17 CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING EMIGRATION. COPY of a LETTER to Daniel Gurney, Esq., J. P. near Lynn, Norfolk. Office of His Majesty's Chief Agent for Emigration to Sir, Upper and Lower Canada, Quebec, 10 July 1835. I HAJ) the honour to receive your letter of the 14th April last, on the arrival of the brig Shannon, Captain Allen, on the 27th ultimo, from Lynn, with emigrants, all well. These per- sons obtained from this office every attention and information that they required. To such as stood in need of immediate employment I directed that orders should be given to them to obtain it on public works, 70 miles above Montreal, where a canal to avoid a rapid in the River St. Lawrence is constructing; a work which alone requires 5,000 labourers, & c. The very great demand for all denominations of persons of the working classes, particu- larly farm and common labourers and domestics, females as well as males, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, & c. & c.," in the Canadas, more particularly in the Upper Province, has very much retarded the advancement of public and private improve- ments, owing to the scarcity of hands required for the purpose. The rate of wages has progressively advanced as settlements increase ; and I do not anti- cipate, for years to come, the probability of the Canadas becoming overstocked with agri- cultural labourers, domestic servants and tradesmen of various denominations. From these facts it will be readily admitted that the prospect of all industrious and sober persons of the working classes in the Canadas is exceedingly favourable, and that any failure in reaching a state of comparative prosperity will be entirely at their own door. The facilities of emigrants towards obtaining suitable locations, if they are possessed of means sufficient to go upon lands, are very great, either by purchase from the Crown or from private proprietors; arrangements have also been made that labourers with families who are not possessed of means can be located on a few acres of land, with a log hut, in the immediate vicinity of settlements, whereby they will be enabled to obtain full employment for every member of their family, and provisions at their hands. The facility and economy of transport from this city to all parts of Upper Canada is much improved by the competition created by the two routes to the Upper Province, the one by the St. Lawrence and Prescott, and the other by the new and interesting line of the Rideau Canal to Kingston, on which a daily succession of steam- boats ply from Montreal up the Ottawa River to Bytown, and thence through the Rideau Canal; steam- boats and batteaux proceed daily also by the St. Lawrence route to Prescott, where, as at Kingston, steam, boats and sailing vessels are to be met with proceeding to all the towns and landing- places on Lake Ontario. Immigrants who came out aided in their emigration by parochial assistance, but more particularly those who have been in the habit of obtaining parish relief weekly, are exceed- ingly prone to indolence, and very defective of energy on first arrival, compared to the poor Irish or Scotch peasantry, whose spirit or reliance on his own efforts for support has not been cast down by accepting relief from any other source. I would beg to suggest to the magis- trates and landlords of your county the importance of impressing upon the minds of suc- cessful candidates for aid to emigrate to Canada the indispensable necessity of throwing aside eveiy idea of looking to any other source of support than their own exertions. The very act of doing so would brand them with a stigma of pauperism not easily to be shaken off. A labouring man in Canada, if industrious, can earn as much in two days as will support a family a week; or if hired by the year, and without a family, he may save nearly all his wages, which would be from 20 Z. to 30/. sterling per annum, with board and lodging. Good female ser- vants and country girls obtain readily from 91, to 18/. a year. I am rejoiced to see so much zeal beginning to show itself in the United Kingdom, on the part of the landed gentry and others, in their endeavours to better the condition of the working classes, an improvement which it is now ascertained can be more effectually accomplished by a judicious system of emigration than by any other plan. Temporary loans and expenditure of money in improve- ments not absolutely necessary, but merely undertaken for the purpose of affording a casual and scanty support to the labouring poor, is so much thrown away. The condition of the family of the half- starved Irish labourer, at the expiration of five or seven years, will not be found to be in the least improved by making work for him by the aid of national loans, nor will any abatement be discovered in the expenditure for the support of the poor so long as such works are going on ; and while money is to be expended, the labourer will certainly be fed, and his family may perhaps obtain a scanty portion of daily bread ; but when the work ceases, he and his wrecked family will be found occupying the same miserable hovel, while his own physical strength is materially impaired by hard work and scanty support. On the other hand, if a small portion of this outlay as above is expended in enabling the labourer to emigrate to the Canadas, there is eveiy probability that, if industrious, he will, in five or six years, be the owner of 50 or 100 acres of good land, with plenty for his family to eat and drink, a couple of milch cows, and, which is best of all, a sure prospect of future indepen- dence for his children. What a cheering anticipation is this for the labouring poor of the United Kingdom, independently of the great national results to be expected from increased markets for the manufactures of England ! The common pauper when removed to the colonies, if industrious, becomes, after the first year, a considerable consumer of British goods, which, had he remained at home, from his situation he could never have been. Many counties in the west of England, more particularly those of Wiltshire and Berkshire, have already experienced great relief in their parochial burdens from the emigration of con- siderable numbers of their labouring poor. But no adult emigrant dependent on immediate 70. c3 employment No. 1. LOWER CANADA. Report on Emigration. 12 Dec. 1835.