Page:The A. B. C. of Colonization.djvu/31

26 he says, better watered than any other portion of Australia he had seen, and, he adds, that it seemed sufficient to supply the whole world with animal food." When then we view this in perspective before ns, when we survey the vast mass of misery around us, the straggles of the industrial classes, we cannot but exclaim, "What does England mean by keeping this great continent as a sort of preserve," and ask, "For whom?" Are our poor to contend at home with that gaunt destroyer of our people, famine? Have they no other hope but to end their days in a workhouse or a prison, which poverty almost irresistibly forces them into? When there are in the hands of England vast and fair regions unoccupied by man, nature alone being mistress thereof. If we cannot relieve the whole mass of misery around us, let us at least thin the crowd, and co-operate with those who are willing and ready to co-operate with us by applying to their own emigration their own frugal savings.

In order to illustrate the proposed plan let parties consider the case of the subjoined group No. 1. and the same number of persons in this country supported by our parochial system or by eleemosynary aid,—let us then suppose that sixteen charitable individuals devote £10. each a year to the relief of poor struggling families around them,—that eight of this number apply their joint contributions of £80. to the emigration of Group No. 1.; that the other eight give their £80. to the relief of some o£ the same class in their neighbourhood; let the two cases be placed into juxta-position,—the Australian group become producers,—the home party continue consumers,—the first progresses, the other in all probability retrogrades. The one, the first year of their Australian servitude produce about £400., calcu-