Part 1

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCIII. MAY, 1849. VOL. LXV.

CONTENTS.

COLONISATION--MR WAKEFIELD'S THEORY, 509

THE REACTION, OR FOREIGN CONSERVATISM, 529

MADAME D'ARBOUVILLE'S "VILLAGE DOCTOR," 542

NATIONAL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND, 567

ARARAT AND THE ARMENIAN HIGHLANDS, 577

LEGITIMACY IN FRANCE, 590

THE COLLEGE. A SKETCH IN VERSE, 601

JACK MOONLIGHT, 606

MOONLIGHT MEMORIES. BY B. SIMMONS, 613

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY, 614

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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCIII. MAY, 1849. VOL. LXV.

COLONISATION--MR WAKEFIELD'S THEORY.[1]

We agree with those, and they are the majority of reflective minds, who, taking a survey of our half-peopled globe, and considering the peculiar position which England occupies on it--her great maritime power, her great commercial wants, her overflowing numbers, her overflowing wealth--have concluded that colonisation is a work to which she is especially called. She is called to it by her marked aptitude and capability for the task, as well as by an enlightened view of her own interests. Without too much national partiality, without overlooking our own faults, and that canker of a too money-loving, too money-making morality, which has eaten into our character, (though perhaps not more so than it has corroded the character of other European nations, who have quite as strong a passion for gold, without the same industry in obtaining it,) we may boldly say that the best seed-plot of the human race that now exists (let the best be estimated as it may by the moralist and the divine) is to be found in this island of Great Britain. To plant the unoccupied regions of the earth, or regions merely wandered over by scattered tribes of savages, who cannot be said to possess a soil which they do not use, by off-sets from this island, is itself a good work. It is laying no ill foundation for the future nations that shall thus arise, to secure to them the same language, the same literature, the same form of religion, the same polity, or, at all events, the same political temper (the love and obedience to a constitution) that we possess; to make native to them that literature in which the great Christian epic has been written, in which philosophy has spoken most temperately, and poetry most profusely, diversely, and vigorously. Nor will England fail to reap her own reward from this enterprise. In every part of the world an Englishman will find a home. It will be as if his own native soil had been extended, as if duplicates of his own native land had risen from the ocean. A commercial intercourse of the most advantageous character will spring up; the population and the wealth of the old country will find fresh fields of employment in the new; the old country will itself grow young again, and start in the race with her own children for competitors. Neither will the present age pass by without participating in the benefit, since its overcrowded population will be relieved by the departure of many who will exchange want for plenty, and despondency for hope. Whatever opinion may be held of the remedial efficacy against future pauperism of a system of emigration, it must be allowed that this present relief arrives most opportunely, as a balance to that extraordinary pressure produced by the distress in Ireland, and the influx of its famine-stricken peasantry into other parts of the kingdom.

On this subject--the measure of permanent relief which colonisation will afford to this country by carrying off its surplus population--the degree in which emigration may be calculated upon as the future antagonist of pauperism--we would speak with caution. We are so far hopeful that we see here a great resource against the national evil of an unemployed population, but it is a resource which must be rightly understood and wisely taken advantage of; it is a great resource for an intelligent people; it comes in aid of that fundamental remedy, a good sound education for the people, moral and religious, but is no substitute for that most necessary of all measures. Misunderstood, and vaguely relied on by those who know not how properly to avail themselves of it, the prospect of emigration may even prove mischievous, by rendering the thoughtless and improvident still more reckless, still more improvident.

Granted, it may be said, that emigration supplies an outlet annually for a certain excess of population, it supplies, by that very reason, an additional and constant impulse to an increase of population. The old country may overflow, but it is always kept full, and to the brim. The restraint of prudence is relaxed. "We can feed ourselves; and, as to our children, are there not the colonies?" may be said by many an improvident pair. People even of the better sort, who would shrink from the idea of their children sinking into a lower grade of society than they themselves occupied, would find in emigration a vague provision for the future family--a provision which would often disappoint them, and which they would often fail in resolution to embrace.

Let it be borne in mind that, when we speak of the duty of restraining from improvident marriage, we are not inculcating any new morality founded upon the recent science of political economy. It is a duty as old as the love of a parent to his child, and needs only for its enforcement an anticipation of this parental affection. No man who _has_ married, and become a father, ever doubted of the existence of such a duty, or spoke slightingly of it. Ask the Scotch peasant, ask the simplest Switzer, who knows nothing of reading-clubs or mechanics' institutes--who has perhaps never quitted his native valley, and all whose knowledge is the growth of his own roof-tree--what he thinks of the morality of him who becomes the father of a family he cannot rear, or must rear like wild beasts more than men--he will give you an answer that would satisfy the strictest Malthusian. The prudence that would avoid famine, the just and righteous fear of having hungry children about our knees--this is no new wisdom in the world, though, like all our old wisdom, it continually cries in vain in our streets. Now the operation of this, in every respect, moral restraint would be materially interfered with, if the notion should prevail, that in the colonies there existed (without any distinct knowledge how it was to be secured) an inexhaustible provision for human life. Numbers would marry, trusting to this resource, yet the offspring of such marriages might never reach their destined refuge, or reach it only after much suffering, and in the degraded condition of uneducated paupers. And men who have calculated that, at all events, without seeking aid from Government or the parish, they shall be able to send their child abroad, when the child has grown up, will hesitate to part with it. They had calculated what they would do, when parents, before they became such. They had not been able to anticipate that bond of parental affection which, we may observe in passing, is by no means weakest in the humblest ranks, but, on the contrary, until we reach the very lowest, seems to increase in strength as we descend in the social scale.

The fact is, that it is not as a distant provision for their children that the youthful pair should be taught to look on emigration. If it comes at all into their calculation, they should embrace it as a provision for themselves, and, through them, for their future offspring. They should carry their hopes at once to the climate which is to realise them. Marriage should be the period of emigration. At this period a man can readily leave his country, for he can leave his home. The newly married couple, as it is commonly said, and with no undue exaggeration, are all the world to each other. It is at this period that men have double the strength, for they have twice the hope, and exhilaration, and enterprise, that they have at any other epoch of their lives. That slender hoard, too, which will so soon be wasted in this country, which a few pleasures will drain, would carry them creditably into another, and lay the foundation for the utmost prosperity their birth and condition has led them to wish for. To the distant colony let them not devote their ill-fed and ill-taught children; but, going thither themselves, rear a healthy race for whom they will have no cares. If at this period of life it should become the fashion of the humbler classes to emigrate, it would be difficult to say how far our colonies might become a real, and effectual, and permanent resource against overpopulation. At all events, the mischievous influence we have been describing could never arise. We see not why England, if she learns rightly to use them, may not reap from her colonies all those advantages which the United States have been so frequently felicitated upon in their territories in the Far West. Much will depend on the current which public opinion takes. Presuming that Government discontinues entirely the old system of transportation, which must always render emigration extremely unpalatable; presuming that a steady, equitable rule is adopted in dealing with the unappropriated land, so that a moderate price, a speedy possession, and a secure title may be depended upon--we think it highly probable that colonisation will become very popular amongst us. The more that is learnt about the colonies, the more the imagination is familiarised with them by accounts of their climate, products, and the mode of life pursued in them, the less apparent, and the less fearful will their distance become, and the more frequently will men find themselves carrying their hopes and enterprises in that direction. If, therefore, an intelligent and practicable view is taken of colonisation, we may re-echo, without scruple, the words of our thoughtful poet--

"Avaunt the fear Of numbers crowded in their native soil, To the prevention of all healthful growth Through mutual injury! Rather in the law Of increase, and the mandate from above, Rejoice!--and ye have special cause for joy. For, as the element of air affords An easy passage to the industrious bees, Fraught with their burdens, and a way as smooth, For those ordained to take their sounding flight From the thronged hive, and settle where they list, In fresh abodes--their labour to renew; So the wide waters open to the power, The will, the instincts, and the appointed needs Of Britain; do invite her to cast off Her swarms, and in succession send them forth Bound to establish new communities On every shore whose aspect favours hope Or bold adventure; promising to skill And perseverance their deserved reward."

_Excursion_, book 9.

How best to colonise; how far Government should undertake the regulation and control of the enterprise; how far leave it to the spirit and intelligence of private individuals, separate or banded together in groups, or companies; and especially under what terms it shall permit the occupation of the unappropriated soil--all these have become highly interesting topics of discussion.

For ourselves, we will at once frankly confess that we have no faith in any model colonies, in ideals of any description, or in any "_Art_ of colonisation." What has been done, may be done again; what America is doing every day on the banks of the Mississippi, England may do in her Australian continent. With regard more particularly to the last and most important matter that can affect a new settlement, the mode of dealing with the land, it appears to us that the duties of Government are few, simple, and imperative--as simple in their character as they are indispensable. A previous survey, a moderate price, lots large and small to suit all purchasers--these are what we should require. The land-jobber, who interposes between Government and the emigrant, to make a cruel profit of the latter, must be kept out, either by laying a tax (as they do in America, under the denomination of the "Wild-land Tax,") on all land not reclaimed within a certain time, or by declaring the purchase forfeited, if, within that time, the soil is not cultivated. Government also must restrain its own hands from large grants to favoured individuals, who are no better than another species of land-jobbers. This, though a merely negative duty, will probably be the last performed, and the most imperfectly. Few readers are perhaps aware of the criminal ease with which the Government has been persuaded into lavish grants of land to persons who had, and could have, no immediate prospect of making use of it; enormous grants unjust to other settlers, and ruinous to the young colony, by dispersing the emigrants, interposing between them wide tracts of barren property. We ourselves read with no little surprise the following statement, which we extract from the work before us, Mr Wakefield's _Art of Colonisation_:--

"There are plenty of cases in which mischievous dispersion has taken place, but not one, to my knowledge, in which the great bulk of settlers had a choice between dispersion and concentration. In the founding of West Australia there was no choice. In disposing of the waste land, the Government began _by granting 500,000 acres (nearly half as much as the great county of Norfolk) to one person_. _Then came the governor and a few other persons, with grants of immense extent._ The first grantee took his principality at the landing-place; and the second, of course, could only choose his outside of this vast property. Then the property of the second grantee compelled the third to go further off for land; and the fourth again was driven still further into the wilderness. At length, though by a very brief process, an immense territory was appropriated by a few settlers, who were so effectually dispersed, that, as there were no roads or maps, scarcely one of them knew where he was. Each of them knew, indeed, that he was where he was positively; but his relative position--not to his neighbours, for he was alone in the wilderness, but to other settlers, to the seat of government, and even to the landing-place of the colony--was totally concealed from him. This is, I believe, the most extreme case of dispersion on record. In the founding of South Africa by the Dutch, the dispersion of the first settlers, though superficially or _acreably_ less, was as mischievous as at Swan River. The mischief shows itself in the fact, that two of the finest countries in the world are still poor and stagnant colonies. _But in all colonies, without exception, there has been impoverishing dispersion, arising from one and the same cause._"--(P. 433.)

Two very different _ideals_ of colonisation have often haunted the imaginations of speculative men, and coloured very diversely their views and projects on this subject. Both have their favourable aspects; neither is practicable. As is usual, the rough reality rides zig-zag between your ideals, touching at both in turns, but running parallel with neither.

With one party of reasoners, the ideal of a colony would be a miniature England, a little model of the old country, framed here, at home, and sent out (like certain ingeniously-constructed houses) to be erected forthwith upon the virgin soil. A portion of all classes would sally forth for their New Jerusalem. The church, with tower and steeple, the manor-house, the public library, the town-hall, the museum, and the hospital, would all simultaneously be reproduced. Science would have its representatives. Literature with its light luggage, thoughts and paper, would be sure to hover about the train. Nobility would import its antique honours into the new city, and, with escutcheon and coat of arms, traditionally connect it with knighthood and chivalry, Agincourt, and the Round Table. There would be physicians and divines, lawyers, and country gentlemen "who live at ease," as well as the artisan and ploughman, and all who work in wood and in iron. Dr Hind, the present Dean of Carlisle, in an elegantly written essay, incorporated in Mr Wakefield's book, proposes and advocates this mode of colonisation. After remarking on the greater success which apparently accompanied the schemes of the Greeks and Romans to found new communities, Dr Hind thus proceeds.--The italics, it may be as well to say, are his, not ours.

"The main cause of this difference may be stated in few words. We send out colonies of the limbs, without the belly and the head; of needy persons, many of them mere paupers, or even criminals; colonies made up of a _single class_ of persons in the community, and that the most helpless, and the most unfit to perpetuate our national character, and to become the fathers of a race whose habits of thinking and feeling shall correspond to those which, in the mean time, we are cherishing at home. The ancients, on the contrary, sent out _a representation of the parent state--colonists from all ranks_." And further on, after insisting on the propriety of appointing to the colony educated and accomplished clergymen, he says--"The same may be urged in respect of men of other professions and pursuits. The desirable consummation of the plan would be, that a specimen, or sample, as it were, of all that goes to make up society in the parent country, should _at once_ be transferred to its colony. Instead of sending out bad seedlings, and watching their uncertain growth, let us try whether a perfect tree will not bear transplanting."

We apprehend that this project of "transplanting a perfect tree" is none of the most feasible. However the Greeks managed matters, we moderns find it absolutely necessary to begin "at the beginning," and with somewhat rude beginnings. If the Greeks had the art in the colony, as in the epic poem, of rushing _in medias res_--of starting with and from maturity--then indeed must colonisation be reckoned, as Dr Hind seems half to suspect, amongst the _artes perditæ_. Anything more lamentable than a number of cultivated men--"samples" of all kinds, physicians, and divines, and lawyers, with, of course, their several ladies--set down upon the uncultivated soil, on the long green grass, we cannot imagine. It seems to us quite right and unavoidable to send out "a single class," first--good stout "limbs," without much of "the belly"--which must mean, we presume, the idle folks, or much of "the head," which must mean the thinkers. That class, or those classes which cultivate the soil, and render the place somewhat habitable, had better surely precede, and act as pioneers, before the gentry disembark from their ships. Other classes must follow as they are wanted, and find room and scope. What would the physician do with his elaborate skill and courtesy, without that congregation of idlers on whose ailments he rides and dines? What need yet of eloquent barrister, or are his fees forthcoming, when a new estate could be purchased with less money than would serve to defend the old one by his pleading? Who would attend to the man of science, and his latest experiments on magnetic currents, when every one is trying over again the very first experiment--how to live?--where corn will grow, and what the potato will yield? Even your clergy must be of a somewhat different stamp from the polished ecclesiastic, the bland potentate of our drawing-rooms. He must have something more natural--"some rough-cast and a little loam" about him, be serviceable, accessible. And the fair "sample" partners of all these classes, what is to become of them? As yet, pin-money is not. There is nothing refined and civilised; men talk of marriage as if for prayer-book purposes. Very gross ideas!

The ancients, says Dr Hind, "began by nominating to the honourable office of captain, or leader of the colony, one of the chief men, if not the chief man of the state--like the queen bee leading the workers. Monarchies provided a prince of the blood royal; an aristocracy its choicest nobleman; a democracy its most influential citizen." In order to entice some one of our gentry--some one of wealth, station, and cultivated mind, to act as "queen bee" of the colony--seeing that a prince of the blood royal, or a Duke of Northumberland, would be hard to catch--the Doctor proposes to bestow upon him a patent of nobility. Wealth he has already, and wealth would not bribe him, but honour might. We see nothing ridiculous whatever in the suggestion. A patent of nobility might be much worse bestowed; but, unless we err greatly in our notion of what colonisation really is, the bribe would be lamentably insufficient. The English gentleman of fortune and of taste, who should leave his park and mansion in the county of Middlesex, to share the squabbles and discomforts of a crowd of emigrants--too often turbulent, anxious, and avaricious--would have well earned his earldom. He would be a sort of hero. Men of such a temper you may decorate with the strawberry leaf, but it is not the coronet, nor any possible bribe--nothing short of a certain thirst for noble enterprise can prompt them.

The other ideal of what colonisation might be is quite the reverse, presents a picture every way opposite to this of our classical dean. Many energetic and not uncultured spirits, wearied with the endless anxieties, cares, hypocrisies, and thousand artificialities of life, are delighted with the idea of breaking loose from the old trammels and conventionalities of civilisation. Their romance is to begin life afresh. Far from desiring to form a part of the little model-England, they would take from the Old World, if possible, nothing more than knowledge, seeds, and tools. To a fresh nature they would take a fresh heart, and a vigorous arm. Fields rescued by themselves from the waste should ripen under their own eyes. Thus, with a rude plenty, care and luxury alike cut off, no heartburnings, no vanity, a cultivated temper and coarse raiment--they and their families, and some neighbours of kindred dispositions, would really enjoy the earth, and the being God had given them. Not theirs the wish to see a matured society spring from the new soil. They regret to think that their own rustic community must inevitably advance, or decline, into some one of the old forms of civilisation; but they and their children, and perhaps their grandchildren, would be partakers of a peculiar and envied state of social existence, where the knowledge and amenity brought from the old country would be combined with the healthy toil and simple abundance of the new; where life would be unanxious, laborious, free; where there would be no talk of wars, nor politics, nor eternal remediless distress; but a disciplined humanity, in face of a kindly nature whose bounty had not yet been too severely taxed.