IN

AUSTRALIA;

BEING THE EVIDENCE OF

DISINTERESTED AND RESPECTABLE RESIDENTS AND TRAVELLERS

IN THOSE COLONIES,

AS TO THEIR PRESENT STATE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS;

THE

WHOLE DEMONSTRATING THE SUPERIOR AND EXTRAORDINARY

ADVANTAGES

OF

EMIGRATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES,

ALIKE TO

MEN OF CAPITAL AND THE LABOURING CLASSES.

"IN THE MULTITUDE OF COUNCILLORS THERE IS WISDOM."

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER, & Co., CORNHILL;

JOHNSTONE, EDINBURGH; CURRIE & Co., DUBLIN.

1839.

PREFACE.

TO GIVE authentic and ample information to those thinking of emigrating, on the points of most importance to them, and to cause a greater number to think seriously on the advantages of emigration to themselves and families, is the object of the author in this small volume.

For these purposes he has consulted every modern work of authority, and he has condensed the information with great care; taking pains to preserve the precise meaning of every one from whose works he has made extracts; and surely the observation and experience of so many, and of such men as he has quoted from, is not to be weighed in the same balance with the statements of unknown or interested individuals. Certainly no other picture can be painted of these Colonies, with justice, than one in which so many men of superior intellect, education, and information, and of unimpeachable truth and honour, agree.

Every trade and profession in this country is overcharged with candidates for success. The merchant finds that the commodities which he imports yield but a low rate of profit, in consequence of the great number of competitors who import the same articles. The manufacturer knows that no sooner is a market discovered than it is glutted with his productions. The shipowner--that as soon as a new country is opened to his enterprise, its harbours are filled. with our commercial marine. Lower in the scale, the shopkeeper finds his profits diminishing, year by year, because some great capitalist in his vicinity, from the circumstance of his buying upon a larger scale, can afford to sell his goods at a profit so small, as to render men of less means unable to

carry on their business. These circumstances, within the knowledge of us all, prove the extent of capital which is ready to be embarked in every department of commercial enterprise, and the precariousness of trade; and nowhere can the capitalist get (as shall be shown) such large profits, and with such security, as in New South Wales.

That our population is in excess, the pressure on employment, and the very low rates of wages demonstrates; that it is alarmingly increasing, the Parliamentary returns testify. Thousands of the labouring classes are without work half their time, and multitudes, with large families, are glad to obtain the scanty pittance of 6s. and 7s. a-week. It, therefore, is the interest of all, as well as a duty, to encourage and aid emigration, as a safe and sure means of relief.

A man, by emigrating to a new Colony, besides improving his own condition, confers a two-fold benefit on his country. First, by withdrawing his capital or labour from competition at home, he relieves a market which is overstocked, and gives additional value to what remains; and, in the next place, he brings a valuable acquisition to a field where, the demand being greater, it becomes more productive; in consequence of which he can spend more, to the advantage of the mother country, and to the great increase of his own and his family's enjoyment.

A large proportion of our population is engaged in manufacturing employments, and consequently depends for success and remuneration on a steady and extensive foreign demand. In vain would the artisans of Manchester, Birmingham, and elsewhere produce, if no outlet existed for the consumption of their articles abroad-unless other countries be found to which their products may be sent, and from which that raw material, which is denied to England, may in exchange be supplied, they could scarcely be employed at all.

Can Great Britain so effectually secure an extended and permanent market for her surplus manufactures, a field for the exertions of her enterprising population, and for her superabundant capital, seeking almost in vain for employment, as by planting, in fertile and healthy spots, colonies of industrious Englishmen, carrying with them the tastes and habits of their country, and thus creating a continuous demand for labour and capital?

"The colony of a civilised nation (says Dr. Adam Smith) which takes possession either of a waste country, or of one so thinly inhabited, that the natives easily give place to the

new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society.'

There are apostles of mischief and selfish individuals busily preaching to the multitudes against the attempt to benefit labourers by assisting men out of employment to emigrate. We hear, for instance, Lord Fitzwilliam denounced because he benevolently wishes to make labourers independent, and endeavours to diffuse among them the doctrine that the reward of labour must depend on the extent of the demand for it. But no truth is more demonstrable than that wherever wages are low the quantity of employment is not equal to the competitors for it. It is possible that in twenty years hence this country may maintain in comfort a greater number of inhabitants than it can support in wretchedness now; but it is not the less certain that this wretchedness is a proof that the number of people is too great at present, and that whoever removes some of them to where they can obtain food in sufficiency for their labour, is their friend, and not their enemy-IS THE BENEFACTOR OF HIS COUNTRY.

They are the worst enemies of the industrious classes who inculcate the doctrine that their well-being is not strictly connected with the proportion between their numbers at any given time and the employment which can be found for them. It is not driving a man into exile to assist him, if he cannot find work, to go where he can find it; it is charity; it is benevolence. The rich, by the Christian law, hold their property by the tenure of benefitting those who are less fortunate than themselves; and they cannot more benefit the working classes than by instructing them how they can maintain their independence, and aiding them to recover it when it has been lost by want of employment or otherwise.

Those who possess no other property than their labour must, for their means of subsistence, be dependent on the demand for that labour. If forty men are required to do the work of a particular parish, and there are sixty, all cannot be employed, and as each labourer will not wish to be one of the twenty unemployed, the competition will enable the employers to have them on their own terms. Those who cannot get work fall down into the rank of paupers.

It is necessary to the well-being of society, that the distinction should be as wide as possible between the labourer and the pauper; when that is the case labourers become provident, and careful not to place themselves or their offspring in circumstances which may make them dependent on the