Dear Sir—In reply to the queries contained in your note of the 26th ult., I will most gladly give you my views on the subject of emigration to North America, and especially as to the possibility of landed proprietors making settlements of poor people in such a manner as would afford a fair prospect of having the expenses incurred in conveying these people out and settling them on land repaid by the people themselves. I have no objection to your publishing my letter. To give my views, however, as you request, with "as full explanation as Lam able" or as I would wish, would be impossible within the compass of such a paper as it would be convenient for you to publish, or as I could prepare within the time that would make it available for your purpose. The circumstances, the views, and the character of the persons desirous to emigrate, as well as the views and circumstances of the persons disposed to aid them, are likely to be too various; and the modifications by which a plan of emigration or colonization might be made to adapt itself to varying conditions, are too numerous to be treated of at large in a brief and hasty paper. My aim therefore will be, to give you broad circumstances and general views. But for sake of clearness and distinctness, I will endeavour to do this by suggesting such a scheme as I conceive would be applicable to what I suppose to be the probable circumstances of the particular estate which you manage; giving you at the same time, as I go along, a full explanation of the circumstances and reasons which lead me to the suggesting of each arrangement that I propose. Tims you will have all the facilities for taking my scheme to pieces, and reconstructing it according to your own judgment, to suit any other set of circumstances different from those to which I have endeavoured to adapt it.

You are aware, that although I made a tour in Upper Canada some years ago, my personal knowledge is mostly of the United page 2 States. I resided in one of the North-western States from the autumn of 1838 to the summer of 1843. I had occasion to visit the States again on private business last year (1847), and passed the months of August, September, and October, in the States of Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. I devoted a considerable portion of my time to travelling through these States, for the special purpose of collecting information and acquiring precise views on the very matters respecting which you now inquire.

I would have extended my last year's tour into Canada, but that I had reason to feel assured that Canada did not afford the same facilities for establishing a desirable system of colonization as the Western States. The government price of land is higher in Canada than in the States: this government price is not uniform, but varies with circumstances; and this must needs produce to the emigrant, perplexity, disappointment, and delay. The land in Canada is very heavily timbered; there is no prairie,^* and but little lightly-timbered land, both of which abound in the States. Old countrymen, unused to the felling and slashing of timber, can therefore make but comparatively slow progress in Canada. Commercial industry too is far more active in the States. In the States, steam-boats, canals, railroads, mills, and warehouses pursue the agricultural settlers to the remotest locations, and bring a market to their doors. Again, waste lands held over by speculators are more subject to what one may call exemplary taxation in the United States than in Canada; therefore, in the States speculators are discouraged from holding such lands over for inordinately long periods, and industrious settlers are not as liable, as in Canada, to have their locations removed from the centres of population and from market by intervening wildernesses. I may add, that the great body of my countrymen who are disposed to emigrate, are more anxious to settle in the States than in Canada. For all these reasons my attention was directed to the Western States, and such information as I possess relates chiefly to them.

You ask me—

"Second—Can a system of emigration be established that would relieve us from the chance of creating a mischievous glut in the American labour market? and with this view could individual pro- page 3 prietors establish special colonies for the settlement of their own surplus population, in a way that would ultimately refund the whole expense incurred for this class of emigration; and if so, what are the different modes by which it could be accomplished—what the proportion of capital required for the settlement of any given number of families—what the agency required, and what the time required to refund the capital employed?"

Your first question relates wholly to a scheme of helping your emigrants to find employment as labourers in the existing labour market; your second relates to a scheme of establishing the same emigrants as farmers on lands of their own, or ultimately to become their own,—in fact, to a scheme of settlements.

I shall consider these schemes in order, having first made a few observations on the character and the comparative expensiveness of the two.

There can be no doubt as to which scheme would be more acceptable to the emigrants. In the ordinary course of emigration, emigrants proceed, for the most part, on the invitation of friends previously settled in the new country. They go direct to the place where their friends are settled, and from them receive both "aid and comfort." With them they find both the associations of their old home, and the information, direction, and assistance that helps them to success in their new home. The few who do, in the ordinary course of emigration, proceed to America wholly destitute of this advantage, and possessing but small means, enter on their enterprise as a bold adventure, obscured with uncertainty, involving therefore considerable risk, and requiring some courage to face it. Your emigrants would, of course, proceed without the advantage I have named (the invitation of friends ready to receive them on their arrival), and what they would want from you—besides the means of conveying those who were unable to convey themselves—would be, that you should reduce their enterprise to a certainty—in a word, that you should become their ensurer. How much more perfectly, how much more satisfactorily, and with how much clearer demonstration to them you could do this, by having land, the means of tilling it, and a temporary support provided for them, than by referring them to the general labour market of the country, even with all the aid and direction you could provide for them, does not need to be insisted on.

A project of settlements, therefore, would be infinitely more satisfactory to your emigrants, than any plan that would leave them to the chances of employment. It would also, no doubt, be more satisfactory to yourself, as it would enable you to see at a view the progress of your settlers, to see the good you had done, and to estimate it. All this is plain—perhaps plain enough to amount to a truism; but it may not be equally obvious, that under certain circumstances—and these the most likely to be the prevailing circumstances of your scheme—the plan of settlements would also be the cheaper one to you. If the families could all pay the whole amount of their own expenses out, the cheapest way in which you could befriend them would certainly be, to help them to find employment page 4 in the existing labour market; but if you had to bear the whole or any considerable proportion of the cost of their conveyance across the sea, the case would be quite different. In such case, if they dispersed themselves into the ordinary labour market of the country, you should be content to suffer a total loss of all that you had expended on them; whereas if you settled them on land, you might, as I will hereafter endeavour to show, by a judicious adaptation of your means to your end, reasonably count upon being in time repaid the expenses both of conveyance and of settlement, and this with as much advantage to the emigrant, beyond what he would receive from the mere throwing him on the labour market, as to you.

To proceed then to the direct answering of tour first question—as to the extent to which emigrant labourers can be absorbed "in the labour market of the States and Canada?" I will say nothing of Canada, because, as to Canada, there is abundant information before the public from persons who have had better opportunities of judging than I have had. I believe that the amount of emigration which Canada is capable of absorbing each year is generally estimated at 50,000 persons, which would comprise, I suppose, ten or twelve thousand labourers. As to the capacity of the United States, it, of course, greatly exceeds the capacity of Canada. The population of the two Canadas approaches two millions; that of the United States is supposed to be now rather over than under twenty millions. You may safely take the capacity of the United States to exceed that of Canada in proportion as its population of twenty millions exceeds the two millions of Canada. I feel certain that half a million of European emigrants arriving each year would, if they were well distributed, meet a ready demand for their labour in the States. The industrial expansion of such a population as twenty millions, in a country that is practically boundless in extent, and of immense fertility, must be capable of absorbing far more than any amount of emigrant labour that is at all likely to arrive from Europe in any one year. The emigrants arrived from Europe in the ports of the United States last year (a year unparalleled for the amount of its emigration), I have lately seen stated in an American paper at two hundred and thirty-three thousand; I know that, notwithstanding this large emigration, the demand for labour everywhere throughout the United States last year was very great. The emigrants arrived in the port of New York alone were about one hundred thousand. Notwithstanding this immense number of emigrants arrived in New York, that city and the region immediately around it absorbed all the able-bodied labourers who chose to remain there. The Irish Emigrant Association were anxious to push the emigrants on into the country, but Mr. Dillon, the president of that association, assured me, in July last, that they found great difficulty in doing this, owing to the great demand for labour, and the high wages (a dollar, and a dollar and a quarter a day) which then prevailed in the city. This great demand, of course, would not last after winter had set in. Throughout the State of New York, European labourers, newly arrived, got twelve or fifteen dollars a month and their board and lodging, hiring for the summer months only; or hiring for the whole year, eight and ten dollars a page 5 month, likewise with board and lodging; labourers better used to the work of the country got still higher wages by two or three dollars a month. The wages in the North-western States were about the same, and the demand everywhere was very great. There can be no question then, but the United States are capable of absorbing into their ordinary labour market any probable amount of emigration from Europe, provided it is properly distributed. Last year was a year of extraordinary industrial activity in the States, and it would, therefore, be unsafe to count on the Atlantic cities and states absorbing in every other year as much labour as they did in the last, but, with proper distribution, the great western region can be relied on.

The best way of assisting your emigrants who were seeking their support from the ordinary labour market of the country would be, to have an intelligent, zealous, and well-paid agent in one of the western cities of the union—say Detroit, Milwaukie, or Chicago, (I would be disposed to say Chicago), to whom they should all proceed, and who would direct them on their arrival, and distribute them to the points where they were likely to find a market for their labour. About £150 a year would probably command the services of a good agent, to conduct such a business on a large scale; but if the right man could be had it would be a very mistaken economy to stickle about twenty or fifty pounds. I say a western city for these reasons:—In the first place, the demand for labour is generally greater in the west than in the cast. In the second place, it would be much easier for you to take care of the family, while the father travelled through the country in search of employment, in a western city or its neighbourhood, than in New York or its neighbourhood. In the third place, land is cheaper in the west, and labourers rise faster to the condition of farmers, than in the cast, therefore it would be better for your emigrants to be there. And, fourthly, an emigrant and his family, travelling by way of Quebec, could reach a western city as cheaply, or even more cheaply, than they could reach New York, going to New York direct. The passenger law of the United States, in limiting the number of passengers that ships shall carry, and determining the space that shall be given to them, makes no distinction between children and adults. But by the British law two children under fourteen years of age count only as one statute adult. Consequently in ships sailing to any port of the United States children are charged full price, to Quebec they are only charged half price. A family, therefore, can reach a western city of the States, travelling by way of Quebec, for as small a sum, or, if the family be large and young, smaller than they could reach New York, sailing for New York direct.

The expense of conveyance to Quebec during the approaching season (including provisions), can scarcely I think be estimated at less than £5 10s. per statute adult. The emigration and the consequent demand for passages will be as great as it was last year; and although provisions will be lower, the enactments of the new passenger act, requiring a superintendent of emigrants to be carried and paid or by the ship, and requiring a certain space to be devoted page 6 to each passenger, also the increased tax which is about to be levied on emigrants by the colonies, will all have the effect of enhancing the cost of passage, so that I think £5 10s. per statute adult is not more than a reasonable estimate of the probable cost of passage (provisions included) during the approaching season. To this you may add from £1 10s. to £2 per statute adult for their conveyance to the point on the western lakes where you would fix your agent. This makes in all from £7 to £7 10s. for conveyance from an Irish port to your agency in the Western States. Thus the cost of conveying a small family of three statute adults, say a father, mother, and two children under fourteen years of age, would be from £21 to £22 10s.; a large family of five statute adults, say a father, mother, one child over fourteen and four under fourteen, would be from £35 to £37 10s.; and a still larger family of six statute adults, say a father, mother, two children over fourteen and four children under fourteen, would be from £42 to £45.

The duties of your agent should be, to make himself acquainted with the several localities around him where Labourers would have the best prospect of finding remunerative employment, to receive your emigrants as they arrived, and to direct and forward them to the localities where he had previously ascertained that labour was most in request. In some years this would be a very easy task, as your labourers would sometimes be employed on the spot as fast as they arrived. In other years it would require exertion, as your agent should see not only that your emigrants found employment from day to day during the summer months, but also that they were likely to be employed and have a home for their families during the succeeding winter. It often happens, even in the western cities, that labourers who have lingered on in them during the summer months, finding at that season a fair amount of employment, are thrown almost wholly idle in winter. When winter arrives, they find themselves in a place where lodging is dear, and firewood dear, and their earnings almost nothing, and they consequently suffer great distress, and are no small burden on the benevolence of the citizens. Your agent should, therefore, as much as he could, forward them into the circumjacent country, to the employment of farmers, if possible. They would find many farmers who could give them a log hut for their families; when winter came then they would have their lodging provided for, their firewood for the cutting, and provisions so cheap that the smallest earnings would support their families.

This brings me to speak of the families. It is this circumstance of "the families" that made the emigration of the last year so disastrous. In former years emigration flowed according to its natural course; one member of a family went out first, then other members of the family or the whole family in a body went out to him. He was there to receive them, to direct them, to hunt up employment for them, or to have it bespoken for them before they arrived, in fact, in every way to aid and befriend them. Almost every family that left Ireland left it bound for some particular point, it might be in the far interior of the remotest State. Disregarding every other point they made for that. They had a letter with them, received from their pioneer friend. Speak to the head page 7 of any family that you saw on board an emigrant vessel, ask him where he was going to, and he would pull out "the letter," giving full directions as to the route they were to travel. This letter was their chart through a country otherwise as unknown to them as an unexplored sea to a mariner; by it they steered and reached a home already more than half made for them. Thus the emigrant families were widely distributed, each to a berth selected for and fitted for them. Even the young men who went out as pioneers for future emigrant families, generally knew where they were going to; each was going to a place where a cousin or an acquaintance had preceded him. In this manner, in former emigrations, all was provided for, all was regular, all was safe. In the past year there was still a great amount of emigration that took place under the safeguards that I speak of, but for the most part these safeguards were altogether wanting. Whole families started off without knowing where they were going to, without any more distinct plan than is expressed in the words "going to America," or any more means than would carry them ashore. Landlords "shovelled out" whole families; and the most liberal thought they had made a generous provision for them when they took care that one pound per family should be given to them on landing, about enough to support them in the lowest lodging-house ashore for two days!! The guarded emigration, the emigration that was promoted by friends already settled in the new country, went for the most part to the States where these friends were settled. Of the amount of emigration thus promoted to the States, you may judge by the fact now well known as ascertained and made public by Jacob Harvey of New York, that in the first six months of last year 800,000 dollars had been forwarded in small drafts by the labouring Irish in the States to their friends at home, through houses in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. But there is a still greater fact behind. When I was in New York at the close of November last, Mr. Harvey was collecting his materials for a similar account for the second six months of the same year. He had then nearly ascertained the amount forwarded from the four principal cities (taking in Baltimore), within the five months then just passed. He showed me the amounts remitted from each city up to that time; and on the supposition that the remittances would continue to go forward in December as they were going then, he estimated that the amount forwarded in the second six months of the year, would amount to no less a sum than one million and four hundred thousand dollars!! These immense sums are supposed to have been forwarded mostly for the purpose of aiding friends to emigrate, and from this we may estimate the amount of emigration (promoted by transatlantic friends, and therefore well directed and well provided for,) that has taken place to the States in the past year, and is likely to take place in the present year. There can be no doubt but a very considerable amount of emigration similarly directed and similarly provided for took place last year to Canada; but Canada was also almost the sole recipient of the emigration that was wholly undirected and wholly unprovided for. A family comprising a number of children could be conveyed to Canada for little more than half the price that it could be conveyed to the States. The price for even page 8 adults was cheaper, and children were only one-half. All the pauper emigration therefore flowed to Canada. All who were worst provided with means; all who had no fixed destination, only that they were "going to America;" but especially all who were swarming with helpless families, and who, therefore, had "shovelled" themselves out, or had been "shovelled out" by others;—all these went to Canada. A more helpless spectacle can scarcely be imagined than a man thrown ashore in America with a family of a wife and young children, and, as was frequently the case, infirm old people, without money, without friends, and without knowing where he is going to. What can he do with these encumbrances? He must tramp about, and tramp considerable distances too, if he would find employment; but he cannot take these with him, and if he leaves them behind him he leaves them to perish. In Canada the natural consequences have occurred—one-fourth of all the emigrants in this past year (such are the latest accounts), the Montreal Emigrant Committee state that "full one-fourth" of all the past year's emigrants to Canada, have already perished. Such are only the necessary results of poor emigrants going out or being sent out without provision made for them, without money, and far' the most disastrous condition of all, with a weak, helpless family, hung as a millstone about their necks. I dwell upon this matter of "the family," because it is really the most serious, and has been the most unappreciated circumstance connected with emigration. Suppose a man even to have reached some part of the interior of the country where labour, say farm-labour, is most in request;—still it is not every farmer that is prepared to take a labourer on the instant, and the labourer must travel in quest of the farmer who is. What is he to do then if he has a family at his heels, unable to walk with him, and he unable to leave them behind and pay for their keep while he traverses the country? Take an illustration. I was myself interested last summer in procuring employment for five young men who were steerage passengers in the ship I sailed in. I procured them letters to a part of the country about three hundred miles from New York, where farm hands were very much in request. They went up there. The farmer to whom they had the letters had no employment that he could give them at that moment, but he gave them a recommendation on to another farmer about fifteen miles distant. This second farmer was likewise unprepared to employ them, but he recommended them to another place twenty miles further distant. In going to this latter place they met a person on the way who employed three of them at high wages; and on arriving the other two found employment, also at high wages (fifteen dollars a month). But how would they have fared if they had had families at their heels, who could not have tramped with them? Nor is this the only difficulty which the family entails. Among three farmers who might be prepared to employ a single man, taking him into their family, there might not be found one who would be able to give a labourer a house to shelter his wife and children. What shall we say, then, of the calamitous condition of the poor emigrant who is cast ashore at Quebec or New York at a time of excessive emigration, without money, and with a helpless family encumbering him?

If any one doubts that a period of some duration, long or short, must needs elapse before emigrants arrived as total strangers in any new country can all find themselves finally settled, no matter how great, how positively avid, may be the demand for employment in the new country, the doubter will do well to read the evidence of Mrs. Chisholm, of New South Wales, given before the Lords' "Colonization Committee" of last session. The public is pretty generally aware, that so pressing is the necessity for additional labourers, both male and female, in the Australian colonies, that the whole of the fund raised by the sale of the public lands is devoted to importing emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland into these colonies, passage free. The passage of each adult emigrant costs the colony about £18. The emigrants are selected by the Commissioners of Emigration, in London, and those Commissioners have adopted the strictest rules against taking any family of which the parents are more than forty years of age, or which comprises more than three children under ten years of age. It is thus effectually provided that these emigrant families exhibit, on their arrival in Australia, the greatest possible amount of physical ability, and the least possible amount of physical helplessness. But, they arrive without any friends settled in the country before them, and ready to receive and direct them; the consequence is, that even in those colonies, where the demand for labour is so eager, and such sums are paid to introduce emigrants into them, the men who arrive there with even the small and easily managed families that are admitted by the Emigration Commissioners, are frequently unemployed for weeks, and often subject to the most serious distress. Even when the single men and women will be engaged on board ship, before they land, by persons going out in boats, the encumbered men—the men with families—will be for weeks without employment, on account of the inconveniences attendant upon employing persons so encumbered. Mrs. Chisholm, with a singular benevolence and devotedness, has given her exertions for years to the task of distributing and finding employment for the newly-arrived emigrants. She first began with interesting herself on behalf of unprotected single females, and afterwards took up the case of families; with these latter she has made journeys of three hundred miles into the interior in quest of employment. Nor has this been a matter of a casual glut of emigration. Mrs. Chisholm has been engaged in those good offices for six years—in her own words, she has "had six years' hard work." Mrs. Chisholm's evidence is so illustrative of the time that it takes to distribute emigrants who arrive in a new country without any friends before them, or any fixed destination in that country—of the gradual character of the process, even when labour is in the greatest demand—and of the peculiar disadvantages which those emigrants labour under who are encumbered with families of young children, that I will ask you to publish along with this letter the following portion of Mrs. Chisholm's evidence:—

Did you find any difficulty in placing those young women?—Not in the country, but they were not so suitable to Sydney. They were country girls generally speaking.

How long was it before you disposed of this first venture?—Almost immediately.

Did you then return to Sydney?—Yes; I returned to Sydney, having made arrangements for the establishment of country depots, which I supplied on the principles stated in that paper; besides, I got married families to promise shelter and protection to such young females as might require it.

Did you subsequently conduct other emigrants into the country?—I did. But I ought to mention that the number of emigrant families that were in Sydney unprovided for induced the emigration agent to entreat his Excellency to permit the families, to have shelter in the emigration barracks, where they might receive food and lodging until provided for. There was an excess of labourers in Sydney at the time they were required in the interior.

How was the excess of labourers in Sydney supported; was it supported at the public expense?—They were supported at the expense of government.

Did the course you took not only provide for these persons happily for themselves, but put an end to public expense altogether?—Yes; in providing for families I undertook journeys of 300 miles into the interior with them; indeed, the further I went the more satisfactory the settlement, the men receiving from £18 to £30 per annum, with double rations.

Was there any aid given to you by the public in taking those emigrants up the country?—When the public had an opportunity of judging of the effects of my system they came forward, and enabled me to go on; the government, to assist me in my exertions, contributed altogether in various ways to the amount of about £100.

How was it possible for you to conduct these operations with such inadequate means?—I met with great assistance from the Country Committees. The squatters and settlers were always willing to give me conveyance for the people. I never wanted for provisions of any kind; the country people always supplied them. A gentleman who was examined before your lordships the other day, Mr. William Bradley, a native of the colony, called upon me, and told me that he approved of my views, and that if I required any thing in carrying my country plan into operation I might draw upon him for money, provisions, horses, or indeed any thing that I required. I had no necessity to draw upon him for a sixpence, the people met my efforts so readily; but it was a great comfort for me at the time to be thus supported.

Was the same liberality of disposition manifested on the part of others of the colonists and settlers?—Oh, yes, indeed. I never was put to any expense in removing the people except what was unavoidable; at public inns the females were sheltered, and I was provisioned myself without any charge; my personal expenses at inns during my seven years' service amounted only to £1 18s. 6d. My efforts, however, were in various ways attended with considerable loss to myself; absence from home increased my family expenditure, and the clerical expense fell heavy upon me; in fact, in carrying on this work the pecuniary anxiety and risk were very great. With the permission of your lordships I will mention one impediment in the way of forwarding emigrants as engaged servants into the interior; numbers of the masters were afraid if they advanced the money for their conveyance by the steamers, &c., they would never reach their stations. I met this difficulty,—advanced the money, confiding in the good feeling of the man that he would keep to his agreement, and in the principle of the master that he would repay me. It is most gratifying to me to state, that although in hundreds of cases the masters were then strangers to me, I only lost throughout £ 16 by casualties. Some nights I have paid as much as £40 for steamers and land conveyance.

Can you state to the committee how many emigrants from first to last you have been the means of settling with families?—About 11,000 souls.

Your first expedition with this good object was for the protection of females?—Yes.

On your return to Sydney were you induced to carry your efforts further?—Yes. In fact, I was enabled by the aid of committees and benevolent good people to establish a system of protection throughout the country.

Was it limited altogether to females, or were you enabled to assist any male emigrants to procure settlements?—All were included. My object was to establish a system of country dispersion, and to remove crowds from Sydney.

Did you find an anxiety on the part of the settlers to procure the services of well-conducted young women?—An extreme anxiety. The demand for females was very great.

Did you find that that anxiety was increased by the very circumstance of the supply that you afforded?—Yes, being much more convenient; parties for the sake of one servant would never go to Sydney. It is by conveying emigrants into the interior that you give them a fair opportunity of getting fair wages for their services.

What wages did they generally get?—I encouraged them not to seek high wages, particularly females, as protection was the principal thing. The wages for them were from £9 to £16.

Were these the money wages independently of the house-accommodation and the rations?—Yes; female servants are not rationed, but they are boarded and lodged as members of the family.

How many of those expeditions did you make in the colony?—I really could not say.

For how many years were you engaged in these good offices?—Upwards of six years. I had six years' hard work.

What was the largest number that you ever took into the interior at any one time?—The largest number that left Sydney at one time was 147 souls; but from voluntary accessions on the road they increased in number.

Had you any protection of police or military during your progress through the colony?—I never required any thing of the kind. If I wanted any aid on the road I had only to ask for it. Even the proprietors of the public mails showed such a good feeling that they used to allow me, if any of the party knocked up, to put them on the public mail, which was a very expensive conveyance, Provisions were also conveyed for them by the coaches without charge to me.

Were there any instances of insubordination during your journeys?—I never met with but one, and that was one of a very trilling character, and I was enabled in a very short time to overcome it.

Were you enabled to do so by your own influence and authority, without any auxiliary aid?—Entirely by my own influence.

Were those selected bodies of emigrants, or did you extend your services to the whole class?—My exertions were not restricted to any class. If any persons wanted work I was ready to seek it for them.

Did those emigrants consist exclusively of the natives of one part of the United Kingdom, or were they English, Irish, and Scotch mixed indiscriminately?—I made no difference; the good of the whole was my object. I also included in the parties any ticket-of-leave men, Emancipatists,—any persons that wanted work that would go into the country. My object was, to remove them into the country to lessen the city population. I had English, Irish, and Scotch,—Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics, Orangemen, and Repealers,—and I never found any difficulty beyond such difficulties as must always be expected in a work of the kind.

What was the longest time you ever knew any persons to remain on your hands before you got them a situation?—Besides Sydney engagements I have made sixty country engagements in a day independent of the bounty homes. All the emigrants in two ships (not burdened with families of young children) have been engaged in a day in Sydney; but these rapid board-ship engagements must not be taken as a fair criterion of the demand for labour. I found them frequently add to my labours by the numbers thrown out of employment in Sydney; but in the interior there is a great and absorbing demand. My object was always to strike off out of the regular road, and to go amongst the farms to provide for the people; so that it would take three weeks to get to a place where they were wanted; but I never left any parties at those situations to be provided for.

What was the longest period that elapsed from the time that any person first applied to you to get a place till the time that you procured a situation?—It was done very quickly. If a person arrived seeking any particular employment, it would be difficult to find it in Sydney; but if a person was willing to work as a farm labourer, or as a shepherd, there was no difficulty; he had only to wait till I could find it convenient either to go with him or to make the necessary arrangements.

What was about the longest time that you required for this purpose?—Taking the longest journey, perhaps it would be five weeks; and at least three weeks of that time were passed on the road.

In the efforts made by yourself you have stated your experience of the different classes of the English, Irish, and Scotch. Did you find any particular difficulty in dealing with the Irish emigrants as compared with the others?—Not the slightest difficulty in any way.

There was no greater insubordination or disposition to turbulence on the part of the Irish as compared with any other class of people?—Not at all; indeed I could manage the Irish best. I found them always exceedingly good-tempered. It latterly became a point with me first to explain to two or three sensible Irishmen the line that I intended to take. I endeavoured to give them hope; and having succeeded in that, I used to let them loose amongst the others, if I may so express myself; and by that means confidence would spread without much direct influence from me. If I had taken the Scotch or English first I should have had more difficulty. I tried all ways, and I have stated the one that I found most successful.

If any one, after the experience of the past year, again undertakes to send out families without any provision for them on their arrival, or with the provision that some agents of proprietors have boasted of as peculiarly ample and liberal, of a pound a family, that is 2s. 6d. or 3s. a head (it is the large families that have been shovelled out), given to them on their arrival, what less will he be guilty of than wilful murder. Last year men acted without a full knowledge of the consequences—this year all men are warned.

What then should you do for the families of your emigrants? There are two ways in which you might act. You might either induce one man of each family to go out first, and when in a few months he had found employment and provided a home for the family, you might then send the family out to him. In such case you should, of course, undertake to see that the family suffered no want during the absence of the party (probably the father of the family) who went out. This course could scarcely be adopted but in the case of large families who could spare one male member to go as pioneer, and still leave a male capable of helping and protecting the family on their passage out afterwards. Or—what would probably be the best course—you might make provision, wherever you had located your agent, for taking ample care of the families, while the father, and other members capable of labour, sought employment, and provided a home for them. This need not be a matter of great expense; you might either have a few houses taken in the city, or you might have a farm near the city with buildings cheap and slight, but comfortable, which in summer would receive your emigrant's families; while in winter they would serve the multitudinous purposes for which buildings are desirable on a farm in a country where the winters are so long and so severe as in North America. You can still get prairie land for three dollars an acre within six or seven miles of Chicago, a city of 16,000 inhabitants. You could have a farm of a few hundred acres very cheap, and the buildings would not be very expensive. Your emigrant families would be furnished with flour, Indian meal, potatoes, milk, butter, beef, pork, and mutton at first cost from your farm, while the men would be unencumbered and at liberty to disperse themselves through the country in quest of employment and permanent homes, which there is no possible doubt that they would every one of them find in any average year, within a reasonable distance, and say within one or two weeks' time at most. Your agent should then forward the family to the place where the father had settled himself. Such a plan as this, while it would be cheap in itself, would secure your emigrants against all reverses and contingencies of bad years, so page 14 far as absolute privation is concerned. In good years, such, for instance, as the last year has been in America, no able-bodied labourer need be a week without settled employment for himself and a home for his family. I may add, that if you adopted such a plan as this you would find the most extensive co-operation throughout the country. There are no people in the world more disposed to help in a good work than the people of the United States. Your emigrants should, if possible, arrive in small batches, say twenty or thirty families, at a time, and at intervals, say of one or two weeks.

It might be desirable that when one of your ships was expected, an agent should go down to the seaport to conduct the people up. This course would save imposition and delay, but it would itself be a matter of some cost. Probably the arrangements of the government emigration agents in Canada may become sufficiently broad and perfect to make this cost unnecessary hereafter. I have known this course adopted by an emigration association in the west, and it might become necessary for you; still it might possibly be obviated, independently of the government agencies, by arrangements with some respectable forwarding house.

I have heard it objected by parties in Ireland, that if you formed an establishment of the sort I have described, supporting the families in it, they would hang on, and remain a lingering burden to you. But this objection is altogether based upon views of Irish society, not American. People might linger on with you in such an establishment in Ireland, where they could not earn by working out of it as good a subsistence as you afforded them in it in idleness; but in America, where men and women, boys and girls, can all earn by working, good eating, good drinking, good clothing, and money besides, with respectability into the bargain, the objection I am now noticing would never occur to any one.

As to the cost of this plan, you can easily estimate it yourself by the following materials. Your farm, with the necessary fences, buildings, and stock, would cost you, say from £700 to £1,000, according to the scale on which you proceeded. This might at any time be sold for about the price it cost you, more or less. It would more than pay its own expenses for the working of it, and besides the sum I have named above, a couple of hundred pounds of capital would work it. If you preferred renting a farm, you could adopt that course. It would save you from making any outlay of capital for purchasing, and the farm should pay its own rent. You could rent a few houses in the city; but I conceive the farm would be far the most economical in the end, besides being more comfortable and healthful for your emigrants. Then if any pinch came, the farm would be a most valuable resource. The father of the family would, in a very large proportion of cases, find work on the spot immediately on arriving; in which eases, of course, your expenses with him would be nothing; and with his family they would not continue for more than, say a week or so. In other cases, the father might have to travel through the country to seek work. You should, in such cases, give him two or three dollars for his expenses. To support the family well, during his absence, page 15 might cost you about eight shillings British per week, while they remained on your hands; and after the father had found employment and a home for them, it might cost you any thing from one to five dollars to forward the family to him, according to the distance at which he had settled himself.

Such would be the cost of this plan—independent of the expense of conveying the family from Ireland to the place at which you had located your agent. Thirty shillings a family would probably more than cover the cost, agency included, if the thing were done upon a large scale. This would be the sole cost, if the families could pay the whole expense of their own conveyance to your Agency. This cost of conveyance, I have already stated, would range, according to the size of the family and other circumstances, from twenty to forty, or even forty-five pounds. From what you state of the class of families who are desirous to emigrate from the estate you are interested in, it appears that some few families would be able to pay all their own expenses to the western city. In the case of such families, if they were willing to emigrate merely as labourers, your outlay would, on the plan I have stated, be quite inconsiderable; but, in the great majority of cases, it appears that you should pay either all or a great portion of the cost of the people's conveyance out. From what you state, I conclude that you should, probably, on an average of the families, advance £20 or £25 per family for the cost of conveying them alone. For a large number of families you see this would amount to an enormous sum. I can imagine circumstances and arrangements under which the families, even after being settled as mere labourers, would repay you a considerable portion of this cost; but, unless your circumstances were singularly favourable, and your arrangements singularly perfect, you must, under any scheme of leaving your emigrants to seek employment in the general labour market, submit to make your outlay as a total loss. If you had to help the emigration of, say, a thousand families such as you describe, and had to assist them with the sum I have supposed towards the cost of their conveyance, the circumstances should be singularly favourable under which you should lose less than from twenty-two to twenty-seven thousand pounds; yet, I do not say that it is at all impossible but that by making part of the sum a present to the people, and part of it a loan, and adopting other well-contrived arrangements, the loan part might be repaid with tolerable punctuality, affected as the people would be with a lively gratitude for the care you had taken of them. In this case your loss might be reduced to from twelve to seventeen thousand pounds on the number of families that I have named. There is no doubt but the people could repay you if they chose to do so.

In order to get back, however, any portion of your expenditure from people who had been scattered abroad as labourers, the circumstances should be so favourable, and the contrivances so well adjusted, that I think we must say, on the whole, that in any ordinary case it would be a very bad speculation to count on the return of any portion of such an expenditure.

I now come to your second and most important query, which introduces the question of