Page:Emigration - a paper read at the Burdett Hall, Limehouse.djvu/10

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Miss Rye sailed in the Hibernia, from the port of Liverpool, on the 28th of May last, with 110 single women, 8 families, and 11 young men. She says, in her note to the Standard, written just before starting, "Montreal, London, Hamilton, Peterborough, Toronto, and Ottawa, are all looking out for us, and asking for a share."

It is sad to think that what they require, and we have to spare—that is, labor—cannot, for want of funds, be put in the right place: that which is poverty and weakness to us, would be riches and strength to them.

The general objection, or argument, against "sending away the bone and muscle of the country" has very little bone and muscle in the shape of argument about it. People without employment very soon lose their bone and muscle, and the only thing that remains in vigor is a hungry stomach. Relieve the labour market, give sufficient employment and fair wages to working men, and good food to their growing children, and you will have plenty of bone and muscle: only give room, and young oaks will grow up to supply the place of those that are removed.

We learn, as we go to press, from the "Standard," and other sources—and here we take the opportunity of saying, that the poor of the East of London owe a deep debt of gratitude to the "Standard," for the way in which it has advocated their cause;—we learn from the "Standard," and other sources, that Canada is complaining that it is not the bone and muscle we are sending them, but the refuse and the worthless; and this, along with the death of Mr. Buchanan, the late superintendent of the emigration movement in Canada, has produced a hitch in our colonial emigration machinery, the colonists refusing to convey the emigrants inland. We are assured, by the Rev. Mr. Kitto, that this difficulty will soon be removed, "full instructions having been given on this head;" so that the emigrant need fear no lion in the way. The people of Canada have no canine propensities, like the Canaanites; neither are their cities wailed up to heaven, but they are ready to receive every honest and industrious emigrant with a cead millé failthe. But if they imagine we are going to send them "bone and muscle" only, they will find themselves disappointed. Our object should be to emigrate whole families: to send out only the head of the family has not been found to work well. Men sometimes forget that they have left wives and children behind them, who become a permanent burden on the ratepayers.