y can then, _after once
setting themselves up_, live cheaper than in England. But only in
this case can it be done. To live otherwise, that is to allow
yourself and family things on the ordinary scale we have them in
England, costs far more.

The reason why things are dear in the States is simply because labour
is scarce and expensive. For an ordinary day's work, a man there gets
one to one and a half dollars besides his food. This is certainly
equal to three times the ordinary English wage. The consequence is,
that, in spite of the heavy import dues on foreign manufactured
goods, the Americans, in many cases, find it cheaper to import than
to manufacture them. Take crockery for instance. By far the greater
part in use comes from England. They have as good clay in the States
as there is here. I need not say that the Americans, ingenious and
_au fait_ at all machinery as they are, _could_ make it, still they
do not, to any extent, simply because, so made, it would be dearer
than what they import. English crockery will be found all over
America; it has borne sea freight, import dues, rail charges for
perhaps fifteen hundred miles, what wonder then that when you buy
such it costs three or four times what it does here?

It is the same with many other things. In fact, the purchasing power
of a dollar in inner America is not, for all such articles, much more
than one shilling in England! It goes without saying, that English
emigrants of the lower class, settling in America, can, by selling
their labour, as they do, at such a high price, and with the cheap
common food available, more than make up for the high cost of such
things as I have described. But people who have been accustomed to
comforts in England should avoid the States, unless they are prepared
to forego society, and live the sort of life one leads on a cattle
ranch, where nothing in the way of appearance is necessary.

One word more as to the poor emigrant class. It is not all _couleur
de rose_ for them. True, labour is in demand and its cost high, but
the man, or the family, have often a hard fight before they can take
advantage of these conditions, and during the interval they have
necessarily to spend far more than they would in England. I do not
say that the said poor class, who cannot find work here, should _not_
emigrate to America, but I do say they are unwise to do so, unless
some assured favourable locality, some kind of probable opening, is
assured t