There is something curious in the preference which the emigrants from England, Scotland, and Ireland display for different localities. The proportions emigrating the countries below are as follows:–
Emigrants English Per cent. Scottish Per cent. Irish Per Cent. To United States, 54, 14 1/2, 12 – Sydney, 17, 21 1/2, 7 – Canada, 8 1/2, 25, 50 – Port-Philip, 8, 14, 7
As the table expressly bears to be ” a return of the persons who have emigrated,” we can scarcely suppose that it includes persons who went out to the countries mentioned on business, without any intention of settling. In the report for Canada, the number who went to the United States in 1841, is stated to be only 32,500, or about two thirds of what stands in the above table.
It will be observed, that not a single emigrant to India or Ceylon appears in the table; yet surely some persons go with the express view of remaining in these countries.
The number of person who were enabled to emigrate in 1841 by means of bounties payable in the colonies, was, for New South Wales 22,752, for Van Diemen’s Land 331. It must be remembered that New South Wales includes PortPhilip.
There are returns of land sold, but not in a very perfect form. In Canada, in the year 1839, 1840, and 1841, the lands sold were 176,518 acres. The average price was 3s. to 3s. 8d. in Lower, and 12s. to 13s. in Upper Canada; the lands granted without sale were 194,000 acres, exclusive of those for Lower Canada in 1841. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, about 200,000 acres have been sold at prices varying from 2s. 3d. to 3s. 8d. The lands granted are inconsiderable.
At the Cape, 129,000 acres have been sold in the three years, at prices from 2s. 5d. to 3s. 3d.
Lands sold in New South Wales Acres. Average Price. Sydney District–1839, 234,272, 8s 2 1/2d. 1840, 105,900, 18s. 8 1/2d. 1841, 15,790, 20s. 0 1/2d. Port-Philip–1839, 38,343 36s. 6 1/2d. 1840, 83,687, 51s. 11 3/4d. (Six months)–, 53,733, 20s. 0d. 531,930
The sales were chiefly by auction.
In Van Diemen’s Land, the sales in 1839, 1840, were about 130,000 acres, at 10s. or 11s.; in Western Australia (Swan River), in 1839, 1840, 1841, the sales were 71,000 acres, from 6s. 1d. to 11s.; in South Australia, 55,000 acres, at 20s. The sales of land are no bad index of the progress of the colonies in capital and cultivation; and, according to this criterion, it will be seen, that those which were advancing most rapidly in the three years, were Sydney and Port-Philip. The money received in payment of land in these two colonies in 1839 and 1840, amounted to t307,647; and, if we understand the report correctly, the whole of this sum is applicable to emigration, that is, to defraying the expense of carrying out emigrants.
The 118,592 emigrants probably carried with them, or expended on their passage, twenty pounds each; and thus the money which left the country must have amounted to upwards of two millions.
This gigantic emigration one of the things which convey an idea of the immense resources of Britain. The United Kingdom contains only the ninth part of the population of Europe; and we believe it may be safely said, that all the other eight parts do not send out half the number of emigrants annually which are sent by the British Isles alone.
Citation: Scotsman (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), 18 May 1842, available at the Scissors and Paste Database, http://www.scissorsandpaste.net/312.