SUGGESTIONS ON EMIGRATION.
The Edinburgh Cabinet Library, in a most valuable paper on emigration, makes the following remarks and statements, which, being drawn up after evidently most careful observation and research, are better worthy than anything we could write, of being recorded in a chapter on this subject. “Britain can conveniently spare every season not less than 50,000 or 60,000 of her inhabitants, retaining a sufficient number for every useful purpose, and with much advantage to those who remain behind. The adventurers, too, will form on the other side of the Atlantic a great and flourishing people, imbued with the laws, letters, manners, and all the acquirements which have raised their native country high among nations. A portion even of our superfluous capital, which sometimes seeks employment in distant and even chimerical objects, might be very advantageously invested in the culture and improvement of those valuable colonies.
“Admitting, however, the national benefits of emigration, it remains a very important question, what are the individuals or classes to whom it affords advantages sufficient to compensate for leaving their native land; and what course they ought to follow in order to realize these benefits. This is a point on which the reader may reasonably expect us to throw some additional light; and we can in truth assert, that we have considered it as anxiously as if all our own prospects had been involved in its solution. To arrive at any fixed conclusion, however, has been by no means easy. The materials are ample, but they are furnished by individuals usually more or less prepossessed on one side, and in many instances incapable of expressing their ideas with precision, or even of forming any distinct or decided opinion on so perplexed a subject. We have endeavoured, however, by carefully collating opposite statements, by fixing upon ascertained facts and points in which all parties agree, to draw up for the intending emigrant a reasonable view of what he may expect to meet with in the settlements beyond the Atlantic.
“The individuals who usually migrate into that new region may be divided into two classes,—those belonging to the labouring order, and those who seek to support themselves in the middling rank of society. The former go in the view of obtaining each a spot which he can cultivate with his own hands, subsisting chiefly on its produce: the latter hope, by the application of skill and capital, and by engaging the aid of others, to carry on operations on a larger scale, and to draw from their property a portion of the conveniences and even elegancies of life. The former comprise the more extensive, and indeed the more important branch of the subject; but as the latter will lead us to view it under a greater variety of lights, we shall most conveniently direct our first attention to it.
“No one, who has made any observation on the present state of this country, can have failed to observe the extreme difficulty which the middling classes find to support their place in society, and particularly to enable their sons to succeed them in stations of well-remunerated employment. The reduced scale of the army and navy, and the rigid economy now introduced into all the departments of the government, have withdrawn many former sources of income. Manufactures and trade, even when prosperous, can be carried on with advantage only on a large scale, with low profits upon an extensive capital. Hence there remain only the learned professions, with the officers and clerks employed by banks, insurance companies, and similar establishments; and in these pursuits, the increase of population and the number thrown out from other occupations cause an eager competition. This is increased by the general diffusion of information among the inferior classes, many of whom, by merit and address, compete successfully for these higher appointments,—a state of things which may be, on the whole, advantageous, as securing for national purposes a greater degree of talent; but it obviously increases the pressure on the middling ranks already severely felt.
A Settler’s hut on the frontier.
“Among the numerous young men, however, thus languishing for want of employment, there are probably not a few who possess or could command a small capital of from 500l. to 1000l. and who have the degree of judgment and industry requisite to superintend the labours of agriculture. It becomes then an interesting question, whether Canada affords the means of attaining that independence, and earning those conveniences, which their native country denies to them. On this subject, and every thing connected with it, a great variety of opinions prevails; but on comparing all together, we shall state grounds for concluding that, with a due degree of skill and perseverance, the emigrant in this rank will find the means, not indeed of rising to wealth, but of placing himself in a comfortable and independent situation.
“The cultivator in Canada stands in very different circumstances from either the proprietor or farmer in Britain. He obtains an estate in full and perpetual property for a smaller sum than the annual rent which he would here be obliged to give for it. After paying this price, however, he must expend at least three times as much in clearing and bringing it into a state of cultivation. Even then it will not yield him rent; it will be merely a farm for him to cultivate, with the very important advantage indeed of its being wholly his own, and no landlord to pay. The taxes also are extremely light, when compared to those which press on the English farmer. But in return for these benefits, he must give to his servants considerably higher wages, and will even have no small trouble in procuring them on any terms. What is worse, he obtains for his produce much lower prices, and even these with difficulty, because the supply of grain and provisions in a region so wholly agricultural must more and more exceed the demand within the country itself. These commodities, indeed, will always find a market among the dense population of Britain, to which they are now admitted on payment of easy duties; and in point of fact, the price must be finally ruled by what they will sell for here. After paying the expense of transportation across the Atlantic, added to that of conveying them from the place of production to the ports of Montreal or Quebec, there is little prospect that the finest wheat of Upper Canada will permanently bring in this country more than 50s. per quarter. Deducting the duty, 5s.—freight, 10s.—carriage from even a favourable situation in the interior, 8s.—we have only 27s.; or about 3s. 4d. per bushel left to the cultivator.