Garden Calls. 603 



nent, and who is now in London. He says the thing has already been done 

 on a small scale by what are called redemptionists, i. e. labourers, who, be- 

 fore leaving England, agree to labour a sufficient length of time after their 

 arrival at Sydney, to pay for their passage there, with interest, and the ex- 

 pense of insurance. If the plan, with some improvements, were rendered 

 legal, he thinks it would be attended with immense advantages to both 

 countries, and, above all, to the labourers themselves, who would eventually 

 become proprietors. He is of opinion, that if government were only to 

 pass a proper law on the subject, so as to protect all parties from injustice 

 or cruelty, and to justify the overseers of parishes in forming contracts on 

 behalf of such of their poor as might volunteer themselves as emigrants, 

 that the exportation of labourers would go regularly on according to the 

 demand, in the same way as the exportation of any other article. He is far 

 from thinking it necessary for government to incur any expense in aid of 

 emigration, because the interest of all parties would be sufficiently great to 

 carry it on as a matter of business. We sincerely hope government may 

 be induced to take the subject into serious consideration, and have no 

 doubt of thousands being found who would sell themselves for seven years, 

 for the certainty of independence and plenty afterwards. As to the pain of 

 leaving one's native country, it is but very trifling, when in that country a 

 man can no longer obtain a sufficiency of daily bread ; and, indeed, as a 

 general principle, in an age like the present, when every man is a citizen of 

 the world, wherever a man's family and his property is, there will be his 

 heart, his happiness, and his country. , 



Perhaps we shall be told that these matters are foreign to the Gardener*s 

 Magazine; but this we deny, for though they are not horticultural, they 

 are still intimately connected with the prosperity of gardeners and garden- 

 ing, and with rural and domestic improvement. It is our duty to open up 

 to young gardeners what we conceive to be correct views on all these sub- 

 jects, because the prosperity or adversity of the whole of a country involves 

 the prosperity or adversity of every part of it. Should government con- 

 tinue the same system of taxation and restriction, many of the landed pro- 

 prietors will soon be ruined. Gardeners and the Gardener's Magazine will 

 be among the first to feel the effects of this, and it is proper that they and 

 we should know this in time. It is a grand moral error to suppose that 

 every man ought to rest content with a knowledge of his own trade or pro- 

 fession, leave every other to follow his, and the government of the country 

 to its administrators. This is a very convenient doctrine under absolute 

 governments ; but it is unsuitable to the present age, and especially to the 

 state of society in England, where scarcely any man can be said to be 

 eminent in any art or profession, without having just, or at least enlightened, 

 views on every other subject, and especially on those most important of all 

 subjects, morals and politics. It is the first duty of every man to acquire 

 the art of labouring at something by which he may, at all events, gain his 

 daily bread, support a family, and, if possible, acquire independence in the 

 country in which he lives ; but, having fitted himself for living in societj', 

 it is his next duty to ascertain the place he occupies there, the rights to 

 which he is entitled as a man and a citizen, and the power he has of main- 

 taining these rights. If he and others neglect this, such indifference will soon 

 be turned to account by the natural cupidity of aspiring individuals. 



A man, whether he be a labourer, an artist, or a man of science, what- 

 ever may be his talents or his industry, provided he knows nothing more 

 than the subject of his pursuits, is only the better fitted to become a slave 

 to superior power. Let every gardener and farmer, therefore, look around 

 him, hear different opinions on all subjects, especially on those important 

 ones, morals and politics, and endeavour to select the best in these sciences, 

 no less than in his profession. In a reading age like the present, it is only 

 by the operation of this principle among the most intelligent part of a com- 



