Knowledge, something has been done in this direction. The Society has formed several of its members into an Emigration Committee, and the results of the work of this committee have unmistakably shown the necessity of the Church taking up the matter. Through the action of this Society an emigrant can, should he so desire it, be seen off by a clergyman at the port of departure and be met on arrival in the country in which he may settle, so that the Church's God speed is the last sound he hears on leaving his fatherland, and her welcome the first sound to greet him on landing in a new country; and no words of mine can express what a comfort this is to the poor stranger in a strange land.

The Society has also published hand-books of different Colonies which give reliable information to the emigrant, and a list giving the names of clergy in various parts of the world to whom emigrants may be commended.

Nothing, however, has yet been done in the direction of emigration commensurate with the Church's position and opportunities. But in what way should she proceed to help the poor to emigrate. This, of course, is the great point. The plan which appears to me the most feasible to be adopted in taking up this matter of emigration, so that its benefit may really be felt throughout the country, would be for each diocese to have an Emigration Society of its own. It should be started with a fund of say £5,000. Representatives should be sent out to Canada, or other of our Colonies, to select land for each diocese, and arrange that such selections should be altogether, in one locality. Thus there might be the Chester Colony, the Manchester Colony, the Liverpool Colony, etc., so that emigrants would always be sure of settling in the neighbourhood of people coming from the same part of England as themselves, and doubtless, in many instances, would have known each other in the old country.

Land can be obtained for a mere nominal sum.

There should be small houses put up ready to receive the people on arrival ; farming implements, seed, etc., should be provided for them, and a man should be on the spot to instruct them if necessary. Provision might also be made for affording them means of subsistence for the first year.

There should be a central town or village in each colony. Here the church and clergyman should be as well as the school. The blacksmith, the carpenter, the shoemaker, and the small shops would also be in the town.

Families assisted out may be asked to give a mortgage on their land for being thus helped. This would cause them to feel that they were not being treated as paupers. Anything that tends to pauperize the people, must, of course, be avoided. In time, money so advanced would probably be repaid, so that with proper management the same money could be turned over again and again.

This is, of course, the barest outline, but I am not advocating a plan which has not been proved. This system of colonising has, to some extent, been adopted in sending out the Baroness Burdett Coutts' party, to which allusion has already been made.

These emigrants from the East end of London, have, on the whole, done very well. There are, of course, some failures. From a letter I have received from the Rev. H. Huleatt, whose noble exertions in behalf of his poor parishioners are worthy of the highest praise, I quote the following:

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"Of the nineteen families sent out, two are failures and two are doubtful. The degrees of success achieved by the other fifteen families are almost as varied as the characters of the men and women on their respective homesteads. Some of them have fairly turned the corner, while others of them have still a hard struggle before them. I should say that amongst those fifteen families, I include two or three who

are decided grumblers. They described the hardships and trials of their lives so vividly to Mr. Lawley, that in his sympathy he offered to pay the passage of the two families back to London on the condition of giving up the homestead, when they promptly declined, and made it plain that they knew they had got a good thing and were not going to part with it to anyone. They had been simply trying it on with a kind hearted gentleman. I just give you one instance, that of John Chambers. In Great Britain this man was earning a pound a week, going about with milk for a dairyman. With his wife and six children he was getting deeper and deeper in debt, and the inevitable and speedy prospect for him was 'The House.' He settled on his homestead, the very poorest of the nineteen families. He has now got two oxen (ploughing), a cow, and seven pigs. He tells me he hopes to have twenty next spring. He has twelve acres this year under crop, and was breaking up more when he wrote, and he has altogether fifty-three fowls. I should add, the wife is a woman of great energy, and both she and her children help him on the farm." This is most important testimony, and shows what may be done by diligence and perseverance.

The people should be taught that emigration is a manly, and even a noble duty. It is not only for those who are ne'er-do-wells at home, but is fit, proper, and honourable for all classes of the community. Without interfering with the emigrant's freedom in this selection of his new home, every legitimate influence should be brought to bear upon him to settle in those colonies and dependencies, where, under his own flag, he may obtain every advantage which can be offered to one in his position.

I know that it is said that the Church has nothing to do with things temporal, that in directing, or in any way taking part in a comprehensive system of emigration, she would be moving in a matter quite outside the operations of a spiritual body. It is surely a mistake to say this. There need be no relaxing of the spiritual life in thus looking after the body as well as the soul. Rather would this identifying herself with the temporal welfare of her children give the Church a stronger spiritual influence over the masses.

DISCUSSION.

STEPHEN BOURNE, Esq., Abberley, Wallington, Surrey.

MAY I say, at the outset, that the work of the Church in this matter begins at a much earlier date than has been alluded to by the previous speakers, and that it is one in which I am not altogether without experience; for more than half a century ago I was enjoying the climate of the uplands of Jamaica, and last summer I had the pleasure of going over the whole length of railway to the north-west of Canada? It seems to me on full consideration of the circumstances of our country at home, that the emigration of a large proportion of our people is absolutely necessary. We are lessening, if not losing, our export trade, and we are ceasing to be the suppliers of the world's markets to the extent we were; thus we must, if we wish to provide for our growing population, find for them homes elsewhere. I look upon this as a beneficent dispensation of Providence, rather than as an injury to our own country; for the first command given to man after he was placed on this world, was to "increase, multiply, and replenish the earth." We have had committed to our guardianship and care, magnificent tracts of country, ranging from north to south, east and west, all round the globe; and I do not believe the Almighty formed these countries, and endowed them with the capacity of providing the necessaries of human life, with the intention that they should remain barren and desolate. I believe He who gave the soil, and created man, designed that those territories should be peopled, and that He has placed them

under the supremacy of a Christian country, by way of laying a solemn responsibility on us that we should fulfil His command. What are we doing? By unsanitary arrangement, by over-crowding, by poverty and distress, we are raising up a surplus population, of which perhaps a half are suffering, more or less, decay in health, and will thus be unfitted for filling their proper position in this life. As to the Church, I speak as a layman, for I believe this work was committed more to the lay members of the Church than to her clergyman; and I say it is their duty to instruct the people in the nature of the various countries that are at their disposal-to teach them how they may best exercise their choice when they find it necessary to leave the haunts of their birth to settle abroad. It is also the duty of the Church to let them know what they have to look forward to-and it is the duty of the Church, beyond this, to take care to bridge over the intervening space between this land and the land to which they emigrate. We want an agency more extensive than that referred to by the last speaker. We want connecting links with the length and breadth of the British dominions, so that those who wish to go abroad shall have all facilities given them for understanding the way and the manner in which they should go. We want to show them how they may emigrate from homes here to homes elsewhere, without ceasing their connections with the Church of our land-without losing the spiritual privileges they possess here-without forgetting the teaching imparted to them in their earliest years. We want, also, to make abundant provision for them out there, and in this respect we have a lamentable amount of destitution. From the Bishop of Ottawa, with whom I went up to the Rocky Mountains, in the west of Canada, I learnt the abundant provision there was for women to enter on domestic service; but, also, that the destitution in many places of spiritual supervision rendered hazardous the sending out of those who might be in danger of being led astray. In many parts of the west there is a law prohibiting the sale or possession of intoxicating liquors; and it is the duty of the Church at home, when meeting with weak brethren, who here are in danger of being led into over-indulgence, to point out that it is a land of which the natives themselves say that the climate is so exhilerating and bracing, that those who have been accustomed to the use of spirits at home do not require them there. Let us make provision here for diffusing adequate information, and when the Church rises to a due sense of her responsibility in this matter, we shall have glorious lands filled with free-born Englishmen. We shall find that Greater Britain will eclipse the grandeur even of the old country, and rejoicing in the happy transport of our numerous children, delight to see them spread abroad from one end of the earth to the other.

The Rev. H. C. M. WATSON, St. John's Parsonage, Christ

church, New Zealand.

As a colonist, and indeed something more than a colonist-as one born and educated in Australia, having never seen England until the last few months-I am much interested in the question of emigration. Immigration is of vital importance to the colonist, and it is one of the problems of our colonial statesmen to know how to attract to their shores the bone and sinew, intellect and moral force, of old England. I think I may be able to say something on this subject, although I am unwilling to interrupt the religious tone of feeling that has prevailed, because what I am able to say is more of a secular character-what we are able to offer to those who come to the colonies from England. One of the first things that strikes one on coming to England is the wonderful variety of green tints which one sees; but the next thing that struck me, coming to London in the railway train, was women working in the fields a sight rarely, if ever, seen in the colonies. Then in London, one is struck by the trade of life which seems never to come to an end, in the midst of which are men and women clothed in rags, while the streets teem with little children wretchedly clad, and, I suspect, wretchedly fed. These scenes make it most painful for me to be in London, and I do not think it would be possible for me to live in London unless I was actually engaged in some charitable and benevolent work. Such sights as you see here you never see in the colonies. And it makes one feel that instead of borrowing eleven millions of money for warlike demonstrations, our statesmen ought to borrow five and twenty millions to remove a large number of those poor men, women, and children, to lands where they would have the certainty of plenty and

comfort, and the chance of obtaining the very highest places which the colonies can offer. In England a working man must always be a working man, but in the colonies he may rise to the highest position of influence and trust. Many of our leading statesmen have been working men; one of my friends, who became Minister of Railways in Victoria, told me he was a stoker-lad in England. When one knows such results, one wishes people in England could understand the reality of the advantages that people have in coming to the colonies. It is, however, necessary to remember one or two cautions. There is no use for the good-for-nothing or the drunkard to come to the colonies. The present is a season of depression, and if a man went to New Zealand now I could understand him saying that he had been misled. I say this, because I know it so well. I have lived there many years, all my life. But our depressions are not like your depressions. Yours seem to be organic from defect in economic laws; ours are merely functional derangements, soon over. We shall soon have again a season of prosperity; and then is the time for the working man to come to the colonies. In New Zealand, it is an absolute fact that the wages people are generally able to earn are not earned in exceptional times. Servant girls with us get married so quickly that it is absolutely impossible to keep up a sufficient supply. It is rarely you find a servant girl more than three or four years in a place. A nurse girl can earn from £16 to £20, a general servant from £26 to 30; and if 300 or 400 girls were landed in Canterbury they would be absorbed in two or three weeks. The farm labourer gets from 15/- to a 1 a week, and his keep; the ordinary working man-the handy useful man-earns his 8/- a day. He begins at eight o'clock in the morning, has an hour for dinner, and leaves off at five o'clock. In fact the working man's magna charta in the colonies is expressed in the following doggrel—

Eight hours' work; eight hours' play ;
Eight hours' sleep, and eight bob a day.

They are very chary of taking less than 6/- a day. As to the cost of food, mutton is 2d. to 2 d. a lb., while here you pay 9d. or 10d. The only thing which is more expensive in the colonies than in England is clothing. In respect to spiritual matters, we have a voluntary Church, which (I speak of my own diocese) the year before last raised £14,000, and if England raised money in proportion to her population, she would raise £3,500,000. You will find the churches in many cases absolutely freeevery person is free to take a seat on the stopping of the bell. Persons coming to the colonies should bring letters of introduction. And if, in addition, a letter were sent to the clergy or the bishop of the diocese, people coming would be certainly looked after. But if he did not present his letter, it would be somebody's duty to look after him. If some organised effort of this kind were made, people coming to the colonies would not have to be lost to the Church.

The Rev. HUGH HULEATT, Vicar of Shalford, Guildford.

I AM glad to notice in this meeting a large leaven of those that I believe are working men and women, and yet I address them deliberately as ladies and gentlemen, because, amongst artisans of East London, I have met men and women who in all essentials were ladies and gentlemen, influenced by principles that the highest nobleman in the land might be proud to adopt. The ground on which I have presumed to speak to such an influential meeting, is to correct a little mistake made both by Mrs. Joyce and Mr. Bridger, with regard to the matter under discussion. The honour of originating the London Artisan Agricultural Colony at Moosomin does not rest with me, but with an old and valued friend, Sir Francis de Winton, who, when General Gordon was ordered to Khartoum, went in his stead to the Congo, and who, in more ways than one, has for years been following in the footsteps of that noble soldier and Christian martyr, bringing fresh lustre on the name of British officers. The circumstances that led to the sending of the London Artisan Colonists to Moosomin are these:-In 1879, the late Bishop of London presented me to the living of St. John's, Bethnal Green, and after twenty-five years as a military chaplain in the Crimea, China, and all sorts of places, I settled down in the East end, and there I found a state of things that had never before come under my experience, and that, I may add, was a sore trial to my faith. I do not hesitate to say that the greatest comfort and support of my life has been that in the spirit of a little child,

I have been enabled to receive and believe the written Word of God. Now, like most other people, I have my favourite passages in the bible, and one of them is, "I have been young and now am old, and yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." But when I went to the East end I found sober and steady men, able and ready to work, not knowing where to turn to earn bread for themselves and their families. The state of things around me in Bethnal Green clashed with my favourite passage in the Psalms. I became then spiritually depressed. At this time I happened to run against Sir Francis de Winton in the streets of London. He had been a teacher in my Sunday school in former days, and one who had often strengthened my hands. I told him of this spiritual trial, and I shall never forget the look of compassion in his eyes as he said: "Oh! that need not try your faith. I have just been in the North-west territories with the Marquis of Lorne. There is there bread enough and to spare for the millions of England, even should you increase them four-fold. I went out to that country. I traversed her Majesty's dominions in North-west America from Quebec to the Rocky Mountains. It was a new revelation to me. The redundant population at home, and the redundant land in her Majesty's territories in the Northwest, completely meet each other's need, and all that is required is. that we, as a nation, should obey the Word of God (Gen. iii. 23), "Go forth and till the ground." And now with regard to the little experiment at Moosomin, which has been carried out through the munificence of the Baroness Burdett Coutts and other philanthropic ladies and gentlemen. It is a mere drop in the ocean. Previous speakers have been good enough to mention to you the care and trouble we took to teach the colonists a little before sending them out, but there is far more wanted. To carry out a colonization scheme, really and effectually, you ought to have a model farm at home; and before sending men out they ought to get a certain amount of training on this farm, so as to arrive at a true estimate of their fitness to become agricultural colonists. The plan I should like to see tried is to get twenty men of wealth, who have the fear of God before their eyes, who would each invest £5000. This amount would be amply sufficient to send out a colony of a thousand families, and if in the present distress men of wealth would in this way show pity for their poorer brethren, they would be lending to the Lord; and His own Word would be fulfilled, and the money thus laid out would be paid back again. I believe such a colony would be a safe investment for their money. As to the Church, I must mention the marvellous love for the mother Church that exists among those colonists. I had no conception until my visit to Canada that our labouring and artisan classes had such a tremendous love for the dear old Church. I traversed the region from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, along the line of the Canadian and Pacific Railway, and on five consecutive Sundays I performed divine service at different places. People came from twelve miles around, bringing in their wives and children in wagons. I never saw such enthusiasm for the Church's services in my life. They are willing to do everything in their power to strengthen their clergyman's hands, and to make his position among them a happy They told me they would build his house and cultivate his section of land, so as to leave him free for his own spiritual duties; but they have no ready money, and they have not the means for training men for the ministry, and so they cry to the mother Church, come over and help us and when the children cry to the mother for bread she must not give them refuse. We must not consider anything as good enough for the colonies. The Church should send of her very best to this work. A man who is a failure at home is not likely to prove a success in the colonies. During her whole history, the Church of England has never had a grander opening for the ingathering of a spiritual harvest than she at the present moment possesses in the North-west territories of America. The Church of Rome recognised the importance of the opening, and she retains at Winnipeg her most eminent ecclesiastic--Archbishop Taché. The Presbyterians have sent one of their most eloquent preachers to Winnipeg; and the Wesleyans are making the most tremendous efforts to be the first to take possession of this fruitful field in the vineyard of the Lord. And when all other Churches and religious bodies are advancing so rapidly, shall the Church of England lag behind? If in this crisis the Church of England fails in her duty to her children in the colonies, then other religious denominations will take possession of the pastorless flock. I take it that, as churchmen, we have no liberty to hand over this charge to strangers. The souls of her children are the most precious treasure of the Church; and to give away that treasure to strangers is faithless, and a sin against God. It is the duty of the Church to send her very best to supply the spiritual need of her children, who have been baptized in her own bosom, and who now in the far North-west are using their Anglo-Saxon thews and sinews in changing the lonely wilderness into a very garden of the Lord.

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