Cumming to Lytton

The Council of United Trades in Glasgow have delayed to
acknowledge your answer of date 9th November, to the Memorial
adopted at the Public Meeting on Emigration, in the City Hall,
on 16th September last, which answer was conveyed through Mr.
Robert Dalglish, our respected Member.

This delay has arisen from several causes: one of which
was the hope that Trade would revive, and that Employment or Work
and Wages, would be plentiful, and that the necessity of applying
for the intervention of Government on behalf of the Unemployed would
be removed.

The Council are sorry to be obliged to state, that while, in
the Weaving Department, and Branches dependent thereon, trade
is better, there are still several thousands of working men in
Glasgow and its neighbourhood out of employment, and who have
been so six, seven, eight, and twelve months, even longer, and who,
in consequence, along with their wives and children, are suffering
severe privations and distress, bordering, indeed, on actual starvation.

This statement is no exaggeration. It unfortunately is too true.
The Council believe you are sincere in the expression of your
sympathy with the sufferings of the Unemployed. But something
substantial, some relic of a practical kind adequate to the
exigencies of the case, is required; and the Council would earnestly
but respectfully entreat you, and the other Members of Her Majesty's
Government, again to consider whether aid in the way of Emigrations
and Colonisation may not be extended to them.

Grant, as you say, that the Management of the Crown Lands in the
Colonies is entrusted to the several Colonial Governments, any one,
or all of those Governments—Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, Canada,
or other British North American Colonies—would, the Council believe,
be glad to comply with any suggestion or recommendation of the
Imperial Government to assist such of the Unemployed, as would be
willing to avail themselves of their assistance, by emigrating, either
for the purpose of working to others after arrival in the Colonies,
or of settling on lands that might be granted to them, and cultivating
those lands according to their several means and capabilities.

But there is the new Colony of British Columbia—purely a Crown
Colony (also Vancouver's Island and the Red River territory, betwixt
Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains, at present in the hands of the
Hudson's Bay Company; but possession of which may be resumed by the
Crown in the course of the present Session of Parliament). Surely it
cannot be said, the rights of any third party interpose with regard to
those territories; or that Her Majesty's Government may not grant
portions for the settlement of a body or bodies of the Unemployed who
wish to emigrate, or may not assist them to go thither and settle
thereon. If associations of private individuals, with comparatively
limited means, have planted, within the last twenty years, the six
settlements of New Zealand, the Colonies of South Australia, Victoria,
and Port-Natal—all of which are prosperous communities—surely such
a slur will never be cast on the British Government, as to say, that,
with the prodigious power and resources it may command, it is impotent
for like purposes; or, for making Emigration and Colonisation subservient
to a great work of beneficence and practical Christianity—the raising
an Unemployed, poverty-stricken, and desponding body of
fellow-citizens to a condition of active industry and hopefulness,
every stroke of their axes, and every spadeful of earth they turn,
advancing them on the road to comfort and independence.

The Council cannot believe Her Majesty's Government hearken to
those Capitalists and Employers who oppose Emigration, because it
serves to make labour scarce, and who desire always a surplus or
glut of hands in order to have a command of "cheap labour."

If there be no question, and there can be no question, as to
the POWER of Government, is it the want of WILL? And why should
there be a want of Will in such a case? Did not the cry proceed from
four thousand men assembled in the City Hall? Is it a fictious or
disloyal measure they propose? Or, is it not, on the other hand,
thoroughly constitutional and consistent with enlightened policy?
And has it not been approved of and supported by many of our most
enlightened publicists and legislators? And also by the Press,
with some exceptions. Or, is the MODE by which the Power of Government
shall be exercised? If so, as the materials for successful
Colonisation exist in abundance—land, labour, and capital, or LAND,
MEN, and MONEY—and as Government has the land, while the men are
here, the Council apprehend, if the land be granted, that there will
be no difficulty in Government finding the money, wherewith to
carry out an effective scheme for the deliverance of the Unemployed.