EMIGRATION EXEMPLIFIED.-ALGOA BAY. SIR,-Notwithstanding the ability of general exposition displayed by Mr. Buller last night, and the debating repartee qualifications of Lord Stanley, the subject was not treated in that style which interests a commercial people, or, if you please, a nation of shopkeepers. It was not made practical. Human nature is not led by general ideas, paraded without an object, and declaimed upon without the means of operation, or without knowing the object to be obtained. Individuals want to emigrate, and we do not want the House of Commons to become a pulpit, British Goods from Great Britain £124,324 From Africa, Mauritius.... From Port Natal.. Coastwise.. Duty Collected. 123 6 8 5 10 8 813 14,818 894 215 Now, Mr. Editor, I request you to regard and contmplate these figures. Here, Sir, were 3,750 persons a dead weight upon the community, and had they remained here they would have increased to double-a still further incubus. They have fulfilled the command to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it. These 3,750 poor people now employ 95 ships, of the aggregate tonnage of 14,500 tons, which employ at least £150,000 of British capital simply in shipping. There are 947 British tars navigating these vessels, invigorating, perpetuating, and increasing our navigation power. These 3,750 poor people, some even clad by their parishes, some by private contribution, and some by the expenditure of their last shilling-these 3,750 persons now require from our British looms an annual supply of £124,324 worth of British manufactures! And yet, in the face of this, that prophet of despair, that enemy to the manufacturing interest, Mr. Cobden, exerts all his influence to decrease the business of his brother manufacturers, because he has a crotchet-a corn-law monamania; and thus many of them, like the dog in the water, drop that which is within their grasp for that which is reflected in their distempered brain. Let us have some one step forward with practical common sense-some one not mad with party-some one that, instead of exciting to violence against the true patriots of their country, will point out those tangible, feasible, benevolent, truly patriotic means of relief which our colonies (Heaven be praised!) so bountifully afford. Look again, master manufacturers, over these figures; divide the amount of your own productions by two, and your annual profit is £62,162. Will you listen to reason and to your interest, or to faction and to Cobden ? And you, Emigrants, whichever colony you choose, go forth in good heart; and while you flourish as the palm-tree, increase the shelter for our poor, and let the precious drops which add prosperity to your colonial Hermon flow bountifully over your native Zion! X. P. R. April 8th, 1843. SUMMARY OF THE AFFAIRS OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE AND ALGOA BAY FOR 1841-42. (From the South African Commercial Advertiser, January 4, 1843.) In meeting the public at the commencement of 1843, we have the honour to wish them the enjoyment of many such years as the last, as far as health, fruitful seasons, internal tranquility, increasing morality and decreasing crime, occupy this concluded chapter of our history. No epidemic diseases of any sort have fallen on man; sheep, cattle, and horses have been equally exempted from fatal attacks; and a most abundant crop of the finest wheat has crowned the year with goodness on the part of the Sovereign Disposer, and we trust, on our part with gratitude. Within the boundaries of the colony there has been nothing but the orderly and peaceable administration of law and government, except on the Eastern Frontier, where, for several months, thefts and robberies by depredators from Kaffirland were unusually numerous, and the loss of cattle and horses by colonists residing near the border proportionally great. The chiefs and Kaffir nations were, in consequence, warned by the Colonial Government that their assistance was expected in a vigorous effort to check these outrages, otherwise measures, just but severe in dealing with the border tribes, would be forced upon them. By this exhortation, and the proper disposal and handling of the force under his command, the Lieutenant-Governor succeeded, during the latter months of the year, in causing an almost total cessation of thefts and robberies. But in the midst of this work he was suddenly called away, and nearly all the force at his disposal, to check the lawless proceedings of a number of Boers on the northern border, who, following the example of those at Natal, have openly renounced their allegiance, and threatened the friends and neighbours of the colony with destruction, and the colony itself with invasion. As this affair has not ended with the year, its history will belong to 1843. We trust it will be a history honourable to the Government, and instructive to those who have yet to be taught the first elements of national, political, and moral laws. The people expect from Government the maintenance of order. They expect security and freedom from apprehensions, as well as from actual violence. With these the existence of unpunished rebellion under the public eye is wholly incompatible *. The affair of Natal has also been handed over as a legacy to the year 1843. In the course of 1842 the Boers at that point attacked, de. feated, and besieged a considerable British force under Captain Smith, until driven back from the coast by a combined naval and military force under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Cloete. With these men a sort of pacification was made, on terms that were equivalent to total impunity. The consequence has been open contempt of the terms themselves where the slightest restraint was understood, and the exhibition of the same imprudent revolt amongst the Boers on the Northern Frontier †. These are the only colonial misfortunes of the year; but though much to be lamented for the blood they have caused, or are about to cause to flow, and for the disquietude they have produced in our still uncombined society, they have, in fact, had no perceptible effect on the general state of the colony. The expense is British. The soldiers are British. The rebels, indeed, are colonists; but their losses, according to their own account, have been wonderfully small! The explosion of a single steam-boat in America, or of a single coal-mine in England, will destroy more life and property in a moment than we have yet sustained in the course of these two rebellions. In short, we may use the words of Francis the First, with a slight variation-"We have as yet lost nothing except our honour!" Turning from these crimes beyond the boundary, we find the judges still congratulating the grand and petty juries on the decrease of crime within the reach of the law, or on its small amount where it was scarcely possible for it to decrease. This is a proof of increasing industry, and of the general well-being of the people. And of this we have another proof in the state of the public and private schools, which, in every part of the colony, under excellent teachers, are crowded with multitudes of well-dressed, healthy, fine looking children, on whom our hopes for better days than the colony has yet seen, rest unshaken by the occasional follies of us their progenitors. It will be their own fault if the rising generation do not excel the present one in knowledge, if not in good manners, They have superior advantages. Since completely settled by the Lieutenant-Governor. (May, 1843.) Natal is to be occupied by troops already sent out, and to be immediately colonised. Of the progress of religion we have nothing definite to say; but from those we consider qualified and impartial witnesses, the accounts we receive are very favourable. In all the schools the great truths of religion are announced and inculcated in some form or other. The churches are well attended; and religious books, both in the Dutch and English languages, are more sought after than any other class of works. Respecting the trade and commerce of the colony we are happy to find the value of colonial produce exported in the year ending 10th October, 1842, considerably exceeds that of 1841. The account stands thus. Value of Colonial Produce } 1841 £226,668 This shews an increase of more than £30,000; and the reader will be more struck with this when he learns that on wine, our former staple, there has been for the last year a decrease of more than £34,000; thusValue of Ordinary Wine exported in 1841 .... .... £75,480 On what articles has there been so great an increase as to cover this decrease in wine, and to account for the supplies? Chiefly on wool, which has now fairly stepped to the head of the list, though ten years ago it stood unnoticed at the bottom. But see now On some other articles there has also been a remarkable increase which we find it difficult to explain. For example The value of horses exported has also risen, in the same time, from £5,694 to £12,244-Mules, from £60 to £3,060-Hides, (horse and ox,) from £20,940 to £26,016. We cannot help remarking that the increase has been chiefly at the eastern end of the colony. Thus 1841. 61,105 0 0 177,581 14 0 .... .... 1842. 94,598 0 0 163,446 11 0 The value of exports of colonial produce from Port Elizabeth has risen by more than one-half its amount in the preceding year; at the port of Cape Town there has been a falling off of nearly one-twelfth. Nothing is known of the revenue, except that branch of it which belongs to the Custom-house. Here there has been a great increase, arising, however, in part from the alteration in the duties. Thus Total Revenue from the 1841. .......₤46,417 17 7 Custom-house .1842.......... 59,164 16 0 Here, again, we must observe that, in the time spoken of, the revenue from the Customs at Port Elizabeth have risen from £4,024 17s. to £10,059 11s. 1ld. That is, it has been more than doubled. At Cape Town, the rise has been from £41,673 13s. to £48,630 8s. 8d. ; an increase of about one-seventh. The legislative council has accomplished nothing during the year, of public concern. But it is at present engaged with a bill for enabling the proprietors of immoveable property, in the Cape and Stellenbosch divisions, to make a hard road across the Cape Downs; a piece of sand that has long been felt as a great drawback on the resources of thi of the colony. The bill has been read a second time without a dissentient voice, but a strong opposition has been organised out of doors, which has rendered its success doubtful! Among the public works of the year, we may notice the lighting of the new Pharos at Green Point, and the opening of another wharf or dwarf jetty in Table Bay, which add greatly to the safety and conveni ence of the port. A Humane Society has also been formed, for rendering assistance to vessels wrecked, or in danger of being wrecked, on our coast; and a life-boat, with the same view, is now on the stocks, and nearly completed. Nor must we overlook the arrival of the steam-vessel the Phoenix, destined to connect more closely this western end of the colony with the more rapidly improving eastern extremity, and to open the various bays and rivers on the intermediate coast, to commerce and agriculture. The colony being in this progressive and promising state, free from the diseases, the severe seasons, the crimes and disorders that affect, in different degrees, most, if not all the other colonies of Great Britain, we are not surprised to observe that emigration is beginning to seek the Cape of its own accord. The colonists and their government have done nothing to encourage it: no free passages have been offered to labourers, no grants of land to the capitalist: the English emigrant moves to the Cape as he would remove from one English county to another if he brings character, intelligence, or money with him, he is well received, and soon finds himself in a comfortable house. Some hundreds, with one or other of all these qualifications, have arrived during the course of last year, and as far as one can judge from their silence, it would appear that they have been already suited to their mind. This is a sort of emigration that brings neither trouble nor disappointment with it, and in this it differs from all other sorts where anything is either given or promised to emigrants; and with this agreeable feature of our case, we conclude for the present. MOORINGS AND LIGHT HOUSES IN ALGOA BAY. The following letter from the Colonial Office gives hope that these important improvements will soon be obtained by the colony. It remains for the colonists to follow up the application, and the Surveyor-General will require but little prompting to have it quickly accomplished. The municipality should immediately order moorings, following the directions of the master of the port, confirmed by the Admiralty Court of Cape Town, as regards the best position for them. Downing-street, 4th February, 1843. SIR, I am directed by Lord Stanley to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 16th of November last, complaining of the present insecurity of the anchorage at Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay, owing to the want of moorings and a light-house; and I am to acquaint you that, in consequence of communications which have recently passed between this department and the Boards of Admiralty and Treasury, his Lordship's decision, in regard to the subject of the erection of light-houses |