Immigration into a different British Empire

JJohnson

Banned
Let's say for the sake of argument, the British Empire evolves thus:

1740: gain of Cuba during War of Jenkin's Ear
1783: Loss of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Thirteen Colonies
1784: gain of New Caledonia via Captain Cook's claim
1784-1800: Loyalists go to Cuba, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Australia
1806-8: Invasion of Rio de la Plata succeeds, Britain gains the southern cone of South America (gray portion in the south of the map), expanding to hold OTL Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and part of southeastern Brazil (up to Parana) over the next 20 years roughly.
1806: Cape Colony is taken over by the UK.

What's the best way the UK could gain the greatest number of settlers for its much larger empire? I know George II, George III are electors of Hanover - does that mean they could or would encourage settlers from there into their British possessions? What about other European countries - would they be encouraged to settle, and how? Free/cheap land?
 

katchen

Banned
Having lost North America, the Empire isn't that much larger and may actually be somewhat smaller. But has anyone noticed that Britain holds all the Earth's land area south of the Tropic of Capricorn except for a bit of Chile? That will be what organizes the New British Empire. That and the Antarctic circumpolar current that provides a one way circuit around the world from the Argentine to South Africa ( 1 month-6 weeks) South Africa -Western Australia-6 weeks South Africa-New South Wales -8 weeks, New South Wales-New Zealand -2 weeks New Zealand West Coast South America--2 months--Around the Horn to East Coast South America--l month. And much of the land area in question is good for raising sheep, guanaco and alpaca for wool for the mills of Great Britain.

One of the things that the British can do is maximize both the convict system in Australia and assisted passage there and elsewhere. To maximize the convict system, make sure that one new penal colony is founded every year with 500 male prisoners. After 3 years, women and free settlers can be introduced. After 5 years, prisoners, except for serious crimes may be assigned to a farmer and work for that farmer for half the remainder of his or her sentence, at which point the prisoner is free within New South Wales (or the other Australian colonies but may not return to the UK. Few will return. Prisoners will be brought from Hanover as well, as well as any other German state whose ruler wants to avail himself of Great Britain's service and rid itself of the need to have it's own prisons and workhouses.
Assisted passage: A scheme brought in for Australia in the 1830s OTTL, poor Englishmen and Irishmen would book passage to Australia or other colonies and pay the note for the passage payments for land they would buy on arrival. It gave a great many people a start in new colonies. It was limited out of fear of creating a labor shortage for British factories. This could also be done in Germany,--and Russia--but would compete with the US.

For South Africa and Argentina/Paraguay/Mato Grosso (yes, the British colony would extend up to and into the Amazon up the Paraguai River)--Delay abolition of slavery and the slave trade--or import coolie labor from India for tropical crops. This will be a non-starter for Australia and maybe New Caledonia and Fiji, though due to public resistance to the idea there, as it was OTTL.

And yes, because of the ease of river transport from the Paraguai to the Guapore to the Purus to the Negro to the Cassiaquare Canal to the Orinocco, it is likely that British territory will ultimately extend North-South from Trinidad and British Guiana and Cuba through the Amazon, Paraguay and Argentina all the way to Cape Horn and via Antarctica to the South Pole and across the other side to Australia.
 
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