Part 3

"There is but one object of a price," says Mr Wakefield, (p. 347,) "and about that there can be no mistake. The sole object of a price is to prevent labourers from turning into landowners too soon: the price must be sufficient for that one purpose, and no other." "The sufficient price," he says, (p. 339,) "has never yet been adopted by a colonising government." And a little further, (p. 341,) he thus continues: "There are but three places in which the price of new land has had the least chance of operating beneficially. These are South Australia, Australia Felix, and New Zealand. In none of these cases did the plan of granting with profusion precede that of selling; but in none of them did the price required prevent the cheapest land from being cheap enough to inflict on the colony all the evils of an extreme scarcity of labour for hire. In these cases, moreover, a large portion of the purchase-money of waste land was expended in conveying labourers from the mother-country to the colony. If this money had not been so spent, the proportion of land to people would have been very much greater than it was, and the price of new land still more completely inoperative. More facts might be cited to show the insufficiency of the highest price yet required for new land."

We will continue our first quotation from p. 347. The manner in which Mr Wakefield himself exposes the difficulties of fixing the "sufficient price," and the very inadequate expedient he points out for obviating, or avoiding, these difficulties, may throw some further light upon the matter.

"The sole object of a price is to prevent labourers from turning into landowners too soon: the price must be sufficient for that one purpose, and no other. The question is, What price would have that one effect? That must depend, first, on what is meant by 'too soon;' or on the proper duration of the term of the labourer's employment for hire; which again must depend upon the rate of the increase of population in the colony, especially by means of immigration, which would determine when the place of a labourer, turning out a landowner, would be filled by another labourer; and the rate of labour-emigration again must depend on the popularity of the colony at home, and on the distance between the mother-country and the colony, or the cost of passage for labouring people. Secondly, what price would have the desired effect, must depend on the rate of wages and cost of living in the colony, since according to these would be the labourer's power of saving the requisite capital for turning into a landowner: in proportion to the rate of wages, and the cost of living, would the requisite capital be saved in a longer or a shorter time. It depends, thirdly, on the soil and climate of the colony, which would determine the quantity of land required (on the average) by a labourer, in order to set himself up as a landowner. If the soil and climate were unfavourable to production, he would require more acres; if it were favourable, fewer acres would serve his purpose: in Trinidad, for example, ten acres would support him well; in South Africa, or New South Wales, he might require fifty or a hundred acres. But the variability in our wide colonial empire, not only of soil and climate, but of all the circumstances on which a sufficient price would depend, is so obvious, that no examples of it are needed. It follows, of course, that different colonies, and sometimes different groups of similar colonies, would require different prices. To name a price for all the colonies, would be as absurd as to fix the size of a coat for mankind.

"'But, at least,' I hear your Mr Mother-country say, 'name a price for some particular colony--a price founded on the elements of calculation which you have stated.' I could do that, certainly, for some colony with which I happen to be particularly well acquainted, but I should do it doubtingly, and with hesitation; for, in truth, the elements of calculation are so many, and so complicated in their various relations to each other, that in depending on them exclusively there would be the utmost liability to error. A very complete and familiar knowledge of them in each case would be a useful general guide, would throw valuable light on the question, would serve to inform the legislator how far his theory and his practice were consistent or otherwise; but, in the main, he must rely, and if he had common sagacity he might solely and safely rely, upon no very elaborate calculation, but on experience, or the facts before his eyes. _He could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful in the colony. If it were too plentiful, he would know that the price of new land was too high--that is, more than sufficient: if it were hurtfully scarce, he would know that the price was too low, or not sufficient. About which the labour was--whether too plentiful or too scarce--no legislature, hardly any individual, could be in doubt_, so plain to the dullest eye would be the facts by which to determine that question. If the lawgiver saw that the labour was scarce, and the price too low, he would raise the price; if he saw that labour was superabundant, and the price too high, he would lower the price; if he saw that labour was neither scarce nor superabundant, he would not alter the price, because he would see that it was neither too high nor too low, but sufficient."

Admirable machinery! No steam-engine could let its steam on, or off, with more precision. The legislature or governor "could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful," and open or close his value accordingly. "No legislature, hardly any individual could be in doubt" about the matter! Indeed! when was hired labour ever thought too cheap--in other words, too plentiful--by the capitalist? When was it ever thought too dear--in other words, too scarce--by the labourer? Could the most ingenious man devise a question on which there would be more certainly two quite opposite and conflicting opinions? And suppose the legislature to have come to a decision--say that the labour was too scarce--there would still be this other question to decide, whether to _lower_ the price, in order to tempt emigrants, might not be as good a means of rendering labour more plentiful, as to _raise_ the price in order to render it still more difficult for labourers to become landowners? Here there is surely scope for the most honest diversity of opinion. One party might very rationally advise to entice thither the stream of emigration:--"Let it flow more copiously," they might exclaim, "though we retain the waters for a shorter time;" while the party thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of the "sufficient price" would devise fresh dikes and dams, and watch the locks more narrowly.

In his "sufficient price," Mr Wakefield has discovered the secret spring that regulates the economical relations of society. He has his hand upon it. He, or his lawgiver, will henceforward regulate the supply of labour, and the remuneration of labour, upon scientific principles. Unenviable post! We should infinitely prefer the task of the philosopher in _Rasselas_, who fancied himself commissioned to distribute rain and sunshine, in just proportions, to all the farmers in the neighbourhood.

It is quite curious to observe how strong a faith our projector has in his theory of a sufficient price, and how singular a bias this has exerted on his mind in some other matters of speculation. He finds that slavery, both in olden and modern times, has been all owing to "cheapness of land." Could he have fixed his sufficient price upon the arable land in Chaldea, or about the cities of Athens and Rome, neither the patriarchs, nor the Greeks, nor the Romans, would have known the institution of slavery. "Slavery is evidently," he says, "a make-shift for hiring; a proceeding to which recourse is had only where hiring is impossible, or difficult. Slave labour is, on the whole, much more costly than the labour of hired freemen; and slavery is also full of moral and political evils, from which the method of hired labour is exempt. Slavery, _therefore_, is not preferred to the method of hiring: the method of hiring would be preferred if there was a choice."--(P. 324.) Most logical "_therefore_!" The mode of hiring is preferred by those to whom experience has taught all this; but slavery, so far from being the "make-shift," is the first expedient. It is the first rude method which unscrupulous power adopts to engross the produce of the earth. The stronger make the weaker labour for them. "It happens," he continues, "wherever population is scanty in proportion to land." It happens wherever people prefer idleness to work, and have been able to coerce others to labour for them, whether land has been plentiful or not. Was it abundance of land, or the military spirit, that produced the amiable relationship between the Spartan and the Helot?--or was there any need of a "sufficient price" to limit the supply of good land in Egypt, which lay rigidly enough defined between the high and low margin of a river? Or could any governor, with his tariff of prices, have performed this duty more effectually than the Nile and the desert had done between them?

But the most amusing instance is still to follow. "It was the cheapness of land that caused Las Casas (the Clarkson or Wilberforce of his time, as respects the Red Indians of America) to invent the African slave-trade. It was the cheapness of land that brought African slaves to Antigua and Barbadoes."--(P. 328.) It was the cheapness of land! If land had been dearer, the Spaniards would have worked for themselves, and not have asked the Red Indians for their assistance! If land had been dearer in Antigua and Barbadoes, the climate would have lost its influence on European frames, and Englishmen would have laboured in their own sugar plantations!

Doubtless the difficulty of obtaining hired labour has been sometimes a reason, and sometimes an excuse, for the continuance of slavery. It is also true that the willingness of the discharged slave to work, as a hired labourer, is almost a necessary condition to the extinction of slavery. But, losing sight of all our amiable passions and propensities, to describe slavery as originating altogether in the scarcity of hired labour, (as if the slave had first had the offer made to him to work for wages, and had refused it,) and then to resolve this cause again into no other circumstance than the "cheapness of land," is something like monomania.

In America, those states which have colonised so rapidly have not been the slave-holding states, nor have they needed slaves; nor has land been scarce; nor has much been done by the mere capitalist who goes to hire labour; but almost all by the man who goes there to labour himself, upon property of his own. And who, after all, we would ask, are the best of emigrants, in every new country where the land has yet to be reclaimed? Not those who seek the colony with an intention of making a fortune there, and returning to England; nor even those who go with some feeling that they shall be the Cæsars of the village; nor the easy capitalist, who expects, from the back of his ambling nag, to see his fields sprout with corn and grow populous with cattle. The best of emigrants, as pioneers of civilisation, are those who intend to settle and live on the land they shall have reduced to cultivation, who go to labour with their own hands on property they shall call their own. It is the labour of such men that has converted into corn-fields the dark forests of America. That ardent and indefatigable industry which has been so often admired in the peasant proprietor--the man who has all the hardy habits of the peasant and all the pride of proprietorship--is never more wanted, never more at home, than in the new colony. We have a sympathy with these men--we like their hearty toil, their guiltless enterprise. This is not the class of men we would disgust; yet it is precisely this class who go forth with their little store of wealth in their hand, or with hope soon to realise it, whom the "sufficient price" of Mr Wakefield would deter from entering the colony, or convert, when there, into unwilling, discontented, uncertain labourers.

The rights of every class must, of course, be determined by a reference to the welfare of the whole community. The poorer settler must have his claims decided, and limited, according to rules which embrace the interest of the empire at large. We hope we shall not be misunderstood on so plain a matter as this. We do not contemplate the settler as arriving on the new land unfettered by any allegiance he owes to the old country. He belongs to civilised England; carries with him the knowledge and the implements which her civilisation has procured him; lives under her protection, and must submit to her laws. But in limiting the rights of the settler in a land spreading open before him--where nothing has taken possession of the soil but the fertilising rain, and the broad sunshine playing idly on its surface--you must make out a clear case, a case of claims paramount to his own, a case which appeals to that sense of justice common to the multitude, which will bear examination, which readily forces itself upon an honest conviction. It must not be a mere speculative measure, a subtle theory, hard for a plain man to understand--benevolently meant, but, intricate in its operation, and precarious in its result--that should come betwixt him and the free bounty of nature. Not of such materials can you make the fence that is to coop him up in one corner of a new-found continent. Laudable it may be, this experiment to adjust with scientific accuracy the proportion of capital and labour; but a man with no peculiar passion for political economy, will hardly like to be made the subject of this experiment, or that a scientific interest should keep his feet from the wilderness, or his spade from the unowned soil. It would be an ungracious act of parliament, to say the least of it, whose preamble should run thus--"Whereas it is expedient that the labouring population emigrating from England should be 'prevented from turning too soon into landowners,' and thus cultivating the soil for themselves instead of for others, Be it enacted," &c. &c.

Although this theory of a "sufficient price" is the chief topic of Mr Wakefield's book, yet there are many other subjects of interest discussed, and many valuable suggestions thrown out in it; and if we have felt ourselves compelled to enter our protest against his main theory, we are by no means unwilling to confess our share of obligation to one who has made colonisation the subject of so much study, and who has called to it the attention of so many others. It was he who, struck with the gross error that had been committed of stocking certain of our colonies with too large a proportion of the male sex, first pointed out that the period of marriage was the most appropriate period for emigration. Do not wait till want drives out the half-famished children, but let the young married couple start whilst yet healthy and vigorous, and not broken down by poverty. Some might be disposed to object that these will do well enough in England. They might, but their children might not. It is wise to take the stream of population a little higher up, where it yet runs clear; not to wait till the waters have become sluggish and polluted.

In a literary point of view, Mr Wakefield's book is an extremely entertaining one. It is difficult to believe what we are told in the preface, and hear with regret, that it was written in ill health, so elastic a spirit is observable throughout. The work assumes the form of letters passing between a statesman, who is in search of information and theory on the subject of colonisation, and a colonist who has both to give. One would naturally conclude, from the letters themselves, that both sets were written by the same author, and that the correspondence was but one of those well-understood literary artifices by which the exposition of certain truths or opinions is rendered more clear or interesting. The letters of the statesman have that constrained fictitious aspect which responses framed merely for the carrying on of the discussion are almost sure to acquire. At all events, it was hardly necessary for Mr Wakefield to describe himself in the title-page as "_one_ of the writers;" since the part of the statesman, in the correspondence, is merely to ask questions at the proper time, to put an objection just where it ought to be answered, and give other the like promptings to the colonist.

With many readers it will add not a little to the piquancy of the work, that a considerable part is occupied in a sharp controversy with the Colonial Office and its present chief. Mr Wakefield does not spare his adversaries; he seems rather to rejoice in the wind and stir of controversy. What provocation he has received we do not know: the justice of his quarrel, therefore, we cannot pretend to decide upon; but the manner in which he conducts it, is certainly not to our taste. For instance, at p. 35 and p. 302, there is a littleness of motive, a petty jealousy of him (Mr Wakefield) attributed to Lord Grey as the grounds of his public conduct--a sort of imputation which does not increase our respect for the person who makes it. But into this controversy with the Colonial Office we have no wish to enter. So far as it is of a personal character, we can have no motive to meddle with it; and so far as the system itself is attacked, of governing our colonies through this office, as at present constituted, there appears to be no longer any controversy whatever. It seems admitted, on all hands, that our colonies have outgrown the machinery of government here provided for them.

In the extract we lately made from Mr Wakefield's book, some of our readers were perhaps startled at meeting so strange an appellation as _Mr Mothercountry_. It is a generic name, which our writer gives to that gentleman of the Colonial Office (though it would seem more appropriate to one of the female sex) who for the time being really governs the colony, and is thus, in fact, the representative of the mother country. The _soubriquet_ was adopted from a pamphlet of the late Mr Charles Buller, in which he very vividly describes the sort of government to which--owing to the frequent change of ministry, and the parliamentary duties of the Secretary of State--a colony is practically consigned. We wish we had space to quote enough from this pamphlet, to show in what a graphic manner Mr Buller gradually narrows and limits the ideas which the distant colonist entertains of the ruling mother country. "That mother country," he finally says, "which has been narrowed from the British isles into the Parliament, from the Parliament into the Executive Government, from the Executive Government into the Colonial Office, is not to be sought in the apartments of the Secretary of State, or his Parliamentary under-secretary. Where are we to look for it?" He finds it eventually in some back-room in the large house in Downing Street, where some unknown gentleman, punctual, industrious, irresponsible, sits at his desk with his tape and his pigeon-holes about him. This is the original of Mr Mother-country.

That which immediately suggests itself as a substitute and a remedy for the inefficient government of Downing Street, is some form of local or municipal government. As Mr Wakefield justly observes, a local government, having jurisdiction over quite local or special matters, by no means implies any relinquishment by the imperial government of its requisite control over the colony. Neither does a municipal government imply a republican or democratic government. Mr Wakefield suggests that the constitution of a colony should be framed, as nearly as possible, on the model of our own--that there should be two chambers, and one of them hereditary. The extreme distance of many, of most of our colonies, absolutely precludes the possibility of their being efficiently governed by the English Colonial Office, or by functionaries (whether well or ill appointed) who have to receive all their instructions from that office. Throughout our colonies, the French system of centralisation is adopted, and that with a very inadequate machinery. And the evil extends with our increasing settlements; for where there is a "seat of government" established in a colony, with due legislative and executive powers, every part of that colony, however extensive it may be, has to look to that central power for the administration of its affairs.