Part 4

But our advocates of restriction and home monopolies exclaim--Why export workmen when so much improvement can still be made in Britain? Why import food and raw produce while we have full capacities of growing enough at home? Were Great Britain properly cultivated it would produce double what it now produces. The answer is, It is not what Britain is capable of producing, but what it in reality will be made to produce, which concerns us. Further improvement, and even the keeping up of the improvement already effected, depend upon the returns of the capital employed. If, from the less exhausted field for production abroad, we can obtain ten per cent. per annum for capital, while from the more exhausted, restriction-limited field at home, we can obtain only four per cent., capital will continue to be exported and British improvement will languish, or things will retrograde. This is the actual state of matters, and unless means are taken to bring about a more salutary state, the improvements they look forward to, and which Britain is indeed susceptible of, will never be attained. By a properly conducted colonization, in the first place, diminishing the labour-supply, and acting as a stimulus to our labour-market, and afterwards affording a continually increasing stimulus by means of the new-created, fast-extending colonial field of demand for British manufactures, and all this working in mutual reaction to excite industry, we may in reality go on improving till Britain produce ten times over what she now produces.

This attempt to draw attention to colonization proceeds from no wish to check the present national effort to obtain free trade! Colonial intercourse is in effect a circumscribed kind of free trade, under peculiarly favourable circumstances; _and the amazing increase, and vast extent and advantage, of our colonial trade, is the most direct proof of the advantage, not only to Britain, but to mankind, which would result from free trade over all_. Every enactment to prevent the exchange of the produce of labour between man and man, and nation and nation, if the article is not injurious to health and morals, is truly diabolic. All who have aided in these enactments ought to be held up to the detestation of mankind as repressers of industry, as promoters of misery, as ministers of evil, selfishly bent upon rendering abortive the good which a benevolent Providence has designed for man, in forming one portion of the earth more fitted for the seat of manufacturing industry and trade, and other portions for the peculiar production of various kinds of food and raw material, thus calculated, by giving rise to a reciprocity of advantageous intercourse, to promote an enlightening and friendly connection, and to diffuse science, morality, the arts of life, all that conduces to improvement and happiness, over the nations.

In the event of our own Legislature adopting the free-trade system, the introduction of the colonizing, by rendering Great Britain more independent of foreign nations, will be a means of inducing these nations also to agree to a reciprocity of free-trade; whereas, were we soliciting the free exchange of commodities, and apparently dependent upon these nations for a market, there would be no end to the haggling of their selfish and ignorant governments. In this view, therefore, colonization is a step to the attainment of general free trade throughout the world; at any rate, the increase of our trade and manufactures, sequent to an extensive emigration, by diffusing intelligence and wealth, must sooner bring about the free-trade system.

The mind is almost overwhelmed in contemplating the prospects of improvement in the general condition of humanity, now opening through the medium of British colonization, and the consequent diffusion of the elevating and meliorating influences of British liberty, knowledge, and civilization. One great free naval people, aided by all the discoveries of modern science, and united under the attractions of a common literature, and the reciprocal advantage of the exchange of staple products, increasing rapidly in numbers, and ramifying extensively over numerous maritime regions, will soon overshadow continental despotisms, and render them innocuous.

From the unlimited supply of new land, colonies are especially fitted for a connection with Britain. Being in the opposite extremes of condition, they are in the highest degree mutually beneficial, the former affording the raw material in exchange for the more laboured products of industry of the latter, while at the same time the colonists are by habit great consumers of British manufactures. What is required is, that the extension of colonization should go hand in hand with the extension of manufactures, thus generating new markets in proportion to the increase of fabrics.

But, at the present moment, it is as a salutary drain to our overstocked labour-market, that colonization is so vitally necessary. To bring things to a healthy state, a vast exportation of working-population must in the first place be effected, and to keep them so, a constant great stream of emigration must be afterwards kept up. And in proportion as this efflux is properly regulated, will, at the same time, the condition of the people at home and abroad be prosperous, and the population progressive.

Emigration to fruitful new lands, where our superabundant capital and population would be employed to the greatest advantage and most rapidly enlarged, is in policy and humanity alike our interest and our duty, as being the clear and direct road to prosperity. Under a properly regulated colonization, the most sanguine can scarcely form a conjecture of the extent to which our manufacturing and commercial greatness might be carried; and the comfort and happiness to which all classes might attain.

Under a properly regulated colonization, to obey the common instincts of nature, “to increase and multiply,” instead of being, as it too frequently has been in Britain, a curse, will become, as in the United States, a blessing. _Things have been so far misdirected hitherto, that the greatly increased facilities of production of what is necessary to the comfort and pleasurable existence of man, which, under proper direction, ought to have benefited all classes, has only administered to the luxury of a comparatively small number, the property class._ So sensible are the working men in England of this, that they have considered facility of production their enemy, and have had recourse to the most pernicious and atrocious practices,--machinery-breaking, and burning of agricultural produce, to prevent it. The old system of English poor-law (perhaps the worst that could have been invented) and the new amendment, are equally ineffectual to accomplish the end desired,--the prevention of human misery,--the removal of those sufferings arising from inadequate employment or inadequate remuneration, evils for which there can be no effectual remedy save an increased or improved field of labour; and this, as formerly stated, is obtainable in Britain only by free trade or by extensive emigration, but most effectually by both. The prudential check, from which so much has been expected, is but an irksome and unnatural palliative, scarcely preferable to the natural destructive check itself. And in respect to gratuitous assistance, nothing can be more pernicious than poor-law contributions, and charitable givings, and bequests of all descriptions, at least as these matters have been conducted. It is merely _a nursing of misery_,--keeping up a vast number of unemployed people, ready at all times, should labour come a little more into demand, to compete with those in employment, and keep down wages to the lowest pitch that the animal machine can be kept working upon. It is the interest of the property-holders to have a very numerous population at this lowest pitch, and their poor-rate and charity contributions are virtually a mere pittance-supply to prevent their indirect slaves from perishing.

Charity is not less injurious as interfering with the great law of nature, by which pain and death are the established penalty of ignorance, idleness, and improvidence; enjoyment and life the reward of knowledge, industry, and forethought. Alms or relief to the poor is clearly an interference with, or a subversion of, this natural law, and though it does not prevent the suffering sequent to the former, it destroys the advantages sequent to the latter, and only promotes general misery. It is to the purposes of colonization that the English poor-rates and other charitable bequests, now worse than uselessly consumed in nursing up the improvident poor and keeping down the industrious, should be converted.

A sufficient emigration of the labour-classes would increase the labour-demand, and raise wages so high, that every one able and willing to work would obtain a competency for the support of a family, and even of a parent in infirm old age, in case of necessity; thus cutting up pauperism by the roots, and leaving the bastiles, the poverty-prisons in the south of England, untenanted. In the United States of America nearly all the marriageable people enter the marriage state, and find a family advantageous to the increase of their wealth and comfort. This arises from the favourable field for industry, and the social advantages they enjoy. Nothing hinders Great Britain from enjoying these, and even greater advantages, but her own stupid and guilty neglect. In many respects she is equally favourably circumstanced as America, in some much more favourably. Her climate is better, her capital beyond comparison greater, her machinery and aids of human labour and advantages of combined labour vastly superior, her new unpeopled territory more extensive and more favourably situated for trade, and equally easily reached. Why, then, should the condition of the working population of Britain not be as favourable as that of America? Simply because the field of labour, from our narrow home territory, dense population, and restrictive trade system, is more limited in proportion to the labour supply, and that we fail to profit by our opportunities of extending it. A sufficient emigration would render it equally, if not more favourable. Let the truly charitable--those who have the welfare of their suffering countrymen really at heart, reflect that ignorance is criminal, where knowledge is within their reach. Let them hasten to devote their exertions and wealth to purposes of utility, and not waste them in increasing the very evils they wish to remedy. _Let them promote colonization._ With an overflowing capital, and a population, notwithstanding our emigration, increasing at present nearly 400,000 annually, and as things are regulated beyond the means of full subsistence and labour-demand, Britain is placed under circumstances more favourable than ever occurred at any former period for carrying the principle of colonization into effect to its fullest, most salutary extent. The importance of emigration, as before stated, is proved by the immense and most advantageous trade we now carry on with the countries we have colonized; an almost unlimited extent of unoccupied territory is at our command; a very extensive emigration is necessary to render a poor-law practicable in Ireland, and to assist the working of the new poor-law in England (a sufficient emigration would soon render both unnecessary); the economy of transporting great numbers to distant countries in health and safety, and with celerity, is nearly perfected:--all these conspire, in an almost miraculous manner, to place the destinies of man at the disposal of Britain, and to render the present era the most eventful in the history of the world--_the era of colonization_.

Even although 450,000 (the present total yearly increase, including the present emigration of nearly 100,000) were exported annually, the future increase, from the improved condition of the great body of the people, would extend perhaps to double this number, say 1,000,000 annually, and that of our capital in a corresponding ratio; while at the same time the demand for manufactured produce, caused by the wants of the exported portion of our people, would greatly improve the home labour-demand, even with this great increase of hands. Thus our numbers would go on increasing faster at home than at present, while at the same time the country would increase in power, in a ratio still more rapid from the greater prosperity of all.

It is only within a few years that the immense importance of colonization has come to be appreciated; recently the most unfavourable prejudices existed respecting it, and the most erroneous and absurd doctrines were promulgated, to feed the popular odium, by political economists; who, in their wisdom, could never solve the difficulty how Britain continued the richest nation of the world, while her resources were being wasted upon numberless useless colonies. Let us contemplate the difference of results which the resources of Britain would have accomplished had they been so _wasted_,--had they been devoted to purposes of _creation_ as they were to purposes of _destruction_ during the American and French revolutionary wars. We did not then hesitate to lavish hundreds of millions in engaging in deadly feud the European and American nations. It seems hitherto to have been the principle of Government to hold any expense incurred for purposes other than rapine or destruction as a misapplication of the national resources. A change is at hand. The reign of Queen Victoria promises to be glorious for a victory over barbarism and human misery--Colonization is the means.

A tax of ten per cent. in Britain and Ireland upon land rental would be most profitably employed in carrying out labouring emigrants, and in locating them comfortably. This would be a humane and rational amendment of the English poor-law, and the best poor-law for Ireland that could be introduced. This fund, together with the proceeds of the sales of colonial lands, under judicious and economical management, would in the course of a few years have a most beneficial effect upon trade, and greatly ameliorate the condition of the working population; continued for half a century it would change the face of things over a great portion of the habitable world; and the extent of its effects, persisted in for several centuries, would be beyond even what we now can contemplate.

Independently of the communities formed by British emigration, were a good system of colonial government adopted, islands and inferior states would find it their interest to unite with us, and the whole of the multitudinous island-groups scattered over the vast Pacific, in number as the constellations of the heavens, might become incorporated as part of the British empire.

ESPECIAL REASONS FOR COLONIZING NEW ZEALAND.

Independent of the natural peculiar adaptation of New Zealand for a British colony, there are several very cogent reasons to induce Britain to occupy this country without a moment’s delay.

I. In the present posture of affairs, when Russia and the United States are gradually extending their territory, increasing their means, and preparing for, or at least looking forward to, a contest with Britain for the naval supremacy, it is for us to look around over earth and ocean, and to pre-occupy, if possible, every favourable position.

In glancing at the map of the eastern hemisphere, where, from the extending territorial possessions of Russia, and the great and rapidly increasing trade of the United States, as well as of Britain, a considerable part of the contest may be expected to be carried on, any one must remark the commanding position of New Zealand,--with innumerable harbours, with vast naval resources, standing forth like an extended rampart in advance of, and covering our wide Australian possessions, and having the whole of the Pacific under its lee. In marking these advantages, one is disposed to inquire,--Has Britain not stirred to secure this most important position, in reference to curbing the United States and Russia in the East,--this most invaluable acquisition in reference to augmenting our trade and resources? Has she not conciliated the natives, who are a warlike maritime race, capable of forming excellent seamen and shipwrights, and as such would be most valuable auxiliaries? Has she not erected forts at the Bay of Islands and in Cook’s Straits, under whose guns our numerous South Sea whalers and our Australian traders (they pass New Zealand homeward) could take shelter in case of hostilities? She has done nothing of all this. She has only thought of a plan to afford her a pretence for preventing others (on the dog-in-the-manger principle) from colonizing this valuable country. She has sent out one solitary Resident, and made some sort of an acknowledgment of a New Zealand flag.

II. Another reason for the friendly occupation of New Zealand in provident policy, scarcely second to the above, has, I believe, never been taken into view. From the unsteady climate and extreme droughts of our colonies in New Holland, they, as they become more populous, will be periodically subjected to destructive famine, unless some neighbouring country, whose climate does not partake of the same vicissitudes, can afford them supplies. Excepting New Zealand, the distance to other countries from whence sufficient supplies could be obtained is so great, that extreme horrors of famine might be experienced before intelligence of their wants could go out, and supplies back could reach them.

III. There is yet another pressing motive for the immediate occupation of New Zealand. No other branch of maritime industry has increased so much of late years as the Southern Whale-fishery. This has arisen partly from the recent development of the business itself, and partly from the failure of the Northern Whale-fishery. From the general resort of the southern whalers to the shores of the New Zealand group, in whose firths and bays much of the fishery is carried on, there can be no doubt it is fitted beyond any other place for the seat of this trade. There are at present 15,000 seamen and 150,000 tons of shipping engaged in it. An economic alteration in the conducting of the fishery is now in progress. Instead of vessels proceeding on a tedious three years’ voyage from the United States, France, or Britain, the fishery is now, to a considerable extent, being carried on by boats or small vessels constantly employed in the business (bay fishing), and the prepared oil conveyed to Europe and other markets in common merchantmen. Nearly three-fourths of the fishing is now in the hands of the United States, and a little less than one-fourth British. But were the occupation of the whole of the New Zealand group to take place, there is no doubt, from the superior cheapness and conveniency with which the fishery could be carried on by the New Zealand British, that the greater part of it would soon be in British hands. It would afford a rich field for the enterprise of the colonists and native New Zealanders, to whose character and maritime habits this employment is peculiarly suited; and it is incomparably the best training for maritime war. The policy of immediately occupying New Zealand in reference to this most important object is manifest.

IV. In a philanthropic point of view, New Zealand is a most eligible field for colonization. It is perhaps the sole instance, at least the most striking instance, of a thin or scattered population which would not necessarily suffer, but might greatly benefit by the immigration of Europeans into their country. The aborigines of the greater part of America and of New Holland are, or, when in existence, were _hunters_, subsisting upon the _feræ naturæ_. From long-continued use, constituting instinctive habit of race, they had themselves become, or were, in a manner, _feræ naturæ_, altogether incapable of, or extremely inapt to, agricultural labour and fixed residence, at least without a very gradual change of habit extending to several generations. As these hunters, in their pristine state, have their numbers balanced to the hunter means of subsistence which the whole country produces, the entrance of the civilized races, occupying a portion of their territory, not only abridges their hunting-grounds, but also by the employment of firearms speedily diminishes the game in the adjacent territory. Thence, if the hunter-aborigines do not fall by the musket of the stranger they are forced by famine to invade the hunting-grounds of the neighbouring tribes, and war ensues. Thus the aboriginal race is gradually extirpated by slaughter and famine, assisted by the new diseases and intoxicating poisons of the stranger. Much the same takes place with nomadic nations,--tribes subsisting principally by flocks and herds,--such as the Hottentot and Caffre of South Africa, who are also already, at least were, balanced in number to the means of their _pastoral_ subsistence. These, when encroached upon by and forced to retreat before the fire-armed European, have not space left for the support of their herds. They are driven by necessity to trespass in search of pasture upon their neighbour’s territory, and exterminating war is the result. On the other hand, the New Zealanders, in a country, although so rich in vegetation, almost destitute of game, and without herds of any kind, have been accustomed to raise their food, with the exception of fish, by agricultural labour (either by digging for roots, or digging to produce roots); and, instead of being peopled up to the means of subsistence obtainable by agriculture, do not reach the one-hundredth part, their numbers having been kept down apparently by their ferocity and by anarchy. The entrance of Europeans in a friendly manner (such as is here proposed) affording them protection to person and property, domestic animals, better implements of husbandry, more valuable fruit-bearing trees and edible plants, all the advantages and comforts of civilization, which tend so much to the increase of population, and which they, from their character and previous habits, appear capable of receiving and benefiting by, must, instead of operating to their injury or destruction, prove to them the greatest blessing.

In the case of the scant-peopling hunter, the imperative necessity of an overflowing population, such as that of Britain, is a justifiable reason for breaking up his preserves. In the case of the pastoral people of South Africa, it is unjustifiable to invade their territory and disturb their quiet feeding herds, at least while any part of the world available for British emigration remains under the hunter occupancy. But in such an anomalous case as New Zealand, where a very scant agricultural population occupy a few straggling districts of an extensive country, with the exception of these petty districts, to them entirely useless, and which, from defects in the social order and other circumstances, they are not only totally unfitted for populating, but are even fast decreasing in numbers; and where a steady general government introduced by the emigrants would, in all probability, remedy the consuming evils under which the race is disappearing,--it is here, if we are at all to be guided by reason, humanity, justice,--it is surely here where we ought to locate our overflowing population. In the case of a region only inhabited by a few scattered barbarous tribes, totally incapable of instituting any responsible government, and where, in consequence, the country and adjacent sea are infested with lawless bands of robbers and pirates, any nation which possesses the power has a right to interfere, establish a government, and colonize,--surely much more so in the case of New Zealand by Britain than in the case of Florida by the United States.