( PDF ) A View of the Art of Colonization

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A View of the

Art of

Colonization,

With Present Reference to the British Empire;

In Letters Between a Statesman and a Colonist.

Edited by

(ONE OF THE WRITERS)

Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

“There need be no hesitation in affirming, that Colonization, in the present state of the world, is the very best affair of business,

in which the capital of an old and wealthy country can possibly engage.” — John Stuart Mill.

Batoche Books

Kitchener

2001

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Originally published John W. Parker, London, 1849.

This edition published 2001

Batoche Books Limited

52 Eby Street South

Kitchener, Ontario

N2G 3L1

Canada

email: [email protected]

This Book

Is Affectionately Dedicated to

John Hutt, E S Q.,

Lately Governor of West Australia,

Who, More than Any Other Individual Known to Me,

Has Combined Study and Experience

In Learning the

Art of Colonization.

Contents

Preface. .........................................................................................................................................................................................7

Letter I.: From the Statesman: The Statesman Invites the Colonist to Discussions of the Subject...............................................8

Letter II.: From the Colonist: The Colonist Suggests the Alternative of Written Communications. ............................................8

Letter III: From the Statesman: The Statesman Describes the Condition of His Own Knowledge, Calls for Some Definitions,

and Asks Questions Relating Both to the Subject, and to the State of it as Matter of Public Opinion. ................................9

Letter IV: From the Colonist: The Colonist Proposes Some Definitions, Which State and Limit the Subject of Inquiry, and

Indicates the Course of the Investigation............................................................................................................................. 11

Letter V: From the Statesman: The Statesman Objects to the Proposed Course of Inquiry as Being Confined to a Particular

Project of the Colonist’s, and Desires That a More General View of the Subject May Be Expounded..............................12

Letter VI: From the Colonist: The Colonist Explains that He Always Intended to Expound a Theory, Not to Recommend a

Project. — Narrative Concerning Lord Grey. — Lord Grey’s State of Mind and his Proceedings with Regard to Coloniza-

tion, Described. ...................................................................................................................................................................13

Letter VII: From the Colonist: Mr. Mothercountry Introduced. .................................................................................................17

Letter VIII: From the Statesman: The Statesman Desires the Colonist to Proceed. ...................................................................17

Letter IX: From the Colonist: State of the Subject Twenty Years Ago. — Colonization Society of 1830. — Practice Without

Principles in the Business of Colonization. — The First Theory of Colonization. — First Effort of the Theorists of 1830.

— Foundation of South Australia — Mr. Henry George Ward’s Committee on Colonial Lands and Emigration. —

Commissioners Appointed by the Crown. — The New Zealand Association of 1837. — Lord Durham’s Mission to

Canada. — Influence of the Colonial Gazette. — Success and Failure of the Theorists of 1830. — State of Opinion

Concerning Religious Provisions for Colonies. — Summary of Present State of Opinion Generally.................................17

Letter X: From the Statesman: The Statesman Divides the Subject into Four Main Parts, and Indicates the Order of Inquiry. 23

Letter XI: From the Colonist: The Colonist Proposes a Further Division of the Subject, and Settles the Order of Inquiry. .....24

Letter XII: From the Colonist: Different Objects of Colonization for Different Parts of the United Kingdom. —— Want of

Room for All Classes a Circumstance by Which Great Britain Is Distinguished from Other Countries. —— Competition

Amongst the Labouring Class a Momentous Question. —— Influence of Economical Circumstances in Political Revolu-

tions. ....................................................................................................................................................................................24

Letter XIII: From the Colonist: Competition for Room in the Ranks above the Labouring Class. — the Anxious Classes. —

Women in the Anxious Classes. — Hoarding, Speculation, Waste, and the Spirit of the Gambles. ...................................26

Letter XIV: From the Colonist: The Peculiar Characteristic of Colonies Is Plenty of Room for All Classes; but Wages and

Profits Are Occasionally Reduced by Gluts of Labour and Capital; and Whilst Colonial Prosperity is Always Dependent

on Good Government, it Only Attains the Maximum in Colonies Peopled by the Energetic Anglo-Saxon Race. .............28

Letter XV: From the Statesman: The Statesman Objects to a Great Diminution of the Wealth and Population of Great Britain,

and Complains of a Patriotic Head-ache. ............................................................................................................................30

Letter XVI: From the Colonist: As a Cure for the Statesman’s Patriotic Headache, the Colonist Prescribes the Doctrine, That

Emigration of Capital and People Has a Tendency to Increase Instead of Diminishing the Wealth and Population of the

Mother-country. ...................................................................................................................................................................30

Letter XVII: From the Colonist: Further Objects of the Mother-country in Promoting Colonization. — Prestige of Empire. —

ads:

British “Supremacy of the Ocean” for the Security of Sea-going Trade. ............................................................................33

Letter XVIII: From the Colonist: The Colonist Incloses an Essay on Colonization by Dr. Hinds, and Presses it on the

Statesman’s Attention as a View of One More Object of Great Britain in Colonizing Systematically. ..............................35

Letter XIX: From the Statesman: The Statesman Wonders Why the Natural Attractiveness of Colonies Does Not Occasion a

Greater Emigration of People and Capital; Points Out, with a View to the Objects of the Mothercountry, That the Emigra-

tion of People and Capital must Be Largely Increased ; and Asks What Is to Be Done in Order That Enough People and

Capital May Emigrate to Relieve the Mothercountry from the Evils of Excessive Competition. .......................................40

Letter XX: From the Colonist: The Colonist Begs Leave to Preface an Account of the Impediments to Colonization by a

Notice of its Charms Fob the Different Classes of Emigrants. ............................................................................................41

Letter XXI: From the Colonist: Emigrants Divided into Labourers, Capitalists, and Gentry. — How the “Shovelling out of

Paupers,” and Emigration as a Punishment, Indispose the Poorer Classes to Emigrate, and Especially the Better Sort of

Them....................................................................................................................................................................................44

Letter XXII: From the Colonist: The Shame of the Higher Order of Settlers When They First Think of Emigrating. — The

Jealousy of a Wife.— How Emigration, as the Punishment of Crime, Affects Opinion in this Country with Regard to

Emigration in General.— Colonists and Colonies Despised in the Mother-country. ..........................................................45

Letter XXIII: From the Colonist: Low Standard of Morals and Manners in the Colonies. — Colonial “Smartness.” — Want of

Intellectual Cultivation. — Main Distinction Between Savage and Civilized Life. ............................................................48

Letter XXIV: From the Colonist: Difference Between Colonization and Other Pursuits of Men in Masses. — Religious

Women as Colonists. — A Disgusting Colony.— Old Practice of England with Regard to Religious Provisions. —

Sectarian Colonies in America. — The Church of England in the Colonies. — Wesleyan Church. — Church of England.

— Roman Catholic Church. — Dissenting Churches. — Excuse for the Church of England. ...........................................49

Letter XXV: From the Colonist: Combination and Constancy of Labour Are Indispensable Conditions of the Productiveness

of Industry. — How Colonial Capitalists Suffer from the Division and Inconstancy of Labour. ........................................52

Letter XXVI: From the Statesman: The Statesman Points out an Appearance of Contradiction Between the Two Assertions,

That Labour in New Colonies Is Very Productive in Consequence of Being Only Employed on the Most Fertile Soils, and

That it Is Unproductive in Consequence of Being Much Divided and Interrupted. ............................................................53

Letter XXVII: From the Colonist: The Colonist Explains That Scarcity of Labour Is Counteracted by Various Kinds of

Slavery and by the Drudgery of Capitalists. — Evils of the Presence of Slave Classes in a Colony. .................................54

Letter XXVIII: From the Statesman: The Statesman Almost Despairs of Colonization, and Asks for a Suggestion of the Means

by Which Scarcity of Labour May Be Prevented Without Slavery. ....................................................................................56

Letter XXIX: From the Colonist: State of Colonial Politics. — Violent Courses of Politicians. — Irish Disturbances. —

Malignity of Party Warfare. — Desperate Differences of Colonists. — Democracy and Demagoguism in All Colonies. —

Brutality of the Newspapers. ...............................................................................................................................................56

Letter XXX: From the Colonist: The Privileged Class in Colonies.— Nature of Their Privileges. — The Road to Office in

Representative Colonies Where Responsible Government Is Established, and Where it Is Not.— Emigrants of the Better

Order a Proscribed Class as Respects Office. .....................................................................................................................59

Letter XXXI: From the Colonist: How Officials Are Appointed in the Bureaucratic Colonies. — They Are a Sort of Demi-

gods, but Vert Much Inferior to the Better Order of Settlers in Ability, Character, Conduct, and Manners.— Examples

Thereof and the Causes of It. — Behaviour of the Officials to the Better Order of Settlers...............................................61

Letter XXXII: From the Colonist: The Colonist Explains the Urgent Need of the Intervention of Government in the Multifari-

ous Business of Constructing Society, and Describes the General Paucity, Often the Total Absence, of Government in the

Colonies of Britain. .............................................................................................................................................................63

Letter XXXIII: From the Statesman: The Statesman Thinks That the Colonist Has Exaggerated the Indisposition of Respect-

able People to Emigrate.......................................................................................................................................................65

Letter XXXIV: From the Colonist: The Colonist Defends His View of the Indisposition of Respectable People to Emigrate,

and Suggests Further Inquiry by the Statesman. — Two More Impediments to Colonization............................................65

Letter XXXV: From the Colonist: The Colonist Purposes to Examine Colonial Government as an Impediment to Colonization,

as the Parent of Other Impediments, and as a Cause of Injury to the Mother-country; and to Proceed at Once to a Plan for

its Reform. ...........................................................................................................................................................................66

Letter XXXVI: From the Colonist: Comparison of Municipal and Central Government. — Central Bureaucratic Government

of the Colonies Established by the Institution of the Colonial Office. — The Spoiling of Central Bureaucratic Govern-

ment by Grafting it on to Free Institutions. — Feebleness of the Colonial Office. .............................................................67

Letter XXXVII: From the Colonist: Mode of Appointing Public Functionaries for the Colonies. — Government by Instruc-

tion. — Jesuitical Conduct of the Colonial Office. — A Colonial Office Conscience Exemplified by Lord Grey. —

Proposed Tabular Statistics of Dispatches in the Colonial Office.......................................................................................71

Letter XXXVIII: From the Colonist: Disallowance of Colonial Laws by the Colonial Office. — Lot of Colonial Governors. —

Effects of Our System of Colonial Government.—counteraction of the System by the Vis Medicatrix Nature. — Proposed

Addition to Mr. Murray’s Colonial Library. ........................................................................................................................74

Letter XXXIX: From the Statesman: Mr. Mothercountry Protests against the Assertion, That Mr. Taylor has Authorized the

Belief, That His Views of Statesmanship were Derived from Experience in the Colonial Office. .....................................77

Letter XL: From the Colonist: The Colonist Sustains His Proposition That Mr. Taylor’s Ideas of Statesmanship Were Formed

by Long Experience in the Colonial Office, and Appeals to Mr. Taylor Himself as the Best Authority on the Question. .77

Letter XLI.: From the Statesman: Mr. Mothercountry Objects to Municipal Government for Colonies, on the Ground of its

Tendency to Democracy, Republicanism, and Dismemberment of the Empire...................................................................79

Letter XLII: From the Colonist: Municipal Government Has No Relation to One Form of Government More than Any Other;

but it is the Surest Means of Preventing the Disaffection of the Out-lying Portions of an Extensive Empire, Which Surely

Results from Central-bureaucratic Government.— The Original Mr. Mothercountry Introduced......................................79

Letter XLIII: From the Colonist: Sketch of a Plan of Municipal-federative Government for Colonies; with an Episode Con-

cerning Sir James Stephen and the Birthright of Englishmen. ............................................................................................87

Letter XLIV: From the Colonist: Some Reflections on the Probable Operation of Municipal-Federative Government for

Colonies, as a Substitute for the Central-bureaucratic Spoiled.— A Grand Reform of the Colonial Office. .....................92

Letter XLV: From the Colonist: The Colonist, by a Sketch of the History of Slavery, Traces Scarcity of Labour in New

Countries to its Source in the Cheapness of Land. ..............................................................................................................94

Letter XLVI: From the Colonist: The Colonist Suggests the Means by Which Land Might Be Made Dear Enough to Prevent a

Scarcity of Labour for Hire. ................................................................................................................................................96

Letter XLVII: From the Colonist: In Order That the Price of Waste Land Should Accomplish its Objects, it must Be Sufficient

for the Purpose. Hitherto the Price Has Been Everywhere Insufficient. .............................................................................98

Letter XLVIII: From the Statesman: Mr. Mothercountry Taunts the Colonist with Being Unable to Say What Would Be the

Sufficient Price for New Land...........................................................................................................................................100

Letter XLIX: From the Colonist: The Colonist Replies to Mr. Mothercountry’s Taunt, Indicates the Elements of a Calculation

for Getting at the Sufficient Price, and Refers to Mr. Stephen and the Edinburgh Review. ..............................................100

Letter L: From the Colonist: Selling Waste Land by Auction with a View to Obtaining the Sufficient Price by Means of

Competition, Is Either a Foolish Conceit or a False Pretence. ..........................................................................................102

Letter LI: From the Colonist: Further Objections to the Plan of Selling Waste Land by Auction. — Advantages of a Fixed

Uniform Price. ...................................................................................................................................................................103

Letter LII: From the Colonist: Lord Grey’s Confusion of Ideas Respecting the Objects with Which a Price Should Be Re-

quired for New Land.— Another Objection to a Uniform Price for Waste Land, with the Colonist’s Answer to It.........105

Letter LIII: From the Colonist: With a Sufficient Price for New Land, Profits and Wages Would Be Higher, and Exports

Greater, than Without It. ....................................................................................................................................................106

Letter LIV: From the Colonist: With a Sufficient Price for Waste Land, Capitalists Would Obtain Labour by Means of Paying

for the Emigration of Poor People.....................................................................................................................................107

Letter LV: From the Colonist: The Sufficient Price Produces Money Incidentally. — What Should Be Done with the Purchase

Money of New Land? — Several Effects of Using the Purchase Money as a Fund for Defraying the Cost of Emigration.

108

Letter LVI: From the Statesman: Mr. Mothercountry Objects to the Sufficient Price, That it Would Put a Stop to the Sale of

Waste Land. .......................................................................................................................................................................109

Letter LVII: From the Colonist: The Colonist Examines Me. Mothercountry’s Proposition, That the Sufficient Price Would

Put a Stop to Sales of Land.— Suggestion of Loans for Emigration to Be Raised on the Security of Future Sales. ........110

Letter LVIII: From the Colonist: Suggestion of a Further Means for Enabling the Sufficient Price of Public Land to Work Well

in Colonies Where Private Land Is Greatly Superabundant and Very Cheap. .................................................................. 111

Letter LIX: From the Statesman: The Statesman Tells of Mr. Mothercountry’s Intention to Make the Commissioners of

Colonial Land and Emigration Write Objections to the Sufficient Price for Waste Land. ................................................ 113

Letter LX: From the Colonist: The Colonist Anticipates the Probable Writing of the Commissioners. .................................. 113

Letter LXI: From the Colonist: The Necessity of Perfect Liberty of Appropriation at the Sufficient Price.— Liberty of

Appropriation Dependent on Ample and Accurate Surveys. — Actual Surveying in the Colonies.................................. 114

Letter LXII: From the Colonist: Proposed Selection of Emigrants, with a View of Making the Emigration-Fund as Potent as

Possible. — Moral Advantages of Such a Selection. ........................................................................................................115

Letter LXIII: From the Statesman: An Important Objection to the Colonist’s Whole Plan of Colonization Apart from Govern-

ment. ..................................................................................................................................................................................118

Letter LXIV: From the Colonist: The Colonist First Admits, and Then Answers the Objection. ............................................119

Letter LXV: From the Statesman: The Statesman’s Mr. Mothercountry Makes His Last Objection. ......................................120

Letter LXVI: From the Colonist: Mr. Mothercountry’s Last Objection Answered. .................................................................120

Letter LXVII: From the Statesman: Mr. Mothercountry Once More Objects to the Sufficient Price, as Being Likely to Force

an Injurious Concentration of the Settlers. ........................................................................................................................121

Letter LXVIII: From the Colonist: The Colonist Answers Mr. Mothercountry on the Subject of “Concentration” and “Disper-

sion” of Settlers. ................................................................................................................................................................122

Letter LXIX: From the Colonist: By What Authority Should Be Administered an Imperial Policy of Colonization Apart from

Government? .....................................................................................................................................................................124

Letter LXX: From the Statesman: The Statesman Describes a Scene with Mr. Mothercountry, and Announces That the Project

of Action in Parliament on the Subject of Colonization Is Abandoned. ...........................................................................125

Letter LXXI: From the Colonist: The Colonist Closes the Correspondence, and Alludes to Several Topics Which Would Have

Been Pursued If it Had Continued.....................................................................................................................................126

Appendix. .................................................................................................................................................................................127

Appendix No. II........................................................................................................................................................................146

Notes.........................................................................................................................................................................................152

A View of the Art of Colonization

Preface.

Some time ago, one of the most accomplished of our public

men invited me to write to him on a question relating to the

colonies. This question really involved the whole subject of

colonization and colonial government. The correspondence

that ensued, was neither intended nor suitable for publica-

tion; but it was shown confidentially to various persons. Some

of them, being most competent judges on such a point, have

repeatedly expressed their wish that the letters should be pub-

lished; of course, with such alterations as would render them

not unfit for the public eye. This suggestion is now adopted.

The actual correspondence has been altered by omission,

modification, and large additions. The following letters, there-

fore, are very different from those which passed through the

post-office. But the difference consists mainly in workman-

ship and form, not in materials or substance. In aim, scope,

and tenour — as respects the subjects examined, and the ideas

propounded—the two sets of letters are nearly alike. I in-

dulge a hope, that the fictitious correspondence may make an

impression on many, not unlike that which the real one has

left on a few: for if so, systematic colonization, which is at

present only a vague aspiration of some of the more intelli-

gent minds, would ere long become a fruitful reality.

The name of the statesman who was a party to the actual cor-

respondence, it would be at least idle to exhibit in this publi-

cation. It is therefore kept out of view by the omission of

dates, addresses, and the formal expressions with which real

letters usually begin and end. The letters purporting to have

been written by him, are described merely as Letters from a

Statesman : my own are called Letters from a Colonist. I fancy

myself justified in assuming that title, as being indicative of

my acquaintance with colonial topics: for I really was a colo-

nist in Canada (having been a member of its House of As-

sembly) under the administration of two of its governors, Sir

Charles Bagot and Lord Metcalfe, who in practice had more

concern with the question of responsible government for colo-

nies than Lord Durham, under whose administration the theory

was first officially propounded, and I was a busy actor in

colonial politics; whilst under that of Lord Sydenham, I was

a diligent observer of them on the spot. But if these are not

sufficient grounds on which to call myself a colonist, then I

would claim the title on the ground of sympathy with the class

of our fellow-subjects who have the misfortune to be nothing

but colonists; a sympathy, the force of which will be under-

stood when I add, that it was acquired partly by residence

and frequent sojourn in British North America, as well as in

some States of the American Union, which in one sense of

the word are still colonies of England; and yet more, by a

very active participation, for nearly twenty years, in the labours

by which the two youngest of England’s colonies, South Aus-

tralia and New Zealand, have been founded in spite of the

most formidable opposition from the colonial branch of the

government of the empire.

Reigate,

30th January, 1849.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Letter I.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Invites the Colonist to Discussions of

the Subject.

You will be glad to learn that on coming to town, I find cer-

tain friends of mine resolved to bring the question of coloni-

zation before the House of Commons next session. Two of

them probably will take an active part in the discussion; and

they all wish that I should co-operate with them. This I have

engaged to do, provided always that I shall be able in the

time to acquire the indispensable knowledge. Thus I am

pledged at all events to study the subject; and your wish on

that point will at last be realized.

Now, therefore, I am in need of all the assistance you can

render me. In one word, I want to be crammed. Indulge on

me as much as you please, your turn for preaching and teach-

ing about colonization. You shall find me at any rate an as-

siduous pupil. I will endeavour to read whatever you may

think likely to be useful, and will give up as much time to

vivâ-voce discussion, as may turn out to be necessary, and I

can possibly spare. The latter mode of learning, however,

would most effectually give me the benefit of your studies

and experience; besides that, as nothing like a complete trea-

tise on colonization exists, I should be glad to avoid the cost

of time and trouble attendant on picking up information bit

by bit from a variety of books, parliamentary papers, and other

sources.

I have, therefore, to request that you will do me the favour to

call here when you shall be next in town, giving me a day or

two’s notice. We should then, I hope, as it is my intention to

be near London throughout the recess, be able to make ar-

rangements for frequent meetings.

Not doubting that you wall be equally pleased with my news

and my proposal to give you all this trouble, and trusting that

your health is improved, &c. &c.

Letter II.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Suggests the Alternative of Written Com-

munications.

I am indeed pleased by your letter, but also not a little an-

noyed. The determination of your friends is most agreeable

to me; and I rejoice at hearing that you intend to continue

your inquiries into a subject which interests me beyond all

others. But in proportion to my satisfaction on these points, I

am really distressed at having to inform you that, it is not in

my power to comply with your wish for vivâ-voce communi-

cation with me. My health, instead of improving, has got worse

lately, and will probably never mend. It is a disorder of the

nerves which has long hindered, and now absolutely precludes

me from engaging in the oral discussion of subjects that deeply

interest me, more especially if they are subjects involving

argument and continuous thought. You must have observed

how I suffered towards the end of our last conversation. At

length, I cannot disobey the doctors’ injunction to stay at home

and be quiet, without effects that remind me of a bird trying

to fly with a broken wing, and knocking itself to pieces in the

vain exertion. As respects earnest conversation, I am a help-

less cripple. I would try at all risks, if there were the least

chance of my being able to do what is more desired by me

than it can be by you: as it is, I am under the necessity of

declining your flattering and most gratifying invitation.

But there occurs to me an alternative, which I am in hopes

you may be disposed to adopt. With the seeming caprice of

most nervous disorders, mine, which forbids talking, makes

far less difficulty about letting me write. The brain suffers

greatly, only when it is hurried—as with old hunters “’tis the

pace that kills” — but can work somehow when allowed to

take its own time. Leisurely, in writing, I could answer ques-

tions at any length, and could save you some trouble by point-

ing out the most available sources of instruction in print. I

venture to suggest, therefore, the substitution of a correspon-

dence by letter for the proposed but impossible conversa-

tions.

The alternative might not be a pis-aller. The interchange of

thought would be indeed less brisk and agreeable; but the

greater trouble would fall principally on me, and would con-

sist for both writers of that more careful thinking, which even

the sagest of talkers bestow on the written communication of

their ideas: so that, probably, the discussion would be more

complete and effective. As you have a reputation for success

in your undertakings, which means of course that you only

undertake what you have resolved to do as well as possible, I

imagine that you may prefer my suggestion to your own pro-

posal.

A View of the Art of Colonization

If it should prove so, have the goodness to let me know what

the topics are on which you wish for information. Conversa-

tions would naturally have been led by you. I can only place

myself at your disposal, promising to take the direction in

which, from time to time, it shall please you to point.

Letter III.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Describes the Condition of His Own

Knowledge, Calls for Some Definitions, and Asks Ques-

tions Relating Both to the Subject, and to the State of it

as Matter of Public Opinion.

I deeply regret the cause of your inability to comply with my

request.

At first I did not relish the proposed alternative; but on re-

flection and trial I am inclined to prefer it. After considering

in order to reconcile myself to the more troublesome course

for both of us, I see that, for my purpose, written communica-

tions, which remain, will be better than oral, which soon pass

from the memory when the subject of them is not one of last-

ing personal concern: and a first trial of writing has confirmed

your view of its advantages; for on sitting down to give you a

statement of the points on which I wish for information, I

discover the full difficulty of the task 1 have undertaken. I

undertook it on the supposition, that I had definite ideas about

what our colonization is and ought to be; and that I had only

to learn the best method of improving it: but on examining

the matter further, as the necessity of writing has compelled

me to do, I find that in reality my knowledge is very scanty

and superficial. As in fact I do not know enough for telling

you satisfactorily what it is I want to learn, my best course

probably will be to describe the state of my impressions on

the subject.

In common with not a few men in public life, I have lately

thought that this subject is unwisely neglected by us. I see

with them, that colonization is a natural means of seeking

relief from the worst of our social ills, and of thus averting

formidable political dangers. I see with every body who reads

the newspapers, that our colonies cost us money, much trouble,

and not a little shame, without rendering any important ser-

vices to us in return. All of them at one time or another seem

to get into a state of disorder and disaffection; just now the

number of disturbed colonies is more than commonly large;

and there is not one of the whole forty (that, I believe, is the

sum of them) of which an Englishman can feel proud. All of

them together provide for fewer emigrants than the United

States; Canada, which receives the greatest number of emi-

grants, we are by all accounts only peopling and enriching

for the Americans to possess ere long: and of the only other

part of the world to which British emigrants proceed, the popu-

lation, after seventy years of what is termed colonization,

amounts to no more than 300,000, or about that of the town

of Glasgow. The West-India colonies are in a lamentable state,

both economically and politically: so is South Africa, politi-

cally at least, with its colonist rebellions and Caffre wars: so

is Ceylon with its uproarious governor and native insurrec-

tion: so is our youngest colony, New Zealand, as the seat of a

deadly feud between colonist and native, of a costly military

occupation in order to maintain British authority at all, and

of the wildest experiments in colonial government: so is, on

one account or another, every one of the colonies of England,

more or less. I go merely by our own newspapers for the last

year or two, which hardly at any time mention a colony but

when it is disturbed. To my mind, therefore, nothing could be

more unsatisfactory than our colonization as it is. On that one

point at least, my notions, however general, are sufficiently

clear. On the question of what our colonization ought to be,

my ideas are even more general, and utterly indistinct. I find

indeed on attempting to write them down, that they consist of

a most vague hope, that something very useful and important

might be done by us, if we pursued colonization systemati-

cally. But as I confess a profound ignorance of what is, so I

have no conception of the means by which my hazy aspira-

tions could be realized. My fancy pictures a sort and amount

of colonization that would amply repay its cost, by providing

happily for our redundant people; by improving the state of

those who remained at home; by supplying us largely with

food and the raw materials of manufacture; and by gratifying

our best feelings of national pride, through the extension over

unoccupied parts of the earth of a nationality truly British in

language, religion, laws, institutions, and attachment to the

empire. But when I descend from the regions of imagination

to inquire into the wherefore of the difference between this

picture and the dismal reality, I have no ideas at all; I have

only a feeling almost of shame at my own want of ideas. With

such blindness as to causes, suitable remedies, of course, are

far out of my sight: if indeed suitable remedies are to be found;

for now, as writing leads to thinking in earnest, I almost de-

spair of the parliamentary project of my friends, and wish

that I had declined to share in its execution.

I say this with no present thought of drawing back from my

engagement, but to show you that in order to qualify myself

for performing it, I must begin with the alphabet of our sub-

ject; and that there is hard work for both of us. In order, then,

to learn my letters, I proceed at once to ask for some defini-

tions.

Is British India a colony? Is Jersey one? Are the United States

of America colonies of England? and, if they are not, why do

we give the name of colonies to the states which the ancient

Greeks formed in Sicily and Asia Minor, but which were al-

ways completely independent of their parent states? Then what

is colonization? If French Canada, when we took it, became

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

a colony of England, the mere conquest and government of a

foreign people is colonization; which cannot be. Is it the send-

ing forth of people and their settlement in a distant country

already inhabited? or must we deem it a condition of colo-

nization, that the land of the new country should be wholly or

in a great measure unoccupied? Does colonization include

government, or relate solely to emigration from an old coun-

try, and the settling of the emigrants, independently of gov-

ernment, in their new home? Even as I write these questions,

some answers occur to me; but I own that I have hitherto

talked, and rather fast too, about colonies and colonization,

without at the time exactly knowing what I meant by the words.

But not many among our statesmen could honestly point at

me for this. The confession is singular, not the utter igno-

rance and indifference. The last word leads to another ques-

tion. What is the cause of the general indifference to the sub-

ject of colonization? Quite recently indeed, a lively interest

has been professed in the subject by many; and it may per-

haps be said even that public attention is turned that way: but

the sort of interest is not, I fear, very real. I apprehend that it

somewhat resembles the interest which a parrot feels about

your health, when it says in a tone of tender anxiety, “ How

do you do?” There is a good deal of pretty and seemingly

earnest talking and writing about colonization ; but what else

I know not. Colonization, I take it, is something to be done,

not something to be merely known, like geography or as-

tronomy. Who is there that can tell us what he would have

Parliament do? Who proposes any plan? Who is seriously

looking to important practical results? Besides, with all the

talking and writing about colonization, and “systematic” colo-

nization too, people in general seem to possess no greater

knowledge of the subject than the ignorance that I have

avowed. At least, I know not where to seek real knowledge,

save by applying to one of a few who have made the study of

the subject a business for years, and who are therefore a

marked exception from the general rule. Generally, there is

still as much ignorance as ever. Ignorance implies real indif-

ference, however copious the wordmongering. Does the public

care so little about colonization because it knows so little, or

know so little because it cares so little? If the indifference

does not arise from ignorance, what, I repeat, is its cause?

This last question is of great importance to me, practically

and personally, who am not disposed to waste precious time

on mere speculation. Is it worth while to study the subject?

Shall we ever overcome the general indifference? Is there

any prospect of action?

Returning to my primer, I want to know what, if any, is the

substantial distinction, which, in words at least, many people

now draw between emigration and colonization. The most

popular newspapers say now, let us have colonization, not

emigration. What does this mean? Again one hears a good

deal about “systematic,” as distinguished, I suppose, from

systemless colonization. But what is meant by “systematic”?

With reference to what system is this epithet employed? Is

there any known system? Are there several to choose amongst?

Or do the advocates of systematic colonization mean that a

system ought to be devised? I ask these questions without

forgetting that there is a project of colonization which goes

by your name, and which is sometimes called a system. Lord

Grey calls it so. I remember seeing a letter of his written two

years ago, which was shown about for the information of per-

sons then very desirous of promoting a great emigration from

Ireland, in which he said that if he continued in office your

system would be largely carried into effect. Has anything been

done with it? It has been tried, I know, in some of the Austra-

lian colonies; but if I am to believe an official acquaintance,

who ought to know all about it, with only failure and disap-

pointment hitherto. At all events, be so good as to tell me

what I ought to read in order to understand the project, of

which I have but a vague, perhaps an erroneous conception.

If I am not mistaken, your project of colonization relates ex-

clusively to matters of an economical nature, such as emigra-

tion and the sale of waste land, leaving untouched the ques-

tion of political government for colonies? But I have heard

lately in society of a plan of government for colonies, which

is praised by some of your friends, and which they call a plan

of municipal government. What is this? Is there any publica-

tion which would enable me to comprehend it without trou-

bling you on that point? I think I heard somebody say, that

Lord Grey’s constitution for New Zealand was founded upon

this plan of colonial government. If that were true, I should

fear that the plan cannot be a very sound one; for the New

Zealand constitution was, to speak plainly, so impracticable

and absurd, that Lord Grey himself seized the first opportu-

nity of destroying it; and the offer of its extension to New

South Wales was scornfully declined by that colony. If, there-

fore, Lord Grey really adopted or copied from the plan lauded

by your friends, I must ask you to put me in the way of exam-

ining some other plan or plans of colonial government. In-

deed I should like to read anything on this branch of our sub-

ject, that you may be disposed to recommend. I take it for

granted that the topic has been handled by philosophical writ-

ers, but cannot recollect by whom.

In particular I wish to understand the theory of what Lord

Durham in his Report, I think, called responsible government

for colonies.” Or are those the title of a little book, the joint

authorship of which I have some faint recollection of having

heard attributed to yourself and Charles Buller?

Is not that

theory now carried into full effect in Canada? And if it is,

how does it work?

Charles Buller’s name reminds me of his capital speech on

colonization in 1843. I say capital, because it excited univer-

A View of the Art of Colonization

sal admiration at the time, and had the effect of placing the

speaker in the first rank amongst philosophical statesmen. I

heard the speech myself, and thought that I should never for-

get it; so strong and pleasing was the impression which it

made on me. But I have entirely forgotten it; and I find that it

has escaped from the memory of others who praised it to the

skies at the time of its delivery. Even now they say that it was

a capital speech; but they cannot tell why: they say that they

have forgotten all about it except that it was a first-rate speech;

and this is just my own predicament.

Is it desirable that I should wade through the evidence taken

by the recent committee of the Lords on emigration? A cur-

sory glance at it has left me with the impression that it con-

sists of an immense mass of facts, or statements of fact, heaped

up without form or order, without regard to any guiding prin-

ciples, and without producing in any degree the only desir-

able result; that, namely, of a comprehensible theory or a fea-

sible plan. Are there any other inquiries by committees of

Parliament which you think that it would be well for me to

study?

In the session before last, the House of Commons, on a mo-

tion made by Lord Lincoln, presented an address to the Queen,

praying that an inquiry might be instituted into the subject of

colonization for Ireland in particular. The motion for an ad-

dress was at first strenuously opposed by the Government,

who only gave way when they found that they would be beaten

on a division. The address having passed, an answer from the

Queen promised that the wish of the House of Commons

should be realized. If common usage had been followed, a

Royal Commission of Inquiry would have been appointed.

Nothing of the sort was done. No commission was appointed;

and there has been no inquiry by other means. The address

and answer have been utterly disregarded by the Government.

I have endeavoured, but in vain, to get at the why and where-

fore of this curious official neglect. Other members of the

Government merely refer me to the Colonial Office, where,

however, I can learn nothing. My official acquaintance, who

is a member of that department, answers me with a vacant

look, and a reference to Lord Grey, to whom he well knows

that I should not apply for information. What does all this

mean?

I see by the newspapers that several societies have recently

been formed with a view of promoting colonization. There is

one called the Colonization Society, another the Canterbury

Association; I forget the names of others. Have any of these

societies a plan to go upon, or theory to guide them? If not, I

should only lose time in examining their schemes: for I must

needs obtain a general and abstract view of the subject be-

fore attempting to form any opinion on particular or practical

questions.

At the same time, let me warn you that mere theory or ab-

stract science has no charms for me now. I have now no lei-

sure to bestow on it. I could not become interested about a

theory of colonization which was applicable to other coun-

tries, but not to our own. It is with a view to practical results

for this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, that I

wish to master the subject of our inquiry. I am in hopes, there-

fore, that as far as possible, without discarding abstract con-

siderations as aids in the pursuit of truth, you may be dis-

posed and able to keep practice always in view, and practice

for our own country especially.

Letter IV.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Proposes Some Definitions, Which State

and Limit the Subject of Inquiry, and Indicates the Course

of the Investigation.

Your letter, which I have read with much interest, leaves me

without a doubt concerning the topic to which you would

first direct my attention. After calling for some definitions,

which are indeed required with a view to accuracy and clear-

ness throughout our correspondence, your questions in fact

ask for an account of what may be termed the state of the

subject. Here I will confine myself to the definitions, offering

besides a few remarks, not on the condition of the public

knowledge and opinion with regard to colonization, to which

a separate letter must be devoted, but on a preliminary point

which is suggested by one or two of your inquiries.

I am not surprised at your asking what is meant by the words

colony and colonization; for both words are commonly used

without a definite meaning, and even with different mean-

ings. This vagueness or confusion of language arises from

vagueness or confusion of ideas, which arises again from in-

difference. Only a very few people have thought it worth while

to form a clear conception of the very marked difference of

feature or circumstance belonging to the numerous outlying

portions of a wide-spread empire. A full account of those

differences is given in Mr. Cornewall Lewis’s Essay on the

Government of Dependencies; but this statement I need not

repeat, because it will suffice for the present purpose if I

mention briefly what it is that, in writing to you, I shall never

mean, and what it is that I shall always mean, by the words

colony and colonization.

By the word colony, I shall not mean such a country as either

British India, which is a great dependency, or the Mauritius,

which was a colony of France, but is only a dependency of

England: still less would I term Malta or the Ionian Islands a

colony. Nor does the process by which these places became

dependencies of England, partake in any degree of the char-

acter of colonization. Of colonization, the principal elements

are emigration and the permanent settlement of the emigrants

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

on unoccupied land. A colony therefore is a country wholly

or partially unoccupied, which receives emigrants from a dis-

tance; and it is a colony of “the country from which the emi-

grants proceed, which is therefore called the mother-country.

To the process by which the colony is peopled and settled,

and to nothing else, I would give the name of colonization.

Unquestionably, the process of colonization comprises gov-

ernment; for in the first place the settlers must be governed

somehow; and secondly, the amount and character of the emi-

gration to a colony are deeply affected by the manner in which

the emigrants are governed. Besides, the national character

of the states formed by colonization must greatly depend on

the character of the institutions of government which the first

settlers obtain. Regarding colonial government, therefore, as

an essential part of colonization, the question remains whether

the government of the colony by the mother-country is equally

so. Is the subordination of the colony to the mother-country,

as respects government, an essential condition of coloniza-

tion? I should say not. The independent sovereign states which

we term colonies of ancient Greece, I shall suppose to be

properly so called. To my view, the United States of America,

formed by emigration from this country, and still receiving a

large annual increase of people by emigration from this coun-

try, are still colonies of England. I divide colonies into two

classes; the dependent and the independent, like Canada and

Massachussetts. Which kind of government is the best for

colonists, which most conduces to rapid and prosperous colo-

nization, and whether or not a combination of the two is pref-

erable to either, are questions foreign to my present purpose

of mere definition, but which we shall have to examine with

care; since it is clearly indispensable in colonizing to estab-

lish some kind of government for the colonists. It may be

good or bad government, and may make the colonization it-

self good or bad; but the forming of it, and the carrying of it

on if it is dependent government, are essential parts of the

whole process of colonization. And so here end my defini-

tions, which have been purposely framed to make them state

and limit the subject of our inquiry.

With regard to your specific questions about that subject, and

about the state of it in the public mind, I would suggest the

expediency of their being answered, not at once, nor in the

order in which I have received them, but in the course of

what I shall have to say on both topics. Sooner or later they

must needs be answered; but to exclusively occupying our-

selves with them now I see a twofold objection. It would be

inconvenient and troublesome to notice these particulars be-

fore touching upon generals; it would be useless besides, be-

cause in disposing of generals, the particulars would be dis-

posed of too. For example, several of your questions relate

directly to what you call my “system” of colonization. Now,

if that theory, as I must call it, comprises, as indeed it does,

the subjects of emigration, settlement, and colonial govern-

ment, then such an account of it as some of your questions

require, would be all that I have to say about colonization. It

is about that theory alone, that I can furnish you with infor-

mation; or rather, all the information I could furnish, would

be nothing but an exposition of that theory. Again, your ques-

tions about the state of opinion with regard to colonization,

would be best answered by a general account thereof, which

would also supply some information on that point for which

you have not specifically asked.

Subject to your approval, therefore, I intend to abstain for the

present from giving a specific answer to. any of your ques-

tions: but I think it safe to promise that they will be answered

somewhere in the course of what I shall write about coloniza-

tion as an art, and colonization as a subject of public opinion.

The latter topic will occupy my next letter.

Letter V.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Objects to the Proposed Course of In-

quiry as Being Confined to a Particular Project of the

Colonist’s, and Desires That a More General View of

the Subject May Be Expounded.

Your letter just received, shows me that my last was deficient

in candour, which this shall not be. Coming to the point at

once then, I state explicitly, what something in my last was

intended to convey, that in asking you to afford me the ben-

efit of your long studies and experience in colonization, I

meant to beg for a great deal more than an account of your

own particular project. I must of course examine it, along

with others probably; but the mere examination of that or any

other scheme exclusively, would be a most inadequate method

of endeavouring to master the whole of so comprehensive a

subject. Very probably your plan is the best. Many clever

people think so; and I bow to such an authority as Mr. Mill,

who in his great new book speaks of it in the highest terms.

But with all proper deference to his singular acuteness and

sagacity, I have a responsibility of my own to consult, which

commands me to “prove all things,” and “hold fast that which

is good.” It is, for one purpose, with a view of being able to

judge of particular plans, that I wish to acquire a general

knowledge. A general and comprehensive view of the sub-

ject is what I require, including, not instead of, those special

schemes which may seem worth careful examination.

Amongst these, I think it probable that yours will take the

highest place in my opinion; and I say this in spite of a sort of

prejudice against it, which I ought to have avowed before. It

has arisen as follows.

Believing that, however it may be with broth and cooks, a

learner cannot have too many teachers if he has time to hear

A View of the Art of Colonization

them all, I no sooner engaged to speak about colonization in

Parliament, and asked for your assistance in preparing my-

self, than I also improved my acquaintance with one of the

chief clerks in the Colonial Office, a gentleman of no com-

mon attainments and ability, whom the facilities of railway

travelling have induced to reside with his family in this

neighbourhood. It was to him that I alluded in my last. I told

him that my object was to obtain information from him, and

to use it in Parliament, but of course without quoting him as

my authority. He at first tried hard to dissuade me from the

enterprise, but finally acceded to my request that he would

permit me at least to refer to him occasionally. I then told him

of my intention to consult you; whereupon he appeared bet-

ter disposed to lend me his assistance; and indeed he said,

that if I listened much to you, I should be in want of

wellinformed counsel. Having heard of some of your differ-

ences with the Colonial Office, I did not mind his obvious

aversion to you, but went on to mention your plan of coloni-

zation, and to ask his opinion of it. He expressed no opinion,

but said that Lord Grey has done his utmost to make some-

thing of the project, but that somehow or other it breaks down

wherever it is tried. He afterwards sent me several pamphlets

and blue-books of official documents, with passages marked

relating to your scheme, which show at least that it has not

worked well in New South Wales, and that there, as well as in

other colonies, it is very much disliked. Not satisfied with

this evidence, however, though it seems very complete as far

as it goes, I spoke to one who is in the way of knowing about

such things. He approves of your plan as a theory, and is rather

friendly than inimical to yourself. But he said, that in practice

the plan disappoints expectation; that Lord Grey, as Colonial

Minister, has done it full justice by discarding some parts of

it which experience had shown to be faulty, and by carrying

the rest into effect with all the power of his office; but that,

just as my official informant said, the plan breaks down in the

working. He said, further, that Lord Grey (whose knowledge

of political economy and talent for mastering principles we

must all admit, notwithstanding his conspicuous failure in the

office for which he was deemed particularly fit), whilst he

gives you credit for inventing the plan, wholly objects to parts

of it which you maintain to be sound, and now doubts, after

having believed that great things might be done with it,

whether it can be turned to much account. I must own that

this judgment of Lord Grey, considering his talents and expe-

rience, has great weight with me; and the more because his

frequent mention of you as the author of a scheme which he

once so warmly approved, shows that he has no personal ill-

will: to you like that of my acquaintance in his office.

You will now see why, though I wish to understand your

scheme thoroughly, I am far from wishing to be taught noth-

ing else; and why, therefore, I rather invited you to separate it

from the general subject, so that we might dispose of it be-

fore entering upon that. I ought to have been more explicit at

first. My plain-speaking now requires no apology, though I

could offer one in the form of some compliments.

Letter VI.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Explains that He Always Intended to Ex-

pound a Theory, Not to Recommend a Project. — Nar-

rative Concerning Lord Grey. — Lord Grey’s State of

Mind and his Proceedings with Regard to Colonization,

Described.

I rejoice at your plain-spoken letter, and thank you for it.

To speak plainly in my turn, you have been led astray by cer-

tain misnomers, which, I see, were suggested to you by your

Downing-street acquaintance. You are in the state of mind

with regard to me and my view of the Art of Colonization,

which David Hume would have been in towards Adam Smith,

if the latter, before publishing his view of the Causes of the

Wealth of Nations, had seriously told his friend that it was a

scheme for making the nation rich. In that case, David would

have fought as shy of Adam and his theories, as most people

do of projectors and their schemes. The words “scheme” and

“project” have led you to fear that I should dwell continually

on some object of my own, instead of laying before you such

a general view or theory as would become yours if we agreed

about it after discussion. But this last is what alone I intended,

and proposed to you. The theory may at present be so far

mine as it has been formed in my head by the studies and

experience which you value; but otherwise I have no more

property in it, than Lindley Murray had in that view of the art

of English composition which is set forth in his Grammar.

Verily I have had schemes and projects many, relating to colo-

nization. Some of these succeeded; some failed. It was by

pursuing them into action, that I gained the experience on

which my present view of the art is in a great measure founded.

Therefore in conveying the view to you, I shall frequently

refer to that experience for the purpose of illustration. But I

hereby undertake that it shall be for no other purpose. Have I

said enough on this point? Your prejudice against the theory

you wish to understand, must surely be removed in so far as it

was occasioned by misleading words.

In so far as it was caused by misrepresentation, something

more must be said. As so occasioned, the prejudice is felt by

most people who have heard of the theory but have not ex-

amined it. The misrepresentation is that the theory has been

submitted to the test of practice, and especially by Lord Grey.

By the Colonial Office, and by Lord Grey in particular, the

theory has been tried in practice as Charles the Tenth carried

into effect the British constitution when he upset his throne

by taking ministry after ministry from the minority in parlia-

ment; or as the plan of steam navigation with screw propel-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

lers would be tried, by placing the screw forward, at the bot-

tom of the ship, instead of aft. What Lord Grey has done with

the theory, has been to pick out bits of it here and there, turn

them into crotchets of his own, and then call them mine. Or

rather, whilst he was thus mauling an important part of my

theory in practice, he has professed to be carrying it into ef-

fect, and has thus brought it into great discredit. Most true is

it, that what Lord Grey calls a trial of the theory, has worked

ill in New South Wales, and is greatly disliked there, as well

as in other colonies. But my statement is, that the theory has

never had anything like a fair trial anywhere; that the pro-

fessed trials of it have been something not only different from

it, but utterly at variance with it in reality, though some like-

ness has been kept up by professions and forms of words.

The opposition between the so-called trials and the theory

itself, is as great as the contradiction between my statement

and the one that has imposed on you. Before we have done,

you will have ample means of determining for yourself which

of those statements is correct.

But even now, without delay, considering both Lord Grey’s

deserved reputation for the talent of mastering questions of

principle in political economy, and his almost unlimited power

in matters relating to the colonies, I must give you some in-

sight into his feelings and doings with regard to my views of

colonization. It is really of moment to yourself, if you would

examine them without prejudice, that you should be enlight-

ened on this point.

You think that he does not share the personal aversion of the

gentlemen in the Colonial Office to one who has caused them

infinite trouble. This is a great mistake. His aversion to me is

rather a fierce antipathy. I am telling no secret, betraying no

confidence, but only report what many know and openly talk

about, and what Lord Grey has had the satisfaction of mak-

ing me feel very severely. And yet, it is equally true, as you

say, that before the public he rather goes out of his way to

couple my name with a “system” of colonization which he

also professes to be most desirous of carrying into effect.

Before the public, therefore, he seems to patronize and be-

friend me. The contradiction will be explained by reference

to certain facts, and to Lord Grey’s peculiar temper and intel-

lect. In 1831, Lord Howick, being then a very young states-

man, and parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies,

was made acquainted with a part of the theory of coloniza-

tion which has since been attributed to me. At that time, it

was attributed to nobody: the part of it in question was a sug-

gestion without an author, which anybody was at liberty to

appropriate. He adopted the principle of it at least; and being

the son of the Prime Minister, with other near connexions in

the Cabinet and a strong will of his own, he forced the Colo-

nial Office, though sorely against the grain, to do so likewise.

For doing this, he was diligently praised in public as a vigor-

ous colonial reformer, and the author of a valuable improve-

ment in colonization. This praise, which I think he deserved,

he received plentifully, and certainly did not dislike. But some

believers in the theory, including myself, were dissatisfied

with the manner in which a part of it was submitted to the test

of practice by Lord Howick; and we determined to try the

whole theory, if possible, by getting a colony established upon

its principles. Hence the first attempts to found South Aus-

tralia. In these attempts, we were at first warmly encouraged

by Lord Howick, but in the end roughly defeated by the Co-

lonial Office. Subsequently, for no reason that we could di-

vine, except that our comprehensive theory cast his small

doings as a colonizer into the shade, and also called in ques-

tion his mode of giving effect to a bit of that theory, he be-

came one of the most zealous of our opponents. A sort of

rivalry as colonizers was established between him and us,

during which the two parties disparaged and assailed each

other. Among the partizans on our side, I was certainly the

most active, as he afterwards came to know. About the same

time, not I, but others, publickly attributed to me the theory

of which he had adopted a part when it was anybody’s who

chose to father it; and thus he found himself in the unpleasant

position of having caused a revolution in the economical

policy of many colonies at the suggestion of one who was at

open war with him.

Then came our first attempt to found New Zealand. On this

occasion, though Lord Howick was no longer in the Colonial

Office, we were again placed in official communication with

him, because when, passing by the Colonial Office, for fear

of its inevitable hostility to our scheme, we applied to Lord

Melbourne (then prime minister) for the requisite powers, he

desired us to communicate with Lord Howick as the organ of

the Government prô hac vice. For a while, he encouraged us

to proceed with our undertaking, which was therefore con-

sidered safe as respects the grant of powers by the govern-

ment; when I went to Canada with Lord Durham, one of the

chief promoters of the New Zealand scheme.

Among the numerous plans for settling the then distracted

condition of British North America, which were placed in

Lord Durham’s hands, there was one so excellent in theory

that it must have been adopted if it had been practicable; but

it happened, in consequence of actual circumstances which

its able author had quite overlooked, to be utterly impracti-

cable at the time. The author of that plan was Lord Howick: it

was rejected by Lord Durham on the ground of its impracti-

cability; and I am mistaken if Lord Howick did not learn that

Lord Durham’s view of its impracticability was first suggested

to him by me. At all events, whilst Lord Durham was still in

Canada, and I there with him, Lord Howick zealously op-

posed our New Zealand scheme which he had before patron-

ized. The history of his patronage and opposition is to be

A View of the Art of Colonization

found in the evidence taken by Lord Eliot’s (now St. Ger-

mans) Committee of the House of Commons about New

Zealand in 1840.

Lord Howick was one of the Cabinet by which, as Lord

Durham died believing, his Canadian mission was upset; and

upon that point the brothers-in-law differed as men so nearly

connected are apt to differ when they disagree at all. I of

course sided with Lord Durham; Lord Howick well knew with

what staunchness and activity. At this time Lord Howick’s

ill-will to me was violent and undisguised, but nevertheless

was destined to increase.

The New Zealand project, on the success of which Lord

Durham had set his heart, having been defeated for a time,

and mainly by Lord Howick, a Committee of the House of

Commons was, on Lord Eliot’s motion, appointed to inquire

into the matter; and Lord Howick was naturally appointed a

member of it. Before this Committee I was examined for sev-

eral days, Lord Howick not being present. When my exami-

nation was closed, he attended the Committee for the first

time, and complained of certain statements made by me as a

witness, which he declared to be untrue. At his instance, a

day was fixed when I was to attend the Committee for the

single purpose of being cross-examined by him, and destroyed

if he made his charges good. When we met in the Committee-

room, it contained, besides a full attendance of members of

the Committee, other members of the House, who came there

to witness the anticipated conflict. But hardly any conflict

took place. Lord Howick, after arranging on the table a for-

midable mass of notes and documents, put some questions to

me with a view of establishing one of his accusations. The

answers established that I had spoken the exact truth; and

that my accuser himself was mistaken. Instead of proceeding

to another charge, he hastily gathered up his papers, and left

the room without a remark. The Committee’s blue-book re-

ports the words that passed: if it had also described the scene,

you would probably, upon reading it, agree with the lookers-

on, that in this murderous attack upon me, Lord Howick was

provokingly worsted. How eager he was to make the attack,

and how the repulse of it affected his passions, is shown by

two facts. On the day of the attack, Lord Durham, whom, as

the first governor of the New Zealand Company, I almost

represented before the Committee, was dying: and he was

dead, but unburied, when Lord Howick attended the Com-

mittee once more, to vote with a Government majority of the

members in rejecting a Report favourable to his brother-in-

law’s much-cherished objects, which was drawn up by the

chairman, Lord Eliot.

The next occasion on which I met Lord Howick, was of a

totally different kind. After the early successes of the New

Zealand Company, in rescuing “the Britain of the South” from

Louis Philippe’s purpose of making it a convict colony of

France, I was going to Canada with some chance of remain-

ing there for years. Just before my departure, my brother-

directors of this company invited me to a sort of public or

complimentary dinner at the Clarendon Hotel, to which they

also invited a number of public men, such as Lord Eliot, and

others who were interested about colonization generally and

New Zealand in particular. To the great surprise and satisfac-

tion of many besides myself, Lord Howick attended this din-

ner of compliment to me. We sat on either side of the chair-

man, conversed across him during dinner, and after dinner

addressed the company in civil speeches about each other. I

relate the facts without comment.

On returning from Canada, I met Lord Howick at a private

dinner table, when his manner was rather friendly than as

disagreeable as it usually is towards his inferiors. He was

now out of office. The colonization of New Zealand was strug-

gling for existence against the hostility of the Colonial Office

under Lord Stanley. We (I mean the colonizers of New

Zealand) confiding in Lord Howick’s power of grasping a

complicated question, and still more in his pugnaciousness

and resolution, were pleased to learn that he was disposed to

take up our cause: and this he did, not in form, of course, as

an advocate, but in fact to our entire satisfaction. By very

difficult and careful management we got him to be chosen

chairman of a Committee of the House of Commons on New

Zealand affairs, which was now appointed on the motion of

Mr. Aglionby: and we supplied him with information, both

written and oral, which enabled him to induce the Commit-

tee, most of whom were friends of the Government, to adopt

a Report highly condemnatory of the proceedings of the Co-

lonial Office and Lord Stanley. In the following session, we

carried on within the House, during debates which occupied

nine days, the war whose first battle had been fought in Com-

mittee: and here again Lord Howick was our victorious cham-

pion. Lord Stanley retired from office in consequence of dis-

agreeing with Sir Robert Peel about free-trade: his most promi-

nent antagonist became the leaderof the colonial reformers,

and the statesman to whom public opinion pointed as the fu-

ture Colonial Minister. Nay, some people, influenced solely

by his colonial reputation (for he had no other) thought him

in a fair way of becoming prime-minister, either instead of or

immediately after Lord John Russell. I may confidently add,

that for the whole state of the public mind with regard to him,

he was largely indebted to the assiduous celebration of his

name by colonizing partizans, who had various means of ex-

alting it and making it familiar to the public ear.

In an early stage of the New Zealand proceedings in Parlia-

ment, I was warned that Lord Howick disliked my taking an

open part in them, lest it should be supposed that he acted on

prompting from me: and I was urged (for the sake of the cause)

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

to keep entirely in the background. This advice I took, but

without relaxing my exertions, or ceasing to communicate

indirectly with Lord Howick upon the subject of his exer-

tions.

Still, although the colonizers of New Zealand had gained their

cause in Parliament, nothing was done to accomplish their

objects with regard to the state of the colony. When Mr.

Gladstone succeeded Lord Stanley, therefore, it became a

question whether we should press those objects on the atten-

tion of the new minister, or wait for the time, which every-

body thought to be near at hand, when Lord Howick would

be in power. The latter course was recommended by the com-

mon belief that the weeks of Mr. Gladstone’s tenure of office

were numbered before he accepted the seals; by our convic-

tion that Lord Howick entirely agreed with us in opinion as

to what ought to be done in order to make colonization pros-

per; and by a fear lest, having regard to his jealous disposi-

tion, we might displease him by relying on Mr. Gladstone:

but on the other hand, the desperate state of the colony de-

manded immediate remedies; there was just a chance that the

Peel ministry might not retire after carrying its free-trade

measures; and some of us deemed Mr. Gladstone perfectly

able to seize, and not likely to despise, the opportunity of

establishing in one instance a system of colonization and co-

lonial government, that might serve as a model for the reform

of other colonies and for after time. Moved by the latter con-

siderations, I submitted to Mr. Gladstone by letter a plan for

the settlement of New Zealand affairs, but too late for en-

abling him to come to any official decision upon it. A copy of

that letter was confidentially placed in Lord Howick’s hands

by one of his coadjutors in the attacks on the Colonial Office

under Lord Stanley.

Lord Howick became Lord Grey, and Colonial Minister. Mr.

Hawes, who had for years been a convert to my theoretical

views and an active cooperator with me in attempts to give

them effect—who had no claim to being deemed fit for the

administration of colonial affairs, save that he had made a

sort of colonial reputation as a disciple and coadjutor of

mine—became Lord Grey’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary.

Besides a semi-official announcement that Mr. Charles Buller,

between whom and me the relation as colonizers was that of

each other’s alter ego, was to take an active part with Lord

Grey in colonial affairs whilst holding the somewhat sine-

cure office of Judge Advocate General, Lord Grey himself

solemnly told Mr. Buller that it should be so. I could not doubt

that now at last, after long years of toil and trouble, I should

be rewarded by the utmost happiness which God vouchsafes

to man on earth, the realization of his own idea. The question

which most urgently demanded Lord Grey’s decision, was

that of the settlement of the affairs of New Zealand; and this

question embraced the entire subject of colonization and co-

lonial government. Upon this subject, with relation to New

Zealand, Lord Grey’s mind had been long made up, and his

opinions given to the public. Amongst those opinions, the

one which he had most emphatically uttered, was, that com-

prehensive, vigorous, and prompt action was absolutely nec-

essary. Yet as Minister he would not move a step. He seemed

incapable of deciding officially any one of the points which,

out of office, he had so lately and so completely determined

in his own mind. Those who had made the colony, and re-

cently co-operated with Lord Grey in exposing its grievances

to Parliament, were utterly confounded. In the blindness of

their dismay, they fancied that if they could bring about an

interview between Lord Grey and me, he might be persuaded

to fulfil his late professions and promises. I believe they hoped

that the sight of me (for I was very ill at the time) might re-

vive in him the generous impulse which took him to the

ClarendonHotel dinner. How they induced him to consent to

an interview I never knew; but I reluctantly consented to it;

and the meeting took place at the house and in the presence

of Mr. Buller.

Considering how his rank and official station placed me greatly

at his mercy, and that I could hardly stand or speak from ill-

ness, his reception of me was perfectly brutal. Bearing this

with outward meekness at least (for I had promised not to

quarrel with him), I endeavoured to perform my allotted task,

but without the least success. He listened to me with impa-

tience, would scarcely let me complete a single sentence, and,

addressing himself rather to Mr. Buller than to me, talked in

angry and contemptuous terms of the principal suggestions

contained in my letter to Mr. Gladstone. Though he did not

mention either Mr. Gladstone’s name or the letter, I now saw

that the attempt to make an impression on him was utterly

hopeless; and I therefore remained silent till, after one or two

fruitless attempts by Mr. Buller to mollify him, he got up, and

hurried out of the room and the house as if we had been in-

sulting him.

Some days later, I had a dangerous attack of illness, of a kind

that is commonly produced by overwork and anxiety. Con-

tinued ill-health has ever since compelled me to abstain from

meddling with New Zealand affairs and colonization in gen-

eral. When I was no longer in the way, the New Zealand Com-

pany and Lord Grey made a settlement of the affairs of that

colony, which leaves every question unsettled, and under

which, as I believe, nothing good can be done. Lord Grey

and the Company naturally persuade themselves, and would

persuade the public, that this arrangement gives effect to the

views of colonization and colonial government which they

jointly proclaimed whilst at war with Lord Stanley; but when

you shall have compared that arrangement, including Lord

Grey’s short-lived New Zealand constitution, with the views

that I am about to lay before you (views nearly identical in

A View of the Art of Colonization

substance with those submitted to Mr. Gladstone), you will

see that the resemblance between my recommendations and

Lord Grey’s doings is altogether unreal, and only so far ap-

parent as to preserve some show of consistency between his

principles in opposition and his practice in office. Indeed, I

think you will perceive in the end, that as regards many ques-

tions besides those relating to New Zealand, a greater inge-

nuity than Lord Grey’s has been employed to make his prac-

tice look like his opinions and unlike mine.

I am assured that my letter to Mr. Gladstone is still Lord Grey’s

bête noire; that he is still sensitively fearful of being sup-

posed to adopt opinions of mine, and even more afraid that

his fear on that point should be perceived. The latter appre-

hension partly accounts for his going out of his way to couple

my name in public with one of those opinions, with which his

own name is inseparably coupled. I enclose some extracts

from a letter of Lord Grey’s, to which you have alluded.

is not afraid, not he, of being thought to get ideas about colo-

nization from me; for does he not himself proclaim the fact?

Add that, if he did not sometimes avow the fact, as to this

particular suggestion, he would be open to the suspicion of

rather too parental an adoption of it. Think of his well-known

pride; bear in mind that he can only preserve, or rather re-

cover, his reputation as a colonial statesman, by trying to do

a great deal in colonization; do not forget, what his surprising

break-down in high office proves, that with a more than com-

mon talent for understanding principles, he has no originality

of thought—which compels him to take all his ideas from

somebody, and no power of working out theory in practice—

which compels him to be always in somebody’s hands as re-

spects decision and action: apply these considerations to the

above narrative, and you will be at no loss to comprehend his

state of mind and his conduct on the subject of our corre-

spondence.

You are now forewarned against misrepresentations on that

subject which mislead others, and against any injustice to-

wards Lord Grey that I may be betrayed into by a resentment

which it is impossible not to feel.

Letter VII.

From the Colonist.

Mr. Mothercountry Introduced.

It seems right to inform you, that I know the name of your

Downing-street acquaintance. He does indeed possess uncom-

mon attainments and ability. He also knows a great deal more

about the colonies than I possibly can. I hope, therefore, that

you will continue to consult him as occasion for it may arise.

We three may, perhaps, throw useful light on points that are

still in obscurity. Besides, his remarks will probably afford

me the best possible opportunity of leading you into certain

dark recesses of the Colonial Office, which it much behoves

you to explore. Rest assured that I will not betray his partici-

pation in our discussions. Indeed, as it is unwise to mention

frequently a name that one wishes to conceal, and as “your

Downing-street acquaintance” is an awkward designation, I

would propose that we call him by the appropriate name of

Mr. Mothercountry. You will learn by-and-by how well the

appellation suits any of his class.

Letter VIII.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Desires the Colonist to Proceed.

Forewarned is forearmed; and I feel obliged by your plain-

speaking. Pray go on.

Letter IX.

From the Colonist.

State of the Subject Twenty Years Ago. — Colonization

Society of 1830. — Practice Without Principles in the

Business of Colonization. — The First Theory of Colo-

nization. — First Effort of the Theorists of 1830. — Foun-

dation of South Australia — Mr. Henry George Ward’s

Committee on Colonial Lands and Emigration. — Com-

missioners Appointed by the Crown. — The New

Zealand Association of 1837. — Lord Durham’s Mis-

sion to Canada. — Influence of the

Colonial Gazette. —

Success and Failure of the Theorists of 1830. — State

of Opinion Concerning Religious Provisions for Colo-

nies. — Summary of Present State of Opinion Gener-

ally.

Twenty years ago, colonization was in no respect a subject of

public opinion: the public neither knew nor cared anything at

all about it. There existed indeed at that time, a controversy

between Mr. Wilmot Horton and Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler

concerning emigration, which the infinite zeal of the dispu-

tants forced into some public notice: but as the only question

between them was, whether, as Mr. Sadler contended, pau-

pers ought to “dwell in the land” in order to be fed, or, as Mr.

Wilmot Horton proposed, be sent abroad out of the way, the

public took no real interest in the dispute. Still less did Mr.

Horton, notwithstanding his singular perseverance, excite a

general interest in his plans of mere pauper emigration. Then,

as now, the “shovelling out of paupers,” as Charles Buller

afterwards happily termed it, was a displeasing topic; and

though Mr. Horton rode his hobby so as to induce Parliament

to try on a small scale a costly and deterring experiment of

his wellmeant suggestions, he soon rode it to death. Except-

ing the stir which his strenuous efforts made for a while, I can

recollect no mark, previous to 1830, of the slightest public

interest even in emigration; and at that time, the word coloni-

zation was devoid of meaning to the public ear. I will now

describe briefly the change which has taken place in public

opinion during the last eighteen years.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

When Englishmen or Americans have a public object, they

meet, appoint a chairman and secretary, pass resolutions, and

subscribe money: in other words, they set to work for them-

selves, instead of waiting to see what their government may

do for them. This self-relying course was adopted by a few

people in London in 1830, who formed an association which

they called the Colonization Society. The object they had in

view was, in general terms, to substitute systematic coloniza-

tion for mere emigration, and on a scale sufficient to produce

important effects on the mother-country.

They were an unknown and feeble body, composed chiefly

of very young men, some of whose names, however, have

long ceased to be obscure, whilst others are amongst the most

celebrated of our day. They used to say at the time, that they

were an exceedingly small minority, as indeed they were; for

whilst the outside number of the founders of the Society did

not pass a dozen, the great public was either hostile or utterly

indifferent to their views. The objectors formed two distinct

classes. Belief in the doctrine of superabundant population

was, at that time, confined to a few; and even these denied

the possibility of a superabundance of capital. Thus some

took offence at the notion of sending people out of the coun-

try; and others contended that the grand object in our politi-

cal economy should be, instead of sending capital abroad, to

accumulate the utmost quantity at home. But all the objectors

united, though comprising nearly everybody who noticed the

subject, were far from numerous. The public at large cared

nothing about the matter, and could not be brought to take the

slightest interest in it. If opponents had been many and much

in earnest, converts would not have been wanting: the gen-

eral inattention was too complete for an opposition that might

have proved useful. We could not even get up a controversy,

except Avith Mr. Wilmot Horton and Colonel Torrens;

which, though it put an end to our infant society, the public

was utterly indifferent.

We supposed, however, that the Minister for the Colonies, as

the guardian and organ of colonial interests, which were mani-

festly and deeply involved in the question, would bestow on

our suggestions his serious attention at the least. He merely

told us, that the Government rather wished to discourage

emigration: there was more already than they knew how to

deal with. When requested to observe that the scheme was

not one of emigration, but of colonization, which itself would

deal with the emigration, his reply showed that he had not

conceived the distinction, nor ever paid any attention to any

part of the subject.

That subject presented before 1830 one very remarkable fea-

ture; namely, an immense amount of practice without any

theory. The practice of colonization has in a great measure

peopled the earth: it has founded nations: it has re-acted with

momentous consequences on old countries, by creating and

supplying new objects of desire, by stimulating industry and

skill, by promoting manufactures and commerce, by greatly

augmenting the wealth and population of the world: it has

occasioned directly a peculiar form of government—the re-

ally democratic—and has been, indirectly, a main cause of

the political changes and tendencies which now agitate Eu-

rope. Yet so lately as twenty years ago, no theory of coloniza-

tion had set forth what should be the objects of the process,

still less what are the best means of accomplishing them. There

were long experience without a system, immense results with-

out a plan, vast doings but no principles.

The two chief nations of the world were, each of them, found-

ing a new colony at the time in question; France in North

Africa, England in West Australia. In both cases, the means

of a great success were unusually large: such large means as

respects capital and population, the main elements of coloni-

zation along with waste land, were never before at the dis-

posal of a colonizing nation. In both cases, the failure has

been complete. The French government has spent fifty mil-

lions sterling with a really anxious desire to colonize Alge-

ria, but without colonizing it in the least: the miserable do-

ings of England at Swan River or West Australia do not merit

the name of colonization. The causes of failure in both cases

will be examined hereafter. It will then be apparent that what-

ever France and England did as nations, was perfectly calcu-

lated to defeat the object in view: it will be seen, that in mod-

ern times the practice of colonization has deteriorated in pro-

portion to the greater means of improvement, as much as its

theory was always deficient. Indeed the colonizing measures

of our own time have been so paltry in comparison with those

of ancient nations, and of our own forefathers, that we now

reckon colonization amongst the arts which have been lost.

Formerly there was practice without theory, art without sci-

ence: now, with wants and means exceeding those of all pre-

ceding time, we have neither theory nor practice, neither sci-

ence nor art. Present colonization is only remarkable for its

pretence to importance and its real nothingness.

The ideas of the founders of the Colonization Society of 1830

grew out of the first proceedings of the British government in

settling the Swan River or West Australia. A perception of

the utter inadequacy of the means employed on that occa-

sion—the curious fact of a government elaborately, though

unconsciously providing for inevitable failure, with copious

elements of success at its easy disposal—led to a careful ex-

amination of the whole subject. True it is, that the blind blun-

dering at Swan River directed attention rather to the means

than to the objects of colonization; but when the means at the

disposal of this country had been weighed, the importance of

the attainable objects was perceived: and thus, at length, a

system was framed, which embraced both objects and means.

A View of the Art of Colonization

The means and the objects were not confounded, but first

separated, and then brought together, compared, and fitted.

The subject was further divided into two parts; into matters

economical, such as the selection of poor emigrants, or the

disposal of waste land, and into matters political, such as the

effects of extensive colonization on home politics, or the na-

ture of colonial government. In a word, the colonizers of 1830

framed a theory.

It was not in this respect only that they differed from the rest

of the community and so formed a party or school: they had

faith in the goodness of their purpose. But they were rather a

party than a mere school: for it happened that those of them

who had chiefly framed the new theory, were constitutionally

disposed rather to action than to preaching and teaching.

Accordingly, when they found that they could make no im-

pression on the public by argument, they set about endeav-

ouring to get their theory submitted to the test of experiment.

Their first effort, in 1831, was easily successful. It must be

briefly described, because in the first place there is no more

instructive fact relating to modern colonial government by

England, and secondly because its results intimately belong

to the present state of the subject.

It will be understood at once, by even the reader who has

never thought at all about colonization, that in the business of

settling a new country, the mode in which waste or public

land is disposed of by the government, must necessarily ex-

ercise an all-important influence; an influence similar in im-

portance, for example, to that which the supply of cotton and

coal has upon the manufactures of Lancashire. Down to 1831,

the general practice of the British government had been to

grant land for nothing, and without stint as to quantity: the

new theory proposed, among other changes, to substitute for

this plan, that of uniformly selling the land for a price in ready

money. A change therefore was proposed, which would be a

perfect revolution in the most important function of colonial

government. The colonies, if they had been consulted, would

have earnestly objected to this revolution, as they afterwards

protested against it; the colonial governments and the mem-

bers of the Colonial Oflice as a body greatly disliked it, be-

cause it went to deprive them of patronage and power; the

very few persons who at that time desired this change, were

obscure and feeble: and yet all of a sudden, without inquiry

by Parliament or the Executive government, without a word

of notice to those most concerned, and without observation

from anybody, out came an Imperial decree, by which, in the

principal colonies of England, the plan of selling waste land

was completely substituted for that of free grants. At the same

time, another leading suggestion of the Colonization Society

was adopted by the government: as respects New South Wales

and Van Diemen’s Land, it was further enacted, that the pur-

chase-money of the waste land should be used as an emigra-

tion fund in defraying the cost of the passage pf labouring

persons to the colonies. Apparently, effect was about to be

given to the whole economical theory of the Society, apart

from the subject of government.

But the authors of that theory attached the highest impor-

tance to the subject of government, believing that the best

economical arrangements would not work well without pro-

visions for a good political government of the colonists. Now,

in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, to which alone

the new economical theory was, even in form, completely

applied, the system of government was the very reverse of

what we deemed the best, being in the first place completely

arbitrary, and secondly as distant as, in this world of twenty-

four thousand miles in circumference, a government can pos-

sibly be from its subjects. Those settlements, moreover, had

been planted with convicts, a mode of colonization which the

theorists of 1830 regarded with the same abhorrence as all

the world would feel of a proposal from France to pour her

convicts into England or Germany. And lastly, whilst we could

not deny that the new regulations for the disposal of waste

land and the promotion of emigration, were founded on the

principles of our economical theory, we saw very distinctly

that the official method of giving effect to those principles

was really calculated to defeat them, and to prevent them from

obtaining public favour. Instead of being pleased, therefore,

we were much dissatisfied with the awkward workmanship

of Lord Howick and the Colonial Office upon materials which

we believed to deserve more careful and skilful handling.

We hoped indeed to encourage Lord Howick to improve him-

self as a systematic colonizer; and we therefore praised his

awkward attempts; but we also resolved to try and establish a

fresh colony, in which both our economical and political views

should obtain a fair trial. This determination led to the foun-

dation of South Australia. At that time the extensive country

now known by that name, was a nameless desert, about which

nothing was known by the public or the government. Some

information concerning its natural features was with difficulty

acquired by the would-be colonizers, who now formed a plan

for the intended settlement, and at last, by dint of great exer-

tion for a long while, got together a body of people disposed

to embark their fortunes and persons in the adventure. These,

along with the colonizing theorists, were at first encouraged

by the Colonial Office, which afterwards refused their only

request for a charter of organization. This refusal broke up

and scattered the first body of South-Australian colonists;

many of whom, though till then without any turn for politics,

now joined the rebellious Political Unions of the time, whilst

others sailed for the United States, where they have pros-

pered, though they resemble Irish Americans in their feelings

towards England.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

It was clear to us that the part of our South Australian-plan to

which the Colonial Office most objected, was a provision for

bestowing on the colonists a considerable amount of local

self-government. As we could not move an inch without the

sanction of that Office, we now resolved to abandon the po-

litical part of our scheme, in the hope of being enabled to

realize the economical part. The latter part of the scheme was

explained in a book,

the publication of which enabled us to

get together another body of colonists. With these, however,

and their theoretical prompters and guides, the Colonial Of-

fice played as it had done before, and as the angler plays with

the fish on his hook. We were at the last gasp, when the Prin-

cipal Secretary of State was succeeded by another, from whom

we managed, before he had set foot in Downingstreet, to ob-

tain a sufficient promise, that the Colonial Office should not

prevent our measure, which required an act of Parliament,

from passing the two Houses. Somehow or other, therefore,

though not without many a squeak for its life, we got the South-

Australian Bill into the House of Lords. A Prince of the Blood

asked, “Pray, where is this South Australia?” and the Lord

Chancellor, renowned for the surpassing extent and variety

of his knowledge, answered, “Somewhere near Botany Bay.”

It will be supposed, that in an assembly where the exhibition

of such complete indifference to colonial matters was thought

nothing strange, our humble project would not be opposed at

any rate. Nevertheless, an apparently dangerous opposition

met us at the first step. For reasons that will be made plainer

further on, the Colonial Office has always cordially disliked

the interference with their domain, the poaching on their

manor, of the new school of colonizers; and although on this

occasion the promise of their chief, luckily obtained before

they had any opportunity of setting him against us, disabled

them from openly thwarting us, they found means of raising

against us in the House of Lords an active opposition, which

threatened to prove fatal, because, though it was confined to

a few peers, not a single one, except the proposer of the bill,

had any active good will towards our measure. The Minis-

ters, however bound by their colleague’s promise of neutral-

ity, would give us no assistance in either House; and for a

time, the loss of the bill in the House of Lords seemed inevi-

table. In this extremity, one of us thought of endeavouring to

interest the Duke of Wellington in our favour. He assiduously

examined our plan, came to the opinion that “the experiment

ought to be tried,” and then, with a straight-forward earnest-

ness that belongs to his nature, and with a prompt facility for

which his great personal influence accounts, lifted our poor

measure over all obstacles. In order to mark our gratitude to

him, we intended, and told him so, that the metropolis of the

new colony should bear his name; but this intention was shab-

bily frustrated by some whom I abstain from mentioning.

The South-Australian Act, in the opinion of its authors, was

defective in many points, and contained some vicious provi-

sions. In order to get the Bill first through Downing-street,

and then through the House of Commons, we had curtailed it

and added largely to it against our will. We struck out this

provision because it displeased somebody, altered another to

conciliate another person, and inserted a third because it

embodied somebody’s crotchet. Upon the whole, at last, our

plan was so disfigured, that we should have disowned it, if

enough of the original stuff had not remained to let us hope,

that with very good execution, the new principle of coloniza-

tion would come well out of the trial. This, therefore, was

peculiarly one of those cases in which everything depends, as

in cases of political experiment everything must necessarily

depend for a time, upon the suitableness of the executive

hands. The South-Australian Act confided the business of

colonization apart from government to a commission, the

members of which were to be appointed by the Crown; that

is, by the Colonial Office. The commissioners were not to be

paid. It was a grand point, therefore, to find three or four

persons, masters of the theory, willing to undertake the task,

and likely from their personal character to perform it under a

strong sense of honourable responsibility. Such persons were

found, but were not appointed. Instead of four commission-

ers such as Mr. Woolryche Whitmore, Mr. William Hutt, Mr.

Grote, and Mr. Warde Norman, who consented to act, only

one of these gentlemen was appointed; and to him were joined

eight others, few of whom knew or cared anything about the

subject. As a whole, it was a commission composed, begging

their pardon, of ignorant and careless amateurs. I am bound

to add, that for this grievous mistake, the Colonial Office,

then under Lord Aberdeen, was not in the least to blame.

Notwithstanding this grievous mistake, and numerous mis-

takes into which the commissioners fell, the plan worked even

better than its authors now expected. A fine colony of people

was sent out; and for the first time the disposal of waste land,

and the emigration of shipfulls of labourers to the other side

of the world, was managed with something like system and

care. As respects the emigration of poor people to Polynesia,

the first large ship of the South-Australian Commission served

as a model for all the subsequent proceedings of that kind:

and from that day to this, though it was then found difficult to

persuade a shipfull of poor labourers to embark for so distant

a part of the world, there have always been more applicants

of that class for a passage to the antipodes of England, than

funds wherewith to grant their petitions.

It will be understood, however, that the theorists of 1830 were

far from being satisfied. In order to promote attention to the

subject, they obtained, in 1836, an inquiry by a Select Com-

mittee of the House of Commons into their theory of coloni-

zation apart from government. The Report of this Committee

on Colonial Lands and Emigration, (whose labours were most

ably conducted by Mr. Henry George Ward), had a consider-

A View of the Art of Colonization

able effect in spreading a knowledge of the subject. It also

led Lord John Russell, in pursuance of one of its recommen-

dations, to appoint a Commission of Colonial Lands and

Emigration; which, though a mockery of what a commission

bearing that title ought to be, has been of service, through the

recognition by the Crown of the principle, that the disposal

of waste land in the colonies, and the superintendence of

emigration, are functions of government which it requires a

special authority to perform. I shall take an opportunity of

explaining somewhere why this Commission has not realized

the intentions with which we must presume that it was cre-

ated.

One of the members of Mr. Ward’s Committee was Mr. Francis

Baring, then and now M.P. for Thetford. The inquiry induced

him to lead the theorists of 1830 in forming the New Zealand

Association of 1837; and this association founded the com-

pany and the colony, whose battles with the Colonial Office

have since, more than anything else, helped to form the present

state of public opinion upon the subjects of colonization and

the government of dependencies by the Colonial Office. When

the New Zealand controversy began, the efforts of the colo-

nizers of 1830 had been principally directed to matters relat-

ing to their views on colonization apart from government. In

1838, the rebellions in Canada gave them an opportunity of

promoting the realization of some of their opinions on colo-

nial government. One of them was the Chief Secretary in Lord

Durham’s mission; and another took a part in it, which was to

some extent described in a despatch from Lord Durham to

Lord Glenelg, since “mislaid” by the Colonial Office. Hence,

the much agitated question of “responsible government for

colonies,” with which even the British public was for a time

made almost familiar by Lord Durham’s Report and other

writings of a similar tenour. Amongst these, one of the most

efficient was a newspaper entitled the Colonial Gazette, which

was established, and was for some years carried on, by mem-

bers of the Colonization Society of 1830. This journal exer-

cised an influence very much greater than its circulation. In

consequence of the smallness of the demand for such a pub-

lication in the mother-country, and the very small sale for it

in the colonies, because the local newspapers, one and all,

reprinted its contents, it could not be carried on without a

loss of money, and was finally abandoned on that account:

but whilst it lasted, it may be said to have had more influence

than the Colonial Office on the government of Canada: it pro-

duced important changes of opinion in the West Indies upon

both economical and political questions: it originated in many

colonies an ardent longing for self-government: above all, it

continually applied a stimulating goad to the sluggish Colo-

nial Office, which it thus urged into the performance of some

good, besides stripping and exposing it to the public gaze.

Leading members of the Colonial Office never miss an op-

portunity of saying, that every labour of the new school of

colonizers has proved a failure. There is a great deal of truth

in the assertion; but it is not quite true. A comparison of fail-

ure and success would exhibit a large balance of failure; but

the success is not quite despicable. Two important colonies—

South Australia and New Zealand—have been founded by

the hands of the theorists of 1830. The prosperity of a third,

Port Philip or Australia Felix, has been wholly derived from

a realization, however defective, of their economical theory.

The sale of waste land in the Southern colonies has produced

about three millions of money, which used, though but in part,

as an emigration fund, have carried out to that part of the

world a large proportion of its present white population ex-

clusive of convicts. The great evil of Clergy Reserves in

Canada has been abated. In all the British-American colo-

nies, but especially Canada, the inhabitants have acquired a

great deal more of local government, and of the reality of

free institutions, than they ever possessed before. In the West

Indies, the causes of economical stagnation and ruin, as well

as of want of government and of political disturbance, have

been made familiar to the colonists. Exertions, commenced

by Archbishop Whately, for the purpose of getting convict

colonization abolished, were vigorously followed up for a

time by members of the new school of colonizers, led by Sir

William Molesworth, and have never been entirely relaxed:

and those labours have at least had the effect of shaking the

abomination, by forcing the Colonial Office to make change

after change in it; changes which only more fully show the

impossibility of reforming it; the absolute necessity of abol-

ishing it with a view to prosperous colonization in the South.

Lastly, our success has been considerable in a matter which,

on account of its novelty and importance, deserves separate

consideration. When the theorists of 1830 had been some time

engaged in the business of colonization, they discovered, and

some of them became deeply convinced, that it cannot be

done satisfactorily, still less as well as possible, without ample

provisions of a religious nature. I shall have to dwell at length

on this point hereafter. Here it is only needful to state, that we

managed to give some effect to our opinions by proceedings

which I will briefly describe.

Episcopacy is surely an essential attribute of the Church of

England. Until the Association was formed which made New

Zealand a British colony, nobody had proposed to establish

bishoprics in new settlements: it was only in old colonies,

which had made considerable progress in population, and in

which most of the settlers had become Dissenters either from

the Church of England or from all religion, that bishops had

hitherto been appointed. We asked for a bishop for the first

settlement in New Zealand. Everybody laughed at us. We

could obtain hardly any serious attention to our proposal. The

Colonial Office, which hated our whole proceedings, sneered

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

at the episcopal scheme, and at us for making it, all the more

openly because the public, so far as the public thought at all

about the matter, supported the gentlemen of Downing-street

in treating us as visionary enthusiasts. On account of our

scheme of a bishopric, the newspapers turned us into ridi-

cule; public men of mark refused us their support generally;

and even leading members of the Society for the Propagation

of the Gospel, with the Bishop of London at their head, thought

our proposal absurdly impracticable. We persevered, how-

ever. At length one of us, Dr. Hinds, the present Dean of

Carlisle, converted the late Archbishop of Canterbury to our

view. By degrees the suggestion made way in high quarters,

and became the parent of the bishoprics of Tasmania, South

Australia, South Africa, Australia Felix, &c., &c. I hear you

say, Well and what has come of it as respects the improve-

ment of colonization? Little or nothing certainly as yet: but I

think that a foundation of much good has been laid. When I

shall come to the arguments by which we recommended epis-

copacy for infant settlements, you will perceive why colo-

nization has not yet been much improved by the institution of

these bishoprics. But these arguments had a considerable ef-

fect on opinion in this country. We took care to sow them

about in all directions, with a view to that result, as well as to

our immediate object. They took strong root in many quar-

ters. I have watched the growth of the plants: the harvest time

is not yet come: but even at present there is a promising crop

in the new and lively, though too vague interest in the subject

of colonization, which is now taken by the clergy of the Church

of England, and by laymen who peculiarly sympathize with

them. It is amongst religious churchmen, both lay and cleri-

cal, that this novel interest is most felt. This is a very impor-

tant improvement in the state of opinion on the subject of

colonization: how and why important, will be made plain when

I shall come to the arguments for religious provisions in the

very founding of colonies, in the spread of which the change

of opinion took its origin.

But it was not by addressing himself to English churchmen

only, that the author of the New Zealand bishopric persuaded

men of various religious denominations to assist him in com-

pelling the Colonial Office to adopt the principle of episco-

pacy for the Church of England in new settlements: by gen-

eral arguments in favour of religious provisions for colonists

of whatever denomination, he induced not only Roman Catho-

lics, Scotch Presbyterians, and Dissenters, but also men of

the world who had formerly ignored the vast influence of re-

ligion in politics, and who at first pooh-poohed his sugges-

tions, to co-operate with English churchmen in the endeav-

our to make religious provisions for every body a part of the

business of colonization. Accordingly, as a colonizing body,

composed, like the legislature, of people differing in creed,

we determined to assist all denominations of settlers alike,

with respect to religious provisions. We have assisted Roman

Catholics according to their numbers, and the Church of Scot-

land on the same principle. In founding the settlement of

Otago, we have intimately co-operated with the General As-

sembly of the Free Church of Scotland, for whose emigrating

members this spot has been adapted by special provisions for

religion and education according to their tenets; and we are

co-operating with the Canterbury Association, the names of

whose members I inclose.

Amongst us, thus aiding English

bishops to found a Church-ofEngland settlement, there is an

eminent and very religious Jew: which may not surprise you

on learning, that he did not join us till our principle of strict

equality as respects religious provisions for all sorts of colo-

nists, had been manifested to his people by a circumstance,

which, though trifling in itself, is a good illustration of the

principle. Among the first emigrants to New Zealand were

some Jews, who asked us “with bated breath and whispering

humbleness,” if a priest authorized to kill animals for meat

according to Jewish custom, could have accommodation in

their ship. We treated their inquiry as a request, and granted it

with alacrity, taking care besides that every arrangement

should be made to satisfy their religious scruples. The Jews

of England have since done the New Zealand Company’s

settlements more than one service; and if they were an emi-

grating class, many of them would have been attracted thither.

But how powerfully religious provisions for emigrants tend

to promote colonization, is a question into which I must not

enter here. In this place, I will only say further, that our small

doings in this matter are an example which a really coloniz-

ing legislature would not despise.

On the other hand, it must be admitted, that not one of the

objects of the theorists of 1830 has been fully accomplished.

South Australia, as an experiment of their economical theory,

has rather failed than succeeded: the experiment did not at-

tain the success of being fairly tried. In New South Wales, the

experiment, as such, has been little more than a makebelieve,

whilst it has proved very injurious to the colonists in another

point of view. New Zealand altogether, as respects both colo-

nization and government, is a miserable mess. There is no

part of the colonial empire of Britain, no portion of the colo-

nizing proceedings of the mother-country apart from govern-

ment, still less any instance of colonial government, which

the theorists of 1830 can regard without disappointment and

regret. The only aspect of the subject that is agreeable to them,

is the present state of opinion both at home and in the colo-

nies. Everywhere in the British Empire, they find ideas about

colonization prevailing, and a lively interest in it, which twenty

years ago were exclusively their own; and when they trace

the birth and progress of these opinions to their own exer-

tions, they almost forget the painful disappointments which

they have suffered, in the hope that the time is now not dis-

tant when their conceptions may at length be realized.

A View of the Art of Colonization

It would be affectation to pretend, that in the labours of the

theorists of 1830, I have had any but the principal share. Whilst

thus claiming my own for the first time, I long to dwell on the

more brilliant efforts, and the public-spirited sacrifices of time,

money, and comfort, which others have made in the endeav-

our to colonize in spite of the Colonial Office: above all, I

would speak of the generous sympathy and aid, by which

many have laid me under deep personal obligation: but these

topics alone would fill a long letter, and I have no right to

intrude them on you. I will therefore pass on, after saying,

however, that by far the heaviest of my debts of gratitude is

due to the proprietor and editor of The Spectator newspaper.

You have not to learn what the influence of that journal has

been during its disinterested labours of near twenty years in

the cause of colonial reform and systematic colonization.

I however entirely agree with you, that the present ideas about

colonization consist for the most part of mere aspiration; of

opinions concerning aims or objects, with but little regard to

the means of accomplishment. Opinion of the most enlight-

ened and respectable order in the mother-country knows what

it thinks ought to be, wishes for large and definite results,

dislikes and despises what has been and what is, but is still in

the dark with respect to the mode of setting about the realiza-

tion of its wishes. In the colonies, ideas with respect to means

are somewhat better defined; for there, opinion generally longs

for a permanent supply of labour as the indispensable means

of economical prosperity, and for local self-government as

the sine quâ non of a tolerable colonial existence. Whether

the colonists are right in these views, is a point upon which

opinion at home is in a state not merely of doubt, but of what

the late Mr. Thomas Peregrine Courtenay called, being like a

sheet of white paper. It is to opinion at home, therefore, that

you must address yourself in Parliament.

In the endeavour to assist you, it will not be in my power to

do more than repeat what others as well as myself, theorists

of 1830, or subsequent converts to our opinions, have already

written or spoken. The exposition of our theory (let me call it

so once more) is scattered about in a great variety of publica-

tions. These are books, blue-books, pamphlets, reports of

speeches in Parliament and elsewhere, and many newspapers

published in different places. But most of them are forgotten,

as you have forgotten Charles Buller’s speech; still more are

out of print, and difficult of access. My object, therefore, will

be to collect these dispersed thoughts, and lay them before

you with such corrections and additions as the most recent

experience has suggested. Your remarks from time to time,

especially with the aid of Mr. Mothercountry’s objections and

great information, will probably suggest other improvements,

besides correcting errors. The order of our inquiry remains to

be pointed out by you.

Letter X.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Divides the Subject into Four Main Parts,

and Indicates the Order of Inquiry.

I am now sufficiently interested at least, to have a conception

of the order in which I should like our investigation to pro-

ceed. In describing it, I must recur to thoughts and expres-

sions which you have adopted from my previous letters.

It strikes me that the distinction which terms colonization an

art rather than a science, is not pedantic, but highly useful.

Colonization, as I have said before, is something to be done,

not merely something to be known; and a knowledge of it

consists of knowing how to do something. In colonization, as

in watchmaking or navigation, the doing has certain results

in view. In order to learn how these objects may be best se-

cured, they must be clearly ascertained before the means of

securing them are considered: for, of course, when there is

something to be done, the character of the means depends

altogether on the character of the objects. Our first topic, there-

fore, is the objects of a systematic colonization. I wish to

learn what you think our colonization ought to be, as respects

the objects of the mother-country.

This question being disposed of, I think that we should do

well to compare our aspirations with the present state of things.

Our second step, therefore, should be to examine coloniza-

tion as it is.

Since we are sure to be dissatisfied with colonization as it is,

and since, in order to improve it, a knowledge of the causes

of its actual state is indispensable, but more especially of the

causes of what is most objectionable in it, I would propose

that our third step should be to examine colonization with a

view of determining why it is what it is.

This done, we shall be in a condition to work with effect at

the more practical, I would call it, the planning part of our

task, by considering colonization for the purpose of learning

how to make it what it ought to be.

To recapitulate: we should divide colonization, as a subject

of inquiry, into four parts.

1. What it ought to be, as respects the objects of the mother-

country.

2. What it is; or the points in which our colonization differs

from what it ought to be.

3. Why it is what it is; or the causes of the above difference.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

4. How to make it what it ought to be; or the means of attain-

ing the desired objects.

Letter XI.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Proposes a Further Division of the Sub-

ject, and Settles the Order of Inquiry.

I cordially adopt the suggested division of our subject, but

would propose that we divide it further into two distinct parts,

into which, indeed, the nature of things has divided it. This

separation, however clear to the mind, cannot be described in

a sentence, nor neatly at all by words, in consequence of the

unfortunate title given to Political Economy.

The politics of a colony—that is, all things relating to colo-

nial government as there is government in an old country—

are totally distinct from the economy of a colony—that is, all

things relating only to immigration and the disposal and settle-

ment of waste land— which are matters pertaining to colo-

nies. This marked separation in fact would I think be usefully

observed in dealing with each of your four divisions, though

less completely with regard to some of them than to others. I

would suggest, therefore, that in treating of what British colo-

nization ought to be, what it is, why it is what it is, and how to

make it what it ought to be, we more or less separate consid-

erations relating to politics from those relating to economy.

This separation might be the least complete in the first branch

of the subject; because, though the objects of the mother-

country in colonization are both economical and political,

the two classes are so far blended in fact, and dependent on

each other, that they may be examined at the same time with-

out confusion, but with a due regard to the difference be-

tween them. In the other three divisions, which relate almost

exclusively to the colonies, and in which we have to deal

with the unaccustomed elements of waste land, immigration,

and settlement, the separation between economy and politics

should be more complete, though not equally so as to all of

them. The most convenient course, as it strikes me, would be,

after entirely disposing of the objects, to examine coloniza-

tion as it is both economically and politically. Under this head

would come all the impediments to a colonization sufficient

for the objects of the mother-country. I would then proceed

to the causes of the political impediments, and go on to the

means of removing them by a reform of colonial government.

Lastly, the causes of economical impediments should be con-

sidered, with a view to their removal by means of a plan of

colonization apart from government, which would conclude

our work.

If you do not write objecting to this arrangement, I shall sup-

pose that you approve of it, and shall proceed at once to the

objects of colonization.

Letter XII.

From the Colonist.

Different Objects of Colonization for Different Parts of

the United Kingdom. —— Want of Room for All Classes

a Circumstance by Which Great Britain Is Distinguished

from Other Countries. —— Competition Amongst the

Labouring Class a Momentous Question. —— Influence

of Economical Circumstances in Political Revolutions.

In order to determine the objects of this United Kingdom in

promoting colonization, it seems necessary to mark the dif-

ferent circumstances of different parts of the country. The

economical and political circumstances of Ireland on the one

hand, are so different from those of Great Britain on the other,

that like effects might not be produced in both countries by

the going forth of people and capital to plant or extend colo-

nies; and if so, colonization would be undertaken with differ-

ent objects for Ireland from those which would be had in view

for England and Scotland. For example, it is certain that Ire-

land cannot spare any capital, although in Great Britain, on

the contrary, capital sometimes accumulates so far beyond

the room for productive investment, that a great mass of capital

is wasted, both at home and abroad, in all sorts of unproduc-

tive enterprises. For Great Britair accordingly, but not for

Ireland, it may be an object of colonization to provide a pro-

ductive field of employment for superabundant capital. This

example will suffice to explain why I propose to consider

how Great Britain might be affected by colonization, sepa-

rately from the question of how Ireland might be affected by

it.

There is a general circumstance, comprising many particu-

lars, by which Great Britain is at present distinguished from

all other countries. That circumstance may be termed a want

of room for people of all classes. The peculiarity consists,

not in mere want of room, for that is felt by some classes in

old countries generally, but in the extension of the want to all

classes. In Ireland there is a want of room for the poor, but

plenty of room for capitalists if they could be got to go or to

grow there: in France there is a remarkable want of room for

the literary class, though not for capitalists, who would be far

more numerous without hurtful crowding if there were more

security against revolutions: in Russia, where trade is despised

by the nobility, there is a great want of room for cadets of that

class; whilst if capital were more abundant, there would be

plenty of room for. more people of the labouring class, or

else waste land would not abound, and slavery would not

continue: but in Great Britain all classes suffer from the want

of room; the labourers, the small and great capitalists, the

professional classes, and even the landed and monied aris-

tocracy, who are yet more puzzled than other people to know

what to do with their younger sons and their daughters.

A View of the Art of Colonization

By a want of room, I mean a want of the means of a comfort-

able subsistence according to the respective standards of liv-

ing established amongst the classes, and obviously arising

from the competition of the members of each class with one

another. Whatever the fund for the maintenance of any of the

classes, it is divided amongst too many people; there are too

many competitors for a limited fund of enjoyment. It may be

said that the fund is too small, not the competitors too many;

but, take it either way, whether we say that the competitors

are too many or the fund is too small, there is a want of room.

At all events, there are too many competitors in proportion to

the fund; there is actually a want of room; and the immediate

cause of it is over-crowding.

The hurtful competition of labourers with each other is an

old story amongst political thinkers; that of the other classes

had not been noticed till it was pointed out by the colonizing

theorists of 1830. Indeed it was then a new circumstance in

our political economy, having grown up from 1815, with the

cessation of war, which promoted a rapid increase of capital;

with the improvement and spread of education, which aug-

mented the numbers of the educated classes; and with the

diminution of public expenditure, which cut down the fund

for the maintenance of the children of the gentry. Since 1830,

this competition of capital with capital, of education with edu-

cation, and of placehunting with place-hunting, has been con-

tinually on the increase. It has at length, along with the com-

petition of labour with labour, produced a state of things which

requires some notice in detail.

I am not going to harp upon the well-worn string of the

labourers’ competition: the topic is too stale and familiar. But

some features of this competition are peculiar to Great Brit-

ain, and others are new even there. These I will briefly no-

tice.

In Great Britain, far more than in any other part of the world,

the labourers’ competition is a momentous question: and the

reason for this is, that in consequence, partly of the growth of

manufacturers, and partly of the decrease of small propri-

etorship in land and small land-holdings amongst tenants, there

is now in Great Britain a larger proportion of labourers for

hire—of people whose subsistence depends wholly on

wages—than in any other part of the world: in Great Britain,

though nowhere else, I rather think, labourers for hire do con-

stitute the bulk of the people.

In the next place, the bulk of the people in this country has

been taught to read. It is the fashion to praise this so-called

education, and to insist that all sorts of good will grow out of

it. I hope so: I think so: but I must be allowed to add that the

good has hardly yet begun to grow. Thus far, the education of

the common people has not improved their lot; it has only

made them discontented with it. The present fruits of popular

education in this country are chartism and socialism.

There is a tradesman in the Strand, who was a special con-

stable on the 10th of last April, and who has no doubt that

chartism and socialism were put down for ever on that day. I

mention him as an instructive “foolometer:” his opinion is

common enough amongst very dull people of the middle and

highest classes. Others know that chartism and socialism were

not rampant on that day, but only a pretence of chartist agita-

tion by a few scatter-brained English busy-bodies, and some

Milesian-Irish settlers in Liverpool, Manchester, and Lon-

don. Chartism, and still more socialism, are not yet ripe: but

they are growing apace: and they present, I think, some fear-

ful dangers in the prospect.

I look upon chartism and socialism as representatives of dis-

content. The honest chartists and socialists (not meaning

thereby any of the rogues who trade in the discontent of the

working class) are people of the working class, who have got

more education than the rest. All those of the working class

who are the best educated—that is, who know most—who in

stolid ignorance least resemble the bulk of the peasantry—

are not indeed chartists and socialists; but chartists and so-

cialists are mainly composed of that class; and I cannot help

expecting that as education spreads—as the dullest of the

common people become more knowing—chartism and so-

cialism will spread likewise, and in the same proportion. If

so, in the end, chartism and socialism will be able to disturb

the peace of this country. I do not pretend that either is likely

to triumph for a long while yet: ages hence perhaps, both will

have triumphed; chartism first, then some kind of socialism:

but it seems plain to my apprehension, that with the continu-

ance of discontent and the spread of education amongst the

common people, chartism and socialism will have many a

struggle for the mastery over a restricted franchise and pri-

vate property: and in these struggles I perceive immense dan-

ger for everybody.

Political disturbance is the form in which these struggles would

appear. Now, I say that this country is less capable than any

other in the world is, or ever was, of undergoing great politi-

cal disturbance without mortal injury. The nature of the in-

jury and the probability of its occurrence depend upon cer-

tain peculiarities in our condition.

There is not, and probably never was, a country in which

credit played so important a part as it does now in Great Brit-

ain. In this country alone among the more populous nations,

have barter and payment of wages in kind entirely ceased.

All transactions are carried on by money of one sort or other.

Of the money, the currency of which does not depend upon

credit—that is, the precious metals, which owe none of their

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

value to credit—there does not and cannot exist more than

enough for carrying on a very small proportion of the trans-

actions, by means of which the whole nation is fed and soci-

ety held together. The rest of the money, composed of bank-

notes, bills of exchange, book-debts, credits, and all kinds of

securities or engagements to pay something, owes its cur-

rency entirely to credit. Overturn, or only shake the belief,

that the promises will be kept, and you thoroughly destroy

the value of this credit money. Now the belief, that the prom-

ises to pay, which constitute the great bulk of our money, will

be kept, depends altogether on the preservation of political

order; if there were political disturbance enough to cause a

general and serious doubt of the steady execution of the laws,

credit would cease: and if credit ceased in this country, what

would happen?

Bank-notes would not pass; sovereigns would be hoarded;

there would be no buying and selling. Such a state of things

could not last long anywhere. If it lasted in a country like

France, or Ireland, or one of the United States of America,

where the bulk of the people live upon the land and have

food under their hands, means might be found to feed the

town population. In such a case, the town population might

be fed by the government, because it bears so small a propor-

tion to the rural population. But in Great Britain the rural

population, which can always feed itself in case of extremity,

bears a small proportion to the town population: in Great

Britain so large a majority of the people live in towns, and

are totally dependent on credit for their daily bread, that po-

litical disorders which should destroy credit, would inevita-

bly occasion famine in our towns. If credit ceased, the town

markets would be bare of food; and we should have great

masses of people in a state of hunger and starvation. This

would surely increase the political disturbance. Whatever

course events might then take, there would be a high prob-

ability, to say the least, of the ruin of our country.

There is a great gap in the history of the French Revolution,

which may perhaps be yet filled up. Throughout that history

one meets with indications of an all-important influence on

events arising from purely economical circumstances, and

especially from those relating to the supply of food in towns.

One sees, for example, that the bloody fury of the reign of

terror may have been a lunacy of the populace occasioned by

the maddening horrors of famine, and caught or simulated by

the demagogues. But these incidental glimpses of the truth

are very unsatisfactory. We want a distinct and full account

of the political economy of the French Revolution. To France

just now it would be a book of inestimable value: I cannot

help thinking that it would bring the minds of our statesmen

to reflect on national dangers, which they now seldom heed

because the ugly prospect is too indistinct, the danger too far

off, to be remembered except under the pressure of immedi-

ate uneasiness occasioned by some passing aspect of chartism

and socialism. Without the instruction of such a history, how-

ever, we may surely see enough in this country for arriving at

these two conclusions; that the singular state of our political

economy renders us peculiarly liable to injury from merely

political disturbance; and that it is well worth while to try

colonization, or anything that affords a chance of reducing

that competition amongst the working classes which is the

cause of their political discontent. If other motives are re-

quired for inducing us to adopt some practical solution of the

“condition-ofEngland question,” they are plentifully furnished

by the present state of Europe, and in particular by the infec-

tious character of the communist and socialist agitation in

France and Germany.

Whether colonization would have the desired effect, can only

be finally determined by an attempt to make it do so: but the

mere attempt, if set about in the spirit that actuates such men

as Lord Ashley, and that formed the unceasing public motive

of the late Mr. Walter, would go a long way towards soften-

ing the hearts of the common people, and inducing them to

bear their lot with patience. Do you doubt that Mr. Walter’s

battling for the rights of paupers, and Lord Ashley’s agitation

of the Ten Hours factory question, had a conservative effect

upon the popular mind? I feel as sure of it, as that the Parlia-

mentary-Fare law and Rowland Hill’s Penny Postage had far

more to do with keeping the peace of the country on the 10th

of April last, than all Sir George Grey’s special constables,

and all the Duke of Wellington’s excellent precautions. If the

classes who alone wield political power according to law,

cannot always serve the people by legislation, they can at

least show that they would if they could: and the oftener they

do this, the more, we may rely upon it, the common people

will take the will for the deed,

Letter XIII.

From the Colonist.

Competition for Room in the Ranks above the Labouring

Class. — the Anxious Classes. — Women in the Anx-

ious Classes. — Hoarding, Speculation, Waste, and the

Spirit of the Gambles.

The competition of the other classes, apart from that of the

labourers, is as obvious as theirs, and, like the large propor-

tion which labourers for hire bear to the other classes, as pe-

culiar to the condition of Great Britain. If it is not so obvi-

ously dangerous, we may yet believe that it is an element of

political danger: for it is a competition even more distressing

to behold than that of the labourers, because the other classes

feel more acutely than the common people, the uneasiness

and anxiety arising from excessive competition. Thus we have

considerable numbers capable of exerting the power which

knowledge gives, who are dissatisfied with their lot, and prone

to attribute its evils to the actual order of things political. It

A View of the Art of Colonization

was this sort of discontent that induced the middle classes to

join heartily in the agitation for the Reform Bill: a like dis-

content amongst the section of them who live in large towns,

formed the Anti-Corn-Law League, and would have led to

most dangerous political agitation if Sir Robert Peel’s practi-

cal conservatism had not been there to avert it: and, notwith-

standing the present calm in our politics, occasioned in some

measure by exhaustion, and the breaking up of parties after

the Corn-Law struggle, though probably more by late events

in Europe, which naturally indispose our middle classes to

political agitation, there are symptoms of restlessness and a

vague longing for change, which indicate that another storm

may not be very distant. It is true that agitation raised by the

middle class alone, however it carried along with it men of

the highest class actuated by motives of party rivalry and per-

sonal ambition (as always happens when agitation is seen to

be real), would only be dangerous if it did not accomplish its

object: it is a kind of agitation that may be bought off by

concessions: but on the other hand, concessions as such, only

whet the appetite for more; the tendency of all our conces-

sions is towards democracy; and there is always a risk that

concession to middle-class agitation may not be made in time

to prevent the middle and the working classes from combin-

ing in a greater agitation, which, in the present state of this

country, might easily prove a revolution. But there is a less

selfish point of view than that of political conservatism, in

which competition in the classes above the common people

has lately obtained the notice of conservative statesmen. The

misery and vice of the bulk of the people, as produced by this

competition with each other, is a stale topic, by dwelling on

which in the House of Commons you might only weary your

audience: but a fervent sympathy would attend you there and

“out of doors” if you painted a true picture of the misery and

corruption of the other classes as arising from excessive com-

petition. What class does this competition not affect pain-

fully and corruptingly? One only; those alone who are in the

actual enjoyment of incomes derived from property and equal

to their reasonable wants. If the income is not derived from

property transmissible after death, there is extreme anxiety

for the future welfare of children: and, in most cases, how-

ever large the transmissible property may be, the custom of

primogeniture by means of settlement and will, places the

daughters and younger sons amongst the uneasy class. Speak-

ing generally, then, the class which alone does not suffer from

competition, is a very small one. The others are always suf-

fering from it in a variety of forms, as great as the variety of

their positions in the community and modes of subsistence.

In every kind of trade, from the banker’s to the costermonger’s,

the complaint is that there are too many dealers: but in truth

there is too much capital, as is manifested in the banker’s

trade by the low rate of interest occasioned by the competi-

tion of capital with capital in the money market. In the pro-

fessions, one and all, the same competition prevails, but mani-

fested here by the excess of qualified numbers snatching the

bread out of each others’ mouths. All trades and professions

being full to overflowing, the risk of entering either career is

very great; and thus the competition for employment in the

public service, where there is no risk after gaining the object,

is even more severe than in commerce, law, and physic. But

all this relates only to one sex. With regard to the other, the

mention of one fact will suffice for that mere indication of

the symptoms of excessive competition in all ranks of the

middle class, which alone I pretend to submit to you. Assur-

edly there is not in the world a community, in which the pro-

portion of women past the marriageable age, but condemned

to forego the joys of marriage and maternity, is as large as in

this country at this time. Was there ever a country in which

grown-up unmarried women were as numerous in proportion

to the married? In this respect, Great Britain differs from all

other countries at all times, and, surpassing those countries in

which the institution of nunneries has most flourished, is the

greatest and the saddest convent that the world has seen. I

say nothing of the monastic life of the unmarried men, who,

if there were as much room here as in America, would be the

husbands of our countless miserable nuns. The unhappiness!

the vice! These topics, you will excuse me for saying, would

be best brought before, the House of Commons by Lord

Ashley, who, besides, is in spirit a zealous friend of coloniza-

tion.

With regard to the competition of capital with capital, I would

only explain further, that it appears to be the immediate cause

of all the other competitions. Our power of increasing capital

seems to be unlimited. If the continually increasing capital of

Great Britain could be continually invested so as to yield high

profits, the labourers’ competition would cease, because there

would be ample employment at good wages for the whole

class. Trade of every kind would present an unlimited field

of employment for classes above the common people; the

professional field of employment would be equally large in

proportion to the cultivators; and in all ranks, neither daugh-

ters nor younger sons would be more in excess than the el-

dest sons of men of assured fortune are at present. The one

thing needful for all society is more room for the profitable

employment of capital: it is in the excess of capital above the

means of profitable investment, that this country differs inju-

riously from the United States. Do you adopt this proposi-

tion? if not, you will not go along with me in deeming coloni-

zation a suitable remedy for our social ills. So anxious am I

for our agreement on this point, that I will trouble you with

one more illustration of the superabundance of capital in Great

Britain.

I allude to the necessity in this country of an occasional de-

struction of capital on the grandest scale. Perhaps if a less

energetic people had too much capital, they would waste a

little of it continually, so as to keep down the amount without

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

fully exhibiting the destruction; but this is not our mode of

proceeding. The practice with us seems to be to hoard up

capital till we know not what to do with it, and then to throw

it away as rapidly as possible till the quantity for use is brought

to a level with the field of investment. Thus one observes for

a time a general care and prudence in the making of invest-

ments: mere speculation is almost unknown: everybody that

saves, saves now. Presently, a decreasing rate of interest on

good securities shows that a want of room for capital is grow-

ing; and the least prudent turn an eye to unsafe securities which

yield a higher return: but the hoarding goes on. At length,

interest on good securities is so low, or so nearly reduced to

nothing, that the annoyance of risking to lose becomes less

than that of the certainty of not gaining: and all the world,

everybody being afraid lest his neighbour should get before

him, rushes headlong into speculation. Capital without end is

thrown into operations from which large returns are expected,

but which turn out more or less ruinous: a great amount of

capital has disappeared. The ruin and misery thus brought

upon individuals frighten the whole body of capitalists: and

now another set of people are ruined by the difficulty or im-

possibility of obtaining capital for safe undertakings. By de-

grees the panic subsides; steady hoarding goes on again; and

after a while the same process is repeated.

The alternations of hoarding, wasting, and panic, are full of

evils of various kinds. The misery which they occasion by

the breaking down of fortunes, adds to the number of needy

or desperate people, not ignorant populace, whose position

could not be made worse, and might be improved by a revo-

lutionary state of things. A ruined man is a dangerous citizen;

and I suspect that there are at all times in this country more

people who have been ruined than in any other country. Dur-

ing the time of speculation indeed, some gain; those who are

fortunate or sharp enough to “get out” of bad speculations

before their badness is generally known. These gain suddenly

and largely: they are, for the most part, gamblers for life. Their

success is an example which induces others to become gam-

blers when the speculation-time comes round again. Indeed,

daring the time of speculation most people are gamblers. I

know of nothing for which these violent alternations of “pros-

perity” and “distress,” of speculation and panic, are more to

be regretted than for their effect in nurturing the spirit of the

gambler. Ever since capital began to be superabundant in

England, the spirit of the gambler has been growing amongst

our commercial and manufacturing classes. The old-fash-

ioned, steady, plodding, prudent, and honourable merchant

or manufacturer has become a rare exception from the gen-

eral rule: speaking generally, our men of business of all ranks

and kinds are, in comparison with their predecessors of the

last century, unsteady, in haste to be rich, fearless of risk,

sharp or ready to take advantage of all opportunities, rather

than signally honest and true. A similar change has doubtless

taken place in America, but from totally different causes, to

be noticed hereafter. There, the general standard of honour

and honesty has been lowered during this century, and espe-

cially within the last thirty years: here, on the contrary, it seems

higher than ever. Out of business, all sorts of people are more

strict than their grandfathers : it is in the various ranks of

business only, that the standard of right conduct has sunk. I

can find no cause for the change but the spread of the spirit of

gambling and unscrupulousness, produced by the excessive

competition of capital with capital.

Letter XIV.

From the Colonist.

The Peculiar Characteristic of Colonies Is Plenty of

Room for All Classes; but Wages and Profits Are Occa-

sionally Reduced by Gluts of Labour and Capital; and

Whilst Colonial Prosperity is Always Dependent on Good

Government, it Only Attains the Maximum in Colonies

Peopled by the Energetic Anglo-Saxon Race.

Whilst it is the peculiar characteristic of Great Britain to ex-

hibit a want of room for all classes, it is that of colonies or

new countries to exhibit plenty of room. In colonies, the field

of production is unlimited; and the use of it may be enlarged

faster than capital and population can possibly increase. In

colonies, therefore, the greatest increase of capital and people

occasions no mischievous competition. Both profits and wages

are always at the maximum. And this happens not only in

spite of the greatest increase of capital and people in the

colony, but also in spite of a further increase by means of the

importation of capital and people. Do what we may in colo-

nies, we cannot overcrowd the field of employment for capi-

tal and labour. But this proposition must be qualified. There

may be a temporary excess of capital and people in a colony;

and this sometimes happens in small colonies. It happens when

a sudden importation of capital, exceeding the actual supply

of labour, or of labour exceeding the supply of capital, dis-

turbs the ordinary state of things. In some of the newest, and

therefore smallest colonies, we have witnessed at times such

a redundancy of capital in proportion to labour, that wages

rose to an enormous pitch; the labourers got nearly all, or all,

the capital of their employers, and spent a good deal of it in

drinking stuff called port wine and champagne. It was not

unusual at Adelaide in South Australia, and Port Philip in

Australia Felix, for half a dozen common labourers to leave

their work, go to a public house, and order a case of wine for

their present drinking. I have known the same thing happen

at Wellington in New Zealand. In these newest colonies, desert

spots are pointed out where a public house once stood, and

where now nothing remains but a hillock of broken glass, the

debris of bottles of porter, ale, and wine imported from En-

gland, and sold to these common labourers at the rate of 2s.

per bottle for the ale and porter, and 5s., 6s., and 7s. for the

wine. On the other hand, in these newest colonies, a sudden

A View of the Art of Colonization

importation of labour exceeding the demand for labour—that

is, the supply of capital —has knocked down wages to a very

low rate, and even occasioned a total want of employment

for some labourers. In all these very new colonies, there has

been what we call here “distress” amongst the labouring class.

But whether as respects labour or capital, these disturbances

of the ordinary state of things do not last. An excessive capi-

tal is soon wasted; an excess of labour is soon remedied by

fresh importations of capital, or by the rapid increase of capi-

tal in the colony. These rare events might be averted by care;

but even if they could not, they would only be rare excep-

tions from the general rule. The general rule is a continual

state of high profits and high wages.

But there is another case of exception from this general rule

which must not be overlooked. In many colonies, and in quite

modern times, neither capital nor labour has always obtained

a high remuneration. Algeria, I believe, is one of them. A list

of them would contain most of the colonies, lately dependen-

cies, of Spain in South America. In the newest English colony,

New Zealand, profits have at times been low, most of the

capitalists for the time being were ruined, and a large propor-

tion of the labourers were thrown out of employment, by

causes altogether independent of any excess of capital in pro-

portion to labour, or of labour in proportion to capital. The

cause of the mischief in such cases, is one that has at all times

prevailed over the greatest portion of the world; it is insecu-

rity of property. If there is not a fair prospect of enjoying the

proper fruits of enterprise and industry, enterprise and indus-

try are feeble: they are paralysed if there is a well-founded

fear of never enjoying their fruits; of reaping instead nothing

but loss and disappointment. Security of property is the in-

dispensable foundation of wealth, let all other circumstances

be what they may. Security of property depends wholly on

government. In order, therefore, that profits and wages should

be constantly high in a colony, it is essential that the colony

should be tolerably well governed; well enough, that is, to

hold out a fair prospect that enterprise and industry will en-

joy their proper fruits. In all the cases that I can call to mind,

of low profits and low wages in a colony, not occasioned by

the disturbing causes above mentioned, the cause has been a

stagnation of enterprise and industry, arising from insecurity

of property; and the insecurity of property arose from defec-

tive or vicious government. I lay it down as an axiom there-

fore, that tolerably good colonial government is an essential

condition of that state of continual high profits and high wages,

which moderately well-governed colonies exhibit.

Provided, then, that care is taken to prevent temporary gluts

of either capital or labour in very young colonies, and pro-

vided also that colonial government is tolerably good, it may

be affirmed with confidence, that neither too much capital

nor too many people can be sent to a colony; for the more of

both the colony receives, the more readily will fresh importa-

tions of capital and people find profitable employment; cer-

tainly without any decrease, perhaps with an increase, in the

rates of profit and wages.

The normal state of high profits and wages, notwithstanding

the utmost importation of capital and people, in colonies where

the proper fruits of enterprize and industry are secured by

good government, arises partly from the manner in which the

produce of colonial industry is distributed; partly from the

great productiveness of industry in a country where only the

most fertile spots need to be cultivated. In colonies, as com-

pared with old countries, the landlord and the tax-gatherer

get but a small share of the produce of industry: the producer,

therefore, whether capitalist or labourer, gets a large share:

indeed, they get nearly the whole: and this whole, as before

observed, is very large in consequence of the great natural

fertility of all the cultivated land, or the small cost of produc-

tion. Both the labourer and the capitalist, therefore, get more

than they consume. The labourer saves, and the capitalist

saves: capital augments rapidly. But as nearly all the colo-

nists are either capitalists or labourers, who have more than

they can consume, the whole colony has more than it can

consume. Colonies, therefore, are, may I say, naturally ex-

porting communities: they have a large produce for exporta-

tion.

Not only have they a large produce for exportation, but that

produce is peculiarly suited for exchange with old countries.

In consequence of the cheapness of land in colonies, the great

majority of the people are owners or occupiers of land; and

their industry is necessarily in a great measure confined to

the producing of what comes immediately from the soil; viz.,

food, and the raw materials of manufacture. In old countries,

on the other hand, where the soil is fully occupied and labour

abundant, it may be said that manufactured goods are their

natural production for export. These are what the colonists

do not produce. The colony produces what the old country

wants; the old country produces what the colony wants. The

old country and the colony, therefore, are, naturally, each

other’s best customers.

But of such great surplus production in a colony as renders

the colony a best-possible customer of its mother-country,

there is an essential condition over and above good govern-

ment. At least, I rather think so. I doubt whether the singular

energy of British industry—that characteristic of our race,

whether here or in America—is not necessary to the produc-

tion of a very large surplus produce under any circumstances

: and looking at the present state of what may be termed the

colonial world, I think that this notion is borne out by facts. I

doubt whether a purely Milesian-Irish or Celtic-French colony,

however well it should be governed, would be anything like

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

as good a customer of its mother-country, as a purely English

or Lowland Scotch colony. Numerous illustrations of this will

occur to you: I would only mention two. The United States of

America, which have been chiefly colonized by English blood,

are the best customers that ever mother-country had; and sec-

ondly, of the whole produce exported from Canada to En-

gland, which purchases the whole export from England to

Canada, nineteen-twentieths, I feel confident, are raised by

the enterprise and energy of British, that is, of Scotch and

English blood, although a good deal more than half the popu-

lation of Canada consists of Celtic-French

and Milesian-Irish

blood. I speak of enterprise and energy only, not of mere labour

for hire; for in Canada, labour, hired and guided by men of

English and Lowland-Scotch extraction, is principally that of

Canadians of French origin and Milesian-Irish emigrants.

Mere labour, without the enterprise and energy required for

rendering a wilderness productive, will not raise a large sur-

plus produce from even the most fertile soils. In the business,

therefore, of creating customers by colonization, Great Brit-

ain, like the older States of the American Union, would cre-

ate better customers than most other countries could.

Letter XV.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Objects to a Great Diminution of the

Wealth and Population of Great Britain, and Complains

of a Patriotic Head-ache.

So far as my judgment is under the influence of reason, I

adopt your conclusions with respect to the point in which this

country and our colonies in general most signally differ: but

from these conclusions an inference is reasonably drawn,

which offends some sentiment or prejudice not under the con-

trol of reason. The inference is, that in order to prevent over-

crowding here, where there is too little room, we must send

our whole superabundance of capital and people to the colo-

nies, where the room for both is at all times unlimited. You

propose, therefore, to diminish very considerably the wealth

and population of Great Britain. The removal of so great a

number of capitalists and labourers would, I dare say, be ben-

eficial to those who were not removed; but the idea of it is

disagreeable to me.

“I do not like thee, Dr. Fell:

The reason why, I cannot tell,

But I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.”

Is it a feeling of national pride, or the vulgar antiMalthusian

prejudice, that leads me, as I am persuaded it would lead the

House of Commons and the public, to prefer the manifest

evils of excessive competition to such a diminution of our

wealth and numbers, as must lower our country in the scale

of nations? Since I have reflected seriously about coloniza-

tion, my wish has been to learn by what means we could bring

about a sufficient emigration of capital and people, to have

the effect of raising profits and wages here: but now that I

perceive what a vast amount of capital and population must

be removed in order to produce this effect, I begin to sympa-

thize with the school of political economists who think that

no country can ever have too much capital, and even with the

very different school who deny that population can be super-

abundant. To think of seeing England less wealthy and popu-

lous makes me uncomfortable. I am out of order this morn-

ing. Can you prescribe a remedy for this sort of head-ache?

Letter XVI.

From the Colonist.

As a Cure for the Statesman’s Patriotic Headache, the

Colonist Prescribes the Doctrine, That Emigration of

Capital and People Has a Tendency to Increase Instead

of Diminishing the Wealth and Population of the Mother-

country.

I hope that it will not prove impossible to reconcile your judg-

ment with your patriotism; but in order to do so we must look

a little more closely into the effects of colonization on the

wealth and population of the mother-country.

Let us begin by defining what we mean by want of room.

Room signifies the fund for the maintenance of all classes

according to their respective standards of living. This fund is

the whole annual produce of the industry of the country. If

the fund were larger, population not increasing and the present

distribution into shares holding good, there would be more

for all classes; more rent, more profit, higher wages, a larger

income for everybody. So, likewise, if the produce remained

as it is, and the number of people in every class were dimin-

ished, everybody would get more. It appears, consequently,

that there are two ways of remedying excessive competition;

either by increasing the whole annual produce of the country,

or diminishing the number of competitors in all classes. A

time may come when people in all classes will have the sense,

which some few classes of people have now (such as the

Quakers), to keep their numbers within their means of com-

fortable subsistence; but at present we must endeavour to in-

crease the whole annual produce. Why does not the whole

annual produce increase fast enough for the object in view?

It does so in America. In this country there is want enough,

capital enough, industry and skill enough: there are all things

except one, which abounds in America, but which cannot be

increased here; and that is land. It is the want of more land

which stops us, and which is at the bottom of the excessive

competition.

It is not a want of more acres, but of more capacity of pro-

duction, whether by means of more acres, more fertility in

the acres we have, or more skill for making those acres yield

more. If we could suddenly make the land of Great Britain

A View of the Art of Colonization

produce double what it does now, with the present outlay of

capital and labour, all classes would be in a state of high pros-

perity until their numbers increased up to the limit of the aug-

mented fund. There has been an unremitting increase of all

classes for centuries, with hardly any importation of food until

lately: it arose from and was wholly dependent upon agricul-

tural improvements, by which the fund of maintenance was

augmented without any acreable increase of the land. But

unfortunately, it seems to be in the nature of agricultural im-

provements to advance very slowly: they never have advanced,

and probably never will advance, faster than the increase of

people in all classes. This being, apparently, a law of nature

in the present state of human impulse and self-restraint, com-

petition is unaffected by an increase of produce arising from

agricultural improvements. Along with the improvements,

there are more people of all classes to consume the greater

produce; and the competition is unaltered. As a remedv for

competition, therefore, it is more land that we want.

But it is not more land here. It is not the land that we want,

but the use of it. The use of land may be got elsewhere. It may

be got by means of exchange. If, without any increase of capi-

tal or people, we could purchase with manufactured goods

twice as much food as we obtain now by various means, ev-

erybody here would enjoy the same prosperity as if our land

were doubled, or as actually happens in America and other

new countries. Every fresh importation of food by means of

exporting more manufactured goods, is an enlargement of

the field of production; is like an. acreable increase of our

land; and has a tendency to abolish and prevent injurious com-

petition. This was the best argument for the repeal of our

Corn-Laws. It was little urged in words, but, if I may use the

expression, much felt instinctively by the sufferers from com-

petition.

The question remains, however, whether the importation of

food can outrun the increase of people. It never has done so

yet; and apparently, it never can do so in the present state of

the world. For to every importation there are two parties; the

buyer and the seller of the thing imported. We could make

goods for exportation much faster than population can possi-

bly increase; but where would be the buyers? We could buy

the food; but who would have it to sell? It is not manufac-

tured goods only that we want to increase rapidly, but also

customers who would buy them with food. Now, in countries

where food can only be increased by agricultural improve-

ments, the increase of food is very slow, like the advance of

those improvements: in such countries, the increase of food

will probably not advance much more quickly than the in-

crease of their own population. A great many such countries,

besides, almost exclude our manufactured goods by means

of hostile tariffs; and not a few of them are just now in a state

of political convulsion which threatens to diminish their food-

exporting, goods-importing power. There remain countries

where food is increased by taking fresh land into cultivation;

new countries; North America and the British colonies. There,

the power of increasing food is practically unlimited; and the

pace at which food is increased in such countries might (as I

shall take pains to show by-and-by) be very much acceler-

ated. It does seem possible, therefore, that Great Britain, with-

out Corn-Laws, might enlarge her whole field of production

more quickly than her population could increase.

But this is an unsolved problem; and time is required for its

solution. For the meanwhile, at all events, there must be a

pressure of all classes upon their means of subsistence; the

field of employment for capital, labour, knowledge, and am-

bition, must be too small for the number of cultivators; and

mischievous competition must last. For we have now to ob-

serve a distinct and very important phenomenon.

Neither by improvements of agriculture, nor by the importa-

tion of food, if these fall short of the power of the people to

increase, is the competition of excessive numbers in all classes

diminished in the least. By whatever means the field of em-

ployment for all classes is enlarged, unless it can be enlarged

faster than capital and people can increase, no alteration will

take place in profits or wages, or in any sort of remuneration

for exertion: there is a larger fund, but a corresponding or

greater increase of capital and people, so that competition

remains the same, or may even go on becoming more severe.

Thus a country may exhibit a rapid growth of wealth and popu-

lation—such an increase of both as the world has not seen

before—with direful competition within every class of soci-

ety, excepting alone the few in whose hands very large prop-

erties have accumulated. This is our own case now. In what-

ever light, then, this matter is viewed, we trace the competi-

tion to want of room; that is, to a deficiency of land in pro-

portion to capital and people, or an excess of capital and

people in proportion to land.

After reaching this conclusion as to the nature of the malady,

the appropriate remedy almost suggests itself. If we could

sufficiently check the increase of capital and people, that

would be an appropriate remedy; but we cannot. Can we then

sufficiently enlarge the whole field of employment for Brit-

ish capital and labour, by means of sending capital and people

to cultivate new land in other parts of the world? If we sent

away enough, the effect here would be the same as if the do-

mestic increase of capital and people were sufficiently

checked. But another effect of great importance would take

place. The emigrants would be producers of food; of more

food, if the colonization Avere well managed, than they could

consume: they would be growers of food and raw materials

of manufacture for this country: we should buy their surplus

food and raw materials with manufactured goods. Every piece

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

of our colonization, therefore, would add to the power of the

whole mass of new countries to supply us with employment

for capital and labour at home. Thus, employment for capital

and labour would be increased in two places and two ways at

the same time; abroad, in the colonies, by the removal of capi-

tal and people to fresh fields of production; at home, by the

extension of markets, or the importation of food and raw

materials. It is necessary and very interesting to observe, that

colonization has a tendency to increase employment for capital

and labour at home. When a Hampshire peasant emigrates to

Australia, he very likely enables an operative to live in

Lancashire or Yorkshire. Besides making food in the colony

for himself, he makes some more to send home for the manu-

facturer, who in his turn makes clothes or implements for the

colonist. Accordingly, if colonization proceeded faster than

capital and people increased, hurtful competition would be

at an end; and yet capital and people might increase here in

Great Britain faster than they do now. At what rate capital

increases here nobody can tell; but it is said that people in-

crease here at the rate of 1,000 a day: if there were coloniza-

tion enough, they might increase at the rate of 1,100 a day or

more. The common idea is that emigration of capital and

people diminishes the wealth and population of the mother-

country. It has never done so; it has always increased both

population and wealth at home. And the reason is obvious. In

the case supposed of a great colonization, and of our actual

free trade, viewing Great Britain and all new countries as one

country for the purposes of production and exchange, there

would be in the whole of this great empire an increase of

production exceeding the utmost possible increase of capital

and people. Capital and people, therefore, would increase as

fast as possible. Some of the increase would take place in the

new-country or colony part of the empire; some here: and it

might well happen that our share of the increase would be

greater than our present increase of wealth and population.

“To appreciate,” says Mr. Mill, “the benefits of colonization,

it should be considered in its relation, not to a single country,

but to the collective economical interests of the human race.

The question is in general treated too exclusively as one of

distribution; of relieving one labour-market and supplying

another. It is this, but it is also a question of production, and

of the most efficient employment of the productive resources

of the world. Much has been said of the good economy of

importing commodities from the place where they can be

bought cheapest; while the good economy of producing them

where they can be produced cheapest, is comparatively little

thought of. If to carry consumable goods from the places where

they are superabundant to those where they are scarce, is a

good pecuniary speculation, is it not an equally good specu-

lation to do the same thing with regard to labour and instru-

ments? The exportation of labourers and capital from old to

new countries, from a place where their productive power is

less, to a place where it is greater, increases by so much the

aggregate produce of the labour and capital of the world. It

adds to the joint wealth of the old and new country, what

amounts in a short period to many times the mere cost of

effecting the transport. There needs be no hesitation in af-

firming that colonization, in the present state of the world, is

the very best affair of business, in which the capital of an old

and wealthy country can possible engage.”

Nor is it necessary that the increase of capital and people at

home should be wholly dependent on, and therefore in pro-

portion to the importation of food from new countries. Of

course, before there can anywhere be any increase of people

under any circumstances, save one, there must be the one

circumstance of an increase of food. The food must come

first; then the people. And further, capital must consist for

the most part of food; for if capital employs people, of course

it feeds them: the feeding of labourers whilst the produce of

their labour is coming to perfection, is the main business of

capital. More food is a condition precedent of more capital

and people. But all the new food need not come from abroad.

Colonization has the effect of increasing the production of

food at home. Compare the agriculture of England now with

what it was before we began to colonize. Can you doubt that

the flourishing manufactures of Yorkshire and Lancashire,

for example, and in so far only as they grew out of coloniza-

tion, have stimulated and improved the agriculture of England,

and been the means of increasing the quantity of food and the

number of people in the mother-country? An intimate

connexion in the form of cause and effect, between the En-

glish colonization of the West Indies and America on the one

hand, and the improvement of agriculture, with the conse-

quent increase of food and people in England, on the other,

would be exhibited by a review of the facts since the time of

Elizabeth: and many other instances might be cited, in which

colonists, by furnishing to their mother-country new objects

of desire, new materials of manufacture, and new markets for

the disposal of goods, in return not for food, but for such

luxuries as sugar and tobacco, have been the not very indi-

rect means of stimulating agricultural industry and enterprise

in the country from which they emigrated. France, with her

wretched agriculture, is a country that stands in the utmost

need of this effect of colonization; and we are very far from

having brought our agriculture to such perfection as to make

this effect of colonization no longer an object of importance

to us. An increase of food grown at home by means of im-

proved agriculture is, I think, one of the objects of coloniza-

tion. If you think so, and if you agree with Mr. Mill and me as

to the natural effect of colonization in augmenting the wealth

and population of the mother-country by means of the impor-

tation of food and other produce grown on fresh land, your

judgment as an economist and your patriotism as an English-

man must have made up their quarrel.

A View of the Art of Colonization

My next letter, however, will be exclusively addressed to your

patriotism.

Letter XVII.

From the Colonist.

Further Objects of the Mother-country in Promoting Colo-

nization. — Prestige of Empire. — British “Supremacy

of the Ocean” for the Security of Sea-going Trade.

I think that an old country has objects in promoting coloniza-

tion, over and above those which we term economical ob-

jects. In explaining my view of some of them, I must needs

dispose, in part at least, of a question, the whole of which at

first sight may seem to belong to the means rather than the

objects of colonization. The question is, whether it is desir-

able that a colony should be dependent or independent as

respects government. At first sight it would appear, that this

question requires solution only with a view to ascertaining

whether the objects of colonization would be best promoted

by dependent or independent colonial government as a means;

but if we look a little further, we shall see that the possession

of colonies may be good or bad for the mother-country; that

is, may or may not be an object of colonization. And it is in

this point of view alone, that I propose now to examine the

question. The question thus restricted, and moreover put into

a practical form, is whether or not it is desirable that this

country should retain possession of its colonies, not as pos-

session or dependence would best promote colonization, but

independently of colonizing purposes.

I once heard a discussion of this question at the Political-

Economy Club. With its usual neglect of the most important

colonial subjects, the Colonial Office had permitted the ques-

tion of the boundary of New Brunswick towards Maine to

grow into a question of peace or war between England and

the United States. The Americans would have readily agreed

with us upon this boundary question when it was of no prac-

tical moment: when in consequence of the progress of settle-

ment in Maine and New Brunswick, large interests came to

be involved in it, they seemed quite unmanageable, and would

not, I believe (for I was a keen observer on the spot), have

been managed except by war, or by that diplomacy of perfect

candour and straight-forwardness, combined with resolution

and a capital cook, by means of which they were managed by

the late Lord Ashburton. The near prospect of war produced

in this country an interest about New Brunswick; and the ques-

tion of her boundary was discussed in all companies. At the

Political-Economy Club, a mere man of science contended

that the loss of a part, and still more the whole, of New

Brunswick would be a gain to England. Of what use, he said,

is this colony to the mother-country, that it would not be if it

were independent? It is of no use except as a market; and it

would be as good a market if independent as it is now. We

need not possess a country in order to trade with it. Its depen-

dence is of no use to us; but it is an injury, since the ordinary

defence of the colony as British territory is costly; and the

possession of the colony is apt to involve us in costly and

otherwise mischievous disputes with foreign countries. This

was the whole of his argument.

The other side of the question was argued by a London banker,

whose sagacity and accomplishments are unsurpassed. He

began by admitting that possession of a colony may not make

it better as a market; that it costs something in ordinary times;

and that it exposes us to the risk of disputes with foreign na-

tions, from which we should be free if the colony were inde-

pendent. He admitted the whole argument of the merely sci-

entific economist. But, on the other hand, said he, I am of

opinion that the extent and glory of an empire are solid ad-

vantages for all its inhabitants, and especially those who in-

habit its centre. I think that whatever the possession of our

colonies may cost us in money, the possession is worth more

in money than its money cost, and infinitely more in other

respects. For by overawing foreign nations and impressing

mankind with a prestige of our might, it enables us to keep

the peace of the world, which we have no interest in disturb-

ing, as it would enable us to disturb the world if we pleased.

The advantage is, that the possession of this immense empire

by England causes the mere name of England to be a real and

a mighty power; the greatest power that now exists in the

world. If we use the power for our own harm, that is our fault;

the being able to use it for our good is, to my mind, an inesti-

mable advantage. You tell us of the cost of dependencies: I

admit it, but reply that the cost is the most beneficial of in-

vestments, since it converts the mere sound of a name into a

force greater than that of the most costly fleets and armies. If

your argument is good for New Brunswick, it is good for all

our dependencies. Suppose that we gave them all up, without

losing any of their utility as markets: I say that the name of

England would cease to be a power; and that in order to pre-

serve our own independence, we should have to spend more

than we do now in the business of defence. It would be sup-

posed that we gave them up because we could not help it: we

should be, with respect to other nations, like the bird which

has been wounded, and which therefore the others peck to

death. You talk as if men were angels, and as if nations were

communities always under the influence of Christian love for

each other: whereas men are to some extent devils; and na-

tions take a pleasure in subjugating one another when they

can. Vanity, emulation, jealousy, hatred, ambition, love of

glory, love of conquest and mastery; these are all national

attributes: and whether any nation is independent of a foreign

yoke, is always a question merely of whether, either by forces

of her own, or by the aid of a powerful ally whom jealousy of

some other nation induces to befriend her, she is able to resist

aggression. Let all our dependencies be taken away or given

up, and the name of England would go for nothing: those of

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

our dependencies which are weak, would be seized by other

nations, which would soon want to seize England herself, and

would be strongly tempted by our apparent weakness, by the

loss of the prestige of our greatness, to try their hand at seiz-

ing us. Or would you have England, after giving up her de-

pendencies, continue to defend them from foreign aggres-

sion? Most of them could not maintain their own indepen-

dence if we gave it to them; and the maintenance of it for

them by us would cost incalculably more without the prestige

of a mighty empire, than our dependencies now cost with that

important adjunct of real, effective power. I am for retaining

New Brunswick; and though I think that we shall be under

vast obligation to Lord Ashburton if he should enable us to

keep it without a war, I would devote all the means of the

empire to a war for preserving it.

The banker’s argument satisfied me. But he was not aware of

a peculiarity of colonies, as distinguished from dependencies

in general, which furnishes another reason for wishing that

they should belong to the empire. I mean the attachment of

colonies to their mother-country. Without having lived in a

colony— or at any rate without having a really intimate ac-

quaintance with colonies, which only a very few people in

the mother-country have, or can have—it is difficult to con-

ceive the intensity of colonial loyalty to the empire. In the

colonies of England, at any rate, the feeling of love towards

England and of pride in belonging to her empire, is more

than a sentiment; it is a sort of passion which all the colonists

feel, except Milesian-Irish emigrants. I have often been un-

able to help smiling at the exhibition of it. In what it origi-

nates, I cannot say: perhaps in a sympathy of blood or race,

for the present Anglo-Americans (not counting those Milesian-

Americans who pass for belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race)

feel in their heart’s core the same kind of love and respect for

England, that we Englishmen at home feel for the memory of

Alfred or Elizabeth: but, whatever may be its cause, I have

no doubt that love of England is the ruling sentiment of En-

glish colonies. Not colonists, let me beg of you to observe,

but colonial communities; for unfortunately the ruling pas-

sion of individuals in our colonies is a love of getting money.

How strong the collective love of England is, how incapable

of being even much diminished by treatment at the hands of

England which is calculated to turn love into hatred, you will

be better able to judge when I shall come to our system of

colonial government. Here I must beg of you to take my rep-

resentation in a great measure upon trust. If it is correct, the

fact shows, that the possession of dependencies which are

also colonies, conduces to the might, security, and peace of

the empire, not merely by the prestige of greatness, as other

dependencies do, but also by the national partizanship for

England of the communities which she plants. To her own

strength there is added that of a large family of devoted chil-

dren. The empire is preserved, not alone by its greatness, but

by the strong cohesion to the centre of its colonized, as dis-

tinguished from its conquered portions.

The possession by England of colonies which she plants,

conduces, I fancy, to another national advantage. It is an ad-

vantage reaped exclusively by these islands. For some time,

these little islands, with their thirty millions of people, have

been becoming, and they are sure to be still more, dependent

on the continuance of sea-going trade as the only means of

preventing famine and horrible convulsion. The steady con-

tinuance of sea-going trade depends for these islands, on the

inability of foreign nations to stop or harass our commercial

marine. The British “supremacy of the ocean,” which has been

a boast and a benefit, has become a necessity. If I were prime

minister of England, now that the Corn Laws are repealed, I

should not be able to sleep if I thought that the war marine of

England was not stronger than that of all the nations com-

bined, which there is the least chance of ever seeing engaged

in a conspiracy for our destruction. The strength of our war

marine is greatly dependent on that of our commercial: for a

war marine is composed of practised sailors as well as ships

and guns; and it is a commercial marine alone that makes

plenty of first-rate sailors. We are about to repeal the Naviga-

tion Laws, which were designed to foster, and which, for any-

thing that we can yet positively know to the contrary, had the

effect of fostering, our commercial marine. There is some

risk that a larger proportion than at present of our external

trade may be carried on by the commercial marine of other

nations; a smaller proportion by our own. It behoves us there-

fore to maintain and augment our commercial marine by all

the reasonable means in our power. The means of restraint

and bounty, on the principle of the Navigation Laws, are dy-

ing out. But, notwithstanding ample freedom of commercial

navigation, the trade between a dependent colony and its

mother-country would almost inevitably be carried on by the

mother-country’s ships and sailors. Moreover, an indepen-

dent colony, like Massachussetts, cultivates a commercial

marine of its own for its own defence, and is likely to convert

the sailors of the mother-country into foreign sailors: if a de-

pendent colony has a marine of its own (as New Zealand, for

example, is sure to have in course of time, for coasting and

intercolonial purposes), this colonial marine belongs to the

empire; it adds to the number of our sailors in case of war.

How colonization itself, irrespective of colonial dependency,

adds to the commercial marine of the country which founds

the colonies, is a distinct question on which you would do

well to consult an intelligent ship-owner. He would tell you

that in our own time the little that has been done in the way of

systematic colonization, has had a visible effect in adding to

the demand for shipping, and especially for ships of the first

class making a voyage round the world. He would show you

two numbers of a London daily newspaper, in the front page

A View of the Art of Colonization

of which passenger ships are advertised; the first published

at a time when the founding of South Australia, Australia

Felix, and New Zealand, was most active; the second pub-

lished when these colonizing operations were much impeded

by the success of some anti-colonizing policy of the Colonial

Office; and then your own eyes would tell your understand-

ing of the bustle of business in the docks at the one time, and

the comparative stagnation at the other of the trades of the

outfitter, the provisionmerchant, and the first-class ship-owner.

The temporary briskness of these trades was solely occasioned

by the sale of waste land in the aforesaid colonies, and the

outlay of some of the purchase-money as an emigration fund:

the single cause of the dulness (as I shall have to prove here-

after) was the stoppage of this species of colonization by bu-

reaucratic statesmanship, when a few different strokes of the

official pen would have continued and augmented it beyond

assignable limit. I cite this case because it occurred lately,

and may be proved by living testimony. But this is an insig-

nificant case, because the colonizing operation was stopped.

Turning to greater cases, in which colonizing enterprise was

not put down by a Colonial Office—which indeed took place

before we had a Colonial Office—I would point to the effects

on the ports of London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow, of

the colonization of the West Indies and North America by

our forefathers. It created a large proportion of the trade of

the port of London: at Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow, it

may be said to have called ports into existence, with their

docks, ships, and sailors. But that was long ago, I hear a poli-

tician of the pure Manchester school object, when trade with

foreign countries was fettered, and colonization produced

shipping because with colonies alone was the mothercountry

free to trade; but now that we are free to trade with all the

world as we please, it is not necessary to have colonization in

order to have plenty of ships: our trade with foreign nations

will support an ample commercial marine. I ask, in reply, with

what foreign nations? With the United States, says he. But

the United States, like the ports of Bristol, Liverpool, and

Glasgow, were called into existence by colonization; and they

are still, as regards trade, colonies of England, with the ex-

ception always of their hostile tariff. Take the United States,

however, with their hostile tariff, and all the other colonies of

England, which, being dependencies likewise, have no hos-

tile tariffs; and see what proportion the shipping engaged in

our trade with them, both independent and dependent colo-

nies, bears to that employed in our trade with foreign coun-

tries. The countries colonized by England, carry it hollow;

more especially if we add those, such as British India, in which,

without colonizing them, we have substituted better for worse

government, and some security for utter insecurity of prop-

erty. And the reasons are as plain as the fact. They are the

reasons before set forth, why British colonists are the best of

their mothercountry’s customers: for British colonization

called the town as well as the port of Glasgow into existence,

Manchester as well as Liverpool; and every new piece of our

colonization adds to our commercial marine, not merely by

the demand which it occasions for emigrant ships, but further

in proportion as it augments our sea-going trade of import

and export.

Letter XVIII.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Incloses an Essay on Colonization by Dr.

Hinds, and Presses it on the Statesman’s Attention as

a View of One More Object of Great Britain in Coloniz-

ing Systematically.

There remains for consideration only one more particular in

which the mother-country has an end to attain by coloniza-

tion. It would be gratifying to our national pride, if our colo-

nies were made to resemble their parent; to be extensions of

the mothercountry, as you have said, over the unoccupied parts

of the earth of a nationality truly British in language, reli-

gion, laws, institutions, and attachment to the empire. How

this aim might be accomplished is indeed a question of means;

but in order to the adoption of effectual means, we must have

a distinct view of the object. The object is charmingly de-

scribed in the inclosed paper, which I have copied from an

appendix to Thoughts on Secondary Punishments, by the

Archbishop of Dublin. That work was published in 1832, and

has been long out of print. The author of the little essay on

colonization, which I extract from it, is the present Dean of

Carlisle. You will learn on reading it, that there has been one

colonizing theorist besides those of 1830, who only obtained

in 1837 the advantage of Dr. Hinds’ acquaintance, counsel,

and co-operation. His dissertation on colonizing, however

brief and slight in texture, is full of the spirit of kindness and

wisdom which belongs to his character. I would earnestly press

you to read it now; that is, before we dismiss the question of

objects, to take up that of colonization as it is with a view of

ascertaining the best means of making it what it ought to be.

There is only one point on which I differ from Dr. Hinds. I

think that he underrates the social position at home of the

emigrants who led the old English colonization of America.

But on this point I shall have to dwell at some length in the

proper place.

“Colonization.

“Supposing the system of stocking colonies with criminals to

be, as may be hoped, abandoned, never to be restored, it be-

comes an important question, what steps shall be taken in

respect of the now convict-colonies; of our other existing

colonies; and of any that may hereafter be contemplated. Shall

everything be left to go on as it is, with the single exception

of no longer transporting criminals? Or shall any means be

thought of for remedying the mischiefs done to our convict-

colonies, and assimilating them to the character of our other

colonies? Or shall we consider whether important improve-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

ments may not be introduced into those also, and into the

whole of our plans of founding and conducting colonies?

“In order to discuss these questions profitably, it will be nec-

essary to premise a brief statement of some general principles

that have been usually overlooked, which has been attempted

in the following suggestions for the improvement of our sys-

tem of colonization.

“It is remarkable, that notwithstanding the greater facilities

which modern times afford for the settlement and growth of

colonies, the ancients were more successful with theirs than

we are with ours. If we look back on the history of Greek

emigrations especially, we find many ruinous enterprises in-

deed, owing sometimes to the situation for the new settle-

ment being ill-chosen, sometimes to the difficulties and dan-

gers of rude and unskilful navigation; sometimes again, to

the imprudence of settlers, or the jealousy of neighbours

embroiling the infant state in quarrels before it was strong

enough to protect itself. But supposing the colony to escape

accidents of this kind, it was generally so efficient in itself, so

well organized and equipped, as to thrive; and this at far less

cost, it would seem, and with less looking after, on the part of

the parent state, than is usually bestowed (and often bestowed

in vain) on our colonial establishments. After a few years, a

colony was seen, not unfrequently, to rise into a condition of

maturity that afforded support or threatened rivalry to the state

that had lately called it into existence.

“Our colonies are, in fact, far less liable to those accidents

which have been alluded to as occasionally interfering with

the success of those of ancient times, both from the greater

stock of useful knowledge, and from the greater power and

wealth possessed by those who now send out colonies. And

yet how many instances are there of modern European states,

carefully providing for a new plantation of its people—ex-

pending on it ten times as much money and labour as sufficed

in earlier ages; and still this tender plant of theirs will be

stunted and sickly; and, if it does not die, must be still tended

and nursed like an exotic. At length, after years of anxious

looking after, it is found to have cost the parent state more

than it is worth; or, perhaps, as in the case of the United States,

we have succeeded in rearing a child that disowns its par-

ent—that has acquired habits and feelings, and a tone and

character incompatible with that political storgh which colo-

nies formerly are represented as entertaining, through gen-

erations, for the mother-country.

“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 fa-

thers of a race whose habits of thinking and feeling shall cor-

respond to those which, in the meantime, we are cherishing

at home. The ancients, on the contrary, sent out a representa-

tion of the parent state—colonists from all ranks. We stock

the farm with creeping and climbing plants, without any trees

of firmer growth for them to entwine round. A hop-ground

left without poles, the plants matted confusedly together, and

scrambling on the ground in tangled heaps, with here and

there some clinging to rank thistles and hemlocks, would be

an apt emblem of a modern colony. They began by nominat-

ing 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 noble-

man; a democracy its most influential citizen. These natu-

rally carried along with them some of their own station in

life,—their companions and friends; some of their immedi-

ate dependents also—of those between themselves and the

lowest class; and were encouraged in various ways to do so.

The lowest class again followed with alacrity, because they

found themselves moving with, and not away from the state

of society in which they had been living. It was the same

social and political union under which they had been born

and bred ; and to prevent any contrary impression being made,

the utmost solemnity was observed in transferring the rites of

pagan superstition. They carried with them their gods—their

festivals—their games; all, in short, that held together, and

kept entire the fabric of society as it existed in the parent

state. Nothing was left behind that could be moved,—of all

that the heart or eye of an exile misses. The new colony was

made to appear as if time or chance had reduced the whole

community to smaller dimensions, leaving it still essentially

the same home and country to its surviving members. It con-

sisted of a general contribution of members from all classes,

and so became, on its first settlement, a mature state, with all

the component parts of that which sent it forth. It was a trans-

fer of population, therefore, which gave rise to no sense of

degradation, as if the colonist were thrust out from a higher

to a lower description of community. “Let us look now at the

contrast which a modern colony presents, in all these impor-

tant features, and consider the natural results. Want presses a

part of the population of an old-established community such

as ours. Those who are suffering wider this pressure are en-

couraged to go and settle themselves elsewhere, in a country

whose soil, perhaps, has been ascertained to be fertile, its

climate healthy, and its other circumstances favourable for

the enterprise. The protection of our arms, and the benefit of

free commercial intercourse with us and with other nations,

are held out as inducements to emigrate. We are liberal, per-

haps profuse, in our grants of aid from the public purse. We

moreover furnish for our helpless community a government,

and perhaps laws; and appoint over them some tried civil or

military servant of the state, to be succeeded by others of the

A View of the Art of Colonization

same high character. Our newspapers are full of glowing pic-

tures of this land of milk and honey. All who are needy and

discontented—all who seek in vain at home for independence

and comfort and future wealth, are called on to seize the golden

moment, and repair to it.

“’Eja!

Quid statis? Nolint. Atque licet esse beatis!’

Those who do go, have, for the most part, made a reluctant

choice between starvation and exile. They go, often indeed

with their imaginations full of vague notions of future riches,

for which they are nothing the better: but they go, with a con-

sciousness of being exiled; and when they arrive at their des-

tination, it is an exile. I am not now alluding to the morbid

sensibilities of a refined mind: I am speaking of the unedu-

cated clown, the drudging mechanic. His eye and his heart

miss in all directions objects of social interest, on the influ-

ence of which he never speculated ; but which he never theless

felt, and must crave after. He has been accustomed, perhaps,

to see the squire’s house and park; and he misses this object,

not only when his wants, which found relief there, recur; but

simply because he, from a child, has been accustomed to see

gentry in the land. He has been used to go to his church; if the

settlement be new, there is no place of worship. He has chil-

dren old enough for school; but there is no schoolmaster. He

needs religious comfort or instruction, or advice in the con-

duct of his life; there is no parson, and no parson’s wife. His

very pastimes and modes of relaxation have been so associ-

ated with the state of society, in which he learnt to enjoy them,

that they are no longer the same to him. In short, no care has

been taken, as was the custom formerly, to make especial

provision for the cravings of his moral nature; no forethought

to carry away some of the natural soil about the roots of the

tree that has been transplanted. We have thought of our colo-

nist, only as so much flesh and blood requiring to be renewed

by food, and protected by clothing and shelter; but as for that

food of the heart, which the poor man requires as much as the

more refined, although of a different quality, it has not been

thought of.

“Nor is this defect in our system of colonization, one that

merely affects the happiness of the emigrant-colonist, by add-

ing to the strangeness of his condition, and keeping alive a

mischievous regret for his old country. He was a member of a

community made up of various orders; he was a wheel in a

machine of a totally different construction; it is a chance if he

answers under circumstances so different. He must adapt his

habits of thinking and acting to the change; and in doing this

he ceases to he an Englishman. He has no longer, probably,

his superior in wealth to ask for pecuniary assistance ; his

superior in education to ask for instruction and advice. His

wits are, doubtless, sharpened by the necessity of doing with-

out these accustomed supports ; but whilst he learns to be

independent by sacrificing some objects, or by otherwise sup-

plying some, he finds himself and those around him gradu-

ally coalescing into a community of a totally different char-

acter from that which they left at home. Witness the United

States of America. Let any thoughtful observer consider the

traits of character that distinguish these children of our fa-

thers from Englishmen of the present day; and the probable

causes of the difference. We are apt enough, indeed, to ridi-

cule as foibles, or to censure as faults, their national pecu-

liarities—their deviations from our habits. But it would be

wiser and worthier of us to trace them to their causes, and to

add the result of our inquiry to our stock of legislative expe-

rience. We sent them forth, poor and struggling only for the

means of subsistence. Is it we that should taunt them with

becoming a money-making, trafficking people? We severed

the humble from the nobles of our land, and formed the em-

bryo of a plebeian nation. Is it we that should find fault with

their extravagant abhorrence of rank, or their want of high

breeding and gentle blood which we so sparingly bestowed

on them? We gave for the new community only some of the

ingredients that enter into our own. Can we wonder at the

want of resemblance, and of congenial feeling, which has been

the result?

“And yet our American colonies, including the islands which

are still attached to us, were not altogether without an admix-

ture of the higher ranks of the British community; and no

doubt their early advance to wealth and strength was greatly

promoted by this circumstance. But the advantage, such as it

was, was accidental. It made no part of our legislative project.

Whoever of birth or fortune betook themselves to the settle-

ments of the New World, did so from no design, of their own

or of their government, to benefit the colonies. They went

into exile through the influence of political or other evils at

home, such as drive out some of the better portions of the

community, as a portion of the life-blood is forced from a

wound, and not as a healthy secretion. Our later colonies have

not had even this scanty and ill-administered aid. They are

regular communities of needy persons representing only one

class in the parent country,—persons who carry away with

them the habits of a complex fabric of society to encounter

the situation of a solitary savage tribe, each member of which

has been trained from infancy to live among equals; to shift

for himself, however rudely, and to perform, though with bar-

barian clumsiness, almost all the offices of life. The military

and civil appointments attached to them form really no ex-

ceptions; for these are no parts of the permanent community,

but extraneous to it — temporary props, instead of stones to

the edifice. They live to themselves, and are always in readi-

ness to shift their quarters.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

“Much has been said lately about enlarging our colonies, or

establishing new ones, in order to relieve Great Britain of a

portion of its needy population. Our success, experience

shows, must be purchased, if at all, at an enormous rate, and

the final result must be the rise of states, which, like those in

America, may be destined to influence the character and man-

ners of the whole world, and to form important portions of

civilized society, without deriving from us any of that na-

tional character, on which we so much congratulate ourselves

; owing their national character, in fact, to chance, and that

chance a very unpromising one.

“But what is to be done? Are we to force our nobles and

gentry to join the herd of emigrants? They have no need to

go, — no inclination to go; and why should they go? Can we

afford to bribe them? ‘They may, I conceive, be bribed to go

; but not by pounds, shillings, and pence. Honour, and rank,

and power, are less ruinous bribes than money, and yet are

more to the purpose, inasmuch as they influence more gener-

ous minds. Offer an English gentleman of influence, and com-

petent fortune (though such, perhaps, as may fall short of his

wishes) a sum of money, however large, to quit his home per-

manently and take a share in the foundation of a colony; and

the more he possesses of those generous traits of character

which qualify him for the part he would have to act, the less

likely is he to accept the bribe. But offer him a patent of no-

bility for himself and his heirs, — offer him an hereditary

station in the government of the future community; and there

will be some chance of his acceding to the proposal. And he

would not go alone. He would be followed by some few of

those who are moving in the same society with him,— near

relations, intimate friends. He would be followed by some,

too, of an intermediate grade between him and the mass of

needy persons that form the majority of the colony, — his

intermediate dependents, — persons connected with them,

or with the members of his household. And if not one, but

some half-dozen gentlemen of influence were thus tempted

out, the sacrifice would be less felt by each, and the numbers

of respectable emigrants which their united influence would

draw after them so much greater. A colony so formed would

fairly represent English society, and every new comer would

have his own class to fall into; and to whatever class he be-

longed he would find its relation to the others, and the sup-

port derived from the others, much the same as in the parent

country. There would then be little more in Van Diemen’s

Land, or in Canada, revolting to the habits and feelings of an

emigrant than if he had merely shifted his residence from

Sussex to Cumberland or Devonshire, — little more than a

change of natural scenery.

“And among the essential provisions which it would then be

far easier to make than at present, is the appointment of one

or more well-chosen clergymen. It is so great a sacrifice to

quit, not simply the place of abode, but the habits of society,

to which an educated man is brought up, that, as our new

colonies are constituted, it would be no easy matter to obtain

accomplished clergymen for them. In truth, however, it makes

no part of our colonization-plans; and when a religious es-

tablishment is formed in any of these settlements, it has to

contend with the unfavourable habits which have been formed

among Christians, whose devotions have been long unaided

by the presence of a clergyman or a common place of wor-

ship. By an accomplished clergyman, however, I do not mean

a man of mere learning or eloquence, or even piety; but one

whose acquirements would give him weight with the better

sort, and whose character and talents would, at the same time,

answer for the particular situation in which he would be

placed.

“The same may be urged in respect of men of other profes-

sions 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 seed-

lings, and watching their uncertain growth, let us try whether

a perfect tree will not bear transplanting: if it succeeds, we

shall have saved so much expense and trouble in the rearing;

as soon as it strikes its roots into the new soil it will shift for

itself. Such a colony, moreover, will be united to us by ties to

which one of a different constitution must be a stranger. It

will have received from us, and will always trace to us, all its

social ingredients. Its highest class will be ours,—its gentry

ours,—its clergy ours,—its lower and its lowest rank all ours;

all corresponding and congenial to our manners, institutions,

and even our prejudices. Instead of grudgingly casting our

morsels to a miserable dependent, we shall have sent forth a

child worthy of its parent, and capable of maintaining itself.

“These suggestions are obviously no more than prefatory to a

detailed scheme for the formation of a colony on the general

principle which I have been advocating; but, supposing that

principle to be sound, the details of the measure would not be

difficult Certain it is that our colonies prove enormously ex-

pensive to us : such a system promises an earlier maturity to

them, and consequently a speedier release from the cost of

assisting them. Our colonies are associated in the minds of

all classes, especially of our poorer classes, with the idea of

banishment from all that is nearest to their hearts and most

familiar to their habits. Such a system would remove much

that creates this association. Our colonies are not only slow

in growing to maturity, but grow up unlike the mother-coun-

try, and acquire a national character almost necessarily op-

posed to that of the parent state ;—such a system would re-

move the cause of this, too. And lastly, among the disadvan-

tages under which the colonist is now placed, none is more

painfully felt by some, none so mischievous to all, as the want

A View of the Art of Colonization

of the same religious and moral fostering which was enjoyed

at home. This, too, is a defect whose remedy is proposed in

the above scheme. It contemplates a colony in short, that shall

be an entire British community, and not merely one formed

of British materials,—a community that shall carry away from

the soil of Great Britain the manners, the institutions, the re-

ligion, the private and the public character of those whom

they leave behind on it; and so carry them away as to plant

them in the new soil where they settle.

“Should it be replied, however, that all this is indeed theoreti-

cally true, but cannot be reduced to practice in modern times,

it is at least some advantage, though it may be a mortifying

one, to know where we actually stand, and to be aware of our

own inferiority, in this point, to the Greeks and Romans, if

not in political wisdom, at least in the power of applying it. If

the art of founding such colonies as theirs be indeed one of

the artes perditae, it is well to be sensible of the difference

and the cause of it, that we may at least not deceive ourselves

by calculating on producing similar effects by dissimilar and

inadequate means. But if we are ashamed to confess this in-

feriority, we should be ashamed to exhibit it: we should con-

sider whether we may not, from candidly contemplating it,

proceed to do something towards at least diminishing, if we

cannot completely remove it.

“It may be necessary to notice an objection that is not un-

likely to be raised against the practical utility of the forego-

ing remarks. These views, it may be said, might have been

advantageously acted on when we first began to colonize.

But we have not now to form a system of colonization; this

has been long since done. Wisely or unwisely, we have adopted

a different course, and are actually proceeding on it. The prac-

tical and pressing questions, therefore, about colonization,

are those which relate to the state of things as they are in

these settlements of ours,—the best remedies which may be

applied to the evils existing in them,—the best method of

improving them now that they have been founded. “And it

must be admitted that, with respect to our old colonies, this is

true; but our new colonies are not yet out of our forming hands.

There is one, especially, in the constitution of which we are

bound to retrace, if possible, all our steps,—bound on every

principle of expediency and national honour; nay, on a prin-

ciple (if such a principle there be) of national conscience. It

will be readily understood that this one is the convict colony

in New South Wales,—a colony founded and maintained on

principles which, if acted upon by an individual in private

life, would expose him to the charge of insanity or of shame-

less profligacy. Imagine the case of a household most care-

fully made up of picked specimens from all the idle, mischie-

vous, and notoriously bad characters in the country ! Surely

the man who should be mad or wicked enough to bring to-

gether this monstrous family, and to keep up its numbers and

character by continual fresh supplies, would be scouted from

the society he so outraged,—would be denounced as the au-

thor of a diabolical nuisance to his neighbourhood and his

country, and would be proclaimed infamous for setting at

nought all morality and decency. What is it better, that, in-

stead of a household, it is a whole people we have so brought

together, and are so keeping up?— that it is the wide society

of the whole world, and not of a single country, against which

the nuisance is committed?

“If then, the question be, What can be done for this colony?

Begin, I should say, by breaking up the system; begin by re-

moving all the uneinancipatcd convicts. I do not undertake to

point out the best mode of disposing of these; but let them be

brought home and disposed of in any way rather than remain.

There is no chance for the colony until this preliminary step

be taken. In the next place I should propose measures, which

may be compared to the fumigation of pestilential apartments,

or to the careful search made by the Israelites in every recess

and corner of their houses, for the purpose of casting away

all their old leaven before beginning to make the unleavened

loaves for the Passover. There should be a change of place,—

a transfer, if possible, of the seat of government to some site

within the colony, but as yet untainted with the defiling asso-

ciations of crime and infamy. Names of places, too, should

be changed ; they make part of the moral atmosphere of a

country; witness the successful policy ofthe French at the revo-

lution. The name of Botany Bay, &c., could not, for genera-

tions, become connected in men’s minds with honesty, sober

industry, and the higher qualities of the British character.

Change as much as will admit of change in place and name;

and the colonists sent out with authority to effect this may

then be selected on the principles which I have recommended

for the foundation of an entirely new colony. And it might be

worth while to bestow, at first, a labour and expense on this

new portion of the colony more than adequate to its intrinsic

importance; because it would be destined to serve as a nucleus

of honest industry, civilization, and general improvement for

the rest of the colony,—a scion, as it were, grafted on the

wild stock, and designed to become, in time, the whole tree.

“But these measures, if carried into effect at all, must be taken

in hand soon. Time,—no distant time, perhaps,—may place

this ‘foul disnatured’ progeny of ours out of our power for

good or for harm. Let us count the years that have past since

we first scattered emigrants along the coast of America. It is

but as yesterday,—and look at the gigantic people that has

arisen. Thank Heaven that in morals and in civilization they

are at this day what they are. But can we look forward with-

out a shudder, at the appalling spectacle which a few genera-

tions hence may be doomed to witness in Australia? Pass by

as many years to come as it has taken the United States of

America to attain to their present maturity, and here will be

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

another new world with another new people, stretching out

its population unchecked; rapid in its increase of wealth, and

art, and power, taking its place in the congress of the mighti-

est nations ; rivalling, perhaps, ruling them;—and then think

what stuff this people will have been made of; and who it is

that posterity will then curse for bringing this mildew on the

social intercourse of the world; who it is that will be answer-

able for the injury done by it to human virtue and human

happiness, at a tribunal more distant, but more awful even

than posterity.”

I would now beg of you, before we proceed to colonization

as it is, to read Charles Buller’s speech of 1843. A copy of it

is enclosed, in the form in which it was published by Mr.

Murray at the time, and was soon out of print. As it relates

principally to the objects which this country has in coloniz-

ing systematically, I think that when you shall have read it,

we may deem that part of our subject finally disposed of.

Letter XIX.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Wonders Why the Natural Attractive-

ness of Colonies Does Not Occasion a Greater Emi-

gration of People and Capital; Points Out, with a View

to the Objects of the Mothercountry, That the Emigra-

tion of People and Capital must Be Largely Increased ;

and Asks What Is to Be Done in Order That Enough

People and Capital May Emigrate to Relieve the

Mothercountry from the Evils of Excessive Competition.

Your recent letters, the Dean of Carlisle’s beautiful Essay,

and Charles Buller’s masterly speech, have made a general

impression on me, which I think ought to be communicated

to you now. It will resolve itself into questions. If you can

answer them satisfactorily, we shall have taken a good step

forward.

Admitting, as I already do, that the distinguishing character-

istics of this country and the colonies are a want of room for

all classes here, and plenty of room for all classes there, I

want to know why it is that people of all classes, and capital,

do not emigrate in sufficient numbers and quantities to re-

duce competition in this country within tolerable limits. The

competition must be painful, and the attraction of the colo-

nies great. These forces co-operating, the one in driving and

the other in drawing people away, why is it that so few go?

why is not more capital sent? But let us note a few particu-

lars. The life of people here who are continually in a state of

anxiety with respect to support according to their station, must

be disagreeable in the extreme; and I should think that the

life of an emigrant colonist, in whatever rank, must be very

agreeable. If I were a common labourer, and knew what I

know about colonies, I am sure that I would not stay in this

country if I could anyhow find the means of emigration to

high wages, to the fairest prospect of comfortable indepen-

dence, and the immediate enjoyment of that importance which

belongs to the labouring class in colonies. It strikes me, that

men possessing a small or moderate capital should have the

same desire to remove from a place where they are pinched

and uncomfortable, to one where they would enjoy the (to

them I imagine) unspeakable satisfaction of daily counting

an increased store. To the poorer gentry even, especially

younger sons of men of fortune, and parents whose families

of children are as large as their fortunes are small, the colo-

nies must, I fancy, hold out a most agreeable prospect. In-

deed, the last of these classes appears to me to be the one that

would benefit the most by emigrating. In money they would

gain like other people; in feeling more than other people,

because they are peculiarly susceptible of such pain as they

suffer here and such pleasure as they would enjoy there. They

are a class with whom pride, far more than love of money, is

the ruling sentiment. I do not mean an improper pride.

What they chiefly suffer here, is the pain of sinking, or seeing

their children sink, into a lower station: what they would

chiefly enjoy in a colony, is the pleasure of holding them-

selves the highest position, and seeing their children, the sons

by exertion, the daughters by marriage, continue in the first

rank. The rank of the colony is doubtless very inferior to that

of the mother-country; but of what use is his country’s rank to

one whose lot is most wounding to his pride? With regard to

pride, is not the first position anywhere better than sinking

anywhere? I can understand that for a “gentleman,” as we

say, emigration may be a mortifying acknowledgment to those

whom he leaves behind, that he has been forced away by his

necessities; but, as a rule, people care very little about what

is thought of them by others whom they leave behind for life:

the mortification must soon be over: and on the other hand

there is the prospect of being received with open arms by the

community with which your lot is now cast. If you tell me

that there are attachments at home, a love of localities and

persons, which indispose all classes to emigrate, I answer

that in the class of poor gentry, whether young and unmar-

ried, or of middle age with families, having no good prospect

here, it would be troublesome to find one who would refuse a

lucrative and honourable appointment for life in any healthy

part of the world. For this class, I take it, emigration, as it is

going to money and importance, is like a lucrative and

honourable appointment for life, and beyond life for the ben-

efit of children as well. Why then do so few of this class

emigrate? Cadets of this class swarm in the professions and

at the doors of the public offices, beyond all means of pro-

viding for them: and there must be thousands, nay, tens of

thousands, of families living in what may be termed “genteel

colonies” at home and on the continent, for what they call

cheapness, but really for the purpose of enjoying more im-

portance than their income would give anywhere else but in a

A View of the Art of Colonization

colony. In a colony, their importance would be infinitely

greater. Why do they not rather emigrate and prosper, than

hide themselves, stagnate, and sink?

Again, supposing that there are circumstances which deter

people from emigrating, why is not capital sent? To some

extent capital is invested in the colonies with larger returns

than could be obtained for it here, and without being accom-

panied by its owners; but the amount is too small for its ab-

straction to produce any effect on the money-market of this

country. You say that in colonies there is an unlimited field

for the productive employment of capital: if so, larger invest-

ments of British capital in the colonies are not prevented by

want of room there. If A B, remaining in this country, sends

out his capital to the colonies and invests it with large re-

turns, why should not C D, and all the rest of the alphabet do

the same? I suppose that there must be some limit to the in-

vestment of British capital in colonies, though you have not

alluded to it, and I cannot exactly perceive what it is.

These questions are pertinent and practical: if the emigration

of capital and people has reached its maximum according to

the present circumstances of this country and of our colonial

empire, it would be idle to think of more extensive coloniza-

tion as a means of remedying our economical evils and avert-

ing our political dangers. We cannot force either capital or

people to emigrate. The principle of laissez-faire, must be

strictly observed in this case: and were it otherwise, I cannot

imagine the law or act of government that would have the

effect of inducing anybody, not being so minded at present,

to send his capital to a colony, or go thither himself. If there

is no limit in colonies to the profitable employment of capital

and labour, there must be a limit here to the disposition to

take advantage of that circumstance, which no legislation,

that I can think of, would overcome. Let us beware of indulg-

ing in day-dreams. It is plain, according to your own show-

ing, that the emigration both of capital and people must be

greatly increased in order to effect the true objects of coloni-

zation. It is to the necessity of this great increase that I would

direct your attention. I acknowledge on the general principles

which you have urged, that the tendency of colonization is to

reduce—to cure and prevent, if you will—injurious competi-

tion at home: but practically all depends on the amount of the

colonization. If in colonizing we should not reach the indis-

pensable point, we might as well do nothing as regards the

effect upon this country. By increasing the emigration of

people and capital in a less degree than the whole case de-

mands, we should indeed benefit the individual emigrants and

owners of the exported capital; and we should likewise, so to

speak, enable a number of people to live here and a quantity

of capital to get employment here, which cannot do so now:

we should do this, according to your theory, partly by creat-

ing a vacuum of people and capital, which would be instantly

filled, partly by enlarging the home field of employment for

capital and labour, as that depends on the extent of the for-

eign market: but in doing all this, which I admit is not to be

despised as an object of national care, we should do nothing

in the way of raising either wages or profits at home; we should

produce, let me repeat, no effect whatever on the excessive

competition for which you present colonization as a remedy.

What is the amount of colonization that would affect wages

and profits at home? The question is not to be answered; but

we may be sure that the requisite amount could not be reached

without greatly increasing the emigration of people and capi-

tal. I call on you to show how this essential condition of the

most effective colonization is to be secured in the face of a

limit, in the minds of men, to the emigration of people and

capital, over which law and government have no control. To

recapitulate in a single question, I ask, what can we do in

order that our colonial territories should have the same ef-

fects for us, as the unsettled territory of the United States has

for the older portion of that country?

Letter XX.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Begs Leave to Preface an Account of the

Impediments to Colonization by a Notice of its Charms

Fob the Different Classes of Emigrants.

I accept your challenge without fear, not boastfully, but from

confidence in the truth of my opinion that law or government

has control over the disposition of people and capital to emi-

grate, and could, by encouraging that disposition, bring about

an amount of colonization sufficient to affect wages and profits

at home. This opinion has not been hastily formed, and can-

not be very briefly explained; for it is a deduction from many

facts. I will go on to these after a word of preface.

It is my intention to accept your challenge strictly in your

own sense of it, when I say that the disposition of people and

capital to emigrate is limited by impediments which it is in

the power of law or government to remove. Law or govern-

ment has also the power to encourage that disposition. In re-

moving the impediments, and affording the encouragement,

would consist the whole art of national colonization.

It is time for us, therefore, to examine the impediments. But

before doing this, I would draw your attention by the present

letter to some particulars of the inducements to emigration

for various classes of people. These may be termed the charms

of colonization. Until you shall be aware of their force, you

cannot well understand that of the impediments which coun-

teract them.

Without having witnessed it, you cannot form a just concep-

tion of the pleasurable excitement which those enjoy, who

engage personally in the business of colonization. The cir-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

cumstances which produce these lively and pleasant feelings,

are doubtless counteracted by others productive of annoy-

ance and pain; but at the worst there is a great deal of enjoy-

ment for all classes of colonists, which the fixed inhabitants

of an old country can with difficulty comprehend. The coun-

teracting circumstances are so many impediments to coloni-

zation, which we must examine presently: I will now endeav-

our to describe briefly the encouraging circumstances, which

put emigrants into a state of excitement similar to that occa-

sioned by opium, wine, or winning at play, but with benefit

instead of fatal injury to the moral and physical man.

When a man of whatever condition has finally determined to

emigrate, there is no longer any room in his mind for thought

about the circumstances that surround him: his life for some

time is an unbroken and happy dream of the imagination. The

labourer, whose dream is generally realized, thinks of light

work and high wages, good victuals in abundance, beer and

tobacco at pleasure, and getting in time to be a master in his

trade, or to having a farm of his own. The novelty of the pas-

sage would be a delight to him, were it not for the ennui aris-

ing from want of occupation. On his arrival in the colony, all

goes well with him. He finds himself a person of great value,

a sort of personage, and can indulge almost any inclination

that seizes him. If he is a brute, as many emigrant labourers

are, through being brutally brought up from infancy to man-

hood, he lives, to use his own expression, “like a fighting

cock,” till gross enjoyment carries him off the scene: if he is

of the better sort by nature and education, he works hard,

saves money, and becomes a man of property; perhaps builds

himself a nice house; glories with his now grand and happy

wife in counting the children, the more the merrier; and can-

not find anything on earth to complain of but the exorbitant

wages he has to pay. The change for this class of man, being

from pauperism, or next door to it, to plenty and property, is

indescribably, to our apprehensions almost inconceivably,

agreeable.

But the classes who can hardly imagine the pleasant feelings

which emigration provides for the welldisposed pauper, have

pleasant feelings of their own when they emigrate, which are

perhaps more lively in proportion to the greater susceptibil-

ity of a more cultivated mind to the sensations of mental pain

and pleasure. Emigrants of cultivated mind, from the moment

when they determine to be colonists, have their dreams, which

though far from being always, or ever fully realized, are, I

have been told by hundreds of this class, very delightful in-

deed. They think with great pleasure of getting away from

the disagreeable position of anxiety, perhaps of wearing de-

pendence, in which the universal and excessive competition

of this country has placed them. But it is on the future that

their imagination exclusively seizes. They can think in ear-

nest about nothing but the colony. I have known a man of this

class, who had been too careless of money here, begin, as

soon as he had resolved on emigration, to save sixpences,

and take care of bits of string, saying, “everything will be of

use there.” There! it is common for people whose thoughts

are fixed “there,” to break themselves all at once of a con-

firmed habit; that of reading their favourite newspaper every

day. All the newspapers of the old country are now equally

uninteresting to them. If one falls in their way, they perhaps

turn with alacrity to the shipping-list and advertisements of

passenger-ships, or even to the account of a sale of Austra-

lian wool or New Zealand flax: but they cannot see either the

Parliamentary debate, or the leading article which used to

embody their own opinions, or the reports of accidents and

offences of which they used to spell every word. Their read-

ing now is confined to letters and newspapers from the colony,

and books relating to it. They can hardly talk about anything

that does not relate to “there.” Awake and asleep too, their

imagination is employed in picturing the colony generally,

and in all sorts of particulars. The glorious climate, the beau-

tiful scenery, the noble forests, the wide plains of natural grass

interspersed with trees like an English park; the fine harbour,

the bright river, the fertile soil; the very property on which

they mean to live and die, first, as it is now, a beautiful but

useless wilderness, and then as they intend to make it, a de-

lightful residence and profitable domain: all this passes be-

fore the greedy eyes of the intending settler, and bewitches

him with satisfaction.

This emigrant’s dream lasts all through the passage. He has

left a country in which the business of the inhabitants is to

preserve, use, improve, and multiply the good things they

have; he settles in one where everything must be created but

the land and some imported capital. He finds that colonizing

consists of making all sorts of things not yet in existence. He

beholds either nothing but a wilderness, or the first settlers

engaged in making roads and bridges, houses and gardens,

farms, mills, a dock, a lighthouse, a courthouse, a prison, a

school-house, and a church. If he goes to a colony already

established, still the further construction of civilized society

is the sight that meets his eyes in every direction. His indi-

vidual pursuits consist of a share in the general work of con-

struction. A love of building, which is apt to ruin people here,

so tempting is the pleasure which its indulgence affords, may

there be indulged with profit: or rather the building of some-

thing is everybody’s proper business and inevitable enjoy-

ment: for the principle of human nature which causes the lofti-

est as well as the meanest minds to take a pleasure in build-

ing, is called into exercise, not more in the erection of a pal-

ace or cathedral, than in the conversion of a piece of desert

into productive farms, in the getting up of a fine breed of

cattle or sheep, or in the framing of institutions and laws,

suitable from time to time to the peculiarities of a new place,

and to the changeful wants of a growing and spreading com-

A View of the Art of Colonization

munity. This principle of human nature is a love of planning

for oneself, executing one’s own plan, and beholding the re-

sults of one’s own handiwork. In colonizing, individuals and

communities are always planning, executing, and watching

the progress, or contemplating the results of their own labours.

The results come so quickly and are so strikingly visible! If

you had been a colonist, or architect of society, you would

feel, as well as Bacon knew by means of his profound insight

into human nature, that colonization is heroic work.

Man’s love of construction is probably at the bottom of the

pleasure which the cultivation of the earth has, in all ages and

countries, afforded to the sanest and often the most powerful

minds. The healthfulness of the occupation must no doubt

count for something; and more, perhaps, should be allowed

for the familiar intercourse with nature, which belongs to a

pursuit affected by every change of season and weather, and

relating to the growth of plants and the production of animal

life; but the main charm, I suspect, of the farmer’s existence—

whether he is a rustic incapable of enjoyment away from his

farm, or a retired statesman whose most real enjoyment is his

farm—arises from the constructiveness of the pursuit; from

the perpetual and visible sequence of cause and effect, de-

signed and watched by the operator. Whatever the propor-

tion to each other, however, that we may assign to the charms

of agriculture, they are all felt in a high degree by colonial

settlers on land, amongst whom, by the way, must be reck-

oned nearly all emigrants of the richer and better order. The

nature with which a colonial farmer associates, has a great

deal of novelty about it as respects the seasons, the weather,

the capacities of the soil, the seeds, the plants, the trees, the

wild animals, and even the tame live-stock, which is affected,

often improved, by the new soil and climate: and all this nov-

elty is so much pleasant excitement. But, above all, the farm

of the colonial settler has to be wrought into being: the whole

aspect of the place has to be changed by his own exertions;

the forest cleared away, the drainage and irrigation instituted,

the fencing originated, the house and the other buildings raised

from the ground after careful selection of their site, the gar-

den planned and planted: the sheep, the cattle, the horses,

even the dogs and poultry, must be introduced into the soli-

tude; and their multiplication by careful breeding is a work

of design with a view to anticipated results. The life of a set-

tler, when colonization prospers, is a perpetual feast of an-

ticipated and realized satisfaction. The day is always too short

for him; the night passed in profound, invigorating sleep, the

consequence of bodily fatigue in the open air, not to mention

the peace of mind. Add the inspiriting effect of such a cli-

mate as that of Canada during three parts of the year, or that

of the Southern colonies all the year round; and you will be-

lieve me when I tell you that most colonial settlers are pas-

sionately fond of their mode of life; you will also perceive

why the drawbacks or impediments to colonization which I

am about to describe, do not quite prevent the better sort of

people from emigrating.

I ought to have remarked sooner, perhaps, that when once a

colony is founded, emigration to it, of all classes, depends in

a great measure on the reports which the settlers send to this

country of the circumstances in which they are placed in the

colony. If the emigrants have prospered according to the ex-

pectations with which they left home, or if their anxious hopes

have been disappointed, every letter from the colony makes

an impression accordingly upon a circle of people in this coun-

try. All these impressions together gradually merge into a

public impression. The colony gets a good or a bad name at

home. Nothing can counteract the force of this influence. No

interest here, such as that of a colonizing company or busy

agents of the colony; no power or influence, such as that of

the government; can puff into popularity a colony which is

not prosperous; nor can the utmost efforts of rival colonial

interests in this country, or of the colonial branch of govern-

ment, jealous of the prosperity of a colony which has been

founded against its will, run down a prosperous colony in

public opinion here, so as to check emigration to it. Whether

or not, and to what extent, there shall be emigration to it,

depends upon the letters from the colony itself, and the re-

ports made by colonists who return home for some purpose

or other. I am inclined to say, that private letters and reports

alone have this influence; for books, or other publications

about a colony, are suspected of having been written with the

intention of puffing or disparaging. The private letters and

reports have more influence than anything else, because they

are believed to contain, as they generally do contain, true

information. It is true information from a colony, therefore,

about the condition of people in the colony; it is the colonial

condition of emigrants which, in a great measure, regulates

emigration, and more especially the emigration of those

classes whose ability to emigrate is always equal to their in-

clination.

It is not merely because the inclination of the labouring class

to emigrate is under the control of their ability, that their emi-

gration is less affected than that of the other classes by re-

ports from the colony. Emigrants of the labouring class very

seldom return home to make reports in person; and the writ-

ing of letters is not their forte: it is a disagreeable tax upon

their attention, almost a painful effort of their feeble skill.

The postage deters them, as well as their illiterate state of

mind. They receive fewer letters to answer. They have, in

comparison with the other classes, an awful conception of

the distance which separates them from birthplace, and a vague

notion that letters for home may not reach their destination.

In comparison with the other classes, emigration severs them

from the mother-country completely and for ever.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

We may now proceed to the impression made on the different

classes at home, by colonization as it is.

Letter XXI.

From the Colonist.

Emigrants Divided into Labourers, Capitalists, and Gen-

try. — How the “Shovelling out of Paupers,” and Emi-

gration as a Punishment, Indispose the Poorer Classes

to Emigrate, and Especially the Better Sort of Them.

Laying aside for the present the subject of the emigration of

capital without its owners, there are three classes of people

whose inclination to emigrate is variously affected by imped-

ing circumstances. These I shall call the Labourers, the Capi-

talists, and the Gentry; and it is my intention to notice sepa-

rately how each class is affected by these circumstances. Let

me first, however, say a few words about the gentry class.

This is a class composed of what you call “gentlemen.” They

may become landowners in the colony, or owners of capital

lent at interest, or farmers of their own land, merchants, cler-

gymen, lawyers, or doctors, so that they be respectable people

in the sense of being honourable, of cultivated mind, and gifted

with the right sort, and right proportion of self-respect. This

is what I shall always mean, when calling them “respectable,”

whether or not they keep a carriage and a butler. The most

respectable emigrants, more especially if they have a good

deal of property, and are well connected in this country, lead

and govern the emigration of the other classes. These are the

emigrants whose presence in a colony most beneficially af-

fects its standard of morals and manners, and would supply

the most beneficial element of colonial government. If you

can induce many of this class to settle in a colony, the other

classes, whether capitalists or labourers, are sure to settle there

in abundance: for a combination of honour, virtue, intelli-

gence, and property, is respected even by those who do not

possess it; and if those emigrate who do possess it, their ex-

ample has an immense influence in leading others to emi-

grate, who either do not possess it, or possess it in an inferior

degree. This, therefore, is the class, the impediments to whose

emigration the thoughtful statesman would be most anxious

to remove, whilst he further endeavoured to attract them to

the colony by all the means in his power. I shall often call

them the higher order, and the most valuable class of emi-

grants.

The labourers differ from the other classes in this, that how-

ever inclined to emigrate, they are not always able to carry

their own wish into effect. With them, and especially with the

poorest of them, who would be most disposed to emigrate, it

is a question of ability as well as inclination. They often can-

not pay for their passage. For reasons to be stated hereafter,

colonial capitalists will not pay for their passage, how much

soever the richer class may long to obtain in the colony the

services of the poorer. To some extent, the cost of passage for

very poor emigrants has been defrayed by persons wishing to

get rid of them, and by the public funds of colonies wishing

to receive them. It will be my business hereafter to show how

easily the latter kind of emigration-fund might be increased

beyond any assignable limit; but, at present, we must take the

fact as it is, that, even now, more of the labouring class are

disposed to emigrate, than can find the means of getting to a

colony. Supposing, however, that this difficulty were removed,

as I firmly believe it may be, we should then see that the

disposition of the labouring classes to emigrate is limited by

circumstances not relating to their ability.

The first of these is their ignorance of the paradise which a

colony is for the poor. If they only knew what a colony is for

people of their class, they would prefer emigrating to getting

double wages here; and how glad they would be to get double

wages here need not be stated. I have often thought that if

pains were taken to make the poorest class in this country

really and truly aware of what awaits emigrants of their class

in North America, and if a suitable machinery were estab-

lished for enabling them to cross the Atlantic, and get into

employment, by means of money saved by themselves here,

enough of them would emigrate to cause a rise of wages for

those who remained behind. At present, speaking of the class

generally, they know hardly anything about colonies, and still

less about what they ought to do in order to reach a colony, if

they could save wherewith to pay for the passage. The colo-

nies are not attractive to them as a class, have no existence so

far as they know, never occupy their thoughts for a moment.

That they have not much inclination to emigrate should sur-

prise nobody.

But, secondly, they have a disinclination to emigrate occa-

sioned by the “shovelling out of paupers.” A parish-union, or

landlord, or both together, wishing to diminish the poor’s rate

by getting rid of some paupers, raise an emigration-fund, and

send out a number of their poor to Canada or Australia; prob-

ably to Canada, because the cost of passage is so much less.

Who are they that go? probably the most useless, the least

respectable people in the parish. How are they got to go?

probably by means of a little pressure, such as parishes and

landlords can easily apply without getting into a scrape with

The Times. Occasionally they refuse to go after preparation

has been made for their departure. Whether they go or stay,

the attempt to remove them, not by attraction, but repulsion,

makes an impression in the neighbourhood, that emigration

is only fit for the refuse of the population, if it is not going to

some kind of slavery or destruction. The tendency of these

pauper-shovellings is to make the common people think of

emigration with dislike and terror.

A View of the Art of Colonization

Thirdly, the punishment of transportation excites amongst the

common people a strong prejudice against emigration. The

judge, when he sentences a convict to transportation, tells

him (and what the judge says, the convict’s neighbours learn),

that for his crime he is to be punished by being removed from

his country and home, separated from his relations and friends,

condemned to pass the whole, or a great part, of his life

amongst strangers in a distant land. The parson of the parish

might, with equal truth, address the very same words to an

honest labourer about to emigrate. The judge, indeed, in speak-

ing to the convict goes on to say, that in addition to the pun-

ishment of emigration, he will have to undergo some punish-

ment in the colony; whereas the parson would say to the hon-

est labourer, you as a colonist will be jolly and comfortable.

But it so happens, that transported convicts, whether in writ-

ing from the colony to their acquaintances here, or talking

with them here on their return from transportation, almost

invariably report, that they, too, have led a jolly and comfort-

able colonial life. The assertion is often true: whether true or

false, it is insisted upon by the convict, who naturally wishes

to persuade others that he has undergone no punishment; that

he has cheated the law; that he is not an unhappy wretch, but

a favourite of fortune. Now and then, a transported convict

may acknowledge to his friends at home, that he is unhappy

in the colony; but this is a case of rare exception: in the great

majority of cases—in those which make the impression here—

the transported convict speaks of his own condition, as a con-

vict, in the very terms which an honest, industrious emigrant

uses, when telling of his light work and high wages, his lots

of victuals, drink, and tobacco, his frequent amusements, and

his contemplated purchase of a hundred acres. Such reports

from convicts are being continually received amongst the poor

in all parts of this country. They may encourage crime; but

they certainly discourage emigration. In the mind of the com-

mon people, they confound emigration and punishment, emi-

gration and disgrace, emigration and shame. And the impres-

sion is strongest on the best of the common people; on those,

that is, who would be preferred by a colony choosing for it-

self, and whom an imperial legislature would prefer if it re-

ally wished to found colonies with the best materials.

Letter XXII.

From the Colonist.

The Shame of the Higher Order of Settlers When They

First Think of Emigrating. — The Jealousy of a Wife.—

How Emigration, as the Punishment of Crime, Affects

Opinion in this Country with Regard to Emigration in

General.— Colonists and Colonies Despised in the

Mother-country.

It has been my lot to become acquainted with a considerable

number of the gentry class of emigrants; and I declare, in the

first place, that I never met with one, who, when he first con-

templated emigration, was not ashamed and afraid of his own

purpose; and secondly, that I know not of one whose objects

in emigrating have been realized. I wish I did not know a

great many whose hopes as emigrants have been bitterly dis-

appointed. The causes of the disappointment, as well as the

shame and fear, may be easily explained. I will begin with the

shame.

You may have a difficulty in believing or understanding it,

but much experience has made me confident, that the highest

class who think of emigrating, to whom the idea of emigra-

tion for themselves ever occurs, associate that idea with the

idea of convict transportation, even more painfully than the

poorest and meanest class do. This association of ideas is not

deliberate, but undesigned, almost unconscious: it is a conse-

quence of the facts, and of the nature of the human mind. A

case is within my knowledge, in which a gentleman of good,

birth and connexions contemplated emigrating to Australia

Felix. He had a small fortune, a large family of children, and

a handsome wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, though

she was not the wisest of her sex. As the children grew up, the

income seemed to grow smaller, though it remained the same;

the wants increased whilst the means of supplying them were

stationary. The education of the boys was costly; that of the

girls inferior to that of other girls in their station. To provide

for both, one after another of the parents’ luxuries, and of the

outward marks of their station, was reluctantly laid down. In

order to establish the sons in life, more money was required

than could by any means be found; and two of the daughters

had already entered on the miserable period between lively

girlhood and confirmed old-maidism. The father passed from

the state of self-satisfied enjoyment, first into uneasiness, then

into impatience, and at last into a discontent at once angry

and mournful: the mother fretted continually. They had mar-

ried very young, and were still in the prime of life. At last,

there was added to the mother’s troubles, that of jealousy.

She had reason to think that her husband’s affections were

estranged from her. He went to London without telling her

for what. He returned without reporting whom he had seen,

or what he had done. At home, he took no interest in his usual

occupations or amusements. He was absorbed with secret

thoughts, absent, inattentive, and unaffectionate, but in ap-

parent good humour with himself, and charmed with the sub-

ject of his secret contemplations. He had a key made for the

post-bag, which had been without one for years; and instead

of leaving all his letters about, as was his wont, he carefully

put some of them away, and was caught once or twice in the

act of reading them in secret with smiling lips and sparkling

eyes. His wife did not complain, but now and then hinted to

him that she perceived the change in his demeanour. On these

occasions he protested that she was mistaken, and for a while

afterwards put a guard upon his behaviour for the evident

purpose of averting her suspicions. At last, poor woman, her

jealousy exploded; and it turned out that he had been all this

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

time forming a plan of emigration for the family. Whilst he

was so engaged, his mind had naturally fixed on the pleasant

features of the project; the delightful climate, the fine do-

main, the pastoral life, the creative business of settling, the

full and pleasing occupation, the consequence which a per-

son of his station would enjoy in the colony, the ample room

for boys and girls, and the happy change for his harassed

wife. This explains his smiling selfsatisfaction : his secrecy

was deliberate, because he was afraid that if he disclosed his

scheme at home before it was irrevocably matured, his wife

and her relations, and his own relations as well, would call it

a scheme of transportation, and worry him into abandoning

it.

They did worry him by talking about Botany Bay. In vain he

protested that Australia Felix is not a penal colony: they found

out, that though convicts are not sent to Port Philip to un-

dergo punishment as convicts, they are sent thither as “ex-

iles;” and that swarms of emancipated convicts resort thither

from Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales: the lady’s

brother, the rector of their parish, explained that Lord Grey’s

plan of convict transportation is a plan of emigration for con-

victs; the very plan contemplated by the brother-in-law for

himself and family. They got hold of a Hobart-Town newspa-

per, which contained the report of a public meeting held for

the purpose of laying before her Majesty’s Government a,

description of the social horrors inflicted on Tasmania by the

plan of exiling convicts to that island, and starting them out

of the ship on their arrival as free as any other emigrants, or

as thieves in the Strand. The would-be emigrant so far gave

way to this domestic storm, as to offer, that New Zealand

instead of Australia Felix should be their destination; but then

they proved to him, with the aid of a cousin who is in the

Colonial Office, that convict-boys from Parkhurst prison are

sent to New Zealand, and that Lord Grey contemplates mak-

ing those islands a receptacle of convict “exiles.” In the end,

they taunted him into giving up his scheme, and settling, poor

fellow, at Boulogne, in order to be somebody there instead of

nobody at home.

I do not pretend that the only argument of the wife and her

supporters consisted of taunts founded on the late resemblance

between emigration and transportation, on their present iden-

tity, or on the state of society in the Southern colonies as it

has been affected by convict colonization. They used other

arguments, so far of a like kind, that however politely ex-

pressed in words, they consisted of sneers, taunts, and re-

proaches. Having themselves a lively antipathy to the notion

of a gentleman’s family emigrating at all, they painted emi-

gration in all its most unfavourable and repulsive colours;

and some of the darkest of these are drawn from emigration

as the result of burglary, bigamy, or murder, and from the

moral and social pestilence inflicted upon colonies by con-

vict emigration. But there are several dark colours besides

these, in which emigration for respectable families may be

truly described. The next that occurs to me has but an indi-

rect relation to the emigration of convicts.

I would beg of you to exert your imagination for the purpose

of conceiving what would be the public state of mind in this

country, if the Emperor Nicholas, or President Polk should

ask us to let him send the convicts of his nation to inhabit this

country as free exiles. Fancy John Bull’s fury. His rage would

arise partly from his view of the evils to which our country

would be subjected, by continually adding to our own crimi-

nals a number of Russian or American robbers and assassins;

but it would be partly, and I think chiefly, occasioned by the

national insult of the proposal for treating his country as fit to

be the moral cess-pool of another community. We should feel,

that the Russians or Americans as the case might be, most

cordially despised us; that as a nation or community we were

deemed inferior, low, base, utterly devoid of honourable pride,

and virtuous self-respect; that we ought instantly to go to war

and thrash the insolence out of the Yankees or the Cossacks.

But you can’t thoroughly imagine the case, because so cross

an insult to so powerful a nation as this, is inconceivable. We

put this affront on some of our colonies with as much cool-

ness and complacency as if we thought they liked it. Without

the least compunction or hesitation, we degrade and insult a

group of our colonies, by sending thither, as to their proper

home, our own convicts and those of our other dependencies.

In many other ways we treat them as communities so mean

and low in character, as to be incapable of feeling an outrage.

Our own feeling of contempt for them was capitally expressed

long ago by an English Attorney-General under William and

Mary. This high officer of the crown was instructed to pre-

pare a charter for establishing a college in Virginia, of which

the object was to educate and qualify young men to be minis-

ters of the Gospel. He protested against the grant, declaring

he did not see the slightest occasion for such a college in

Virginia. A delegate of the colonists begged Mr. Attorney

would consider that the people of Virginia had souls to be

saved as well as the people of England. “Souls!” said he;

“damn your souls!—make tobacco.” That was long ago: well,

but you will recollect, because it belongs to the history of

home politics, that letter which, in Lord Melbourne’s time,

Mr. O’Connell wrote to one of his “tail,” who had got himself

banished from decent society in this country, saying in effect,

though I can do nothing for you here, if you will retire from

Parliament for the sake of the credit of our party, I will get

you a place in the colonies. Anything is good enough for the

colonies. It would be easy to cite, if they had been published,

as Mr. O’Connell’s letter was, very many cases in which, and

quite of late years too, somebody has obtained a place in the

colonies, not only in spite of his having lost his character

here, but because he had lost it: somebody wanted to get rid

A View of the Art of Colonization

of him, and anything is good enough for the colonies. Some

four or five years ago, a young clergyman, wishing to qualify

for an appointment hi the colonies, was under examination

by a bishop’s chaplain: the bishop came into the room, and

presently observed to his chaplain, that he thought the exami-

nation was insufficient as a test of the proper qualities of a

clergyman, when the chaplain excused himself by saying, “It

is only a gentleman for the colonies:” and the bishop seemed

perfectly satisfied with the answer. Contempt for the colo-

nies, a sense of their inferiority or lowness, pervades society

here. When it is proposed by a thoughtful statesman to be-

stow upon those colonies which have none, a considerable

portion of local self-government, the vulgar mind of this coun-

try is a little offended, and thinks that a colonial community

is rather presumptuous in supposing itself capable of manag-

ing its own affairs as well as they can be managed by the

Right Honourable Mr. or Lord Somebody, who sits in the

great house at the bottom of Downing-street. The vulgar no-

tion is, that, as in the opinion of William and Mary’s

AttorneyGeneral, the Virginians had not souls to be saved, so

colonists in general have not, and have no business to have,

political ideas; that the only business for which they are fit, is

to send home, for the good of this country, plenty of timber,

or flour, or sugar, or wool. As anything is good enough for

the colonies, so the colonies are good for nothing but as they

humbly serve our purposes. If we look with care into the causes

of the revolt of the thirteen great English colonies of North

America, we find that the leading colonists were made disaf-

fected more by the contemptuous, than by the unjust and ty-

rannical treatment, which their country received at the hands

of its parent. Franklin, the representative in this country of

one of the greatest of those colonies, was shied and snubbed

in London: the first feeling of disloyalty was probably planted

in the breast of Washington by the contemptuous treatment

which he received as an officer of the provincial army. The

instances of such treatment of colonists are without number.

But that, you may say again, was long ago: well, let us mark

the present difference of the reception which we give to for-

eigners, from that which we give to colonists when they visit

England. When a person of any mark in any foreign country

comes to London on a visit of curiosity, he has only to make

known his arrival, in order to receive all kinds of attentions

from the circles whose civilities are most prized; if only a

personage in some German principality, or small Italian state,

he is sought out, fêted, perhaps lionized, all to his heart’s

content. When a distinguished colonist comes to London—

one even, whose name stands as high in his own community

as the names of the leaders of the Government and Opposi-

tion do here—he prowls about the streets, and sees sights till

he is sick of doing nothing else, and then returns home dis-

gusted with his visit to the old country. Nobody has paid him

any attention because he was a colonist. Not very long ago,

one of the first men in Canada, the most important of our

colonies, came to England on a mission with which he was

charged by the colonial House of Commons. He was a Cana-

dian of French origin, of most polite manners, well informed,

a person of truth and honour, altogether equal to the best or-

der of people in the most important countries. On account of

these qualities, and also because he was rich and public spir-

ited, he enjoyed the marked respect of his fellow-colonists.

The delays of the Colonial Office kept him in England for, I

believe, more than two years; and during all this time, he re-

sided at a tavern in the city, the London CoffeeHouse on

Ludgate Hill, totally unknowing and unknown out of the cof-

fee-room. He was a Canadian, that is a colonist, and was less

cared about here than a load of timber or a barrel of flour

coming from the St. Lawrence. This is no solitary instance.

Colonists, more especially if they are rich, intelligent, and of

importance in their own country, frequently come to England,

not merely as foreigners do, to see, but to admire and glory in

the wonders of our great little country; and, I repeat, those

who come are generally the first people in the colony. Do you

ever meet any of them in the houses of your friends? Has

ever the name of one of them been upon your own invitation

list? Certainly not, unless by some singular accident. But I, in

my obscure position, and as having been a colonist myself,

see numbers of these neglected visitors of England; and I see

how others treat them, or rather neither well nor ill treat them,

but take no sort of notice of them, because they despise them

as colonists. I am not thinking in the least now of the national

impolicy of such inhospitality and bad manners, but exclu-

sively of the fact, that among the gentry rank of this country,

colonies and colonists are deemed inferior, low a baser order

of communities and beings; and that in this despicable light

we regard them, quite as unaffectedly as William and Mary’s

Attorney-General did though we do not express our opinion

so emphatically. Is it surprising, then, that an English gentle-

man should feel somewhat ashamed of himself when he first

entertains the idea of becoming a colonist? is not the indispo-

sition of our gentry to emigrate just what might have been

expected?

What is worse, speaking generally, colonies and colonists are

in fact, as well as in the estimation of the British gentry, infe-

rior, low, unworthy of much respect, properly disliked and

despised by people of refinement and honour here, who hap-

pen to be acquainted with the state of society in the colonies.

But the proof of this must be reserved for another letter.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Letter XXIII.

From the Colonist.

Low Standard of Morals and Manners in the Colonies.

— Colonial “Smartness.” — Want of Intellectual Culti-

vation. — Main Distinction Between Savage and Civi-

lized Life.

From the sweeping assertion which closed my last letter, I

would except many individuals in every colony, but only one

colonial community. However marked and numerous the ex-

ceptions may be in some colonies, they are but exceptions

from the rule in all; and in some, the rule has few exceptions.

I proceed to explain and justify the statement.

In all colonies not infected with crime by convict transporta-

tion or banishment, crime is rare in comparison with what it

is in this country: it is so, because in a country where the

poorest are well off, and may even grow rich if they please,

the temptation to crime is very weak. In the rural parts of

uninfected colonies, the sorts of crime which fill our gaols at

home, and found some of our colonies, are almost entirely

unknown. I have known a considerable district in French

Canada, in which the oldest inhabitant did not remember a

crime to have been committed; and in the whole of that part

of North America, which is some hundred miles long and

which contains as many people as the rural counties of Nor-

folk and Suffolk, the only buildings in which you can lock up

a criminal are two or three jails in towns where British sol-

diers and shovelled-out paupers are numerous. Crime is rare

in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; so it is in South Africa

and West Australia. The colonial soil, in a word, is unsuitable

for crime, which grows there slowly and with difficulty. In

the convict colonies and their immediate neighbours, it is the

imperial government which forces crime to grow abundantly

in a soil naturally unfavourable to it.

But the colonial soil everywhere seems highly favourable to

the growth of conduct which, without being criminal accord-

ing to law, is very much objected to by the better sort of people

in this country. I mean all those acts which, in Upper Canada

and the State of New York, are called “smart” conduct; which

consist of taking advantage or overreaching, of forgetting

promises, of betraying confidence, of unscrupulously sacri-

ficing all the other numbers to “number one.” In colonies,

such conduct is commonly termed clever, cute, dexterous; in

this country, it is called dishonourable: the honourable colo-

nists who strongly disapprove of such conduct, more espe-

cially if they are recent emigrants of the better order, often

call it “colonial.” For the growth of honour, in a word, the

colonies are not a very congenial soil. Neither is knowledge

successfully cultivated there. In all the colonies, without ex-

ception, it is common to meet with people of the greatest

mark in the colony, who are ignorant of everything but the art

of getting money.

Brutish ignorance keeps no man down, if he has in a large

degree the one quality which is highly prized in the colonies;

the quality of knowing how to grow rich. In hardly any colony

can you manage, without great difficulty, to give your son

what is esteemed a superior education here; and in all colo-

nies, the sons of many of the first people are brought up in a

wild unconsciousness of their own intellectual degradation.

Colonial manners are hardly better than morals, being slov-

enly, coarse, and often far from decent, even in the higher

ranks; I mean in comparison with the manners of the higher

ranks here. Young gentlemen who go out there, are apt to

forget their home manners, or to prefer those of the colony;

and one sees continually such cases as that of a young mem-

ber of a most respectable family here, who soon becomes in

the colony, by means of contamination, a thorough-paced

blackguard.

If the bad propensities of colonists are not as much as we

could wish them under the restraint of either honour, or rea-

son, or usage, neither are they under that of religion. Here,

however, I must make one great and signal exception. There

is not in the world a more religious people than the great bulk

of French Canadians, nor, upon the whole, I believe, any-

where a people so polite, virtuous, and happy. The French

Canadians owe their religious sentiments to a peculiar mode

of colonization, as respects religion, which is no longer the

fashion among the colonizing states either of Europe or

America. I speak of quite modern colonies, such as Upper or

English Canada, Michigan, South Australia, and New Zealand,

when I say that religion does not flourish there. There is in all

of them, more or less, a good deal of the observance of reli-

gious forms, and the excitement of religious exercises. But in

none of them does religion exercise the sort of influence which

religion exercises here upon the morals, the intelligence, and

the manners of those classes which we consider the best-in-

formed and the best-behaved; that is, the most respectable

classes in this country, or those whose conduct, knowledge,

and manners constitute the type of those of the nation. Let me

endeavour to make my meaning clear by an illustration. Think

of some one of your friends who never goes to church except

for form’s sake, Avho takes the House-of-Commons oath, “on

the faith of a Christian,” as Edward Gibbon took it, but who

has a nice sense of honour; who is, as the saying goes, as

honourable a fellow as ever lived. Where did he get this sense

of honour from? He knows nothing about where he got it

from; but it really came to him from chivalry; and chivalry

came from religion. He would not do to anybody anything,

which he thinks he should have a right to complain of, if some-

body did it to him: he is almost a Christian without knowing

it. Men of this sort are rare indeed in the colonies. Take an-

other case; that of an English matron, whose purity, and deli-

cacy, and charity of mind, you can trace to the operation of

A View of the Art of Colonization

religious influences: such beings are as rare in the colonies,

as men with that sense of honour which amounts to good-

ness. In many parts of some colonies, there is, I may say, no

religion at all; and wherever this happens the people fall into

a state of barbarism. If you were asked for a summary defini-

tion of the contrast between barbarism and civilization, you

would not err in saying that civilized men differ from savages

in having their natural inclinations restrained by law, honour,

and religion. The restraint of law is imposed on individuals

by the community; and, as before observed, this sort of re-

straint, since it only applies to crime, is less needed in colo-

nies than in old countries. But the restraint of honour and

religion is a self-restraint; and as it relates only to matters of

which the law takes no cognizance—to bad natural inclina-

tions which are equally strong everywhere—it is as much a

condition of civilization in the newest colony as in the oldest

mother-country. I can only attribute the low standard of honour

in colonies to the insignificant proportion which emigrants of

the better order bear to the other classes, and to the foul ex-

ample of the only privileged class in colonies; namely, the

public functionaries. These two causes of the want of honour

shall be fully noticed ere long. The weakness of religious

restraint is owing to the inadequacy of religious provisions

for our colonists: and to this topic my next letter will be de-

voted.

Letter XXIV.

From the Colonist.

Difference Between Colonization and Other Pursuits of

Men in Masses. — Religious Women as Colonists. —

A Disgusting Colony.— Old Practice of England with

Regard to Religious Provisions. — Sectarian Colonies

in America. — The Church of England in the Colonies.

— Wesleyan Church. — Church of England. — Roman

Catholic Church. — Dissenting Churches. — Excuse

for the Church of England.

I must now beg of you to observe a particular in which colo-

nization differs from nearly every other pursuit that occupies

mankind in masses. In trade, navigation, war, and politics—

in all business of a public nature except works of benevo-

lence and colonization— the stronger sex alone takes an ac-

tive part; but in colonization, women have a part so impor-

tant that all depends on their participation in the work. If only

men emigrate, there is no colonization; if only a few women

emigrate in proportion to the men, the colonization is slow

and most unsatisfactory in other respects: an equal emigra-

tion of the sexes is one essential condition of the best coloni-

zation. In colonizing, the woman’s participation must begin

with the man’s first thought about emigrating, and must ex-

tend to nearly all the arrangements he has to make, and the

things he has to do, from the moment of contemplating a de-

parture from the family home till the domestic party shall be

comfortably housed in the new country. The influence of

women in this matter is even greater, one may say, than that

of the men. You may make a colony agreeable to men, but

not to women; you cannot make it agreeable to women with-

out being agreeable to men. You may induce some men of the

higher classes to emigrate without inducing the women; but

if you succeed with the women, you are sure not to fail with

the men. A colony that is not attractive to women, is an unat-

tractive colony: in order to make it attractive to both sexes,

you do enough if you take care to make it attractive to women.

Women are more religious than men; or, at all events, there

are more religious women than religious men: I need not stop

to prove that. There is another proposition which I think you

will adopt as readily: it is, that in every rank the best sort of

women for colonists are those to whom religion is a rule, a

guide, a stay, and a comfort. You might persuade religious

men to emigrate, and yet in time have a colony of which the

morals and manners would be detestable; but if you persuade

religious women to emigrate, the whole colony will be com-

paratively virtuous and polite. As respects morals and man-

ners, it is of little importance what colonial fathers are, in

comparison with what the mothers are. It was the matrons

more than the fathers of the New-England pilgrimage, that

stamped the character of Massachusetts and Connecticut; that

made New England, for a long while, the finest piece of colo-

nization the world has exhibited. Imagine for a moment, that

like Penn or Baltimore, you had undertaken to found a na-

tion. Think of the greatness of the responsibility; figure to

yourself how ardent would be your desire to sow the finest

seed, to plant the most healthy offsets, to build with the sound-

est materials. Is there any effort or sacrifice you would be

unwilling to make for the purpose of giving to your first emi-

gration a character of honour, virtue, and refinement? Now

go on to suppose that in planning your colonization, you had

by some strange oversight omitted all provisions for religion

in the colony; and that accordingly, as would surely be the

case, you found amongst religious people of all classes, but

especially amongst the higher classes, and amongst the better

sort of women of every class, a strong repugnance to having

anything to do with you. If you had made no provisions for

religion in your colony, and if people here only cared enough

about you to find that out, your scheme would be vituperated

by religious men, who are numerous; by religious women,

who are very numerous; and by the clergy of all denomina-

tions, who are immensely powerful. You would have to take

what you could get in the way of emigration. Your labouring

class of emigrants would be composed of paupers, vagabonds,

and sluts: your middle class, of broken-down tradesmen, over-

reachers, semi-swindlers, and needy adventurers, together with

a few miserable wives, and a good many mistresses: your

higher order of emigrants would be men of desperate for-

tunes, flying from debt and bedevilment, and young repro-

bates spurned or coaxed into banishment by relatives wish-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

ing them dead. You would sow bad seed, plant sorry offsets,

build with rotten materials: your colony would be disgusting.

In former times, before the art of colonization was lost, it was

the universal practice in the planting of colonies to take care-

ful heed of religious provisions. Do not be alarmed. I am not

going to repeat the sayings that one hears at meetings of the

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and even in colo-

nization debates in the House of Commons, about the sacred

fire of the ancient Greeks transported to their colonies, and

the gods of the Romans worshipped in their most distant settle-

ments. Neither would I dwell on the religious zeal which nour-

ished the energy of the Spaniards in their wonderful conquests

of Mexico and Peru. But there is a religious feature in the old

colonization of England, on which I would gladly fix your

attention.

In colonizing North America, the English seem to have thought

more about religious provisions than almost anything else.

Each settlement was better known by its religion than by any

other mark. Virginia, notwithstanding the official reception

in England of the proposition that its inhabitants had souls to

be saved like other people, was a Church-of-England colony;

Maryland was the land of promise for Roman Catholics; Penn-

sylvania for Quakers; the various settlements of New England

for Puritans. History tells us that the founders of the religious

English colonies in North America, crossed the Atlantic in

order to enjoy liberty of conscience. I fancy that this is one of

the many errors which history continues to propagate. I doubt

that the founders of any of these colonies went forth in search

of a place where they be free from religious persecution:

careful inspection of their doings, on the contrary, leaves the

impression that their object was, each body of them respec-

tively, to find a place where its own religion would be the

religion of the place; to form a community the whole of which

would be of one religion; or at least to make its own faith the

principal religion of the new community. The Puritans went

further: within their bounds they would suffer no religion but

their own; they emigrated not so much in order to escape

from persecution, as in order to be able to persecute. It was

not persecution for its own sake that they loved; it was the

power of making their religion the religion of their whole

community. Being themselves religious in earnest, they dis-

liked the congregation and admixture of differing religions in

their settlements, just as now the congregation and admixture

of differing religions in schools and colleges is disliked by

most religious people of all denominations: they wanted to

live, as religious people now send their children to school, in

contact with no religion but their own. Penn and Baltimore,

indeed, or rather Baltimore and Penn (for the example was

set by the Roman Catholic) made religious toleration a fun-

damental law of their settlements; but whilst they paid this

formal tribute of respect to their own history as sufferers from

persecution at home, they took care practically, that Mary-

land should be especially a Roman-Catholic colony, and Penn-

sylvania a colony for Quakers. Therefore, the Roman Catho-

lics of England were attracted to Maryland; the Quakers to

Pennsylvania. New England attracted its own sect of religious

people; and so did Virginia.

Altogether, the attraction of these sectarian colonies was very

great. The proof is the great number of people of the higher

orders who emigrated to those colonies as long as they pre-

served their sectarianism or religious distinctions. Settled his-

tory has made another mistake in leading us to suppose, that

the Puritan emigrants belonged chiefly, like the Cameronians

in Scotland, to the humbler classes at home: most of the lead-

ers, on the contrary, were of the gentry class, being persons

of old family, the best education, and considerable property.

It was equally so in Pennsylvania; for in the colonization of

that day, there were leaders and followers; and the leading

Quakers of that day belonged to the gentry, as respects birth,

education, and property. The emigration to Maryland and

Virginia was so remarkably aristocratic, that one need not

correct history on that point. The emigration to New York, to

the Carolinas, to all the colonies, exhibited the same feature,

sometimes more, sometimes less, down to the time of the dis-

contents which preceded their independence. All that coloni-

zation was more or less a religious colonization: the parts of

it that prospered the most, were the most religious parts: the

prosperity was chiefly occasioned by the respectability of the

emigration: and the respectability of the emigration to each

colony had a close relation to the force of the religious attrac-

tion.

I am in hopes of being able, when the proper time shall come

for that part of my task, to persuade you that it would now be

easy for England to plant sectarian colonies; that is, colonies

with the strong attraction for superior emigrants, of a pecu-

liar creed in each colony. Meanwhile, let us mark what our

present colonization isas respects religious provisions. It is

nearly all make-believe or moonshine. The subject of reli-

gious provisions for the colonies figures occasionally in

speeches at religious meetings, and in Colonial-Office blue-

books; but whatever composes the thing itself—the churches,

the funds, the clergy, the schools, and colleges—appears no-

where else except on a scale of inadequacy that looks like

mockery. If England were twice as large as it is, and ten times

as difficult to travel about, then one bishop for all England

would be as real a provision for the episcopacy of our church

at home as there is in Upper Canada, or indeed in any of our

more extensive colonies: it would not be a real, but a sham

provision. Let me pursue the example of Upper Canada. If

the one bishop is a mockery of episcopacy, still, it may be

said, there are clergymen of the Church of England in suffi-

cient abundance. I answer, there are indeed clergymen, but

A View of the Art of Colonization

they are not clergymen of the Church of England. They differ

from clergymen of the Church of England: they are not sup-

ported by endowments which would enable them to be the

leaders, rather than the servants of their flocks; they are not

otherwise qualified to lead any body, being men of an infe-

rior order as respects accomplishments and wisdom. The

ministers of a church, whose system of discipline is based on

endowment and dignities, they have no ranks and no endow-

ments. Men of mark or promise in the church at home would

not go there: those who do go, are men of neither mark nor

promise. Even these are so few in proportion to the great coun-

try, as are of course the churches likewise, that out of the

towns it is ten to one that a Church-of-England emigrant misses

his own church altogether: so he joins some other denomina-

tion, or, what is more common perhaps, soon really belongs

to none. Thus what is called an extension of the Church of

England in Upper Canada, consists of a single bishop for half

a dozen Englands as respects the means of episcopal action;

of a few dependent, half-starved, makeshift clergy; and of,

for the greater part of the colony, nothing at all. The Roman-

Catholic Church is not much better off. Mainly dependent for

the subsistence of its priesthood on the voluntary contribu-

tions of poor Irish emigrants, it is a starved church like the

other; whilst, like the other again, it is a church of endow-

ments, but unendowed. What that is, you may judge by the

RomanCatholic Church in Ireland, of which I assure you that

both the Roman-Catholic Church and Church of England in

Upper Canada have frequently reminded me, by the contrast

between their theory of government and their actual position.

The Church of Scotland, by reason of the comparative home-

liness and democracy of its theory of government, is in a less

false position in the colonies; and it acquires more easily a

far greater resemblance to its mother-church. It never indeed

leads colonization (with the exception, however, of what the

Free Church of Scotland is now doing at Otago in New

Zealand); but wherever Scotch settlers abound, the Scottish

Church grows after awhile into a position of respectability

and usefulness; of very marked respectability and usefulness

as compared with that of the great churches of Rome and

England. It is, however, behind another church, which alone

in the colonies performs the functions of a church; I mean

that of the Wesleyan Methodists. Oh! but this is not a church!

Isn’t it? At any rate it has all the properties of one. It has a

profound and minute system of government, which compre-

hends the largest and takes care of the smallest objects of a

church. It has zeal, talents, energy, funds, order and method,

a strict discipline, and a conspicuous success. But our con-

cern with it is only in the colonies. There, it does not wait, as

the other churches do, till there is a call for its services, and

then only exhibit its inefficiency; but it goes before settle-

ment; it leads colonization; it penetrates into settlements where

there is no religion at all, and gathers into its fold many of

those whom the other churches utterly neglect. This church

alone never acts on the principle that anything is good enough

for the colonies. Whether it sends forth its clergy to the back-

woods of North America, the solitary plains of South Africa,

the wild bush of Tasmania and Australia, or the forests and

fern-plains of New Zealand, it sends men of devoted purpose

and first-rate ability. It selects its missionaries with as much

care as the Propaganda of Rome. It rules them with an au-

thority that is always in full operation; with a far-stretching

arm, and a hand of steel. It supplies them with the means of

devoting themselves to their calling. Accordingly it succeeds

in what it attempts. It does not attempt to supply the higher

classes of emigrants with religious observances and teach-

ing. It does this for its own people, who are nearly all of the

middle or poorer classes; and, above all, it seeks, and picks

up, and cherishes, and humanizes the basest and most brutish

of the emigrant population. In the colonies generally, it is the

antagonist, frequently the conqueror, of drunkenness, which

is the chief bane of low colonial life. It makes war upon idle-

ness, roguery, dirt, obscenity, and debauchery. In the convict

colonies, and those which are infected by them, it is the great

antagonist of Downing-street, whose polluting emigration it

counteracts, by snatching some, and guarding others from the

pestilence of convict contamination. If it had the power which

the Church of England has in our legislature, it would put a

stop to the shame of convict colonization, open and disguised.

For it is truly a colonizing church: it knows that in coloniza-

tion, as you sow, so shall you reap: it acts on this belief with

vigour and constancy of purpose that put the other churches

to shame, and with a degree of success that is admirable, con-

sidering that its first “centenary” was only held the other day.

After the Wesleyans, I should award the first rank in point of

efficiency to the two churches of Scotland, but especially to

the Free Church, but merely because in the colonies it is be-

coming the only Church of Scotland. Next come Indepen-

dents, Baptists, and other Dissenters from the Church of En-

gland. Then the Roman Catholics, whose lower position arises

from no want of zeal or organization, but solely from the pov-

erty of the great bulk of Catholic emigrants. And last of all

figures the Church of England, which, considering the num-

bers and wealth of her people at home, and her vast influence

accordingly, can offer no excuse for neglecting her colonial

people; save one only, that in consequence of her connexion

with the state, she is, in the colonies, subject to the Colonial

Office, and therefore necessarily devoid of energy and enter-

prise.

I will not meddle here with the causes of the inadequacy of

religious provisions for our colonies; still less with the means

of removing them. My only object here has been to show,

that the actual state of colonial provisions for religion is well

calculated to deter the better order of people, and especially

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

the better order of women, from going to live and die in a

colony.

Letter XXV.

From the Colonist.

Combination and Constancy of Labour Are Indispens-

able Conditions of the Productiveness of Industry. —

How Colonial Capitalists Suffer from the Division and

Inconstancy of Labour.

The condition of a capitalist in a colony is generally well

known in the circle which he quitted on emigrating. It is not

always a condition envied by them or agreeable to himself: it

is often, on the contrary, a state of great unhappiness. Refer-

ring to what has been said before about the high rate of colo-

nial profits, I have now to request your special attention to an

absolute condition of a high rate of profit anywhere, and, in-

deed, of any return whatever from capital, which is often

wanting or deficient in colonies, though not in old countries.

In this country, for example, it never comes into anybody’s

head to doubt that capital can be employed in a productive

business. There is the capital, and there is the business: put

the one into the other, and all will go well. The business, let

us suppose, is the farming of 500 acres of fertile land in a

high state of cultivation, well found in drainage, fences, and

buildings, and rent free: the capital is £5000 worth of the

things requisite for carrying on the business of the farm, such

as crops in the ground, live stock, fodder, implements, and

money at the bank wherewith to pay outgoings till incomings

restore the invested capital. Nothing more seems requisite.

Now, let us suppose that, by some strange means or other, the

farmer were deprived of his horses, and precluded from get-

ting others: his balance, at the end of the year, would prob-

ably be on the wrong side. But, now, let us suppose, the num-

ber of labourers on this farm being thirty, that two-thirds of

them quitted their employer, and that he was totally unable to

get others in their place: and suppose, further, that in order to

keep the services of the labourers who remained with him, he

was obliged to triple their wages. This farmer would soon be

ruined. He would be ruined, not by having to pay such high

wages, because his whole outlay in wages would not be in-

creased, but by the unproductiveness of the labour of ten men

in a business requiring that of thirty. We can hardly bring

ourselves to imagine the occurrence of such a case here. It is

substantially an every-day case in the colonies. Farmers, or

other men of business there, can get and keep horses as many

as they please, but they cannot do so with labourers. Labour,

which is here a drug, is scarce there. The scarcity of labourers

in colonies has effects on the condition of capitalists which

require some particular description.

It has long been an axiom with political economists, that the

most important improvement in the application of human in-

dustry is what they call “the division of labour:” the produce,

they show, is great in proportion as the labour is divided.

Adam Smith’s famous chapter on the subject satisfies the mind

on this point. But he fell into an error of words, which has

kept out of view until lately, that what he calls the division of

labour, is wholly dependent upon something else. It is depen-

dent upon combination amongst the labourers. In his illustra-

tive case of the pin-factory, for example, the separate parts of

the whole work of making a pin could not be assigned to

different persons —one drawing the wire, another polishing

it, a third cutting it in bits, a fourth pointing one end of the

bits, a fifth making the heads, a sixth putting them on, and so

forth—unless all these persons were brought together under

one roof, and induced to co-operate. The bringing together

of workmen, and inducing them to co-operate, is a combina-

tion of labour: it cannot be properly called by any other name.

But how can the same thing be division of labour, and combi-

nation of labour? One of the expressions must be wrong. We

have seen that what is called combination of labour, is what it

is called. Is that really “division of labour,” which is so called?

It is not. The assignment of several parts of a work to differ-

ent labourers is a division, not of the labour, but of the work

or employment. The whole work or employment of making a

pin is divided amongst many persons, each of whom takes a

distinct part: their labour is not divided, but is on the contrary

combined, in order to enable them to divide the employment.

This is not a merely verbal distinction: it is necessary to pre-

vent confusion of ideas, indispensable in order to understand

the principal impediment to the emigration of capitalists and

gentry. The division of employments, as I cannot help always

calling it, increases the produce of industry. But it never can

take place without combination of labour. Combination of

labour is a condition of all the improvements of industry, and

of all the increase of produce in proportion to capital and

labour, which are occasioned by division of employments.

Combination of labour is further indispensable to the carry-

ing on of works or employments, which are never divided

into parts. There are numerous operations of so simple a kind

as not to admit of a division into parts, which cannot be per-

formed without the co-operation of many pairs of hands. I

would instance the lifting of a large tree on to a wain, keeping

down weeds in a large field of growing crop, shearing a large

flock of sheep at the right time, gathering a harvest of corn at

the time when it is ripe enough and not too ripe, moving any

great weight; everything in short, which cannot be done un-

less a good many pairs of hands help each other in the same

undivided employment, and at the same time.

The principle of the combination of labour, which seems more

important the more one reflects on it, was not perceived until

a colonial inquiry led to its discovery: it was unnoticed by

economists, because they have resided in countries where

A View of the Art of Colonization

combination of labour takes place, as a matter of course,

whenever it is required : it seems in old countries like a natu-

ral property of labour. But in colonies the case is totally dif-

ferent. There, the difficulty of inducing a number of people

to combine their labour for any purpose, meets the capitalist

in every step of his endeavours, and in every line of industry.

I shall speak of its consequences presently.

There is another principle of labour which nothing points out

to the economical inquirer in old countries, but of which ev-

ery colonial capitalist has been made conscious in his own

person. By far the greater part of the operations of industry,

and especially those of which the produce is great in propor-

tion to the capital and labour employed, require a consider-

able time for their completion. As to most of them, it is not

worth while to make a commencement without the certainty

of being able to carry them on for several years. A large por-

tion of the capital employed in them is fixed, inconvertible,

durable. If anything happens to stop the operation, all this

capital is lost. If the harvest cannot be gathered, the whole

outlay in making it grow has been thrown away. Like ex-

amples, without end, might be cited. They show that con-

stancy is a no less important principle than combination of

labour.

The importance of the principle of constancy is not seen here,

because rarely indeed does it happen, that the labour which

carries on a business, is stopped against the will of the capi-

talist; and it perhaps never happens, that a capitalist is de-

terred from entering on an undertaking by the fear that in the

middle of it he may be left without labourers. But in the colo-

nies, on the contrary, I will not say that this occurs every day,

because capitalists are so much afraid of it, that hey avoid its

occurrence as much as they can, by avoiding, as much as pos-

sible, operations which require much time for their comple-

tion; but it occurs, more or less, to all who heedlessly engage

in such operations, especially to new comers; and the general

fear of it—the known difficulty of providing with certainty

that operations shall not be stopped or interrupted by the in-

constancy of labour—is as serious a colonial impediment to

the productiveness of industry as the difficulty of combining

labour in masses for only a short time.

Combination and constancy of labour are provided for in old

countries, without an effort or a thought on the part of the

capitalist, merely by the abundance of labourers for hire. In

colonies, labourers for hire are scarce. The scarcity of

labourers for hire is the universal complaint of colonies. It is

the one cause, both of the high wages which put the colonial

labourer at his ease, and of the exorbitant wages which some-

times harass the capitalist. I inclose a letter. The writer was a

peasant girl in the parish of Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, whose

vicar enabled her to emigrate with her penniless husband to

New Zealand. The couple are now worth in land, stock, and

money, perhaps seven or eight hundred pounds. She says,

“the only cuss of this colony is the exhorburnt wagers one

has to pay.” She liked the “exhorburnt wagers” whilst her

husband received them. I am personally acquainted with a

good many cases in which, in West Australia, South Austra-

lia, Australia Felix, and New Zealand, the whole property of

a capitalist was drawn out of him by exorbitant wages. In

those cases, the unfortunate capitalist was a recent emigrant;

and he undertook some operation, generally farming on a scale

in the English proportion to his capital, which could not be

carried on without constantly combining a good deal of labour

for hire; and he paid away his property in order to induce a

number of labourers to continue in his service; in order, that

is, to obtain combination and constancy of labour. If he had

not obtained it, after placing his capital in an investment that

required it he would have been as effectually ruined as he

was by paying exorbitantly for it. Emigrant capitalists are not

generally ruined in this way, because they abstain from plac-

ing their whole capital in the jeopardy of being dependent for

its preservation on combination and constancy of labour. They

regulate their proceedings by the supply, and the prospect of

a supply, of labour in the colony; and if labour is, or is likely

to be, scarce, they abstain from undertaking operations, to

the successful completion of which a scarcity of labour is

necessarily fatal. But this abstinence is annoying to them; the

necessity of observing it, frustrates their plans, and disap-

points their hopes. The scarcity of labour forces them into a

way of life which they never contemplated, and which they

dislike. They are disappointed and uncomfortable. That they

are so, becomes known to their friends in England; and the

circulation of this knowledge through a number of channels

here, gradually forms a public opinion unfavourable to the

prospect of capitalists in this or that colony, and becomes a

serious impediment to the emigration of people of that class.

Letter XXVI.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Points out an Appearance of Contra-

diction Between the Two Assertions, That Labour in New

Colonies Is Very Productive in Consequence of Being

Only Employed on the Most Fertile Soils, and That it Is

Unproductive in Consequence of Being Much Divided

and Interrupted.

Your account of the life of a colonial capitalist is not very

pleasing; and I can well understand how the circumstances

you describe, should operate as a check to the emigration of

people who have the means of carrying on business here. I

fancy that if the truth, as you conceive it, were fully known in

this country, very few capitalists would be disposed to emi-

grate; or that, at all events, but few colonies would be very

attractive to emigrants of that class. But your view of the matter

appears to be at variance with one of your main propositions

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

as to the attractiveness of colonies. You are impressed with a

belief that in colonies generally, the rate of profits is high as

compared with its rate in this country; and in one of your

letters you explained that the high rate of colonial profits is

occasioned, partly by the great productiveness of industry,

and partly by the fact that the landlord and the government

take but a small share of that large produce. But is the pro-

duce large? Is colonial industry so productive as you assert?

That they are so is a common belief; but I cannot reconcile

the fact with your explanation of the manner in which the

scarcity of labour for hire in the colonies impedes combina-

tion and constancy of labour. You insist, with every appear-

ance of being in the right, that combination and constancy

are essential to a large production in proportion to the capital

and labour employed: you say that in colonies, combination

and constancy of labour are always difficult, often impos-

sible ; that one of the characteristics of colonies is the general

separation of labour into single pairs of hands, and the diffi-

culty of retaining even one pair of hands in the service of the

capitalist: yet you say that the produce of capital and labour

in colonies is greater than in old countries, where the utmost

combination of uninterrupted labour by the same hands is

general and always facile. Here surely is, if you will pardon

me for saying so, the appearance of a monstrous contradic-

tion. I trust that you may be able to explain it away.

Letter XXVII.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Explains That Scarcity of Labour Is Coun-

teracted by Various Kinds of Slavery and by the Drudg-

ery of Capitalists. — Evils of the Presence of Slave

Classes in a Colony.

The two propositions are not a contradiction, but the appear-

ance of one; and the paradox will be easily explained away.

In spite of the scarcity of labour for hire in colonies gener-

ally, and in all prosperous colonies without exception, every

colony that has prospered, from the time of Columbus down

to this day (nor would I exclude the colonies of ancient Greece

and Rome), has enjoyed in some measure what I have termed

combination and constancy of labour. They enjoyed it by

means of some kind of slavery. In the colonies of ancient

Greece and Rome, all the labourers were slaves. Their labour

was employed as constantly, and as much in combination, as

their masters pleased. It was the same in the West-India colo-

nies of Spain, England, France, Holland, and Denmark. The

slavery of the Indians furnished constancy and combination

of labour to the Spanish colonies of Mexico and South

America; that of negroes to the Portuguese colonizers of Bra-

zil. In the greater part of the English colonies of North

America, negro slavery counteracted the scarcity of labour

for hire. In New South Wales and Van Piemen’s Land, there

has been convict slavery; in South Africa, the Mauritius, and

Bourbon, negro slavery. In the colonies of North America,

where negro slavery was not at all, or not largely, established,

there has been a virtual slavery in the forms of servants kid-

napped in Europe, and “indented” in America, and

“redemptioners,” or immigrants whom a contract bound to

their masters for a term of years, and whom either their utter

ignorance of the law and language of America, or the force of

opinion and combination amongst the masters, compelled to

abide by their contracts for service. There are other ways in

which there may be slavery in fact without the name. The

freed negroes, and their descendants, of some of the states of

North America which either never permitted, or have abol-

ished slavery, are virtually a sort of slaves, by means of their

extreme degradation in the midst of the whites; and the hordes

of Irish-pauper emigrants who pour into North America, Brit-

ish and American, are, in a considerable proportion, virtually

slaves by means of their servile, lazy, reckless habit of mind,

and their degradation in the midst of the energetic, accumu-

lating, prideful, domineering Anglo-Saxon race. The slavery

of all these different kinds, in these many countries, has con-

stituted an enormous amount of slavery. The negro slaves of

the United States must be approaching four millions in num-

ber, and worth to sell at market about half the amount of our

immense national debt. If we could count the slaves, nominal

and virtual—negroes, called slaves, trampled free-negroes,

indented servants, redemptioners, convicts, and slavish Irish—

who have inhabited modern colonies in various parts of the

world since the discovery of America, we should readily un-

derstand their importance as an element of colonial society.

Colonial slavery in its various forms has been the principal

means of raising that great produce for exportation, for which

prosperous colonies are remarkable. Until lately, nearly the

whole of the exported produce of the United States, consist-

ing of sugar, rice, tobacco, and cotton, was raised by the com-

bined and constant labour of slaves; and it could not have

been raised under the circumstances by any other means. The

like cases of the West Indies and Brazil would have occurred

to you without being mentioned. The great public works of

those states of the American Union that forbid slavery, could

not have been attempted without a large supply of slavish

Irish labour, by which, indeed, as regards labour, they have

been almost entirely executed. Domestic service in those coun-

tries depends on the existence of “niggers” called free, and of

servile Irish emigration. I could fill a whole letter with bare

examples of a like kind, but will confine myself to one more,

which will serve for general illustration.

In Tasmania, which is fast losing its ugly name of Van

Diemen’s Land, there are farms, being single properties, con-

sisting of seven or eight hundred acres each, under cultiva-

tion, besides extensive sheep and cattle runs, the farming of

which is not inferior to that of Norfolk and the Lothians. A

A View of the Art of Colonization

description of one of these farms is before me. The eight hun-

dred acres are divided into fields of from thirty to fifty acres

each. The fences are as good as can be. The land is kept thor-

oughly clear of weeds; a strict course of husbandry is pur-

sued; and the crops, especially of turnips, are very large. The

garden and orchards are extensive, kept in apple-pie order,

and very productive. The house is of stone, large and com-

modious. The farm buildings are ample in extent, and built of

stone with solid roofs. The implements are all of the best

kinds, and kept in perfect order. The live stock, for the most

part bred upon the spot, is visited as a show on account of its

excellence, and would be admired in the best-farmed parts of

England: it consists of 30 cart horses, 50 working bullocks,

100 pigs, 20 brood mares, 1000 head of horned cattle, and

25,000 finewooled sheep. On this single establishment, by

one master, seventy labourers have been employed at the same

time. They were nearly all convicts. By convict labour, and

that alone, this fine establishment was founded and maintained.

Nothing of the sort could have existed in the island if con-

victs had not been transmitted thither, and assigned upon their

landing to settlers authorized to make slaves of them. In this

small island, of which the whole population is under 70,000,

there have been at one time fifty establishments much resem-

bling that which I have described. In British North America,

there is not one that bears the slightest resemblance to it, in

point of scale, perfection of management, or productiveness

in proportion to the capital or labour employed: for the slav-

ish Irish labour of a colony is less easily combined, and surely

retained, than convict slave-labour. I doubt whether in all

Canada, though many a first-rate English and Scotch farmer

have emigrated thither, there is even one farm of 500 acres,

the management of which would not be deemed very slov-

enly in Scotland or England, or of which the produce in pro-

portion to capital and labour amounts to half that of a Tasma-

nian farm. I rather think, indeed, that in all Canada, there is

not a farm of 500 acres in real cultivation, however slovenly

and unproductive. The Tasmanian farmer grows rich (or rather

did grow rich, for a change of policy at the Colonial Office

has put a stop to the supply of useful convict labour): the

Canadian farmer vegetates or stagnates: if he and his family

do not work hard themselves as labourers, he is very apt to be

ruined.

This brings me to another feature of colonial life, which is

occasioned by the scarcity of labour for hire. In the colonies

where the scarcity of labour for hire is not counteracted by a

slavery sharp enough for the purpose, capitalists generally,

and especially those of them who cultivate the soil, work a

great deal with their own hands: they are labourers as well as

capitalists. If a solitary individual cannot without the consent

of others enjoy any combination of labour beyond that of his

own two hands, he can at any rate make that labour constant:

he can depend upon himself for the continuance of the labour

which his own hands are capable of performing. The capital-

ist, therefore, by working himself, secures the constant labour

of one pair of hands at any rate. Moreover, when the capital-

ists generally work with their own hands, they make arrange-

ments among themselves for occasionally combining their

labour. Nine of them meet, and help a tenth, A, to build him a

house, clear his land, or gather in his crop. Another day, A

meets eight of his neighbours, to help B: in turn, C, D, E, F,

and the rest get helped. They are all benefited by some com-

bination of labour. Without any kind of slavery, therefore, in

a colony, and with the utmost scarcity of labour for hire, there

is some constancy and some combination of labour; but the

labour which is constant, is that of the capitalist working him-

self, who is the master of his own pair of hands; and the labour

which is combined, is that of more than one capitalist, occa-

sionally agreeing to work together for the benefit of each of

them in turn. The farmers of Canada, and of the non-

slaveholding states of America, are generally labourers as

well as capitalists: it is their drudgery as labourers, not their

skill as capitalists, which enables them to produce wheat for

exportation. I have endeavoured to show, that the scarcity of

labour for hire in the colonies has been counteracted partly

by some kind of slavery, partly, though in a less degree, by

the drudgery of the capitalist. If you see this plainly, the para-

dox must have vanished. The two propositions do not contra-

dict each other. Combination and constancy of labour are es-

sential to a large production. In colonies, combination and

constancy of labour are always difficult, often impossible :

one of the characteristics of colonies is the general separa-

tion of labour into single pairs of hands. But the colonial ten-

dency to separation and inconstancy of labour is counteracted

by slavery in various forms, and by the drudgery of the capi-

talist. The labour of slaves and of capitalists is applied to

only the most fertile soils; nearly all the produce is shared by

those who raise it, because the share of the landlord and the

government is insignificant: the net produce, over and above

rent and taxes, is sufficient to provide for high wages and

high profits.

But that which in colonies counteracts the tendency of scar-

city of labour for hire, is an obstacle to the emigration of

capitalists. Capitalists brought up in this country do not like

to work with their own hands: they like to direct with their

heads the labour of others. The necessity of working with

their own hands is apt to disgust the emigrant capitalist, and

to send him back to this country a discontented and com-

plaining man. If, in order to avoid the annoyance, and, as he

feels it, the degradation, of working with his own hands, and

making his children work with theirs, he resorts to some sort

of slavery, he is still apt to be very much annoyed. Negro

slavery is detestable for the master who was not bred, born,

and educated within hearing of the driving-whip. If I could

find a stronger word than detestable, I would apply it to the

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

life of a decent Englishman who has become a driver of con-

victs in Tasmania. “Free nigger” labour, even in domestic

service, is not agreeable for the master, because he continu-

ally feels that the servant ought to hate him as one of the class

which despises and loathes the whole negro race. The care-

less, lazy, slovenly, dirty, whining, quarrelsome, Saxon-hat-

ing, Irishpauper emigrants are labourers, whom no English

or Scotch or American capitalist would be dependent upon

for carrying on his business, if he could by any means avoid

the trouble and annoyances of such a dependence.

As respects the degraded races and orders of men, whose

presence in colonies counteracts the scarcity of labour for

hire, I have thus far alluded only to the individual feelings of

capitalists as employers of such labour; but the subject in-

volves another consideration which must not be left unno-

ticed. The presence of these degraded people in a colony,

whether they are negro slaves, “free niggers,” convicts in

bondage, emancipated convicts, the immediate offspring of

convicts, or pauper-Irish emigrants, is a public nuisance, a

political danger, a social plague. It is tolerable, indeed, for

those who are used to it, and to whom it is, moreover, a con-

venience in other respects: but the British capitalist is not

used to it; it is not yet a nuisance to him, however convenient;

he is not forced to put himself into the midst of it; and, in

proportion as he is acquainted with its operation in colonies,

he is disinclined to emigrate. Something about it is known in

this country; enough to create a vague impression that the

scarcity of good labour for hire in colonies is a great evil.

More and more is likely to be known about it; and I do be-

lieve that if the affliction which colonies suffer from the pres-

ence of substitutes for good labour for hire, were generally

and familiarly known in this country, the emigration of re-

spectable people would nearly cease.

Letter XXVIII.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Almost Despairs of Colonization, and

Asks for a Suggestion of the Means by Which Scarcity

of Labour May Be Prevented Without Slavery.

Your, explanation has satisfied my judgment on the point in

question, but disappointed my hopes. I had hoped that we

might, at least, colonize on a much greater scale than at

present; but now I almost despair of it. I saw before how the

scarcity of labour for hire, by injuriously affecting the pro-

ductiveness of capital and labour, limited the attraction of

colonies for emigrants of the richer class; and I now perceive

how this colonial deficiency is counteracted; but the remedy

strikes me as being worse than the disease. As an economical

remedy, it is but partial and incomplete, whilst it is itself a

political and social malady. Even if the existence of slave

classes in the colonies were not a political and social evil,

how could we make it correspond in amount with the progress

of colonization? how maintain a supply of slavish labour in

proportion to a great increase of capitalist emigration? In the

British colonies, negro slavery has ceased, and convict sla-

very has, I believe, been nearly abolished. Will not the total

abolition of convict slavery in Tasmania have the same effect

for capitalists there, as the abolition of negro-slavery in the

British West Indies? It can have no other effect, if your view

of the whole subject is just. Irish-pauper emigration may

doubtless be greatly extended; but there are many colonies to

which this emigration does not proceed; and in the colonies

to which it does, it brings about a state of national antago-

nism so like that which prevails in Ireland, as to be very dis-

agreeable for Scotch and English emigrants of every class.

Upon the whole therefore, it seems to me that we are stopped

by a difficulty as formidable, as the scarcity of labour for hire

appeared to me before you explained how it was counter-

acted. I see no use in going on with our inquiry, if you do not

see a way of counteracting scarcity of labour for hire in colo-

nies, otherwise than by some kind of slavery. What other im-

pediments to colonization there may be, it matters little to

ascertain if the impediment of scarcity of labour for hire, or

of the multiform slavery by which it is counteracted, is to

continue unabated. I think, therefore, that this is the proper

stage in our inquiry for determining what means there may

be, besides slavery, of counteracting the scarcity of labour

for hire. I am aware that you have a theory on that subject. It

is founded of course on a view of the causes of the scarcity of

labour for hire, to which I now observe that you have not

made any allusion. I understand that you intend to explain

them, and to propose a means of removing or counteracting

them; but I wish to know at once what your plan is, so that I

may determine whether or not it is worth my while to bestow

more attention on the whole subject. If your plan for counter-

acting scarcity of labour for hire without any kind of slavery,

should appear sufficient for its purpose theoretically, and prac-

ticable as well, let us go on to the other impediments of colo-

nization; if not, let us confess, or I for one shall be under the

necessity of confessing, that an increase of colonization cor-

responding with the wants of the mother-country is out of our

reach.

Letter XXIX.

From the Colonist.

State of Colonial Politics. — Violent Courses of Politi-

cians. — Irish Disturbances. — Malignity of Party War-

fare. — Desperate Differences of Colonists. — Democ-

racy and Demagoguism in All Colonies. — Brutality of

the Newspapers.

I have deliberately abstained from alluding to the causes of

the scarcity of labour. I did so with a view of preserving the

order of discussion, which I understood to be a settled point.

That order would be greatly disturbed, if I were now to go

into the causes of any of the existing impediments to coloni-

A View of the Art of Colonization

zation; still more, if I were to pursue the subject of remedies

for these impediments. There is, of course, an intimate rela-

tion between the causes and the remedies; and in this instance,

if I touched upon the causes, I should be led to the subject of

remedies, and should almost “reverse the settled order of in-

quiry, by discussing means and plans before the character of

the obstacles was defined. It happens, moreover, that the

means by which some of the impediments might be removed,

would also have the effect of removing others. Before enter-

ing on the subject of means, therefore, it seems very expedi-

ent to consider all the impediments. I proceed accordingly,

taking for granted that on reflection you will approve of it, to

notice the remaining impediments to colonization.

I have hitherto spoken of capitalists as a distinct class, be-

cause it is as a distinct class that they suffer more than any-

body else from the scarcity of labour for hire. But they also

suffer along with others from another sort of colonial evils.

These evils are all impediments to colonization. They affect

the higher order of emigrants. The one to which I propose

confining this letter, is the state of colonial politics.

There is nothing perhaps which more offends the tastes and

habits of the better class of emigrants, than the state of colo-

nial politics. By the word politics I do not mean government,

but what one sex in England supposes that the other talks

about when left alone after dinner. Colonial party-politics,

then, are remarkable for the factiousness and violence of poli-

ticians, the prevalence of demagoguism, the roughness and

even brutality of the newspapers, the practice in carrying on

public differences of making war to the knife, and always

striking at the heart. In a colony with a representative form of

government, if the executive, which generally sides with the

minority, proposes something disagreeable to the majority,

or if the majority proposes something of which the minority

disapproves, the two parties insult and provoke each other

for a time; and the majority is apt to resort to impeachment or

a stoppage of the supplies. On the other hand, the minority,

not to be behind the majority in resorting to extreme mea-

sures, frequently uses the veto. The last resource of the Brit-

ish constitution, which we have hardly used at all since we

completed our constitution in 1688, and shall probably never

use again, are ordinary weapons of colonial party warfare.

Rebellions are not very uncommon, and are not common only

because, in most colonies, rebellion has no chance of suc-

cess. In all our colonies, at all times, a rebellious spirit may

be observed. In saying this, I do not forget my previous state-

ments about the imperial loyalty of colonists. The rebellious

spirit in question does not hate England or the imperial

connexion; it only hates the government of the colony, which

is not England nor the imperial government. What it is, I shall

have the pleasure of explaining soon. Meanwhile you will

comprehend, that this hatred of their government by colo-

nists, and, as a consequence, of colonists by their govern-

ment, are disagreeable circumstances in the social state of

colonies. It was from such a state of hatred between subjects

and their government, that the Canadian rebellions sprang,

and that the body of South-African colonists fled, who settled

at Port Natal, and are now fighting with us there for their

independence. It is a state of things by no means confined, as

the last instance shows, to representative colonies, or caused

by representative institutions. On the contrary, there is less of

it in Canada at this time than in any other colony, because

there representative institutions are becoming a reality, and

regular party-government is taking the place of what Lord

Durham called a “constituted anarchy.” These extremes of

violence do not of course break out very frequently: still, as

they are of a character to insure their being heard of in this

country, they happen often enough to make an impression

here, that the peace of colonies is apt to be disturbed by them;

that colonial public life resembles public life in Ireland.

Essentially Irish disturbances of another kind are by no means

rare in some colonies. In Canada, the Orange and Milesian

factions have been effectually transplanted, and wage a per-

petual war. Savage encounters between them, resulting in

bloodshed amongst the combatants, and producing terror and

disgust for other people, are of frequent occurrence. Even at

the antipodes of Ireland, at Port Philip, in Australia Felix, a

large immigration of Milesian Irish has produced faction fights

and frightful rows, that could only be suppressed by the armed

force of government. But in this respect, Mr. Mothercountry

may say, the colonies only suffer in common with ourselves.

He ought to say, in common with that part of the kingdom

which is called Ireland, and which in candour he should add,

is the last place to which the inhabitants of the other parts

would think of emigrating.

But there is a violence short of rebellion, factionfighting,

impeachment, and stopping the supplies, by which public and

also private life in the colonies generally, more or less, is

made uncomfortable for emigrants who have not yet learned

to practise it; and especially if they are emigrants of the most

valuable class. When colonists, I am speaking generally, and

would allow for exceptions, differ upon such a point, for ex-

ample, as the amount of a proposed import duty or the direc-

tion of a road, both sides treat the question as if it were one of

life and death; and instead of compromising their difference,

or giving a quiet victory to the preponderating weight of votes

or influence, they instantly set about tearing each other to

pieces with the tongue and pen, after the manner of the late

Daniel O’Connell. A colonist who meddles with public mat-

ters, should have a skin of impenetrable thickness. Quiet sort

of people who emigrate, though often the best qualified for

public business, generally refuse to meddle with it: they can-

not endure the scarification to which any interference with it

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

would expose them. But it is not the skin alone that suffers,

when thin enough. Frequent scarification renders most colo-

nial skins so impenetrably thick, that the utmost vituperation

makes hardly any impression upon them. Recourse therefore

is had to something sharper than billingsgate. It is a general

custom in the colonies, when your antagonist withstands abuse,

to hurt him seriously if you can, and even to do him a mortal

injury, either in order to carry your point, or to punish him for

having carried his. In every walk of colonial life, everybody

strikes at his opponent’s heart. If a governor or high officer

refuses to comply with the wish of some leading colonists,

they instantly try to ruin him by getting him recalled with

disgrace: if two officials disagree, one of them is very likely

to be tripped up and destroyed by the other: if an official or a

colonist offends the official body, they will hunt him into jail

or out of the colony: if two settlers disagree about a road or a

watercourse, they will attack each other’s credit at the bank,

rake up ugly old stories about each other, get two newspapers

to be the instruments of their bitter animosity, perhaps ruin

each other in a desperate litigation. Disagreement and rivalry

are more tiger-like than disagreement and rivalry in this coun-

try. Colonists at variance resemble the Kilkenny cats.

Colonial democracy is not pleasant to emigrants of the gen-

try class: and least of all is it pleasant to them when they

happen to be very well qualified by moral and intellectual

qualities for taking a useful part in the public affairs of their

new country. Colonial democracy is of two distinct kinds.

First, in the representative colonies, there is the democracy

which arises from a suffrage practically next to universal; and

secondly, there is the democracy of the bureaucratic colonies

which grows out of arbitrary government. I hope that a few

words about each of them may not be unacceptable.

In Canada, as in most of the adjoining States, the best men, as

we should consider them,—that is, the wisest and most up-

right men—are seldom the favourite candidates of the major-

ity of voters, generally not even candidates at all. The favourite

candidates are the ablest demagogues; the men who best know

how to flatter the prejudices and excite the passions of the

ignorant and passionate mass of electors. The result is that

not a few of the “representatives of the people,” whether in

the House of Assembly or the District Councils, are of that

order of noisy, low-lived, spouting, half-educated, violent,

and unscrupulous politicians, one or two of whom occasion-

ally get into the British House of Commons. In the Canadian

Assembly, there is always a considerable proportion of

Busfield Ferrands and Feargus O’Connors. From this fact you

will infer many more which exhibit the influence of Cana-

dian democracy. It is an influence which pervades public life

in the colony, and thus to a great extent keeps the best class of

emigrants out of public life. In saying that the other represen-

tative colonies resemble Canada more or less in this respect,

I must exclude those of the West Indies, in which the bulk of

the people, having been recently slaves, have not yet acquired

the voter’s qualification. In those colonies, however, if the

bottom of society is not yet put at top by a suitable parlia-

mentary suffrage, there is the prospect of a Black democracy

less tolerable for the higher order of colonists and even for

all Whites, than is, for settlers of the higher order, the actual

democracy of colonies inhabited by people of one colour.

The democracy of the representative colonies is obviously

caused by a democratic suffrage: that of the bureaucratic colo-

nies is occasioned by withholding from all settlers all part in

the government of their country. In the latter case, the settlers

having no political rights, resort to agitation as the only means

of influencing the governor and his nominated council of of-

ficials. They make use of petitions, remonstrances, and pub-

lic meetings. The Opposition of the colony as distinguished

from its Government, is carried on by means of public meet-

ings. In New South Wales, Australia Felix, South Australia,

and New Zealand, the common mode of endeavouring to in-

fluence the local government or its masters in Downing-street,

is by getting up a public meeting, and publishing its proceed-

ings in the newspapers. The calling of a public meeting is an

appeal to numbers, to the majority, to the democratic prin-

ciple. The device of select meetings, such as those from which

our anti-corn-law league used to exclude people who disagreed

with them, by means of tickets of admission, is not adopted

in colonies because it would not work there. It would not

work for two reasons; first, because the official party would

in some cases snap their fingers at what they might truly call

a “hole-and-corner” meeting; and secondly, because, if the

majority were excluded from a meeting by means of tickets,

and thereby deeply offended, the official party, by the aid of

some purchased demagogue, would easily get up a counter

meeting more numerous and violent than the one directed

against themselves. The system of opposing government by

means of public meetings is an irregular democracy for op-

position purposes. When the object is, as sometimes happens,

to support the government faction, it is more than ever neces-

sary to avoid offending the majority, who therefore enjoy for,

the occasion a sort of universal suffrage. None of the factions

into which a colony may be divided, has recourse to a public

meeting without intending an appeal to numbers. The prac-

tice of appealing to numbers becomes habitual. Politicians in

the bureaucratic colonies, therefore, not excepting the high-

est officials when it happens to suit their purpose, naturally

resort to the arts of the demagogue; demagogues are the lead-

ing politicians. The newspaper press of these bureaucratic

colonies is to the full as demagoguish—as coarse, as violent,

as unscrupulous, often as brutal—as that of the representa-

tive colonies in which the democracy is constituted by law.

Of course, there are exceptions to this as to every other rule.

There have been colonial newspapers, though I do not recol-

A View of the Art of Colonization

lect one that lasted long, remarkable for moderation and for-

bearance. There are one or two colonies, I believe, like West

Australia, so stagnant, tame, and torpid, as to have no poli-

tics. Even in the most political colonies, there are times, of

course, when politics are comparatively asleep. I am speak-

ing generally. As a general rule, colonial politics are like what

ours would be, if our suffrage were either made universal, or

totally abolished. In either of those cases, I fancy, a colony

which had representative government, with a suffrage that

gave influence to the wisest and most upright, would attract

swarms of the most valuable class of emigrants. At present

that is a class of emigrants, which colonial politics repel.

Letter XXX.

From the Colonist.

The Privileged Class in Colonies.— Nature of Their Privi-

leges. — The Road to Office in Representative Colo-

nies Where Responsible Government Is Established,

and Where it Is Not.— Emigrants of the Better Order a

Proscribed Class as Respects Office.

You may suppose that the democracy of the colonies is ac-

companied by a perfect equality. It is so with the democracy

of the United States, but not with that of our colonies. As in

Turkey there is equality without democracy, so in our colo-

nies there is democracy without equality. In the colonies, how-

ever, there is but one privileged class which, so to speak, is

more privileged than any class in any European country at

present, excepting Russia perhaps. This privileged class is as

proud, though in a way of its own, as exclusive, as insolent,

as deeply convinced of the inferiority or nothingness of the

other classes, as was the noblesse of old France. But its privi-

leges are not in any measure the attribute of birth: on the

contrary, those who possess them are seldom high-born, of-

ten of the meanest extraction. Neither do the privileges grow

out of the possession of wealth: on the contrary, numbers of

the privileged class in colonies are generally without prop-

erty, often in great want of money, not very seldom on the

verge of insolvency. The privileged class in colonies is the

official class.

I feel at a loss for the means of getting you to understand the

nature and extent of the privileges enjoyed by the official

class in colonies. It would be easier to make a Frenchman

acquainted with the subject. In our colonies, as in France now,

office is the only distinction. Of course, whatever is the only

distinction in any part of the world, is, in that part of the world,

greedily desired and devoutly worshipped by most people.

The panting, the dying for office in colonies, is a sight to see.

But office in the colonies is so precious, not only because it is

the only distinction, but also because it is the only reality of

power. The government of our colonies is, for the most part,

bureaucratic. In some of the representative colonies, indeed,

especially in Canada, the recent adoption of what is called

“responsible government” places power in the hands of the

parliamentary constituencies and those who can win their

confidence; but this is a complete and very modern innova-

tion; and it has by no means been extended to all the repre-

sentative colonies. As in Canada before this innovation, so

now in the representative colonies to which it has not been

extended, and in all the bureaucratic colonies without excep-

tion, all power originates in and is inherent to office. But there

is a distinction between the representative and the bureau-

cratic colonies which must be noted. In the representative

colonies which have not obtained responsible government,

as formerly in the two Canadas, the executive and the repre-

sentative branches of government are generally at variance:

the executive branch sides with the minority in the represen-

tative branch. In order to carry on government at all under

this curious system, it is indispensable that the executive

should have the support of a party or faction in the colony.

The governor, therefore, who represents the crown, disposes

of offices in favour of such a faction: indeed, the official fac-

tion is really the government. It consists of officials and their

partisans hoping to be officials. It is composed, for the most

part, of colonists; that is, natives or fixed residents of the

colony: and it enjoys all the power that is exercised in the

colony; all the power, that is to say, which is compatible with

the existence of a vast deal of worrying and sometimes im-

peding opposition from the majority of the representative

body.

In the bureaucratic colonies, on the other hand, where consti-

tutionally there is only one branch of government, where the

officials alone legislate as well as execute, and where accord-

ingly government may be carried on somehow without the

aid of a faction of colonists, the best offices are filled by ap-

pointment from Downing-street, generally by strangers to the

colony, and almost always without any regard to the wishes

of the colonists ; and these superior officers appoint to the

inferior offices. In those colonies, therefore, the power which

the official class enjoys is strictly a privilege, because it is a

power independent of its subjects, inherent, as I said before,

to the possession of office. But it is not an unlimited power.

As in representative colonies not having responsible govern-

ment, the power of the official faction is limited by the hin-

dering, worrying power of the House of Assembly, so in the

bureaucratic colonies, the power of the official class is lim-

ited by the superior power of the Colonial Office at home. In

the former colonies, an official faction enjoys power limited

by a nasty local opposition: in the latter, an official class en-

joys power limited by a nastier interference from Downing-

street. Still in both cases, the power is immense. In the two

Canadas, the official faction, backed by the might of the em-

pire, used to have its own way in spite of the Assembly; and

has still, in the representative colonies to which responsible

government has not been extended: and in the bureaucratic

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

colonies, the interference of Downing-street is so weakened

by distance as to place no very effectual limit on the govern-

ing powers of the official class.

Whilst speaking of the official class, I wish to exclude for the

present the officers called governors, who represent the crown,

are nearly always strangers to the colony, and generally hold

their appointment for only a few years, sometimes for only a

few months.

The rest of the official body consists of the colonial secre-

tary; the president of the executive council; the treasurer or

inspector-general, who is the principal financial officer; the

surveyor-general, and commissioner of crown lands, who are

a very important people in colonies where there is waste land

to be disposed of; the attorney and solicitor general; the judges,

and several other judicial officers, such as the sheriff and pro-

thonotary; and some more which it is not worth while to

specify. Nor is the above list applicable to all colonies alike,

either as respects titles or functions. I give it as a sample, for

the mere purpose of indicating the general nature of the func-

tions of the official body in a colony. The subject of those

functions and the manner in which they are performed, will

be fully considered under the head of colonial government.

In every colony, nearly all the offices are filled by the

governor’s appointment in form, just as, in form, the crown

appoints to most offices in this country. But the manner in

which the appointments take place, differs according to cer-

tain peculiar circumstances of each of the three classes of

colonies before pointed out. In responsible-government colo-

nies, or rather in Canada alone, because there alone has re-

sponsible government obtained anything like a firm footing,

the governor appoints on the advice of his executive council

or cabinet of ministers; and the ministers are from time to

time that set of leading colonists who possess the confidence

of the representative body. The ministers being, as with us,

responsible to parliament, and appointed or removed by the

votes of parliament, really carry on the government, and there-

fore, of course, make the appointments to office, including

their own: the governor does not govern, any more than the

Queen here; he only reigns, like her Majesty. In Canada, ac-

cordingly (though how long this may last, I pretend not to

opine; for the new system is far from being thoroughly estab-

lished), an emigrant colonist may get into office if he takes

the proper road. The road to office is open to him as well as

to any native. The road to office is popular favour, or the

confidence of the constituencies; and there is nothing to pre-

vent any emigrant from winning that, after he gets into the

way of winning favour in a country where the suffrage is prac-

tically almost universal.

In the representative colonies from which responsible gov-

ernment is still withheld, it is exceedingly difficult for an

emigrant to get into office by any means. The colonial fac-

tion which governs in spite of a representative assembly, does

so by means of holding the governor in leading-strings. This

is not the proper place for describing the nature of these

strings. Suffice it to say here, that they are most artistically

formed and as carefully kept in working order. For the mak-

ing and preservation of them, time, consecutive effort, and

incessant vigilance are indispensable. Those, therefore, who

hold the strings are a party of long standing and of permanent

organization. They belong to the colony. A stranger arriving

there would be incapable of joining them from his ignorance

of local politics. Besides, they want all the appointments for

themselves and their adherents. Unless the whole, or nearly

the whole, patronage of the colony were at their disposal,

they could not hold together, and defy the representative body,

for a single year. They do hold together so as to be commonly

called the family compact. In the course of tune, an emigrant

who has great talents for intrigue, may penetrate into this close

corporation, and become one of it: the thing happens every

now and then. But allowing for such rare exceptions, the family

compact vigorously excludes emigrants from office. It dis-

likes and fears emigrants as a class. It dislikes them, more

especially if they are rich and clever, as persons who may be

willing and able to obtain political influence ; as possible

rivals, and almost inevitable faultfinders and opponents: it

fears them, because they may be able through their connexions

at home to get at the governor in some way, and may try to

take him out of his leading-strings. They would rejoice if there

were no emigration of the better order of people. They do

much to prevent it; and they succeed in materially checking

it, by variously ill-treating emigrants of that class. The family

compact of Upper Canada, before the black day for them

which introduced responsible government, used not only to

exclude emigrants of that class from distinction and political

power in the land of their adoption, but also to affront and

injure them by the numerous means which power can employ

for such a purpose. This was one of the causes of the rebel-

lion in Upper Canada. Not that the higher class of emigrants,

who were then very numerous, were disposed to rebel: their

maladie du pays, their passionate love of England, prevented

that: but those who did rebel, thought that, to be sure, the

emigrants who had been so ill-treated by the ruling faction,

would be disposed to join in a rebellion; and this expecta-

tion, it is now well known, had a considerable share in lead-

ing the rebels into action. The case of Upper Canada was not

singular, though it is better known than others. I think we

may lay it down as a rule, with but very rare exceptions, that

in a colony governed by a family compact, emigrants of the

better order are a proscribed class as respects the enjoyment

of distinction and power. They are mere settlers, snubbed and

ill-treated by those who enjoy a monopoly of distinction and

power; and they can be nothing else.

A View of the Art of Colonization

Letter XXXI.

From the Colonist.

How Officials Are Appointed in the Bureaucratic Colo-

nies. — They Are a Sort of Demigods, but Vert Much

Inferior to the Better Order of Settlers in Ability, Charac-

ter, Conduct, and Manners.— Examples Thereof and

the Causes of It. — Behaviour of the Officials to the

Better Order of Settlers.

In a bureaucratic colony, as in others, the governor appoints

to office. He is generally in leading-strings like the governor

of a family-compact colony; but the strings are pulled by two

different sets of hands. As to the great bulk of the higher ap-

pointments, he obeys the commands of the Colonial Office at

home, which reach him in the form of recommendations de-

livered by the persons in whose favour they are made. Occa-

sionally, with respect to a higher appointment, and always

with respect to a good many of the inferior appointments,

especially those of which the salary is small, he takes the

advice of “the people about him;” that is, of those among the

higher officials who really govern the colony subject to inter-

ference from Downing-street. These virtual rulers of the

colony do not hang together with the tenacity of a regular

family compact. Their position does not require that they

should do so. They owe their appointments to Downing-street;

and as long as Downing-street supports one of them he is in

no danger of losing his office. The influence at home which

induced Downing-street to make the appointment, generally

contrives to induce it to support the colonial officer. Such

officials, therefore, are in a great measure independent of the

governor: they may safely, as respects their own position,

neglect the manifold precautions by which a regular family

compact keeps the governor in order. Neither are they tor-

mented by a house of assembly, and compelled to guard

against its endeavours to take a part in governing the colony.

They are altogether more at their ease than the members of a

regular family compact, more independent of control, more

free to indulge their personal inclinations and passions. We

find accordingly, that they often quarrel among themselves,

and sometimes with the governor. The jealousies, and rival-

ries, and hatreds which belong to poor human nature, but

which in well-ordered societies are subdued by various re-

straints, break out uncontrolled amongst the officials of a bu-

reaucratic colony. The official body is sometimes split into

hostile factions ; individuals have bitter public quarrels; even

his excellency the governor himself is often worried, some-

times upset, by these his nominal subordinates. But there is

one point on which the officials of a bureaucratic colony never

differ; one respect in which they hold together as tenaciously

as the best-cemented family compact. They agree in thinking

that colonists or settlers, people who come out all that way to

improve their condition by their own exertions, are an infe-

rior order of beings; and they stick close together in resisting

all attempts on the part of settlers to become officials; to get

a share in governing the colony. If they were settlers them-

selves as well as officials, it would be a fair struggle between

the ins and the outs, to which no Englishman would think of

objecting: but the officials of a bureaucratic colony are hardly

ever settlers. They have their salaries to live on, and gener-

ally no other property; that is, no property at all in the colony.

They consider their salaries a property for life; and the source

of it is far away from the colony. They arrive in the colony as

utter strangers to it, and in order to exercise the power of

governing it: they are, in their own estimation and in that of a

good many of the humbler colonists, a sort of demigods, com-

ing from another planet, and gifted by some distant and mys-

terious authority with the right of governing the settlers. Their

dignity would suffer if they became settlers; if they associ-

ated with the settlers except on the most unequal terms, or

sympathized with them in any way. Like the caste of Brah-

mins, they hold themselves apart from the rest of the commu-

nity and immeasurably superior to it: or rather (for this is a

truer comparison) they do not belong to the community at all,

but resemble the official class in British India, which exclu-

sively governs, but does not settle, and which regards the

natives as a race only fit to be governed by a superior race.

For natives, read settlers when a bureaucratic colony is in

view.

In British India, the natives are what the white officials deem

them: if they were not, they would hardly submit to be ruled

by a handful of foreigners. But in the bureaucratic colonies,

the officials are, apart from their official position, which is

one of exceeding superiority, very much inferior to the better

order of settlers. Pray observe that I speak generally, not de-

nying that there are exceptions, and exceptions which it is a

pleasure to record. But, speaking generally, the officials of a

bureaucratic colony are inferior to the best settlers in prop-

erty, manners, and character. The most valuable settlers have

a good deal of property; some a great deal: the officials hardly

ever have any property: it is their poverty at home which in-

duces them to seek a colonial appointment; and they gener-

ally spend the whole of their salaries, not unfrequently as much

more as they can get into debt. The best settlers are often men

of great ability; as is proved by their success as settlers not-

withstanding all the hindrances I have enumerated and some

which remain to be noticed: most of the officials are persons

who, in consequence of their want of ability, have broken

down in some career at home, or have had no career but that

of being supported in idleness by their relations. It is interest

of a kind to be hereafter explained, not suitable ability, which

in Downing-street is deemed a qualification for office in the

colonies: and those for whom this interest is exerted, are, in

point of ability only “good enough for colonies;” that is, per-

sons whose want of ability unfits them for holding office, or

otherwise earning their own bread, at home. There are ex-

ceptions of more than one kind. It happens sometimes by ac-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

cident, that a young man of real ability is urged by necessity

or led by inclination to prefer an immediate provision in the

colonies to waiting for what his talents might obtain for him

at home; but generally when a person of real ability gets his

friends to solicit Downing-street for a colonial appointment,

he either prefers an easy life abroad to hard work at home, or

has defects of character, perhaps habitual vices, which dis-

qualify him from getting on where he is known. There are a

few men of superior ability in the colonial official class ap-

pointed by Downing-street, who are open to no countervailing

reproach: and there are more whose ability is allied to de-

fects or vices of character, that render their talent an evil in-

stead of a benefit to the colony: but all the rest, who therefore

constitute the great majority, and exemplify rule, are persons

who, in consequence of their want of ability, find office in the

colonies a refuge from destitution.

What are the conduct, character, and manners of the best class

of emigrants, is a point that requires only one remark: those

only form the best class of emigrants, whose manners, char-

acter, and conduct are unexceptionable. Unexceptionable: I

would propose no higher standard by which to measure the

conduct, character, and manners of the official class in bu-

reaucratic colonies. Before applying the measure, however,

let me again acknowledge that in all colonies probably, cer-

tainly in many, there are persons in office who are above the

standard; whom we should unjustly disparage by saying that

in conduct, character, and manners, they are only unexcep-

tionable. In every class of mankind as numerous as the offi-

cial class in bureaucratic colonies, there are some people who

have been always good, and whom nothing can make bad;

“nature’s noblemen,” whose duty to their neighbour is pre-

scribed by an inborn conscience, and whose manners repre-

sent an inherent benevolence and delicacy. Such people may

be found at plough, among common sailors, in the rank and

file of desolating armies, in the corruptest parts of great cit-

ies; I had almost said amongst thieves, the thieving apart.

Such people there are in bureaucratic-colony official life; duty-

doing men, true, honourable, and public spirited, having gen-

erous sympathies, and manners remarkable for gentleness and

refinement. I am half inclined to mention the names of some

of them. But all their names would not occupy much space.

They are a small minority; and they would be amongst the

first to admit the truth of what I say about the others. The

majority is composed of people, some of whom just come up

to the standard above, proposed; some a little below it; some

below it to a degree which you, who have had no personal

experience of the colonies, will not readily credit. Or rather

what you will with difficulty believe, is the large proportion

of officials in the bureaucratic colonies who are below the

standard. I mean a large proportion whether of the whole

number of colonial officials, or in comparison with the pro-

portion of official people in this country whose manners, char-

acter, and conduct, are worse than unexceptionable. But how,

you will ask, can this be ascertained? With respect to conduct

at least, I can suggest a means by which your curiosity might

be satisfied. The Colonial Office could if it pleased, and would

if the House of Commons insisted on it, though sorely against

the grain, furnish a return of the number and titles of officials

in the bureaucratic colonies, who during the last twenty years

have been dismissed from office for misconduct. It would be

needless to specify the nature of the misconduct in each case,

because the severe punishment of dismissal from office is

only applied in gross and flagrant cases. Indeed, the natural

tenderness of officials towards officials induces the Colonial

Office, which alone of our public departments is thoroughly

bureaucratic in its composition and character, to avoid as much

as possible the form of dismissal; and this tenderness equally

actuates governors and other colonial officials, when they are

under the necessity of removing an erring brother. The usual

form of dismissal, therefore, is an intimation to the wrong-

doer, that he will only avoid the disgrace of a formal dis-

missal by tendering his resignation. The form of dismissal is

hardly ever used, I think, except when the wrong-doer is also

the scape-goat of his official brethren or of his superiors in

Downing-street. The common form of real dismissal is resig-

nation. I mention this in order that, if you should try to get

such a return, your object may not be defeated by an evasion

which might not be discovered, and, if it were, might be de-

fended on the ground of formal accuracy. The return should

state under separate heads, whether the officer resigned or

was dismissed; if he was dismissed, for what reason; if he

resigned, for what known or supposed reason; and whether

the expediency of his resignation was intimated to him by

superior authority. I have no doubt that there are materials in

the Colonial Office for framing such a return, though for most

of them a search must be made in the “confidential,” “pri-

vate,” and “secret” pigeon-holes of that department; for of

course, with the exception always of scape-goat cases, offi-

cial misconduct in the colonies is carefully kept out of view

by those who, if it were mentioned in blue-books, might be

held responsible for it.

It would be well in such a return to have a column for cases

of pecuniary default, which are very numerous and very im-

portant in the amount of money lost, when compared with

such cases here. In this column the sum in default should be

given, together with the population and annual income of the

colony, so as to afford the means of proportionate compari-

son with this country. Some of the obvious conclusions from

this column would startle the British public. Other sorts of

misconduct could not be so easily presented in a tabular form:

and, at best, many cases of gross misconduct would escape

notice, because the wrongdoers were not dismissed in form

or in fact, but are still, socially, high above the worthiest of

the settlers. Low character and disgusting manners could not

A View of the Art of Colonization

be any how set forth in a return. If we could get at ample

information on the whole subject of conduct, character, and

manners, the disclosures would make honest John Bull’s hair

stand on end. We should hear of judges deeply in debt, and

alone saved by the privilege of their station from being taken

to jail by the officers of their own court. We should hear even

of governors landing in secret on their arrival, and getting

hastily sworn into office in a corner, for the purpose of hin-

dering officers of the sheriff from executing a writ of arrest

against his excellency. We should learn that in the single

colony of New South Wales, of which the population was at

that time under 200,000, many high officials passed through

the insolvent court in a single year. It was a year, no doubt, of

extraordinary speculation in the colony, occasioned by cer-

tain pranks which the government played with the plan of

disposing of waste land by sale: but the year 1847 was a year

of extraordinary speculation in England without our behold-

ing a considerable proportion of the highest of our public

servants relieved from their speculative engagements by our

courts of insolvency: and it is right to observe further, that

speculation in railways here by people in office is not mis-

conduct, as speculation in the disposal of colonial public land

is when the speculators constitute the government which dis-

poses of the land as a trustee for the public. Private specula-

tion by members of the cabinet in a public loan would be

more like what took the officials of New South Wales into

the insolvent court. In this country, again, bankruptcy or in-

solvency deprives a member of parliament of his seat; whereas

the insolvent officials of New South Wales continued to hold

power afterwards as if they had done nothing wrong: a cir-

cumstance proper to be noted, as it serves to show the where-

abouts of the standard of respectability among the deposito-

ries of power in our colonies. But this is an unpleasant topic;

and I will dismiss it after mentioning a few more cases, which

are taken from a single colony, and occurred at the same time

not long ago. The Treasurer—that is, the colonial chancellor

of the exchequer—was a defaulter. The Colonial Secretary

—that is, the governor’s prime minister—was obliged to re-

sign his appointment in consequence of a discovery that a

lady who passed as his wife was not married to him; and he

afterwards resigned another office in consequence of being

accused of forging public documents. An office, the duties of

which required very high and peculiar qualities—that of sole

judge of a court of law and conscience—was held by a coun-

try attorney, whose chief business in England had been the

dirty work of elections, and who by that means got the ap-

pointment. Another office of still more difficulty and deli-

cacy was given to an awkward half-educated lad of eighteen.

Two principal officers of the government fled the colony with-

out waiting to be dismissed, in order to avoid being tried, the

one for robbing the pool at cards, the other for a yet more

disgraceful crime. And, to conclude, another person, filling

an office of great power and importance, was a blackguard in

the constant habit of swearing “by the hind leg of the Lamb

of God.” This last fellow afterwards had the confiding ear of

the Colonial Office, in a matter which was decided according

to his views, and almost fatally for the colony.

Now for the moral, in pursuit of which I have raked into all

this mass of filth. The class amongst whom, to say the least,

such people are found in no inconsiderable number, consti-

tutes the only and greatly privileged class in the colonies; the

demigods who came from another planet to rule over the set-

tlers. In the colony from which all the latter instances have

been taken, there happened to be at the time a number of

settlers of the very best sort, gentlemen belonging to some of

the best families in England and Scotland; Petres, Cliffords,

Dillons, Vavasours, Tytlers, Molesworths, Jerninghams,

Sinclairs, Welds, and such like. They went out under the de-

lusion, among others, that they should have some voice in the

government of the colony. Instead of that, they were treated

by the officials as an inferior sort of people, whose only proper

business it was to create a colonial revenue by their industry,

and to take off their hats on meeting a public functionary.

You doubt: I did myself when first I heard of these things.

Pray make inquiry for yourself amongst the families above

named. By doing so, you will moreover learn how power-

fully the low standard of character amongst the only privi-

leged class in colonies, operates against the emigration of the

best class of settlers.

Letter XXXII.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Explains the Urgent Need of the Interven-

tion of Government in the Multifarious Business of Con-

structing Society, and Describes the General Paucity,

Often the Total Absence, of Government in the Colo-

nies of Britain.

I have said that the officials govern. How they govern, that is,

what sort of laws they make, and how they administer them,

and how, to a great extent, they govern without laws accord-

ing to their own will at the moment; this is an important ques-

tion to be considered hereafter; but there is another question

relating to colonial government which is of even greater im-

portance; namely, how much government British colonists

obtain. You may think that the quality is of more moment

than the quantity. That depends, however, on the degree in

which government is needed. In this country, we suppose that

there is always plenty of government: we have no idea of a

state of things in which people feel that any government, good,

bad, or indifferent, would be better than not enough of any

sort. In the colonies this Is the ordinary state of things; and

the paucity of government is more injurious in the colonies

than it would be in an old country. I will try to explain.

Referring to my letter on the charms of colonization, I would

say that the intervention of government is more, and more

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

constantly, needed in the multifarious business of construct-

ing society, than in that of preserving it. The very first opera-

tion is to obtain land; and land, with the essential addition of

a good title to it, can only be obtained by the action of gov-

ernment in opening the public waste to settlers by extensive

and accurate surveys, and in converting it into private prop-

erty according to law. The general drainage of the new land,

and the making of roads and bridges, require taxation ac-

cording to law. Magistrates can only be appointed by author-

ity; and even so simple and necessary a law as one for putting

trespassing cattle into the pound, cannot exist without the

action of government. A good and well-executed law of fenc-

ing is indispensable to the well-doing, and even to the peace

of a new settlement. Such examples might be multiplied with-

out end. Without plenty of government, the settlement of a

waste country is barbarous and miserable work: the vain ex-

ertions, the desperate plunges, the stumbles, the heavy falls,

the exhaustion and final faintness of the settlers put one in

mind of running, as it is called, in a sack. It is as difficult, as

impossible, to colonize well without plenty of government,

as to work a steam-engine without fuel, or breathe comfort-

ably without enough air. Ample government, in a word, is the

pabulum vitae, the unremitting sine quâ non of prosperous

colonization. The quality of government, I repeat, is of less

moment to colonists than the amount.

Throughout the British colonies, the amount of government

is curiously small. In every one of our colonies, the main prin-

ciple of the government of France has been adopted. Whether

the government of the colony is democratic in quality, like

that of Canada under the responsible system with a suffrage

nearly universal, or despotic like that of South Africa or New

Zealand, it is at any rate exceedingly central. Whatever else

it may be, every colonial government is of the central kind,

just like that of modern France, which resides in Paris, whether

it is an emperor Napoleon relying on his army, or a republic

based on universal suffrage. In our colonies, government re-

sides at what is called its seat: every colony has its Paris or

“seat of government.” At this spot there is government; else-

where little or none. Montreal, for example, is the Paris of

Canada. Here, of course, as in the Paris of France, or in Lon-

don, representatives of the people assemble to make laws,

and the executive departments, with the cabinet of ministers,

are established. But now mark the difference between En-

gland on the one hand, and France or Canada on the other.

The laws of England being full of delegation of authority for

local purposes, and for special purposes whether local or not,

spread government all over the country; those of Canada or

France in a great measure confine government to the capital

and its immediate neighbourhood. If people want to do some-

thing of a public nature in Caithness or Cornwall, there is an

authority on the spot which will enable them to accomplish

their object without going or writing to a distant place: at

Marseilles or Dunkerque you cannot alter a high road, or add

a gens d’arme to the police force, without a correspondence

with Paris: at Gaspé and Niagara you could not until lately

get anything of a public nature done without authority from

the seat of government. But what is the meaning in this case

of a correspondence with Paris or Montreal? it is doubt, hesi-

tation, and ignorant objection on the part of the distant au-

thority; references backwards and forwards; putting off of

decisions; delay without end; and for the applicants a great

deal of trouble, alternate hope and fear, much vexation of

spirit, and finally either a rough defeat of their object or its

evaporation by lapse of time. In -. France, accordingly, what-

ever may be the form of the general government, improve-

ment, except at Paris, is imperceptibly slow, whilst in Old,

and still more in New England, you can hardly shut your eyes

anywhere without opening them on something new and good,

produced by the operation of delegated government residing

on the spot, or delegated government specially charged with

making the improvement. In the colonies, it is much worse

than in France. The difficulty there, is even to open a corre-

spondence with the seat of government; to find somebody

with whom to correspond. In France, at any rate, there is at

the centre a very elaborate bureaucratic machinery, instituted

with the design of supplying the whole country with govern-

ment: the failure arises from the practical inadequacy of a

central machinery for the purpose in view: but in our colo-

nies, there is but little machinery at the seat of government

for even pretending to operate at a distance. The occupants

of the public offices at Montreal scarcely take more heed of

Gaspe, which is 500 miles off and very difficult of access,

than if that part of Canada were in Newfoundland or Europe.

Gaspé therefore, until lately, when on Lord Durham’s recom-

mendation some machinery of local government was estab-

lished in Canada, was almost without government, and one

of the most barbarous places on the face of the earth. Every

part of Canada not close to the seat of government was more

or less like Gaspé. Every colony has numerous Gaspés. South

Africa, save at Cape Town, is a Gaspé all over. All Australia

Felix, being from 500 to 700 miles distant from its seat of

government at Sydney, and without a made road between them,

is a great Gaspe. In New Zealand, a country 8 or 900 miles

long, without roads, and colonized as Sicily was of old, in

many distinct settlements, all the settlements except the one

at which the government is seated, are miserable Gaspés as

respects paucity of government. In each settlement indeed

there is a meagre official establishment, and in one of the

settlements there is a sort of lieutenant-governor: but these

officers have no legislative functions, no authority to deter-

mine anything, no originating or constructive powers: they

are mere executive organs of the general government at the

capital for administering general laws, and for carrying into

effect such arbitrary instructions, which are not laws, as they

may receive from the seat of government. The settlers ac-

cordingly are always calling out for something which gov-

A View of the Art of Colonization

ernment alone could furnish. Take one example out of thou-

sands. The settlers at Wellington in New Zealand, the princi-

pal settlement of the colony, wanted a lighthouse at the en-

trance of their harbour. To get a lighthouse was an object of

the utmost importance to them. The company in England,

which had founded the settlement, offered to advance the req-

uisite funds on loan. But the settlement had no constituted

authority that could accept the loan and guarantee its repay-

ment. The company therefore asked the Colonial Office,

whose authority over New Zealand is supreme, to undertake

that the money should be properly laid out and ultimately

repaid. But the Colonial Office, charged as it is with the gen-

eral government of some forty distinct and distant communi-

ties, was utterly incapable of deciding whether or not the in-

fant settlement ought to incur such a debt for such a purpose:

it therefore proposed to refer the question to the general gov-

ernment of the colony at Auckland. But Auckland is several

hundred miles distant from Wellington ; and between these

distant places there is no road at all: the only way of commu-

nication is by sea: and as there is no commercial intercourse

between the places, communication by sea is either so costly,

when, as has.happened, a ship is engaged for the purpose of

sending a message, or so rare, that the settlers at Wellington

frequently receive later news from England than from the seat

of their government: and moreover, the attention of their gov-

ernment was known to be at the time absorbed with matters

relating exclusively to the settlement in which the govern-

ment resided. Nothing, therefore, was done: some ships have

been lost for want of a lighthouse; and the most frequented

harbour of New Zealand is still without one.

Volumes might be filled with cases like this. I do not mean

cases furnished by all the colonies, but that from each colony

cases might be drawn that would fill volumes. Nay more, each

settlement of every colony would furnish its volumes of cases.

For now, please to observe, that although in such a country as

New Zealand the general government provides an official

establishment, however rude and meagre, for each distinct

settlement, there are parts of every settlement into which the

action of the local official establishment never penetrates at

all. This arises from the difficulties of communication in a

new country. There is a considerable proportion of every ex-

tensive colony—generally the parts most recently occupied—

in which there is no government. But there are parts of the

colony in which construction or creation is more especially

the business of the settlers, and in which, therefore, govern-

ment is more needed than in the other parts. I hope you per-

ceive now, that there is not an outlying district of any of our

extensive colonies but would furnish its volumes of cases in

which government fails to supply some urgent want of the

settlers. The slow progress, the rudeness, the semi-barbarism

of what are called back-settlements in Canada and New

Brunswick, bush settlements in Australia and New Zealand,

are thus sufficiently accounted for. The wonder is that they

get on as well as they do. Of this, also, you will probably

desire an explanation. It shall be given in due time. Mean-

while, you now, I hope, understand how greatly, not the qual-

ity but the paucity of government in our colonies, operates as

an impediment to emigration, and more particularly to the

emigration of the most valuable class of settlers.

Letter XXXIII.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Thinks That the Colonist Has Exagger-

ated the Indisposition of Respectable People to Emi-

grate.

Permit me to ask you whether you may not be overstating

your case. Any one of the impediments to colonization, as

you describe them, appears to me by itself sufficient to deter

respectable people from emigrating; and I cannot understand

how, with such a number of these impediments as you present

to my view, there is any respectable emigration whatever. Yet

there is some. One hears, every now and then, in society, of

some peer’s son, or family of good condition, though not large

fortune, going out to a colony to settle. I am told that the

number who went to Canada shortly before the rebellions was

considerable; and the respectability of the emigration to New

Zealand was a common topic some few years ago. Mr.

Mothercountry assures me, that persons highly connected in

this country have gone to Port Philip, and even to New South

Wales, which is altogether a convict colony; not persons, he

says, who though belonging to families of consequence were

in difficulty or under a cloud, but persons who took with them

an exemplary character and large capital. He offered to give

me their names, and to put me in the way of verifying his

statement by communication with their families in England.

He insists that the facts contradict your view of the force of

all these obstacles to colonization. I do not agree with him to

that extent; but it appears to me, supposing the facts to be as

he represents them, that you over-rate the force of those ob-

stacles. If your estimate of it were perfectly correct, nobody

would emigrate but the labouring poor and desperate or needy

people of the other classes. Will you excuse me for saying

that we must be careful to avoid exaggeration.

Letter XXXIV.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Defends His View of the Indisposition of

Respectable People to Emigrate, and Suggests Further

Inquiry by the Statesman. — Two More Impediments to

Colonization.

I am glad that you inquire for yourself, in order to test the

soundness of my views. The more you may do so, the better I

shall be pleased. Pray do take the names of the well-born

emigrants, who carried a high character and good capital to

Port Philip and New South Wales: and ask their relatives what

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

has become of them. Let me warn you, however, that in put-

ting the question, you must take some care in order to avoid

giving pain. If you find that half, or a quarter, of these emi-

grants have realized the hopes with which they left home—if

you find the family of even one of them pleased with his po-

sition as a colonist—I will acknowledge that I have exagger-

ated. You will learn that most of them have returned to this

country, after losing their property either in the gulf of

“exhorburnt wagers,” or in some pit of colonial “smartness”

which was dug on purpose for the unsuspecting emigrant to

fall into. You will not learn that one of them really liked any-

thing but the climate, and the absence of that uneasiness and

poverty which in this country arises from excessive competi-

tion. I wish you could fall in with a gentlewoman who has

been induced to emigrate; more especially if she should be

attached to her church and disposed to enjoy its observances.

Failing such a lady herself, her correspondents would en-

lighten you if you could lead them to tell of her disappoint-

ments. It is indifferent to me what colony you inquire about.

I have inquired about many—about some with my own eyes

and ears—and I feel confident that the whole emigration to

Upper Canada and New Zealand, for example, furnishes no

instance of the ultimate settlement of a gentleman’s family

with satisfaction to themselves and their friends at home. There

are families that do not complain; that are induced by mere

pride to conceal their disappointment, or by pride and com-

mon sense to make the best of irremediable ills; to put up

even cheerfully with the painful consequences of an irretriev-

able step. But sift these cases to the bottom, not trusting to

generals but really getting at particulars; and they will sustain

my position even more effectually than cases of sudden and

total failure, for which not circumstances alone but the indi-

vidual may have been chiefly to blame. There is another class

of cases, which, though more numerous, I am afraid, it is not

so easy to investigate. I mean cases in which the emigrant,

after being shocked at the difference between what he ex-

pected and what he finds, gradually learns to like the baser

order of things, takes a pleasure in the coarse licence and

physical excitement of less civilized life, and becomes a sat-

isfied colonist by imbibing colonial tastes and habits. When

this happens, it is difficult for a stranger here to learn the fact;

but the relations know and deplore it; and it operates against

the emigration of people whose tastes and habits are not co-

lonial, though not so obviously, quite as surely, as cases of

loud complaint.

Nevertheless, there are still emigrants of the gentry class: yes,

Mr. Mothercountry is right in that; but please to ask him if he

knows of any who are going to a colony under the influence

of satisfactory reports from other emigrants of that class. At

all times there is a certain number of the most valuable class

of emigrants; but they go, every one of them, under the influ-

ence of some great delusion. One expects to grow rich fast;

another, to be of great importance in the colony; a third, to

enjoy a great domain as a great domain is enjoyed here; a

fourth, to see his wife and daughters, who are fretting here, as

happy there as the day is long. All these expectations prove,

in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, mere dreams of the

fancy. Those who give way to them, go in spite of the impedi-

ments I am describing. If the deluded class was very large,

this part of my subject would not exist. The question is, not

how many go in spite of the impediments, but how many do

the impediments prevent from going? to what extent do the

impediments countervail the natural attractions of coloniza-

tion?

There are two other impediments to colonization, which, as

they do not affect all colonies, may be postponed for future

consideration; I mean, first, the colonial as distinguished from

the home effects of Convict Transportation, which occur only

in the colony of New South Wales and its near neighbours;

and, secondly, the presence of Aboriginal Natives; with the

revolting process by which their extermination is brought

about. The latter set of colonial evils belong chiefly to the

colonies of South Africa, Ceylon, and New Zealand. But there

remains to be noticed at present one other impediment, the

greatest of all, the parent of all the others; and this is our

system of colonial government, which will occupy my next

letters.

Letter XXXV.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Purposes to Examine Colonial Govern-

ment as an Impediment to Colonization, as the Parent

of Other Impediments, and as a Cause of Injury to the

Mother-country; and to Proceed at Once to a Plan for

its Reform.

Hitherto in treating of an impediment to colonization, I have

attended only to the thing itself and its particular influence on

emigration, without noticing any other effect it may have, and

without alluding to its causes. A different course will, I think,

be found convenient and useful when examining colonial

government generally. Our whole system of colonial govern-

ment is not only by itself an impediment, but also the cause

of the other impediments to emigration, which I have barely

described: it is also the cause of effects which, though they

may help to impede emigration, yet are all something more

than that, and different from it; such effects, for example, as

the heavy cost which the country incurs in holding its colo-

nies as dependencies, and the disaffection of colonies towards

the imperial power. These are not merely colonial, but also

imperial considerations. Our system of colonial government

is a prolific parent of diversified offspring, the whole of which

I would, if possible, represent in one picture. It is also a new

system, differing widely from what was formerly the English

system of colonial government: I think therefore that in de-

A View of the Art of Colonization

scribing it I shall do well to compare it with its predecessor.

And, lastly, as an examination of the subject would be idle

save with a view to practical improvement, I purpose, whilst

treating of British colonial government as it is and as it was,

to collect some materials for a plan of reform, by means of

showing how the present system has grown up, and adverting

occasionally to the first principles of government and human

nature. In a word, I shall aim at making the view of colonial

government as complete, as it is in my power to make it with-

out occupying too much of your time.

Letter XXXVI.

From the Colonist.

Comparison of Municipal and Central Government. —

Central Bureaucratic Government of the Colonies Es-

tablished by the Institution of the Colonial Office. — The

Spoiling of Central Bureaucratic Government by Graft-

ing it on to Free Institutions. — Feebleness of the Colo-

nial Office.

There are two main principles on which, or on a combination

of them, any system of colonial government must of neces-

sity be founded. The two principles are of an opposite nature.

The first, which for shortness I shall call the municipal prin-

ciple, is that of local self-government; the second, that of

government from the distant centre of the empire, which may

be called the central principle. These, I say, are the main prin-

ciples; because whether the government of a colony is demo-

cratic, aristocratic, or despotic, it must be either municipal or

central, or both combined in some proportion to each other.

The government of Algeria, like that of any department of

France, is now democratic, being founded on representation

in the national assembly with a universal suffrage; but it is

eminently central, since the representatives of Algeria have

no functions out of Paris, which is the centre of the empire,

and no special functions whatever with regard to the colony.

Once elected, they are representatives of all France; and the

government of all France, Algeria included, is still pre-emi-

nently central and bureaucratic notwithstanding democratic

representation. The governments of some of the old English

colonies in America were extremely aristocratic, but also

municipal, as being authorities identified with their subjects

by being formed and fixed on the spot. A colony has been

allowed to place itself under the dictatorship of a single colo-

nist: its government was, for the time, despotic but munici-

pal. When a colony submitted itself to the rule of a privileged

class, being persons identified with the colony, its govern-

ment was municipal though aristocratic. These examples suf-

fice to show that in colonial government, the principles of

democracy, aristocracy, and despotism are of secondary im-

portance to the municipal and central principles. In colonial

government, the grand questions are, which system is to be

preferred, the municipal or the central? is it expedient to com-

bine them in one government? and if so combined, which of

them should predominate? in what proportion should they be

mixed?

In order to solve these questions, it is requisite to compare

the two systems in principle and operation.

For the present generation of European statesmen, several

things have conspired to place the subject of municipal gov-

ernment in obscurity. Wherever French jacobinism penetrated,

it destroyed whatever municipal government it found, and

created in its place a system of pure centralization: and that a

priori philosophy which has been so fashionable in our day,

and which treats mankind as a multiplication of the original

thinker, has in this country brought views of centralization so

much into vogue, that the very subject of municipal govern-

ment is but little understood by some of the best-informed of

our public men. The most common notion of it is, that it is an

authority relating exclusively to cities or towns. Yet the mu-

nicipal institution was but little known to the ancient Greeks,

who, with their numerous colonies, chiefly inhabited cities;

and a ramification of it appears now throughout the United

States, in the “township” government of districts consisting

solely of woods and farms. Another common view of the

municipal principle is, that it is confined to objects of very

minor importance, such as paving and lighting or police in

towns, and the management of highways and church-rates in

the country. How few remember practically, so to speak, that

municipal government was a main cause of the greatness of

the greatest of empires. Still fewer ever reflect that the present

greatness of England is in no small degree owing to the insti-

tution, which colonized English America and formed our In-

dian empire.

The municipal principle, being that of a delegation of power

by the supreme authority, with limits as to locality, or object,

or both, may be applied no doubt to the least important mat-

ters. It is indeed the principle of that infinite variety of corpo-

rations for special or limited purposes (such as our Universi-

ties, the Trinity House, the Moneyers of the Mint, and the

Bank of England, down to the meanest joint-stock company),

which distinguish England and English America from the rest

of the world, as they have formed the practical and self-rely-

ing character of our race. But whilst the municipal principle

embraces the minutest subject, as to which the supreme au-

thority may choose to delegate power, it admits of a delega-

tion of the highest power short of sovereignty or national in-

dependence. The custom with those nations which have gov-

erned their dependencies municipally, has been a delegation

of the maximum of power compatible with allegiance to the

empire. Those nations are chiefly the Eomans, and the En-

glish of the 16th and 17th centuries. But the municipal de-

pendencies of Rome and England were formed by very dif-

ferent processes. If the Romans had colonized like the Greeks,

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

by the creation of independent sovereign states, they would

not have invented a system of municipal government for de-

pendencies. The purpose of the invention was to render sov-

ereign states subordinate to Rome, without depriving them

locally of the institutions or rights which they possessed be-

fore. A city or state, enjoying sovereign power, incurred alle-

giance to Rome, and became imperially dependent; but it pre-

served its old laws untouched within its own limits. This mode

of acquiring empire by absorption or annexation did not call

for the making of municipal constitutions. Nor were the regu-

lations of the Romans for founding military colonies, mu-

nicipal constitutions, properly speaking: they rather resembled

the central authority by which the conquered provinces of

Rome were usually governed. Roman history accordingly

supplies us with no complete charter of a municipal govern-

ment. But when England began to enlarge her empire by colo-

nization, our ancestors had to devise a kind of municipality

quite different in form from that of the Romans. There is ample

proof of their having seen the impossibility of governing dis-

tant communities well by means of constantly exercising the

imperial authority. Besides such evidence on this point as is

furnished by the preambles of our old charters of colonial

government, it is a remarkable fact, that, until we began to

colonize with convicts towards the end of the last century, the

imperial power of England never, I believe, in a single in-

stance, attempted to rule locally from a distance a body of its

subjects who had gone forth from England and planted a

colony. In every such case down to that time, the imperial

authority recognised by word and deed the necessity of al-

lowing the colonists themselves to govern locally. Emigrants,

however, differed from the inhabitants of such states as be-

came true municipalities of Rome, in already possessing an

allegiance which they desired to preserve, and in not pos-

sessing a constitution of local government. England there-

fore reversed the Roman process. The allegiance of the dis-

tant community was preserved instead of being created; and

the local constitution was created instead of being preserved.

But the principle was identical in both cases; namely, delega-

tion, tacit or express, of local powers limited only by general

or imperial subordination.

The English mode of giving effect to this principle, being by

express delegation, required that municipal constitutions

should be framed and written. It has, therefore, furnished us

with abundance of models for present use. All of them dis-

play one striking feature, though more or less prominently. In

every case, the object seems to have been to confer local pow-

ers more or less similar in scope to those of a true Roman

municipality. Lord Baltimore, the wisest and most successful

of English colonizers, was authorized “by and with the ad-

vice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of Maryland, or

the greater part of them, or their delegates and deputies, to

enact any laws whatsoever appertaining either unto the pub-

lic state of the said province, or unto the private utility of

particular persons.” With regard to powers, Penn merely cop-

ied the charter of Baltimore, whose disciple and close imita-

tor he was in many other respects. The Connecticut charter

authorized the colonists “from time to time to make, ordain,

and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable laws,

statutes, orders, directions, and instructions, as well for set-

tling the forms and ceremonies of government and magis-

tracy, fit and necessary for the said plantation and the inhab-

itants there, as for naming and styling all sorts of officers,

both superior and inferior, which they shall find needful for

the government and plantation of the said colony.” The first

charter of Massachusetts grants power “to make laws and

ordinances for the good and welfare of the said company and

plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same,

as to them from time to time shall be thought meet.” The

colonists of Rhode Island were empowered “to make, ordain,

and constitute, or repeal, such laws, statutes, orders and ordi-

nances, forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy,

as to them shall seem meet for the good and welfare of the

said company, and for the government and ordering of the

lands and hereditaments, and of the people that do, or at any

time hereafter shall, inhabit or be within the same.” It is need-

less to multiply such examples. Speaking generally, the pow-

ers of local government, both legislative and executive, were

granted by a few simple and comprehensive words. Then came

the restrictions, such as the condition that local laws should

not be repugnant or contrary to the laws of England, and the

reservation by the Crown, in some cases, of the right to disal-

low laws, and to appoint certain officers. These limitations

must be carefully examined hereafter. In spite of them, the

general characteristic of England’s municipal system of co-

lonial rule, was local self-government. How well the system

worked, notwithstanding a good deal of counteraction, is best

seen by comparing its results with those of the central sys-

tem.

This is the system which has been pursued by other coloniz-

ing states of modern Europe. As strangers to self-government

at home, they were incapable of deliberately employing the

municipal system. Therefore, the dependencies of France and

Spain, for example, were ruled from the seat of empire. And

what has this system produced? Communities so feeble, so

deficient in the Anglo-municipal quality of self-reliance, so

devoid of “those feelings of pride, and of love and attach-

ment to liberty, which,” says Burke, “belong to self-govern-

ment,” that some of them have been, and all probably will be,

swallowed up by the self-governed and energetic English race.

It was really the colonists of New-England who took Canada

from France; Louisiana, which would have been taken if it

could not have been bought, would not have been sold if it

had been worth keeping; and the American colonies of Spain,

after a brief exhibition of splendour, occasioned solely by the

A View of the Art of Colonization

accident of their abundance in the precious metals, seem des-

tined to be colonized over again by the people whom

England’s municipal system has planted by their side.

The colonial system of France or Spain exhibits a twofold

inferiority when compared with that of England. The old

English colonists under the best charters were self-governed

in two senses; first, as their government was local, and next,

as it was free or popular: whereas the governments of the old

colonies of France or Spain were both absolute and distant.

Supposing it allowed that an absolute form of government is

suitable for new colonies emanating from despotic states, still

it is above all things necessary that an absolute government,

in order to be tolerable anywhere, should be administered by

one who sympathizes with his subjects, whose glory is their

prosperity, to whom their misfortunes are at least a discom-

fort, and whom, if he should be a very bad man, they can at

all events check in cases of great need by threaten ing him

with the ultima ratio of popular despair. But the French or

Spanish system placed power in the hands of one who had no

sympathy with the colonists, who was not of them, who in-

tended to live amongst them only till he had enriched himself

at their expense, and whom even the despair of his subjects

did not influence, because he could rely on the support of an

overwhelming distant power, whose confidence he possessed,

and whose jealousy of its own authority and dignity he could

easily excite against the colonists by calling them “disaf-

fected.” Nay more, when it happened that a virtuous indi-

vidual did sympathize with the colonists and generously cul-

tivate their well-being, he was usually recalled by the supreme

power, which became jealous of his popularity, or took of-

fence at his disobedience of its ignorant and probably mis-

chievous orders. If the absolute form of government was nec-

essary, then at least sovereign or independent despotism should

have been erected. Had this been done, the French and Span-

iards might perhaps have shared pretty equally with the En-

glish in the ultimate colonization of America; but a combina-

tion of the despotic form with distant administration was the

worst conceivable government; and the tree has yielded its

proper fruit in the degenerate and fading communities result-

ing from French and Spanish colonization in America.

The first effectual trial of the central system by England was

our attempt to deprive the great English colonies in America

of their dearest municipal right. It cost us their allegiance.

This wound to our national pride seems to have brought the

municipal principle into disfavour, when it should have rather

produced aversion to the central. Then came convict coloni-

zation, to which the municipal system was wholly inappli-

cable. It was deemed as inapplicable to the helpless commu-

nities which came under our dominion by conquest, French

Canada alone excepted; and even there, after granting a free

form of government to the colonists, we systematically with-

held till the other day every proper consequence of represen-

tation. By degrees the central system prevailed over the mu-

nicipal. The establishment of an office in London for the ex-

press purpose of administering the central system, has finally

almost exterminated the old institution; public opinion has

nearly forgotten it; and now every portion of our vast colo-

nial empire is liable to the most serious injury from an over-

sight, a misapprehension, a want of right information, or an

error of judgment on the part of a gentleman sitting in Down-

ing-street, and called Principal Secretary of State for the Colo-

nies; not to mention the exhaustion of his mind and body in

the endeavour to do somehow, without neglecting more ur-

gent calls, what twenty colonial ministers could not do well,

if they had nothing else to do, and had been brought up to the

business.

For the English, having free institutions at home, had no ma-

chinery for administering the central system abroad. It was

impossible that Parliament should itself legislate for many

far-off dependencies; and the Crown or its Ministry of re-

sponsible advisers was as incapable of performing the execu-

tive part of government for the outlying portions of the em-

pire. England, therefore, once more acknowledged the ne-

cessity of a delegation of power by the supreme authority for

the purpose of governing colonies. But instead of delegating

power to the colonies themselves, as till then had been the

rule, the supreme authority created an office in London, and

upon it bestowed legislative tod executive power over the

colonies. Since then it has been only on rare occasions that

Parliament has meddled with colonial questions; and nearly

always when the interference has been of a legislative char-

acter, the enactment was either for the purpose of authorizing

the Colonial Office to legislate by means of orders or instruc-

tions, or for that of adopting without understanding a sugges-

tion of the Colonial Office. The only real exceptions from the

rule of Colonial-Office supremacy have occurred when gross

errors of administration, as in Canada and New Zealand, have

drawn public attention in this country to a colonial subject.

Such exceptions will doubtless be more numerous, if ever the

subject of colonization should become popular in this coun-

try; but at present, speaking generally, our colonial system of

government is thoroughly bureaucratic as well as central.

And hence arises another important consideration. The bu-

reaucratic system is essentially repugnant to our general in-

stitutions, and even to our national character. This is shown

by its extreme unpopularity as applied to the management of

the poor. For the infinitely more difficult task of managing all

the public affairs of some forty distant communities, the bu-

reaucratic system in perfection would have been a wretched

instrument. But we use it for that purpose in a very imperfect

form. In Prussia, where the bureaucratic system worked as

well as it ever can, the head of an official department was

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

brought up to the business, commonly died at his post, and

was succeeded by one not less intimately acquainted with the

subject matter, and habitually versed in the exercise of offi-

cial authority. The head of our Colonial Office is a Cabinet

Minister and a member of either House of Parliament; and if

he is a man of any ability, the calls of party, Parliamentary

debate, and general legislation, leave him hardly time for sleep,

much less for the deliberate and careful exercise of his vast

colonial authority. It matters little, therefore, that he enters

the Colonial Office with no special aptitude for directing it,

and generally leaves it, for a reason totally unconnected with

colonial affairs, soon after, or even before, acquiring some

knowledge of its business. The Parliamentary Under-Secre-

tary precisely resembles his chief, except in being subordi-

nate to him, and in not bearing the burden of Cabinet discus-

sions and responsibilities. The great bulk, accordingly, of the

labours of the office are performed, as the greater portion of

its legislative and executive authority is necessarily wielded,

by the permanent Under-Secretary and the superior clerks.

These are men of great ability; but it is ability of a peculiar

sort. It is the sort of ability which serves the interests of an

office, as such; mere official ability; great diligence, a per-

fect command over the elements of order, and an intimate

knowledge of forms, precedents, and past transactions. These

are not qualifications for law-giving and command. And,

moreover, so little is the public aware that the real legislators

and rulers of our colonial empire possess even the qualities

which I attribute to them, that their very names are hardly

known beyond the precincts of Downing-street. It follows that

they are sheltered from all responsibility to public opinion.

Where bureaucracy is not a delegated power, but in itself su-

preme, public opinion which has formed it, and which alone

sustains it, likewise watches it and keeps it in order. Our co-

lonial system of government is the bureaucratic, spoiled by

being grafted on to free institutions.

This spoiling is very conspicuous in the weakness of the Co-

lonial Office at home, notwithstanding its despotic authority

abroad. It is a government in the wrong place; a government

seated in a foreign country.

Not having been formed by the communities whose govern-

ment it is, not even breathing the same air with them, it wants

the strength which a domestic government derives from its

nationality. The nation which surrounds it, scarcely recollects

its existence. As a government, therefore, it is like a tree with-

out roots, all stem and branches, apt to be bent any way. As a

machine of government, the forces by which it is moved or

stayed are quite insignificant when compared with the power

they influence. If ever the Colonial Office originates a scheme

of policy, it seldom pursues it consistently to the end. It sets

off in one direction, and takes another the moment some in-

terest, or clique, or association in this country strongly ob-

jects to the first course. At one time, the West-India Body in

England suggests what it shall do; at another, the Anti-Sla-

very Society impels it. To-day its measures originate with

some Canada merchants in London; to-morrow it abandons

those measures, and pursues others of an opposite tendency

at the instance of some London newspaper. At the instigation

of a missionary society it all but made New Zealand a convict

colony of France; and then yielding to the remonstrances of a

joint-stock company, it established the British sovereignty

which it had just before loudly repudiated. For awhile the

Company led it to favour colonization; but ere long the anti-

colonizing views of the Society again prevailed with it; and

of late years its policy as to New Zealand has been an alterna-

tion of shuttlecock flights between the battledores of

Salisbury-Square and Broad-Street-Buildings. It even yields

to individual pressure, such as no other department would

heed or feel; such as no domestic government would tolerate.

Conscious of feebleness arising from the want of a public on

the spot to sustain it in doing right and prevent it from doing

wrong—fully aware of its own unpopularity as a bureaucratic

institution in a free country—well acquainted with the facili-

ties which the free press and the free institutions of this coun-

try afford for pressing it disagreeably—the Colonial Office

but faintly resists anybody who may choose to make a busi-

ness of pressing it. A list of the individuals who have made

this their business during the last twenty years, would not be

very short, and might be given with chapter and verse for

what each of them successfully pressed it to do, undo, or leave

undone. The whole would form a book of directions for fu-

ture meddlers in colonial affairs. They would learn from its

pages how easy it is for even the most obscure person, if he

resides here and sets about the work in earnest, to prompt or

thwart the policies of the Colonial Office, to suggest or over-

turn its decisions, to get its servants appointed or recalled,

and to give the great bureaucracy more trouble in a year than

it ever spontaneously bestowed on the distant colonies in five.

Verily the Colonial Office would be at least more selfimpelled

if it were seated in Russia or St. Helena.

The spoiling of a bureaucratic institution by seating it in a

free country, is more fully seen on examining the defective

instruments by which the power of the Colonial Office is ad-

ministered at a distance. These are, first, officers sent out to

the colonies, and, secondly, instructions for their guidance.

But it is time to close this letter.

A View of the Art of Colonization

Letter XXXVII.

From the Colonist.

Mode of Appointing Public Functionaries for the Colo-

nies. — Government by Instruction. — Jesuitical Con-

duct of the Colonial Office. — A Colonial Office Con-

science Exemplified by Lord Grey. — Proposed Tabular

Statistics of Dispatches in the Colonial Office.

The officers are not a peculiar class, brought up to their pecu-

liar business, like members of the various professions and

servants of the East India Company. Some of them are picked

up, one scarcely knows how; for it is difficult to say by what

means they get their appointments, unless it be that, having

broken down in some regular profession or having taken a

dislike to it, they are in want of a provision and gain it in the

colonies by dint of importunity. Others, and these are a very

numerous class, owe their appointments to Peers and Mem-

bers of Parliament, who having poor relations to provide for,

or electioneering obligations to pay off, seldom think of the

colonies but as Mr. O’Connell wrote about them in that letter

which I have already noticed. The Treasury has a share of the

patronage, the Admiralty another, the Horse-Guards a third,

and the Board of Ordnance comes in for pickings. How would

a Prussian bureau have worked with scarcely a voice in the

selection of its own instruments? With the real disposers of

colonial patronage, fitness is the last consideration; and, what

is still worse, inasmuch as there is no public at home taking

an interest in colonial affairs, colonial patronage becomes

the refuge for men, whose unfitness for any office whatever

forbids their employment by departments which public opin-

ion controls as well as sustains. Those other departments make

a convenience of the Colonial Office: the patronage of the

colonies is the receptacle into which they cast their own im-

portunate but very incompetent applicants for public employ-

ment. The great bulk, accordingly, of those whom we send

out to the colonies to administer government, even those ap-

pointed to the highest offices, are signally unfit for the duties

imposed on them. On this point it is needless to add a word to

what has been said before.

But there are exceptions, more especially as to governors,

sometimes by design, oftener by accident. Since the rebel-

lions in Canada, the governors of that province have been

men of experience and high reputation in public life. Lord

Durham was sacrificed by the Colonial Office, which in its

miserable weakness let him fall a victim to party strife at home.

Lord Sydenham, as Governor of Canada, used to speak openly

with aversion and contempt of the permanent or bureaucratic

part of the Colonial Office, and to boast with justice of his

sole reliance for support in England, on his party connexions

there, and Lord John Russell’s private friendship. Sir Charles

Bagot, I fully believe, preserved the colony to England by a

bold and startling measure, seemed to die of the supposed

though unpublished disapproval by the Colonial Office of a

policy which delighted precisely ten-elevenths of the provin-

cial representative body. The dauntless self-reliance of the

last Governor of Canada made him careless of support from

any quarter, and even gave him a sort of mastery over the

Colonial Office; but his successors, since there are not two

Lord Metcalfes, may painfully learn that a department, itself

unsupported by public opinion, is always apt to withhold sup-

port from its servants at the very time when they need it most.

Next as to instructions. These are necessarily written, on ac-

count of the distance. What is the subject of them? All the

public concerns of about forty distinct communities, scattered

over the world, and comprising an endless diversity of lan-

guages, laws, religions, customs, wants, and economical cir-

cumstances. For writing statistically or theoretically, and but

once, on so vast and varied a theme, the knowledge of the

wisest of mankind would be insufficient; a thousand sages

would be incapable of writing upon it continually in the form

of useful practical directions. Who it is that writes, I need not

repeat. And what is it that is written? it is legislation and

mandate. The commission of every governor now-a-days en-

joins him to rule according to the instructions which he shall

receive from Downing-street, In the bureaucratic colonies,

instructions from Downingstreet have the force of Acts of

Parliament: in the representative colonies, the governor, be-

ing himself a branch of the legislature as well as the head of

the executive, is bound to obey them implicitly. Instructions

written in Downing-street really constitute, therefore, the main

instrument of government for our vast colonial empire. We

have subjected a large portion of the world to none of the old

forms of government, but to something which differs alto-

gether from monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and every

combination of these three. Government by instructions! This

institution is so little known except to colonists and coloniz-

ers, that a member of both classes may be excused for at-

tempting to describe it.

Legislation and mandate must be founded on information of

some kind. When these suit the character and wants of a

people, the largest portion of the business of government con-

sists in the gathering and sifting of information. In Prussia,

the work used to be done by a vast and well-ordered official

establishment : it is done in England, though in some mea-

sure by official means, still chiefly by petitions to Parliament,

by debates in Parliament, and above all by the press, quar-

terly, monthly, weekly, daily, morning and evening, and ex-

tra-editional: for the colonies, it purports to be done by the

reports of governors. A governor’s reports, and the instruc-

tions founded on information derived from them, form a cor-

respondence legislative and executive. In this potent inter-

change of letters, months elapse, in some cases twelve months,

before an answer can come by return of the post. Without

reverting to the character and position of the writers on both

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

sides, it is obvious that government by instructions must be a

great make-believe of good government. Cases indeed hap-

pen, but every honest governor or intelligent colonist would

declare them to be extraordinary cases, in which something

useful is done for a colony by means of instructions from

Downing-street. Allowing for these rare exceptions, Colo-

nial-Office instructions are either mischievous or inoperative.

When founded on a wrong or imperfect view of things in the

colony, as must be the case nine times out of ten, they are

mischievous if executed. If mischievous in character, but not

executed by a governor of sense and courage, they are still

mischievous in effect, by worrying the governor, irritating

the colonists, and exposing the supreme authority to little less

odium than it incurs when mischievous instructions are ex-

ecuted by a dull or timid governor. The proportion of inop-

erative instructions is immense. They are inoperative from

having been outrun by time and events, or from some other

inapplicability to things real in the colony. Why then write at

all, except in the few cases where there is a clear necessity

for writing, and good assurance that the trouble will not be

lost? Because, in fact, the trouble is not lost as respects the

writers. Real government of the colonies from London is

impossible, but an appearance of governing must be kept up

for the sake of the importance and dignity of the Office. The

new head of the Office (and the head of the Office is always

more or less new

) likes to sign well-written dispatches which

may figure in a blue-book; and the writer of them takes a

pleasure in giving this satisfaction to his chief. Both classes

like the semblance of governing. The writing, therefore, of

inoperative despatches is not labour lost; but it is mischie-

vous nevertheless. I have seen the House of Assembly in

Canada incapable of restraining their mirth, whilst the Speaker

was gravely reading instructions to the Governor which his

Excellency had been desired to communicate to them: they

laughed at the ludicrous inapplicability to Canada of the views

expounded in these dispatches, as the dock-yard people at

Kingston on Ontario, laughed at the arrival from England of

a consignment of water-casks for the use of ships floating

onthe fresh-water Lake. Considering that these despatches

were written in the name of the imperial Sovereign, this dis-

respectful treatment of them was surely very mischievous.

The official necessity of writing, moreover, combined with

the difficulty of writing for practical purposes, has begotten

the custom of writing didactically. Long theories of philan-

thropy and political economy are propounded in despatches.

A pamphlet printed in London, and consisting of the opin-

ions of the writer concerning the aborigines of New Zealand,

was transcribed, of course without acknowledgment, into the

form of a didactic despatch. Certain theories of the Colonial

Office versus the opinions of the last Committee of the House

of Commons on New Zealand, were elaborately set forth in

the shape of instructions to Governor Fitzroy, whose own theo-

ries were known to be identical with those contained in the

despatch. Some twelve years ago, in a circular despatch ad-

dressed to the governors of the West-India colonies, I met

with a new theory of my own which had been published anony-

mously not long before. The subject was of vital importance

to the West Indies; and the theory pointed to measures which

the colonists anxiously desired. Seeing my humble notions

dressed up in the ornaments of the best official style, and

dignified with the semblance of original thoughts formed in

the brain of the Colonial Minister, I innocently concluded

that something to be sure would come of it. And something

did come of it. The well-written despatch was published here

for the credit of the Office; and the colonists soon discovered

that all the fine promises it held out to them were nothing but

what they disrespectfully called Colonial-Office flumcnery.

How the fact was I cannot know; but I can assure you that in

Canada, the despatch of the Colonial Office which led to the

British-Canada Corn Act, was originally deemed nothing but

a piece of didactic writing. The leading colonists still pride

themselves on having converted mere compliment into a valu-

able reality, by treating it as if it had been a practical sugges-

tion. If this despatch was not written at the instance of the

Cabinet at home, with a deliberate view to the admission of

American wheat through Canada into England at a fixed duty

of four shillings per quarter, it was what the colonists be-

lieved it to be; and at any rate, their belief shows that this

kind of instructions cannot be very uncommon. The first gov-

ernor of New Zealand received a body of general instruc-

tions, which every reader of them must pronounce admirable

in doctrine, tone, and expression. The local government read

them by the rule of contraries, having for years pursued a line

of conduct just opposite to their particular suggestions and

general tenour. Did punishment or censure follow? No, nor

complaint, nor even a word of notice. These instructions were

of the didactic kind, not intended for effect save in a blue-

book.

Figuring there, they had the effect of inducing a superior class

of persons to emigrate, with the hope of doing well under a

government so admirably taught. I could name several who

were led to ruin by their credulous reliance on that didactic

dispatch.

Then there is a class of despatches which may be properly

termed the obscure. Time will be saved in describing them by

first quoting an author who is himself one of the ablest writ-

ers of Colonial-Office despatches. In his very clever and en-

tertaining book, called The Statesman,

which we are told

“treats of topics such as experience rather than inventive

meditation suggested to him,” he says that the “far greater

proportion of the duties which are performed in the office of

a minister, are and must be performed under no effective re-

sponsibility;” that there are “means and shifts by which the

A View of the Art of Colonization

business of the office may be reduced within a very manage-

able compass without creating public scandal;” and that by

these arts the doer of the business “may obtain for himself the

most valuable of all reputations in this line of life, that of a

‘safe man.’ “The means and shifts are “by evading decisions

wherever they can be evaded; by shifting them on other de-

partments where by any possibility they can be shifted; by

giving decisions upon superficial examinations, categorically,

so as not to expose the superficiality in propounding the rea-

sons; by deferring questions till, as Lord Bacon says, ‘they

‘resolve themselves;’ by undertaking nothing for the public

good which the public voice does not call for; by conciliating

loud and energetic individuals at the expense of such public

interests as are dumb or do not attract attention; and by sacri-

ficing everywhere what is feeble and obscure to what is influ-

ential and cognizable.” Obscure despatches are commonly

written in answer to despatches from governors desirous of

escaping responsibility and fixing it on the Office; and their

object is to save the Office from responsibility, by fixing it on

the governors. The writing of them has begotten a style pecu-

liar to the Colonial Office; a style founded on that view of

language which supposes that it was given to us for the pur-

pose of concealing our thoughts; the style which says as little

as possible by means of a great quantity of words. I once

heard two ex-governors, both of them men of ability, who

have since held very high appointments, talk over the subject

of Colonial-Office instructions. One of them said, that he had

often received long despatches, the meaning of which he could

never make out, though he read them over and over again.

Well, said the other, and what did you do with them? At length,

replied the first, I made a guess at the meaning and acted

accordingly. Like you, said the second, I have often striven in

vain to find out the meaning of a despatch, and have ended

with a guess; but, unlike you, I further conjectured that these

obscure directions were intended to get the Office out of a

scrape and me into it; wherefore, instead of acting on my

guess, I did the reverse. It is only fair to state that he had

quarrelled with the Office and resigned his governorship; but

in speaking so disrespectfully of his former masters, he dif-

fers from most other governors, and resembles colonists in

general, only by the frank expression of his contempt and

hatred. Such feelings are indeed excited by two other classes

of instructions. I mean those which are confidential or secret,

and those in which words with more than one meaning are

studiously employed. They sometimes differ materially from

published instructions on the same subject. A flagrant instance

of this kind came to light during the New Zealand contro-

versy; and considering what a large proportion of such cases

must necessarily be buried in darkness, the number of them

that are known is dismally great. Among “the shifts and

means” by the practice of which, says the author of The States-

man, “men in office have their understandings abused and

debased, their sense of justice corrupted, their public spirit

and appreciation of public objects undermined” is the use of

words with a double meaning. The object is not, and cannot

be, anything but double-dealing: it is the shift of the “safe

man,” who foresees a future convenience to his office in be-

ing able to give to official language an interpretation differ-

ent from its primâ facie meaning. Several tricks of this sort

came out in the course of the New Zealand controversy. They

may be uncommon; but enough have become public to create

an opinion on the subject even in this country : it was ex-

pressed in the House of Commons, when cheers succeeded

the proposal that the following words of a New Zealand sav-

age, addressed to her Majesty’s representative in the colony,

should be inscribed on the Colonial Office, “Speak your words

openly; speak as you mean to act; do not speak one thing, and

mean another.”

The cheering took place in Lord Stanley’s time. Among the

loudest in thus denouncing the habitual trickery of the Colo-

nial Office, was the present Colonial Minister; but in his time

certainly the department has fully maintained its reputation

for being addicted to double-dealing. Indeed, the “smartness”

of the genius loci is remarkably exemplified by Lord Grey,

who notwithstanding the high honour of his father’s son, has

learned in the great house at the bottom of Downing-street,

first, to contend without a blush, that it is perfectly fair and

right to quote parts of dispatches, which taken without their

context support your own side of a question, and deliberately

to suppress other parts which uphold the opposite side; and

secondly, to simulate in public, that he is carrying into execu-

tion the plans of colonial reform of which out of office he

was the zealous advocate, which his subordinates and his own

want of practical ability have prevented him from realizing,

and of which, therefore, he is in private and in truth as bitter

a foe as was ever renegade to the faith he had deserted.

It must be a Colonial-Office conscience that permits recourse

to such tricks. In Mr. Taylor’s Statesman, there is a chapter,

which he says that he wrote with “a trembling hand.” It con-

sists of an elaborate and very ingenious pleading in favour of

allowing statesmen to be guided by two consciences; one for

private, and the other for public life; one honest, the other as

dishonest as the statesman himself shall think proper. In this

chapter he says, “I estimate the consequences of relaxing the

law of truth in private life to show a vast balance of evil; and

the consequence of relaxing that law in public life to show a

serious array of evil certainly; but I hesitate to say a balance.”

* * * * “Falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is under-

stood on all hands that the truth is not expected to be spo-

ken.” * * * * “A statesman is engaged, certainly, in a field of

action which is one of great danger to truthfulness and sin-

cerity. His conscience walks, too, like the ghost of a con-

science, in darkness or twilight.” * * * * “Upon the whole,

therefore, I come to the conclusion, that the cause of public

morality will be best served by moralists permitting to states-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

men, what statesmen must necessarily take and exercise—a

free judgment, namely, though a most responsible one, in the

weighing of specific against general evil, and in the percep-

tion of perfect and imperfect analogies between public and

private transactions, in respect of the moral rules by which

they are to be governed.” And in another chapter he says, “it

will be found to be better for the public interests that a states-

man should have some hardihood, than much weak sensibil-

ity of conscience.” Both freedom of judgment in questions of

official morality, and hardihood of conscience too! Bravo,

Mr. Taylor! Why should you blush, Lord Grey? Oh, for a

Pascal to write Lettres Provinciales about Colonial-Office

doctrine as given to the world by members of the Colonial

Office!

But the greater part of despatches never see the light, without

being marked secret or confidential. Whether any despatch,

either from the Office to a governor or from a governor to the

Office, shall ever be published either here or in the colonies,

depends altogether on the pleasure of the Office. The whole

correspondence, indeed, remains unseen except by those who

write it, and excepting the very small proportion of it for which

the Office gives special directions. The colonies, therefore,

are ruled by a legislative and executive power, which has an

absolute choice between making known and utterly conceal-

ing all the grounds of its laws and orders. The portion of them

which it does not conceal, is of course very small. If a return

were made to the House of Commons of all despatches writ-

ten and received by the Colonial Office during the last ten

years, distinguishing the published from the unpublished, I

suspect that not less than nine-tenths would appear in the lat-

ter class; and of the remaining tenth it would turn out that a

large proportion had not been published till they belonged to

the past. The ill results of this part of the system would form

a separate and very important chapter.

Another would be the very mischievous uncertainty and de-

lay of legislation by means of despatches whether published

or not. The best illustration of this point would be a return for

ten years of all despatches received by or sent from the Colo-

nial Office, with the date of each, the date of its receipt, date

of the acknowledgment of its receipt, and the date of any sub-

stantial answer to it; together with an enumeration of the des-

patches which have never been substantially answered, and

such a brief statement of the topics of the same as would

enable the House of Commons to judge whether a substantial

answer was required.

But if such a return were deemed too complicated, a state-

ment of the mere number of despatches received by the Co-

lonial Office in one year, would tell a sufficient tale. In the

single year 1846, the Colonial Office of Paris received from

the single dependency of Algeria, no less than 28,000 des-

patches, relating to civil, independently of military affairs;

538 a week, or 86 a day, not reckoning Sundays. At what rate

do our forty dependencies supply our Colonial Office with

despatches? The Algerian rate gives 1,120,000 a year; 3,578

for every working day. Supposing, however, that each of our

dependencies produces on the average no more in a year than

Algeria does in a week, namely 538 per week, or 28,000 in a

year, which must be vastly below the true mark, there are

figures enough to assure us that a large proportion of des-

patches from the colonies cannot by possibility be substan-

tially answered. But the most monstrous return in point of

figures, and the most useful in point of instruction, would be

one which is indeed impracticable; namely, an account of the

number of cases in a year, in which something that ought to

have been done in the colonies was left undone because a

dispatch was not even written.

And, lastly, with respect to instructions, I have not said a word

about the public injury and private wrongs inflicted on the

colonists, by the most prompt execution of those which are

written in ignorance or on false information. This topic is too

large for this place; but its absence for that reason will sug-

gest reflections which may therefore be spared.

Letter XXXVIII.

From the Colonist.

Disallowance of Colonial Laws by the Colonial Office.

— Lot of Colonial Governors. — Effects of Our System

of Colonial Government.—counteraction of the System

by the

Vis Medicatrix Nature. —

Proposed Addition to

Mr. Murray’s

Colonial Library.

When at last a colonial law is made and promulgated, whether

by a provincial parliament or a governor with his council of

nominees, it is still liable to disallowance by the Colonial

Office. Four evils in particular are the result. In the first place,

the colonists suffer, during the time necessary for communi-

cation with England, from a state of harassing uncertainty

and suspense with regard to the ultimate validity of their laws.

Secondly, the party or faction in the colony, which has ob-

jected to the passing of any law, seeks to thwart the success-

ful party, and to gain its own point, by means of secret influ-

ences and intrigues with the Colonial Office. Thirdly, when-

ever the power of disallowance is exercised, whether hon-

estly by the Colonial Office, or, as sometimes happens, by

the Colonial Minister himself, for reasons which appear suf-

ficient to him, the veto is imposed, it must be confessed, by

persons much less qualified to judge on the subject than those

by whom the law was made, and, in the case of the Colonial

Minister himself, by a person fully engaged by matters of far

more pressing importance to him. And, lastly, these three ef-

fects of the reserved veto necessarily aggravate party ani-

mosity in the colony, and tend to destroy that sentiment of

loyalty towards the empire which I have described as a pas-

A View of the Art of Colonization

sion of British emigrants and their children. The number of

colonial laws which have been disallowed during the last ten

years, with a brief statement of the nature of each, would form

the subject of another incredibly curious return to the House

of Commons.

Justice demands that we should rather pity the lot of gover-

nors under this system, than blame them for what the system

produces. They are frequently punished, and sometimes with

the greatest injustice. A governor of more than common abil-

ity is the most likely to disregard or disobey instructions drawn

up in London, and so to get recalled. The best of governors

enters upon office very ignorant of things and persons in the

colony. If a representative constitution enables him to dis-

cover the bent of the colonial mind on matters which call for

decision, he has still to determine whether he will side with

the minority or the majority. If he sides with the minority, he

sets going that conflict between representative institutions and

a despotic administration of them, which is the ordinary state

of our representative colonies; and, thenceforth, instead of

governing, he only lives in hot water. At length, perhaps, the

conflict of factions in the colony becomes so violent that the

House of Commons interferes; and then the governor is re-

called by the Colonial Office, which hitherto, under the influ-

ence of some clique, or individual at home, has patted him on

the back in his quarrel with the majority. If he sides with the

majority, between whom and the bureaucracy at home there

is a strong natural aversion, the first good opportunity of re-

calling him is seldom neglected; or, at all events, his life is

made uncomfortable, and his capacity for governing much

diminished, by the intrigues and secret influences at home,

which the colonial minority brings to bear against him in

Downing-street. In the non-representative, or bureaucratic

colonies, it is still worse. There, no institution tells the gover-

nor what are the wants and wishes of the colony. The factions

which surely exist among Englishmen wherever government

by party has not grown out of free institutions freely adminis-

tered, have been lying in wait for him, with nets spread and

traps prepared. In his ignorant helplessness, he almost neces-

sarily falls into the hands of one or other of them. If he keeps

them off, and judges for himself, he is sure to make terrible

mistakes, partly from ignorance, and partly because all the

factions conspire to mislead and ruin the governor who sets

them all at defiance. This man causes intolerable trouble to

the Colonial Office, and is soon advised to tender his resig-

nation. A less selfrelying governor has no sooner made up

his mind to which faction he will abandon himself, than all

the others declare war against him; the local press goads him;

the Colonial Office is beset with applications for his removal;

some part of the press at home is induced to attack him;

speeches are made against him in Parliament; and if he is not

recalled to stop the hubbub, he at best leads a life of care and

apprehension. What all governors suffer from the disallow-

ance of their acts by distant, ill-informed, and irresponsible

superiors, would form a long chapter. Another might be filled

with the troubles of governors, in consequence of having to

administer a government without having the patronage of a

government at their disposal. Upon the whole, it may be ques-

tioned whether the existence of any class of men is much

more uncomfortable than that of governors of British colo-

nies. Some few escape the common lot; but they generally do

so by the practice of those “means and shifts” which the Co-

lonial Office itself is induced by its weakness to adopt, and

because their low ambition is satisfied if they can manage to

keep a good salary and the title of Excellency without at-

tempting to govern. It follows, that even if the Colonial Of-

fice selected its own servants, men having the spirit and self-

respect which accompany capacity for ruling, would be loth

to serve the office of governor, except in the few cases where

the importance of a colony renders that office important, how-

ever uncomfortable. Turning from particulars to the whole

system as displayed by its effects, one is surprised that it should

work at all. It produces much trouble here, and endless tur-

moil in the colonies. It disturbs secretaries of state, worries

all governors, and ruins some. It irritates colonial assemblies,

deprives them of their just functions, and forces them into

violent proceedings, such as political impeachments, the stop-

page of supplies, and personal attacks on the local sovereign,

which have been unknown in this country since we estab-

lished responsible government for ourselves. It subjects the

bureaucratic colonies to an authority in all that concerns their

welfare, that is ignorantly and secretly impelled, besides be-

ing secret in operation and arbitrary as well as absolute. It

breeds colonial factions and demagogues. By its injustice and

oppressions, it begets the use of slavish means of self-de-

fence; hypocrisy, crafty intrigue, and moral assassination of

opponents. Thus, and by its false pretences and foul prac-

tices, it almost banishes honour from public life in the colo-

nies, and greatly helps to bring down the standard of private

honour far below that of the mother-country. It benumbs en-

terprise, and forbids creative legislation, in societies whose

natural business is adventure and creation. It is costly beyond

any comparison with the municipal system, though not bur-

densome to the colonists in the same proportion, because, in

the bureaucratic colonies to some extent, this country pays

for the misgovernment which checks the growth of private

wealth and public income. Furthermore, the system, which as

to all our newest colonies we have substituted for the munici-

pal, in the complete form of the central-bureaucratic-spoiled,

robs the Englishman of what used to be deemed his birth-

right. It thus deprives the emigrant, whatever may be his tal-

ents for public business, of all opportunity of exerting him-

self for the public good, of all the motives of a laudable am-

bition, of all pursuits except the making of money. It places

him, whatever may have been his station here, how much

soever he may be superior in education and property to the

highest of the officials, in a position of mortifying inferiority

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

to the lowest. To use a heedless expression of the Quarterly

Review, it renders the colonies “unfit abodes for any but con-

victs, paupers, and desperate or needy persons.” It cures those

who emigrate in spite of it, of their maladie du pays. It is the

one great impediment to the overflow of Britain’s excessive

capital and labour into waste fields, which, if cultivated into

new markets, would increase the home field of employment

for capital and labour. It has placed colonization itself amongst

the lost arts, and is thus a negative cause of that excessive

competition of capital with capital, and labour with labour, in

a limited field of employment for both, which is now the con-

dition of England and the difficulty of her statesmen.

But it works somehow. Yes, thanks to the vis medicatrix

naturce, which corrects the errors of men by infusing some

proportion of good into the greatest of evils. The good prin-

ciple through which our present system of colonial govern-

ment is worked at all, is that which Adam Smith had in view,

when, contemplating the greatness of English municipal colo-

nization in America, produced as it was by individual exer-

tions without assistance from the government, he exclaimed,

Magna virûm mater! and attributed all to the country and the

institutions which had formed the men capable of so great a

performance. Englishmen colonize in spite of the Colonial

Office and its system. English colonists get on somehow, not-

withstanding bad government, or without government. En-

glish governors do not quite forget the political lessons which

every Englishman that can read learns at home; and their sub-

jects, being English, or of English origin, can bear worse gov-

ernment without fainting; can resist and check it more effec-

tually than the colonists of any other nation. Public opinion

here does now and then punish the authors and perpetrators

of great colonial wrongs. Even the Colonial-Office bureau-

cracy, worse though it is in one sense than a Prussian bureau,

still, being composed of Englishmen, and breathing the air of

England, is not so bad as a bureau of Prussians would be if

they were placed in the same false and corrupting position.

The system works indeed, but by means of what is contrary

to it: it works in spite of its un-English self, by means of the

English energy which it depresses, of the self-reliance which

it cannot destroy, of the fortitude which resists it; and finally

by means of the national institutions and sentiments to which

it is wholly antagonist. In a word, it is worked by counterac-

tion.

The contrast between the two systems under comparison, great

as it is in every point of view, is in nothing so remarkable as

in this; that the one requires counteraction to work at all, whilst

the other works well just in proportion as it is not counter-

acted, but is left to operate by itself; just in proportion, that

is, as the municipal principle is adopted without admixture of

the central. In the old English colonies of America, the mu-

nicipal principle was not completely adopted in a single case;

in some cases, the central principle was to some extent mixed

with it, even in the form of government; and in all, the impe-

rial power, after granting local self-government more or less

complete, counteracted its own delegation of authority, some-

times by withdrawing it altogether and governing arbitrarily

from the centre of the empire, at others by violating its own

grants, and ruling, or attempting to rule, the colonists from a

distance notwithstanding their local rights. The history of those

colonies, accordingly, is, in a great measure, the history of

many struggles between the dependencies and the imperial

power. What each side contended for, was the exercise of

local authority. The colonists, though they suffered greatly in

these contests, still, being armed with their royal charters,

assisted by the law of England which at that time deemed

self-government the birthright of English colonists, and not a

little favoured by distance, obscurity, and civil contests in the

mother-country, generally carried their point at last. Practi-

cally, therefore, and upon the whole, these colonies enjoyed

municipal government. Some of them, for long consecutive

periods, and all of them at times, managed their own affairs

without any interference from home; and a careful examina-

tion of the progress of these communities from the hour of

their municipal birth down to that of their sovereign indepen-

dence, establishes by irresistible evidence two things in par-

ticular; first, that whatever sufferings they endured as respects

government—that in whatever respects their governments did

not work smoothly and beneficially for them as well as for

the empire— the sole cause of the evil was some infringe-

ment of the municipal principle; and secondly, that an accu-

mulation of such acts on the part of the imperial power,

crowned at length by the attempt to tax the colonists without

the consent of their local assemblies, was the sole cause of

their revolt. These naked positions may have an air of exag-

geration or rashness; but I am intimately persuaded of their

truth; and I refer you to the principal source of my own con-

victions. This is a modern work, scarcely known to the public

in consequence of its defects of arrangement and style, but

containing the best account of England’s colonial system of

municipal governments; I mean the late Mr. Grahame’s His-

tory of the United States, which, as it ends with the Declara-

tion of Independence, ought to have been entitled a history of

English colonization in North America.

This book also con-

tains most valuable proofs of the necessity of combining effi-

cient religious arrangements with good civil government in

order to colonize very successfully. The author, a Scotch

gentleman by birth, was a zealous Republican, Protestant, and

Voluntary, but also a true gentleman at heart in his love of

truth, his scrupulous fairness, and his singular tolerance of

opinions opposite to his own. He could not theorize. Neither

as to government nor religion does he attempt to establish the

conclusions which his facts and his laborious accuracy im-

press upon the speculative reader.

A View of the Art of Colonization

The view here taken of imperial counteractions of the mu-

nicipal principle, is supported by observing how the propri-

etary charters worked. Mr. Grahame shows very distinctly,

that they worked well whenever the grantee, whether an indi-

vidual or a corporation, resided in the colony, and was iden-

tified with the colonists; and that they worked very ill indeed,

nearly always when the grantee resided in England. The resi-

dence of the grantees in the colony was carrying out of the

municipal principle; their residence here gave effect, so far,

to the principle of central or distant government. Baltimore

and Penn, and the joint-stock company of cabinet ministers

who founded Carolina, were kings, in fact, within their colo-

nies. During the periods when Penn or Baltimore resided in

his colony, the whole government was local or municipal ;

whenever he resided in England, and always in the case of

Carolina, the kingly authority of the colony was exercised,

like that of the present Colonial Office, ignorantly, more or

less secretly, and from impulses not colonial. I must repeat,

that every dispute between the colonists and their proprietary

governments may be traced to the operation of the central

principle, through the non-residence of the chief authority in

local matters. In whatever point of view the subject is exam-

ined, it will be seen that the municipal system suffers, as the

central system is modified and improved, in proportion as it

is counteracted.

Letter XXXIX.

From the Statesman.

Mr. Mothercountry Protests against the Assertion, That

Mr. Taylor has Authorized the Belief, That His Views of

Statesmanship were Derived from Experience in the

Colonial Office.

In the early part of our journey, I felt my way carefully, un-

willing to take a step without being convinced of the sound-

ness of the footing; but lately I have hurried along without

seeing obstacles or rotten places, impelled by a sort of won-

der and indignation. Since we got fairly into impediments of

colonization, I have not stopped you by uttering an objection

or a doubt: and now, I can only say, Lead on; so bewildered

am I by the multiplicity and strangeness of the objects that

have seemed to flit past me during our last rush through a

region of politics whose existence I had not dreamt of before.

In plainer English, I want time for reflection, and am not in

the humour to trouble you with inquiries.

Neither does Mr. Mothercountry make any remarks on your

hideous portrait of his Office. When I showed him your let-

ters with all sorts of proper apologies, he did not utter a word

about colonial government, but got angry, and talked of be-

ing himself unjustly assailed ; of his long and laborious ser-

vices; and of his trying position as being the butt of attacks

from which his subordination to others prevents him from

defending himself. In short, he only whined about his own

hard lot, and made pathetic appeals to my compassion.

But he defends Mr. Taylor; and what he says on this point I

must report. He indignantly denies that we have Mr. Taylor’s

own authority for asserting that his opinions, as communi-

cated to the public in The Statesman, are based on his experi-

ence in the Colonial Office. He says that Mr. Taylor himself,

in a work published lately, has contradicted the assertion.

Understand, he does not object to your saying that Mr. Tay-

lor acquired his views of statesmanship in the Colonial Of-

fice, but to your repeating the statement, after Mr. Taylor,

who alone can know how the fact is, has deliberately contra-

dicted it; he says that it is shamefully unjust to quote Mr.

Taylor’s authority for an assertion which Mr. Taylor declares

to be untrue.

Letter XL.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Sustains His Proposition That Mr. Taylor’s

Ideas of Statesmanship Were Formed by Long Experi-

ence in the Colonial Office, and Appeals to Mr. Taylor

Himself as the Best Authority on the Question.

Mr. Taylor has not contradicted the assertion, the repetition

of which annoys the whole Colonial Office. In the Preface to

his recent work, Notes from Life, he says, “In the year 1836;

I published a book called the ‘Statesman,’ a title much found

fault with at the time, and in truth not very judiciously cho-

sen. It contained the views and maxims respecting the trans-

action of public business, which twelve years of experience

had suggested to me. But my experience had been confined

within the doors of an office; and the book was wanting in

that general interest which might possibly have been felt in

the results of a more extensive and varied conversancy with

public life. Moreover, the sub-sarcastic vein in which certain

parts of it were written, was not very well understood; and

what was meant for an exposure of some of the world’s ways

was, I believe, very generally mistaken for a recommenda-

tion of them. I advert, now, to this book and its indifferent

fortunes, because whatever may have been its demerits, my

present work must be regarded as to some extent compre-

hended in the same design,—that, namely, of embodying in

the form of maxims and reflections the immediate results of

an attentive observation of life,—of official life in the former

volume,—of life at large in this.”

This surely is not a contradiction but a confirmation of my

statement; fresh testimony by Mr. Taylor himself to the truth

of the assertion, that the Colonial Office is the school in which

he learned the art of statesmanship. It shows indeed, that he

may repent of having communicated his Colonial-Office ex-

perience to the public; and that he is now anxious to remove

a public impression that he recommended the practices and

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

doctrines which he exposed. And what then? Why, Mr. Tay-

lor only joins others in condemning those practices and doc-

trines; and in doing so, he repeats his first assurances to the

public, that, according to his experience, they are the doc-

trines and practices of the Colonial Office. I will extract his

first assurances from The Statesman: you will see that from

their very nature they do not admit of being unsaid.

In the Preface to The Statesman, he alludes to “the want in

our literature of any coherent body of administrative doc-

trine;” and though he modestly disclaims the slightest preten-

sion to supplying the want, he goes on to say, “the topics

which I have treated are such as experience, rather than in-

ventive meditation, has suggested to me. The engagements

which have deprived me of literary leisure and a knowledge

of books, have, on the other hand, afforded me an extensive

and diversified conversancy with business: and I hope, there-

fore, that I may claim from my readers some indulgence for

the little learning and for the desultoriness of these disquisi-

tions, in consideration of the value which they may be dis-

posed to attach to comments derived from practical observa-

tion.” In his Conclusion, he apologizes for a want of system

in his dissertations, and says, “if I had applied myself to de-

vise a system, or even a connected succession, I must neces-

sarily have written more from speculative meditation, less

from knowledge. What I knew practically, or by reflection

flowing from circumstance, must have been connected by what

I might persuade myself that I knew inventively, or by reflec-

tion flowing from reflection. I am well aware of the weight

and value which is given to a work by a just and harmonious

incorporation of its parts. But I may be permitted to say, that

there is also a value currently and not unduly attached to what

men are prompted to think concerning matters within their

knowledge. Perceiving that I was not in a condition to under-

take such a work as might combine both values, the alterna-

tive which I have chosen is that of treating the topics sever-

ally, as they were thrown up by the sundry suggestions of

experience. It is possible, indeed, that by postponing my work

to a future period, a further accumulation of experience might

have enabled me to improve it.”

Even if Mr. Taylor had been dishonest and bold enough to

unsay these assurances, the retractation would have come too

late. Is not that the case with the colouring which he now

gives to the contents of his first book? For years he has al-

lowed it to circulate as a body of administrative doctrine which

he seriously believed. The Statesman has been much read in

the colonies, and much used by colonial reformers here, as

Pascal turned the books of the Jesuits against their corpora-

tion, in exposing the political immorality and the anti-colo-

nizing influences of the great corporation which is the gov-

ernment of our colonial empire. Mr. Taylor, his colleagues,

and his superiors, have been disturbed and annoyed by the

uses made of his book: and his denial now of the accuracy of

the sense in which the book has been read, deserves no more

weight than a plea of not guilty after confession or boast of

guilt has led to accusation. His too-late apology for The States-

man almost contradicts itself, by indicating that at the time of

its publication— before its publication had troubled himself

and his Office—he intended, not an “exposure,” but a “rec-

ommendation” of the doctrines and practices which colonial

Pascals have supposed the book to recommend.

But pray read the book for yourself. In doing so, you will not

fail to perceive, that its author’s present disclaimer of its title

comes also too late, and therefore only confirms the belief to

which that title led, that in the Colonial Office, ideas of states-

manship are limited to bureaucratic administration. The book

is, in fact, a picture of that sort of government which I have

called the central-bureaucratic-spoiled, by one of the shrewd-

est and most thoughtful of its administrators.

If one official man ought to succeed another because he closely

resembles him, your Mr. Mothercountry should be the per-

manent Under-Secretary for the Colonies after Mr. Stephen,

or chief of the tribe of Mothercountry after him by whom the

tribe was, if not founded, at least raised to its present impor-

tance, as the real arbiter of the destinies of our colonial em-

pire : for he exactly resembles Mr. (now Sir James) Stephen,

in treating exposures of the Office as personal attacks on him-

self, and in complaining that his subordinate position pre-

vents him from repelling them. If anything happened to make

our correspondence public, he might probably, by whining

about his own services and miseries, induce the present and

half-a-dozen ex-Colonial Ministers to bepraise him in Parlia-

ment, as by far the most meritorious of mankind. And then, in

time perhaps, if our system of colonial government were fur-

ther brought into public hatred by exposure, his sufferings,

under the name of immeasurable public services, might be

rewarded by a title and a seat in the Privy Council: for un-

questionably, the Right Honourable Sir James Stephen is in-

debted for his recent honours to the exertions of colonial re-

formers. How it happens that holders and exholders of the

Colonial Seals can scarcely avoid ostentatiously patronising

a subordinate in equal proportion to his unpopularity, is a

question that we may perhaps examine some day: but at any

rate, I shall have to explain further on, by again adverting to

Sir James Stephen, that the nominal subordinates but real

chiefs of the Colonial Office have ample means of address-

ing the public on their own behalf, and with all the more ef-

fect perhaps because they do so anonymously.

A View of the Art of Colonization

Letter XLI.

From the Statesman.

Mr. Mothercountry Objects to Municipal Government for

Colonies, on the Ground of its Tendency to Democracy,

Republicanism, and Dismemberment of the Empire.

Mr. Mothercountry is silent about Mr. Taylor and The States-

man; but he has rallied in defence of our system of colonial

government. Addressing himself to my conservative predi-

lections, he says that your doctrines about municipal govern-

ment for colonies go straight towards democracy, republi-

canism, colonial disaffection, and dismemberment of the

empire. He has not hitherto denied that municipal govern-

ment would be best for the colonies; he seems to admit with

Mr. Cornewall Lewis, that a colony suffers numerous evils

by being a dependency; but he contends, agreeing again with

Mr. Lewis, that a colony municipally governed in your sense

of the words, would be practically independent. If, he argues,

we were to set up this practical independence throughout our

colonial empire, we should soon wish to pull it down again,

because under it the colonies would nourish democratic and

republican ideas, and be apt to infect the mother-country with

them. If we attempted to undo our foolish work, then would

occur between the centre of the empire and each of its merely

nominal dependencies, a struggle for local power like that

which ended in the nominal as well as real independence of

the United States. In these struggles, he says, kingly and aris-

tocratic authority would inevitably suffer; republicanism and

democracy would get a broader and firmer footing in the

world. In short, you are a reckless Destructive.

This objection of Mr. Mothercountry’s to local self-govern-

ment for colonies is so common, that I should like to know at

once what you have to say in answer to it.

Letter XLII.

From the Colonist.

Municipal Government Has No Relation to One Form

of Government More than Any Other; but it is the Surest

Means of Preventing the Disaffection of the Out-lying

Portions of an Extensive Empire, Which Surely Results

from Central-bureaucratic Government.— The Original

Mr. Mothercountry Introduced.

Many indeed are they who believe, that the municipal system

of colonial government has a tendency to promote democ-

racy, republicanism, and colonial disaffection; but this opin-

ion is sincerely held by those alone who have never seriously

examined the subject. Between the municipal and republican

principles there is no connexion whatever. Is there a country

in the world where the monarchical principle is more cher-

ished than in Great Britain? Yet is there no country in the

world where the municipal principle, as a delegation of au-

thority for limited purposes, has been so largely carried into

effect. What the form of government may be in a municipal

dependency, is a matter wholly independent of the municipal

character of the government. Municipal, applying the word

to colonies, signifies nothing but local. Provided the govern-

ment of a colony is local, it may be in form either monarchi-

cal or republican, aristocratic or democratic, without being

more or less municipal. Penn and Baltimore were monarchs

in fact within their colonies, though constitutional monarchs

enjoined to rule by the help of representative institutions. The

municipal governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland were

virtually hereditary constitutional monarchies, subordinate to

the imperial monarchy. The constitution of Carolina was

elaborately aristocratical. In those of Massachusets, Connecti-

cut and Rhode Island, the democratic principle preponder-

ated. In Canada, which is a municipality, though until quite

lately very much counteracted, the government is in form a

close copy of the imperial government, allowing for the one

difference of a very democratic suffrage. If it were made a

perfect copy, as it easily might be without in the least dimin-

ishing the subordination of the colony, a municipal constitu-

tional monarchy would exist by the side of republics and a

republican confederation of them. It is my own deliberate

opinion that a vicemonarchy in Canada, precisely resembling

the imperial monarchy except in being subordinate to it, might

be established with the cordial approbation of the colonists,

and with the effect of vastly increasing their prosperity by

inducing very many Americans who dislike republican insti-

tutions, to bring their wealth into the British province, and

become subjects of our Queen. But this is almost a digres-

sion. Returning to the question, it will be useful to note that

the conversion of American municipal dependencies into re-

publican states, which is often attributed to the republican

tendency of municipal institutions, may with more reason be

ascribed to those counteractions of the municipal principle in

America, by which the sovereigns of England, acting gener-

ally in this respect independently of their parliaments, and

even to the last exhibiting a personal animosity to their colo-

nial subjects, taught the colonists to hate the very name of

king. That this is the more reasonable conclusion of the two

will appear to anybody who, with a view to the present ques-

tion, reads over again the Declaration of American Indepen-

dence. He would do well at the same time to remember, that

the Spanish colonies of America have all turned into repub-

lics, although— perhaps because—they were founded and

governed on the central-bureaucratic principle.

With respect to the disaffection of municipal dependencies,

facts are still more at variance with the theory. One seeks in

vain for a single instance of disaffection in a municipal de-

pendency of a great empire, excepting only through the op-

eration of the central principle in admixture or collision with

the municipal. Local self-government is so precious, that de-

pendent communities enjoying it have invariably reverenced

the imperial power to which they owed the blessing, and which

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

maintained them in possession of it. This is a rule without

exceptions. Examples of the rule are furnished in abundance

by modern as well as ancient times. The municipalities of the

Roman Empire were its main stay. Was not the dependence

on Rome of its conquered provinces, the main cause of its

downfall? .The Channel Islands, which govern themselves

locally—which are a capital example of municipal depen-

dency—are devotedly attached to England. The Tyrolese, with

a local parliament, have proved their attachment to the des-

potic House of Austria by their heroic struggles against the

power of Napoleon, and again, lately, by receiving the Em-

peror with open arms when he was driven from the metropo-

lis of the empire. The Basque provinces of Spain, with their

fueros, were the last to submit to a revolution which deprived

their legitimate sovereign of his throne. The municipal colo-

nies of England in America, notwithstanding the unjust and

oppressive infractions of their municipal rights by a series of

British monarchs, were at all times prompt to take arms in

any quarrel of the mother-country with a foreign state. The

Virginians, in their appeals to Charles the Second against his

invasions of their municipal constitution, used to boast that

of all his subjects, they had been “the last to renounce and the

first to resume their allegiance” to the Crown of England. In

Canada, just now, disaffection produced by errors of local

administration on the part of the central authority, has been

converted into loyalty by giving to the colonists the conse-

quences, in addition to the form, of local representation. The

disaffection, in some cases the hatred, of the imperial power,

which exists in other colonies at present, though their weak-

ness precludes them from manifesting it by acts, is a product

of the very reverse of municipal government. Distant govern-

ment in local matters is so fatal to the interests, and so morti-

fying to the pride of its subjects, that, in their hearts at least,

they can’t help being disaffected. Does the present world or

history present a single example of a community governed

from a distance, whose loyalty to the distant power may not

be questioned? The United Kingdom itself exhibits in Scot-

land and Ireland the loyalty of one people preserving their

own laws, and in practice almost ruled separately after for-

mal incorporation with the empire; and the disaffection of

another, which is still in some measure ruled as a dependency

stripped by conquest of its local laws. In all times, the main

strength of a great empire has consisted of the firmness with

which, by means of the municipal principle, it was rooted in

the affections of its subjects distant from the seat of empire: a

universal cause of weakness in an extensive dominion has

been the disaffection of the outlying portions, arising from

their misgovernment on the central principle.

But supposing it admitted that the municipal system has no

tendency to republicanism, and produces loyalty rather than

disaffection—that it is the strongest cement of an empire com-

posed of divers communities—yet the questions may be asked,

Would you deprive the imperial power of all local control in

the colonies? would you make them wholly independent states

within their own bounds, reserving only such allegiance to

the empire as would prevent them from being independent,

or foreign states? Certainly not. On the contrary, I, for one,

am of opinion, that if colonization were systematically con-

ducted with a view to the advantage of the mother-country,

the control of the imperial power ought to be much greater,

and the connexion betAveen the colonies and the centre far

more intimate than either has ever yet been. I regard the waste

but partially-occupied territories which this nation has ac-

quired by costly efforts, as a valuable national property, which

we have every right in justice, and are bound by every con-

sideration of prudence, to use for the greatest benefit of the

people of this country: and instead of leaving colonies to take

what form a thousand accidents may determine, and to grow

up as cast-aways till they are strong enough to become en-

emies, I think that the imperial power ought to mould them

into the forms most agreeable to itself, and to bind them to

this kingdom by indissoluble ties.

And first, as to control. Of real, effective, fruitful control,

there never has been half enough: there has been far too much

of a control unproductive of any beneficial results to colony

or mother-country; productive of the very reverse of the proper

objects of control. As to the amount of control, I should go

beyond the most zealous advocate of the present system: I

should wholly differ with him as to the manner. He recom-

mends control, arbitrary, undefined, irregular, capricious, and

masked; I propose a control according to law; that is, a con-

trol definite, orderly, steady, above all seen and understood

by the subjects of it. The manner of control appears to me to

be of far more consequence than its nature or amount. Very

improper limitations of the local powers of a colony, if they

were fixed by law so that every colonist should always know

exactly what they were, would be far preferable to the most

proper limitations imposed from time to time arbitrarily, ir-

regularly, and without warning or other promulgation. The

grand point for the colonies, as to government, is that they

should always know what they might lawfully do, and what

they might not. “What the law permitted or forbade them to

do, would be a matter of comparatively small importance. If

they had a constitutional law, they would accommodate them-

selves to it: or, as it would be known at the seat of empire as

well as in the colonies, and its operation would be visible,

they might, if it were hurtful to them, get it altered by the

supreme power which had framed it. I ask that the colonies

should be governed, as a trespasser or vagrant is prosecuted

in this country, that is to say, “according to law;” that they

should be ruled even according to the law-martial of a man-

of-war rather than left to the lawlessness of a pirate ship; that

they should be governed by the imperial power instead of

being the sport of the chapter of accidents. Government ac-

A View of the Art of Colonization

cording to law is government: the other manner of govern-

ment is nothing but force; and the highest authority on this

point— the greatest incarnation of force that the world has

seen—wondered and lamented at the incapacity of force to

create anything. This whine of the mighty Napoleon should

never be forgotten by those who meddle with the creative

business of colonization.

I have now done with the principles of colonial government.

My next will contain the outline of a plan of colonial govern-

ment based on the foregoing principles. But allow me, mean-

while, to suggest that your careful perusal of the inclosed paper

may greatly serve the object of our correspondence. It con-

tains a view of that system of colonial government which I

have called the central-bureaucratic-spoiled, by a hand which

the charms of the writer’s style will satisfy you is not mine. I

do not send you the little volume from which it is extracted,

entitled Responsible Government for Colonies (which was

published in 1840 as a, reprint, with some additions, of a

series of articles that first appeared in the Colonial Gazette),

because that publication has been long out of print, and I

have been unable to obtain a copy of it except on loan. The

extracts, besides informing and entertaining you, will explain

why, in proposing a cognomen for your Downing-street ac-

quaintance, I selected that of “Mr. Mother-country.”

Mr. Mothercountry, of the Colonial Office.

“In preceding chapters we have endeavoured to show, that

that constant reference to the authorities in England, which

some persons call “responsibility to the mother-country,” is

by no means necessary to insure the maintenance of a benefi-

cial colonial connexion. It is not necessary for this purpose

that the people or government of England should be constantly

interfering in the details of colonial business. It is not desir-

able that we should regulate these matters according to no-

tions which cannot be half so correct as those of the colonists

themselves. But even if it were desirable, and if we were con-

vinced that a colony could never be well governed except by

the enlightened opinion, or the responsible ministers of the

mother-country, we should still be unconvinced of the possi-

bility of securing an effectual appeal to either. If the public

opinion of the British community, and the attention of its leg-

islature and ministry, could indeed be brought to bear on each

colonial question as it arises, and to give it the same earnest

consideration that it gives to any English question of the same

importance, the reference to this country would be produc-

tive of no ill, but much good. But the theory of responsibility

errs in this, that the mother-country, to which the reference is

supposed to be made, never exercises any judgment on the

matter; and the decision which is pronounced in its name, is

given by the few individuals that think it worth while to usurp

its functions for the purpose.

“It is not in the nature of men to feel any very lively interest

in the affairs of those, of whom they know so little as the

people of this country do of their fellow-subjects in the colo-

nies: and the bitter experience of colonists has taught them

how little their condition, and the circumstances which influ-

ence it, are appreciated by the people of this country. The

social state, and the form of government in the colonies, are

both utterly foreign to the notions of Englishmen. We com-

prehend neither: we know little of the events that have passed

in them: and the consequence is, that we understand very

nearly as little of what passes in the present day. The newspa-

per of the morning announces in some out-of-the-way cor-

ner, that some ship, which left some unknown spot, in some

distant corner of the world, some weeks or months before,

has brought perhaps a couple of months’ files of colonial

papers. We are told that the governor had issued some order,

upon a matter of which the nature is utterly incomprehensible

to us; or that the Assembly is “still” occupied with some dis-

pute with him, of the commencement of which we have never

heard. If, perchance, there is anything in this news which in-

terests us enough to make us read through the column of the

paper, hunt up the geographical and other points which at

first puzzle us, and look with impatience for the sequel of the

news, the odds are that we get nothing more on the subject

for the next month; ‘and the first time our paper finds room

for another set of extracts from the colonial papers, the mat-

ter about which we were interested has slipped out of our

memory, or some event of importance in home politics ab-

sorbs all our attention. This is the normal state of our igno-

rance on the subject, varied in the case of the most active-

minded by the half-information thus picked up, and the preju-

dices consequently formed. When some event of great im-

portance suddenly rivets public attention on colonial affairs,

we come to the consideration of them with this general igno-

rance and these misconceptions. Nothing but the news of in-

vasion or revolt gives the people at large a real interest in the

colonial news of the day. The events that prepare such ca-

lamities, have been either unheeded or fostered by the rash

decisions which we have given in our inattentive mood.

“As the people judge, so do the representatives act in Parlia-

ment. A railway or a turnpike bill ordinarily interests more

members than any measure affecting the most vital interests

of our most important colonies. Some of them, it is true, at-

tract the notice of two or three members, who think that local

knowledge gives them the right to assume airs of great wis-

dom respecting them. Some ignorant and presumptuous cap-

tain in the navy, some still more ignorant and presumptuous

colonel in the army, who have passed a year or two in some

harbour or garrison of the colony—some retired judge, whose

knowledge of a community has been formed on his experi-

ence of the criminals and suitors of his court—some ex-offi-

cial, mixed up with colonial jobs and cliques—some mer-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

chant, who urges in the House whatever his partners in the

colony tell him is the right thing to promote the interests or

importance of the firm—these, with occasionally some gentle-

man whose more than usually extended tour has carried him

to some of oar remote possessions, are the only persons, not

compelled by the duties of office or opposition, that take what

is called an interest in a colony. By some one or other of

these, four or five times in a session, questions are addressed

to the ministers, or returns required, or motions made. But I

hardly any one else ever shares in this interest: and such a

notice of motion generally insures the House being counted

out whenever it comes on! On some rare occasions the party

questions of the day are mixed up in some colonial matter:

the opposition come down to fight the battle of the church, or

education, or whatever else it may be, on colonial ground;

and the mover is favoured with the unaccustomed honour of

an audience and a division. Sometimes the opportunity of

wounding a ministry through the side of one of its measures,

or of a governor of its own party, occasions similar manifes-

tations of factious force and zeal: and to what mischiefs such

conduct gives rise we have had too much experience, in the

rejection of the bill for the union of the two Canadas in 1822,

and still more recently in the disallowance of Lord Durham’s

celebrated ordinances. The attention thus given to a colony

in these occasional gusts of party feeling, is productive of so

much ill, that it is far better for them that Parliament should

preserve its usual apathy, and adopt, as it usually does, what-

ever legislation the government of the day may recommend.

“There are two modes in which the legislative measures, to

which the government wishes to get the sanction of parlia-

ment, are framed. Sometimes, though rarely, parliament passes

an act after the usual fashion of acts of parliament, settling by

positive enactments every detail of the course on which it

determines. Except, however, in the case of acts settling the

form of government in a colony, this is a labour which is rarely

imposed on parliament: and experience shows us how un-

wise it is to trust the details of such measures to the chances

of parliamentary attention. The Canada-Tenures Act is a re-

markable instance of this. No act was ever proposed by gov-

ernment with more honest and sound intentions. The purpose

was good; and had the bill been passed in the shape in which

it was prepared by Mr. James Stuart,

the present chief-jus-

tice of Lower Canada, that purpose would have been carried

into effect, probably without any concomitant evil. Unfortu-

nately, however, Mr. Stuart quitted England before the bill

had passed. During its passage through parliament, one ap-

parently harmless amendment was suggested from one, and

another from another quarter; some words were omitted to

please one, and others left out to conciliate another. The re-

sult was, that this act, which was intended to merely alter

tenures, without affecting any existing interest, assailed the

vested rights of every married woman and child in the prov-

ince, gave the seigneurs the most unfair advantage over their

tenants, and, in fact, shook every title to land in Lower Canada.

“But parliament in general disposes of the details of colonial

questions in a much more summary way. For some time past,

the impossibility of determining the details of a colonial mea-

sure in the British Parliament has been so much impressed

upon the government, that the custom has been to propose

that the colonial acts of parliament should be simple delega-

tions of legislative powers to some ministerial authority in

this country; and they have in consequence simply enabled

the crown to legislate for the colonies by order in council. It

is thus that for nearly the last twenty years a great part of the

legislation of the West-India islands has been carried on; and

the power of making laws has been taken equally from the

colonial and imperial legislatures, and transferred to the ex-

ecutive government at home. Nor has parliament taken, in

colonial cases, the precautions for retaining a vigilant super-

vision of the use made of this power, which it has always

retained to itself whenever it has delegated similar authority

with respect to the mother-country. The poor-law commis-

sioners have the most extensive powers of legislation by means

of general rules : the judges of courts of common law have

very large powers of regulating the whole administration of

the common law by their rules and regulations. Yet in these,

as in many other cases of not quite equal importance, the

most effectual provisions are made for the utmost publicity;

and it is necessary that all rules made under the delegated

authority should, to have permanent effect, be laid on the table

of both Houses. But no such precautions are taken with re-

spect to the colonies; and the powers thus given to orders in

council are exercised without any publicity in this country.

“Thus, from the general indifference of Parliament on colo-

nial questions, it exercises, in fact, hardly the slightest effi-

cient control over the administration or the making of laws

for the colonies. In nine cases out of ten, it merely registers

the edicts of the Colonial Office in Downing-street. It is there,

then, that nearly the whole public opinion which influences

the conduct of affairs in the colonies, really exists. It is there

that the supremacy of the mother-country really resides: and

when we speak of that supremacy, and of the responsibility

of the colony to the mother-country, you may to all practical

intents consider as the mother-country—the possessor of this

supremacy—the centre of this responsibility —the occupants

of the large house that forms the end of that cul-de-sac so

well known by the name of Downing street. However colo-

nists or others may talk of the Crown, the Parliament, and the

public—of the honour of the first, the wisdom of the second,

or the enlightened opinion of the last—nor Queen, nor Lords,

nor Commons, nor the great public itself, exercise any power,

or will, or thought on the greater part of colonial matters: and

A View of the Art of Colonization

the appeal to the mother-country is, in fact, an appeal to ‘ the

Office.’

“But this does not sufficiently concentrate the mothercountry.

It may, indeed, at first sight, be supposed that the power of

‘the Office’ must be wielded by its head: that in him at any

rate we have generally one of the most eminent of our public

men, whose views on the various matters which come under

his cognizance, are shared by the cabinet of which he is a

member. We may fancy, therefore, that here, at least, concen-

trated in a somewhat despotic, but at any rate in a very re-

sponsible and dignified form, we have the real governing

power of the colonies, under the system which boasts of mak-

ing their governments responsible to the mother-country. But

this is a very erroneous supposition. This great officer holds

the most constantly shifting position on the shifting scene of

official life. Since April, 1827, ten different Secretaries of

State have held the seals of the colonial department. Each

was brought into that office from business of a perfectly dif-

ferent nature, and probably with hardly any experience in

colonial affairs. The new minister is at once called on to en-

ter on the consideration of questions of the greatest magni-

tude, and at the same time of some hundreds of questions of

mere detail, of no public interest, of unintelligible technical-

ity, involving local considerations with which he is wholly

unacquainted, but at the same time requiring decision, and

decision at which it is not possible to arrive without consid-

erable labour. Perplexed with the vast variety of subjects thus

presented to him—alike appalled by the important and unim-

portant matters forced on his attention—every Secretary of

State is obliged at the outset to rely on the aid of some better

informed member of his office. His Parliamentary

Undersecretary is generally as new to the business as him-

self: and even if they had not been brought in together, the

tenure of office by the Under-Secretary having on the aver-

age been quite as short as that of the Secretary of State, he

has never during the period of his official career obtained

sufficient information, to make him independent of the aid

on which he must have been thrown at the outset. Thus we

find both these marked and responsible functionaries depen-

dent on the advice or guidance of another; and that other per-

son must of course be one of the permanent members of the

office. We do not pretend to say which of these persons it is,

that in fact directs the colonial policy of Britain. It may be, as

a great many persons think, the permanent Under-Secretary;

it may be the chief, it may be some very subordinate clerk; it

may be one of them that has most influence at one time, and

another at another; it may be this gentleman as to one, and

that as to another question or set of questions: for here we get

beyond the region of real responsibility, and are involved in

the clouds of official mystery. That mothercountry which has

been narrowed from the British isles into the Parliament, from

the Parliament into the executive government, from the ex-

ecutive government into the Colonial Office, is not to be

sought in the apartments of the Secretary of State, or his Par-

liamentary Under-Secretary. Where you are to look for it, it

is impossible to say. In some back room —whether in the

attic, or in what story we know not—you will find all the

mother-country which really exercises supremacy, and really

maintains connexion with the vast and widely-scattered colo-

nies of Britain. We know not the name, the history, or the

functions of the individual, into the narrow limits of whose

person we find the mother-country shrunk. Indeed, we may

call him by the name, of which we have thus shown him to be

the rightful bearer; and when we speak of Mr. Mothercountry,

the colonist will form a much more accurate notion than here-

tofore of the authority by which he is in reality ruled.

“Of the individual thus bodily existing, but thus dimly seen,

we can of course give our readers none but the most general

description. We will not flatter the pride of our colonial read-

ers, by depicting this real arbiter of their destinies as a person

of lofty rank or of the first class among what we call states-

men. He is probably a person who owes his present position

entirely to his own merits and long exertions. He has worked

his way through a long and laborious career of official exer-

tions; and his ambition is limited to the office that he holds,

or to some higher grade of the permanent offices under gov-

ernment. Probably married at an early age, he has to support

and educate a large family out of his scanty though sure in-

come. Once or twice a year he dines with his principal; per-

haps as often with some friend in parliament or high office.

But the greater part of his days are passed out of all reach of

aristocratic society; he has a modest home in the outskirts of

London, with an equally modest establishment: and the colo-

nist who is on his road to ‘the Office,’ little imagines that it is

the real ruler of the colonies that he sees walking over one of

the bridges, or driving his one-horse chay, or riding cheek by

jowl with him on the top of the short coach, as he comes into

town of a morning.

“Mr. Mothercountry’s whole heart is in the business of his

office. Not insensible to the knowledge or the charms of the

power which he possesses, habit and a sense of duty are per-

haps often the real motives of the unremitting exertions, by

which alone he retains it. For this is the real secret of his

influence. Long experience has made him thoroughly con-

versant with every detail of his business ; and long habit has

made his business the main, perhaps with the exception of his

family, the sole source of his interest and enjoyment. By day

and by night, at office or at home, his labour is constant. No

pile of despatches, with their multifarious enclosures, no red

taped heap of colonial grievances or squabbles, can scare his

practised eye. He handles with unfaltering hand the papers at

which his superiors quail: and ere they have waded through

one half of them, he suggests the course, which the previous

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

measures dictated by himself compel the government to adopt.

He alone knows on what principles the predecessors of the

noble or right honourable Secretary acted before : he alone,

therefore, can point out the step which in pursuance of the

previous policy it is incumbent to take: and the very advice,

which it is thus rendered incumbent on the present Secretary

of State to take, produces results that will give him as sure a

hold on the next Secretary of State.

“But with all this real power, Mr. Mothercountry never as-

sumes the airs of dictation to his principal. Every change of

the head of the department, though really consolidating his

power, gives occasion for a kind of mutiny against it. The

new Secretary enters with some purpose of independence: he

has heard of Mr. Mothercountry’s influence; and he is deter-

mined that he will act on his own head. He goes on for a

while on this plan; but it is sure to be no long time ere some-

thing comes before him for which he is obliged to refer to

Mr. Mothercountry: he is pleased with his ready, shrewd, and

unobtrusive advice: he applies to him on the next occasion

with more confidence : he finds that Mr. Mothercountry takes

a great deal of trouble off his hands; and great men are sure at

last to fall under the dominion of any man that will save them

trouble. By degrees, he begins to think that there are some

things which it is better to leave altogether to Mr.

Mothercountry; and as to all he soon finds it prudent to take

no step until he has heard what Mr. Mothercpuntry has to say

about it. If things go smooth, his confidence in Mr.

Mothercountry rises: if they go ill, his dependence on him is

only the more riveted, because it is Mr. Mothercountry alone

who can get him through the colonial contest or Parliamen-

tary scrape in which he has involved himself. The more inde-

pendent he has been at first, the more of these scrapes he has

probably got himself into; and the more dependent he conse-

quently becomes in the long run. The power of Mr.

Mothercountry goes on increasing from secretary to secre-

tary, and from month to month of each secretary’s tenure of

office; and the more difficult the government of the colonies

becomes, the more entirely it falls into the hands of the only

men in the public service who really know anything about

colonial affairs.

“This is perhaps the best result of such a system: and our

experience of the follies and presumption of the only Secre-

tary of State that ever undertook to act for himself, is a proof

that, under the present system, Mr. Mothercountry’s manage-

ment is better than that of the gentlemen whom he generally

gets put over his head. But the system of intrusting absolute

power (for such it is) to one wholly irresponsible, is obvi-

ously most faulty. Thus, however, are our colonies ruled: and

such is the authority to which is committed that last appeal

from the colonies themselves, which is dignified with all these

vague phrases about the power, the honour, the supremacy,

and the wisdom of the mother-country.

“We have described the secret and irresponsible, but steady

rule of Mr. Mothercountry, in whom we have personified the

permanent and unknown officials of the Colonial Office in

Downing-street, as very much better for our colonies than

that to which they would be subjected, were the perpetually-

shifting secretaries and under-secretaries of state really to

pretend to conduct affairs of which they understand nothing.

It must not be inferred from this, that we think it a really good

system. It has all the faults of an essentially arbitrary govern-

ment, in the hands of persons who have little personal inter-

est in the welfare of those over whom they rule—who reside

at a distance from them—who never have ocular experience

of their condition—who are obliged to trust to second-hand

and one-sided information—and who are exposed to the op-

eration of all those sinister influences, which prevail wher-

ever publicity and freedom are not established. In intelligence,

activity, and regard for the public interests, the permanent

functionaries of “the Office” may be superior to the tempo-

rary head that the vicissitudes of party politics give them; but

they must necessarily be inferior to those persons in the colony,

in whose hands the adoption of the true practice of respon-

sible government would vest the management of local affairs.

“A thorough knowledge of the internal economy of this vast

number of different communities, situated at the most distant

points of the globe, having the most diverse climates, races,

productions, forms of government, and degrees of wealth and

civilization, is necessarily one which the bestemployed ex-

perience of the longest life can never be supposed to give.

From his entrance into his office, the necessary labours of the

day have occupied almost the whole of Mr. Motbercountry’s

time and thoughts ; and though we will give him credit for

having picked up such information as elementary books can

give, it cannot very well be imagined that he has learnt from

books, newspapers, and oral information, all that mass of

particulars respecting manners, things, and persons, that is

requisite for forming in the mind a complete picture of the

social and political, the physical as well as the moral condi-

tion of those numerous countries. It is in the very nature of

duties so laborious as his, that Mr. Mothercountry should be

able to attend to little except to the questions presented for

his decision by the parties contending in the colonies, and

should form his notion of their condition from these rather

than from more extended reading and observation. Compelled

to examine the complaints and answers of the various par-

ties, he gradually imbibes the idea that the whole state of af-

fairs is set forth in these statements and counter-statements.

He fixes his eye on the grievances and squabbles that occupy

the addresses of Assemblies, the despatches of governors,

and the disputes of officials; and gets to fancy, naturally

A View of the Art of Colonization

enough, that these are the matters on which the mind of the

colony is intent, and on which its welfare depends. Hence the

result is, that since, in colonies as elsewhere, the real inter-

ests of the community are overlooked in such disputes, Mr.

Mothercountry has at his fingers’ ends, after a long devotion

to the subject, nothing better than a very complete knowl-

edge of very immaterial incidents ; and that when he fancies

he knows all about a colony, he has, in fact, only been divert-

ing his attention from everything that is worth knowing re-

specting it. Thus, while the question of contending races was

gradually breaking up the whole social system of Lower

Canada, Mr. Mothercountry, unconscious of the mischief,

thought that he was restoring order and satisfaction by well-

reasoned despatches on points of prerogative and precedent.

Experience may give Mr. Mothercountry more information

respecting the whole mass of our colonies than any other in-

dividual probably possesses. But it is, after all, a very incom-

plete information, and one which does not prevent his con-

tinually committing those gross blunders of which our colo-

nial history is the record.

“This is the necessary consequence of the variety and dis-

tance of Mr. Mothercountry’s dominions. He has, in addi-

tion, the faults of that permanent and irresponsible power,

combined with subordinate position, which we always per-

ceive in a government of bureaus and offices. It is a position

which engenders not a little conceit; and in whatever form

Mr. Mothercountry appears—even in that of the humblest

clerk— you always find out that he thinks, that he and his

associates in ‘the Office’ are the only people in the world

who understand anything about the colonies. He knows his

power too, and is excessively jealous of any encroachment

on or resistance to it. It is a power, he well knows, which has

its origin in the indolence and ignorance of others : he fan-

cies, therefore, that it is assailed by any one who understands

anything of the colonies, or takes any interest in them ; and to

all such people, therefore, he has a mortal dislike.

“And though Mr. Mothercountry has none of a fine

gentleman’s aversion to work, but on the contrary devotes his

whole energies to his business, he likes to get over his work

with as little trouble as possible. It is his tendency, therefore,

to reduce his work as much as he can to a mere routine ; to act

on general rules, and to avoid every possible deviation from

them ; and thus to render the details of his daily task as much

a matter of habit as he well can. A hatred of innovation is a

distinguishing feature of his, as of the general official charac-

ter. Everything new gives trouble: to enter upon a new course

with respect to distant communities, is always matter of dan-

ger and doubt, unless the step is founded upon a more com-

plete knowledge of the state of things than Mr. Mothercountry

can afford time to acquire. He is very much afraid of being

attacked in Parliament or the newspapers ; and as it is almost

always a sufficient answer for the great mass of men, that you

have done in any particular instance what had usually been

done hitherto, he likes always to have this answer to give.

Nor do the common motives to exertion act on him to induce

him to labour in the work of improvement. He well knows

that he shall have none of the glory of improvements in which

the public take an interest. The credit of these is sure to be

ascribed to the chief Secretary. It is but human nature, then,

that he should hate innovation, and discourage every project

of improvement. Those who have suggested any improve-

ment in the system existing in our colonies, or proposed to

found new colonies on a new principle, know to what a com-

plete science the officials of the colonial department have

brought their mode of repelling all such invasions of their

domain.

“But the worst of all Mr. Mothercountry’s faults is his neces-

sary subjection to sinister interests and cabals. Whereever

the public cease to take an interest in what is going on, the

reign of cliques and cabals is sure to extend: and whenever

the actions of the government are not guided by public opin-

ion, they inevitably fall under the influence of some sinister

interest. Every one of our colonies has its own jobs, its own

monopolies, and its own little knots of bustling and intrigu-

ing jobbers. These spare no pains to get the ear of Mr.

Mothercountry. Backed by some strong mercantile, or offi-

cial, or parliamentary connexion, they press their views on

him ; relying partly on their better knowledge of the peculiar

subject on which they have so deep an interest, partly on the

fear they can inspire by the threat of an appeal to Parliament

or the press. Then, again, there are persons whose past offi-

cial position and party connexions enable them to bring a

strong party influence to bear on him. On one or two points

there has been excited a powerful interest, which has orga-

nized itself into associations, represented by constituted bod-

ies and accredited officers, always ready to push their own

views, and able to excite a strong public feeling on their par-

ticular point, if their representations should be neglected.

While these narrow views and partial interests have these

active organs, the colonial public and the interests of the

colony have rarely any, never equally efficient representa-

tives. A long experience has taught Mr. Mothercountry, that

without conciliating these various juntas, he never can hope

to govern quietly, but that if he manage to get their concur-

rence, he runs little risk of effectual opposition from either

the British or colonial public. His whole aim, therefore, nec-

essarily is to conciliate all of these bodies, or when their in-

terests happen to run counter, either to give each its turn, or

to conciliate the most powerful. One day, accordingly, we

find him conciliating the knot of merchants that enjoy the

existing monopoly; another day, those who are exerting them-

selves for a freer trade; at one time he is holding out his hand

to the West-India interest; another time he seems to be en-

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

tirely under the influence of the abolitionists. These are the

sectional influences under which such a government is sure

to fall, owing to its freedom from responsibility to a wide

public opinion.

“The worst instance of the operation of these secret influ-

ences on Mr. Mothercountry is to be found in the colonial

appointments. If he were left to himself, and could appoint as

he chose, he might doubtless job a little, but, on the whole, he

would probably pay some regard to competence in some of

his appointments. But the patronage of the Colonial Office is

the prey of every hungry department of our government. On

it the Horse Guards quarters its worn-out general officers as

governors: the Admiralty cribs its share; and jobs which even

parliamentary rapacity would blush to ask from the Treasury,

are perpetrated with impunity in the silent realm of Mr.

Mothercountry. O’Connell, we are told, after very bluntly

informing Mr. Euthven that he had committed a fraud which

would for ever unfit him for the society of gentlemen at home,

added, in perfect simplicity and kindness of heart, that if he

would comply with his wishes and cease to contest Kildare,

he might probably be able to get some appointment for him

in the colonies.

“It is, however, not only of the cliques and interests at home

that Mr. Mothercountry is thus placed under the influence.

The same causes that render the action of small knots of men

operative on him in England, place him under the same ne-

cessity of courting the good opinion and disarming the hos-

tility of every well-organized interest in the colonies. Now,

the strongest and most active interest in a colony is always

that of the little knot that governs it—the family compact,

which Lord Durham has described as being the necessary

result of the irresponsible government of our colonies. Crea-

tures of the Colonial Office, as these compacts are, they nev-

ertheless manage to acquire a strength which renders them

very formidable to Mr. Mothercountry. Even when he gets on

bad terms with them, he never abandons the hope of recon-

ciliation with them, or the demeanour necessary to insure it.

But you will rarely find him quarrelling with them. A des-

potic and irresponsible authority is always obliged to govern

by a small knot of men ; and these colonial compacts are the

natural agents of the compact at home. Thus the mischiefs

produced by irresponsibility in the colony, are augmented and

perpetuated by the responsibility to Mr. Mothercountry.

“The working of the appeal to Mr. Mothercountry in fact only

adds to the amount of colonial misgovernment; and instead

of obviating the mischiefs of the system pursued in the colo-

nies themselves, it only adds another element of delay, ob-

struction, and inconsistency. Bad as is the government of

Turkish Pachas, the Porte never interferes except to make

matters worse ; and ill as the colonial compacts manage, the

appeal from them to Mr. Mothercountry only adds fresh fuel

to colonial irritation and individual grievance. His ignorance

of the real state of affairs in the colony, his habits of routine,

his dependence on the secret cliques and interests at home,

produce an invariable tendency on his part to stave off the

decision of every question referred to him. Every matter re-

ferred to him is sure to be referred back to the colony; and

every successive answer to every fresh reference only serves

him to raise some new pretext for postponing his decision.

He is engaged in a perpetual struggle with the colonial com-

pacts, in which he and they have no object but that of throw-

ing on each other the responsibility of deciding. With this

view, he has perfected a complete art of irrelevant and appar-

ently purposeless correspondence, by which he manages to

spin out an affair until it either evaporates into something

absolutely insignificant, or until at any rate the patience and

interest of all parties concerned are completely worn out. For

this purpose, he has invented and brought to considerable

perfection a style peculiar to colonial despatches; a style in

which the words of the English language are used with a very

admirable grace and facility, but at the same time with an

utter absence of meaning. In this singular style we hope some

day to give our readers a lesson; but we need now only ob-

serve that it is of great utility in enabling Mr. Mothercountry

to keep up hopes of a decision, while he is leading his reader

further and further away from it. If any decision is got, it is

generally on some point that virtually leaves the question at

issue undecided. But sometimes even the semblance of deci-

sion is omitted; and the systematic postponement merges into

the neglect of absolute oblivion. Thus it has been known, that

even reserved acts of colonial parliaments have been poked

away in one of Mr. Mothercountry’s pigeon-holes, and never

brought out of it till the period in which they could receive

the necessary sanction had passed: and in another instance, a

colonist who inquired for a private act, on which his whole

property depended, was told that instead of having received

her Majesty’s assent, it was nowhere to be found.

“But the appeal to Mr. Mothercountry in individual cases is

even more mischievous to the parties concerned. It is a mere

device in general for prolonging the tortures of the unhappy

victim, who, bandied about from colony to England, from

Secretary to Secretary, from Under-Secretary to

Undersecretary, from clerk to clerk, wastes away hope and

existence, as a subject of Mr. Mothercountry’s systematic

procrastination. “There are rooms in the Colonial Office, with

old and meagre furniture, book-cases crammed with colonial

gazettes and newspapers, tables covered with baize, and some

old and crazy chairs scattered about, in which those who have

personal applications to make, are doomed to wait until the

interview can be obtained. Here, if perchance you should some

day be forced to tarry, you will find strange, anxious-looking

beings, who pace to and fro in feverish impatience, or sit de-

A View of the Art of Colonization

jected at the table, unable in the agitation of their thoughts to

find any occupation to while away their hours, and starting

every time that the door opens, in hopes that the messenger is

come to announce that their turn is arrived. These are men

with colonial grievances. The very messengers know them,

their business, and its hopelessness, and eye them with pity

as they bid them wait their long and habitual period of atten-

dance. No experienced eye can mistake their faces, once ex-

pressive of health, and confidence, and energy, now worn by

hopes deferred, and the listlessness of prolonged dependence.

One is a recalled governor, boiling over with a sense of mor-

tified pride, and frustrated policy; another, a judge, recalled

for daring to resist the compact of his colony; another, a mer-

chant, whose whole property has been destroyed by some job

or oversight; another, the organ of the remonstrances of some

colonial parliament; another, a widow struggling for some

pension, on which her hopes of existence hang; and perhaps

another is a man whose project is under consideration. Every

one of these has passed hours in that dull but anxious atten-

dance, and knows every nook and corner of this scene of his

sufferings. The grievance originated probably long years ago,

and bandied about between colony and home, by letter or by

interview, has dragged on its existence thus far. One comes to

have an interview with the Chief Secretary; one, who has tried

Chief and Under Secretaries in their turn, is now doomed to

waste his remonstrances on some clerk. One has been wait-

ing days to have his first interview; another, weeks to have

his answer to his memorial; another, months in expectation

of the result of a reference to the colony ; and some reckon

the period of their suffering by years. Some are silent; some

utter aloud their hopes or fears, and pour out their tale on

their fellow-sufferers; some endeavour to conciliate by their

meekness; some give vent to their rage, when, after hours of

attendance, the messenger summons in their stead some sleek

contented-looking visitor, who has sent up his name only the

moment before, but whose importance as a Member of Par-

liament, or of some powerful interest or society, obtains him

an instant interview. And if by chance you should see one of

them at last receive the long-desired summons, you will be

struck at the nervous reluctance with which he avails himself

of the permission. After a short conference, you will gener-

ally see him return with disappointment stamped on his brow,

and, quitting the office, wend his lonely way home to despair,

or perhaps to return to his colony and rebel. These chambers

of woe are called the Sighing Rooms: and those who recoil

from the sight of human suffering, should shun the ill-omened

precincts.”—Responsible Government for Colonies. London:

James Eidgway. 1840.

Letter XLIII.

From the Colonist.

Sketch of a Plan of Municipal-federative Government

for Colonies; with an Episode Concerning Sir James

Stephen and the Birthright of Englishmen.

Since it is the constitutional law of a colony, whatever it may

be, which necessarily forms the ties by which the dependency

is bound to the empire, the subject of the imperial connexion

is involved in the question of what the constitutional law

should be.

I assume that the municipal is the right principle on which to

frame a colonial constitution. The colonists themselves should

be authorized by express delegation, to do within the colony

whatever the imperial power has no object in preventing, or

in regulating according to its own views. They should be

empowered, in the words of one of the old charters (2nd Grant

to Virginia, by James I, 1609), “to make, ordain, and estab-

lish all manner of orders, laws, directions, instructions, forms,

and ceremonies of government and magistracy, fit and neces-

sary, for and concerning the government of the said colony

and plantation; and the same at all times hereafter, to abro-

gate, revoke, or change, as they in their good discretion shall

think to be fittest for the good of the adventurers and inhabit-

ants there.” But these words, standing alone, would give un-

limited local power. The grant of power, therefore, should be

accompanied by conditions or restrictions concerning the

matters intended to be at all times subject to direct imperial

control.

Whilst reflecting on the frame-work of a colonial constitu-

tion, I once imagined that it might be possible to write down

with precision, in two distinct classes, the empowering and

the conditional or restrictive provisions of a charter, so that

whatever the colonists might do, and whatever they might

not do, should be fully expressed. But an attempt to proceed

in this way soon convinced me of its futility. It soon became

obvious, that volumes might be filled with a bare statement

of the things which the colonists might do, and would after

all be a very imperfect permissive code. In beginning that

idle attempt, I forgot the suggestions of all experience. All

experience as well as reason suggests, that the empowering

part of a colonial charter should consist of a few plain, gen-

eral, and all-comprehensive terms. On the other hand, reason

and experience alike point out, that an opposite course should

be pursued in framing the restrictive and regulating clauses

of a charter. Whatever the imperial power chooses that the

colonists shall not do, and whatever mode of doing any thing

it chooses to insist upon, should be very fully and particu-

larly expressed. The best of the old charters was most imper-

fect in this respect. All the charters, for example, provided

that local legislation should not be “contrary” or “repugnant”

to the laws of England. What this meant, nobody has ever yet

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

been able to find out. If it was intended that the local laws

should not be different from those of England, the limitation

utterly contradicted the grant; and it was, besides, a very ab-

surd provision, since the grant gave power to “make any laws

whatsoever,” because the colonists, from the great difference

of their circumstances, were sure to need laws materially dif-

ferent from those which suited the people of England. We

may conclude, therefore, that this was not the purpose of the

condition. Whatever its purpose was, the condition itself was

always inoperative from vagueness. But that same vagueness

gave it fatal effect as a subject of dispute between the Crown

and colonists. The unavoidable disregard of this provision

by the colonists, furnished the Crown with pretexts for ac-

cusing them of violating their charters, and with pretexts for

violating them itself. Any degree of vagueness or obscurity

in a restrictive provision would necessarily be a source of

discord, not only between the Crown and the colonists, but

between parties in the colony who would inevitably put dif-

ferent interpretations on words open to more than one. And

besides the discord, the whole subject matter of the indefinite

provision would be in a state of uncertainty and precarious-

ness; the very state which is not according to law. In drawing

a municipal charter, therefore, it should be a rule admitting of

no exception, to express restrictive provisions with such

fulness and particularity as to prevent all mistake or doubt as

to the nature and extent of the intended limitation. For the

same reason, the same rule should be strictly observed in de-

fining the modus operandi of local powers delegated to the

colonists subject to the condition of being exercised in a par-

ticular way.

The manner of granting comprises substance as well as form;

but the amount and character, or subject, of limitations and

special directions is a consideration perfectly distinct from

the manner of imposing them. What are the proper subjects

of limitations and special directions? They may be divided

into matters of substance and matters of form. As an example

of the first, I would mention the disposal of Avaste lands; a

function in the right exercise of which the imperial power has

the deepest interest. Of the second, the form of the colonial

legislature is a good example; for it is an object of the highest

importance to the imperial power, both as a means of pro-

moting the emigration of valuable colonists, fit leaders and

employers of the poorer class of emigrants, and as a means of

harmonizing as far as possible the national character of the

colonists with that of the people of the mothercountry, that

the creative institutions of the colony should resemble those

of the metropolis. If these examples suffice for exhibiting the

nature of the subjects as to which control by the imperial power

should be embodied in a colonial charter, this rule may be

deduced from them; that the subjects of imperial control

should be those only, as to which the imperial power has some

object of its own to accomplish by means of the control.

But for the application of this rule I pretend to lay down no

supplementary rule. This is a point upon which opinions will

necessarily differ. There are not perhaps a dozen people who

hold, or could be brought to hold speculatively, the very same

opinion with regard to the matters as to which the imperial

power has objects of its own to serve by locally controlling a

colony. Practically most people would agree on this ques-

tion, if the question were made practical by a Ministry hav-

ing decided opinions on the question, and proposing a mea-

sure founded upon them. Till that shall happen (the supposed

event, now more than ever, appears far distant), any full defi-

nition of these particulars would only be a butt for the tribe of

Mothercountry to shoot at. Instead, therefore, of attempting

to define completely what should be the subjects of imperial

control, I will only mention in general terms a few that have

occurred to myself.

The most important of them, of course, is the form of the

colonial legislature. In order to make it harmonize with that

of the mother-country, it should be representative, aristocratic,

and monarchical.

If I could please myself in this particular, the electoral fran-

chise should be so limited by a property qualification, as to

deprive the poorest immigrants and settlers, which is another

expression for the most ignorant, of the superior influence in

the legislature which universal suffrage bestows on the most

numerous class: for besides the ordinary objections to uni-

versal suffrage for a people most of whom are very ignorant,

there are two others peculiarly applicable to new countries;

namely, the constant influx of strangers, and the roving dis-

position of fresh colonists.

These reasons were urgently pressed upon Lord Grey’s no-

tice whilst he was framing a constitution for New Zealand. I

inclose the copy of a letter which some colonists who were in

England addressed to him at the time, and in which the objec-

tions to the universal suffrage that he adopted, are fully set

forth.

Of this letter Lord Grey took no notice; probably be-

cause its objections to a universal suffrage tallied with some

contained in that letter of mine to Mr. Gladstone which had

blistered his jealous temper. But, however this may be, other

efforts were made to save New Zealand from the evils, which

it was known that he intended to inflict on the colony by mak-

ing universal suffrage the basis of its constitutional law.

Amongst these one is so instructive, that I must trouble you

with a brief account of it.

After Lord Grey had been for some time engaged by himself

in attempting to make a constitution for New Zealand, it be-

came known that he had given up the task, and handed it over

to Mr. (now Sir James) Stephen, who really framed the con-

stitution that was promulgated by Lord Grey, and destroyed

A View of the Art of Colonization

by him before it could get into operation. The colonists, there-

fore, who had in vain protested against the suffrage by letter

to Lord Grey, now induced a Director of the New Zealand

Company, Mr. Aglionby, who fully agreed with them upon

this point, to obtain an official interview with Mr. Stephen,

and repeat their objections. At first, the usually grave old chief

of the tribe of Mothercountry playfully quizzed Mr. Aglionby,

the English Radical, for objecting to an unlimited suffrage:

but when the objector, in the simplicity of his honest heart,

explained, that though he approved of household suffrage for

this country, there are peculiar objections to it for a new

colony—viz., the constant influx of strangers and the roving

disposition of fresh colonists—Mr. Stephen ceased joking,

and declared with remarkable earnestness and solemnity, that

his conscience would not allow him to have a hand in depriv-

ing any of her Majesty’s colonial subjects of their birthright!

So a constitution was framed and promulgated, under which

the party-character of a general election in the colony might

have been determined by the arrival of a few shipfulls of

Dorsetshire paupers or Milesian-Irish peasants. This provi-

sion, however, insured the early overthrow of the constitu-

tion by Lord Grey himself. Of course Mr. Stephen had not

the slightest view to that result in standing up on this occa-

sion for that birthright of Englishmen, which has been smoth-

ered almost out of memory by his long administration of co-

lonial affairs in the name of a succession of Principal Secre-

taries of State. Nevertheless, it may be as well to note that

Mr. Taylor dedicates his exposure of the Jesuitical statesman-

ship of the Colonial Office to Mr. Stephen, in the following

words: “To James Stephen, Esq., Under Secretary of State

for the colonies, as to the man within the author’s knowledge

in whom the active and contemplative faculties most strongly

meet, are inscribed these disquisitions concerning the at-

tributes of a statesman.”

This episode is by way of answer to some questions in your

second letter. A property qualification in land, its amount in

extent or value being such that few could possess it except

permanent settlers having a deep interest in the future well-

being of the colony, would yet, from the facility of obtaining

landed property in a new country by means only of industry

and steadiness, render the franchise attainable by the steadier

and more intelligent portion of the working class: and I think

it desirable that if there were any property qualification for

representatives, it should not exceed that of voters, so that

morally-qualified members of the working class might take a

direct part in legislation.

With respect to a second legislative body, resembling the

British House of Lords, I think that the resemblance should

be real, not a mere sham of resemblance as in Canada and

others of the present representative colonies. A second cham-

ber composed of mere nominees of the executive, holding

their seats for life, is an absurd and mischievous institution. It

provides, not for more legislative deliberation, but for con-

flicts and impediments instead of legislation. As far as I am

aware, no feasible substitute for it has ever been proposed.

People who have never seriously reflected for a moment on

the founding or creative attributes of colonization, laugh if

one proposes that the second chamber in a colony should be

hereditary; yet many a one of them would give his ears to be

a hereditary legislator himself. When the late Lord Grey was

expected to advise a great increase of the peerage, three hun-

dred persons are said to have applied to him for the distinc-

tion. Men do not forfeit their love of distinction by becoming

colonists. It appears to me that the progress of colonization

would be vastly accelerated, and the colonization itself im-

measurably improved, if the colonies, instead of affording no

distinctions but those which belong to bureaucracy and free-

masonry, held out to valuable immigrants the prospect of such

distinction as every young lawyer in this countrv, every mer-

chant and manufacturer when he sets out in trade, every young

officer in the army or navy, fancies that the sovereign may

perchance bestow upon him some day or other as the reward

of great success in his career. Those who smile at the sugges-

tion, are perhaps moved by the contrast between their own

sentiment of little respect for colonies, and of great respect

for the dignity which it is proposed to establish in those de-

spised portions of the empire. But be this as it may, that “provi-

dent circumspection,” which the preamble of Baltimore’s

charter attributes to the great colonizer, and which is the first

quality of a colonizing authority, would not reject my pro-

posal because it is most ridiculed by those who are least ac-

quainted with the whole subject. I propose, then, that the sec-

ond legislative body shall be hereditary, but with a condition.

The condition is, that an inheriting member of the council

should possess the same property qualification as his prede-

cessor. This property qualification should be very high; such

a permanent landed property as would, upon the whole, ren-

der the council a fair type of the class of settlers having the

greatest property interest in the well-being of the colony. If a

member of the council got rid of his qualification, he should

forfeit his seat. A good system of registration would at all

times make known whether or not he continued to possess

the qualification.

The members of council should be appointed by the chief

executive magistrate of the colony, but only on the advice of

persons responsible, like cabinet ministers here, to the repre-

sentative body. For in order to complete the resemblance of

the provincial to the imperial constitution—in order to con-

stitute a harmonious government, legislative and executive,

instead of subjecting the colonists to the miseries of a “con-

stituted anarchy”—it is indispensably requisite that the head

of the executive, being himself a third branch of the legisla-

ture, with a veto upon all legislative acts, and with every other

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

attribute of the sovereign at home, should be himself irre-

sponsible to the colonists by means of being surrounded by

responsible advisers. The British constitution, having grown

up by slow degrees, and never having been written, contains

no express provision to this effect; but the custom is the hinge

upon which our whole system of government turns, the oil

which gives smoothness to the working of the whole machine.

This is the part of our constitution, which at the worst renders

monarchy a cheap and excellent substitute for the Presiden-

tial Election, and which foreigners, notwithstanding their

numerous imitations of our fundamental law, are still, and in

but a few cases, only beginning to understand. In order to

give a colony the immediate benefit of it, we cannot wait to

let it grow from the seed as it has grown here, but we must

transplant a perfect offshoot: we must write the provision

down in the colonial charter. I propose, therefore, to insert in

the charter two clauses, providing, first, that no act of the

head of the executive shall be valid unless performed on the

advice of an executive council; and secondly, that members

of the executive council shall be removeable, or rather re-

moved ipso facto, by an address to the head of the executive

from the representative branch of the legislature praying for

their removal.

The chief magistracy, or head of the executive and third branch

of the legislature, remains to be provided: and here it is, I

think, necessary to establish a wide difference between the

colonial and imperial constitutions. The imperial sovereign

is a person as well as an institution, and we reverence the one

as much as we value the other. To transplant a complete off-

shoot of the whole is, therefore, simply impossible. The near-

est approach to doing so would be by the erection of Canada,

for example, into an independent monarchy, and filling its

throne with a child of the British Sovereign. But the colonies

are intended to be subordinate to the empire; and though it

would, I think, be wise to make the younger branches of our

royal family, whose social position here is anything but agree-

able, subordinate sovereigns of the more important colonies,

yet subordination requires that the colonial chief magistrate

should be appointed and removeable by the imperial. I am

sure, however, that he ought to be appointed like an English

judge, quam diû bene gesserit, so as not to be removable

except for proved misconduct. If he were removeable by ad-

dress to the Crown from both Houses of Parliament, imperial

objects would be sufficiently guarded; and in order to guard

the colony against such unconstitutional violences and fol-

lies on the part of the chief magistrate as provoke revolution-

ary proceedings by the people—in order to give the colonists

an equivalent for the memory of expulsion from the throne

and of a royal scaffold—in order that the head of the execu-

tive in the colony should not violate with impunity the provi-

sion binding him to act according to the advice of a respon-

sible executive council—a petition to the Crown from both

branches of the colonial legislature for the removal of the

local chief-magistrate, should be declared in the charter to be

of the same force as addresses from both Houses of Parlia-

ment. And it appears by no means incompatible with colonial

subordination, that the colonies should be allowed some voice

in even the selection of their governors.

As the circumstances of a colony are open to greater, more

frequent, and more sudden fluctuations than those of an old

country, frequent elections of the representative body should

be guaranteed by the charter.

I omit minor provisions, such as a guarantee for frequent

meetings of the legislature, the numbers of such legislative

bodies, and the modes of proroguing and dissolving the pro-

vincial parliament. But there remains to be stated a provision

of the highest importance.

In order to retain for the imperial power the most complete

general control over the colony, the colonial constitution, in-

stead of being granted immutably and in perpetuity, as our

old municipal charters were, should, in the charter itself, be

declared liable to revocation or alteration by the Crown upon

address from both Houses of Parliament.

But in order to guard against the unavoidable indifference of

Parliament to colonial questions, and their proneness to adopt

any colonial suggestion of the Ministry of the day; which body

again is always disposed to adopt without examining any sug-

gestion of the Colonial Minister; who, lastly, must generally

take his ideas from the nameless members of his Office —in

order, that is, to prevent Mr. Mothercountry from meddling

with colonial constitutions—I think it would be most useful

to erect some tribunal open to the public, presided over by a

high legal functionary, and moved by barristers-at-law, to

which should be submitted the grounds on which the Minis-

try of the day proposed to revoke or alter a colonial constitu-

tion: and unless such tribunal decided that the grounds were

sufficient, the question should not be submitted at all to the

decision of Parliament. This tribunal would be an improve-

ment on the Supreme Court of the United States, which de-

termines questions of difference between the State and Fed-

eral governments; for however a change in the American con-

stitution may at any time be required, it can only be brought

about by the operation of a cumbrous elective machinery

which has never yet been called into action. To the proposed

English tribunal, other questions between the colony and the

mother-country might be submitted, before being submitted

to Parliament, besides that of an alteration in the fundamen-

tal law of the colony: and thus all such questions, instead of

being determined arbitrarily and in secret, or left unsettled,

by the irresponsible clerks of the Colonial Office, would be

brought by the parties to it—the Crown on one side, the Colony

A View of the Art of Colonization

on the other, either having the right to initiate a cause—be-

fore an open court, where it would be argued by practised

advocates, viewed by the judge in all its aspects, and finally

decided in the face of the public according to law.

Colonists and colonial reformers at home have proposed that

every colony should have a representative in the British House

of Commons. The object of the suggestion is most desirable,

but, I think, not attainable by that means. The object is to

bestow on every colony the great advantage of being able to

hold legitimate communication with the imperial public and

government. It is not supposed that the vote of a colonial

member of the House of Commons would serve any good

purpose, but that if he were a member of the imperial legisla-

ture, the imperial public and government would listen to him

as the special representative of the colony; would never come

to a decision concerning the colony without hearing what he

had to say about it; and would give their attention to sugges-

tions originating with himself. And all this is probably true.

But might he not be quite as effectually the representative of

the colony at home, without being in Parliament? If he might,

the whole advantage for the colony would be secured, with-

out having recourse to a measure, which really is open to

very serious objections, and still more opposed to some of

John Bull’s probably unconquerable prejudices.

By recurring to the colonizing wisdom of our ancestors, we

shall discover a simple, effectual, and unobjectionable means

of attaining the object in view. Under the municipal authority

vested in them by our old colonial charters, the old colonies

used to appoint “Agents” to reside in England, and to serve

as a medium of communication between the colonial and

imperial governments. Benjamin Franklin was agent for Penn-

sylvania, Mr. Roebuck for the House of Assembly of Lower

Canada, and the late Mr. Burge for Jamaica. What a cost in

money, trouble, and shame, the empire might have saved, if

the imperial government had lent a favourable ear to these

distinguished representatives of colonies! But the valuable

institution of colonial representatives at home, has gradually

fallen into discredit and practical disuse since the Colonial

Office was instituted; and it exists for the most part, with no

effect but that of adding a few sinecures to the patronage of

the Colonial Office. For the Colonial Office, having got to be

the real government of the colonies, virtually appoints the

colonial agents who purport to be accredited to it by the colo-

nies!

Supposing the government of the colony to be really munici-

pal, it would itself appoint its Agent. If it were the organ of

the portion of the colonists having the greatest interest in the

colony’s well-doing, it would select for Agent or Resident in

England one of the most respectable and capable of the colo-

nists. Such a person, so accredited to the imperial govern-

ment, would be a personage here, and would have weight

accordingly with our government and public. He would keep

the colony informed of matters at home, with which it be-

hoved the colonists to be acquainted; and he might power-

fully forward the interests of both colony and mother-coun-

try, by helping to promote the emigration of capital and labour:

for in this branch of colonization, there is no more urgent

want than some authority residing in the mother-country, but

identified with and responsible to the colonists.

The Agents (Representatives seems a better title) would, of

course, be appointed and removeable by the governor of the

colony on the advice of his responsible council of ministers,

and paid by the colony.

If the ancient institution of colonial agency at home were thus

revived and improved, as it might easily be, the effect would

be to add another powerful tie to the connexion between the

colony and the mother-country. To some extent a Represen-

tative would have the functions of the representatives of the

States of America in the United-States Congress. Our system

of colonial government, viewed as a whole, would be federa-

tive as well as municipal.

Recurring to the charter of colonial government, this should

declare that the legislative and executive government pre-

scribed by it should have unlimited power within the colony,

“excepting only, as is by these presents otherwise provided

and directed.” The old charters generally, after giving the lo-

cal government power to make any laws whatsoever, with

some specified exceptions, went on to grant certain other

powers, such as that of erecting judicatories, or employing a

militia. After the main grant, such provisions would be mere

surplusage and encumbrance, as they obviously are in the old

charters. The deliberate omission, however, of all particulars

from the granting portion of the charter, renders it the more

necessary to be very careful in setting down the exceptions.

The exceptions which occur to me at present, are,

I. Whatever relates to the employment, command, and disci-

pline of her Majesty’s forces, by land and sea, within the

colony at all times; and, during war time, in case of any at-

tack upon the colony, the command of the local militia and

marine.

II. Whatever relates to intercourse on public matters with the

servants of any foreign power within the colony, such as a

consul or the captain of a manof-war, for the management of

which the Governor alone should have a special commission

from the Crown.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

III. The functions of the post-office, so far as relates to the

transmission of letters to and from the colony, which should

be conducted by the British Postmaster-General. The publi-

cation of two reports on the post-office of Canada from a

commission appointed by Lord Sydenham, which were trans-

mitted to the Colonial Office by Sir Charles Bagot, would, by

itself, satisfy public opinion here, that the internal post-office

of a colony ought to be a business of the local government, as

it was under the old charters. Indeed, the abuses of the local

post-office in every colony under pretended imperial man-

agement, are perfectly monstrous; and it seems impossible to

prevent abuses, when distance, and the necessary indiffer-

ence of the British public with respect to postoffice manage-

ment in a colony, put responsibility out of the question. More-

over, the patronage of the local post-office, the best that ex-

ists in a new country, is an essential means to the well-work-

ing of a local constitutional government.

IV. The most important exception is that of directions in the

charter for the disposal of waste land, and of the proceeds of

its purchase-money, by the local government. But this last

subject, which is that of colonization independently of gov-

ernment, will have our exclusive attention after a few reflec-

tions, in my next letter, on the probable operation of the pro-

posed system of municipal-federative government for colo-

nies, as a substitute for the central-bureaucratic-spoiled.

Letter XLIV.

From the Colonist.

Some Reflections on the Probable Operation of Munici-

pal-Federative Government for Colonies, as a Substi-

tute for the Central-bureaucratic Spoiled.— A Grand

Reform of the Colonial Office.

Allow me to begin this letter with a request and a warning.

I beg of you to understand, that the plan of colonial govern-

ment set forth in my last is intended for a mere outline, and

that I am conscious of its being very imperfect as such. A

complete plan, with all the reasons for each provision, would

be the proper subject of a Report by a Parliamentary Com-

mission expressly charged with the framing of a plan. The

framing of a complete plan is not the proper business of any

individual: it is the duty of a Ministry, supposing always that

a British Ministry could be induced to form definite ideas

with respect to the true principles of colonial government. Be

pleased, therefore, to consider my rough skeleton of a plan as

designed to be little more than an illustration of my own view

of those principles.

In the next place, I venture urgently to recommend, that you

abstain from propounding to the House of Commons any-

thing like a plan intended to be complete. The time for doing

that is yet far off, and may perhaps never come. If you did it

prematurely, you would make enemies but no friends; you

would incur the hostility of the whole tribe of Mothercountry,

without having brought public opinion up to the mark of en-

abling you to brush aside their selfish objections and mali-

cious cavils. You would besides, startle the ignorant whose

name is Legion, bore the indifferent who are still more nu-

merous, and perhaps see the House counted out in an early

stage of your intended exposition. There is a time for all things;

and I repeat, the time for action in this matter has not yet

arrived, except as regards the agitation of principles and the

promotion of inquiry.

Recurring to the principles which my sketch of a plan is in-

tended to illustrate, I would now beg of you to consider how

some such plan would operate in removing the political im-

pediments and affording encouragement to colonization.

The office of governor would be so much more respectable,

its tenure so much more secure (for generally it would be a

life-tenure, and often, if the colonists had a voice in the selec-

tion of governors, practically a tenure descending from fa-

ther to son), and the position of reigning, but not ruling, so

much more comfortable, than the lot of governors can be under

the present system, that men of consequence and perhaps high

reputation would be candidates for the office of subordinate

sovereign. The provisions for meeting cases of extreme mis-

conduct on the part of governors, are rather provisions against

their occurrence; for assuredly, without some such means as

those suggested for making the governor irresponsible, but

his advisers responsible to the colonists, it is hardly possible

that a resemblance of the British constitution should be for

any long time administered, in a colony less formidable than

Canada is now, without producing discord. I conclude, there-

fore, that British colonial governors, besides possessing such

personal importance and character, as would induce the colo-

nists cheerfully to treat them as subordinate sovereigns, would

be under the necessity, as the imperial sovereign is, of either

reigning constitutionally or ceasing to reign. What a change!

The governors not attempting to govern any more than her

Majesty does, and the Colonial Office not meddling with lo-

cal affairs except in matters reserved for imperial administra-

tion, the great bulk of the public functionaries in the colony

would be colonists, settlers, people not without any interest,

but with the greatest interest in the welfare of the colony; and

offices in the colony, as well as seats in the colonial legisla-

ture, would generally be filled by colonists of some distinc-

tion and known aptitude. The colony would be governed with

a view to its advantage. The colonists themselves would have

the power to spread government into even the remotest settle-

ments, by means of instituting a system of municipalities sub-

ordinate to their own. The whole field of colonial ambition

would be open to colonists. So surely, I cannot help thinking,

A View of the Art of Colonization

a very superior class of people would be induced to emigrate.

If this last effect of a good colonial constitution took place,

most of the enumerated impediments to colonization would

disappear. There would be an end of the low standard of co-

lonial morals and manners. The self-restraints which belong

to civilization, would be substituted for the barbarous licence

of colonial life: for the sense of honour may be transplanted

like the habit of crime; and even without a specific plan of

religious provisions, the supposed change in the character of

our emigration would by itself make some provision for the

restraints of religion as well as for those of honour. And lastly,

colonial party-politics would no longer revolt emigrants of

the better class, because free government by party, with a

suffrage not democratic, would take the place of constituted

democracy in some colonies, and constituted anarchy in the

others. But there would still be hostile parties in a colony:

yes, parties instead of factions: for every colony would have

its “ins” and its “cuts,” and would be governed as we are—as

every free community must be in the present state of the hu-

man mind—by the emulation and rivalries, the bidding against

each other for public favour, of the party in power and the

party in opposition. Government by party, with all its pas-

sions and corruptions, is the price that a free country pays for

freedom. But the colonies would be free communities: their

internal differences, their very blunders, and their methods

of correcting them, would be all their own: and the colonists

who possessed capacity for public business—the Pitts and

Foxes, the Broughams and Lyndhursts, the Peels and Russells

of a colony, with their respective adherents —would govern

by turns far better on the whole, we may be sure, than it would

be possible for any other set of beings on earth to govern that

particular community.

But let us suppose that the colonies were worse governed by

their own leading men than by the Mothercountry tribe: even

then, though the present impediments to colonization would

not be removed but somewhat aggravated, still the imperial

government and people would be gainers. Judging from ample

experience and from a moment’s reflection on the nature of

the British race, the government of colonists by themselves,

however bad it might seem to us, would not seem bad to them:

they would like it and be very proud of it, just as on the whole

we Britons at home like and are proud of our government,

though it is often very bad in the eyes of philosophers and

other nations. The colonists, making their own laws, impos-

ing their own taxes, and appointing their own functionaries,

would be pleased with their government, as every man is

pleased with his own horse that he bought or bred according

to his own judgment: for colonists would not be human, still

less of the British temper, if they were not always pretty well

satisfied with themselves and their own doings. Thus the

mother-country would, at the worst, be spared the annoyance

and shame of colonial discontent, and complaint, and disaf-

fection. The Canadian rebellions and the present state of gov-

ernment or rather rebellion-at-heart in many of our colonies,

could not have occurred under the proposed system. And fi-

nally, we should be spared the whole cost of colonial govern-

ment as distinguished from colonial empire: for, of course, if

the colonists governed themselves locally as respects legisla-

tion, taxation, and appointing to office, they must themselves

pay for their local establishments. Nor would they object to

this on the contrary, they would prefer it. I see that Lord Grey

has recently proposed, that the salary of governors which is

now paid by the colony, shall be paid by England: for what

purpose? with what effect but that of increasing the power of

the tribe of Mothercountry. Under our old municipal system,

the colonists deemed it a privilege to raise the money for their

own government, because they found that it enabled them to

object with more reason to a meddling with their local affairs

by officials in England. So, in our day, the obligation on colo-

nies to defray the whole cost of their internal government,

would be one security for the preservation of their municipal

independence, and would therefore be considered rather a

benefit than a burthen. Nor would any pecuniary burthen be

imposed upon them: on the contrary, they would have less to

pay than at present: for by nothing is municipal more distin-

guished from central government, than by its superior cheap-

ness. Under the old English municipal system, thirteen im-

portant colonies obtained more government in each of them,

than is bestowed on all our present colonies together. Their

population nearly equalled that of all our present colonies.

Their thirteen very complete and satisfying governments cost

altogether about one hundred thousand pounds a year! a

memorable proof, says Adam Smith, of the little cost at which

colonies may be not only governed but well governed.

But what would become of the Colonial Office, if all the colo-

nies were placed on a footing of government like that which

makes the Channel Islands as devotedly attached to the Crown

of England as we are here at home? It might remain to mis-

govern the dependencies, which are not colonies: only in that

case, we should have to change its name. But even its name

might be preserved, if its functions, as respects the true colo-

nies, were defined to be the administration of those colonial

matters only, which our system of municipal government spe-

cifically reserved for imperial administration. In the exercise

of these functions, as they would be such as concerned the

imperial government and public only, it would be made re-

sponsible like our own government, through being watched

and kept in order by the public opinion of this country. Obvi-

ously, moreover, it would be a separate department of the

imperial government, for administering executively the fed-

erative relations between the mother-country and the colo-

nies, which, on behalf of the colonies, would be administered

by the proposed colonial Representatives at home. But its

legislative power over the colonies would, of course, be wholly

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

abolished. Downing-street would undergo a grand reform. Is

there anybody not belonging to the Office, and not being one

of its interested hangers-on, who thinks that it ought to be

preserved as it is? If I had room and it were worth while, I

would place before you the views of the question of reform-

ing the Colonial Office, which were eagerly expressed by its

present Parliamentary organs, just before they were trapped

and tamed by the original Mr. Mothercountry. It seems al-

most needless to mention, that under the proposed reform of

colonial government, or anything like it, the practice of colo-

nizing with convicts wearing chains on their legs, and still

more that of pouring criminals into our colonies with par-

dons in their pockets, would altogether cease, and would only

be remembered by us with a blush for having ever permitted

such abominations.

But even if, by these or any other and better means (and I am

far from clinging to my own plan as the best), we succeeded

in making the colonies not only habitable for the better order

of emigrants, but places in which that class might enjoy, in

addition to the natural charms of colonization, both those

which arise from the gratification of pride and ambition, and

those which belong to the creative business of legislating for

new communities, there would still remain the economical

impediment of scarcity of labour for hire. We must now pro-

ceed, therefore, to the causes of that impediment, and the

means of removing them. I am in hopes of being able to sat-

isfy you, that measures which would put an end to scarcity of

labour for hire in the colonies, would also give a great im-

pulse to the progress of colonization. If it should prove so,

the mothercountry is deeply interested, politically and socially,

in this question of colonial economy.

Letter XLV.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist, by a Sketch of the History of Slavery,

Traces Scarcity of Labour in New Countries to its Source

in the Cheapness of Land.

It is strange that it should never have come into the head of

philosopher or philanthropist to ascertain the causes of the

revival of slavery by all the nations of modern Europe which

have engaged in colonization. Political economists were

bound to make this inquiry; for without it their science is in-

complete at the very foundation: for slavery is a question of

labour, “the original purchase of all things.”

Philanthropists, however, have treated it as a moral and reli-

gious question, attributing slavery at all times and places, but

especially in modern times and in America, to the wicked-

ness of the human heart. So universal, indeed, is the doctrine,

that we find it in the most improbable of places; in the latest

and wisest of treatises on political economy, whose author

speaks of “the infernal spirit of the slave-master.” The infer-

nal spirit of Abraham and Joshua; of Socrates and Plato; of

Cicero and Seneca; of Alfred the Great; of Las Casas, who

laid the foundation of negro slavery in America; of Balti-

more, Penn, and Washington! These names alone show that

the spirit of the slavemaster is not that love of oppression and

cruelty, which the exercise of unlimited power over his

fellowcreatures is apt to beget in man: that infernal spirit is,

and not universally, a mere effect of keeping slaves. The uni-

versal spirit of the slave-master is his motive; the state of

mind that induces him to keep slaves; the spirit which, oper-

ating on individuals and communities, has ever been the im-

mediate cause of slavery. It is not a wicked or infernal spirit.

Neither communities nor individuals keep slaves in order to

indulge in oppression and cruelty. Those British colonies —

and they are many—which would get slaves to-morrow if we

would let them, are not more wicked than we are: they are

only placed in circumstances which induce us to long for the

possession of slaves notwithstanding the objections to it.

These circumstances, by producing the state of mind in which

slavery becomes desirable for masters, have ever been the

originating cause of slavery.

They are not moral, but economical circumstances: they re-

late not to vice and virtue, but to production. They are the

circumstances, in which one man finds it difficult or impos-

sible to get other men to work under his direction for wages.

They are the circumstances, referring to a former letter, which

stand in the way of combination and constancy of labour, and

which all civilized nations, in a certain stage of their advance

from barbarism, have endeavoured to counteract, and have

in some measure counteracted, by means of some kind of

slavery. Hitherto in this world, labour has never been em-

ployed on any considerable scale, with constancy and in

combination, except by one or other of two means; either by

hiring, or by slavery of some kind. What the principle of as-

sociation may do in the production of wealth, and for the

labouring classes, without either slavery or hiring, remains to

be seen; but at present we cannot rely upon it. Recurring,

therefore, to hiring and slavery as the only known means of

rendering industry very productive, let us now consider what

relation these two social arrangements bear to each other.

Slavery is evidently a make-shift for hiring; a proceeding to

which recourse is had, only when hiring is impossible or dif-

ficult. 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 were

a choice: but when slavery is adopted, there is no choice: it is

adopted because at the time and under the circumstances there

is no other way of getting labourers to work with constancy

A View of the Art of Colonization

and in combination. What, then, are the circumstances under

which this happens?

It happens wherever population is scanty in proportion to land.

Slavery, except in some mild form, as the fading continuation

of a habit, and with some advantage to the nominal slaves but

real dependents, whom at least it sheltered from the evils of

competition, has been confined to countries of a scanty popu-

lation, has never existed in very populous countries, and has

gradually ceased in the countries whose population gradu-

ally increased to the point of density. And the reason is plain

enough. Property in land is the object of one of the strongest

and most general of human desires. Excluding the owners of

land, in whom the desire is gratified, few indeed are those

who do not long to call a piece of the earth their own. Land-

owners and persons who would be glad to be landowners,

comprise the bulk of mankind. In populous countries, the

desire to own land is not easily gratified, because the land is

scarce and dear: the plentifulness and cheapness of land in

thinly-peopled countries enables almost everybody who

wishes it to become a landowner. In thinly-peopled countries,

accordingly, the great majority of free people are landowners

who cultivate their own land; and labour for hire is necessar-

ily scarce: in densely-peopled countries, on the contrary, the

great majority of the people cannot obtain land, and there is

plenty of labour for hire. Of plentifulness of labour for hire,

the cause is dearness of land: cheapness of land is the cause

of scarcity of labour for hire.

Test these conclusions by reference to universal history.

Abraham, the slave-master, said unto Lot, who was another,

“is not the whole land before thee?” The ancient Greeks were

themselves colonists, the occupiers of a new territory, in which

for a time every freeman could obtain as much land as he

desired: for a time they needed slaves; and the custom of sla-

very was established. They sent forth colonies, which con-

sisted in part of slaves, removed to a waste territory for the

express purpose of cultivating it with constancy and combi-

nation of labour. The Romans, in the earlier stages of their

history, were robbers of land, and had more than they could

cultivate without slaves: it was partly by means of slavery,

that they at last grew to be so populous at Rome as no longer

to need slavery, but to ask for an agrarian law. The Roman

world was indeed so devastated by wars, that except at the

seat of empire, population never perhaps attained the propor-

tion to land in which real slavery naturally disappears. The

serfdom of the middleages was for all Europe, what it is for

Poland and Russia still, a kind of slavery required by the small

proportion of people to land; a substitute for hired labour,

which gradually expired with the increase of population, as it

will expire in Poland and Russia when land shall, in those

countries, become as scarce and dear as it became in England

some time after the Conquest. Next comes the institution of

slavery in America by the colonies of nations which had abol-

ished serfdom at home; colonies in whose history, whether

we read it in Raynal, or Edwards, or Grahame, we find the

effect and the cause invariably close together; the slavery in

various forms of bondage, growing out of superabundance of

land.

The operation of superabundance of land in causing a scar-

city of free labour and a desire for slaves, is very distinctly

seen in a process by which modern colonists always have

endeavoured to obtain free labour. Free labour, when it can

be got and kept in a colony, is so much more productive than

forced, that the colonial capitalist is always ready to pay for

it, in the form of wages, more than slave labour would cost,

and far more than the usual rate of wages in an old country. It

is perfectly worth his while to pay, besides these high wages,

the cost of the passage of free labour from the old country to

the colony. Innumerable are the cases in which a colonial

capitalist has done this, confident of the prudence of the out-

lay. It was commonly done by the founders of our early colo-

nies in America, and has been done by many capitalists in

Canada, South Africa, the Australias, and New Zealand. To

do this appears such a natural, suitable, easy way of obtain-

ing labour for hire, that every emigrant capitalist thinks of

doing it; and thousands (I speak within compass) have tried

the experiment. It is an experiment which always fails: if it

always or generally succeeded, scarcity of labour for hire

would not be a colonial evil. I have never missed the oppor-

tunity of tracing one of these experiments to its results; and I

assure you that I have never been able to discover a single

case of success. The invariable failure is produced by the

impossibility of keeping the labour, for the passage of which

to the colony the capitalist has paid: and it happens as fol-

lows.

Under this voluntary method of importing labour, all capital-

ists do not pay alike: some pay; some do not. Those who do

not pay for the importation of labour, can afford to pay for

the use of it more than those who pay for the importation.

These non-importing capitalists, therefore, offer to the newly-

arrived labourers higher wages than the employer who im-

ported them has engaged or can afford to pay. The offer of

higher wages is a temptation which poor emigrants are inca-

pable of resisting. When the nonimporting capitalist is not

rogue enough to make the offer to the labourers whom his

neighbour has imported, still the labourers know that such

higher wages can be obtained from persons who have not

imported labourers: they quit the service of their importer,

and, being now out of employment, are engaged by some-

body who can afford to pay the higher wages. The importer, I

repeat, never keeps the labour which he has imported.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Nor does the non-importing capitalist keep it long. With these

high wages, the imported labourers soon save the means of

acquiring and cultivating land. In every colony, land is so

cheap that emigrant labourers who save at all, are soon able

to establish themselves as landowners, working on their own

account; and this, most of them do as soon as possible. If the

land of the colony were of limited extent, a great importation

of people would raise its price, and compel some people to

work for wages; but the land of colonies is practically of un-

limited extent. The immigration of labour, therefore, has no

effect on the supply in the market: yes, it has an effect; it

increases the demand without increasing the supply, and there-

fore renders the demand more intense: for the great bulk of

imported labourers become landowners anxious to obtain

labour for hire. The more labourers are imported, the greater

becomes, after a while, the scarcity of labour in proportion to

the demand: and at the bottom of the whole mischief is the

cheapness of land.

It was 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 cheap-

ness of land that brought African slaves to Antigua and

Barbadoes; and it is a comparative dearness of land, arising

from the increase of population in those small islands, which

has made them an exception from the general rule of West-

Indian impoverishment in consequence of the abolition of

slavery before land was made dear. It was cheapness of land

that caused the introduction of negro slaves into Virginia, and

produced the various forms of bondage practised by all the

old English colonies in America. It is cheapness of land in

Brazil, Porto Rico, and Cuba, which causes our African squad-

ron, and not only prevents it from serving its purpose, but

causes it to be a means of aggravating the horrors of the Afri-

can slave trade.

The cause is always the same, in form as well as in substance:

the effect takes various forms. Amongst the effects, there is

the prodigious importance of Irish labour to the United

States—the extreme “convenience of the nuisance” of an

immigration of people whose position as aliens, and whose

want of ambition and thrift, commonly prevent them from

acquiring land, however cheap it may be; there is the

oftrepeated prayer of our West-India planters (not residing in

Barbadoes or Antigua) to the imperial government, for some

plan for establishing a great emigration of free labour from

Africa to the West Indies; there is the regret of New South

Wales at the stoppage of convict emigration to that colony;

there are the petitions which several colonies have addressed

to the home government, praying for convict emigration: and,

lastly, there is the whole batch of economical colonial evils,

which I have before described under the head of scarcity of

labour for hire, and which operate as one of the most formi-

dable impediments to the emigration of the most valuable

class of settlers.

If all the political impediments to colonization were removed,

this economical one would still be sufficient to prevent the

emigration of capitalists or capital on any great scale. Indeed,

so long as it shall last, no considerable capitalists will emi-

grate, hoping to prosper, except under a delusion which will

be dissipated by six months’ experience in the colony: and

this delusion, in consequence of the increasing spread of true

information about colonial life, is likely to have fewer vic-

tims than heretofore. I am looking forward to almost a stop-

page of emigration as respects all but the very needy or des-

perate classes; provided always, however,that the cause of

scarcity of labour in the colonies cannot by any means be

removed, and prevented from returning. My own notion of

the means by which the scarcity of labour might be effectu-

ally removed and prevented from returning, must now be

explained.

Letter XLVI.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Suggests the Means by Which Land Might

Be Made Dear Enough to Prevent a Scarcity of Labour

for Hire.

Some land in colonies is as dear as the dearest land in old

countries. In Wall Street, and the lower part of Broadway,

New York, land is even dearer than in Lombard-street and

Cornhill, London; the reason being that the part of New York

which has become the centre of the commerce of that great

city, is a narrow point of land hemmed in on three sides by

water, so that although commerce in New York is less, the

competition for room at the centre of commerce is greater

than in London. So in various parts of every colony, there is

land which fetches a high price, because it is of limited ex-

tent. In new countries, nearly as in old, land in the centre of a

city, in every part of a town, or in the immediate vicinity of

towns, or of good roads, is of limited extent. It is land enjoy-

ing certain advantages of position; and as such land is no

more unlimited in America or Australia than in England, it is,

as in England, the subject of competition, and fetches a price

measured by the degree of competition for it. But this land is

not that of which the cheapness produces scarcity of labour

in new countries: it is land so dear as to be either out of the

reach of the working-classes, or for them less desirable at its

price than land for which there is little or no competition.

This last is the land by means of obtaining which labourers

become landowners: it may be called indifferently the

lowestpriced land, the cheapest land, or land of the minimum

price. I beg you to bear in mind, that only the cheapest land in

a colony, is that whose price affects the labour market.

A View of the Art of Colonization

The price of this land, as of all bare land, and of everything

else which it costs nothing to produce, depends of course on

the relation between the demand and the supply. In colonies,

where wages are so high that everybody may soon acquire

the means of purchasing land, the demand is according to

population; the supply consists of the quantity of the cheap-

est land open to purchasers. By augmenting the population or

diminishing the quantity of land, the price would be raised: it

would be lowered by augmenting the quantity of land or di-

minishing the population. Now, over the proportion which

these two shall bear to each other, the state or government

possesses an absolute control. The amount of population in-

deed does not depend on the government; but the quantity of

land does; and thus the government has control over the pro-

portion which land bears to population, or population to land.

In the very beginning of a colony, all the land necessarily

belongs to the government or is under its jurisdiction; and it

is the government, which suddenly or by degrees makes all

the land private property, by disposing of it to individuals.

The government may employ a profuse or a niggard hand;

that is, it may bestow much or little on the colonists in pro-

portion to their numbers. In West Australia, for example, the

government allowed the first 2000 settlers to appropriate about

3,000,000 acres; whilst in South Australia, with a population

now amounting to 40,000, less, I believe, than 500,000 acres

have become private property: in one case, 2000 people got

as much land as the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk,

Hertford, and Cambridge; in the other, 40,000 people got only

as much land as the county of Cambridge: the bestowing dis-

position of the government was a hundred, and nineteen times

stronger, and the proportion of private land to, people a hun-

dred and nineteen times greater, in the one case than in the

other. The history of colonization abounds with like examples

of the control exercised by government over the proportion

between land and people.

It has been said above, that government may dispose of land

with a niggard hand. Do not suppose that any colonizing gov-

ernment has ever done so. All colonizing governments have

done just the reverse, by disposing of land with a profuse

hand. The greediness of colonists has been equal to the pro-

fusion of the governments. The colonists, full of the ideas

about land which possess people in old countries— emigrat-

ing indeed because at home the cheapest land had got or was

getting to be scarce and precious— could never obtain too

much land for the satisfaction of their desires: and the gov-

ernments, universally down to the other day, seemed to have

looked upon waste land as a useless property of the state,

only fit to be squandered in satisfying the greedy desires of

colonists. Throughout what may be termed the colonial world,

therefore, allowing however for a few exceptions in which a

colony has grown to be as densely peopled as an old country,

there has at all times existed a proportion between land and

people, which almost prevented competition for the cheapest

land, and enabled every colonist to obtain some land either

for nothing or for a price little more than nominal. Whatever

may have been the price of the dearest land in a colony, the

price of the cheapest has never, with the above exceptions,

been sufficient to prevent labourers from turning into land-

owners after a very brief term of hired service.

There are two modes in which the government disposes of

waste land; either by gift or sale. Gift, or grant, as it is called,

has been the most common mode. Until lately, the British

government always disposed of land by grant. The United

States, soon after they became independent, adopted the plan

of selling, to which, with the exception of some extensive

grants, they have since adhered. About seventeen years ago,

our government substituted throughout the colonies the plan

of selling for that of granting.

The plan of granting may be said to involve unavoidably an

extreme profusion in the disposal of land. When the land can

be got for nothing, everybody wants as much of it as he can

possibly get; and the government, of course deeming the land

of no value, or it would not part with it for nothing, is prone

to indulge the greedy desires of individuals by a process so

very easy to the government as that of saying “take what you

please.” Under this plan, therefore, the quantity of land granted

has always been so very abundant in proportion to popula-

tion, that it may be said to have been supplied, like air or

water, in unlimited quantities; that is, not in any proportion to

the market-demand for land, but so as to prevent such a de-

mand. In many cases, the government made a practice of giv-

ing land to people of the labouring class, when of course there

was no market-demand for land except in advantageous po-

sitions, and the cheapest land was so cheap as to bear no price

at all. Even when grants were not made directly to the class

of labourers, the profusion with which they were made to

other classes, caused the cheapest land to be “dirt cheap,”

and indirectly bestowed land upon labourers for almost noth-

ing: practically, under this system of profusion, the govern-

ment exercised no control over the proportion between land

and people.

Even if the government should intend to carry out the plan in

such a manner as to prevent scarcity of labour by making the

cheapest land somewhat dear, or difficult of acquisition, it

would not be able to accomplish the object by that means.

The purpose of the government would be defeated by the

nature of things. So long as land was to be obtained for noth-

ing, the greediness of individuals to obtain it would be irre-

sistible by the government, even for a single year. Supposing

that the government resisted for a while, and so made the

cheapest land comparatively dear, the greediness to obtain

for nothing land bearing a price (for in the supposed case all

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

land would have a market value) would overcome the resis-

tance of the firmest government, and again knock down the

price of the cheapest land. But further, supposing that the

government did resist the importunity for grants of valuable

land, by what means could it regulate the supply so as to

maintain the most beneficial proportion between land and

people? How would it know from time to time what quanti-

ties of land ought to be granted? How could it estimate the

different effects on the markets of land and labour of grant-

ing this or that quantity? These questions show that the plan

of granting is devoid of regulating power; that it is incompat-

ible with the indispensable employment of a measure of sup-

ply. And lastly, there is an objection to the plan of granting,

which is very strong without an effectual restriction of the

quantity, but would be stronger with it. However profusely

land may be granted, some of it acquires in time a value de-

pending on advantages of position: and this consideration

explains why people are so greedy to obtain land for nothing,

even though at the time of being obtained it has no market

value. This consideration also shows that under the plan of

granting, however profusely, the government has the oppor-

tunity, and the strongest temptation, to favour its friends, to

practise favouritism and official jobbing in the disposal of

land. There is no instance of a colonizing government that

was able to resist this temptation. Official favouritism and

jobbing in the disposal of land by grant, constitute one of the

most prominent and ugliest features of colonial history: and

they have been one of the most effectual impediments to colo-

nization, by producing an immense crop of disappointments,

jealousies, envies, and irritations. But if favouritism and job-

bing in the disposal of waste land made the colonists hate

each other and their government when the quantity granted

was practically without limit, what would happen if the quan-

tity were so restricted as to render all the land granted imme-

diately valuable? The government would be more than ever

tempted to favour its friends; the officials more than ever

tempted to favour themselves and their connexions; the friends

of government and the connexions of officials greedier of

land than was ever known; and the whole colony in an uproar

of disaffection to its government. This is the last objection to

the plan of granting. It was by placing all these objections

before Lord Howick in 1831, that the colonizing theorists of

1830 put an end to the plan of granting waste land throughout

our colonies.

Letter XLVII.

From the Colonist.

In Order That the Price of Waste Land Should Accom-

plish its Objects, it must Be Sufficient for the Purpose.

Hitherto the Price Has Been Everywhere Insufficient.

The plan of selling contains within itself an effectual regula-

tor of the quantity disposed of. This is the price which the

government requires for new land. This price may indeed be

so low, as not to operate as a restriction at all. This happened

in Canada when the plan of selling was first adopted there,

and when the price required by the government hardly

amounted to more, or may even have amounted to less, upon

small purchases, than the fees of office previously required

for grants. The first price of public land in Tasmania was 5s.

an acre: the cost of a Tasmanian grant in two cases with which

I happen to be acquainted, was £58 for 50 acres, and nearly

£100 for 70 acres. In the colonies generally, I believe, ex-

cepting as to large purchases, a grant used to cost more than

the price which was afterwards required by the government

when it substituted selling for granting. So low a price as this

has no influence on the market-value of the cheapest land, no

effect on the supply of labour for hire. The mere putting of a

price, therefore, on all new land may accomplish none of the

objects in view. In order to accomplish them, the price must

be sufficient for that purpose. But the price may be low or

high as the government pleases: it is a variable force, com-

pletely under the control of government. In founding a colony,

the price might be so low as to render the quantity of land

appropriated by settlers practically unlimited: it might be high

enough to occasion a proportion between land and people

similar to that of old countries, in which case, if this very

high price did not prevent emigration, the cheapest land in

the colony might be as dear, and the superabundance of

labourers as deplorable as in England: or it might be a just

medium between the two, occasioning neither superabundance

of people nor superabundance of land, but so limiting the

quantity of land, as to give the cheapest land a market value

that would have the effect of compelling labourers to work

some considerable time for wages before they could become

landowners. A price that did less than this, would be insuffi-

cient; one that did more, would be excessive: the price that

would do this and no more, is the proper price. I am used to

call it the sufficient price.

The sufficient price has never yet been adopted by a coloniz-

ing government. The government of the United States, whose

sole object in disposing of new land by sale instead of grant,

was to hinder official favouritism and jobbing, has never re-

quired a higher price than two dollars an acre; and for a long

while past, its price has been only one dollar and a quarter an

acre. In our colonies, the price has varied from five to forty

shillings. That these prices are insufficient for the purpose in

view, is shown by facts, and may be made plainer by a sup-

posed case.

The facts consist of the economical impediments to coloni-

zation which I have described before, and which have been

as vigorous under the plan of selling as under that of grant-

ing. The substitution by the United States of selling for grant-

ing has not in the least diminished the value of negro slaves,

or the necessity in the free states of relying for the conduct of

A View of the Art of Colonization

works requiring much constancy and combination of labour,

on a vast immigration of such natural slaves as the poorest

Irish. The scarcity of labour in our colonies has been as great

and injurious since, as it was before, the imposition of a price

on new land. In all our colonies, notwithstanding the price

put on new land, the cheapest land has been so cheap that the

poorest class (for in a colony nobody is quite poor) could

readily obtain land of their own: in all the colonies they have

done this; and everywhere accordingly labour for hire has

been so scarce, that it was dangerous, often fatal, for the capi-

talist to engage in any work requiring the constant employ-

ment of many pairs of hands.

I must here explain, however, that in most of our colonies,

the price would have been inoperative if it had been ten times

as high as it was. In Canada and New South Wales, for ex-

ample, land had been granted with such reckless profusion

before the plan of selling was adopted, that if this plan had

even, by means of an enormous price, put an end to the ac-

quisition of new land, it would still have had no effect on the

land and labour markets. The quantity of land in proportion

to people was already so great as to occasion practically an

unlimited supply, whilst the demand could only increase by

the slow progress of births and immigration. In these two

colonies, therefore, as in others where the plan of granting

was once profusely carried into effect, the cheapest land has

been as cheap since, as it was before the imposition of a price

on, new land; and in each of these colonies, a price on new

land, however high it might be, would remain inoperative for

ages to come. In such colonies, the mere putting of a price on

new land only operates as a restriction on the use of newly-

discovered spots highly favourable for settlement, and as a

tax upon colonization; the very last sort of tax that a coloniz-

ing government would think of imposing.

How a price on new land might be rendered beneficially op-

erative in colonies where the quantity of private land is al-

ready excessive, is a point to be considered presently. Here I

would remark, that there are but three places in which the

price of new land has had the least chance of operating ben-

eficially. 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; but I proceed to the

supposed case, which I think serves to illustrate this subject

better than the small stock of not very conclusive facts, which

are furnished by the brief and bungling trial in practice of the

plan of imposing a price on waste land with a view to the

greatest productiveness of colonial industry. Suppose, then,

that Liebig should discover a process by which the water of

the sea might be converted into fertile land, at a cost of, let us

say forty shillings an acre. Suppose, further, that the state did

not monopolize the exercise of this art, but allowed a free

trade in it. Immense capitals would be invested in this trade.

The quantity of sea converted into land would be as much as

there was a prospect of being able to sell for the cost of pro-

duction and a profit besides. A remunerating price would not

exceed fifty shillings an acre; that is, forty to cover outlay,

and ten for profit. At this price, fertile land might be obtained

in unlimited quantities. In this country, including the new ter-

ritory, the price of the cheapest land would not exceed fifty

shillings an acre. Population might increase as fast as it could,

but the price of the cheapest land would not rise. Some of the

cheapest would become dear, and even the dearest, in conse-

quence of competition for it when the progress of settlement

had conferred on it certain advantages of position: but there

would always be plenty of land on sale at the price of fifty

shillings. Call on your imagination to conceive what would

happen. Is it not clear that pauperism, as that arises from su-

perabundance of people in proportion to land, would entirely

disappear? The demand for labour in the cultivation of the

new land would draw away all superfluous hands from the

old parts of the country; and we should be no more troubled

with pauperism in England than they are in colonies. Wages

in England would be as high as in America. But these bless-

ings would be accompanied, or rather succeeded, by a set of

curses. The passion for owning land, which belongs to hu-

man nature, which is latent when there is no opportunity of

gratifying it, but surely breaks out in the majority of people

whenever it can be easily gratified, would become as active

here as it is in America and other colonial parts of the world:

for with a colonial rate of wages, and with fertile land always

on sale at the price of fifty shillings an acre, every man who

desired it might easily gratify the longing to become a land-

owner. The utmost effect of such a price as fifty shillings an

acre, would be to compel the labourer to work for wages a

little longer than if he could get land for nothing. But this

would not prevent a scarcity of labour for hire nearly as great

as that which takes place in America. It follows that not in-

stantly, but very soon after getting rid of pauperism, and see-

ing our labouring classes as well off as those classes are in

America, we should begin to complain of scarcity of labour

for hire. How quickly and perfectly we should find out the

value of combination and constancy of labour! In a little while,

how glad we should be to divert the stream of poor Irish emi-

gration from America to England: that is, provided the Irish,

100

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

being able to get new land for fifty shillings an acre close at

home, would come to England as aliens and natural slaves;

which they would not. We should, ere long, I suspect, unless

our climate were an objection to it, begin to hanker after negro

slavery. We should certainly, in order to get large public works

performed at all, keep our own convicts at home. We should

be, as it were, colonists, continually suffering all sorts of in-

convenience and discomfort from the scarcity of labour for

hire. But we should find out quickly enough, in the case sup-

posed, that scarcity of labour for hire is caused by cheapness

of land. With the exception of the small proportion of the

people who in the case supposed would be labourers for hire,

every man would be palpably interested in making land dearer:

even the labourers would have the same interest, though it

would be a little more remote, and therefore, perhaps, much

less obvious. In all probability, therefore, we should pass a

law for making land dearer. This would be the easiest thing in

the world to do. It would be done by putting a price upon new

land over and above the cost of production. This price would

be a mere tax, a useless, and therefore hurtful impediment to

the acquisition of new land, unless, along with the cost of

production, it were high enough for its only legitimate pur-

pose. In the colonies, there is no cost of production. There,

the whole good effect must be produced by a price imposed

by government, or not produced at all. The supposed case, as

I have stated it, must contain some grave errors of reasoning,

if fifty shillings would be a sufficient price to require for new

land in the colonies.

Letter XLVIII.

From the Statesman.

Mr. Mothercountry Taunts the Colonist with Being Un-

able to Say What Would Be the Sufficient Price for New

Land.

I am beginning to understand your plan of colonization as

respects the disposal of land; but a difficulty has been sug-

gested to me by my Mr. Mothercountry, which I hasten to

communicate to you. He says, that though you have been

preaching for years about the sufficient price, you have never

ventured to say what it ought to be. He says, that you have

been frequently asked to mention what you deem the suffi-

cient price, but that you have carefully avoided answering

the question. He says that you fight shy of the question; that it

puzzles you; that in truth you know not how to answer it; and

that your silence on this point shows (I beg your pardon for

even communicating the offensive inference), that you know

your theory to be impracticable: for, he adds, what becomes

of all the fine arguments for a sufficient price, if nobody, not

even the author of the theory, tell us what is the sufficient

price? He referred to an article in the Edinburgh Review for

July, 1840, for proof that your theory is wanting in the scien-

tific precision which you attribute to it.

I dare say you have heard all this before; but even so, the

repetition of it now will recal the subject to your mind at the

fittest stage of our inquiry: for, obviously, our next step is to

determine the sufficient price. I am curious to see how you

will reply to Mr. Mothercountry’s argumentum ad hominem.

Letter XLIX.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Replies to Mr. Mothercountry’s Taunt, In-

dicates the Elements of a Calculation for Getting at the

Sufficient Price, and Refers to Mr. Stephen and the

Edinburgh Review.

It is quite true that I have been frequently and tauntingly re-

quired to mention what I deem the sufficient price. But I have

hitherto avoided falling into the trap, which that demand upon

me really is. I might have named a price, and stuck to it with-

out giving reasons: in other words, I might have practised a

Colonial-Office “shift” by “deciding categorically, so as not

to expose the superficiality in propounding the reasons”: or I

might have named a price, and attempted to justify the deci-

sion by reasons: but in the one case, your Mr. Mothercountry

would have been entitled to call me a charlatan, and in the

other a goose. For there is no price that would be suitable for

the colonies generally: the price must needs vary according

to peculiar natural and other circumstances in each colony:

and in order to determine the price for any colony, practical

proceedings of a tentative or experimental nature are indis-

pensable. If so, what a mess I should have got into, had I

responded to the taunting call of Mr. Mothercountry and his

allies!

That it is so becomes very plain, when one considers what

are the elements of a calculation made with a view of deter-

mining the sufficient price for any colony. There is but one

object of a price; 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 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 on

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 into 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

101

A View of the Art of Colonization

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, 10 acres would support him well; in

South Africa or New South Wales, he might require 50 or

100 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. Mothercountry say, “name a

price for some particular colony; a price founded on the ele-

ments of calculation which you have stated.” I could do that

certainly for some colony with which I happen to be particu-

larly 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 knowl-

edge 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 face. 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 suf-

ficient. 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. Recurring to the supposed discovery of Liebig,

the legislature of this country would always be able to judge

whether new land was supplied too fast, or not fast enough,

or at the rate of a happy medium between excess and defi-

ciency. The evidence on which the legislature would form its

judgment, would be all the facts which show whether labour

is scarce, or superabundant, or neither one nor the other.

Whether here or in a colony, these facts are so very manifest,

and so unerring as indications, that a wrong conclusion from

them would be hardly possible. Only, of course, I am suppos-

ing that the legislature of the colony would possess an inti-

mate knowledge of the colony, and would be deeply inter-

ested in coming to a right judgment: a Downing-street legis-

lature judg-, ing for the distant colonies, or a distant colonial

legislature judging for us, would indeed, notwithstanding the

patent nature of the guiding facts, be apt to make terrible

mistakes.

The raising or lowering of the price according to the evi-

dence of a necessity for either step, is what I called just now

a tentative or experimental proceeding. In either case, the legis-

lature would have to wait and see whether the alteration pro-

duced the desired effect. But there is an objection to lower-

ing the price, which makes it desirable, that the legislature, in

trying its experiments, should begin with a price obviously

too low, and should raise the price by careful degrees so as to

run little risk of ever making it too high. The objection to

ever lowering the price is, that whenever this was done, some

of those who had purchased at the higher price, would com-

plain that they had been made to pay more than their succes-

sors, and more than was necessary. It would be by no means

certain that they really had paid more than was necessary at

the time of their purchase: for the circumstances of the colony

at that time might have required that price, for the greatest

good of those purchasers as well as of the whole colony. Nor,

if new circumstances required a lower price—such a circum-

stance, for example, as a great spontaneous and unexpected

immigration of labour into the colony, which suddenly and

greatly increased the proportion of people to appropriated

land—would these earlier purchasers at the higher price suf-

fer any injustice from a lowering of the price. They might

suffer hardship, but no injustice. If the higher price had been

kept up so long after it became too high, as to confer on land

the monopoly value which arises from scarcity, then, when

the price of new land was lowered, the general value of ap-

propriated land would decline; and the amount of its fall would

be so much loss to all landowners. This would be a hardship:

but, for two reasons, it would not be an injustice. All land-

owners would have purchased with a full knowledge of the

wish and intention of the legislature to lower the price when-

ever population should be superabundant, or if, after a trial,

it should appear too high: nobody would have been deceived

or misled: and secondly, the monopoly value of land which

had been created by keeping up too high a price, though a

benefit to the landowner, would be a benefit, which as accru-

ing to him against the will of the legislature and contrary to

his own expectations when he purchased, and as being a wrong

to the community at large, ought justly to be taken from him

as soon as possible. Injustice, therefore, there would be none

in lowering the price. I have said, that the scarcity-value con-

102

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

ferred on land by too high a price, would be a benefit to the

landowner; but this was only said for argument’s sake: for in

truth, a colony in which appropriated land was kept at a scar-

city value, would be a most unpopular colony in the mother-

country; and its landowners would miss the benefits enjoyed

by the landowners of a colony into which there pours a con-

stant stream of capital as well as people. The landowners, in

the supposed case, would obtain a scarcity-value for their

land, similar to that which takes place in Tipperary; but they

would miss a position-value, so to speak, like that which oc-

curs in Lancashire: they would lose more than they would

gain. Upon the whole, therefore, it appears to me, that pur-

chasers at a higher price would suffer neither injustice nor

hardship by a lowering of the price when this step became

expedient for the good of the whole colony. But in consider-

ation of our proneness to be jealous and envious of our

neighbours, I would guard, if possible, against even the ap-

pearance of giving an advantage to the later purchaser. I think,

therefore, that the colonizing legislature ought to begin with

a price clearly too low, and to raise the price by degrees with

a cautious but resolute hand.

If your Mr. Mothercountry should say that a system which

requires, in at least one of its processes, the exercise of much

caution and resolution, is not a self-adjusting system, but one

liable to be deranged by human infirmity, and therefore one

not to be relied upon, I would answer, nobody has ever attrib-

uted to it that magical property of being able to work itself

without legislative or administrative care, which its official

opponents, in order to decry it, have represented that its ad-

vocates claimed for it. The article in the Edinburgh Eeview

was written by a gentleman, then a clerk in the Colonial Of-

fice, and a friend of Mr. Stephen’s, the permanent Under-

Secretary. Mr. Stephen’s influence with that eminent journal

has been used to prevent the circulation of favourable views

of the theory, as well as to circulate hostile views. Two ha-

bitual contributors to the Review offered to its editor, the late

Professor Napier, at different times, and without each other’s

knowledge or mine, two articles, of which the object was to

explain and recommend the theory; but he declined to insert

either, on the ground, in the one case of having pledged the

Review to the opinions of Mr. Stephen’s friend; and, in the

other, of his unwillingness to displease Mr. Stephen. To save

trouble, in case you should mention this to your Mr.

Mothercountry, I add that though Professor Napier is no more,

the two gentlemen in question are alive, and in full recollec-

tion of the facts.

Thus, you see, the whining of colonial Downingstreet, about

being debarred from communication with the public, is not

founded in fact. No other public department has better, nay

equal, means of using the anonymous press for defence and

attack. I almost wish now, that this peculiarity of the Colonial

Office had been described under the head of government.

Letter L.

From the Colonist.

Selling Waste Land by Auction with a View to Obtaining

the Sufficient Price by Means of Competition, Is Either

a Foolish Conceit or a False Pretence.

It has been imagined that the sufficient price might be ob-

tained by means of competition, if new land were offered for

sale by auction at a low upset price. I am at a loss to conceive

how this notion could be entertained by a reasonable mind. If

the quantity of land were practically unlimited, there would

be no competition, except for spots possessing some advan-

tage of position; and spots of land for which there would be

competition, are just those for which the poorest class of buy-

ers, or the labourers, would not bid: they would buy only that

land for which there was no competition, and which, there-

fore, they would obtain at the upset price. It follows, that

unless the quantity of land offered for sale were limited, it

would be necessary, under a system of sales by auction, to

make the upset price a sufficient price: the necessity of deter-

mining a sufficient price would be just the same as if the land

were sold at a fixed uniform price without auction. Unques-

tionably, if the quantity of land offered for sale were suffi-

ciently limited, there would be competition for all new land;

and the lowest price obtained would exceed the upset price

in proportion to the degree of limitation. But in order to ob-

tain this result, the government must needs determine what

degree of limitation would produce enough competition to

make the lowest selling price a sufficient price. The suffi-

cient price would still be determined by the government, but

by means of a sufficient limitation of the quantity offered for

sale. By limiting the quantity, as has been shown before, the

government might determine the price of the cheapest land in

the colony, without putting any price on new land, or under

the plan of granting. The government, that is, might do this

provided limitation of quantity were practically susceptible

of being made a regulator of price. But practically, as has

been explained before, limitation of quantity could not be

used by the government as an efficient regulator of price; and

again, if it were so used, its operation would be wholly inde-

pendent of selling by auction, since if there were no auction,

but the land given for nothing, the lowest price of land in the

colony would be sufficient if the limitation of the quantity of

granted land were sufficient. Selling by auction, indeed, may

serve other purposes than that of determining the sufficient

price by means of competition; but when employed for this

purpose, which it cannot serve, it is a self-delusion or a cheat;

a fancied means of doing what it cannot do, or a make-be-

lieve of doing what is not done. In the United States, they sell

by auction; but the quantity offered for sale being practically

unlimited, the upset price is the usual selling price. In our

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A View of the Art of Colonization

colonies, very great prices have been obtained by means of

selling at auction certain spots, which were supposed likely

to enjoy, ere long, great advantages of position: but the ob-

taining of these great prices for some land had not the slight-

est effect on the lowest price of land in the colony: that did

not exceed the lowest price at which land could be obtained

at the auction sales; namely, the upset price. I must not omit,

however, to mention that one or two cases have happened in

which the lowest price obtained by auction considerably ex-

ceeded the upset price. The result was brought about by of-

fering for sale less land than was wanted by buyers at that

time and place: some competition for all the land was really

produced, but solely by means of limiting the quantity of-

fered for sale. In these cases, however, great evils arose from

the attempt of the government to determine prices by limita-

tion of quantity. The accidental or arbitrary limitation was

not, and could not have been, continued; and when a less

limitation took place—when more land was afterwards of-

fered for sale than was wanted by intending buyers at the

time and place—the lowest price of land fell; and the buyers

at the first sales discovered that the government had induced

them to pay a price higher than that which others now paid,

or for which they could now sell their land. These cases, in

which auction did produce competition for all the land put up

to sale, exemplify the inadequacy and unsuitableness of com-

petition produced by limitation of quantity as a means of get-

ting at the sufficient price. The experience furnished by the

United States and our colonies, agrees with the reasoning

which shows, that selling by auction for the alleged purpose

of obtaining the sufficient price, is either a foolish conceit or

a false pretence.

By looking to the papers that your Mr. Mothercountry sent to

you at an early stage of our correspondence, with the pas-

sages marked which exhibit colonial hostility to what he called

my “scheme,” you will find that the colonists, especially in

New South Wales, bitterly complain of the plan of selling

public land by auction. Their objections to it are identical

with mine, as you will see by my next letter.

Letter LI.

From the Colonist.

Further Objections to the Plan of Selling Waste Land by

Auction. — Advantages of a Fixed Uniform Price.

There are seven other and very grave objections to the plan

of selling by auction. 1. Auction fails altogether in its object

unless, by means of competition, it produces for some land a

higher price than the upset price. Supposing the upset price

to be a sufficient price as regards scarcity of labour, then all

that auction produces above that price, is so much capital

unnecessarily taken from the settlers. If, by means of the up-

set price, care is taken that nobody obtains land for less than

the sufficient price, then all excess above that price is a use-

less and mischievous tax on colonization. More than the suf-

ficient price, the government never ought to obtain by any

means. When, further, the government does obtain by means

of competition at auction more than the sufficient price, the

excess is the profit on his investment which the settler would

have made if he had bought at the upset price: and the gov-

ernment, instead of letting this profit go into the pocket of the

settler sooner or later after the sale, puts it into its own pocket

at the time of the sale. Now, one of the greatest encourage-

ments of colonization is the prospect which the settler has of

making a profit by his investment in the purchase of land.

First, then, by unnecessarily diminishing the capital of the

settler even before he begins to settle, and, secondly, by de-

priving him of the prospect of enjoying himself the benefit of

future competition for his land, the government, when it ef-

fectually sells by auction, very effectually discourages the

emigration of capitalists and impedes the progress of coloni-

zation.

2. In order that auction should be effectual, time must be given

for the growth of competition: a sale by auction, whether in

this country or in a colony, would be absurd without ample

notice by advertisement. Intending purchasers, therefore, must

wait some time for the announced day of sale. But for set-

tlers, and especially for new emigrants, all waiting is full of

mischief, being the parent of idleness, inertness, and despon-

dency; often of hard-drinking, to drown the care of suspense

and hope delayed. No tongue can tell what injury this waiting

for a sale by auction has inflicted on settlers in our newest

colonies.

3. As well before as after the government has declared its

intention of laying a district open to purchase, intending pur-

chasers take great pains, and incur no little trouble and cost,

in selecting the spots of land, which, for some reason or other,

generally on account of their peculiar suitableness to the set-

tlers’ purpose, they prefer to other spots. When the sale takes

place, therefore, many an intending purchaser is bent on ob-

taining a particular lot or lots. This at least would always

happen if the land were not sold by auction. For when it is

sold by auction, the intending purchaser of a particular lot is

apt to be outbid beyond his means. When this happens (and

nothing is more common), the settler does not realize his

choice at all: the time, and exertion, and money which he has

spent on selection, are thrown away: and he has to repeat the

process, with very likely the same result over again. At last,

perhaps, the settler is deprived of all freedom of choice, be-

ing compelled to take land which he does not prefer, or to

which he has strong objections. I suspect that this occurs in

even a majority of cases. How the probability, or only the

risk of it, must discourage the attendance of intending pur-

chasers at auction sales, is sufficiently obvious.

104

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

4. In his anxiety to obtain the land on which his heart is set,

the settler is apt to bid beyond his means; and when the lot is

knocked down to him, he is incapable of using it. The impov-

erishment of the settler by means of obtaining the lot which

he has selected, is a common occurrence: the utter ruin of

settlers by this means is not very uncommon.

5. Under the auction plan, the honest industrious settler is

liable to be plundered by jobbing and roguery of various sorts.

The official surveyors, by means of information obtained

whilst they were making the survey, have it in their power to

job; and under our system of colonial government, official

surveyors are capable of jobbing in the very souls of their

parents and children. Officials of all sorts who can obtain

from the surveyors’ reports superior information as to the

varying qualities of the land, can job if they please, and do

job most wofully. The speculating capitalist can job, by means

of his command of money. The bond fide settler, the man

ready and anxious to lay out his money in land and improve-

ments upon it, has to buy off these harpies. Often, when his

means are insufficient for that purpose, they sell him the land

on credit at an exorbitant price, and ruin him by means of the

heavy interest. In America, the inherent evils of mere job-

bing at the auction sales are moderated by an occasional ad-

ministration of Lynch law: a speculator who attends the sale

for the mere purpose of harassing and so robbing the good

settler, runs some risk of being shot; besides, in America,

where the great quantity of land always offered for sale pre-

vents competition save for peculiarly eligible spots, the in-

herent evils of jobbing at auction sales are less than in our

colonies. There, the quantity having been generally limited

with an express view to competition, and the auction plan not

having lasted long enough to suggest the employment of Lynch

law, mere jobbing in public land at the auction sales has been

a cruel oppression of the settler class.

6. Competition at auction-sales gives rise to unneighbourly

and vindictive feelings among the settlers. The man who is

partially ruined by a neighbour’s running him up at a sale,

never forgets the injury, and his children inherit the rancour

so occasioned. The auction sales in our colonies have pro-

duced a large stock of envious and revengeful passions in

many a neighbourhood, where, colonization being the busi-

ness of the people, feelings of kindness and a disposition to

help one’s neighbour would be sedulously encouraged by a

really colonizing government.

7. And lastly, the plan of auction is very unpopular in the

colonies, excepting of course amongst the harpy class, who

by means of it prey on the class of true colonists. To the class

of true colonists it is invariably and grievously hurtful. They

continually and loudly complain of it; and the maintenance

of it in spite of their complaints is a most offensive and tyran-

nical exercise of the despotic authority by which our colonies

are governed.

Continually for years, these reasons against auction have been

pressed on the notice of the Colonial Office, and especially

of the present Colonial Minister, but without the least effect;

or rather, I should say, with only a bad effect. For Lord Grey,

who is the parent of the auction nuisance in our colonies,

loves it as a mother does her rickety child, all the more when

its deformities are pointed out. His affection for it has at length

become so strong, that arguments against it put him into a

rage; and to all such arguments he virtually replies, never by

counter-arguments, if any such there are, but by expressions

of sulky obstinacy which remind one of the American help’s

answer to the bell—“the more you ring, the more I won’t

come.” And such things can be, because, unavoidably, there

is no public in this country that cares about the colonies.

The mode of selling to which auction has been preferred, is

that of allowing settlers to take land at pleasure on paying a

fixed uniform price, which should of course be the sufficient

price. The price being sufficient, fixed, and uniform, the set-

tler would pay to the government the purchase money of as

many acres as he wanted, and would take the land without

further ado. He would pay the sufficient price, but no more.

He would retain for use the whole of his capital, except the

indispensable price of his land. Whatever increased value

future competition might put upon his land, would belong to

him. Land-buying—in other words emigration and settle-

ment—would thus be greatly promoted. The settler would

not be kept waiting an hour for anything, after having chosen

the spot of land he would best like to acquire. He would real-

ize his own choice, without being injured or harassed, or even

frightened by jobbing speculators. Nothing would happen to

disturb his kindly feelings towards his neighbour; and he

would not, for anything in the mode of selling public land,

hate his government. The plan of a fixed and uniform price,

is free from all the objections to auction.

You will ask how, with a fixed and uniform price, competi-

tion between two or more settlers for the same piece of land,

would be determined. By letting first come be first served.

The man who first paid his purchase-money into the land-

office and designated the spot of his choice, would get that

spot, though a hundred men should afterwards apply for it.

The hundred would be told that it was already sold. But two

or more men might apply for the same spot at the same time:

yes, possibly in the abstract, but really almost never, if, as

clearly ought to be the case, the quantity of land always open

to purchasers were so ample as to be practically unlimited.

Now and then, however, such a thing might happen as two or

more men entering the land-oifice at the same moment and

applying for the same spot. On the occurrence of this rare

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A View of the Art of Colonization

event, the competition would be determined by letting the

applicants draw lots for the preference. This mode of deter-

mining the competition is so simple and so perfectly fair, that

nobody could mistake its operation, or feel that it had done

him the least injustice. But there are objectors, official advo-

cates of auction, with Lord Grey at their head, who say that

drawing lots for the preference would be a lottery, and would

promote a spirit of gambling amongst purchasers. The reply

is, first that the occasion for drawing lots would scarcely ever

happen; secondly, that even if it happened frequently, it would

not operate like a lottery, because the necessity of having re-

course to it would occur accidentally, without design on the

part of the competitors, and the competition would not last

five minutes; thirdly, that if a gambling spirit were promoted

by the frequent drawing of lots among competitors for the

same piece of land at the same moment, the evil would be

incalculably less than that of all the villanies and cruelties of

the auction, which is the only possible alternative of the fixed

price. But in practice, I repeat, the drawing of lots would hardly

ever occur; and when it did, it would be wanting in those

properties of a lottery which cultivate the gambling spirit.

The lottery argument against a fixed price is of that class,

which Single-speech Hamilton advises us to employ when

we want to give an odious appearance to the proposal of our

adversary.

I must point out, however, that although, as a rule, two people

would hardly ever apply for the same bit of land at the same

moment, exceptional occasions do arise in which the draw-

ing of lots does partake in some measure of the gambling

character of a lottery. This happens when a considerable num-

ber of people are about to emigrate for the purpose of plant-

ing a new settlement, and when they pay here a fixed price

per acre for land that they have not seen. They pay not for

land, but for a right to take land when they reach the colony.

In the exercise of this right, it would be impossible to adopt

the principle of first come first served; because all the pur-

chasers have already come; they are all present together; and

every one of them wishes to have first choice in the selection

of land. An order of choice, therefore, must be determined

somehow. For the right to choose pieces of land, out of a

quantity which the purchaser has not yet seen, experience has

proved, as a moment’s reflection would suggest, that people

cannot be induced to bid against each other at auction: either

they will not buy at all, or they will only pay a price not ex-

ceeding what they believe will be the value of the least valu-

able spot of the land to be hereafter distributed amongst them.

This must necessarily be a known, fixed, and uniform price.

When they have paid this price, the question arises, who is to

choose first, who second, and so on? If anybody knows how

this question can be determined with perfect fairness to all

parties, except by letting the purchasers draw lots for priority

of choice, he has discovered what has escaped the earnest

research of many ingenious minds. According to our present

knowledge, we must either use this method of determining

priority of choice, or we must renounce the practice—a prac-

tice which has founded South Australia and four Settlements

in New Zealand—of founding settlements by means of sell-

ing land in this country to the first body of intending colo-

nists. That in such case the drawing of lots is a kind of lottery,

is obvious; but it is a lottery without blanks, however high the

prizes may be; and finally) so far as there is evil in it, it is like

many other cases in which priorities are determined by lot,

or, like most of the steps which man takes with a view to

good results, an imperfect means of doing what could not be

done with as little admixture of evil, or perhaps at all, by any

other means. This, I suppose is the view of the subject taken

by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as president of the

new Association for founding a settlement in New Zealand,

has given his high moral sanction to the plan of drawing lots

in cases of necessity.

Letter LII.

From the Colonist.

Lord Grey’s Confusion of Ideas Respecting the Objects

with Which a Price Should Be Required for New Land.—

Another Objection to a Uniform Price for Waste Land,

with the Colonist’s Answer to It.

The uniformity of a fixed price has been objected to, on sev-

eral grounds.

First, says Lord Grey, as land is of different qualities with

respect to fertility and the probability of future advantages of

position, it ought to fetch different prices. Why “ought”? The

only reason given is the “woman’s reason”—“Because it

ought.” What does “ought” mean in this case? Do we owe

any duty to the land, that commands us to make it fetch dif-

ferent prices because it varies in quality? . Is there any person

to whom we owe this duty? Verily, if we were selling land in

this country—either our own land for ourselves, or some-

body else’s land for him, or crown land for the public—we

should be bound to obtain the highest possible price, and of

course to require a higher price for the more valuable por-

tions. But that is because in this country, all the land being

appropriated, the sole object in selling always is to get the

highest price: whereas in a colony, under the circumstances

in question, the object would be only to get the sufficient

price; and it would be an important object to avoid taking

more than that out of any buyer’s pocket. Confusion of ideas

is at the bottom of all these notions about the expediency of

auction, or some other way of getting a price for colonial

waste land in proportion to its present or probable value. The

totally different circumstances of the colony and the old coun-

try—the totally different objects with which landed property

is sold here and would be sold there—are so confounded in

Lord Grey’s mind, that he unconsciously applies old-country

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

rules to the colonial question. His “ought” really means that

selling land for its market value is the only mode of selling

land, as respects both objects and means, to which his mind

is accustomed, and which he is able to comprehend. With

equal truth, a predecessor of his might have written to the

Governor of Upper Canada, “I send you water casks for the

fleet on Ontario, because my familiar ideas on the subjects of

fleets and water assure me that all water which bears a fleet

must be salt.” On further reflection, it is rather to ignorance

about the colonies—to the absence of colonial ideas at the

Colonial Office—than to official confusion of colonial and

old-country ideas, that such unhappy mistakes would be most

justly attributed.

The second objection to a uniform price is, that if the price

were sufficient, land of very inferior quality, as respects ei-

ther fertility or position, would not be bought at all. Certainly

it would not be bought if it were so inferior as to be, accord-

ing to the market value of the cheapest land in the colony,

worth less than the sufficient price. But the inferiority of po-

sition would not last long. The progress of settlement around

and beyond such neglected spots, would soon confer advan-

tages of position upon them. Roads would be made near or

through them. Population and the average value of land would

increase around them. In time, unless they were so sterile by

nature as to be what we term here land not worth reclaiming,

new facilities of improving them—of conveying all sorts of

things between them and the town—and the increased value

of all land in their neighbourhood, would make them worth

the sufficient price; and then they would be bought. Mean-

while, they would be used for pasturage: for, as I shall ex-

plain presently, it is contrary to the principle of a sufficient

price for freehold land, to put any price upon the use of land

for pasturage only. But if these spots were so sterile and so

out of the way, like the barren tops of mountains, as not to be

worth cultivating under any circumstances, they would never

be sold, but always used, if fit even for that, as runs for cattle

and sheep during the time of year when some grass will grow

almost everywhere except on bare rock. If they were not even

fit for that, they would never be used at all. And what then?

Why, these barren, out-of-the-way spots would only resemble

similar spots in old countries, which nature has condemned

to uselessness for ages. To perpetual uselessness, nature has

probably not condemned a morsel of the earth’s surface. But

now, observe that the time at which land of inferior fertility

and position increased in value, would come very much

sooner, and the degree of increased value for the worst of

such land would be much greater, under a plan of coloniza-

tion which made labour plentiful, than under the usual scar-

city of labour. Roads would come sooner and be more nu-

merous; the cost of reclaiming waste land would be less, not

in consequence of lower wages (for wages might be higher

with than without the more productive employment of labour),

but in consequence of the greater power of combined and

constant labour; and the proportion of non-agricultural classes

to the agricultural class— or, in other words, the number of

local customers for the sellers of landed produce — would

be very much greater than it is now in any colony. Upon the

whole, then, it seems probable that if no land could be got for

less than the sufficient price, inferior land would become worth

that price sooner than, with scarcity of labour, it becomes

worth cultivating at all. If so, this objection to a uniform price

is converted into a recommendation: and if not, it is still not a

valid objection to the uniform price as part of a system, ex-

cept on the unreasonable supposition that inferior land would

probably be cultivated sooner under a system which makes

the cheapest land worth at market hardly anything, than un-

der one which would make all appropriated land worth at

least the sufficient price.

Letter LIII.

From the Colonist.

With a Sufficient Price for New Land, Profits and Wages

Would Be Higher, and Exports Greater, than Without It.

Some probable effects of the sufficient price must be briefly

noticed, before I come to two of them which demand particu-

lar explanation.

At first sight, it appears that wages would be lower and prof-

its higher than when land was superabundant and labour

scarce, because, of the whole produce of capital and labour,

the capitalist would pay less to the labourer and keep more

for himself: a greater competition for employment amongst

the labourers, no longer able to acquire land with great facil-

ity, would bring down wages and raise profits. And this would

really happen if the productiveness of industry remained un-

altered. But, really, inasmuch as the productiveness of indus-

try would be increased (to what extent one cannot tell, be-

cause what the energetic and intelligent, as well as combined

and constant labour of freemen can do with the virgin soils of

a new country has never yet been tried); inasmuch as the pro-

duce to be divided between the capitalist and the labourer

would be greater, both parties might obtain more than when

that produce was less. At all events, there would be far more

to divide. If the competition of labourers for employment

enabled the capitalist to keep the whole increase for himself,

the labourers would be dissatisfied, and the colony would

become unpopular with the labouring class at home; when it

would be seen that the competition of labourers in this colony

was too great, and the price of new land more than sufficient.

The produce being greater, it would always be for the advan-

tage of capitalists and the whole colony, that such a share of

the increase should go to the labourer, as would keep the

colony popular with the labouring class at home; and this

would always be secured, by taking care that the competition

of labourers for employment was never too great; in other

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A View of the Art of Colonization

words, that the price of new land was never more than suffi-

cient.

The produce of industry being greater in consequence of the

new facilities for combining labour, dividing employments,

and carrying on works which require long time for their

completion, everybody in the colony would be richer: and

the colony being able to export and import more, would be a

better customer of the mother-country.

Nevertheless, I suppose you to ask, although the sufficient

price prevented labourers from too soon turning into land-

owners, how would enough labourers be obtained? The suf-

ficient price does not provide for immigration of labour. If

the colony could depend for labour upon nothing but the in-

crease of people by births on the spot, it would be requisite to

make the sufficient price of land high enough to keep wages

down to an old-country rate, and to prevent most labourers

from ever becoming landowners. A colony so near to En-

gland as Canada, might obtain labourers by the immigration

of poor people at their own cost; but what would become of

the more distant colonies, South Africa, the four Australias,

Tasmania, and New Zealand? In the latter places, the coloni-

zation, or gradual settlement of the waste, would be of a good

sort, but would be extremely slow. The sufficient price alone,

provides only for civilized, not for rapid colonization.

I answer, that the sufficient price, by itself, would provide for

a more rapid colonization than has ever been seen in the world.

So bold an assertion requires careful proof. This rapidity of

colonization in consequence of the sufficient price is the first

of those effects of the sufficient price which demand particu-

lar explanation. I must, however, reserve it for another letter.

Letter LIV.

From the Colonist.

With a Sufficient Price for Waste Land, Capitalists Would

Obtain Labour by Means of Paying for the Emigration of

Poor People.

The price being sufficient to prevent labourers from turning

into landowners too soon, it would now be worth the while of

capitalists to procure labour from the mother-country at their

own cost; it would “pay” emigrating capitalists to take out

labourers along with them. And why? Because, now, all

labourers being under the necessity of remaining labourers

for some years, it would be possible, and not difficult, for

capitalists to enforce contracts for labour made in the mother-

country. Referring to a former letter, the temptation of the

labourer to quit the employer who had brought him to the

colony, would be no longer irresistible. With the very high

rate of wages that the importing employer of labour could

afford to pay, provided he could keep the labour he imported,

the cost of the labourer’s passage would be, as the saying is,

a mere flea-bite; an entity hardly worth taking into the calcu-

lation of his outgoings and incomings. The difference between

the wages that the importing and the non-importing capitalist

could afford to pay, would be so slight as to be without prac-

tical effect. The importing capitalist would be able, without

feeling it, to pay the same wages as the non-importing capi-

talist, and would be better able to keep the labourers he im-

ported, by treating them with kindness and consideration for

their human pride as well as their physical wants, than the

other would be to entice them away by the promise of such

treatment. In most cases, therefore, the non-importing capi-

talist would become an importing one: when it had become

easy to keep imported labour, the motives for importing labour,

instead of enticing it away from one’s neighbour who had

imported it, would be strong enough, in the great majority of

instances, to abolish the temptation to this kind of robbery:

and if some would-be robbers remained, they would be pre-

vented by the frowns of society from doing so great a wrong

to their neighbour for so small a gain to themselves. Upon the

whole, therefore, I think that the inducements to the importa-

tion of labour by capitalists would be as great as they are in

Brazil and Cuba; perhaps greater, if we consider the superi-

ority of free to slave labour, as respects the power of produc-

tion. At the least, there would be a great deal of inducement

of the same kind, in regard to the paying by capitalists for the

passage of labourers, as that which, if no impediments were

put in the way of its operations, would probably, land con-

tinuing dirt cheap and labour for hire almost unknown in

America, convey a million of negro slaves from Africa to

America in the course of every year. If free imported labour

could be kept in our colonies, I can see no limit to the prob-

able amount of labour-emigration by means of the payment

of the labourer’s passage by his future employer. For the im-

porters of labour, in the case supposed, would be not only

capitalists within the colony, but capitalists emigrating to the

colony, who, feeling that they should be able to enforce in the

colony a contract for labour made at home, would take along

with them the labour which they expected to require, and

would send for more if more should be required: and assur-

edly, the economical attraction of being able to keep labour

for hire in the colonies, would (provided always the political

evils were removed) lead to an emigration of capitalists and

capital, to the extent of which it would be difficult to assign a

probable limit. If labourers and capitalists poured into the

colony at the rate which seems probable under the circum-

stances supposed, colonization would be very rapid as well

as good in kind, or civilized: and the sole cause of the whole

improvement would be the sufficient price.

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Letter LV.

From the Colonist.

The Sufficient Price Produces Money Incidentally. —

What Should Be Done with the Purchase Money of New

Land? — Several Effects of Using the Purchase Money

as a Fund for Defraying the Cost of Emigration.

I proceed to the second effect of the sufficient price, which

requires particular explanation.

The sufficient price would bring money into the colonial ex-

chequer. If it were in full operation throughout our colonies,

it would produce a vast deal of money; for the sale of waste

land in the United States at a price little more than nominal

(4s. 7½d. an acre) produces about a million sterling a year,

and has produced, in one year of unusual speculation, as much

as four millions, or more than the whole annual expenditure

of the federal government at that time. The question arises

then, what should be done Avith the money produced by the

sufficient price? And in the whole art of colonization, there is

no question of more importance.

The putting of money into the colonial exchequer would not

have been designed by the government.

The getting of money by the government would be a result of

selling land instead of giving it away: but as the only object

of selling instead of giving is one totally distinct from that of

producing revenue— namely, to prevent labourers from turn-

ing into landowners too soon—the pecuniary result would be

unintended, one might almost say unexpected. So completely

is production of revenue a mere incident of the price of land,

that the price ought to be imposed, if it ought to be imposed

under any circumstances, even though the purchase-money

were thrown away. This last proposition is the sharpest test to

which the theory of a sufficient price can be submitted; but if

it will not stand this test—if the proposition is not true— the

theory is false. Assuming it not to be false, the money arising

from the sale of land is a fund raised without a purpose, un-

avoidably, incidentally, almost accidentally. It is a fund, there-

fore, without a destination. There would be no undertaking,

no tacit obligation even, on the part of the government to

dispose of the fund in any particular way. It is an unappropri-

ated fund, which the state or government may dispose of as it

pleases without injustice to anybody. If the fund were ap-

plied to paying off the public debt of the empire, nobody could

complain of injustice, because every colony as a whole, and

the buyers of land in particular, would still enjoy all the in-

tended and expected benefits of the imposition of a sufficient

price upon new land: if the fund were thrown into the sea as it

accrued, there would still be no injustice, and no reason against

producing the fund in that way.

If this reasoning is correct, the government would be at lib-

erty to cast about for the most beneficial mode of disposing

of the fund. Upon that point, I do not pretend to offer an

opinion: but if the object were the utmost possible increase

of the population, wealth, and greatness of our empire, then I

can have no doubt that the revenue accruing from the sale of

waste land, would be called an emigration-fund, and be ex-

pended in conveying poor people of the labouring class from

the mother-country to the colonies. Let us see what would be

the principal effects of that disposition of the purchase-money

of waste land.

1. It would no longer be desirable for colonial or emigrating

capitalists to lay out money directly in taking labour, to the

colony; but they would do so indirectly when, by purchasing

land, they contributed to the emigration-fund. They would

see, more distinctly than if the purchase-money of land were

not an emigration fund, that in paying the sufficient price for

land they purchased labour as well as land; they would pay

the sufficient price more cheerfully; and the working of the

plan of colonization would be better understood, and the plan

itself more popular, both in the colonies and in the mother-

country: points of great importance with a view to getting

into quick and full operation a system so novel, and so much

at variance with common ideas about the disposal of waste

land in colonies.

2. If the price were sufficient, even though the purchase-money

should be thrown away, there would always be in the colony

a supply of labour corresponding with the demand; but if the

immigration of labour were only spontaneous, the progress

of colonization how much soever faster than if new land were

too cheap and the capitalist had no motive for directly im-

porting labour, would be slower than if every purchase of

land necessarily brought labour into the colony. Coloniza-

tion would be improved both in kind and pace by imposing

the sufficient price; but its pace would be prodigiously accel-

erated by using the purchase-money as an emigration-fund.

If the emigration-fund were judiciously expended, emigrat-

ing capitalists would be allowed to take out with them, free

of cost, such labourers as they might expect to require in the

colony. They would have indeed, when they bought waste

land in the colony, to contribute to the emigration-fund; but

as their land would bear a market value equal at least to what

they pajd for it, they would really get the labour for nothing.

This, and the opportunity of selecting the labour here, would

induce many a capitalist to emigrate who might not other-

wise think of doing so. I am speaking now, as much from

experience as from reason, having been convinced, even by

very imperfect and much-impeded experiments in the found-

ing of South Australia and New Zealand, that the class of

emigrating capitalists set a high value on the opportunity of

engaging labourers here and taking them out free of cost. In

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A View of the Art of Colonization

this way, then, both capitalists and labourers would go to the

colony, in greater numbers than if the purchase-money were

not used as an emigration-fund; but in how much greater num-

bers, experience telleth not, and would only tell when the

whole system was in real and full operation after the political

impediments to colonization had been removed.

3. But some notion of what would then be the rate of coloni-

zation, may be formed by observing another effect of turning

purchase-money into emigration-fund. Every sale of land

would produce a corresponding amount of immigration.

Emigrants would pour into the colony at a rate of which there

has been no example in the settlement of new countries. Some

idea of what that rate would be when the plan was in full

operation, may be formed by comparing what took place in

South Australia, Australia Felix, and the New Zealand

Company’s Settlements, with what has happened when colo-

nies were founded without an emigration-fund. Although in

the cases mentioned, the price of land was by no means suffi-

cient, the amount of immigration in proportion to appropri-

ated land was, to speak much within compass, twenty times

greater than in any case where spontaneous emigration was

alone relied upon for peopling the colony. I should not won-

der to see it fifty times greater under the whole plan, not

thwarted, but sustained by authority. 4. But whatever might

be the amount of emigration caused by using the purchase-

money of land as a fund for taking poor people to the colony,

it would cause a different proportion between land and people

from that which would take place if the purchasemoney were

any otherwise employed: the proportion of population to ap-

propriated land would be very much greater in the one case

than in the other. From this it follows, that the price of waste

land, which would be only sufficient if the purchase-money

were not used for emigration, would be excessive if it were

so used. Suppose that without an emigration-fund, £5 per acre

proved the sufficient price; that is, neither too much nor too

little. But that means neither too much nor too little for a

certain proportion of people to land, emigration not being

promoted by a public fund. Now apply the emigration-fund.

So many more people go to the colony, that the proportion of

people to land is greatly increased. The price of £5 was just

sufficient for the old proportion: it is excessive under the new

proportion. If under the old proportion, it just prevented

labourers from becoming landowners too soon, under the new

one it would prevent them from doing so soon enough. By

causing an excessive proportion of people to land, it would

bring down wages, do a wrong to the labouring emigrants,

and render the colony unpopular with that class at home. Then

would be seen a necessity for altering the price; for lowering

it from what just sufficed without an emigration-fund, to what

would just suffice with one. The general conclusion is, that a

less price would be sufficient if the purchase-money were,

than if it were not devoted to emigration.

With an emigration-fund, therefore, the new land would be

cheaper; and the cheaper waste land is in a colony, provided

it is dear enough to prevent a mischievous scarcity of labour,

the more are people of all classes at home induced to select

that colony for their future home. The emigration-fund, be-

sides enabling poor people to go to the colony, and attracting

capitalists by enabling them to take labourers along with them,

would provide for all classes the attraction of cheaper land

than if there were no emigration-fund. Altogether, the effect

of devoting the purchase-money of land to emigration, would

be to accelerate immensely the rate of colonization, and to

augment more quickly than by any other disposition of the

fund, the population, wealth, and greatness of the empire.

5. A particular effect of devoting the purchasemoney to emi-

gration remains to be noticed; and a very pleasing effect it

would be. The term of the labourer’s service for hire would

be shorter; the time when he might turn into a landowner with

advantage to the whole colony, would come sooner. Suppose

£5 were the sufficient price without an emigration-fund, and

£2 with one. With new land at £5 an acre, the emigrant

labourers might, always on the average, have to work ten years

for wages before they could buy enough land to set up upon

as masters: with new land at £2 an acre, they could become

landowners and masters at the end of four years. These fig-

ures are entirely hypothetical; and what the real difference

would prove to be I do not pretend to say; but manifestly it

would be very considerable. It is a difference which should

be strongly impressed on the mind of the colonizing legisla-

tor; for a perception of it teaches that the devotion of the

purchase-money to emigration, besides being the disposition

of the landfund most conducive to the increase of population

and imperial wealth and greatness, would powerfully tend to

render the whole system popular with the working classes,

and, in particular, to prevent them from objecting to the

groundwork of the system, which is the sufficient price.

Letter LVI.

From the Statesman.

Mr. Mothercountry Objects to the Sufficient Price, That

it Would Put a Stop to the Sale of Waste Land.

I have a pleasure in being able to inform you, that your plan

of land-selling and emigration is now as clear to me, as it was

lately involved in a sort of mysterious obscurity. Now, at least,

I understand it. I see too, that my Mr. Mothercquntry, upon

whom I can make no impression by repeating your exposi-

tion of the plan, has never understood it. And no wonder ; for

it is plain that he has never tried to understand it, and is still

unwilling to be taught. On this subject, he is a striking ex-

ample of the proverb about wilful deafness.

However, amongst the foolish objections which he makes to

the plan, and which I was able to dispose of myself, there is

110

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

one which I was incapable of meeting. You shall have it in his

own words, so far at least as I am now able to avoid falling

into your manner of writing on this subject. He said: “Admit-

ting, as I am far from doing, that the plan would work in a

colony founded according to it, it is wholly inapplicable to

the present colonies; and after the turmoil occasioned by these

amateur colonizers in the SouthAustralian and New Zealand

affairs, we are not likely to let them get up any more colonies.

In a colony already established, the plan could not work, be-

cause the only effect of the ‘sufficient price’ would be to put

a complete stop to the sale of waste land. It would have this

effect, because in all these colonies, for years and years to

come, land already appropriated will be extremely cheap. My

own opinion is (and I hold the faith in common with Adam

Smith, and all other economists who wrote before this new

light broke upon the world), that land in a colony ought to be

extremely cheap; the cheaper the better: but be that as it may,

to sell dear land in a colony where there is plenty of cheap

land, would be simply impossible. An effect of the old plan

of colonizing (which I think a good effect produced by a good

plan) is to make it impossible, that the new plan should have

any effect but that of completely preventing further coloniza-

tion. In most of the colonies, not an acre would be sold for

ages at this nonsensical sufficient price. This scheme of a

sufficient price, take it at the best, is an impracticable theory.

Allow me to say, that I am surprised to see a person of your

understanding waste his time on such a whimsey.”

Letter LVII.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Examines Me. Mothercountry’s Proposi-

tion, That the Sufficient Price Would Put a Stop to Sales

of Land.— Suggestion of Loans for Emigration to Be

Raised on the Security of Future Sales.

Your Mr. Mothercountry’s objection would show, that he un-

derstands the sufficient price better than you have been led to

suppose. I could explain the state of his mind on the subject;

but it is not worth while. On one point I quite agree with him.

The Colonial Office will easily prevent the foundation of any

more colonies. Amongst those who, of late years, have tor-

mented the Colonial Office by founding colonies, there is not

one that could be persuaded to take part in another enterprise

of the kind; so effectually has the Colonial Office, by tor-

menting them in its turn, disgusted them with such work. As

most of them are public men of more or less mark, or topping

London merchants, their dread of having anything to do with

the Colonial Office has so far become a general feeling, that

I can only wonder at the recent formation of a society for

planting a fresh settlement in New Zealand. The time, how-

ever, is not distant when these latest amateurs of colonization

will be as sick of the pursuit as the others have long been. But

this is becoming a digression.

In his objection to the sufficient price, your Mr. Mothercountry

is both right and wrong in supposing, that no public land at

all would be sold in the case which he puts. No public land

would be sold to people of the labouring class; none to any-

body whose object was to get land as cheap as possible. But

however high the price of public land, and however great the

excess of appropriated land, there would be spots in the un-

appropriated territory enjoying, or likely to enjoy, peculiar

advantages of position, which speculators would buy with a

view to selling their land again. I allude to such spots as the

mouths of rivers, the shores of harbours, and other good natural

sites of towns, which it might “pay” to buy, even though the

district surrounding them were only used for pasturage or

lumbering, and remained for some time unappropriated. By

degrees, a certain town population growing in these spots,

the land in their immediate vicinity would acquire a position-

value above the sufficient price, and Avould be sold accord-

ingly. In a like manner, if a good road were made through the

wilderness, between a harbour and one of these spots in the

interior, much of the land on both sides of the road would

acquire a position-value above the sufficient price, and would

then be sold. Again, in various spots throughout an unappro-

priated pastoral district, sheep and cattle farmers would be

glad to buy, at almost any price, enough ground for a home-

stead and some cultivation around it. I perceive many other

cases in which public land would be sold, notwithstanding

that its price was higher than the price of the cheapest appro-

priated land; but these examples suffice for exhibiting the

principle of such sales. The principle is, that position-value

would not be affected by the sufficient price, but would be

just the same, wherever it occurred, whether the sufficient

price were high or low. This value would generally exceed

the highest conceivable sufficient price; and whenever it did,

the land would be bought at the sufficient price, whatever

that might be. I am inclined to think, that although the suffi-

cient price was high enough to prevent the sale of any land

not enjoying a value of position, position-value would con-

tinually spread into and along the nearest boundaries of un-

appropriated districts; and that thus considerable sales of

public land would take place, and a considerable emigration-

fund would be obtained, notwithstanding the great cheapness

of the cheapest appropriated land. In some colonies, such as

New Zealand, where the quantity of appropriated land is not

yet monstrously excessive, an emigration-fund would soon

accrue; and the outlay of the emigration-fund, by pouring

people into the colony, would soon raise the value of the cheap-

est private land to an equality with the price of public land.

So far, then, I think Mr. Mothercountry in the wrong.

On the other hand, I fully agree with him, that where private

land is monstrously superabundant, the sufficient price would,

for a long while, stop the sale of all public land not possess-

ing or acquiring a position-value. But, as he ought to have

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A View of the Art of Colonization

told you, I have always been aware of this difficulty, and have

suggested various means of overcoming it.

The first suggestion is, that future sales should be anticipated,

by the raising of loans on the security of such sales; and that

the money should be laid out on emigration. This would be

useful in the case of a new settlement, because the first emi-

grants might be loath to pay the sufficient price until the spot

was in some measure peopled: it is indispensable, with the

view of bestowing the advantages of the whole plan on a

colony, where the old practice of granting land with profu-

sion has made the cheapest land extremely cheap. In the case

of a new settlement, if the government peopled its land first,

and sold it afterwards, it would sell it more readily than if it

sold it first and peopled it afterwards. In the case of an old

colony, where private land was extremely superabundant, the

anticipation of future sales of public land, by raising money

for emigration on that security, would alter the proportion of

people to land in the appropriated territory, according to the

scale on which this mode of proceeding was adopted. If

enough people were thus conveyed to the appropriated terri-

tory to raise the price of the cheapest land there up to the

price of public land, this part of the colony would be as well

supplied with labour for hire, as it would have been origi-

nally if it had been founded on the plan of a sufficient price

employed as an emigration-fund. But then, objectors have

said, future sales of public land being anticipated, when these

sales took place, the purchase-money, instead of being de-

voted to emigration, must be employed in paying off the loans;

and for this part of the colony there would be no emigration-

fund. Truly; but, in that case either an emigration-fund would

not then be needed, or there would be a perfect equivalent for

one as respects the goodness at least of the colonization. At a

certain stage in the course of colonizing a waste country, and

long before all the waste land is disposed of, it becomes most

inexpedient to introduce more people from the mother-coun-

try; quite necessary to keep the remaining waste for the pur-

poses of the colonial population, now very numerous and al-

ways rapidly increasing by births and spontaneous emigra-

tion. From that time forth, of course, the purchasemoney of

public land would first go to pay off the previous loans for

emigration, and then form part of the general colonial rev-

enue. But if this stage were not yet reached—if an emigra-

tion-fund were needed, but could not be got—then it would

be necessary, from that time forth, to go on settling the wil-

derness without an emigration-fund, and to raise the price of

public land up to what would be sufficient, the purchase-

money not being devoted to emigration. In either case, the

principle of the sufficient price would be maintained; scar-

city of labour would be prevented. This result, however, would

not be obtained in the earlier stage of colonization, unless the

scale of borrowing for emigration, on the security of future

sales, were sufficient to supply in the appropriated territory

whatever might be the demand for labour. On private land,

the sufficient price would not be imposed by law. Therefore,

until emigration raised the price of the cheapest private land

up to that of public land, emigrant labourers would be able to

obtain land for less than the sufficient price: and in this case,

there might be a scarcity of labour, but not if emigration were

on a great enough scale to put a labourer in the place of him

who had become a landowner too soon. With emigration, in-

deed, proceeding and promised as to the future on this scale,

few would be the owners of land who would be induced to

part with an acre of their property for less than the price of

public land. The future sales of public land being sufficiently

anticipated, the future value of private land would be, as it

were, sufficiently anticipated likewise, by the unwillingness

of the owners to sell for less than a price which at no distant

day they would feel sure of obtaining. If so (but all, I repeat,

would depend on the scale of emigration, actual and provided

for), there would never be a vacuum in the labour-market for

emigration to fill up: the evil would be prevented by the cer-

tainty of a remedy being at hand in case of need.

Letter LVIII.

From the Colonist.

Suggestion of a Further Means for Enabling the Suffi-

cient Price of Public Land to Work Well in Colonies

Where Private Land Is Greatly Superabundant and Very

Cheap.

But now let us suppose the case (which is that put by Mr.

Mothercountry) of a colony in which land was greatly super-

abundant, but nothing at all was done to remedy the past pro-

fusion of the government in granting land. In this case, the

putting of a price on new land would do good to nobody. The

price whatever its amount, would not be “sufficient” for the

only legitimate end of putting any price on mere waste. In

this case, then, the putting of a pretended sufficient price on

new land is a useless impediment to the further appropriation

of land in peculiarly eligible spots as these are discovered, a

foolish check to colonizing enterprise, and a mischievous de-

duction from the capital of the pioneers of settlement. But

this, which has been here supposed, is exactly what we do in

New South Wales and some other colonies. In these actual

cases, the price of public land, as an alleged means of doing

some good, is a pretence or a delusion: the design of it is a

pretence; the result of it is a delusion; the reality is nothing

but a taxing of colonization for revenue. Do me the favour to

ask Mr. Mothercountry if he knows of a worse species of

taxation for colonies.

But it is easy to conceive another case, in which the govern-

ment should be really desirous of giving full effect to the whole

plan, but want means to pour into the colony enough people

to raise the price of the cheapest private land up to the price

of public land. The inability would consist of the want of a

112

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

sufficient emigration-fund. The future sales of public land

would not be deemed by capitalists a security valuable enough

to warrant the advance on loan of all the money required. In

this case, the cheapest private land being too cheap, labourers

taken to the colony would too soon turn into landowners; and

their place in the labour market would not be immediately

filled by other emigrants. There might exist all the evils of

scarcity of labour, notwithstanding a high price for public

land, and some emigration by means of loans raised on the

security of future sales.

If I have made the nature of the evil clear, you will readily

perceive what kind of remedy would be appropriate. The

object is to raise the price of the cheapest private, up to that

of public land. With this view, numerous modes of proceed-

ing have been suggested. Amongst these is, what they call in

America, a “wild-land tax.” This is a tax upon private land

because it remains waste; a species of fine imposed on the

owner for being a dog in the manger; for neither using his

land nor selling it to somebody who would use it. This tax

makes effectual war upon the nuisance of unoccupied, in the

midst of occupied private land; but it tends to lower instead

of raising the price of land, by forbidding landowners to wait

before they sell for an expected time of higher prices. This

tax, therefore, is most inapplicable to the object now in view.

Another tax proposed with a view to that object, is one in-

tended to have the effect of preventing owners of private land

from selling at less than the price of public land. This would

be a tax upon private sales below the public price, sufficient

in amount, in each case respectively, to raise the buying price

up to the public price. If, for example, the public price were

£2 an acre, and the land were sold at £1, the buyer would

have to pay 1£ more to the government, paying in all £2; that

is, the public price. In two different ways, this tax would con-

duce to the end contemplated. First, it would prevent emi-

grant labourers from getting land too soon : secondly, it would

provide an additional security on which to raise loans for

emigration. In theory, this tax is unobjectionable: the effect

of it would be to apply to private land after mischievously

excessive appropriation, the whole principle of a sufficient

price and loans for emigration as applied to waste land be-

fore appropriation. But I fear that this tax would not work in

practice: it would, I think, be too easily evaded; for though

government can prevent people from putting a value on some-

thing, less than the real one, by taking the thing off their hands

at their own false valuation (as is done with respect to im-

ported goods liable to ad valorem duty on importation), still

I do not see how, in the supposed case, the buyer and the

seller could be hindered from to pretend, that the price at

which they dealt was equal to the price of public land though

really far below it: and whenever they succeeded in making

this pretence pass as a reality, they would evade the tax. The

facility of evasion would be great; the temptation strong; not

to mention the roguery which the practice of evasion would

involve and render customary.

We are driven, therefore, to a kind of taxation which would

neither be liable to evasion, nor so perfectly fitted to the ob-

ject in view. This is a tax on all sales of private land acquired

before the institution of the sufficient price for public land;

and the devotion of the proceeds of the tax to emigration,

either directly in defraying the cost of passage for labouring

people, or indirectly as an additional security on which to

raise emigration-loans. The tax might be either ad valorem;

so much per cent, that is, upon the purchasemoney of every

sale: or it might be, what would much better agree with the

object of the tax, a uniform sum per acre equal to the acreable

price of public land. Thus if the price of public land were £2,

the purchaser of 100 acres of private land, at whatever price,

would have to pay £200 to the government as a contribution

to the emigration-fund. It would be requisite to make the pur-

chaser liable, because the seller, having got his money, might

evade the tax; whereas the purchaser could be made to pay

the tax or forfeit the land. Or rather, probably, the best mode

of levying the tax would be a good system of registration,

under which payment of the tax would be a condition of valid

title. Whatever the mode, however, of preventing evasion of

the tax, when due, the imposition of this tax on the first sale

of any land after the law came into force (but of course not on

any subsequent sale of that land) would be to put the suffi-

cient price upon all the land of the colony, with this only dif-

ference between public and private land, that in one case the

price would be paid before, and in the other sooner or later,

after appropriation.

I see one way, and only one, in which this tax could be evaded.

Labourers wishing to get land, but unable or unwilling to pay

the tax in addition to the purchasemoney, might induce pro-

prietors to let land to them on so long a lease as to make the

tenure equal in value to freehold, or at all events on such a

tenure as would serve the labourer’s purpose. It would there-

fore be requisite to impose the tax upon lettings as well as

sales. When, after a day fixed by the law, land was let, the

lessee, or landlord, or rather the land, would become liable

for the tax. A provision in the registration for invalidating

lettings in respect of which the tax was not paid, would pre-

vent evasion of this part of the measure.

I have called this measure a tax on sales and lettings, but

have done so only for the sake of facility of exposition. It

would not really be a tax, because one effect of the whole

plan of colonization, an essential part of which this measure

is, would be, supposing the payments on sales and lettings of

private land to be an additional security for emigration-loans,

to increase the value of all private land by at least as much as

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A View of the Art of Colonization

the amount of the tax. Indeed, ere long, the rapid pouring of

people into the colony which would be possible with the

double security for emigration-loans, must render the tax a

mere trifle in comparison with the new value which it would

help to confer immediately on private land. But, there is one

case of hardship which might happen in the meanwhile, and

which should be guarded against. The whole system being in

operation, most owners would not be sellers or letters, but

tenacious holders of their landed property; waiters for the

great and general rise in the value of land, which they would

see to be approaching. But some few would be unable to wait:

their circumstances would command, and yet the tax might

forbid them to sell or let. In order comprehensively and ef-

fectually to guard against such cases of hardship, the govern-

ment might give notice before the whole law of colonization

came into force, that it would purchase at a valuation any

land which anybody wished to sell in that way. A time must

of course be fixed, after which the government would no

longer do this. As the valuation in every case would be ac-

cording to the very low value of the land at the time, exclud-

ing all allowance for prospective value, no landowners, I re-

peat, except those who at that particular time were under a

necessity of selling, would offer their land to the government.

These, I am persuaded, would be very few. Whatever land

came into the hands of government under this part of the law,

would be resold as soon as a price was offered for it equal to

a sum composed of the price which the government had paid,

of all the expenses incurred, and of the tax on sales, ouch a

price would be offered before long. If it were deemed unad-

visable or impossible that the government should be out of

its money so long, then the law might provide that the gov-

ernment, instead of paying for the land at the time of buying

it, should engage to pay interest on the price till the land should

be sold again, and then to pay the principal. This engagement

of the government would be as valuable to the seller, if it

were made transferable like an Exchequer Bill, as the pur-

chase-money in hand.

I am much afraid that you must be growing tired of these

doctrinal particulars.

Letter LIX.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Tells of Mr. Mothercountry’s Intention to

Make the Commissioners of Colonial Land and Emi-

gration Write Objections to the Sufficient Price for Waste

Land.

As decidedly as common prudence will allow me to express

an opinion on a question so new to me, I think you have shown

that the extreme cheapness of private land in some colonies

is not, even as respects those colonies only, a valid objection

to the sufficient price for public land. But Mr. Mothercountry

still objects to it. He does not offer specific objections to

your plan for remedying the evils of superabundant private

land, but merely says that it is absurd. When I pressed for his

reasons, he proposed to write to me on the subject; and I have

accepted his offer. I gathered, that his intention is to set the

Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners the task of

objecting to the latter part of your scheme; and as they ought

to be masters of a subject which it is their especial function to

understand thoroughly, I wish to keep my own opinions on it

unsettled till after seeing what they may have to say. If I get

anything from them that appears worth sending to you, you

shall have it without delay.

Do not suppose that I am tired of your “doctrinal particu-

lars.” On the contrary, I feel obliged to you for taking the

trouble to furnish me with them; for I wish to understand the

subject thoroughly, not to get a superficial smattering of it. I

imagine, however, that we are near the end.

Letter LX.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Anticipates the Probable Writing of the

Commissioners.

Theoretically, indeed, it is the especial function of the Colo-

nial Land and Emigration Commissioners to be masters of

the subject which their title expresses; but practically they

have very different functions. Of these, one which the Colo-

nial Office frequently imposes on them, is that of picking

holes in a suggestion about colonization, which the Office

dislikes per se, or dislikes being troubled with. By much prac-

tice they have become skilful in this sort of official business,

and really do it very well. You may expect, therefore, some

cleverish special-pleading against “saddling colonies with

debt,” “taxing the feeble resources of young societies,” and

“giving an unhealthy stimulus to emigration.” As these gentle-

men always have an eye to their chief’s predilections and

antipathies, they may also throw in an argument for “sponta-

neous” emigration, of which Lord Grey has been very fond

ever since certain elaborate and impracticable schemes of his

own for promoting what he now calls “forced” emigration,

all broke down. But they will not, partly because they dare

not, examine the question candidly with a view of throwing

light upon it. They dare not, because, in the first place, though

their office is in Park-street, they are, from the very nature of

the commission, mere clerks of colonial Downing-street; and

secondly, because, whilst the “good hater,” whose helpless

subordinates these Commissioners are at present, hates noth-

ing more than a suggestion of mine, his irascible and vindic-

tive temper makes those who are at his mercy, and who know

him, tremble at the thought of his displeasure.

I hope indeed that we are not far from the end; but several

matters remain to be explained, because they are really es-

sential conditions of the well-working of the plan of coloni-

114

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

zation as here laid down. Nay, as such, they are rather parts

of the plan.

Letter LXI.

From the Colonist.

The Necessity of Perfect Liberty of Appropriation at the

Sufficient Price.— Liberty of Appropriation Dependent

on Ample and Accurate Surveys. — Actual Surveying

in the Colonies.

At the sufficient price, there should be the most complete

liberty of acquiring private property in public land: for any

restriction of this liberty would be tantamount to a restriction

of the quantity of land open to purchase, and would be a diffi-

culty, over and above the sufficient price, placed in the way

of a labourer desirous to become a landowner. If the price

were really sufficient, any further restriction would be an

oppression of the labouring class. Though not so oppressive

to the other classes, it would be very unjust and very impoli-

tic as respects them also; since if the government professed

to allow the utmost liberty of appropriation on the one condi-

tion of paying the sufficient price, any further restriction, not

absolutely unavoidable, would be a wrong, and the comple-

tion of a fraud, towards every purchaser. If the further restric-

tion were irregular and uncertain in its force, every man would

be put out in his calculations; nobody would be able to regu-

late his proceedings by his knowledge of the law: the system,

instead of being administered according to law, Avould be

subject to arbitrary and perhaps mysterious derangement, like

our present political government of the colonies.

A price which would be sufficient with perfect liberty of ap-

propriation, must be both excessive and insufficient without

that liberty. If the price by itself were restriction enough, then

a restriction of the quantity besides would be like adding to

the price for some purchasers and diminishing it for others. If

the quantity were so restricted as to occasion competition,

one with another among intending purchasers, there would

be a scramble for the land; and though nobody would pay

more than the fixed price, those who were not so fortunate as

to get land from the government, would have to buy from the

others at an enhanced price; or they would have to go without

land: and in either case, the lucky or perhaps favoured pur-

chasers from the government would really obtain land pos-

sessing at the time a competition-value over and above its

cost, which would be the same thing for them as getting land

for less than the price of public land. The price, therefore, at

which people obtained public land, would virtually be, in some

cases more, in some less, than the price required by the gov-

ernment as being neither more nor less than sufficient. This

counteraction of the principle of the sufficient price would be

a serious evil, but not the only one. In addition to it, in the

case supposed of competition produced by a restriction of

quantity, there would be a frequent selection of the same spot

by many purchasers, and a drawing of lots for the preference;

much merely speculative investment; plenty of waiting; and

plenty of bad blood amongst neighbours. There would be, in

short, though in a mitigated degree, all the evils which attend

upon restricting the quantity of land with a view to competi-

tion, and then selling by auction.

It seems at first sight, that nothing would be easier than to

establish a perfect liberty of appropriation. The government,

apparently, would only have to tell every purchaser to go and

pick the land he liked best, as soon as the purchase-money

was paid. But what is it that he would have to pick out of? A

great wilderness, about which, until it was duly surveyed,

nobody could possess the requisite knowledge for picking

well. Suppose, however, though it must be merely for the sake

of illustration, that purchasers generally could find out with-

out a proper survey, where the best land was; where this or

that natural circumstance existed that suited their respective

objects; where the land was most heavily timbered, where

clear of timber, where alluvial, where light; where water

abounded, and was scarce; what was the course of streams;

where mill-sites and fords occurred; the probable line of fu-

ture roads; and so forth ad infinitum: suppose all this, if you

can conceive what is manifestly impossible, and even then

what would happen? The explorer, having chosen his spot,

could not describe its boundaries to the government; in most

cases, he could not even tell the government where the spot

was; for without a map, he could not say it is here or there.

Without a map, all he could say is, it is somewhere where I

have been, but whereabouts the spot is I cannot tell, except

that it is near a river, and not far from some hills.

On looking twice, therefore, at this subject, it becomes plain

that in order to let the purchaser choose his land with a suffi-

cient knowledge of the country, and further in order to let

him point out his choice to the government and obtain a prop-

erly descriptive title, a good map, the result of a careful sur-

vey, is indispensable. Waste land not surveyed, is not land

open to purchasers, any more than unpicked cotton or

unthrashed corn is fit for market.

It follows, that if the sufficient price were intended to be the

only restriction as to quantity, and that, as to choice within

the quantity open to purchasers, there was to be no restric-

tion, the whole plan could not work even decently without

ample surveys. The surveys should, at least, be so extensive

as to prevent any one from being compelled to take inferior

land when there was superior land within reach. Except in

countries of immense extent, the surveys should extend over

the whole colony: and at any rate, for all colonies, a very

large extent of the waste adjoining every settlement should at

all times be kept surveyed, in order that so wide a liberty of

choice should at all times exist.

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A View of the Art of Colonization

I hardly know which is of the most consequence; extent, or

completeness and accuracy of survey. Whatever the extent,

the whole affair would be in a mess without completeness

and accuracy. Without completeness—that is, unless all the

natural features of the country, and all sorts of information

about its varied soils and natural productions, were laid down

on the map—purchasers would choose in ignorance, would

often make bad selections, and would justly reproach the

government with having misled them. Without accuracy, all

kinds of confusion would arise in settling, or rather in pre-

tending to settle, the boundaries of selections; and as the land

increased in value (which under the operation of the whole

system it would do almost as soon as it was bought), there

would be boundless and endless litigation amongst purchas-

ers, and between purchasers and the government.

The evils above described as being sure to arise from insuffi-

ciency, incompleteness, and inaccuracy of survey, though pre-

sented to you hypothetically, are wretched facts in all our

colonies more or less; and in some of the colonies, the whole

mischief is so great as to be hardly credible by those who

have not witnessed it. For an ample description of it in one

case, I would refer you to Lord Durham’s Report, and the

evidence, in one of its appendices (B), on which his picture

of surveys in Canada was founded. If you should take the

trouble to examine it, you will agree with me that the whole

system, or rather slovenly practice, of public surveying in

Canada was at that time really abominable. It is not much

better now. In several other colonies, it is as bad as it ever

was in Canada. In hardly any colony is it better than very

mistaken in theory, defective in practice, and most extrava-

gant in cost. In the United States alone, the government has

seriously thought about this matter, and done what it con-

ceived to be best and cheapest. But the plan of that govern-

ment is unsuited to open countries, where artificial marks on

the ground are soon obliterated; and it also has the effect of

circumscribing freedom of choice within limits that would be

too narrow if public land cost the sufficient price. In the one

or two of our colonies where public surveying has been best

managed, it is far behind that of the United States in effi-

ciency and accuracy; and in no one British colony has a sys-

tem been adopted, that would allow a sufficient price to work

half as well as if the surveys were sufficient in extent, com-

plete, accurate, and cheap. How they might be made all this,

is a question upon which I am ready to enter if you please;

though I think you may as well spare yourself the trouble of

examining it whilst our system of colonial government shall

remain as it is, and those who administer it be jealously ad-

verse to every proposal of improvement. If, however, you do

not investigate this subject now, I must beg of you to take for

granted, that a vast improvement of colonial surveying would

not be difficult, and to remember that without it the plan of a

sufficient price with its appendages cannot work well.

Letter LXII

From the Colonist.

Proposed Selection of Emigrants, with a View of Mak-

ing the Emigration-Fund as Potent as Possible. — Moral

Advantages of Such a Selection.

When it was first proposed to sell waste land instead of grant-

ing it, and to use the purchasemoney as an emigration-fund,

the further proposal was made, that the money should be ex-

pended in paying for the passage of labouring people only,

and that in the selection of such people for a passage wholly

or partially cost free, a preference should always be given to

young married couples, or to young people of the marriage-

able age in an equal proportion of the sexes. The latter sug-

gestion was founded on certain considerations which I will

now mention.

1. The emigration-fund ought to be laid out so as to take away

from the old country, and introduce into the colonies, the great-

est possible amount of population and labour; in such a man-

ner that, as an emigration-fund, it should have the maximum

of effect both on the colonies and the mother-country.

2. If the object were to procure at the least cost the greatest

amount of labour for immediate employ, ment in the colo-

nies, it would appear at first sight that the emigrants ought to

be, all of them, in the prime of life. But it is only at first sight

that this can appear; because on reflection it is seen, that two

men having to perform, each for himself, all the offices that

women of the labouring class usually perform for men—to

cook their own victuals, to mend their own clothes, to make

their own beds, to play the woman’s part at home as well as

the man’s part in the field or workshop—to divide their labour

between household cares and the work of production—would

produce less than one man giving the whole of his time to the

work of production. This is a case which illustrates the ad-

vantages of combination of labour for division of employ-

ments. If the two men combined their labour, and so divided

their employments—one occupying himself solely with house-

hold cares for both, and the other with earning wages for

both—then might the produce of their united labour be equal

to that of one married man; but, speaking generally, it would

not be more. In new colonies, men have often made this un-

natural arrangement; and to some extent they do so now in

colonies where there are many more men than women. We

need not stop to look at the moral evils of an excess of males.

In an economical view only, it seems plain that poor emi-

grants taken to a colony by the purchase-money of waste land,

ought to be men and women in equal numbers; and, if mar-

ried, so much the better.

3. If they were old people, their labour would be of little value

to the colony; not only because it would soon be at an end,

but also because it would be weak, and because after middle

116

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

age few workmen can readily turn their hands to employ-

ments different from those to which they are accustomed. In

order that poor emigrants taken to a colony should be as valu-

able as possible, they ought to be young people, whose pow-

ers of labour would last as long as possible, and who could

readily turn their hands to new employments.

4. But are there any objections to a mixture of children? To

this there are four principal objections, besides others. First,

if the children were the offspring of grown-up emigrants, it

follows that those parents could not be of the best age; that if

old enough to have children, they would be too old to come

under the description of the most valuable labourers. Sec-

ondly, children are less fit than old people to undergo the

confinement and other troubles of a long sea voyage. Of this

you may convince yourself by visiting a ship full of emigrants

at Gravesend, bound to New York. You will find those who

are parents, and especially the mothers, troubled and anx-

ious, fearful of accidents to their children, restless, starting at

every noise; if paupers, glad to see their little ones stuffing

themselves with the ship’s rations, dainties to them, poor

things! who have plenty to eat for the first time in their lives;

if paupers, looking back without affection, and to the future

with gladsome hope, but, being parents, with apprehension

lest, in the distant land of promise, the children should suffer

more than they have endured at home. You will see the chil-

dren, if of the pauper class, delighted at meal-times, smiling

with greasy lips, their eyes sparkling over the butcher’s meat,

but at other times sick of the confinement, tired of having

nothing to do, wanting a play-place, always in the way, driven

from pillar to post, and exposed to serious accidents. Those

poor emigrants, on the contrary, who are neither parents nor

children—young men and women without any incumbrance—

you will find quite at their ease, enjoying the luxury of idle-

ness, pleased with the novelty of their situation, in a state of

pleasurable excitement, glorying in the prospect of indepen-

dence, thanking God that they are still without children, and,

if you should know how to make them speak out, delighted to

talk about the new country, in which, as they have heard, chil-

dren are not a burthen but a blessing. Thirdly, when children

first reach a colony, they necessarily encumber somebody.

They cannot for some time be of any use as labourers: they

cannot produce wealth wherewith to attract, convey, and

employ other labourers. To whatever extent, then, the emi-

gration-fund should be laid out in removing children instead

of grown-up people, the value received by mother-country

and colony would be less than might be. By taking none but

very young grown-up persons, the maximum of value would

be obtained for any given outlay.

5. The greatest quantity of labour would be obtained more

easily than a less quantity. The natural time of marriage is a

time of change, when two persons, just united for life, must

nearly all seek a new home. The natural time of marriage,

too, is one when the mind is most disposed to hope, to ambi-

tion, to engaging in undertakings which require decision and

energy of purpose. Marriage, besides, produces greater anxi-

ety for the future, and a very strong desire to be better off in

the world for the sake of expected offspring. Of what class

are composed those numerous streams of emigrants, which

flow continually from the Eastern to the outside of the West-

ern states of America, by channels, until lately rougher and

longer than the sea-way from England to America? Neither

of single men, nor of old people, nor of middleaged people

dragging children along with them, but, for the most part, of

young couples, seeking a new home, fondly encouraging each

other, strong in health and spirits, not driven from birth-place

by the fear of want, but attracted to a new place by motives of

ambition for themselves and for children to come. This then

is the class of people, that could be most easily attracted to a

colony by high wages and better prospects. The class which

it is most expedient to select, would be the most easily per-

suaded to avail themselves of a preference in their favour.

6. A preference in favour of the best class is all that the law

should declare. For there might not exist in the old country a

sufficient number of the most valuable class of labouring

emigrants to supply the colonial demand for labour. Suppose,

for example, that the United States determined to lay out the

annual proceeds of their waste-land fund, which on the aver-

age exceeds £1,000,000, in providing a passage for poor

young couples from Ireland to America. This outlay, the pas-

sage of each person costing £4, would provide for the annual

emigration of 125,000 couples. But in Ireland there are not

so many as 125,000 couples, or 250,000 individuals, born in

the same year and grown up. As the constant emigration of

all, or be half, the couples who every year reach the age of

marriage, must very soon depopulate any country, we may be

sure that a portion only of this class will ever be disposed to

emigrate. Whenever a number sufficient to meet the colonial

demand for labour should not be disposed to emigrate, it would

be necessary to offer a passage to couples older or younger

by one, two, or three years, but always giving a preference to

those who were nearest to the marriageable age. At all times,

in short, the administrators of the emigration-fund could only

give a preference to the most eligible applicants at the time.

7. Supposing all the people taken to a colony with the pur-

chase-money of waste land, to be young men and women in

equal numbers, let us see what the effect would be on the

colonial population. At the end of twenty years after the foun-

dation of Virginia, the number of colonists was about 1800,

though the number of emigrants had been nearly 20,000. This

rapid decrease of population was owing in some measure to

the miserable state of things that existed in Virginia before

the colony was enriched by the introduction of slave-labour;

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A View of the Art of Colonization

but it was in no small degree owing to this; that of the 20,000

emigrants, only a very few were females. As there was hardly

any increase of people by births in the colony, the local popu-

lation would at all events have been less at the end of twenty

years, than the number of emigrants during that period. In

New South Wales, it has never been difficult for the poorest

class to maintain a family: yet until young couples were for

the first time taken to that colony about sixteen years ago, its

population was nothing like as great as the number of emi-

grants. Of those emigrants (they were mostly convicts), by

far the greater number were men; and of the handful of women,

many were past the age of child-bearing. Had they consisted

of men and women in equal proportions, but of the middle

age, the number of emigrants might still have exceeded the

colonial population; but if they had consisted of young couples

just arrived at the age of marriage, the population of the colony

would have advanced with surprising rapidity. I once reck-

oned that at the time in question, the population of the colony

would have been 500,000 instead of its actual amount, 50,000;

that the increase of people, and, we may add, the rate of colo-

nization, would have been ten times greater than they were,

with the same outlay in emigration. At that time, the propor-

tion of young people in New South Wales was very small: in

the supposed case, it would have been much greater than it

has ever been in any human society. According, of course, to

this large proportion of young people would have been the

prospect of future increase. If all the people who have re-

moved from Europe and Africa to America, had been young

couples just arrived at the marriageable age, slavery in North

America must have long since died a natural death: no part of

North America, perhaps no part of South America, would

now be open to colonization.

8. In any colony, the immediate effect of selecting young

couples for emigration, would be to diminish in a curious

degree the cost of adding to the colonial population. The pas-

sage of young couples would not cost more than that of all

classes mixed; but the young couples would take to the colony

the greatest possible germ of future increase. In fact, the set-

tlers of New South Wales who in a few years made that colony

swarm with sheep, did not import lambs or old sheep; still

less did they import a large proportion of rams. They im-

ported altogether a very small number of sheep, compared

with the vast number they soon possessed. Their object was

the production in the colony of the greatest number of sheep

by the importation of the smallest number, or, in other words,

at the least cost: and this object they accomplished by select-

ing for importation those animals only, which, on account of

their sex and age, were fit to produce the greatest number of

young in the shortest time. If emigrants were selected on the

same principle, the appropriated land, it is evident, would

become as valuable as it could ever be, much sooner than if

the emigrants were a mixture of people of all ages. In the

former case, not only would all the emigrants be of the most

valuable class as labourers, but they would be of the class fit

to produce the most rapid increase of people in the colony,

and so to confer on new land as soon as possible the value

that depends on position. The buyer of new land, therefore,

would have his purchase-money laid out for him in the way

most conducive to a demand for accommodation-land and

building-ground; in the way that would serve him most. And

something else would flow from this selection of emigrants,

which it is very needful to observe. The emigrationfund be-

ing so much more potent in its operation, any given outlay

would have a greater effect on the colonial proportion of land

to people. With the selection, the labour-market would be

more largely supplied than without it: a shorter term of labour

for hire by the emigrants would suffice for the greatest pro-

ductiveness of industry: a lower price of public land would

be sufficient. And yet both of the proposed securities on which

to borrow money for emigration, would be more valuable:

notwithstanding the lower price for public land and the lower

tax on private sales and lettings, the means of paying off the

emigration-loans would be obtained much sooner than with-

out this selection of emigrants. “With the selection, it would

be more easy, as well as in many ways more advantageous, to

get the whole plan into full work, even in colonies where land

is the most superabundant.

9. The moral advantages of such a selection of emigrants

would not be few. If the emigrants were married (as they all

ought to be, and as by rejecting unmarried applicants, it would

be easy to take care that they should be), each female would

have a special protector from the moment of her departure

from home. No man would have an excuse for dissolute hab-

its. All the evils which in colonization have so often sprung

from a disproportion between the sexes, and which are still

very serious in several colonies, would be completely averted.

Every pair of emigrants would have the strongest motives for

industry, steadiness, and thrift. In a colony thus peopled, there

would be hardly any single men or single women: nearly the

whole population would consist of married men and women,

boys and girls, and children. For many years the proportion

of children to grown-up people would be greater than ever

took place since Shem, Ham, and Japhet were surrounded by

their little ones. The colony would be an immense nursery,

and, all being at ease, would present a finer opportunity than

has ever occurred for trying what may be done for society by

really educating the common people.

The selection and conveyance of poor emigrants obtaining a

passage to the colonies by means of the purchase-money of

waste land, is the part of the plan of the theorists of 1830,

which in practice has been attended with the least disappoint-

ment. The example of something like a careful administra-

tion of this part of the theory was set by the South Australian

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Commissioners, who were zealously assisted by two of the

framers of the theory in starting this new kind of emigration.

By following the example thus set, the New Zealand Com-

pany and the Colonial Office Commissioners in Park-street

have brought about a revolution in the character, at least, of

long-sea emigration for the poorer classes. A voyage of 16,000

miles is now made by a shipful of poor emigrants, with a

lower rate of mortality amongst them during the voyage, than

the average rate of mortality in the class formed by the fami-

lies of our peerage. In most of the ships, the number of pas-

sengers is greater at the end than at the beginning of the voy-

age. The Southern colonies have received by this means, a

class of labouring emigrants incomparably superior in point

of usefulness to the old-fashioned ship-loads of shovelled-

out paupers. The nearer equality of the sexes in this emigra-

tion has produced the good moral results that were expected

from it, or rather averted the very bad moral results that had

flowed from inequality between the sexes in all previous

emigration: and the colonies to which this selected emigra-

tion has been directed, have received an amount of the germ

of increased population, of which, in proportion to the num-

ber of emigrants, there has been no previous example. Alto-

gether, what has been done, establishes the infinite superior-

ity of systematic emigration to that “spontaneous” scramble

which Lord Grey now applauds, and which, often afflicting

Canada with malignant fever, necessitates a lazaretto on the

St. Lawrence, as if, says Lord Durham, British emigrants came

from the home of the plague.

But the administration of the emigration-fund of colonies is

still, I believe, open to great improvements. The selection of

emigrants has never been as good as it might be. The South-

Australian Commissioners were new to their work, and nei-

ther personally interested in it nor responsible to anybody.

The NewZealand Company was for years rather a company

for disturbing the Colonial Office and usefully agitating co-

lonial questions of principle, than for colonizing; and now it

is only a company for trying in vain to colonize. The Com-

missioners in Park-street have not been of a class, to whom

much personal intercourse with poor emigrants could be agree-

able (and without close personal intercourse between the poor-

est emigrants and the highest executive authority in this mat-

ter, it is impossible that the business should be very well done);

they have been in no measure responsible to the colonies

whose funds they expended, and which were alone much in-

terested in watching their proceedings; their official house,

in Westminster, seems poked as if on purpose out of the way

of shipping business and emigrant resort; and they have natu-

rally fallen into a practice, which must be extremely conve-

nient to them, of getting their emigration business done by

contract and by men of business. But the main business of the

contractors is to make as much as they can by their contracts.

So we hear of emigrant ships bound to Adelaide or Port Philip,

receiving a few English passengers in London, and filling up

with the most wretched Irish at Ply. mouth, whom the con-

tractor finds it “pay” to bring from Cork on purpose to fill up

with, because, as respects food and accommodation during

the voyage, there are no passengers that cost so little as the

Irish poor, or are so easily imposed upon by the captain who

represents the contractor. This case of defrauding the colo-

nies by sending them inferior labour for their money which

pays for superior, indicates that it does not stand alone as to

mismanagement. In all parts of this administration, all the

administrators have mismanaged a little. There has been a

little waste of precious funds, a little neglect here and there, a

little overlooked deviation from rules, a little imposition of

“false character” upon the examiners of applications for a

passage, and, I rather think, not a little jobbing in accommo-

dating friends or persons of influence with a free passage to

the colonies for emigrants whom they wanted to shovel out.

The sum of mismanagement is considerable. It would have

been greater but for a sort of rivalry between companies and

commissioners, which led them to watch each other, but which

has now ceased; and it can only be surely guarded against in

future, by a plain, unmistakeable, immutable law of emigra-

tion, with provisions for rendering its administrators in some

measure responsible to the colonies, which alone can be suf-

ficiently interested in the good administration of the law to

furnish the safeguard of a vigilant public opinion constantly

attending to particulars.

Letter LXIII.

From the Statesman.

An Important Objection to the Colonist’s Whole Plan of

Colonization Apart from Government.

After a long conversation yesterday with my Mr.

Mothercountry, I am under the necessity of reporting two

objections of his, the force of which I could not help admit-

ting at the time: but as you have before enabled me to recall

similar admissions, so I trust that you may now put me in the

way of silencing the objector. It would be satisfactory to stop

his mouth this time; for these two, he says, are his last objec-

tions; and to me they certainly appear rather formidable. You

shall have them one at a time.

The first of them, however, relates only to those countries

which are not covered with a dense forest like Canada, but in

which there is abundance of open land, covered with natural

pasturage for sheep and cattle, such as New South Wales.

Here, says my prompter, the sufficient price would have a

most injurious effect: it would prevent the use of the natural

pasturage. In open countries, where food for animals is pro-

duced in abundance without cost, pastoral occupations are

the principal source of individual and public wealth. What

nature produces in these countries, the inhabitants find it worth

while to use by keeping vast numbers of cattle, horses, and

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A View of the Art of Colonization

sheep: but if you compelled every one, before he could use

natural pasturage, to pay for it a “sufficient price” per acre,

you would, in fact, forbid him to use it: for the use of pastur-

age, when it costs nothing, only just remunerates the capital-

ist; and if you added to his outlay a considerable price for

every acre used, he could not carry on his business without

loss. By imposing the sufficient price on all land in pastoral

countries, you would destroy their principal branch of indus-

try and source of wealth. You might as well propose to make

the fishermen of Newfoundland pay a sufficient price per acre

for the use of their cod banks.

Letter LXIV.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist First Admits, and Then Answers the Ob-

jection.

I agree with every syllable of the objection to a sufficient

price for the use of natural pasturage. Indeed, I claim the ar-

gument as my own; for it has been taken, almost verbatim,

from some anonymous writing of mine. But then, your

prompter and I direct the argument against totally different

objects. He directs it against me as the proposer of a price for

natural pasturage, which I am not; I direct it against his Of-

fice, which really is the imposer of a price on natural pastur-

age, notwithstanding this conclusive argument against the

proceeding. The theorists of 1830 never thought of compel-

ling settlers to pay for the use of natural pasturage. Accord-

ing to their theory, it is the extreme cheapness, not of natural

pasturage, but of land for cultivation, which occasions scar-

city of labour for hire. Labourers could not become landown-

ers by using natural pasturage. The use of it requires, in order

to be profitable, the employment of a considerable capital, of

numerous servants, and of very superior skill: it is a business

requiring from the outset much combination of labour for

division of employments, and the unremitting constancy of

the combined labour: it is a business altogether unsuitable to

the common labourer or small capitalist. Whether, therefore,

the use of natural pasturage were cheap or dear, the labourer

would either sooner or later cease to work for wages; the term

of his working for wages would in either case depend, not at

all on the cost of natural pasturage, but wholly on the price of

freehold land. It is for this alone — for the sort of property in

land which a labourer would require in order to cease work-

ing for hire, and to set up for himself as a competitor with his

former employers in the labour-market —that the theorists of

1830 have ever proposed a sufficient price. According to their

view of the matter, the words “a sufficient price for the use of

natural pasturage” are unmeaning or nonsensical.

Nevertheless, between abundance of natural pasturage and

the sufficient price for freehold land, there is a close and im-

portant relation. The abundance of natural pasturage in a

colony is, like the existence of valuable mines or prolific fish-

ing-banks, a source of wealth supplied by nature, but which

can only be turned to great account by means of placing com-

binable and constant labour at the disposal of the capitalist.

In colonies, therefore, to which nature has given this advan-

tage, it is more than usually desirable that the property in

land which converts the hired labourer into a landowner,

should be dear enough to prevent a great scarcity of labour

for hire; and that all those measures for promoting labour-

emigration, of which the sufficient price is the basis, should

receive their utmost development. But if the abundance of

natural pasturage thus furnishes an additional reason for work-

ing out completely, and on the greatest possible scale, the

principle of a sufficient price for freehold land, what shall we

say of the policy of the Colonial Office and its official instru-

ments in the colonies, who put a price upon the use of natural

pasturage for no purpose but that of getting money out of the

settlers? The prosperity of New South Wales, for example, is

wholly dependent on the use of vast tracts of natural pastur-

age. With labour as dear, and as scarce at whatever price, as

it is in New South Wales, the production of fine wool at a

cost not involving loss, would be utterly impossible without

the aid of nature in supplying the sheep with food. The wool-

growers of New South Wales, therefore, who formerly got

the use of pasturage for nothing, must still get it or be ruined.

As they have no choice between getting it and being ruined,

their government, being despotic, can make them pay for it

as much as they can afford to pay. Short of paying more than

they can afford—more, that is, than their occupation would

leave after replacing capital with some profit—they cannot

help paying whatever their government chooses to require.

This absolute necessity of paying in order to preserve the

staple business of the colony, renders the putting of a price

on the use of natural pasturage a remarkably facile and pleas-

ant sort of taxation: facile and pleasant, that is, for the offi-

cials of a government which has no sympathy with its sub-

jects. As regards the subjects, this is a most unwise and op-

pressive tax; unwise, as it is a tax on the article of primest

necessity in New-South-Wales life; oppressive, as it was im-

posed and is maintained in spite of every kind of complaint

and opposition from the colonists. And this is what Lord Grey

calls, perhaps believes to be, carrying out the plan of the theo-

rists of 1830.

According to the principles of their theory, the natural pas-

turages of a colony, which nature has freely given, the colo-

nists should use without let or hindrance of any kind from

their government: and, moreover, their government ought to

afford them every facility in its power for making the most of

that natural advantage. It behoves the government, therefore,

to frame a set of laws for the disposal of the natural pasturage

in New South Wales or New Zealand; laws which should pro-

vide facilities instead of obstacles. Such laws would estab-

lish a perfect liberty of choice by the flockmasters themselves,

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

together with certainty and stability in the whole proceeding.

The laws of our pastoral colonies on this subject (if laws those

“Regulations” may be termed, which have been framed by

the passions of Lord Grey, or by the joint wisdom of some

fine gentleman in Park-street, and some “Excellency” cap-

tains on the spot), would almost seem to have been designed

to check colonial prosperity by means of direct obstacles,

and of giving to the whole process a character of uncertainty

and instability. This, of course, was not really the aim of these

bureaucratic labours: but such is the result of ignorance and

carelessness in the mode of imposing on the pastoral colo-

nies the most objectionable of taxes. Lest all this should not

enable you to silence your Mr. Mothercountry as respects his

baseless pasturage objection to the sufficient price, I will place

a fact at your disposal for that purpose. When Lord Grey,

soon after he became Colonial Minister, was framing some

regulations for the disposal of about 180,000,000 acres of

pasturage in New South Wales (the area is more than three

times that of Great Britain), he consulted on the question of

the best mode of proceeding, two gentlemen, who, in my opin-

ion, possess between them more completely than any other

two men I could name, the theoretical knowledge and the

practical Australian experience for giving useful advice on

the subject. Before telling him their opinion, they consulted

me; and we three perfectly agreed, I think, on all the main

points. He took their advice by the rigid rule of contraries!

As they are both known friends of mine, this may be another

of the cases in which Lord Grey’s fear of being prompted by

me has been the motive of his legislation for the colonies.

But if so (and if you can find any other reasonable explana-

tion of his conduct in this matter, I withdraw my supposi-

tion), to what strange influences does our system of colonial

government subject the destiny of the most important of our

colonies!

Letter LXV.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman’s Mr. Mothercountry Makes His Last Ob-

jection.

I send the second of my Mr. Mothercountry’s last objections,

without waiting for your answer to the first.

Supposing (I will state the objection as if it were my own)

that the whole plan were established by law —the sufficient

price, with perfect liberty of appropriation as to locality, and,

wherever they were needed, the two securities for emigra-

tion-loans—still the plan would not work: or rather, the more

completely it was established by law, the more surely would

the law be evaded, and the plan break down in practice. In

proportion as all private land was made dear, by means of the

sufficient price for public land and of the operation of the

emigration-loans in filling the colony with people, would be

the desire of the poorest class to evade the law. Seeing the

market-value of all private land greatly increased for a time

at least, their desire for owning land would be stronger than

ever; and as the gratification of that desire would be impeded

by the price of public land, and the tax for emigration on

private land, they would endeavour to obtain cheap land in

spite of the law. By “squatting”—that is, settling on public

land without a title —they could obtain land for nothing: there

would be a lawless appropriation of the public land on the

old terms virtually of a free grant. If the government attempted

to enforce the law by ousting squatters from their locations,

there would be a struggle between the government and the

squatters; and in this contest, the squatters would beat the

government. No colonial government has been able to pre-

vent squatting. What is called “the squatting interest” in a

colony, becomes so strong after a time, that it always triumphs

over a colonial government. More stringent laws, increased

penalties, even British regiments, might be applied without

effect. But if, even as things are now, the squatter invariably

beats the government, he would do so more easily and surely

under the proposed system, because, under it, people would

be more tempted to squat, squatters more numerous, the squat-

ters’ outcry against the law louder, the disturbance of the

colony greater, the trouble of the Colonial Office more intol-

erable, and the final concession by the government of a good

title to the squatters, more than ever probable: the motives

for squatting, and the probability of the ultimate victory of

squatters over the law, would be so much stronger than these

are now, that the law would inevitably be set aside: your plan

contains within itself a sure cause of failure.

Since the above was written, your answer to the pasturage

objection has come to hand, and been conveyed to our part-

ner in these discussions. I will not tell you how he received it,

except by saying, that if you wish to oblige me, you will send

just such another to his squatting objection.

Letter LXVI.

From the Colonist.

Mr. Mothercountry’s Last Objection Answered.

The second answer must necessarily resemble the first, in at

least taking the form of an endeavour to turn the tables upon

my critic: for he leaves me no choice but to do that or suc-

cumb. This is an irresistible mode of assailing when you are

in the right, but dangerous when you have no case. I suspect

that our Mr. Mothercountry is less cautious than most of the

tribe.

It is all true, what he says about squatting in times past; quite

true, also, that if a higher market value were conferred on all

private land in colonies, and a sufficient price were required

for all public land, one motive for squatting would be stron-

ger: but both these propositions together express only part of

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A View of the Art of Colonization

the truth. I will endeavour to supply that part of it which has

been withheld.

So far as my knowledge extends, no colonial government ever

seriously attempted to prevent squatting by discouraging it:

all colonial governments have encouraged it in various ways.

A very effectual way of encouraging it was by readily letting

every body of squatters gain their point; for, of course, the

gaining of their point by one body greatly encouraged other

bodies to attempt a similar victory over the law. In most colo-

nies, it got to be a common and sound opinion, that somehow

or other, by hook or by crook, sooner or later, the man who

occupied some public land without leave from the govern-

ment, would obtain possession of it by a good title. One can

hardly conceive a greater encouragement to the practice. The

practice was thus encouraged by colonial governments, be-

cause they have all deemed waste land a public property not

worth taking any heed about, because it was the least trouble-

some course for them, and because public opinion in the colo-

nies has approved of the course which the governments found

most pleasant for themselves. Public opinion was in favour

of letting the squatter conquer the law, because the expense,

and trouble, and delay of obtaining a legal grant were practi-

cally so great, except for a favoured few, that squatting was

another word for colonization; and of that, naturally, colonial

opinion was in favour. I would refer you for information on

this point to the appendix to Lord Durham’s Report, marked

B. When you shall have read the evidence it contains about

the difficulties of obtaining a legal grant in Canada, and the

squatting occasioned by those difficulties, you will more

readily understand why public opinion in colonies should be

in favour of the squatter. But colonial public opinion favours

the squatter for other reasons. Whenever a colonial govern-

ment, either from idleness, or caprice, or want of surveys,

withholds a fertile district from would-be settlers upon it,

whether as cultivators or stockholders, it induces public opin-

ion to approve of that district being occupied by squatters

rather than not occupied at all. At this moment, for example,

a large portion of New Zealand is in the course of being oc-

cupied by squatters, because, by all sorts of mismanagement

and neglect, the land is withheld from occupation according

to law. The greater part of New Zealand must be either colo-

nized in this way or not colonized at all; and thus even the

warmest friends of systematic colonization, including the suf-

ficient-price theorists, can neither blame these occupiers of

land without leave from the government, nor wish that their

proceedings should be stopped. It is better to subdue and re-

plenish the earth by squatting, than to leave it a desert. Con-

sidering the operation of our present colonial policy, if policy

it may be termed, as regards getting legal possession of waste

land in the colonies, it is well for us that our colonial people

have the hardihood and enterprise to colonize independently

of their government. For my part, I heartily wish them suc-

cess, for the reasons which induced Lord Durham to befriend

the squatters in Canada on an enormous scale, and which will

be found in the aforesaid Appendix to his Report.

But we are supposing thus far the continuance of the present

slovenly and neglectful practices with regard to the disposal

of waste land. Let us now suppose that there were a good law

of colonization, including perfect liberty of appropriation at

the sufficient price, together with the best provisions for the

due administration of the law. All the motives of the squatter

would be gone, save one. The poorer settler might still wish,

might wish more strongly than before, to obtain waste land

for nothing: but this mere money motive, is, I believe, the

weakest of the squatter’s motives, under present circum-

stances; and in the supposed case, it would be effectually

outweighed by a new set of counter motives. The waste land

of the colony would be deemed a most valuable public prop-

erty, and would be cared for accordingly by the government:

thus the contemplating squatter, instead of hoping to over-

come the law, would expect the defeat of an attempt against

it. Land in unlimited quantities, and with perfect liberty of

choice as to the locality, would be obtainable with perfect

ease at the sufficient price: thus the inducements to squatting

now furnished by the great difficulty of obtaining a legal title

to land in the most eligible spots, would be at an end: and

public opinion, instead of encouraging the squatter, would

help the law in deterring or punishing him. The public prop-

erty would be guarded from invasion like that of individuals;

and in pastoral countries, moreover, the whole of it, long be-

fore it was sold at the sufficient price, would be legally occu-

pied by individuals who would help to defend it against the

squatter. On the whole, I am persuaded, after much inquiry

and reflection on the subject, that under a good and responsi-

bly-administered law of colonization, colonial squatting would

be as rare as the invasion of private estates is in this country.

Letter LXVII.

From the Statesman.

Mr. Mothercountry Once More Objects to the Sufficient

Price, as Being Likely to Force an Injurious Concentra-

tion of the Settlers.

Mr. Mothercountry is furious, and objects again, but “posi-

tively” for the last time. He says that your sufficient price

would have the effect of “concentrating” the settlers injuri-

ously, or preventing their useful “dispersion” over the waste

as owners of the most fertile spots. He contends that you want

to produce a density of colonial population by squeezing the

colonists into a narrow space; and that though it might be for

the advantage of the colonists if they were less dispersed,

your plan of preventing them, by means of a high price for

new land, from appropriating the most fertile spots where

they like best, would be a mischievous restriction on the ex-

ercise of their own judgment in a matter of which they must

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

be the best judges. He calls the sufficient price an iron bound-

ary of settlement, which is intended to prevent colonists from

using land outside of a district not yet appropriated and used.

He argues, with, I must say, an appearance of being in the

right, that the productiveness of industry would be mischie-

vously affected, if settlers were compelled to use land of in-

ferior quality inside a given district, when there was land out-

side the boundary of a superior quality: and he has proved to

me by ample evidence, that in several colonies, loud com-

plaint is made of the restrictive operation on the choice of the

best spots for settlement, of the mode of selling waste land

instead of granting it. I am wholly unable to answer this ob-

jection. You are doubtless aware of it. Yet, looking back to

your letters, I find that you have never once used the words

“concentration” and “dispersion.” When I mentioned this to

Mr. Mothercountry, he chuckled, and said that he was not

surprised at your avoiding the weakest point of your scheme.

Pray enable me to confound him if you can.

Letter LXVIII.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Answers Mr. Mothercountry on the Sub-

ject of “Concentration” and “Dispersion” of Settlers.

I deliberately avoided using the words “concentration” and

“dispersion.” I did so in order to avoid leading you into a

misconception, into which the too unguarded use of those

words by me on former occasions has led many colonists and

some people at home. But I had no intention of wholly avoid-

ing the subject as a weak point. I only wished, by postponing

all notice of it till the theory of the sufficient price was devel-

oped, to be able to enter on this question of concentration

and dispersion with the least possible risk of being misunder-

stood.

I entirely admit so much of Mr. Mothercountry’s objection as

alleges, that, with respect to the choice of land for settlement,

the settlers must be the best judges. Not only must they be the

best judges in a matter that so deeply concerns their own in-

terests, but it is impossible that anybody should be able to

judge for them in this matter without falling into great mis-

takes and doing them great injury. New land is wanted for an

infinite variety of purposes, amongst which let us note agri-

culture, pasturage, lumbering, mining, quarrying, the erec-

tion of mills, and the formation of villages and towns. These

various purposes are contemplated by an equal variety of set-

tlers or companies of settlers. There is no business more en-

tirely a man’s own business, than that of a settler picking new

land for his own purpose; and the truism of our time, that in

matters of private business the parties interested are sure to

judge better than any government can judge for them, is an

error, if the best of governments could determine as well as

the settler himself the quality and position of land the most

suitable to his objects. He is deeply interested in making the

best possible choice. He alone can know precisely what the

objects are for which he wants the land. The government

choosing for him, either a particular lot of land, or the district

in which he should be allowed to choose for himself, would

have no private interest in choosing well; and the private in-

terest of the officials employed by the government would be

to save themselves trouble by choosing carelessly. In most

cases, they would be utterly ignorant of the purposes for which

new land was in demand. Their highest object as officials

(except in those rare instances where love of duty is as strong

a motive as self-interest), would be to perform their duty so

as to avoid reproach; and this motive is notoriously weak in

comparison with selfinterest. But indeed they could not by

any means avoid reproach. For supposing (though but for

argument’s sake) that the surveyor-general of a colony, in

marking out districts to be opened to purchasers, made an

absolutely perfect selection with a view to the purchasers’

interest, the intending purchasers would not think so. Every

man is fond of his own judgment, especially in matters which

deeply concern himself. If the government said to intending

purchasers, Take your land hereabouts, they would reply, No,

we wish to take it thereabouts: they would reproach the sur-

veyor-general with having opened a bad district to settlers,

and left a good one closed against them. And again, even if

they were not dissatisfied at the moment of taking their land,

it is certain that if they failed as settlers, and from whatever

cause, they would lay the blame of their failure upon the gov-

ernment, complaining that if they had been allowed to take

land where they liked best, their undertaking would undoubt-

edly have prospered. For all these reasons (and more might

be urged), I would if possible open the whole of the waste

land of a colony to intending purchasers: and I hereby de-

clare, that as perfect a liberty of choice for settlers as the

nature of things in each case would allow, is an essential con-

dition of the well-working of the sufficient price.

To such practically unlimited liberty of choice, the objection

has been urged, that the settlers would disperse themselves

too much. They would, it has been said, wander about the

waste portions of the colony, and plant themselves here and

there in out-of-the-way spots, where, being distant from a

market, and from all that pertains to civilization, they would

fall into a state of barbarism: instead of acquiring wealth as

all colonists ought to do, the settlers would only raise enough

produce for their own rude subsistence; and the colony, in-

stead of exporting and importing largely, would be poor and

stagnant, like West Australia, for example, where the first

settlers were allowed to plant themselves as they liked best,

and did, being under 2,000 in number, spread themselves over

an extent of land as great as two or three counties of Norfolk:

in a word, there would be mischievous dispersion.

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But mischievous to whom? Mischievous, if at all, to the set-

tlers themselves. The supposition then is, that the settlers

would injure themselves in consequence of not knowing what

was for their own advantage. Would the government be likely

to know that better than the settlers? But let us see how the

facts stand. 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 disper-

sion and concentration. In the founding of West Australia,

there was no choice. In disposing of the waste land, the gov-

ernment 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, out-

side 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 land-

ing-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.

The cause appears at first sight to have been the unlimited

liberty of the settlers’ choice in the selection of their land.

But a second glance at the subject shows the first impression

to have been erroneous. When the dog was in the manger, the

cow had to go without hay, or pick up what rubbish she could

elsewhere. Only the first grantee at Swan River had a real

liberty of choice as to locality: the second had less liberty, the

third still less, and so on. At last, when a dozen people had

appropriated enough land for the support of millions, nobody

else had any liberty at all: the whole of the land suitable for

settlers at the time was gone, and held by a handful of people,

veritable dogs in the manger, who could not use their prop-

erty, and yet would not part with it, because, coming from an

old country where land has both a scarcity and position value,

they deemed it worth more than anybody would think of pay-

ing for it under the circumstance of the vast extent of private

land in proportion to population. The same thing has occurred

everywhere more or less. In Canada, I am sure it is speaking

within compass to say, the great bulk of private land was first

obtained by people who could not use it on account of its

extent, and yet would not part with it to real settlers: and I

think it probable that in that colony at this time, more than

half the private property in land is thus placed as the hay was

by the dog in the manger. Ample evidence on this point, with

respect to all the British American colonies, will be found in

Lord Durham’s Report and its appendices, especially in Ap-

pendix B. But if an inquiry concerning the disposal of waste

land, like that which Lord Durham instituted in Canada, New

Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, had been extended to our other

colonies, we should have ample proof that in all of them, a

small proportion of the settlers have been allowed to act the

part of the dog in the manger towards the others, towards

fresh emigrants, and towards posterity. The placing of im-

mense quantities of waste land in such a state of private prop-

erty as prevents it from being used—as keeps it always waste

land—has been the universal vice of colonial governments

acting under instructions from Downing-street. The result

occurs, whether the land is granted in quantities exceeding

the grantees’ means of using the land, or is sold at a price so

low as to encourage absentee ownership: but of course when

the price is more than nominal, the evil of a great excess of

private land beyond colonial means of reclaiming it from a

state of waste, is very much mitigated. In those colonies, there-

fore, where land has only been obtainable by purchase, which

are only South Australia, Australia Felix, and the New Zealand

Company’s Settlements, the proportion of dog-in-

themangered land is comparatively small.

But hitherto I have alluded only to individuals or private com-

panies, whom an error of government constitutes dogs in the

manger. Besides these, there is in all the colonies, as well

when land is granted as when it is sold, a great dog in the

manger, which does more mischief than all the little ones put

together. This is the government itself. Everywhere in the

colonies, the government makes “reserves” of waste land. It

marks out places in the wilderness, sometimes small sections,

sometimes great districts, generally both, and proclaims that

there the acquisition of land is not permitted, and settlement

is forbidden. Such were the Clergy Reserves in Canada, be-

ing sections of a hundred acres each, marked out in all parts

of the province wherever land was obtainable by grant, and

in the proportion to private grants of one in eleven. To these

were added, in the same proportion, Crown Reserves, being

sections of a hundred acres each, which the government con-

demned to perpetual waste. As the clergy could not use their

land and were not permitted to sell it, their reserves, like those

of the crown, were permanent deserts interspersed amongst

the settlers, in the proportion, reckoning both kinds of re-

serve, of one desert for five and a half occupied sections. But

these reserves, mischievous as they were, had a less dispers-

ing effect, than has the reservation by government of large

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

tracts of waste land, which is a common practice in all the

colonies. The land is “reserved” from grant or sale—that is,

from occupation and settlement—at the mere pleasure of the

officials, who are wholly irresponsible to the colonists, from

a variety of motives, sometimes really public, but oftener

capricious, fantastical, or corrupt, never justifiable. The gov-

ernor, a naval captain whose only knowledge of colonies has

been acquired by visiting their harbours in a man-ofwar, fan-

cies that this or that spot will make a fine township “by and

by;” so it is reserved “for the present.” The Colonial Secre-

tary or the Private Secretary thinks that in such a settlement,

the colonists ought to be “discouraged” from spreading to

the east or west, because it will be more for their advantage

to spread northward or southward: so individual judgment is

controlled, and colonization forcibly diverted from its natu-

ral course, by a great “reserve” in the “improper” direction.

The officials of the Land Office have friends, or perhaps se-

cret partners, who would like to acquire this or that spot by

purchase, but not at present : either their funds are not ready,

or they would like to keep their money for use at colonial

interest till the spread of colonization beyond the coveted

spot shall have given it a position-value, when by means of

the rogueries of the auction system, or some other mode of

benefiting by official favour, they hope to get it for less than

its value: so it is “reserved” for their convenience and profit.

The only real public motive for reserving land is the defi-

ciency of surveys. But this is rather an excuse than a motive.

In the name of this excuse, immense “reserves” by the gov-

ernment condemn a large proportion of the waste in every

colony to long-continued barrenness, and cruelly interfere with

the settler’s liberty of choice as to locality. Reserves from the

want of surveys are perhaps the most mischievous of all, be-

cause the area over which they operate is greater than that of

all the other reserves combined.

The evils occasioned by all these modes of circumscribing

the choice of settlers as to locality, ought to have been men-

tioned under the head of impediments to colonization; for of

these impediments, they constitute perhaps the most effec-

tual. The dispersion of the settlers which they forcibly occa-

sion, is the main cause of the difficulties of communication

for which colonies are remarkable, and of the many barbariz-

ing circumstances, economical, social, and political, which

these difficulties occasion. For one representation of the whole

mischief, I would again refer you to Lord Durham’s Report

and its Appendix B.

But even here, enough of the case has been exhibited, to fur-

nish us with the means of confounding our Mr. Mothercountry.

According to the whole plan ofcolonization which I am de-

veloping, there would indeed be no liberty of appropriation

for the dogs, small or great; but there would be absolute lib-

erty for the cows, and because all the dogs would be effectu-

ally kept out of the manger. Dispersion or concentration is a

question of locality alone. As to locality, all the restrictions

on the choice of bonâ fide settlers, which occur through the

operations of private dogs in the manger, would be prevented

by the sufficient price, because that would deter every man

from acquiring more land than he could use; and the restric-

tions now imposed by government would be removed, by

abolishing all sorts of “reserves,” including those occurring

from deficiency of surveys. The only restriction on liberty of

choice would be the sufficient price; but that would apply to

quantity alone, not at all to locality: and that restriction as to

quantity, not to dwell here on its other merits, would itself be

a means of promoting the utmost liberty as to locality.

Letter LXIX.

From the Colonist.

By What Authority Should Be Administered an Imperial

Policy of Colonization Apart from Government?

The time has now come for settling, if we can agree about it,

to what authority the administration of a good law of coloni-

zation ought to be entrusted. My own opinion is, that the

colony would perform this function better than the mother-

country could. If that is not your opinion likewise, pray let

me know what meaning you on this occasion attach to the

words “the mother-country.” On the assumption that, as re-

spects the administration of colonial authority, “the mother-

country” signifies the Mr. Mothercountry of the Colonial

Gazette, I propose, that if ever the imperial legislature should

see fit to frame a good law of colonization, the administra-

tion of such law should be confided to the local governments

of the colonies. Such a law would lay down general rules for

the disposal of waste land and the promotion of emigration.

These general rules would be embodied in the colonial char-

ters of government before proposed, in the form of stipula-

tions or directions by which the local government would be

bound in carrying on the work of colonization. Thus, in a

matter which is of great general moment to the empire, the

imperial government would establish an imperial policy; but

instead of attempting, what it could not perform well, the

particular execution of this policy in every colony, it would

confide that task of executive details to the parties most deeply,

immediately, and unremittingly interested in its best possible

performance : that is, for each colony separately, to the re-

sponsible municipal government of that colony alone. It may

seem to you, that there is part of such a policy which a colo-

nial government could not administer well; namely, the se-

lection of poor emigrants in this country. I once inclined to

that opinion myself, but have changed my mind by attending

to the suggestions of experience. If the colonial government

pledged itself from time to time to pay a sufficient amount of

passage-money for each of a certain number of labouring

emigrants landed in the colony in good health, and approved

of by the colonial governments as respects age, sex, previous

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A View of the Art of Colonization

occupation, and established character at home, the selection

and carrying out of labouring emigrants would become an

important business amongst the shipowners of this country,

and could be conducted by means of contracts between the

local governments and such shipowners, in the framing of

which absolute securities might be taken, on the principle of

“no cure no pay,” that every object of the colony should be

accomplished. The proposed colonial Representatives at home

might afford valuable assistance in this part of the work of

colonization. But I must not be led into details here; for the

meeting of Parliament approaches. I will therefore close this

part of our subject with two general propositions: 1st, if the

imperial government bestowed good municipal constitutions

on the colonies, but did not care to form a good law of colo-

nization apart from government, the colonies and the empire

would gain by handing over to the colonies the whole busi-

ness, both legislative and executive, of disposing of waste

land and promoting emigration: 2nd, if there were no good

law of colonization, nor any municipal system of government

for the colonies either, then, since the whole of colonization

as it is would continue, neither colonies nor empire need care

by whose hands the economical part of it was administered.

Letter LXX.

From the Statesman.

The Statesman Describes a Scene with Mr.

Mothercountry, and Announces That the Project of Ac-

tion in Parliament on the Subject of Colonization Is Aban-

doned.

Considering our Mr. Mothercountry’s disposition to construe

arguments which he dislikes, into attacks upon himself or the

Office that he reveres, I have not thought it worth while to

repeat to him your answer to his very last objection; though I

must confess that the temptation was strong upon me to

humble him a little. I longed to do so the more perhaps, be-

cause, having exhausted his stock of criticism on your pro-

posals, he has now taken to boasting of the grandness of our

present colonization under the management of Downing-

street. Yesterday, he came here to dinner, and met two of those

friends of mine, who, I informed you at the opening of our

correspondence, induced me to study the subject of it with

your assistance, and who lately joined a party of visitors con-

gregated here for the purpose of talking over the prospects of

the coming session. Addressing himself to these colonial re-

formers, who had however excited him by uttering some of

their opinions, he ridiculed the notion that colonization is one

of the artes perditoe, and even claimed for our own time a

great superiority to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

He contrasted Australia as it is, with North America as it was

before the war of independence. At that time, said he, no city

in the American colonies, after two centuries of colonization,

had a population equal to that of Sydney at present; that is,

sixty years after its foundation. The imports and exports of

the Australasian group, after only sixty years colonization,

exceed those of all English North America at the time of the

tea-riots at Boston. Within the last sixteen or seventeen years,

we have sent out 120,000 emigrants to Australasia. Between

1837 and 1847, we actually doubled the population of New

South Wales. And all this has been accomplished without cost

to the mother-country; for the passage of this great number of

poor emigrants was paid for with funds derived from carry-

ing into effect a new principle of colonization, according to

which waste land in the colonies is sold instead of being given

away, and the purchase-money is used as an emigration-fund.

Here, one of my friends could bear it no longer, but inter-

posed by telling him, that he was only repeating a speech

which Lord Grey delivered at the close of last session in the

House of Lords, and which has just been published as a pam-

phlet by Ridgway. The pamphlet was produced; for my friend

had brought a copy with him amongst other papers relating to

our contemplated movement in the House of Commons. What

passed further it would be useless to report, with two excep-

tions.

First, Mr. Mothercountry’s vaunting about colonization in

Australasia under the Colonial Office, was changed into whin-

ing about himself and his poor Office, when we pointed out

to him that the population of the whole Australasian group,

after sixty years from the foundation of Sydney, amounts, as

you have observed, to no more than that of the town of

Glasgow; that his grand town of Sydney was created by con-

vict labour conveyed to the antipodes at an enormous cost to

the mother-country, and by a vast expenditure of British money

in maintaining convict, including military, establishments on

the spot; and that the greatness of the Australasian export and

import trade is due, in no measure to the superiority of mod-

ern colonization under bureaucratic management, but princi-

pally to the beneficence of nature in providing our colonists

at the antipodes with natural pasturages, which the Colonial

Office taxes as if it deemed the advantage too great for colo-

nists to enjoy undiminished.

Secondly, I reminded him of his statement to me soon after

he came to reside in this neighbourhood, that Lord Grey gives

you credit for having invented the “new principle” of coloni-

zation of whose effects he had just been boasting; and then I

begged him to observe that Lord Grey, in his pamphlet speech,

which mainly consists of bragging about the great effects of

that principle in Australasia, claims all the merit to the Colo-

nial Office and himself, just as if the principle had been dis-

covered by them, and nobody but they had had any part in

giving effect to it. The resemblance between what he had just

been doing himself and Lord Grey’s proceeding, evidently

struck him: perhaps he heard one of my friends whisper to

me whilst he looked at him, mutato nomine de te fabula

126

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

narratur: at all events, I thought he would have wept with

vexation, such strange grimaces did he make, and gulping

noises in his throat. But let us change the theme.

I wish that the one which must now be presented to you, were

as pleasant as it is truly disagreeable to me, not to say painful.

After much consultation with my friends, after showing them

our correspondence, after using every argument that I can

think of to induce them to fulfil their purpose of bringing the

whole subject of colonization before the House of Commons

early in the ensuing session, I have now the mortification of

being told by them (for in fact it comes to this), that they see

insuperable obstacles to the contemplated proceeding. It

would be idle to tell you all that has past between us; but I

must just indicate the nature of the “difficulties” which they

consider insurmountable. One of these would-be reformers

of our colonial system thinks, that public opinion is not yet

ripe enough for action in Parliament. “But action in Parlia-

ment,” said I, “is the best way of ripening public opinion.”

The reply was, that the state of parties is unfavourable to the

movement: some party collision might ensue, when a fusion

or amalgamation of parties resulting in a strong government

composed of the best men in all the now brokenup parties, is

the object of sensible politicians. Another objector hinted at

family connexions, and a personal friendship, that indisposed

him to join in any course at which Lord Grey was likely to

take offence. Then somebody remarked, that a real exposi-

tion in the House of Commons of our system of colonial gov-

ernment, if it did not speedily bring about a thorough reform,

would probably produce great commotion in the colonies,

and entail on the mother-country an increase of expense for

military and naval purposes, at the very moment when the

tide of popular opinion has just strongly set in for economy.

There were more objections; but I may state them all under

one description ; that of “lions in the path;” little lions and

big; in some paths several. My friends “admitted,” and “per-

ceived,” and “wished” with me; thought the object excellent;

and deemed success probable, because, whilst great benefit

to this nation and the empire must result from colonial re-

form, no “interest” would be opposed to it except only the

despotic-helpless Colonial Office. But with all this clear see-

ing and positive opinion, my friends would not stir a step:

anything but action. Thus all my trouble is lost, and, what

vexes me far more, all yours.

I have thought about moving by myself; but in this path, I,

too, see one lion very distinctly, and several looming in the

distance. The thought of a probable disagreement with my

friends, in consequence of separating from them and leaving

them behind in this matter, is very discouraging. Neither can

I fearlessly incur the risk of engaging alone in a contest with

general prejudice based on ignorance, and the still more for-

midable indifference of public men and the great public itself

to every sort of colonial question. Oh, that I had the self-

reliance which something appears to have banished from pub-

lic life since 1846! I almost long for a good stock of vulgar

impudence. Just now, at any rate, I wish I were out of Parlia-

ment.

Letter LXXI.

From the Colonist.

The Colonist Closes the Correspondence, and Alludes

to Several Topics Which Would Have Been Pursued If

it Had Continued.

I am less annoyed than you seem to have expected; for prac-

tice makes perfect even in bearing disappointments. And, as

another proverb says, good cometh out of evil: our corre-

spondence has exhausted me, and I am glad to rest.

If your friends had persevered in their intention, I should have

wished to trouble you with some further observations on points

which, though hitherto left unnoticed because I wished to

pursue with as little disturbance as possible the order of in-

quiry laid down by yourself, would yet be of practical impor-

tance if Parliament took up our subject in earnest. As a better

time may come, it seems well that I should just mention the

topics, which would have occupied several letters if our cor-

respondence had continued. They shall be stated briefly; and

in the mere notes of them which I intend to follow, no care

will be taken either to observe order or to explain anything. If

ever our correspondence should be renewed at your instance,

you may expect to receive letters containing:—

I. A plan of colonization (not emigration) exclusively appli-

cable to that portion of Ireland, in which the bulk of the people

is still Irish and Roman Catholic; a plan expressly framed

with a view to the political condition, the social peculiarities,

and the fervent nationality, of the Milesian-Irish race in Ire-

land.

With respect to this scheme, however, upon which great pains

have been bestowed in the hope of making it a real, practi-

cable, and effectual, because radical, measure, for serving

the most miserable nation on the face of the earth, there ex-

ists what you may deem a lion in my path. “Circumstances”

would prevent me, even if our correspondence proceeded now,

from communicating this plan to you at present; perhaps from

ever communicating it to you at all: and I am “not at liberty”

now to say more on the subject.

II. Some notions of a plan, both for securing ample religious

and educational provisions in British colonies, and for

causingreligious differences, which are at present as inevi-

table as the return of daylight in the morning, to aid in pro-

moting colonization, as they indubitably promoted it in the

early settlement of North America by England. In this scheme,

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A View of the Art of Colonization

the principle of “religious equality before the law” is strictly

adhered to; but for that very reason, and also because coloni-

zation is the business in hand, the Church of England would

spread faster and on a greater scale than the others, in pro-

portion to the greater number and greater wealth of her mem-

bers, instead of lagging behind them as she does now. I am

bound to add, that my notions on this subject were not origi-

nally formed in my own mind, but, for the most part, sug-

gested to me by Dr. Hinds.

III. A plan of colonization for the West Indies. In this scheme,

the economical principles of colonization set forth in our cor-

respondence are observed with respect to public land, pri-

vate land, and emigrationfund; but Africa is the country from

which it is proposed that the emigration of labour should be

attracted: and there are some provisions for causing the civi-

lization of negroes in the West Indies to nave some good ef-

fect on the barbarism of Africa. If this scheme answered its

purpose, free-labour in the West Indies would produce inter-

tropical commodities at less cost than slave-labour anywhere,

and would of course, free trade prevailing, drive slave-grown

produce out of the markets of the world. It is a scheme lor

wounding slavery and the African slave-trade at their roots.

IV. A brief history of convict colonization by England.

Under this head, I should endeavour to show how convict

emigration, besides making honest people in all ranks ashamed

to emigrate, operates as an impediment to the emigration of

valuable settlers, by giving, in one group of our colonies, a

base jail-like character to colonial society, and a brutal jailer-

like character to colonial government.

A curious branch of this subject, though not strictly pertain-

ing to colonization, would be the successful counteraction of

our missions to the heathen in Polynesia, by the “Devil’s Mis-

sionaries” whom we spread all over that part of the world.

V. Some suggestions, the aim of which is, to make colonizing

companies seated in the mother-country, very effective in-

struments of the state in promoting the emigration of capital

and labour, because properly empowered and properly re-

strained instruments.

VI. A suggestion, the object of which is, to enable any “gentle-

man” father wishing to make his son a colonist, to prepare

him, by suitable teaching and discipline, for succeeding in a

colonial career, instead of, as now commonly happens, send-

ing him away so well qualified for failure, as to run great risk

of losing his money, his principles, his character, and his peace

of mind.

VII. A particular account (but this would be written at leisure

for amusement) of Mr. Taylor’s experience of the Colonial

Office during twelve years.

VIII. Some account of my own experience of the Colonial

Office during twenty years.

The End.

Appendix.

No. I.

[As time passed on after Mr. Charles Buller’s speech on colo-

nization in 1843, he was reproached, as well by friends as by

persons who differed from him in party politics (for he had

no enemies), with being inconsistent, and with neglecting a

self-imposed task, by disappointing that public hope of his

future usefulness as a colonizing statesman, to which his suc-

cessful effort in 1843 had given occasion. If he had lived

another year, his own conduct would probably have vindi-

cated his reputation from this censure. But as he is gone, the

duty now devolves upon his friends. None of them, as it hap-

pens, possesses so good means as myself of performing this

duty; and therefore I undertake it.

To some extent, his premature death from mere delicacy of

physical organization accounts for his apparent neglect of a

public question which he had appropriated, and of his own

fame. He was not really indifferent to either; but he was ever

incapable of exerting his rare intellectual faculties without

injury to his bodily health, and was often, for months together,

incapacitated by bodily weakness from greatly exerting them

at all. Thus, from 1843 to 1846, his physical strength was

often over-tasked by his labours in the New Zealand contro-

versy: but his exertions during that period were far from be-

ing fruitless; for he was the life and soul of the discussions

upon colonial policy which grew out of the New Zealand case,

and which mainly produced the actual disposition of the pub-

lic mind towards a reform of our whole colonial system. All

this took place when his party was in opposition.

In 1846, he accepted the nearly sinecure office of Judge Ad-

vocate General, but only on a distinct understanding with Lord

Grey, that his duty in the House of Commons should be to

follow up there, in co-operation with Mr. Hawes, the exer-

tions for colonial reform and improved colonization, which

they three had made together in opposition. But this arrange-

ment, which was semi-officially announced, and in the real-

ity of which Mr. Buller firmly believed, was totally disre-

garded by Lord Grey. The new minister was not in office a

month, before he embraced views of colonial policy opposite

to those which he had previously entertained, and which Mr.

Buller continued to hold. By this most unexpected turn of

events, Mr. Buller was placed in a position of extreme irk-

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

someness. Precluded by his subordinate position in the Gov-

ernment from taking a course of his own in Parliament, and

supposed to be in close agreement with Lord Grey, he was

held responsible for measures, and for neglect, of which he

cordially disapproved. From this thraldom he only escaped

by becoming President of the Poor Law Commission, at the

close of 1847. Soon after that event, I received a letter from

him, from which an extract follows:—

“London, 15th December, 1847.

“I am much delighted, my dear Wakefield, by once more see-

ing your handwriting, and by your friendly congratulations

on an appointment at which many of my friends look blank.

Anything, as you say, was better than a sinecure, with a pre-

tence of work in which I had no share. And my firm belief is,

that the administration of the Poor-Law is a matter in which

good is to be done, and honour acquired. Circumstances

favour a reasonable administration of the law: and there is a

general disposition to let any one who will undertake it in a

proper spirit, succeed. And if I do succeed, no one will ever

again say I am a mere talker with no qualities for business. I

incur responsibility, I know: but sweat and risk are the pur-

chase-money of every palm worth wearing. ******; and I

feel rejoiced to find your judgment in favour of the step I

have taken.

“Nothing pleases me so much as your seeing in this an open-

ing for a renewal of our colonizing co-operation.”

The colonizing co-operation was renewed. In April, 1848,

Mr. Buller came to see me at Reigate, for the purpose of dis-

cussing the question, whether anything could be attempted,

with a fair prospect of success, for reviving the public inter-

est in colonization which had died away during the previous

two years. He was the more anxious that we should deter-

mine this question in the affirmative, because his brief expe-

rience of Poor-Law administration had impressed him with a

fear, that unless colonization (not shovelling out of paupers

by mere emigration) were undertaken systematically, the poor-

rates would ere long attain under the new law, their maxi-

mum under the old; an anticipation that is now all but real-

ized. But we decided the question in the negative. One of the

grounds of this decision was the expediency, in our united

opinion, of waiting till after the publication of the present

volume.

On the 3rd of October last, however, when I was in France,

engaged in completing the preparation of this volume for the

press, I received a letter from Mr. Buller, in which he pro-

posed to pay me a visit, and said, “Not only do I want to see

you on general politics, but I have a particular project to dis-

cuss with you; and I am anxious to do so, because you can

lend me the most valuable assistance, and, I think, realize a

great idea.” The “particular project” and the “great idea” were

the project of a set of remedial measures for Ireland, with

some views as to the means of inducing Parliament to adopt

them. One of this set of measures was to be a plan of coloni-

zation for the Irish part of Ireland, or for the special use and

benefit of the Milesian-Irish race, who never colonize, but

only emigrate miserably.

The subject of such a plan had been matter of frequent dis-

cussion before, between Mr. Buller and me; and our opinions

upon it agreed. But since those discussions, I had had the

advantage of frequently discussing the subject with a gentle-

man intimately acquainted with Ireland, with Irish emigra-

tion, with the state of Irish emigrants in the countries to which

they resort, and with the principles of colonization and colo-

nial government set forth in this volume: and with his most

valuable assistance, I had formed notions about colonization

for Milesian Ireland, which, when Mr. Buller came to see me,

were already put in writing for insertion amongst the forego-

ing pages. This new plan, Mr. Buller fully examined with me,

and in the end adopted its leading features. But we then agreed

further, that the plan would stand a better chance of being

soon adopted by Parliament, if it were not published in my

book: and we parted on the understanding, that as soon as the

book was published, after passing through his hands for criti-

cal revision on its way to the printer, he should make such use

of the plan as we might then deem most expedient. His sud-

den death frustrated our whole purpose: but as I resolved to

make no change in the book in consequence of that event, the

plan is still in my desk. More might be said about Mr. Buller’s

lively and practical interest, after he ceased to be Judge Ad-

vocate General, in the subject which he had previously illus-

trated with such admirable ability; but the above explanation

suffices for establishing the fact, and doing justice to his fame

as a colonizing statesman.]

Speech of Chakles Buller, ESQ., M.P.

In the House of Commons, on Tuesday, April

6,1843,

On Systematic Colonization.

SIR,—I cannot enter upon the subject which I have under-

taken to bring before the House to-night, without asking its

indulgence on the ground of the unfeignedly painful con-

sciousness which I have of my very small personal claim to

attention, and of my utter inability to do justice to the magni-

tude of my subject. It would be most unjust to the House

were I to allow it to be supposed that the grave and difficult

nature of the question which I propose to bring before it, and

its want of connexion with party feelings and party interests,

will at all indispose it to yield me its kind and patient atten-

tion. I must say, in justice to the present House of Commons,

with the majority of which I have seldom the happiness of

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A View of the Art of Colonization

voting, that, however I may deplore the violence of party spirit

to which we occasionally give way, I never sat in any parlia-

ment which has shown itself so conscious of the deteriorating

character of our party strifes, and so desirous to make amends

for its indulgence in them by every now and then giving a

calm attention to matters of public concern, beyond and above

the low domain of party. If it were not so, indeed, we should

be culpable beyond our predecessors. For these, in truth, are

times in which the most thoughtless can hardly fail, every

now and then, to have a suspicion that the events that are

passing around us, and in which we bear a part, involve con-

sequences of wider scope and greater moment than the inter-

ests of political rivalry. Amid the very clash and tumult of

party strife in which we, like those who have gone before us,

are too apt to concentrate our energies and thoughts, we can-

not help being, every now and then, conscious of such heavings

of the soil on which we tread as to compel us to believe that

around us are fearful agencies at work that threaten the solid-

ity of the very framework of society. We have of late had

warning enough of the necessity of looking to the material

condition of the country, from the existence of distress of an

unusual extent, duration, and severity. Owing, too, to inquir-

ies which we never had the wisdom or the boldness to make

before, we are now in possession of a fearful knowledge of

the moral and intellectual state of the great masses of our

people. And from such events as the disturbances of last year,

we know well what effects physical distress and moral ne-

glect have combined to produce in the temper of the masses,

and how terrible is the risk to which we are exposed from this

settled, though happily as yet undisciplined disaffection? With

such matters as these fresh in our memories, and reflected in

our apprehensions, we should, indeed, be possessed by some

judicial madness were we to take no thought of the condition

of the people, or to dismiss from our consideration any scheme

suggested with a view of bettering it, until we had proved

their insufficiency, or exhausted their efficacy.

I do not believe, however, that there ever took place in the

house a debate calculated to fill the public mind with such

despair as that which was raised by my noble friend the mem-

ber for Sunderland, when he brought forward his motion on

the distress of the country, in a speech showing so accurate

and comprehensive a knowledge of the state of the country,

and so wise an appreciation of the immediate remedy, that I

cannot but regret that he has left me anything to do which

might legitimately have been made a part of his remedial plan.

For what was the result of that debate. An universal agree-

ment as to the existence, and even the intensity of the mis-

chief—an entire disagreement as to the remedies proposed.

No one ventured on that occasion to deny the fact of very

severe distress ; but, at the same time, whatever measure was

proposed for the relief of it was negatived by a majority which

proposed no remedy of its own.

The view which I take of the existing evil, and of the appro-

priate remedy, would so much more be obscured than strength-

ened by any exaggeration, that I must guard myself against

being supposed to represent the difficulties of the country as

either unparalleled or desperate. It admits of no doubt, that

even after so long and severe a distress as that which has for

some years hung over every class and interest in the empire,

we are actually a richer people, with more of accumulated

wealth, more of the capital of future commerce, than we ever

possessed at a former period. But still, without any exaggera-

tion— without believing that our resources are less than they

used to be—without desponding for the future, it cannot be

denied that this is a period in which wealth, though actually

greater, is growing at a less rapid rate than before—that it is a

period of depression and stagnation—that a smaller amount

of useful and profitable enterprises are being carried on now

than five or six years ago—that there is less employment for

capital, and that business brings in smaller profits—that there

are more people out of employment, and that the wages of

those who are employed are less than they used to be. The

great increase of poor-rates within the last year or two, owing

to no disposition to relax the administration of the law, is an

unequivocal proof of suffering in the labouring class; and the

falling off of the revenue from customs, excise, stamps, and

taxes, furnishes as undeniable evidence of a diminution of

the comforts of the people ; and though there is not the slight-

est ground for fearing ruin as a nation, there is evidently an

amount of individual suffering, so wide and so severe, that

we cannot contemplate its existence without pain, nor its pro-

longed duration without alarm. There is no denying that the

present distress is not that of any simple class interest, or

branch of industry. It can therefore be the result of no partial

cause. And it has lasted so long, that there is no ground for

attributing it to temporary causes, or hoping that it may cease

when they shall have ceased to operate.

I do not deny the influence of temporary causes in producing

the present very severe distress. I admit, with gentlemen op-

posite, that successive bad harvests, wars, unsettled commer-

cial relations, the monetary and commercial derangements of

other countries, particularly the United states, and an undue

impulse to speculation, together with the consequent disas-

trous reaction, have undoubtedly combined to disturb our

commerce; and I think it impossible to deny that, had these

causes not been in operation, the distress which we lament

would have been different in character and in intensity. But,

on the other hand, I do not think that it has been shown that

the operation of these temporary causes can be taken as a

satisfactory solution of the whole of our distress. I think it

clear that, besides these, there have been at work more per-

manent causes of distress; and that, in fact, the temporary

causes are but forms in which the permanent evils of our state

have exhibited themselves.

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

For instance, much of the distress has been ascribed to over-

production. It has been asserted that during the entire period

of distress, with falling prices and markets becoming, day by

day, flatter and flatter, this insane energy of over-production

went on building more mills, multiplying fresh powers of

machinery, and adding fresh heaps to the pre-existing accu-

mulations of unsaleable wares. To a certain extent there is, I

fear, too much reason to admit this account of the history of

our trade, and to believe that even after the long period of

distress which we have gone through, it is too probable that—

instead of relief being afforded in the most obvious manner

—namely, by low prices having diminished production, and

the supply of our goods having, therefore, been reduced to an

equality with the demand,— production having, in fact, gone

on under the pressure of low prices, the supply of many kinds

of goods is now almost, if not quite, as redundant as ever. But

I cannot understand how this can be regarded as a full expla-

nation of the origin of the distress. The alleged over-produc-

tion may have laid the foundation for a greater future dis-

tress; but I cannot conceive how it can be made out, under the

circumstances in which it occurred, that distress would have

been avoided, had over-production not taken place. Can it be

alleged that, during this period of over-production, capital or

labour were withdrawn from their ordinary occupations? Did

any trade or enterprise of any kind suffer from the diversion

of capital into channels in which more than ordinary profits

were expected? Was the over-production carried on by means

of capital borrowed from foreigners? Were the labourers taken

from the fields, or the ordinary business of trade, to work in

the cotton-mills? Or were foreign labourers imported into this

country to supply the scarcity of English hands? Why, it is

notorious that, during the last two or three years, we were

lending money to the foreigner; that there has been a consid-

erable emigration of labourers; that after all this, and all the

over-production of which you speak, there never was so much

money lying idle; and that our work-houses were getting

crowded with able-bodied men, who could not get employ-

ment. If the mills, of which so much complaint is made, had

not been kept in activity, the money which was required to

work them would have been brought into a previously over-

crowded money market; and the labourers whom they em-

ployed would have been so many more inmates of the work-

houses. Is it not clear, then, that the over-production which is

spoken of, however it may possibly aggravate future distress,

has, in fact, only given a precarious, may be, ultimately, a

mischievous employment; but still an employment which

would not otherwise have been afforded to English capital

and labour? If there had been no over-production, there would

have been distress— different, perhaps, in form and in re-

sults—but still distress; for there would have been an addi-

tional amount of capital and labour unemployed. Your tem-

porary cause, in this instance, instead of solving the whole

problem, points us merely to permanent causes, which must

be comprehended and removed ere we can hope to remove

the sufferings of the people.

That you cannot explain the existing distress by temporary

causes alone, is evident from the state of things in another

country, in which these causes have operated in an even greater

degree than here, without producing anything like the suffer-

ing which has been felt here. Whatever shocks our trade has

experienced during the last few years, no one can compare

them for severity with those which have been felt in the United

States. Since 1836, the history of the trade of the United States

has consisted of a series of crises, with intervals of stagna-

tion. “I doubt,” says Mr. Everett, in the wise and feeling an-

swer which he recently made to a deputation of holders of

Slave Stock; “I doubt if, in the history of the world, in so

short a period, such a transition has been made from a state

of high prosperity to one of general distress, as in the United

States, within the last six years.” And yet, has there been there

any of what we should call distress among the quiet traders

and artisans? of any inability to employ capital with ordinary

profit? Or any general want of employment for labour? Of

any great depression of wages? Or anything which we should

call the extreme of destitution. Have even the unscrupulous

demagogues of their hustings or their press ventured to de-

scribe such sad scenes as those which official inspection has

shown to have been but too frequent at Bolton and Stockport?

Have you heard in that country of human beings living huddled

together in defiance of comfort, of shame, and of health, in

garrets and in cellars, and in the same hovels with their pigs?

Have you heard of large and sudden calls on the bounty of

individuals, of parishes, or of the government? Of workhouses

crowded? Of even the gaol resorted to for shelter and main-

tenance? Of human beings prevented from actually dying of

starvation in the open streets, or of others allowed to expire

from inanition in the obscurity of their own dwelling-places?

The plain fact is, that though hundreds of enterprises have

failed, and enormous amounts of capital have been sacrificed,

and credit has been paralysed, and hundreds that were wealthy

at sunrise have been beggars ere the same sun was set, and

thousands have been suddenly deprived of the work and wages

of the day before, yet capital and labour have never failed to

find immediate employment in that boundless field. That fear-

ful storm has passed over the United States, leaving marks of

tremendous havoc on its credit and wealth and progress; but

the condition of the masses has never been substantially af-

fected. How comes it that these temporary causes, which pro-

duce so frightful an amount of distress in England, do not,

when acting with double and treble violence in the United

States, produce a tithe of the suffering? Does it not show that

in this country the real mischief lies deep, and is ever at work?

And that the temporary causes to which you ascribe tempo-

rary distress are of such fearful efficacy only because they

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A View of the Art of Colonization

aggravate the effects of causes permanently depressing the

condition of the people.

I think, Sir, that we cannot contemplate the condition of this

country without coming to the conclusion that there is a per-

manent cause of suffering in the constant accumulation of

capital, and the constant increase of population within the

same restricted field of employment. Every year adds its prof-

its to the amount of capital previously accumulated; and cer-

tainly leaves the population considerably larger at its close

than it was at its commencement. This fresh amount both of

capital and population have to be employed; and if no further

space for their employment be provided, they must compete

for a share of the previous amount of profits and wages. The

tendency of this cause to reduce both profits and wages is

undoubtedly counteracted by what has fortunately been the

still greater tendency of increased demand from foreign coun-

tries, of discoveries of fresh products of nature, and of im-

provements in various processes of art, especially in agricul-

ture, to enlarge the field of employment; so that, in fact, the

condition of the great mass of our countrymen has, as regards

mere physical circumstances, indisputably gone on improv-

ing from century to century since the Norman conquest. But

it is as indisputable that this enlargement of the field of em-

ployment, though in the long run greater, is not so steady as

the growth of capital and population; and that during the in-

tervals that elapse ere fresh employment is found, competi-

tion, in a restricted field, oftentimes reduces both wages and

profits, and occasions periods of distress.

In this country, since the peace, there has been an immense

accumulation of capital, of which great part has, no doubt,

been turned to excellent account in extending our trade and

manufactures; in improving our agriculture; in covering the

country with public works and private dwellings; and in bring-

ing within reach of the humblest of our people comforts which

formerly only the wealthy could command. But, over and

above this, there has been a further accumulation of capital

for which no profitable employment could be found; and

which has consequently been thrown away in the most unsafe

investments —lent to every government that chose to ask us

for loans—sunk in South American mines, or fooled away in

the bubble speculations of the day. In loans to foreign coun-

tries, I have heard that a sum so large has been sunk that I fear

to repeat it; and of this a great part may be regarded as abso-

lutely lost, owing to the dishonesty of the debtor states. Such

speculations are the inevitable result of an accumulation of

capital, which there are no means of investing with profit;

and of course the failure of such speculations narrows the

field of employment still more, by producing a general un-

willingness to embark even in safe enterprises. We are now

in one of those periods of stagnation of trade, while millions

by which it could be profitably carried on are lying idle in the

coffers of our capitalists. The general complaint is, that no

man can find a safe, and at the same time profitable invest-

ment for money; that the rate of interest on private security is

lower than it was ever known; that the price of public securi-

ties keeps rising—not because the country is prosperous—

but because the universal stagnation and want of confidence

prevent men from investing their savings in any other way;

that the profits of business also are very low; and that every

kind of business is more and more passing into the hands of

great capitalists, because they can afford, on their large

amounts, to be content with a rate of profit, at which the

smaller capital would not produce a livelihood. This state of

things is the result of having more capital than you can em-

ploy with profit; and the cry of distress to which it gives rise

will continue as long as capital continues to accumulate in a

restricted field.

No one will question the fact that there is a most severe com-

petition among labourers: that from the highest to the lowest

occupation of human industry, almost every one is habitually

overstocked; that in all there is the utmost difficulty of get-

ting employment; and that the gains of some, if not all of

every class, are diminished by the competition of redundant

labour. The liberal professions are more overstocked than any

others. Gentlemen of the first station and fortune find a diffi-

culty in knowing what to do with their younger sons ; and you

hear every day of the sons of gentlemen entering into occu-

pations from which their pride in former times debarred.

Among the middle classes you hear the same complaints.

There is the same intense competition amongst tradesmen,

and notoriously a most severe competition amongst farmers.

And the competition of educated men is nothing in compari-

son with the severity of that competition which exists amongst

educated women, who are, unhappily, compelled to maintain

themselves by their own exertions in that very limited range

of employments in which our manners allow them to engage.

The extent of the competition for employment among those

who have nothing to depend upon but mere manual labour

unhappily admits of easy and certain proof, by a reference to

the broad and indisputable conclusions forced on us by sta-

tistical accounts. Since 1810 more than six millions have been

added to the population of Great Britain ; and for all this

additional population agriculture has not supplied any, or

hardly any, additional employment. Yet the condition of our

agricultural labourers is anything but such as we could wish.

In the course of the violent recrimination which anti-corn-

law lecturers and farmers’ friends have been lately carrying

on, we have heard fearful accounts of the deplorable physical

condition of the agricultural labourers—their low wages, their

wretched habitations, their scanty food, bad clothing, and want

of fuel. On the other hand, we have had held up to us the

habitual privations to which the labourers in various trades

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Edward Gibbon Wakefield

and manufactures are subject. The perpetual strikes in vari-

ous trades—the long-continued misery of such a class as the

hand-loom weavers —then the dreadful facts laid open by

the inquiries put in motion by the Poor Law Commissioners

and by the noble lord the member for Dorsetshire (Lord

Ashley), respecting the unremitting and unwholesome labour

carried on in many trades—the wretched poverty, precarious

existence, and mental abasement of vast bodies of our arti-

sans—above all, the miserable and degrading occupations to

which a large portion of our population is condemned to re-

sort, are proofs of a constant pressure of the population em-

ployed in trades and manufactures upon the means of subsis-

tence which they afford. Look at the accounts of thousands of

men, women, and children congregated together without any

regard to decency or comfort in noisome sites and wretched

hovels— of those who wear out their lives in the darkness of

coal and iron mines, doing what is commonly considered the

work of brutes, in a moral and intellectual state hardly raised

above that of the mere animal—of the shirt-makers, who get

tenpence for making a dozen shirts; and of the 15,000 milli-

ners in this metropolis, habitually working for the scantiest

wages, in close rooms, always for 13 or 14 hours a day, some-

times for days and nights together, 9 out of 10 losing their

health in the occupation, and scores of them falling victims

to consumption, or rendered incurably blind whenever a court

mourning, or any festivity of particular magnitude tasks their

powers more than usual. These are all consequences of the

one leading fact, that every year that rolls over our heads

brings an addition of 300,000 to the population of Great Brit-

ain, and that unless in proportion to the increase of popula-

tion there is a simultaneous increase of employment —unless

fresh work be found for as many pair of hands as there are

fresh mouths to feed, the condition of our population must

sink, and there must be acute suffering. In Ireland the condi-

tion of the people is at all times more uneasy; in any crisis,

their sufferings infinitely more horrible. Can this be wondered

at, when we know, on the highest official authority, that in

that part of the United Kingdom there are more than 2,000,000

of persons always in distress for 30 weeks in the year from

want of employment?

It is this constant swelling of population and capital up to the

very brim of the cup that is the permanent cause of uneasi-

ness and danger in this country : and this that makes the ordi-

nary vicissitudes of commerce fraught with such intense mis-

ery to our population. When our condition in ordinary times

is that of just having employed sufficient for our capital and

population, any check to the necessary increase of employ-

ment, much more any defalcation of the ordinary sources,

must be attended with absolute destitution to that large pro-

portion of our people who can save nothing from their daily

earnings, and who, if they chance to lose their present occu-

pation, can find no other to turn to. Contrast this with the

state of America. I dare say some gentlemen may smile when

I remind them of Mr. Dickens’s account of the factory girls at

Lowell, and their joint-stock pianoforte, and their circulating

library, and the “Lowell Offering” to which they contributed

the effusions of their fancy. But he must be heartless indeed

who would feel no other emotions than those of ridicule, when

he contrasts with the condition of our poor operatives the

degree of education, the leisure, and the pecuniary means

which are indicated by the possibility of having such amuse-

ments. Why, of all these Lowell girls there is hardly one that,

besides all her actual comforts, has not saved more or less of

money, and who, if the factory were to fail and be broken up

to-morrow, and its 20,000 workpeople discharged at an hour’s

notice, would not be able to fall back on those savings, and

would not either find immediate employment, or, as they are

generally daughters of respectable farmers, or rather yeomen,

be able to return to a comfortable home, from which her par-

ents had very reluctantly spared her assistance in domestic

labours. But when such failures happen in this country, the

blow must, from the necessity of the case, fall for the most

part on labourers, who have saved little or nothing, find no

new employment open to them, and, if they return home, do

so only to share want with their families, or to bring that fam-

ily with themselves on the parish. Hence that extreme misery

which follows in this country on any sudden cessation of a

particular employment; for instance, the horrible destitution

in the highlands, to which our attention was called two or

three years since by the honourable member for Inverness-

shire, and which arose from the substitution of barilla for kelp

in our manufactures, and the sudden stoppage of the herring

fishery. Hence comes that intense suffering which presses on

particular localities when the course of events changes the

sites of particular trades, as when the silk manufacture moved

from Spitalfields to the north, or the woollen manufactures

passed from Wiltshire and Somersetshire to Yorkshire. Hence

the temporary sufferings that ensue to large classes of

labourers and artisans when some change of fashion, or other

accident, deprives them even for awhile of the usual demand

for their labour; and hence the more permanent and entire

distress envelopes those whose particular employment is ev-

ery now and then superseded by some invention of machin-

ery most useful to the public at large, but utterly ruinous to

those whom it displaces. And hence it is that causes which

hardly exercise a visible effect on the labouring population

of the United States, involve large bodies of ours in the most

intense suffering. There the labour and capital which are dis-

placed from one employment find every other deficient in

both, and are immediately absorbed in them, to the great ad-

vantage of the community. Here they are thrown back upon

other employments all previously overstocked, and hang dead

weights on the productive industry of the country. And the

same considerations will enable us to account for the per-

plexing and contradictory phenomena of our present condi-

tion, and show us how it happens that we hear a cry of stagna-

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A View of the Art of Colonization

tion of business, of want of employment, and extreme desti-

tution throughout the industrious classes, at the same time

that we see around us the most incontestable evidences of

vast wealth rapidly augmenting: how it is that in this country

there are seen side by side, in fearful and unnatural contrast,

the greatest amount of opulence, and the most appalling mass

of misery—how it is that the people of this country appear,

when contemplated at one and the same time, from different

points of view, to be the richest and the neediest people in the

world.

When I speak of distress and suffering among the industrious

classes of this country, I must guard against being supposed

to mean that I regard their physical condition as worse than it

used to be. Taking the condition of the whole people of Great

Britain for periods of eight or ten years at a time, I feel little

doubt that, as far as external causes go, they are, on the whole,

better off than they used to be. But even these assertions of a

general improvement in the external condition of the people

must be qualified by the admission, that there appears to be a

class positively more, though comparatively less, numerous,

which suffers fearfully, and that the rear of the community, in

the present day, seems to lag further behind, both morally

and physically, than it used to do of old. I doubt whether there

ever before was in this country such a mass of such intense

physical suffering and moral degradation as is to be found in

this metropolis, in the cellars and garrets of Liverpool and

Manchester, and in the yet more wretched alleys of Glasgow;

and I have very little doubt that there never before prevailed,

in any portion of our population, vice so habitual and so gross

as is there to be found. The general comfort of the great body

is increased ; but so also is the misery of the most wretched.

We witness constantly more of the extreme of suffering ; we

have a positively larger number of the dangerous classes in

the country. I cannot but think, too, that the condition of the

productive classes is more precarious than it used to be, and

that great bodies of them run more frequent risk of sudden

and total destitution than they used to do. It is obvious that

this must be a consequence of that extreme subdivision of

employment which is one of the results of increasing civili-

zation. The more you confine the workman to one particular

process or occupation, the more exposed you are to the sud-

den and complete displacement of the persons so employed

by some improvement or change of fashion, or other cause

that dispenses with their services. But it is a perfectly differ-

ent kind of change in our working people which induces me

to regard the occurrence of periods of extreme distress as

both far more afflicting to themselves and dangerous to oth-

ers, than it used to be. What matters it that the scourge be no

heavier, or even that it be somewhat lighter, if the back of the

sufferer be more sensitive? and what avails it that the exter-

nal condition of our people is somewhat improved, if they

feel the less evils which they have to bear now more acutely

than they used to feel the greater which they submitted to

once? That they do so is obvious to any one who listens to

them ; that they must do so is in the very nature of things. For,

whatever may be the increase of enjoyments among our

people, it is obvious that the standard of comfort has increased

much more rapidly. Every class, when in full employment,

commands a far greater amount of enjoyments than it used,

and consequently every member of that class is accustomed

to regard as necessary to a comfortable existence—to con-

sider as a kind of rights, what his predecessor would have

looked upon as luxuries, which nothing but singular good

luck could place in his way. Each class is now cognizant of

the habits of those which are above it, and the appetites of the

poor are constantly sharpened by seeing the enjoyments of

the rich paraded before them. And, as the enjoyments of the

prosperous, so are the sufferings of the distressed, better

known to all than they used to be. The horrible details given

in the reports to which I have had occasion to refer reveal

certainly no worse state of things than has for ages been go-

ing on in crowded cities, in poor villages, in unwholesome

factories, and in the bowels of the earth. On the contrary, it

seems clear, from the unvarying testimony of all witnesses,

that, in almost every particular, bad as these things are, they

were worse formerly. But then, formerly no one knew of them.

Now, zealous humanity, now statesman-like courage, that does

not shrink from investigating and exposing the full extent of

our social ills, in order to ascertain the extent of the remedy

that must be provided, searches out the unknown misery, drags

suffering and degradation from their hiding-places, and har-

rows up the public mind with a knowledge of the disorders to

which we used to shut our eyes. Thus, the very improvements

that have taken place make lesser distresses more intolerable

than greater used to be ; the general elevation of the standard

of comfort makes each man feel privations to which he would

have been insensible before. The increase of information re-

specting passing events diffuses over the entire mass a sense

of sufferings which were formerly felt by few but the actual

sufferers; and the irritation thus created is heightened by the

contrast of luxuries, which wealth never could command be-

fore, and by a disparity between the ease of the rich and the

want of the poor, such as no previous state of things ever

presented.

It is idle, then, when we are discussing distress to make it a

matter of statistical comparison between the present and other

days, and to think we disprove the reasonableness of com-

plaint, by showing that men used to complain less, when they

had less of the external means of enjoyment. Men do not regu-

late their feelings by such comparisons. It is by what they feel

that you must measure the extent of their suffering; and if

they now feel more acutely than they did the pressure of such

occasional distress as has always been their lot, we must be

more than ever on our guard to better the general condition

134

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

of the people, and to prevent the occurrence of these periods

of extreme suffering. If humanity did not induce us to do our

utmost for this object, a mere politic view of our own inter-

ests would compel us: for depend upon it that the people of

this country will not bear what they used; and that every one

of these periods of distress is fraught with increasingly dan-

gerous effects on the popular temper, and with increasing peril

to the interests of property and order. And if you mean to

keep government or society together in this country, you must

do something to render the condition of the people less un-

easy and precarious than it now is.

I speak plainly, because nothing but harm seems to me to

result from the habit which we have of concealing the appre-

hensions, which no man of reflection can contemplate the

future without entertaining. We are beginning to know some-

thing of our own people; and can we contemplate the state of

things laid open to us, without wonder that we have stood so

long with safety on this volcanic soil? Does any one suppose

that we can tread it safely for ever? I need not detail to you

the dangerous doctrines that circulate among the people, or

the wild visions of political and social change which form the

creed of millions. Such creeds are ever engendered by partial

knowledge acting on general ignorance. Circulating undis-

turbed among the masses, they start forth into action only

when distress arrays those massed in disaffection to the law.

It should be the business of a wise and benevolent govern-

ment to dispel such evil dispositions by enlightening its people,

and diffusing among them the influence of religion and knowl-

edge; but it should also be its care to prevent the existence of

that distress, which irritates the existing ignorance of the

people. While, therefore, I go heartily along with the noble

lord, the member for Dorsetshire, and others, who grapple

with the general ignorance as the giant evil that oppresses the

country; while I feel convinced that never again can the gov-

ernment of this country rest securely on any other support

than that afforded by the general diffusion of sound instruc-

tion among the subjects; and while I look to education as the

great remedy on which we must rely for removing the evils of

our condition, I still say that simultaneous with our efforts for

this purpose must be some efforts to better the physical con-

dition of the people. Without relieving them from the pres-

sure of want and the undue toil, which is now often required

from them, you will in vain proffer the blessings of a higher

moral state to those who can give no thought to anything but

the supply of their physical wants. You will always be liable

to have your most benevolent and sagacious plans thwarted

by some outbreak, of which the watchword shall be, like the

simple and expressive cry of the insurgents of last summer—

“A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work. This must be se-

cured to honest industry ere there can be contentment among

the people, or any basis for operations directed to their moral

good. This you must secure for them, let me tell you, if you

wish to retain your own great advantages of position and prop-

erty: if you mean to uphold and transmit to your children those

institutions through which you have enjoyed at once the bless-

ings of freedom and order: if you hope to escape the tremen-

dous wrath of a people whom force will vainly attempt to

restrain, when they have utterly lost all reliance on your power

or inclination to care for their well-being. Some improve-

ment of their condition you must secure for the people, and

you must secure it before long. But that you will never do

until, by laying open a wider field of employment, you can

succeed in diminishing that terrible competition of capital

with capital and labour with labour, which is the permanent

cause of distress.

It is with this view that I propose that you should investigate

the efficacy of colonization, as a remedy against the distress

of the country. I say as a remedy, because I do not bring it

forward as a panacea—as the only, as an infallible remedy

for every ill—but as one among many remedies, which would

be valuable, even if they could not go the length of entirely

removing distress, provided they enable us to render its re-

currence less frequent, its operation less intense, and its pres-

sure less severe. I say distinctly, that you will not effect your

purpose of permanently and fully bettering the condition of

the people, unless you apply a variety of remedies directed to

the various disorders of their present state. But confining

myself to the economical evil that arises solely from that one

cause, of which I have laboured to describe the operation,

namely, the competition both of capital and labour in a re-

strictive field, I propose colonization as a means of remedy-

ing that evil, by enlarging the field of employment. With other

remedies of an economical nature, that have many advocates

in this house and in the country, I come into no collision;

because the mode in which they propose to attack the evil is

not that of enlarging the field of employment. Some gentle-

men urge the relaxation of the new poor law as a measure of

justice to the labouring class; while others, with the same view,

insist on a rigid execution of its provisions. But the question

of the administration of the poor law is obviously a question

relating merely to the distribution of the existing produce of

the country, and can have no direct connexion with that of

increasing its amount. Another remedy was proposed, the

other night, which is certainly more akin in character to the

one that I urge—namely, the allotment of small pieces of land

among the labouring class. But this I shall not now discuss,

because the matter was disposed of the other night by an ap-

parently general concurrence in what I regard as the sound

view of the allotment system; and that is, that it may be made

of great utility to a large portion of the labouring class, if had

recourse to only as a means of supplying additional comforts

and occasional in. dependence to labourers, whose main reli-

ance is on wages; but that it would entail the greatest curse on

our labouring population, if they were ever brought to regard

135

A View of the Art of Colonization

the cultivation of small allotments as their principal means of

subsistence.

There is, however, one remedy suggested for the relief of

distress, which proposes to effect its end in the same manner

as that which I advocate—namely, by opening a wider field

of employment to the labour and capital of the country. This

it is proposed to do by freely admitting the produce of for-

eign countries; supporting our labourers by all the additional

supplies of food which we can draw from abroad; and ex-

changing for that food and other produce the manufactures

wrought by the labourers who subsist on that imported food.

Sir, in the principles and objects of the friends of free trade I

fully concur. I not only think that we ought to do what they

propose, but I am ready to admit that the first and most simple

and most effectual mode of enlarging the field of employ-

ment is by trading on the freest terms with all the existing

markets in the world. I propose colonization as subsidiary to

free trade ; as an additional mode of carrying out the same

principles, and attaining the same object. You advocates of

free trade wish to bring food to the people. I suggest to you at

the same time to take your people to the food. You wish to get

fresh markets by removing the barriers which now keep you

from those that exist throughout the world. I call upon you, in

addition, to get fresh markets, by calling them into existence

in parts of the world which might be made to teem with valu-

able customers. You represent free trade as no merely tempo-

rary relief for the distresses of our actual population, but as

furnishing outlets of continually extending commerce to the

labour of our population, whatever its increase may be. In

these anticipations I fully concur; and I would carry out the

same principle, and attempt to make yet more use of these

blessed results, by also planting population and capital in the

vast untenanted regions of our colonies; and calling into ex-

istence markets, which, like those now in being, would go on

continually extending the means of employing an increasing

population at home.

I must not, therefore, be understood to propose colonization

as a substitute for free trade. I do not vaunt its efficacy as

superior; indeed I admit that its effect in extending employ-

ment must be slower. But, on the other hand, it will probably

be surer; and will be liable to no such interruptions from the

caprice of others, as trade with foreign nations must always

be subject to. I grant that the restrictive policy of other na-

tions is, in great measure, to be ascribed to the influence of

our example; and I am inclined to concur in the hope that the

relaxation of our commercial system will be the signal for

freedom of trade in many other countries. But still we are not

sure how soon this effect may be produced; how long an ex-

perience may be required to convince our neighbours of the

injurious operation of monopoly; or how soon or how often

the policy of protection may reappear in some shape or other,

whether finding favour with the fantastic minds of statesmen,

or the capricious feelings of nations, or dictated by political

views totally independent of merely economical consider-

ations. But of the legislation of your own colonies—of the

fiscal policy of the different portions of your own empire—

you can always make sure, and may rely upon being met by

no hostile tariffs on their part. The commerce of the world is

narrowed now not only by our own legislation, but by that of

other powers; the influence of restrictive views is extending

and acquiring strength among them. Within the last few years

no less than eight hostile tariffs have been passed against us,

more or less narrowing the demand for our manufactures. I

say, then, that in the present day the restrictive policy of other

nations must enter into our consideration as an element, and

no unimportant element, of commercial policy; and, though I

advise you to set the example of free trade to others, and

extend your intercourse with them to the very utmost, still at

the same time take care to be continually creating and enlarg-

ing those markets which are under the control of no legisla-

tion but your own. Show the world that, if the game of re-

striction is to be played, no country can play it with such

effect and such impunity as Great Britain, which, from the

outlying portions of her mighty empire, can command the

riches of every zone, and every soil, and every sea, that the

earth contains; and can draw, with unstinted measure, the

means of every luxury and the material of every manufacture

that the combined extent of other realms can supply. This we

have done, or can do, by placing our own people in different

portions of our own dominions; secure that, while they re-

main subjects of the same empire, no hostile tariff can by

possibility exclude us from their markets; and equally secure

that, whenever they shall have outgrown the state of colonial

dependence, and nominally or practically asserted, as they

will do a right to legislate for themselves, our hold on their

markets will be retained by that taste for our manufactures

which must result from long habit, and by that similarity of

customs and wants which kindred nations are sure to have.

Under these impressions I direct your attention to coloniza-

tion as a means, I should say not merely of relieving distress,

but of preventing its recurrence, by augmenting the resources

of the empire and the employment of the people. The sugges-

tion of this remedy appears to be the simple result of the view

of the evil, which I have described as the permanent cause of

distress in this country. Here we have capital that can obtain

no profitable employment; labour equally kept out from em-

ployment by the competition of labour sufficient for the ex-

isting demand; and an utter inability to find any fresh em-

ployment in which that unemployed capital can be turned to

account by setting that unemployed labour in motion. In your

colonies, on the other hand, you have vast tracts of the most

fertile land wanting only capital and labour to cover them

with abundant harvests; and, from want of that capital and

labour, wasting their productive energies in nourishing weeds,

or, at best, in giving shelter and sustenance to beasts. When I

136

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

ask you to colonize, what do I ask you to do but to carry the

superfluity of one part of our country to repair the deficiency

of the other: to cultivate the desert by applying to it the means

that lie idle here: in one simple word, to convey the plough to

the field, the workman to his work, the hungry to his food?

This, Sir, is the view that common sense suggests of the pri-

mary benefits of colonization. When Abraham found that the

land could not support both him and Lot, “because their sub-

stance was so great,” his simple proposal was that they should

separate, and one take the right hand and the other the left.

The same view, as well as the sad necessities of civil strife,

prompted the Greeks and Phoenicians to colonize. When the

youth of the city could find no land to cultivate in the narrow

precincts of its territory, they banded together, crossed the

sea, established themselves in some vacant haven, and thus

at length studded the shores of the Mediterranean with cities

and civilization. And in later times this has been the simple

and obvious view that the pressure of population on the means

of subsistence has suggested to the advocates of emigration

in this country. A. vast number of persons capable of work-

ing can find no employment here. Their competition beats

down wages; but, when wages have been reduced to the ut-

most, there are still superfluous labourers, who can get no

employment, and who must either starve or depend on char-

ity. A number of the latter are induced to emigrate, and are

established in Canada or Australia, at the cost, at the outside,

of one year’s subsistence in the workhouse. By their absence,

the poor-rate is immediately relieved: if the emigration be

sufficiently extensive, the due relation between employment

and labour is restored, and the wages of those who remain at

home are raised, while at the same time the emigrant ex-

changes a life of precarious dependence and squalid misery

for plenty and ease in his new home. If this were all the good

that could result from the change, it would still be a great

gain. I know that it would require a great effort to remove so

large a proportion of our population as materially to affect

the labour-market. At the end of every year, the population of

Great Britain is at least 300,000 more than it was at the be-

ginning. With the best imaginable selection of emigrants, you

would have to take out at least 200,000 persons every year, in

order to keep your population stationary; and even such an

emigration would not be sufficient, because the momentary

withdrawal of labour would give an impulse to population,

and ere long supply the vacuum thus created. Still, even with

these limited results in view, I should say it would be most

desirable that emigration should be carried on, on a large scale,

were it only that we might at any rate turn a large number of

our people from wretched paupers into thriving colonists; that

we might enable them to transmit those blessings to a poster-

ity which they could not rear at home; and that the mere tem-

porary relief—which is, I admit, all that could result from a

sudden reduction of numbers—might be made use of for a

breathing-time, in which other remedies for the condition of

the people might be applied with better chance of success

than it would be possible to expect under the actual pressure

of redundant numbers.

But the whole, nay the main advantage of colonization, is not

secured by that mere removal of the labourer from the crowded

mother country, which is all that has been generally implied

by the term emigration. His absence is only the first relief

which he affords you. You take him hence to place him on a

fertile soil, from which a very small amount of his labour will

suffice to raise the food which he wants. He soon finds that

by applying his spare time and energies to raising additional

food, or some article of trade or material of manufacture, he

can obtain that which he can exchange for luxuries of which

he never dreamed at home He raises some article of export,

and appears in your market as a customer. He who a few years

ago added nothing to the wealth of the country, but, receiving

all from charity simply deducted the amount of food and cloth-

ing necessary for existence and decency from the general stock

of the community—he, by being conveyed to a new country,

not only ceases to trench upon the labour of others, but comes

after providing his own food, to purchase from you a better

quality and larger quantity of the clothing and other manu-

factures which he used to take as a dole, and to give employ-

ment and offer food to those on whose energies he was a

burden before. Imagine in some village a couple of young

married men, of whom one has been brought up as a weaver,

and the other as a farm-labourer, but both of whom are un-

able to get work. Both are in the workhouse; and the spade of

the one and the loom of the other, are equally idle. For the

maintenance of these two men and their families, the parish

is probably taxed to the amount of £40 a year. The farm-

labourer and his family get a passage to Australia or Canada;

perhaps the other farm-labourers of the parish were immedi-

ately able to make a better bargain with their master, and get

somewhat better wages; but, at any rate, the parish gains £20

a year by being relieved from one of the two pauper families.

The emigrant gets good employment; after providing himself

with food in abundance, he finds that he has therewithal to

buy him a good coat, instead of the smock-frock he used to

wear, and to supply his children with decent clothing, instead

of letting them run about in rags. He sends home an order for

a good quantity of broad cloth ; and this order actually sets

the loom of his fellow-pauper to work, and takes him, or helps

to take him, out of the workhouse. Thus the emigration of

one man relieves the parish of two paupers, and furnishes

employment not only for one man, but for two men.

It seems a paradox to assert that removing a portion of your

population enables a country to support more inhabitants than

it could before; and that the place of every man who quits his

country because he cannot get a subsistence, may speedily be

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A View of the Art of Colonization

filled up by another whom that very removal will enable to

subsist there in comfort. But the assertion is as true as it is

strange. Nay, the history of colonies will show that this theo-

retical inference suggests results which fall inconceivably

short of the wonders which have been realized in fact; and

that we may fairly say that the emigration of Englishmen to

our colonies has, in the course of time, enabled hundreds to

exist in comfort for every one who was formerly compelled

to quit his country.

The settlement of the United States was originally effected

by a few handsful of Europeans. Deducting those who per-

ished in the hardships of early settlement, and those who were

not of an age or kind to add to the population, the original

stock of European emigrants, from whom the present popu-

lation of the United States are derived, must have been a very

small number. This fraction has now swelled to no less a num-

ber than thirteen or fourteen millions of white people. If the

United States had never been settled, and our emigrants had

stayed at home, do you think it possible that the population

of the United Kingdom would have been larger by thirteen or

fourteen millions than it now is? —that we should have had

and maintained in as good a state as now forty millions of

people within these islands? Is there any reason for suppos-

ing that we should now have had any additional means of

supporting the addition of the original emigrants? Nay, is it

not absolutely certain that without colonizing the United

States, we should not at this moment have been able to main-

tain anything like the population which at present finds sub-

sistence within the limits of the United Kingdom? How large

a portion of that population depends on the trade with the

United States, which constitutes one-sixth of our whole ex-

ternal trade? Without that trade, what would have been the

size, and wealth, and population of Manchester, and Liverpool,

and Glasgow, and Sheffield, and Leeds, and Birmingham, and

Wolverhampton—in fact, of all our great manufacturing dis-

tricts? What would have been the relative condition of those

agricultural districts, whose industry is kept in employment

by the demand of that manufacturing population? What that

of this metropolis, so much of the expenditure of which may

indirectly be traced to the wealth created by the American

trade? In fact, what would have been the wealth and popula-

tion of this country had the United States never been peopled?

Considering all the circumstances to which I have adverted, I

think it will be admitted that it is no exaggeration to say that,

taking the United Kingdom and the United States alone, the

fact of colonizing that single country has at least doubled the

numbers and wealth of the English race. And can it be doubted

that if, at the various periods in which the colonization of the

United States was effected, an equal number of persons had

gone to some other vacant territory, as extensive as the peopled

portion of the United States—and many more than such a

number, be it observed, perished in abortive attempts at settle-

ment in America—I say if such a number had so settled else-

where is there any reason to doubt that another great nation

of our race, as populous, as wealthy as the United States,

might have been in existence, might have added another eight

millions to our export trade, and might have supported a sec-

ond Lancashire in full activity and prosperity in our island?

See, then, what colonization has done even when carried on

without vigour, purpose, system, or constancy on the part of

the mother-country ; and judge what would be its results, and

with what rapidity they might be attained, if you were to colo-

nize with system and vigour. They are results not to be mea-

sured by the relief given to the labourmarket or the poor-rate;

but vast as the consequences implied in the founding of great

commercial empires, capable of maintaining millions of our

population by creating a demand for their labour. When I

propose colonization, I think it wholly unnecessary to enter

into nice calculations of the exact number of persons whom it

is necessary to withdraw annually, in order, as they say, to

keep down population ; because, as I have attempted to show,

the numbers withdrawn from us measure but a very small

portion of the good of colonization, which mainly consists in

the demand created for our labour and capital by the people

in our colonies; and which benefits us not in those merely

whom it takes away, but in those whom it enables to exist

here in comfort. I look to the great, the perfectly incalculable

extension of trade which colonization has produced, and

which, with all the certainty of calculation from experience,

it may be expected to produce again. And such ground for

expecting such results will surely justify my regarding it as

that remedy for the present causes of our distress which is at

once the most efficacious, and the most completely at our

command.

I have directed your attention to the United States alone —

the greatest colony, it is true, the world ever saw, but by no

means the only proof of my assertion of the immense exten-

sion given to trade by planting settlers on new and ample

fields. Compare the trade which we have with the countries

of the Old World with that which we have with the colonial

countries, and see how vast is the proportion which we carry

on with the latter. I hold in my hand some calculations from

the returns laid before the house respecting the trade and ship-

ping of this country. The first is a statement of the declared

value of British and Irish produce and manufactures exported

from the United Kingdom in 1840, distinguishing the exports

to old countries from those to our own possessions, and coun-

tries that have been colonies. I find that the total amount of

these exports is—to foreign countries £22,026,341 while that

to our own possessions, and to countries which still belong to

other powers, or have recently been colonies, amounts to no

less than £28,680,089, or nearly as four to three. Take the

employment given to our shipping, and you will find the re-

138

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

sults very remarkable; for while the amount of British ton-

nage employed in the trade with foreign countries appears,

from a similarly constructed table which I hold in my hand,

to be 1,584,512 tons, that employed in trade with our foreign

possessions and the colonial countries amounts to 1,709,319

tons. With respect to shipping, indeed, the result is more re-

markable if we confine ourselves merely to our own colo-

nies, for it appears that the trade of the three great groups of

colonies alone—those of North America, the West Indies,

and Australia—employed in 1840, 1,031,837 tons, or nearly

one-third of the whole British tonnage cleared outwards.

I mention these results merely to show the great positive

amount of our present dependence on colonial trade. I know

that I must be careful what inferences I draw from these facts.

I am liable to be met by the answer, that all this difference

between our intercourse with the two kinds of countries arises,

not from any greater capacity of demand in colonial coun-

tries, but from the artificial restrictions that misdirected leg-

islation has placed on the natural course of trade; that we

have excluded foreign goods, and foreign countries have ex-

cluded our manufactures; while our colonies, on the contrary,

have been compelled to take our manufactures and use our

shipping. To a certain degree, no doubt, there is truth in this

reply; and it cannot be doubted that our own folly has been

the main cause of restricting the demand for our manufac-

tures among foreign countries. But I think when you come to

look more minutely into the details of the two kinds of trade,

you will find that there is more than even legislative tricks

can account for.

I will take two great classes of countries, the first being the

whole of the independent nations of Europe, and the second

those which can properly be called colonial countries.

From the latter class I exclude altogether the East Indies and

Java and Sumatra, because, in fact, they are old settled coun-

tries, under European dominion—the Channel and Ionian Is-

lands, because, although British possessions, they are not

colonies—Mexico and Guatemala, because the greater part

of their population is the old Indian population —Western

Africa, which forms an important head in the returns, because,

in fact, it relates to a trade, not with European colonists, but

with the Negro nations of Africa— and Texas, and New

Zealand, simply because no return of the exports to those

countries is to be got. I have taken down the population of the

different countries of each class which enter into my list, the

amount of export of British produce to each, and the amount

of that produce which falls to the share of each inhabitant of

each country. I find that the following European nations—

Russia, France, Austria, Prussia, the rest of Germany, Cracow,

Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzer-

land, Belgium, Holland, and Greece, contain altogether a

population of 211,130,000; and annually import of our goods

to the value of £21,000,000. On the other hand, our own colo-

nies of St. Helena, the Cape, Mauritius, Australia, the West

Indies, and British North America—the emancipated colo-

nies, including the United States, Hayti, Brazil, Peru, Chili,

and those on the La Plata, together with the nominal colony,

but really independent island of Cuba, contain a total popula-

tion of rather more than 36,000,000; and the exports of them

amount to rather more than the exports to all the European

states specified above, with their population of about six times

as many. The average consumption of each inhabitant of the

colonial countries is no less than 12s. a head, while that of

the European countries is only 2s. a head. I grant that this

proportion is very much swelled by our own colonies, of

whose trade there is a kind of monopoly. Still, putting our

own possessions out of the question, I find that the average

consumption of our produce throughout what I have classed

as colonial countries is not less than 7s. 3d. per head, being

more than three and a half times as great as the average con-

sumption of the European states, which is, as I said, 2s. a

head. The greatest consumption of our goods in the whole

world is that of no less than £10 10s. a head in the Australian

colonies—the part of our empire in which the greatest amount

of fertile land is open to the settler; in which there has of late

been, in proportion to its population, the greatest fund de-

rived from the sale of public lands; and into which there has

been the greatest proportional immigration. This trade, which

took less than £400,000 worth of our goods in 1831, took

more than two millions’ worth in 1840, being increased five-

fold in nine years; and it disposes of more of our goods than

does the whole of our trade with Russia, with its population

of 56,000,000, consuming only per head seven pennyworth

of our goods. The comparison is curious in some other re-

spects. Spain takes of our goods 9d. per head for her popula-

tion ; our worst customer among her old colonies, Columbia,

takes four times as large a proportion ; whilst her colony of

Cuba takes no less than £1 4s. 4d. per head, being at the rate

of more than thirty times as much as Spain. Our civilized

neighbours in France take to the amount of 1s. 4½d. per head

; while Hayti, composed of the liberated negro slaves of that

same France— Hayti, which it is the fashion to represent as

become a wilderness of Negro barbarism and sloth, takes 5s.

4d. per head, being four times the rate of consumption in

France.

But I think, Sir, that I may spare myself and the House the

trouble of any further proof of the advantage of colonies —

an advantage secured by no jealous and selfish monopoly of

their trade, but resulting from mere freedom of intercourse

with nations whose kindred origin makes them desire, whose

fertile soil enables them to purchase, our commodities. I think

I need use no further argument to show that when the cause

of mischief here is the confinement of capital and labour within

139

A View of the Art of Colonization

the narrow limits of the present field of employment, the most

obvious and easy remedy is to let both flow over and fertilize

the rich unoccupied soil of our dominions. Had our colonies

been joined to the United Kingdom,—had it happened that

instead of our conquering or discovering Canada or Austra-

lia, when we did, continents as vast and as rich had risen out

of the sea close to the Land’s End, or the west coast of Ire-

land—who can doubt that we should have taken no great time

to discuss the theory of colonization ; but that the unemployed

capital and labour would speedily and roughly have settled

the question by taking possession of the unoccupied soil?

Suppose that instead of actually touching our island, this

imaginary region had been separated from it by a strait as

wide as the Menai Strait; who can doubt that, in order to fa-

cilitate its cultivation, government would have undertaken to

bridge over that strait at various points? Instead of such a

strait, the Atlantic and Pacific roll between us and our colo-

nies ; and the question is, as you cannot bridge over the ocean,

will you think it worth your while to secure the great bless-

ings of colonization by making arrangements for providing

capital and labour with a free, cheap, and ready access to the

fields in which they can be productively employed? This is

the practical question to be solved. Few will dispute that colo-

nization, when once effected, produces such benefits as I have

described. But the real question is, what outlay will be requi-

site in order to put us in the way of receiving these benefits?

And is the object, good as no one will deny it to be, worth the

price we shall have to pay for it?

With the estimate I have formed of the almost boundless ex-

tent of good to be anticipated from the foundation of colo-

nies, I should be prepared to say that it would be well worth

while, if necessary, to devote large funds to the promotion of

extensive and systematic colonization. I should not hesitate

to propose a large grant of public money for the purpose, did

I not think that the most efficient mode of colonization is that

which can be carried on without any expense to the mother-

country. Capital and labour are both redundant here, and both

wanted in the colonies. Labour, without capital, would effect

but little in the colony; and capital can effect nothing unless it

carries out labour with it. In the United States, where there is

a general diffusion of moderate means, capital is found in

conjunction with labour; and the simple process of emigra-

tion is, that the labourer moves off to the Far West, carrying

with him the means of stocking his farm. Here, where the

labouring class possesses no property, few of the labourers

who desire to emigrate can pay for their own passage; or if

they can scrape together enough for that purpose, they arrive

in the colony paupers, without the means of cultivating and

stocking farms. The capitalist would willingly pay for their

conveyance, did they, in the first place, consist of the kind of

persons who would be useful in a, colony ; and, secondly,

had he any security for their labour when he had got them to

the colony. But those whom distress urges to offer themselves

as emigrants are oftentimes men past their full work, often

men debilitated by disease, and still more, often men so worn

to one particular process as to be totally unfit to exercise, and

unable to learn the employments suited to their life in a colony

; and all generally want to carry with them a still greater num-

ber of women and children, of all ages, requiring care, in-

stead of adding to the stock of labourers. And then the sys-

tem that used to prevail in our colonies was fatal to all work-

ing for wages. Land was to be obtained so easily, that no one

would think of tilling the land of another when he could get

as much as he chose for himself. Labourers, as fast as they

arrive in the colony, were enabled to acquire farms for them-

selves; and the consequence was, that the capitalist, having

no security either for the services of the man whom he might

carry out, or for a supply of labour from the general body of

labourers in the colony, would do nothing at all in the way of

taking out emigrants.

By the operation of these causes, emigration used to go on in

a most unsatisfactory manner; and the great purposes of

colonization were in no respect attained. Numbers, it is true,

emigrated ; some who went to the United States, where they

could get work for wages, did well. But the emigration pro-

duced no effect on the labour-market; it notoriously did not

even relieve the poor-rates; comparatively little of it went to

our colonies; very much of that little was of a kind to be of

little service in colonial labour; and being unaccompanied by

capital, often produced only extreme suffering to the emi-

grants, and a great dislike to emigration here. I think it may

be truly said that this emigration, large in amount as it was,

did very little for the colonies, and little indeed for any body,

except in as far as it added to the wealth of the United States,

whom the influx of Irish labourers enabled to construct those

great public works which have given so amazing a stimulus

to their prosperity. On the whole, emigration promised to be

of little service until Mr. Wakefield promulgated the theory

of colonization which goes by his name ; and suggested two

simple expedients which would at once counteract all the evils

which I have been describing, by attracting capital as well as

carrying labour to the colonies. These suggestions consisted

in putting a stop to the gratuitous disposal of the waste lands

of the colonies, and selling them at a certain uniform price, of

which the proceeds were to be expended in carrying out emi-

grants, and in making a selection of young persons of both

sexes out of those who were desirous of being so assisted to

emigrate. It was quite obvious that such selection of emigrants

would relieve this country of the greatest amount of actual

competition in the labour-market, and also of those most likely

to contribute to the increase of population ; while it would

remove to the colonies, at the least possible expense, the per-

sons whose labour would be most likely to be useful, and

who would be most likely to make continual addition to their

140

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

deficient population. It was equally obvious, that, under the

system of selling lands the labourers thus arriving in the colony

would be unable to get land of their own until they had ac-

quired the means of purchasing it; that they would have, there-

fore, to work for wages; that, therefore, the capitalist, if he

paid for their passage out, might count on their labour, and

they as confidently on employment; that capitalists would,

therefore be tempted to purchase, being sure that their pur-

chase-money would provide them with that labour which is

their first necessary; and that thus you might count on getting

from the sale of lands the means of carrying on a large and

constant emigration in the mode adapted to confer the great-

est amount of benefit on the colonies.

I may now speak of Mr. Wakefield’s system of emigration as

one of which the great principles— the sale of colonial land,

the expenditure of the proceeds in carrying out labourers, and

the selection of the labourers from the young of both sexes,

have received the sanction of the best, as well as the most

general opinion. This was not done, certainly, until after a

long and uphill fight, in which it was a hard matter to conquer

the apathy, the ignorance, and the prejudices of the public;

and harder still to make any impression on the

unimpressionable minds of men in office. But, fortunately,

the system in question found, from the first, most able advo-

cates among some of the most distinguished writers out-of-

doors, as well as among some of the ablest members of this

House; among whom I must name with particular respect my

honourable friend the member for Sheffield (Mr. Henry

George Ward), who, four years ago, brought this question

before the house, in a speech which I could wish to have been

heard by no one who has now to put up with mine as a substi-

tute ; my honourable friend the member for Limerick (Mr.

Smith O’Brien), who has since been the advocate of the same

views; my noble friend the Secretary for Ireland (Lord Eliot),

who gave them his powerful aid when chairman of the com-

mittee of this house on New Zealand; together with my

honourable friend the member for Gateshead (Mr. William

Hutt), and another friend of mine, whom I am sorry to be able

to mention by name—I mean Mr. Francis Baring. I should

trespass too much on the time of the house were I to take this

public occasion of enumerating all who have at different times

given these views their valuable aid, but I must not omit the

name of my lamented friend Lord Durham, who in this as in

other cases, showed his thorough grasp of every colonial ques-

tion; who was an early friend of a sound system of coloniza-

tion; who had the opportunity of giving official sanction to

these principles in his important mission to Canada; and from

whom we expected still more when this, with other hopes,

was buried in his untimely grave. But it is necessary to a due

understanding of the history of the question that I should ac-

knowledge how much we owe to others, who had the oppor-

tunity, when in office, of giving executive effect to improved

principles. Among these, the first place is due to my noble

friend the member for Sunderland (Lord Howick), who, in

February, 1832, when he had been about a year in office,

took the first great step that the government has taken in the

right direction, by promulgating the regulations whereby the

sale of land was substituted for the old irregular habit of gra-

tuitous grants, and. the application of the proceeds to the con-

veyance of selected emigrants was commenced. My noble

friend the member for London (Lord John Russell) made the

next great step when he organized the machinery of public

emigration, by constituting the Land and Emigration Com-

missioners, and prescribed the nature of their duties in in-

structions which contain an admirable view of the general

duties of a government with respect to colonization. My noble

friend must have the satisfaction of knowing that he has left

behind him a colonial reputation confined to no party; and

that, among those who are interested in the well-being of our

colonies and colonial trade, many of the most eager oppo-

nents of his general politics were the first to regret that their

efforts resulted in removing him from the superintendence of

that department. It would be ludicrous in me to pay such a

compliment to the leader of my own party, were it not notori-

ously true. And I must not forget that the noble lord, his suc-

cessor, deserves our thanks for his Act of last year, of which

I do not pretend to approve of the details, but which has the

great merit of having fixed the disposal of colonial lands on

the basis, of an Act of Parliament.

By these aids, Sir, these views have met with such general

acceptance, that I think I may take their elementary principles

as now being the admitted basis of colonization. Hardly any

man that ever I met with now talks of colonization without

assuming that the lands in the colonies are to be sold instead

of given away; that the proceeds are to be applied to emigra-

tion; and that the emigrants are to be carried out at the public

expense, and are to be selected from the fittest among the

applicants. But what is even more satisfactory is that, owing

to the measures taken by our government, these principles

have received so much of a trial as at any rate shows that they

are capable of producing some of the greatest results at which

they professed to aim. No one can doubt that the sale of lands,

instead of deterring persons from taking them, has very greatly

increased the amount, I will not say nominally appropriated,

but actually taken into use. No one can doubt that emigration

to our colonies has received a very great impulse since the

regulations of 1832 came into operation. Compare the emi-

gration that took place to the Australian colonies, to which

alone the system has been applied, in the eight years preced-

ing the application of the new system, with that which has

taken place since. In the first eight years, the total number of

persons who emigrated to these colonies was 11,711, giving

an average of 1404 emigrants a-year. In the ten subsequent

years the total emigration to the Australian colonies, includ-

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A View of the Art of Colonization

ing New Zealand, which had in the meantime been colonized

on the same principles, amounted to 104,487, or 10,448 a-

year, being an increase of more than sevenfold. Nor must you

regard this as at all subtracted from the general amount of

unassisted emigration, inasmuch as during the first period the

total emigration to all other parts was 352,580, giving an av-

erage of 44,072 a-year; and in the second 661,039, giving an

average of no less than 66,104 a-year; and this, though dur-

ing a considerable portion of the latter period emigration to

the Canadas was almost stopped by the disturbances in those

colonies. And it is also put beyond a doubt, that the fund thus

derivable from the sale of lands is a very large one. The sum

raised by sales of land in Australia, during a period of nine

years, beginning with 1833, and ending with the end of 1841,

including the New Zealand Company’s sales, which are on

the same principle, and may be reckoned as effected by the

government, through the agency of a company, amounts to a

few hundreds short of two millions; a sum saved out of the

fire—a sum which has been received without making any body

poorer, but actually by adding immensely to the value of

everybody’s property in those colonies — a sum which, if

applied entirely to emigration, would have carried out com-

fortably more than 110,000 emigrants. The results in one

single colony—that of New South Wales—have been most

remarkable and most satisfactory. In these nine years, the land

fund has produced £1,100,000; and though only partially

applied to emigration, has been the means of carrying out as

many as 52,000 selected emigrants, making two-fifths, and

two valuable fifths, of the present population of the colony,

added to it in the space of little more than three years.

The possibility, however, of raising a very large fund by the

sale of land required no proof from actual experience in our

colonies; because that fact, at least, had been ascertained by

a long and large experiment in the United States. In 1795, the

federal government put an end to gratuitous grants; and com-

menced the plan of selling the waste lands of their vast terri-

tory at a system of auction, which has, however, in fact, ended

in their selling the whole at the upset price, which for some

years was two dollars, and latterly a dollar and a quarter per

acre. The proceeds of these sales has, during the whole pe-

riod, amounted to the vast sum of £23,366,434 of our money;

being an average of more than half a million a-year for the

whole of that time. In the last twenty years of this period, the

total sum produced was nearly £19,000,000, giving an aver-

age of more than £900,000 a-year. In the last ten years of the

period, the total amount was £16,000,000, and the annual

average £1,600,000; and in the last seven years of which I

can get an account—the years from 1834 to 1840, both in-

cluded— the total amount realized was more than £14,000,000

of our money, or upwards of £2,000,000 a-year.

This is what

actually has been done in the United States; and done, let me

remark, without the object of promoting emigration, almost

without that of getting revenue: for it is very clear that the

primary object with which the system of sale was established

was not that of getting money, but of preventing that jobbing

and favouritism which cannot be avoided where the govern-

ment has the power of making gratuitous grants of land. The

experiment cannot be regarded as a test of the largest amount

which could be got for the land, consistently with a due re-

gard to other public objects, because, in the first place, there

have been large exceptional grants, which have brought a great

amount of unbought land into the market. There has been a

large amount of additional land, not under the control of the

general government, and which had been sold by the old states,

particularly Maine. And, above all, the price has, as I said,

never been fixed with a view to getting the greatest amount

of revenue. There is not the slightest reason to doubt that the

same amount of land might have been sold at a higher price.

Indeed, we know that the amount of land sold did not in-

crease in consequence of the great diminution of price from

two dollars to a dollar and a quarter in 1819; but actually fell

off very considerably, and did not recover itself for the next

ten years. I have very little doubt that the same amount of

land would have been sold at our price of a pound; and that

the sum of eighty millions might thus have been realized in

forty-five years as easily as that of twentythree millions actu-

ally was.

I tell you what has actually been done, and what we may safely

infer might have been done by a country, which, with all its

vast territory, possesses actually a less amount of available

land than is included within our empire; which has now a

much less, and had when all this began, a very much less

population than ours; and with a far less proportion even of

that available for emigration; and which, with all its activity

and prosperity, possesses an amount of available capital ac-

tually insignificant when compared with ours. Imagine what

would have been the result, had we at the period in which the

American government commenced its sales, applied the same

principle with more perfect details to the waste lands of our

colonies, and used the funds derived from such sales in ren-

dering our Far West as accessible to our people as the valleys

of the Ohio and Missouri to the settlers in the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen, who now with

their families people the territory of the United States, would

have been subjects of the British Crown; as many—ay, even

more—who have passed their wretched existence in our work-

houses or crowded cities, or perished in Irish famines, or pined

away in the more lingering torture of such destitution as Great

Britain has too often seen, would have been happy and thriv-

ing on fertile soils and under genial climates, and making

really our country that vast empire which encircles the globe.

In every part of the world would have risen fresh towns, in-

habited by our people; fresh ports would have been crowded

by our ships; and harvests would have waved where the si-

142

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

lence of the forest still reigns. What now would have been

our commerce! What the population and revenue of our em-

pire! This, Sir, is one of those subjects on which we may not

embody in precise form the results which calculation justi-

fies us in contemplating, lest sober arithmetic should assume

the features of sanguine fancy. But this much I think I may

say, that the experience of America justifies us in believing

that if we, like the people of that country, had begun half a

century ago, to turn our waste lands to account, we should

have had a larger population, and a greater accumulation of

wealth than we now have; and yet that over-population and

over-production, and low wages, and low profits, and desti-

tution, and distress, and discontent, would have been words

of as little familiarity and meaning in our ears, as they are in

those of the people of the United States.

We need, then, feel little doubt but that the new system of

colonization has shown itself capable of producing all the

economical results which it professes to attain. But I cannot

quit the subject of its practical working, without calling your

attention to effects quite as important, which it has shown

itself capable of realizing in the way of changing the charac-

ter and spirit in which our colonization has hitherto been con-

ducted. If you wish colonies to be rendered generally useful

to all classes in the mother-country—if you wish them to be

prosperous, to reflect back the civilization, and habits, and

feelings of their parent stock, and to be and long to remain

integral parts of your empire—care should be taken that so-

ciety should be carried out in something of the form in which

it is seen at home—that it should contain some, at least, of all

the elements that go to make it up here, and that it should

continue under those influences that are found effectual for

keeping us together in harmony. On such principles alone have

the foundations of successful colonies been laid. Neither

Phoenician, nor Greek, nor Roman, nor Spaniard—no, nor

our own great forefathers— when they laid the foundations

of an European society on the continent, and in the islands of

the Western World, ever dreamed of colonizing with one class

of society by itself, and that the most helpless for shifting by

itself. The foremost men of the ancient republics led forth

their colonies; each expedition was in itself an epitome of the

society which it left; the solemn rites of religion blessed its

departure from its home ; and it bore with it the images of its

country’s gods, to link it for ever by a common worship to its

ancient home. The government of Spain sent its dignified

clergy out with some of its first colonists. The noblest fami-

lies in Spain sent their younger sons to settle in Hispaniola,

and Mexico, and Peru. Raleigh quitted a brilliant court, and

the highest spheres of political ambition, in order to lay the

foundation of the colony of Virginia; Lord Baltimore and the

best Catholic families founded Maryland; Penn was a court-

ier before he became a colonist; a set of noble proprietors

established Carolina, and intrusted the framing of its consti-

tution to John Locke ; the highest hereditary rank in this coun-

try below the peerage was established in connexion with the

settlement of Nova Scotia; and such gentlemen as Sir Harry

Vane, Hampden, and Cromwell did not disdain the prospect

of a colonial career. In all these cases the emigration was of

every class. The mass, as does the mass everywhere, contrib-

uted its labour alone; but they were encouraged by the pres-

ence, guided by the counsels, and supported by the means of

the wealthy and educated, whom they had been used to fol-

low and honour in their own country. In the United States the

constant and large migration from the old to the new states is

a migration of every class; the middle classes go in quite as

large proportion as the labouring; the most promising of the

educated youth are the first to seek the new career. And hence

it is that society sets itself down complete in all its parts in the

back settlements in the United States; that every political,

and social, and religious institution of the old society is found

in the new at the outset: that every liberal profession is abun-

dantly supplied; and that, as Captain Marryat remarks, you

find in a town of three or four years’ standing) in the back

part of New York or Ohio, almost every luxury of the old

cities.

And thus was colonization always conducted, until all our

ideas on the subject were perverted by the foundation of con-

vict colonies; and emigration being associated in men’s minds

with transportation, was looked upon as the hardest punish-

ment of guilt, or necessity of poverty. It got to be resorted to

as the means of relieving parishes of their paupers; and so

sprung up that irregular, ill-regulated emigration of a mere

labouring class which has been one of the anomalies of our

time. The state exercised not the slightest control over the

hordes whom it simply allowed to leave want in one part of

the empire for hardship in another; and it permitted the con-

veyance of human beings to be carried on just as the avidity

and rashness of shipowners might choose. I am drawing no

picture of a mere fanciful nature, but am repeating the sol-

emn assertions of the legislature of Lower Canada, confirmed

by Lord Durham’s report, when I say that the result of this

careless, shameful neglect of the emigrants was, that hun-

dreds and thousands of pauper families walked in their rags

from the quays of Liverpool and Cork into ill-found, unsound

ships, in which human beings were crammed together in the

empty space which timber was to be stowed in on the home-

ward voyage. Ignorant themselves, and misinformed by the

government of the requisites of such a voyage, they suffered

throughout it from privations of necessary food and clothing;

such privations, filth, and bad air were sure to engender dis-

ease; and the ships that reached their destination in safety,

generally deposited some contagious fever, together with a

mass of beggary, on the quays of Quebec and Montreal. No

medical attendance was required by law, and the provision of

it in some ships was a creditable exception to the general

143

A View of the Art of Colonization

practice. Of course, where so little thought was taken of men’s

physical wants, their moral wants were even less cared for;

and as the emigrants went without any minister of religion or

schoolmaster in their company, so they settled over the va-

cant deserts of Canada without church or school among them.

Respectable tradesmen and men possessed of capital shrunk

from such associations; and if their necessities compelled them

to quit their own country for a new one, they went as a matter

of course to the United States. The idea of a gentleman emi-

grating was almost unheard of, unless he emigrated for a while

as a placeman; and I recollect when Colonel Talbot was re-

garded as a kind of innocent monomaniac, who, from some

strange caprice, had committed the folly of residing on his

noble Canadian estate.

Within the last ten or twelve years a great change has come

over this state of things; within the last three or four years our

colonization has entirely altered its character. The emigra-

tion to Port Philip, South Australia, and New Zealand, has

been an emigration of every class, with capital in due propor-

tion to labourers ; with tradesman and artisans of every kind,

and with the framework of such social institutions as the set-

tlers have been used to in their native land. Clergymen and

schoolmasters, and competent men of every liberal profes-

sion, are among the earliest emigrants; artists and men of sci-

ence resort to a new field for their labours ; in the foundation

of the settlement you find funds set apart for public works,

for religious endowments, and even for colleges. Associa-

tions of a religious and charitable and literary nature are

formed at the outset; and these are intended to benefit not

only the poor emigrants, but the helpless native, who is brought

into contact with a superior race. To such settlements men of

birth and refinement are tempted to emigrate ; they do so in

great numbers. I will be bound to say, that more men of good

family have settled in New Zealand in the three years since

the beginning of 1840, than in British North America in the

first thirty years of the present century. It is notorious that the

greatest change has taken place in the public feeling on this

point, and that a colonial career is now looked upon as one of

the careers open to a gentleman. This change in the character

of colonization—this great change in the estimation in which

it is held, is of greater moment than the mere provision of

means for conducting emigration without cost to the public.

It makes colonization, indeed, an extension of civilized soci-

ety, instead of that mere emigration which aimed at little more

than shovelling out your paupers to where they might die,

without shocking their betters with the sight or sound of their

last agony.

I come, then, before you to-night as the advocate of no new

fancy of my own, of no untried scheme for the realization of

unattainable results. The remedy which I propose is one which

the experience of the world has approved ; and the mode in

which I would apply it is one which sufficient experience

justifies me in describing as of recognised efficacy in the

opinion of all practical authorities. The great principles of

the plan of colonization which I urge have been formally but

unequivocally adopted by the government of this country;

they have been adopted with the general sanction of public

opinion here ; and the colonies, as we well know, are clamor-

ous for the extension of a system which they feel to have

already given an amazing stimulus to their prosperity, and to

which they look as the only means of enabling their progress

to be steady. I ask, then, for no experiment. The thing has

been tried, and I call upon you to make more use of the rem-

edy, which has proved to be sound. If you think that on the

system which is now recognised as the sound one, the ben-

efits of colonization may be practically secured, then I say

that the only question that remains for us is, whether and how

that system can be so far extended as to realize its utmost

results. For it is clear that, if it contains the means of greater

relief, the condition of the country requires its extended ap-

plication. It is equally clear that, though it has done great

good already, it has been put in operation with no system or

steadiness, not always quite heartily, certainly with no readi-

ness to profit by experience for the purpose of either amend-

ing or extending it. It has, nevertheless, called into existence

a large fund, which was not in being before. Those lands,

which from all time had been barren and nominal domains—

the mere materials for jobbing, this discovery has converted

into a valuable property ; and it has also shown you how to

apply them, so as to make them most productive to the gen-

eral good of the colonies, by effecting the importation of

labour. But I think I am justified in saying that, under such

circumstances, the system has never been turned to full ac-

count; that if the people of the United States can purchase

two millions of pounds’ worth of land a-year, there is spare

capital in this country to purchase something more than one-

eighth of that amount; and if they can dispose of some seven

or eight millions a-year, we could dispose of more than one-

thirtieth of that quantity; that if they can take annually from

us 50,000 emigrants, besides at least as large a number from

their own country, our Australian colonies could take more

than one-seventh of that total amount. If we could only real-

ize the same results as actually are realized in the United

States, we should get two millions, on the average, instead of

£250,000 a-year, from the sale of our lands; and the means of

sending out, free of cost, some 110,000 instead of 10,000 or

12,000 poor persons every year, in addition to the large unas-

sisted emigration that goes on. If, with our vastly superior

wealth and immeasurably larger emigrant population, we fall

so lamentably short of the results actually realized in the

United States—nay, if with such superior powers we do not

realize much greater results—I say it is sufficient proof that

there is some defect in the mode of applying a sound prin-

ciple.

144

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

It is no defect of inclination on the part of the people to better

their fortunes in another part of the empire ; the amount of

voluntary emigration shows that. It is no defect of inclination

on the part of capitalists to invest their money in the purchase

of colonial lands; there is never any difficulty in getting money

in any sound system of colonization. The defect must be in

the mode of facilitating the access of labour to the colonies;

it must be from our not making the most of the good prin-

ciples on which we go. I say it is our bounden duty to have

the matter investigated thoroughly; and to discover and re-

move the faults of detail that prevent our satisfying our present

most extreme need, by devising, from a sound principle, the

utmost benefits that colonization can produce. It is clear that

the public—not the ignorant and thoughtless—but men of the

greatest speculative research— men of the greatest practical

knowledge and interest in commerce, such as those who have

signed the recent memorials to the right honourable baronet,

from this great city, and the other principal parts of the king-

dom; it is clear, I say, that the public look to colonization as

affording a means of relief for our national difficulties. It is

our business to prove whether that hope is sound or unsound;

and either without delay to expose its want of truth, and clear

it out from the public mind as a delusion that can only do

harm; or, seeing it to be sound, to take care that it shall be

realized, and that the means of good which God has placed at

our disposal shall be turned to their full account. To do one of

these things is our imperative duty. Above all, it is a duty

most binding on her Majesty’s government, who alone can

be the instrument of thoroughly sifting such matter—who

alone can give practical effect to the results of such inquiry. It

is a duty of which, if they should, contrary to my hopes, ne-

glect it, it becomes this House to remind them. And it is with

this view that I have ventured to bring forward the motion of

to-night.

It is not my purpose to propose any specific measure to the

House. And in the first place let me guard myself against the

supposition that I mean to propose anything of a kind to which

I have the very strongest objection—namely, compulsory

emigration. Most assuredly I have no thought of proposing

that any one should be compelled to emigrate. So far from

proposing compulsory emigration, I should object to holding

out to any man any inducement to quit his country. On this

ground I deprecate anything like making emigration an alter-

native for the Union Workhouse. I am very dubious of the

propriety of even applying parish rates in aid of emigration.

My object would be that the poor of this country should be

accustomed to regard the means of bettering their condition

in another part of the empire as a great boon offered them—

not a necessity imposed on them by government. I do not

wonder that in the old days of convict colonies and pauper

emigration they shrank from colonization, and responded to

Mr. Cobbett’s denunciation of the attempt of their rulers to

transport them. But a better feeling has now sprung up, to-

gether with a better knowledge of the subject. The difficulty

is now not to inveigle emigrants, but to select among the

crowds of eager applicants; and the best portion of the

labouring classes are now as little inclined to look on the

offer of a passage to the colonies as a punishment, or a degra-

dation, as a gentleman would be to entertain the same view of

an offer of cadetship or writership for one of his younger

sons. The prejudice is gone; and I did imagine that the at-

tempt to appeal to it by the agency of stale nick-names was

not likely to be made in our day, had I not been undeceived

by some most furious invectives against the gentlemen who

signed the City memorials, which were recently delivered at

Drury Lane theatre, on one of those nights on which the le-

gitimate drama is not performed. I cannot imagine that my

esteemed friend the member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden), who

is reported on that occasion to have been very successful in

representing the character of a bereaved grandmother, can

help, on sober reflection, feeling some compunction for hav-

ing condescended to practice on the ignorance of his audi-

ence by the use of clap-traps so stale, and representations so

unfounded; and for bringing just the same kind of unjust

charges against honest men engaged in an honest cause, as he

brushes so indignantly out of his own path when he finds

them opposed to him in his own pursuit of a great public

cause. I must attribute this deviation from his usual candour

to the influence of the unseen genius of the place in which he

spoke, and suppose that he believed it would be out of keep-

ing in a theatre to appeal to men’s passions otherwise than by

fiction.

It is not my purpose to suggest interference on the part of

government to induce emigration, except by merely facilitat-

ing access to the colonies by the application of the land-fund

to that object. To do this more effectually than it now does is

what I ask of it, and for this purpose I only ask it to perfect

the details of the system now in force. Carry out, I say of her

Majesty’s government, the system which was begun by the

Regulations of 1832, and by the appointment of Land and

Emigration Commission, to which you made a valuable addi-

tion when you sanctioned the principle of the Act of last ses-

sion, which secured the system of disposing of the lands of

the colonies against the caprice of Colonial Governors, and

even of Secretaries of State. Carry it out with the same sound

purpose at bottom, but with more deliberate consideration of

details than it was possible for the noble lord to apply to a

matter of so difficult a nature, which he brought in a few

months after entering on the duties of his department. I sup-

pose that the noble lord cannot set such store by the details of

a measure so rapidly prepared, that he will deny that they

may be possibly amended on reconsideration ; that in fact

many of the details of a sound and large system of coloniza-

tion are not touched by his Act; and that, until they are ma-

145

A View of the Art of Colonization

tured by assiduous inquiry, the principle can never be fairly

tried, or rendered productive of the full amount of good of

which it was capable. There are some most important ques-

tions which require to be fully investigated before the system

of colonization can with prudence be placed on any perma-

nent footing; and I think it right to mention the most impor-

tant of them, in order to impress upon the house how much of

the success of any scheme must depend on their being rightly

adjusted. There is, in the first place, a very important ques-

tion as to the possibility of applying to the rest of our colo-

nies the system which is now in force only in the Australian.

It has never yet been satisfactorily explained what causes pre-

vent the application of the principle to the land that lies open

for settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, speaking not merely

of the present limits of the colony, but of the boundless unap-

propriated extent which adjoins it—superior, apparently, in

natural fertility, and free from all proprietary claims on the

part of individuals. With respect to the North American colo-

nies, I am aware that some difficulties are presented by the

partial cession of the crown lands contained within them to

the control of their respective legislatures With the control of

these legislatures I should not be disposed to interfere, even

if the Imperial Government retain the strict legal right; but I

am so convinced that the interests of the mother-country and

the colonies with respect to emigration are identical, that I

have no doubt that the colonial legislatures would rejoice to

co-operate with the imperial government in the adoption of

the general principles of such a plan as might be deemed most

conducive to the good of the empire. At any rate, viewing the

magnitude and importance of these colonies, and their prox-

imity to Great Britain, they ought not to be excluded from the

general plan without the fullest inquiry.

But there are very important questions with respect to the

mode of applying the principles, which are still matters of

doubt and controversy. Thus it is yet a question what is the

“sufficient price” which the government should endeavour to

secure from the lands in each colony. It is obvious that no

more should be asked than may be applied so as to attract

labourers to the colony; whatever more is imposed is a par-

tial tax on immigrants and agriculture for the general pur-

poses of the community, and would actually deter instead of

attract settlers. On the other hand, it is contended that the

price is in many instances still so low as to lead to too great

an accumulation of land in private hands at the first forma-

tion of settlements; and to the subsequent drying up of gov-

ernment sales and land-fund when the first purchasers are

compelled to bring their lands back into the market. It will be

seen that it is of the utmost importance to the right working of

the system that the right price should be ascertained, not only

in a rough and general way, but in the case of each colony.

Another question of considerable importance is, how this

sufficient price should be got—whether by fixing it on all

lands as both minimum and maximum, or by trying to get the

highest price which may be offered at an auction. By the lat-

ter plan it is said that the full worth of the land is most sure to

be got. While it is objected to it that, besides operating with

peculiar unfairness on all persons of known enterprise and

skill, the tendency of the auction system is to encourage great

competition for favoured town lots, lavish expenditure at the

outset, an exhaustion of the capital necessary to give value to

the purchase, and a consequent stagnation of the settlement

after the first feverish burst of speculative ardour; that the

system of uniform price, by giving to the purchaser all the

advantages derivable from the possession of peculiarly ad-

vantageous sites, presents the greatest attraction to purchas-

ers, and gives the surest stimulus to energy in developing the

resources of the colony; and that though the auction system

may bring in the greatest amount of money to government at

first, it will be found that, in the course of a few years, the

steady produce of a fixed price will make the largest return.

A subsidiary question to this is, whether the same principle

of price should be uniformly applied to all kinds of land, or

any distinction made between different qualities.

But a far more important matter, still in dispute, is whether

the whole of the land fund shall be devoted to the introduc-

tion of labourers, or whether a portion shall be applied to the

general expenses of the colony. It is said, on the one hand,

that if the object be to apply the land-fund so as to render the

colony attractive to settlers, the formation of roads and pub-

lic works is as requisite to that end as the supply of labour. To

this it is answered, that the applying of the largest possible

amount of money to the importation of labour is the surest

way of increasing the population, the increase of population

the surest way of raising the ordinary revenue from taxes, out

of which all necessary works may be provided; and that ap-

plying any portion of the land-fund to the general expenses

of the colony is merely placing at the disposal of irrespon-

sible authority an additional and easilyacquired fund, which

will be sure to be expended with that shameless extravagance,

which, whether in New South Wales, or South Australia, or

New Zealand, is the curse of our colonies, and the scandal of

our colonial system.

There is a question of even greater magnitude and difficulty

than any of these; and that is, the question whether, viewing

the great necessity of supplying labour in the early period of

the colony’s existence, it may not be advisable to anticipate

the proceeds of the land sales by a loan raised on the security

of future sales; and in this instance only has aid been de-

manded from the mother country in the form of a guarantee,

which would enable the colony to raise money at a moderate

interest. If the principle on which this suggestion is made be

146

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

sound, it is of paramount importance, because it would really

be bridging over the ocean, arid enabling the future purchas-

ers to repair at once to the spot which they are to render pro-

ductive. No doubt great caution would be requisite in thus

forestalling the resources of a colony; and I should deprecate

such extravagant suggestions of large loans as have been some-

times proposed. But, on the other hand, a debt contracted for

such a purpose is not unproductive waste of capital, such as

our national debt, nor is it to be likened to the debts of indi-

viduals contracted for the enjoyment of the moment. It is rather

to be compared to those debts which wise landlords often

deliberately contract, for the purpose of giving an additional

value to their estates, or to the loans by which half the enter-

prises of trade are undertaken, and which are to be regarded

as resources of future wealth, not embarrassment.

The proposal of a loan in anticipation of the land-fund has

been recently urged on the government from a quarter de-

serving of great weight—I mean the legislative council of

New South Wales—in a report, which, I trust, has been suc-

cessful in correcting an erroneous notion most fatal to colo-

nial interests, to which the noble lord (Lord Stanley) gave

rather an incautious expression last year,—I mean the notion

that the Australian colonies were at that time rather over-sup-

plied with labour. It appears that the term oversupply is cor-

rect only as respects the means of paying the cost of emigra-

tion out of the land sales of the year; that the colony exhausted

its means of bringing over labourers, but that it is still, in fact,

craving for it as much as ever; that the supply of nearly 24,000

labourers in one year, far from overstocking the labour-mar-

ket, had produced no material reduction of wages; that the

labourers and artisans imported that year were getting ample

wages, and that the colony still continued capable of absorb-

ing an annual free importation of 10,000 or 12,000 of the

labouring classes.

I have briefly adverted to these important points without sug-

gesting the decision which, I think, ought to be made with

respect to any of them. The details of a plan of colonization

are obviously matters in which it would be idle for any one

not a member of the executive government to make any spe-

cific suggestions. To discuss the general bearings of such a

question, and to impress its general importance on the gen-

eral government, is all that appears to me to lie practically

within the competence of this House. It is with the govern-

ment that the investigation of such details as I have adverted

to, and the preparation of specific measures must rest. They

have the best means of collecting the most correct informa-

tion and the soundest opinions on the subject. I have no wish

to take the discharge of their duties on myself. I think this a

stage of the question in which it would tend to no good pur-

pose to call in the cumbrous and indecisive action of a com-

mittee of this House: but that I have done my duty when,—

after thus explaining the grave necessities of our condition,

and sifting the practicability of the remedy which seems most

efficient,—I leave the question, with its niceties of detail and

responsibilities of execution, in the hands of the advisers of

the Crown. But I leave, it not as a question to be discussed by

one particular department as a matter of detail, or as a mere

colonial question, but as one of general import to the condi-

tion of England. The remedy, which I thus call on her Majesty’s

ministers to investigate, is one on which inquiry can excite

no illusory hopes; for, though I believe that its adoption would

give an immediate impulse to enterprise, it is one of which

the greater results cannot be expected for some few years. It

is one, too, which, if it fails of giving relief to the extent that

I have contemplated, cannot fail of bettering the condition of

many, and of extending the resources and widening the basis

of our empire.

The honourable and learned Member proposed the following

motion:—“That an humble address be presented to Her Maj-

esty, praying that she will take into her most gracious consid-

eration the means by which extensive and systematic coloni-

zation may be most effectually rendered available for aug-

menting the resources of Her Majesty’s empire, giving addi-

tional employment to capital and labour, both in the United

Kingdom and in the colonies, and thereby bettering the con-

dition of her people.”

Appendix No. II.

A Letter from Certain New Zealand Colonists to

Mr. Hawes, Under-Secretary of State for the

Colonies.

70, Jermyn Street, 5th Oct., 1846.

Sir,—In accordance with the suggestions so courteously ex-

pressed by you to some of our number that we should write

down some of our ideas, on the subject of the Orders in Coun-

cil to be framed in pursuance of the recent New Zealand Gov-

ernment Act, we beg to submit to you the following observa-

tions.

We have, however, to request that you will excuse the rough

form in which they appear, owing to the necessity which there

has been for their prompt consideration and arrangement; and

also that, if in the course of them you should remark any free-

dom in urging opinions somewhat at variance with those pre-

conceived by her Majesty’s Government, you will ascribe the

fact to our wish to meet in a cordial spirit the invitation which

you have made to us to state, without reservation, views which

we believe will be approved by the leading members of the

communities with which we are connected.

Our attention has been first called to the powers which are to

be granted to the proposed Municipal Corporations. Putting

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A View of the Art of Colonization

aside, for the present, their function of electing representa-

tives to a Provincial Assembly, we fear that the local powers

which may be granted under the act to the Municipal Corpo-

ration of each settlement are not sufficiently large.

The settlements now existing in New Zealand are scattered at

a considerable distance one from the other; and the next settle-

ment which is likely to be founded, that of the Free Church of

Scotland, is intended to be placed at Otago, four hundred

miles from the nearest of the others. From the varying nature

of the country, and the different classes of colonists who are

likely to proceed in large bodies from this side of the world,

each body to found a distinct plantation, the settlements may,

in a short time, vary as much in character and circumstances

as they are actually distant from one another. We may here

again instance the proposed Scotch colony, which will con-

sist entirely of emigrants from Scotland, who are as little ac-

quainted with the details and forms of English law as the

English settlers of Wellington and Nelson are with those to

which the Scotchmen have been accustomed. We may remark

that, while discussing the details of the proposed institutions,

we have discovered that these colonists are not acquainted

with the duties of a Coroner or of a Recorder, at any rate

under these names. In some other points the difference will

be equally striking. We can conceive, for instance, that a much

lower rate of franchise would secure as desirable a class of

voters among the Scotchmen as could only be attained by a

high rate among the mixed British population of the Cook’s

Strait settlements, which already number many immigrants

from the neighbouring penal colonies, and which may prob-

ably be for the next few years subject to such immigration. A

colony such as has been proposed in particular connexion

with the Church of England, to be founded in the plain of

Wairarapa, near Wellington, might require certain local insti-

tutions different from those of its neighbour. A still more strik-

ing instance would occur, if the success of the few French

colonists who have taken root at Akaroa, in Banks’s Penin-

sula, should encourage others to follow them in large num-

bers, willing to submit to a general British allegiance, pro-

vided that they may enjoy, in their own particular locality, the

peculiar usages and privileges to which they have been ac-

customed in their native country. Again, one community may,

from its position, be almost exclusively pastoral, another ag-

ricultural, and a third manufacturing or commercial; while

present appearances promise that some districts may derive

their prosperity in great measure from mining operations.

We are inclined to believe that the toleration of these distinc-

tive features in the different plantations of a new country will

be productive of no mischief; but that, on the contrary, each

separate community will flourish the more, and even contrib-

ute the more to the general prosperity, the more it is allowed

to manage its own affairs in its own way.

We conceive Burke to have been of this opinion, when he

wrote the words quoted by Sir Robert Peel in the debate on

New Zealand, during the session of 1845, praising the mu-

nicipal institutions which laid the foundations of representa-

tive government in our old colonies of North America, and

which still exist in the United States under the name of “town-

ships.”

We have reason to believe that Governor Grey is so far of our

opinion that he has recommended the division of the present

general government of New Zealand into as many subordi-

nate governments of the same form, each with a lieutenant-

governor, and legislative council, as there are separate settle-

ments. He has already, indeed, introduced the great improve-

ment of publishing the revenue and expenditure of each settle-

ment, separately from the general accounts of the colony; and

he promised the inhabitants of Nelson that he would “eventu-

ally recommend a local council, with powers to enact laws,

subject to the approval of the Governor, in accordance with

the wants and wishes of the settlers;” thus almost advocating

the establishment of a provincial assembly, rather than a mere

municipal corporation, in each settlement.

We therefore earnestly desire that each distinct settlement or

“township” should have power to make all laws and regula-

tions for its own local government, not being repugnant to

the laws of Great Britain, or to those of the General Assem-

bly on the nine points reserved for its jurisdiction, by section

7th of the Act, or to those made by the provincial assembly

for the peace, order, and good government of the province in

which it is situated, as provided for by the 5th section.

We fear that under the present Act such powers could not be

at once given to “municipal corporations” constituted here

by letters patent, as they would exceed those “which in pur-

suance of the statutes in that behalf made and provided, it is

competent to her Majesty to grant to the inhabitants of any

town or borough in England and Wales in virtue of such stat-

utes.”—(sect. 2.)

But if we are not mistaken in conceiving that it would be

expedient to grant such extensive powers, for local purposes,

to the “municipal corporation” of each separate settlement,

we can suggest a means by which this may be done without

exceeding the limits of the Act.—The “municipal corpora-

tions” may be constituted at first only for the purpose of elect-

ing members to a Provincial House of Representatives, and

the provincial assembly may then legislate for the powers to

be enjoyed by each separate corporation, or may pass a law

to the effect that these bodies shall have the power of legis-

lating on all local purposes, such legislation not being repug-

nant, &c., as before recommended.

148

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

We are the more impressed with the expediency of some such

arrangement, because we are convinced that it is essential to

secure in each settlement the services of the leading colonists

as officers of its corporation, since those officers are to chose

the members for the Representative Chamber of their Pro-

vincial Assembly. The colonists who are most fit for this im-

portant trust might be unwilling to exercise it, if with its exer-

cise were coupled the necessity of acting as Common Coun-

cilman or Alderman of a Borough, confined in its powers

like those of England and Wales.

We should even desire to see a provision for the erection of

any one or more “Municipal Corporations” into a separate

Province, as soon as it or they should apply for it, and could

fairly show an ability to provide the necessary civil list. We

imagine that the power of enacting such a change might be

vested in the General Assembly, subject of course to the ap-

proval of the Government in England, like all its other mea-

sures. This provision would at any rate act as a remedy, should

it be found that too many communities were included in one

Province, and that the Provincial Assembly was legislating

for matters beyond the powers of the particular Municipal

Corporations, which could be better managed by persons more

immediately and locally interested. To give an instance, it

would be desirable that Otakou should, upon its application

for the change, and production of evidence that it could pro-

vide its own civil list, have a right to be separated from an

Assembly consisting of members from many communities of

different character from its own, and legislating at a distance

of four hundred miles for matters comparatively local:—or

again, Nelson might complain of being taxed by a Provincial

Assembly which should include it along with Wellington and

New Plymouth, for the expense of making a road between

the two latter settlements.

We are anxious that, if possible, the settlements in the north

part of the islands should enjoy the same civil rights as those

which are to be granted to the southern settlements. We should

regret to see any use made of the 9th Section, which provides

for the continuance of the present form of government in the

northern part of the islands until 1854, should such a course

appear advisable. We are aware of the difficulties arising from

the fact that extensive tracts of land in their neighbourhood

are held by individuals under title from the Crown, so as to

obstruct a system of colonization similar to that pursued in

the Company’s settlements. And we are aware that what is

termed the “native question,” in that part of the country where

the natives, credulous in the intrinsic value of the waste lands

which they have learned to claim, and indisposed to submit

to British authority, are very numerous, may prevent the im-

mediate establishment of Municipal Corporations legislating

for the local wants of extensive districts like those in the south.

But we would suggest that “Municipal Corporations” be es-

tablished in the northern districts, within boundaries, at first,

as small as the Governor (with whom the settlement of the

“native question” rests) may think fit to determine, but that

within these necessarily circumscribed boundaries the inhab-

itants should receive privileges of local self-government simi-

lar to those of the south. The boundaries might be afterwards

extended as the natives might either abandon their immedi-

ate vicinity, or request to be admitted within the pale of Brit-

ish law.

We cannot refrain from expressing our doubts as to the expe-

diency of the proposed election of Members to the Provin-

cial House of Representatives by the officers of the Corpora-

tions. We freely own that we should have preferred two dis-

tinct elections, one for the officers of the Corporations, and

another for the Representatives to the Assembly. But in pro-

portion as larger local powers are granted to the Municipal

Corporations, and these bodies thus become in fact, if not in

name, inferior Provincial Assemblies, our mistrust of this

rather novel provision diminishes. If the officers of the Cor-

poration are to perform duties such as those of an alderman

or common councilman of an English town or borough, we

object strongly to their having a main voice in choosing mem-

bers for the Provincial House of Representatives, because, as

we before stated, the best colonists will not have consented

to perform the ungenial duties in order to secure the vote. But

if the “Municipal Corporation” possess the “Township” pow-

ers which we have above recommended, its offices would

confer sufficient dignity and importance to induce the best

colonists to accept them; and they, being the elite, as it were,

of the general body of electors, might, without disadvantage,

be empowered to select the Representatives.

We approach the question of franchise with some diffidence,

because we are unaware how far our views as to the large

local powers necessary for the “Municipal Corporations” will

be agreed to by her Majesty’s Government. We should, how-

ever, be unwilling to give an opinion as to what qualification

would secure success to the scheme, if the Municipal Corpo-

rations were to have only the powers of bodies which bear

that name in England and Wales; because we should con-

ceive that the functions of such bodies were totally distinct

from those of choosing a representative. The suggestions,

therefore, that we offer on this point, are based on the as-

sumption that each Municipal Corporation is to enjoy those

powers of local legislation for which we have been pleading.

The object of any qualification is to secure that the men most

fitted for the duties should be chosen as officers of the corpo-

rations. They must be the men most fitted, not only to carry

on the local legislation of the “township,” but also to select

members for the representative house of an Assembly, which

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A View of the Art of Colonization

makes all laws for the whole province, except on the nine

points reserved for the General Assembly.

We are of opinion that, at any rate in the existing settlements

and for the present, it would be very dangerous to extend the

franchise too much by making the qualification for a voter

too low, trusting to a higher qualification for the person to be

elected. This arrangement allows mischievous and intriguing

individuals, who have no difficulty in providing themselves

with the higher qualification, to obtain the suffrages of a low

and comparatively ignorant class of voters through bribery

or other corrupting means. A remarkable instance of this oc-

curred at the election which took place at Wellington in Oc-

tober 1842, for the officers of a corporation which possessed

very limited powers. Every male adult who chose to pay £1

sterling to have his name registered, was privileged to vote;

and any voter was qualified for election: 350 persons obtained

the franchise; and of course the small sum of money was paid

for many of them by parties who wished to secure their votes.

In one case, a committee for the election of certaiu persons

had given £25 to a colonist who had great influence over a

number of Highland labourers, in order that he should regis-

ter twenty-five of their votes, and make them vote for the

committee’s list. The leader of the opposing candidates, how-

ever, knew the laird’s failing—set to drinking with him at

breakfast-time till he had won his heart, and then marched

reeling arm-in-arm with him to the poll, followed by the

twenty-five Highlanders, who were in the same state; and who

all voted for the man who had so disgraced himself and them.

He was an auctioneer, who had joined the community of

Wellington from Van Diemen’s Land, and who had always

distinguished himself by courting the admiration of the most

ignorant portion of the inhabitants. He was comparatively un-

educated; and very unfit, at any rate, to exercise such influ-

ence as he would do, among voters qualified by a small stake

in the country. A high qualification for candidates would not

have excluded him; he would easily have procured that quali-

fication, and then have resorted to the same means of procur-

ing votes, so long as the voters included a class compara-

tively ignorant, careless of their reputation, and easily swayed-

by mere mob oratory and dishonourable artifice.

We should be content, then, to allow of a qualification for

candidate no higher than that for voter, provided that the fran-

chise is only extended so as to include those labourers who

shall have earned sufficient money to buy some land, or to

hold a considerable quantity as tenants; thus proving, to a

certain degree, not only their steadiness and intelligence, but

their determination to retain an interest in the country. Sup-

posing the franchise to be so arranged, we can conceive no

reason why such persons should not be perfectly eligible to

the office of a councilman. On the contrary, we should be

glad to see, if possible, a certain proportion of such men in

the governing body of each municipality, because we distinctly

consider them to be included among the best colonists.

We are thus averse to a qualification for a candidate higher

than that for a voter, but strongly in favour of a qualification

for both which shall depend on holding a sufficient stake in

the colony to prevent the selection of unfit persons. With our

knowledge and experience of the present population of the

existing settlements, we are in favour of a scale of qualifica-

tion which may at first sight appear very high ; but we will

begin by stating it, and afterwards adduce some reasons to

justify it. The right to vote should, in our opinion, be con-

fined to persons :—

1st. Owning a freehold estate in land of the value of fifty

pounds sterling, clear of all charges and encumbrances.

2nd. Deriving a beneficial interest from land, to the amount

of five pounds sterling annually.

3rd. Occupiers or tenants of land, houses, or other tenements

to the value of fifty pounds sterling annually.

Provided always that for the purposes of this arrangement,

land shall never be estimated at less than the price originally

paid for it to the New Zealand Company in their settlements,

or to the Crown, or to the natives with the sanction of the

Crown, elsewhere. And provided also, that any land to be

estimated for these purposes must be held by title derived

from the Crown ; that not even, for instance, the occupation

of native reserves by natives should give them the franchise,

still less that natives admitted on their own application with

their own lands (formerly constituting an exceptional terri-

tory) should be able to qualify, until the land has been distrib-

uted in freehold among individuals of their number by title

from the Crown. This will give the Crown the power of deter-

mining how soon natives may be competent to enjoy the elec-

toral franchise.

It is necessary that we should here explain that the customary

rate of interest on money in New Zealand and the neighbouring

Colonies, is ten per cent, while it is only three per cent in

England, and that the wages of labour are also ordinarily much

higher. A freehold qualification in these new settlements of

the value of £6 13s. per annum, is, therefore, equal to a 40s.

per annum freehold qualification in England; and the free-

hold ownership of land of the value of fifty pounds which we

advocate is worth five pounds a year there, but is actually

equal to a smaller freehold qualification in England. We do

not, however, found our estimate of the scale desirable at

present only on this calculation, but on a practical view of

that scale which will include the most suitable class of voters,

150

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

and we only adduce the undeniable difference in the value as

at least worthy of consideration.

We have not failed to seek for precedents as to franchise in

some new communities. We find that the qualification for

voters in New South Wales is a freehold estate in lands and

tenements of the clear value of two hundred pounds sterling,

though this high qualification is rendered almost null by the

granting of the franchise also to householders occupying

dwelling houses of the yearly value of £20 in a Colony where

scarcely any dwelling house is worth less than this sum.

Even in some of the States of the American Union, the quali-

fication is as high as that which we recommend, and in others

not far below it.

In Massachusets, it is necessary to have an income of £3 ster-

ling, or a capital of £60.

In Rhode Island, a man must possess landed property to the

amount of 133 dollars.

In Connecticut, he must have property which gives an income

of 17 dollars.

In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of £50 a year.

In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess

fifty acres of land.

It is also of importance to observe, that there is great diffi-

culty in restricting a franchise once established and exercised,

while there is comparatively none in extending it; so that a

fault on the side of fixing too high a qualification will be

easily remedied, but one in the opposite direction will be al-

most irretrievable.

We are of opinion that, under the before-mentioned condi-

tions, “Municipal Corporations” under the Act might be ad-

vantageously established at once in the existing settlements

of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, and Petre, to form a

southern province, and in those of Auckland and Russell, to

form a northern province. We have included Petre among

those, although it contains no more than 200 European in-

habitants. But it has a town and country district of its own

under the Company’s arrangements; it is upwards of a hun-

dred miles from the nearest of the other settlements; it num-

bers among its inhabitants four gentlemen who were thought

fit for the office of Justice of the Peace under the existing

form of government; and, the “Native question” having been

recently arranged there by Governor Grey, we have little doubt

that its population will rapidly increase; and even in its present

state, it will be good economy to let the inhabitants manage

their little local matters without having to refer to Wellington

or New Plymouth. The boundary in this case may be left to

be fixed by the Governor, as in the cases of Auckland and

Russell; and the Provincial Assembly may be trusted to de-

termine what local powers the little “township” shall exer-

cise.

In the case of Wellington, we should recommend that the

“Municipal Corporation” extend its jurisdiction over all to

the south of a line as follows:—The latitude of 40° 30' S.,

from the east coast to the highest ridge of the Tararua moun-

tains; then southwards along that ridge to the point nearest to

any waters of the Waikanae river; then along that river to its

mouth in Cook’s Strait; together with the islands of Kapiti

and Mana. But the Governor might be allowed to use his

discretion in excepting for the present any districts within

this boundary, as provided for by the 10th section of the Act,

so as to meet the difficulties which may arise from the con-

tinuance of Rangihaiata in a troublesome attitude.

In the case of Nelson, we should recommend the “ Municipal

Corporation” to extend over all that part of the Middle Island

which lies between Cook’s Strait and the latitude of 42° south.

In the case of New Plymouth, we approve of the boundary

recommended in Mr. E. G. Wakefield’s letter to Mr. Gladstone,

dated in February, 1846. Although, as we believe Governor

Grey has found some difficulty in overcoming the obstacles

which his predecessor threw in the way of adjusting the “Na-

tive Question” at that settlement, the boundary might, in this

case also, be left to be fixed by the Governor for the present.

We should also desire that a “Municipal Corporation” be con-

stituted at once for Otakou, to include within its boundaries

at least the whole block purchased in that neighbourhood by

the Company.

We also think it very advisable that some of these extensive

“Boroughs” should be divided into “Hundreds” or “Wards,”

with a view to the election of councillors from each such sub-

division in proportion to its population. Some of these subdi-

visions might return no councillor for the present, but any

person holding qualification therein should vote in that “Hun-

dred” nearest to his qualification.

It would be necessary, with a view to the numerous changes

in the state of population which are sure to take place in a

country under the process of a rapid colonization, that the

powers now possessed by her Majesty to constitute “Munici-

pal Corporations,” to extend the boundaries of those first es-

tablished, or to erect any one sub-division or more of a “bor-

ough,” into a separate “Municipal Corporation,” or to alter

and amend the boundaries in any way, be delegated to the

151

A View of the Art of Colonization

Governor, if, as we apprehend, such delegation be possible

under the Act. If the proposed Church of England Colony,

for instance, should intend to settle in a part of the Wellington

borough, at present only inhabited by squatters, and only

placed under its jurisdiction in order to include them within

the pale of law, the person sent out to order the land to be

surveyed for such a settlement might also carry out an appli-

cation to the Governor to constitute such subdivision of an

already existing “borough” into a separate one. Or if, upon

the settlement of the “native question,” the population in the

valley of the Hutt, or at Porirua, should so rapidly increase as

that the local matters could be better managed by a separate

municipality, the Governor might be empowered to grant the

application for that boon of a certain amount of population,

say one or two thousand souls.

We may here observe that the average population of a “town-

ship” in the state of Massachusets is about 2000 souls.

With regard to the provinces, we are content to propose that

at first there should be two.

1. All north of the latitude of the mouth of the Mokau River,

including the municipal corporations of Auckland and Russell.

2. All south of the same parallel, including the municipalities

of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Petre, and Otakou.

We are of opinion that the same qualification which we have

recommended as calculated to secure the best class of voters

in each municipality, is sufficient for a representative to the

provincial assembly, no less than for a councilman; and this

is on the principle before advocated, that you are more se-

cure of a correct choice when the whole body of electors is of

a station secured by property, than when you provide that the

few persons chosen shall be possessed of a certain property,

and leave the choice to a larger body of electors, having less

stake in the country, and a lower position to maintain by up-

right conduct.

The representatives from each “municipal corporation” should

be in proportion to its population.

We are inclined to desire that no ex-officio members should

sit in the Provincial House of Representatives; but that offic-

ers of the government should offer themselves to the suffrages

of the electors, in the same way as in England. Such an ar-

rangement would go far to secure that the officers of the pro-

vincial governments should be chosen from among the most

estimable of the colonists, and not from among strangers and

new comers careless of their welfare, as has almost always

been the case under the old form of government.

We should desire, above all, that the legislative councils be

composed of persons having a very important stake in the

country. At the beginning, indeed, it may be expedient to al-

low the Governor perfect carte blanche in the selection of

legislative councillors; because the late troubles of the colony

have left many persons fitted for so high a station with com-

paratively little property. We should not, therefore, be sorry

to leave this discretion entirely with the Governor for at least

three years. But during the succeeding three years, no one

should be eligible to the legislative council, who had not re-

sided at least two years in the colony, and who did not pos-

sess property to the clear value of three thousand pounds ster-

ling, of which at least one thousand should be in real prop-

erty, in the province to whose legislative council he might be

nominated. After these six years no one should be eligible

who had not resided at least five years in the colony, and who

did not possess property to the clear value of six thousand

pounds sterling, of which two thousand must be in real prop-

erty in the province.

All nominations, excepting those made during the first six

years, should, in our opinion, be for life, or at any rate for the

duration of the Provincial Assembly as then constituted. But

it should be at the option of the Governor to nominate or not

for life, at the end of the six years, any of the persons who

had served during any part of that time, but who at the end of

it might not possess the highest qualification required. It may

be necessary that some Government officers not possessed

of the above qualification, should hold seats in the Legisla-

tive Council by virtue of their office, as the Judge of the high-

est Court in the Province, &c.; and perhaps that the Governor

should always preside; though we should prefer to see him so

completely a representative of her Majesty as only to appear

even in the Upper House on occasions of dissolution, proro-

gation, and re-assemblage, and as to introduce Government

measures into either House through the medium of respon-

sible Executive Officers. We are convinced that the office of

Colonial Governor loses much of its dignity and usefulness,

when its holder appears as a violent partisan in a legislative

chamber, and the discussion of public objects is converted

into an occasion of personal dispute between the representa-

tive of royalty and one of the Queen’s subjects.

We would apply precisely the same principles to the repre-

sentatives and legislative councillors of the General Assem-

bly as to those of the Provincial Assemblies. The House of

Representatives of each Province should be empowered to

choose those of their number to be sent to that of the General

Assembly.

But it appears to us most essential that the number of mem-

bers thus deputed by each province should be in proportion

to the bonâ fide tax-paying population of such province; and

152

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

this would be still more requisite, should it be determined

against our wish to continue the present form of government

in the northern part of the north island; for in that case, by the

9th section, the Government would be enabled to send to the

General House of Representatives a number of mere Gov-

ernment nominees from the northern Province, equal to that

of the members really representing the more populous south-

ern Province, and there would be only a mockery of Repre-

sentative Government on the nine points of legislation re-

served for the General Assembly of the islands. Bonâ fide

Representatives, indeed, from any of the settlements, would

probably not be found to, give their countenance to its delib-

erations; as they have on many occasions heretofore refused

a seat among the non-official minority in the Legislative Coun-

cil as at present constituted.

Although there are some other matters relating to the affairs

of New Zealand on which, at some future time, we should be

glad of the opportunity of submitting our views to her

Majesty’s government, we have thought it of importance to

confine ourselves at present to that subject which is more

immediately under the consideration of Earl Grey, the Or-

ders in Council to be framed under the New Zealand Govern-

ment Act; and we beg to repeat that the above suggestions

have been expressed in some haste, although they contain, as

the principles on which they are founded, our deliberate and

carefully considered opinions. We would, therefore, respect-

fully request that we may be allowed to explain or reconsider

any points which may not seem sufficiently clear in this rough

statement; and we may add that we have also turned our at-

tention to some of the more minute details of the proposed

arrangements, with which we have not thought fit to encum-

ber this letter.—We have the honour to be, Sir, your most

obedient servants,

(Signed) W. Cargill, leader of the proposed Colony at

Otago.

E. S. Halswell, ex-member of the Legislative Council, N.Z.

H. Moreing, four years Resident and Magistrate, N.Z.

E. Jerningham Wakefield, four years and a half resident in

New Zealand.

Benjamin Hawes, Esq., M.P.

Notes

1. The manuscript of this book was nearly ready for the press

before Mr. Buller’s death. Not a word of it has been al-

tered in consequence of that event. How greatly for the

better it might have been altered if he had lived a few weeks

longer, every reader will understand when I add, that it

would have passed through his hands for critical revision

on its way to the publisher. I have wished and tried to say

something about him here, but cannot.

2. Downing Street, March 8th, 1847.

“You will remember that in North America, the profuse

grants, made to private persons, and the surrender of the

territorial revenue by the Crown to the Provincial legisla-

ture, leave to the Government no power of adopting with

effect the Wakefield principle of colonization, as to the

soundness of which I am quite of the same opinion as your-

self. Such are the difficulties which stand in the way of

doing more than has been hitherto done by the Govern-

ment to promote Emigration to North America.”

* * * * *

“With regard to Australia, I would observe to you, that

every possible facility is now given to the purchase of land

in this country, and the application of the purchase-money

in carrying out emigrants.

*****

“Be assured that the colonization of Australia for its own

proper objects, which I consider as valuable as you do,

and which I am no less anxious to promote, affords no

means of immediate relief from such a calamity as that

which has now fallen upon Ireland, and cannot be hastily

carried into effect. That it may be gradually very largely

extended, I have no doubt, and, if I continue to hold my

present office, I trust to be enabled to prove.”

*****

“Though I have marked this letter “private,” you are quite

at liberty to show it to any of the persons with whom you

are in communication upon the subject to which it relates,

that you may think proper.”

3. Colonel Torrens afterwards became a zealous and valu-

able convert to our views of colonization as opposed to

mere emigration, and also chairman of the commission

for founding South Australia in accordance with some of

our principles.

4. To which the publisher, in the author’s absence from En-

gland, took on himself to give the puffing title of England

and America.

5. The leaders of the first settlement afterwards planted in

New Zealand were made aware of this circumstance, by

the person who had applied to the Duke of Wellington in

the South-Australian case, and who requested them, as a

personal favour in return for much exertion on their be-

half, to give the name of Wellington to the spot most likely

to become the metropolis of the Britain of the South. Hence

Wellington on one side of Cook’s Strait, Nelson being on

the other.

6. The Archbishop of Canterbury, President.

The Archbishop of Dublin.

The Duke of Buccleugh.

The Marquis of Cholmondeley.

The Earl of Ellesmere.

The Earl of Harewood.

The Earl of Lincoln, M.P.

Viscount Mandeville, M.P.

The Bishop of London.

The Bishop of Winchester.

153

A View of the Art of Colonization

The Bishop of Exeter.

The Bishop of Ripon.

The Bishop of St. David’s.

The Bishop of Oxford.

Bishop Coleridge.

Viscount Alford, M.P.

Lord Ashhurton.

Lord Lyttelton.

Lord Ashley, M.P.

Lord Courtenay, M.P.

Lord A. Hervey, M.P.

Lord J. Manners.

Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart.

Sir Wm. Heathcote Bart., M.P.

Sir Wm. James. Bart.

Sir Willoughby Jones, Bart.

Right Hon. H. Goulbourn, M.P.

Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P.

Hon. Sir Edward Cust, K.C.H.

The Dean of Canterbury.

C. B. Adderly, Esq., M.P.

W. H. Pole Carew, Esq., M.P.

Hon. R. Cavendish.

Hon. F. Charteris, M.P.

Thos. Somers Cocks, Esq., M.P.

Rev. E. Coleridge.

W. Forsythe, Esq.

Rev. G. R. Gleig.

J. R. Godley, Esq.

Edmund Halswell, Esq.

Ven. Archdeacon Hare.

Rev. E. Hawkins.

Rev. Dr. Hinds.

Rev. Dr. Hook.

John Hutt, Esq.

G. K. Richards, Esq.

J. Simeon, Esq., M.P.

A. Stafford, Esq., M.P.

Hon. J. Talbot.

Rev. C. M. Torlesse.

Rev. R, C. French.

E. Jerningham Wakefield, Esq.

Ven. Archdeacon Wilberforce.

7. Brittany more than France in general is the mother-country

of French Canada.

8. Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Appli-

cations to Social Philosophy. By John Stuart Mill.

9. Since Mr. Buller’s death, I have determined to reprint his

speech of 1843, in an appendix to this correspondence. It

will be found at the end of the volume, with a statement of

facts concerniug him, explanatory of the circumstances

which prevented him from following up his great effort of

1843, by submitting to the public a plan of colonization as

complete as his exposition of the objects with which such

a plan ought to be framed.

10. See, for an interesting view of this question, Letters from

America, by John Robert Godley: John Murray, 1844.

11. In about twenty years, there have been thirteen Principal

Secretaries of State for the Colonies : Bathurst, Huskisson,

Murray, Goderich, Stanley, Spring Rice, Aberdeen,

Glenelg, Normanby, John Russell, Stanley again,

Gladstone, and Grey.

12. The Statesman. By Henry Taylor, Esq. 1836.

13. “Algeria is divided administratively into three zones: the

population of the first being chiefly European—this is the

civil territory or zone; the second by Arabs and a few Eu-

ropeans—this is the mixed territory; the third by Arabs

only—this is the Arab territory par excellence. The ad-

ministration of the first is the principal and most serious;

and is pronounced by all, and especially by the Commis-

sion this year (1847) with the examination of affairs in

Algeria, to be defective, imperfect in its functions, com-

plicated in its system, slow in its working, making much

ado about nothing, doing little, and that little badly. The

functionaries of whom it is composed are pronounced ig-

norant of the language, usages, and history of the country,

and unacquainted with the duties imposed upon them. Their

proceedings instead of being rapid and simple, as so nec-

essary in a new colony, are ill-advised, ill-executed, and

super-eminently slow. The latter defect is chiefly attribut-

able, perhaps, to the fact that from the centralization of

affairs in Paris, all the acts must be referred to the head

bureau there before the least move of the most trivial na-

ture can be effected. During the last year only, above

twenty-four thousand despatches were received from

thence by the “Administration civile,” and above twenty-

eight thousand sent to Paris by this branch in Algiers.

“The immense number of functionaries appertaining to the

corps of civil administrators in Algeria is astonishing. At

the present period there are above two thousand; yet there

is a cry that they are insufficient.”

*******

“Another and great reason for the slow growth of the

colony, is the extreme tardiness with which the adminis-

trative forms requisite to the establishment of emigrants

are carried out. For instance, though assignments of land

are promised, yet a year or eighteen months after applica-

tion frequently elapses before the grantees are put into pos-

session. The majority of those arriving from the

mothercountry having but very small capital, it in the in-

termediate period disappears; they are compelled to de-

vour it to keep body and soul together; and when it is gone

their assignment may be allotted to them, with the paren-

tal advice, ‘There, sit ye down, increase and multiply:’ but

it comes too late; their only prospect is starvation; and

they are fortunate if sufficient remains to them to permit

them to shake the dust from off their feet and fly the inhos-

pitable shore, thus preventing others from arriving: for will

154

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

they not return with outcry and relations of their suffer-

ings? It is even a fact well known to all, that men of capi-

tal, rich French proprietors, arriving in Algeria under the

auspices of the Minister of War, have remained as long as

five or six years before being able to obtain a promised

concession. Others again established provisionally upon a

tract of land, the assignment of which has been promised

them, have built upon it, cultivated portions of it, and oth-

erwise fulfilled all required conditions; when at last the

definite answer is given them—the title to it is refused!

Being able neither to alienate or to mortgage, they have

thus been brought to ruin.”

“The generally desolate state of those poor emigrants who

do become established in Algeria is painful enough. The

villages scattered about the Shael or Massif of Algiers are,

with one or two exceptions, the type of desolation. Perched

upon the most arid spots, distant from water, there the poor

tenants lie sweltering beneath sun and sirocco, wonder-

ing, as their haggard eyes rove across vast tracts of

inexterminable palmetta and prickly bushes, what there is

there ‘to increase and multiply’ upon, as recommended.”—

Narrative of a Campaign against the Kabaïles of Alge-

ria: with the Mission of M. Suchet to the Emir Abd-el-

Kader for an exchange of prisoners. By Dawson Borrer,

F.E.G.S.

14. With this title, and re-written by a master of style as an

abridgment, this most instructive and entertaining work

would be a capital addition to Mr, Murray’s Colonial Li-

brary; for it would become a household book in the colo-

nies.

15. It was no secret before Mr. Charles Buller’s death, that he

wrote the description of “Mr. Mothercountry of the Colo-

nial Office,” which many a colonist has got by heart; but

the fact is not mentioned in the text, because it was not

published till after that was written as it now stands. I as-

sume that now, when the public has lost its favourite among

the younger statesmen of our day, no apology is required

for reviving here one of the happiest productions of his

accomplished pen.

16. Who was not an official sent out by the Colonial Office,

but a native of Canada, and as thorough a colonist as the

province contains. Lord Durham appointed him Chief-Jus-

tice of Quebec.

17. This letter, which very completely exposed, by anticipa-

tion, the defects and vices of the last constitution bestowed

by imperial Britain on a colony, will be found in an Ap-

pendix.

18. Amongst these circumstances are the facts, that the plan

of Irish colonization in question was framed conjointly by

Mr. Charles Buller, another gentleman, and myself; and

that during a visit which Mr. Buller paid me in France

shortly before his death, for the purpose of re-considering

and perfecting the scheme, we determined that no particu-

lars of it should be mentioned in this book, which was

then nearly ready for the press, but that, if the state of

politics favoured the attempt, he should endeavour to make

what we hoped might prove a better use of the plan in

another way. In the Appendix No. I, will be found a fur-

ther statement concerning the purpose which was frustrated

by his death.

19. Lord Stanley, in answer to this, stated that the large pro-

ceeds of these land sales had been produced by the exces-

sive speculations of the years 1835 and 1836, since which

“the bubble had burst,” and there had been a great falling

off. The proceeds of the different years were—

£. s. d.

In 1835 3,333,292 10 0

In 1836 5,243,296 9 2

In 1837 1,459,900 12 6

In 1838 896,992 10 1

In 1839 1,346,772 10 0

In 1840 581,264 7 6

The facts stated by Lord Stanley are perfectly correct; but

they do not controvert the conclusions drawn by Mr. Buller.

The sales of 1835 and 1836 were no doubt swelled by the

speculative spirit of the period; but it is just as obvious

that the great falling off in the latter years has been the

result of the extraordinary commercial distress that has

pressed on the United States all the time. The only subject

for wonder is that during such a period of distress as that

from 1837 to 1840 there should have been so much as

£4,284,930 to spare for the purchase of land.—Foot note

in Mr. Murray’s Publication.