SEMI-OFFICIAL MANIFESTO AGAINST IRISH EMIGRATION.

WHILE the Irish Members and writers are howling out com- plaints that Government have neither thought nor deed for Ire- land, an historical paper on " the Irish Crisis," in the new number of the Edinburgh Review, (January 1848,) exhibits a comprehen- siveness of care and exertion on the part of Government perhaps unprecedented in the history of the globe. It is to be regretted that the zeal of the responsible statesmen has not always been adequately supported by their capacity or resolution. On one sub- ject of "favourite aversion," indeed, they display a blindness of conviction, against all evidence, as wilful as it is unfortunate. Even the eulogistic Reviewer seems conscious of this flaw in the official case ; for he introduces the section on the subject of emi- gration with the following remarkable disclaimer- " We are well aware, that among men of talents and of benevolent dispositions there is a wide difference on the important question of emigration; and in what follows on this subject, we wish to be understood, not as committing ourselves to particular opinions, but merely as making a statement, in pursuance of the histo- rical character of this review, of what we believe to have been the views which guided the resolutions of the Government."

Resuming his brief, then, with the best countenance he may, the Reviewer talks in the approved fashion of cool philosophy—a philosophy so cool, indeed, that it makes no scruple of disregard- ing facts. The trick of a super-philosophical manner is useful, be- cause while he who uses it is positively disregarding things as they actually exist, he seems only to be taking a broad and im- partial view : the total want of substantial basis is hidden in an air of generalizing ; and sophisms are made to pass for truisms. "There is no subject," says the Reviewer, in this vein, "of which a merely onesided view is more commonly taken than that of emigration." Government, he solemnly observes, must regard not only the obvious exigency of an overcrowded population, but also the interest of the emigrant and of the community to which he is sent. "Two modes of meeting the calamity" in Ire- land have presented themselves to people's minds with more and more distinctness-

" The first of these was to stimulate the industry of the people, to augment the productive powers of the soil, and to promote the establishment of new industrial occupations, so as to cause the land once more to support its population, and to substitute a higher standard of subsistence, and a higher tone of popular charac- ter, for those which prevailed before. This plan aimed at accomplishing the ob- ject without the pain or risk of wholesale expatriation. • • • The Govern- ment adopted this plan from the first, and has since promoted its success by every means in its power. The other plan was to relieve the Mother-country by trans- ferring large masses of people to the Colonies; and great efforts were made to obtain the command of spublic funds to assist in paying the expense of this emi-

gration. • • •

" In order to appreciate the full ultimate effect of such an interposition, it must be remembered that the solution of the great difficulty by means of emigration, carried out on the scale and in the manner proposed, offers to the promoters of it the attraction of accomplishing their object by a cheap and summary process; while the other remedy, of enabling the population to live comfortably at home, can be arrived at only by an expensive, laborious, and protracted course of exer- tion; and it therefore behoves the Government, which holds the balance between contending parties, to take care to which side it lends its influence on a social question of this description."

It will be observed how in these passages the question is begged against "wholesale expatriation," and in favour of the other " expensive, laborious, and protracted course of exertion," of which Government is said to have "promoted the success." As unreasoning patients cannot believe that they are taking effi-

cacious physic unless it be nauseous and painful, so there are politicians who think that difficulty and cost are signs of some

Inherent virtues. But it may be asked, what " success" has as yet attended the course promoted by Government, which can in

any degree be compared with the success of colonial settlements t

E converso, the very worst disasters of our colonies, in recent times, bear no comparison with the normal state of Ireland : when official mismanagement had brought on South Australia that ruin

from which she has so well recovered by the diligence of her colonists, not a soul perished from want. Emigration is " a cheap and summary process " • for while it relieves the mother-country, it transfers the emigrant to lands where want and difficulty only suffice to stimulate exertion, not to stifle hope.

In our next quotation, the writer, still following his brief, gal- lops on with the most triumphant disregard of facts. He is, as a lawyer would phrase it, " instructed " to talk in this fashion-

" It is a great mistake to suppose that even Canada and the United States have an unlimited capacity of absorbing a new population. The labour-market in the settled districts is always so nearly full, that a small addition to the per- sons in search of employment makes a sensible difference; while the clearing of new land requires the possession of resources • and a power of sustained exer- tion not ordinarily belonging to the newly-arrived Irish emigrant. In this, as well as in the other operations by which society is formed or sustained, there is a natural process which cannot with impunity be departed from. A movement is continually going on towards the back-woods on the part of the young and enter- prising portion of the settled population and of such of the former emigrants as have acquired means and experience; and the room thus made is occupied by per- sons recently arrived from Europe, who have only their labour to depend upon. The conquest of the wilderness requires more than the ordinary share of energy and perseverance; and every attempt that has yet been made to turn paupers into backwoodsmen by administrative measures, has ended in signal failure. As long as they were rationed they held together, in a feeble, helpless state; and when the issue of rations ceased, they generally returned to the settled parts of the coun- try. Our recent experience of the effects of a similar state of dependence in Ire- land, offers no encouragement to renew the experiment in a distant country, where the difficulties are so much greater,. and a disastrous result would be so much less capable of being retrieved."

• " Settler@ in the back-woods must have the means of support from twelve to fifteen months after their arrival and this cannot be accomplished for less than 601., at the lowest estimate, for each family consisting of a man, his wife, and three children, or equal to 34 adults on as average."

There is something " quite refreshing" in having to deal with statements so very primitive. It might be supposed that the writer had never seen the Blue Book put forth by Lord Mont- eagle's Committee of last session ; but of course he has been in- structed to omit that, as it would have gone quite counter to all that he was saying. Almost every line in this can be refuted; but we will take only some of the assertions. He puts the case of Canada and the United States a fortiori : in New Brunswick and other Colonies there is a power of absorbing emigrants much beyond what he supposes "even " of Canada. "Even in Canada," however, there is a considerable power to absorb emigrants ; and it has been wonderfully tested by the recent shovelling out of paupers, destitute and diseased, without any comprehensive plans to secure their employment on landing. For this distinction is to be kept in mind between individual emigration to settled districts, to which the office-inspired Reviewer persists in limiting his sur- vey, and true colonization—that the simultaneous removal of large numbers implies well-organized and comprehensive preparatives. It is just the distinction between individual travelling, which may be left to commercial enterprise, and the travelling of an army, which may be as cheap per capita, but which demands a commis- sariat and generalship. "Even in Canada," the way to a better course is obvious enough. Mr. George Pemberton, who has been a member of the Provincial Government and Parliament, says that the reason why emigrants pass into the United States is, the greater amount of public works in the States, which affords im- mediate employment. He is asked, "If the same course were adopted on our side of the frontier, would the prosperity of the British territory be equally rapid with that of the United States ?" —and he answers, "I have no doubt of it." See the evidence of Mr. Cunard, Mr. Perley, and other witnesses, as to the thousands and hundreds of thousands that would be absorbed annually in British North America.

" The clearing of new land requires the possession of resources," which the Reviewer states at 60/. Mr. Cunard relates the con- stant success of settlers on his lands in Prince Edward Island, whom he required to be in possession of not more than 10/. at starting : most of the emigrants had no means of providing for themselves on their arrival, except the earnings'of labour. Mr. Perley, the Emigration Agent in New Brunswick, mentions wholesale cases of men who began without capital, and succeeded. The Reviewer also supposes the need for "a power of sustained exertion not ordinarily belonging to the newly-arrived Irish emi- grant." This is the pure assumption of a writer judging from the Irishman in Ireland, but not acquainted with the condition of the Irishman in the Colonies. Mr. Perley mentions a young native of Cork who at once learned to work so well as an axeman that he was engaged, towards the close of his first season, at 51. a month besides food and lodging. The Agent had known " several such cases" : and he mentions a whole settlement formed in 1842 by people from Cork and Kerry— "It was formed in 1842, under the same Commissioner, [a gentleman who formed a prosperous English settlement,] by a party. of destitute emigrants from the South of Ireland. In a report from the i Commissioner, dated 25th January 1844, it is thus stated= The results of the second effort in which I have been engaged in forming settlements in the wilderness have afforded me the most =- mingled satisfaction. Where but two years ago stood a dense forest, there have been gathered by thirty-.five settlers during the past autumn 7,236 bushels of grain, potatoes, and turnips. The accompanying return shows an estimated value of 1,1371. in buildings and clearings; and when there is added to this the market

value of the crop, exceeding 8001., we have about 2,0001. return (exclusive of the ;flaking four and a quarter miles of road) from a tract of land which in its wilder- ness state would not in the same time have produced a shilling.'"

So much for " the power of sustained exertion in the newly- arrived Irishman" for clearing wild land.

And Mr. Cunard expressly says that Irish make very good set- tlers—" I think the English farmers are the best : I think the Irish are the next, if they are from a farming district ; and their children are very good." He contrasts the Irish with the Scotch Highlanders, who " are content with a very small clearing."

The Reviewer says, " Every attempt that has been made to turn paupers into backwoodsmen by administrative measures has ended in signal failure." That is not true. Some such attempts have failed, because the "administrative measures" were clo- set-concocted absurdities. But the settlements in New Bruns- wick are formed by "administrative measures " ; the local Legisla- ture allotting sums for the formation of roads, which roads inva- riably lead to the formation of settlements on the roads. That is the way, no doubt, in which the settlement of Cork and Kerry paupers was formed. In a distant country, says the Reviewer, " the difficulties and disastrous results are so much greater" : can he produce returns from the Colonies, like those which Ireland has furnished, of deaths by starvation, of famine-fever, (excepting such fever as was exported direct from Ireland,) of Whiteboy offences, of such assassinations as that of Major Mahon because he was trying to benefit the wretched creatures on his estate, or of any other diffi- culties and disastrous results which are commonplaces in Ireland, but which are unknown even in cannibal New Zealand ?—for New Zealand has not yet been placed under ban by the London in- surance-offices.

The Reviewer follows his brief in the matter of providing for the cost of emigration-

" The expense of assisting emigration properly falls on the proprietor. A sur- pins population, whether it be owing to the fault or to the misfortune of the pro- pietor or his predeeessors, must, like barrenness or the absence of improvements, be regarded as one of the disadvantages contingent on the possession of the estate; and he who enjoys the profits and advantages of the estate must also submit to the less desirable conditions connected with it. So long as emigration is con- ducted only at the expense of the proprietor, it is not likely to be carried to an Injurious or dangerous extent; and it will press so heavily on his resources as to leave the motives to exertion of a different kind unimpaired. Emigration is open to objection only when the natural checks and correctives have been neutralized by the interposition of the Government or other public bodies."

There is here a bundle of fallacies, which we have often exposed, especially the pennywise policy of screwing the cost of sponta- neous emigration out of the settled emigrants in the Colonies ; but at present we will finish off with that last sentence. It is not true that emigration is "open to objection only when the natural checks and correctives have been neutralized by the interposition of Government or other public bodies "; but the very reverse is the fact. Emigration to all parts of the world was attended by disgraceful, fatal, and intolerable abuses, until Government inter- posed : it has become orderly and safe only so far as it is now subjected to official inspection ; and the cry is for a more strin- gent and efficient inspection. The only emigration not "open to objection" is that to Australia and New Zealand, which is en- tirely under official control. In sum, every sentence in this section of the semi-official ma- nifesto is erroneous—often so false as to be the exact reverse of the truth. The conclusion which we gather from the whole is, not only that the present Ministers have finally resolved to exclude real colonization from their list of remedial measures for Ireland, but that they absolutely refuse to take the subject fairly into con- sideration. How they reconcile such a refusal either to honesty or decent intelligence in statesmanship, we cannot guess ; but the fact appears to be only too evident. Those who perceive the use which might be made of colonization as a means of extricating Ireland from her shocking condition, must still look to that future Government of which Lord Lincoln will form a part. Lord John Russell and his colleagues decline to anticipate their rival, and therefore is that future Government the less distant.