THE CURE AND PREVENTION OF PAUPERISM, BY MEANS OF SYSTEMATIC

COLONIZATION.

COLONIZATION, strictly speaking, signifies the creation of every thing but land where nothing but land exists ; and it is in this sense only that we propose to use the' word. The progress of colonization, in this, its strictest sense, must greatly depend on the mode in which the land shall be appropriated by individuals,—the mode adopted by the government in the disposal of that on which all other things are to be created. That there has been a total disregard of principle in the modes of granting land in new colonies, seems to be proved by this remarkable fact,—that the same mode never was pursued in any two colonies, and that in every colony there have been many changes in the manner of supplying fresh territory. In all America, from Buenos Ayres to Neva Scotia, not less than a hundred different modes have been adopted, and at this time several modes totally dif- fering from each other are pursued in the three great British colo- nies, Canada, South Africa, and Australasia. Yet it is certain that there must be some one mode better than all the others ;—it is certain that in this, as in every other great operation of public eco- nomy, there must be some first principles, by adhering to which the best possible course would be pursued. It would, we admit, have been impossible to prescribe, on the discovery of America, a general law for the guidance of proceedings in colonization ; because there has existed a great variety in the objects with which waste countries have been settled. The only object, for instance, of the first settlers in Canada, was to carry on a trade in furs ; that of the first,settlers in South America was to obtain gold ; that of the settlers at Sierra Leone was to humanize the Africans. But, at this time, the sole ob- jects of the British Government in promoting colonization, in the sense which is here attached to the word, must be everywhere the same. If we state those objects correctly, we have only to ascertain the best mode of effectine them in order to lay down the principles which ought to guide the BritishGovernment in the conduct of cae ionization. The main, indeed the sole objects of this state in promoting , colo- nization appear to be two. Firstly—to afford the greatest possible relief to the most miserable class in Britain, by enabling the greatest number of them to emigrate. Secondly—to create the largest pos- sible market, or as many markets as possible, for the products of British industry. he....coyeect sA s- t of .10, is that which, being uñobjectionas e in ot ' -r respects, woul ena le the greatest number of poor English people to enjoy the necessaries and. comforts of life, and to multiply in waste countries. (-The population of Britain being about twenty millions, and pos- /sessing a power of increase at the rate of four per cent per annum, we may presume, that if the territory of Britain coulorlet, suddenly - increased fourfold, the twenty millions would become foiVniillions in about twenty years. As we know that the British statelth'at. its disposal a waste but naturally fertile territory, at least ten times ai large as Britain, it seems plain that the only obstacle to the emi- gration of more than half a million of English people every year, and a proportionate spread of colonization, is the distance of the colonies from the mother country. If the colonies could be brought to Bri- tain, her population might exert its utmost capacity of increase with- out a check and the colonies would soon be covered with people, because the increase of people would begin with a procreative power of twenty_ millions and would proceed continually whilst any good land remameciiiiLlMaTe eM*-41she North Americans are the most extensive colonizers (in the-grid and proper sense of the word) that ever existed. They have plenty of waste land close to their increas- ing population. If Britain had plenty of waste land close to her population, she might colonize twice as fast as America; because she would start with a nursery of twenty millions,—whereas the American nursery is only ten millions. The vicinity of waste land is the greatest facility, the distance of waste land the greatest ob- stacle, to colonization. We are labouring to establish a truism ; but on this truism the whole theory in question is founded : it is at least a safe foundation.

Let us now inquire in what manner the distance of the colonies operates as a check to emigration,—in what manner, distance, and distance only, prevents the increase of twenty millions of people from spreading over the waste countries which they call theirs. First. Attachment to the country of one's birth is perhaps the strongest, end certainly the most prevailing, affection of the human mind; for it involves many other affections, such as love of parents and friends ; and it becomes a second nature through the force of numerous habits which strengthen with every day of a man's growth. And this affection influences men even above the degree in which they them- selves feel it, by the more powerful degree in which it is felt by wo- men. If America had been close to England, millions of English- men would have emigrated, who have been kept at home by this affection ; and, as it is thousands would have emigrated, notwith- standing this affection, who have been kept at home by their sisters,1 mothers, daughters, and wives. The sole motive to emigration is the desire to better one's condition. No one will emigrate until that ri desire becomes stronger than attachment to country. Hence it fol- lows that there is but little disposition to emigrate except itmongst the classes who are very miserable. Some few, indeed, do emigrate, whose condition is not perfectly wretched ; but they are very few as compared with the number of their class who would emigrate if the colonies were close at hand. We may say, therefore, that the dis- tance of the colonies checks the emigration of any but the very miser- able, by its operation on that strong affection, attachment to country.; But is this to be regretted? Is it at all desirable that a strong temptation should be held out to the emigration of the middle classes, who, if they should emigrate in large numbers, would constantly abstract large masses of capital from the country ? The Eastern states of North America are constantly suffering by the emigration, to the West, of citizens not paupers. The paucity of capital in those Eastern states (after fifty years of self-government) is a matter of won- der to Europeans and of regret to the most sensible Americans. Per, haps it might be shown ,that no inconsiderable number of the labouring poor of Britain have been thrown out of employment, during the last year, by the emigration of farmers and others having capital, to the new settlement in Western Australia. But it is quite needless ta prove that the constant and permanent abstraction of capital from any state must be injurious rather than beneficial. The distance of the colonies, therefore, operates beneficially to the parent state, when, e by acting on the love of country, it checks the emigration of those : who are not miserable. Our own governments, however, appear to have thought quite otherwise, for, as far as any deliberate purpose I can be discovered in the various modes of colonization which they have adopted, from the plantation of Virginia to the new settlement in Western Australia, that purpose seems to have been to tempt persons, not paupers, to abstract capital from the country.* Secondly. How does distance operate to prevent the emigration of by fa?the most numerous class,—the very miserable—who havE no reason to love their country, and Who, instead of being useful to their country, are its greatest burthen ? This class is se very wretched. that the desire of bettering their condition takes place of all othei passions. An affection for food and warmth is the strongest desin of starving shivering paupers. Why, then, do not they emigrate ir immense numbers to countries where their labour would be amply rewarded? For the very reason which inclines them to emigrate,— their extreme poverty,—which absolutely prevents them from moving If men of that class do not work hard all this week, they starve al next week. They have not leisure to think of emigration,—mucl less to take any measures for removal ; or, if maintained in idleness by parish charity, they are still chained to the spot. But, above all even supposing them well informed of the advantages of emigration and able to move to a sea-port, they are totally unable to defray th( cost of a passage to the colonies ! As every labourer emigrating tc a waste country might produce more than he would consume, an thereby provide employment for other labourers, it may be state( that the only obstacle to the emigration of paupers is the cost of pas sage ; and this is the way in' which distance operates to prevent th( increase of teVenty millions of' people from spreading over the wast( countries which they call theirs. We have thus endeavoured to establish another truism. This however, is a safe mode of proceeding.

Having determined that cost of passage, alone, prevents the emi gration of immense numbers of paupers, it is time to enter on tilt main question—May passage, cost free, be provided for such a num ber of paupers as would, during many years at least, relieve 04 country of its excess of people ? BONAPARTE used to instruct his generals to" snake the war sup port the war." He did not invent that method of making war; bu he used it more extensively than any other enemy of the human race It is the first principle of conquest, and, like all truths, has existed fron the beginning, and will exist to the end of the world, if war shoul( last so long. In like manner the payment of colonization by itself i the first principle of colonization. The emigrant having capital, re covers in the colony the cost of his settlement; the pauper emigre!), whose passage is found by a capitalist, repays ie outlay by his labou in the colony ; and the labourer who provides his own passage, re pays himself by the higher wages that he obtains in the colony. Wer not this the case, there never would have been any emigration to dis tant countries, for the purpose of colonization, in the sense in which alone, we use the word. If, as appears manifest, this be the main pill/ ciple of colonization, it follows that the best method of colonization LI that which will bring that main principle into the largest operation-, * " The capital for peopling Virginia was raised by a lottery, and was spoken of as th real food by which Virginia was nourished."—Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. I. p.54 Extract from the Regulations for granting Land at Swan River— Such persons may arrive in that settlement before the end of the year 1830, will receive, in the oro4 of their arrival, allotments of land free of quit-rent, proportioned to this capital whicl they may be prepared to invest in the improvement of the lacid.'? Two methods of giving considerable operation to that principle have been tried. • . 1st.That of providing a free passage to " indented labourers," obtaining from their labour in the colony a return for the outlay. 2nd. That of advances by Government for the passage and location of paupers, looking for repayment of the advance to an increase in the value of the land so located and to the produce of the settler's labour on that land.

The former method has been practised for two centuries, but is now nearly abandoned.It has never afforded any considerable relict' to the miserable classes in Britain, and it never can,—for, either the indented emigrant is not held to his bond, in which case the capi- ' t, who has paid for his passage is a loser ; or, if he be held to his ond, his condition is not bettered. In the one case, the capitalist is satisfied—in the other, the labourer ; and both cases operate as an example to deter." Up to the time of the American Revolution, apitalists in America did manage, by an excessive tyranny, to hold dented emigrants to their bonds ; but the consequence was, that here were very few voluntary emigrants of that description, and that he extreme want of labourers led to a species of slave-trade in whites, ed " kidnapping." Since the American Revolution it has been ound quite impossible in the United States, and very difficult in the ritish colonies, to hold an indented emigrant to his bond. "There no instance on record in the history of the colony," says a principal andowner of New South Wales*, "where settlers have been able to revent their indented servants, hired in England, from becoming dis- tisfied and then leaving them after their arrival." It is clear, there- ore, that colonization, to any great extent, by means of providing a ee passage for indented labourers, is become impracticable. This ethod of colonization was never of any use to the mother-country, or of any permanent use to any colony; - because, as to the mother- ountry, the emigrants were too few to afford any relief to those who emained behind, and because, as to the colonies, they were all males, ho caused no permanent increase of the colonial population. t So uch for the former method.

The latter method—that of advances by Government for the pas- e and location of pauper settlers—was recommended by the Par- mentary Committee on Emigration. All that can possibly be said justification of such advances will be found in a letter from Mr. OOKE to Mr. Wiemar HORTON, published by the latter in his Causes and Remedies of Pauperism." Mr. TOOKE, however, sup- ses that the state would merely advance certain funds and would e sure of repayment : whereas there seems no hope that advances r the passage and location of paupers would ever be repaid by:those upers, suddenly converted into landowners. This, at least, is cer- in—that nearly all paupers so located would be ignorant and ha- rovident ; and that either ignorance or improvidence, or idleness, or unkenness, or fever, or a serious bodily accident, or a wandering sposition, not to mention death, would prevent the pauper settled d located by Government from repaying by his labour the cost of s passage and location. And as for the repayment of the advances Government through the improved value of the land held by the ttler, it is very sure that in a thinly-peopled country, where the soil naturally rich, new land is worth more than land which has been hausted. There is hardly a work on America that does not com- hi of the practice of exhausting land ; but the New England settler ho understands settling better thanany body) knows that the best urse, with a view to profit only, is to exhaust an allotment of land, obtain a second allotment and exhaust that also, and so on con- ually. In Canada and the United States, there are hundreds of usands, perhaps millions, of acres of land, once fertile and culti- ted, but which are now deserted, and will not for a century to come same their ancient fertility! In a country where the disproportion tween people and territory is so great that new land may always be tamed either for nothing or for a- very low price, the settler who oks to nothing but profit, has only to calculate the difference be- een the cost of maintaining the fertility of cleared land by skilful tivation, and the cost of obtaining new land and preparing it for ed. As in such countries the wages of labour are generally extra- antly high, skilful cultivation, or rather what is considered skilful tivation in old countries, is very expensive ; and the cost of main- ning the fertility of old land is greater than the cost of obtaining w land and preparing it to yield a succession of rich crops without ilful cultivation. Hence the New Englander often finds " squat- ng" (the exhaustion and abandonment of new land) more pro- ble than "settling." Some American and several English writers em to imagine that the "squatter" is actuated solely by a wish to ade the payment of any first price for his laud; but when the mo- ration of the highest price any where required for new land and the advantages of settling without a title are considered, it will appear t he who eultivates new land without a title, and abandons it as • n as it is exhausted, acts, principally, on a conviction that it is ore profitable to exhaust new land than to cultivate old land. This, least, seems a just conclusion as to every case where the settler ereises a choice ; but it must be borne in mind, that, in most cases ere is an absolute want of labourers, even at the highest rate of es. The exhaustion of land is not by any means confined to ose who make use of land without a title. Except in the neigh- urhood of towns, the practice is almost universal. It is in fact the suit, not of a wise calculation, but of absolute necessity. One man able to obtain the assistance of other labourers, and compelled,

• Mr. WArthur.

t In the course of twenty years after' the first plantation of Virginia, nine thousand grants reached the colony. At the end of the twenty years the population of the ement was only 1800. It is believed that the population of New South Wales was, the fortieth year of the settlement, less than the number of emigrants during the y years, therefore, to do almost every thing for himself, can bestow but a small portion of his time on the mere production of food. With his own hands he must build and repair his house, make and mend his furni- ture, and follow an infinite number of occupations unconnected with tillage. His labours in the field, therefore, and the tools with which he works, are of the rudest kind. " An English farmer," said WASH- INGTON in a letter to ARTHUR YOUNG, " ought to have a horrid idea of the state of our agriculture, or the nature of our soil, when he is informed that one acre with us only produces eight or ten bushels. But it must be kept in mind, that where land is cheap and labour dear, men are fonder of cultivating much than cultivating well. Much ground has been scratched and none cultivated as it ought to be." Where land is extremely cheap, or may be obtained lbr nothing, and where, consequently, labour for hire is not only dear but very scarce, and often quite wanting, " scratching," instead of good cultivation, is unavoidable ' • and where so:barbarous a mode of cultivation is unavoidable, plenty of food could not be obtained otherwise than by the continued exhaustion of new land, of which the great temporary fertility compensates for the less productive nature of the labour bestowed upon it. One of the most cele- brated English writers on political economy has attributed the constant exhaustion and abandonment of land, in the slave states, to a want of animal manure, in consequence of the labour of cattle being performed by men ; but every English farmer knows that his land- would soon be exhausted if he had no manure but what is furnished by his working cattle ; and there are many dis- tricts of Europe, such as the mountainous coasts of Spain and Italy, not to mention nearly the whole Chinese empire, where agricultural labour is entirely performed by men, and where, nevertheless, land is maintained in the highest state of fertility by means of animal ma- nure. At all events, it is established in America, that land which has been long cultivated is of less value than new land, unless, indeed, it be situated near a town, so that all, or a part of it, acquire the cha- racter of accommodation-land. In this latter case, no doubt, the land will improve in value with the increase of inhabitants, even though it should remain unsettled ; but this forms the exception to the general rule, and a very rare exception it must be in such com- pletely waste districts as could be located by emigrants from Britain.

It appears, therefore, that the hope of obtaining repayment of the ad- vances made to pauper settlers, either through the produce of their labour, or through the improved value of their land, is entirely delu- sive. If so, however, it is a delusion into which any inhabitant of an old country, who had never seen a new country, might easily 1411; and, as the reasoning faculties of the inhabitants of " new coun- tries" are not, generally speaking, much better cultivated than their land, we have no right to quarrel with the colonial evidence by which this delusion was propagated in England.

It is needless to dwell longer on either of these, at the best, very inadequate methods of making colonization pay for itself. Let us now inquire whether there be any other method which should combine the principle of self-payment with an operation in practice sufficiently extensive to prevent, in .the mother-country, whatever misery arises from an excess of peoplet If itIbe possible to point out such a method of colonization, then the natural increase of twenty millions of people might spread over the waste countries which they call theirs. Taking the population of Britain to be twenty millions, and suppo- sing that their utmost power of increase, if exercised without any check from misery, would move at the rate of four per cent, per annum, the twenty millions might become forty millions in about twenty years, and the first year's increase would be eight hundred thousand. The constant yearly removal, therefore, of eight hundred thousand persons, would prevent any domestic increase, even though the con- dition of the people were perfectly happy. Supposing the cost of removing one person to be 10/.,* the cost of absolutely preventing any domestic increase would be 8,000,0001. per annum. But the pro- creative power of a people is not equally shared amongst them all; it resides in those only who are capable of procreation. The procreative power, every year brought into action, resides in those couples who every year attain the awe of puberty. The proportion to the whole population of those who ° every year attain the age of puberty, varies, of course, with the rate at which the population may be increasing. In this case we are supposing a happy people to multiply continually at the greatest possible rate,—which, as above stated, is taken to be four per cent, per annum. Let us farther suppose, that when a popu- lation is increasing at the rate of four per cent. per annum, the number of couples who every year attain the age of puberty is as one to one hundred in proportion to the whole population. The procreative power every year brought into action would in that case be two hundred thousand young couples. The yearly removal of the whole procrea- tive power every year brought into action, or, in other words, the con- stant removal of all the young couples, would of course soon depopu- late the country. This might be effected at a cost (the passage of each person costing 10/.) of 4,000,000/. per annum. Thus, by a SELECTION of emigrants, the country might be depopulated thr one half of what it would cost to prevent any domestic increase by remov- ing the increase without selection.

The constant yearly removal of the increase, say eight hundred thousand persons, would cost per annum . . £8,000,000 All the young couples . 4,000,000

Balance in favour of depopulation £4,000,000 But though the expenditure of 4,000,0001. a-year in one way would * In the year 1824-5, some three hundred settlers from the North of Scotland found means to evade the regulations intended for their benefit, and their passage to Cape Breton did not cost them more than 50s. or 31. each.—Quarterly Review, No. 83, p.84.

of 1,000,000/. per a m lion, viz. '20,000,000/. Here, then, is an obvious means of making tent precisely, still our way would not be clear ; because the first, colonization pay 'Or itself! It seems probable that a tax of ten per second, and third hundred thousand emigrants would spread them- cent. upon the landed rental only of such a people would pay five per selves over that island, and degenerate into half savages. But we cent, interest on the sum employed in their creation, and, if redeemed have no such island : the waste territories at the disposal of Britain at Seventy years' purchase, would finally repay the principal. are Canada, South Africa, and Australasia, each of which, being but are offered merely in illustration of a principle, is it necessary that twenty millions. If, as supposed above, we could bring colonial ter- they should be strictly accurate. If we are supposed to have under- ritory to the shores of Britain,—and if, moreover, we could remove it rated the cost of creating* twenty millions of skilful, industrious, and piecemeal, so as to supply every year an addition of territory sufficient, wealthy people, we are ready to admit that it might amount to but not more than sufficient, to maintain in plenty the yearly increase e0,000,0001. (about the cost of the battle of Waterloo); and it will of people,—then, indeed, there would be no difficulty in the case. still be evident that a small deduction from the wealth of the created The operation of converting twenty millions into forty millions of people would repay the cost. of ceiling them into existence, people would take place without any dispersion of any portion of the

In further illustration of this principle, let us suppose that a portion people, except only that desirable dispersion which would give to of colonial territory, equal to twice the extent of the United Empire, every man land enough for his subsistence, and would thereby forbid could be transported to the coast of Britain, and that the cost of that the existence of pauperism. The newly-created people, the occupiers of miraculous operation were e0,000,000/. In twenty years the new the new land, would preserve the utmost division of labour conipatible territory would be cultivated by twenty millions of people, called into with the happiness of all ; any number of them would be as Wealthy existence by its arrival: a deduction of twenty shillings from the as a similar number of the occupiers of any other portion of Britain, income of each of those people would produce a sum equal to the and they would have ample means wherewith to defray the cost of cost of their creation ; or one year's rent of the new land would pro- their own creation. But the days of miracles are past : by what bably exceed the cost of the operation by which that land had been means, then, might the people to be created by the yearly immigration converted from wilderness -into farms and gardens. Again, let us of fifty thousand young couples be prevented from spreading them- imagine that Britain were a wilderness, and that a skilful, industrious, selves over the colonial wastes and degenerating into half savages ? soon depopulate the country, xviiile the cep; naiture of 8,000,000/. and wealthy British people could be crea‘ed in twenty years at a cost a-year in another way would be necessary- only to prevent any in- of 20,000,0001. Who can doubt that the new people, even if they crease, our object is to do, in the cheapest possible way, no more than were only half asaach as the people which has in one year spent as that for which, on the above suppositions, the largt`r SIMI would be much as a hundred and twenty millions of money in the public ser- required. What is the smallest amount of emigration which, with vice, could readily pay 20,000,000/. only, for their own creation? selection, would prevent any increase ? What is the proportion of Still, is it possible that the people of Britain should be able to exert the procreative power every year brouleit into action, the yearly re their utmost procreative power by an outlay of 1,000,000/. per annum? moval of which would preveot any increase at home ? Whatever that For that sum exactly, we answer, provided the points which we have proportion, the removal of a little mon', or a little less, must occasion assumed for illustration be correct, —namely, first, that the utmost

a decrease, or permit an increase, as might be desirable. procreative power of twenty millions of people be as two hundred

We pretend not to determine that proportion. The constant yearly thousand young couples per annum ; secondly, that the constant removal of half the young couples would, it is evident, ultimately de- abstraction of one quarter of the procreative power would cause all populate the country. Let us suppose that the constant yearly removal the increase to take place in the colonies ; and thirdly, that the of one quarter would prevent any increase. If so, and supposing all cost of removing each person would be la/. These figures may be the young couples to be two hundred thousand, all domestie increase altered to meet the estimate either of the wildest or of the most pria- might be prevented by a yearly- outlay of -,,000,000e Thus the same dent calculator ; and it will still appear that the cost of creating a, end might be obtained in one way, al a cost of one-eighth of what it new Britain might be less than one year's revenue of the new people,

would demand if pursued in another way. In most cases there is But in the above hypothesis, two things are assumed, which require one way of proceeding far better than i11 he others. explanation, first, that. the new people of twenty millions would not Now, taking for granted that the expenditure of 1,000,0001. per be scattered over a territory as large as Europe, but would be con- annum would prevent any increase of the domestic population, and centrated on a territory not more than three times as large as that a slight addition to that outlay would cause a decrease of people, Britain ; secondly, that the colony or colonies to be peopled, would it becomes plain that the greater part of the poor-rat o,—all that part furnish employment and plenty to a constant yearly imraigration of of it which supports in idleness persons capable of labeina—might be fifty thousand young couples. saved at a cost amounting to less than one-seventh of the whole tax. As to the first point, if the one hundred thousand emigrants yearly This is an important consideration. But it is trifling when compared landed in the colony were allowed, or encouraged, or forced, as has with the next that presents itself. more or less been the case in all new colonies, to spread themselves

Supposing 1,000400/. per annum to be expended in the mouval of thinly over an immense territory, they would be, at the best, a poor a sufficient number of young couples to enable the population re- people, like the United States Americans, or at the worst, a sort of maining behind to exert their 'utmost eapacity of increase,—and sup- half Tartars, like some of the Spanish Americans at this day, or the posing, further, that the persons removed were Nippily placed in the Dutch colonists of South Africa in the last century. Wealth never coloniee,—the whole population, colonial and domestic, might double did, and never can, exist without concentration. " The arts," says themselves in twenty years. Being twenty millions in 1830, they Sir STAATFOED RAFFLES, " never fix their roots but in a crowded might become forty millions in 1850. In only twenty years, there- population: Egypt, fronfthe fertility of its soil and consequent den- fore, Britain might create a colonial population double the amount of sity of its population, led the way in science and refinement amongst that which it has taken two hundred years to create in the States of ancient nations, while the sterile tracts contiguous to that favoured otth America! And the cost of so mighty a work would be about land have been inhabited from primeval times by dispersed tribes ot one-seventh nf the tax levied in Britain for the maintenance of pau- unimproved barbarians." " The British nation," says a writer on pers.Canada, " is the greatest landowner in the world ; but up to, the

This is, no doubt, a siartling proposition ; but it may be true, never- present time we have fooled away our foreign possessions, we have theless, We all expect that the actual ten millions of-Americans will marred our settlements, we have made them sinks for wealth instead millions. We expect them to increase as they have increased hereto- transplanted stock, all from inal I ention to certain simple truths in re-

fore, because we know that there is no check to the greaaest natund gard io the state of property." When this opinion oi the Canadians power of increase amongst a skilful and industrious people, -a ho are was written, they were, as they are still, a very poor people, though able to increase tITeir I erritory with the increase of their numbers. they oVi fled one square mile of territory to every seven souls of their

nnu, the exi;endit tire a 1,000,000/. per annum they were not scattered, not prevented from acquiring wealth

that it should pay for itself? consequence of dispersion. In the, a review of the entire history of According to the above suppositions, 20,000,000/. of money, and the world must convince the least reflecting inquirer that dispersion twenty years of time, would suffice for creating twenty millions of and wealth have never been united ; and there is no such science as colonial people. If twenty millions of people were scattered over a. political economy-, if they ever can be.

These calculations have not any pretension to accuracy ; nor, as they nominally peopled, is large enough to maintain perhaps ten times simple, and not less certain. The waste land of the British colonies is the property of the State. The Government, therefore, might de- termine, at pleasure, the extent of land to be appropriated by each hundred thousand emigrants, or by each emigrant. It would, of course, be the object of the Government so to regulate the amount of grants as that, whilst the gradual increase of land should permit the people to exert their utmost capacity of increase, it should also main- tain such a degree of concentration as might insure the greatest di- vision of labour and accumulation of wealth compatible with the hap- piness of all. Such a course of proceeding, however clearly advan- tageous both to the Government and to the people, would be directly opposed to that which has been adopted by all Governments in the disposal of waste territory. The Governments of Spain, of France, of Holland, of Britain, and of the United States, have invariably either compelled, or encouraged, or permitted their colonial subjects to appropriate more waste land than they could possibly cultivate, and to scatter themselves over a territory immense in proportion to their numbers : but then, the nations, or the germs of nations, created by the colonial policy of those governments, are without exception poor, ignorant, and uncivilized, when compared with the civilized nations of Europe; and it would not be difficult to show, that every" new i people," as it is called, is less poor, ignorant, and uncivilized, n pro- portion to the degree in which circumstances independent of govern- ment, such as very dense forests and hostile tribes of natives, inter- fered with the dispersing, barbarising policy of its government. For instance, the Cape of Good Hope and the State of New York were settled by emigrants from the same country, who were in the first instance, we may presume, equally skilful, industrious, and prudent. Yet the progress of the two colonies in wealth and civilization will not bear comparison. To what cause must the very striking difference be attributed, if not to a remarkable difference between the degrees of concentration which occurred in the two colonies ? The Hollanders in North America were kept together by dense forests and hostile savages, and they preserved the civilized habits of their mother-coun- try. The Hollanders in South Africa, meeting neither dense forests nor hostile savages, dispersed themselves over the colony ; they were far separated from each other ; every one of them did every thing for himself; and by degrees they became half savages. If they had not obtained slaves, whereby some little division of labour was preserved, -we may believe that they would have degenerated into perfect savages, like some of the descendants of Spaniards near the River Plate, who have forgotten the arts of civilised life, and whose Pampas are almost fit to be colonized over again. Upon the whole, it is plain that to adopt a different policy now is both very easy and very desirable ; and, at all events, the principle of colonization which we are endea- vouring to elucidate involves a total change of policy, or rather, the adoption of what might be justly termed policy, in the disposal of waste land.

We must now offer some remarks on the second point, which has hitherto been assumed without proof—namely, that the colony, or co- lonies to be peopled, would furnish employment to the proposed rapid increase of people. If the poor emigrants were landed in a perfectly waste country, they must be all starved. Whatever the number of pauper emigrants landed in any colony, such of them as could not obtain employment must he starved ; and unless all of them should obtain profitable employment, that is, an ample provision by their labour, the main purpose of their emigration would not be effected. If not starved, they would be miserable ; and if in the least degree miserable, they would not exert their greatest natural power of in- crease. Their misery, whether taken by itself or viewed as a check to their increase, would be equally fatal to the purpose for which the state had promoted their emigration. Indeed, it would effectually prevent extensive emigration. A desire to better one's condition is, we must repeat, the sole motive to emigration ; and the most wretched pauper would prefer misery in his own parish house-of-idleness, to misery in Canada, South Africa, or Australasia. He would even prefer misery at home to only comparative plenty in a distant land. Nothing would induce him to emigrate but the certainty of obtaining absolute plenty—an ample provision of food, clothes, and fuel, for himself, his wife, and any number of children. It is the more necessary to insist on this point, because we are supposing, always, that the con- dition of the whole domestic population would be improved. Sup- posing the condition of the people of Britain to be such that want did not operate as a check to the procreation and rearing of children, an indispensable condition of the new mode of colonization is that the emigrant labourer should obtain in the colony an existence even superior to an ample provision of mere necessaries. He must be enabled, besides maintaining his family in ease, to lay by some pro- perty every year, and to become, in time, an employer -of other labourers—an occupier, if not a proprietor, of land. Such a prospect would be a motive to emigration, with those in the mother-coun- try who should not be satisfied to remain labourers for hire during the whole course of their lives—to those amongst the labouring classes who might feel ambitious to acquire some leisure for the improve- ment of their minds, and the means of raising their children in the scale of society. If pauperism were extinguished in Britain, a less favourable prospect would not provide the amount of emigration requi- site to prevent the return of pauperism. It is absolutely necessary therefore, that a prospect not less favourable should be held out, not only to every male emigrant, but to fifty thousand male emigrants every year. In order to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion with respect to this essential feature of the scheme under review, we must have recourse to an elementary proposition in political economy. Employment fbr latAlt 18 furnished by land and capital united. Land by itself, how- ever rich and plentiful, will not furnish employment to labourers having no capital ; because, if without capital, they would starve whilst- endeavouring to render the land productive. Without capital, they would be with-out cattle for breeding, without implements, with- out seed, and, above all, without food t6 keep them alive until food should be produced. So again, capital without land will not furnish employment to labour. A large or small number of people, isolated on a barren rock, must be starved in thirteen months, though they possessed cattle, implements, seed, and a twelvemonth's provision of food. These are truisms ; but we beg the reader to keep them in mind. There are many countries whose inhabitants possess twice, three times, ten times as much land as they cultivate, and where, nevertheless, emigrant labourers would not find employment, because they would not meet a demand for labour, or in other words a su- perabundance of capital. Britain is an example of a country in which there is a superabundance of capital, but where thousands of the people are starving, because there is a deficiency of fertile land whereon to employ more capital in the production of food. No country can furnish ample employment to a very rapidly increasing population, unless there exist in it an abundance both of land and of capital. The United States are an example of such a country. The principal British colonies are in a similar condition. Their inhabitants, having emanated from a highly civilized country, are industrious, skilful, and prudent, and even wealthy, when compared with the inhabitants of some other countries where land is in equal superabundance. They produce more than they consume ; they accumulate ; they possess capital ; they are constantly struggling for civilization against the barbarizing tendency of dispersion. In all those countries there ex- ist an urgent demand for labour,—an abundance of land, and an abundance of capital, in proportion to labourers. The question is, whether the three great British colonies would, amongst them, afford ample wages to a population constantly increasing by the annual immigration of fifty thousand young couples. Without better information than we at present possess, we are not so rash as to answer that question in positive terms ; but it leads to some reflections which must always be of weight in any inquiry on the subject.. The increase of slaves in the United States is fifty thousand per annum. One of the most profitable trades in America is the breeding of slaves, or in other words, the production of labour. The average value of a slave being about 601., the people of the American slave states lay out 3,000,000/. per annum for the in- crease, only, of negro labour! Considering the prime cost of slaves, the necessity of maintaining them in sickness, the average loss oc- casioned by their premature death, the cost of superintending their labours, the cost of recovering, or attempting to recover runaways, the loss through the permanent escape of some of them, their stu- pidity, their necessary hatred of labour, and their indifference to the interests of the master,—it may be fairly presumed that the employ- ment of slaves is less profitable than that of free men, even though the wages of the latter be extravagantly high. In America, however, from the encouragement given to all, except slaves, to become pro- prietors of land and would-be employers of labour, no capitalist can depend on a permanent supply of free labour. In America, there- fore, no capitalists unproladed with slaves will undertake any mode of cultivation which requires the employment of many hands in one field.

This part of the subject may be properly illustrated by reference to the operation of scarcity of labour for hire, in preventing the ac- cumulation of capital. The back-settler of an American state in which slavery is forbidden, clears his land and soon obtains abun- dance of food ; but the accumulation of food is useless, and his neigh- bours, having plenty of food, will not give him something of an im- perishable nature for his superfluous food. He would gladly give his superabundance of food to labourers who might produce some- thing not perishable ; but there are none to take what he does not want. He has no motive, therefore, for producing more than will supply his own wants. This done,—and by constantly exhausting new land, it is done with very little labour,—he passes much of his time in drinking, smoking, and hunting ; he becomes a half- savage ; and, after leading that sort of life for a few years, prefers it to any other, and loses all desire to improve his condition by in- creasing his wealth. The back-settler of a slave State, on the con- trary, exchanges his surplus food for slaves, because he wants slaves, and the slave breederwants food for his human cattle, who are cm ployed in growing sugar, tobacco, and cotton. Obtaining slaves, he readily accumulates; he brings into operation the soul of produc- tion, the division of labour. -He, too, becomes a grower of ex- changeable produce, by employing many hands in one field ; he has every motive for making his produce as great as possible, for buying more slaves, for accumulating, for improving his condition. Remain- ing civilized, he wishes for knowledge, or is, at least, desirous to bestow knowledge on his children. Most of the great men of America have sprung from the slave states ; and the commerce of the other states, to which the people owe much of their concentra- tion in towns, is founded on the labour of slaves in producing ex- changeable commodities. The people of Boston, New York, and Baltimore, are carriers and factors for the people of the South. A great part of the trade of New Orleans even, is conducted by per- manent residents of the Northern states, who visit the Southern ex- tremity of the Union only during the healthy season, in order to share, as merchants, in the profits arising. from the divided labour of slaves. If there were no slaves in America—if slaves were allowed to appropriate and exhaust new land, every one of them doing almost every thing for himself—who would produce those exchangeable com- modities which furnish the commerce of America, and support the dispersion. might entirely cease.

in the amount of their means for giving employment to labour. that sum in that manner, and repay themselves by requiring a consi- Another important consideration belongs to this part of the sub- derable price for waste land, they might abstain from breeding slaves, ject. Because labour is very scarce in many places where land is very and become, within the time of living men, all that is foretold of them? plentiful, superficial observers are apt to suppose that superabundance Thirdly, the extreme simplicity of the proposed method of making of land is the only cause of high wages. We have already noticed emigration pay for itself, is not its only recommendation. We have this gross error, by referring to countries where land and labour are shown that if emigrants were scattered over a territory immense in equally superabundant, in proportion to the demand for them. Based proportion to their numbers, they might have no surplus income for on this error, however, an opinion prevails, that a constant excess of taxation. Concentration, we repeat once more, is essential to the territory is necessary to maintain so high a rate of wages as to enable success of the scheme. In a waste country, the concentration of the all classes to exert their utmost power of increase. The fact appears people is to be obtained only by some restriction on the appropriation to be, that a constant increase of territory,without excess at any time, of waste land. How might the Government determine the due mea, will accomplish that end, whilst the greatest excess will surely prevent sure of restriction ? By no means so sure and simple as by refusing it. Dispersion, by itself, is unfavourable to a high rate of wages. In to sell waste land for less than the highest price, that would not cause some parts of South America, where the Spanish colonists were not any, the slightest, pressure of population upon the means of subsist- at all kept together by dense forests or hostile natives, wages are tin- once. We know very well that if fertile land could be constantly known ; the people are become savages; every one does every thing brought to the shores of Britain, and sold at 5/. per acre, in any quasi- for himself; there is no accumulation of capital ; and the pressure of tity for which that price might be offered, pauperism, arising population upon the means of subsistence is as severe as in England. from want of employment, would wholly cease. Experience, alone, In Canada, again, the amount of demand for labour, or of capital, is perhaps, may determine the highest price which in the colonies would relatively less than in the State of New York, because in that state permit an increase of people without any decrease of wages ; but this some degree of concentration is preserved by the price which, in the is already beyond a doubt,—that the price would be too low, if it did United States, is required for new land ; whilst in Canada infinite not prevent the exhaustion and abandonment of fertile land! In the pains have been taken to scatter the people, and to reduce them to a assumed case of a tax on income there might be no income to tax, condition similar to that of some of the inhabitants of the Pampas. The without concentration ; in this case, which supposes a virtual deduc- greater the concentration, the greater must be the division of labour, tion from the income of the people, the means of paying for land are the quantity of production, and the accumulation of wealth ; the to arise through the concentration, the division of labour, the great greater consequently must be the demand for labour—provided al- production, the wealth, which the necessity of paying for all new ways, that if the people are increasing, they may be gradually con- land would occasion. This, therefore, is not only the most simple centrated on an increasing territory. One man, isolated on'a square method of obtaining payment from the colonists of -the cost of their mile of land, and obliged, of course, to do every thing for himself, creation, but it is also the best possible mode of eizabling them to pay. might not produce more than enough of food for his own subsistence ; Referring to the preceding remarks on the advantages of concentra- ten men m the same situation might produce a great deal more food tion, it appears that, even though the cost of removing fifty thousand than they could consume, and would thereby provide employment for young couples per annum were defrayed by a tax on the people of other labourers, who, united with them, would produce still more food Britain, it would still be necessary to require a considerable price for in proportion to their consumption; and the number of labourers new land, in order merely to create employment for so rapid an in- might constantly increase, with benefit to all, until the whole square crease of colonial population. Admitting this proposition to be true, great sea-port towns ? What might WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON mile were well cultivated. That degree of concentration, therefore, have been, if their fathers had not been slave owners ?—a sort of wild which is required to enable a new people easily to repay the cost of men of the woods ! Not to dwell on the advantages which America their creation, would not operate as a check to high wages and the has derived from slavery, it seems evident that great cheapness of greatest possible increase of people, but would, on the contrary, insure land produces, amongst a skilful and industrious people, great scarcity them, by giving the greatest possible produce to the greatest possible of labourers ; that great scarcity of labourers is injurious or almost number. fatal to accumulation ; and that the want of power to accumulate Having thus slightly noticed the principles of the proposed system soon removes the desire—whereby civilized men are converted into of colonization, we must now say a few words as to the means of exe- semi-barbarians. It is by this process that the French in Lower cution. Canada, and the colonists of Buenos Ayres, degenerated from the First, For the sake of more ready illustration, we have assumed that civilization which they carried to America : it is by the reverse of the State would have to advance 1,000,000/. per annum for twenty this process that the greatest amount of employment for labour may years ; but, in fact, the sum might be more or less, according to the be created and maintained, wherever any superabundance of people number of emigrants, and the cost of freight ; and the period assumed may be prevented by a gradual increase of territory in due propor- is wholly arbitrary, in as much as if twenty millions of colonists tion to the increase of people. could pay 20,000,000/.\ for their own creation, any smaller number If this view of the subject be correct, and if it be true that the em- would be equally able to repay a proportionally smaller sum. If the ploy-ment of slave labour is less profitable than that of free labour, principles which we have here discussed are sound, the repayment of it becomes clear that the whole American people, a portion of whom colonization by itself might proceed continually, pan i passu, with the every year expend 3,000,000/. in the purchase of fifty thousand increase of the colonial population. If the income of twenty millions slaves, might give ample wages to fifty thousand labourers every of people might be taxed to the amount of 20,000,0001., the income of year emigrating to America. Again, the yearly-increase of able- one million might be taxed to the amount of 1,000,0001. The state, bodied free men in the United States exceeds, probably, fifty thou- therefore, would not be in advance, except until an increase of labour- sand ; yet such is the facility for becoming a would-be employer of ers in the colonies had created a colonial revenue, wherefrom to obtain labour, that no capitalist can depend on a permanent supply of free repayment of that first advance. Afterwards, the colonists might labour ; and the institution of slavery is preserved through the con- themselves pay beforehand for the immense advantage of constant stonily-operating cause of its revival in America—the struggle of a emigration, (just as the Americans now pay 3,000,c001. a-yeat for the peopl(, anxious to be civilized, against the barbarizing tendency of increase of black labour,) and the advances of the parent government But why do we conclude that the Americans could readily employ Secondly, But a deduction from colonial income, in the shape of a a constant yearly increase of fifty thousand labourers, whilst we are tax wherewith to pay for emigration, has been assumed, like the sum less confident that the colonists of Britain would, amongst them, of 20,000,000/. and the period of twenty years, merely to illustrate a employ a similar yearly increase of labourers ? Because the Ame- principle. A much more simple, and therefore effectual method, of ricans are ten millions of people, most of whom are in urgent want giving effect to that principle, is suggested. It is proposed that the of labourers, and every one of whom might readily become an em- Government shall require a considerable price for all future grants of ployer of labour, supposing that an aniple supply were obtained ; land without exception, and that the proceeds of sales should be whilst the British colonists are a much smaller number of capitalists wholly devoted to the purposes of emigration. Supposing the colonists wanting labourers. The demand for labour is nearly as intense in concentrated and wealthy, they would have plenty of capital to employ Canada, South Africa, and Australasia, as in the United States,—it in the production of food for their constantly-increasing population. For is much less only in amount. This difference, however, proves that this purpose, they must purchase waste land. Their purchases of waste an increase of the number of colonists would occasion a correspond- land must be constant, from the moment, at least, when a sufficient ing increase of the demand for labour. It proves that in any waste amount of emigration had enabled and Compelled them to cultivate all country, colonized by skilful and industrious people, the amount of the fertile lands now appropriated without purchase. The purchase- demand for labour may increase progressively with the increase of money of waste land would be constantly expended in still further in- people and capital, so long as any naturally fertile land remains an- creasing the colonial population. This would occasion a further ac- cultivated. In every such case the increase of people and of capital cumulation of capital and a further demand for land ; the purchase- may proceed in a geometrical ratio, constantly doubling themselves, money would be employed as before ; and colonization would proceed and, with themselves, the amount of the demand for labour. It with most rapid strides, and without any cost to the mother country, follows that, even though the colonists of Britain should not at this until no more land remained to be colonized. As in the assumed case moment be able to afford employment to a sudden accession of fifty of a tax upon income, the cost of creating a concentrated and wealthy thousand labourers, the increase of the colonial population will shortly people li'ould be wholly defrayed by themselves ; their ability to pay give them that power ; and that they would acquire that power for their own creation would be caused by the mode of creating them ; almost immediately, if the power, which they do possess, were at their contribution to the emigration-fund would be a deduction from once used in the manner proposed. We are inclined to believe that their income ; and the disposal of the deduction would produce more the colonists of Britain do, at this time, possess an amount of capital income, to be virtually taxed, in like manner, and for the same pur- equal to give employment to a sudden accession of fifty thousand pose; it would be right to demand a considerable price for new land, even though the money obtained by sales should be thrown away ;—it fol- lows that an emigration-find must necessanly create itself by means Of ernigration. In order more fully to show that even if the fifty thousand young couples, supposed annually to emigrate, could be transported to the co- lonies without any expense, it would still be desirable to impose restric- tions on the occupation of new land, merely for the purpose of creating employment for this great annual increase of the number of hands, let us state clearly what would be the condition of one of the British Colonies in America or Australasia, with respect to production and the employment of labour, if any person could obtain a grant of land by Merely asking for it. We shall suppose the most favourable circumstances under which this liberty of dispersion could possibly be conceded ; that is, we shall suppose that the condition of cultivating, the land is strictly enforced, and that no one, consequently, receives a larger grant than he is able to cultivate.

We conceive that the state of this colony, as respects the mode of cultivation and the degree in which the resources of the soil were made available, would, in some respects, bear a very close resem- blance to the present situation of Ireland. The people, indeed, would be well fed, and would not have rent or tithe to pay. They would therefore be free from wretchedness, and from dependence ; but the productive powers of the soil would be turned to no better account in Australasia or Canada thaia they are in Ireland at present. Every body allows that the soil of Ireland yields only a trifle in comparison with what it might be made to produce, even with the same number of hands which it now employs. And what is the rea- son of this ? It is, first, that no good mode of cultivation can exist where there are not the means of providing good implements, and incurring considerable outlay in other ways for which a return cannot be immediately expected ; and a single family cultivating a rood of land, has not these means ; and, secondly, that great production is never accomplished, either in agriculture or in manufactures, except by combination—by setting several persons to help one another in the same work. Now, when each man is set to work by himself, on his Own patch of ground, the productive powers of labour are broken up into the smallest possible fractional parts; and every fanner who has the eiriploy-nient of twenty men, knows that he should lose the greater part of the value of their labour were he to set them to work in such a way. Further, the amount or employment for labour is determined not only by the amount of the gross produce, but also by the proportion of that produce which is accumulated and converted into capital. When the land is cultivated in little parcels, such as one man and his family can cultivate (which is the case in Ireland), not only is the produce much less, but a much smaller proportion even of that smaller produce is accumulated to compose a fund for the employment of More labour.

Suppose for a moment that the landlords and the tithe-owners should forego the whole of their claims, leaving the entire produce of the soil of Ireland to the full and undivided enjoyment of the cottier. It is probable that he would, in the first place, produce much less, and take out a great part of his reward in the form of leisure or indolence; and, secondly, that what he did produce beyond the food of his family, he would employ not in hiring labourers, but in buying additional comforts and enjoyments for his family, by which he would afford no new encouragement to production, since he would only expend what the landlords and tithe-owners expended before. No new employ- ment at all, therefore, would be afforded to labour, except that the natural increase of population might go on longer without being re- strained by want of food.

If, however, the Government should step into the place of the landlord and tithe-owner—should take the rent and tithe to itself, and form it into a fund for the employment of labour, it would at once create a new demand for labour to that amount ; to say nothing of any sub- sentient accumulation from the profits of the labour so employed. It may therefore be concluded, that if each .settler, on landing in New South Wales, were to claim his right to a piece of ground as large as he could cultivate, and to set himself down and cultivate it by Iffinself, the amount of production in the colony would be much less, and of that less quantity a less proportion would become available for the eriiployMent of additional emigrants, than if, by any means that Would effect the Object, they could be compelled to work as labourers for the proprietors or occupiers of considerable titrms. It is only therefore necessary to prove, that the emigrants would universally claim this right, if it were allowed them. But of this, no one who knows any thing of the habits of emi- grants; or of the state of the facts in the particular colonies in ques- tion, can doubt.

According to the ideas which every person carries out with him from our old country, there is a peculiar and undefinable importance attached to being the proprietor of land. The extreme difficulty which the colonial governments experience in levying quit-rents, arises chiefly from this cause. The great object of a settler's desire and aiiabition is a freehold property in land ; and if he can have this, with abundance of food and moderate labour, the absence of all other COmforts is abundantly compensated in his opinion by the excitement of a wild, unrestrained, independent, half-savage life ; an excitement which, even in the case of the hunter, who is continually in danger of being without food, is known to have a peculiar charm. Notwith- standing the greater produce which would be obtained by a different Mode of cultivation, and notwithstanding the greater share of that produce Which would be obtained by the labourer, under circum- stances so much more favourable to the accumulation of capital, he prefers the name of a proprietor, and the independence of a back- woodsman, to the comforts of civilized sbciety. It may be said. that if the emigrants prefer this kind of life, they should be allowed to enjoy it. We answer, no,—because, when Eng. land is about to confer a beon on certain of her pauper subjects who are now in a state of misery, she has a right to annex to that boon any conditions which will not render the gilt nugatory ; and, having this right, she consequently lies under a duty to consider, not in what manner she may so conduct emigration as to give to a small number of emigrants what they like best, but how she may so conduct it as to remove the greatest number from a state of abject misery, depen- dence, and temptation to vice, into a condition of comfort, indepen- dence, and comparative virtue. Nor is this all ; the opposite course would not be advantageous to the emigrants themselves, if moralists and politicians be right in supposing, that although the strong excite- ment of savage life renders it 'more apparently eligible to a person who has hitherto known only the evils of society, yet a state of civi- lization, when accompanied by plenty, is more conducive to the real happiness both of the individual and of the race. Fourthly, as the territory already appropriated by the colonists is disproportionately large, that degree of concentration which would produce wealth, either thr taxation or for the purchase of new land, could not now be obtained, otherwise than by such an increase of people, without any increase of land, as would occasion a due pro- portion between territory- and inhabitants. Either, therefore, the proposed sales of land, and the employment of the proceeds, must be delayed until the colonial population shall, without the interference of the State, reach the desired proportion to territory ; or the State must advance the cost of emigration for a Short period, in order to hasten the time when the colonists would defray beforehand the whole cost of emigration. True it is, that the federal government of the United States obtains nearly 400,000/.* a-year by the sale of waste land at a very low mice ; but then, even the little more than nominal payment which they require for waste land, has prevented the excess of appropriated land from being so great in those states as in the British colonies ; and the population of those states is positively much greater than that of the colonies. If it be an object—and this appeals to us to he the first object—to bring the system into early and com- plete operation with reference to the miserable people of Britain, some advance from the Government appears unavoidAle. But it must be borne in mind, that repayment would be certain—more certain, at least, than in perhaps any former case of public expenditure ; and that the moment of repayment would be early, in proportion to the greatness of the advance. If but 50,000L a-year were advanced for the emigration of two thousand five hundred young couples, many years might elapse before the colonists would be ahle mid willing to purchase waste land ; but if 1,000,000/. a-year were advanced for the emigration of fifty thousand young couples, the proper degree of con- centration would be speedily obtained, and the advances of Govern- ment as speedily recovered. It seems hardly doubtful that a con- stant yearly addition of fifty thousand young couples to the colonial population of Britain, would occasion, almost immediately, an amount of sales more than sufficient to pay five per cent. interest on whatever sum the emigration might cost. If so, the Government would have no difficulty in raising the necessary funds on the security of future sales. And it has been further suggested, with a view to the inime diate payment of interest on any advance, and in order that the colo- nists who have appropriated land without purchase, may contribute something towards the cost of the immense benefits to be conferred on them, that a tax upon the rent of land shall be levied, and carried to the emigration fund. As rent, properly speaking, does not exist in the colonies, and as the proposed change in the proportion of peo- ple to land, would call it into existence, such a tax would, of course, take from the landowner only a portion of what the wholesystem must first bestow on him ; and such a tax would be manifestly advan- tageous to the landowner, if nothing else would prevent any delay in the complete operation of the whole system. There is, however, one serious objection, perhaps, to such a tax,—namely, that it might in- troduce some complication into a system the great simplicity of which is its chief recommendation.

For, after all, the whole measure amounts but to this—that the Crown, which has entire control over waste land, shall prevent its misappropriation in future. The Crown, even without the interven- tion of Parliament, may declare that no more land shall be misap- propriated—that is, appropriated without a due provision for its cul- tivation. For the due cultivation of waste land, a certain amount of labour is required, which none of the colonies furnish. "Pay then," says the Crown to the grantee," so much per acre for the land, and you shall receive in return a certain amount of labour from the mo- ther-country, where labour is superabundant You will pay, not for the land, but for the means of cultivating it. You will thus be enabled to recover very quickly what you have paid. Moreover, as the imported labourers will be all young couples, they will very ra- pidly increase the colonial population, whereby your land will speedily acquire a value far above the amount of the purchase- money." The land, viewed by itself, will still be given away; but it will be given away for a new purpose. It will not be given • - away, as heretofore, to encourage some scattered settlers to waste their capital in a fruitless struggle for civilization. It will still be given away; but the mode of giving it will make the present immensely valuable, not only to the receivers, but to all who live upon the land, who will thereby be called into existence and for- bidden to degenerate from their parent stock. The aggregate of

* This sum does not include the sales of land by the separate States, which are very considerable.

4th. The mother-country might save all the cost of governing her employment for labour, and a supply of labour, by selling waste land, colonies, inasmuch as the expense of governing a concentrated Colony- and devoting the purchase-money to the emigration of young couples would little exceed that of a dispersed one, supposing the extent of from Britain, it is clear that no higher price will be obtained than territory equal ; whilst, if the amount of taxation on each person were that which is, or may be, required in the adjoining states not -subject the same in both cases, the amount of public revenue might be ten to our control ; and it follows, that if that price be too loW to insure or twenty times as much in the ease of concentration as in the case • the greatest concentration compatible with the greateSt possible in- of dispersion. In this view of the subject, a main objection to all crease of people, the Canadians would not derive from the proposed

colonization would be entirely removed. measure all the advantages that it might bestow on them, if their

Ionization would, to a great extent, afford to the redundant educated For in South Africa, and Australasia, the British government has classes at home the same demand for their services as a miraculous an undivided control over all waste land. As, there, the colonists increase of the British territory, would be unable to emigrate to an adjoining state to buy land at a 6th. The measure is not equally applicable to all the three great lower price than that required by the Government, they must remain British colonies, Canada, South Africa, and Australasia. To Canada it in the colony and give the Government price, whatever it might be; could be but partially applied ; but a slight notice of the causes and and the Government, in fixing a price, would have to consult nothing consequences of this difference will place the merits of the scheme in but the greatest happiness of all—to determine on the highest price a forcible point of view. In. Canada, the British Government cannot which would not forbid the greatest possible increase of people. regulate at pleasure the degree of concentration which its subjects Upon that point the whole system turns ! If too low a price were shall enjoy, because it does not possess an absolute power over waste required, slaves would be valuable in South Africa, and desired, if land. In the immediate neighbourhood of the British settlements not desirable, in Australasia ; whilst in both colonies it would be there are immense tracts of new land, over which the Government of more profitable to exhaust new land than to cultivate old land ; and Canada has no control whatsoever; and to these the colonists would yet the amount of demand for labour would be unequal to the demand emigrate if the Colonial Government should require a higher price for of British labourers for employment. If, on the other hand, too high waste land than that which is required by the Governments of the a price Were required, the colonial people would press on the means neighbouring United States. Be it remarked here, that as there are of subsistence ; wages would he nothigh, but very low ; and British no paupers in the colonies, all classes possess the means of emigration. paupers would no longer accept as a boon the offer of a free passage Hence it appears that the Government of Canada must necessarily to the colonies. Upon this point, we must repeat, the whole system regulate the price of its waste land by that which should obtain in turns'; but though it were not easy at once to name the price which * Extract from the Quarterly Review for January NM Article IV. page 104.—" Not- would be neither too low nor too high, it is very easy to name a price withstanding all that might be, and ought to be, done at home, there can be no doubt which would be too low ; and, by fixing that price as the minimum, that, sooner or later, emigration must come to be regarded as a momentous national *All a promise of future increase, no harm could posSibly arise, concern ; but, without reference to any more or less remote contingencies, iii,, we think, clear to demonstration, that multitudes of the destitute children who are thrown whilst the prospect of an increase of price would tempt -speculators upon their respective parishes for support, might be

nd most van eously for themselves the public, a adtag, by sending them to those colonies

where hands are wanted, and where (as in Nova Scotia) by a few years of faithful see- 'Vund—without loss of time. Perhaps it will turn out, that the price yice, they might earn the means of establishing themselves in independence and corn- -by which the largest fund for emigration might be obtained, is also fort. Arrangements might easily be made for thus relieving our workhouses, to the infi- the best price, with a view to maintaining the largest possible amount nite benefit of the poor children themselves, many of whom would thus be saved from a worse than Egyptian bondage." of employment for labour. gifts, too, will be of infinite value to the people of Britain, inasmuch the 'United States. That price is now, we have already shown, by far as they will operate like a gradual increase' of territory according to too low fbr the most desirable degree of "concentration—for causing the increase- of people. As to Britain, the day, bf course, must come the greatest possible demand for entigrant labour and the largest when the pressure of people upon territory cOulds no longer be thus means of obtaining, it. But, such as it is, it would be productive of prevented ; but, in the mean while, several new Britains might be very great advantages to Canada. It would produeesthere the same created, which is no despicable end ; and, above all perhaps, this concentration of people and accumulation of capital that takes place in mode of relieving the miserable classes in Britain would instruct the States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania ; it would them, by a great practical lesson, that " the pressure of pbpulation on provide a considerable fund for the conxeyance of British paupers to the means of subsistence " can be prevented, either by a gradual in- the colony, and, by furnishing them with employment, would prevent

crease of territory, or by "moral restraint." them from emigrating once more to the United States, as is now the We have now described the main features of the scheme under re- practice with a large proportion of the labourers conveyed from view. Some essential points of detail remain unnoticed; and we Britain to Canada. In every one of the accounts of Canada, pub- have abstained from following this principle of colonization to Many fished during the last twenty years, there occur expressions of wonder of its conclusions. We are tempted, however, just to point at: the and regret at the disposition of poor British emigrants to abandon " a following important considerations. British colony" for " a foreign state ;" and the last file of Canadian the diminished value of slaves. has the means to remove to another place where labour is in yet

2do The increase of demand for the produce of British industry greater demand ; and his eagerness to aid in supplying that demand would be immense. The concentrated colonists would divide their is no more disloyal than the anxiety of the Liverpool merchant to sell labour in the production of agricultural commodities suited to the Manchester goods at New York: The amount of demand Mr labour British Market, and the price of such commodities would be lower is relatively greater in the United States than in Canada,—in propor- than at present, though the landlord, the capitalist, and the labourer, lion exactly as'concentration and capital are relatively greater ; and should all receive a larger amount of production. The price, of course, this important .difference seems to be occasioned by the different must be governed by the price of labour : if the production were modes of disposing of waste land pursued by I he two Governments. much greater in consequence of division of labour, the labourer's In Canada new land is given by favour ; hundreds of thousabds of share might be less, though the amount of his wages were greater ; acres are owned by persons residing in England who never ihtended and it is the labourer's share that constitutes the price of labour. to cultivate them ; hundreds of thousands of acres, again, have been This part of the subject seems to deserve the fullest inquiry ; but here " reserved " for the crown and the church,—that is, they were but it is only needful to point at the many advantages which would be nominally appropriated, as if for the sole purpose of compelling bona conferred on all classes in Britain; and more especially on the lowest fide settlers to live far apart from each other arid to become half class, by a sudden, rapid, and constant increase of demand for the savages ; whilst, at the same time, every man can obtain new products of British industry and skill. land by paying certain fees which amount to only a nominal priee. 3d. Though the proposed measure might, if well administered, pre- In the Stale of New York, on the contrary, no One can appropriate vent, throughout the British dominions, any pressure of population new land until he have paid for it near two dollars per acre. This on the means of subsistence, there must always remain in Britain a price is, as before observed, too low,—as any price must be too pressure of people on the inclination to emigrate : though there should low that should encourage the exhaustion and abandonment of new be neither starvation nor absolute pauperism for want of employment, land ; but, low as it is, it renders the condition of the ii.;otbitants of though the workhouses of England should be nearly empty, and the the State of New York very much preferable to that of the Canadian ravages of hunger and typhus should cease in Ireland, still the lowest colonists. Though it permit the Americans to advance too rapidly classes would not become independent, but must necessarily labour into the wilderness' it compels them to advance in :a body, not suffi- for their daily bread. Though the ESTHER HiBNERS might want chil- ciently concentrated we admit, but still not, as happens in Canada, then to work even unto death,,slove of country, operating on a popu- so dispersed as absolutely to forbid the division of labour, the accu- lation not utterly wretched, would prevent any scarcity of labour in mulation of capital, and the preservation of civilized habits. Yet, 5th. If the colonists were only soMuch concentrated as to insure government possessed an absolute control over all the waste land in the due cultivation of all their land, they would not be manufacturers. their neighbourhood. They might be made as rich as the inhabitants Though they would produce many things besides food, such as hemp of the State of New York, but not richer; they might, perhaps, soon and flax in Canada, and tobacco, cotton, silk, and wine, in South become as numerous as the citizens of the United States, • but they Africa and Australia, they would be, principally, an agricultural po- could not become more civilized ; they might be able to purchase as pulation. But as such, they would be wealthy. As they would be ninny of the products of British industry as the AmoiCans would pur- created with great rapidity-, they would require to be furnished from chase iftheir tariff and our corn-laws *ere repealed, but not More ; they Britain with many classes of persons whose emigration would not might become, in one word, a more than half-civilized, instead of re- abstract capital from the country,—such as medical men, lawyers, maining thr generations to come a more than half-savage people. • teachers, &c.; and they would be able amply to reward such persons Can there be a better illustration of the admirable effects of the mea- for emigrating.. The schools and colleges of England would supply sure in question in those colonies, where it might be adopted without the colonies with instruction. In short, the proposed system of co- any check from the impolicy of neighbouring states? Ionization would, to a great extent, afford to the redundant educated For in South Africa, and Australasia, the British government has classes at home the same demand for their services as a miraculous an undivided control over all waste land. As, there, the colonists most economically disposed of by to purchase waste land—that is, to subscribe to the Emigration