Queensland offers free passages to selected agricultural labourers and single domestic servants; while assisted passages are granted by Queensland and New Zealand to farmers and agriculturists who are able to deposit a small sum by way of caution money, or to show that they are possessed of a certain amount of capital. 'Nominated passages' are also granted by several of the Australasian Colonies, by means of which the friends of residents in those Colonies can be sent out at reduced rates under special conditions. In view, however, of the fact that the government of these Colonies is more or less in the hands of men who are interested in arresting the flow of emigration and who look with suspicion upon any attempt to flood the labour market,' it would be unsafe to regard these arrangements as permanent. Clearly, therefore, if the required help is to be given, it must come from the mother country.

The objections to the granting of such State aid on a large scale are obvious enough, and have been often stated. New agencies would have to be created, and new machinery set at work. If Government were to interfere, 'the sources of supply on which voluntary effort depends would shrink and dry up, and the State would be left in undisturbed possession of the field.' But a more serious difficulty confronts us in limine. Is it just, except under very special circumstances, to tax a hundred persons who remain at home in order to enable two or three to live in unearned independence and comfort in a new country, even though British taxpayers may be indirectly benefited by the diminution of unhealthy competition and by the opening of new markets for their industries? Or, if it be just, is there the slightest chance of a British Parliament sanctioning such an impost? It is only fair to the advocates of State-directed colonisation (as they prefer to call it), to point out that they feel the force of these objections, and profess to have discovered a scheme under which the pecuniary liability of the State would be reduced to a minimum. To quote the words of Lord Brabazon, on the occasion to which I have alluded:

The Association did not want the State to advance one farthing, unless it was necessary, in the form of payment of interest on loans which had been advanced by the public to carry out their scheme. They proposed that there should be an Imperial Commission appointed by the Government, upon which representative Colonists should be ex-officio members, and that this Commission should be empowered to raise funds in the open market, loans for the purpose of sending out to the Colonies as farmers and as settlers men who were physically and morally fit to become farmers, and to place them on the free grant lands of the Colonies. Canada offered one hundred and sixty acres of the finest land in the world to any who would go and settle there, but 100l. to 1201. per man was required for that purpose.

He subsequently added that, if the Government guaranteed the

payment of fair interest on the sum proposed to be advanced, there would be little difficulty in the present state of the money market in floating the loan, and that

there would be little risk of the State being ever called upon to provide the interest, as experience had proved that suitable men could, within a short time, make themselves independent on such magnificent lands as, say, Manitoba. The lands would be security, and every spadeful of earth turned up would increase the value of the security.7

Lord Brabazon's first proposition may be accepted without demur, but it will be seen that the second involves a somewhat important assumption, and that in the meantime the assistance asked for is no less real because it takes the form of credit instead of the form of cash. The liability of a guarantor, as many of us know to our cost, often turns out to be a more serious thing than it is represented to be; and it is just possible that the assisted colonists might show their 'independence' by disregarding existing obligations as well as by dispensing with further help. Such things have happened before, and may happen again. What in such a case is the Home Government to do? Is it to assume the rôle of a mortgagee in possession, and to sue or evict its defaulting debtors? The prospect is not an encouraging one, especially when we remember that as soon as one of these emigrants has stepped on the shores of one of our self-governing Colonies he becomes as little amenable to the control of the Home Government as if he had landed in Patagonia. In fact, the fatal objection to State-directed colonisation seems to be, that the moment the colony is formed, the State loses the power of directing it. The retort that it is only proposed to send out emigrants to Colonies which consent to receive them scarcely meets the objection.

It is not, I believe, generally known that not long ago a scheme of colonisation, not unlike that now advocated by Lord Brabazon, was actually under serious consideration. In the year 1883 Sir George Stephen, the President of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and other leading Canadians interested in the question, made the following overture to the home authorities. They proposed to take out and settle upon lands of three great Canadian companies, possessed of a practically unlimited area of available territory in Manitoba, 10,000 picked families from Ireland; to plough and seed these farms for the first year, and to provide each family with suitable habitations, with the necessary implements of husbandry, and with a limited number of domestic animals. The cost of the undertaking was, in the first instance, to be defrayed out of the proceeds of an Imperial loan, repayable without interest at the end of ten years.

The Times, February 5, 1887.

For the first two or three years the colonists were to pay nothing. After that period they were to be charged a gradually increasing rent calculated at a rate sufficient to recoup the promoters of the scheme for their outlay and to secure the repayment of the original loan. In this case the Government would have had the guarantee of three presumably solvent companies, but it was felt by those whose experience entitled them to speak on such matters that some further security was required to justify the expenditure of a large sum of public money. Under these circumstances, an informal application to guarantee the loan was, I believe, made to the Dominion Government, who were not only directly interested in the scheme, but in a better position to estimate the chances of its success and to enforce the conditions under which it was to be tried. I never heard what answer was returned to these overtures; but as the proposal fell through, I conclude that the Canadian Government did not see their way to give the required undertaking.

It is for many reasons to be regretted that some such experiment could not have been tried. When ideas of this kind are widely promulgated and earnestly held, it is exceedingly desirable that they should be put to a practical test. As Lord Salisbury pointed out in his answer to the deputation on State-directed colonisation, the plan might be tried on a small scale at a moderate cost. If it failed, the experience gained would be worth the money; if it succeeded, its success might open the way to the solution of a problem which is daily becoming more urgent and more complicated. I am not generally an advocate for heroic remedies. But the disorder to be remedied is rapidly approaching a stage which may at any time become acute. I venture therefore to make the following practical suggestion: Let the cost of sending out to Canada and of equipping and settling, say, 2,000 families to be carefully selected mainly but not exclusively from our agricultural population—a subject upon which, at present, the most vague and contradictory notions prevail -be accurately ascertained; if necessary, after consultation with trustworthy experts to whom such calculations are matters of everyday practice. Let one half of that sum be provided by private subscription, or by the settlers themselves and their friends, and let the other half be raised and the whole secured in the manner proposed by Lord Brabazon. Let Canada be asked to provide for these colonists a sufficient quantity of suitable land in an accessible locality; and, lastly, let the whole scheme be carried out under the joint direction and control of the Imperial and Dominion Governments. The advantages of this plan would, I think, be unquestionable. The whole matter would be transferred from the region of speculation to the region of fact. Private benevolence, so far from being checked, would be directly stimulated. The interest which VOL. XXI.-No. 122.

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the contributors would naturally feel in the due disposal of their own money would be a guarantee against wasteful or injudicious expenditure. The colonists themselves would have a stake, however small, in the undertaking; and, lastly, the co-operation of the two Governments would not only obviate the objection now urged against State-directed colonisation, but would greatly increase the chances of its success. The mother country would, no doubt, incur some liability, but that liability would in any case be small, and I am not without hope that it would prove infinitesimal. The experiment, if successful, might of course be repeated on a larger scale.

There are other matters connected with this subject which will, no doubt, engage the attention of the Colonial Conference which is on the eve of meeting in London. Everything which tends to bring the Colonies into closer contact with the United Kingdom indirectly helps to facilitate the flow of our surplus population from the latter to the former. Though much has lately been done in this direction, surely much still remains to do. Compare the postage of a letter from England to Sydney with the postage of a letter from England to San Francisco, or the time occupied by a voyage from Liverpool to New York with the time occupied by a voyage from Liverpool to our nearest Canadian ports. It may be said that such matters must be governed by purely commercial considerations, and that if more persons wish to go to the United States, and such persons are able to pay more highly for their accommodation, better accommodation will be provided for them. I can only reply that, if we are going to deal with our own Colonies upon these principles and in this spirit, we shall soon have no Colonies to deal with.

One word more. The spread of education and the gradual introduction of a higher standard of comfort, while it does something to check improvident marriages and consequent over-population, may in time do much to familiarise our working classes with the advantages offered by other countries, and to reconcile them to the idea of leaving their own, especially when it is supplemented by so admirable an agency as that of the Emigrants' Information Office. But the outlook is distant, the danger is immediate. The rapid growth of the new Socialism in London and elsewhere warns us to put our house in order, and the demon of Revolution will not be exorcised by Mansion House Relief Funds or by Sunday platitudes about the duties of the rich to the poor. The spectre is at the door; the handwriting is on the wall; but, as in the days of Lot and Noe, we eat, we drink, we buy, we sell, we plant, we build, we marry and are given in marriage,' and few there be who care to read the signs of the times. Meantime, one thing is certain. It is the duty of every

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man who has the slightest chance of guiding or influencing public opinion to look facts fearlessly in the face, and to speak what he believes to be the truth on a subject which party considerations and a certain false delicacy of sentiment have too long thrust into the background.

G. OSBORNE MORGAN.