The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-19 00:00:00

flu7lBll ELIIIG1?A710N TO AMEEIC

(Prom Me Anylo •American Times.)
No. 111.

The climate of the country to be selected is of the
first importance, and the best for Englishmen may
be briefly described, as that wherein they can work in
the fields during most days throughout the year.
This implies neither excessive cold nor excessive heat,
neither long periods of drought, nor periods of con-
tinuous rain ; and with such an even, temperate
climate, if the soil be ordinarily fertile, the produc-
tions cultivated in England can be raised. A few
words describe them broadly—wheat, potatoes,
meadow grass—for the rest follow in a greater or
lesser degree. Having settled this main question,
a host of minor ones, though material, arise. The
first relates to the inhabitants, the Government, the
language. Savages in the neighbourhood are objec-
tionable in proportion to their numbers, bravery, abi-
lity, cruelty, and hostility, and where the language
of the inhabitants differs; where the Government
does not enforce just and equitable laws, the coun-
try is to be avoided. The security of life and pro-
perty must, in a measure, depend on this, and the
form of government supplies no guarantee ; indeed,
Republics are, on the whole, worse off in this respect
than Monarchies—the most stable Government in
South America being the Empire of Brazil, and the
most insecure, on either the Northern or Southern
continent, being the Republic of Mexico. We may
take it as an undisputed fact that Englishmen ought
not to locate themselves as permanent settlers in
a country whose language is not English, and
whose laws and institutions have not an Eng-
lish basis. As adventurers, as' merchants, striving
to gain the means to live hereafter in their native
country, Englishmen might readily proceed to such
lands, but not as emigrants. These considerations
narrow the countries for settlement into the United
States and the English colonies ; the colonies being
further narrowed to the proper meaning of the
term—not conquered countries, such as India and
Ceylon, but settled countries like Australia, New
Zealand, or even the Cape. Many years' possession
of the latter colony has shown that it is not calcu-
lated to attract English emigration, for simple
reasons which can be gathered on reading any book
describing it ; and putting it aside, there remain
the continent of North America and Australasia.
Ea3h of these emigration fields may be broadly
divided, the former into British America and the
United States, the latter into Australia and New
Zealand. Let us contrast the broad merits of the
antipodean with the American, for, practically, the

question before the English is the one or the other,
but it is first necessary to get an idea of each field.
The difference between Australia and New Zealand
is that, though in a minor degree, between England
and India, which means that the countries are wholl3
dissimilar. Australia is a vast tract of arid, sandy
land, with fertile portions which still partake of these
characteristics. There is a want of flowing water ;
it is not a potatoe nor a meadow grass country.
The hot dry summer scorches up the soil, leaving
the water-courses a series of pools with no visible
connection. It is a good wheat land, but the seri-
ous drawback of Australia is its vast extent, with
comparatively limited areas calculated to carry a
concentrated population, preventing the rapid in-
crease of wealth in settlements so widely sepa-
rated, each with a boundless waste around, into
which drift the already scanty inhabitants, where
they are in a degree lost. New Zealand differs
totally, being limited in area to about the size
of the United Kingdom, consisting, like it, of
two islands. It is a land of frequent showers, of
temperate but stormy climate, sending more water
to the sea than any other tract of equal extent.
Intersected by gigantic mountains, covered with
dense forests, it affords but little space and tracts for
a large and continuous stream of emigration, though
undoubtedly capable of carrying a very condensed
population. Although not adapted as a big field
for emigration, it has great attractions in a snalil

way, and is destined, though only by degrees—for

it is a difficult country to subdue---to become what
it has been called, " the Britain of the South." The
North Island is cursed with a very powerful, brave,
and able body of aboriginal inhabitants, who are
likely to deter the settlement of that portion of

the colony for many years, as they hold the fast-
nesses of one of the wildest regions of the world.
Still this is only a third of its area, but per-
haps the best portion, though the wealth is in

the Southern island, which par se is admirably
qualified to receive British emigrants on a limited
scale. The objection first taken to Australasia in
Britain is the distance, the expense being a barrier

to the poorer, while the world's width from home

is cold comfort to the richer. Nor is this mere senti-
ment, for distance is a drawback which must exert an
injurious influence on the antipodal colonies for an
age to come. There is the expense of, and time
lost on the passage, nor for that one only, but for
every future connection, for postage, for freight, and
indeed for all transport rendering produce un-
profitable, which but for the distance would pay,
while detracting from the profit on all other ex-
ports that do pay, and adding to the cost of every-
thing imported from the home country. Per-
haps we can best illustrate the truth of what
we assert by bringing, say, New Zealand to
within a hundred miles of Great Britain, with its
climate and resources precisely as they now are.
In ten years after, it would rank as a power in Eu-
rope, and in a hundred years it would perhaps be as
productive, and therefore as wealthy an island, as
Great Britain. The distance then is a material point,
and as long as the United Kingdom remains the cen-

tre of the Empire it will affect most injuriously these
far-off colonies. A fac-simile of any portion of
England cannot be reproduced anywhere in Austra-

lia,though it can in New Zealand, islands forming
but a small part of what is comprehended in the
word Australasia. The antipodes, then, is not con-
genial to Englishmen ; and although a great effort
will be made to turn the tide of emigration there,
it will, more or less, fail, for these two reasons—dis-
tance and an uncongenial country. The North Ame-
rican Continent is mainly marked by being divided into
a colony, and into a foreign country ; and, in pro-
portion as the effort to divert the tide of emigration
to Australia fails, will be the attempt to confine it
to British America. People who learn the results
of former attempts save themselves the trouble and
escape from a delusion which not only disappoints
their efforts, but tends to make mischief. North Ame-
rica is all open ; whether the emigrant be landed
north of the St. Lawrence or south of it the tendency
will be towards the districts which offer the greatest
inducements. This is in obedience to a law of nature
which it is vain to strive against, while we have before
shown that, even if possible, it would ba injudicious.
The broad belief whereon the desire is grounded is
that the United States are a hostile community,
and in directing emigration to the Republic, Great
Britain is but strengthening her rival, and perhaps
her future enemy. It is astonishing to see an
opinion so general with so poor a foundation,
and that it should not be more apparent, that
this supposed hostile country will . become friendly

in proportion to the magnitude of a good, sound
emigration directed there. The noisy element
of hostility arises from the unfriendly portion
of the Irish, which emigration England was ac-
tually pleased to see flow there, as if placing
an enemy in a better position added to her secu-
rity. We have often before urged the advisa-
bility of meeting the Irish with their own wea-
pons, and in their own stronghold, that is, by try-
ing the effect on the United States of a good, sound
English emigration, which, however distasteful to
the Irish there, would be heartily welcomed by the
native American, whom it would tend to strengthen,
for his natural sympathy is with the English, and
not with the Irish. It is then not only useless to make
this distinction in the field for emigration which
must be selected, but, in truth, it is directly for
the interest of the kingdom and of the race that
the continent should be viewed as a whole, the
preference for the United States being encouraged,
rather than the reverse. It gives the most exten-
sive and the finest field ever offered to mankind, in
truth, a choice such as can scarcely fail to please
every taste. In common with all large spaces of land,
the climate, to an Englishman, runs into an ex-
tremes of heat in summer and of cold in winter ; but
this is absolutely unavoidable, the alternative being
an island such as Great Britain ; and the only one