Year: 1879

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EMIGRATION FROM ENGLAND.


Indications point to a steadily increasing
emigration from England to this country dur
inc the coming Fall months not only of small
farmers but of miners and other classes OF
laborefS. At recent meeting OF delegates
in Manchester, representing 300, 600 miners
the President, Mr.. Mcdonald, stated that
owing to the hard times here many OF the
coal miners in Pennsylvania had sought other
employment, and that consequently there
would be room and work in our reviylng IN
dustIies for English miners. A resolution was
then unanimously passed, urging emigration
to the United States. Whether the EngIlsh
miners will readily find work here or not, de-
pends wholly on whether they are willing 10
take lower wages than are now given.


Undoubtedly. as some of the prices for this
kind of labor go down much of our now unem-
ployed capita will be directed to the deyel-
Opment of hitherto untouched mineral re-
sources of the country. OF the extent OF THESE
even i'm the older States, to say nothing OF
the vast resources of the West, many OF our
own people have not an adequate idea Large
tracts of waste land in these States have been
held for years by few shrewd capitalists
who have been able to buy and pay taxes on
the land, but not to mine, it in the present
condition of labor rates and stagnatlon OF the
markets. This is notably the case with west
Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, States
as rich as Pennsylvania in their enormous
coal, iron and copper deposits. Mineral
beds which are capable of yielding COM
fort and plenty to millions are lying
now unbroken under the primitive forest stlll
habited by the deer and bear This state OF
things is hardly realized by ourselves and
would scarcely be credited in England. But
when the lower Alleghlnies are opened TO
the markets by railways Gas they Will be with
the first certainty of reviving prosperity not
only British laborers but British capital Will
take part in the mining of this region. Ihat
at least is the present outlook. 1t Is true that
the Englishman, unlike the Irish or Contl-
mental emigrant, does not willingly choose
the United States as his home. 1t is no Land
of Promise to him. He does not, as rule,
want, as the others do republican govern
ment, nor is he at odds with his own. If he
comes at all it is simply to make living
Every one probably of the illiterate miners
and agricultural laborers who, within the last
month, have in their meetings passed resolu-
tions in favor Of emigration 20 the United
States, would Loyalty have preferred to go to
q British colony, but when they found they
could make sixpence a week more here than
there, loyalty was thrown overheard.


As for the influx of capital to this country,
there is no patriotism in the ebb and flow OF
money ii goes where it is most likely TO du-
plicate itself quickly. English capital was
never so unpTOduCtlve at home as now. 1t Is
invested in farming Gt an absolute loss, owing
to the competition with this country. Partly
from the same cause, the cotton mills have
been running only four days in the week, and
a reduction of twenty per cent In the wages
of the operatives has taken place. 1t is not
likely that this class of laborers on coming to
this country will go to the same work rs at
home. The English miner or weaver emigrat-
ing to Australia goes at once to find work on
a ranch or sheep farm, and here will prob
ably Join the innumerable caravans moving
the year round to the West. 1t requires more
muscle and logged hard work than knOwl-
edge of farming to make a clearing on un-
broken tmber-land. Skill comes with expert
ence year by year. The wage of the farm
hand in the two Pacific States, as was shown
by the report of the Commissioner Of Agri-
culture the other day, averages now $3S %
Der month in other Western States, $23 81
while in England it averages S1j 60, and in
Ireland $14 73. The most stolid intellect is
open to such arguments as these.


AS for the value to the country Of such
cmig1ants, there is little to be said. They
will not materially increase its moral weight,
nor stimulate its intellectual action. The
English workman has but a few pig-headed
ideas or motives, and they are usually such
as are given to him by others. His worst
fault is a chronic condition OF drunkenness;
and that, to BE- just, has been forced upon
him for lack of proper food. A ha'penny
worth of gin or beer takes the place of the
vaunted roast beef with which England does
not feed her children. He is coming to the
best-fed country in the world; can eat more,
and will, in the next generation at least,
drink less. The essential point to the country
and to the world just now is that the waste
lands should be cleared, and the supplies
which are expected from this great food-pro-
ducing continent be kept up; and the English
emigrant can do that part of the work as well
as any other.



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