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ANOTHER EMIGBATIOÎT SCHEME.
in tte House of Commons on the .28th May,
Mr Miles moved a resolution, " that it is ex
pedient that the Government, in concert with
Boards of-Guardians in England and Wales,
should take immediate steps to forward the
emigration of orphan girls, inmates -of work
houses, to Australia as apprentices.*' By " Aus
tralia*' the hon. member appears to have meant
New South Wales in particular ; and he en
larged on the inconveniences settlers with
wives and families experience there from the
want of female domestic servants, who are
sometimes not to be hired at any wages. He
then-adverted to the condition of orphan girls
in workhouses, and'the almost certain prospect
of ruin which awaits them in England, and
urged that the moral and industrial training
they receive adapt them to fill the vacuity in
the colony, which, concurring in the object,
would absorb a larger number than the female
orphans in the workhouses, and those emi
grants might be followed by girls deserted by
both parents and the children of distressed
widowers and widows. The expense he pro
posed to provide for by requiring the parishes
to pay for the outfit of the children, the cost
of placing them-on board ship,- and ¿5 towards
the charges of the voyage ; the rest to be de
frayed from the colonial fund.
Ms Stafford concurred in the mover's views,
but wished to include Ireland, from which
emigration was much needed. He -considered
emigration, above all social questions, the fire
side and household question throughout Great
Britain and Ireland.
Mr Hawes admitted the great importance-of
the subject, especially in the Australian colo
nie»; but observed there were limits to all
these general views of benevolence-namely,
considerations as to the-capacity of the colo
nies to receive a peculiar class of emigrants,
the interests and welfare of the emigrants
themselves, and the'interests of the empire at
large. The disproportion of the sexes, the
crying evil ot the colonies some years ago, was
now almost repaired ; great numbers of female
emigrants had been sent, and among them
Irish orphans ; and, without discouraging fur
ther emigration, to send a large additional
number of young females to the colonies, with
out the certain,prospect of their findmg em
ployment, might add to the social evils of the
colonies. The fund available in the hands of
small. Though he concurred, therefore, in the
general objeci of Mr Miles, yet, ; after the
statement he had made, he thought it would
be inexpedient to agree to the motion. He
therefore moved the previous question.
Shortly afterwards the House was counted
out without having come to any decision.
The Times censures the members for the
little attention given to the subject, but con
soles itself by the idea that the object of the
motion may be answered by the announce
ment which-will -find its way through the co
lonial press to the furthest recesses of ** the
bush," that there is at home an inexhaustible
supply of orphan girls, who have received as
good an education as -a workhouse can give
them, and whom the people ofJ&igland. know
not what to do wkh. Jnáhe colony, it saya,
is the demand, at home is the suptfly, It only
remains to devise die channel by which the
accumalationof female labor wbichdrowns them
at home may flow into the regions where every
thing abounds except the lord of the creation,
and where the lord of the creation himself -is
pining for want of a helpmate. After referring
to the increase of female emigration which has
lately taken place, it observes that it has fre
quently been objected to schemes auch as Mr
Miles's, that the proper subjects for female
emigration are those who have been trained in
the cottage or the farm. Good domestic ser
vants, however, -and prosperous labourers'
wives are apt to stay at home, where they are
wanted. The best thing therefore, that caa be
done, in the opinion of the Times, is to edu
cate, if possible, the vast orphan class thrown
on the national charity in as close a resem
blance to the discipline of the cottage and the
farm as their miserable circumstances will
allow, and then send them where they are
wanted.
But the Times admits the difficulty of mak
ing workhouse training successful. No Act
can invent a substitute for the parental autho
rity, or for the domestic circle. Nature made
us in families, and ¿put every half-dozen of us
under the eye of a father and a mother. Where
that golden order no longer exists, the defect
is irremidable, and the greater the departure,
the worse the consequences. The greatest
possible departure from the order of nature
is the education of girls by wholesale, under
circumstances where there is little to win their
affection, their reverence, or their respect.
They may receive in a workhouse what is
termed aa industrial education. They may
learn needlework, knitting, washing, and even
the
cooking, baking, and brewing. They may go !
about in pattens, twirl a mop, and look, in all j
respects like little housewives. They may
even learn to milk cows, to scour pails, and to
manage a dairy. But they grow up without
that deep instinct of filial reverence, those
family affections and that self-respect, which
alone can preserve them at the most trying
passage and ordeal of their existence. Cer
tainly, the State undertook an awful responsi
bility when it set about educating children by
wholesale in a workhouse as if it was hatching
so many eggs by hydro-incubation. The Bri
public has a just suspicion of all schemes
for the shipment of these tender and helpless
creatures for the colonies. It apprehends
dangers by the way, and dangers o 1 landing,
and it has heard enough to justify its fears.
What is wanted, says the Times, is some good
established means of communication between
the colonies and the workhouses, and indeed
ail the labouring population at home.
The Times concludes by recommending that
Mrs Chisholm should be supplied with funds,
by the home Government, or, in event of its
refusal, by the colonies themselves, and with
the requisite powers for pointing out to the
poorer female population in the mother country
the way to colonial service.
' We are glad to see that ,for once, the home
Government and the Times have some idea bf
what is really wanted in the Australian co
lonies, but the notions of the former are more
correct than those of the latter. Mr Hawes is
nwch nearer the truth in saying that the crying
evil of the colonies-the disproportion of
the sexes-is now almost repaired, than the
Times in its dolorous picture of the lord of the
creation pining for want of a help-mate.
It cannot be too extensively known in England,
in Scotland, and in Ireland, that, though in the
Australian Colonies there is room for tens, or
even hundreds of thousands, there is no
such imperative want of recruits, either male or
i female, that the colonists should aid or advise
the emigration of any who are not of the pre
I eise class required. Wholesale shipments of
workhouse girls, however fancifully educated,
' are not wanted, anymore than of superannuated
governesses or distressed needlewomen. These
unprotected females, like the heroine in Punch,
are always out of place, and very rarely turn
out welL We want steady working men,andjif they
can bring their wives, their sisters, or their
daughters, so much the better ; but we antici
pate no benefit either to the colony or them
selves from the shipment of numerous single
women.
Our remark is general, but the rule
admits of exceptions, and such we conceive to
be the emigration of the Shetland girls. But
how different is their case from that of the
orphans to whom we have referred. They
were brought up in the bosom of their families,
are fitted in every way to become the servants or
the wives of emigrants, and on their arrival will
be taken charge of by the existing and well
organised St. Andrews Society, instead of
being turned loose upon the world, or depend
ing on the chaperonage of an imaginary
" Ladies' Committee."
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