THE COMMON SENSE OF COLONIZATION

AND EMIGRATION.

A

PHILANTHROPIST has been defined by a cynic as a person who loves himself, and who lives on the miseries of others. Rightly or wrongly, philanthropic prescriptions of emigration, as a medicine for social sores, have inflamed the minds of the working classes, both in England and the Colonies, to revolt. This feeling is shared by the Revolutionary Socialists, and by the left wing of the Radical party. It is held that any attempt to relieve our own troubles by shipping them in boatloads to our kin beyond sea, is but a slovenly device of interested capitalists to postpone the upheaval of an effete land system. Nor do the Agents-General for the Colonies-with the exception of the High Commissioner for the Dominion of Canadaspeak with ambiguous voices as to the views entertained by the wageearning communities, whose ambassadors they are. Colonial wageearning interests must be jealously guarded by the Agents-General, and the behests of the voters must be loyally and promptly obeyed, or they will find an emphatic mode of expressing their dissatisfaction. In an article in the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, for May 1885, I endeavoured to analyse the causes and the remedies for the permanent distress among the poor of our great cities. Not as a panacea, but as a contribution to the solving of the problem, Emigration, rightly ordered and administered, was named as one of the more obvious, but not the most important or effectual of remedies. Since that time I have devoted myself to the study of the subject, having travelled some 19,000 miles and visited all the emigrating countries of Europe, seeking light on the obscurity with which the whole subject is enveloped. For although effective generalities on Emigration are common as blackberries, constructive and practical schemes are somewhat rare.

In the present state of politics it is idle to present as

feasible any scheme which shall include all that is desirable—for with the country staggering under a Budget of £100,000,000, nothing less than the sturdy faith of the High Commissioner of the Dominion of Canada is required to prefer a claim on the Imperial Exchequer to admit the general principle of State aid. Still, much may be done, and the following five points may be thought worthy of consideration by the community :

I. Information Bureau.-The present sources of knowledge do not exhaust the supply of facts; they are available to few; are often fragmentary, sometimes obsolete, and, not seldom, lead to indiscriminate emigration, and consequently to suffering, and disappointment.

At the present time information as to the industrial conditions ruling in British Colonies must be obtained from—

(a) The Agents-General of the Colonies.

(b) The Colonial Office publications, and the Annual Reports of the Governors of Colonies, presented to Parliament. (c) Existing Emigration Societies.

(d) Individuals interested in the promotion of emigration from the United Kingdom.

The proposed Bureau under the direction of the Colonial Office should be diligent in obtaining, sifting and collating, from all available sources within the United Kingdom, intelligence of every description relating to the work; and should make it its business. to supplement this intelligence by systematic efforts to obtain from trustworthy and non-political sources in every town in every Colony, a monthly report as to the industrial and agricultural demand for labour in the town and district reported on.

As the political and industrial condition existing in the Anglo-Saxon Colonies differs in almost every case, the methods of obtaining the information desired must vary with the several peculiarities of the Colonies themselves.

The Government of Canada, having a vast extent of territory awaiting development, is not only ready but eager to further any steps which may lead to the introduction of suitable labour and additional capital. Sir John Macdonald has recently stated that his Government would be glad to co-operate with the proposed Bureau by causing the transmission to it, through the Minister of Agriculture, of regular, authentic and responsible reports as to the needs of the different towns and provinces of the Dominion. This information would include confidential and semi-confidential intelligence, the publication of which might be, under some circumstances, undesirable, but the possession of which by the Bureau would be of value and importance.

The Cape Colony at the present moment presents not only an opening for a considerable number of judiciously selected agricultural

immigrants, but the political effect of their addition to the Cape community would, in the opinion of men of all parties, be attended with happy results. In consequence, however, of the state of party politics at the Cape, it is impossible to ask, or to expect, that the Government of Mr. Upington will act in regard to the supply of information to the Bureau in the same manner as the Government of Sir John Macdonald. It is necessary, therefore, that other influences should be brought to bear. A recent visit to the Colony, in connection with a private scheme of colonization, enables me to say with confidence that there will be no difficulty in obtaining the assistance of responsible individuals who will supply in detail the information which cannot under present circumstances be supplied direct from Government sources.

With regard to the Australian Colonies something may be done by means of a circular despatch, addressed to the Governors of the respective Colonies, inviting their support; but it will be necessary for a responsible agent, unconnected with politics, to visit Australia for the purpose of making permanent arrangements for the transmission of full, impartial and regular reports. Dread of competition, displayed in an acute form in the Chinese Exclusion Acts, is equally hostile to any undertaking whatever which will have as an inevitable result the lowering of wages. On this ground the Governors of the Australian Colonies cannot be expected in their dignified and constitutional positions to identify themselves with measures openly repugnant to their Ministries, who represent constituencies the bulk of which are wage-earners, for these latter will undoubtedly be affected by the immigration of competitors from England and Scotland.

The information thus collected by the Bureau will require to be condensed, tabulated and distributed. For the latter work the cooperation of the Post-Office Department should be ensured. It will probably be found well to publish information by means of semiofficial printed notices to be displayed in selected rural and urban post-offices. The use of the telegraph for the dissemination of information should be allowed, at all events in cases of urgency and importance.

The advantage of this system over the present competitive muddle, will be that the information supplied will be official, impartial and true, instead of irresponsible, imaginative, or obsolete, as is now too often the case.

As the Bureau will occasionally obtain information of a deterrent character, warnings against the emigration of artisans or labourers to overstocked localities, should form a special feature among the duties devolving on this Department.

I refrain from considering the advisability of including the United States or other foreign countries, as within the scope of operations of the Bureau

(a) Because the commercial value to Great Britain of an emigrant to an English Colony is from five to sixteen times as great as that of an emigrant to the United States.

(b) Because the work specified herein is sufficient to absorb the energies of the Bureau. If it be satisfactorily carried out, there will be no difficulty in adding to the functions, and enlarging the sphere of its operations.

II. A National Council.-The apathy of generous and patriotic. English citizens towards emigration, arises from the bustling crowd of competitors for their favour; from the large expenditure on rent and salaries, as compared with the extent of the work accomplished, and from the absence of guarantee that the work done is conducted with knowledge, economy and skill. Of the £4,000,000 given away in London last year, not more than £13,000 was spent in emigration, and fewer than 3,500 souls were sent away by the Societies. Many of these societies and agencies have done, and are doing, noble work, which, however good of its kind, is like British Cavalry, in so far as there is too little of it. A National Council, composed of representatives of the societies, and of individuals interested in emigration, with six or eight men of light and leading to impart additional strength to so representative a body, would command more of the confidence of the community than the present concourse of struggling and disunited molecules of energy. As the Intelligence Bureau would be the telephonic switchboard to receive and distribute information, so the Council would receive and distribute the contributions of the wealthy. In nowise undertaking the actual emigration business themselves, they would dispose of moneys entrusted to the Council by distribution to societies and individuals proven competent and economical in the transaction of previous emigration business. The federation of the twenty-five societies and agencies could not long be deferred when it is found that the needless duplication of identical machinery did not command the favour of the Council, as trustees for the public. Rigid justice in the distribution of money subscribed by the public to all forms of religious faith, would be of prime importance, since whatever may be the desirability of a universal fusion, it is improbable that the societies connected with religious bodies would ever relinquish a separate form of existence.

III. State Aid.—So far as I am aware, no case has ever been made out for subventions from the State towards colonization undertaken with the view of relieving distress at home. Arguments employed in support of State-aided emigration undertaken with philanthropic intentions are equally cogent in support of the establishment of ateliers nationaux, or of any other hare-brained fantasies of untutored emotion. If, however, the State is unable to grasp with its

iron hand works of sympathy, there are now two opportunities in seizing which the Government may ensure the country against future effusion of blood and waste of treasure, by a moderate outlay on State Colonization. The Transvaal and Zulu wars, and the Bechuanaland expedition, would have been unnecessary had Natal, the Transvaal, and the northern part of the Cape Colony been economically reinforced by a peaceable army corps of God-fearing, hard-working men and women from England and Scotland, sent out by the State and their maintenance provided for until they became rooted in their new homes. Eighteen millions sterling have been spent in South Africa since 1871 in shedding blood and scattering iron. Nothing has been settled. The guiltiness of blood, ruined homes not a few, and the roused spectre of race feeling between two peoples with no interests apart, reflect on English statesmanship indelible disgrace-for these things, being unnecessary, have stained the record of English history. So much for the past. Sir Charles Mills, the able and indefatigable representative of the Cape Government, himself organized the settlement of the German Legion in Kaffraria, which has proven of incalculable benefit to the Cape Colony. It was a work on which any man may be proud to look back. Mr. Spring Rice, in 1820, moved the Government of Lord Liverpool to place the sum of £50,000 on the estimates of the year for the settlement of the Eastern province of the Cape Colony. What has been the result? The British taxpayers have never since 1857 been called on to pay a penny-piece for the defence of a stretch of country repeatedly attacked by a numerous and a courageous foe. Arguing from these premises, and looking both to the unsettled state of Bechuanaland and of Zululand, and to the probability of fresh expenditure becoming necessary within the next few years, it would be imprudent not to repeat that which is no longer an experiment, and to colonize both Bechuanaland and Zululand with young men and young women from Great Britain. If trouble comes, the ploughshares can be beaten into swords; but resolute and continuous defence of hearths and homes is comparatively cheap, and certainly more rational than spasmodic snatches at military glory, and periodical relapses into shameful indifference.

Political tetanus has affected the muscular system of governing South Africa. Cheap and effective-as demonstrated in the past, like Mr. Gladstone's jam-colonization is an "excellent substitute” for the cannon solution of an existing dilemma. If the new Government of Mr. Gladstone doubt the accuracy of these facts, let them ask Lord Wolseley and Sir Charles Warren, Sir Hercules Robinson, Mr. Upington, Sir Thomas Scanlen and Sir Charles Mills, for their confidential opinions. We may ignore the cloud ahead. We may

fold our hands and cry for a little more sleep and a little more