The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-29 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

several

Padd
riediate steps 1

alluled to by F. 11. W." would be

perusal

mvestmer

threat

Lome th

emigrants

,senzer-vesse

Iso con,

Trish p,

!Mout bet

Surely the remedy wt

the means of sustaining life. Besides this, when money
heeomessearee, the national expenditure would he greatly

cvz;;;t" relieved in the amount of interest on stock so depOsited,
interest not being paid during the time the certificates
to prevent
were in the National Bank."
We have quoted at so great a length that we
cannot give even a brief notice of the arguments
with which Mr. Watson rebuts the few objections
which might be urged against his proposition. We
must therefore refer our readers to the pamphlet
itself, which is well worthy of their attentive

There is a certain class of legal pettifoggers and
other seedy professionals, who swarm in our public
thoroughfares and infest our smaller towns arid
villages, in whose upturned and hungry-looking
visages, as they snuff the air in search of a corning
job, you may read legibly imprinted the imploring
query of a certain Scottish official of the olden
time—" Wha wants me ?" The poor beings feel
themselves growing rusty for want of use

and

snatch eagerly at any small matter which offers to
assist them to keep their hands in. Her Majesty's
Whig Ministers appear just now to be animated
with the craving spirit of the pettifogging and
seedy persons in question; and, in their eagerness
to he doing business, are ready to legislate upon
any subject, and more especially ready to try their
ingenuity upon those which they understand the
least. A member has but to put a question in the
house, or to furniah an exparte case of grievance,
and the assurance glides trippingly from the tongue
of some member of the administration, that " the
attention of her majesty's government has already
been drawn to the subject, and that a measure will
be introduced in the course of the session."
We had last year to deplore ti►e existence of a
very high rate of mortality amongst that portion
of our population who were driven to emigrate to
our North American Colonies. Of 106,000 men,
Iwomen, and children, who left the various ports of
Great Britain and Ireland for British America, it is
computed, on government authority, that 6100 died
on the voyage, 4100 on their arrival, 5200 in the
hospitals, and 1900 in the towns to which they pro-
ceeded—in all, 17 per cent of the whole number.
This was melancholy enough ; but that it could
excite the least surprise in the mind of any man who
had an opportunity of observing the condition of
the majority of the poor beings thus expatriating
themselves—flying from famine and disease in their
own land, to seek health and food and the reward
due to ind ustry in a strange country,—we utterly deny.
Yet it has aflorded a sufficient excuse for the Colo-
nial-office to originate a measure—the Pass.-
ket A "'ll—by

__.nendment ~nteh the whole onus of
the increased rate 9f mortality, observed last year,
is laid at the .door of the British shipowner; and

- - •••• •• tiCY ail costn-
ess of which, not to mention their impracticability,
2n to put a stop altogether to voluntary emi-
aion to our colonial possessions, in British
vessels.

In addition, moreover, to the deplorable igno-
rance, on the part of the government, of the subject
upon which Mr. Labouchere has volunteered to
legislate, the conclusions upon which his proposed
bill is founded, as to the share of blame attributa-
ble to the shipowner, and the defects of the ex-
isting law, are, in the teeth of evidence in their own
possession, furnished by their own commissioners
and other authorities at home and in the colonies.
Thus, in enclosing a report of the Land and Emi-
gration Commissioners, forwarded on the Ist De-
cember last by Earl Grey to the Governbr-General
of Canada, and characterised by his lordship as a
"very able document," his lordship states, with
respect to the emigration of the past year, that
" It would have been practically impossibl

lave been in

that

unjust, to

ny exercise of ti

miry of the
to detain at

slature or of the Executive Government
multitudes, who, during the past )
endeavoured to escape from misery and stars
emizrating from Ireland to America and also

emigration of so large a number 6f persons
previously suffered so severely from the consequences of
that visitation with which it had pleased Providence to
afflict us, inevitably led to the breaking out of disease,
which could not he prevented from spreading itself from
the emigrants to the inhabitants of the colonies to which
they flocked. The latter have, however, in this resnect.

Nho had

,
1 7
only suffered in common with Liverpool and various other
places in Great Britain, to which the natives of Ireland
have brought the fever which raged in th- • 1,
Blue Book, p. 28.

That the appalling mortality which has taken
place may he regarded as only a temporary inflic-
tion is abundantly proved by a return for the five
years ended 1846. contained in the same Blue Book,
nage 52, in wh; Igrge emigration is shown to

3 a
conducted, under the existing law, both

not having exceeded half per cent. or five in 1000.
It is shown, also, (page 33) that whereas the German

tst year arrived in the colonies healthy,
there having been no fever in Germany, and the
mortality was only slight in vessels from the more
it.althyr Ftritich ortri T,.; I-. e 5.4.. it. , a:

sels from Liverpool and Cork, where the fever pro-
duced by the famine was most extensive, was uni-
formly severe and fatal. And it is even shown
that there were instances of vessels from Cork,
carrying military pensioners, well fed and under
the care of their own surgeons, in which the pas-
sengers suffered quite as much as other emigrants
from the same locality. In short, the ordinary
pr. •

healthy ports, whilst the best arrangements were

Tutile, it they sailed from infected ports_
lowing extract of a letter from Dr. Douglas, a gen-
tleman who has had great opportunities of observing
the condition of the emigrants on their arrival in
Canada, is conclusive as to the cause of the high
rate of mortality observed :

The fol-

" All the Cork and Liverpool passengers, he says, are
half dead from starvation and want before embarking,
and the least bowel complaint, which is sure to come with

change of food, finishi.s them without a struggle. I
never saw people so indifferent to life. They would con-
tinue in the same berth with a dead person, until the
seamen or captain dragged out the corpse with boat-
hooks." And again, "It has been said, by people not in-
formed on the subject, that the frightful mortality and
ickness was caused by the over-crowded state of the
. and the want of proper food and medi-
Now, however much these might have
it was

laitigated the evil, it could be easily proved tha
lot caused by their want. The thousands of German
,migrants who arrived this year,_all came in good health,

and they were more crowded in consequence of their
greater quantity of baggage. The transports Blenheim
and Maria Somes, with pensioners and their families from
Cork, were just as sickly as other vessels, yet these had
nt --11-ventilated - el

y of room in welt- vessels, good staff sur-
geons, and were regularly supplied with good wholesome
food, animal and vegetable, daily. The disease was in
all cases brought on board the vessels (not generated
there), and it found fit subjects in the half-starved rnise-
'-le wretches who composed the mass.' Mr. Perley,
"Aligence and zeal are favourably known to Lord
in chiefly attribute- ^..atly in-

We have the authority, too, of a highly respect-
able Liverpool firm, extensively engaged in the
passenger trade, for saying that—
" The great mortality last year did not occur amongst
he ordinary class of - -^ts, viz., t' their

emigran—„ _nose who pa 3
—ages, and generally have means to provide
lodging, clothing, and food ; but was confined a

hat unfortunate class, whose passages were

anded proprietors. Thousands of this eta:
st season, both for this port and variot

state, from our own (

clad, and h

lly half