Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/15

 hungry and the destitute, which, like the wave of the great ocean, in obedience to the laws of nature, will continue to roll until it obtains its level. This miserable mass of unoccupied and destitute poor presents a calamitous picture, and, feeling as if they had been called into life for no useful end, will at length become reckless and desperate.

Would not Emigration go far in preserving the level of wholesome water in the reservoir? Would it not prove a double blessing, in relieving those who go and those that remain behind? The present moment is a crisis in the doctrine of Emigration; there is a manifest and a daily deterioration in the condition of our labouring poor; and while all other avenues to relief are darkened, a light has just burst upon the cause of Colonial Legislation, which gives new strength, and revives the sleeping energies of many who had early fostered the growing spirit of migration, yet despaired of obtaining sufficient encouragement for those who were willing to run the serious hazard of its trial.

The allusion is obvious,—he who has made this important question the subject of reflection, during its latest agitation, will readily comprehend it. The auspicious moment, then, at which the publisher is enabled, through the kindness and influence of Governor Stirling, to lay the following valuable and