Mr Wakefield's system – for it is he who has the honour of originating this politico-economical scheme – consists in putting a price upon unoccupied land, and with the proceeds of the sale raising a fund for the transmission of emigrant labourers. This is, however, but a subordinate part of his project, which we mention thus separately, because, for a purpose of our own, we wish to distinguish it from the rest. This price must, moreover, (and here is the gist of the matter,) be that "sufficient price" which will debar the labourer from becoming too soon a proprietor of land, and thus deserting the service of the capitalist.
The object of Mr Wakefield, it will be seen at once, is to procure the speedy transmission in due proportion of capital and labour. The capitalist would afford the means of transferring the labourer to the scene of action; the labourer would be retained in that condition in order to invite and render profitable the wealth of the capitalist. The twofold object is good, and there is an apparent simplicity in the means devised, which, at first, is very captivating. There is nothing from which the colonial capitalist suffers so much as from the want of hired labour. He purchases land and finds no one to cultivate it; the few he can engage he cannot depend upon; the project of agricultural improvement which, if it be not completed, is utterly null and useless, is arrested in mid progress by the desertion of his workmen; or his capital is exhausted by the high wages he has paid before the necessary works can be brought to a termination. The capitalist has gone out, and left behind him that class of hired labourers without which his capital is useless. Meanwhile, in England, this very class is super-abundant; but it is not the class which spontaneously leaves the country, or can leave it. Mr Wakefield's scheme supplies the capitalist with the labour so essential to him, and relieves our parishes of their unemployed poor. But these emigrant labourers would soon extend themselves over the new country, as small proprietors, – Mr Wakefield checks this natural tendency by raising the price of land.
There is, we say, an apparent and captivating simplicity in the scheme; but we are persuaded that, the more closely it is examined, the more impracticable and perplexing it will reveal itself to be. As Mr Wakefield's system has made considerable progress in public opinion, and obtained the approval, not only of eager speculative minds, but of cool and calculating economists – as it has already exerted some influence, and may exert still more, upon our colonial legislation – and as we believe that the attempt to carry it out will give rise to nothing better than confusion and discontent, we think we shall be doing no ill service to the cause of colonisation by entering into some investigation of it.
We are compelled to make a division, or what to Mr Wakefield will appear a most unscientific fracture, of the two parts of his scheme. We acquiesce in fixing a price upon unappropriated land, and with the proceeds of the sale forming a fund for the transmission and outfit of the poor emigrant. We do not say that these proceeds must necessarily supply all the fund that it may be thought advisable to spend in this matter, or that the price is to be regulated solely according to the wants of this emigration fund. But we do not acquiesce in the proposal to fix a price for the specific purpose of retarding the period at which the labourer may himself become a proprietor. The doctrine of "a sufficient price" (as it has been called, and for brevity's sake we shall adopt the name) we entirely eschew. To the imposing of an artificial value upon the land, for this purpose, we will be no parties. Simply to transport the labourer hence, shall be the object of our price, beyond such other reasons as may be given for selling at a certain moderate sum the waste land of the colonies, instead of disposing of it by free grant. This object may be shown to be equitable; it appeals to the common justice of mankind. But as to the longer or shorter term the hired labourer remains in the condition of hired labourer, for this the capitalist must take his chance. This must be determined, as it is in the old country, and as alone it can be determined amicably, by that current of circumstances over which neither party can exercise a direct control. To such collateral advantage as may accrue to the capitalist from even the price we should impose, he is welcome; only we do not legislate for this object – we neither give it, nor take it away.
The wild unappropriated land of our colonies belongs to the crown, to the state – it is, as Mr Wakefield says, "a valuable national property." In making use of this land, one main object would be to relieve the destitute of the old country; to give them, if possible, a share of it. What more just or more rational? To give, however, the soil itself to the very poor would be idle. They cannot reach it, they cannot travel to their new estate – they have no seeds, no tools, no stock of any kind wherewith to cultivate it. The gift would be a mere mockery. We will sell it, then, to those who can transport themselves thither, and who have the necessary means for its cultivation, and the purchase-money shall be paid over to the very poor. By far the best way of paying over this purchase-money, which as a mere gift of so much coin would be all but worthless, and would be spent in a week, is by providing them with a free passage to the colony where they will permanently improve their condition; obtaining high wages, and probably, after a time, becoming proprietors themselves; and assisting in turn, by the purchase-money their own savings will have enabled them to pay, to bring over other emigrants to the new field of labour, and the new land of promise.
This is an equitable arrangement, and, what is more, the equity of it is level to the common sense of all mankind. It effects also certain desirable objects, though not such as our theorist has in view. It places the land in the possession of men who will and can cultivate it, and who, by paying a certain moderate price, have shown they were in earnest in the business; and it has transmitted, at their expense, labourers to the new soil. With the question, how long these shall continue labourers, it interferes not. It is a question, we think, no wise man would meddle with. Least of all does it represent that the capitalist has obtained any claim upon the services of the labourer, by having paid for his passage out: this payment was no gift of his; it was the poor man's share of the "national property." They meet in the colony as they would have met in England, each at liberty to do the best he can for himself.
Observe how the difficulties crowd upon us, when we enter upon the other and indeed the essential part of Mr Wakefield's scheme. The emigrant is not "too soon" to become a proprietor. What does this "too soon" mean? How long is he to be retained in the condition of hired labourer? How many years? Mr Wakefield never fixes a period. He could not. It must depend much upon the rapidity of immigration into the colony. If the second batch of immigrants is slow of coming in, the first must be kept labourers the longer. If the stream of labour flow but scantily into this artificial canal, the locks must be opened the more rarely. But how is the "sufficient price" to be determined until this period be known? It is the sum the labourer can save from his wages, during this time, which must constitute the price of so much land as will support him and his family, and enable him to turn proprietor. Thus, in order to regulate the sufficient price, it will be necessary to find the average rate of wages, the average amount of savings that a labourer could make (which, again, must depend upon the price of provisions, and other necessaries of life) during an unknown period! – and, in addition to this, to determine the average produce of so many acres of land. The apparent simplicity of the scheme resolves itself into an extreme complexity. The author of it, indeed, proposes a short method by which his sufficient price may be arrived at without these calculations: what that short method is, and how fallacious it would prove, we shall have occasion to show.
But granting that, in any manner, this "sufficient price" could be determined, the measure has an unjust and arbitrary character. It is not enough that such a scheme could be defended, and shown to be equitable, because for the general good, before some committee of legislators; if it offends the popular sense of justice it can never prosper. "I know," the humble emigrant might say – "I know there must be rich and poor in the world; there always have been, and always will be. To what is inevitable one learns to submit. If I am born poor there is no help for it, except what lies in my own ability and industry. But if you set about, by artificial regulations, in a new colony, where fruitful land is in abundance, to keep me poor, because I am so now, I rebel. This is not just. Do I not see the open land before me unowned, untouched? I well enough understood that, in old England, I could not take so much of any field as the merest shed would cover – not so much as I could burrow in. Long before I was born it had been all claimed,