The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-05 00:00:00

14)t WJo

LONDON:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1840.

We see by the South Australian Record of the
28th ult. that there is a great want of labourers in
Australia. Labour is said to be " the great want
of Austra!ia, and the cry resounds from shore to
shore." Labour is, or speedily will be, equally
wanted in New Zealand. The land sold for 20s.
an acre will not be worth a button to the capitalists
who have bought it, unless labour be employed on it,
and hence the cry at Australia and New Zealand
for labour.

To re9pond to this cry, apparently, some persons
connected with the New Zealand Company got up
a great public meeting at Glasgow on Monda,, last.
It vas held in the Justiciary Hall, and the LORD
PROVOST was in the chair. It was called, accord-
ing to the Scots Times of Wednesday, from which
our knowledge of the meeting is derived, "to con-
sider the propriety of memorialising Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, her Majesty's Secretary for the Colonial
department, praying for a grant of money to
enable the Glasgow New Zealand Society
to send out emigrants." A very , modest
proposition. The New Zealand Society wants to
have its barren lands made fertile, and wants to
secure a large profit on its capital, after the fashion
of the Sydney capitalists, at the exyense of the
tax-payers of England. To enforce this modest
proposition a Mr. CRAWFORD, at the request of
the Committee, read a number of extracts from the
newspapers and several private letters, depicting the
beauties of New Zealand and the happy condition
of the emigrants. A Mr. GILLESPIE, who ap-
pears by the report to have been a Chartist at some
time or other, then gave a fearful description of the
state of
to the
the population
use of
m c ofinwhich he as-
cribed eryandto
Glasgow,superabunda.nt
population. One specimen
ah
must suffice. After
referring to the case recently published in the news-
papers of a woman who was obliged to carry her
dead husband to the Church-yard on a porter's
barrow, he added—

A woman, whose child bad been dead eight days,
and which remained unburied, had to come down to the
street and implore the passers-by to carry it home to
the grave. He went with the woman, and conveyed it
to the lonely churchyard.—(Hear, hear, and cheers.) It
was from motives of humanity be gave his assistance to
this poor woman.
On Mr. GILLESPIE, who concluded by moving,
in accordance with the object for which the meet-
ing was called, sitting down, a Mr. ROBERT
MALCOLM, jun., moved a resolution to this ef-
fect :

That the meeting, though favourable to emigra-
tion to Now Zealand or any other quarter of the world,
by those who may be so disposed, object to any ap-
plication to the Home Secretary, or to any other Go-
vernment officer, for a grant of public money for such
purpose, and are altogether opposed to the question of
emigration being allowed to occupy public attention, to
the exclusion of more important objects, being fully
convinced, that not even temporary relief can be ob-
tained to the oppressed operatives of this country by such
means, and that until bad laws and unjust government,
which we deem the principal cause of our present suf-
ferings, are completely removed, we can have no hope
that our circumstances can be greatly improved.
After considerable discussion this important
amendment was carried by a large majority—three-
fourths
of the meeting declaring in its favour-
Thus so far as Glasgow is concerned, the cry at
Australia and New Zealand for labour will not be
answered.
to be known to the people ; they regard it as a kind
In fact the WAKEFIELD scheme begins
coefpdtuttebrye,
serfs and none
ne
twhohsoe
whomhal'eanytheinitaetle proprietorligence,ex-
of Petworth transported to Canada from his estates,
will answer to the call for labour at the antipodes,
Those who have
20s. per acre for land there, expecting to recover it
given the New Zealand Company
by the toil of expatriated labourers, may probably
whistle for their money. This result of the meet-
ing at Glasgow is of
great importance also to the
workmen, as well as to the capitalists who have
embarked their capital in the New Zealand specu-
lation ; but the language used at the meeting
was still more
important. Words are not
TVE
merely signs ; they are important things, and re-
quire to be known. Mr. IL-
__Ar.coLm was the
•
great orator of the operatives of the night, and
what he said is especially worthy of the attention of
those who think that all will go smoothly and well,
if the aristocracy only resolutely persists in denying
all concessions to the people, and if the Govern-
ment shut them up
in prison as seditious libel-
lees when they meet to claim their rights as men
and citizens. n
—e said, amongst other things,—
With the first speaker (Mr. Gillespie) he agreed
that misery and Wretchedness amongst the working po-
pulation prevailed to a most appalling and unparallpt-1
extent. He believed that --- *
lated by

-,vues similar to those re-
-.." "III"Pie at the commencement of his
and effective remedy was absolutely necessary ;
speech were of daily occurrence, and that an immediate
but he
altogether disagreed in the sentiment that emigration
was capable of effecting a cyre,-,--(Cheers.) lie (Mr.
M ) knew that misery of the most soul-harrowing na7
ture existed in the country, and he believed that the
~Dcratives would be 2 till Lithei redilc;:a in Ow so3i-i
scale, and that our merchants and inacutuetusers ware 0-'
the brink of bankruptcy and'ruin, but he ;lid not ascribe
these evils, as Mr. Gillespie had doge, to the initt-