Part 5

TO THE BRITISH FAIR.

The withering effects of the arid climate of Australia, is manifest in the haggard walking skeletons of the aborigines, while the balmy mildness and moist air of New Zealand exerts a directly opposite effect, evinced in the fine stately forms, smooth polished skin, and rounded beauty of the Malayan population, although they are evidently a little out of climate--so far removed from the Tropics; much more must this delicious climate have a propitious effect upon the Caucasian British race, who are naturally suited to the climate. The rose tinge of the cheek is a direct consequence of moist air of a fresh stimulating coolness. We find in Van Diemen’s Land, which approaches the New Zealand climate, that the rose of health is common, although it seldom is so on the main of Australia, where the air is too dry and parching for this species of flower. The British Fair may rely that England’s Rose will not fail to blossom in New Zealand in all its native richness, giving the unmatched tinge of flower-beauty and freshness. The danger is, that it may even throw that of the mother country into shade; although its sister, the vegetable rose, has never been seen indigenous in the southern hemisphere, while it surrounds the globe in the northern with a flowery chaplet.

There is but a very small portion of the world where the rose-bloom is constantly domiciled on the cheek of beauty. In Asia and Africa it scarcely appears but in gleams of transient suffusion. In America it is almost equally rare, except in the New England States, the hills of Virginia, and the maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Canada, and Nova Scotia,--in the latter country the carmine blending to shades of purple and blue, and not unfrequently a little out of place; while, in the interior plains of Canada and the United States, the pallor is universal. In Europe, it blossoms in the cooler, aquatic, and hilly regions, wherever the air is fresh and moist,--in Britain, especially the western side,--in Ireland, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, Norway.

Were the direful effects of a summer spent in the dry parts of the south of Europe generally known, we should have less of _female_ emigration to these countries. The lily and rose-leaf cheek and cherry lip of the British fair, whose purity and dewy freshness is nourished by the moist coolness of their native air, when exposed to the Levanter or Sirocco of Italy and Spain, or even to the dry hot air of the more arid parts of France, soon shrivel to mummy and wrinkled parchment. The seclusion of beauty in Mahomedan countries, and the Mantilla of Spain, is less from jealousy of man than of the arid Eurus.

Female beauty, which, under hot dry atmosphere, withers like the rock-rose “ere the noon,” in tropical countries often before the age of twenty, and in the warm parched portion of the temperate zones, before thirty, may be expected in New Zealand, provided warm fire apartments (very little needed in that climate) are not much in use, to last till nearly double that age.

Much depends upon regular and natural habits of life,--exposure to the stimulus of the sun’s light, and especially to the fresh moist air of the morning. It is customary for girls to go out agathering May-dew, to form a rose-cosmetic,--and the roses certainly appear. Airy sitting and sleeping apartments are essential, and especially to guard against exposure to dry fire heat, and, above all, against the modern abominations of heated air and gas-burners. In some parts of the north of Europe, where the climate is severe in winter, the rooms are heated by stoves, which, in order to prevent dust, open only to the lobby or passages, and consequently afford no ventilation to the rooms, but give out a close suffocating heat. The women are confined to these rooms all the year, excepting during the short warm summer, and being thus always exposed to vitiated air and high temperature, are nearly of as short duration as within the tropics; while the men, more healthy and lasting from greater exposure out of doors and cooler atmosphere, say they require two sets of wives. In the mild climate of New Zealand, where the houses are scarcely needed but to guard off showers, the beau-sex, passing most of their time in the open air, and the remainder in well ventilated apartments, will not have this contingency much to fear. _In other respects_, from its soft moist climate, New Zealand, like Sicily, may be expected to be especially propitious to women.--The prospects now before them must cause the bright blood to mantle deeper on the cheek of the British Fair.

SLAVERY.

It, nevertheless, but ill becomes the home British to say much about the United States’ slavery, or, indeed, about any slavery. The causes which operate to promote or prevent direct slavery, have never, that I am aware of, been clearly pointed out. Slaves (direct) are found only where land is cheap. When the land, from its redundancy in proportion to population, as in America, is of little or no value, the whole property consists of labour, or the produce of labour; and the covetous man not being able to satisfy his lust for riches by the produce of his own labour, has no other way of gratifying it but by obtaining possession of the persons of his fellow-men, and compelling them to labour the otherwise unprofitable ground for his emolument; and this he finds profitable, because the produce of labour, even of slave-labour, in this favourable field for production, is more than sufficient to support his slaves as reproductive labouring-stock, or to purchase new ones should they wear out. On the reverse, slaves (direct) are not found when the land has been all occupied, and has reached any considerable value or rental. Wherever this has taken place, and population has become dense, hired or piece-labour becomes more profitable than slave-labour, and drives it from the field. The reason of this is obvious: man, in a state of comparative liberty of action, has more of mental energy to stimulate and carry on his corporeal exertions, and to direct them to more profitable effect, than when under direct slavery, while at the same time he can be maintained at less cost as a reproductive animal when in semblance free. Besides, when the land has been all taken up, and has come into the hands of a small number of the community, these, from being the possessors of property, generally obtain the governing power, and form a land-aristocracy class. They proceed to legislate and levy taxation in the most partial and unjust manner to forward their own selfish interests, they secure the land-property to themselves and their posterity, and, by taking advantage of the poverty and necessity for food of the labouring population, make out to obtain a more complete command over their labour, and more power to render them subservient to their pleasure and luxury, than if the working population were slaves direct.

In this way, by means of a food-monopoly for the emolument of the heir or eldest male of the family, and excessive taxation upon the necessaries of the working people for the support of the younger branches, our governing land-aristocracy have done every thing in their power to bring the working population to a complete state of _indirect_ slavery, the only slavery which, from the nature of things in Britain, is profitable or practicable, and they have succeeded,--the destitution and hollow cheek of wife and children being a more powerful incentive to severe toil than the whip of the hippopotamus hide. A sufficient emigration would help to reform this. The purpose of the “sufficient price” (a high price upon fresh land in colonies) to compress population together, will be seen by the reader at a glance. It will, as Mr Wakefield naively tells us, “render slave-labour a loss.” The _indirect_ slavery, as in Britain, will be more profitable!!

POSTSCRIPT.

The Scots scheme of colonization is in itself calculated to have an efficient selecting power to procure emigrants of moral and intellectual superiority, and eminently fitted for colonists. A power of selection in the scheme itself, is preferable to any inquisitorial committee. The condition of _working small-capitalists_ is generally the consequence of some mental superiority, which has led the individual to be providently industrious, and to despise mere momentary sensual gratification. It is the boldest and wisest of these who will join in this scheme. And amongst the working classes, those who possess the greatest share of moral courage, intelligence, and determination of purpose, will be the men who will join the Emigration Societies, and work out their own and their family’s independence, at whatever cost of present exertion and self-denial. The general diffusion of wealth, the possession of some property by a large majority of the people, is necessary to human comfort and rational liberty: Equal political rights and property in the hands of the few cannot co-exist. Did our working men form an emigration-fund of the money (collectively, at least, thirty millions Sterling yearly) they, in self-indulgence, waste upon pernicious liquors and tobacco, which enervate body and mind, they would soon be able to carry out and supply with land and stock, one-half of their number, and the increase of value of their colonial property under the management of those sent out (the most trusty individuals of the association, chosen by ballot), would be sufficient to transplant, if necessary, the remaining half, while the time and strength saved from being wasted in dissipation, would serve greatly to increase the comforts of themselves and families, independent of the rise of the wages of labour which would ensue. The greatness of the object ought to be appreciated,--the change from mere labour-drudges (most frequently in unwholesome occupations) in a country where a property-class have in a manner secured every thing to themselves, to the condition of proprietors in a most beautiful, fertile, and salubrious country, is surely a sufficient motive for exertion. An association of twenty working men, by subscribing each 2s. weekly, can transplant two, or with a family, one of the members yearly; and, aided by the increase of the value of their colonial property, in the course of six years, or with families, eight or ten years, the whole could be proprietors residing on their own estates, the value of which every passing year would increase for ages to come.

P. M., _Chairman_.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

The full title of this document is _Prospectus of the Scots New Zealand Land Company_, and the author is Patrick Matthew.

Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeled consecutively through the document.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.