better; the cottage was whitewashed, and en.
closed with a wall and gate, blossoming with the rose and corchorus
" In


90
A PEASANT PROPRIETARY,
66
Have we no sense of the precipice on which we stand. Have not the
books of the prophetess been one by one burnt before our eyes and does
not the sybil even now knock at our doors to offer us her final volume,
ere she turn from us and leave us to the Furies. Crime, not stealing,
but striding onward. Murders, poisonings, becoming almost a domestic
institution among our villages--husband, children, parents, drugged to
their final home for the sake of the burial fees. Vice within the law,
keeping pace with offence without. Incest winked at by our magistracy
from its fearful frequency in our squalid peasant dwellings. Taxation
reaching beyond the point at which resources can meet it, so that, at in-
creasingly shorter intervals, we have to borrow from ourselves to make
expenditure square with income. Poor Laws extended to Scotland and
Ireland, where they were never known before, and New Poor Laws fail-
ing in England to check the advance of rates, and the growth of in-
veterate beggary, until property threatens to be swallowed up by the pro-
pertiless, and a terrible communism to be realized among us by a legalized
division of the goods of those who have, among those who have not--the
fearfullest socialism, the equal republic of beggary. Speak! strike!
redress!”
Three millions and a half of the houseless and honeless, the
desperate, the broken, the lost, plead to you in a small still voice, yet
louder than the mouthing theories of constitution-mongers. Man, abused,
insulted, degraded, shows to you his social scars, his broken members,
his mained carcase, blurred in the conflict of a selfish and abused com-
munity.
We say it must no longer be. We are a spectacle to gods and men
"a byeword and a hissing to the nations." Savages grow up in the
midst of our feather-head civilization, wilder, more forlorn, more for.
gotten, and neglected than the Cumanchee, or the earth-eaters of New
Holland. Ragged foundlings, deserted infant wretchedness, paupers
hereditary, boasting a beggar pedigree older than many of our nobles
grow up from year to year, generation to generation, eat with brazen front
into the substance of struggling industry.
“ It must not, nor it cannot come to good.”
It ought not. It would be to doubt a moral providence to believe that
humanity shall thus be wronged, and not be revenged. What is God's
earth made for, if not for man? What scandal is it, if to nothing else,
yet to our mere intelligence, that land should lie here waste, and indus-
try stand wistful there, waiting to be married to it, and that we shall for-
bid the banns? This is, indeed, sacredness of private property run mad
-it makes individual possession a nuisance-it gives force and reason to
the wildest theories of equality and community. If men who have our
waste do not till it, wherefore should they have it? Who gave a man a
patent in the common earth, except that he should wisely use it for man-
kind's profit? We force on the discussion of the most fundamental
principles. Beware lest we get too soon at the root of the whole matter.
-“The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."-If his stewards
return him not the usury he exacts-if we sentence it to barrenness,
when men starve around us, who would water it with the dews of la-
bour to gather from it its rewards, let us not wonder that the trust is re-


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
93
sur-
forgery is held in little disrepute, and the law says little about it. In
England, public opinion long regarded it as an offence which would
justly sanction the judicial murder of the forger. In Turkey, it is con-
sidered an act of as great immodesty, as if a woman were to go naked
through the streets, that she should let even the tip of her nose be seen by
any one but her husband. In England, our women cannot even conceive
of the indecency of going with the face exposed. It is said that Indian
tribes regard it as immodest for a woman to walk with her toes turned
out. Kames mentions a country, in which modesty is so keen, that
women have been known to commit suicide when they have bee
prised, accidently, into a fortuitous exposure of the person. A Hindoo
abhors pork so much, that he will leap out of a boat into the sea, at the
hazard of his life, to avoid contact with it. Our very conscience is the
creature of circumstance, and tradition and bad laws will make a bad
national moral sense. Although the law of gavel kind prevails in Kent,
the general law of the nation so over-rides it in the general mind, that
estates are settled by testament, there, on the eldest son, as they are by
law in the rest of the kingdom.
What the law should do, is, to make such a disposition of a man's
property, as a right-minded and just thinking man ought to do, did he
himselt exercise the power. The law of primogeniture, therefore, should
be at once abolished. We do not say that a step further should be taken,
by depriving a man of all power to make a legal distribution of his real
estate for himself. The effect of such a system would be to force an
artificial subdivision of land, and so, perhaps, unnaturally, to produce an
equality of property, not recognized by the varied expedients of nature.
It is desirable to have in a country graduations of rank-not startling
contrasts, as is the effect of primogeniture. Society should possess every
variety of condition that is natural to it—the poor, the comfortable, the
better off, the rich. They assist each other, they are examples to each
other-they officer mankind, they stimulate exertion to rise into higher
positions. We see, indeed, that even under the law of equal distribution,
this effect often prevails. One man dies childless. Another leaves an
only child. Others two or three. Where all have an equal share, every
woman is an heiress, and when she marries, her own inheritance, and
that of her husband make one large property of two smaller ones.
country be purely agricultural, indeed, and no means other than the
culture and productiveness of the soil were supplied for employment, or
the creation of capital, too great an equalization might take place. But
in a country such as ours, where the great bulk of the people are em-
ployed in more profitable pursuits, all to whom land is left, will not
continue to hold it. They will sell their portion to one of the family,
and push their fortunes elsewhither. Even in France, one-fourth of the
whole land is sold every ten years—that is to say, those who have small
shares together, dispose of them to another contiguous proprietor,
80 that there is a continual commercial tendency to consolidation,
counteracting the natural tendency to subdivison and, practically,
subdivision has now reached its lowest point, it being observed that
of late years no actual increase of subdivision has taken place. We
have in England many huge merchants, realizing fortunes of one,
If a


94
ENTAIL. AND PRIMOGENITURE.
two, three millions. These men buy up land wherever there is a sale.
Oné possessed of a rental, of probably £150,000 a-year, acquired by
himself, will, by inheritance, leave it to an only child. Where vast
fortunes are realized in trade, therefore, it is clear that land, even under
a law of equal division, would continually fall back in large quantities
into a single hand again, to be redistributed gradually, by the accidents
of birth--so that practically, in a great commercial country, large
owners would constantly appear to officer the rural districts, while new
distributions opening up property to the whole of society, would bring
wealth into a regular course of re-adjustment.
If the law of primogeniture be an offence against natural affection and
sound policy, it is obvious that that of entail is still more opposed to every
dictate of reason and justice. Is it in the power of individuals to appro-
priate to themselves the earth which God made common to all? There
can be no natural right in one man to possess exclusively, that, without the
fruits of which, mankind could not live. He did not create the earth-he
does not own the sun, the dew, the seasons-without, not merely the suf-
erance, but the active co-operation of society, he could not maintain pos-
session for an hour. When he became a part of that dust which he owned,
there, at least, would be an end of his right and power together. The soil of
every country belongs to mankind at large. Weassertthis, formally, when we
take possession of an island inhabited by savages. The doctrine has been
distinctly laid down in governors' proclamations. Even formal written
sales of New Zealand land, made by the natives to settlers, have been
set aside on the very ground that the natives themselves could not ap-
propriate it. The grass grows, the seed germinates, the fruit ripens,
cattle generate by force of nature. We have no hand in it. We, indeed,
take and keep possession by force, but not by natural right. If there
were such a right, our Norman barons should be extruded from their
estates, and these handed over to such as could prove themselves Saxons.
If there be a natural property in the soil, it must belong to mankind
at large, or at least to the whole who live upon it. For what man has
added to it in houses, drainage, culture, fertility, there may, perhaps,
be an equitable claim for compensation--although as it is labour which
does all this, and surrounding producers and consumers who give value
even to improvements, perhaps society at large can prefer the fairest
claim to remuneration.
At least, it is obvious, that as it is only by the sufferance of a nation,
that individuals can be defended in possession of what they appropriate,
proprietors are the mere trustees of the public, charged with the manage-
ment for the general good. The sole title of the landowner consists in
the identity of his right with the general good. As all cannot possess,
and would not render the soil so productive as if it belonged to one, stimu-
lated to enterprise by the incitement of private gain, it is deemed wise
to recognize the rights of private property.
No man, however, can have a right to appropriate the soil, except by
the general consent of all to whom by nature it belongs. Still less can
he ask society to declare that it shall still be his, centuries after he is
gathered to his mother earth. ndeed, it is conceded that it is only by
force of law, made by the state, that this right could exist; and the state


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
95
which had the power to make it, has equal power to set it aside. It may,
indeed, well be doubted whether men who have been dead three hundred
years had the right, even as a nation, to tell us, who live on the earth
now, You shall give this country to this man, and that parish to that,
and to these others you shall give nothing. If they could do that, they
could also prohibit the cultivation of the soil, so that we might all be
extinguished by famine.
We may, indeed, safely dimiss the question of the abstract right of
individuals, or of nations even, to settle for all time the appropriation of
the soil; because it has never very seriously been asserted.
Let us rather hasten to the consideration which forms the ground for
the justification of such a law, that it is expedient and for the advantage
of the community.
Now, if nothing which is morally wrong, can be politically right, we
have an a priori presumption against even the expediency of such a law.
We have seen again and again, that laws which were regarded as ex-
ceedingly politic, have proved in their results highly pernicious where
they warred with nature, and abstract human rights. Monopolies, pro-
tection to native industry, reciprocity, a sanguinary code to suppress
growing and pernicious crimes against an artificial state of society, but
which were not crimes of equal magnitude in the eye of conscience-
these have all been regarded, at the time of their enactment, as the per-
fection of state sagacity. Blasphemers have been executed, heretics
burnt, Catholics enslaved, Jews proscribed, the liberty of speech and
press denied, creeds endowed, the right to exercise trades and handicrafts
denied except to guild brethren, vagrants hanged, slavery justified by
reasons which were held conclusive by all. But the whole progress of
legislation has developed itself in undoing and repealing. Statesmen
rise to eminence by the simple discovery that law making is an evil-
that we have undertaken to judge for mankind, what providence has
settled better already—that expediency is a blind and ignorant guide-
that we legislate prophetically, without possessing the gift of foresight-
that most human laws which are good have been already enacted by God
himself—and that all our cunning state-craft has consisted simply in a
repeal of the statutes of the wise lawgiver of the universe. Religion has
fallen back under state protection-blasphemy and heresy have increased
in the ratio of the severity of their punishment-crime has advanced as
the code for its suppression has been made more bloody-Catholicism
and Judiasm have flourished by persecution -- trade has languished by
protection-industry, enterprise, and skill, have been paralyzed by
monopoly. The very perfection of our civilization consists in our rapid
return to a state of nature, and all material interests cry out to rulers,
- For heaven's sake let us alone!”
God has made a natural aristocracy. All men unconsciously bow down
and worship the true hero. -- Pericles, Solon, Lycurgus, Cromwell,
Washington, Moses, Alfred, and, not to speak it profanely, Christ, need
no patent of nobility to command human reverence. What do we, but
ape providence and caricature nature-try to rival where we should
imitate, and mimic where we should copy.


98
ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
shoes—what hope is there of him. In boyhood worshipped as the rising
sun, he must anticipate his future fortune. He plunges into debt, be-
cause his bonds have a marketable value. He raises all he can at usurious
interest, upon post obit bonds, so that when, at last, he comes to his es-
tate, he is without a shilling in the world; and, arbiter of the disposal of
a vast portion of the most precious treasure of the country, he possesses
political influence, but is entirely deprived of the means of managing
and benefitting his own estate. He early learns to hold cheap the pa-
ternal authority, and to defy his parents. He looks down on his bro-
thers and sisters, who, penniless themselves, see one of themselves bear
off what ought to belong to the whole of them. The father, if he be
provident, spends nothing on the estate, because what he lays out is
only robbed from his destitute children, and he naturally stints the heir
to make a purse for the rest. Perhaps the life renter has no male
heirs, and the property is to pass over to some far off relation. Every
tree is cribbed—the mansion is allowed to fall into disrepair, the farm
houses into decay. Embarrassed, he becomes a trader in politics, and
sucks out of the minister what his estate can no longer yield him. Or,
being secure against all reverses of fortune, he emancipates himself from
the toil which is the condition of distinction, and, becomes, what those
born with the silver spoon generally are, “the fool of the family.” Then
the destitute brothers prowl about Downing-street, or use their station
to compete for the first ranks of commerce with those who should have
been exempted from their rivalry. All the property of the “House”
being centered in one, the thrifty father quarters his penniless young
upon the country, screws out-door relief out of the minister for them,
and insists upon places being created for their support, if they are not
already in existence.
But it is not so much for the evil they inflict, as for the good they pre-
vent, that primogeniture and entail are so objectionable. We have
already shown that under their influence, the land of the kingdom has,
every year, been consolidated into fewer hands, just as a rapid increase
of population demands its wider diffusion. Nowhere have we seen it
alleged, that the number of proprietors, out of thirty millions, exceeds
240,000—most computations quote it at a much lower figure. But only
conceive of a country in which the mass of the people are entirely desti-
tute of all property in its soil! A landless nation—in a country, but not
of it-trespassers on their own territory-freemen without a freehold!
Why, it is the very madness of over-civilization-property run mad. That
a whole, a vast, a great people, should tamely stand by, and “grossly gape
on," while a mere handfulof the foolishest featherheads of them all, shall run
in and seize upon the whole of these islands, and then, when they have
pounced upon it, that all the rest shall fall down and worship these Dalai
Lamas, shed their blood like water to defend them in their capture-tax
their own bread to raise their rents for them-steep themselves in debt to
the chin of £900,000,000, toil and slave to pay the interest, and then
hand the most of that over to these Josses. Oh, ye gods ! are we not
the wofullest sons of turnips!
But what has come of it ? It is in vain to expect patriotism from
men who have no country. Our masses care nothing for it-hate it


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
99
66
-take themselves off as fast as free passages can carry them-many to
America, to get up a war against the very earth on which they were
born-by sufferance. Attachment to a constitution, which secures them
nothing, defends them in nothing, were a moral phenomenon which they
at all events seem no wise inclined to exhibit, except in Chartist petitions
bound with iron hoops, torch light meetings, political unions, Irish re-
bellions, and a sacred month." “ The world is not their friend, nor
the world's law." What care they who is king, and who cobbler. Your
invasions, and threatenings to social order—what are they to them. A
beggar cannot worsen his condition, whether the white or the red be up-
permost. Your Union Jacks and British Lions, (oh, most worshipful
sucking bucolic orators) are no more to them than dishclouts and shotten
herrings. They will forfeit their “stake in the country for a pro-
mise of —
• Pippins and cheese to come.””
Have they not once already risen from their dens, blood-shot-eyed and
glaring, howling that they would make an end of it, and stuck the
fairest powdered heads on pikes, pitching bushels full of court pericrania
into guillotine sawdust? And again, when the land had been divided
among six millions of them, and law and constitution made them sure
of it, have we not seen them bend their heads for a moment to the
blast of revolution, and then rise and prop up fallen authority, and by
the silent ballot box put down the disturbers of the settlement that
made them freeholders ?
Be assured we are none too soon in sopping our own ban dogs. County
constables, and the flower of the British army,” may be tried once too
often. The malcontents are not all Cuffys and Duffys, and cellar mar-
tyrs, and cabbage garden Washingtons. Already they begin to eat up
rent and tithe. Their stomachs are not nice, nor their appetites par-
ticular. They may take a fancy to toast their cheese, when they can
come by it, at the fire of the Bank of England. “ Friend, look you
to't."
We have already seen that crime increases as property becomes
consolidated. Our convictions are four times as large as those of
France or Belgium, and ten times those of Switzerland. It has been
demonstrated that where men are freeholders, pauperism disappears.
Even allotments minimise rates, and the beggary of France is almost all
in the great towns, while in England, it is chiefly rampant in our rural
districts. Small farms make labour scarce, and withdraw from the
market masses of competitors for employment. The farmers complain
that small holdings make the peasantry too independent-and with three
millions and a half of paupers, it becomes essential that we should re-
duce the numbers of those who live by the receipt of wages. The
allotment system makes food cheap and abundant, leaves surplus earn-
ings in the pockets of the poor, to lay out on clothing and luxuries, pros-
pers the home market, consumes our manufactures and taxable commo-
dities, and swells the public exchequer by increased customs, and excise
receipts. It furnishes industry with new motives to exertion, makes every
member of the family a productive labourer, and evokes the maximum
labour and energy of the masses. Moderate freeholds relieve the middle
k K 2


100
ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
classes of our towns of the competition they have to sustain with their
own order, driven up from the country by being left without estates.
They help the farmer in diminishing poor and county rates, and mode-
rate rents, and, by increasing the number of farms, render them inore
easily and cheaply procured. They distribute, more equally, the industrious
occupations of life, and diffuse the population less partially, over the
country. They increase the number of the gradations of society, ren-
der it more easy to rise froin one rank to another, and diminish the
contrast and the distance between the rich and the poor. They im-
mensely improve agriculture, encourage the expenditure of capital on
the soil, and multiply the resources of the cultivator, by rendering
varieties of crop more easy and quick. They render butter, cheese, eggs,
pork, poultry, more plentiful, and encourage attention to manures. They
bind society better together, promote religion, morality, the spirit of
independence, and the love of order, and raise up a body of the best and
safest electors. They take all danger from revolution-and, in a word,
they promise to redeem us from the slough of despond.
There is not an example in the history of any modern nation, of the
coexistence of social prosperity with a monopoly of land. All our con-
stitutional writers trace the greatness of England, from the date of the
confiscation of the church lands, and the distribution of the territory of
the country, among the great body of the people. Spain began to decay
when her nobility and clergy became the sole possessors of her soil. Sie
daily revives since the partition of the real property of the church among
the mass of the laity. France came out of the most expensive and de-
vastating war in which she was ever engaged, far richer than when she
commenced it, by the stimulus given to her industry, through the con-
fiscation of the estates of her noblesse and priesthood. The onward
march of Prussia began with the famous decree of 1807, which made all
her tenantry freeholders. The fall of Rome is traced by all historians
from the period at which her little freeholds were consolidated into large
entailed estates tilled by slaves; and the Campagna di Roma, once the
most fertile and populous district of Italy, by reason of its peasant pro-
prietors, is now a malarian desert, from which the shepherd is driven,
under the holding of Italian nobles. In Bavaria, in Nassau, the aboli-
tion of entail and primogeniture were followed by a striking advance in
general prosperity.
“ Three times,” observes Mill, “during the course of French history,
the peasantry have been purchasers of land; and these times immediately
preceded the three principal eras of French agricultural prosperity.”
“ In the worst of times,” observes Michelet,“ in the crisis of universal
poverty, when the nobles are poor, and sell from necessity, the
poor
themselves in a condition to buy; no other purchaser presenting himself,
the peasant
in his blouse appears with his golden piece, and buys his patch
of land. That hour of disaster, when the ploughman can buy land
cheap, has always been followed by a sudden expansive start of produc-
tiveness for, which men were at a loss to account. About the year 1500,
for example, when France, espoused by Louis XI., threatened to perfect
her ruin in Italy, the nobility, who take part in the contest, are forced
to sell; the land passing into new hands, revived at once; they laboured,
find


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
101
To us,
they built. This glorious time, (in the phrase of monarchical history,)
christened itself, “The Good Louis XII.'
“ It endures but for a season, unfortunately. The soil is scarcely
brought into good heart, when the religious wars break out, which see:n
to scourge the earth, to spread the most horrible misery-famines so
dreadful, that mothers eat their own children. Who can believe that
the country ever can revive? Yet, war is scarcely at an end, with its
ravaged fields, and black and burning cottages, when the peasant's op-
portunity again comes. He buys them-in ten years France has changed
its aspect; in twenty, or thirt rty of all kinds is doubled, trebled
in value. That era, baptised with a royal name, is called that of the
Good Henry IV. and Richelieu the Great.' We need scarcely add the
notice of the next Gallican crisis, in which the land, again entailed, brought
misery upon the people, which, attributing to the right cause, brought
in its train the horrors of the first revolution ; after which, the air being
cleared, by the subdivision of the soil, the country has risen to a high
reach of social and public prosperity.”
“much meditating upon these things,” it has become clear,
that the old resources of this country are worn out. Steam engines,
spinning jennies, power looms, steam boats, railroads, electric telegraphs,
and all our other victories over ignorance and barbarism have exhausted
their regenerating influences in vain. “The time is out of joint”-it
won't be put right, without some new oil and fresh setting. All
classes complain-not without pregnant cause and ominous significancy.
Farmers go down first-trade languishes—commerce has lost the elasticity
which characterized it-manufacturers have to compete where they had
a monopolythe labouring poor are in misery. We have but to lay our
finger on the page of the history of every nation to see the remedy. It
lies in this—that we throw open the land to the people—that we inerely
give them leave to help themselves—that we destroy entail and primo-
geniture—that we no longer strike our waste lands with unnecessary
barrenness-that we disencumber real property of the practical entail of
corporation and ecclesiastical tenure, and that we make the acquisition
of the soil as cheap and easy as consols or railway scrip.
We are an old country --we require a new lease of youth. With a free
soil diffused among the great body of the people, we would spring up at
one bound into the most vigorous rejuvenescence-we would be born
again-we would begin the world anew-with all the advantage of a new
society, counselled by the experience of the old. When all the world is
turned upside down, does any statesman, worthy of the name, expect that
the leaders of the world's mind can escape a revolution ? We would
have our rulers to make it, that they may guide and mould it, rather
than that it should be the work of the enemies of social order. They
have already tried religious, and further on a political, and further on
still, a fiscal revolution. These have succeeded; but our evils lie deeper.
We must have a social revolution. Agriculture must once more become
a leading branch of industry-and the masses must become freeholders
of the soil they till. Where in England is crime and pauperism least
and education most prevalent? It is among the small statesmen of
Cumberland and Westinoreland who own the land they plough and pasture.
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102
ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
“Wherever,” says Sismondi, "you find peasant proprietors, you also
find that ease, security, and confidence in the future, that independence,
which forms the best guarantee of happiness and virtue. (The peasant
who with his own children cultivates his own land, who pays no rent,
and no wages, who regulates his production by his consumption, who
eats his own bread, drinks his own wine, wears his own flax and wool,
cares nothing about market prices; he has little to sell and little to buy,
and is never ruined by revolutions in commerce. Far from dreading the
future, it is gilded by his hopes; for he applies to the profit of his chil-
dren, and future generations, every hour that which is not required for the
current labours of the year. It contents him to devote an hour to plant
the acorn which will become an oak, to raise the aqeduct which will drain
his future field, to train the conduit which will bring down the spring
of water, to improve by constant care, snatched from a leisure hour, the
animal and vegetable life with which he is surrounded. His little patri-
mony is a true savings bank, always at hand, to receive his little gains
and utilize every instant of his leisure. The ceaseless activity of nature
makes his toil breed, and return to him an hundred fold. The peasant
has a lively sense of the happiness of his freehold condition. THe is
always eager to buy land at any price. He pays more than its worth, or
than any profit it will return; but is he not wise to prize highly the ad-
vantage of laying out his labour advantageously, without being compelled
to submit to low wages; to find bread when he wants it, without being
over obliged to submit to an extortionate price?
“The peasant proprietor, of all agriculturists, raises the largest crops;
because he can best calculate the future, and has been most enlightened
by the experience of the past. He, too, also knows how most profitably
to apply human labour, because distributing the avocations of all the
members of the family, he assigns a task for each day of the year, of the
kind best adapted to the capabilities of each. Of all cultivators he is the
happiest, and at the same time, on a given space, land yields more with-
out being exhausted, and maintains a greater population where there are
peasant proprietors-and, in fine, of all cultivators, the little freeholder
gives the greatest encouragement to trade and industry, because he is the
richest ?”
These statements the author corroborates by a series of examples of
the state of the Swiss and other continental peasantry.
“In walking any where in the neighbourhood of Zurich,” says Mr.
Inglis, one is struck with the extraordinary industry of the inhabi-
“In the industry they show in the cultivation of their land, I
may safely say they are unrivalled.” “ It is impossible to look at a field,
a garden, a hedging, scarcely even a tree, a flower, or a vegetable, with-
out perceiving proofs of the extreme care and industry that are bestowed
upon the cultivation of the soil.” “Not a single weed is to be seen-
not a stone." Where seeds are sown, the earth directly above is broken
into the finest powder, "and there is not a single thing that has not its
appropriate resting place."
Of the vallies even of the High Alps, he continues to
is incapable of greater cultivation than it has received. All has been
done for it that industry and an extreme love of gain can devise. There
tants."
say,
" the country


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
103
is not a foot of waste land in the Engandine, the lowest point of which
is not much lower than the top of Snowdon. Wherever grass will grow,
there it is; wherever a rock will bear a blade, verdure is seen upon it;
wherever an ear of rye will ripen, there it is to be found.” " There is
not a single individual who has not the wherewithal to live comfortably,
not a single individual who is indebted to others for one morsel he eats.”
“Since the beginning of the century,” concludes Mr. Mill, “and
concurrently with the subdivision of many great estates, which belonged
to nobles, or to the cantonal governments, there has been a striking and
rapid improvement in almost every department of agriculture, as well
as in the houses, habits, and the food of the people. The writer of the
account of Thurgau, goes so far as to say, that since the subdivision of
the feudal estates into peasant properties, it is not uncommon for a third,
or a fourth part of an estate to produce as much grain, and support as
many head of cattle, as the whole estate did before.”
In his “Rural and Domestic Life in Germany,” Mr. W. Howitt thus
speaks of the peasant proprietors of the Rhenish Palatinate:--
_“The
peasant harrows and clears his land till it is in the nicest order, and it is
admirable to see the crops which he obtains." “ The peasants are the
great and ever present objects of country life. They are the great pop-
ulation of the country because they themselves are the possessors. This
country is, in fact, for the most part, in the hands of the people. It is
parcelled out among the multitude." “ It is from this cause that they
are probably the most industrious peasantry in the world. They labour
busily, early and late, because they feel they are labouring for themselves."
“ The German peasants work hard, but they have no actual want. Every
man has his house, his orchard, his roadside trees, commonly so heavy
with fruit, that he is obliged to crop and secure them all ways, or they
would be torn to pieces." “He is his own master; and he and every
member of his family have the strongest motives to labour. You see the
effect of this in that unremitting diligence which is beyond that of the
whole world besides, and his economy which is still greater."
is not an hour in the year in which they do not find unceasing accupa-
tion." And Professor Rau, to the same effect continues, “ The indefati-
gableness of the country people who may be seen in activity all the day
and all the year, and are never idle because they make a good distribution
of their labours, and find for every interval of time a suitable occupation,
is as well known as their zeal is praiseworthy in turning to use every
circumstance which presents itself, in seizing upon every useful novelty
that offers, and even in searching out new and advantageous methods."
Even Arthur Young continues a witness for us. In the Western
Pyrenees, the country of Bearn, the soil he says, “is all in the hands of
little proprietors, without the farms being so small as to occasion a
vicious and miserable population. An air of neatness, warmth and com-
fort, breathes over the whole. It is visible in their new built houses and
stables; in their little gardens. in their hedges; in their courts before
the door; even in the coops for their poultry and the sties for their hogs.”
“ The benignant genius of Henry IV., seems to reign still over the
country; each peasant has the fowl in the pot.” In Flanders, Alsace,
Artois, the Garonne, Quercy, “the admirable rotation of crops so long
6. There


ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
105
peaceable, well conducted, independent, and industrious; and the district
is absolutely free from agrarian outrage.”
As if the wisdom and foresight of Cromwell put its indelible mark on
everything they touched, the Report of the Irish Commissioners, (1845,)
after stating that Ireland was confiscated in vast masses to English
favorites and absentees, observes, “ The adventurers who obtained deben-
tures from Cromwell, formed for the most part a small proprietary; and
being generally resident, exercised an influence on the relations of society,
different from that produced by the large and absent grantees of former
reigns.”
Mr. Browne, our Consul at Copenhagen, reports of the Dane, “ His
ambition is to become a petty proprietor, and this class of persons is
better off-than any in Denmark. Indeed, I know of no people in any
country who have more easily within their reach all that is really
necessary for life, than this class, which is very large in comparison of
that of labourers."
“There is a large number of persons," observes the Report of the Irish
Commision, “in Ireland, possessing a small amount of capital, which
they would gladly employ in the cultivation and purchase of land, and a
still larger number now resident in different parts of the country, and
holding land for uncertain and limited terms, at a rent, who would most
cheerfully embrace the opportunity of becoming proprietors. The
gradual introduction of such a class of men would be a great improve-
ment in the social condition of Ireland. A much larger proportion of
the population than at present, would become interested in the preserva-
tion of peace and order; and the prospect of gaining admission into this
class of small landowners would often stimulate the renting farmer to
increased exertion and persevering industry.”
We have been tedious, perhaps over irksome, in our extracts. We
have presented a body of evidence, so extensive, so unexceptionable, so
authoritative, that we trust we have fairly put out of court the enemies
of allotments, the sneerers at small farms, the phoo! phoo! scoffers at a
peasant proprietary. We have shown entails and primogeniture to be
politically inexpedient, morally unjust, economically ruinous. Nay, we
have proved that there is nothing in the nature of the English, Scotch,
Irish, that should render the experiment of justice and huma-
rity likely to fail in their character, any more than in that of the
French, the Belgians, the Norwegians, or the Prussians. If the regene-
ration of the masses of the people, the revival of the resources of the
country, the suppression of pauperism and crime, the salvation of the
very breed of Englishmen from rapid deterioration, are objects which
are to be postponed to the policy of maintaining a territorial aristocracy,
let us fairly understand that this is the ground on which the theory of
the constitution is to be preserved at the expense of the very nation for
whom it was constructed.
For our part, believing that tyranny is the only government which
can rule barbarism, and that an aristocracy is an institution essential to
the guidance of a rude and ignorant community unfit to govern itself,
we are equally convinced, that when savages become civilized, and
knowledge takes the place of ignorance, the functions of an autocrat and
0


106
ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE.
66 The
of an oligarchy are, practically, at an end; and that the continuance of
the power and privileges of either, is incompatible with enlightened
social arrangements, and wholly opposed to the new order of things,
which naturally arises out of progress and high social culture.
times of this ignorance God winked at, but now He calls upon all men
everywhere to repent.” With the institution of a peasant proprietary,
freeholders, and who are also electors, it is obvious that the political
influence of an aristocracy is at an end. But when the choice lies
between the destruction of the country and the resignation of power,
privilege, and property, which stand in the way of national redemption,
we do not think so hardly of our British nobility, as to believe that they
do not love their country better than their order.
There will always be among a wealthy commercial people a natural
aristocracy. Even in New York the red republicans complain of the
existence of an aristocratic class. The millionaries of trade will con-
tinually come into the land market, consolidating large tracts of soil and
founding territorial families. In the absence of entail and primogeni-
ture, we have no objections to such a class. The longer they hold their
large estates together, the more illustrious will they prove themselves,
because they will show, that from generation to generation, they have
been frugal, provident, virtuous and wise, the best leaders of a country.
If any one heir lives beyond his means, and neglects to improve his
property judiciously, it would, under such a system, pass into the hands
of creditors, and again find its way into the market. We do not desire
to force subdivisions. We only want to prohibit a forced consolidation.
We are for free trade in land as in everything else, and do not wish to per-
mit the dead, to legislate for, or dictate to, the living. If the law is to
make a man's will, let it divide his substance equally. If he makes his
own, let him dispose of what is his own as he pleases. But in the
soil, he has only a property divided with nature, and with the commu-
nity which defends him in possession--and he exercises his rights of dis-
posal quite far enough when he extends it to the endowment of the next
generation. To many of our chief nobility, who have little more than a
nominal interest in their estates, to many heirs, who have already anti-
cipated their future life-rent interest, the power of selling their entailed
estates, cannot fail to be a source of relief, and of enrichment. It is
supposed that four-fifths of the land of the country is mortgaged. A
great community cannot any longer suffer its territory to be so grossly
mismanaged. Nor would the value of landed property fall under an
improved arrangement. Both rent and price are greater in countries
where land is let or sold in small parcels, than where farms and estates
are consolidated. Subdivision introduces a host of small capitalists to the
competition of the market. Our savings' banks returns show that there are
always about £13,000,000 on hand, among the poor, ready for profitable
investment; and the vast number of small holders of railway shares,
proves how many frugal and saving men exist among the poor.
Meanwhile, as a beginning, for there is no time to be lost, let the state
initiate the new era by the appropriation and subdivision of our waste
lands—which, as if most conveniently to meet the wants of the popula-
tion, are distributed over every parish throughout the three kingdoms.


CORPORATIONS, CHARITIES, ETC.
107
The plan has been recommended by the commissioners of the crown, by
the best members of our nobility, by abundant experience, and by una-
nimous testimony. Nothing but that huge unsightly wen, that syphon
of men's honest gains, that futile ineffectuality, that scab and boil of the
body politic, that preposterous humbug, and unmitigated curse, our
British jurisprudence, stands in the way of that as of every other social
good. Sweep away the court of chancery, the lawyers, and that farrago
of jargon and rubbish called our system of conveyancing, and get men of
common sense and business habits, to adjust a simple title, declared abso-
lute and unchallengable by Act of Parliament. “We speak as unto wise
men, judge ye what we say.”
CHAPTER VII.
CORPORATIONS-CHARITIES- ENDOWMENTS-CHURCII PROPERTY.
It follows as a corrollary from the preceding observations, that no
public body of any kind should be permitted to hold real property ex-
cept for the mere purposes of trade. They are worse than eldest sons-
they are heirs of entail, without possessing the immediate personal
interest in their property which private life-renters often manifest.
It is obvious that the effect of holding lands by corporations is very
much that which might be expected to follow from private proprietors
becoming immortal. A corporation never dies—and if they were to
increase largely in number, and go on purchasing land, they might,
ultimately, possess the whole territory of the country, and entirely
disinherit its inhabitants. Private enterprise would have no material
on which to exert itself—the living life-renters would have less motive
than in the case of the father of an heir of entail to improve, for the
benefit of the rising generation; and progress in agriculture would be
entirely arrested. The bishop has no idea of laying drains, of which
his successor alone can reap the benefit-or to repair farm buildings,
which are only to yield a profit to the future “right reverend father in
God,” who is enquiring for his health, that he may know how soon
he may pester Downing Street, and step into his shoes. Irish societies,
livery companies, endowed charities, hospitals, and schools and churches,
ecclesiastical property, are all an unmitigated nuisance.
them a mile off,” by the bad farming, the ruinous building, the wretched
tenantry, the inferior architectural construction of every possession that
belongs to them.
Why should the property of a country be locked up from the living,
by the dead? We make the franchise of the people to depend upon the
the property of a freehold. We have not a thirtieth part of our popula-
tion enfranchised. Why should the acquisition of our political rights
be withheld from us by public bodies, which cannot, as such, even
acquire them for themselves? It is from the operation of these absurd
abuses, that the people squander their savings on foreign repudiated
You may
nose


CORPORATIONS, CHARITIES, ETC.
109
geniture have been superseded by an equal distribution of estates, and the
power of founding great families by accumulating masses of capital in the
person of a single individual has thereby ceased, men have bestowed what
they could not apply to their family pride, to the public advantage. In
France, the poor are almost wholly supported by private endowments of the
public institutions; and in America, the sums left to the public, are far
greater in proportion to the whole wealth of the nation, than in any
other country. By investing the property of all public trusts in the
national funds, also, the nation would thereby become its own creditor,
and the national debt would become the representative of the public
institutions of the country, with which it could more legitimately and
justly deal, than with the property of private individuals. Accumu-
lations of mere corporate money would then cease to be an evil,
because interest would fall as capital sums increased, and the annual
burden of the debt would thereby be made less heavy to the payers
of taxes. A much larger command of money would thereby be given
to the Bank of England, because it would not require to have in its
coffers any considerable sums to meet the sales of consols; as it would
be enabled to calculate the demands which would thereby arise. In fact
the capital sum of these trusts and endowments would practically be
written off, as they never, by the nature of the investment, could be
called up by the very force of the law; and the nation would only pay
them like the rest of the taxes out of the general income.
One very important result would be the effect of the greater equality
of condition resulting from a more equal diffusion of wealth by means of
the abolition of primogeniture, entail, and other methods of accumu-
lating money in a few hands. From the great mass of the middle and
higher classes being thus in a less unequal condition, a spirit of in-
dependence would diffuse itself through our manners which would lead
to a greater contempt for the distinctions which mere money could
bestow. The inordinate luxury, the extravagant expenditure upon mere
show and splendid appliances, which induce a struggle among us all to
procure the means of ostentation and sumptuous living, would dis-
appear. The collossal families of this country, by their huge wealth,
live in a state of the most extravagant luxury. The crown feels com-
pelled to vie and keep up with the nobility—the example of expense and
ostentation is thus set to the whole nation, and the public men with
whom the nobility come in contact, consider themselves necessitated also
to maintain an inordinate style of existence. This descends from rank to
rank, until all classes are induced to maintain more expensive establish-
ments than their incomes can easily afford. Our bishops must all have
fine palaces, our judges must roll in luxury, our top lawyers must roll
in carriages—our merchants must haunt Belgravia. Public salaries are
thereby enormously increased, and private salaries in proportion. A
fearful increase of the public expenditure is the consequence, and profits
of all kinds are impaired by the increased expenses of establishments.
It is not because certain countries are republics that their taxation is
low, and the payment of their functionaries is moderate. It is because,
by the abolition of the laws which concentrate wealth, there is less op-
portunity of lavishing money upon sumptuous living, and the standard of
1L


PEACE.
111
tenant's pocket to drain fields, and fertilize poor land, than in the mere
gulphing a week's wages of a peasant, in a glass of Johannisburg, or
wearing £1,500 a year round the neck, in the shape of a £30,000 neck-
lace. A“ snug berth” in Dulwich College, a fat lectureship, or a hand-
some fellowship, means simply £2,000 or £3,000 a year taken from far-
mers and ploughmen, to be eaten up, in roast beef, plum pudding, a fine
house and choice wines, in place of being returned to the soil, to make
two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. We need in-
structors, because knowledge is power. We require men of science, be-
cause they are more essentially reproducers by the brain, than a thousand
hands which know not the secret of commanding nature to yield her
riches. We need, above all, moral and religious teachers, because
righteousness exalteth a nation, integrity and truthfulness increase
that security of property, without the assurance of which, labour would
not toil-benevolence, justice, purity, virtue, are the. handmaids of
peace, intelligence, and that morale of nations, which even warriors dis-
cover to be the strength of armies, and the mainstay of states. But
mere idlers, who eat up charities, and do nothing, -church dignitaries,
who wax fat and kick,-corporation sinecurists, college dreamers, and the
sybarites of cathedral closes, are a dead loss to the community, de-
stroyers of capital, and utterly worthless subjects, reaping where they
have not sown, and devourers of the substance of the industrious. To
literary leisure we are not enemies in the abstract. It is only, that by
experience taught, that unearned competency is entirely without fruit,
and that the precious gift of good books is seldom presented to the
world by those who can live without brain-sweat, we are induced to
suspect that Grub Street fare, and a garret lodging, with the terror of
milk scores, and debt to the sausage man, produce more delightful and
instructive volumes than all the cloisters of Cambridge, and all the
money of capricious fools, who cut off their relations without a shilling,
that they may furnish yellow stockings and knee breeches to make boys
ridiculous, and endow pedagogues with the incomes of princes. A work-
ing clergy, assiduous schoolmasters, true learning, are the best labourers
of nations. But mere eating and drinking dignitary parsondom, and
sinecure lecturers, and laborious triflers, men who spend the substance of
a people on controversies about the bull of Phalaris, squabbles about the
Greek particle, and who work themselves up to such a boiling point of
grammaticai fervour, as to declare that their rival in pro ody should be
damned for his theory of the impersonal verbs-all such are fit for
nothing, but to be carted off to the nearest dunghill, and tumbled out
like so much shotten rubbish.
CHAPTER VIII.
PEACE. .
It is a moderate computation which reckons the armaments of Eu-
rope to cost £200,000,000 a year. War has landed us in £800,000,000
of debt, which threatens to engulph us. Two millions of lives were lost
1L 2


112
PEACE,
to France in the campaigns of Napoleon; and the universal ruin and
inisery with which his atrocious life devastated the world, is perhaps not
calculable. Armies and navies are but the organized idleness of the most
active, energetic, and valuable classes of every community. These, be-
sides being lost to industry, contract the most artificial and vicious habits,
by which they poison all who come in contact with them. We solemnly
believe that no extent of insult, injury, and injustice, to which nations
could submit, would be productive of half the social evils which result
from war.
If the people of different countries placed themselves in more
intimate communication with each other, we do not doubt that wars
and armies would be altogether superseded. It is impossible to be-
lieve that if Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans seated themselves
side by side at a council table, that they would ever consent to cut each
others' throats for the attainment of objects which never yet were realized
by gunpowder. We did not arrest the progress of democracy in Europe,
by spending five hundred millions in shooting it down. On the contrary,
we hastened its advent in our own country. Napoleon did not humble
the pride of England. War never yet attained any end at which it aimed.
If we ask " what was it all about ?” the answer of the soldier who fought
it through, is only “ I cannot tell—but 'twas a glorious victory."
Prospective arbitration is a rational, and would be au entirely suc-
cessful object. Mr. Cobden is entirely right in point of reason, as he is
right in point of heart and conscience. Arbitration will do nothing in-
deed with governments. But it will act upon public opinion—and that
is every day becoming providentially stronger in the world. The nation
which refuses it, will be put in the wrong in the eyes of the world.
That will be something -everything. At least, it is worth the trial. It
can cost little, and, on the most moderate computation, it must save
much. Awards may be enforced, by the governments of Europe binding
themselves to compel their observance. The action of all nations in this
direction, would have a less invidious effect than if one kingdom
avenged its own quarrel. If an award were palpably unjust, it would
not be supported by public opinion. Even if it had for its object to
compel a nation to cede its dearest national rights, the kingdom pre-
judiced would be in a no worse condition to resist, than if the invasion
were perpetrated without the preliminary form of an arbitration. Lord
Palmerston tells us that geographers could not agree about the latitude
of the Oregon boundary. But even if their award were unjust, or ab-
surd, an extreme case, we should escape a war without disgrace, and at an
expense far less than the littlest war could cost us,
There is something so atrociously vicious in the crime organise,” in
the “mischief on the largest scale,” which war has been so well defined to
be, it is so absurdly illogical, and so abhorrent to reason and common
sense, that we cannot believe the plain understanding of mankind, would
fail to detect its criminality. That because nations have different views
of their rights, they should endeavour to do as much injury to each
other as they could, without any result of good to either, is an idea so
abhorrent to the dictates of sound judgment and a good conscience, that
were the question removed from the formularies of routine diplomacy,
to the arbitriment of mankind, it is impossible to doubt what the ulti-


116
PEACE.
“ Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear -
Robed and furred gowns hide all-plate sin in gold
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks-
Clothe it in rags—a pigmy's straw doth pierce it!”
What army kills, as the law breaks hearts? What devastating Attila
spreads such ruin and misery through the very core of peaceful society,
as this “ Father Antic" and his imps? How many widows and orphans
did Napoleon make, in comparison to the regiments of the Inns of Court ?
Look at that terrible Court of Chancery. Who ever comes out of it
alive? What rich man ever entered, that did not become poor. Inno-
cent executors, unconscious guardians, helpless wards, honest trustees,
well meaning partners, unhappy creditors, unfortunate legatees, miserable
mortgagers, and wretched mortgagees- without their consent, against
their will, their interest, their reason, dragged through that detestable
inquisition-forced to swear and make oath to the most sacred intricacies
of kindred, and to disclose the inner sanctuaries of families—nay, to
make oath to the very meditations of their own hearts-put to the
question as peremptorily as by the Spanish propaganda, under pain of
the torture of attachment, imprisonment and ruin !
Are these slow hounds to be longer let loose upon innocence? Why,
in a free country, should any man pay for appealing to the laws of his
country. Why should a citizen be ruined for misapprehension of laws
which nobody understands ? Above all, why, when the highest autho-
rities in jurisprudence interpret public rights in totally opposite ways,
should the innocent and helpless parties be stripped of all their substance
in the process of defending themselves from wrong? If you throw the
capital of a nation into the sea, how long will it hold together. If you
waste it in that which yields absolutely no return but crops of misery,
injustice, robbery, insecurity, how can any people bear up against it ?
We may quote More, and Bacon, and Coke, the very fountains of the
law in evidence of its evils. Lord Chancellor Cottenham, the head of
the Court of Chancery, has officially declared, that he would not be
visited with the calamity of becoming a suitor in his own court, for all
the world. Sir Robert Peel finds that our jurisprudence so absolutely
destroys the only purpose for which it was instituted, so turns right into
wrong, so unsettles the certainty of title which it is its ostensible object
to secure, so absolutely denies justice, and plunders those who seek it,
that he cannot even begin to hope to render clear and safe, the rights of
property in Ireland, until he has succeeded in exauctorating and setting
aside the whole legal machinery of the country.
We entertain no doubt whatever that the counsel of the apostle is not
only spiritually right, but also worldly wise. It is better to be defrauded
by a neighbour than stripped by an attorney. It is better to put up with
the first loss than to encounter two. The grievance is that, in the Court
of Chancery, you have not even that option. You must plead—you
must swear-you must follow wherever your enemy chooses to drag you.
It is not enough that you are ready to suffer any decree to be pro-
nounced, which your opponent chooses to ask. There can be no costs
without litigation-and litigate you must. Is any man foolish enough


PEACE.
117
2
to believe that rights or property could be less secure, if there were not
a lawyer in all the world? No system of jurisprudence can be perfect.
But can any be so pernicious as that which scourges England ?
Conveyancing is simplified in France and America-why can it not be
80 here? Is there any difficulty in compelling persons seeking redress
to come at least, in the first instance, and without the intervention of
lawyers before a small committee of the special jurors of his parish —
stating specifically what he wants-meeting the aggressor face to face,
and fairly worming out the matter to the bottom ? This succeeds in
Prussia--why not in England ? How few are there who would not rather
accept of the mediation and decision of these men, than go to the Court
of Chancery or Queen's Bench? Is not substantial justice, of which
every man's conscience gives him notice, better than legal abstractions.
Could the decisions of laymen conflict more than those of judges do?
Contracts might be drawn up in brief by public officers-official trustees,
executors, administrators, might be appointed, who, with the testa-
mentary appointere, might manage estates without making pabulum for
quirks and attorneyship. Much is said about lay decisions not giving
satisfaction to the public. Do those of our courts of law give satis-
faction? Is it not better to give dissatisfaction, without expense, than
discontent with it? If our courts gave “ satisfaction to the public,
whence comes the host of appeals and new trials? Might not non-pro-
fessional arbitration by presence and interrogation of the parties at least
advantageously begin all questions of right - leaving it at the peril of the
dissentient to carry the case further ? Law, disguise it as we may, is all
made up of mere taxes on the community to support a class who pro-
duce nothing, and who add nothing to the public stock of wealth.
Lawyers are mere non-producing consumers of the national substance.
The capital we expend on them yields no profit or return. Actors touch
the heart-singers give us pleasure-painters advance refinement-
doctors alleviate pain--parsons lead the human spirit to the moral and
the divine. But lawyers only foster bad passions, increase animosity,
thwart right, brutalize in place of civilizing mankind, and dissipate our
substance upon words. We say, “Away with them !".
Strange thoughts dream their way through men's minds, of the theory
of the universe. The cynic suspects that the moral, like the national
world, goes round and not forward. That even in its course round the
sun, the globe, at the year's end, returns to the point from which it sets
out, and the human race describes a revolution rather than a progress of
ages—that the earth has its eccentric movements, but even these are
uniform and repetitory-and man seems to strike out some originality of
madness, but may find in turning back the musty leaves of history,
that
he has only been repeating himselfmand that there is nothing new
under the sun," not even novel virtues, or original manias and vices.
War is the spirit of antagonism, combativeness, destructiveness, envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. Red, blue, green, white, are
but the hues of the same body of malignity. Whether it shall be poison,
or highway robbery, swindling, attorneyship, the constable, the hulks,
the gallows, or the gun, all are only forms of the same spirit of insult or
of injury. At home, it is Chancery, the crow, bar, handcuffs, the house


120
RELIGION.
We set a high political and social value upon religion. We think the
institution in society of a priesthood of incalculable benefit. That there
shall be, in these realms, twenty thousand educated men, eminent among
their fellow citizens for moral worth, social respectability, and superior
intelligence, whose functions it shall be, weekly, to call the people
together, and remind them of their moral duties, instruct them in their
conduct, lead them, upward, to the thought of God, immortality, and
the infinite significancy of their own souls,—who shall daily be among
them, healing the breaches of families, comforting the distressed, and
consoling, and helping the poor,-if ever there was an office worth pay-
ing for, it is that. Righteousness exalteth a nation politically—the
more moral a people are, the more orderly, great, and rich, they will
become. A policeman and a soldier sitting in a man's own heart, and
whispering to him the decalogue - is it not the cheapest and best of con-
stables ?
Yet of all the forty thousand sermons preached weekly in our churches
and chapels, how many are worth the hearing? What virtuous actions
do they inspire--what vice do they repress-crime and pauperism are
more rampant than ever. How many homilies will bear a reading, of the
many which are printed. The fault is not in the people. If a preacher
be but tolerably eloquent, his church is crowded. Of the noblest insti-
tution in the world, we make the very meanest use. We repeat a single
prayer five times every Sunday morning. We are told to enter into our
closet and shut the door when we pray. In place of that, we “weary
heaven with prayers” in public congregation. We are informed that we
shall not be heard for our much praying. Our answer to that is a book
full of act of parliament matins and vespers, which so gnaw the tympa-
num and wear out the very spirit, whose physical organ cannot sustain,
too long, the ecstacy of devotion, that at last, an appeal to Heaven palls
upon the sense, and weighs upon the auditory nerve-
“ Like a twice told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
In fact, we endow theology-not religion. We busy ourselves with
what men should believe, rather than with what they should do. We
stereotype opinion. We are worse than papists. They at least have a
living infallible interpreter of the Bible, who can change the tenor of its
meaning, as greater intelligence sheds more light upon it. But we have
made choice of 300 dead popes, who, two hundred and fifty years ago,
declared what we were to believe, and what we were to deny, and put it
into an act of parliament, and proclaimed that that alone should be the
religion of the free people of England in sæcula sæculorum. Amen!
The imposition of hands—the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon bishops,
rectors, canons, deans, and curates-of what use is that? The Holy
Ghost in vain overshadows the pastoral soul, and inspires it with divine
truth. After dignitaries and working clergy have received the divine
afflatus, they must still look up their Articles, and stick by the act of
parliament. Prophets of the people! They dare not speak what they
think, or utter what they believe, if in one jot or tittle it differs from the
pontiffs of the Westminster Assembly. Did God ever mean that the
human mind should progress, and religion stand still ? All truth is


FREE TRADE.
123
And these spiritual teachers must not be sordid self-seekers, and
Downing Street jobbers of livings. They had better even be at least
not necessarily west-end drawing room gentlemen. Carriages and pal-
aces will not increase their influence. It would be wise, too, not to seek
to wash away original sin at 2s. 6d. or 5s. per soul, or to make christian
burial dependent upon burial fees. Oh! when we think of a Paul, and
look upon a Charles James of London, - when we call to mind the first
teachers, and cast our eye across the Thames to Lambeth gold plate, and
compare Mark, and John, and Timothy, with Henry Exeter, and Gath-
ercole, and Sewell, and Pusey,
But coinparisons are proverbially odious, and here ends our homily
on the church.
CHAPTER X.
FREE TRADE.
“So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees, according to all his desire.
“And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to
his household, and twenty measures of pure oil; thus gave Solomon to Hiram,
from year to year.
“And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom as he promised him; AND THERE WAS
PEACE BETWEEN HIRAM AND SOLOMON, and they two made a league together."-
1 Kings v., 10, 11, 12.
“And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon ; but they
came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus, the king's chamberlain,
their friend, DESIRED PEACE; BECAUSE THEIR COUNTRY WAS NOURISHED BY THE
KING'S COUNTRY."-Acts xii., 20.
Here was a commercial treaty that had lasted for 1025 years. Judea
was scarce of timber, and Tyre of corn. What did the two kings do ?
Did Hiram insist on growing corn, that he might be “independent of for-
eign nations,” or Solomon plant cedars, that he might not be beholden
to his neighbour; in fact, did each try to do that which the other could
do better, and refuse to buy the cheapest market, and sell in the dear-
est? No, they consulted their mutual interests by reciprocal accommoda-
tion, and “there was peace between Hiram and Solomon,” a peace so
lasting, that in the days of St. Paul, a war was prevented between the
Tyrians and the Jews, because they were mutually dependent for what
the other could not do without.
This is a free trade of which our farmers disapprove. They tell us
mankind are ruined by mutual accommodations, and they loudly demand
a protective duty in favour of what they call native industry, and a heavy
tax on the import of foreign corn.
We have already shown that when the people of England are per-
initted to eat all they can afford to buy, they consume £30,000,000 worth
of food ry year more than they can produce. There is, therefore, a
home demand for all we can grow, and a great deal inore.
Before the
m M 2


FREE TRADE,
123
The more difficult it is for them to buy, will it be the easier for thom to
get enough? The question answers itself./We have shown that the
number of persons employed in agriculture in 1841, was 178,000 less
than in 1821, and that twenty years of protection had diminished to that
extent the employment of the labourers so protected. What answer is
it possible to give to this stubborn fact? Has the sliding scale improved
either their condition or their morals ? On the contrary, it is notorious
that both pauperism and crime have sympathized with the price of
bread, and that just as the quartern loaf rises, the independence and
virtue of the masses droop and languish. The national creditor has been
supposed to have an interest in a fixed duty, because it adds so much to
the aggregate of the revenue. But in the same degree as the averages
have advanced, the revenue has decreased; it being, indeed, abundantly
obvious, that the more that is paid for bread, the less is left to consume
taxable commodities. A duty of 10 per cent. upon thirty millions' worth
of food imported, would, in one sense, add £3,000,000 to the revenue-
but we have shown that it would take twenty-one millions from the
people, in the shape of a higher price charged by the farmer for all they
consume-so that to get three millions in a food duty, the exchequer
would lose the proportion of twenty-one millions, which would be ex-
pended in the duty on the consumption of other taxable commodities,
amounting to at least seven millions per annum.
We are, indeed, assured that our farmers are quite prepared to compete
with foreigners, if their taxes are reduced to the foreign level. Now in
what respects are they more heavily taxed than the foreigner. The
Scotch farmer pays no tithe, and scarcely any poor rate—the Irish
farmer, during the whole currency of the sliding scale, was the most
lightly taxed agriculturist in Europe. If the English farmer could com-
pete with the English and Irish, why not with the French and Dutch ?
There is no truth whatever in this pretence. The American farmer pays
4s. 6d. a day wages, and the English farmer scarcely 1s. 6d., while the
Irish pays only 6d. The land-tax and rent of the French and Dutch,
are much higher than the English. The English peasant does inore
work, and to better purpose, for the money he receives, than any labourer
in the world. The American farmer is taxed cent. per cent. for every
article of clothing, of hardware, of agricultural implements he uses,
while the English farmer, on these, pays no tax whatever, but on the
contrary, gets all articles of use, cheaper, even independently of the duty,
than any foreigner whatever. The English farmer has the best roads,
the nearest markets, the greatest facilities of conveyance, the greatest
demand, and the highest natural price of any agriculturist. He enjoys
exemption from horse duty, auction, insurance, toll, assessed, dog, and
many other duties, which are imposed on his fellow citizens-no foreigner
can compete with him in his own market, without an expense in the
inland transport, warehousing, and sea freight, equivalent to far more
than the difference betwixt his legitimate expenses and the lightest taxed
of his rivals. In fact, there is no pretence whatever for his claim. The
coal with which his iron is fused is at his own door-he commands tho
cheapest leather for his harness—the cheapest labour for making it up-
the cheapest harness ironmongery-the cheapest farriery-the cheapest
- m M 3


126
FREE TRADE.
iron. The American farmer pays three times as much for shoeing a
horse, or sharpening plough irons as he does—and all the machines of
our farmers are of a far better construction and at a cheaper price.
That lahour is cheaper here, in comparison to its value, admits of no
doubt. Foreign railroads are made by English labourers, by English
contractors, more cheaply than they can be done by the natives. Hun-
dreds of thousands of British artizans and labourers emigrate every year,
on the sole account of the high rate of wages abroad, in comparison to
what they are at home. We manufacture, and mine, and navigate, more
cheaply than any other people, because we are large exporters in English
ships of British goods and minerals. It is in evidence, that the labour
of the Polish or Russian serf is the dearest, in comparison to the service
performed in the world, and that our English labourer will do as much
in a day, as six of these slaves. The crew required to navigate Italian,
Neapolitan, Turkish, or Russian ships, is twice as great as are employed
in English vessels of the same size-and nearly the whole of the furniture
of a ship can be made more cheaply here, than any where else.
Are poor rates to be pleaded as a ground of claim for high prices ? It
is a strange proposition this, that by raising the price of bread we should
reduce the number of those who cannot come by any, except what they
get from the parish. In fact it is on the face of it, sheer nonsense to
argue that the less food there is, the fewer will go without it. In 1817
the average price of wheat was 94s. per quarter, population 11,349,750,
and the poor rates £6,920,925. In 1834, population having meanwhile
increased to 142 millions, the average price of wheat was 46s. 2d.,
and the poor rate £6,317,255, or £600,000 less than when bread was
double the price, and population smaller, by upwards of three millions
of souls. Besides more than a half of the whole poor rates in the king-
dom are paid, not by the farmers, but by the inhabitants of houses ;
the consumers of agricultural produce.
Are tithes in the way? These fall with the averages—the lower these
are, the less is the tithe. Is rent to be pleaded ? Then why is it paid ?
The value of a thing is just as much as it will bring. Are the general
public interested in keeping, up rent at their own expense ? Are the
farmers benefitted by having the more to pay ? Rent is the profit of the
land beyond the expenses. If the expenses absorb all, why pay ?
Why, simply because there is a profit after paying all expenses, and
the pretence of rent is a pretence, and nothing else.
But if a protecting duty is demanded, who is to pay it? Is it not clear
that it must be the consumers of the article upon which the duty is
imposed. Do foreigners eat any of our English provisions ? Do not
we ourselves consume all we produce, and a great deal more? Then is
it not obvious that the protective duty must be paid by the British
people—that the more the farmers get, the less is left in the pockets of
their neighbours, and that robbing Peter to pay Paul, may make Paul
richer and Peter poorer, but cannot increase the aggregate wealth of
both ? If the farmer cannot produce, to a profit, on account of the
burdens he has to bear, without a protective duty, how can the rest of
the community, who have to bear equal and heavier burdens, meet them,
if they have to pay this protective duty into the bargain? Protection
to build
Can was
pa werk


FREE TRADE.
127
means robbing somebody else, and in the present case the somebody else
means the whole body of over-taxed British consumers. Will a man be
richer by taking his money out of his left pocket, and putting it into bis
right. Will a nation be richer by taking the property of one half of
its numbers, and giving it to the remainder?
In fact the whole theory of protection, is based upon the assumption,
that the state better knows in what pursuits capital and labour can be
employed to advantage, than the merchant and the workmen themselves.
Differential sugar, and coffee, and oil, and tallow duties, are but expe-
dients for taking the money of consumers, and giving it to producers
without any equivalent. The merchant will charter an English ship, as
soon as a foreign one, if the freights are the same-whatever he pays
more, is substantially robbed from him and to the extent of the differ-
ence it is only transferred, not fructified. The effect may be to drive
him out of the trade, and thus lose the profit of his speculations altogether
to the nation. If an English ship be dearer than a foreign one-then it
is clear that English shipping cannot be profitable--and a trade that
cannot be carried on except at a loss to somebody, cannot be a gain to
the aggregate of somebodies. A protective duty means that the trade to
which it is applied, cannot support itself, but must be maintained by
taxing others. How is it possible that a speculation that is made profit-
able, not from its own soundness, but out of the public taxes, can be any
gain to the tax payers? If all trades, in place of being self supporting,
were only maintained out of the taxation of the people, where could
taxes be found, out of which to pay the duties? Taxes cannot produce
taxes, unless like the First Cause they can exist although uncreated. To
say, then, you, the merchant who earn a profit, can spare some of it to
me, the shipowner, or farmer, who earn none, is substantially to reduce
the latter two, to the class of paupers receiving out-door relief. It is
merely to change the hands of wealth, not to increase or create it; and
then taxation is applied to the function, not of supporting the state, but
of subsidising the non-producers of its subjects, to tempt them to con-
tinue to trade without profit. If, besides paying a farmer £1000 for
his wheat, the manufacturer has to make him a present of £500 a-year
for nothing, is not that a loss of £500 to the nation, as much as if it
were paid to a Poor Law Union, or a state pensioner. The farmer gives
an equivalent for the £1000— but none whatever for the £500, except,
indeed, that he buys the manufacturer's goods with the manufacturer's
money. But the manufacturer could get the foreigner to do the same,
and to give him an equivalent in corn besides. Is it more profitable for a
nation to give away its substance to its subjects for nothing, than to get
a quid pro quo for everything it pays to a foreigner? Then it is obvious
that it is better to consume without producing, and to give away, rather
than to exchange.
Can wages be increased by raising taxes, either for revenue or for pro-
tection? If they can-to what purpose? If wages are raised 2s. 6d.
per week by monopoly, and the food of a family advanced 2s. 6d. per
week in price by protection, what does the labourer gain? Clearly
nothing but a loss. He takes half-a-crown from his master without
keeping it to himself, and at the end of every four weeks, the employer


132
TAXATION.
taxes on consumption were abolished, the suddun and expansive spring
which every branch of trade and industry would at once experience from
an unshackled gigantic commerce, would cause taxation of any kind, to
be lightly felt, and men would "freely give, who freely had received.”
It is in this view that a very well considered, and wisely supported
proposition, has been made to pay a large portion of the public debt,
by an immediate sacrifice of a large per centage of the property of
the nation. We possess, at least, £5,000,000,000 worth of property.
Sixteen per cent. of that would pay our whole national debt. Now see
the result. The remaining 84 per cent. would almost, at once rise in
value by the reduction of the burdens upon it, to the amount of the re-
maining 16 per cent, deducted. Because, remove from labour, the pro-
secution of commercial enterprise, and industry, £34,000,000 a year of
taxes, and what limit could be placed to the creation of property and
productions of all kinds ? Taken at once out of the tangible property
of the nation, all difficulty and expense of collection would be at an
end—the people would then, in their private capacity, be the collectors
of what were formerly taxes, but of what would then be private mortgages
to meet the 16 per cent.
If indirect taxes took from the people no more than their own bare
amount, they would be little complained of. But the increment to the
cost of production, and to the exactions for distribution, which they
cause to the consumer, in fact, produces this result—that for every 20s.
which they pay to the state, they take 40s. from the subject-the most
extravagant and wasteful system, it is possible to devise. Take a single
example. The large proportion which the tax upon tea bears to the
whole price, compels the poor to buy it in the smallest quantities. For
two ounces they are often charged 8d. or at the rate of 58. 4d. per lb. for
that which may be had in quantities of 8lbs. at 38. 4d. In short, they are
charged 40 per cent, more than the real value. Now, were there no tax,
they could buy the article in quantities of one pound for the same money
they now pay for two ounces. In short, 8d. would buy 3s. 4d. or 5s. 4d.
worth of tea. While the revenue receives 2s. 7d. duty, the retailer exacts
2s. more from the small consumer. Without a Custom House, the re-
tailer would buy from the ship-every sailor would become a trader-
every creek and eddy in our coast and rivers would be alive with ships
and boats, and lighters-shipowners would become their own traders
the smallest village huxters would have their sloop or yacht, and make
their own ventures-the great wen would crumble into the debris of
countless little towns all over our empire, and the monopoly of capital
would at once be at an end. No examinations at the Custom House-
no inspection of ships for contraband goods-no prohibitions of importa-
tion at small harbours, because they were not Custom House ports--no
revenue cutters--no preventive service-no ruin of the fair trader in
competition with the smuggler-no expensive exchequer court-o eaves-
dropping common informers, laying traps to make their fellow citizens
offend the law, for the purpose of receiving a reward from the state for
betraying its subjects.
Look what this detestable system leads to. The legislature and the
state deliberately encourage the dishonesty of the people. If a man
.
.


134
COMMUNISM.
CHAPTER XI.
COMMUNISM.
"Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall inherit the earth.” There
can be no such inheritance without peace. The earth is nothing without
labour-and no man will plough and sow without security that he shall
also reap. Disorder, violence, lawlessness, uncertainty, precariousness,
are destructive of production, of accumulation, and therefore of industry.
Fixed and wise institutions, which alone can be permanent, regular and
peremptory observance law, steady reverence for public authority,
imperturbable social order, and the punctual observance of the conven-
tions of society, are essential to the profitable inheritance of the earth.
Warlike nations seize and plunder, but do not inherit-until the law-
lessness of conquest has come to an end, and peace has resumed her sober
reign, prosperity and wealth cannot so much as begin.
War is, in the language of Fouche, “worse than a crime-it is a
blunder.” It is, perhaps, more disgraceful to the understanding than
even to the heart of man. In truth, it is but a lucid insanity. It has
reason neither in its aims nor in its results. Knowledge in it is perverted
science-its power is that of might to crush right. Its only purpose is
destruction and murder--its sole effect is tyranny and waste. It has
almost ruined us--it has crippled all Europe, and put back the progress
of civilization a thousand years. It makes the strong in right weak-it
makes the wrong doer strong. It defies the moral administration of the
universe, and sacrifices man to ambition and cupidity. He who shoots
another, with whom personally he has no quarrel, for thirteen pence a
day-what can we say of that man's morality, yet this is what states
make their subjects do.
We cannot too hastily dismiss even the non-resistance principle. It
is amazing how powerful harmlessness is. We are not sure that any
people ever did violence to the peaceable. There is a majesty about the
kind and friendly, which seems' to over-awe aggrossion. Bentham asks,
“What a fine thing it would have been for Napoleon to have found all
nations Quakers ?” The fatalest thing in the world for him! He was
made great by the very element of resistance. His troops followed him
to battles and victories over fierce and combative men-but Frenchmen
are men, and would not long invade, for the mere purpose of harrying
the harmless, and grinding the peaceable. Napoleon himself could not
have done it-his nation would have hated the butcher and oppressor,
while they idolized the conqueror of the warlike. In private life, does not a
soft answer turn away wrath-is not innocent peaceableness found to be the
truest worldly wisdom. By a world schooled in the custom of violence
and antagonism, meekness might be taken advantage of at first—but if a
generation were contented to suffer for the happiness of posterity, we are
not sure that universal peace would not become a general habit. Wesley,
Whitfield, Howard, Park, even among the brutal and the savage, found
peace and non-resistance au infallible euthanasia. Even the bully can-


136
COMMUNISM.
be ranked among those, worse than killers of the body, who destroy the
soul. We maintain, that fowling, and hunting, and fishing, and snaring,
are not moral offences, and it is scandalous to punish them as crimes -
that, to pounce upon a poor wretch who gathers a few rotten sticks, or
pulls a turnip or a handful of peas from a field, or brings an end of
pigtail ashore, that he has honestly paid for at New York, and to mag-
nify these acts into crimes, surrounding the doer with all the disgrace
and shame of police, and sentences, and imprisonment among real cri-
minals, is to make the crime it does not find, and to extend the degrada-
tion and recklessness of the people. Such laws, we assert, deserve no
respect or observance-and ought to be denounced by all who seek to
elevate the frail conscience, and not to destroy all hope of improvement,
by employing police only to destroy self-respect, and the ambition to
maintain character.
Is it wonderful that men seek to change all this? Where there is no
property, there can be no crime against property-nine-tenths of our
criminals are got rid of at once by communism. Where there is no pro-
perty there can be no litigation, nor disputed rights, no defective titles,
no antagonism of selfishness or covetousness. Where there is enough for
all by an honest life, where would be the thief, the prostitute, the
pettifogger, the swindler, the trader in human vices.
It is property
which produces the temptations, the necessities almost, of vice and crime,
which drives women to the pavement, and men to prowl for human prey
by fraud or violence. Where there is enough for all, theft is scarcely
known, and prostitution unheard of. In the prairies men are without
locks to their doors, and women are treated, even by the rude and
rough, with respect, the sure guarantee of self-reverence. When it
comes to the crisis, even we become communists. Our law declares that
the rich must share their last shilling with the poor, so long as they re-
quire subsistence. We have fed three millions on public rations at
a time. We apply the money of the state to enable subjects to emigrate,
and give them land to maintain them. We undertake public works to
find employment-we offend the principle of property when public
utility requires it--we take it from the possessors, and distribute it
among the destitute by the very force of the law. The charitable are
practically communists. They make their private possessions common
property, by sharing their substance with those who have none of their
own. We are in every way rendering homage to the principle, and
practically acknowledging its necessity. Savages are communists—it is
the natural state of society—all society begins with it. We rise to civi-
lization, as we call it, by the creation of rights of property, and make them
paramount to the claims of humanity. But we are civilized only in re-
sults, and in the aggregate. Substantially we are more barbarous and
lawless than any savages. A savage would not spend life in sweeping
crossings, or emptying cesspools! A Cherokee would not reduce the
immortal that is within him to the sole function of putting a head upon
a pin, or stitching shirts, and starving on sixpence for eighteen hours of
thread and needles. Our starving masses are the most degraded savages,
because they live to toil, rather than simply toiling to live. They are
slaves, not to men indeed, but to noney-their driver, and whip, and
1


140
COMMUNISM.
our anti-war societies penetrate from the mere outward practice of non-
resistance to the inward spirit of peace-a spirit more grossly offended
by social selfishness, competition, and litigation, than by armed hosts,
and pitched battles.
To the St. Simonian, the Fourrierist, the Blancist, the Owenite, the
Socialist, we would address ourselves.
Worthy friends, would you make a community of devils, live by the
laws of angels? Do you legislate for tigers and for monkeys? They
cannot read your statutes. You have to shoot, or cage, when you catch
them. Except for mere reason, logic, the capacity of perceiving sequence,
how many members of society are but wild beasts in breeches ? As in-
capable as a hyæna of moral comprehension-having, perhaps, the rude
elements of mind, but scarce the glimmering spark of a soul ? Some
of you denounce classes--the rich, the titled, the powerful. Are these
not as much the victims of society as the rest, enchanted in the sorcery
of a system which they find, but do not make? Are not they, too, our
fellow creatures, magnetized into existing forms by the mesmer paralysis
of custom ? Must not they also constitute members of your “New
Moral World,” challenging from you,“ not railing for railing, but con-
trariwise blessing?”
And some of you, madmen! have blasphemed faith, and turned your
backs upon the divine spirit of religion. Why, what can you, of all
men, exist upou but faith in man, in the regenerative influences of con-
science, in the existence of a moral government of the universe, in the
infinite significance of the human soul, in its eternal progression, and
therefore in a perfectibility in which alone, human communion can be
possible ? Some of you, blind leaders of the blind ! have striven to cast
the world from the moorings of christianity. Why, what is liberty,
equality, fraternity, but the gospel of the Great Teacher ? What is
Socialism, all of it we mean, that is worth anything, but the community
of goods of the first christians ? You think you have made a discovery-
you have only raked off the rubbish of antiquity, and laid bare the bright
gems of primitive evangelism. Christ, who knew not where to lay his
head, and fed the multitudes, whom “the common people heard
gladly,” Jesus was your founder, but he has “ come to his own, and his
own know him not." Nor can we much wonder- for all that we have
got for him now, is Lambeth palaces, shovel hats, silken aprons, Down-
ing Street lobby waiters upon providence, political parsondom in place
of a kingdom that is not of this world, clerical poacher-quellers, and
prophets that eat up all the loaves and fishes, or cram the remnant frag-
ments into their episcopal larders.
What stranger marriage can three be than betwixt democracy and in-
fidelity? Humanity must be governed by laws, either human or divine.
Monarchs make their own will, law, and enforce it by a standing army.
An oligarchy seizes exclusive privileges, and compels obedience by
bayonets, and bullets, and powder. But a republic, where men seek to
be a law unto themselves, how can that hold together, unless, in the ab-
sence of an earthly king, by unfaltering loyalty, and reverential obedi-
ence to the “ king, eternal, immortal, invisible.” Re-ligo, to bind again,
the etymology of religion, is it not the condition precedent to a society,
1


A PATERNAL GOVERNMENT.
148
behind the nations of Continental Europe and America in intelligence
and education, cries shame on our statesmen, our legislators, but most
especially on our clergy and dissenting pastors. We treat our people,
in the strictest sense, as slaves, -as mere tools, machines, ministers to our
avarice, and commercial cupidity; using up their strength and skill in the
production of our wealth, and taking no more care of them than our
horse or dog, which, provided they can trot, and draw a waggon, and
point partridges, we concern ourselves no more about. Ignorance can-
not instruct itself, has no desire to be instructed, -knows not the advan-
tage of not being ignorant. If we cared, as we should pride ourselves
in caring, that our nation should be the really greatest, because the
wisest and most intelligent in the world, (the true glory of a distin-
guished commonwealth,) we would sacrifice every other consideration to
that of taking care that every British subject was thoroughly educated
in the elements of useful knowledge, and wise learning. What king-
dom in the world was ever so much indebted to its workers as our mid-
dle and higher classes are to our labourers for making us what we are?
Yet what is their reward, but to be robbed by their very christian pas-
tors of the property which was left for their material relief and intellec-
tual instruction, while ministers stand idly by, afraid, on behalf even of
such a cause, to defy the storm of benighted clerical bigotry, and eccle-
siastical selfishness.
Our Italian Opera is the most perfect combination of means to the end
of pleasure, that could have been devised. No exception can be taken
to the system of our school of design. Our students of painting and
sculpture, and music, with the Hullah-baloo of the Mainzer system,-
our colleges for medicine and law, and divinity,--and everything that is
devised to minister to pleasure, to luxury, to professional money getting,
we take very good care not to neglect. There is no religious controversy
about these things. But sooner than quit hold of church ascendancy,
our clergy would suffer our people to remain as ignorant as chaos, -and
sooner than suffer the church to assert a supremacy, dissenting ministers
would keep them as dark as Erebus,--and sooner than part with politi-
cal power, our statesmen would permit us to relapse into the condition of
the Heptarchy, and the barbarism of Hengist and Horsa.
It is clear that laissez faire, a sound maxim in economics, is totally
inapplicable to mere social conditions. What is for our material profit
we can perceive keenly enough. To our substantial permanent moral
and mental, (which are ultimately our truest national) interests, we are
entirely insensible. The freest nations in the world have found them-
selves unable to consult the welfare of the community, without paternal
help and supervision. The Americans insist by law upon all the chil-
dren of the republic being sent to school.
Athens was a mere town of
teachers, of philosophers. Sparta took possession of her youth as the
property of the nation, of whom her future men were to be made.
France, and Prussia, and Saxony, possess a complete educational net-
work of the soundest kind. A wise government would no more suffer
their people to grow up in ignorance, than they would tolerate the prop-
agation of mad dogs, or the increase of wolves and tigers. What is an
ignorant man but a wild beast ? We have Right Reverend Fathers in


144
A PATERNAL GOVERNMENT.
God,- we have shepherds of our human flocks, pastors and masters.
What might they not do if they would but try! Have they not,
like honest Dogberry, every thing handsome about them ?”
Rich livings, pleasant parsonages, fertile glebes, fruitful gardens, the best
society, boundless social influence, great local power.
Planted in con-
venient territorial divisions over the kingdom, efficiently organized, with
a staff of parochial officers, and respected by the whole respectability of
the parish, how incalculable might be their usefulness, how glorious
their mission! Has not the state a right to demand at their hands
peaceable subjects, and an elevated standard of national morality ? What
is their use, value, or purpose, as elements of good government, if
they can do nothing to make mankind wiser, more intelligent, and
better? Yet who can deny that although, as a body, learned, amia-
ble, pious, and moral, they have totally failed to impart these quali-
ties to the masses. It is not by reading the John Bull and taking
their evening rubber with the parish dowagers, nor electioneering for
the “constitutional candidate," nor making speeches in praise of
dear bread, nor by sentencing poachers, nor wrangling in the spiritual
courts, that souls are to be saved, and the moral spirit of a nation
formed
and elevated. The clergy are among the people, but not of them. They
do not feed the flock, and lead them by the quiet waters of virtue and of
peace, but look out for some frondent snuggery, or weather-fended dor-
mitory, well sheltered from the breezes of the world, and suffer the bla-
tant sheep to stray where their appetites carry them, without so much as
an outlook for the wolves, or a caution against the snowdrifts. Their
very office is called a living ;—they style themselves but incumbents,
burdens upon the land, leaners upon the doorposts of fleshly comfort and
carnal ease.
Oh! more in sorrow than in anger would we entreat them to think
on what they are, and estimate what they might become. Who seeks
to disturb them in their retreat, if they would but awake to the great sig-
nificancy of their duties. Before them lies a nation ready to do them
reverence, seeking but an earnest of worthy endeavour, to respect their
function and second their efforts. Look at the ragged human mischiefs
of our streets; the squalid atheism of our highways, the idle, abandoned,
because forsaken, outcasts, that burrow in our city lanes, or crouch in
our rural hedge-rows. The fields are already white unto harvest, The
harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few.” Thou shovel hat!
“Go forth-like some strong harvest man
That's task'd to mow or all, or lose his hire!"
Thou pursy rector, or comfortable dean—what hinders, but that you too
might be a blessing in your day and generation ? Will grinding prayers
in the rotatory calabash of your parish mill, bring forth meal that will
nourish the soul of world-forsaken poverty? Listen to
“The cough that stops the parson's saw,"
echoing through an empty conventicle, or, at the best, bepewed with
well dressed, miserable sinners, or self-righteous piety, “that needs no
repentance." There is fever in yonder lane; there you are more wanted


THE AGE OF SHAMS.
147
66
renounced their allegiance to a country to which they acknowledge no
obligations.
We trust a better spirit begins to animate us. We now see that wo
cannot do without each other's help. Classes begin to mingle more with
each other. The rich and poor are met together.” Sanitary Com-
missions are a step-Baths and Wash-houses another. Public walks are
a third. Short time and early closing movements, enquiries into the
condition of factories, of mines, of the agricultural population, of our
needlewomen and governesses, these all show progress in the right
direction. Children are snatched from the streets, and civilized in our
ragged schools—teachers are attached to our unions--and criminals are
placed under moral discipline and mental training-the very thieves at
large are conferred with ; a pledge is taken from factory masters for the
instruction of their apprentices. These symptoms are encouraging, but
they go no further than symptoms. The clergy, the state—the middle
and higher classes, must harmoniously co-operate in conciliating and
alleviating the harder lot of our poorer brethren. We possess abundant
materials of popular development, if we will but industriously improve
and frugally apply them; and it is essential, not merely to national
progress, but to the prevention of national retrogression, that all classes
should seek, before all things, to promote the virtue, intelligence, and
material comfort of the great body of the labouring people, to whose
industry, and indefatigable perseverance, we owe the production
of all the wealth, which, as yet, it is left for only others to enjoy,
CHAPTER XIII.
THE AGE OF SHAMS.
Will the poor ever grow better, until their betters show the way? We
preach morality to labour, when we should act it—the most impressive
of sermons ! The tone of all must be determined by that of the best-
when “bad 's the best,” what can come of only the second best? This
is not a manful, down-right, intrepid, sincere age; society is struck at a
mediocre average-few above or below a standard—there is little hero
worship-few heroes to reverence. Men are little in earnest. We have
sentimentality, but scarcely sentiment-principles rather than principle.
We are universally sceptical of virtue--not we fear without cause. It is
an era of doubt, of hesitancy as to the source of, apparently, the most
disinterested actions. We have no faith in man-only faith in every man
having his price. The world laughs in the face of all pretentions to
virtuo—it does not believe in it—the very assumption of its existence is
scouted in genteel circles—it is even vulgar, ridiculous, to make any
pretensions to it. We are in a critical, analytic, doubting predicament-
our belief is, that there is nothing to be believed. “We never mention
hell to ears polite.” We are desperately afraid of being taken in-we
0 0 2


152
AGE OF SHAMS.
THE
to the height of some great argument, the meanest intellects, the
shallowest party whipsters, will greet the noblest bursts with ironical
cheers, and the solemnity of sincerity with a gibber and a laugh.
Hypocrisy, it is said, is the homage which vice pays to virtue. Did
it ever make vice less, or virtue greater ? We cannot take stock of
our condition, if we never look into our ledger, or if we only make false
entries there. Hypocrisy is a sham, and a sham is an acted lie-there-
fore let us have anything rather than hypocrisy. The latest gigantic
humbug was Bourbon France--and what did it all end in ? Virtue is
in the heart. Let us brush our teeth, and rinse our lips ever so, it
will not make thought clean, or prevent nice folks from having nasty
ideas. Parc aux cerfs and Bastille Louis, was a marvellous
proper
man”-not a more decent ginger-bread king ever passed off respect-
able speciosities for sound morality. But all would not do. Govern-
ment is not May Fair. Men, tired of accepting written rags and shin
plaster, talk as a legal tender. There was a run upon the bank to dis-
count its promises into the hard cash of real action-and truth, and
the guillotine put a finish to the whole gallimaufry. To fence" with
questions, never to commit yourself,"—to argue every subject upon spe-
cial grounds, to the careful avoidance of principles,--to “manage" a
house, and cook an opposition, or whip in a majority,—to play off par-
ties against each other, in place of playing one's own part, —to drop
casual expressions here, and sow the seeds of future explanation there,
“ unconsidered trifles” at the time, that they may or may not be
appealed to afterwards, as the needs of mere mouth consistency, may
require,—to be a stickler for “ right times,” and “ forms of the house,
and “particular shapes in which questions are brought forward,"—to
criticise forms as an escape from the grasp of substance-is such leger-
demain worthy of the ruler of a great kingdom, or will it be long en-
dured by an enquiring, and earnest people? Why cannot a minister be
a man-candid, downright, simple, speaking what he thinks, and doing
what he speaks? Why, for ever are we to have back stairs, and
negotiations, and ear-wiggings of this stupid obstinancy, and
closetings with that influential nincompoop, behind the scenes, and
then a new face, and other properties, and disguised costumes when-
ever the curtain is to be drawn up that the public may see the
play? Why may not a right minded statesman throw himself with
unhesitating trust on truth and human nature, with nothing to
conceal and nothing to act?, Here is a debate on some case of bribery-
there a report on treating—again, an elaborate speech on the introduction
of a bill for the better suppression of corrupt practices. There is not a
man in the House who has not bribed, or treated, or connived at some
corrupt practice. The Cabinet have been bribing half the members of
the house with baronetcies in hand, peerages in prospect, blue ribbands
expectant, lord lieutenantcies in reversion, steps in the army or navy,
posts in the civil service. The members have been seated by bribery as
notorious to their constituents as to their own consciences, and have gone
to the emporium of loaves and fishes to be bribed in turn. Yet, to hear
them talk! Listen to their holy horror-mark their anxiety about the
clauses-observe how eager they are to disfranchise the borough, and
NE


THE AGE OF SHAMS.
155
the world, than out of the fashion. The church is in the world-of it-
the most fashionable of all, because the most worldly,—for is it not one
of our political institutions ? Even in the very presence of God it cannot
forget that there are fleshly eyes to be filled with “ inexplicable dumb
shows,” and human ears that must be split with such noise as groundlings
covet. At exactly half-past ten, “by Shrewsbury clock," with “shining
morning face,” the tractarian priest, to slow music, must move to the
desk, and whether the scripture moveth the dearly beloved brethren or
not, the lips must scamper through the work of orisons to the Deity; now
the litany here, then the liturgy there, then the lessons for the day,
running up and down the rotatory calabash of stereotyped adoration,
like mice in the wainscot. Bands and surplice, and face to the east ;-
here a little read at the desk—there a little given out at the altar,-then
the soft music again,-a retirement to the vestry,-an unrobing, and
a cassock re-robing,-a getting up to the pulpit, next,—with new
scenery, machinery, dresses, and decorations, perhaps, even lighted can-
dles at the altar-and all this going up and going down, and backward
and forward, and in and out, and costuming and re-costuming, and skip-
ping from prayer number one to creed number twenty, and from canti-
cle A to lesson Z, whether the mind be in the mood, or the spirit be
moved in that direction or not, for the service of Him who is worshipped,
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth,
and for the simple instruction of the piety of the humole heart. See
where professional praisers of God march in red coats and cocked hats --
behold the shovel hat-mark the silken apron-observe the lawn sleeves
and the Oxford cap-the horse hair wig--the red stripe and the black
sash-and the consecrated ground, and the fees and squabbles about
christening, and marrying, and burying-and the stout fight for cholera,
and intramural interments—and the condescending bishop who deigns to
preach-and the dignified archbishop who never says grace under royalty,
or to a dinner of a prince, at least. Need we stop? Who has not
stopped the nose,” at the nolo episcopari—at that grossest of imposi-
tions, the imposition of hands--at Christmas offerings levied by troops
of dragoons, and widows' cows sold for first fruits—at the orthodox ad-
vice to trust in God, and keep your powder dry~at the sign of the cross
and the bending of knees at names-at god-fathers, and god-mothers--
at fasts in Lent and consubstantiation ? Yes, the true substance of reli-
gion is made to move through a misty cloud of semblance among us
like every thing else, We have our augurs, who consecrate the colours
of marching regiments in place of opening the Temple of Janus, or sing
Te Deum at St. Paul's for the Waterloo massacre, rather than watch the
flights of birds from the capitol, after Cannæ or Philippi. We have
got fine names for it all, indeed. We are told how necessary it is to “im-
press the vulgar"—which, in more honeyed terms, means to materialise
religion-not to lead men through the senses to the spirit- but to sub-
stitute the senses for the spirit-to frighten mothers into christening
fees, by imposing on them the fable that their infants will be damned if
they die unbaptized--to bully relatives out of burial service money by
attaching some mysterious respectability to what is called christian sepul-
ture--to fleece bridegrooms out of their cash by raising the suspicion,
in brides, that marriages cannot be lucky made out of church-


156
THE AGE OF SHAMS.
“ The long drawn aisle and fretted vault
Where pealing anthems swell the note of praise,"
address themselves to our artistic faculty, refine our sentiment, and ele-
vate our taste. “ Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.” With
great paintings, and sublime music, and oriel windows, with their “dim
religious light,” we should be the last to quarrel, even although all this
painting, and glazing, and singing, were the work of the most drunken
and dissipated fat eared gluttons in the parish. But where all these and
other sacerdotal et ceteras are “got up,” to ensense and deceive people
into feeling religious, managerial strategy of devotion, scene-shifter me-
chanism of piety, water-coloured with the specious phrase of “the decen-
cies of public worship,” they may, indeed, be in chaster taste, or, to use
the only cant term that befits them,“ in better keeping” than the un-
known tongue, or anxious bench, or revival, or camp meeting, or ranter
or jumper « dodge,” but they are all “tar off the same stick,” all a sub-
stitution of the fancy for the soul, the “ form of godliness without the
power thereof.” They are a profounder and more subtle sham-a sham
by ourselves upon ourselves—but at bottom, all these exhibitions—these
May meeting field days of religious dissipation—these “ experiences”
these missionary " crack speakers”—these lay figures of reformed drun-
kenness, are tainted with the prevailing spirit of sanctifying means by
ends, and by the sacrifice of simplicity and sincerity to the creation of
sensuous effect. Why cannot philanthrophy be simple and natural ?
Why should truth and virtue be rhetorical? Why cannot humanity
be humane without having its money danced out of its pocket by a
charity ball ? Is there no way of feeling for the Poles, except in a mas-
querade-or of sending a bishop to the Cannibal Islands, but through
countesses serving stalls at a Fancy Fair, where horse-racing noblemen
propagate the gospel by gloves at five guineas a pair, and duchesses
convert the heathen by Airting off silks purses to right honourable
flirtees?
What comes of it all, but to destroy the proportions of moral de-
nomination? You may break faith, but not the Sabbath-you may
deceive, but you must not swear-you may cheat and swindle, but you
must go to church-you may bribe and calumniate, betray and bam-
boozle, but you must vote against Sunday Trading, and “stick to sound
believing,” and be a fast friend of “ order, and of the church.” It is per-
fectly orthodox to fib, but“ it hurt's one's conscience to be found out."
This is the danger, the fault, the vice of our time. We all live in
public-we act as if the eyes of the whole world were upon us--we
speak the language of society, rather than our own. Agitating, speechi-
fying, articleing, reporting, paragraphing everything and everybody,
sucks nature entirely out of us, destroys the individuality, the sincerity
of character. Iterated cant, formal platitude, a rank and file manner of
life and action pervades all society. Able editors “would not stain their
pages” with what is in everybody's mouth and their own. Infidels and
atheists are uniformly orthodox in print. Everybody professes what
nobody believes--takes for granted, as a matter of course, what is uni-
versally denied, and what nobody gets credit for crediting. It does not
content men to hold their tongues if they cannot speak without offence.


EPILOGUE.
163
5
“That honourable stop,—not to outsport discretion.”
We have anticipated, by reform, the necessity for revolution. But the
world is progressive, and the amendment of to-day is the obsolete
abuse of the morrow. The most perfect, the most elastic constitution,
falls behind the progress of man--for although men are but the chil-
-dren of a day, man is immortal,
“And panting time toils after him in vain."
The polity of shepherds becomes the barbarism of tillage. The wisdom
of the agricultural age is the folly of commerce. A dense manufacturing
population would perish under feudal legislation. Know this and profit
by the lesson.
It is easy to make a little nation great,-easier to make a great nation
liittle, -most difficult of all, to sustain greatness, to make a great nation
il greater. You and we may do it. Let us forget classes, orders, the past,
-except to profit by its experience. Let us forget ourselves, and re-
member only that in our keeping our forefathers have placed the future
destinies of the greatest kingdom of the world. An empire on which
the sun never sets, is in our wardenship. Tribes, tongues, climes, kin-
dreds of every region, complexion, and degree, look to us for life, for
3 progress, and for happiness. Let us be true to such a trust, and millions
yet unborn will rise up and call us blessed.
“Methinks I see, in my mind, a noble and puissant nation, rousing
herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks;
methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling
her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unscaling
her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while
the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love
the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means.
“What should ye do, then ; should ye suppress all this flowery crop
of knowledge and new light, springing daily in this city ? Should ye set
an oligarchy” “to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we
shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe
it, Lords and Commons! they who counsel ye to such a suppressing, DO
AS GOOD AS BID YE SUPPRESS YOURSELVES.”
7
Hancock, Printer, 55, Aldermanbury.



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