Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Our Colonies: An Address Delivered to the Members of the Mechanics' Institute, Chester, on Monday, the 12th November, 1855
Look at the question for a moment from another point of view: Consider the great subject of emigration. That which was formerly a matter of remote knowledge and concern - that which even twenty or thirty years ago was regarded only as a means of getting rid of the ofi'scounngs of our population - has now become, on the contrary, a matter of close and domestic intercetto many of the most intelligent, and many of the bestconditioned and most respected, families in this countr In the year 1816, the whole number of emigrants who left the shores of Eyngland was The average emigration of England in the fifteen years, from 1816 to 1830, was The average for the years between 1830 and 1844 rose from to Between-1844 and 1864, the average rose to and in the year 1852, the sum total reached no less a number than people, over persons thus quitting the shores of this country every day. To find a home in the British colonial empire. You thus see that the increase in the quantityof the emi tion was of a most remarkable character. The change in the quality is stifirilnore worthy of our notice. Because, for a long time. Emigration was nothing but the resort 0 the most necessitous but now, on the contrary, in a great many cases - I dare say there may be those here who would be able to bear testimony to it in instances within their own domestic sphere, or their own private knowled e - in a great many cases, indeed, it is not the needy and the necessitous, at it is the most adventurous, the most enterprising, the most intelligent man, the most valuable member of society in the sphere in which he moves, who goes to seek his fortune in those distant lands. This great change in the character of our emigration is ca able of bein brought in some degree to the test of figures, ecause we al know that t e eater part, or nearly the whole emi gration, while it was only made up 0 our pauperism, was not only a pauper but hkewise an Irish emigration. Consequently, in former years, out of the gross total which I have read to you an immense proportion consisted of the natives of Ireland. Necessity has now ceased [to press upon the natives of that country as it formerly pressed upon them. The Irish emigration also1m changed its uali but while the mm emigration has t.ha En lish and Scotdh emtiygration, which formerly was quite inconsid is, at?f W 0h is by no means and has never been merely or mainly an 0 tion pm! Are and necessitous persons, has ed enormously upon the rlsh emi and in the first nine months 0 the present year, closin with the 80th of last September, while the Irish who left this country were 07, 00, of English and Scotch about appear to have proceeded to the colonies. Thus I have ven, I will not say even an outline, but at least a faint indication of the tit e which this great question may perhaps have to your attention.
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