38 EMIGEATION AND THE FEAR CAUSED BY IT. 



or industrj- might there secure them the competence 

 which their own neighbourhood had denied them. No love 

 of home, or attachment to the paternal acres, restrained 

 either class of men ; for these Old World feelings or 

 notions have scarcely yet found a place among the Anglo- 

 Saxons of any part of North America. 



That such native-born and old settlers were leaving the 

 province in considerable numbers, was construed into an 

 indication that the province was Inferior, as a place of 

 residence, to the states and provinces to which they emi- 

 grated. Alarmists made it a topic of melancholy lamenta- 

 tion and gloomy forebodings ; and, as in similar cases at 

 home, party feelings laid hold of the emigration as a 

 demonstration of the correctness of special party views, 

 and exaggerated its evil effects. The departure of the 

 working lumberers was a necessary consequence of the 

 cessation of their favourite employment ; and It was not 

 considered that the moral character and habits of these 

 men as a body, and the disheartened and embarrassed 

 condition of the owners of the encumbered farms, ren- 

 dered the departure of neither class a real loss to the 

 population of the province ; that the departure of both, in 

 fact, was necessary, in order that the social state might 

 have a fair chance of returning to a healthy, cheerful, 

 energetic, and prosperous condition. 



But if lumber, as a staple export, was to be insufficient 

 to supply the future wants of the colony, in the way of 

 paying for the necessary Imports of West India produce 

 and of flour, upon what were the colonists to fall back ? 

 Were the hitherto undervalued agricultural resources of 

 the colony greater than they had been supposed? Could 

 these 18,000,000 of acres really be made to support a 

 population of 210,000 inhabitants, and thus enable them 

 to dispense at least with the large importation of bread 

 stuffs for which they had hitherto been yearly Indebted 

 to the United States, to Prince Edward's Island, and to 



