The fluidity of low-skilled
labour seldom exceeds the power of moving from one town to a
neighbouring town, or from a country district to the nearest market
towns, or to London in search of work. If the lowlands are to be drained
at all, it must be done by an artificial system. Now all such systems
are in fact open to the mistakes mentioned above. If we look too
exclusively to the requirements of new colonies, and the opportunities
of work they present, we may be induced to remove from England a class
of men and women whose services we can ill afford to lose, and who are
not in any true sense superfluous labour. To assist sturdy and shrewd
Scotch farmers, or a body of skilled artisans thrown out of work by a
temporary trade depression, to transfer themselves and their families to
America or Australia, is a policy the net advantage of which is open to
grave doubt. Of course by removing any body of workers you make room for
others, but this fact does not make it a matter of indifference which
class is removed. On the other hand, if we look exclusively to the
interests of the whole mass of labour in England, we should probably be
led to assist the emigration of large bodies of the lowest and least
competent workers. This course, though doubtless for the advantage of
the low class labour, directly relieved, is detrimental to the interest
of the new country, which is flooded with inefficient workers, and
confers little benefit upon these workers themselves, since they are
totally incapable of making their way in a new country.
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