TOPICS OF THE DAY.
NEW PLAN OF COLONIZATION—MISAPPREHENSIONS CORRECTED.
Vim Standard on Thursday evening honoured the Emigration plan which we have recommended, with an elaborate notice ; and we are exceedingly gratified by the spirit of its remarks. Our acute contem- porary, however, has fallen into some misapprehensions of the prin- ciples of the scheme, which we must endeavour to correct. The Standard supposes that our object is to recommend the for- 'nation of a "pauper colony ;"and upon that assumption, argues, with his nsual talent, upon the disadvantages and risk that must attach to such an establishment. Those who have had leisure to study our plan, must perceive the Standard's error. So far from being an exposition of the means by which "a pauper colony" may be founded, our plan does not recognize the existence of paupers—or knows them, at least, only as "labourers." The scheme is not one of charity; it is not an extension of a "cheap soup" system. No; it is addressed to la- bourers and to capitalists ; its object is, not to relieve one class at the expense of any other, but to render all the elements of wealth in the British dominions—all the land, labour, and capital—produc- tive in the highest degree, and by means of a process hitherto untried. The principles on which it rests are deduced from the following facts.
Land, of the highest natural fertility, is, in several of our colonies, of little value, from its abundance ; while many serious disadvantages —the dispersion of the colonists, and the gradual loss of the advan- tages of the social condition—attend the facility, with which it may be acquired by settlers. In this country, on the other hand, labour is superabundant, and is therefore, like land in the colonies, in many cases, of little value. Our plan of emigration shows how a certain application of capital will impart value to this superfluous labour and superabundant land ; and it shows, further, how the capital necessary for emigration may be created. The means are simply the sale, in li- mited quantities, of the land, which is now given away to any adven- turer who may ask for it. The plan, therefore, appeals, in the first in- stance, not to the benevolence of the charitable, nor to the libe- rality of Government, but to the powers of calculation with which capitalists are endowed. The inducement which it holds out to them, is an increased rate of profit. The price which they must pay for land will be really expended for their benefit, as well as for that of the emigrant labourers, for whose expenses it will provide. But the labourers will not owe the means of emigration to charity. Their agency is as necessary as that of capitalists to render the land productive of wealth. . The price of the land is but a small portion of the value which they would impart to it. They would emigrate not as mendicants, but as agents in the creation of wealth ; and if they should, in the first instance, find it necessary to borrow any thing from the public stock of this country, it is in their power to offer ample security for its repayment. The Standard, from believing that the new colonies would be mere pauper establishments, observes, • . . . . "that from any aggregation of expatriated paupers, no society, holding out a promise of endurance, can ever be formed. The wealth, the • superintending care, the intelligence, the habit of mild authority, the moral example of persons born in a higher station, will be wanted ; and to the pau- per colony will be left but the alternative of becoming bush-rangers, or back- .woodsmen, on the one side,ras we see occurs in Australia and North America ; or of becoming the mere slaves of a garrison government, as generally takes place in British settlements."
As to the want of the. gradations of civilized life in.the.new colonies, it may be sufficient to state, that our plan does not confine its benefits to those who in common language are ternied labourers, but extends them to individuals of a much higher station. Were, however, com- mon labourers alone comprehended in it, still it must be very obvious, that the wealth of individual emigrants would increase according to the various ratios of their industry and skill ; and this unequal increase of wealth will give rise in the second generation to differences of rank. But in truth, the capitalists themselves would, in the first instance, form one grade, while the demand for knowledge and refinement in various forms, which must as a matter of course accompany increasing wealth, would speedily attract from this country a large portion of that talent and accomplishment, which often have as great difficulty in • finding a market here as common labour has. That class of emi- grants would constitute other grades. As to the chance of the colonists degenerating into bush-rangers, we submit- to the Standard, that the fundamental principles of the plan forbid the possibility of such a result. The sale of land will in- fallibly check bush-ranging, by securing a concentrated population, • and preventing the colonies from losing the characteristics of civiliza- tion. We believe, moreover, that our contemporary's fears that colo- nists, on the principles of our plan," would become the mere slaves of a garrison government," are altogether unfounded. A country, of which the population, wealth, and intelligence, are sure to increase at the most rapid rate, could not easily be subdued to the quality of sla- very. In stunted, stationary, half-savage establishments, a governor may play the tyrant ; but in colonies such as we have supposed, the thing is impossible.
In conclusion, we must be permitted to state, that it is not at all essential to our plan, that Government should be intrusted with the "key of the machinery." One of the many modes of bringing the plan into operation, is, no doubt, to leave it to Government to regu- late the sale of laud; but in order to guard against the possibility of the abuse of suCh a power, the unappropriated land in our colonies might be declared national properly, and sold publicly. Competition would then regulate its price, as it does the price of colonial produce. ' The Standard, we axe .114,13pyte perceim ?AMU, that "in tole- nization the present distresses of the country have the best chance of alleviation." We, therefore, once more recommend our plan to the notice of our contemporary, with the fullest confidence that a more attentive examination of its principles will remove from his mind those doubts which we have now attempted to solve. Few things would give us greater pleasure than to secure for a plan which appears to us fitted to Minister in the highest degree to the prosperity of the public, the advocacy of a journal so able and so intrepid as the Standard.
In the remarks of the Standard on the effects of the misgovern- ment that prevails but too much at present in our colonies, we most cordially concur.
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