Acts of Parliament of 35 Vict. Cap. xxviii. and Cap. xxix. passed by the Dominion Legislature, that received the Royal assent on June 14, 1872, provide that "if any contract be made, or any bond or note given by an emigrant before leaving Europe for Canada, to repay in Canada any sum of money advanced to him or her for or towards defraying his passage money, or towards defraying any other expense attending his emigration, such sum shall be recoverable from the Immigrant in Canada, according to the terms of such instrument" (refusal or neglect to fulfil the engagement being punishable by fine and by imprisonment) and that "any emigrant … may … execute an instrument … binding himself … to accept employment of the kind to be therein stated from any named person … and to allow such person to deduct from his or her wages … such sum or sums of money as shall be also therein designated." To supplement the comprehensive powers directly expressed in these two Acts, as against the emigrant who might seek to evade fulfilment of the instrument he had voluntarily signed, there could be inserted in the Indentures a clause under which the emigrant should consent to and authorize deduction from his or her wages, by any person who might employ him before he had satisfied his engagements to the Colonization Commission, of all monies accruing to him, in respect of such employment, over and above twelve shillings per week; until his liability to the Commissioners should be liquidated. The Canadian Government (strongly interested in securing faithful execution of these contracts) would have ample means of tracking defaulters in their thinly peopled territory; but defaulters would be few. Interest would lie in fulfilling the bond, and so ensuring possession of a freehold farm upon the easiest imaginable terms, while default would mean for nearly all loss of character, social branding, imprisonment, and deprivation of what the attempted evasion sought to secure.
The religious and educational privileges with which Canada is endowed not only surpass our own, but are greater than those enjoyed in any European country.
The Irish poor, numbering perhaps one million, who dwell as aliens in the slums of London and other British cities and towns, are deeply concerned in the execution of this project. They supply recruits for our gaols, orphanages, and workhouses. Competitors with native labour, they are usually unpopular with the working classes among whom they sojourn. Their English
