instead of employing servants only, live always at one or the other—farm their own farms, in fact. These could afford to pay £20—never wanted, or wished, to see wages less.
"There is nothing, perhaps, that injures a colony more than giving the working population a bad character. Respectable people of capital get alarmed: yet many charges have been brought against servants which I consider unjust."
This plain speaking and unusual style of colonial publication - hard truths without acidity—did its work. A considerable reform was introduced. Government protection was granted to friendless young women; an agent appointed to superintend and witness the agreements with men on board ship; and the colonial press, when furnished with the materials, did good service to emigration reform. The whole cost to government of the guarding and distribution of the emigrants was little more than £100. The other expenses were borne by Mrs. Chisholm and the friends whom her honest, clear-sighted policy had made among persons of all politics and various religious views.
In 1843, before a committee of the Legislative Council, which was appointed to consider the condition of the "distressed labourers," and especially of three hundred parties with large families whom, in the depressed condition of the colony, the settlers could not afford to engage, Mrs. Chisholm took another step forward. She proposed, and entered into, the details of a plan which, at a very trifling expense, would have placed these three hundred families in a self-supporting position on land, instead of continuing to receive 3s. a day for nominal labour on government works.
Sir George Gipps's instructions precluded him from granting or leasing of crown land for this valuable, or any other purpose, except feeding sheep. As he expressed it, "he was sent out to carry out the Wakefield system," and could turn neither to the right nor to the left, Nevertheless, on private property, on clearing leases, Mrs. Chisholm succeeded in placing some families of mechanics.
In the course of her examination it appears that the government had then expended £2,500 in casual relief. For £1,000 she considered the whole distress could be extinguished, and the people not only removed, but placed where they could do some good for themselves. "The distress will increase unless proper measures are taken, but if they are promptly taken it will not be very serious." There are several "trades mentioned in the list that .are not required; for instance, I have only had two applications for shoemakers; for tailors four. The number stated to be unemployed is forty-seven. About twenty months
