forgotten that an elaborate and carefully thought-out plan of emigration has once been tried. The most hopeful and reasonable system of colonisation I have ever heard of was that of Wakefield and Torrens, and when it broke down, there seems to be no further place for state action. Thirdly, wide-reaching plans of migration ignore the fact, that every movement of population is made up of the separate movements of so many units—e.g. the same cause which leads a man to move to America in 1870, may bring him to Australia in 1880, and back to Ireland in 1887. Nothing short of omniscience would be able to rightly adjust the actions of these million of units; no association or state department has sufficient knowledge or pliability to handle the countless questions which the correct guidance of emigration necessarily involves. Lastly, if there is anything well calculated to make immigration distasteful to the American and colonial working-man, it surely is the proposal to send out those who have neither sufficient providence nor energy to go of their own accord. Of course this difficulty can be covered by calling them "able-bodied and industrious," but there can hardly be a better test of the presence of those qualities than the capacity of getting together the trifling sum required for an emigrant's passage. We have seen the objection of English colonists to pauper immigrants, and it is highly pertinent to observe that:—
"There is constant evidence that the term pauper' can be given a very wide interpretation, and that the reasonable prejudice to bona fide paupers may be easily extended, so as to cover a much wider circle of cases."[1]
And Professor Smith's instructive article, already frequently quoted, in his contemptuous reference to "Mr. Tuke's committee or some charitable Lady Cathcart" is evidence of a similar sentiment in the United States. On the whole the conclusion is irresistibly forced on us, that any organised action in the matter of emigration is undesirable. Individual self-interest has been the main force in the enormous exodus of the last fifty years, and it is a power which is far more efficient than any that could possibly be employed instead of it. The real duty of all persons in positions of influence, is to see that the people of these islands are fitted for whatever task they may undertake; that those who stay at home have sufficient general and technical training to make them efficient producers of wealth, and that those who desire to leave us, have full information as to the best place for them to transfer their labour to. Our consuls and other officials ought to be able to throw much light on such matters, and they are more in earnest about them than they were. The following statements are examples of what may be done in this respect. Writing of the South African gold-fields, Mr. Williams says:—
"Emigrants who have a trade can make a living in this country, but it is not a country for the million. The climate, the distance from a market, and the great cost of living, are all unsuited to the poor man; and any attempt to develop the country by the introduction of funds devoted to philanthropic purposes, is to be deprecated."[2]
