of colonizatkin could not be practised by those ^ybo couM not carry with tbem slaves outnumbering teu times the citizens tbemselves. Tbe tbeory of Edward Gibbon Wakefield bad not been propounded ui the time of Pitt; and wben it was made known, lialf a centmy later > it %vas scarcely mideratood, and only balf-heartedly embraced by tbose who were nnable to confute ity propounder. To this day it is sometimes urged that its object was to do what Wakefield always denied to be even a necessary pai*t of it. It is spoken of as if its main intention was to sell land at a high price, in oriler to create an innuigration fund with which to import labourers and depress the cost of labour. Wakeflekb on the con- trary, declared that his object was to establish *'a sufficient price" to prevent the unwholesome distraction of labourers from the emplo>^nent most useful to the colony by the facihties atforde<l them in new countries to become pre- maturely land-owners and employers themselves.
- The putting of moucy/' he aays/* " Into the coloDial exchequer would
not have hcen aeaignefl b}- the govts rnnie lit. The getting of money by Iho^ government wouhl be the resnlt of seUing land instead of giving it away;-^ but as the only oljject of selling instead of giving is one totally diatinct from tliiit of pi'odueiug revenue -namely, to prevent labourers from turn- ing into landowners too soon — the pecuniary reault would be unintended, one might almost say nnexrpected. So completely ia production of revenue a mere incident of the price of land, that the price ought to be tmpoaed, if it ought to be imposed under any eiroumabtincea, even though the purchase- 1 money were throT, i away. This last proposition is the sliarpest test' to which the theory of a sufficient price can be aiibndtted ; but if it will not stand this test, if the proposition ia not true, the theory is false. Assuming it not to be false, the money arising frE>ni the sale of land ia a fun<l raised without a pur^^oBe, unavoidably, incidentally » tdniost accidentally. It is a fund, therefore^ without a destination. There would be im undertfl<king, no tacit obligation even^ on the part of the government to disnose of the fund in any particular way. . . . But if tbe object were the utmost possilde increase of the population, wealth, and greatness of our Empire, then I can have no doubt that the revenue acciiiing from the sale of waste land would be called an emigration fund, and be expended in conveying pat>r people of the labouring class from the mother country to the eolonies. , - . Altogether the effect of devoting the pnrchaae-mouey of 1an<l to emigration would be to accelerate greatly the rat« of colonization, and to augment more quickly than by any other die- poaition of the fund, the population, wealth, and greatness of the Empire.'* But to commence colonizing umler Wakefield's theory, there is needed a desire on the part of many persons to
- "A View of the Art of Colonisation/' (Loudon, LH49.) E. C4. Wakefiald.
