With regard to emigration, as the whole United Kingdom will, it is said, “be benefited in a very great degree, and particularly in point of revenue, by the improvement which extensive emigration coming in aid of a general course of amelioration cannot fail to produce in Ireland, one-half of the expense should, the commissioners submit, be borne by the general funds of the empire.” And considering the particular benefit which Ireland will derive from it, and especially those landlords whose estates may thus be relieved from a starving population, it is proposed that in rural districts the other half should be defrayed partly by the national rate, and partly by the owners of the lands from which the emigrants remove, or from which they may have been ejected within the preceding twelve months. It is further proposed that all the necessary arrangements for carrying on emigration, should be made between the Poor Law Commissioners and the Colonial Office; “and that all poor persons whose circumstances require it, shall be furnished with a free passage and with the means of settling themselves in an approved British colony;” and likewise—“that the means of emigration shall be provided for the destitute of every class and description who are fit subjects for emigration; that depôts shall be established, where all who desire to emigrate may be received; that those who are fit for emigration be there selected for the purpose, and that those who are not shall be provided for under the directions of the Poor Law Commissioners;” who will moreover be authorized to borrow moneys from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners for the purposes of emigration, or for defraying the cost of any buildings they may think necessary, and also “to secure the repayment thereof by a charge upon the national rate.”
The commissioners likewise propose that the laws with respect to vagrancy should be altered. “At present,” they say, “persons convicted of vagrancy may be transported for seven years—our recommendation is that penitentiaries shall be established to which vagrants when taken up shall be sent; that they be charged with the vagrancy before the next quarter sessions, and if convicted shall be removed as free labourers to such colony, not penal, as shall be appointed for them by the Colonial Department.” But the wages earned in the colony are to be attached until the expense of their passage be defrayed; and it is added by way of summary, that by such provisions as are now suggested, “all poor persons who cannot find means of support at home, and who are willing to live by their labour abroad, will be furnished with the means of doing so, and with intermediate support, if fit to emigrate; and if not, will be otherwise provided for, while the idle who would rather beg than labour, will be taken up, and the evil of vagrancy suppressed.”