Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
A journey over sea is a very different thing now to what it was when
a voyage to Australia consumed more than six months, when emigrants
were crowded by hundreds into sailing ships, and scenes of abominable
sin and brutality were the normal incidents of the passage. The world
has grown much smaller since the electric telegraph was discovered and
side by side with the shrinkage of this planet under the influence of
steam and electricity there has come a sense of brotherhood and a
consciousness of community of interest and of nationality on the part
of the English-speaking people throughout the world. To change from
Devon to Australia is not such a change in many respects as merely to
cross over from Devon to Normandy. In Australia the Emigrant finds him
self among men and women of the same habits, the same language, and in
fact the same people, excepting that they live under the southern cross
instead of in the northern latitudes. The reduction of the postage
between England and the Colonies, a reduction which I hope will soon be
followed by the establishment of the Universal Penny Post between the
English speaking lands, will further tend to lessen the sense of
distance.
The constant travelling of the Colonists backwards and forwards to
England makes it absurd to speak of the Colonies as if they were a
foreign land. They are simply pieces of Britain distributed about the
world, enabling the Britisher to have access to the richest parts of
the earth.
Another objection which will be taken to this Scheme is that colonists
already over sea will see with infinite alarm the prospect of the
transfer of our waste labour to their country. It is easy to
understand how this misconception will arise, but there is not much
danger of opposition on this score. The working-men who rule the roost
at Melbourne object to the introduction of fresh workmen into their
labour market, for the same reason that the new Dockers' Union objects
to the appearance of new hands at the dock gates, that is for fear the
newcomers will enter into unfriendly competition with them. But no
Colony, not even the Protectionist and Trade Unionists who govern
Victoria, could rationally object to the introduction of trained
Colonists planted out upon the land. They would see that these men
would become a source of wealth, simply because they would at once
become producers as well as consumers, and instead of cutting down
wages they would tend directly to improve trade and so increase the
employment of the workmen now in the Colony. Emigration as hitherto
conducted has been carried out on directly opposite principles to
these. Men and women have simply been shot down into countries without
any regard to their possession of ability to earn a livelihood,
and have consequently become an incubus upon the energies of the
community, and a discredit, expense, and burden. The result is that
they gravitate to the towns and compete with the colonial workmen,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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