TOPICS OF THE DAY.
1.11/, BRITISH EXODUS.
Tnx British exodus, which has just caught the attention of the 7Vme8, the Globe, and the Standard, is far from being a new sub- ject of discussion. So long ago as in 1830, a Supplement to the 92d number of this journal was filled with it; and it has at different times since that date occupied the serious thoughts of philosophers and statesmen. Amongst these, two may be men- tioned as conspicuous examples. It is known that just before his death the lamented Charles Buller was engaged about a plan of emigration from Ireland, the deliberate aim of which was to repeat upon the Celtic race of that country what St. Patrick did to its frogs, by removing the whole of them to another land ; and Sir Robert Peel, in 1849, though with habitual wariness he took care to avoid precise details whilst feeling the public pulse with regard to a vast scheme of Milesian emigration, yet sufficiently indicated the agreement of his views with those of Mr. Buller, with whom, indeed, it is also known that he had held sympathizing communi- cation on the subject. Their idea was, that if Ireland could but be cleared of the Celts, removed from misery in Ireland to comfort in America, not only would the most fertile portion of the United Kingdom soon be occupied by Scotch and English, and made to yield a perhaps tenfold wealth, but that through the same measure of Roman Catholic emigration from Ireland to America, and of Protestant emigration from England and Scotland to Ireland, the religious war which has distracted Ireland for centuries would inevitably and totally expire. It was a bold thought for even closet thinkers to entertain, still more for practical statesmen to promulgate, however cautiously; but that it was founded in truth and reason may be now assumed, when its realization as a fact seems to be coming about without those aids from Parliament which Peel and Buller had in view as means of expediting the natural and most beneficial process.
The natural causes which are now in such powerful operation have been frequently pointed out; and in particular by Mr. God- ley in a memorial to Lord John Russell in the spring of 1847,* and in the writings of Mr. Wakefield. They may be set forth in a very few words. Irish emigration is the product of two causes, opposite in character, but concurring in tendency—repulsion from Ireland, and attraction to America. The Irish repulsion consists of whatever the Milesian Irish suffer in Ireland, such as the in- feriorities of a conquered race subject to a foreign land-proprietary and a foreign established religion, together with a starvation-rate of wages, arising from excess of population in a country where the accumulation of capital is checked by political and social disorder. The American attraction consists, in some measure, of the entire religious equality which prevails in America, but far more of the high wages of labour and high profits of capital for which Anglo- Saxon America is so remarkable. The Times (of Thursday last) says—" The emigration began and has been mainly kept up by the failure of the potato." No, it began with the general peace of 1815, and has been going on ever since at a continually increasing rate; and the potato rot only caused it to take a great step in ad- vance. The repulsion is of old date, but not so the present amount of attraction. As the Times says most truly, " Emigrations com- monly begin in repulsion, and go on with attraction. The leaders of the column fly their country because they cannot stay in it; but their followers go off more cheerfully because they hear a good report of the new country, and because their friends are already settled in it." rust so ; the present attraction is the past and present well- doing of the hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of poor Irish, who have gone to America since 1815, and of whom, just at pre- sent, a far greater number than ever before are enjoying high wages and profits in America, and are sending back to Ireland, not only detailed reports of their own prosperity, but money where- with to assist their relatives in following their example. Cer- tainly not less, perhaps considerably more, than 500,0001. was transmitted in this way from America to Ireland during the last twelvemonth. The Atlantic is "bridged over" for Irish paupers, or, at any rate, it will be soon, when the always increasing attrac- tive power shall suffice for drawing off all who may wish to go. That these will ere long be the whole remnant of Celtic Irish, seems probable, when one reflects, that the only serious check to Milesian emigration of late years has been the natural unwilling- ness of the Roman Catholic clergy to see their flocks diminished; and that Milesian emigration is starving the Milesian clergy in Ireland, whilst it is creating in„ America an ample provision for them. Bishops, priests, and people, let all go together, from their evil lot in Ireland to a happy home in the West ; so be it, amen. It has been taken for granted as a matter of course, that the vacuum created by emigration from Ireland would be filled up by ?migration from England and Scotland ; but a new element is grow- ing into importance, which may probably derange this calculation. Emigration from England and Scotland to America has recently acTured a force and measure which raise the question, whether Ireland, however thoroughly divested of her Celtic population, will present attractions to a Saxon immigration from Great Britain equal to those which America affords. To a considerable extent, doubtless, and under any conceivable state of things as respects America, Ireland, losing her Roman Catholic Celts, would gain a new population of Protestant Saxons : and we may even reckon with confidence that her immigrant Saxon population would be as dense and their capital as large, in proportion to the field of em- • See Supplement to the Spectator, April 3, 1847. ployment for both, as were those of Great Britain : but these conclusions leave untouched the query, whether the whole British exodus—that is, the emigration of people and capital from England and Scotland, as well as from IrnA, to America—may not be such as to equalize profits and wages on both aides of the Atlantic, and therefore to have the same effects upon every part of these islands with regard to the density of wealth and population, as is produced upon the seaboard States of America by the emigration of capital and people to the interior States. May not North America as a whole become to Great Britain and Ireland what the American Far West is to the State of Massachusetts or New York ? If it should, there is a chance, not to say a prospect, of social changes in this country, and in our own time, in comparison with which, we say with the Times, the greatest con- stitutional or dynastic revolutions may be deemed insignificant. For, let it be observed, our whole social system—our kinds and methods of production, our constitution, laws, customs, and even manners—are founded on the principle of sharp competition and constant dependence for the bulk of the people. Neither have we any slaves—still less, as the Americans have, between three and four millions, representing a productive power worth at market about five hundred million pounds sterling, and actually pro- ducing not far from the whole of the exports, which pay for the f imports, of the United States. And further, if there occurred in this country the same scarcity of free labour for hire as is usual in America, we should not, in the whole case supposed, have the American resource of a vast immigration of Irish paupers to serve as our hewers of wood and drawers of water. This picture is ugly at first sight, almost terrible. On the other hand, old-country poverty would disappear ; it would become a British, as it is now an American saying, that "victuals are no object ”; the cradle of the great Anglo-Saxon race would be continually replenished to the uttermost ; and unless the providential course of human im- provement were reversed, the whole process would be good no less for this country in particular than for mankind. But the attempt would be idle now, to fathom the depths of those profound changes which must result from making labour for hire as scarce and dear in this country as it is in America : so let us rather notice for a moment the circumstances which indicate that a time may be ap- proaching when the whole subject must be investigated to the bottom.
These circumstances are all those which are giving a new and far more powerful impulse to emigration from the British Islands. The repulsion of low wages and low profits at home is an old cause ; and the new-country attraction of high profits and high wages is as old as the time when Anglo-Saxon colonies had taken a firm root of prosperity and abundance. But until of late years the great mass of the people in this old country were ignorant of the peculiar state of prosperous new countries. New-country profits and wages existed, but, being unknown to the masses, were not attractive. The present force of British emigration is then im- mediately due to a new degree of intelligence amongst the common people of this country. The labours of Bell and Lancaster have a great deal to do with it. It is little suspected by our higher classes what a large amount of printed matter relating to America circulates among those classes which supply the stream of British emigration ; and this influence is probably trilling when compared with that of private letters from America, addressed in countless numbers to a class which has only of late years learned to read. New facilities of locomotion and communication have reduced the distance between these islands and the American Far West to a tithe of what it used to be. In a word, the fertile basins of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, capable of holding hundreds of mil- lions of people, are becoming part of one country with Great Bri- tain and Ireland. In this amalgamation, the American peculiari- ties would assuredly last whilst the British were obliterated. Seeing, then, that the present causes of British emigration to America are of a nature to grow in efficacy, since they may all be resolved into the now rapidly growing intlligence of our people and our growing means of Transatlantic communication, therefore we may believe it probable that the subject of the British exodus is destined to a vast importance in the politics of the world.
Previous page
