I disagree somewhat with this. I don't think that Australia nor South Africa offer better climates than those available in the DSA (I will concede New Zealand).
Well, I wasn't thinking of Australia as a whole, only the inhabitable regions (no one worth mentioning settled in the Great Desert after all). I'd say coastal New South Wales and Victoria are far superior in climate compared to most of the DSA. Even the warmer cities in Australia (Perth, Brisbane) still don't get as warm as cities in the U.S. South. Plus, winters are much colder in the DSA.
But recall that Portugal still has a colonial holding on South America for those who want to keep their nationality, and while Balkanized, some of those Brazilian splinter nations will be attractive to Portuguese.
The land still held by Portugal is the crappiest, in terms of appeal to settlers though, no?
Maybe, but I doubt people will be thinking "Gee, I should go there since I'll get less sick than other people!"
I was thinking more along the lines of a government official thinking "Hey, these Sicilians and Greeks don't seem to get sick as often as the Welsh, maybe we should send someone to the continent to promote our province."
You lost me on this one - you saying that the English are more or less likely to come to North America ITTL?
I'm saying that as with OTL, the British won't migrate abroad to become factory workers. If they're dirt poor, and want to work in a factory, they can find one right at home. If they migrate, it will be for religious reasons, or political ones, or because they want to homestead or open a factory of their own. Hell, it could even be simple wanderlust. The main thing though is they won't be primarily attracted by industrial jobs in the DSA - Britain will almost certainly be more industrialized, and the capitalist class in the DSA, if they want to use immigrant labor to save money, will turn to some culturally alien immigrants they can pit against the native born.