Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848 — John Shaqi
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The first is Emigration to the colonies, on a larger scale than has
been yet undertaken, and with a more earnest desire, on the part of
government, to make it a really effective means of relief than has
been yet shown--the arrangements to be made, and the vessels to be
contracted for and victualled, at the public expense, and the
emigrants, therefore, having no further pecuniary burdens imposed on
them than the means of supporting themselves from the time of their
landing until they can procure employment. Even this last difficulty
of emigrants may undoubtedly be much lessened by a little pains, and a
little well-directed expense, on the part of the colonial governments,
to ascertain during the winter season, and make known to those
arriving in spring, the precise districts where there is the most
demand for their labour; and it seems impossible to doubt that, if
there were a regular provision made by government, for a few seasons,
for receiving, from the different parts of Ireland, families
recommended by the clergy of all persuasions in the different
districts, as proper for emigration, and unable to afford the
passage-money, and for removing these families at the public expense
to Canada or Australia--directing them at once to the proper points--a
very considerable relief could be afforded to the most crowded
districts in Ireland, at the same time that the danger of such
sufferings during the passage, and after arrival in the colonies, as
befel too many of the emigrants of 1847, and deterred too many of
their countrymen from following their example, may be almost certainly
avoided.
Emigration, however, even on these terms, (which it is certainly
within the power of government to arrange,) should only be recommended
to those who can command the means of tolerably comfortable
outfitting, and subsistence for a short time after their arrival in
the colonies. For a much larger number of the Irish poor, the resource
so perseveringly advocated by Mr P. Scrope and others, is the only one
yet shown to be really available, viz., their employment on some of
the waste lands, ascertained to be reclaimable, which abound in
Ireland itself. The improvement of these, chiefly by spade labour,
would give employment to nearly all the labourers now in Ireland; and,
when reclaimed, they might be divided into allotments of from five to
eight acres each, which should afterwards become the property of the
men by whose labour they have chiefly been reclaimed, on the payment
of a moderate quit-rent.
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