The Express.
London, England, 1852-05-21 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY. MAY 21.

THERE must be no more loss of time in discussing
the best method of emigration to Australia. We
must try which mode is best by using them all. It
was declared, on high authority, at the public meet-
ing at Leeds, and repeated by the deputation to Lord
Deans, that, to save the clip of this year's wool,
shepherds and shearers must be sent out within two
months. Of these two months, how many days aro
gone? And what is doing?
The facts of the case,—the very important case,—
of Yorkshire and Australia are these. York-
shire (assuming that that name stands for our
woollen manufacture) requires an annual importa-
tion of wool to the amount of 2,000,000!.
This was the amount imported in 1850. The Aus-
tralian colonies required from England, at the same
date, goods to the amount of nearly 3,000,000!. The
demand for our goods, from the development of new
means in the colony, is likely to increase rapidly and
largely; while, at the same time, there is extreme
danger of a failure in the supply of wool, from the
deficiency of shepherd labour on the plains. Looking
at the fact in another way, wo find that there are
tens of thousands of men among us whose annual
consumption of our goods at home amounts to
not more than 11. per head I while, in Aus-
tralia, their circumstances would bo such that
they would become consumers to the amount
of 01. 15s. each, while their presence in Australia
would save the article of export thence which is now
in danger. These are the men who ought, in all
reason and prudence, to be sent out within six
weeks. Last year's " clip" is safe; and there seems
to be hope that some portion of the present year's
will be rescued, at great loss to the wool-grower, but
in the trust that more labour will be supplied month
by month. There aro some persons, as we see by
the report of the Leeds meeting of the 12th, who
apprehend that there may be, at all events, more
wool than Yorkshire will want, in the present pros-
pects of the manufacture. However this may be—
whether, as the large majority believe, the manufac-
ture will languish for want of wool, or, as others
hint, Yorkshire weavers will be languishing for want
of work—the pressing expeaiency of a largo imme-
diate emigration is equally striking. If the wool is
wanted and does not come, men will be wanted in
Australia. If the wool comes and is not wanted,
there will be hungry men in Yorkshire who are
wanted in Australia.

Now, here arises the difficulty caused by the re-
fusal of the Land and Emigration Commissioners to
send out any men but agricultural labourers, and
such mechanics as can be smuggled into the colony
under that denomination. Tho commissioners have

at their disposal 220,0001., which is, for the most part,
lying idle in their hands, on account of this rule of
theirs to Bend out only agricultural labourers. To
this rule they adhere, not only in the face of the fact
of the urgent needs of the colonists on the one hand,
and of our hungry people at home, but in the face of
the very important fact that the 220,000/. are supplied
by the colonists on the faith that it is to be
expended for their convenience. To observers, it
appears singularly perverse to hold to a rule framed
long ago, before the mighty change made by the
discovery of the gold fields was dreamed of by any-
body. There is no doubt, on any hand, that if we
had now a telegraphic communication with the pro-
viders of the fund, they would let us know before
night their earnest desire to have men of all sorts
sent out who can work; and that their preference
would be of men of more brain and higher training
than our agricultural labourers can exhibit just
such as our stout Yorkshire weavers; and that it
would be the greatest of blessings if their families
went with them. There is no time to wait for this
wish to be formally expressed. There is no time to
i lose in arguing with the commissioners. Or, if all
England argues with them (which we hope all Eng-
land will pertinaciously do), we must stir in other
directions while carrying on the argument.
What are these other directions? There is Mrs.
CIIISUOLM'S society—excellent, as far as it goes, but
wholly inadequate to the present need. Mrs. Cuts-
noLat and her coadjutors are as hard at work as
people can be; and more and more aids are joining
them every day. Let more and more join them—
to-day, and to-morrow, and every day—but we have
only six weeks in which to meet the existing emer-
gency, and we must look further stilL
The Highland and Island Emigration Society
seems to offer a wide field and very ready means
for the enterprise to which the nation finds itself
suddenly called. We have all heard much, and now
for some years, of the miseries of the population
of Skye, and of other parts of Scotland which
were ravaged by the potato disease, and have not
strength to rise from the prostration. We are all
aware that the landed proprietors are wholly unable
to support the people who could never, in the best
times, do more than barely support themselves. We
all probably agree that Highland families are the
very stuff for such an immigration as Australia now
cries out for. No sheep-walks can be wilder than
those to which they have been accustomed,—where,
in rammer, they have been wont to pass whole days
far from all sounds but the gush of the torrent, and the
bleat of the lamb, and the cry of the plover, echoed
from the rocks and trembling over the 'black moor,—
where, in winter, they have gone out in the snow-drift,
and amidst the blustering tempest, to save their flock.
To such men the grassy plains of Australia will
probably be more tempting than the hot hubbub
at the "diggings;" or, if not so, they will servo as a
final test that the case ia indeed hopeless. These
Highlanders and Islanders of Scotland are eminently
family men. By every endeared association, by
every affection, by the habits of centuries, they are
disposed to take for granted that their parents and
children shall go wherever they go, and to look for-
ward to sending for all their relations by and by, to
the fiftieth cousin. To draft off 20,000 of these Scotch
people, of all ages, in family parties, and set them
down within reach of the Australian stations, would
be to do the largest amount of good, on every hand,
that, perhaps, any movement of our time could be
conceived to effect—good to all sorts of people, at an
interval of half the globe, without the least harm to

anybody.
The proprietors would be relieved from a burden
under which their fortunes have become actually des-
perate. Their lands would have a chance of the im-
provement duo to a future generation. The present
famishing inhabitants would find, not only food, but,
carrying their household goods with them, a home in
their new country, where their hearts would find a
domestic rest, such as, in aching, fevered destitution,
they have not known for many a long day. The
Australian stock master, who is now obliged to club
his sheep together in a flock of 10,000, because a
score of his shepherds have absconded, and who sees
his ewes perish in the yeaning, and his lambs lying
stark for want of care, and hundreds of his sheep
infecting thousands more with the fatal catarrh,
would give the kindliest welcome to the sight of
the plaid, and the sound of the Gaelic tongue.
And Yorkshire and Wiltshire, and many a shire
besides, would not bo behind in the rejoicing. For
every 10,000 human beings set down in that far
land of plenty there would be ten thousand happy
thoughts in the humble homes of England, where
Ithe busy hands were weaving the fabrics which are
to purchase our share of this wonderful Australian
gold.
And can this be done P Yes, anti easily and im-
mediately, as may be seen by all who will glance at
the resources by which the emigration of the High-
landers and Islanders is proposed to be carried on.
They are simply these.
The Emigration Commissioners will give a free
passage to [inch men and women as come under their
rule. The emigrants will sell any property—such
as a cow, and their househol3 furniture—that they
may possess, to help to pay for their outfit and
passage. What further funds are needed are
advanced by the society, by way of loan, secu-
rity being taken for the repayment of the
advances by the emigrants out of their earnings in
the colony. Finally, the landowners, whose estates

are thus relieved, pay, es a gift, one-third of the ad.
sances made to their own dependents. Thus the
repayments to be made by the emigrants will be
applied to carry out successors. It is thus that the
cousins, to the fiftieth degree, may hope to follow
and nn organisation of relief and supply may he eon•
sidered to be fairly begun. l'rince ALBEII r's name,
with a donation of 1001., stands at the bead of tilt;
list of patrons. If others make haste to join—if they
go to-day to pay in their subscriptions at any of the
great bankers in London, or in the chief towns in the
kingdom—something effectual may be dune Is fore
the six weeks are gone—" this year's clip" may be
saved, a world of embarrassment relieved, and en
inestimable amount of misery turned into pence and

Waif regret we find that the present Cuts-
CELLOR has already begun to resume the old tory
practice regarding the appointments to the magis-
tracy. Wo had hoped hotter things of Lord Sr.
LEONARDS. We were among those who, when his
name was first mentioned as a candidate for the
custody of the Great Seal, frankly admitted his
forensic eminence, and augured well his adminis-

trative impartiality. lie had been tried in a similar
capacity in Ireland, and report said that lie had not
been found wanting. We did not forget that he was
then a subordinate under Gummi and l'Em. instead
of being, as now, the colleague of DISRAELI and
DF.tinv ; but we were willing to give him individually
whatever credit was due to fair and unpartisan nowt.
nations to the magisterial bench, and we were ready to
believe that as head of the judicial department is
this country ho would eschew the bad precedent of
former times, and hold the balance of justices, as well
as of justice, even.
It appeals that we were too sanguine. Whether it
bo that increasing age and a protracted interval of
seclusion has rendered a temper never very patient
or considerate, uncontrollably petulaut and arbitrary
—or whether it be that before the desperate necessi.
tics of the faction now recklessly gambling for power,
the once upright judgment of the CHANCELLOR hag
been forced to yield—certain it is that in more in.
stances than ono that have come recently before us,
the discretionary privilege of adding names
to the Commission of the l'cace has been used

the me of Yarmouth, and the answer given by Mr.
WaroLE, will doubtless give rim to no little oilier-
Tsti„ throughout the kingdom. The question was,
Y we think, ,judiciously put solely OA general
.rounds, and without any reference to the circum-
;gh, which render the insLinco in question pecu-
liarly worthy of note.