CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION.

131

The ability and integrity of the Colonial Secretaries of State during the administration of Sir George Gipps, and of Sir George himself, are indisputable; but then they insisted on knowing whether shoes fitted or not better than the people who wore, and insisted, too, that they should wear them. Fortunately the prosperity of the colony did not entirely depend on the crotchets of a colonial minister, or of a governor, although both could, and did, seriously retard its progress.

While the Legislative Council were contesting, inch by inch, the "elementary rights of Englishmen," the grass was growing, the sheep were breeding, the stockmen were exploring new pastures, and the frugal industry of settlers was replacing and increasing the capital lost by wild speculations.

Before Sir George Gipps retired, in 1846, he was able to announce that the revenue exceeded the expenditure, and the exports the imports, while the glut of labour which followed his arrival had been succeeded by a demand which the squatters termed a dearth.

CHAPTER XI.

EMIGRATION.

EFFECTS OF CESSATION OF GRANTS OF LAND-CREDIT DUE TO SOUTH AUSTRALIAN COMMISSIONERS-ANXIETY OF SQUATTERS TO BRING DOWN WAGES THEIR ALPHA AND OMEGA, TO BREED SHEEP AND GROW WOOL-SEVEN COMMITTEES OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL-THE CONTRAST-BOYD-CAMPBELL.

WHEN

HEN grants of land ceased altogether, and were superseded by sales, the character of emigration to Australia, and even the motives which directed it, were materially changed. To Australia, previous to 1831, in small numbers, proceeded the same class of persons who by thousands have resorted, during the last ten years, to Canada, and, above all, to the western states of America-families with capital varying from fifty to five hundred pounds, intent on living on land of their own.

The distance, and the then little known capabilities, of Australia would, twenty years ago, have made it, under any circumstances, a difficult task to direct towards its shores a similar stream of colonists; but the new system of so raising the price and the quantity of land, sold so as to discourage the purchases of all but the wealthy, and of devoting

the proceeds to the importation of able-bodied labourers for their use, altered the whole character of the free colonization. The new system was not without merits as a temporary expedient, adopted in order to supply, as rapidly as possible, the demand for shepherd servants occasioned by the abolition of the assignment system, and to people the shores of the newly-settled districts in Port Phillip and South Australia. But as a permanent measure the moral and social defects were, and are, very serious.

By the emigration land fund system the parent state is relieved of a certain amount of (surplus ?) labour without expense, and the colonies are supplied with the same, in proportion to the amount received for the purchase or rent of land. According to the principles of the system, those who are rich enough to purchase or rent land (the minimum of rent being 4,000 sheep) have a right to dictate what manner of labour shall be supplied for the money. The sort of labourers who suit the employers of labour are not often those who would contribute most to the intelligence and education of a colony. For a long series of years the Australian flockowners' beau-ideal of an emigrant was an able-bodied single man from an agricultural county— humble, ignorant, and strong.

The South Australian commissioners exhibited one halfpennyworth of sense amid gallons of nonsense and jobbery by introducing the system of pairs of both sexes. This was the one good feature in their system.

The Australian squatters, and all persons more or less in communication with, and able to influence, the home government, like our own agricultural and the American manufacturing interest, held two very strong opinions-first, that their pursuit was the only calling of any consequence to the State; and, secondly, that it could not be protected too much. They always wanted labour, and it could not be too cheap. We find them constantly desiring to bring down wages to a level which, if reached, would have very soon put a stop to all emigration, for it would have been lower than in England, and that was not worth crossing the sea to earn. We find them constantly desiring to dictate what class of labourers they would have, and that class specially in reference to sheep. We find them depreciating, not untruthfully perhaps, but untruly, the character of the Australian soil and of the Australian agricultural settlers. To them the Alpha and Omega of the Australian colonies was-breed sheep, to grow wool and tallow.

They succeeded to a certain point. Even when claiming a return to a low price of land, many desired to keep up the size of lots, so as to exclude small farmers from freehold.

RESULTS OF PAUPER EMIGRATION.

133

The result we now see. For fifteen years the agents of the colony and the emigration commissioners have been recruiting and sending out emigrant recruits. Their most successful operations have been conducted in times of distress in the home labour market. The fund in the early period of the system down to 1839, when all the colonists were madly engaged in nodding at the government continental land sales, was sufficient to pay the passages out of fifty thousand emigrants. For a time the market was apparently glutted, but the increase of stock, and the judicious measures introduced by Caroline Chisholm, the only individual who has ever brought practical talent of the first order to bear on colonization, soon absorbed them. Soon arose an increased demand for labour. The land fund was dried up; the sales were few and far between, except in the copper-mining colony of South Australia; but by degrees the rents from pastoral occupations of crown lands became so large that security was found for an emigration debt, to which was added, from time to time, the produce of sales of town and suburban, and, as the population increased, occasionally of special lots of rural, land. But it occurred more than once that when labour was needed in the colony there were no funds, and, when funds were forwarded to England, that the commissioners found a difficulty in collecting suitable emigrants.

Indeed, until the discovery of the gold-fields, very few, except the utterly destitute among the labouring classes, turned their attention to Australia.

The regulations of the emigration commissioners, as prescribed to them by the pastoral interest, excluded families as much as possible, and so virtually it became the office of the commissioners to transmit pairs of paupers."

66

Thus all classes were taught to look on a free passage to Australia as a sort of pauper relief; and the aristocratic representatives, although often discontented with their bad bargains supplied by the commissioners, were always anxious not to have emigrants who would be "too independent." Thus, although the emigration land system had the effect of rapidly transplanting many thousand pauper souls, it has also had the effect of discouraging the emigration of the working class above the condition of paupers, just as a lax poor-law increases pauperism, and of excluding those in whom the domestic affections and social virtues were strongest.

The large number who emigrated under the auspices of the emigration commissioners were isolated units, who could seldom read or write, or, if they could, were unable to find any easy means of com

municating with their friends, of transmitting money, or paying the passage of a parent, a wife, or a child.

The true interest of a parent state, in regard to such prolific lifesustaining colonies as the Australian, is to promote colonization by industrious families of all classes: their calling is of no consequence, so long as they are able and willing to support themselves.

But it has been the policy of our government to maintain a pauperizing system for the mere purpose of supplying pastoral proprietors with hired servants.

There is a very close connection between the various degrees of the labouring classes, and that is a suicidal course of colonization which gathers up only the poorest and least respectable, and offers inducements to those inclined to emigrate to affect pauperism, if they do not endure it.

There is no more reason why a public fund should pay the passages of emigrants than that it should find work or provisions. Committees on emigration were appointed by the Legislative Council in 1839, when the bounty system was in operation, in 1842, in 1843, and in 1845; and in 1843 and 1844 committees on the "distressed labourers" of Sydney collected important evidence bearing on the same subject. It is worthy of remark that in these, as in committees appointed by the British Parliament, witnesses have seldom been called from among the respectable mechanics and labourers, who are most interested in emigration, and best acquainted with the emigrating classes.

The committee of 1839 reported that emigrants were being introduced at the rate of 12,500 souls a year, at a cost of about £17 per adult, expressed a decided preference for bounty over government emigrants, and recommended a loan to be raised on the security of the land fund, and devoted to emigration a bounty at £19 a head for adults only, excluding children, and very humbly prayed that the crown would devote the land fund, which they calculated at not less than £150,000 a year, to emigration purposes. It is curious to remark that the committee object to the introduction of emigrants over forty years of age. The government emigration agent had invited emigrants of fifty years of age. The gold discoveries have recently enlightened the pastoral interests to the value of parents of even sixty years of age.

In 1842 the committee repeat their preference for the bounty system, announcing that in the preceding twelve months 23,000 emigrants had been introduced, and the cessation of emigration, in consequence of the falling off of the land fund, to an extent unexpected by the home government. They gently hint at the propriety of a reduc

THE HUNDRED THOUSAND SHEEPMEN.

135 tion of the price of land to 5s. an acre. The tone of the document is that of a respectable nominee council.

The committee of 1843 represented the wealthy squatting class, and the majority took an entirely colonial and pastoral view of the labour question. They wanted shepherds as quickly and as cheaply as possible, and nothing else. No seven-shilling a week farmer-no cottage-destroying landlord-no unlimited time-labour manufacturerno woman-employing coal-worker-could have taken a narrower view of the question.

There is unfortunately in all of us a fund of selfishness which, when unchecked by public opinion or political opposition, is apt to grow into injustice and tyranny. In private life many of the squatters were excellent, generous, hospitable men; but one large proportion had been accustomed to convict servants, who cost nothing beyond their board and lodging, and another consisted of young bachelors of capital, who arrived in the colony to make a fortune, intent on returning to the old country as soon as it was made.

The one despised and the other were indifferent to the opinions of the working classes. Both dreamed of naturalizing in Australia the miserable wages of the southern counties of England and the highland counties of Scotland.

To resist the aggressions of Sir George Gipps on the pastoral interest the squatters formed themselves into a protective association, and by an easy process the association, founded to resist unjust confiscation and taxation, branched off into a combination for permanently lowering the wages of the colony. At the head of this association was the late Mr. Benjamin Boyd. Mr. Boyd arrived with the express purpose of making investments at the time (1841) that the colony was in a general state of insolvency, or, as he expressed it, "in a gam." A yacht of the Royal Squadron, an apparently unlimited capital, an imposing personal appearance, fluent oratory, and a fair share of commercial acuteness, acquired on the Stock Exchange, at once and deservedly placed him at the head of the squatocracy. His aim was the possession of a million sheep; he was the chief of the hundred thousand sheepmen, with whom he combined to obtain fixity of tenure for their sheep pastures, to put down small settlers, and to reduce wages.

At the period we are describing, from 1841 to 1844, the colonial labour market presented the most curious contradictions. The bounty agents were pouring in a crowd of most unsatiable persons, who, once landed, were soon left to shift for themselves. Among the mer