During the second week of July the News Chronicle printed an article deploring the miseries suffered by emigrants to Canada and discussing a new scheme that proposed to bring organisation into the matter.
Looking through an old magazine (The Lady’s Magazine) for January, 1820, the writer came upon the following: —
A difficulty has long presented itself, in contemplating the subject of emigration to Canada, and other Colonies, and parts of North America, that while, on the one hand, we are told of the abundance to be found in those countries, and the room which they offer for innumerable emigrants; on the other we find that, of the multitudes who have gone in quest of the promised blessings, a vast proportion have encountered the severest distress.
The writer then goes on to explain a scheme proposed by a Mr. Kendal for assisting emigrants and providing them with information. Institutions for this purpose were to be established in London and in the Colonies.
That is over a hundred years ago and still the same problems arise and with them the same bright ideas for abolishing the problems—problems that defy abolition as long as capitalism, with it’s passion for exploiting wage labourers, remains.
Gilmac.
