210 MB. SHERIFF ALISON. consisting of five and twenty millions, and multiplying at the rate of a thousand souls a day, will ere long be unable to find subsistence within the narrow space of these islands ? Let us turn to the colonies, and there we shall find boundless regions capable of maintaining ten times our present population in contentment and affluence, and which require only the surplus arms and mouths of the parent state to be converted into gigantic empires, which before a century has elapsed may overshadow the greatness of European renown. Are we justly fearful that the increasing manufacturing skill and growing com mercial jealousy of the continental states may gradually shut us out from the European market, and that our millions of manufacturers may find their sources of foreign subsistence fail at a time when all home employments are filled up ? Let us turn to the colonies, and there we shall see empires of gigantic strength rapidly rising to maturity, in which manufacturing establishments cannot for centuries take root, and in which the taste for British manufactures and the habits of British comfort are indelibly implanted on the British race. Are we overburdened with the weight of our poor rates and the multitude of our paupers, and trembling under the effect of the deep- rooted discontent produced in the attempt to withdraw public support from the maintenance of the adult and healthy labourer ? Let us find the means of transporting these healthy workmen to our colonial settlements, and we will confer as great a blessing upon them as we will give a relief to the parent state. Are we disquieted by the rapid progress of corruption in our great towns, and alarmed at the enor mous mass of female profligacy which, like a gangrene, infests these great marts of pleasure and opulence ? Let us look to the colonies, and there we shall find states in which the population is advancing with incredible rapidity, but in which the greatest existing evil is the undue and frightful preponderance of the male sex, and all that is want ing to complete their means of increase is, that the proportion should be righted by the transfer to distant shores of part of the female popula tion which now encumbers the British isles. Are the means to transport these numerous and indigent classes to these distant regions wanting; and has individual emigration hitherto been liable to the reproach, that it removes the better class of our citizens, who could do for themselves, and leaves the poorest, who encumber the land? The British navy lies between, and means exist of transporting, at