the control of no legislation but our own. Show the world, that if the game of restriction was to be played, no country could play it with such effect and such impunity as Great Britain, which, from the outlying portions of her mighty empire, could command the riches of every zone, and every soil, and every sea that the earth contained, and could draw, with unstinted measure, the means of every luxury, and the materials of every manufacture that the combined extent of other realms could supply. This we had done, or could do, by placing our own people in different portions of our own dominions. As a remedy, colonization appeared to be suggested simply by the perception of the evil which was the permanent cause of the distress, Here we had capital that could obtain no profitable employment, labour equally kept out from employment by the competition of labour sufficient for the existing demand -and an utter inability to find any fresh employment in which that unemployed capital could be turned to account by setting that unemployed labour in motion. In our colonies, on the other hand, we had vast tracts of the most fertile land, wanting only capital and labour to cover them with abundant harvests; and from want of that capital and labour, wasting their productive energies in nourishing weeds, or at best, in giv. ing shelter to beasts. When he asked the House to colonize, what did he asked them to do but to carry the superfluity of part of one country to repair the deficiency of the other to cultivate the desert, by supplying to it the means that lay idle here; in one

to the field, the workman to his work, the hungry to his food. The benefit was not confined to the removal of the labourer, and his conveyance to the place where he could raise the food he wanted; in the colony he became a producer, an exporter, and he re-appeared in our own markets as a customer. Imagine in some village a couple of young married men, of whom one had been brought up as a weaver, and the other as a farm-labourer, but both of whom were unable to get work. Both were in the workhouse, and the spade of the one and the loom of the other were equally idle. For the maintenance of these two men and their families, the parish was probably taxed to the amount of 401. a-year. The farm-labourer and his family got a passage to Canada. Perhaps the other farm-labourers of the parish were immediately able to make a better bargain with their masters, and get somewhat better wages; but at any rate the parish gained 201. a-year by being relieved from one of the two pauper families. The emigrant got good employment; after providing himself with food in abundance, he found that he had wherewithal to buy him a good coat, instead of the smock frock he used to wear, and to supply his children with decent clothing, instead of letting them run about in rags. He sent home an order for a good quantity of broad cloth, and this order actually set the loom of his fellow pauper to work, and took him or helped to take him out of the workhouse. Thus the emigration of one man relieved the parish of two paupers, and furnished employment not only for one, but for two men.

It

removing a portion of the population enabled a country to support more inhabitants than it could before. The settlement of a few handsful of men in the United States, now swelled to thirteen or fourteen millions, had in this way created great part of our wealth at home. If the United States had never been settled, and the emigrants had stayed at home, did any one think it possible that the population of the United Kingdom would have been larger by 13,000,000 or 14,000,000 than it now was-in other words, that they should have had and maintained in as good a state as now, 40,000,000 of people within these islands? Was there any reason for sup. posing that they should now have had an additional means of supporting the addition of the original emigrants? Nay, was it not absolutely certain that, without colonizing the United States, this country would not at this moment have been able to maintain anything like the population which at present found subsistence within the limits of the United Kingdom? How large a portion of that population depended on the trade with the United States, which constituted one-sixth of our whole external trade! Without that trade what would have been the size and wealth and population of Manchester, and Liverpool, and Glasgow, and Sheffield, and Leeds, and Birmingham, and Wolverhampton-in fact, of all our great manufacturing districts? What would have been the relative condition of those agricultural districts whose industry was kept in employment by the demands of that manufacturing population?

much of the expenditure of which might indirectly be traced to the wealth created by the American trade? In fact, what would have been the wealth and population of this country had the United States never been peopled? Had another United States been settled at the same time, another eight millions would have been added to our exports, another Lancashire called into existence. In further illustration, Mr. Buller compared what colonial countries do for our trade with what old countries do; rejecting from the account countries which, like Mexico or the East Indies, are peopled by old races under the dominion of Europeans, not by actual European settlers. He would take two great classes of countries — the first being the whole of the independent nations of Europe, and the second, those which could properly be called colonial countries. He had taken down the population of the different countries of each class which entered into his list, the amount of export of British produce to each, and the amount of that produce which fell to the share of each inhabitant of each country, and he found that the European countries contained altogether a population of 211,130,000, and consumed an annual import of British goods to the value of about 21,000,000l. ; on the other hand, that the British colonies contained a total population of rather more than 36,000,000, and the exports to them amounted to rather more than the exports to all the European states, with their population of about six times as many; and the average consumption of each inhabitant of the colonial countries was no less than

ropean countries was only 2s. a head. The question occurred, what was the cost of extending these advantages, by bridging over the sea for the transit of the emigrant? He then adverted to the old plan of colonization, the disposal of land by free grants fatal to the working for wages and preventing the direct benefit of emigration to this country; and then he described Mr. Wakefield's system of substituting the sale of waste lands at "a sufficient price," for the gift, devoting the proceeds to emigration. Even a partial trial of these principles had been so successful, that to the Australian colonies, where the sale of land was commenced in 1832, while the emigration for the eight years previous was only 11,711, in the next ten years it was 104,487; to all colonies during the former period, it was 352,580, an average of 44,072 per annum, in the latter period 661,039, a yearly average of 66,104. In the nine years commencing from 1833, nearly 2,000,000l. had been realised by the sale of land, of which 1,100,000l. raised in New South Wales alone had conveyed out 52,000 selected emigrants.

In the United States, with a low price and large exceptional grants, since 1795, when the sale of lands began, 23,366,4341. sterling had been realized; 14,000,000 in the seven years ending in 1840. Mr. Buller adverted to the expediency of sending out society in a complete form, with its proportion of gentry; formerly the practice in our colonies, discontinued when the establishment of convict colonies threw the discredit of "transportation" on emigrating, but recently revived under the new

system in the Australian Colonies, while more men of good family had settled in New Zealand in the three years, since the beginning of 1840, than in British North America in the first thirty years of the present century. He therefore advocated no untried experiment, nor did he advocate compulsory emigration; he deprecated any thing like making emigration an alternative of the workhouse, or even inducing persons to emigrate who did not do so spontaneously. But the time was gone when emigration was regarded as a punishment any more than was the acceptance of a cadetship. The prejudice was gone; and he did imagine that the attempt to appeal to it by the agency of stale nicknames was not likely to be made in our day, had he not been undeceived by some most furious invectives against the gentlemen who signed the city memorials, which were recently delivered at Drury-lane theatre on one of those nights on which the legitimate drama was not performed. He could not imagine that his esteemed friend the Member for Stockport, who was reported on that occasion to have been very successful in representing the character of a bereaved grand-mother, could help on sober reflection feeling some compunction for having condescended to practise on the ignorance of his audience by the use of claptraps so stale, and representations so unfounded, and for going out of his way to bring just the same kind of unjust charges against honest men engaged in an honest cause as he launched so indignantly at others in his own pursuit of a great public cause. He must attribute this deviation from his usual candour to the in

fluence of the unseen genius of the place in which he spoke ("hear," and a laugh,") and suppose that he believed it would be out of keeping in a theatre to appeal to men's passions otherwise than by a fiction. He only desired the further carrying out of principles already recognized, and necessary preliminary inquiry into some points not yet fully settled, such as, 'what is a "sufficient price" for land in the several Colonies?' 'should the whole, or only a part of the proceeds of the land sales be appropriated to emigration;' 'whether the system could not be applied to Canada, and the Cape of Good Hope;' and whether it might not be advisable, for immediate use, to raise a loan on the security of the future sale of lands?' But he left the consideration of those matters to Government; not, however, as a question to be discussed by one particular department as mere matter of detail, or as a mere Colonial question, but as one of general import to the condition of England. He concluded by moving: "That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying that she will take into her most gracious consideration the means by which extensive and systematic colonization may be most effectually rendered available for augmenting the resources of her Majesty's empire, giving additional employment to capital and labour, both in the United Kingdom and in the Colonies, and thereby bettering the condition of her people."

Lord Ashley seconded the motion.

Mr. Sharman Crawford totally objected to "the transportation of the people;" advocating instead,

possession of land at home by means of small holdings, which had proved very successful in the North of Ireland, There were 15,000,000 acres in the United Kingdom on which to employ the people. He also advocated the repeal of the Corn-laws, and reduction of the sugar duties, reduced expenditure, and reduced taxation. Selecting young persons for emigration was but taking away the life-blood of the country; and when Mr. Buller talked of the emigrant's sending home a surplus, where was he to get it, when he was expressly made dependent for support on any terms that he could get? Mr. Crawford moved as an amendment, "That the resources derivable from the lands, manufactures, and commerce, of the United Kingdom, if fully brought into action, are adequate to afford the means of giving employment and supplying food to the whole population; and that, therefore, before any measures be adopted for removing to foreign lands any portion of that population, it is the first duty of this House to take into consideration the measures necessary for the better application of these resources to the employment and support of the people.'

Mr. John Fielden seconded the amendment.

Mr. Gally Knight supported Mr. Buller's motion; backing his arguments with quotations from Colonel Torrens and Mr. Wakefield, to show that an extended scheme of colonization could only be conducted under Government superintendence. Contrary to Mr. Buller's opinion, however, he could see no strong objection to the employment of poor-rates in paying

Lord Stanley professed entire concurrence in the principles and sentiments of Mr. Buller's speech; but the motion if it were adopted, he said, would have the effect of raising delusive hopes, and exaggerated expectations that never could be realized; and he undertook to establish that an efficient system of colonization and emigration was at that moment in operation, and had been for years under the direct and immediate control and superintendence of Her Majesty's Government. Briefly remarking that to Mr. Crawford's motion he could not assent, though he did not dispute that the great landed proprietors of the country could improve the condition of the labouring classes, Lord Stanley proceeded to describe the manner in which by means of agents in every quarter, Government superintendence was actually extended to every emigrant in North America, even from Connaught until he reached his friends in the most distant wilds of Canada; 34,000 emigrants having been landed at the Government agency office in Quebec during the past year. The total number of persons who emigrated under similar protection during the last two years was 246,936. Emigration to Canada had progressively increased from 7,439 in 1839, to 44,374 in 1842. At what expense had those tens of thousands been transferred from their native land to a distant Colony? the total cost amounted to only 12,3881. or 5s. 8d. a head. If the expectation were held out of very extensive emigration in the hands of Government, would equal good be effected at as small an expense as Government had incurred in that instance? Were they quite certain that direct Go

vernment aid would have the effect of increasing the amount of emigration? And, assuming that it must have that effect, then he would ask the House whether they felt thoroughly assured that it would be quite right, by such a process, to disturb the relations now subsisting between the demand for labour and the supply? They were bound first to ask themselves would the proposed plan increase emigration? and, if so, would the adoption of such a scheme prove favourable to the parties going out; and again, would it be favourable to parties going out to try their own voluntary labour? Was it, also, not a plan calculated to paralyze the exertions of those who, at their own expense, were preparing to transfer their wives and families from the new to the old country? Would it not have the effect of raising the freight and expenses of sending out emigrants? Would it not likewise expose all those who had exhausted their means in going out to colonies to all the evils of undue competition - a competition which they could not have expected, for which they could not be prepared, and with which, therefore, it was impossible that they could successfully contend? The question of competition was a very serious one, and he trusted that no honourable member then present could for a moment suppose that it was a matter which might be despised. It was with great truth he said, that the competition in Canada was of a very serious kind-perhaps as great there as elsewhere. There was not only the competition for labour amongst the old settlers, but amongst the people coming both from this country