Emigration to Canada

The following is a copy of a newspaper article printed in the "Berwick and Kelso Warder" in the Spring of 1840. It provides an insight into the lives of the peasantry of Scotland, and what many of the Border families were hoping to escape from, potentially, in their futures. It also provides an interesting look at the perception of Canada from the aristocrats of 19th century Great Britain.

Emigration To Canada

British North American Colonial Committee

A meeting of the committee was held at the Colonial Society, St. Jame's Square, on Wednesday week, for the purpose of receiving and approving an address to the nobility, clergy, and gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, calling upon them to promote emigration to British North America, as the best means of relieving the more populous parts of the United Kingdom...of the large masses of individuals who are at present in a state of destitution, and of extending the influence and securing the dominion of the mother country. The address, which has been drawn up by Dr. Rolph and Mr. Hughes, was at the last meeting referred to a sub-committee for consideration.

Dr. Rolph read the following address:-

"In many parts of the United Kingdom the redundancy of population has become a formidable, deeply seated, and rapidly increasing evil, extending its withering influence through every portion of the country, assuming an aggravated character in numerous districts of Ireland, and reducing the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland to a state of destitution, from the contemplation of which the mind recoils with pain and horror. In the latter districts more especially, the existence of a large proportion of the population is barely sustained on the most scanty, precarious, and unwholesome diet; large masses are in danger of being swept away, and districts depopulated by famine and misery in their most appalling forms; whilst the moral and social evils resulting from the physical condition of the unhappy sufferers are daily producing the most disastrous effects. These sufferings, and the demoralization which may be feared as their consequence, are rapidly sinking this unhappy, but noble-minded peasantry, distinguished for their independence, their provident, self-denying, and social virtues, to a state of helpless and unparalleled wretchedness; and an immediate remedy is admitted to be indispensable alike by the divine, the statesman, and the philanthropist. The period has confessedly arrived when this remedy can be no longer delayed - the wide-spreading desolation must be arrested- the moral contagion stayed; and it becomes the grave and solemn duty of all who sympathise with human suffering, and are interested in the welfare of our fellow-subjects, but more especially of those immediately connected with the afflicted districts, to ponder earnestly on the means which emigration holds out a certain corrective, if not entire cure, of an evil, which, if allowed to operate longer, uncounteracted, must exhaust the resources of the country, and at no distant period sink all classes to the level of that which is now lowest. This duty becomes more imperatively incumbent on the nobility, clergy, proprietors, and others connected with the Highlands and the Isles of Scotland from the fearfully aggravated form which pauperism has there attained; nor is the removal of this surplus population less their duty than interest.

Whilst this country is thus overburthened by a redundant suffering population, the resources of British North America remain undeveloped, and lie dormant, from the want of labourers.

The inhabitants of Great Britain have been too apt to consider Canada as merely a region of ice and snow, of pine forests and lakes, of Trappers and Indians, with a few forts and villages intermixed, and producing only furs and ship-timber. But this is a very imperfect view of this interesting country, which is growing in population and improving in cultivation more rapidly, perhaps, than any part of the United States, if we except the territory of Michigan, and must become, at no very distant period, a wealthy, powerful, and populous province.

The climate of Canada is singularly healthy, and in salubrity is unquestionably superior to the United States. The cold of winter is divested of more than half its gloom by the extreme dryness of the atmosphere; and the heat of summer is attempered by delightful breezes from the lakes. The higher latitude repels all the summer epidemics that ravage the United States. Even in the severity of its winters, all that is injurious will yield to the thinning of the forests, the draining of the swamps, and the other labours of the accumulating population.

If we look at the map, a truth rarely adverted to when we speak of Canada, is apparent to the eye, that a large portion of the province lying immediately northward of Lake Erie, is situated in a lower latitude than the greater part of Michigan, lower than all that fine and fertile region along the great canal in the state of New York, very little further north than the Pennsylvania line, and in the same parallel with the fertile, productive, and wealthy state of Massachusetts. But it is well known that the climate is much less severe between the same parallels as we approach the west; thus Pittsburgh has a softer winter and a shorter one than Philadelphia, and Buffalo than Albany; so Upper Canada is much milder than Massachusetts. An eminent English geographer observes that ' the action of the climate upon agricultural productions in British North America is more favourable than in others which have the same mean temperature. The intense heat of the short summer ripens corn and fruits, which will not thrive in regions where the same warmth is more equally distributed throughout the year. Thus Quebec agrees in mean annual temperature with Christiana; yet wheat, scarcely ever attempted in Norway, is the staple of Lower Canada. The Upper Province nearly coincides with the north of England; yet the grape, the peach, and melon come to as much perfection as in their native soil. Even rice is found growing wild. In this respect British America seems not to fall short of European countries under the same latitude. Its winter cold at the same time enables it to combine the products of the northern with those of the southern climates. By the side of the fruits above-mentioned flourish the strawberry, the cranberry, and the raspberry, while the evergreen pines are copiously intermingled with the oak, the elm, and others of ampler foliage.' It has also been observed, in reference to this subject, that 'the most populous portion of Russia is 20 degrees to the north of the North American border of Upper Canada, and the colonists crowding to the country are Britons, a race proverbally successful in all the tasks to be achieved by patient vigor and fearless adventure. These men require only room - their native energies will do the rest. The forest will be cleared, the morass drained, the prairie will be a corn-field, the huge lakes - those mediterraneans of the New World - will be covered with the products of the mineral and agricultural wealth of the country; coal has been already discovered in great abundance, iron and various metals are already worked, the hills abound in every kind of limestone up to the purist marble.'

A great part of Upper Canada is delightfully situated for an agricultural country; free from mountains, it is, nevertheless abundantly watered and almost surrounded and intersected by navigable rivers and lakes, on which its produce is easily transported to various and extensive markets. It possesses a soil as well as climate peculiarly favourable to the growth of wheat, and immense quantities are grown in it. The Welland Canal connects the navigation of Lakes Erie and Ontario; the Rideau Canal, constructed round the obstructions in the St. Lawrence, opens a free communication by water from the north-western extremity of Lake Huron to Montreal, and thence to the Atlantic; and it is in contemplation to form a second line of communication by connecting Lakes Huron and Simcoe with the long and extensive chain of lakes and rivers throughout the Newcastle district, or improving the navigation of the Ottawa River, and connecting it with Lake Huron, opening a great field for agricultural and commercial enterprise. The advantages of the navigation of these canals and the St. Lawrence, are as exclusively British, as the navigation of the Mississippi is American; and the British Government, in order to augment and foster these important interests, admits Canadian produce into her ports at a very small duty. The Provincial Legislature has petitioned for a further remission of the duties on tobacco - the western section of the province having been discovered to be peculiarly favourable for its growth. It is also ascertained that the climate and soil, especially that of the western part of Upper Canada, are admirably adapted for the growth of the white mulberry, to the cultivation of which the attention of the United States has long been earnestly directed." (to be continued)