and with funds provided by the government. This has been now done; according to the recommendation of the governor, bounty emigration, as it existed for the last five years, has been put an end to, and the regulations issued on the 15th of July of this year, will go far to insure the colony a fair supply of emigrants-five thousand is the present number limited-and to insure to the emigrants that care and those comforts they ought to have on their long voyage.

Let us see what is the demand for labour in the colonies; for we have already proved the inutility of regarding the United States as an outlet for our population. To begin with Quebec, the following extract from the Report of the chief agent for Immigrants at Quebec, dated in December of last year, shows exactly the state of the labourmarket in Canada :

"I am required pointedly to remark, that it is manual labour chiefly which, in this country, obtains superior remuneration. There are some descriptions of persons who cannot benefit themselves by resorting to it, at least at the present time; and many must, in so doing, change their condition materially for the worse. Active and intelligent mechanics, industrious farmers, and furmservants, well-conducted domestic servants, and able-bodied labourers, are those who will find themselves improved in condition by emigration. But clerks and accountants, persons aspiring to be factors or overseers, and many others, indisposed or incompetent to devote themselves to bodily labour, experience much distress and disappointment; and may be emphatically warned of the error of emigrating to this country.

"To those whose object is settlement, and the cultivation of land, this country continues to promise very certain success. The reduced prices borne by agricultural produce would seem to take away from the profits to be realized by the farmer who brings into application his own manual labour only; but there are few who do not require the assistance of others in subduing the forest, or cultivating the improved farm; and since both this assistance, as well as all the necessaries of life required to be purchased, may now be obtained more cheaply than formerly, it may be assumed that the settler, even on the most limited scale, continues to have before him ample encouragement. In the case of those who contemplate the hiring of labourers for the performance of more extensive works of improvement, the circumstances of the country will appear decidedly more advantageous than hitherto. The high value of labour, and the occasional difficulty experienced in procuring full assistance at the seasons in which agricultural undertakings might require it, have operated to prevent the investment of extensive capital in this way. Henceforth it may be found, that the expenses of farming being reduced correspondingly with its returns, the result continues equally favourable, while greater facilities in the procuring of agricultural labourers, permit its being conducted on a scale not hitherto reached, and render it an employment more nearly correspondent in its character to that of the extensive farmer of Great Britain or Ireland."

Nor was the state of demand actually altered in May 1843, though a temporary demand for labour was then existing in the neighbourhood of the coves of the St. Lawrence, and on board ships, in consequence of the arrival of so many vessels, and men could obtain 3s. 6d. and 48. a day; still the demand in the rural districts was not more abundant than in the previous year, and the farming wages were, if anything, lower. A despatch from the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, towards the end of last year, shows that the circumstances of that colony are not such as to afford any prospect of an opening for the

employment of emigrants, who might arrive there without means, unless persons of capital should entertain views of settlement in the province and be prepared to employ them. Mr. Wedderburn, the government emigration agent at St. John's, writes thus in January of this year :

"I regret to remark, that low as the rates of wages inserted in the printed abstract are, they are still but nominal, as only a very small number of mechanics, artisans, or labourers, can be employed, and that only intermittently. The prices of provisions have, however, been also very low. There is not a government work now in progress in New Brunswick."

The three hundred and fifty emigrants who arrived in that colony from January to June of this year, will more than amply supply the labour-market of New Brunswick. Passing, for the present, over South Australia, where the governor now reports the late reverses of the colony overcome, and the whole of the able-bodied labourers before employed or supported by the government, absorbed into the labourmarket, we come next to New South Wales. The following is from the Report of the Immigration Committee for 1842 :

"During the twelve months ending with the 30th of June last, immigration has been carried on to an unprecedented extent; the numbers added to the population from that source alone having been, as was before shown, 23,426. Nevertheless, those new arrivals, with exceptions too few to affect the main position, have rapidly found engagements, at wages which, though somewhat reduced, are still sufficiently liberal to satisfy any reasonable expectations which could have been entertained by the emigrants themselves. The occurrences of the period now under consideration have satisfied your Committee, that, in their previous reports, they have not at all overstated the want of labour prevailing in the colony at those periods. They can also trace the soundness of that policy by which large masses of population were introduced at once into the colony. More than eighteen hundred have sometimes arrived in one week, and although the entire number did not fail to obtain employment within a period surprisingly short, yet the addition of so many serviceable hands, all seeking engagements at the same instant, could not fail to produce an effect in keeping down the general rate of wages. That effect would not so certainly have followed if the same number of immigrants had been brought in small detachments, and at more distant intervals. At the same time, though wages have been so far reduced as in some degree to meet the circumstances of the employer, they have not fallen below that level which enables the labourer to provide an honest and comfortable subsistence for himself and family. Neither are there symptoms of a superabundance of labour in any part of the territory. Among particular classes, consisting of those who have not learnt a trade, or are unqualified for manual labour, depending rather upon pursuits of a higher order, there may be some excess of candidates for situations. There are few, if any, instances of industrious and skilful persons wanting employment. In every state of society there will always be a certain proportion, who, from incompetency, or through mere casualty, experience difficulty in obtaining employment; but there is nothing in the evidence before your Committee to lead them to suspect that such proportion is excessive here, or that it has very materially augmented with the recent increase of the population. Under these circumstances, it appears most obvious that there exists a continued necessity for the introduction of immigrants; whether by the bounty-system, or by any other, is of minor importance; so that such introduction of additional hands be certain, sufficient, and economical.",

The Committee feel assured that the then supply of labour would soon be far from sufficient, and that in the spring and summer of this

year the want of labour would be felt as injuriously as ever. With reference to the precise extent to which it is desirable the immigrants should be imported, from ten to twelve thousand seems agreed upon as the average yearly importation which might be advantageously introduced into the colony. The legislative council assent to the propositions laid down by their committee, and Sir George Gipps, though not admitting the actual dearth of labour in the colony at that time, sees good ground for apprehending that, ere long, a scarcity of it will again be felt.

From the evidence before the Committee we learn the rate of wages in the colony: wages amply remunerative to the labourer, though not at that exorbitant rate that nearly forced the flockmasters to destroy their lambs, from inability to pay forty and fifty pounds a-year for a shepherd to tend them. The average wages of shepherds seems twenty guineas, with their rations; that of agricultural servants about sixteen to eighteen pounds, with food and lodging. With respect to trades, the superintendent of the Sydney police gives us much valuable information in his tabular evidence. From the information Mr. Miles obtained from masters of trades in Sydney, it seems that there is a great demand for butchers, bakers, (provided they are good hands,) boot and shoemakers, and tinsmiths, and that in all these trades wages have a tendency to rise. With respect to bricklayers, carpenters, and plasterers, many were out of work, but not likely to continue so long, and that the demand for tailors, cabinet-makers, millers, and quarrymen was generally dull, whilst for gardeners and saddlers there was then no demand whatever. According to the new bounty rules, the eligible classes are agricultural labourers, shepherds, carpenters, smiths, wheelwrights, bricklayers, masons, and female domestic and farmservants. From another of Mr. Miles's tables, it appears that the wages of twenty trades in Sydney have all increased, and some materially, since the year 1830, with the exception of gardeners, in whose wages a fall of two shillings out of twenty-four has been experienced, between the years 1841 and 1842. Female domestic and farm-servants can obtain from 10l. to 167. a-year, varying according to their qualifications; but there is little want of governesses, ladies' maids, and fashionable servants. It is to be expected that rent should rise, especially in Sydney, and it is not to be wondered that in twelve years the expense of lodgings has more than doubled itself. With regard to provisions, whilst wheat-flour, both best and seconds, has experienced a considerable reduction in price, sugar, tobacco, and soap have remained stationary for the last twelve years; and beef and mutton have risen from the three halfpence per pound, paid in 1830, to the fourpence half-penny of 1841, and again fallen a penny per pound in the next year. Such clothing, too, as the labouring man requires, is much reduced in price, though still, in some instances, maintaining a higher price than it commands in this country. In the less forward settlements, it is impossible to arrive at any average of the rate of wages; in some, indeed, they are apparently very high,

but they must, one and all, be taken with the deduction of the price of provisions and necessary clothing; these deductions will, in most cases, bring them down to the level of Sydney and New South Wales rates, and warrant us in taking those returns as a standard average of the demand and return for good labour in our South Australian colonies.

The most important settlement after Sydney, within the district of New South Wales, is Port Phillip, which was founded in 1837, in the neighbourhood of the inlet into which the Yana-yana flows. A few miles within the strait which divides New Holland from Tasmania, where the river flows over a fall, and mingles with the salt waters of Port Phillip, the colonists raised their capital, Melbourne. Around, the land is excellent, as well for pasture as for arable purposes; and, though the fall at the river's mouth prevents ships from ascending to the wharfs of the town itself, the near situation of Hobson's Bay, and the easy transit from thence to Melbourne, seems fully to compensate for the loss of direct watercarriage. That its position, its soil, and its qualities, are eminently suited for a colony is evidenced by the rapid increase of its population in the short space of five years. Up to the 30th of June of last year, -the latest returns we have been able to consult, nearly nineteen thousand persons had arrived and settled in the colony; during the year 1841 nearly two millions of pounds of wool were exported from Port Phillip, amounting to 85,7351. out of 335,2521. value imported into the colony from all parts, other than New South Wales itself, against an export of the value of 139,1357. Neither is it without the means of religious consolation and the conveniences for public worship. Two years ago the colonists had determined on erecting a spacious church, to cost 70007.; and even now the Word of God is preached to a busy population, where, but a few years' since, the Yana-yana flowed in solitude to meet the waters of the salt sea. Neither is this settlement, though nearly four hundred miles from Sydney, unable to communicate with its mother state.

"Along the whole road," says Governor Gipps, "from Sydney to Port Phillip, villages have been laid out, and police-stations, formed by the government; this road is, therefore, now safe, and as easily traversed as any in the colony; indeed it may be mentioned, as a proof of the open and accessible nature of the country generally, that this road, or at least the portion of it that lies between Yap and Melbourne, about 380 miles in extent, has been opened at no cost whatever to the colony, and very little to individuals; and that it is not only practicable, but easy, throughout its whole length, for carriages of any description." +

The old penal settlement of Brisbane, some four hundred and more miles to the north of Sydney, has within the last two years risen into notice as a new colony, under the title of Moreton Bay, and bids fair to become of importance. According to the evidence of Mr. Evan

Colonization Circular, No. 2, p. 29.

+ Ibid. p. 24.

Mackenzie, a settler in that district, the land is well adapted for the growth of wheat-is very productive-well supplied with water-not subject to hot winds-capable of growing sugar and tobacco-and prolific in arrow-root, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, grapes, oranges, and fruits of almost every description-the upset price of town allotments was 100l., the price realized at the auction in July last year for 13 acres, 3437. 10s. per acre.

"There are lands at Moreton Bay," says Sir G. Gipps, "which are known to be of first-rate fertility; there is a great deal of capital ready to be invested in it, and a great deal more expected from India, the climate being very favourable to persons who have spent a portion of their lives in that country. Moreton Bay has been partly prepared for a settlement by being heretofore a place of secondary transportation from New South Wales; the communication between it and Sydney is easy, both by land and by water, and the flocks and herds of New South Wales are already depastured in the lands behind it.”•

About one hundred miles nearer to Sydney, on the north side, lies the later settlement of the Clarence river, which was discovered about the year 1838, by some persons engaged in cutting cedar on the eastern coast of Australia; the mouth of the river is 34 miles north of Port Jackson, and 90 miles south of Moreton Bay. It is the largest, as yet discovered, of those rivers which run from the eastern side of the great dividing range of mountains, extending parallel to the sea-coast, between the 26th and 32d degrees of latitude, and which, unlike the Murray and the Darling, which seek the southern ocean by a circuitous route from the west side of the ridge, flow in a straight course to the waters of the Pacific. The following is the official account of its capabilities, which the evidence given before the Committee on Immigration in 1842 proves to be by no means unfounded:

"As a field for the employment of capital in agricultural and commercial pursuits, the opening of a tract of fine country so situated, with respect to the stations of the westward, is contemplated with satisfaction by those who may be considered competent judges. În the lower part of the district alone there is room for a large body of industrious emigrants; and such is the nature of the soil, that little apprehension is entertained of its affording abundant compensation for the labour that may be bestowed on the cultivation of wheat, maize, the vine, tobacco, sugar, indigo, and many other articles of consumption, and even of export. The height of the neighbouring mountains so near the coast ensures to this quarter some protection from the hot winds that prevail to a great extent in more exposed parts, and to their proximity to the coast may be attributed the frequency of showers in times when other districts are parched with drought. The connexion with Moreton Bay, where the survey is steadily progressing, is already established by the discovery of a practicable route between the coastrange and the sea; and with respect to the operations that are necessary, as a preparatory arrangement, to render the country at the back of Shoal Bay available for settlers of every class, contracts have been entered into for the survey of both banks of the river. The survey of the north bank of the M'Leary river is also in progress, so that the whole country extending on the north from Moreton Bay to the coast-range, on the west from Cunningham's Gap to the

Extract of a Despatch from Sir George Gipps, dated Sydney, 1st February, 1841. Colonization Circular, No. 2, p. 25.