ABSTRACT
After the crisis the amount of mortality and sickness considerably diminished; and a Committee of the House of Commons in 1851, though it discovered grave abuses at the Port of Liverpool, and recommended better provision for inspection and for the maintenance of order and cleanliness on board ship, paid a tribute to the zeal and discretion with which the Land and Emigration Commissioners enforced the existing regulations.2 The Canadian restrictions, however, and the relatively low demand for labour, did lead to a diversion of the stream to the United States. In 1848, only some 25,000 went to Canada and some 4,000 to New Brunswick, as compared with 188,000 going to the United States, and these proportions were roughly maintained in subsequent years. 'The Times might say that the real trouble was the influence of the French party in Canadian politics; 3 but in actual fact the point was that Canada was claiming the right to regulate immigration in accordance with her needs as she conceived them. It was not much in consonance with the economic ideas of the time that the Government should actively exert itself to divert emigration from a country where the emigrants could find employment unaided. Indeed during the years 1845~, of the 253,000 emigrants who actually landed in Canada and New Brunswick at least 73,000 had gone to the United States eventually. Canada did after all receive as many immigrants as the States in proportion to its population; and it was currently held that trade bound American and British interests so closely together that the more immigrants the United States received the better for Great Britain:f.
