THE OFFICIAL MACHINERY OF EMIGRATION. Bra Xorts PaiannTon's admissions and
promises to the Yorkshire deputation, last week, are the most emphatic condemnation which his department has yet received for its conduct up to this point. He told the deputation, explicitly, that the Australian Governors have not said anything having a tendency to create the impression . :that emigration was not necessary; Lord Derby having told the same gentlemen, only two days earlier, that Mr. Latrobe preferred to have emigrants "gradually," and so far confirming the " im- pression " previously created, that the Australians by no means laboured under the haste which was ascribed to them. Whether the requisite amount of emigration be possible or not, whether it be English or Chinese, the effect of Sir John Pakington's frank avowal would be appreciated by those gentlemen who had heard Lord Derby's previous declaration, and who had been subjected to the " impression " repudiated by Sir John. The public has been amused with a ceaseless mutation of the figures said to represent the sums in the hands of the Emigration Commissioners : our readers will remember that we have previously calculated the gross amount as probably approaching 200,000/. The sum of 100,000/. has re- cently been sent from Port Philip ; and, although some of the Original fund must since have been spent in emigration, Sir John now admits that the gross sum in hand is 318,0001. Sir John now admits that there will be no difficulty in finding' emigre." nts, but only ships, for a sudden deportation ; and yet, for months past, emigra- tion—the gradual steady emigration that might have mitigated
the crisis—has been checked, or in some eases been suspended altogether. It has been suspended to Sydney since the commence- ment of the winter.
The case of Sydney is peculiarly bad. Sir John Pakington con- fesses to having in hand, of Sydney funds, more than 70,0001.. though we strongly suspect that the a- .ple of Sydney would reckon the sum to be higher. That money a been lying idle for the last six months, in the face of the grievous complaints of the Sydney people. But what will the English reader say when he learns that this money—at least the greater part of it, but we believe the whole—is the produce of a loan, for which the inhabitants of New South Wales have been paying interest all this time!
The difficulty now alleged by Sir John Pakington is that of pro- curing ships ; but there is reason to believe that this difficulty might be overcome, like the rest. If not, we might still more justly call the Government to account for having got into the scrape in which such vast interests are so destructively involved. But there are reasons for thinking that any department of ordinary capacity would find this difficulty disappear at the first move. Heretofore the official ports have been London and Plymouth; and if a few ships have been chartered at Liverpool, that is the extent of the departure from the routine. Perhaps if the Emigration Com- missioners inquire elsewhere, they will discover that there are such things as ships at Glasgow, Hull, Leith, Bristol, and other ports. At least they cannot tell till they try. But down to last week, the Colonial Department was going upon the plan of stinting the Australian funds, accepting emigrants only on the most picksome rules, limiting its shipping to certain ports—in short, dealing with emigration as a thing to be system. atioally checked. Within a month Sir John Pakington himself talked as if Government had not yet advanced any further than to send out a few troops, and to "communicate " -with the Com- missioners on the subject of sending out some weavers. Now there must be some practical reason why all these elements of a great colonizing power, opportunity, and necessity, are rendered of none effect; and assuredly we must seek the reason in the part where the pinch lies. It lies in the Emigration Office. Of what does that Office consist? Of three Commissioners, a Secretary, various subordinate officers, and certain "selecting agents." When the old South Australian Commission was merged in the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission, which in part adopted the old South Australian policy, the old representatives of that policy, from divers reasons, left the scene; and they were re- placed by new men. The chief Commissioner now is Mr. Murdoch, formerly a clerk in the Colonial Office, and only known in con- nexion with that office. The report of Sir John l'akington's man- ner is very favourable, for its air of ingenuousness and zeal: of Mr. Murdoch's demeanour the report is not so favourable—his virtues appear to the colonist or deputationist to be reserve, and the due observance of Talleyrand's precept touching zeal. Mr. Rogers was a law-officer, for whom the Colonial Office no longer found employment, and who is billeted on the Commission. Of the third Commissioner, Mr. Wood, the report is, that he is courteous, cordial, and seems inclined to action; but of him we hear little. The Secretary is a man of much ability, and of old official habits. The rest of the force is concealed from public view, until its nether end appears again in the shape of the selecting agents. Formerly this portion was of a very miscellaneous character; but latterly the civil servants have been replaced by soldiers—officers and non- commissioned officers; of whom the public idea is, that they do not handle emigration affairs so ably as a musket, and that they are not the best of judges in regard to agricultural or handicraft capa- city in the men, nor endowed with the best of experience in the se- lection of women. Such is the Commission. Somehow it makes no way; and, on the principle that " where there's a will there's a way," it is suspected of having no good-will at the work. Or if it has a will, then its strength must be lamentably below the scale of its duties. Anyhow, in that peculiar excrescence on the Colonial Office lies the pinch that obstructs, and has so long obstructed emi- gration; and if the nature of that pinch is to be understood, inquiry should be made into the Commission itself. A public department has broken down, with frightful injury to Colonial and Imperial interests; and if we are to avoid a continuance and renewal of that injury, there is the point for investigation.
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