right to advert to the practical importance of that question in connexion with social economy. Irrespective of its relation to the value of the ordinary investments of the poorer classes, its solution would enable us to measure the real economical progress of the country, and to estimate the means and prospect of removing or remedying some of the chief evils in its social condition which find their source in poverty.

It is gratifying, however, to observe, that if the financial history. and statistics of recent years leave the material progress of the community, and the growth of its resources for social amelioration, to some extent, in doubt, they afford clear indications of its moral progress, even where, economically speaking, they contain proofs of disaster and decline. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the financial statement already referred to, observed that two special calamities-the cotton famine in Lancashire, and the failure of the crops in Ireland - had deprived the Exchequer of a very large amount of revenue. "We trace," he added, "the effect of the consequent distress in the diminished revenue from malt and spirits. We fail to find any similar diminution in the revenue from tea, sugar, and tobacco. The more we examine the figures, the more I think we shall be disposed to embrace a conclusion that a change of habits is making its way among the mass of the people, and that a transition is taking place from the stronger and more inflammatory, to the milder and more wholesome drinks." Nor is this the only bright side of our social condition which one of the calamities in question brought into view, in the manner in which it was borne by the sufferers, and relieved by the rest of the community. The task of the Legislature and the Executive Government would have been difficult, indeed, had it been found that with the growth of manufactures and commerce either the fortitude or the benevolence of the national character had decreased. In fact, all that was found necessary on the part of the State to meet the paralysis during two years of the chief manufacture of England, was an Act late in the last session of Parliament, to enable the Treasury to issue an amount not exceeding £1,200,000, upon the security of local rates, for facilitating the execution of public works in the distressed manufacturing districts.

The distress of another working class, that of the milliners and dressmakers, has in the present year engaged much public attention and sympathy, and was brought under the notice of Ministers in both Houses of Parliament in the last session, but no measure of relief or supervision seems to have been thought advisable or possible on the part of the Government. It is obvious that the situation of the class of women engaged in this particular description of work forms part of a much larger social question relating to the position and employment of women generally. The employers of particular work women and their customers may do something towards rendering hours less oppressive and rooms less unwhole

some.

But there is a local question of female wages at the bottom

of the dressmakers' case, which their employers can do scarcely anything to settle satisfactorily, and the rest of society is as responsible as they are in this matter.

Reverting to the action of Government in the department of Social Economy, it seems proper to mention the principal fiscal changes introduced by the last Budget, which were three, viz., the reduction of the tea duty from 1s. 5d. to 1s. in the pound; the reduction of the income-tax from 9d. to 7d. in the pound; and the relief of incomes between £100 and £200 from the full pressure of the tax, by the allowing of a deduction of £60 from the taxable amount. The reduction of the percentage of the tax on the larger incomes is remarkable, and perhaps of questionable justice and policy, since every such reduction of direct taxation not only tends to make the pressure of indirect taxation unequal, but places an obstacle in the way of the continued reform of our fiscal system.

In this Department are considered the various questions relating to Social Economics; the conditions of industrial success, whether of nations or individuals; the relation between employers and employed; strikes and combinations; legislative interference with the hours and wages of labour; legislative regulation of professions, trades, and employment generally, and of price and means of supply; emigration, its effect, and true conditions; industrial employment of women; female emigration; industrial and economical instruction of the labouring classes; public amusements; social economics in relation to education; exercise of public and private charity; relief of the poor.

SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS.

In addition to the papers printed in the foregoing pages, the following were read in the Department:

66

Emigration." By Capt. F. H. Bagot.

"Co-operation as a Means of securing Houses for Working Men." By the Rev. James Begg, D.D.

"Co-operation; its Origin, Advocates, Progress, Difficulties, and Objects." By Alexander Campbell.

"On the Past and Present Aspects of Co-operation." By John Plummer.

"On the System of Apprenticeship; whether adapted for the present state of society." By George Hurst.

"Capital, Labour, and Trades' Societies." By Alexander Fraser. "On Hinds' Houses." By James Robb.

"Scottish Agricultural Labourers." By R. Scott Skirving. "The Necessity of appointing Public Inspectors for Rural Cottages." By the Rev. James Begg, D.D.

"On Recent Improvements in the Construction of DwellingHouses for the Working Classes in Large Towns." By James Gowans.

"On the Abuse of Yearly Societies or Benefit Clubs." By Alexander Laing.

"The Unfit Employments in which Women are now Engaged." By Emily Faithfull.

"The Employed Dressmakers and Milliners." By Joseph Pitter. "On the Cause of the Distress prevalent among Single Women." By Jessie Boucherett.

"On the Causes of the periodical occurrence of Destitution in the Highlands, and its Remedy." By John Ramsay.

"On the Operation of the Poor Laws." By Robert E. Warwick. "The Young, Aged, and Incurable in Workhouses." By Louisa Twining.

"On the Inequality of Poor-law Rating and Chargeability." By George Austin.

"Social Science in the Pentateuch." By the Rev. W. G. Blaikie, A.M.

"On the Moral Education of the Soldier." By Lavinia Solly. "The River Plate Countries as Fields for Emigration; their Products, and how they may be Utilized." By Graham Gilmour, Consul for the Republic of Uruguay.

"On the Relations of Pictorial to Industrial Art." By Robert Stewart.

"Statistics of the Relative Progress of the Free and Slave States of America." By Professor Rogers.

EMIGRATION.

In addition to the papers printed, pp. 579, 624,

Captain F. H. BAGOT read a paper on "Emigration in connexion with the Commerce and Manufactures of Great Britain," which opened with commenting on the people of this country who had neglected the subject, and left emigration to take its own course. The result has been, as the emigration returns show, that from the year 1815 to 1861, out of the total number of persons, 5,137,837,

emigrating from the British Isles, more than 3,000,000 went to the States of America, and ceased to be British subjects. Of the remainder, only 732,000 found their way to Australia, where they have become more valueable to the mother country than they would have been in any other part of the world. Of these nearly 300,000 were assisted to emigrate by the colonies, at a cost of little short of £4,000,000 sterling, or about £14 per head. It appears from trade returns that in 1859 the United States imported British goods at the rate of 16s. 6d. per head of their population; the North American colonies at the rate of £1 8s. 7d.; and the Australian colonies at the rate of £13 10s. 9d. It also appears that in 1862 the total exports of this country, amounting to £124,137,812, were distributed in the following proportions :

Upon the returns Captain Bagot grounded a charge of improvident neglect on the part of those who have an interest in extending foreign markets, for not using means to direct a much larger number of emigrants to Australia. It had been argued that, as England has given up the crown lands to the colonies, they are bound to defray the cost of emigration out of the sales; but as England is even more interested in promoting emigration than are the colonies, the argument loses its point.

Australia can supply England not only with increasing markets for her manufactures, but with abundance of raw material. Next to gold, in the value of her exports, stands wool, of which the crop was last year gathered from twenty-four millions of sheep, and was near eighty millions of pounds in weight, and more than £6,000,000 in value. The sheep also furnish articles of export in their skins, tallow, and bones; cattle and horses are abundant, and the alpaca and the camel are increasing. The productiveness of the copper mines may be estimated from the fact, that in Great Britain, the 22,000 persons employed in 1861 in mining, produced at the rate of 14 cwt. of copper, or to £62 in value per head; whereas in South Australia, the proportion to each of the 1,820 persons employed in that year was 56 cwt. of copper, or £245 17s. As to agriculture, the census of South Australia in 1861 showed that 7,090 farmers and 7,985 farm-servants cultivated, with the aid of locomotive machinery, 486,667 acres, of which 310,636 were sown with wheat, the produce being 3,410,756 bushels, of the value of £767,420, two

thirds for export. The vintage in the same colony produced last year 472,000 gallons, obtained from 3,000,000 of vines, sold at prices varying from 4s. to 10s. per gallon.

Captain Bagot concluded by urging strongly the importance of assisting emigration to Australia, as a million expended on that object would add an equal sum to the annual value of our exports, and maintained that this was the true business view of the question.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. R. R. TORRENS observed that the paper of Dr. Drysdale denied the utility of emigration, affirming that it had no effect in raising wages in the old country, and that emigration did not remove suffering; and this was followed by a statement that suffering was unnatural and unhealthy. He (Mr. Torrens) held that those propositions were erroneous. He denied that suffering was unnatural or unhealthy in the abstract. The fact of emigration did really argue suffering. In this country, the suffering that the people endured was in being too much crowded, and in having their labour and capital accumulated upon an area so small that it was found necessary to have recourse to the cultivation of the least productive land, which yielded a small amount of remuneration, in order to find employment for that capital and labour. By emigration, a wider and more remunerative field was found for that labour and capital. When they saw what was proposed as a remedy for this suffering, they would perceive that it had a very strong bearing upon the question of emigration. It was proposed that marriage should be omitted, and that thus an increase of the population should be prevented. The example of France was cited. He believed that any person who would look beneath the surface of society in France would grieve to see the practice which obtained there introduced into England. He had read the command, "Go forth and replenish the earth and subdue it." He had read it in other countries, calling aloud to civilised man to come and occupy them, and help in converting the wilderness into happy homes. He maintained that there was an entire antagonism between the philosophy of Malthus and others who agreed with it and the written and unwritten law of God. When they came to the premises upon which these doctrines were founded, the examination showed them that they were founded in error. Two elements were taken up-labour and capital-but they must have a field of employment, and that was a matter left entirely out of the question. It was a monstrous proposition to say that emigration would not raise the rate of wages in England and Ireland. By the employment of capital upon more remunerative soils, the return for the investment of that capital would be larger, and there would be a larger amount of surplus to divide amongst the labourers, and thus undoubtedly the rate of wages would be raised.

Sir HENRY FOX YOUNG said that having passed nearly the whole of his life in the colonies, and having occupied in three colonies successively the important post of Governor, he desired to make a few remarks. The subject that was first introduced had reference to that severance of her colonies from Great Britain, which had been advocated by Professor Goldwin Smith; but he (Sir Henry) must be permitted to say that, in no colonies in which he had ever been had he ever found the slightest desire on the part of the colonists to sever their connexion with this country. He might mention that in forty essays by working men which he had perused on this subject, there was a unanimous opinion against severance from the colonies. The hard doctrines of political economy which would advocate the severance, on the plea that they did not pay, were surely rebutted by the fact that they made one-third of the business of the country. He could bring personal testimony to the fact that in the various colonies of North America, South Africa, British Guiana, and in Australia, there was no desire whatever to sever from the mother country.

Mr. FAWCETT said he thought the statement so often repeated about political economy being hard-hearted, was about as unreasonable as if they were to say