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herself, so she has been here up to the present, but has arranged with a gentleman, six miles from Maritzburg, to go this week as governess to his family for £40 per annum."

Miss R. had been a nursery governess in England, and had tried for six months to obtain employment without success, before she resolved to seek her fortune in Australia. In less than two months she went to a situation, of which she writes :

"I am now between 200 and 300 miles north of Sydney. I am very comfortable, but still I find Australian bush life very different from dear old England. Í have one pupil, fifteen years old, her education has been rather neglected, so that she is not too far advanced for me. I have no one to interfere with me in the least-I am only afraid I shall be spoilt here for holding another situation where I might have more to do. My salary is £10, which I consider very small for coming out to Australia for."

Miss W., a drawing mistress, very slightly qualified in other respects, having lost her connexion, through several years' attendance on a sick mother, found it impossible to obtain remunerative employment at home. One month after landing, she writes:

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My brother met me at Melbourne, and suggested that I might keep a day school for children from five years old to seven or eight. I have commenced, and hope, through God's help, to be able to transmit to you, after a time, though I have had many expenses. I have twelve children, each pays a shilling a week. I have the promise of more, and hope to increase it to twenty."

The Misses H., two sisters, went out to Natal. In June last the eldest sister wrote, remitting the whole sum advanced them.

"We have made a great many nice friends here; Mr. B. has been particularly kind to us, in obtaining us situations, &c., and I shall never regret leaving England. I should very much like my mother to join us, but do not think it advisable at present. I like the free easy life people lead here, but I am afraid what is pleasure to us, would be privation to mamma."

Fourthly, having thus shown you some of the results produced by the society's working, I now proceed to lay before you its needs. This society, like all other societies, needs money. But as its assistance to emigrants is confined to loans, and its working expenses are extremely small, a certain amount, once subscribed, would enable it to continue its operations for many years. There seems every reason to hope that the money lent will be returned, even without having recourse to the securities-for, of £150 advanced between June, 1861, and May, 1862 (before the formation of the society), more than £70 had been returned by August last, the earliest advances being only due in this present month. It is, too, worthy of notice that while about £500 has been advanced to emigrants by the society since its formation, in May, 1862, more than £800 has been paid by those emigrants themselves during the same time. At present the society's funds are almost exhausted, and if it does not receive continued support from the public, it will soon be reduced to the condition of a sister association which "confines itself, at present, to furnishing advice to intending emigrants." If a sum of from £800 to £1,000 could now be raised, the society could continue operations, at its present rate of working, for some years,

and it is much to be wished that this could be done; for the society's work, though small, is valuable, both as introducing into the colonies practical, well-principled women, able to make themselves generally useful; and also, as assisting a much suffering and most deserving class, to obtain remunerative employment. Since Miss Rye first began her work, in June, 1861, more than 100 educated women have been enabled to obtain comfortable situations, and this while only a very few ports have been open to the society, and while its organisation has been hardly completed. Could it continue its operations for a few years, there seems every reason to hope that, with more numerous openings, and more matured organisation, it would be able to withdraw considerable numbers from the superfluous workers of England.

On the Superintendence of Female Emigrants. By ELLEN LAYTON.

IN 1849, a society was formed, called "The British Ladies' Female Emigrant Society," whose objects are:

1st. To provide matrons for the superintendence and training of single women on the voyage, and to secure a home in London for those permanently employed, when they return from their voyages, and are waiting for re-appointments.

2nd. To visit emigrants at the ports, instructing, counselling, and assisting them, and placing the young and friendless under the matron's special care.

3rd. To provide and distribute bibles, books, and tracts, and materials for useful employment, that the voyage might be made a season of industry and improvement, and not of idleness and demoralisation.

4th. To organise corresponding committees in the colonies, by whom the emigrants might be visited on their arrival.

The above plans as far as they have been carried into effect, have answered well. The number of emigrants visited since 1849 has amounted to more than 439,000. The obstacles raised against the employment of regularly appointed permanent matrons, to go out with emigrants and to return again for another party, were, a few years ago, removed, so far as the colony of New South Wales is concerned, by the Government at Sydney, liberally responding to the appeal of this society, that they would grant a fixed salary to such matrons as performed their duties well, and would defray the expense of their homeward passage.

Eleven matrons are now permanently employed, and the Emigration Board at Sydney have stated "that they fully appreciate the benefit accruing to the cause of emigration, and are highly satisfied with the manner in which they perform their duties."

In consequence of the favourable report of the Sydney Government,

the Melbourne Government has also promised to give the system a fair trial.

It is most earnestly to be desired that all colonies to which large numbers of single women are sent would try the plan. The importance of rendering the voyage a season for improvement cannot be over-estimated.

The idle and frivolous habits encouraged or contracted on board ship, utterly unfit many women for their duties in the colony. Any one acquainted with the subject will testify to the immense importance of maintaining strict discipline and industrious habits among emigrants, especially among the women; and it is to be hoped that all who are entrusted with the management of emigration, will see that the additional cost of superintendence is more than saved to the colony, if the emigrants are protected from the evils which have too often made them a burthen instead of a blessing to the land of their adoption.

It is necessary that a matron should be able to devote her whole thoughts and energy to her work-that she should have a desire to take each successive party of emigrants into the colony in, if possible, better order than the preceding. But if she is not permanently appointed, she is perhaps sea-sick, certainly a novice in all that regards ship life, anxious about her own prospects on arrival, and in common with other emigrants only wishing the voyage well ended.

It is true, there is a surgeon-superintendent on board, and the matron as well as all emigrants are under his control; but how could any public institution, say an industrial school for girls, be properly conducted without an efficient matron-with no one but a medical officer to direct and regulate the daily duties?

The expense is often adduced as a reason why the plan cannot be adopted. In reply, the committee would remark, that if it cost on an average £13 for the transmission of an adult from this country to Australia, let the number of women sent in each ship be reducedthus, let 95 go instead of 100; and let the money that would have been spent on the other 5, pay a well-qualified matron, and it will be found in the end a saving of expense to the colony.

Before bringing this paper to a conclusion, it may not be out of place to give briefly some information as to the various modes in which emigration is carried on. These are:

1st. By assisted emigration, i.e., when by the payment of a small sum, beginning as low as ten shillings, female domestic servants are sent to Australia by the Government Emigration Board; they are provided with bedding and mess utensils, and sent out in first-class ships, in which the provisions are abundant in quantity and excellent in quality.

2nd. By the payment of a portion of the passage money in the colony. In this case, some one there must pay in the requisite sum (which is in some instances as low as £4), and nominate the person they wish to send from England. A passage remittance certificate is then sent home, and if it be made available for a ship chartered by the

Government Emigration Board, the person so nominated shares the advantages, and goes out with the emigrants described under Class 1. All persons sailing in Government emigrant ships are assembled at the port of embarkation, and there received into a depôt, where they are inspected by a surgeon, who certifies that they are in good health; their boxes are looked over that it may be ascertained that they have the proper outfit, which in these ships need be but small, as the clothes are washed weekly during the voyage. Emigrants usually remain in these depôts from one to four days, and are there fed and lodged at Government expense, before being taken on board ship. The comfort, after a long journey, especially in cold or wet weather, of finding a depôt where a good fire, food, and beds are supplied free of cost to the emigrants, where they can dry their clothes, and go in an orderly manner on board ship, cannot be too highly estimated. The same provision is made for them on landing in the colony, only there they are maintained free of cost until they have the offer of respectable situations at the current rate of wages.

3rd. By means of partial payment or of loan-thus, if a woman pay £9, the emigration agent pays £9, and she is free on arrival in the colony. But if she pay but £3, he pays £3; the remainder being paid off by instalments within a given time, after her arrival in the colony.

4th. By paying the whole passage money and sailing in any private passenger ship that may be going to the colony desired.

There have been other plans for emigrating; some by private assistance given by societies, or by individuals—or by land grants, the money for the passage being paid by some one who thus acquires a right to nominate emigrants according to the quantity of land he purchases in the colony; but the usual mode of emigrating is by one or other of the plans above described.

Inadequacy of Emigration as a Means of Raising Wages in Old Countries. Being a Criticism of the Views of Mr. Hermann Merivale and Mr. Henry Fawcett. By CHARLES DRYSDALE, M.D.

THE most fundamental point, it seems to me, in social science, is the doctrine of wages. So vast a portion of society lives upon the remu⚫neration of their toil, that if we could but clearly ascertain the best and most feasible means of raising wages, we should have done more than any other investigation could accomplish towards augmenting the happiness, the longevity, and health of the society in which we reside. Indeed, it is to be hoped that the progress of civilisation will gradually abolish the distinction between the labouring and nonlabouring classes, and, in the end, cause each individual to become a

worker in some department of the field of human progress, and thus tend indefinitely towards a period, when the question of high wages, or ample remuneration for toil, will come to be considered, as it ought to be, the sine qua non of a highly civilised community. The end which, it appears to me, after long considering the subject, ought to be aimed at by any society which claims to be considered as truly civilised, is that the remuneration for the toil of its professionalists, mechanics, and labourers, of either sex, should be so good, as to forbid their having any expectation of bettering their condition by changing their native soil for a far-off and foreign shore. In other words, the tendency of all true social progress is towards equalising the remuneration of labour in old countries, such as Great Britain, France, &c., with that in North America and Australia, and so long as there exists, as there does at present, an excessive difference between the rate of wages in Britain, France, &c., as compared with Australia and the United States, so long will there be evidence, it appears to me, of a wide-spread ignorance of the fundamental doctrines of social science in the above named old countries. Emigration, I believe, should only be practised for the pleasure of adventure; whenever it becomes a necessity, it is the sign of a crowded state of the labour market, and consequently betokens a most imperfect knowledge of the most elementary conditions of human happiness in the countries where it most prevails.

The title of this paper has been suggested to me by the appearance within the last two years, of two works by authors of high scientific reputation; the first, a communication by Mr. Hermann Merivale to the British Association of 1862, the latter a dissertation by Mr. Henry Fawcett in his "Manual of Political Economy," published this year. Both of these gentlemen have, in my opinion, been too lavish in their praises of emigration, as a remedy for the sufferings of the poor, in this and other old countries; and it is in order to, lessen, if possible, the evil effects of their statements on this subject, that I have thought it worth while contributing a paper to the proceedings of this Department. The author who perhaps has written at the greatest length upon the illusory nature of the relief afforded by emigration to the working classes of old countries, is one whose name will always be remembered with gratitude in Scotland. I refer to Dr. Chalmers. In his "Principles of Political Economy," edition 1856, speaking on the subject of emigration, he

says

"The felt necessity of emigration from a country is, in itself, a practical evidence that its resources are not illimitable. We may rest assured that, if other remedies for the destitution of the people were at hand, they would have the preference over this. Could home colonisation, or the invention of new employments, or the increase of capital, or the opening of foreign trade have furnished ready and withal indefinite resources for our population, we should never have witnessed to any great extent among them a disposition to renounce the scenes of their infancy, with all the charms and associations of home, for the chances and the perils of distant and unknown lands. . . . . The probability is, then, that even emigration will not remove, will not eventually alleviate

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