These people were not used to living, cooking and cleaning all together while being tossed by storms or baked in the heat. The death rate of children on board migrant ships was high because of the cramped and unhealthy conditions. Because unemployment was high in Britain many did choose to come, but it was not an easy voyage. The Australian colonial government decided that the best way to encourage migrants to come here was to pay for the tickets of eligible applicants. Also, a ticket to Australia cost four times as much as a ticket to North America. It was a shorter trip of twenty or more days compared to two or more months to get to Australia. However, a voyage to British North America or the United States of America was much more attractive to most British migrants. Convicts were seen as a bad moral influence and many people wanted the transportation system to stop rather than have more convicts in the workforce.
#How to colonize in victoria 2 free
The preferred solution was to encourage more free settlers. Employers were forced to increase the wages they offered to workers in order to compete for their labour. The expanding settlement meant that convict labour was not sufficient. People on farms needed labourers to clear the land, plant crops and take care of animals. By the 1830s and 1840s Australia was receiving an increasing number of free settlers (as opposed to convicts) but there was still a huge labour shortage.