Here we have the fact established beyond controversy, that our farm laborers have been, by causes which remain to be adverted to, reduced to half their former subsistence. If we were to go still further back, we should find the contrast still more horrible and disadvantageous. Every body then asks, in the first place, what have been the causes of these monstrous evils; these evils which have brought not only ruin, but disgrace, upon us, as a nation? And, in the second place, they naturally and anxiously ask what is to be the cure for these mischiefs---where are we to look for a remedy?

As the existence of the fact itself is sufficiently obvious, we have had, at various times, a great abundance of answers to the first question. The causes which have really wrought these effects have been taken up separately, combined in various proportions, and with various degrees of prominence assigned to each, have been pressed upon our attention. The truth or fallacy of many of these views, as connected with the subject before us, it does not fall in with our present purpose to endeavour to ascertain. But among other schemes brought forward with considerable bustle and pomp of nomenclature, is the surplus population notion as a cause, and emigration as a consequent remedy. This does certainly appear to us to be the most unnatural and ill-founded conceit of the whole lot; and the proposed remedy, one as impracticable and visionary as Lady Georgiana Wolffs' notion of converting and baptizing the Jews without paying them handsomely for their trouble.

No one can entertain any doubt that a country may theoretically be placed in circumstances which imperatively call upon some part of the population to emigrate. But the only case where proof exists of such a necessity, is in the case of a positive dearth of the necessaries of life, when undeniable evidence is afforded, that on an average of years many must go naked and starve, owing to the necessarily short production of food and clothing, and when at the same time the powers of production have been carried in that country to their utmost extent. This we maintain is the only case where emigration is necessary, or can be any other than an absolute check to the improvement and cultivation of refinement in the mother-country.While there is enough for all at home, nothing can justify any attempt to promote emigration. The fact of plenty existing, is quite sufficient of itself to answer the unsupported notion of the existence of a redundant population; amply sufficient to shew, that we must

look to other causes for the existing evils, and consequently seek out other remedies.

Now, will any body pretend to say, that in this country, at this moment, amidst all our starvation and nakedness, there really is any actual scarcity, that there cannot be, nor is not, enough of food and raiment for all? Will any one venture to assert, that even in Ireland enough is not produced by that country and its inhabitants, amply to supply every member of the community in proportion to his wants and station in society? No one, we think, has asserted this, or would venture his credit upon such an assumption. This, then, being the case, we ask, in the name of common sense, how is it to prove any benefit to England or Ireland to send away any number of their laborers, when these are the hands who create the food and raiment, and the only bodies who can consume them when created? If, as we before said, such disorder exists, that these necessaries are stopped in their natural progress to the natural consumer, how can the evil be remedied in any degree by emigration?

The main argument of these shallow emigrationists (we wish half of them would build log huts for themselves in Canada), is this :The price of labor is at present so low, that it is insufficient to afford even a bare existence; they jump at once to a conclusion, that this is occasioned by an excessive supply of labor; they disown and disregard any other considerations. Then say they, send off some laborers, diminish the supply, and you will render the labor of the remainder of more value, and consequently better their condition. Now, with what face can it be asserted, that there are too many laborers, so long as cultivation has not reached its utmost limit in any country? Is any farm in England as well cultivated as it is possible to cultivate it? Is Ireland producing throughout the whole island as much food and raiment as she is capable of producing? Not one half so much as a diligent and judicious bestowment of human labor would cause her to produce; and this is universally allowed even by the emigration schemers themselves. What brazen impudence then to call upon us to tax the nation, to get rid of these laborers at an expence, which, if bestowed on home cultivation, would not only amply repay itself, but in a tenfold greater degree than the same amount expended in Canada or elsewhere! We are called upon to raise capital by taxation to set these laborers to work on the shores of the Lake Ontario, when the same amount would infinitely better repay the advance by properly cultivating the shores of Lake Killarney!

But look at the immediate operation of any such thinning of the laborers on the mother-country. Our philo-emigrationists say, and smile while they say it, the immediate effect would be a rise in the price of wages for those who remained. True, but out of whose pocket is this rise to come? If a farmer now spends 1007. in labor among a given number, what is to remunerate him for spending the same amount among half the number, getting of course only half of the former quantum of labor performed? The increased price of eulti-vation must fall somewhere, and a pretty relief is designed, when the

obvious result is only to force an increased price from the consumer. If we are to pay another shilling a yard for our Irish linen, we are to rest satisfied that it is caused by the great numbers lately shipped from Cork for the banks of St. Clair and Lake Huron !

This evil, however, might be borne, if it confined itself to an entirely domestic rise of price; it would merely be a taking something more from the pockets of those who perhaps could afford it, to better the condition of the manufacturers. But how will our Canada populators reconcile this rise in wages with our foreign commerce; how will such a result bear upon our commercial transactions? If Mr. Horton and his plans had all the success which he so ardently, and we have no doubt disinterestedly, wishes them, what are to be our hopes at home under so great a rise in the price of labor as he must contemplate? Would not our foreign commerce suffer almost to annihilation, if his notions were as easily carried into effect as they are notoriously impracticable? With all our reduction in the price of wages, reduction to a degree horrid to dwell upon, we can hardly force a sale; and now our legislators desire to abate this small chance of a market we have left, with a view to our security and relief. O monstrous! the cure for our present evils is to consist in causing a rise in the price of labor and production!

And then as regards the laborer himself. Who believes that a rise in his wages would take place so as greatly to better his condition? There is a vulgar and detestable notion afloat, that great blame is attributable to the farmers and manufacturers for causing this unwholesome depreciation in the pay of their laborers. It is oftener hinted, than directly asserted, that the employers of the poor willingly grind them to destruction, that they combine to cause these results. Such an idea is at once revolting and untrue. Does the farmer now gain more than a fair remuneration by his prices, when compared with his labor account and general outgoings? Can he now afford, or could he at any time afford, a greater rate of wages without a corresponding increase of prices? Are we to credit for a moment that our manufacturers take any delight in making the weaver work for sixpence a day, or that he gains inordinately by his dealings between the laborer and the consumer? No such thing. The rates of wages are forced upon the employers, and we have no reason whatever to believe, that if by reason of a reduction in the number of laborers, a rise in the price of labor was also forced, that rise would be for the benefit of the laborer. Every thing he consumed would consequently rise in price, and, above all, the reasons which now urge the employer to obtain labor cheap, would then be much more powerful and operative. If the farmer and manufacturer are now obliged to lower the rates of labor to such a great degree, with a view to meet the foreign markets, what would then be their inducements to keep the wages low, or prevent any considerable increase?

Just in proportion that we disbelieve that any good effects would result from these emigration plots, do we discredit, that increased numbers of laborers have been the chief cause in producing the

existing distress. We may argue inversely from effect to cause, and say, that if reduced population would not cure the evils, increased population has not caused them. Why should we credit we have too many consumers, when all are complaining from inadequate consumption? Why should we look to surplus population for a cause of the mischief, while we have rung in our ears from all sides, the greatness of our over-production? Surely both cannot be co-existent. If we rely upon one, we must wholly negative the other. Nothing can be clearer to our apprehension, than that the gradual degradation of our laborers has not only been concurrent with, but wholly caused by, the additional pecuniary burthens which the country has had to endure. Many are disposed to scoff at the thought of the gross amount of taxation falling almost entirely upon the laborer; but that this is the case we fully believe, and may at some future time more largely enter upon. The external and obvious appearances of their condition and history, are entirely in favor of this belief. Here is a highly taxed country, a country having had to endure a progressive amount of imposts, and yet all classes of society but one, have not only maintained their comforts and condition, but positively improved them. What class is the worse for all the taxes, for the funded or unfunded debt? Whose income and means have been abridged one half in the course of three-quarters of a century, besides those of the laborer? In short, is there any one class which has been made to feel the taxation with any thing like the severity that has oppressed the laborer? In addition, it is to be remembered, that each class in society has had the power of bearing any given degree of privation with less destructive effects than a corresponding change make in the circumstances of the laborer. The sufferings of a man of a thousand a year reduced to half, bear no proportion to the wretchedness of a man with six children reduced from 10s. to 5s. a week. All classes but the laboring also have the means of pushing off, in some degree, the burthens which oppress them. The farmer and manufacturer feel the weight of taxation; their first step has been to reduce their outgoings for labor. But in what manner can the laborer obtain relief, upon whom is he to shift his burden?

With regard to a great deal of the existing, and we sincerely hope remediable, distress of the country, no doubt can for a moment be entertained that it has been occasioned by the terrific fluctuations in the value and quantity of our currency. One year we have been enabled to pay our national engagements in a depreciated currency, then prosperity seemed to fill our borders, and give Mr. Robinson eloquence---the next year, by legislative enactments we were obliged to pay a double amount of taxation by means of the increased value of money caused by those enactments. One year the landlords have been cheated of their rents by receiving them in debased currency :--the next, the tenant has been ruined by being compelled to fulfil contracts which he had made, calculating upon the continuance of that currency. One year, the whole system of trade has been changed and uprooted by the fatal facilities of paper accommodation :

---another year, ruin, unavoidable ruin, has been entailed upon the innocent, by cutting off those supplies which he had rested upon to complete his engagements. Such have been the workings of this system of change and uncertainty, that we verily believe as much suffering has been entailed upon the nation within the last eighteen months, as though a pestilence had swept off a beloved member of every third family in the country. What paltry stuff, then, is it to talk of sending a few hundreds of industrious laborers to starve in Canada, as a cure for these evils---evils originating in such distant and unconnected circumstances.

In addition to the evils of increasing taxation, and a neversettled currency, Ireland (which is the chief point to which the sympathies of our transport-men are mainly directed) has had to endure many aggravated additions; and not the least of these is the evil of a non-resident, rent-receiving gentry. It was always somewhat a matter of surprise to us, how a journal like the Edinburgh Review could suffer its pages to be prostituted to such empty stuff as that talked-of article on Absenteeism, an article which, with its author, are now "damned to everlasting fame." We cannot be suspected of very great love for the Edinburgh, but we really feel a kind of pity to see it justly become the gibe and jest of its enemies, by reason of the admission of this monstrous tissue of absurdity and false reasoning. What! at a time when hundreds were dying of starvation, or fed by the bounty of Englishmen ; when men were lying on the sea-shore feeding on sea-weed, with the vessels fully laden with the best kinds of Irish provisions in sight; at a time when the ships, laden with charity potatoes from English ports, were passing larger vessels burthened with provisions from Irish ports; was this a time for any quack coming north or south of the Tweed to tell us, that these truths, and the known fact of Irish exports annually exceeding the imports by three millions, had nothing to do with the export of the greater part of the land rents? To tell us that the place of consumption of produce made no difference to the producers? To assert, that if a million a-year were paid in produce for rent, it was a matter of indifference whether that produce was consumed in Ireland or France?

These notions have so often been exposed and refuted, that we should be guilty of positive vulgarity and common-place in seriously entering into their refutation. We merely referred to them as bearing upon the question of Irish population, and the emigration schemers. We say, let Ireland consume what Ireland raises; let Irishmen be fed and clothed with Irish food and clothing, and we should not hear calls for transporting the hands that raise, and the bodies that ought to consume, the produce. But ought not public odium and contempt to rest upon the framers of such notions? Is it a good sign of English common sense to observe M.P.s, and lords, and legislators forming an audience, and attentively listening to the diatribes of the author and inventor of such empty stuff---of the self-styled, selfelected, self-exposed Ricardo lecturer *?

By the bye, we learn upon enquiry that Mr. M'Culloch's lectures have this season been delivered to empty benches. We hail this as a symptom of amendment.