We should then proceed to Queensland, and dispose of our engagement
with the Erewhonians to the sugar-growers of that settlement, who are
in great want of labour; it is believed that the money thus realised
would enable us to declare a handsome dividend, and leave a
considerable balance, which might be spent in repeating our operations
and bringing over other cargoes of Erewhonians, with fresh consequent
profits. In fact we could go backwards and forwards as long as there
was a demand for labour in Queensland, or indeed in any other Christian
colony, for the supply of Erewhonians would be unlimited, and they
could be packed closely and fed at a very reasonable cost.
It would be my duty and Arowhena’s to see that our emigrants should be
boarded and lodged in the households of religious sugar-growers; these
persons would give them the benefit of that instruction whereof they
stand so greatly in need. Each day, as soon as they could be spared
from their work in the plantations, they would be assembled for praise,
and be thoroughly grounded in the Church Catechism, while the whole of
every Sabbath should be devoted to singing psalms and church-going.
This must be insisted upon, both in order to put a stop to any uneasy
feeling which might show itself either in Queensland or in the mother
country as to the means whereby the Erewhonians had been obtained, and
also because it would give our own shareholders the comfort of
reflecting that they were saving souls and filling their own pockets at
one and the same moment. By the time the emigrants had got too old for
work they would have become thoroughly instructed in religion; they
could then be shipped back to Erewhon and carry the good seed with
them.
I can see no hitch nor difficulty about the matter, and trust that this
book will sufficiently advertise the scheme to insure the subscription
of the necessary capital; as soon as this is forthcoming I will
guarantee that I convert the Erewhonians not only into good Christians
but into a source of considerable profit to the shareholders.
I should add that I cannot claim the credit for having originated the
above scheme. I had been for months at my wit’s end, forming plan after
plan for the evangelisation of Erewhon, when by one of those special
interpositions which should be a sufficient answer to the sceptic, and
make even the most confirmed rationalist irrational, my eye was
directed to the following paragraph in the _Times_ newspaper, of one of
the first days in January 1872:-
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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