The object of the Commissioners will, of course, be to furnish a sufficient supply of labour to the first emigrating capitalists; and it may be taken for granted, that they will provide a passage for such labourers (being young adults, of both sexes in an equal proportion) as any capitalist may wish to hire in England. This brings us to the practical working of the measure, and shows the inducements to emigration that are held out by this peculiar mode of colonizing a waste country.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE INDUCEMENTS TO EMIGRATION.

To capitalists-To labourers-To men of small fortune and large family-To young men of good fortune-To younger branches of the nobility.

EVERY capitalist going to the colony will know that his want of labour is sure to be supplied. Nay, having satisfied the Commissioners that he will employ any given number of labourers, or domestic servants, he may take that number along with him, free of cost to himself. What is far more important,

he will be able to retain their services until others shall arrive to take their place. In Canada, New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, South Africa, and Western Australia, servants taken out by capitalists under engagement to work for high wages during a fixed period, invariably quit their masters.

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Reflecting on the urgent want of labour that occurs in all colonies which prosper, we may be sure that great pains have been taken by people in colonies, to devise some means of obtaining a supply of labour from old countries. The supplies of labour obtained by kidnapping in the old English colonies of America, by the late immigration of poor Germans into the United States; poor Germans, who, ignorant of the laws and language of America, were liable to be held in a state of

I

bondage; and by the transportation system in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land; all these supplies of labour depended on a kind of slavery. Every scheme of the sort that did not establish a kind of slavery, has failed the moment it was tried. On the principle of the redemptioner system; that of payment by a capitalist for the poor immigrant's passage, repayment being obtained by the immigrant's labour; many schemes have been tried, and have failed, in Canada, New South Wales, and South Africa, not to mention the Swan River. And yet nothing can be more plain than that the capitalist of a colony, and the labourers of an old country, would find it to their mutual advantage to act on this principle. About the advance by the capitalist, there is no sort of difficulty; so much greater would be to him the value of the poor immigrant's labour for a few years, even at high wages, than the cost of the immigrant's passage. Nor is there any difficulty in finding poor labourers willing, nay eager, to engage with colonial capitalists for a certain term of service in the colony. The difficulty lies in this; that without some kind of slavery, the capitalist has no security for repayment of his outlay; that the labourer, as soon as he reaches the colony, laughs at his engagement; that what the capitalist brings to the colony in the shape of labour, ceases to be labour the moment it reaches the colony, or at all events, is never labour over which he who paid for it, has any control. During the last fifteen years, some thousands of poor labourers, to speak within compass, have been conveyed from England to English colonies, and under engagement to work for those who had paid for their passage. 'There is no instance on record,' says Mr. M'Arthur, the greatest capitalist of New South Wales, where settlers have been able to prevent their indented servants, hired in England, from becoming dissatisfied, and then leaving them after their arrival. At the Swan River,

the first settlers had hardly landed, before the governor was required to punish indented labourers for refusing to work for those who had brought them from England. In Canada universally, labouring servants, taken from England and Ireland by capitalists under engagement to repay with labour the cost of their passage, have quitted those to whom they were bound, to work for others who, not having laid out money in that way, could afford to pay higher wages than those who had. If it had been possible to enforce such contracts, what Canadian would have written: Place us on an equal footing with New South Wales, by giving us a share of those benefits which must, more or less, result from convict labour'?* In vain have severe laws been passed to enforce the observance of such contracts by the labourer, and to prevent such immigrants from being employed except by those who had paid for their passage. It has been all so thoroughly in vain, that the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of conducting immigration in this way seems to be established."England and America.

But why have all such schemes failed? Because, in all the colonies mentioned, every one could obtain land of his own for a mere trifle. In South Australia there will be two important novelties. The price of land will take out the labourers free of cost to their employer, and will enable him to retain their services. This will be the first colony combining plenty of labour with plenty of land. Here, then, is a stronger inducement than was ever held out by any colony to the emigration of capitalists.

Suggestions on the Propriety of re-introducing British Convict Labour into British North America. By a Canadian. 1824.

Yet it may appear at first sight, that if the price of land be sufficient to provide the colonial capitalist with constant and combinable labour, there will be no strong inducement to the emigration of labourers; and this, indeed, would be the case if the labour of the colony were always composed of the same persons; since the poor man's chief motive for emigrating is the hope of becoming a landowner. But, though hired labour will be constant, the persons composing it will be frequently changed. The young men taken out with the Emigration Fund, will soon buy land with savings from their wages; but the amount of labour in the colony will not be less, because every purchase of land will provide the means of bringing more labourers. If the price be sufficiently high, poor labourers taken to the colony will have the prospect of becoming, not merely landowners, but masters; a prospect far more gratifying to that class, than the hope of obtaining land without any assistance in cultivating it, which is the best. prospect of the poor man who emigrates to Canada. If this plan of colonization should be well administered, there can be no doubt, that every one who emigrates as a servant, will do so with the fairest prospect of having servants of his own, who in their turn, if they should be industrious and prudent, would become the masters of other servants. Plenty of mere animal enjoyments is all that the poor emigrant to Canada can obtain: over and above this, the poor emigrant to South Australia may look forward to a high gratification of that pride which is the greatest incentive to human exertion. We could not, indeed, explain this prospect to an uneducated