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Our Surplus Population.

The subject of food for the increasing population of Great Britain is daily becoming a most serious consideration, and one which must force itself on the public attention. At present, the supplies drawn from all parts of the world seem to be hardly sufficient. But whilst flour can be obtained from America as well as from the continent, a supply of meat is found, from disease or other causes, more difficult to be procured in sufficient quantity for the consumption; at this very moment, whilst the question is becoming more and more pressing, from whence the supply is to come, in the Australian colonies the superabundance of flocks and herds is such, that with the farmers and graziers of those fertile regions, the great concern is to know what is to be done with them? Some are boiling their sheep down, and selling the fat at one penny per pound, thus wasting the flesh for which millions here would be thankful. Others are subjecting it to a certain chemical process, to obtain an extract of meat, which, in a small compass, shall contain the properties and nourishment of the gross mass. Others again, are trying to prepare the carcase so as to enable them to send it fresh to England. But is it not evident that this is something like Gulliver’s account of the Laputa Philosophers trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. As Mahomet could not get the mountain to go to him, he was obliged to go to it. If the flocks and herds cannot come to Britain, Britain must go to them.

It seems from the wonderful increase of our race in the old populated parts of the earth, that it is now necessary for them to move off to those fair regions which, though equally fitted and intended for man’s abode, are now desolate and uninhabited. God appears to have wrought a miracle to compel them to depart. Gold in California was the first attraction, then in Australia, and lastly in New Zealand; and thus some millions of those who could muster means to transport themselves to such tempting fields went; but page 177 there are still millions who have not means, and must be fed at home by those who have; thus continuing an incubus on the industry and resources of the remaining portion of society. To feed them, as they still go on increasing, is the difficulty, and if they are not fed, to prepare for the consequences; a hungry man will satisfy the cravings of nature.

The present time presents some most serious subjects for reflection. Fenianism, and its wide spread sympathy; the almost forcing an entrance into the Secretary of State’s bureau itself, and converting it into a Fenian meeting-room, to pass resolutions in. What may next occur? Will the very boudoir of the Queen itself be secure from their intrusion? Is not this suggestive of many unpleasant subjects? Should it not lead our rulers to a timely consideration of some remedy without which the evil must daily increase. And first, to the consideration of the real cause;—is it not evident that it is to be traced up to our over-grown population; if so, what is the natural remedy? Has not a good and wise Providence provided one, and given it to our country? Why has God bestowed upon Britain the vast Australian continent, with its fair sunny fertile plains, all but destitute of inhabitants. The enquiry will be made, how is it to be done? May it not also be asked, Why has our Government so many of her ships of war lying idle and useless, laid up, as it is said, in ordinary. Why not employ them in transporting this starving population to those parts which only want hands to draw forth and develop their abundance. But if it be said those ships are not suitable, or would require so much to prepare them for the work, why not then employ the Great Eastern, which is now idle, a reproach to the age we live in, as though it were a step in advance of it. A few trips of that huge leviathan would soon make a perceptible diminution of our surplus population, carrying as it can do some 10,000 at a time. But where are the means for the transport of those who go, as well as for the feeding of those who remain? Are they not also provided, by using a portion of the poor rates for the final removal of the evil? Is not this quite feasible; is it not the simple solution of the difficulty?

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Let us not then trouble ourselves about conveying the flocks and herds of Australia here, but rather try to carry our hungry mouths to them there.

When we see our surplus population compelled to abide in Unions, the healthful state of the mind is destroyed, they be-come mentally diseased, every good principle is impaired; they are incapable of doing anything for their own welfare, or for the land to which they nominally belong, but in which, really, they have no stake, and live in as prisoners. Crime then becomes natural to them; they see no sin in committing it, and from which they are only restrained by force. To substitute a new colony for the hateful Union, would be to impart new life, new energy, and new spirit to them and to the empire at large; it would be their regeneration, whilst, at the same time, it would be the removal of a heavy weight from those left behind. The recent explorers of Australia have brought to light fertile regions in land of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which would afford comfortable homes for millions, and enable us to raise many substances which we now derive from foreign powers, and at the same time insure the prosperity of the new colony.