pointed out no less by economic principles than by our natural views of things, we may briefly consider the state of it with regard to our own country.
The first year in which a strikingly large number of emigrants left our shores was 1847. A melancholy reason suggests itself as the explanation—the famine of the previous year. Four years after this (1851) an amazingly large number of exiles appears—no less than 254,537. This number doubles the estimated average emigration of the preceding years. If this state of things had continued for a few years, the old complaint about the excessive subdivision of land would no longer have been heard, and the small cabin and the plot of potato ground would have become an object of curiosity. It did not, however, continue, there being in the next years a gradual decrease in the numbers. In 1852 they are nearly 30,000 less, and in 1854 they are nearly one half less. This great decrease is of course partly owing to the excessive emigration of former years, partly to other causes, such as the great numbers absorbed by recruiting (that for the militia regiments having amounted last year to about 31,000 men) and I may add, it is to be hoped, as another and a great reason, the improved condition of the country at home. A large decrease in the actual emigration has at all events, taken place.
I may now lay before you a different class of statistics, which prove that the desire to emigrate is much less now than it was some years ago. This appears from the increasing amount of the remittances from foreign countries, either in the shape of passages prepaid or money actually transmitted by emigrants to their friends and connexions at home. The Emigration Commissioners give the following sums:
In 1851 (the year of the largest emigration) £990,000.
The warm-hearted benevolence of our countrymen on behalf of their distressed relatives at home has been increasing its exertions every year, though the emigration has been falling off in point of numbers, as appears from a comparison of both:—
| Irish Emigrants. | Remittances. | ||
| In 1852 | 224,997 | £1,404,000 | |
| „ 1853 | 119,392 | 1,439,000 |
A farther comparison of both will be found to confirm this view and to show that there is a steady increase in the sums sent home, while at the same time there is a decrease in the numbers of emigrants. From this it is evident that the desire to leave home and to try fortune in distant lands, is not so strong now by any means as it was three or four years ago. Under the pressure of famine, the smaller sums took out larger cargoes of passengers, while stronger inducements are required now that such urgent necessity no longer exists.
When the rod has been bent too much in one direction, it may be bent too far in the opposite way, in the effort to make it straight. We have no doubt but that it is so in the case before us, and that emigration is now receiving less attention from the people than it deserves.
