A great meeting was held on Wednesday morning in the
Mansion House, and another on Wednesday evening at the Lam- beth Baths, iu support of State Aid to Emigration, the first under the presidency of the Lord Mayor. A petition to the same effect is said to have received 104,000 signatures. The idea of the speakers at the meetings, mostly distinguished colonists, appears to be that Government should lend to any man anxious to emigrate, not being a pauper, about £20, and give a free passage in a Queen's ship. That is a practical measure, but we do not see how a man of that kind is to give any security, for Mr. Torrens' idea of a mortgage on the Colonial lauds is nonsense, while the Colonies are all passing Homestead laws ; and in that case the aid is very like a gift extracted from the taxpayer to make some- body else happy,—not to keep him alive, as the Poor Law does, but to put him in a better position than the very man who is forced to help him. Parliament will never pass that. A great millionaire might do it, just to try whether the men would repay him, or to relieve the pressure, but the ratepayer certainly will not.
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