History of NSW From the Records - Volume 1 Governor Phillip 1783-1789

"AT a time when men are alarmed at every idea of emigration, I wish not to add to their fears by any attempt to depopulate the parent State." This remarkable passage - which appears in Sir George Young's Proposal for a Settlement on the coast of New South Wales, - throws a striking light on the history of the times. The great wars in which England had been engaged for so many years previously, and the prospect of still greater wars in which the country might be involved at any time, probably gave rise to the alarm excited in the public mind by any proposal for free emigration; the prevalent ideas being that every able-bodied man who went out to settle in a new country was a direct loss to the State, and that the drain on its population entailed by the establishment of a colony might prove a serious public danger in the event of war.

The state of public opinion on this subject in 1785 may be better appreciated by a glance at the population tables of the principal European States for the years 1800 and 1880:- (1)

Country

1800

1880

United Kingdom
France
Germany
Austria
Russia
Italy
Spain

15,570,000
27,720,000
22,330,000
21,230,000
38,140,000
13,380,000
10,440,000

34,650,000
37,430,000
45,260,000
37,830,000
84,440,000
28,910,000
16,290,000

The depopulation theory dates from a very early period in English history. Sir Josiah Child, in his New Discourse of Trade, publislied in 1668, argued strongly against it, contending that colonies do not depopulate the mother country. Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, mentioned in his chapter on Population that "it was long a prevalent opinion that the emigration to the New World had depopulated Spain, and it was also suspected that it had diminished the population of England. There is not, however," he added, "the least ground for any such opinion or conjecture."

But the opinions of these and other philosophers did not remove the popular prejudice on the subject. That it had active vitality even in the present century, may be seen from a book published in London in 1830, under the title of The Friend of Australia, in which the author, a retired East India Company's officer, advocated a systematic exploration of this country. Alluding to the prevalent objections to sending out emigrants to the colonies, he said:-

It is also a most egregious mistake for anyone to say that we should be parting with and sending out of the country the mainspring of our strength - our youth - who are to defend us in case of war. I wish to know what difference the thousands who have already left Great Britain have made in the great bulk of the population? None. Where are they missed?

Perhaps the most forcible illustration of the current doctrine on this subject during the last century will be found in Callander's DeBrosses collection of voyages, (2) published in 1766 under the title, Terra Australis Cognita. This work was nothing more than a free translation, without acknowledgment, of the Histoire des Navigations aux Terers Australes, by the President, Charles de Brosses. In an introductory chapter "of the utility of further discoveries," Callander adapting the Frenchman's argument, says:-

Nobody now pretends to call in question that a State must augment her power and wealth by extending the several branches of her commerce by the means of colonies, provided this can be performed without depopulating too much the mother country. The task may be difficult to determine what part of the people of Britain can be spared for new establishments in distant regions. It is, I believe, generally admitted that this island is able to nourish a larger number of people than we actually have. Now the real riches of a State consist in the number of her subjects.

After enumerating the commercial advantages to be derived from "sending out well-regulated colonies," Callander proceeds to point out another advantage of a different kind:-

These are the useful articles that flow from exporting our people to colonies abroad; but there are others that may be found in some sense necessary; such as that of sending annually abroad certain people who only hurt society at home. .... The proper use of banishment is to send the criminal from the country he has infested into another, where, by its dependence on the mother country, his labour may become useful to the State.

Dalrymple also, in the introduction to his Collection of Voyages in the South Pacific Ocean, published in 1770, refers to the prejudice against emigration:-

An objection has been made to colonisation from an opinion that it draws away subjects from the mother country to the colonies; whereby the former is weakened, and the latter, by an idea of their own increasing power, encouraged to struggle for independence.

Another illustration of the singular delusion referred to may be seen in the preface to The History of New Holland, published in 1787, just before the departure of the First Fleet. Referring to the expedition, the writer says:-

When it is considered as an experiment (for the disposal of convicts), the objections of those who exclaim against founding a colony upon the infamous assemblage of exiled felons will fall to the ground. Supposing that Government had chosen to embrace the single purpose of forming a settlement at Botany Bay, they would be justly censurable in inviting the industrious and reputable artisan to exchange his own happy soil for the possession of territory, however extensive, in a part of the world as yet so little known. But criminals, when their lives or liberties are forfeited to justice, become a forlorn hope, and have always been judged a fit subject of hazardous experiments to which it would be unjust to expose the more valuable members of a State. If there be any terrors in the prospect before the wretch who is banished to New South Wales, they are no more than he expects; if the dangers of a foreign climate, or the improbability of returning to this country, be considered as nearly equivalent to death, the devoted convict naturally reflects that his crimes have drawn on this punishment, and that offended justice, in consigning him to the inhospitable shore of New Holland, does not mean thereby to seat him for his life on a bed of roses.

1. Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics. In the Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, Paris, 1753, the author mentions 20,000,000 as the supposed population of France at that time, but admits that it is not a reliable estimate; vol. i, p. 25. Voltaire (Dialogue 24, premier entretien) alludes to this estimate as an exact one:—"Il est prouvé" que la France ne contient qu'environ vingt millions d'âmes tout aut plus, par le dénombrement des feux exactement donnè en 1754."

2. Callander's work was published two years before Cook sailed in the Endeavour on his expedition to the South Sea, and was probably not without some influence in determining the Government of the day to prosecute the "further discoveries" which it advocated. The publication of the work at that time shows that public attention was directed to the subject.

History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789

G. B. Barton - 1889

PART III

The Depopulation Theory

History of New South Wales From the Records VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789

G. B. Barton - 1889

PART III

The Depopulation Theory

History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789