The Sun.
London, England, 1829-09-07 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—The communications you have lately
published from Australia are amusing, and by call-
ing the attention of people in this country to a
state of circumstances by which they may profit
immensely, if they set about it in the right way,
may be equally useful. The burden of the wri-
ter's song—the one great obstacle to the rapid
improvement of that country, which he dwells
on and re-asserts in every sentence—is the great
scarcity, and consequent dearness, of labour in
that colony. Other sources of information con-
firm the fact, that the employment of capital is
checked, the most promising speculations stifled,
not by the very high price alone of labour, but
by the impossibility of procuring it on, any terms,
in sufficient abundance. And this is the case in
the colony of a mother country, in which labour
is, by the admission of all parties, so hurtfully
redundant, that a labourer's pay will not find
bread for half his family ; and thousands of
the working el4sses, able and willing to
support themselves if work could be found,
are maintained in idleness by their parishes ;
a heavy and annually increasing burthen on
the wealth and industry of the country.—.:

Now what are the circumstances which pre-
vent the great demand fbr labour existing in
our colonies from being supplied out of our
superabundant stock at home, to the immense
reciprocal advantage of both countries ? The
expellee of the passage ? Not that, surely for
the difference between a labourer's earnings here
and at Sydney would, in trio years at furthest,
redeem this cost, supposing him to earn only a
shilling a day more there than here. If a la-
bourer articles himself, before leaving this coun-
try, to serve a farmer in New South Wales, for
a term of three or five years, at a certain rate of
wages, on condition of his passage being paid;
will not the law of the colony enforce the fulfil-
ment of the contract ? Surely, if, as in Eng- ,
land, imprisonment and convict labour followed
the desertion or neglect of his work, the higher
rate of wages earned there by unaiticled labourers
could not affect him. An obstinate individual or
two might, under such circumstances, give their
masters trouble by doing as little work as pos-
sible, without incurring legal penalties ; but the
many would see it to be their interest to earn a
good character for skill and industry during the
short term of their apprenticeship, that they may
start with more advantage at its expiration.
This might be further insured by some clause in '
the contract, giving the masters a power to de-
duct a part of the wages in case of the servant's
neglect or misbehaviour. If the Colonial law
does not give this protection to the rights of
masters over articled labourers, surely it is an
obvious improvement which ought not to be de-
layed a moment.
But is not this extraordinary relative position
of England and her colonies, with respect to the
demand and supply of labour, of sufficient im-
portance to call for the interference of the com-
mon Government ? It might be thought that
the emigration question has been amply dis-
cussed ; but if its advocates base failed in their !
attempts to interest the country, or at least Par-
liament, in the subject, it is not only by having
professed to accomplish too much at once, and
by inadequate means, but chiefly by directing
their efforts to promote emigration in a wrong
manner, and to a wrong quarter. In the first'
place, they erred by proposing to send out the
emigrants as colonists, instead of labourers; a
plan which exactly trebled the expellee of emi-i
gration, by superadding to passage the cost of
land, a house, tools, seed, and sustenance, for
the man and his family, till his crops came
round ; and moreover destroyed his character,
by inspiring him with a habit of lazy depend-
ence on the aid of Government. Captain Hall
has published a letter from a half-pay naval offi-
cer, settled in the neighbourhood of the experi-
mental colony, planted in 1825 by Government,
at Coburg, in Upper Canada. He describes the
emigrants as living in idleness and debauchery
on their rations of pork, &c., part of which they
disposed of for whiskey, at the very time that
" labourers' wages were higher than they had
ever been known, except during the war." So long
as there existsan eager demand for labourers on the
part of capitalists in our Colonies, it is surely suffi•
cient to transport emigrants to the spot where they
are so much wanted, without setting them up as ca-
pitalists themselves, by which the expellee is enor-
mously increased, and the evil rather augmented
than diminished on the other side of the water.
The expence of conveying an able-bodied la-
bourer to the Canadas is not above 41. 10s. or
Si. at the utmost, and it would seem that pa-
rishes, or large landed proprietors might, with
great advantage, expend so much to get rid of
their redundant labourers. But if the repay-
ment of the expence of sending them away is
contemplated, the Canadas must not be thought
of, owing to their proximity to the United States,
where labour bears an equally high price, and
the emigrant, by moving a few miles across fo-
rests, through which it is impossible to track
him, may avoid his contract, or get rid of his
indentures, whenever he wishes it. This, there-
fore, is the second error of Mr. Wilmot Horton
and his coadjutors. If sent out to the Canadas
as labourers, the emigrants cannot be made to
repay any part of the expe»ce. If bribed to re-
main by land and rations, they are demoralized
and spoiled, while the expence is quadrupled.
But with respect to Australia, no such objection
applies. There no safe and profitable sanctuary
is offered to a labourer who breaks the law. To
imagine that he will take to the desert as a savage
or bushranger, in order to avoid an engagement
for a year or two at wages far higher than any
he has been used to, and with the prospect of
independence and even wealth before him, is ri-
diculous. It appears to me that this great ad-
vantage possessed by our antipodal colonies over
the nearer ones of North America, has not been
sufficiently considered ; but that it would be
found to make all the difference between success
and failure, in a scheme of emigration on a large
scale, and supported by Government. Let us
suppose Parliament to vote a sufficient sum of
money to transport five thousand labourers to
Australia. If each have a wife and two children
the expence would probably be about 601. each,
or 300,0001. in all. There can be little doubt,
that on their arrival, employers would instantly
take them off the hands of Government, engaging
to pay the expence of their passage, by instal.
ments, out of their wages; the men being bound
by articles to this effect before they set out. If
the experiment succeeded, a similar, or still larger
exportation might take place the next year, and so
on, to the incalculable advantage of both countries ;
England not only saving the cost of keeping
so many superfluous labourers in idleness and
discontent, but gaining also the augmented de-
mand for her goods, which must immediately
follow the increase of population and produce in
her colony. Nor need there be a fear of glutting
the market fbr labour there, so long as a land of
immense fertility is to be had for asking. On
the contrary, as your Correspondent has found,
the demand for labour under such circumstances
in Australia is insatiable, the labourers them-
selves, after a very short time of service, by the
savings of their wages, becoming capitalists, and
employers of labour. Thus the demand for
labour, if steadily supplied, Must increase in au
accelerated or geometrical ratio.
I have shewn that the expellee of supplying
it may be easily repaid, so that this country
could not but gain, even if it were true, accord-
ing to the trite nonsense of the anta-etmgra-
tionists, that the numbers of the surplus labourers
at limo would nvt be effectually diminished;

This objection of the vacuum being instantly
refilled, is, however, but a false and miserable
quibble. In the first place, because the void
made by the withdrawal of a full grown labourer,
cannot, under the worst circumstances of in-
crease, be refilled before the end of a generation,
while the country or parish instantly begins to
reap the benefit of his withdrawal. Secondly,-
Gecause it is pros cable, that the increase is al-
ready fastest, where the population is thickest—
in other words, that the removal of any number
would rather retard than accelerate the increase
of the rerilainder, who at present indeed multiply.
to the full as fast as they can. It is impossible
but that the quotient must be reduced by sub-
tracting a portion of the multipliers. Finally,
those salutary measures which might be applied
to counteract the tendency to too rapid an in-
crease, are prevented from operating by the ex-
isting redundancy, and would be greatly faci-
litated by its reduction.
That some such scheme of Emigration as that
I have pointed out above might be adopted
wan infinite benefit both to the Mother Country
and her Colony; is, I think, abundantly clear;
and I trust the subject will before long receive,
both from the Government and the Legislature,
the attention it deserves. It is peculiarly appli-
cable to Ireland, and would tend to lessen the
burthen of providing for their poor, which every-
thing seems to shew will shortly be thrown, where
it ought to fall, on the Irish landowners.

C. C.