During the last period the Australian Col- We its a marked increase, while that from Ireland does not differ essentially from the preceding few years. The increase in England is due to several causes, chief among which was, probably, the active exertions of charitable associations in London. These, organized in the first instance with a view of sending out the very poor who had come upon the parish for relief, finally adopted the more sensible method of making a careful selection of such persons as were likely to succeed in the Dominion, as at once more just to the emigrant and to this country. The "Black Friday" of May, 1866, and the crisis which followed, may be regarded as the commencement and the stimulant of this movement for assisted emigration. The leading society is that known as the British and Colonial Fund, which is presided over by the Lord Mayor and holds its meetings at the Mansion House. This society since its foundation has expended upwards of £40,000 sterling, and has asThe chief reservoir from which emigrants sisted more than fifteen thousand emigrants may be drawn to Canada, and the place to reach Canada. Associations of workingtherefore where the most active exertions men in different parts of the kingdom, known should be put forth in the interest of immi- as emigration clubs, of which the Rev. gration, is the United Kingdom. The sup- Styleman Herring, incumbent of St. Paul's, ply of emigrants to be found there is liter- Clerkenwell, was the chief promoter, asally inexhaustible. During the last ten sisted large numbers to emigrate. The East years the number who have left for new London Family Emigration Society, of which fields of enterprize, was 1,571,729. But the the Hon. Mrs. Hobart, the Marchioness of increase of population during the same per- Ripon, and other benevolent ladies were the iod was 2,525,637, so that, even making all chief promoters, and to which they have deallowance for the increased demand for la- voted untiring effort, has also sent to Canada bour in the Mother Country, the supply of over two thousand emigrants. This movethe emigrating class is essentially greater ment, however, from which so much advantage than it was at the commencement of the de- has accrued in the past, cannot be counted cade. The number of emigrants from both upon to any considerable extent in the fuEngland and Scotland has shown a decided ture. It was the outgrowth of a temporary increase during late years, the number who depression in trade in the great metropolis, emigrated from England in 1870 having and of the policy of the Government in disbeen greater than during any previous year charging the dockyard hands at Woolwich on record, as much as fifteen per cent. and Portsmouth; and the revival of trade, greater than the emigration of 1854, which and the failure of the emigrants in almost up to 1870 had headed the list. The numevery case to repay the money advanced to ber of emigrants from Scotland, too, exhib-| them, as they pledged themselves to do, have checked the liberality which characterized the earlier contributions to this emigration fund. Of the amount sent and New Zealand. from North America, no less than £332,638 sterling, according to the Imperial EmiWhile in many respects this decrease of gration Commissioner's report, was in the zeal on the part of the British public in the shape of prepaid passages to Liverpool, matter of assisted emigration is ground for Glasgow and Londonderry. The Commisregret; that regret must be considerably sioners from their experience assume that mitigated by the fact that the tendency of the remittances were made chiefly by the the movement was to give false notions in | Irish people in America to their friends in this country of emigration and the condi- the United Kingdom, and they point out tions necessary to its successful promotion. that the amount sent in the form of prepaid How to bridge the Atlantic, so that the passages alone was nearly sufficient, taking mechanic or agricultural labourer might be the passage money at five guineas per transplanted from the comparative poverty statute adult, to pay the cost of passages of of the old world to the comparative com- the entire Irish emigration of the year. petency of the new, was the problem which portion of the remittances, it is pointed out, engaged the largest share of attention among would be applied to the purchase of outfit those who discussed the question in Canada. and other necessaries of the journey, "but It did not seem to occur to them that that making all reasonable deductions on this was a question which large numbers of peo- account, a large sum must remain over for ple were solving for themselves, and solving the benefit of those who remain in the in a manner in the highest degree advan- Mother Country." The Commissioners, on tageous to our neighbours in the United this subject, make this somewhat startling States. The largest number of assisted | statement :-" Imperfect as our returns are, passengers who left England in any one they show that in twenty-three years, from year, including the beneficiaries of all the 1848 to 1870 inclusive, there has been sent societies, was under ten thousand. That home from North America, through banks was in the year 1870; and yet that year, and commercial houses, upwards of £16,the number who settled in Canada reached 334,000 sterling." This large contribution about twenty-five thousand, leaving fifteen to the assistance of emigrants has been thousand who paid their own passages, solv- chiefly from the Irish people in America. ing for themselves the important question of It is a striking testimony to their warmtransit. In that same year, 105,293 Eng-hearted generosity, to the strong social ties lish, 22,935 Scotch and 74,283 Irish emigrants sailed from ports in the United Kingdom, in all 202,511, the overwhelming number of whom paid their own passages, or were assisted by their own friends to pay their passages to America, Australia and other places. The assistance rendered by The question then of emigration, the quesfriends of the emigrants to enable them to leave tion which should challenge the attention of home was very large, and deserves to be the Dominion and Provincial Departments taken into account in discussing this feature charged with the promotion of it, may safely of the emigration movement. In 1870, be resolved into these two propositions, how the sum sent home by previous emigrants best to induce the emigrating classes of the amounted to £727,408 sterling from North old world to make Canada their home, and America, and £12,804 sterling from Australia | how best to make Canada a home worthy of which, in spite of distance and change of circumstances, binds them to their friends at home, to the enormous benefits which emigration has conferred upon them, and to the advantages which they have conferred upon the country of their adoption. their acceptance. We have as the conditions of the first proposition the United Kingdom and many parts of the Continent of Europe teeming with an ever increasing surplus of population, who, in spite of the fluctuations of trade, have at all times, and under all circumstances, a hard battle to fight with the world for bare subsistence. We have an annual emigration from those countries of between three and four hundred thousand people,-an emigration entirely apart from any question of state aid or of organized benevolent assistance, the result either of individual savings on the part of the emigrants themselves or of aid from pioneer members of the household who have gone out in advance to pave the way for the family emigration. The overwhelming number of these emigrants seek the United States as their future home, simply because they have heard much of their greatness, of the freedom of their institutions, of their wonderful development, and of the success of those who have already settled in them. They have not heard of Canada, or if they have heard of it, it has been through the prejudiced reports of persons interested in belittling it, who have described it as a northern country with interminable snows in winter and scorching heat in the two or three months of summer. It has been described as a colony of England, without self-government, the mere dependent of the Empire, from which all its laws were drawn. The first great duty, therefore, in the promotion of a successful emigration policy, must be a thorough and complete system for the distribution of information concerning the country. Fairly stated, the claims of Canada, especially upon the emigrant from the United Kingdom, would leave him nothing to envy in the settler in the neighbouring republic. We have institutions as free, selfgovernment as perfect, as the people of the United States. In no country in the world are the principles of popular government and executive responsibility more fully establish ed than in this Dominion. From the management of the affairs of the school section, through those of the township and county municipalities, to the Provincial Legislatures, and then to the Dominion Parliament, the principle of direct popular control is not simply recognized as a theory, but enjoyed as a great practical fact. The progress of the country during the last twenty years in material wealth and in the great public improvements which are the outward and visible. signs of that wealth, has been relatively as great as that of any country in the world. The population of the Dominion has nearly doubled in those twenty years, the aggregate trade has increased about five-fold, the telegraphs which flash their lightning intelligence from one end of the Dominion to the other, and between every city and town and village, and the railways which are permeating every district, are the product of those twenty years. We have the most magnificent system of inland navigation to be found on the face of the globe. We have an educational system which is undenominational without being Godless, and which protects the conscientious scruples of every man in the community. We have the most perfect religious equality, the voluntary principle vindicating its own entire sufficiency for the religious instruction of the masses, and its results testifying to the religious character of the Canadian people. Our towns and cities are prosperous, and new centres of trade and industry are dotting the face of the country. Manufactures are flourishing, giving the diversity of employment which is essential to individual and national prosperity. Improved systems of agriculture are enriching our farmers, and are making the land of the country as productive as that of the most favoured parts of the Continent of America. New districts are being opened up for settlement in all the Provinces, and railway communication is being pressed towards them, so that the farmer emigrant can make his choice from the richly-wooded land of old Canada and the maritime Provinces, or from the vast prairies of Manitoba and the North west. To afford to the emigrant the fullest information as to those advantages which Canada presents to him should be the first duty of the Government in any well considered policy for the promotion of emigration. There are two ways in which this information may be presented: first, by printed matrer in the form of pamphlets and handbooks, and secondly, by means of lectures in the leading centres from which emigrants may be drawn. The action of the Ontario Gov-, ernment in causing to be prepared a pamphlet for distribution in Great Britain has already borne important fruit, the only drawback being that they were not sent in sufficient numbers. The different shipping agents of the United Kingdom are always willing to lend their aid in the distribution of such matter, and they should be kept well supplied with it. Promoting emigration is their business, and they are only too glad to be furnished with the means of exciting an interest in the subject in the districts from which they draw their customers. Of these agents, one firm, the Messrs. Allan, have nearly six hundred in the United Kingdom alone. Some of these-indeed it may with truth be said a very large proportion of them are friendly to this Dominion, and ready to exert themselves earnestly in favour of promoting emigration to it, from considerations of national sympathy. To such a quasi official recognition might with propriety be given, which, by increasing public confidence in them, would promote their interest and increase their ability to encourage emigration. In such an arrangement the question of remuneration is one which cannot be ignored. Canada has suffered much from what is known as the percentage system, that is the payment by the companies to these passenger brokers of a percentage on the tickets they sell. As passages are secured in Britain for the extreme Western States, the railway and steamship companies co-operating for this purpose, it becomes manifestly the interest of the passenger broker to send the emigrant to the greatest distance, the amount of his percentage being regulated by the sum paid for the ticket. This self-interest is often stronger than any considerations of national sympathy, and many an emigrant is sent to the State of Kansas or Minnesota or Montana, who would have been as easily persuaded to go to Canada but for the fact that the agent received a larger sum for sending him the longer distance. It is hopeless to expect either the steamship or railway companies to forego this system; but the evil may be counteracted by the Canadian Government compensating the agents, whom they may specially select, for the loss in the matter of percentages which will accrue to them by passengers taking tickets to Quebec or some point in Canada instead of to the Western States. A bonus, which would represent the average difference in the percentage upon each ticket sold, would neutralize the temptations of the present system, and would convert these agents into active workers for emigration to the Dominion. It may fairly be doubted whether the system of Provincial pamphlets or Provincial lecturers are the best methods of imparting information. A pamphlet on Canada itself, embracing all the Provinces, setting forth in a clear and concise style the advantages of each of them, with plain directions to the emigrant, would do more to promote emigration, and would keep the Dominion as a whole, with its varied resources and the special conditions of each of its Provinces, more directly before the public. And as with pamphlets, so with lectures. The Dominion and not the Provinces should appoint the agents on the other side of the water, and these should be charged with the duty of dealing fairly by all the Provinces. We have not yet attained that position as a whole, in the eyes of the world, which would justify us in presenting ourselves as separate and—as it would be almost inevitable-antagonistic parts. But if local jealousies made it difficult to adopt this united plan of action in the campaign to be carried on among the emigrating classes, there should at least be a handbook of Canada, published by the Dominion, which would give full and complete information upon every point of interest to intending settlers. Such a handbook should be in addition to the ordinary pamphlets for gratuitous distribution, should be much fuller in its information, should be illustrated, not by the rough woodcuts which disfigure some of the pamphlets already issued, but by really well executed wood engravings, and should be sold at a low price at all the book stalls and railway stations of the kingdom. The comparatively new and unsettled State of Montana has shown its appreciation of this description of information. Its authorities have caused to be printed a handbook of the State, on beautifully tinted paper, in quarto form, with photographic illustrations, and neatly bound, and have presented copies to most of the passenger brokers in the United Kingdom, to be kept exposed in their offices. Who shall say how many persons who never heard of Montana until they entered the passenger broker's office to enquire about emigration to America, have been induced to make that distant State their destination by the interest which a glance at this book has excited? The countries from which emigrants are to be drawn being thus supplied with active agencies and with abundance of information, the next important work is thorough organization in the Dominion for the reception and placing of the emigrants on their arrival It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this feature of a complete immigration policy, and unfortunately it is almost impossible to over-state the neglect of it which has characterized the Department of Immigration in this country in the past. The value of first impressions has passed into a proverb, but with no people are first impressions more influential than with the average emigrant on his arrival in a new country. At the very best his case is one which should excite the largest sympathy. Anyone who has stood upon the Victoria docks at London, or on the quay at Liverpool or any of the other great shipping ports, and witnessed the embarkation of a party of emigrants, will recognize how true this is. The painful leave-taking with friends, prolonged until the last moment; the earnest "God bless you," which forces its way out with an almost intensity of agony; the steady gaze upon the receding shore until the last faint outline of land passes from view, and HOME, with its memories and associations, has sunk into the unfathomable deep; then the ten days or a fortnight of the discomforts of the ocean voyage; and then the landing on a strange land, with nothing but strange faces to look upon; surely that is a condition to excite a spirit of kindness and sympathy. It is a first consideration to make this first landing as pleasant as possible, and to send the emigrant to his destination in the interior with the consciousness that he has cast his lot among friends. The accommodation at Point Levi in the past has been a disgrace to Canada, a practical advertisement to the world that emigrants are unwelcome visitors here. A change there has already been made so far as buildings are concerned, but the great receiving depot requires still further reform. It should be modelled on the plan of Castle Garden at New York, which, with some defects which have brought discredit upon it and which are at this moment engaging the attention of the American commissioners, has done its work, on the whole, well. Point Levi, furnished with ample buildings and with a complete and efficient staff of officers, should be made the great distributing point for the emigration to the western portions of the Dominion, as Halifax should be for the maritime Provinces, and Hamilton for that por |