III.—Effects of Emigration; can it be made a means of relieving Distress?—By Rev. Thomas Jordan.
[Read May 19th, 1856.]
To any one in the habit of visiting among the poor, emigration is a subject which must often present itself. When we are going through the crowded lane and dirty alley, broad fields and an open country suggest themselves by the mere force of contrast. The crowded room in the wretched old house, raised in other times and for a different use, call to our minds the productive farm and the neat cottage of the colonist. This being a part of my daily occupation, I was naturally led to look at the tables of emigration, and to consider at what rate that tide of living beings has been running out from our shores. The circumstances of a country sometimes render this a question of peculiar importance to it. The labour of a country is of course paralysed without capital to employ it and to make judicious arrangements for it, and these two require a third great instrument of production, viz. land, before these advantages can be gained. If unwise legislation and the state of the country deprive labour of either or both of these, the effect is instantly felt by the labouring classes; they are reduced to a state of suffering. This state of things was seen in our own country some few years ago. The evils pressing on these classes were such as to call for an instant remedy. Time alone could remove the true causes of the misery. The change of laws and of the state of the
