| | | | | | 1849. | 1850. | | I. LONDON-- | Ships. | Tons. | Ships. | Tons. | | British, | 6,917 | 1,444,311 | 6,497 | 1,376,233 | | Foreign, | 3,040 | 443,923 | 3,413 | 527,174 | | |--------+-----------+--------+-----------| | II. LIVERPOOL-- | | | | | | British, | | | | | | Foreign, | | 56,500 | | 124,800 | | |--------+-----------+--------+-----------| |III. DUBLIN-- | | | | | | British, | 351 | 63,263 | 279 | 44,146 | | Foreign, | 125 | 27,774 | 183 | 39,250 | +------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ | |Decrease of British.|Increase of Foreign.| | | | | | | Ships. | Tons. | Ships. | Tons. | | I. LONDON, | 420 | 78,078 | 373 | 83,251 | | |--------+-----------+--------+-----------| | II. LIVERPOOL, | | | | 78,300 | | |--------+-----------+--------+-----------| |III. DUBLIN, | 72 | 19,117 | 58 | 11,476 | | |--------+-----------+--------+-----------| | Total, | | | | 173,027 | The vast emigration of 300,000 annually which is now going on from the United Kingdom, might reasonably be expected to have alleviated, in a great degree, this most calamitous decrease in the staple branches of industry in our people; and so it would have, certainly, had a wise and paternal Government taken it under its own direction, and sent the parties abroad who really were likely to want employment, and whose removal would at once prove a relief to the country from which they were sent, and a blessing to that for which they were destined. But this is so far from being the case, that there is perhaps no one circumstance in our social condition which has done more of late years to aggravate the want of employment, and enhance the distress among the working-classes, than _the very magnitude of this emigration_. The dogma of Free Trade has involved even the humble cabins of the emigrant's ship: there, as elsewhere, it has spread nothing but misery and desolation. The reason is, that it has been left to the unaided, undirected efforts of the emigrants themselves.