bodily comforts would restore thousands of the good people of England, who are now pining from want and despair, to life and happiness. Can these be nobler causes for humanity to employ its wealth upon than would be the removal of, say five millions of British population to their broad lands in Australia, with ten or twelve peers, and twenty-five members of parliament, to serve at home; or thereby at once to create, under one of our young princes, a new nation of Englishmen, to relieve England of all her poor-rates, and to open a new and expansive field for her manufactures and trade amidst the islands and shores of the vast Pacific? Until free-trade amounts to this sort of consummation, we opine that the poor man in England is excluded from its benefit, and is only made an article of trade himself, to be shipped, forsooth, and his passage paid to Australia, only when his services are wanted there. To the rightful lord of the soil, Australia can only be, though a land of Egypt, and his own, but a house of bondage. Without his presence there, the land is nevertheless of no value; his right to a small modicum thereof is not denied, provided he could pay his passage to it; but when not able to do so, he must either be made an article of free-trade, or remain to starve where he is. Now, being owners of the land, and, collectively, of the public chest, will Englishmen, who war against slavery and establish freetrade, for ever submit to such degradation as to become themselves mere articles of trade, the servants of strangers? The thing is monstrous, but still too true. This surely cannot last long. "There is a good time coming boys;" and we proceed to consider the ways and means, and first as to the way. Geographical falsehoods, of the most glaring character, have recently appeared in public prints, as to the relative distances between Eng land and Australia, by the Isthmus of Suez and by the Isthmus of Panama, positively making the latter the shortest, while any man's eye alone, on looking at a map, may see that it is the longest. Few it would appear, from such statements being hazarded so boldly, do look at maps; and few, therefore, perhaps know, or at least consider, that to steam navigation, the course by sea, round the Cape of Good Hope to Port Phillip, is shorter than it would be directly home to England through the Isthmus of Panama, for the "good many coming." Coaling places are indeed more numerous by the Cape of Good Hope route, and therefore the field for the Great Easterns is already open, and much more extensive than that for the Great Western. We can imagine Great Easterns, with each their thousands of Immigrants on board, arriving two or three per week, in Port Jackson; and each corps of passengers proceeding at once by rail to their destination on some interior reserve, there to form the nucleus of a rural district, or manufacturing town, changing only their sky and soil, English in all things else; bringing with them parents, children, lovers, clergy, schoolmasters, &c., &c. This is the " consummation devoutly to be wished," and thus it is obvious, that if but true to themselves, the people at home have it in their power to accelerate, by many centuries, the advance of Australia, and mitigate the doom of millions. We leave to wiser heads than our own, the appropriation of the means for such a purpose, confident that they exist. It is indeed high time that a nation 'possessing more money than she seems to know well what to do with, should either learn, or be taught, how to provide for her own starving poor, when her very felons are in consequence becoming burdensome to herself and the world. And we would also suggest that national emi gration on such a scale would operate as a check and a counterpoise to the overbearing colonization of the West, where, indeed, a social emigration, such as we suggest, is no longer possible, excepting only in Australia and for some such purpose we sincerely believe, has God given it to England. To pass o'er ocean vast a living stream, The seeds of nations-on the wings of steam. In all probability this article has been written by some man of talent, who may be receiving only a small salary in an office in Sydney, and if he has a family, is not possessed of an acre of land to leave them at his death. It is too provoking that educated and industrous people should be starving for want of a little of that land which Earl Grey is holding out in the northern districts, as a reward to those who first commit crimes in England, and then put on a semblance of good behaviour for a time until they get the promised boon. When the British Government cease to make "pets of their convicts," and encourage virtue as well as vice, we may hope that the time will not be distant when the following prophecy will be fulfilled; "When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree: I will set in the desert the fir-tree, and the pine and the box tree together; that they may see and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the holy one of Israel hath created it." * * Isaiah, xli. 17, 18, 19, 20. The late successful efforts on the part of the colonists of New South Wales, to oppose the revival of transportation, render this "wilderness," a much more favorable place of refuge for "trees of righteousness," to be transplanted to, than if their noble struggle had not been crowned with success. The following lines which appeared in "The Maitland Mercury," embody in concise language, the feelings and principles which dictated this opposition to the will of Earl Grey : ON THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE REVIVAL OF TRANSPORTATION. Arise Australia's children! stay the pest In burning characters affix the brand Of Infamy!-Oh! let it ne'er be told, That ye by your own wrong this stain have earned. To hug the leprosy which erst they nobly spurned. Behold the fertile plain, the virgin field, Ye British sires, whom honest enterprise Let not this plague-spot tempt your chosen clime! Would ye that your adopted rest become The reservoir for guilt, to void her slime? Rapine's abiding place! the lazar-house of crime! And ye, whose early errors well atoned All ye to whom Australia's name is dear, B. P. G. |