wealth is, once again, by its very nature, identical with misery of the people.
How, then, to heal the anti-capitalistic cancer of the colonies? If men were willing, at a blow, to turn all the soil from public into private property, they would destroy certainly the root of the evil, but also—the colonies. The trick is how to kill two birds with one stone. Let the Government put upon the virgin soil an artificial price, independent of the law of supply and demand, a price that compels the immigrant to work a long time for wages before he can earn enough money to buy land, and turn himself into an independent peasant.[1] The funds resulting from the sale of land at a price relatively prohibitory for the wage-workers, this fund of money extorted from the wages of labour by violation of the sacred law of supply and demand, the Government is to employ, on the other hand, in proportion as it grows, to import have-nothings from Europe into the colonies, and thus keep the wage-labour market full for the capitalists. Under these circumstances, tout sera pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles. This is the great secret of “systematic colonisation.” By this plan, Wakefield cries in triumph, “the supply of labour must be constant and regular, because, first, as no labourer would be able to procure land until he had worked for money, all immigrant labourers, working for a time for wages and in combination, would produce capital for the employment of more labourers; secondly, because every labourer who left off working for wages and became a landowner, would, by purchasing land, provide a fund for bringing fresh labour to the colony.”[2] The price of the soil imposed by the State must, of course, be a “sufficient price”—i.e., so high “as to prevent the labourers from becoming independent landown-
- ↑ “C’est, ajoutez-vous, grace à l’appropriation du sol et des capitaux que l’homme, qui n’ a que ses bras, trouve de l’occupation, et se fait un revenue … c'est au contraire, grace à l’appropriation individuelle du sol qu’il se trouve des hommes n’ayant que leurs bras.… Quand vous mettez un homme dans le vide, vous vous emparez de l’atmosphère. Ainsi faites-vous, quand vous vous emparez du sol.… C’est le mettre dans le vide de richesses, pour ne le laisser vivre qu’à votre volonté.” (Colins, l. c., t. III., pp. 268-271, passim.)
- ↑ Wakefield, l. c, Vol. II. p. 192.
