第62章 NEW BRITAIN--THE COLONY OVER-SEA.(1)

We now come to the third and final stage of the regenerative process.

The Colony Over-Sea.To mention Over-Sea is sufficient with some people to damn the Scheme.A prejudice against emigration has been diligently fostered in certain quarters by those who have openly admitted that they did not wish to deplete the ranks of the Army of Discontent at home,for the more discontented people you have here the more trouble you can give the Government,and the more power you have to bring about the general overturn,which is the only thing in which they see any hope for the future.Some again object to emigration on the ground that it is transportation.I confess that I have great sympathy with those who object to emigration as carried on hitherto,and if it be a consolation to any of my critics I may say at once that so far from compulsorily expatriating any Englishman I shall refuse to have any part or lot in emigrating any man or woman who does not voluntarily wish to be sent out.

A journey over sea is a very different thing now to what it was when a voyage to Australia consumed more than six months,when emigrants were crowded by hundreds into sailing ships,and scenes of abominable sin and brutality were the normal incidents of the passage.The world has grown much smaller since the electric telegraph was discovered and side by side with the shrinkage of this planet under the influence of steam and electricity there has come a sense of brotherhood and a consciousness of community of interest and of nationality on the part of the English-speaking people throughout the world.To change from Devon to Australia is not such a change in many respects as merely to cross over from Devon to Normandy.In Australia the Emigrant finds him self among men and women of the same habits,the same language,and in fact the same people,excepting that they live under the southern cross instead of in the northern latitudes.The reduction of the postage between England and the Colonies,a reduction which I hope will soon be followed by the establishment of the Universal Penny Post between the English speaking lands,will further tend to lessen the sense of distance.

The constant travelling of the Colonists backwards and forwards to England makes it absurd to speak of the Colonies as if they were a foreign land.They are simply pieces of Britain distributed about the world,enabling the Britisher to have access to the richest parts of the earth.

Another objection which will be taken to this Scheme is that colonists already over sea will see with infinite alarm the prospect of the transfer of our waste labour to their country.It is easy to understand how this misconception will arise,but there is not much danger of opposition on this score.The working-men who rule the roost at Melbourne object to the introduction of fresh workmen into their labour market,for the same reason that the new Dockers'Union objects to the appearance of new hands at the dock gates,that is for fear the newcomers will enter into unfriendly competition with them.But no Colony,not even the Protectionist and Trade Unionists who govern Victoria,could rationally object to the introduction of trained Colonists planted out upon the land.They would see that these men would become a source of wealth,simply because they would at once become producers as well as consumers,and instead of cutting down wages they would tend directly to improve trade and so increase the employment of the workmen now in the Colony.Emigration as hitherto conducted has been carried out on directly opposite principles to these.Men and women have simply been shot down into countries without any regard to their possession of ability to earn a livelihood,and have consequently become an incubus upon the energies of the community,and a discredit,expense,and burden.The result is that they gravitate to the towns and compete with the colonial workmen,and thereby drive down wages.We shall avoid that mistake.We need not wonder that Australians and other Colonists should object to their countries being converted into a sort of dumping ground,on which to deposit men and women totally unsuited for the new circumstances in which they find themselves.

Moreover,looking at it from the aspect of the class itself,would such emigration be of any enduring value?It is not merely more favourable circumstances that are required by these crowds,but those habits of industry,truthfulness,and self-restraint,which will enable them to profit by better conditions if they could only come to possess them.

According to the most reliable information there are already sadly too many of the same classes we want to help in countries supposed to be the paradise of the working-man.

What could be done with a people whose first enquiry on reaching a foreign land would be for a whisky shop,and who were utterly ignorant of those forms of labour and habits of industry absolutely indispensable to the earning of a subsistence amid the hardships of an Emigrant's life?Such would naturally shrink from the self-denial the new circumstances inevitably called for,and rather than suffer the inconveniences connected with a settler's life,would probably sink down into helpless despair,or settle in the slums of the first city they came to.

These difficulties,in my estimation,bar the way to the emigration on any considerable scale of the "submerged tenth,"and yet I am strongly of opinion,with the majority of those who have thought and written on political economy,that emigration is the only remedy for this mighty evil.Now,the Over-Sea Colony plan,I think,meets these difficulties:--(1)In the preparation of the Colony for the people.

(2)In the preparation of the people for the Colony.

(3)In the arrangements that are rendered possible for the transport of the people when prepared.

It is proposed to secure a large tract of land in some country suitable to our purpose.We have thought of South Africa,to begin with.