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APPENDIX. 



Extract of a letter to a gentleman in Calcutta interested in 

 Foreign and Colonial Emigration. 



" I HAVE read, with much attention, the papers on 

 Colonial emigration you placed in my hands, and though 

 they have helped to perfect my knowledge on many points, 

 and show that much care is taken to insure the comfort 

 and wellbeing of the emigrants, they have not induced me 

 to alter the opinions I previously entertained, regarding 

 this deeply interesting and highly important subject. I 

 would not in any way be understood to advocate the im- 

 position of any restrictions on the freedom of labour. His 

 labour is all the poor man has to bring to market, and any 

 interference with his free and unrestricted liberty to carry 

 that, to where he can dispose of it to the best advantage, 

 while the wealthy merchant may take his goods, without 

 let or hindrance, to any market in the world, would not 

 only be economically a retrograde and false step, at vari- 

 ance with those sound principles which have regulated the 

 policy of the British Government now for many years, but 

 extremely despotic, if not oppressive. At the same time, 

 it must be borne in mind, that the labour of every country 

 is its most precious wealth, and I conceive, that while re- 

 cognizing to the full that right of unrestricted freedom in 

 regard to emigration which its subjects, by virtue of its 

 constitution, enjoy, it would be more consistent with the 

 policy of the British Government, to leave the labourer to 

 his own free choice, than to take legislative action with 

 the avowed object of facilitating the entrance of foreigners 

 into this country to entice him out of it, and thus deprive 

 India of that wealth which she most requires. 



