ABSTRACT Great Britain established the colony of South Australia (SA) in 1834, requiring that revenues from colonial land sales be used to subsidize passage for emigrants to SA. Their immigration contract required the SA government to provide emigrants unable to find private sector work with employment on public works. We use new data on the compensation of relief workers and private sector workers to examine how the SA unemployment system functioned before and after a major economic crisis began in August 1840. We conclude that the unemployment system provided highly compensated relief employment to a small number of migrants prior to the crisis. As the number of migrants claiming relief employment soared between August 1840 and October 1841, the government drastically cut relief compensation. The cuts occurred in tandem with the release of newly surveyed rural lands, which together provided incentives and opportunities for workers to move to rural areas to seek employment. Finally, a comparison of the SA employment relief program with a temporary employment relief program in New South Wales (NSW) shows that the NSW program neither guaranteed relief employment nor provided jobs for all assisted migrants without work in NSW during the 1843–1845 period.

中文翻译：

---

南澳大利亚州援助移民就业救济计划：承诺与现实，1838-1843 年

摘要 英国于 1834 年建立了南澳大利亚 (SA) 殖民地，要求将殖民地土地出售的收入用于补贴移民到南澳大利亚的通道。他们的移民合同要求南澳政府为无法找到私营部门工作的移民提供公共工程就业机会。我们使用救济工人和私营部门工人补偿的新数据来研究南非失业制度在 1840 年 8 月开始的重大经济危机前后的运作方式。我们得出的结论是，失业制度为少数工人提供了高薪救济就业。危机前的移民。由于 1840 年 8 月至 1841 年 10 月期间要求救济就业的移民人数猛增，政府大幅削减救济金。削减与释放新调查的农村土地同时发生，这共同为工人搬到农​​村地区寻找就业提供了激励和机会。最后，将南澳就业救济计划与新南威尔士州 (NSW) 的临时就业救济计划进行比较表明，在 1843 年至 1845 年期间，新南威尔士州计划既没有保证救济就业，也没有为所有在新南威尔士州没有工作的受援助移民提供工作。