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GOSCHEN, M.P., PRESIDENT OF THE POOR LAW BOARD. SIK, lu addressing yoxi on tte subject of emigration to North America, 1 beg to say that the information I have obtained is the result of moi-e than thirty years' experience while actively en«,'agc.l in many of the great public works of Canada and the United States. During that jjcriod I have witnessed the increase of ])opulation in British North America from one million and i half to nearly four millions, and in the United States from about fifteen millions to forty millions. I have seen 2,500 miles of railway and ui)wards of 40 miles of ship canals constructed in the British North American Provinces, and upwards of 30,000 miles of railway con- structed in the United States ; 1 have seen the population of Toronto, the cai)ital of Western Canada, rise from 8,000 to 60,000, and the city of Chicago from 8,000 to 200,000 ; I have seen new States added to the Union equal in extent and producing capabilities to the whole of Europe; and I have seen the millions of poor Euroi)ean emigrants who landed upon the shores of America and accomplished all this, rise to a state of prosperity and independence unequalled in the history of any other people in the world. Every man who has made himself practically conversant with the rise and progress of British North America and the United States in the past, and the immense and fruitful field i^' which they oifer in the future for the unemployed population of Europe, must come to the conclusion that, but for the present uncomfortable and expensive voyage across the Atlantic, there is no other reason why England and Europe should not be rendered comparatively free from poverty in a few years ; Vnit as sure as emigration is the only eft'ectual remedy for our sur]»lus poi)ulati()n, the i>resent barbarous mode of conveying emigrants across the Atlantic is also one of the main causes which deter the masses from undertaking the journey. I have been a passenger in a coolie emigrant ship ; I have witnessed what is called the horrors of the •' middle passage " in a Si)anish slaver ; 1 have seen the hold of a cattle ship in a voyage from Tonning to London ; but I have seen more real bodily, animal suffering — not to speak of the mental — than all these on board an emigrant steamer in a voyage from Liverpool to New York. The slave trade has been annihilated, some safeguards are now thrown around the coolie, an improvement in cattle- ships has taken place, and it has been suggested that food and water should be supplied to animals in their journey by rail from Scotland to London ; but as to the poor emigrant, bound on his passage across the Atlantic to North America, his voyage has been shortened, but his miseries intensified. In carrying out any extensive system of emigration from this country, humanity demands that there shall be a radical change in the construction, arrangement, and ventilation of the steamers carrying emigrants. The voyage across the North Atlantic is one of the most boisterous and perilous of ocean voyages, and therefore to crowd thirteen or fourteen hundred human beings — predisposed to fever and disease — into the forepart of a comparatively small vessel, with little or no ventilation in bad weather, is an act of the greatest barbarity, and the consequence is very often the sudden appearance of some terrible fever and the death of a large number of passengers, and in case of shipwreck there is always a want of sufficient and efficient boats. In vessels over(M*ow«lefl and badly arranpfod as they are at the present day, tlie poor oniif^rant is ind»>od fortunate if he escape death during the voyapfe. The present plan is easily accounted for by the fact that all the Transatlantic steamers carry first and second class passengers, and therefore a very large portion of the best part of the ship is set aside for their accommodation and recreation ; and as time is also a more important object to these passengers than to the emigrant, the vessel is required to have powerful engines, large boilers, and carry an immense quantity of coal, all of which tend seriously to curtail the light, air, space, and comfort allotted to the emigrant. Heretofore there have been two kinds of emigration from these islands — the one from Great Britain, composed prin- cipally of the poorer class of farmers, farm-labourers, and artisans, who, with more or less capital, and in many instances by the aid of local societies or proprietors, have gone out and settled in the British colonies, have become highly prosperous, and have remained steadfastly attached to the institutions of the mother country ; while from the sister island bleak misery and famine have driven forth millions of its inhabi- tants to seek a sustenance and a home in a foreign country, where they have grown up a prosperous and powerful people, but with the bitterest feelings of hostility to the Government of the parent state. Fully conversant as I have been for the last 30 years with the question of Irish emigration to the United States, I must confess that it has never been to me a matter of surprise that the Irish-American should manifest such a feeling when I consider the privations he underwent at home, and the misery he endured in crossing the Atlantic. This continued manifestation of hostility by the Irish in America has deterred English emigrants from proceeding in any large immbers to the United States, and consequently the fairest and most fertile portion of the North American continent has been peopled almost exclusively by the lowest 6 class of Irish and German immi^'rants. We may cry peace, peace, but there will never be peace 80 lonjf as the Irish hold the l)alan('(' of jtoAver between the two great jtolitieal parties in the United States. Nothing would tend more to cotnent the good relations l^etAveen the two eountrieH than for a few niillionH of our liest English emigrants to go and settle in the North-West States ; we should soon cease to hear about alliances l>etween llep»il>lican America and Russian despotism for the humiliation of England. It is not statesmanshij) which, by a stretch of sentimental loyalty, and the fostering of a miseral>le and narrow-minded jealousy, confines the great mass of the people of Great Britain to emigration to our own colonies, whilst a wider and more profitable field in a, foreign coiuitry can be foiuid for English industry. Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape are too fiir distant and the cost too great to ever be resorted to by the masses, and even the whole fertile area of the Dominion of Canada adapted to English settlers is not equal to the capabilities of the little State of Illinois. A lirief reference to these subjects is indisj)ensable to the I)roper elucidation of any extensive plan of emigration from Great Britain. The question is not now how we shall fill up this or that colony, but " How can we, in the shortest, cheapest, and best way, enable our stirplus population to reach the country where their future labour and industry is likely to meet with the best reward?" The welfare of the emigrant should be the first and most important considera- tion, because sending English emigrants to a healthy and prosperous country is like sowing good seed in a fertile soil — it returns a bountiful reward. But to send silk and cotton weavers, and artisans who have been accustomed to indoor oc- cupations in the South of England, to fell timber and clear a farm in the backwoods of Canada, is just as cruel and absurd as it would be to send a Northern farmer to work on a sugar plantation in Florida ; but there is in the Dominion of Canada and the North-western States of America such diversity and brcaiitb of climate, that ample, cou^unial, and profitable occupation can be found for every claHs of industrious English emij,'rant, and it is my espociai olycct in this letter to lay before you relia])le information and i)ra('tit'al directions for the f,'uidan<'o of intending' emi^'rantH, and societies and asso- ciations promotinj^ and aHHisting emij^'ration. The first question for the consideration of most intending omij^rants is aow to provide means to enable them to change their j)08ition ; the second, the place of embarkation, mode of conveyance, and destination ; and thirdly, their future occujtation and probable chances of success in the country of their adoption. Lord Durham, in his celebrated report on British North America, described the capabilities of that country as follows : — " No portion of the American continent possesses greater natural resources for the maintenance of largo and floui'ishing communities ; an almost boundless range of the richest soil still remains unsettled, and may be rendered available for the purposes of agriculture. The wealth of inexhaustible forests of the best timber in America, and of extensive regions of the most valuable minerals, have as yet been scarcely touched. Along the whole line of sea-coast and around each island and in every river are to be found the greatest and richest fisheries in the world. The best fuel and most abundant water power are available for the coarser manufactures, for which an easy and certain market will be found. Trade with the continent is favoured by the possession of a large number of safe and spacious harbours ; long, deep, and numerous rivers and vast inland seas supply the means of easy inter- course ; and the structure of the country generally affords the utmost facility for every sjiecios of communication by land. Unbounded materials of agricultural, commercial, and manu- facturing industry are there; it depends upon the present decision of the Imperial legislature to determine for whose benefit they are to be made available. The country which has founded and maintained these colonies at a vast amount of blood and treasure, may justly ex])ect its compensation in turning their unappropriated resources to the account of its own redundant population. They are the rightful patrimony of the English people, the ample a|)i>anage which God and Nature have set aside in the New World for those whose lot has assigned them but insufficient portions in the old." Colonel Robinson, R.E., in his report (to the British Government) on the Survey of the Intercolonial Railway (now under construction on Imperial gxiaranteo) said — " It will oix'u up for settlement 11,000,000 acres of land which are still public property and heretofore practically inaccessible, and which for any great plan of emigration or colonisation from the mother country is unequalled. The construction of the railway and the wide field opened u}) for agriculture can absorb an addition to the population of 400,000 ; for about the same expense five emigrants would bo landed in New Brunswick for one at the antipodes." Lord Elgin, in a despatch on a kindred subject, said — " The completion of the Halifax and Quebec? (Intercolonial Railway) will bring railway communication in North America two days nearer to Europe." Lord Grey said — " I hope to see this work, destined, as I believe, to eflfect a change in the civilised world, accomplished." The first great seaport on the continent of North America is Halifax, in Nova Scotia, the Atlantic terminus of this Intercolonial Railway. Halifax is 547 miles nearer to Europe than New York, and 370 miles nearer to Evirope than any other open American port ; it is distant from London about 2,650 miles. The whole sea-coast of Nova Scotia is studded with magnificent harbours, and surroiuided by the richest fisheries in the world. Two-thirds of the interior of the country is rocky and sterile, but it abounds in the richest minerals, in- cluding gold, iron, lead, and coal. The gold mines produce annually about .£120,000, or equal to a net return of 10s. per day per man employed. The coal deposits are exceed- inply rich, Horao of the veins mcasiirinpf a thickness of 36 feet. The coal mines are only partially developed just around the shipping ports of Pictou and New Glasgow, to which there is also railway comniunication direct to Halifax, and around the port of Sydney in the island of Cnpe P/oton, a part of the province of Nova Scotia. There are also within a short distance of the coal extensive deposits of valuable iron ore. The coal area of Nova Scolia and New Brunswick is said to be equal to that of the whole of Europe, and it is the only coal on the Atlantic shores of North America, so that should the United States see fit to enter into a treaty with the Dominion of Canada for a free interchange of coiitmodities, Portland, Boston, and New York would draw their supplies of bituminous coal exclusively from Nova Scotin, and the de- mand would be eqiial to millions of tons per unnum. Truii would v.\*<; I manufiictured in large quantities, in wi. .h case N'»va Scotia could absorb an addition to its population of 20,000 a year for many years to come. The area of Nova Scotia devoted to agriculture is but of limited extent, and confined to the growth of oats, barley, and potatoes, and the grazing of cattle ; this occupation would be profitable had they free access to the markets of the United States for the sale of their produce ; the same may be said of the fisheries, shipbuilding, and coasting trades, which are the most important industries of the country. - Its population is about 400,000, and they own about 400,000 tons of shipping, but owing to the present state of the Dominion trade relations with the United States, Nova Scotia is not capable of absorbing any important increase to its population. The Intercolonial Railway is being con- structed for about 100 miles through the North- West portion of the province, but where the lands are of any value they are already settled. The adjoining province of New Brunswick, in form nearly a square, is bounded on one side by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on another by the Bay of Fimdy. For all practical r^ 10 purposes the ports of New Brunswick are closed for four mouths of the year. This province is superior in its agri- cultural capacities but inferior in mineral weaHh to Nova Scotia*, but it has still an immense virgin forest of valuable timber. Itn climate is more severe, the fall of snow greater, and consequently the cessation from labour during the winter months longer than in the sister province. There are, how- ever, many beautiful and fertile valleys in New Brunswick capable of great agric\iltural development, but the uplands are poor, consisting of a large extent of sandy plains covered with stunted spruce ; but neither Nova Scotia or New Bruns- wick are agricultural countries in the American sens'^ of the term ; their stajile trade is cutting timber, catching fish, digging coal, and mining gold, building ships and sailing them — all occupations requiring — especially in a cold climate — a hardy and vigorous race of men. As their trade relations with the United States become improved, their mines developed, their fishing and timber trade increased, their lands— though poor in comparison with the Western States — will, from their near proximity to active scenes of industry, be lu'ought gradually into cultivation ; Imt at the present time this is not the field for the surplus population of the metropolis and the manufacturing towns of England. Lower Canada may be briefly dismissed from the fact that it has already a large surplus i)opulation who migrate to the United States in large numbers during the summer months in search of employment, and what possible occuijation can there be in Lower Canada during the winter months, -with twelve feet of snow on the ground and the thermometer repeatedly standing at from ten to thirty degrees below zero ? Western Canada has been properly styled the hack- hone of the Dominion, for it imports and exports more than the whole of the rest of the provinces put together, and pays about two-thirds of the whole taxation, and yet the fertile portion of this province is but of small extent, and mainly confined to what is called ihe Western Peninsula, a country about half the size of the little State of Illinois ; but the settlers in this province were of a very superior order, being mainly composed of English and Scotch farmers. The climate is, all things considered, probably the finest in America ; the land is fertile and easy of access from the lakes by which it is almost surrounded ; native manufactures prosper, but the demand is very limited ; there are no Government landb available for settlers in the peninsula, those lands being confined to that portion of the province lying back from the settled portions of the shores of Lake Ontario, and boimded on the north and west by the Ottawa 'River and Georgian Bay. These lands are intersected by a largo amount of rock, lake, and swamj) ; the climate is severe, and unfit for any but the hardiest agricultural settlers and luml)ermen. A narrow- gauge railway from Toronto into this region has been com- menced, and will tend much to the opening uj> of the fertile portions of the country. A narrow-gauge railway is also being constructed from Toronto to the north-west extremity of the peninsula ; this line will open up one of the best agricultural districts of the Dominion, and will give empk)yment to a considerable number of railway and fann labourers. It will be seen by the foregoing that the field for emigrants even in Western Canada is not of large extent — in fact, it was the want of more fertile territory which made Western Canada so eager to acquire the North-West territory But the acqui- sition of new territory is but a matter of secondary im- portance compared with the necessity for oWtaihing on a permanent basis the freest possible commercial intercourse with the United States. The prosperity and progress of the whole Dominion depends upon its accomplishment. In con- cluding this portion of my letter, I would observe that the great drawbacks to the success of emigrants in any part of the Dominion of Canada are the long winters and cheap whisky — the one begets a desire fr the other, and the con- sequence is an amount of depravity which is quite alarming in so young a country ; there is more drunkenness to be WW- ■^ IS witnessed in a single day in the city of Toronto, with its 60,000 inhabitants, than can be seen in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, with its population of 100,000, in a month. The question may be asked. Is there any portion of the Dominion of Canada capable of absorbing the great mass of the surplus population of the mother country now cue of employuaent ? Any one practically conversant with the question can give but one honest answer — viz., " In tue jiresent state of the Dominion and its trade relations with the United States there is not." Yes, but I may be told there is the groat fertile belt of the Hudson's Bay territory aboTit to be thrown ojDen for settlement. My answer would be. The only practical route from England or Canada to the Red River Settlement is through the United States by way of St. Paul, a distance from Toronto of 1,800 miles, and I should then be 600 miles from the fertile belt, but in a country where the mercury freezes in winter. I can go from Toronto across the United States to San Francisco, or to the great cattle plains of Texas, or from Maine to Mexico, in half the time and at half the expense at which I could reach the Red River Settlement. But let us suppose an emigrant from England, or p. native Canadian, setting out from Toronto for a journey to the fertile belt. If he went l>y railway he would pass through the State of Michigan, Illinois, and the city of Chicago and the State of Wisconsin, to St. Paul in ^Minne- sota ; here his steam transit would end, and his pilgrimage of 1,400 miles to the fertile belt, in true Mormon fashion, would begin — " ox-cart in summer and dog-sleigh in winter." But at this point of his journey the emigrant would be met Avith the following inducement to stay where he was, " for by going further he might fare worse :" — By the laws of the State of Minnesota every able-bodied man is entitled to select a homestead of 80 acres of Government land — unsurpassed for agricultural purposes. These homesteads are a free gift, and cannot be subjected to any attachment, levy, or sale, or other process of law. This exemption protects not only the Id land but the buildings thereon and appurtenances. These lands are easy of access by rail, or river, or lake navigation. No such favourable inducements as these have ever been offered to emigrants in any of the British dominions. The Homestead Law of the United States has done more tov^rards peopling and rendering the Western States prosperous than any other law which was ever placed upon the statute-book. This brings me to the point where, I think, the true solution of the difl&culty will be found for disposing of the surplus population of England. About half across the United States of America, between the 13th and 23rd degrees of longitude west from Washing- ton, and 37th and 47th degrees of latitude north, there is a square portion of territory containing about 360,000 square miles. It comprises the whole of the State of Iowa, and a great portion of the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kansas, and the territories of Nebraska and Dacotah ; it embraces the whole of the Mississippi Eiver and its tribu- taries above St. Louis, and the main portion of the Missouri and its tributaries. The Union Pacific Railway runs through its centre from east to west. It is tapped by the head waters of Lake Superior, and it will comprise within its boundaries the eastern terminus of the North Pacific Eailway, now under construction. Its iron, coal, copper, and lead mines are the richest and most extensive in the world. On Lake Superior there are now 62 copper mining companies, and 100 great iron mines under working, and 14 blast furnaces in operation. The annual shipment of ores from the mines now averages 12,000 tons of pure native copper and 500,000 .ons of iron, the iron ore containing no less than 70 per cent, of pure iron. Its prairies, whether for the production of grain or the grazing of cattle, are unequalled on the American continent. Its timber lands are the most extensive and valuable of any now remaining in the Northern States. Its main productions are easily accessible to water-carriage to the Gulf of Mexico or the GuLf of St. Lawrence, and innumerable railways inter- 14 sect it in every way. Its climate is genial, healthy, and invigorating, and the region is capable of absorbing and giving employment to thirty millions of people in addition to its present population. The little State of Illinois was thirty years ago a howling wilderness ; it has now 2,500 miles of railway, and a population of nearly three millions, who pay 15,000,000 dollars, or one-fifteenth part of the taxation of the United States. The State of Minnesota in 1857 imported her breadstuffs, but in 1867 she exported 12,000,000 bushels of wheat which was grown upon 3 per cent, of her soil ; in 1868 she harvested 16,000,000 bushels of wheat. The area of this State is 64,000,000 acres, but Minnesota is only part of this great continental wheat- garden, which embraces an area of 600,000 square miles. The six States of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, with a population of 7,000,000, produced 530,642,124 bushels of grain in 1868 from about one-third only of their productive lands. On the question of public works in this region I may state that Congress has made a grant of 46,000,000 acres of land towards the construction of a Northern Pacific Eailwav from the head of Lake Superior, through the State of Minnesota, and Dacotah, Montana, Idaho, and Washington territories to Puget Sound, on the Pacific. 150 miles is now under con- struction, and will be completed next summer. The Senate Committee of Congress in February last also reported in favour of Congress guaranteeing the bonds to the extent of 30,000 dollars per mile towards the construction of this railway and a Southern Pacific Railway, in all a length of 5,000 miles. The Committee also reported the important fact that the construction of railwavs in the Western States increased the production of the country more than five times the cost of the railway in a single year. Mr. Seward, in a speech delivered at St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, in 1860, said — " Here is the place, the central place where the agriculture of the richest regions of North America 15 must pour out its tributes to the whole worid. On the north all along the shore of Lake Superior, and west stretching in one broad plain in a belt across the continent, is a country where state after state is yet to arise, and where the pro- ductions for the support of American society in the old crowded states must be brought forth. I now believe that the ultimate, last seat of Government on this continent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius not far from the spot on which I stand." Were it necessary to multiply illustrations of the great natural wealth and wipabihties of this north-west region, I coidd go on almost indefinitely, but my experience of this country has not been confined to poring over statistics. I have visited and inspected the copper and iron mines on the shores of Lake Superior ; I have penetrated the virgin forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota ; I have crossed the prairies of Dacotah, Nebraska, and Iowa ; I have seen the rich alluvial valleys of Kansas and Missouri ; I have travelled through the garden State of Illinois from end to end ; I have examined the iron mountains of Missouri, and the rich coal deposits of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio ; and I have too often for my personal comfort been made practically conver- sant with the fact that in these countries, at any rate, " labour is king," and that even a negro charwoman was worth two dollars a day, and short hours of labour even for that. Of every earthly produce necessary for the sustenance of man there was everywhere the greatest abundance. In the garden county of Kent I never saw such wheat, or in the richest grazing districts of my native county of Yorkshire such fat cattle , as in the State of Minnesota ; industrious men and women seemed to be the only requisite necessary to make it the fairest and most fruitful portion of the earth. I came almost direct from this region to London; I had been absent for nearly two years and a half. The evening of the day after my arrival in town I passed one of the police-stations in a fashionable part of the West-End, and I mm 16 saw a long file of men and boys waiting for something, and I inquired what it conld be, and was told, " a ticket for a night's lodging in the workhouse." Good God ! thought I, if this is the case on the eve of a summer's day in August, what must it be in winter ? And yet twelve days' distance from London the labour of every human being I saw before me was worth from 4s. to 8s. per day, and cheap at that, — in a country that can bo reached at the moderate cost of MQ to £7 per head. I have known the United States and Canada for more than 30 years, I have resided in their most densely-populated cities, and if all the scenes of real poverty which I have witnessed there could be concentrated into one group it was not equal to that before me ; victims of intemperance and improvidence I have often seen in America, but abject unavoidable pauperism, never ! Since my return home x have been repeatedly asked the question, " What I think about the United States?" my questioner generally volun- teering his opinion at the same time, that " the Union must go to pieces, it is getting so large." My answer has invari- ably been that " I have no fear for the future of a country which yearly brings a virgin soil into cultivation equal in extent to the half of England, and creates a home and plenty for those Avho have heretofore been homeless and starving ; but I should have great fear for the stability of the institu- tions of my own country if her nilers cannot find a remedy for the frightful amount of poverty which now prevails." Poverty leads to crime, disease, and death. A Government which can " stamp out " a cattle disease, may reasonably be expected to be at least eq\ially considerate for the lives and welfare of the people. Is emigration the remedy ? Then, if it is, the manner in which it can be carried out on an extensive, judicious, and economical scale is a subject well worthy of the gravest and most mature consideration by the Government. That America has surplus lands and we a surplus population is manifest. Every able-bodied man, 17 woman, or child, not being the outpourings of a gaol, has always been received with a welcome by the Governments and people of British North America and the United States, and once landed on their shores emigrants have generally been treated with great kindness, and forwarded to their future homes at a mere nominal cost. The greatest facilities exist for their transport from all the great Atlantic seaports to the West. They are carried by railway from Portland or Quebec to the State of Minnesota, a distance of 1,200 miles, for about .£2 per head. In fact, the only real difficulty is that of providing the cost across the Atlantic, and in ships properly equipped for such a purpose; and this latter question — as Mr. Knapp, a member of the New York Board of Emigration, in a speech at the Social Science Congress in New York the other day, very properly observed — is one which should he settled by negotiating treaties ivith foreign nations; at the same time I would observe that as the United States have admittedly derived such enormous advantages from immigration, they ought to abolish the tax of two and a half dollars per head which is imposed on all immigrants, and maintain the Emigration Office from the national exchequer. In the adoption of any plan of emigration from this coxmtry, it is exceedingly important that it should not have the appearance of a " pauper emigration," or a temporary ex- pedient ; it should be one of the permanent settled institutions of the country, and for that purpose I propose the formation of a British and North American Emigration Company, to be established and carried on on commercial principles — in fact, uniting the support of the British and North American Governments, Philanthropic, Emigration and other kindred association, sand the railway and land companies of America, and providing a machinery by which the emigrant can be com- fortably conveyed to and settled in his new home at the very minimum of cost. The business of the company would be the purchase and sailing of steamers especially adapted for 18 /^ the carriage of emigrantH. These steamers should be of moderate tonnage, not exceeding 2,000 tons register, with auxiliary steam power equal to an average speed of 10 knots an hour, and lifting screws, by which means only a small space in the vessel would be required for engine, boilers, and coal, and thereby leaving greater space and better ventilation for the passengers. No steamer should carry more than 700 passengers, and I would oflfer a premium of one or two hundred guineas for the best design for such an emigrant ship. I would observe that it generally requires nearly double the amount of steam power to raise a vessel from a speed of 10 to 12 knots an hour ; it is this " driving," as it is called, which adds so frightfully to the miseries of emigrants in bad weather. The company would act as agents for the British North American and United States General and State Governments for the sale and granting of lands and for railway companies and corporations having lands for disposal. By this means millions of acres of land would be placed at the disposal of the company. They would also act as agents for all the great railway companies in America, so that the em" grant would be landed at his intended destination for a certain fixed sum, and thereby protected against all imposition. The company would co-operate with all the various local emigration societies and other kindred associations. The rates of passage to be regulated by the Government from time to time like the postage of a letter. The number of passengers, the bill of fare, the accommodation, ventilation, number of boats, and average speed of the ship should be approved by the Government, and the Government aid should be limited to the payment of an efficient subsidy, the same as to an Atlantic mail steamer. For the present I would run the steamers from the Victoria London Docks to Quebec in summer, and to Portland in the early spring and fall of the year, and, on the completion of the Intercolonial Railway, to Halifax. Quebec is the best port for debarkation in summer, whether 19 the emigrant intends settling in Canada or going to the North West. This route is by far the most agreeable to the Great West in summer, and provisions are cheaper, and there is a choice of either rail or steamboat. If aid by the Government in some such form as that which I have indicated would be given, I am assured that there would be no difficulty in such a company obtaining ample capital, and securing the most able administration, and that it could be placed in a position to commence operations with the opening of the navigation in the spring. Let us assume that there is a population in and around the metropolis of 250,000 desiring to emigrate if they had the means and could better their position. It would require a fleet of twelve steamers, performing six roimd voyages a year each, and carrying 700 passengers each, for a period of five years, to carry that number of people across the Atlantic. In conclusion, let me assure you that whether the subject of this letter is or is not considered worthy of your considera- tion, it expresses many of the opinions of the wisest and best men across the Atlantic. That the facts are as I have stated them no one with a knowledge of the subject will venture to deny ; the practical remedy suggested is the result of practical minds. I could have desired that I might have been gifted with a better command of language to do justice to this great subject, but let me say that the protection and aid of a patenial Government, and the philanthropy for which my country is so renowned, never can be more judiciously and beneficently directed than in carrying out an extensive system of emigration of our surplus population to the Dominion of Canada and the North- West States of America. 1 have the honour to be. Sir, Your most obedient servant, JOSEPH NELSON. 40, Lombard-street, London. 17th November, 1869.