want,' some one will say; 'could we not get him out to help us?' 'I will give 1l. to his passage, and he can pay me in work.' 'I will give another.' 'May be the Association will go halves in the expenses.' 'Write and ask.' The next year out comes the Oxford blacksmith at half price. 'Which is the way to Oxford?' 'Where you see that spire out yonder.' 'But wont you stay in the emigration barrack till you hear whether you can get work?' 'What do I want of an emigration barrack? Is it not bad enough to have been shut up in a ship? I know Mr. Goodfellow; he is my cousin; he will put me up till I can get a place for myself.' The above is a true description of what is going on every day in a thriving colony. One man has more food than he knows what to do with, and he wishes for some poor relation to come and help him to eat it; another remembers some country lass, whom he did not dare to ask to marry him when he had nothing to offer her; a tradesman has business on his hand, and wants a youth to keep his books; a mechanic has more work than he can do, and would be glad of a mate. All these know exactly the sort of person that is wanted, and will not send for him unless he can be well employed. Demand and supply represent one another by the simplest and most natural adjustment, and at the cheapest rate of expense.
All this is killed by the pauperizing and pauperized system of free passages, given generally to relieve the workhouses. The poor-rate will be equally relieved in either case, for the removal of labourers of a higher class will enable many an able-bodied pauper to recover his position. Industry (except in the case of confirmed habits of vice) will be in proportion to the certainty of profitable employment. No matter whether you send us the good or the bad, the mother-country will be equally relieved. If you send none, all will become bad from the superfluity of labour; if you send the best, your bad will become better at home, for they are bad chiefly from the uncertainty of employment; and though even the "worst often become steady men in a colony, yet surely it is more reasonable to pay for the emigration of a good man than of a bad one. But of all the causes which ruin emigrants, the worst is the sending out men without friends or connexions in the colony, to herd together in emigration barracks, and clamour to Government for the wages of idleness as sturdy paupers, till they have lost all favour with the settlers, and have imbibed in return a rooted dislike to the country and its inhabitants.
The next great point is, that I advise you most strongly to give up, for the present at least, all the usual trickery of town acres; I mean at the central or post towns, for the country towns will not much excite the mania of speculation. In Port Cooper this seems to be more especially necessary, because a few lucky purchasers, engrossing the whole of the small quantity of available land near the anchorage, will have it in their power to put the public to the greatest inconvenience. The defects also of the site of Christchurch are so great that I would not advise you to put it in the power of any body of purchasers to demand a great outlay of public money to give them a better access to their townland. The plain is the great point at Port Cooper. A good road over the hills, and a few public stores on the beach, where goods can be warehoused by the association at paid charges, and a small quantity of land let to retail shopkeepers, will enable the settlers to begin their operations. The excess of mercantile speculation is a cause of great loss to a new community. It seems to be so much easier to buy and sell than to dig and plough, that half the population become shopkeepers as if by magic, the gentry dignifying their employment by the name of storekeeping. You would suppose that 'slops,' rice, and sugar were the spontaneous produce of the soil, and that men believed that they could grow rich by merely exchanging one with another the fruits of the labours of others, without working for themselves. Of course, what is easy to all will be done by too many, and therefore will be profitable to very few. And thus the country, with its mine of wealth, is robbed of the industry which would have made it profitable, and the town, like a great lazy tumour, drains and wastes the resources of the body without contributing anything in return. My advice is, plant the country, and let the town grow of itself. Let the course and progress of the colony show when, where, and by whom, stores, manufactories, &c., ought to be established. When the need is shown by a demand,
