MR. WAKEFIELD ON THE MEANS OF NATIONAL EMIGRATION.* THE prevailing

rumours that the Government contemplate a scheme of Emigration worthy of the country of "ships, colonies, and commerce," have induced the Author of the New System of

Colonization to set forth his most deliberate views of the means to such an end ; and he bequeaths this exposition, through our pages, as a legacy to the cause, on taking his departure for North America. In the few years which have elapsed since Mr. WAKEFIELD'S system was first propounded, it has been tested in a number of ways—in friendly and hostile comments, in the personal examina- tions and cross-examinations of the propounder before Parlia- mentary- Committees, and in partial experiments of a practical kind ; it has undergone the revision of his own corrected judgment and long reflection ; and he has thus been enabled to present the result of matured thoughts. The paper in which he has done so may be regarded as a condensed summing-up of volumes which have been written and spoken on the subject, with all the aids which we have enumerated. Therefore, although it is called forth by the occasion, it is of more than merely temporary use ; it constitutes the rule of the Wakefield System, now laid down by its author in the most accessible shape. That system professes no cure of present distress in the country : it interferes not with the action of any needful remedy : it is not a substitute for any other desirable measure. It is for all times and seasons— without question, an efficient help in bad times ; but still more efficient in maintaining and continually extending prosperity.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE COLONIAL GAZETTE.

London, 28th November 1841.

Even if the rumour of the intention of Government to adopt a large measure of emigration has no solid foundation at present, it seems likely to fulfil itself by exciting hopes which the Government would be very unwilling to disappoint. Some plan, therefore, may perhaps be sub- mitted to Parliament in the coming session. With this hope, I am in- duced to send you a few remarks on the subject, as a contribution towards fixing on a good plan. I wish to publish them now, because I am on the point of quitting England with a prospect of being absent for several months.

In asking a place for these remarks in the Colonial Gazette, I take

the opportunity of publicly expressing my gratitude to you, as the per- son to whom I am especially indebted for having been able to propose with effect recent improvements in the art of colonization. As editor of the Spectator, you patiently examined my proposals, and manfully upheld them when they were treated with disdain or ridicule by nearly all others who thought it worth while to consider them. It was your support that encouraged me, not only to maintain a theory offensive from its novelty and generally diregarded or disapproved, but also to engage in a variety of labours of which the object was to submit that theory to the test of practice. Only eleven years have passed since I began this up-hill work, with no helping public hand but yours ; and I think we may say now, that public opinion has gone a long way towards embracing the main principles of my scheme. Nor are the results in practice by any means unsatisfactory. South Australia, Australia Felix, and New Zealand have been founded : New South Wales has obtained an ample immigration-fund : the disposal of waste land, which used to cost more than it produced, has yielded in the Southern Colonies alone, whose population scarcely exceeds 200,000 souls, the sum of about 1,700,000/. : and every other colony of the em- pire which suffers from a deficiency of labour calls aloud for the adop- tion of the principle of turning waste land into a fund for promoting the immigration of people. It looks as if the work of colonizing in this manner would surely go on and prosper. Whilst I know that a large proportion of the labours by which this system has been set on foot, has been performed without my participation—whilst I acknowledge great obligations to many who have afforded to my obscure exertions a generous and powerful aid—I am bound to declare, that for much of that assistance, for having been able to avail myself of it, for whatever share of credit may be due to me in the whole matte; I am chiefly in- debted to you. I should have done nothing at all, if you had not con- stantly helped me daring the years when the pursuit of systematic colo- nization was a continual straggle with difilculties.t • [Transferred, as a common property, from the Colonial Gazette of Wed- nesday last.) 1. [With the generosity of most high intellects, Mr. WAKEFIELD attributes to the aid of others successes commanded by his own great powers : it was these even that compelled the aid which he acknowledges. The kind of merit which the Spectator seeks not to disclaim, is simply that of not being frightened by the novelty of a scientific proposition; and of having, when examination had assured us of its solidity, held by it until others have become as convinced of its reality and of its practical nature as we are.—En.] The rumour of a project of emigration on a large scale has been so well received by the public, that I propose to confine myself to the con- sideration of means only. If this thing could be done by wishing, every Government would be ready to do it. Every Government is deterred from doing it, by a fear of adding to the public burdens. The idea of extensive emigration is still commonly associated with the idea of taxa- tion for the purpose. And, indeed, when one thinks of emigration by itself—of the mere sending away of people—the next thought is in- evitably about the cost of the process. And at this disagreeable point most people stop in reflecting on the subject. They stop here, because they have not learned to regard emigration as but a part of something else. It is in truth only one of the elements of colonization. Viewed in this light, emigration appears to be susceptible of being carried on without any cost to the Mother-country. It is said that about forty thousand poor persons emigrated to our Southern Colonies during the past twelvemonth. They could not pay for their own passage : the cost of their passage was not defrayed by any grant of Parliament : the whole expense of this great emigration is borne by the Colonies, for which the accession of people is an increase of wealth out of all pro- portion larger than the expense of the passage. Do these Colonies complain of having to pay for this great immigration of people ? No; they only ask for more hands on the same terms, knowing well, that just in proportion as they are supplied with labour will be their means of paying for its importation. Here, then, is the principle of a mode of carrying on emigration, which steers clear of the only objection to an extensive plan. The whole cost must be thrown on the colonies bene- fited by the measure, and will be cheerfully defrayed by them. Such is the satisfactory conclusion drawn from viewing emigration as only a part of colonization.

It happens, in the next place, that the means by which the Colonies thus pay for emigration from the Mother-country, are not provided by Colonial taxation, but arise, one may almost say spontaneously, as an incident of arrangements made with a view to Colonial prosperity inde- pendently of immigration. The old plan of granting waste land for nothing was abandoned, because it was seen to operate as a check to the productiveness of Colonial industry and the increase of Colonial wealth. It produced this effect by causing the extent of appropriated land to be excessive in proportion to population. In order to bring about a better proportion between land and people—one in which the colonists should be less dispersed, and labour for hire more available—it was found re- quisite to diminish the facilities of obtaining new land. And this, it soon became obvious, could be done in no way so easily, so fairly, and so efficiently, as by putting a ready-money price on all new land. The consequence was, a fresh source of public revenue for the colony—a fund that seemed to come by a sort of magic, as if for the purpose of enabling the colony to procure labour without taxing anybody. If the proceeds of the sales of land were turned into an immigration-fund, the buyers of the land obtained for their money, not the land merely, but precisely that which was calculated to add most to its value—to make it cheap at the price which they had paid for it—namely, an increase of the Colonial population in exact proportion to their purchase-money. And the greater the immigration, the more land would be sold ; the more land was sold, the greater would be the immigration. This system may be termed a colonizing machine worked by an inherent and continually-growing power.

Let me now endeavour to show distinctly that this system hal never yet had a fair trial.

To a fair trial of the system—to such a trial, I mean, as would have exhibited its greatest power of emigration without cost to the Mother- country—several conditions were indispensable.

The first was, that the price required for the new land should be sufficient for the objects with which any price had been imposed. A penny per acre, for example, would have been less than the quit-rent previously demanded for new land, and would have had no effect at all. What price would have been too high, it is not so easy to point out. Nor do I intend to enter here on the question of the measure by which to get at the golden mean. It is sufficient for my present purpose to state, that the colonies in which this system has been tried furnish abundant evidence of the price having been everywhere too low with reference to the objects in view ; and the questions put by members of the recent Committee of the House of Commons on South Australian affairs, show that the public men who are best acquainted with the sub- ject, incline to an effective though gradual raising of the price.

The second condition of a fair experiment, was that the whole, or at least some large fired proportion of the proceeds of sales, should be de- voted to immigration. This has been done nowhere. While it remains undone, a principal element is wanting of any sound calculation as to what would be the proper price : for it is obvious, that as the aim of a price is to occasion a due proportion between land and people, very different prices will be requisite under the different circumstances of the whole, or a part, or none of the purchase-money being used in adding to the Colonial population : the more the purchase-money adds to population, the less will be the price required for causing any given proportion between land and people ; the less an increase of people is occasioned by the purchase-money, the higher must be the regulating price of land. It may be asserted further, that any diversion of the purchase-money from the purpose of adding to population, necessarily operates as a partial tax for general purposes on the buyers of land and on the class of labourers for hire : it makes the buyers of land alone contribute so much for general purposes ; and as it calls for a higher price than would have sufficed if the whole purchase-money bad added to population, it necessarily, prolongs the term of the poor immigrant's service for hire, by postponing the period at which savings from his wages will enable him to become a landed proprietor. It was found hard to establish the propriety of requiring any price for new land, even for the purpose of providing labour : but now opinion seems inclined to go into the opposite extreme, and there are some who think that waste land is the best source of general revenue, and pioneers of the wilderness the fittest subjects of taxation for general purposes. But the uncertainty is wort of all. Uncertainty as to the rate at which land-sales will add to the Colonial population, carries uncertainty into several matters besides that of the business of dealing in laud: beyond casting doubt and insecurity on the value of land and the progress of settlement, it renders the supply of the labour-market and the rate of

wages precarious : it seems to me to be calculated to have as mis- chievous an effect on the economy of a colony as uncertainty about the standard of value would have in this country.

The third condition was, that the mode of sale (whatever the price and the use made of the purchase-money) should be based on sound prin- ciples. For a long while I had not imagined that this was a matter of much importance ; and such appears to have been always the state of mind of those who have had to deal practically with the subject. In- quiry and reflection have taught me that the mode of sale has effects of the greatest moment. If a uniform price is adopted, whatever the quality and situation of the land, then, unless there be always on sale a quantity equal to the wants of the colonists from time to time, this restriction of quantity will have the same effect as an increase of price in diminishing the proportion which land bears to population. If under the plan of a uniform price the surveys are not carried far in advance of the wants of the colonists, the choice of buyers will often be restricted to lots of inferior quality or position, so as to occasion a waste of capital and labour. If the mode of sale is by auction at a low upset price, with the view to a selling average of much higher amount by means of competition, then (with the exception of certain spots adapted for towns and suburban lots) the price obtained will depend on the quantity put up for sale. If the quantity open to pur- chasers much exceeds their wants, the selling price will hardly ever ex- ceed the upset price, (as happens in Canada and throughout the United States,) and the auction will be a mere mockery of competition. In this case, the low upset price will really be the regulating price, con- trary to the intentions of the Government. On the other hand, under the auction plan, it would not matter in the least what was the upset price if the quantity brought to sale were below the wants of the colonists. In this latter case, the price obtained would really be settled by competition, or rather by the officer of the Government who determined the quantity to be offered for sale. Another great objection to the auction plan is that it occasions delay, by requiring notice in order that there may be competition ; it often subjects to disappointment those who have spent time and money in selecting particular lots which after all are obtained by higher bidders at the sale ; and in Canada and the United States, most assuredly, it gives occasion to a great amount of jobbing, trickery, and fraud.$ The single advantage attributed to it is, that it obtains for the Government more money than any other mode of sale. But is this an advantage ? Is it desirable that the Government should get from the class of land- buyers more than the price which is sufficient for a due proportion be- tween people and land? And if it were desirable to get more than that sufficient price, would it not be secured even more easily and surely by adding the desired excess to a sufficient uniform price, than by the auction plan with all its irregularities, its dependence on the quantity brought to sale, its notices, delays, disappointments, and rogueries ? I know that the auction plan has recommended itself by the large same obtained for small quantities of land marked out by the Government as town-sites and suburban lots ; but it may be questioned whether, if the Government could obtain the sufficient price (and more if more were thought desirable) by the simple plan of a fixed uniform price, it does wisely to encumber itself with the pursuit of a business so liable to mis- calculation, so often ending in disappointment among the buyers and reproaches against the seller, and, above all, when undertaken by the Government, so apt to stimulate merely speculative investment, as that of choosing the sites of intended towns in a half-explored country, and selling town and suburban lots by auction. Is it to be wished that the Go- vernment should take the part of land-jobbing companies or individuals, without the pecuniary responsibilities that belong to the latter? If not, the auction plan has no recommendation to balance its inconveniences. An alleged inconvenience of the uniform price is that it requires ample surveys and the fixing of a" sufficient" price by authority; which indeed it does : but so does the auction plan if the quantity brought to sale be ample (since in that case the bulk of purchasers will buy at the upset price); and it is surely better to acknowledge and face the difficulty of fixing the right price by law, than to fail in the attempt to evade that difficulty by so irregular and uncertain a process as a capricious limita- tion of the quantity brought to sale. In fact, however, neither the one plan nor the other has been firmly established with its proper accom- paniments. Under the uniform plan, the price has been far too low ; under the auction plan, the quantity has been far too great, or the upset price too low ; and instead of either plan being fixed by the final choice of Government, both have been the subject of perpetual controversy and indecision.

The fourth condition was, supposing the price to be sufficient, that the greatest liberty and facility of selection should be afforded to pur- chasers. When the Government gets the true maximum—that is, the highest price required for the only purpose with which waste land ought ever to be saddled with any price—it ought so to manage matters that no purchaser should be compelled to take land of inferior quality or position while there was any of the superior kind within reach. The system, therefore, requires ample surveys. Unsurveyed land is not land for the purposes of this system, any more than unpicked cotton or unthrashed corn is fit for market. Practically the want of ample surveys has not been severely felt, (though it led in South Australia to the costly device of "special surveys" at the public expense,) because' neither the uniform nor the upset price has anywhere been high enough to make it a great hardship that the land of the best position and qua- lity was not open to purchasers ; but if ever the price should be raised so as to meet the views expressed by Lord Howica in the South Aus- tralian Committee of last session, ample surveys will be indispensable in order that there may be a wide liberty of choice. And here it may be well to notice two objections to each a price as LordHowlex is supposed to contemplate. The first is, that at such a price, whether fixed or upset, land of inferior quality or position would not find pur- chasers. Then let it remain unpurchased, so long as there is preferable land to sell. But when the preferable land had been bought and culti- vated, and the district had been peopled and improved, the land which had been at first neglected, though still waste itself, would no longer be in the midst of a waste, but would have acquired a position superior to that of any land in the waste, and would then, unless wholly sterile by I have been assured, that at a recent auction sale in Australia, very impro- per influence was used to prevent biddinge against the purchasers of certain lots.

nature, fetch the price of the best 1a d in waste districts ; and if any 'wholly sterile land remained for ever unsold, it would occasion no greater inconvenience than that which had been decreed by Nature under every mode of colonization. The second objection to a sufficient price is, that though suitable for rich soils which would make a large return to capital and labour, it would be too high for great part of such -a country as Australia, where the main employment of capital is sheep- farming, and where, in some districts, several acres are required to feed

sheep. And this objection must be fully admitted. But in admitting it, the statement has to be made that nobody has ever proposed to put a price on the use of natural pasturage. That might be granted for no- thing, as all land used to be, but in strict proportion to the stock kept by the grantee, and on condition that whenever anybody wanted to buy any of it that portion should be resumed by the Government for sale, without even a tendency to defeat the object of insisting on a price for every acre acquired as permanent property.

The fifth condition was, that, whatever might be the price and the mode of sale, both should be applied uniformly to all parts of a colony and to all the colonies of any group. One plan in one place, and another in another place not far off, were sure to counteract each other. This is so obvious as scarcely to require explanation. Yet in the only group of colonies in which the mode of sale with a view to immigration has been tried at all, it has been tried under a variety of modifications .at the same time.

The sixth condition was, supposing the uniform or upset price to be "sufficient," that sales to come should be anticipated by the raising of loans on the security of future sales, and the use of the proceeds of such !ORM as a fund for immigration. This is required for a new colony, because the first emigrants will hardly give the sufficient price (whether upset or uniform) until the settlement is in some measure peopled ; and it is still more required for old colonies, because in every one of them the discarded plan of granting has caused such an excess of land in proportion to people, that, except for certain old reserves or peculiarly eligible spots, there would be no purchasers at the sufficient price until the population of the colony was considerably increased. It has been ob- jected to such loans that they would burden the colony with debt. And what then ? The incurring of debt for a good object, the borrowing of money with a view to profit, is as legitimate a course of proceeding for governments as for individuals, provided the borrowed money is laid out so as to insure the means of its repayment with profit besides. Now if the Government peopled its land first and sold it afterwards, it would be able to sell it for a great deal more than if it sold it first and peopled it afterwards. This is proved 14 the great and rapid increase in the 'market value of land that invariably takes place in new settlements which attract population. If the Government could begin by taking people to its land without borrowing, that would be the best course ; but the Government has no capital. The advocates of loans for emigration to be raised on the security of future sales of land, propose only that the powerful aid of capital should be brought to the work of colonization. They say to the Government, Take example from the manufacturer of cotton, who lays out his own or a borrowed capital in building a factory and providing it with machinery and raw material, reckoning on the powers of production which the use of capital gives, as a means of replacing his investment with profit. But governments, it may be urged, are so wasteful in their outlay, and so apt to be extravagant when they have facilities of borrowing. The answer is, that the business of laying out money on emigration and afterwards selling waste land (on the simplest plan) may be made a work of routine, and so guarded by publicity and other cheeks to extravagance as to preclude all danger of waste. Indeed, experience is here on the side of those who propose that the Government should use a capital in colonizing : a large amount of the proceeds of the sales of waste land has been ex- pended on emigration under the direction of Government, and with remarkable success as respects both economy and the well-doing of the passengers. But another objector says, if the Government has too much money for emigration, it will send out too many labourers, and 'there will be suffering from want of employment. Why should the Government ever have "too much" money for emigration ? why should it ever borrow more than enough to supply from time to time the ascertained want of labour in the colonies to which the system was applied ? And even if the Government were so careless as to commit such errors, there is reason to believe that an excess of labouring emigration beyond the wants of the Colonies would be accompanied by an amount of capital sufficient to employ the surplus. The emigration of labour seems always to give occasion to the emigration of capital : if a shipowner trading to any of the Southern Colonies can but fill his steerage with passengers of the labouring class, be is pretty sure of finding occupants for the cabins ; and this would be still more invariably the case if the labour-emigration were more constant and more easily foreseen, so that capitalists should be more certain of obtaining labour on their arrival in the colony. I know of no other objection to the borrowing of money for emigration on the single security of the land- sales. But at all events, this is so essentially part of the system ori- ginally proposed by me, that, if all the other conditions of its working well had been adopted, I should still say that it had not been fairly tried. The seventh and last condition was, that the whole system should be fired, or at least so far fixed as not to be liable to change in any of its ma- terial parts without public discussion and ample notice. I cannot imagine how this should be done except by act of Parliament. At present every thing is in a state of uncertainty, not to say of perpetual change. Nobody concerned in the matter seems to know what is his proper business, and still less what may happen in a month with respect to any part of the subject. At one time the Secretary of State deter- mines, and the Governor finds some reason for declining to act on the Instruction; at another the Governor makes a plan of his own, which is overset by the Secretary of State. Sometimes Commissioners are to do every thing, then the Colonial Office, next the local Governments ; and decisions of the utmost consequence are continually made as lightly and with as little responsibility as if nobody had an interest in them. In one settlement they sell by auction ; in another, close by, at the uniform price : in several places the auction obtains today and the uniform price tomorrow. What portion of the proceeds of land-sales is devoted to immigration varies continually every where. As to many points, the language of regulations is so vague as to admit of different interpretations, and sometimes to be hard to comprehend. Distinctness, uniformity, order, and stability, are almost Utterly wanting in almost every particular. Considering the unwillingness of most men to embark their fortunes in a career which hardly. admits of calculations as to the future or the present, the wonder is, not that more has not been done with the new mode of colonization, but that so much has been accomplished.

This array of requirements is much less formidable than it appears at first sight ; as will be manifest to those who observe that a compliance with them would tend rather to simplify than to complicate the pro- cess. Nor are the deficiencies and errors which it exhibits a fit subject of reproach to any one. Instead of complaining that a nearer approach to perfection has not been made, we shall be more just if we express satisfaction at the rapid progress of improvement which the present exhibits in comparison with the barbarous doings of ten years ago. This is still a new subject. But the most careless observer must per- ceive that there is a growing sense of its importance; and eminent public men on both sides as to party have paid so much attention to it, that unquestionably if the whole ease were now considered by persons in authority with the object of devising a general plan of colonization, some very good measure would be the result.

At the same time, I am not so sanguine as to hoge that any attempt will be presently made to find out and establish the -hest possible mode of proceeding. And indeed it may be questioned whether, as regards a subject still imperfectly understood, it would be wise to aim at per- fection. In this case, though the newest road might not necessarily be the very best, the very best would be wholly new to many ; and such ways are apt to be full of lions. A measure sufficient for the time might be adopted without startling anybody. Let us but keep moving in the path marked out by what has been done already, and with great acknowledged benefits, in one group of our colonies. It would suffice for the present if the Government should submit a measure to Parlia- ment for raising and firing the price (whether uniform or upset) of waste land in all the colonies of the Southern group—devoting the whole, or a large fixed proportion of the proceeds of sales, to emigration— authorizing the Executive to raise by loan on the security of the waste lands of each of those colonies separately, (and without any other gua- rantee from Parliament,) a certain sum for the sole purpose of giving a free passage to that colony to persons of the labouring class properly selected—and placing the administration of the law in the hands of a special departnunt of the Colonial Office. E. G. WAKEFIELD.