Page:Two speeches of Robert R. Torrens, Esq., M.P., on emigration, and the colonies.djvu/7

 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 1, 1870,

said, in undertaking to bring under the notice of the House the efficacy of emigration as a remedy for the distress so widely prevailing, he did not presume to claim credit for any truer or warmer sympathy with that suffering than he was satisfied stirred the hearts of other hon. Members; but he stood, in relation to this question, in a position so far peculiar that, owing to his having resided for nearly a quarter of a century in a land where such distress was absolutely unknown, its very strangeness rendered him more sensitive to its influence, impelling him to action; and the same circumstance placed him in the position of being enabled to testify, as an eye-witness, to the efficacy of emigration, when judiciously conducted, as a remedy for that condition of suffering which all alike deplored. He would not take up the time of the House by dilating upon details of that distress; but having already assumed its existence to be admitted and sympathized in, he would content himself with observing that the statistics of pauperism, though exhibiting a serious increase, by no means afforded a true measure either of the extent or intensity of suffering actually existing, inasmuch as they disclosed only the increasing number of those who, succumbing to pressure, become actually chargeable upon the poor rate, but tell nothing of the suffering of the still greater number who, with a patience and fortitude deserving all commendation, endure the pangs of insufficient sustenance and all the depressing incidents of extreme poverty, hoping against hope from day to day, if by any means they may escape the degradation of becoming chargeable on the parish. The evidences of this state of things, though not afforded by statistical tables, are only too patent to all who will be at the pains to inquire into the condition of the working classes. There might be—he