E is for… Emigrants

I have joined Gould’s ‘Family History Through the Alphabet’ challenge. I can’t promise to participate for every letter (my track record for sticking with challenges is not good!) but I didn’t want to miss out on the fun. Here is my contribution for the letter E.

E is for… Emigrants

It’s so hard to find suitable ones.

As I was browsing the Twelfth General Report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners I came across this passage describing the difficulty in finding suitable emigrants to the Australian colonies:

“… Besides this it is to be remembered that the class of emigrants to which our selections are almost confined, as the only one entirely satisfactory to the colonists, is more limited than at first sight would be imagined. Paupers, as they are called, are below the required class, mechanics arc generally above it; old people are useless; young children inconvenient. Idlers are mischievous in a colony; active people can generally get on at home. Single men are not desired in excess of single women, and respectable single women are not generally anxious to try the risks of a new country. People whose savings would enable them to become employers of labour instead of labourers, swell the evil which they are sent out to remedy. Lastly, the rate of contribution required by us from the emigrant himself was a further and very operative check on the number of applicants.”

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons.  Colonial Land and Emigration Commission. Twelfth general report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, 1852.

I was going to make this a stand-alone post called “Old people are useless; young children are inconvenient”, but thought better of it…