The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-20 00:00:00

the countr7.
Colonel Forrens, M.P. for Caml.ridge, who presided,

'
in an address which occupied nearly an our, entered
into his own experience as an emigrant to the Auslraliae
s, where he had no hesitation in saying that work-
ing and industrious men had all the means of reecuiug
themselves from the hand of poverty were they so
minded. A cry resounded from all parts of the country,
"Give us bread for our chit iren, or give us work at
remunerative wages, so that we may earn it for them."
(Hear, hear.) In our towns and agricultural districts :
not only was food scarce, but wazes were low, and
when a man was not properly fed it was impossible
I that he could work. In Australia the waste lands
were the absolute property of the people, who by in-
dustry soon obtained a position they could never hope
to achieve in this country. Of 300 Irish labourers
whom he had himself many years since induced to
emigrate, there was not one who was now alive that
was not doing well—some worth their £lO,OOO, and
£20,000 and uPwards, and this not from gold-digging,
but by their perseverance and industry. The subject
, was one which demanded the attention of the
Goveniment and all classes of the community, and
must be met with a liberal hand, in order to meet the
exigenciert of the times.
Mr. Jenkins movt d the first resolution, and
said the appalling distress which was prevailing in this
country had at last aa akeued, not only the middle, but
the working classes wore especially, to this subject,
and he believed that the meeting of that night would
prove a key-note which would vibrate throughout the
length and breadth of the kingdom. There was a
redundancy of labour as well as population, and this
tended to keep wages low, and to produce one
million of paupers, who had to be maintained at
a cost of eleven millions per annum. By emigration
we created a market for our own industry and manu-
factures, and it was a matter of State policy and not
philanthropy that should induce the Government to
encourage it. He moved, "'that the supply of labour
in this country so greatly exceeds the demand as to
cripple industry and increase pauperism in alarming
proportions ; that an instant and extreme remedy is
demanded; that one of the best and most feasible
remedies is the exportation of our excess of labour to
the colonies, where it is needed for their development ;
that a sufficient application of this remedy is beyond
the power of private charity, and can only be effected
by the Government, and that the Government should
le- at .aice urge) to rive the subject its earnest consi-
deration." (Applause).
The Rev. A. S. Herring seconded the resaution,
which wa,s put and carried amidst applause.
Capt. Wake, R.N., moved the second resolution
(which was carried nem, con.), expre-eing an iipinion
that the foregoing objects, being those of the National
Emigration Society, were deserving the support and
co-operation of the ratepayeis and working classes
throughout the country.
Mr. Briggs moved a third resolution, urging the
working classes, especially in the distressed districts,
to organise committees to diffuse information upon
the subject, and for pressing upon the consideration
of Parliament the necessity of an emigration policy for
the unemployed.

--
In noticing the above report, the Daily Telegraph
thus writes on the subject of Emigration :

" Register ! It-Oster!" was the late Sir It hert Peel's
satirise' to his followe,s at a very particular turning-point of
their fortunes. "Emigrate? Emigrate" is the suggestion
that we would offer to thousands upon thomands—we might
almost any, to millions—of our fellow-countrymen with whom
life is a sorry scrape, and thin lovely world but a aqualid
workhouse, front the cradle to the grave Let there betake
themselves beyond the great seas, to other parts of Eng-
land that are as much England as the heavy clay-
soils upon which they now waste their strength for a
wretched pittance—as much England as the dirty rows of
brick cuttsges whore they find momentary relief from the
rattle of the mill or the tortures of the mim—far more
England than the poor-house, and very much more oo than
the convict-yant or the ea. il There is no fear that the
population of this island will ever tall short of the require-
ments made by MIT trade acid manufactures. A law as flu-
nerving as any of the great physical laws while
secure the cohedon i.f the universe will orovi r all
the labour that is wanted, when there is demand for
it Better will it he for those who go ; better for those
who stay at home. Not all the " rattening," not all the efforts
of all the trades unions, will so raise the in mlitite, of
working nice, will so enable them to etinam id a just
day's wage for a just day's work as a good system of emi-
gration The lab air rate would rest on a far whim and a
far safer basis when regulated by the demand, as one might
say, of the world, thati when fixed by the aupiny and demand
rf a single country. What is it that has tootle the hunted
States what they are? What, save the boundless supply of
land that enables every man on the other side of the Atlantic
who has willinghands and an average brain toe. minimal all the
conveniences mid comforts of life? In every direction we see
the United Statesmen at work spreading and advancing into
the wilderness, steadily reducing it into possession. 'I he hou
way which is to join the Atlantic with the Pacille is all but
completed. At every spot along the mighty line, and to the
left Slid 'right of it, where human labour cm be made avail-
able, available it will be made. What Is England's difficulty
when compared with the difficulties which are every day over-
time by the people of the Statesl tin the broad mem Nature
has laid down for us a path from discomfort to prosperity,
fairer and easier than the Great Pacific Railroad. By
a few days of easy travel—a steam-brat run of little
more than a iv, ea—struggling Englishmen are divided
from a land where their labour would win tee them
comfort and Independence. To Augur ilia, no Medd, it
is a longer vo3 age; but surely if you can prove to a
man that miserable as he may be in January, he can
place himself in comparative comfort by April or 31. y, it is
worth his while to make the effort W hat the " night-side
of Mil great towns 1,, we at, know to well. As for the
country, we would ask, does the w her of the follow
liii
passage—it will be found in the Wfsrminst, Review of teat
JanuarT—espress himself in IerIIIS do, et((((( for the
mcasniii ? "Nowhere on the Continent will English
travellers m-et with such wretched, um:tied for, un-
taught, serf-like creatures as in their OWII country ;
nowhere else in Europe will they encounter that
dumb 'bovine gaze,' and find so rude a bins animated with
so dull, erudird, and overwhelmed a spirit as Is to lie found
in the ranks of those who slave to pro,nte for the [aids., id
Englishmeo from year's end tri year's end, hi the unvarying
roui•d of a gin-horse, without a hope of SilleilOritidUS." the
picture is lamentably true ; and yet it is ny men so rude in
form, sa cable like, that the earth has been sulabied from
the equator to either pole, when the " dull spirit" had once
been Milli ISM* into life. What fire, what energy, what
endurance, lie hidden uuder the English peasant's "bovine
gale