MR. GHILDERSsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If any communication has been made to the Admiralty relative to the recommendation of the Transport Service Committee as affecting the Emigration Department; and if he will state the purport of such communications?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, his noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Department, without attempting to go into the general question of the Transport Board, had represented to the Admiralty that the process of removing British emigrants from this country to the Colonies was long and complicated, depending not merely on the transport itself, but on the previous steps taken for the selection and bringing together of emigrants, and that it would probably be highly disadvantageous to the conduct of emigration if all the steps of that process were not to remain in the same hands. He further pointed out that the transport itself would probably not be so well managed 855 when forming only part of the business of a huge department as it was at present, when undoubtedly the arrangements had been brought almost to perfection. The duties of the Emigration Department went much beyond mere transit to Australia; it had most important functions to discharge in the regulation and superintendence of the immigration from India and China to the West Indian Colonies and the Mauritius. It had constantly to advise the Colonial Office upon questions connected with land, and labour in the Colonies; so that, even if its shipping functions were thrown upon the Transport Board, it would still be necessary to form an Emigration Department at the Colonial Office; and consequently there could not be much saving. His noble Friend the Colonial Secretary, on, the whole, was strongly of opinion that to sanction the proposed transfer of duties to the Transport Board would be to sacrifice a most useful system, now in excellent operation, to what was little more than a false attempt at uniformity; that the Colonial Agents would not feel equal confidence in the new administration, and that the change would therefore only tend to revive all the old evils of emigration.