THE COLONIAL OFFICE COLONIZING I
COLONIZING is one of the last things that would be suspected of the Colonial Office in Downing Street; yet verily we have discovered a colonizing project in that quarter.; and as the Office is the last body you would expect to find volunteering such a scheme, so it selects the last country you tyetil4. select as a field—Van Diemen's Land ; the mode of the thing is equally recherché; and finally, the treatment of the project itself, by its own anthers, has no precedent except the treatment of the Australian,qiiinies Bills or the convict colonization of the pre- sent poavet#
iemen'e l.,atikan4 that the settlement of small
It r, , the fact. that unskilled labour is already re- § capahle- Ampinying labour, is most desir- Ilirt abra sets fortha plan for encouragingisuch settle- in, yr to g7 RIPAIX jjk-, f each," will be (id. als e yes, famuies, }inn sweats, to the colO Anti •1 ItiC or a cabin passage, 501. ; for a steer- age doe, 24/-; for a steerage do., 200 Arrived in the colony, the aepositor Will be allowed credit in land for the whole amount de- ,pesitedtit the rate of one acre for every pound sterling. In ad- dition to that return of his money, he will find land prepared for iths, recepr ion' materials for building, and other kinds of assistance, , estimated to be worth fifty per cent more. -A considerable num- ber emigrating together would find facilities for settling in a body, with assistance for building a place of worship and a school. To secure that the emigrants shall have the means of present sub- sistence on landing, every depositor will be required to advance an additional sum of 20/. for every statute adult in his family, the money to be repaid to him in the colony. To check any abuse of these free passages by persons wishing to go to other colonies and only colourably migrating to Van Diemen's Land, each depositor will be allowed an untransferable "location ticket " for his land, which will not be converted into a Government grant until two years shall have elapsed.
Such is the project developed in a " Notice " officially signed by the Secretary to the Colonial Land and Emigration Commis- sioners, hut manifestly claiming a higher authorship. This is attested by many characteristic ingenuities. It never would have occurred to the Commissioners to select Van Diemen's Land as a special field fur colonizing activities. The withholding of a mar- ketable laud-order, lest, on seeing his new country, the settler should evade, is exceedingly clever : the author of the project facetiously and modestly talks about "an intermediate do"; but to us, if we may be allowed the same classic tongue, the whole project is very like an extreme do. The plagiarism of the design from the plans of the New Zealand Company, its reduction to a miniature scale, its little inducements and little cheeks, and little counter-inducements and little counter-checks, all betray the fine Roman hand.
But if any proof were wanting, it would be furnished by the peculiarly characteristic history of the Notice. The document is dated on the 27th of August ; it got into circulation soon after that date, and was described, as a piece of news, hi the City Ar- ticle of the Times. The effect of that advertisement was shown in the applications sent in to the office whence the Notice issued ; and from the sensation created by the project, as by all plans for emigration—so eager and undiscriminating is the public desire for facilities of that kind—we imagine that no small number of • inquiries were poured upon that embarrassed department. The reply was, that the Notice was—retracted! No objection had been made, but clearly something was amiss. What was it? Ob- jections to the project might be urged freely ; but it was supposed that they had been anticipated, as in the case of the Australian Colonies Bill—that the project was to be overhauled and modi- fied, or altogether suppressed. Probably the real motive for the retractation will be for ever buried in the arcane of the Office, since the sequel supplies none : after a time, the Notice has been reissued—unaltered ! But what guarantee has the settler whom it invites that it will not be again retracted, and altered, perhaps after the emigrant has sailed?
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