In Darkest England and The Way Out [83]
and religious enjoyments to which the Colonists have been accustomed. After dealing with the preparation of the Colony for the Colonists, we now come to the preparation of the COLONISTS FOR THE COLONY OVER-SEA.
They would be prepared by an education in honesty, truth, and industry, without which we could not indulge in any hope of their succeeding. While men and women would be received into the City Colony without character, none would be sent over the sea who had not been proved worthy of this trust.
They would be inspired with an ambition to do well for themselves and their fellow Colonists.
They would be instructed in all that concerned their future career.
They would be taught those industries in which they would be most profitably employed.
They would be inured to the hardships they would have to endure.
They would be accustomed to the economies they would have to practise.
They would be made acquainted with the comrades with whom they would have to live and labour.
They would be accustomed to the Government, Orders, and Regulations which they would have to obey.
They would be educated, so far as the opportunity served, in those habits of patience, forbearance, and affection which would so largely tend to their own welfare, and to the successful carrying out of this part of our Scheme.
TRANSPORT TO THE COLONY OVER-SEA.
We now come to the question of transport. This certainly has an element of difficulty in it, if the remedy is to be applied on a very large scale. But this will appear of less importance if we consider: --
That the largeness of the number will reduce the individual cost. Emigrants can be conveyed to such a location in South Africa, as we have in view, by ones and twos at #8 per head, including land journey; and, no doubt, were a large number carried, this figure would be reduced considerably.
Many of the Colonists would have friends who would assist them with the cost of passage money and outfit.
All the unmarried will have earned something on the City and Farm Colonies, which will go towards meeting their passage money. In the course of time relatives, who are comfortably settled in the Colony, will save money, and assist their kindred in getting out to them. We have the examples before our eyes in Australia and the United States of how those countries have in this form absorbed from Europe millions of poor struggling people.
All Colonists and emigrants generally will bind themselves in a legal instrument to repay all monies, expenses of passage, outfit, or otherwise, which would in turn be utilised in sending out further contingents.
On the plan named, if prudently carried out, and generously assisted, the transfer of the entire surplus population of this country is not only possible, but would, we think, in process of time, be effected with enormous advantage to the people themselves, to this country, and the country of their adoption. The history of Australia and the United States evidences this. It is quite true the first settlers in the latter were people superior in every way for such an enterprise to the bulk of those we propose to send out. But it is equally true that large numbers of the most ignorant and vicious of our European populations have been pouring into that country ever since without affecting its prosperity, and this Colony Over-Sea would have the immense advantage at the outset which would come from a government and discipline carefully adapted to its peculiar circumstances, and rigidly enforced in every particular.
I would guard against misconception in relation to this Colony Over-Sea by pointing out that all my proposals here are necessarily tentative and experimental. There is no intention on my part to stick to any of these suggestions if, on maturer consideration and consultation with practical men, they can be improved upon. Mr. Arnold White, who has already conducted two parties of Colonists to South Africa, is one of the few men in this country who has had practical experience of the actual difficulties of colonisation.
They would be prepared by an education in honesty, truth, and industry, without which we could not indulge in any hope of their succeeding. While men and women would be received into the City Colony without character, none would be sent over the sea who had not been proved worthy of this trust.
They would be inspired with an ambition to do well for themselves and their fellow Colonists.
They would be instructed in all that concerned their future career.
They would be taught those industries in which they would be most profitably employed.
They would be inured to the hardships they would have to endure.
They would be accustomed to the economies they would have to practise.
They would be made acquainted with the comrades with whom they would have to live and labour.
They would be accustomed to the Government, Orders, and Regulations which they would have to obey.
They would be educated, so far as the opportunity served, in those habits of patience, forbearance, and affection which would so largely tend to their own welfare, and to the successful carrying out of this part of our Scheme.
TRANSPORT TO THE COLONY OVER-SEA.
We now come to the question of transport. This certainly has an element of difficulty in it, if the remedy is to be applied on a very large scale. But this will appear of less importance if we consider: --
That the largeness of the number will reduce the individual cost. Emigrants can be conveyed to such a location in South Africa, as we have in view, by ones and twos at #8 per head, including land journey; and, no doubt, were a large number carried, this figure would be reduced considerably.
Many of the Colonists would have friends who would assist them with the cost of passage money and outfit.
All the unmarried will have earned something on the City and Farm Colonies, which will go towards meeting their passage money. In the course of time relatives, who are comfortably settled in the Colony, will save money, and assist their kindred in getting out to them. We have the examples before our eyes in Australia and the United States of how those countries have in this form absorbed from Europe millions of poor struggling people.
All Colonists and emigrants generally will bind themselves in a legal instrument to repay all monies, expenses of passage, outfit, or otherwise, which would in turn be utilised in sending out further contingents.
On the plan named, if prudently carried out, and generously assisted, the transfer of the entire surplus population of this country is not only possible, but would, we think, in process of time, be effected with enormous advantage to the people themselves, to this country, and the country of their adoption. The history of Australia and the United States evidences this. It is quite true the first settlers in the latter were people superior in every way for such an enterprise to the bulk of those we propose to send out. But it is equally true that large numbers of the most ignorant and vicious of our European populations have been pouring into that country ever since without affecting its prosperity, and this Colony Over-Sea would have the immense advantage at the outset which would come from a government and discipline carefully adapted to its peculiar circumstances, and rigidly enforced in every particular.
I would guard against misconception in relation to this Colony Over-Sea by pointing out that all my proposals here are necessarily tentative and experimental. There is no intention on my part to stick to any of these suggestions if, on maturer consideration and consultation with practical men, they can be improved upon. Mr. Arnold White, who has already conducted two parties of Colonists to South Africa, is one of the few men in this country who has had practical experience of the actual difficulties of colonisation.