CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Goldwin Smith Library Cornell University Library JV171 .M56 1861 Lectures on oolonizatiori and colo^^^ olin 3 1924 030 554 889 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030554889 COLONIZATION AND COLONIES LONDOW PRTNTED BY SPOITISWQODE AND CO. iraW-STEEKT SQT7AEE LECTUEES ON COLONIZATION AND COLONIES DELIVEEED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 1839, 1840, & 1841 BY HEKMAN MERIVALE, A.M. PEOEESSOE OP POLITICAL ECONOMY NEW EDITION LONDON LONGMAN, GHEBN, LONGMAN, AND EOBEliTS 186J 111 19Gf UNIVERSITY \Ljj 1/ PREFACE. These Lectiires were composed and originally published at a time when pubhc attention had been rather sud- denly and strongly directed to the subjects which they embrace. During the continental war, and for many subsequent years, our colonial empire had been ad- ministered after no very regular pattern, but in ac- cordance with certain received usages. While most of our colonies had free legislatures, their executive government was jealously retained within the control of the mother country. Their trade was fettered by the highly artificial restrictions of the so-called colonial system. Slavery, though assailed with great pertinacity, was maintained in a large proportion of them ; together with the peculiar condition of poHtical society which it engendered. The penal colonies — the most remark- able modern accessions to that empire — were regarded as mere conveniences for the execution of justice at home, and excited no farther interest in the minds of ' statesmen. The causes which put an end to this apathetic state of feehng, and directed so large a proportion of English thought and energy to colonial subjects, were partly such as arose out of the general progress of the com- A 3 VI PREFACE. munity in the long peace ; but in part also the result of fortuitous and unconnected events. Bad seasons and discouraging commercial prospects had rendered the theory of over-popiilation a received article of behef ; and our vast foreign possessions seemed to afford a prospect of relief from a danger then deemed imminent, now almost forgotten. The Canadian outbreak of 1837, the conse- quent mission of Lord Durham, the disclosures made and theories propounded by the very able men v^ho accompanied him, raised in poKtical thinkers a suspicion of the insecurity and injustice of colonial government by the mother country, or by local party in connection with the mother country ; and directed the thoughts of the more speculative towards the renewal of the older and freer pohty of our first American settlements. The domestic economy of the "West Indies had been thoroughly revolutionized by the first results of emanci- pation. The progress of free-trade doctrines threatened the restrictive system of colonial trade with speedy abohtion. The advance of new opinions respecting penal discipline was rapidly undermining the original and simple administration of the penal settlements. And, witnessing all these changes and foreseeing more, a school was arising of men disposed to question the advantages of colonial empire altogether. But, as if to meet this new generation of sceptics, there arose also the young and sanguine sect of colonial reformers. These con- templated a reconstruction and great extension of the British dominion beyond the seas, on principles of in- ternal self-government and commercial freedom. But these were to be combined with the maintenance of a fixed system of disposal of colonial lands, and apphcation PEEFACE. Vll ' of the land fund to the purpose of procuring labouring emigrants from home. In this manner they beheved that capital and labour might be imported into new colonies in the best proportions ; and that communities might thus be founded which should possess at once some of the more valuable characteristics of advanced and weU-regulated societies. Such is a brief summary of the leading ideas en- tertained by the school in question, which are amply dilated on in these Lectures. They were bold and farseeing innovators, as far as concerned the end which they had in view. But they miscalculated the means to that end. They wished at once to give full muni- cipal freedom to colonists, and to tie down the land system of colonies by strict regulation. The latter end of their commonwealth forgot the beginning. They did not apparently anticipate that, when they had prevailed on the home government to make their experiment, the first demand of each emancipated community would be to get rid of their favourite land system, and adopt methods of its own ; or that the very fulness of that self-government, of which themselves had advocated the concession, would render it impossible for the mother country to resist this demand, had it been so inclined. The period, therefore, during which these doctrines were put into practical execution in some parts of the empire, had necessarily but a short duration ; and the sect itself is already almost forgotten. But it has nevertheless left behind it great results. The extraordinary success which has on the whole attended the early colonization of our Austrahan empire is due, in a. far greater degree than is commonly imagined, to the closet speculations of a few A 4 VUl PBEPACE. students, and to the clauses of a few acts of parliament reducing these to practice. Great part of these Lectures was devoted to the ex- position and illustration of the views of the school in question; another portion, to controverting some errors which appeared to me involved in them. Much was also allotted to the discussions of the then pending conflict between protection and free trade. The interest of both controversies has for the present subsided. Yet I have thought on the whole that I might serve my readers better by retaining a large proportion of the original text of this work, than by rewriting it for adaptation to the present time; for the Lectures as originally delivered show the point which speculation on subjects of colonial pohcy had reached, at an epoch of no common im- portance in its history. But I have omitted from the present edition many details of merely temporary in- terest. And I have endeavoured to import into the volume, through considerable additions in the way of notes and appendix, such corrections as the enlarged experience of the last twenty years appeared to render necessary. I must, however, apologise for some unavoidable awk- wardness of expression, occasioned by this method of executing my work. I must request the reader to re- member that when speaking in the first person and the present tense, I am addressing an audience of twenty years ago from a professorial chair at Oxford. The face of the world has changed since those days ; and circum- stances have also caused me to look on many of the questions then discussed from a very different and much closer point of view. And I have been forced to sio-- PEEFACE. IX nalize, in this revision of former labour, not a few speculations wMcli have turned out erroneous ; to recant not a few opinions which have proved unsustainable ; and to confess the disappointment of some cherished fancies. Similar palinodes may be due which I have omitted to make ; unreconciled inconsistencies may per- haps be detected between past and present views ; and I can only iavite my readers to supply the former, and correct the latter. But the leading principles of adminis- trative and commercial pohcy which are advocated in these Lectures are such as I have seen no occasion to abandon or to modify. And I reproduce this defence of them the more willingly because, in the midst of apparent success, there are signs of reaction visible, which may by and by render it necessary for their adherents to recur to old arguments in support of truths which may perhaps no longer pass, as of late they have, for axioms. May, 1861. INTRODUCTION THE FIRST EDITION. The Lectures now presented to the public form a course delivered at the University of Oxford in the years 1839, 1840, and 1841. They are published in comphance with the terms of the foundation of the Chair of Political Economy. I have endeavoured to embrace in these Lectures a vast subject, — far too vast, indeed, for anything more than' the slightest and most superficial investigation. My ob- jects were, first, to convey information on a very popular and interesting topic, on which information in a condensed shape is not easily attainable : next, to lead the minds of my hearers to the consideration of some elementary prin- ciples in Pohtical Economy which are illustrated by the phenomena of colonization and the growth of colonies : lastly, to call their attention also to the principles of the art of colonization, if I may so term it, particularly to the ingenious speculations of late years respecting the most profitable mode of applying capital and labour in the foundation and improvement of settlements ; — specida- tions which have not only assumed something of scientific dignity, but have "been partially subjected to the test of experiment in some of our Australian possessions. Xll HSTTilODUCTIOK Perhaps a reference to these objects will explain the order in which the subject is treated, which may at first sight appear a Uttle anomalous. I have commenced, where in strict analytical arrangement I ought to have ended, by a brief sketch of the history of modern colonies, chiefly in respect of the progress of wealth and commerce ; taking care to touch in this rapid review on those pheno- mena which might appear to afford the most striking illustration of principles. And I may here mention that throughout these Lectures the term Colony is used in the ancient and proper sense, and not in that which has passed from official into general usage, in which it comprehends every species of foreign possession, — military stations, such as Gibraltar and Malta ; conquered districts, possessed by native inhabitants with a very slight admixture of , the conquerors, such as Ceylon ; mercantile emporia, such as the factories of European powers on the coast of Ajfrica. By a Colony I understand a territory of which the soil is entirely or principally owned by settlers from the mother country. The remainder falls naturally into two portions. In the first of these, the economical effects of colonization on the wealth and industry of the mother country are treated of, as far as my narrow hmits have permitted. I have confined my observations on this head to three parti- culars : — the effects of emigration, real or supposed, on the proportion between the supply and demand of labour at home; the effects of the export of capital which accompanies emigration on national wealth ; and the character of the commerce which takes place between colonies and the mother country, with especial reference to the history and results of that series of protections INTRODUCTION. XUl and restrictions which constitutes our so-called colonial system. In the last division of these lectures, I have considered the progress of wealth and society in colonies themselves ; the natural laws by which it is governed, the artificial re- gulations by which it may be promoted and guided. The first topic of interest to which I have adverted is that scarcity of available labour which is so severely felt in infant colonies ; which has attracted so much attention of late years among practical economists, and has been attempted to be remedied by one of the most novel and remarkable experiments of our times, — the " South Australian" scheme of colonization; now put into practice more or less rigorously in all our possessions in that quar- ter of the world. But before entering on that much con- troverted topic, I have digressed so far as to advert to the history of the principal methods by which European co- lonists have hitherto endeavoured to obviate this scarcity ; namely ,-the employment of subjugated native labourers, as in Spanish America, of slaves, and of convicts, — subjects which necessarily lead to the incidental discussion of some of the complicated problems which now agitate at once the minds of economists, philanthropists, and politicians. The consideration of the scheme of Mr. Wakefield and his disciples for supplying the same deficiency, is neces- sarily connected with an investigation of the principles which have regulated, and those which ought to regulate the disposal of public lands ; that important function of colonial authority which, in the view of Lord Durham, had been the " most full of good and evil consequences " in the government of that portion of the Empire which he was sent to administer. And in order to complete the XIV INTEODUCTIOJS'. consideration of those measures which are prehminary tc the estabhshment of young commonwealths, I have treatec at some length of the pohcy of colonial governments to- wards the native races inhabiting their dominions. To trace the progress of colonies in their second oi adult stage, and up to the period when their indepen- dence, either virtual or actual, commences (for a commu- nity may continue under the central authority long aftei it has advanced, in an economical point of view, from the rank of a colony, properly so called, into that of a state), I have found almost too wide a field of inquiry for the limits of a course of lectures. The third part of these lectures, is, however, concluded with some observations on the growth of capital in new coimtries, and on taxa- tion, considered with reference, to it ; on their civil and ecclesiastical government, and the chief political and social features of their condition. CONTENTS. PAET I. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE PKOGEESS OF THE COLONIES OF MODERN EUROPE. LECTURE I. Page Accotint of the Colonies of Spain in Continental America, up to the Period of their Independence ..... 3 LECTUEE 11. Spanish Colonies in the West Indies ; their History and present Condition in respect of Wealth and Commerce. — Portuguese, Dutch, and French Colonies; Accoimt of their Government, Commerce, and general History ...... 35 LECTUEE' in. Brief historical Sketch of British Colonization. — British Colo- nies in the West Indies. — North American Colonies, down to the Period of their Independence ...... 73 LECTUEE IV. Account of the present British Colonies in North America, South Africa, and Australia 103 XVI CONTENTS. PAET 11. ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF COLONIZATION ON THE PAEENT STATE. LECTUEE V. Page Effects of Emigration on the Progress of Population and Wealth, and on the Eelations between Capital and Labour in the Mother Country. — The Subject considered with Eeference to the present Condition of Great Britain, and of Ireland . .137 LECTUEE VI. Effects of the Exportation of Capital, which takes place in the Process of colonizing, on the Wealth of the Mother Country . 167 LECTUEE VII. On Colonial Trade and the Colonial System, as affecting the Wealth of the Mother Country. — Principal Features of that System. — Eestrictions on the Exportation of Produce from the Colony elsewhere than to the Mother Country Ee- strictions on the Importation of Goods into the Colony from foreign Countries. — Eestrictions on the Importation of Colonial Produce into the Mother Country from foreign Cotmtries or Colonies .......... 187 LECTUEE VIII. The same Subject continued. — Eestrictions on the Carriage of Merchandise to and from the Colonies in other Shipping than that of the Mother Country : Navigation Laws : Eeciprocitv Treaties. — Eestrictions on the Manufacture of their own raw Produce by Colonies. — Comparison between Colonial and Foreign Trade. — On the. Tribute furnished by some Colonies . 209 CONTENTS. XVH PAET in. PROGRESS OF WEALTH AND SOCIETY IN COLONIES. LECTURE IX. Page Elements of Prosperity in new Colonies : Land, Capital, and Labour. — General Scarcity of Labour, during the first Period of tbeir Growth. — Its Effects in two different Classes of Co- lonies : those which do not, and those which do, raise large Quantities of exportable Produce. — Principles of some late Writers on systematic Colonization considered, with Reference to this Distinction . , . . . . . . 253 LECTURE X. Methods which have been adopted of securing a Supply of Labour in Colonies. — Labour of subjugated Native Races. — Treatment of the Lidians in the old Colonies of Spain, and under the Government of the Spanish and Portuguese - Missionaries. — Jesuit Republics of Paraguay . . . 278 LECTURE XL The same Subject continued. — Slave Labour. — Present Con- dition and Prospects of Hegro Slavery and the Slave Trade. — Effects of Emancipation in the British Colonies, according to their respective Circumstances ; and remedial Measures now proposed. — French Plan of Emancipation . . . .300 Appendix, 1860 336 LECTURE XII. Employment of Convict Labour. — Reasons assigned for the New-Modelling, or Abolition, of the Punishment of Trans- portation, as far as they concern the Colonies. — Results of Measures taken by the British Government . . , .349 Appendix, 1860 . . .369 XVIU CONTENTS. LECTUBE XIII. Page Methods of obtaining Labour in Colonies without Slaves or Con- victs. — Indented Labourers. — Principles of the Writers on Systematic Colonization, or Mr. Wakefield and his Followers, - respecting the procuring of Funds for the Purchase of Labour by the regulated Disposal of Land ..... 374 LECTURE XIV. Disposal of Land in New Colonies. — Examination of the Prin- ciples of the Writers on Systematic Colonization continued . 394 LECTUEE XV. Effects of the Disposal of Land in New Colonies by Free Grant, and by Sale at low Prices, examined, especially in North America . . . • . , . . . 432 LECTUEE XVI. Effects of the Disposal of Land in Colonies at high Prices. — Sketch of the History of South Australia . . . .451 Appendix, 1861 .... ... 470 LECTUEE XVII. Examination of some Subjects connected with the Disposal of Land in New Colonies. — Preparatory Expenses . . . 478 LECTUEE XVIII. Policy of Colonial Governments towards Native Ti-ibes as re- gards their Protection and their Civilization . 407 Appendix, 1861 . . _ K,g LECTUEE XIX. The same Subject continued. — Missionary Instruction Govern- ment Measures.— Amount of Civilization hitherto attained by Savage Tribes in liiodern European Colonies . C04. Appendix, 1861 ' ■ • odO CONTENTS. XIX LECTURE XX. Page Progress of Wealth in Colonies. — Kate of "Wages. — Rate of Profits. — Taxation ........ 564 LECTURE XXI. Expenditure of Colonial Revenues Modes of supporting Pub- lic Institutions. — Church Establishments in the British Co- lonies .......... 585 LECTURE XXII. Social and Political Characteristics of Colonial Commimities. — Political Relation of Colonies to the Mother Country. — Principles of Colonial Government . . . . .612 Appendix, 1861 636 PAET I. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE PROGRESS OF THE COLONIES OF MODERN EUROPE. LECTURES COLONIZATION, LECTUEE I. ACCOUNT OF THE COLONIES OF SPAIN IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA, UP TO THE PERIOD OF THEIR INDEPENDENCE. It is not my intention to occupy your time with the de- tails of the military and pohtical history of the estabhsh- ment of the Spaniards in America. That romantic episode, if I may so call it, in modern annals, has furnished abun- dant materials to the philosopher, the historian, and the poet. But the pecuhar virtues and vices of the Spanish conquerors, their enterprise, their devotion, their lust of gold, their cruelty, although they have impressed the nar- ratives of the conquest with traits of unusual distinctness, may be said to have become rapidly obhterated after the first fury of success had subsided. They have left scanty ■traces, except in history. The development of the Spanish colonies, and of the great and numerous repubhcs which have succeeded them, depended on other causes, and has proceeded under very different impulses. Cortes, Pizarro, Valdivia, and the other heroes of that period, passed over the surface of the earth as whirlAvinds, clearing the way for other adventurers by the very devastation they created, B 2 4 COLONIES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. but leaving no memorial of themselves except in the awe and wonder of their contemporaries, which have coloured the traditions respecting them. After their era came that of the peaceful colonist, whose slow labours founded and consolidated the dominion of which they had only traced out the landmarks. A few of the principal dates of the Conquest vsdU illus- trate the rapidity of its execution. In 1519 Cortes landed with a few adventurers at Vera Cruz ; in 1521 he became master of Mexico ; Peru, Quito, Chih, had been overrun by the year 1535; in 1532 Terra Firma (now the repubhc of Venezuela) was occupied ; and New Granada in 1536. In seventeen years a handfid of Spaniards had spread themselves over territories more than equal in extent to the whole of Europe, and inhabited in part by numerous nations under regular governments. The subsequent ex- tension of Spanish colonisation to the North, over the regions adjacent to Mexico, afterwards called the "Internal Provinces," and to the South, over La Plata and Paraguay, was a work of greater time and more difficulty. But although the labour of conquest was thus rapid,, that of settlement was slow and interrupted. In the middle of the sixteenth century it was asserted (perhaps on no very sufficient grounds), that not more than 18,000 Spaniards were established aU over the continent of Ame- rica. This statement may be erroneous ; but it must be remembered, that they came at first rather to garrison tha\ to colonise ; that few women accompanied the earlier adventurers ; that they obtained their subsistence and their wealth not by their own labour, but by that of the Indians ; and that wars, debaucheries, and the efiects of climate caused a rapid mortahty among them. Their earliest enterprises, as is well known, were almost wholly directed to the acquisition of the precious metals. The suppHes which they first discovered in Hispaniola were soon exhausted, although not before the greater Lect. I.] IJSr CONTINENTAL AMEKICA. 5 portion of the native inhabitants had perished in the labour of procuring them. It is one of the most singular of those apparently casual circumstances which have in- fluenced the fortunes of the human race, that these shght sources of wealth, the insular mines, should have been disposed as a kind of lure to tempt the Spaniards on to the occupation of the neighbouring continent ; and that just when the former were exhausted, the enormous riches of the latter should have been laid open. " Fortune," in the language of A. Smith, " did upon this what she did " upon few other occasions : she reahsed, in some mea- " sure, the extravagant hopes of her votaries ; and in the " discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru, she pre- " sented them with something not unlike the profusion of " the precious metals which they sought for." The miseries which that discovery entailed upon the defenceless inhabitants of America have been too often and too vividly described to need any recapitulation. Divided as slaves among the " conquerors," to each of whom whole districts were allotted for the exercise of his cupidity, they were driven in herds to the mines, forced to supply by their numbers the total want of skiU and of capital under which their masters laboured, and their hves were wasted with the same reckless profusion with which the colonist of modern times wastes the powers and wealth of nature which are placed at his disposal — the wild animals of the forest, and the resources of a virgin soil. And in the districts in which mines did not exist, although the situation of the Indians was less wretched, and the depopulation less enormous, their treatment was no less iniquitous and disgraceful. These excesses were partially checked by a series of legal provisions, beginning, indeed, as early as the year ' 1542. The Indians, at first slaves, were next subjected to the system of " repartimientos," that is, divided among masters, who had a property in their labour, not in their g3 6 COLOOTES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. persons: and, lastly, they were distributed in "enco- miendas," paying to the " encomendero " or owner of the district a tribute, or produce-rent, in return for protection — a system in its turn abandoned, or considerably modi- fied, m later times. It is truly said by Heeren, that " no " European government did so much for the Aborigines as the Spanish ; " and although most writers have coupled with the admission of this fact the general assertion, that the good laws established by the mother-country were set absolutely at nought by the rapacity of the colonists, yet the state of comparative ease and prosperity in which the Indians lived at the time when the recent revolutions commenced, most distinctly contradicts this position. It was long, no doubt, before the evil priuciples of the original conquerors were eradicated ; but a course of wise and moderate legislation nearly succeeded, in most of the provinces, in removing them at last. The great principle of the Spanish law respecting the Indians, was that of preserving them in a state of perpetual minority. They were rendered incapable of legal contracts and liabihties, except to a very limited extent. They were under the protection of the king, to whom they paid the capitation tax ; and of the clergy, to whom they paid the dues of the church : and minor justice was administered to them frequently by officials of their OAvn complexion. Such a system accords httle with European notions of civU freedom : it is, perhaps, inconsistent with a fair deve- lopment of industry, and of the mental faculties ; yet, on the whole, it is difficult to say, whether a better has yet been devised to preserve the personal Hberty of the in- ferior races, and at the same time prevent colhsion be- tween them and the superior. At all events it must be admitted, that had the legislation of Spain ia other res- pects been as weU conceived as that respecting the Indians, the loss of her Western empire would have been an un- merited visitation. Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. " 7 The state of society in the American colonies early assumed the character of an ohgarchy. The pure Spanish families were few in number. They were often possessed of considerable wealth, either from their agricultural pos- sessions, or from successful mining operations. But this wealth was of httle avail to procure the comforts or luxuries of hfe. The owner of whole provinces could command only a modicum of surplus agricultural produce, for which, under the commercial system which prevailed, it was often impossible to obtain a market. The miner was more certain of a vent for his commodities, which formed the great mass of the regular exports of ' the colonies to the mother-country. But his profits were from their nature most precarious and delusive ; for one who was enriched, numbers were ruiaed. In fact, not- withstanding the gorgeous colours with which the ima- ginations of the other European nations invested the jealously guarded El Dorado of the Spaniards, there were only two periods during which it may reasonably be supposed, that the wealth of any portion of their Ame- rican provinces was rapidly augmenting, through, the increased production of the precious metals ; the first half of the seventeenth century in Peru (the splendid age of Potosi), and the last half of the eighteenth in Mexico. At other times it may, perhaps, be pretty safely con- jectured, that the funds invested in mining experiments were barely replaced on the whole, by the return ; and that the total increase of the capital of the community took place in agriculture. It was this oligarchical character of society, together with the system of restrictions under which they hved, which produced the custom among the Spanish Creoles, especially in the mining districts, of congregating in cities, contrary to what has been observed of the general spirit of modern colonists. Mutual defence against the multi- tude of subject Indians, was probably their object in early B 4 8 COLONIES OP SPAIN [Lect. I. times. The tendency was increased by the indolent habits of families, whose subsistence was amply provided for by the labour of others, and which had little temptation to accumulate wealth and embark in profitable undertakiags, hemmed in and oppressed as they were by the jealous policy of their rulers. In this way the government may be said to have collected the people together artificially in towns, as Captain Basil HaU expresses it ; but to sup- pose, with that author, that this was done by the state with dehberate intention, is perhaps to imagine too far- fetched a pohcy. The bulk of the population of these citie's was made up of the mixed classes — those which grew up from the intermixture of Spaniards with Indians, and of both with the JSTegroes, who, in the course of time, were imported into the continent, although never ia very large numbers, when the slavery of the Indians was abohshed. The Indians themselves, where sufficiently numerous, tilled the soil or wrought the mines. Each capital city, for the most part, stood in a rich and well cultivated district, but of hmited extent, and separated from the rest of the world by deserts of ice and snow ; by ravines, compared with which the depth of our Alpine valleys is insignificant ; by provinces of forest, or by hot and unhealthy plains. Thus each community dwelt apart, divided at once by natural and artificial barriers ; and generation after generation remained as utterly ignorant and reckless of the fortunes of the neighbouring settle- ments, as of those of the most distant countries of Europe. The commercial pohcy of the Spanish government towards its continental colonies has been often described, and, with some exceptions presently to be noticed, exhibits as perfect a monument of systematic tyranny as any age has produced. The traffic of the mother-country was confined at first, to the single port of Seville ; afterwards to that of Cadiz. It was under the control of a board, termed the " Casa de Contratacion," which was subjected to the direct Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 9 government of the crown. Two squadrons were an- nually despatched ; the " galleons," usually about twelve in number, to the port of Carthagena in Sotith America ; the " flota," of about fifteen, to Vera Cruz in Mexico. It was the great amount of business, relatively speaking, carried on by those few vessels, and the sudden activity communicated to commerce during the brief transactions which supplied the wants of a whole continent — all the trade of the empire collected as it were in one focus, — which dazzled the eyes of European observers, and occa- sioned the most fallacious ideas respecting the amount of annual exchanges actually made. The Spaniards, it is observed by A. Smith and by Eobertson, while they tried almost every other nostrum of colonial pohcy, never adopted the system of confining their trade to an exchisive company. But, as Heeren remarks in answer, the effect of these restrictions was to confer a real monopoly on a few rich houses at Seville ; a virtual company, though not so designated by law, was thus produced ; and Humboldt bears witness that a similar monopoly was practically estabhshed in Mexico by a few commercial houses, which bought up and retailed the imports.* Thus, while the Americans had to buy the goods of the mother-country, or those which the importers had purchased from abroad, at a price far exceeding their values, the benefit of this mono- poly was reserved to a small and privileged class alone. But, in fact, the trade of the flota and galleons was so utterly iuadequate to supply the wants of so vast a popu- lation, that, until the operations of the smuggler began to redress the evil, it was almost destitute of European com- modities.f * NoTiv. Espagne, iv. 288. ■j- " That the monopoly of the trade of populous and thriving " colonies is not alone suiScient to establish, or even to maintain, " manufactures in any cotmtry, the examples of Spain and Portugal " sufficiently demonstrate. Spain and Portugal were manufacturing 10 COLONIES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. In connection with these restrictions on foreign trade, not only the settlement but the visits of all foreigners were prohibited more strictly than in China or Japan'. The pmiishment of strangers who were found in the colonies was at first death — in later times, perpetual im- prisonment. Spaniards themselves might not visit them without royal hcense, and this was usually only granted for a Hmited time, unless m the case of those who went out to hold government offices. Even as late as the mid- dle of the eighteenth century, the landing of a Boston vessel on the desolate island of Juan Fernandez to refit, and the appearance of an English whaler in the South Sea, were occurrences of sufficient importance to require a long report from the viceroy of Peru, and the reprimand or cashiering of several officers. Internal commerce between the provinces, to complete the picture, was prohibited almost as effectually as foreign trade. With aU these severe regulations in repression of the freedom of commerce, it is remarkable that some other restrictions, which have been commonly adopted by other European nations in their colonies, never prevailed in those of Spain, and were esteemed inconsistent with the principles of the government. In this, as in other in- stances, there was a singular contrast between its hberal maxims in some points and its timid and miserable policy in others. Thus the " kings of Spain " (to use the words of Humboldt), " in taking the title of kings of the Indies, " considered these distant possessions rather as integral " parts of their monarchy, as provinces depending on the " crown of CastUe, than as colonies in the sense attached " to that word, since the sixteenth century, by the com- " mercial nations of Europe." The corollary of this doc- " countries before they had any considerable colonies. Since they had " the richest and most fertile in the world, they have ceased to be so." — Adam Smith, book 4, oh. vii. Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 11 trine was, according to the same writer, that the people were not systematically prohibited, as they have been in most colonies, from manufacturing for themselves. The mother-country supplied them exclusively with European manufactured commodities, but they were not compehed to take those commodities in preference to the produce of their own industry. Thus sugar refining was per- mitted in Spanish America ; and considerable manufac- tures of the coarser goods existed at Quito and elsewhere, although sometimes discouraged by European governors. But Humboldt has omitted to explain, how this principle was consistent with the arbitrary edicts which prevented the Americans from raising various articles of raw pro- duce grown in the mother-country. The culture of saffron, hemp, tobacco, olives, and vineyards, was thus at different times prohibited; and even as late as 1803, when Humboldt was at Mexico, an order was despatched from Madiid for the rooting up of the vines in the northern dependencies of that province. The political treatment of the Spanish colonies was quite in keeping with their commercial administration. To enter into details respecting it would be foreign to my present purpose. Suffice . it to say, that the system of government by viceroys, captains-general, au- diencias, and councils, with their various relations to each other, has been truly described as a compHcated contrivance to render every part of the government a check on eveuy other. The best governors found it im- possible to carry into effect any scheme for the amehora- tion of society ; the worst found it easy enough to enrich themselves, and aggrandise their favourites. Power was exclusively in the hands of Spaniards, and most colonial offices were sold in Madrid. " Of 170 viceroys," say the revolutionists of Buenos Ayres in their first manifesto, " who have governed the provinces of America, four only " have been Americans ; of 610 captains-general and 12 COLONIES OF SPAIN" ILectt. I. " governors, only fourteen." Even the very clerks of the government offices were almost exclusively European. Such a system, at least with regard to the higher offices, has been pursued by most European nations in their colonies; including our own. But it must be remembered that society in our settlements is nearly de- mocratic, and that it may be a necessary pohcy not to violate the existing equahty of ranks, as it would be violated should the governors be taken from the body of the people. In Spanish America there existed an aristo- cracy; for there were very large estates enjoyed by Ame- rican famihes, under a strict system of mayorazgos or entails * : many had been raised to nobility ; some deco- rated with titles by the crown ; and it is one of the worst features of the policy of Spain, that having under its hand these elements of orderly and national institutions, it sys- tematically refused to employ them, and degraded and irritated the possessors of rank and wealth by excluding them from every pubHc trust. It sought for security against the deep discontent of the Creoles by cultivating the spirit of mutual jealousy between them and the in- ferior or mixed races. The place of a man in society was made to depend on his colour, even to the minutest shades. The different degrees of departure from the white standard of purity by intermixture with Negro or Indian blood, were marked out with the utmost minute- ness, not only by the usages of society but by the laws. When there was only a sixth of Indian or Negro blood in the composition of the citizen, that is, when after one intermixture the progeny had, for two generations, married with pure whites, caste was recovered : " Qu.e se " tengan por blancos ; " let them pass for white, was the * These mayorazgos are represented by A. Smith and others, as a cause of the slow progress of industry ; but it seems that only -^ of the property could be thus entailed. Lect. I.] IN CONTINKNTAL AMERICA. 13 cautious sentence of the law.* On the other hand, the progeny of one of mixed race intermarrying with another in whom the mixture was darker, was termed " salta- " atras," or retrograde. " Is it possible that you consider " yourself whiter than me ? " was often the question of a barefooted Creole labourer, when he esteemed himself affronted by a grandee of Mexico. The pride of caste is a common feature of society in all slave colonies ; but there it naturally arises out of the degradation in which slaves are held. In continental Spanish America slavery was very httle extended, and these unhappy distinctions, not necessarily proceeding from the constitution of society, were dehberately cherished by the policy of the mother- country. The state of the church was perhaps the worst feature of all in the condition of these colonies. It was early emancipated from the direct control of the Vatican. By the bulls of Alexander II. and Juhus EC. (1501 and 1508), the perception of all tithes and collation to all benefices were absolutely rehnquished to the crown. Ferdinand V.'s arrangement was as follows : " The tithe was divided into " nine parts : of these the king took one ; two were appro- "priated to the bishops, two to the cathedral dignities. " The remaining four were redivided into nine ; of these " last one went to the king, four to the curates, two to the " keeping up of cathedral churches, two to the foundation " of new benefices and hospitals in the towns and cities."f But this exemption from foreign superintendence, instead of a blessing, proved the worst of all curses to the unfortu- nate Americans. They were thereby deprived of a pro- * According to Tschudi, the following was the scale : — White and Negro produced Mulatto. White and Mulatto „ Quarteron. White and Quarteron „ Quintero. White and Quiatero „ White. ■j" Foreign and Colonial Keview, vol. ii. p. 443. 14 COLONIES OF SFAIN [Lect. I. tector who, from one motive or another, would frequently have stood between them and their temporal rulers, whose only object was to make the church an engine of their political system. The clergy, both regular and secular, were notoriously lazy and corrupt to a degree unknown in the mother-country. The frontier missionaries, the only active class, came chiefly from Europe ; those who remained in the inhabited parts were sunk in the utmost sloth and profligacy. The Inquisition, with all its appur- tenances, was transferred across the Atlantic ; and if its activity was not so great as in Europe *, this appears to have been really owing rather to the general languor which pervaded all things in tho^ regions of indolence, than to any superior tolerance. '^Education was, for the most part, sedulously discouraged. " Learn to read, " write, and say your prayers," said the viceroy, Gil de Lemos, to a deputation from the collegians of lima, who sought for some extension of their privileges, " for this " is as much as any American ought to know." The degeneracy of the Creole race under such in- stitutions as these, and in the cHmate of the tropics, was rapid to an unprecedented degree. Even the courage of the Castihan disappeared ; the descendants of the Con- quistadores, in three or four generations, had forgotten the use of arms. The adventurers of other European countries, who came occasionally in contact with these sequestered people, found them almost as powerless and as terrified as the Indians themselves had been at the arrival of the Spaniards. When the Buccaneers of the seventeenth century crossed the Isthmus of Darien and * It may be doubted whether the Inquisition was not even more active in Spanish America than in Spain, though its records have nearly perished. Its worst abuses certainly lasted longer. Tschudi, the Swiss traveller, a very credible witness, knew, in the republic of Peru, a Spaniard whose limbs were distorted, from the effects of torture undergone in his youth in the Inqtiisition. (Kottenkamp, i. 516.) Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 15 ravaged the coasts of the South Sea, they met with a population absolutely defenceless, which fled in herds to the churches at the first moment of alarm. And the same scenes were renewed eighty years afterwards, when the expedition of Anson threatened Chili and Peru. These great possessions appear to have furnished one of many instances of the difficulty of maintaining, in service- able order, a local colonial army, in a climate unsuited to European energy. Eegular troops seem to have been first stationed in them about the end of the 18th century. They became a local force, seldom moved from its re- spective garrisons, in which battalions of Europeans, Cre- oles, and coloured people served together. In Mexico, shortly before the Eevolution, 9500 regular, and 22,000 mihtia, were maintained — at least on paper ; in New Grenada 3800 regular, 9000 militia ; and so forth.* The lyings of the house of Bourbon deserve the credit of having iDcgun the gradual removal of those comph- cated fetters with which the Austrian sovereigns had boimd both the commerce and the spirit of America. It should, however, rather be said, that the measures which they adopted were forced upon them by the progress of events, over which even the most absolute monarchs have no effectual control. The lightening of commercial restrictions, as usual, preceded and introduced every other improvement. This was the work of the smug- gler. The contraband trade to the Spanish colonies became, in the early part of the last century, the most regular and organised system of that kind which the world has ever witnessed. The Enghsh led the way in it, and their progress was much facihtated by their obtaining, at the peace of Utrecht, what was termed the Assiento contract; that is, the privilege of supply- ing Spanish America with a hmited number of Negro * Kottenkamp, Gesch. d^ Colonisation Amerika's, i. 520. 16 COLONIES OF SPAIK [Lect. I- slaves : for the vessels licensed for this traffic were much more profitably employed in smugghng. The Dutch, French, and other nations, seized on their share of the spoil. Jamaica and St. Domingo became complete entrep6ts for smuggled commodities, whence they were transported with ease to the continent ; just as the Danish and Swedish islands, in later times, have served in the same capacity for Jamaica itself. Buenos Ayres rose from an insignificant station to a considerable city, merely from being the centre of the contraband traffic between Europe and Peru. The Spaniards guarded their coasts with an expensive maritime force, while they resorted, in the interior, to the strange measure of making smuggling an offence cognisable by the Inqui- sition. But all such efforts were utterly fruitless to check what Sir J. Child so aptly termed " the force " and violence of the ordinary course of trade." The flotas and galleons sank to insignificance, and their owners were glad to make these Ucensed squadrons serve for introducing the contraband commodities fur- nished by other nations. The war of 1737, into which Sir Eobert Walpole was forced by the clamour of the Enghsh people, was neither more nor less than a war for the protection of smuggling. The Spaniards, however, saw in some de- gree their error, and in 1748 the system of flotas and galleons was changed for that of hcensed or " registered " ships, which sailed singly from Europe. These vessels opened the commercial passage round Cape Horn ; and in this way a stop seems to have been put, in great measure, to the illegal trade by way of Buenos Ayres. But, as a general remedy, the change was wholly in- effectual. Smugghng continued to increase with the increasing wants of communities now more rapidly ad- vancing in wealth ; and Adam Smith, UUoa, and Eaynal, give ample information as to its manner and extent! Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 17 War only made the matter worse, for the Spanish cruisers were then driven from the sea, and the trade conveniently carried on imder neutral flags ; so that, as Humboldt has shown *, the commerce of Mexico was always most flourishing in times of hostilities. The steps taken by the court of Spain, though in the right direc- tion, followed very slowly the rapid increase of the evQ. In 1765, the trade between the islands and the continent was thrown open; in 1774, the obstacles to internal commerce were removed ; and in 1778, a new and more liberal scale of duties adopted ; and the trade with Spain, which had hitherto been confined first to Seville and then to Cadiz, was extended to fourteen ports of the mother-country. Finally, it is stated in Lord Brougham's early work on Colonial Pohcy, that the contraband trade was almost entirely destroyed : a position of rather doubt- ful accuracy.f In the mean time, and simultaneously with these changes, the industry and social condition of the colonies had made a sudden and almost unparalleled advance. The inde- structible advantages of abundant soil and vast facHities of production triumphed in the end over every obstacle which legislation could throw in their way. In 1778 their exports to Spain amounted to 74,500,000 reals ; in 1788, to 804,500,000. Mexico, from the astonishing in- crease in the productiveness of its mines ; Guatemala, Venezuela, La Plata, and Chih, from their agricultural im- provement ; were the provinces in which this progress was most strikingly manifested. And, by way of tennination to this lecture, we wiU take a brief review of the general state of development at which the resources of Spanish America had arrived at the close of the last century. * Nouv. Espagne, ir. 434. ■f Col. Policy, i. 445. " The dangers of separation from the parent " state," he adds, " are not to he considered, so distant have they been " rendered by wise measures of general policy ! " — lb. 451. C 18 COLONIES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. There is no region, says Humboldt, in which the cir- cumstances of society are so much regulated by cHmate and by the disposition of the soil as Spanish America. A slight sketch of its physical geography may therefore not be out of place on the present occasion. The chief pecu- liarities of its climate are accounted for in a remarkably simple manner by reference to the prevaihng winds and the comparative elevation of the land in different parts of it. The whole theory (if such it may be termed) is beau- tifully developed under the head " America " in the last supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from which I have borrowed these details. In the map attached to that article the different shades of dark colour indicate the quantity of moisture of the climate, iacreasing in depth as that is greater. On this moisture, in warm countries, the cultivation of the soil almost wholly depends. The broken line represents the range of the Andes. The arrows indicate the prevailing winds. From the equator as far as lat. 30° S. or there- abouts, east winds almost continually blow ; varying, in- deed, several points to the north or south of east, but maintaining that general direction. These winds arrive charged with the vapours of the Atlantic on the coasts of BrazU, where these vapours are precipitated in rain. They blow with unintermitting regularity against the current of the great river Amazon ; and, in the same direction, across the plains of Brazil and the interior. In all that vast region there is no chain of mountams, scarcely any single groupe, of sufficient height to arrest them, until they arrive at the great Cordillera of the Andes along the western coast.- They consequently carry rain with them (in most parts, more or less in every season of the year) as far as that range ; but in some- what diminishing quantity as they pass farther over the land. The whole of this tract, with shght exceptions, is therefore covered with luxuriant forests. The last Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 19 clouds are broken against the lofty wall presented by the Andes, and fall on their summits in occasional showers of snow and raia. The coast of the Pacific, sheltered by the Andes, scarcely receives a single drop. The wind there blows continually from or along the land ; hence the name of the sea, which in that part is always free from storms. On the coast of Peru, from near the equator to the frontier of Chih, rain never falls ; cultivation is only possible here and there, on the banks of scanty streams descending from the snow of the Cordillera. This is the general aspect of the country between the equator and lat. 35° south. South of lat. 35°, this state of things is reversed. The prevaiHng winds blow from the west ; and, consequently, the high range of the Andes continuing to intercept the clouds, the western coast is covered with forests ; the whole country to the east of the mountains being bare, and subject to drought. To the north of the equator again, somewhat different results are produced by the different structure of the continent. The trade wind blowing from the east in the Gulf of Mexico, brings mois- ture to aU the coasts of that extensive inland sea. Before reaching the isthmus of Darien from the south, the Cor- dilleras sink into hills of moderate size, and cease to obstruct the passage of the wind. Its fertiHsing vapours are consequently carried across to the Pacific, and spread southward as far as the equator, north and westward along the coast of Mexico, covering all those regions with tropical forests.* But in central Mexico the Cordillera, rising again, acts as a barrier against the wind, and the table land of its summit has a somewhat arid chmate. * The change from the extreme of dryness to that of moisture in neighbouring places is singularly abrupt. At Guayaquil, nearly under the equator, the rains are excessive ; at Tumbez, only half a degree to the southward, a shower sometimes does not fall for years. The general propositions of the text may be seen confirmed by more recent authority in Muhry's " Klimatologische Untersuchungen." 1858. Chap. I. c 2 20 COLONIES OF SPAIN fLECT. I. As we proceed northward, this tendency continues to pre- dominate ; the wide plains of the " mternal provinces" of Mexico are less and less visited by showers, according to their distance from the Atlantic ; and m Lower Cahfornia, as in Peru, rain scarcely falls. North of lat. 30°, the variable western winds again prevail. From the Gulf of Mexico, however, two currents of warm vapour appear to proceed in a northerly direction : one up the valley of the Missis- sippi, while the other is carried by the gulf stream along the eastern coast of the United States ; which account for the. woody character of that country. ' These physical details explain at once the different proportions in which the fourteen or fifteen miUions of I inhabitants 'who occupied these regions under the do- minion of Spain were spread over their surface, and the varieties of social condition which prevailed among them. In the extreme northern and southern districts, the in- ternal provinces of Mexico and the Pampas of La Plata, wide dry plains, with a temperate climate, became the abodes of a pastoral population. The tame animals of Europe multiphed amazingly in their pastures, and con- stituted the chief wealth of their settlers. These were principally of pure Spanish descent : the Indians were few and warhke ; and poverty rendered the importation of slaves impossible. Here the tendency to insulation, so common to European settlers in similar circumstances, had ample room to exert itself. The great object of every colonist was to obtain free space, and constant re- moval, for his flocks and herds, as is now the case with the boors of the Cape of Good Hope. Hence unremitting warfare with the bordering Indians*, armed and mounted like himself, rendered him as hardy and active, as savage * At both tlie extremities of the Spanish empire, in New Mexico, and in Chili and La Plata, the Indians have learnt the use of the horse, and in both these distant quarters they have pressed hard on the whites since the revolutionary period began. Lbct. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 21 and remorseless as they : the few cities scattered over the wUderness served not so much for purposes of trade as for a refuge to the Spaniards when over-matched or sur- prised by their vigilant enemies. In this state of things civilization rapidly retrograded, and the white settlers had almost forgotten the arts and the knowledge of those from whom they were descended. In the warm and fertile regions which possessed an easy access to the sea, such as Guatemala and Venezuela, the great -wealth of the settlers consisted in the staple products of tropical climates — coffee, cotton, sugar, and cacao. Here a state of society, somewhat resembling that of our West India islands, naturally prevailed. The whites were rich in the abundant produce of their plan- tations, which increased greatly during the last half of the eighteenth century. Labour was chiefly performed by negroes ; by Indians, where these were numerous ; and by the mixed races, which had multiplied rapidly under the indulgent government of the Spaniards, so as to form, in some of the provinces, more than half the population. The mines of these districts were few and unimportant. But the mass of the population and wealth of the Spanish colonies was concentrated on the small table lands and lofty valleys of the great Cordillera. Here the first adventurers found agricultural Lidian nations estabhshed, exhibiting, in the middle of barbarous tribes or uninhabited deserts, the wonders of their mysterious civilization ; and here the children of the conquerors took up their abode, built magnificent cities on the site of those which their fathers. had destroyed, and gave to their towns and provinces the stiU cherished names of the mother country. Here, too, they found in reahty that vast mineral wealth *, of which the prospect had deluded the first ad- * The acooimts of the enormous money prices of the commonest articles during the conquest and first colonization of these counti-ies, furnish proof which goes even beyond the hyperboles of historians. c 3 22 ' COLONIES OF SPAIN tLECT. I. venturers. The most remarkable of these plateatix (to use a word employed by modern geographers) are those of Mexico, New Granada, Quito, and Upper Peru. These narrow spaces of table land, elevated at an enormous height above the adjoinmg ocean, were the only regions in the wide continent of Spanish America in which a con- centrated and numerous population was actually to be found. To the traveller, who reached one of these happy valleys after traversing hot and imhealthy forests, and crossing the regions of eternal frost which encircle them, it is no wonder that the contrast which he had witnessed heightened its attractions ; and that in beholding its fer- tile fields, its skies almost always serene, its numerous and flourishing cities, the fruits of a temperate chmate in close proximity to those of the burning equatorial regions, and the magnificent pinnacles of the Andes surrounding it, he should have been tempted to describe it as a sequestered Paradise.* By far the finest of these oases is the table land of Mexico : out of 5,000,000 people who inhabited the whole viceroyalty at the time of Humboldt's visit in 1800, fuU three were collected in this central region. The pro- gress of Mexico, during the fifty or sixty years before that time, had been most surprising. Population was doubling (it is said) in about thirty years, and the tithes (which may serve as an index to the gross produce of agricul-' " After Christopher de Ayala was slain, his goods were publicly sold " at prodigious rates. They gave 1600 pieces of eight for a sow and " one pig; smaU pigs yielded 500 pieces of eight, and a sheep of Pene " 280 pieces of eight, which I saw paid. ... I saw that same " sow eaten one day at an entertainment made presently after we came " to the city Cali, with Verdillo. Knives were sold for 15 pieces of " eight each. I heard Jerome Lewis Texelo say that when he went " with Capt. Michael Munnoz upon the expedition they caU Dela " "Vieja, he gave 30 pieces of eight for a packing needle to make a " pair of packthread buskins." — Seventeen Years' Travels of Peter de la Cieza, p. 68. * " If you wish to live in the Indies," says a rhyming Spanish pro- verb, " let it be within sight of the volcanoes." Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 23 ture) ill about twenty-five ; but manufacturing and mining "wealtk were increasing with at least equal rapidity. The revenue of Mexico had risen within the century from about four to twenty millions of doUars, or 4,000,000Z. It has been said by an able, but somewhat dogmatical writer, that it is, " if not an absolute, at least a moral, impossi- " bility that a colony should ever benefit a mother-country " by yielding it a permanent tribute." * The example of Mexico is a direct authority against the position. It fur- nished annually, in Humboldt's time, 6,000,000 dollars over and above aU expenses of government and defence. But the greater part of this surplus was again absorbed in assisting the exchequer of other and poorer colonies, so that very httle reached Spain itself. So far was Mexico advanced beyond the rest, that Humboldt estimates that two-thirds of the whole currency of Spanish America was used in that province alone. This flourishing revenue was nearly all owing either directly or indirectly to the extraordinary advance of the Mexican silver mines. These produced, at the end of the last century, 24,000,000 dollars annually, far more than aU the rest of Spanish America. The writer whom I have just quoted asserts, that the dominion over a colony for the sake of precious metals can only be desirable when it has a monopoly of the supply of those metals, " by " having the richest mines, and underselling the rest of " the world." The difierence in the cost of production between those mines and the most barren which are any- where wrought, becomes then a monopoly profit or rent, and a legitimate subject of taxation. This axiom seems somewhat loosely expressed, because it is clear that in any mining country, whether or not its mines were the richest in the world, the difierence between the richest and the poorest which could be wrought with a profit would form a species of rent, and be taxable in the same * Ency. Brit. art. " Colony." c 4 24 COLONIES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. manner. But the condition of Mexico for a few years of the eighteenth century certainly affords an instance oidhe great revenue which may thus be realized. Its mines were more productive than those of any other region, not so much from superior fertihty as because they were easily accessible, and the supply of labour practically unlimited ; whereas in the great Peruvian mines, as we shall presently see, the obstacles to working with a profit were far greater. Consequently Mexico could, in fact, undersell Peru, or any other country, in the market of the world, and this mono- poly afforded an abundant source of rent and imposts. The latter were not heavy. It is an error to assert, as many have done, that the productiveness of the American mines was checked by the exactions of government. The crown held no mines of its own. They were all the pro- perty of adventurers or landlords. The whole of the duties levied on silver amoimted before the revolution to about 11^ per cent, a tax which those of Mexico at least were well able to bear. It is an equally erroneous suppo- sition, that mining in America was unfavourable to the progress of agriculture. This notion appears to have arisen merely from the fact, that many of the most cele- brated American mines were situated in districts naturally so barren as to be incapable of profitable cultivation. Those of Mexico were not thus unfavourably circum- stanced ; and the mining wealth of that country served, as was naturally to be expected, as a stimulus to agri- cultural industry. The district near Guanaxuato, the neighbourhood of the richest of all the mines, reminded Humboldt by its appearance of the luxuriant plains of Lombardy, So in ChiU, streams abounding in gold, it is said, run through the richest corn-fields, and the farmer and miner hold converse on their banks. The enormous mass of surplus wealth thus created was lodged in a very few hands. Humboldt has preserved gome data which, if reported with any degree of accuracy, Lect. I.] m CONTINENTAL AMERICA. 25 will show the great amount of monopoly profit or rent which may be obtained under so rare a combination of circumstances as that of great fertility of soil with an ample supply of labour. According to that writer, the return to seed in the cultivation of wheat in Mexico might be estimated at 24 to 1 ; in France, at 6 to 1. The labourer in the temperate country of Mexico received wages amounting to about 30 sous French per day ; the French labourer received about 35 ; but as corn was somewhat dearer in France than Mexico, the real wages of the two were about equal. Supposing, therefore, that the labour of the two were equally effective, the Mexican labourer, for the same amount of wages, would produce four times as much as the Frenchman : in other words, rent and profit together would be more than four times as high in Mexico as in France ; and rating the effectiveness of the American's labour at only one half that of the Frenchman, rent and profit in the former country would still be more than double what they were in the latter. Estates at the same time were very large ; they are so stUl, notwith- standing the revolutions of the last thirty years and the ■decay of great properties. The large grants into which the soil of Mexico was divided contained about 22,000 acres ; and there have been in our own time individuals who have owned eighteen of these. The wealth of the higher classes in Mexico was, ac- cordingly, very great. According to Humboldt, there were fortunes of 15,000Z. or 20,000Z. sterhng per annum, in Cuba ; the highest in Venezuela might be 6,000Z. or 7,000/.; in Lima, few amounted to BfiOOl. or 4,000/. These sums sink to nothing in comparison with the riches of the Mexican grandees. " In New Spain," says the same writer, " there are indi- " viduals who possess no mines, and yet whose annual " income amounts to a million of francs (40,000/.). The " family of the Count de la Valenciana, for example, pos- 26 COLONIES OF SPAIN ^Lect. I. " sesses alone, on the ridge of tlie Cordillera, estates of " the value of more than 25 mUlions (6,000,000^.), with- " out including the mine of Valenciana, near Guanaxuato, " which in common years brings a net income of a million " and a half (50,000^.). The late Count of Valenciana " has sometimes received from his single mine 6 millions " (240,000/.) in a single year. A single vein, possessed " by the family of the Marqviis de Fagoaga, in the district " of Sombrerete, has produced in six months, all expenses " deducted, a clear income of 20,000,000." And yet, it is observed by the same author, nothing was more rare than the accumulation of wealth by these great proprietors, although in the amount of their gross revenue they rivalled the richest subjects of Eussia or of England. This was owing partly to the spirit of speculation in mining, which made them the constant prey of needy adventurers ; partly to the habit of extravagant and Ul- regulated establishments, with little of real splendour or comfort ; partly to the prevalence of gambling. And all these degrading characteristics together might be ascribed, originally, to the wretched pohcy of the government, which kept the American nobihty without education, employ- ment, or importance in their native country. Hence, when the day of revolution arrived, the natural aristo- cracy of the country either joined in the revolt, or was utterly incapable of offering any resistance to it.* The Spanish and Creole inhabitants of the table land of Mexico amounted to about 20 per cent, of the whole ; the mixed races and Negroes (the latter extremely few) * In fact, the neglect and ill-usage of the Creoles by the Spania,rds, and the monopoly of office and power by the latter, produced the re-, volution almost as a matter of course, as soon as the central authority was weakened by the French wars. They were abounding in wealth, and possessed a numerous nobUity of their own ; in Lima, one-third of the whites called themselves noble, including 45 marquises and counts, at a time when they were almost excluded from any share in the govern-; ment of their country. Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMEKICA. 27 to 30 ; the Indians to 50 ; and the same proportions, with some variation, prevailed in the mountain regions of South America. The Indians, who formed the great bulk of the labourers, were by no means unhappily circum- stanced in Mexico. Their legal disabOities have been already noticed. But they were subject to no compulsory service whatever. Their labour was entirely free. They worked in the mines on their own account, and for very high wages. The only labour to which they were natu- rally disinclined seems to have been that of manufactures ; but the accounts which are given of the frauds practised by the manufacturers in getting these ignorant people into debt by supplying them with intoxicating hquor, and then forcing them to work out their habilities, seem to show not so much that they were oppressed, as that their condition was so good that the capitalist resorted to these tricks and artifices through the diflSiculty of procuring the needftd supply of labour. The condition of Peru, the other great mining colony of Spain, was less favourable. The mines of that country had poured forth their treasures with astonishing fertihty during the first century and half after the conquest. But their richest veins were early exhausted, and they were, besides, situated for the most part high on the ridge of the Andes, where wood and provisions were wantiag, and communications extremely difficult. These disadvantages were only overcome by the profuse application of Indian labour. The vmhappy natives were transported from their own valleys to a scene of incessant toil, in an air almost too attenuated for human hfe, at 12 or 14,000 feet above the level of the sea. Their numbers rapidly di- minished, and the mines became unproductive from the increased cost of working them. Hence they could not maintain the competition with the mines of Mexico ; and, even in their decay, they were still wrought by means of the " mita " or conscription of Indians, to serve by rota- 28 COLONIES OF SPAIX [Lect. I. tion for a limited period. Hence these poor people, in Mexico contented and industrious thougli apathetic, che- rished in Peru a deep-rooted hatred of their masters. In 1782 they nearly threw off the yoke in a sanguinary re- bellion under a leader who claimed descent from their ancient Incas. The general industry of Peru partook of the languor of its mining operations : the famous City of the Kings, Lima, had long sunk from its ancient and some- what fabulous splendour to the level of a dull provincial capital. The countries of Quito and New Granada, less rich in the precious metals, presented a greater appearance of wealth and industry. Lastly, along the border of these vast possessions, in Cahfornia, on the Orinoco and Amazon with their branches, and in Paraguay, were estabKshed the Eeductions or missions of religious bodies, chiefly the Jesuits. The pecuhar usages and constitution of these singular settlements will deserve some attention when we come to inquire into the different methods of pohcy which have been pursued by colonizing governments towards native races. This scanty outhne may serve to convey some notion of the general condition of the Spanish continental colonies just before their emancipation — a condition far more prosperous and advanced than was commonly supposed in Europe, where the old traditions of their wealth and splendour had been succeeded by equally erroneous im- pressions respecting their decay. Had the rulers of the mother-country possessed sufficient forethought to adapt their pohcy in time to the altered state of things, it is, perhaps, not too wild a conjecture that they might at this day have preserved some pohtical connection between the new and old dominion. Por in Spanish America, as we have seen, there existed both the elements of a nobihty and an established church, from want of which England found so httle support in the day of revolution in her ancient colonies, and finds so httle of substantial attach- Lect. I.] IN CONTIWEN-TAL AMERICA. 29 ment in those wMcli she still possesses. By ceasing to make over the official patronage of America as a prey to needy Spaniards ; by giving the powerful and wealthy Americans and the municipalities an interest in the govern- ment of their country ; by sending princes of the house of Spain to govern those provinces as viceroys, and erect- ing them into dependent kingdoms ; above all, by abohshing the ancient system of restriction, and adopting a comprehensive and hberal scheme of commercial govern- ment, Spain might have given another turn to the destinies of the new world, and laid the foundations of an order of things essentially different from any which has yet existed. Such at least are the speculations in which political philo- sophy may indulge. Historically speaking, this was im- possible. Providence had marked out, as it were, a different channel for the course of events, by denying to the statesmen of that day the will, the knowledge, and the power necessary for the accomplishment of such changes. They persisted, amidst the rapidly increasing discontent of their American subjects, incited as these were by the example of the United States, in their old system of go- vernment by coercion and division. They fomented mutual jealousies between colours and ranks : they set the clergy as spies over the laity, the poor over the rich : they multiphed, in every possible way, the numbers of Spanish officials, on whom they rehed for support ; they watched and punished with equal severity every effort for the extension of unhcensed trade, and the expression of Hberal sentiments.* Yet it is doubtful how long revolu- * It must not be forgotten, however, ttat the commercial tie be- tween Spain and her old colonies was a very slight one. Spain was not a manufactiiring oomltry. The Hispano-Americans, for a century before the disruption, consumed hardly any Spanish produce. The Spaniards had to purchase such colonial articles as they consumed (cacao, sugar, &c.) with the goods of other European nations. In 1854 it was estimated that the imports into Peru ftom Spain, her ancient metropolis, amounted to 2,000,000 of francs ; from France, 5,000,000 ; 30 COLONIES OF SPAIN [Lect. I. tion might have been delayed, from the want of union and of intelligence among the discontented, had it not been for the troubles of Spain itself, and its invasion by Napo- leon. Spanish America then fell into confusion. At that moment, when the provincial governors and the mihtary commanders were disarmed by their own uncertainty, he- sitatiag whom to obey, their power seemed about to pass peacefahy at once into the hands of the self-constituted authorities of the patriot party. It would have done so, had these known how to govern, and had they not permitted and encouraged the popular fury to vent itself against the Spanish inhabitants. But the Spaniards were a body formidable from their numbers alone ; they were not fewer, it is said, than 300,000 in aU Spanish America : and much more so from their comparative wealth and intelligence. They soon armed ia their behalf a portion of the community; they incited the mother-country to repeated efforts for the reconquest of the colonies, and raised in self-defence the most wasteful and sanguinary struggle of modern times. Independence was finally achieved, at the cost of the temporary ruin of wealth and commerce, and the destruction, in some provinces, of one half the population. Eor some time after that event the affairs of the new states wore an aspect very discouraging, even to those who had been the foremost . to exult ia their hberation ; and appeared still more gloomy to minds more disposed to dwell on the evUs of revolution. " In South America, " we see no termmation to the contest that we can con- " template without pain. Whether the communities of " Spanish origin in that division of America shall be re- "duced to the savage condition of the settlements of « Paraguay since the abohtion of the Jesuits, or to that of from England, 18,000,000. — Journal des Economistes, May, 1854. cited by Kosoher, " Kolonien," p. 205. Lect. I.] IN CONTINENTAL AMEEICA. 31 " the Negro population of St. Domingo ; or whether, after " still farther exhaustion and depression, they may be in- " duced in despair to throw themselves again at the feet " of Spain ; in any case we see nothing to console human- " ity for the tremendous evils to which the conflict has " given birth." So prophesied an eminent writer in 1825. He had not, perhaps, sufficiently calculated on what may be termed the elastic power of society even under the most unfavourable circumstances, when its energies are not controlled by oppressive restrictions. Much deplor- able weakness, much corruption, little fitness for the prac- tical duties of government, have been hitherto exhibited in the emancipated repubhcs ; and the traces of the recent conflict still remain uneffaced. Yet, on the whole, it is impossible to doubt that they are making progress in many essential particulars. Slavery has been abohshed ; and thus one deep though latent source of permanent evil eflFectuaUy removed. A better and more natural tone of feeling seems to exist between the various races which compose the motley population ; the union in arms and in sufierings has doubtless softened their mutual antipa- thy.* Education, so long proscribed, is sought after by the rising generation, with a zeal proportioned to their awakened sense of its importance. Men have arisen more fitted for government than their predecessors, because, instructed by the experience of their own times, they have learnt to take a better measure of the wants and capacities of their countrymen, and have got rid of the first illusions * At least, in some parts. The recent reyolutions of Central Ame- rica have exhibited, for the first time, the triumph of the inferior caste, the Indians, over the more civihzed races, attended with all the worst symptoms of this species of conflict. Unmeaning as the intestine divisions of these Eepublios appear to us, it wiU commonly be found that a fundamental party difference — between Federahsts trying to establish independent governments by local civilian aristocracies, and Centralists, endeavouring to maintaiTi military dictatorships on a large scale — lies at the bottom. 32 COLONIES OF SPAIN, ETC. [Lect. I. of independence. Althougli some of the ancient branches of industry requiring extensive capital, such as mining and the cultivation of sugar, have sufiered enormously, yet the condition of the mass of the population seems on the whole to have improved, except in Mexico. This is mainly owing to free trade — the want of which was the great stimulus of the contest, and which is perhaps the most substantial re- ward they have hitherto acquired by it. " My opinion of " the revolution is this," said a peasant of the Mexican Cordillera to Captain Hall : " formerly I paid nine dollars " for the piece of the cloth of which this shirt was made ; "now I pay only two." This was the feehng which recruited the armies of the patriots, and made their cause popular with the community in general, even when stained by the greatest excesses and devastations — a most preg- nant warning to governments. Tyranny, in the ordinary sense of the word, falls heavily only on the few, and is often endured for a long time through the acquiescence of the many. But the species of oppression which is pro- duced by the spirit of monopoly, and affects the comforts and subsistence of the multitude, fosters that deep-seated discontent which needs but occasion and incitement to overthrow the strongest institutions.* * Althougli from a variety of causes their advance may appear slow,, and their present state fall far short of what has been expected of them, the truth is, that they have made immense progress compared with their old condition under the colonial yoke of Spain. — Sir Woodbine Parish, Buenos Ayres and La Plata, p. 11. The French financier, Ouvrard, relates in his Memoirs, that at a late period of the Spanish colonial domination, a sort of commercial part- nership was formed between himself and the king of Spain, in pur- suance of which the latter agreed to furnish him with the licences necessary to introduce all manner of goods free of duty into Spaaisli America. Such exemptions, as M. Say truly remarks when mention- ing the fact, are a real fraiid on unprivileged industry. It is difficult to conceive a measure likely to produce greater or juster irritation.— Say, Cours. iii. 372. Lect. I.J APPENDIX. 33 APPENDIX TO LECTUEB I. SPAiflSH CONTINENTAL COLONIES, BEFORE AND SINCE THEIR INDEPENDENCE. I. Population. Total, as estimated before independence : — Whites, European .... 300,000 Whites, Creole 3,000,000 Indians, mixed, Negroes . . . 11,100,000 14,400,000 Mexico :- 1804. 5,900,000 {Humboldt, Nouv. Esp.). 1830. 7,000,000 (Ibid, conjectural estimate). 1858. 7,859,664 (Census, doubtful, after cessions to U. States'). 3. Guatemala or Central America : — 1778. 797,000 {Humboldt). 1804. 1,204,000 {Ibid.). 1860. About 2,500,000. 4. Provinces of Terra Firma, at one time Kepublic of Colombia : — r Venezuela . 1775. \ New Granada . . 747,000 t Quito (now Ecuador) 531,000 } ■ {Venezuela . 900,000 ■» New Granada 1 ^ 1.2,700,000 (Humboldt). Quito . . J ' ' J D 34 APPENDIX. [Lect. I 1825. New Granada . 1,228,259 (Census). {New Granada . 1,686,038 (Census) T Venezuela . . 800,000 1 .^^^.„„,^) \ 2,986,000 Ecuador . . 500,000 J ^ ^ J r New Granada 2,243,837 (Aim. de Gotha) T 1858. \ Venezuela . 1,564,483 (Ibid.) \ 4,795,320 L Ecuador . 487,000 (Ibid.) J 5. PeEU: — 1803. f^r'' W.m^^r'l w ^ I 2,789,000 |_ Upper 1,713,000? (Brachenridge) J ' ' 18^« f^"™ 1,800,000 (Pe«»y Cyrf.) 12 830 000 1^3^- [BoUvia, 1,030,000 (M'Cul. Geog. Diet.) J ^>»^"'""" 1860. Peru, 2,500,000 supposed. 1853. Bolivia, 1,447,000, without 700,000 Indians. 6. Chili:— 1813. 980,000 (Humboldt). About 1825. 600,000 ? (Caldcleugh, conjectural estimate). 1838. 1,200,000 (M'Cul. Geog. Diet.). 1858. 1,558,319 (Census). 7. TiA Plata : — 1804. 1,100,000 (Humboldt). 1860. Buenos Ayres 350,000 1855. Argentine Conf. 1,100,000 1859. Uruguay . 214,000 1859. Paraguay . 800,000 Total . 2,464,000 II. Exports. Whole Spanish f^^^S to 1755. ^4,960,000 (Humboldt). Colonies \ 1^84. 13,470,000 (/5.U). L 1788. 8,550,000 (Ibid.). (Exclusive of the Islands) 1804. 12,643,000 (Ibid.). Lbct. II.] SPANISH COLONIES IN THE WEST INDIES. 35 LECTURE n. SPANISH COLONIES IN THE WEST INDIES THEIR HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION IN RESPECT TO WEALTH AUD COMMERCE ; PORTUGUESE, DUTCH, AND FRENCH COLONIES ACCOUNT OF THEIR GOVERNMENT, COMMERCE, AND GENERAL HISTORY. I. The principal relics which Spain stiU possesses of her dismembered colonial empire, are the Philippine Islands in Asia, and Cuba and Portorico in the Gulf of Mexico. The Philippines are inhabited by a numerous and half- civilized Malay population, governed rather than colo- nized by a handful of Europeans; and, like our ovra possessions in the East Indies, hardly fall within the strict definition of a colony. Towards the close of the last century, when our West India islands were rapidly advancing to the height of their prosperity, Cuba was comparatively of small im- portance.. Its inhabitants were chiefly small landowners, cultivatiug the soil vsdthout the aid of slaves ; for out of a population of 300,000, only a third belonged to the latter class. At the period of the emancipation of Bri- tish slaves, it exported upwards of 80,000 tons of sugar, or a rather greater quantity than Jamaica : at present (1840) the export from Cuba is greater still, and that from Jamaica smaller ; while the superiority of the former island in the production of other colonial articles is far more decided. No less than forty new sugar estates were lately said to have been opened in Cuba in the single year 1838. It is now, beyond contradiction, the wealthiest and most flourishing colony possessed by any European power. The causes of this extraordinary increase in prosperity are easily assignable : — D 2 36 SPANISH COLONIES [Lect. H. 1. The opening of the commerce of Cuba in 1809 ; from which period the turn in its affairs may be said to have begun. 2. Its natural advantages, which are of the very highest order, but which had been of the least possible avail during the long period of commercial restriction wliich it underwent. The geographical position of the island, and its shape, by which scarcely any productive part of it is distant above thirty or forty miles from the sea, are highly favourable. But a far more important element of wealth is to be found in its great extent of fertile soil, of which the first fecundity has not yet been exhausted. The high prices which sugar attained during the French war, while our West India islands had the exclusive supply of this country, and produced a very large proportion of the whole amount consumed in Europe, induced oiu: planters to extend their cultivation on inferior soils, which yielded gradually less and less return, or required a continually increasing outlay of capital. At the peace, the virgin soils of other tropical colonics and states came suddenly into competi- tion with theirs. The same change then took place, of which, as we shall see, several instances had already occurred in colonial history. Neither the accumulated capital of prosperous years, nor agricultural skiU, nor comparative abundance of slave labour, such as were then enjoyed by the British planters of the old colonies, availed to counterbalance the free gifts of nature en- joyed by these younger rivals. The British market was secured by our prohibitive duties to our own colonists ; but the rest of the world became speedily dependent on the prodiice of other and newer regions ; among which the Spanish islands have been by far the most successful in the race. In the present state of Cuba, old planta- tions, after a considerable number of years, are for the most part deserted by the sugar producer ; new land is Lect. II.] IN THE "WEST INDIES. • 37 brought gradually into cultivation for his purpose, while the abandoned estates are devoted to raising Indian corn, and the other staple articles consumed within the island. Thus the visitor from the Havannah has many miles to go before he reaches a sugar plantation ; those earhest culti- vated, near the city, having been long abandoned to other purposes. But the construction of railroads has brought the new ones, practically, as near to the place of disposal for their produce as the old ones had been. And if it be true, that only seven-hundredths of the soil of Cuba have as yet been brought under cultivation, there appears no assignable hmit, for many fature years, to the increase of production.* 3. But a still more important stimulus was given to the progress of the Spanish islands in the wealth of com- merce, by the abohtion of the slave trade in our colo- nies. In another part of this course, I shall endeavour to explain in what manner that great and just measure acted for the time unfavourably upon the economical con- dition of our settlements ; and how the maintenance of slavery, without the slave trade, caused a continual drain and impoverishment to take place, while the colonies of other nations were reaping the profit of our sacrifice. For the present I will content myself with pointiag out a few facts. Between the years 1800 and 1835, the popu- lation of Cuba increased from 300,000 to 800,000 : her * " Luxuriant fields of sugar-cane in Cuba are managed by a new process of rattooning, without the insertion of new plants, for twenty or even thirty years in succession. Rattooning is the annual raising of fresh canes from the same plant; and the number of years dxiring which it can be carried on is an index of the strength and richness of the soil. While this process can be carried on in Cuba for so great a length of years, the virgin soil is so rich, that a mere touch of the hoe is sufficient to prepare it for the reception of the cane. In most of the British colonies the rattooning lasts only three or four years, and the ground requires the laborious process of holing, or some adequate sub- stitute, as a preparation for planting." — Gurney, Winter in the West Indies, p. 205. B .3 38 SPANISH COLONIES [1^^°^- "• slaves, from 100,000 to 300,000 : her exports, from the value of £600,000 to £4,000,000 : while the population of the old British West India colonies was very httle augmented during that period, and their number of slaves and amount of production remained stationary or di- minished. In 1880 Cuba furnished between one-fifth and one-sixth of aU. the sugar consumed in Europe.* Unhappily, or rather, I ought to say, by a just and striking retribution, the moral and social condition of this thriving island seem to have decUned, under the influence of slavery and its consequences, with the same rapidity with which its wealth has advanced. At the beginning of this century, the Spaniards of the "West Indies were accused with justice of indolence, and enjoyed in some respects an inferior civilization to that of their neighbours. But on the other hand, the steadier habits and greater repose of the old Castihan genius contrasted favourably with the eager, jealous, money-making character of the motley adventurers who constituted too large a propor- tion of the West Indian population subject to England, France, and Holland. These were a people whom no ties seemed to bind to the land of their adoption ; the home of whose recollections was in their native countries; whose only object was the rapid attainment of wealth, their favourite project that of return. The Spaniards were permanent inhabitants ; they maintained, in each colony, the habits of a fixed, social, and organized popu- lation, with distinction of ranlcs and regular institutions. There are even now thirty grandees of Spain among the resident proprietors of Cuba. * Ramon de la Sagra, Historia Economico-Politica j Estadistica de la Isla de Cuba. In 1857, nearly one-third of aU the cane sugar grown in the world (M'Culloch, Com. Die). If the Census is to be trusted, the population of Cuba since 1840 has been nearly stationary (1,100,000 in 1857). Prom 1841 to 1853 the same authorities show a very great (and unexplained) decrease in the number of slaves (430,000- to 330,000). But it is suggested that these documents are not to be trusted. Lect. II.] IN" THE WEST INDIES. 39 As there was little profit to be obtained out of the labour of the slave; so his condition was generally easy, and the conduct of his master towards him humane and considerate. The laws of Spain encouraged this tendency, beyond those of all other nations. Instead of being an outcast from the benefits of law and reHgoii^JiejwM--pe=.,-. cuHarly under the protection of both. TEefour rights of y the slave, as they are emphatically termed in Spanish legislation, have been uniformly respected in theory and generally in practice : — these are, the right of marriage ; ' the right to compel a master guilty of illegal severity 2 towards a slave to sell him to another ; the right to pur- i. chase his own emancipation, and to acquire property, l^ The sentiments of the Spaniards towards their enslaved dependants were much modified, in the course of cen- turies, by the wholesome spirit of their laws ; and it may perhaps be added, that if the Spanish character, under the excitement of the spirit of revenge, fanaticism, or avarice, be capable of atrocities from which the civihzed mind shrinks with abhorrence, there is about it in the commonalty as well as the higher orders, when uninflamed by passion, a sense of dignity, an habitual self-respect, evincing itself in courtesy to equals and forbearance towards inferiors, of which nations of more practical but more vulgar habits of mind afford but rare examples. But the progress of wealth and of the slave trade have rapidly changed the moral aspect of these communities. From being the most humane among all European slave owners, the Spanish colonists have become the most bar- barous and demorahzed. This is a paiaful fact, of which the evidence is too abundant and too notorious to admit even of a suspicion of exaggeration. The sugar planta- tions of Cuba are now almost entirely wrought by means of the slave trade ; that is, as we shall see when we come to examine this part of the subject more closely, they are VFTOught at an enormous profit, purchased by an enormous D 4 40 SPANISH COLONIES [Leot. II, expenditure of life, replaced by perpetual recruits ; and that the humane provisions of the law itself are turned against the imported slave. Eor as the trade is illegal, the Bozals, as the African Negroes are called, are considered in the hght of contraband articles, of vrhich the possession and use is winked at, not recognized, by the authorities. They are thus entirely without protection, which they stand more in need of than any other class of the slaves. No- thing can be more horrible than the condition of these wretches in the inland plantations of the island, where the average duration of the life of a slave is said not to exceed ten years : in Barbadoes, in the worst period of Enghsh slavery, it was rated at sixteen. The boasted humanity of the Spanish planter has scarcely left any traces, except, it is said, in the treatment of domestic slaves. But even this is far worse than formerly ; and the whites of Cuba have occasionally resorted to the expedient of arming the Bozals as a kind of mameluke guard, to defend themselves against the dreaded hostility of the native coloured population. The vices engendered by the increase of slave cultiva- tion extend, as may be supposed, through all classes of society. Wealth is now as exclusively and sordidly piu:- sued by the Spanish planter as ever it was by the Dutch- man or Enghf^hman. The words of Lord Brougham, in his early work on Colonial Policy*, written before the era of the prosperity of the Spanish islands had commenced, are becoming fiilly verified. "The great distinction in " this respect arises from the indolence of their character. " While they were led over the seas and mountains of the *' New World by the spirit of plunder, they certainly did " not fall short of other adventurers in the cruel treatment "of their slaves. Now that an indifierence about gain «' has succeeded to their former eagerness after all sorts * Vol, i. p. 75. Lect. II.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 41 " of booty, we find them no longer the same insatiable " masters either to the Indians or Negroes." The tropical colonies of Spain were commonwealths at an epoch when those of most other nations were mere factories ; they are now rapidly acquiring the degrading characteristics of factories, while ours, we may hope, are advancing towards the dignity of commonwealths. It must be added, that since Cuba has been opened to the trade of the world, a very small portion of that trade remains to the Spaniard. Out of imports to the value of 16,000,000 dollars, Cuba received in 1830 only to the amount of 2,500,000 from the mother country. But, on the other hand, its revenue is so flourishing, that while in Humboldt's time its necessities were suppHed out of the exchequer of Mexico, it has now for many years fur- nished important aid to the dilapidated finances of Spain. One other flourishing colony of the Spaniards deserves particular notice, the island of Portorico. So excellent an account of it was pubhshed some years ago by a gallant ofiicer in the Spanish service. Lieutenant-general Fhnter, that we reaUy possess a far more accurate knowledge of its economical and social condition, than of those of other countries much better known and more frequently visited. And the phenomena which it presents merit our particular attention : they show a state of things very different from that which is exhibited in modern times by any other West Indian community : they wiU throw hght on several of the great problems in colonial economy with which we shall hereafter concern ourselves. While Spain possessed her continental empire, Porto- rico, like most of her other insular possessions, was alto- gether neglected by the mother state. It was a penal settlement, to which criminals were transported, raising no surplus produce, and unknown by name in the com- mercial world. But it had the advantage of being well situated for the contraband trade with Mexico ; and this 42 SPANISH COLONIES tLECT. II. circumstance, joined to tlie fertility of its soil,_ seems to have coUected on its surface, even at the begmning ot this century, a considerable population, almost entirely of white origin. In 1815, its trade was subjected by the Spanish government to a new code of regulations of the most liberal description. Lands were granted to settlers gratis ; their extent to bear a proportion to the number of slaves imported. Slaves were rendered liable to a low and fixed poll-tax. Produce was freed from export duties. Tithes were remitted for fifteen years, and fixed after that time at a low commutation. The alcavala, a duty on the sale of commodities pecuHar to Spain, was remitted for a like period. Foreign goods were admitted, subject to an ad- valorem duty of 17 per cent. Under these regula- tions, the face of the island was transformed as if by enchantment. In twenty years its population doubled, and in 1840 exceeded 400,000 on a space of 4000 square miles ; it is the best peopled spot of any extent in the whole of America. In the same twenty years, the exports were more than quadrupled. The export of sugar from Portorico, in 1830, was more than half of that from Jamaica. But the singular part of the history of Portorico is that this extraordinary progress took place with scarcely any increase in the relative amount of the slave population, always smaller in its proportion to the free than in any other West Indian colony. In 1810 it had about 165,000 free and 17,000 slave inhabitants ; in 1830, 300,000 free and 34,000 slaves ; and the mass of the free population, as may be supposed, was white, and of pure Spanish descent. "The planter of Portorico," says Lieutenant- general Fhnter, " differs essentially from the same class in " the British islands. In the latter, the proprietors of "large estates generally reside in Europe, leaving the " management of their property to resident agents. Even " those who possess small estates, seldom estabhsh them- Lect. II.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 43 " selves permanently in the country, but hoard up their " earnings for the purpose of returning to Europe. In "Portorico the inhabitants of old Spain, who estabhsh "themselves either in commerce or agricultiu'e, in general " become heads of famihes, whose branches extend in " every direction. The estates are not fitted up on the " grand and expensive scale in which they are seen in the " English and French islands ; but the planter residing " on his land with his family becomes a fixed and per- " manent part of the population, and of white society." But besides the planters properly so called, Portorico contained a very numerous class of small white proprietors. Nearly a third of the whole population were freemen, with their famihes, leading a pastoral life, and principally white : these Xivaros, as they are called, were a frank, robust, hearty race, neither very industrious nor over refined, and utterly wanting in education, but well dis- posed and well conducted in essentials, and hving with the coloured people on terms of remarkable forbearance. I have myself heard a visitor to that colony, who was famihar with the habits of the West Indian islanders, remark, that it was difiicult in Portorico to distinguish the master from the slave. AH these circumstances indi- cated a state of society not very favourable, perhaps, either to the accumulation of enormous fortunes, or to civilization ; but incomparably better, in essential respects, than that of the communities in which slaves constituted the mass of the inhabitants.* * These " Xivaros " have been cited as instances to prove : — 1. That an European population will become acclimatized in the An- tilles. 2. That West Indian produce may be raised by free labour. But it seems that their blood has a considerable tinge of the Indian : •while their habits are those of the most complete and unparalleled indolence. M. Schoelcher, in his work on the Antilles (lies Espagnoles, p. 324), enters into some calculations which seem to show that little or nothing of the exportable produce of Portorico was ever raised by white labour. 44 SPANISH COLONIES CLect. II, But I Lave spoken in the past tense, because there seems reason to fear that the extraordinary tide of pro- sperity which has set in of late on the Spanish isknds has at length materially altered for the worse the social con- dition of this flourishing colony.* So long as the fertihty of its lands remains unexhausted, it is probable that the slovenly labour of smaU proprietors with few slaves may continue to raise a considerable quantity of exportable produce; but it cannot be doubted that much of its surface is no longer in this condition. The island, there- fore, is reaching that second stage of which I shall speak more at length when we touch on the situation of the British colonies. It is becoming less practicable to cul- tivate the soil successfully, except in large estates, by the aid of much capital, and with numerous gangs of slaves. We have no account of its state more recent than that oi General Flinter, who seems to have been struck, even then, with indications of the approaching change. Since the appearance of his work, the enormous importation oi slaves into Portorico, in proportion to the extent of the island, seems too clearly to point out that it is proceeding in the same direction. If so, its destinies, hke those oi Cuba, are fixed ; and nothing can save them both even- tually from accomphshing the unfortunate career whicli the other great West Indian colonies have each in its turn gone through. In the mean time, by comparing the state of the Spanist islands with that of the British, immediately before emancipation in the latter, it vdll appear that the formei contained, in round numbers, 700,000 free white inhabi- tants, the latter barely 80,000 ; the former 250,000 free coloured, the latter 60 or 70,000 ; the former less thar 450,000 slaves, the latter more than 800,000. Notwith- standing this inferiority in slave labour, the former pro- * In 1850, Portorico was reported to contain 380,000 inhabitants So slow an increase would seem to verify the prediction of the text. Xect. n.] m THE 'WEST INDIES. 45 duced about two-thirds of the quantity of sugar raised in the latter, and a much greater proportion of other tropical commodities. To what causes are we to attribute this differ- ence, unfortunate in an economical no less than a social point of view ? Whence arises it that we, with all our boasted wisdom and civihzation, have entered on a career which has led to such deplorable results with regard to the pohtical well-being of our own colonies, while it has led us astray even in the pursuit of that lucre to which we had sacrificed justice and mercy ? These are questions which it will be hereafter our task to consider. But it may be oncS more observed in passing, that the Spanish colonies have over ours the great advantage of an unex- hausted soil, owing to the recent date of their cultivation. If General Fhnter is to be beheved, the average produce of sugar in Jamaica is about 10 cwt. per acre ; in St. Vincent, the most fertile of the Caribbean islands, 25 ; in Portorico, 30. Now it is possible that a cultivation like that of sugar, while the soil requires httle manure and the return is pretty certain, may be pursued on a small scale by proprietors possessing httle command of labour. Such may be the case in Portorico, and to a certain extent in Cuba. But when fertihty diminishes, and crops can only be secured by a great outlay of capital and labour, the small planter must give way to the capitahst ; plantations wiU be considerable ; and the nu^merous free population of httle proprietors, of which General Fhnter boasts, must, it should seem, either cease to exist or abandon that branch of agriculture. These speculation?, however, must not be relied on too confidently in the absence of better statistical data than we possess. II. " No nation," says Southey," " has ever accomphshed "such great things in proportion to its means as the "Portuguese." Its early maritime history does indeed present a striking picture of enterprise and restless energy ; but the annals of Europe afford jio similar in- 46 POETUGUBSE COLONIES, [Lbct. II stance of rapid degeneracy. To the lover of romantic narrative, the account of the estabhshment of the Portu- guese in the Indies should be more mteresting even thar the traditions of Cortes and Pizarro ; since with means as feeble they had much longer and more serious conflicts tc maintain. There was an age when less than 40,000 armed Portuguese kept the whole coasts of the ocean in awe, from Morocco to China ; when 150 sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. But in aU their enterprises they aimed at conquest, and not at colonization. The government at home exercised httle control over the arms of its piratical warriors ;'the mother- country derived no benefit from their achievements. To the age of conquest succeeded one of effeminacy and cor- ruption. " The principal defects in the Portuguese ad- " ministration of India," says Heeren, "seem to have been " the following : 1. The very frequent changes of viceroys " (at least triennial), which were usually attended with f " change of most of the other ofiicers ; the ofl&ces were " therefore triennial benefices. 2. The restrictions, whicl " gradually became greater, on the power of the viceroys " 3. The state of commerce, which, left open to the civi " and mihtary officers, degenerated into very oppressive "monopolies. 4. The defective administration of justice " 5. The overpowering influence of the clergy, who bj "their wealth made themselves masters of everything " and their tyranny." The Portuguese have long beer expelled from Asia, except a few insulated settlements such as Goa and Macao. In Africa they possess severa estabhshments, of the condition of which httle is knowr in Europe, but which appear to be maintained chiefly foi the purpose of protecting their slave trade. But ir America they have been the founders of a great anc flourishing monarchy. It has been often repeated, tha the empire of Brazil fell to the Portuguese through th( consequences of a geographical error. The bull of Pop( Lect. II.] POKTUQUESE COLONIES. 47 Alexander, of which mention has already been made, as- signed to this power all new discovered lands, east of a hne drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores. Much ridicule has been very unnecessarily thrown upon this bold decree of the pontiff, by which he disposed of unknown regions as their absolute proprietor ; but Alex- ander was an able statesman, whose object was, by this act of arbitration, to prevent quarrels between two powers, whose union was essential to his views. He evidently intended by it to restrain the Portuguese to the eastern hemisphere, leaving the Spaniards to pursue, without interruption, their conquests in the other. But, either through ignorance or intentionally, the first discoverers of Brazil placed its longitude to the east of the prescribed Hne. Its coast was consequently seized on by the crown of Portugal, and its limits have been gradually extended by treaties, until it comprehends the greatest and by far the most valuable portion of tropical America south of the equator.. For a long time, iadeed, its possession was httle coveted by Europeans. Having searched the shores of every accessible inlet for the precious metals, and dis- appointed of their expectations, the Portuguese almost abandoned it. Asia was then the road to fortune and fame, which drew off aU the more energetic spirits of the time. Brazil was used only as a place of transporta- tion for convicts ; the earhest instance, I beUeve, of the adoption of such a system by any modern people. To ordinary malefactors were afterwards joined the victims of the Liquisition ; and the unfortunate Jews who were sent thither by that tribunal, first introduced the culti- vation of sugar. Pree emigrants were thus attracted in the course of time by the increasing wealth of the country; and when Thomas de Souza was sent out as governor in 1558, and reduced it for the first time to an orderly and peaceful state, it had already made considerable progress. 48 PORTUGUESE COLONIES. [Lect. H. The colonization of the Portuguese in America was, as has been seen, of a far less ambitious character than that of the Spaniards ; no large feudal grants were made of land and Indians ; no ground-plans of magnificent cities traced in the soil of the wilderness to invite inhabi- tants ; no regular and comphcated system of administra- tion adopted. The organization of the colony followed instead of preceding its advance, and grew up by degrees as necessity required. Thus the foundation of this empire more nearly resembled that of our own American colonies; and its fortune, if less brilliant, was more solid than that of any of the Spanish provinces, Mexico itself not ex- cepted. The Portuguese began, hke' the Spaniards, by reducing the natives to slavery. But these were far less advanced in civilization and less numerous than those of Peru and Mexico ; their labour consequently contributed less to the improvement of the colony. In 1570 the influence of the clergy over the government at Lisbon procured a decree that no Indians should be jnade slaves, except those taken in war ; but even this modified pro- hibition was wholly disregarded by the colonists. Some feeble attempts were occasionally made to enforce it ; but the conquest of the greater part of BrazU by the Dutch West India Company, between 1626 and 1640, interrupted for a time aU legislation in this direction. After the re- conquest in 1640, the great work was accomphshed ; 200,000 Indians Hving vrithin the territory occupied by the planters, were settled in villages, and placed under the direction of Jesuit missionaries. It was in this man- ner that the power of that famous society in America had its origin ; its operations afterwards extended, as is well known, far over the interior of the continent ; and it be- came in Paraguay the founder and the ruler of one of the most singular repubhcs which ever existed upon the earth. But the treatment of the native Americans by the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries wUl, as I have said Lkct. II.] rOKTUGUESE COLOIflES. 49 furnish, matter for separate consideration. The Portuguese, like the Spaniards, replaced Indian labour to a great extent by that of Negroes. But several circumstances contributed to give a much greater extension to the Portuguese slave trade than the Spanish, at least until recent times. The principal of these were the proximity of Brazil to the coast of Africa ; an advantage of no small consequence in a traffic in which so large a proportion of the hving cargo usually perishes on the voyage ; and the superior fertility and extent of that portion of the Portu- guese colony which is suited for the cultivation of tropical produce. No country in the world has so great a breadth of highly productive soil as Brazil. The treatment of Negro slaves in Brazil, at least up to the present century, is said to have been in general good. Education and marriage, so long and disgracefully denied them by other masters, were promoted among them by the Portuguese. The Eoman Catholic Church has always proved a protector and a friend to these unfortunates ; and even its superstitions reached them in a favourable Hght, since they served to reconcile them to their condi- tion. The slaves of the Franciscan community in Bahia were wont to esteem themselves the property of the blessed Saint Prancis himself, and prided themselves on this glorious servitude above the free men of their colour. But I fear that the pictures which have been drawn of their general condition in Brazil, if true at any time, are not so at the present day. The rapid increase of wealth, and slavery along with it, has rendered the Brazilian more timid, more cruel, more avaricious than formerly. Southey was so misled by his partiahty for the Portuguese as to prophesy that " Brazil would probably be the first " country where the benefit of that great measure, the " peculiar glory of England " (the abolition of the slave trade) " would be experienced : for," adds he, " its ten- " dency will be assisted by the principles of the govern- E 50 PORTUGUESE COLONIES. [Lect. II. " ment, the influence of the clergy, and the general spirit " of the laws." * Such were the anticipations of 1824 ; and, in 1838, 35,000 Negroes were imported into Brazil. Kaynal, in language perhaps too highly coloured to be accurate, draws a very unfavourable picture of the higher classes of Bahia at the time of the greatest splen- dour of that city. " Hypocrisy ia some, superstition in " others, avarice within and ostentation abroad, an ex- " treme effeminacy which borders on extreme cruelty, in a " chmate where all sensations are quick and impetuous ; " the suspicions which accompany weakness ; an indo- " lence which rests entirely on slaves for the care both of " their affairs and their pleasure." The prosperity of the northern provinces of Brazil, for a long time the most important, underwent a serious interruption in the middle of the last century, from the commercial measures of a minister who was regarded as one of the most hberal statesmen of his time. The trade of BrazU had previously been conducted on a system similar to that of the Spanish colonies, but somewhat less oppressive. The vessels which carried it on sailed in fleets once a year, and the number was Hmited ; but the fleets were greater than those em- ployed in the Spanish American trade, and visited a larger number of ports. This was the state of things when Pombal, in 1775, created the exclusive companies of Maranham and Pernambuco, and placed in their hands all the trade of Northern Brazil : thus adopting a vicious system, which Portugal, up to that time, had never encouraged, at a period when all other nations had nearly abandoned it. The bad effects of this measure in Brazil are said to have been felt immediately in diminished * History of Brazil, ii. 817. This prediction has however been since verified, though slowly, by the final abolition of the slave trade through the united will of the government and people of Brazil. In 1849, 54,000 slaves were landed there; in 1852, 700 ; in 1853, none. " Quarterly Review," October, 1860. Lect. II.] POET0GUESE COLONIES. 51 production ; but as the manufactures with which that country were supplied in exchange for her produce came not from the mother country, but from other European nations through the vessels of the mother country, the loss was not so directly felt in Portugal. Of the other great measure of Pombal's Brazilian administration, his emancipation of the Indians from the control of the Jesuits, I shall find another occasion to speak. The more modern importance of the southern provinces of Brazil was owing, at least in part, to different causes. If there was any justice in the strong expression of the historian Herrera, that mines were a lure disposed by the Evil Principle to draw the Spaniards on to destruction, the Portuguese were fortunate in the circumstance that the precious metals were not discovered in their American empire until a late period of its colonization, when agri- culture and commerce had already taken root in the soil. It was not untU about the year 1700 that the first gold mines began to be wrought in the arid Serras of the interior. The first successful miners seem to have been the PauHstas, a singular race, of semi-repubhcan habits, sprung for the most part from runaway convicts and Indian women. These people estabhshed themselves in the town and district of St. Paul in South Brazil, where they maintained themselves, in substantial independence of the crown of Portugal, for more than a century. Their history forms one of the most curious episodes in that of America. They overran the whole interior of Brazil, from the Parank to the tributaries of the Amazons, carry- ing on perpetual warfare Avith the Indians, and reducing such as they could master to slavery. The Pauhstas were not induced to submit to the government of Brazil until 1730 ; and long since, indeed even to the present day, they have remained distinguished from their neighbours by their dress and customs, and a sort of piratical spirit of independence. E 2 52 POETUGUESE COLONIES. [Lbct. II. The gold mines have proved but a temporary source of wealth to Brazil. " Villa Eica, the capital of the miniag " district, was," says Southey, " at one time the richest " place in the world, if mines alone were riches." But the trade of the gold searcher appears to be still more pre- carious than that of the silver miner. Gold is distributed in still more uncertain proportions on the surface, than silver in the body, of the metaUiferous strata. Great fortunes were occasionally made, and much impulse given to commerce ; but the mining district of Brazil has never exhibited the general wealth and splendour of Mexico. The mines of gold were left perfectly free to adventurers by the government, on payment of a tax of one-fifth. It is a remarkable fact, that the anticipations of those who predicted a nearer approximation of the value of gold and silver, from the great increase in the supply of the former metal after the discovery of the Brazilian mines, proved futile. It may be doubted whether this was owing to the cause to which Eaynal attributes it, namely, the increased use of gold for ornamental purposes, or to the augmented productiveness of the Mexican silver mines. The search for diamonds, another precious com- modity, not discovered in Brazil untU 1730, was subjected to much severer regulations. It was placed entirely in the hands of an exclusive company, of which the govern- ment itself was the agent ; which was restricted to the employment of a hmited number of slaves, doubtless with the same views which actuated the Dutch in fixing the number of spice trees cultivated in the Malay islands, namely, to enhance the value of the article. The regu- lation in the latter case was as cruel as it was erroneous in an economical point of view; for spices being an agreeable and useful, yet not necessary commodity, then- consumption would probably have extended if the pro- duction had been free, so as to overbalance any diminu- tion of price. But as the value of precious stones is purely Lect. U.] POETUGUESE COLONIES. 53 imaginary, and is so enhanced by rarity, that it appears to increase in much more than an inverse proportion to their abundance, there may be some reason, in economical pohcy, why a government should exercise a control over their production. But the terrible methods by which that of Portugal endeavoured to repress contraband prac- tices in a branch of industry, if such it may be called, pecuHarly liable to them, rendered it a nuisance to the colony. The penalty of death having been found insufS- cient to check such practices, the whole country around, in a circumference of 100 leagues, was reduced to a desert, in which not a house was permitted to be raised, except the single village in which the labourers on the mines resided. The more recent history of the diamond mines is given by M. de St. Hilaire up to 1817. In that year, when his visit was made, they had dwindled into comparative insignificance ; but the system of restriction still continued.* It was the trade of the mining districts, with some other favourable circumstances, which elevated Rio Ja- neiro to the first rank among the cities of Brazil. In the latter part of the last century it superseded the old capital Bahia, and, in 1807, became the residence of the royal family of Portugal, when driven from their European dominions by the French invasion. This great pohtical change having been brought about through the intervention of England, the latter power, for her own purposes, procured freedom of trade to be estabhshed in Brazil — a singular instance of a great internal benefit resulting to a nation through the tem- porary interference of a foreign country in her afiairs. It was followed by the immediate removal of all the re- * According to M. Escliwege, about 20,000 Negroes were still em- ployed by it in 1823. He estimates the total value of tlie diamond workings in eighty years at a sum hardly exceeding eighteen months' produce of sugar or coffee in Brazil ! E 3 54 PORTUGUESE COLONIES. [Lect. II. Btrictions wMcIl had formed a part of the ancient colonial system. The ports of Brazil were thrown open to foreign goods in foreign vessels, on payment of an ad valorem duty, for purposes of revenue only ; and then England became, in a commercial sense, the metropohs of BrazU. Perfect freedom was given to internal industry; and a country in which, up to that time, not a single book had ever been printed, became the seat of a court, a repre- sentative government, and what are called national insti- tutions. The suddenness of the change was attended with many pohtical inconveniences ; but, economically speaking, the progress of Brazil has been enormous, notwithstanding the decay in the produce- of her mines, which fell off in the beginning of this century. The war between England and America, by raising the price of cotton, gave a sti- mulus to the cultivation of that staple commodity; and the rich soils of BrazU now compete, at a great advantage, with the exhausted fields of the islands, in the produc- tion of sugar and other tropical merchandise. But her prospects, in a more comprehensive sense, are sufficiently gloomy. The rapid increase of wealth has unfortunately silenced the voice of poHcy and humanity, which in the last century were nowhere more wiUingly listened to than in Portugal ; and the extension of the slave trade has more than kept pace with the progress of wealth. Hence cruelty and hcentiousness, and the other vices of slavery, once confined to the great seaports, seem to be corrupting the Brazihan character even in the remotest districts. The slaves are everywhere outnumbering the free cultivators ; the coloured freemen increasing more rapidly than the whites ; and this latter class of mixed popidation, no less, it is said, than 600,000 in number out of five or six millions in all, endowed with physical strength and mental energy far more abundantly than the degenerate Creole race, seems to threaten the present frame of society with Lect. n.] DUTCH COLONIES. 55 more immediate danger than awaits it from the slaves themselves.* The Dutch, says Heeren, have not been great colonists, for there were no causes in operation in their own country which could drive them in any considerable numbers beyond sea. Thickly peopled as their country is, its in- dustrious and contented inhabitants have shown little disposition to emigrate, having always found employment and support at home ; consequently their foreign estabhsh- hshments, although interesting in many points of view to the commercial historian, need not detain us long.f Their first settlements in the Indies were wrested in war from the Portuguese, by a company of merchant adventurers, who obtained from the mother-country exclusive rights of dominion and commerce in them. The Dutch East India Company was the type and model of that of England ; and " although," to use the words of the same writer, " it sank at last under the evils of monopohes, it never- " theless remains, less on account of the extent than the " pre-eminence of its prosperity, an unparalleled phe- " nomenon, which could nowhere exist except among a " people who could become exceedingly rich without " becoming luxurious." Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope were the only colonies, properly so called, of the company ; and that body allowed and encouraged the people engaged in the carrying trade, both Europeans and Indians, to make as much use as possible of both ; to which the prosperity of these admirably situated settle- * (1860.) Predictions happily felsified by subsequent history. The career of Brazil, instead of being one of decadence, has been steadily, though not rapidly, progressive. And the abolition of the slave trade has been already noticed. f The Boers of the Cape are said to be for the most part not of Dutch extraction, but descended from mercenary soldiers who had been established on grants of land there ; principally Westphalians and other North Germans. E 4 56 DUTCH COLONIES. [Lect. II. ments, particularly the former, is in great measure to be attributed. Over the remainder of its possessions, which were conquests and not colonies, the company watched with a jealousy equal to that of the Spaniards and Portu- guese. It is well known that it obtained possession of the islands in which alone some kinds of spices (especially cloves) were cultivated, and limited the number of planta- tions and of trees, and the annual supply of the European market, in order to keep up the price. We have seen that the immediate effect of such a monopoly is, some- times, to raise the price of the article in more than an inverse ratio to the diminution of supply; its ultimate effect is to narrow the market, to diminish the desire for an article of which the quantity is so hmited as to render it unattainable except to a few, and to encourage com- petition to find out substitutes of inferior value. Similar maxims pervaded the whole administration of the Dutch East India Company. Its good points were, the severe watchfulness exercised over inferior functionaries by the governor and council estabhshed at Batavia, which rendered their conduct widely different from the license and rapine of the Portuguese ; the prohibition enforced against them of trading on thek own account, and making profit of the subjects of the company in any way ; the regularity, and in some respects the economy, of its administration. It dechned partly through the natural unsoundness of monopoly, partly through the consequences of its own wealth and prosperity. That prosperity led it to form expensive estabhshments, which involved it in debt ; and, thus burdened, it was iU able to withstand the competition of the English, either in commerce or in war, while these were as yet free from similar impediments. This is an advantage which the new comer always has over the established possessor m the rivalry of conquest and commerce in distant regions : the Dutch had it over the Portuguese, whose prosperity Lect. il] dutch colonies. 57 declined as soon as they substituted empire for trade ; the English had it in their turn over the Dutch ; and in some branches of commerce the Americans seem now to be attaining it over ourselves. The Dutch East India Com- pany may be said to have died a natural death, having become virtually bankrupt some time before its dissolution in 1792. Java, the principal rehc of its dominions, is now a royal colony, and apparently a flourishing one * ; although the Dutch have been involved in serious wars with the natives, whom they are said to have exasperated by abandoning the hberal principles imported into its ad- ministration during its short possession by the English. In America the Dutch, in early times, enjoyed ahnost exclusively the carrying trade of the colonies of other nations, and long afterwards were largely engaged in furnishing contraband suppHes to those of England and France, as well as of Spain and Portugal. Their two islands, Cura9oa and Saint Eustatius, were rendered free ports, contrary to the usual pohcy of the nation, on purpose to enable them to afford shelter and security to * (1860.) Since the date of these lectui-es, Java has grown into one of the finest commercial possessions owned by any European cotmtry. But, with a population of 12,000,000 of natives, and a few thousand whites only, it rather resembles in character our East Indian dominions than a colony properly so called. Its trade is to a certain extent stiU engrossed by the " Netherlands Commercial Company," estabhshed in 1819, on the ruins of the old Dutch East India Company ; but " of late years the private traders have been gaining on the company." In 1854 Java exported 60,000 tons of coffee and 106,000 tons of sugar. " The produce for exportation is chiefly raised on account of Government, partly by contributions in kind from the cultivators, and partly by a system of corvee, or compulsory labour, established on one-fifth part of the lands applicable to the cultiu-e of rice, of which Government has resumed the possession. And, provided these contributions and corve'es be not carried to excess, we incline to think that they are at once the least onerous mode in which the natives can be made to pay their taxes, and the most profitable to the Government." — M'Culloch, Commercial Dictionary. 58 FEENCH COLONIES. [Lect. 11. this traffic. Under these circumstances, and with the ad- vantage of Dutch perseverance, the prosperity and wealth of these httle spots has always been remarkable. Dutch Guiana was long imder the government of the "West India or Surinam Company ; but this body permitted its access to all Dutch vessels on payment of 2^ per cent, for a hcense ; which relaxation, as Adam Smith thought, was the principal cause of the degree of prosperity enjoyed by that colony in his time. One of the continental colonies (Berbice) was for a short time under the ex- clusive government of a mercantile house, that of Van Peere, which had bought its absolute sovereignty of the state — an unique instance, I beheve, in colonial history. Of the Swedish and Danish colonies, hmited to three or four of the smaller AntOIes, nothing more need be said than that their actual value is very small ; but that they have occasionally been raised to great importance as seats of the contraband trade, especially in time of war. The history of the colonies of the French in America is interesting on many accounts ; but as war and revo- lutions have reduced their transatlantic empire, once so vast, to three comparatively insignificant islands, and a single spot on the continent, it must not be allowed to occupy much of our limited space. It is hardly remem- bered at the present day, that this nation once claimed, and had began to colonize, the whole region which lies at the back of the thirteen original United States, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi ; com- prising both the Canadas, and the vast and fertile valley of the Ohio ; and had actually occupied the two natural outlets of this whole region by its posts at Quebec and New Orleans. Canada, the oldest French colony, and the only one on the continent to which that nation has sent any considerable number of settlers, was under the management of an exclusive company from 1663 to the Lect. II.] TEENCH COLONIES. 59 downfall of what was called the Mississippi scheme in 1720 : and this circumstance, stiU more perhaps than the vicious system of granting the land to non-resident pro- prietors, to be held by seignorial tenure, checked its progress.* Louisiana, with more sources of surplus wealth from chmate and soil, was never a very thriving colony, and was surrendered to Spain with Httle reluctance ; from which last power its dominion passed to the United States. But that propensity to httle peddling traffic, requiring more of activity and enterprise than industry, which Burke has remarked on as so characteristic of the French, stimulated their adventurers to disperse themselves in the fur trade and the chase, over the whole interior of North America. No other Europeans have ever displayed equal talents for concihating savages ; or, it must be added, for approximating to their usages and modes of hfe. The French traders and hunters intermarried and mixed with the Indians at the back of our settlements, and extended their scattered posts along the whole course of the two vast rivers of that continent. Even at this day, far away on the upper waters of these mighty streams, and beyond the utmost limits reached by the backwoodsman, the traveller discovers villages in which the aspect and social usages of the people, their festivities and their solemnities, in which the white and the red man mingle on equal * Besides the impediments to free action ■whicli were necessarily incident to seignorial tenure, the Home Government and the intend- ants appear to have subjected the industry of the poor Censitaires to the minutest and most imintelhgible restrictions. In 1709 a M. Eaudet limited the number of horses to be kept by the " habitans " around Montreal, in order to favour the breed of homed cattle. In 1745 a royal ordonnance forbade the building of houses throughout the colony except on plots of land of specified extent. These are speci- mens only of a curiously vexatious legislation. See it analysed in " Debates and addresses on the Seignory question," printed in Canada in 1853. 60 FEENCH COLONIES. [Lect. II. terms, strangely contrast with the habits of the Anglo- Americans, and announce to him on his first approach their Gallic origin.* In the Antilles the French first estabhshed themselves as interlopers, sometimes uniting with ourselves in piratical" hostihties against the Spaniards and the Carib natives, and sometimes disputing with us the possession of the conquests thus obtained. After the long conflict between * Sismondi, Etudes sur I'Ec. Politique, vol. ii. p. 200. Latrobe. (1860.) It is almost a received idea among ourselves that the French Canadians are a diminishing race, if not positively, at least relatively to those of British origin, and that they are doomed in the natural course of events to a period of decline and ultimate amalgaination vrith the prevaiKng race ; but this is a view which requires to be a good deal qualified. The Franco-Canadians (to whom must be added the remnants of the Acadians in the Lower Provinces) are not indeed an enterprising people, but they ai-e endttring and industrious, moral in their habits, and consequently prolific and long-lived, and intensely national. While the Americans and British Canadians are following the usual migratory bent which carries them annually by swarms from- the east to the west, the overflow of the French population seems to have a tendency t© fill up the vacancy nearer home left by these emi- grants. Accordingly, they are beginning to form not only isolated settlements, but communities, in New Brunswick, on the Ottawa, in Vermont, and even in the northern counties of New York. M. Eameau, a recent French writer (La France aux colonies, etudes sur le d^veloppement ' de la race fran9aise hors de I'Europe, 1859) esti- mates that in 1861 there will be in North America a population of French origin of the following amount and composition : — Acadians of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and Cape Breton ...... 60,000 Acadians and French of Newfoundland, St. Pierre, and Miquelon 20 000 Acadians in New Brunswick Franco-Canadians of Lower Canada and Labrador Ditto on the frontier of Vermont and New York Ditto on the frontier of Upper Canada . 32,000 980,000 40,000 25,000 1,157,000 Without counting the descendants of Frenchmen in the western States, around the Great Lakes, in Louisiana, &c. Lect. II.] FRENCH COLONIES. 61 tlie two nations at the beginning of the last century, the French remained in possession of the best share of the Windward Islands — Guadaloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, Tobago, &c., and of a settlement on the main land of Guiana. Adam Smith is probably right in attributing the great prosperity of the French sugar islands, at this period, to the circumstance of their irregular and almost piratical foundation. As the colonists had no very close ties with their mother-country, and were always disposed, as Eaynal says, to welcome the strongest masters as the safest protectors, the government was afraid to irritate them by any very oppressive restrictions on their in- dustry ; and afterwards, when a more regular authority was established, the colonial system of government adopted by France in the last century was at least better in theory than that of any other European people. Their adminis- tration at home was entrusted to the Council of Com- merce, composed of twelve officers of the Crown, and twelve delegates of the chief commercial towns. Each colony was ruled by a governor ; an intendant, to take charge of the fiscal and other rights of the Crown ; and a royal council, composed of distinguished planters. AL, functionaries were paid by salaries only; while in our colonies fees, leading to aU manner of extortion, formed the principal income of the officers. It was an esta- blished regulation that captains of ships, on their return home from a colonial port, should be subjected to a strict inquiry as to the treatment which they had received in the transaction of their business there, the state of the markets, and the conduct of the government agents. L'and in aU French colonies was pretty uniformly disposed of by free grant; a system which was then thought highly hberal, but which subsequent experience has shown to be of very questionable pohcy. Taxation was extremely hght; a capitation on slaves, and a slight export duty, amounting, it is said, to scarcely two per 62 PEENCH COLONIES. [Lect. U. cent, on the value of any article of produce, was aU that the planter had to pay to government. An easy and summary process was established for levying debts due to merchants in the mother-country : one of the greatest practical difficulties in the management of colonies. The slaves were protected, as far as law could protect them, by the regulations of the Code Noir, though the French masters did not bear a high character for humanity. In order to encourage European colonizationj every planter was obliged by law to keep a certain number of white indented servants ; it must not, however, be supposed that this law was really enforced. In a country where Negro slavery prevails extensively, no white is indus- trious ; and the planters evaded by every possible means a regulation which only tended to biurden them with the maintenance of lazy emigrants. It was the fashion in England, during the period of the great prosperity of the French settlements, to extol their colonial administration as far superior to our own * ; and not unjustly in some respects. The colonies certainly could not complain of it ; for its policy systematically tended to burden the mother-country at their expense. The cost of their government was almost wholly defrayed by the latter. The prohibition of foreign sugar in the French markets, according to Arthur Young, amounted to a tribute paid by France to her colonies of nearly two millions sterhng annually, upon principles which we shall have hereafter to study, when considering the colonial system of trade ; and the advantage of this tribute was not counterbalanced, as in ours, by taxes and restrictions weighing heavily on the colonial producer. In fact, the French government of the eighteenth century seems to have fallen into the double error of taxing the resources of the mother-country in order to support colonies which * See especially Burke's European Settlements in America. Lect. II.] FEElfCH COLONIES. 63 were not integral parts of its strength, and neglecting that maritime force by which, alone the colonies could be preserved. But the vices of administration incidental to a govern- ment |so corrupt as that of old Erance were sensibly felt in her foreign dependencies, notwithstanding the partiahty with which they were treated by her legislators. Court favour was the only source which suppHed them with governors and other executive officers — a source even more tainted than that of parhamentary interest among ourselves. Men without fortunes or character, ruined in their own country, eagerly sought and obtained these appointments, which were commonly -regarded as the last resource of a spendthrift.* Much ignorance, as well as * (I860.) The ordinary Frencli method of colonial government was by a Governor and Intendant, at once aided and controlled by a Council of Commerce, composed of members paid by Government. The most rigorous principles of the colonial system of trade have been usually in force ; but, as a consequence of this system, the colonies paid little import duty on the goods brought from the mother- country. In 1854 an organic law for the old colonies was made by Senatus-Consulte, and its provisions deserve attention, as being founded on a very thorough investigation of the subject by competent authorities. The form of government thus constituted nearly resembles that of the English so-caUed " Crown Colonies." The Governor is assisted by a Conseil Priv^, answering to our Executive Councils. The legislature of each colony consists of an equal number of oiEce-holders and un- ^ official members, all named by the Emperor. A more peculiar feature is the estabhshment at Paris of a " Comit^ Consultatif," or Board, attached to the department of the Minister of Marine and Colonies, con- sisting of four members named by the Emperor, and a delegate apiece from Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Reunion. The mother-country defrays the expenses of government, justice, " general administration;" the rest is a charge on the colonial revenue. But if that revenue affords a surplus, this is paid over to the home treasury ; if, on the con- trary, the colonial revenue falls short of the expenditure charged on it, the home treasury comes in aid. I find the total of this aid, or " d^- penses mises k la charge de I'Etat pour le service colonial " (omitting Algeria), to amount, for 1859, to 21,700,000 francs, military and marine included. 64 FREN'CH COLONIES. [Lect. II. much corruption, prevailed in all the details of office. A singular proof at once of the zeal for colonization which animated the French Government, and the extreme mismanagement of the national resources, occurred after the peace of Paris in 1763. In accordance with the theory of the day, it was determined to raise at once a full-grown colony on the continent of America. No less than twelve thousand unfortunates were embarked from France, and landed in Cayenne, without an attempt towards preparing the tropical wilderness for their recep- tion. They were amply supphed with two years' pro- visions at an enormous expense ; but it had never occurred to the managers of the expedition, that pro\isions would not keep in such a chmate, and before cultivation had commenced they were starving. Famine and fevers in a few months almost destroyed them ; of the few sur- vivors about 1500 were removed to an alluvial spot on the coast ; a sudden rise of one of the rivers of the interior took place, and all were swept away in a single night.* However, the French sugar colonies increased so greatly in general prosperity, that about the time of the American war, they were supposed to contain no less than 700,000 inhabitants, of whom four-fifths were slaves, without in- cluding the iiourishing isles of France and Bourbon in the •Indian ocean. Their produce at the same time was con- siderably greater than that of the EngHsh possessions. At the head of them all was the splendid colony of St. Do- mingo. It arose out of the settlement of a few French buccaneers and adventurers on the coast of that island, which was owned by the Spaniards, who had reduced it to a desert, having extirpated the Indian inhabitants. The Spaniards made no use of their possession except for * This story is somewhat diiFerently told in the Notices Statis- tiques sur les Colonies Fran9aises, vol. ii. published by authority in 1837. Lect. n.] FBEKCH COLONIES. 65 breeding cattle : the Frencli were agricultural and enter- prising. They soon outnumbered their neighbours, and obtained at last by treaty a division of the island for themselves. After the soil of the smaller Antilles had been in good measure exhausted, as we have seen, St. Domingo became for a time the greatest sugar country in the world. Its exports increased from the value of 11,000,000 hvres in 1711, to 193,000,000, or about 8,000,000^. sterhng, in 1788.* Its trade employed 1000 ships, and 15,000 French seamen, and was said to com- prise two-thirds of the whole foreign commerce of France. The planters of St. Domingo had been for a long time content to live on their own estates ; but the island pre- sented in the end a remarkable instance of that striking fact in the history of slave colonies, that with the increase of wealth, men of the higher order are almost sure to become absentees, and the middle, thus elevated into the highest rank, to increase in profligacy and cruelty. " The " spectacle presented by the cities," says an observer, writing at the time of their highest prosperity, " is dismal " and monotonous. There are neither nobles, nor citizens, " nor fandholders. They offer nothing but establishments " for the various commodities produced by the soil, and "for the various kinds of labour which these require. " The only society is that of agents, pubhcans, and ad- " venturers, bustling in search of some situation which " may maintain them, Und accepting the first which pre- " sents itself. Every man hurries to become rich, in order " to escape for ever from an abode where men live without " distinction, without honours, and without any excite- * According to Barclay ("Past and Present State of the West " Indies," 1826), every inhabitant of St. Domingo, in 1791, raised on the average 692 lbs. of produce; every inhabitant of Jamaica, at the beginning of this century, 775 lbs. But I am not sure that his calcu- lation is sufficiently favourable to the former colony. F 66 FRENCH COLONIES. [Lect. II. " ment but that of interest." * It is curious to compare this description -with that given by a recent traveller of the aspect of the towns in the modern French islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe, flourishing islands, but which have escaped what I may justly call the curse of the enormous and rapid wealth of St. Domingo. Mr. Henry Coleridge f was struck with the tokens of the residence of the better classes, evinced in the outward aspect of things, the shops, libraries, and places of public amuse- ment ; and contrasted it with the dulness of the Enghsh West Indian cities, wealthier, but with less social and civilized enjoyment. J Such was St. Domingo when the Trench Eevolution broke out, the lovehest, and the wealthiest, island of the tropical oceans — an object of jealousy to England, of ad- miration to the rest of Europe. Sarcasm and indignation have been profusely lavished on those who first preached equality of rights to its free coloured population, armed one class against another, and produced that dreadful struggle which ended in the expulsion of the French, and estabhshment of the Black Eepubhc amidst the smoking ashes of cities and plantations. Eash and pre- sumptuous they were, beyond a doubt ; yet, on the whole, posterity has learned to judge them less harshly, as men who, notwithstanding the precipitancy of aU their actions, and the injustice of some, yet erred in the means rather than the end ; who saw and judged rightly the incurable malady which preyed on the vitals of a community so apparently prosperous ; who failed from over confidence * Ency. M^thodique, art. St. Domingue. t Visit to theWest Indies, 1825. And see Trollope's " "West Indies and Spanisli Main," 1859, p. 158. t The old colonial proverb characterised the inhabitants of the respective islands as " Nos seigneurs de St. Domingue, Messieurs de la '' Martinique, Bourgeois de Guadaloupe." Martinique was the place of the famous banfauptcy (for 3,000,000 francs), which was the commence- ment of the ruin of the Jesiuts in 1762. Lect. II.] FEEIfCH COLONIES. 67 in a good cause, and had none of the advantages of that experience which they have left as a legacy to our- selves. France now retains only the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe, already mentioned; the continental colony of Cayenne, or French Guiana ; the Isle Bourbon, now called E^union, in the Indian ocean, and one or two ports on the coast of Africa ; besides her recent acquisition of Algiers, which can scarcely be termed a colony. Ac- cording to Say, the price of sugar produced in the French Antilles was, when he wrote, in comparison with that exported from the Havana, as fifty to thirty-five ; the difference, therefore, was paid by the French people, who were restricted to the use of the former as a tribute to the colonists. Since that period, the extended cultivation of beet-root for sugar, imder the marked protection of the government, gave for some time a severe blow to their prosperity.* According to the same writer, the revenue * According to tlie report of the Commission of 1839, for examining the proposition of M. Tracy on slavery (prepared by M. de Tocqueville, and highly worthy of examination), the mortgages contracted in ten years in Guadaloupe and Martinique amounted to 130,000,000 francs, or about one quarter of the whole agricultural property of the islands. (1861.) The history of the beet-root sugar industry affords a curious running commentary on that of the conflicting principles of free trade and protection during the last twenty years. It began in France during the exclusion of colonial sugar in the great war. It was reduced to distress by the peace, and consequent admission of colonial sugar. Then the cry of national industry prevailed, and heavy duties were placed on French colonial sugar (1820 — 22) in the interest of the beet cultivator. Then the complaints of the colonists produced a reaction, and duties' were placed on beet sugar (1838 — 1840), though still differential in favour of the beet. Then both parties complained. The colonists, that the beet growers were not taxed enough ; the beet growers, that they were taxed at all. At last the measure of fairly equalizing the duties was tried (1848), and it now appears that in the last twenty years the pro- portion of beet-root sugar has increased fourfold (from 39,000,000 to 151,000,000 kilogrammes). — M^CullocKs Commercial Dictionary. A singular instance of a manufacture, artificially created, which has suc- r 2 68 FEENCH COLONIES. [Lect. II. raised in these colonies in 1820 amounted to 6,000,000 francs, tHeir expenses to twelve ; six, therefore, were so much additional tribute.* ceeded in maintaining itself without aid (except such as the French discriminating duties on foreign sugar afford it). * Cours d'ficonomie Politique, vol. iii. (1860.) It appears to be admitted that the European colonization of Algeria has hitherto proved a failui-e. About 180,000 civil Em-opean inhabitants (of whom scarcely half French) are precariously maintained by the Government expenditure on an army of 70,000. But it must in justice be added that the problem was one of extreme difficulty. There is nothing exactly like it in English colonization. The Cape, or New Zealand, might present a somewhat similar aspect if occupied by twenty or thirty times their present number of warlike and hostile natives, possessing, moreover, an ancient, though very imperfect, civihzation, and usages of landed property. Singularly enough, however, the most salient difficulty in Algerian co- lonization seems to be precisely the same with that which we experience, on an infinitely smaller scale, in part of New Zealand. Individual claims of natives to landed property in Algeria are not very considerable. Tribunal claims are very large ; that is to say, a native tribe claims a large tract of land for its nomade occupation by flocks and herds and wandering villages, in common right. To get rid of this class of claims in New Zealand has been the caiitious and gradual work of many years, and as yet very far from completed. The French authorities have done as yet no more than look at the problem ; but it seems agreed that its solution is indispensable before the work of real colonization can begin. Such land as was accessible had been disposed of by free grant until 1857, when a system of auction was commenced in the parts near Algiers. — Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1857-8. But there seems little probability of European purchase and settlement extending in the interior. The native population have become reconciled to the French Government, which they find in the main a strong and just protector ; but not to personal contact with Europeans. The two races live apart, like the EngHsh and natives of India. " J'ai toujours remarqu(i," says De TocqueviUe, " que partout ou " Ton introduisait, non des chefs Europeens, mais une population Euro- " p^nne, au sein des populations imparfaitement civilisdes du reste du " monde, la sup&-iorit^ r^eUe et pr(5tendue de la premiere se faisait " sentir d'une fa9on si blessante pour les int>s individuels, et si morti- " fiante pour I'amour propre des indigenes, qu'il en r^sultait plus de colore " que d'aucune oppression politique." — CEuvres inedits, vol. i. p. 428. . Lect. II.] FRENCH COLONIES. 69 " Si cela est vrai," he adds, " pour presque toutes les races Euro- " peennes, k combien plus forte raison cela est-il vrai de la race Anglaise, " la plus habile h exploiter h son profit les avantages de chaque pays, " le moins liante, la plus disposee a se tenir k part, et (on peut le dire " parceque ce defaut s'unit intimement k de grandes qualites) la plus " altifere de toutes." But Algeria furnishes, in truth, almost as striking a commentary on his general axiom as India. F 3 70 APPENDIX. [Lect. II APPENDIX TO LECTUEE n. No. I. Cuba; Population. 1841. 1858. Whites . 418,291 564,698 Free, Coloured Free, Negro. 88,054 64,784 216,176 Slaves, Coloured . Slaves, Negro 10,974 . 425,521 . 662,587 1,007,624 1,343,462 Observations, &c., sur le Mouvement de la Population de la Havane, 1843. Almanac de Gotlia, 1860. No. 11. Beazil Population. 1798. More ttan 3,000,000 (Humholdt). 1810. 4,000,000 (^Correa da Serra, Humboldt). 1SS0 f {MalteBmn). loou. 1^ 5^735^502 (Cannabich). 1840. 6,500,000 to 7,000,000 (M'CullocIi). 1858. 7,680,000 {Report to the Chambers). Exports. 1844—5. 5,200,000Z. 1854—5. 10,000,000Z. Hevenue. 1837. 1,500,000^. Imports 6,500,000^ 9,500,000/. 1858. 5,500,000. Lect. n.] APPENDIX. 71 Fo. III. Saint Domingo : — Slave Population. Exports. 1715 11,000,000 livres. 1721. '. 21,000,000 (sugar ouly). 1764. {"^'-JjJ; ^^''^ ^"*"} 206,000 1774 109,400,000 {Malouet). '[(Malouet) 300,000194,162,000 (sugar and 1775. 1 (^Qjigi^i Heturns 240,000 J coffee only). 1779.* -(Neckar) 249,098 1784. {Official Returns) 297,079 1788 193,000,000 1789. {Same, improved) -434,429 1790 455,000 155,000,000 No. IV. Population of French Colonies, exclusive of Algeria, in 1854. Martinique . . . 134,095 1 Wliites about Guadaloupe . . . 129,220 J 25,000. Guiana .... 16,741 Eeunion (Bourbon) . . 129,128 (80,000 Coolies). Senegal .... 14,354 East Indian Possessions . 206,229 Mayotte (Madagascar) . 27,527 St. Pierre and Miquelon. 1,863 659,297 Anmiaire des Deux Mondes. To these must be added the scattered settlements in the Marquesas and New Caledonia. * After this year, the great importation of Negroes began. The average im- portation from 1775 to 1780 was 15,000: from 1780 to 1790, 26,000. According to M. Malouet, 4,000 or 5,000 births, and 18,000 imported, were required annually to keep up the stock. 72 APPENDIX. [Lect. II Production of Sugar in the Principal Colonies, in tons, nearly: — 1835. 1855. Martinique . 31,000 . 21,000 Guadaloupe . 37,000 . 28,000 E^union . 23,000 . 52,000 No. V. Progress of Population and Revenue of Algeria. European Inhabitants (Ciyil). Eevenue in Francs. Army. 1831. 3,228 929,709-67 17,190 1835. 11,221 2,180,335-93 29,485 1840. 28,736 4,405,317-55 61,231 1842. 40,000 3,315,407-88 78,474 1857. 180,172 20,000,000 69,000 effective. Imports. 1848. 86,214,619. 1850. 108,917,296. Total Population in 1847, estimated at 2,640,000. (Gen. Bugeaud M'Carthy, &c.) Expenditure (Civil) 1857 . . . 27,505,562 fi-ancs. Lkct. m.] BRITISH COLONIES IN THE WEST INDIES. 73 LECTUEE ni. BRIEF HISTOEICAL SKETCH OF BRITISH COLONIZATION. WEST INDIES. NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES, DOWN TO THE PERIOD OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. The colonial history of Britain presents a prospect so wide and so diversified ; it is so rich in great enterprises and strange events ; so abundant in economical lessons, and carries our attention from point to point over so vast a portion of the surface of the earth, that selection and com- pression appear almost equally difficult. A mere catalogue of the provinces inhabited by British colonists, with a geographical description of each, would completely ex- haust the time of my hearers vdthout much advantage ; and therefore, in order to impress a few prominent features of the subject on your attention, I must sohcit your indul- gence for much unavoidable omission. My object will chiefly be to indicate those facts which will be of value as examples, which may serve as tests of doctrines hereafter to be considered, as indications of a policy to be recom- mended or to be avoided. Wherever, therefore, we pause for a few moments in our rapid course, we shall probably on some future occasion find it necessary to return. The general policy of England towards her colonies, down to the period of American independence, is nowhere so ably developed as in the masterly sketch contained in the seventh chapter of the fourth book of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. True, he wrote against a theory, and his facts are collected and arranged with a view to his argument ; and since that theory was supported by the popular opinion of his times, Adam Smith, although in 74 BRITISH COLONIES [Lbct. IIL point of fact he did not carry out his refutation so far as he might have done, was regarded as, an ingenious but dangerous speculator. But now that almost every propo- sition .he has stated, and every prediction he has hazardeci, have been borne out by abundant experience — that he can be shown to have been wrong only where he hesi- tated to push his own views far enough, and borrowed something from the logic of his antagonists — his very wisdom wears a common-place aspect, and is sometimes neglected as too trivial for the present day. "I know not, however, where the student can turn in order to find the same clearness of statement and judicious apphcation of instances, united with the same vigour of reasoning. Generally speaking, the oldest colonies of England were founded by private. adventurers at their own expense and risk. The soU was commonly, vested in proprietors, that is, it was granted by -wholesale, provinces on the con- tinent, islands in the ocean, to powerful individuals or to companies of "undertakers," and by them regranted to emigrants, usually on payment of a quit-rent. Where, however, emigrants had estabhshed themselves before the grant, or where they contrived to set aside or disregard the grant, they divided the land among themselves pretty much at their own pleasure. And such settlements in- creased more rapidly than those in which the proprietors contrived to estabhsh their rights. The right of govern- ment, as well as the soil, was usually conceded to the proprietors in the first instance ; they were coimected by httle more than a nominal recognition of sovereignty vsith the crown of Great Britain. But the disputes between the colonists and the proprietors caused, except in a very few cases, the dissolution of the proprietary govern- ment, and threw the colonies one by one into the hands of the crown. They were then usually administered by a governor sent from England ; with a mimic parliament, consisting of an upper house or council, nominated gene- Lect. III.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 75 rally by the governor, and a house of assembly elected by the people, ui which originated all taxation. But laws enacted in these assembhes required, besides the assent of the governor, the ratification of the king in council. The governor's council acted hkewise as a species of senate, to assist him in his executive, and sometimes in his judicial duties. Such has been the outhne of the colonial system of government in almost all our numerous dependencies, exoept those acquired by conquest, which have usually been governed, at least for a time, in a more absolute manner, and except the chartered colonies of North America, of which I shall have occasion to speak at a future time. Thus the early colonists from England grew up from the beginning in a spirit of independence and self-reliance ; and instead of parting with a portion of his rights when he settled in a distant dependency, the emi- grant felt that he breathed a freer air than that of the land he had relinquished. The trade of all the older settlements was perfectly free at the outset, and in the seventeenth century it fell almost whoUy into the hands of the Dutch, at that time the great carriers of Europe. This occasioned the acts of navigation, the basis of our commercial policy towards our colonies, the first of which was passed under the Commonwealth in 1651. No com- modities of the growth of Asia, Africa, or America were thenceforth to be imported into England, or her colonies, except in EngHsh vessels ; and such as were the growth of Europe, only in Enghsh vessels or vessels of the country from whence they were imported. The principles of these Acts were twofold : as regards the mother-country generally, the main object was to monopohse the carrying trade for our own shipowners. Their consequences in this point of view will only fall incidentally under our notice. As regards the colonies, their immediate effect, aided as they were by other regu- lations, on which I have not time now to dilate, was to 76 BRITISH COLONIES [Lbct. in. restrict the market for their exportable produce. Such commodities as were termed " enumerated," coTild only be carried from the colonies to England or her depen- dencies. However, this restriction was, in process of time, much modified. Grain, lumber, and fish, the produce of North America, were never among the "enumerated " articles ; " rum and sugar were omitted from the hst in 1731, and could afterwards be exported to all parts of the world, provided it were in English vessels. England next imposed high protecting duties, amounting in some important instances to absolute exclusion, on the produc- tions of foreign colonies, in favour of those of her own; some of which were also encouraged by bounties. Lastly, to complete her colonial system, she prohibited the colo- nies from carrying on various branches of manufacture for themselves, and placed foreign manufactured goods, imported into the colonies, under the same duties to which they were hable in the mother-country ; which last restric- tion was not carried into effect untU the year 1763. It was thus by slow degrees only that the colonies were brought, both as to their commerce and their in- ternal affairs, under regular government and subordi- nation, in which they continued imtil the attempt to reduce those of North America to more' complete sub- jection, by taxing them without their own consent, occasioned their separation from the mother-country. This event, and the results of the great French war, which placed under our government a great number of the dependencies of other countries, materially changed the character of our colonial relations. For the few ■ colonies of British origin which remained to us on the continent, such as Nova Scotia, controlled in their very origin by government superintendence, had at first no constitutions of their own. And the numerous con- quered countries were wholly under absolute govern- ment, a thing quite contrary to the genius of our old Lect. in.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 77 colonial system, as well as to the spirit of British insti- tutions. Such a contrast could not long continue. Con- stitutions were soon granted to Canada, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, similar to those under which our older colonies had flourished. But the contrast between the working of institutions coeval with a people and rooted in their original habits, and institutions granted to societies brought up on a difierent system, was never more strongly exemphfied than in some of those instances. With regard to commercial affairs, a singular change took place. Great Britain gradually engrossed (whether through or in spite of the navigation laws, it is not now necessary to consider) the greatest share of the carrying trade of the world. She likewise became by far the greatest of manu- facturing nations. Conseqiiently mutual restrictions, such as those imposed by the ancient system on the producers of the mother-country and the colony, for the supposed benefit of each other, became ultimately very little more than restrictions on one of the contracting parties only. We might draw many articles of raw produce cheaper and better from other countries than from our own colonies ; therefore, so long as their produce is protected, we are taxed for their benefit. But it may be ques- tioned whether any of the commodities they require from Europe, except some few articles which we do not and cannot produce, could be obtained by them cheaper or better from any other source than from " ourselves." Consequently they are no longer taxed for ours, except in one or two unimportant particulars. When the na- vigation, laws, as far as regards the colonies, were 'greatly modified in 1824, no great change or disturbance of the colony trade ensued. Things had found of themselves that level, which those laws were intended to maintain artificially. It is impossible to conceive a more direct contrast than that which exists between the British colonial policy of late years and that of our ancestors. 78 BRITISH COLONIES [Lbct. IH. They cared for the most part little or nothing about the internal government of their colonies, and kept them in subjection in order to derive certain supposed commer- cial advantages from them. We give them commercial advantages, and tax ourselves for their benefit, in order to give them an interest in remaining under our su- premacy, that we may have the pleasure of governing them. The West Indian colonies of England, the oldest transatlantic possessions of her crown, deserve our first attention. " These possessions," (says a writer in the Quarterly Eeview for 1822,) " are the most important " instance of the national monopoly prescribed by the " colonial pohcy, and as this has been adhered to with " steady perseverance, they pj-esent a fair contrast with " opposite modes of government. If the tests of facts " and experience might be appealed to for the influence " of these difierent systems of administration upon pubUc " wealth, the instance of these colonies might be tri- " umphantly brought forward by the advocates of a re- " stricted intercourse." The advocates of that system in the present day would, I suspect, strongly object to having it tested by the result of the experiment in the West Indies. But we wiU endeavour to let facts speak for themselves, and reserve theories for a separate dis- cussion. The oldest colony founded by the English in the West Indies is Barbadoes, which was first settled in 1624, but granted by patent to the Earl of Carlisle as sole proprietor in 1627. Its early prosperity arose from the emigration of men of the better classes, chiefly royalists, during the civil wars. The claims of the pro- prietor were soon forgotten ; the governors appointed by him granted land to whom they pleased on receiving a gratuity for themselves ; and the rights of the propri- etor and his heirs became obsolete through the impossi- bility of enforcing them, although they furnished the crown after the Eestoration with a pretext for obtaining Lect. m.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 79 from the assembly of the island the famous duty of 4^ per cent, on exported sugars, which was afterwards extended to various other islands. The extraordinary prosperity to which Barbadoes attained in a few years after its first occupation has been often described, and, doubtless, with some features of exaggeration. This httle island, no larger than the Isle of Wight, is said to have contained, in 1650, 50,000 white and 100,000 black inhabitants, and to have given employment to. 400 sail of 60,000 tons, and this before the commencement of the cultivation of sugar, which was not introduced until 1670.* It is said also that Charles II. after his restoration conferred baronetcies on thirteen of the prin- cipal royahsts of Barbadoes, some of whom were worth even in those times more than 10,000^. a year, and none less than 1000/. The great sources of this prosperity were, the freedom of the legitimate trade, then chiefly carried on in Dutch vessels, and the extension of the privateering or contraband trade with the Spanish set- tlements. The first of these was efiectually checked by the Navigation Acts ; intended, as Blackstone has observed, to punish the royahst planters, and chp the wings of the Dutch. But a more powerful cause of decline was doubtless to he found in the exhaustion of the soil after the first years of its cultivation. Antigua was colonized from Barbadoes about 1670. The * " I have been informed by a gentleman of Barbadoes that the " extraordinary populonsness of that island some years ago was effected " chiefly by granting out lots of ten acres each to poor settlers and " white servants who had fulfilled the term of their indentures. These " persons found ten acres sufficient to provide them with the neces- " saries of hfe. . . . Most of these lots were afterwards bought up by " richer men, and turned into sugar works, .... and the late occupiers " left the island to establish themselves in other places, where land was " to be had in greater plenty and at a cheaper rate." — Long^s History of Jamaica, vol. i. p. 409. The writer adds, sensibly enough : " It is " difficTolt, as I conceive, wholly to prevent, by any law, this kind of " land monopoly, without admitting a much greater mischief in the " room of it." so BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IU. jreat island of Jamaica was wrested from the Spaniards mder the commonwealth ; and, after some difficulties at he outset, soon shot rapidly ahead of the other British solonies, and, until the rise of St. Domingo, of all the European possessions in the Gulf of Mexico. The other slands were conquered at different periods from the French md other nations. The early settlers who occupied in such numbers the loii of the Antilles, seem to have been chiefly small pro- prietors, who hved on the produce of their estates. When he cultivation of sugar was introduced about 1670, the "ree white population rapidly diminished, and continued ;o do so for a century afterwards. Thus the whites in Sarbadoes are said to have increased until they amounted ibout 1670 to 70,000 ; but these early calculations must 36 received with doubt : from that period their num- bers fell off, untn in 1724 there were only 18,000; ihere are now 16,000. Antigua contained 5000 in the :eign of Charles II., now only 2500. The history of the 3ther "Windward Islands * is precisely similar. Jamaica, Tom its extent of surface, and fitness for a variety of productions, did not present the same diminution ; yet 3ven there the number of whites remained stationary at ibout 8000 from 1670 to 1720. This dechning condition 3f the white population, showing how unsuited these islands were to become, what their first occupiers ima- gined they would, the scenes of extensive colonization From Europe, chiefly proceeded from the monopoly of * I here use the term, " Windward Islands," in the sense given to it by Spanish rather than English navigators. As it is often very loosely employed, a short explanation may be usefiil. The Spanish call Cuba, Jamaica, St. Domingo, Porto Eioo, and their immediate dependencies, " Sotovento " or Leeward ; the remainder ■' Barlovento " or "Windward, as more nearly exposed to the Atlantic current of air, which generally sets from the eastwai-d. But in Englisli ind nautical language, the " Windward Islands " are only those from the Spanish main northward to Martinioo inclusive ; the remainder are called " Le.ewa.rd."—A7'i-otvsm!Wf! Map of the West Indies. Lect. III.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 81 land, consequent on tHe cultivation of sugar. As I men- tioned in a former lecture, it was found that the small proprietor could not compete with the large one, in rais- ing this staple product. Coffee, and stiU more sugar, require a number of hands, and the simultaneous applica- tion of much labour at particular seasons. Thus this species of agriculture resembles in some respects a manu- facture ; and, as in manufactures, the large capitalists have great advantages. " To make ten hogsheads of " sugar," says the author of a report on the state of the French sugar islands, in the Statistical Journal of Paris*, " needs nearly the same expenditure in beasts of " burthen, miUs, utensils, &c. as to make a hundred. A " property of less than fifty arpens cannot be used as a " sugar plantation." This tendency of things was in- creased when, by the improvidence of the early cultiva- tors, particularly in Barbadoes, the soil was exhausted, and greater expense and labour became necessary to raise the same amount of produce. Hence aU accounts of our West Indian colonies, in the first half of the last century, teem with complamts of the decay of small pro- prietors, and the consolidation of all the classes of society into two, the wealthy planters and the slaves. " " The " great stocks, and the running into a staple which re- " quired thern," says Burke in 1758, " have by degrees " devoured the island (Jamaica). It is the nature of vast " stocks to create a kind of monopoly ; and it is the " nature of monopoly to aim at great profits fi-om a com- " paratively httle produce. Indigo was once very greatly " produced in Jamaica, and it enriched the island to such " a degree, that in the parish of Vere, where this drug " was cultivated, they are said to have had no less than 300 " gentlemen's coaches — a number I do not imagine even " the whole island exceeds at this day; and there is great " reason to beheve that there were many more persons of * Vol. ii. p. 123. G 82 BEITISH COLONIES [Lbct. III. " property in Jamaica formerly than there are now, though " perhaps they had not those vast fortunes which dazzle " us in a manner at present." To this unwholesome state of society succeeded one in some respects stiU worse ; the wealthier planters themselves began to abandon our islands, and fix their residence at home. They were soon regarded by the other classes of whites as fac- tories, where a man was to make his fortune in order to leave them as soon as he could afford it. This change from residence to absenteeism in slave colonies is partly a consequence of the progress of opulence, as has been already observed ; but in those of England it has been carried to excess by causes peculiar to the nation ; and I am certain that those causes rather do credit than disgrace to the EngHsh character, however unnatural such a sys- tem may appear. Notwithstanding the instances to the contrary, which the Spanish islands are said to exhibit, it may be doubted whether the slaves of small proprietors are not on the whole hable to be harder worked and worse treated than the members of numerous gangs under the regular discipHne of a plantation. And the distaste which Enghshmen began to evince, as civilization and right feeling made progress among them, to the mode of life of slave colonies, its deep-rooted hard-heartedness and profligacy, is a trait of which we ought to be rather proud than ashamed.* Other Europeans hve and multiply in slave colonies, because they have no high value for civihzation and no turn for enterprise ; the white man, secured by his privileges of caste, cares little whether in outward circumstances he approximates to the condition * This passage may appear at first sight inconsistent with the fact that' English residents remained and multiplied in the slaTe-holding provinces (now States) of North America. But the language of the text was meant to apply to slave Colonies in the restricted sense, in which the whites foi-m a very small fraction of the population. There are in 1860 only two States of the Union in which the slaves exceed the free in numbers. Lect. in.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 83 of the coloured classes among whom he dwells. The French, industrious and civilized, have perhaps less of that moral sense of aversion to the habits, both of bar- barism and slavery, which our people appear to exhibit ; and hve more contentedly in the midst of them ; they are repugnant to every taste and cherished feehng of the Enghshman. If it be asked, what is to be thought of the morahty of those whose fastidiousness shrank from contact with such a state of society, and yet who had no objection to enjoy the wealth derived from so impure a source, I fear that we can only shelter ourselves under the general apo- logy of the inconsistency of human nature. But the fact remains the same ; and it is not therefore altogether to be regretted that the race of Englishmen has not thriven and multiphed in our West Indian colonies. In Barbadoes, where the whites, although so much diminished, stiU form a numerous body, the condition of the lowest class of them is described by observers just before emancipation as very degraded ; without property, and raised by their colour above the debasement of labom", they were said to subsist in a great measure on charity, administered not unfrequently by the negroes themselves.* However, while our smaller islands increased their pro- duction but slowly, Jamaica, under this system of cultiva- tion in large plantations, became in the eighteenth century the greatest sugar-growing country in the world. Its pro- sperity during a great part of it was surprising, although seriously interrupted at various times by natural and po- litical vicissitudes ; by hurricanes, scarcities, and slave rebelhons, of which no less than twenty are enumerated before the year 1795 ; so utterly unfounded is the notion * The GoTenunent and Legislature of Barbadoes have had within the last few years (1859 — 60) several schemes for the removal and settle- ment elsewhere of the " Poor Whites," imder their consideration. The Bo-caUed " petits Wanes " form a similar class in the French Antilles and at Reunion. (See, as to the last, Schoelcher, vol. ii. p. 330.) G 2 84 BRITISH COLONIES [Lbct. m. that the Negroes were first stimulated to discontent by the proceedings of philanthropists in England. During all this time our sugar islands had the monopoly of the English market ; and so large was that market, and so high the Enghsh prices, that when they were permitted to export direct to foreign countries, it was found that very httle such exportation took place, Britain and her colonies absorbing nearly all that the islands could raise at a profit. But the monopoly did not secure them from feeling severely the efiects of the extraordinary progress of the French sugar colonies already adverted to, and of the American revolution, which depiived them of their American customers, who, having achieved their iade- pendence, resorted to the cheapest market. The com- plaints of the West Indians cannot be said to have commenced from tliis period — they had been inherited by one generation of planters from another, along with their estates, ever since the plantations began ; but after the American war, the evils complained of became more inveterate, and from that time to this the notes of distress have been continually poured forth by men conscious of the uneasiness and loss which was inevitably entailed on them by the forced nature of their trade, but never attri- buting it to the right cause, and crying out for more monopoly, in order to redress those evils which monopoly itself inflicted. In some points, indeed, they have really felt themselves aggrieved ; for they haye been placed at times under in- jurious restrictions, as if to counterbalance the protection given them in our markets. Such have been the restric- tions on the importation of provisions and lumber from any other quarter than Britain and her colonies — at first absolute, modified in 1796, and again in 1825 and 1831.* The economical efiect of these regulations will be considered elsewhere : but one remarkable fact in * Eemoved in 1846. Lect. III.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 85 West Indian history may be briefly noticed as we pass. When the United States became iadependent, government resolved on transferring this branch of trade, then enjoyed by them, to our remaining co- lonies — Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; but these were at that time utterly unable to supply the quantity of necessaries required by the West Indies. In vain did the planters press this 'circumstance on the consideration of Parliament and the Privy Coimcil. In vain did they state most truly, that this was a question de vitd et sanguine, and not of mere commercial ex- pediency ; that the very subsistence of their Negroes de- pended upon their commerce with the United States. Selfish principles of pohcy, and a paltry desire of ven- geance upon om? revolted subjects, prevailed over every better counsel. It so happened that for many years to- gether, from 1780 to 1786, the islands were visited with an unusual succession of those terrible hurricanes to which they are subject. Their provision crops, to the cul- tivation of which the planters had begun to resort in the crippled state of their import trade, were destroyed. A frightful scarcity ensued. According to a statement in the work of Bryan Edwards*, 15,000 Negroes perished in seven years in Jamaica alone, in consequence of the restrictions on the supply from America. You have pro- bably often heard of the hard-heartedness of poUtical economists, and advocates of free trade ; I wish that those who are in the habit of employing this current phrase would study the history of the sufferings which the spirit of commercial jealousy has brought upon mankind, and honestly determine where the charge of hard-heartedness most properly applies. This prohibition, as I have said, was modified in 1796. The destruction of St. Domingo about the same time, rid our West India islands of their most formidable rival. The * Book vii. 0. 4. G 3 86 BEITISH COLONIES [Lect. III. events of the revolutionary war still farther strengthened their monopoly. One by one the tropical colonies of other nations fell into our hands ; and as their productions were excluded from continental markets by the block- ade, and from ours by the protecting duties, they feU into a state of great distress. Never, in short, was monopoly maintained under such advantageous cir- cumstances. It is true that the British government, pressed by the necessities of the war, continued to impose higher and higher duties on West Indian produce ; but the consumption increased notwithstanding. Although the Enghsh consumers had to pay at least double the price to the producer, which they would have had to pay under a natural system of trade ; and, in addition, a duty to government nearly equal to the original price ; yet the use of the commodities thus enormously enhanced in the market continued to augment — one of the most astonish- ing proofs of the high prosperity of the empire, during the greater part of that protracted contest. If therefore any period can be selected more peculiarly favourable to the West Indies, under the system of pro- tection which we have adopted towards them, it is that of the late war ; and yet, strange to say, not only did the grievances of the planters continue to be put forward al- most through the whole of it, but facts were occasionally brought before the pubhc which seemed to prove the fallacious nature of the prosperity which they were sup- posed to enjoy. The report of the West India Committee for 1801 stated, that a return of 10 per cent, on capital was necessary to give the planter a " living " profit ; and yet, that the returns had not averaged one third of that amount per annum. Surely these circumstances (and many more might be adduced) go some way towards estabhshing by evidence the inevitable unsoundness of a trade created and defended by prohibitions.* * In Lord Grey's " Colonial Policy," vol. i. Appendix D, there is a LscT. III.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 87 In 1812 the slave-trade was abolished by Great Britain. It cannot be denied that this measure of justice and hu- manity had in one respect the result which its enemies predicted, and its friends refused to anticipate ; it rendered ■ the cost of production in slave countries greater. It must be remembered that our tropical colonies were at this time, and still are, divided in an economical view into two classes : the smaller islands, fuUy peopled, long cultivated, and in which the soil required for the most part expensive •treatment ; the larger islands and continental settlements, possessing a considerable proportion of virgin land : a dis- tinction which it is important to bear in mind, as many of our future speculations wiU have reference to it. Now in the former class of colonies it was found that the sup- ply of labour might indeed be maintained without impor- tation ; but then in these the hmits of production, under the existing system of slave cultivation, were already reached, and the land was becoming less valuable. And in the other class, those which possessed an abundance of fertile soil, and were chiefly of recent acquisition, those to which economists looked for fresh and abundant suppHes, the abohtion of the trade rendered it impossible to extend cultivation ; for the slave population, taken generally, was found unable to maintain its own number, stiU more to increase. This melancholy fact is undeniable. In the collection of these ancient " Groans of the West Indians," which more than establishes the proposition of the text. In 1807 a committee of the House of Commons report that " since the year 1799 there has taken " place a progressive deterioration in the situation of the planters, re- " suiting from a progressive diminution of the price of sugar," and that immediate ruin is threatened. In 1811 the House of Assembly of Jamaica declared that " the ruin of the original possessors has been " gradually completed. ... It is not to be concealed, and cannot be " denied, that a crisis has at length arrived when nothing but the imme- " diate and poweriul interposition of the supreme authority of the " empire can prevent the utter destruction of a part not altogether " unworthy of attention from its former value." This was the year before the abolition of the slave-trade. G 4 88 BEITISH COLONIES CLect. III. middle of the last century it was computed, that out of 80,000 Negroes in Barbadoes, 5000 perished annually. The mortality of later times has not been so great ; but the deaths in most of the islands have regularly exceeded the births. Bryan Edwards stated the decrease at 2^ per cent, per annum. Jamaica had, in 1817, 346,000 slaves ; in 1829, 322,000 : Trinidad, in 1816, 26,000 ; in 1831, 21,000 ; Domhiico, in 1817, 18,000 ; in 1826, 15,000 ; and so on of the rest : in Barbadoes alone there has been in this century a shght increase. Manumissions, never- very numerous in our colonies, went but a Httle way to- wards accounting for the difference. Nor was there in later years any of that disproportion between the sexes to which it was at first attributed ; and yet the decrease steadily continued. Chmate and treatment, and ndglect of marriage, and various other causes, have been as- signed for it with more or less probability. But the effect undoubtedly was, as I before mentioned, to lay our settlements at a disadvantage as compared with those countries which stOl enjoyed the miserable superiority of the slave-trade. But the check thus given to West Indian enterprise was felt much less by the planters than by the pubhc of Great Britain. When the slave-trade was abolished, the cost of producing sugar in Jamaica was already, perhaps, twice as great as in Cuba. Therefore, even with the slave-trade, our planters could not have maintained a competition with the growers of other countries in any market where they were not defended by prohibitions. As I have already had occasion to mention, a virgin soil, in almost all agriculture, but especially that of the tropics, is an advantage which no accumulation of capital and no improvement in science and skill seem able to counter- balance ; and the necessary decline of our West India islands has been long foreseen by foreign observers, though not always readily admitted by ourselves. " A concur- " rence of circumstances," says Heeren, " has made these Lect. m.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 89 " hotliouses prosper : those, however, have changed ; and " those happy times have gone by, probably for ever." " It is easy to foresee," * said the most sagacious of observers, Humboldt, forty years ago, " that the small " Antilles, notwithstanding their favourable commercial " position, will not be able to maintain competition with " the continental colonies, if these last continue to apply " themselves with the same ardour as at present to the " cultivation of sugar, coffee, and cotton. In the physical -" as in the moral world, everything eventually faUs into " the order prescribed by nature ; and if a few httle spots, " of which the aboriginal inhabitants were exterminated, " have carried on up to this time a more active trade in " their productions than the neighbouring continent, it is " only because the inhabitants of Cumana, Caraccas, New " Grenada, and Mexico have begun very late to profit by " the immense advantages which nature has given them." The immediate reahzation of these .views was prevented by the revolution in those countries — another stroke of good fortune for the West Indians ; but other regions, possessed of equal advantages, have taken their places in the race. There remained, therefore, for our planters only the home market, and that was secured to them by prohi- bition. The British consumer thus took upon himself the loss, whatever it was, consequent on the increased diffi- culty of production occasioned by the aboHtion of the slave-trade. The price of sugar might rise ; but he alone would suffer directly by it ; and without a doubt the price of sugar would have risen, perhaps to an intolerable amount, had it not been for the new competition of the East Indies, Demerara, the Mauritius, and other conquered colonies, placed after the peace on the footing of the old Enghsh possessions. To this new rivalry, therefore, far more than to the abohtion, the planter of Jamaica or Barbadoes might be justified in attributing his own dimi- nished prosperity. * Nouv. Espagne, vol. iii. p. 177. 90 BfilTISH COLONIES [Lect. III. In the twenty-two years which elapsed between the abolition of the slave-trade and the abolition of slavery, the dechne of production in most of the older West India islands was constant and serious. The sugar exported from Jamaica in 1805, the year of the largest crop known, was 137,906 hogsheads; in 1811, 127,751; in 1833, 78,375. In these islands the cost of production was con- tinually increasing, although slowly, from the exhaustion of land and the dearness of negro labour without impor- tation ; in those in which the soil was newer, the latter cause, as we have seen, restricted the spread of cultivation, and prevented any extensive increase. The consequence was, that while the population of the British empire was rapidly increasing, the total produce of her western sugar colonies, which have fertile soil enough to supply the world, remained stationary. In 1814 our im- port from our West Indian plantations was 3,581,516 cwt. ; in 1835, 3,524,000 cwt.* ; and a constant diminu- tion went on in the consumption of this most agreeable and nutritious article by the British people. We were still the greatest consumers of sugar in the world ; but the quantity used by each individual among us, on the ave- rage, was scarcely more in 1840 than half what it was in 1800.-|' Mr. M'Gregor was of opinion, that while the average consumption of sugar in England was greater than on the continent, it was much less among the poorer classes, owing to the high price. $ * M'Cullocli, Diet, of Commerce, p. 1091. See Appendix. I According to the estimate of Mr. Montgomery Martin, in Hs evi- dence before a Committee of Free Trade with India, every inhabitant of Great Britain (including Ireland) consumed, in 1801, 440 ounces of sugar annually; in 1811, 429: in 1821, 333; in 1831, 358; about 1840 only 256. From 1844 to 1859, after the reduction of duties, it doubled. J Evidence before Committee on Import Duties, 1840. Now, in 1860, we are informed that consumption by the higher classes has been scarcely affected by free trade ; while that by the poorer has augmented from 50 to 200 per cent. {M'Cul. Com. Diet.) Lect. III.] IN THE WEST INDIES. "91 Under these Gircumstances the great measure of the abohtion of slavery took place. Nothing can be farther from my thoughts than to detract from the merit of that crowning measure, almost a solitary instance, in the his- tory of many centuries, of a national act of disinterested self-denial. To be the citizen of the state which has accomplished it, may be a higher title of distinction than to be the countryman of the conquerors of the East, or of the commercial sovereigns of the West. But now that both the violent prejudices and the sanguine hopes which obscured the view of the ablest pohticians at the time when that act was performed have passed in some measure away, we may, I think, perceive, with a little attention, that emancipation, although of the highest importance in a moral and pohtical point of view, wiU not, and cannot in the nature of things produce any very great revolution in the economical progress of events, unless, indeed, by laying the seeds of some great future changes, of which no eye as yet sees even the beginning. It is evident that the real blow was struck, I wiU not say at the prosperity of our sugar colonies, but at the system under which they had grown up, when the slave-trade was abolished. It was the confident hope of the advocates of that measure, that it would improve the economical pros- pects of the colonies : they were unfortunately deceived, as we have seen. With a free trade in slaves, our planters might have struggled on ; under a vicious and wretched system, no doubt ; but stiU their monopoly might have been maintained. Without it, that monopoly must have come to ruin : sooner or later this country must have gone else- where for the supply of those increasing wants which their cramped energies could not meet. Emancipation, taken at the worst, can only have brought this inevitable result a little nearer ; taken at the best, it may have laid the foundation of a new and more sohd edifice of colonial prosperity ; it may have given a turn to the course of 92 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. III. events, and opened for our magnificent tropical empire of the West a new cycle of destiny. These prospects, and the state of our colonies under the operation of the recent change, will form the subject of future discussion. But before we pass onwards, let us pause for a moment to reflect on the remarkable uniformity with which events have succeeded each other in the econo- mical history of the West Indies in general. At each epoch in that history we see the same causes producing almost identical effects. The opening of a fresh soU, with freedom of trade, gives a sudden stimulus to settlement and industry ; the sod is covered with free proprietors, and a general but rude prosperity prevails. Then foUows a period of more careful cultivation, during which estates are consohdated, gangs of slaves succeed to communities af freemen, the rough commonwealth is formed into a most productive factory. But fertility diminishes ; the 20st of production augments : slave labour, always dear, becomes dearer through the increased difficidty of sup- porting it : new settlements are occupied, new sources Df production opened : the older colonies, unable to main- tain a ruinous competition, even with the aid of prohibi- :ions, descend after a period of suffering and difficulty into I secondary state, in which capital, economy, and increased skill, make up, to a certain, extent only, for the invaluable advantages which they have lost. Thus we have seen the Windward Islands maintaining at one period a numerous white population ; afterwards, importing numerous slaves, md supplying almost aU the then limited consumption of Europe. We have seen Jamaica rise on their decay, and TO through precisely the same stages of existence. We lave seen how St. Domingo, in its turn, greatly echpsed Famaica ; but St. Domingo was cut off by a sudden tem- pest, and never attained to the period of dechne. Lastly, we have seen the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Porto Eico, after so many centuries of comparative neglect and rude Lect. III.] IN NORTH AMERICA. 93 productiveness, start all at once into the first rank among exporting countries, and flourish hke the exuberant crops of their own virgin soil, while our islands, stilfrich in capital, but for the most part exhausted in fertihty and deficient in labour, were strugghng by the aid of their accumulated wealth against the encroaching principle of decay. The life of artificial and anti-social communities may be brilliant for a time ; but it is necessarily a brief one, and termi- nates either by rapid decline, or still more rapid revo- lution, when the laboriously-constructed props of their wealth give way, as they sometimes do, in sudden ruin. It is gratifying to turn from the history of these terri- tories, impressed from the beginning with the curse of vicious and unnatural institutions, to that of our conti- nental possessions in America, where slavery was long unknown, and never became, except in one or two dis- tricts, a prevailing feature in society until after their emancipation. But the history of the foundation of those colonies is rendered so comphcated by the conflicting claims of proprietors and merchant adventurers, the sepa- ration of provinces, the abandonment of old settlements and estabhshment of new ones, that it is impossible to do more than refer to a few of its leading incidents. The forms of government under which these settlements were originally placed, are reducible under three heads : — 1. Eoyal governments ; in which there was a legislative assembly, consisting of a lower house of representatives and an upper house or council, nominated by the gover- nor, as already mentioned, which prevailed in Virgioia and the southern provinces, and is now the only kind of free constitution known in our foreign possessions. 2. Proprietary govermnents ; in which the proprietor, or company of proprietors, enjoyed the right, exercised in the former sort by the king, of nominating a council, and sometimes the governor also. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland long remained under this species of con- 94 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IU. stitution. 3. Charter governments ; in wHch the sove- reign had parted with his rights, wholly or partially, to the colonist ; in which both houses were elective, and sometimes the governor also ; in short, democracies. These were estabUshed in New England. Virginia and Massachusetts' Bay were the two original foundations from which the other colonies branched off by degrees. The first Virginian constitution was granted in 1606, a period when notions of prerogative ran high in England ; it was consequently favourable to arbitrary power. The property in the soil was vested in a company of merchant adventurers ; the government in two councils, a superior in England, and an inferior in the colony. This settle- ment was very slow in laying the foundation of its pros- perity. It was twice ravaged by the Indians, and much distracted by intestme commotions. In 1612 the autho- rities appear to have thrown up the task of government, and martial law was proclaimed. In 1619 a representa- tive assembly was first estabhshed, not in pursuance of any powers given in the charter, but by the fi-ee act of the colonists themselves ; and in 1624 the company was dissolved. After that time its circumstances improved ; but the navigation laws, by cutting ofi" the export of to- bacco to Holland, nearly ruined Virginia, and produced an insurrection in 1663. The cavaher governor. Sir W. Berkeley, was defeated ; and the first example of the separation of a colony from the mother-country would probably have been given to the world, had it not been for the opportune death of the chief conspirator, Bacon. The subsequent political history of Virginia presents httle that is remarkable; Maryland and the Carolinas were formed out of it, by grants to different proprietors. The Massachusetts' Bay colony, the mother of aU the New England states, had a very different development. The adventurers who obtained the first charter from Charles I. were schemers of a bold and designing character. He Lect. III.] IN NORTH AMEBICA. 95 gave them the usual proprietary powers ; and so little do his advisers appear to have understood the nature of the intended settlement, that it is remarkable that by the first patent the oath of supremacy was required to be adminis- tered to every settler. Armed with this patent, the pro- prietors rendered the colony a refuge for all the discon- tented spirits whom rehgious differences drove from the shores of England. Surmounting with extraordinary perseverance all the difficulties which attended the first occupation of their new home, these emigrants, in 1621, according to some aiithorities, in violation of their patent, framed a constitution for themselves ; according to others, the patent had never been enforced, and the settlers had been wholly left to their own devices. I do not know whether Washington Irving has any positive authority for the assertion that the Plymouth fathers, on their first arrival, passed a resolution to abide by the laws of God until they had time 'to make new ones ; but it is substan- tially true that they endeavoured to supply, by their strange notions of the pohty of the Old Testament, the want of regular institutions, until these were framed ac- cording to circumstances. There is every reason to sup- pose that these proceedings took place with the consent and connivance of the proprietors in England. The ad- visers of Charles I. took the alarm rather late as to the character of the repubHc, which was thus establishing itself beyond the Atlantic. He proceeded against the company by quo warranto. Their manifold breaches of their written engagements undoubtedly afforded sufficient legal ground for the proceeding ; still it was, under the circumstances, arbitrary, and added to the unpopularity of the unfortunate monarch. During the civil wars the New England colonies so completely estabhshed their democracy, that Charles U. was obliged to recognize it by Lis charters soon after the Eestoration. The principles of Penn's celebrated settlement are 96 BKITISH COLONIES [Lect. III. too well known to need explanation. His constitution resembled that of tlie other proprietary colonies : some of the later of these exhibited, however, curious at- tempts at Utopian legislation. Such was the consti- tution framed for Carohna by Locke, an aristocracy of ranks, with the romantic titles of landgraves, caciques, &c. ; and a house of assembly, consisting of a single chamber, divided into estates after the German fashion. It is remarkable, that the philosopher's colony seems to have been the Only one founded before the eighteenth century, except Virginia, in which the Church of England was expressly established ; but this clause is said to have been introduced against his will. Similar was that framed by Oglethorpe for Georgia, with a contrivance for the descent of estates to male heirs, under feudal Habihties of defence. None of these complicated schemes answered. Plain and practical institutions seem peculiarly necessary for new settlements. It is a remark, not without truth in some of its applications, that the foundation of a colony is hke the foundation of a house : you may throw in at first loose stones, and any -Jsind of rubbish ; the finished elevation must follow afterwards. The disposal of lands was never under any systematic regulation in our early colonies. The first settlers cul- tivated the cleared ground about their villages in com- mon, not so much from any religious opinions, as from their circumstances, the danger from Indians, and the influence of habits not then wholly extinct in England itself; for we find this custom prevaihng up to 1619 in Virginia, where no Puritans were estabhshed. When the soil was vested in proprietaries, it was more com- monly granted at a quit-rent, as has been already ob- served, than sold ; and the occupant generally acquired the freehold in time by sale or abandonment on the part of the proprietary. The difficulty of procuring labour was severely felt. Lect. III.] IN NORTH AMERICA. 97 It was gradually obviated in the southern colonies by the introduction of slaves. The transportation of con- victs to the plantations, although it continued for many years, was never large, and seems to have had little or no effect on the general habits of the people. The idea of penal colonies is more modern. But the favourite resource, especially where slavery was repugnant to the morals of the people and to the habits of the cHmate, was the labour of indented servants. These were bound in England to masters in the colonies, whom they served for a hmited period. The plan was a bad one in many respects. In the first place it led to an odious system of misrepresentation, and even of kidnapping, practised by the managers of the trade in England. In the next place, it was almost impossible to hold an indented servant to his bond. When- a planter had been at much expense in procuring servants of this description, his neighbour would often entice them away by higher wages, which he was the better enabled to give through the very circumstance that he had not shared in the expense of importing them. Few therefore obtained any command of free labour; and, except in the slave colonies, estates were almost uniformly scattered and small ; and towns increased so slowly, that the largest in British America, Boston, had not more than 25,000 inhabitants when the revolutionary war broke out, 150 years after its foundation. The trade of the North American colonies was not, perhaps, much affected in the long run by the navigation acts. The prohibition to manufacture for themselves, was a prohibition to do that which, on a large scale, nature itself had forbidden them to do, by caDing them to the more profitable occupation of agriculture. The restriction to the use of English manufactm-es could not, except in a few articles, subject them to much extra expense. They were at last free to export their own H 98 BEITISH COLONIES, ETC. [Lect. III. grain, fish, and lumber, to foreign countries in general ; although some difficulties had, as we have seen, been originally thrown in the way of their foreign commerce. Thus, with rapid and unobserved progress, they had grown into an empire, when the British government, by insisting on the right of taxation, lost the supremacy over them. It used to be a common opinion among those attached to British institutions, that it would have been better for the Americans to have retained their connection with the mother-country, and thus avoided the evils of democracy. But what was their condition before the Eevolution.? They had no aristocracy, and, except in one inconsiderable province, no estabhshed church, for the branch once planted in Virginia had fallen into decay. Granting, therefore, all the import- ance of these elements of social fife, it is difiicult to see what the provincials lost by the separation. It must be contended, to estabhsh this point, that England must and would have retraced her steps, and forced her own institutions on her subject continent by the bayonet. It is not worth while to waste a thought on speculations resting on so chimerical a basis. Sufficient for reason- able pohticians to rejoice that the struggle was, after aU, attended with so httle of permanent loss or injury to either party ; that the institutions of the mother-country emerged uninjured from the strife of opinion which then accompanied the shock of arms ; and that the repubhc herself, dubious and lowering as her prospects are judged by some, has shown sufficient innate vigour to encounter those varieties of untried being which she may probably experience. Lbct. ni.] APPENDIX. 99 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE in. No. I. Progress of the principal Sugar -growing Colonies of the West Indies, from the beginning of this century to the period of Emancipation. " Cuba. Portorico. Exports in Exports in Years. Free. Slaves. Founds Sterling. Free. Slaves. Founds SterUng. 1800 250,000? 120,000? 1,000,000 150,000 13,000 15,000 1810 . - 1,756,000 166,000 17,000 46,000 1815 340,000 190,000 2,000,000 180,000 19,000 111,000 1825 380,000 270,000 1,818,000 250,000 30,000 1830 420,000 300,000 3,555,000 300,000 34,000 760,000 1835 450,000 350,000 316,000 42,000 850,000 Years. Jamaica. Barbadoes, Fre.e. Slaves. Exports in Pounds Sterling. Off. Val. Free. Slaves. Exports in Pounds Sterling. Off. Val. 1800 1810 1815 1825' 1830 1835 40,000? 70,000 ? 300,000 313,000 315,000 330,000 320,000 Apprentices. 312,000 4,303,337 3,700,000 3,460,000 Decl. Val. 3,094,613 18,000 21,000 19,000 19,000 21,000 70,000 62,000 77,000 80,000 81,000 Apprentices. 83,000 400,000? 859,452 776,695 Decl. Val. 578,739 Years. Trinidad. British Guiana. Free. Slaves. Exports in Founds SterUng. Free. Slaves. Exports in Pounds Sterling. 1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 12,800 17,700 18,300 19,600 22,300 25,000 23,000 24,000 21,000 Apprentices. 20,000 360,000 400,000 199,000 370,363 7,500 11,200 102,000 100,000 92,000 86,000 Apprentices. 86,000 1,700,000 1,530,000 2,130,000 1,771,167 »»• This table is compiled from various data given by Ramon de la Sagra, Tumbull Flinter and Montgomery Martin, and from the official tables. The sums given in round numbers are in general only approximative estimates, ""■■■ucm are in H 2 100 APPENDIX. [LscT. in. rrl ^ H >5 O i-l m O [^ ( ) Y, 'A i CM r g < 1 n 1 1— H m CS til Q) O o o CM CO d "<*i OW30«30»00 «3 O W3 vo *>. CSOSOOi-Hi-HC^ (M CO CO ws 3 !>. t^t--0OQOQ0CO00 CO CO CO CO ?H ,-1 Wi-Hr-Hi-Hi-tWrH i-H I— C r— 1 T— * d o o 2 *=> c'^ o o o o o la o o o o § o o o" o" ofc. o o 00 eo^ ■5 'O o °°- o a i-T (N oooooooo o o o o oooooooo o o o o cCld oooooooo^ o o o o ■§1 ' -^ oo" o" o" o" cT o" o" o'o'o" o" OH ■lMI>-OCO'*CD«DO o o o o (NC-COCOI^-OS CSJ US r f3 W3 oo O 00 ■<*< O CD E-i i-H r-t i-l M (N (M CO CO CV-. c»-. . i o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o -o o ; o o : o : : o o o o o o o o Jr-^ ■ lo o" ■ o • • cd" cT oo r-^ «i" t^ ^ -^jT OS '^ »0 CD OS 00 l>-CO -^ O «3 CM n (N 1— 1 I—I f— t 1— 1 I— 1 . "^ rH CO !>• r r-t rjf ir^osfMCMco-^^r-Hirsvot-- i-H CO rH »0 »0 lO i-T i-T i-T r-T cCi-T i-T rn" T-T t-^ rn" 0>-H O O O O o O O O o o o .-< *- »• o o o o o o o o o o o t^ ^ S-S o ^ o ^ ^ o _ . "^^ "^^ o^ o__ o o_ O O !©_ =>l ^ Its' I cT '- • \ Ti< (M .-1 us oo CM g.j=;S OS O <■# CO 00 t-- OS «3 CM 00 >0 OS X <" p^i'^ (M CM CO CO co" co" oo" of ef of im" n ^ d OS OQ0TH>OOW^O^0O«5O »0 O VO O «3 O WB -• t^t^I>.t-,t^b,t^I^Q0CO00CO00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 r^ r-A T-K T^ r^ T-\ r-k Lect. III.] APPENDIX. No. in. West Indies (British).* 101 Supposed Population, 1836. 1835. Antigua .... Wliite. Coloured. Exports. Imports. 2,000 33,000 £226,860 £201,339 Jamaica . . 35,000 380,000 3,094,513 2,018,965 Barbadoes . 16,000 88,000 578,739 505,028 Dominica . . 840 20,000 45,625 50,056 Grrenada . 800 27,000 204,796 114,129 Montserrat . 320 7,000 19,249 12,715 . Nevis . . . 700 10,000 33,574 39,094 St. Kitt's . . 1,600 21,000 120,141 110,337 St. Lucia . . 1,070 17,000 79,872 51,807 AnguiUa . 360 3,000 St. Vincent 1,300 25,000 326,677 130,559 Tobago . . 450 14,000 104,274 58,705 Tortola, &e. 500 7,000 23,214 9,338 Trinidad . 3,320 39,000 370,363 315,851 Bahamas 4,150 12,000 108,925 125,425 Bermuda . 4,000 4,800 31,353 100,783 Honduras . 330 4,800 Gruiana 3,500 100,000 1,771,167 711,139 Tota 1 76,240 902,600 £7,139,342 £4,555,270 No. IV. Trade of the British West Indies before Emancipation. Years. Official Value. Declared Value. Imports from, to Great Britain, Exports to, from Great Britain. British Exports. 1700 1725 1750 1775 1800 1810 1820 1830 £ 829,178 1,364,011 1,515,824 3,627,881 7,369,287 8,258,173 8,353,606 8,599,100 £ 334,194 363,756 546,545 1,717,229 4,087,112 4,790,143 4,561,350 4,040,677 £ 4,197,761 2,838,448 » From Mr. M. Martin's British Colonies, with some alterations. H 3 102 APPENDIX. No. IV. — continued. [Lect. III. Imports and Exports of 1837. — Declared Value. Jamaica Barbadoes Imports. Exports. £ 1,956,540 627,147 £ 2,827,833 787,344 Imports and Exports of 1839. — Declared Value. Trinidad Gtiiiana Imports. Exports. £ 397,920 1,303,900 £ 424,343 1,300,430 Lect. IV.] BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMEBICA. 103 LECTUEE IV. PRESENT COLONIES OF GREAT BRITAIN IN NORTH AMERICA, THE CAPE, AND AUSTRALIA. I SHALL, on a future occasion, call your attention more particularly to the political lessons to be derived from the history of our North American colonies and their great revolution, so far at least as I may do so without overstepping the hmits of our province. At present we are concerned vdth that history only as an introduction to a general view of the condition of our existing colonies ; and, without expressing any general opinion as to the merits of the older or newer British colonial poHcy, let us see in what the distinction between them really hes. The fundamental idea of the older British colonial pohcy appears to have been, that wherever a man went he carried with him the rights of an Englishman, what- ever these were supposed to be. In the reign of James I. the state doctrine was, that most popular rights were usurpations ; and the colonists of Virginia, sent out under the protection of government, were therefore placed under that degree of control which the state beheved itself authorised to exercise at home. The Puritans exalted civil franchise to a republican pitch; their colonies were therefore republican ; there was no such notion as that of an intermediate state of tutelage, or semi-hberty. Hence the entire absence of solicitude, on the part of the mother- country, to interfere with the internal government of the colonies, arose not altogether from neglect, but partly from principle. This is remarkably proved by the fact, that representative government was seldom expressly granted in the early charters; it was assumed by the H 4 104 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. colonists as a matter of right. Thus, to use the odd expression of the historian of Massachusetts, " a house of "burgesses broke out in Virginia" in 1619*, ahnost immediately after its second settlement ; and although the constitution of James contained no such element, it was at once acceded to by the mother-country as a thing of course. No thought was ever seriously en- tertained of supplying the colonies with the elements of an aristocracy. Virginia was the only province of old foundation in which the Church of England was established ; and there it was abandoned, with very little help, to the caprice or prejudices of the colonists, under which it speedily decayed. The Puritans enjoyed, undis- turbed, their pecuhar notions of ecclesiastical government. "It concerneth New England always to remember that " they were originally a plantation rehgious, not a planta- " tion of trade. And if any man among us make religion " as twelve, and the world as thirteen, such an one hath " not the spirit of a true New Englandman." And when they chose to illustrate this noble principle by decimating their own numbers by persecution, and expelhng from their Hmits all dissenters from their own estabhshment, the mother-country never exerted herself to protect or prohibit. The only ambition of the state was to regulate the trade of its colonies; in this respect, and this only, they were fenced round with restrictions, and watched with the most vigilant jealousy. They had a right to self-government and self-taxation; a right to rehgious freedom in the sense which they chose themselves to put upon the word ; a right to construct their muni- cipal poHty as they pleased; but no right to control or amend the slightest fiscal regulation of the imperial authority, however oppressively it might bear upon them. Sue)], I say, were the general notions prevailing in Eng- land on the subject of colonial government, durmg the * Hutchinson's Histoiy of Massachusetts, p. 94. Lect. IV.] IN NORTH AMEEICA. 105 period of the foundation and early development of our Transatlantic colonies — the notions by which the practice of government was regulated, although I do not assert that they were framed into a consistent and logical theory. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong in regardiag Lord Chatham as the last distinguished assertor of these princi- ples, in an age when they had begun to be partially superseded by newer speculations. 6 S' apd (3 waiSi iSuKe yi^pag, aW oi)^ vlog if EVTeci waTpog ky{]pa. The poUcy of Mr. Pitt's administration, and those of his successors, towards the colonies, was not only ren- dered materially different from those of former times by the effect of circumstances, but it was also influ- enced by a general change in the sentiments of states- men and the pubhc in this country. Higher doctrines with respect to the colonial supremacy of the mother- country had begun to prevail before the American war, and had contributed towards the origin and mainte- nance of that unhappy conflict ; such, for example, as are developed in the famous pamphlet of Dr. Johnson, and in the speeches of parhamentary orators of the Grenville party. The American Eevolution itself, and yet more the French, had the effect of casting a stUl deeper shade of unpopularity on democratic opinions ; and it is curious to observe how notions, which were really as old as the constitution, and had been practically followed out for ages in our colonial administration, became dreaded and stigmatised as dangerous novelties, when they were ad- vanced in the broad form of theories by Prench and American reformers. And in later times, the great modern change in poh- •tical speculation, which has brought us in some re- spects far on the road towards" democracy, in others led by an obvious course to less liberal sentiments (in 106 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. the vulgar sense of the word), than formerly prevailed. While the franchises of Enghshmen were regarded under the vague notion of rights (for, long after logicians such as Hobbes, had tested that notion, and shown its insuffi- ciency, it retained its hold on the public mind), they were attached to his person, and travelled abroad with him to his new home. When aU rights were made to rest on pubhc utility, it became easy to contend, that what was expedient here might not be expedient there ; those who were most attached to constitutional doctrines in the abstract, were able to hold that constitutions might be refused, or delayed, or modified, to suit the social character of different communities and their state of ad- vancement — doctrines altogether repugnant, as I have said, to the very first premises of our early jurists and constitution-makers. After the separation of the thirteen old provinces, Eng- land remained in possession of Nova Scotia, which had a constitution already, and of Canada and its dependencies ; provinces which had been conquered from France, and possessed no constitutions of their own. Eepresentative forms were gradually conceded to them ; to Canada by Mr. Pitt's government in 1791, the immediate object of the measure being to attach the Canadians to the British government, in order to secure their aid against the people of the States, and also to exempt the inhabitants of British descent from the burden of French laws, under which they were subjected to some oppressions ; to Upper Canada at the same time, on its separation from the lower pro- vince ; to New Brunsvdck when separated from Nova Scotia in 1785 ; to Newfoundland in 1832. In aU these the frame and government is similar in the main to that of the old crown colonies, which has been already described. But the greater degree of control which the mother- country has exercised, both in the formation of these con- stitutions and in the internal arrangements of the colonies. Lect.1v.] in noeth ameeica. 107 may be estimated from various circumstances. The re- servation of land by the authority of the mother state for the church establishment ; the control exercised by the mother state over the sale of all other waste lands, perhaps the most important function of government in new coun- tries : are altogether inconsistent with the principles of the founders of most of our old North American colonies. In some of these the people elected the governor himself ; in some, many of the executive functionaries ; in some, neither the crown nor the governor had any negative on the laws passed by the assemblies.* " In the charter " colonies, notwithstanding the cautious reference in the " charters to the laws of England, the assemblies actually " exercised the authority to abrogate every part ©f the " common law, except that which united the colonies to " the parent state by the general ties of allegiance and " dependency, and every part of the statute law, except " those acts of parHament which expressly prescribed " rules for the colonies, and necessarily bound them, " as integral parts of the empire, in a general system " framed for. all, and for the interest of al[."f Still more striking is the difference, when we regard the spread of our establishments in other parts of the world. The penal colonies afforded the first instance (a very necessary one, no doubt) of settlements founded by Englishmen without any constitution whatever. Since that time, the example has fructified. We have of late years seen the foundation of colonies in which convicts are not admitted, and yet governed, for the present, dfrectly by the crown, with only a prospective provision • for the future establishment of a constitutional system. This is a remarkable novelty in British pohcy. J * In Connecticut and Ehode Island, whicli were to aU intents demo- cracies, united to the empire by allegiance only. f Story on the Constitutions of the United States, i. 148. i (1860.) South Australia and New Zealand were of this class ; but both received Constitutions within these few years. 108 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. Our North American empire occupies on the map an enormous extent of country, from the Bay of Fundy, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, the Stony Mountains, and Vancouver's Island, to the distant shores of the Frozen Ocean. But the colonies estabHshed or con- quered by us spread over a region forming only a small portion of these possessions : a portion not geographically compact in shape, but nearly uniform in chmate and pro- duce. Although the population of these provinces (Ca- nada, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and New- foundland) is very small in proportion to their surface, it must be remembered that it is in reahty concentrated, for the most part, oh a small portion of that surface.* The settlements lie in general pretty tliickly together, but along vast lines of communication, fronted by the sea, or the noble rivers and lakes of these countries, and with the wilderness behind them. So Httle have the colonists explored the country at their backs, that the most re- markable mountain in Lower Canada, situated within twenty-four miles of Quebec, had never been visited, according to M. Bouchette, until the year 1826, when it was ascended by himself. This is pecuharly the case in Lower Canada, where the feudal seigniories extend along the St. Lawrence and other rivers in a very narrow * The following Table may throw some light on a subject which has scarcely received sufficient attention — the relative density of population to occupied land in regions differently circumstanced, economically, but raising similar produce : — Per Population. Acres cultivated. Inhabitant. England and Wales (1841) 16,000,000 . 28,700,000 1-8 Northamptonshire 180,000 580,000 3-3 Yorkshire 1,600,000 . 2,500,000 1-6 Devonshire 500,000 . 1,200,000 2-4 Canada (1851) . 1,840,000 . 7,300,000 4-0 Ohio 1,980,000 . 9,850,000 5-0 United States . 23,620,000 . 118,450,000 5'1 France 36,000,000 . 100,000,000 2-9 Lect. IV.] IN NOETII AMERICA. 109 strip of land. In all the thickly settled parts, land is in general much divided ; the cities are small, each having a slender neighbourhood to support it ; in fact, there are but three places deserving the name — Quebec, Montreal, and Hahfax — in all British America.* On the other hand, this disposition of the occupied country along the great natural hues of communication is highly favourable to commerce, as they bring the objects required by every man easily into his immediate neigh- bourhood. Our North American colonies present such general features of resemblance, that the economical history and statistics of one are nearly apphcable to all. Canada is by far the most important, possessing in some parts as rich a soil as any region of America, and every where enjoying great facilities for commerce and communica- tion. PohticaUy speaking, the province has the great disadvantage of want of compactness : it stretches across the map of America, to use Voltaire's expression re- specting the dominions of the king of Prussia, Hke a pair of garters : from Gaspe to our settlements on Lake St. Clair, it has a length of 1500 miles, while the breadth, between the frontier of the United States to the south and the frozen forests, roamed over only by Indians and fur-traders, to the north, rarely exceeds 200. New Brunswick is a magnificently timbered country, with a soil also very rich in some parts, but very thinly inha- bited by a poor population. Nova Scotia is an older colony, and rather more wealthy ; but the soil, generally speaking, is thought to be less productive. Prince Ed- ward's Island, a very well peopled httle spot, is chiefly remarkable as exhibiting the last remnant of the old proprietary system. When its survey was completed in * (1860.) In 1852 the town population of Canada was 170,000 ; the rural, 1,670,000. 110 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. 1766, the Earl of Egmont, then a lord of the admiralty, proposed to have its proprietorship settled on himself, on a feudal plan, with power to erect a certain number of baronies, each baron to build a castle, to employ so many men-at-arms, and to do feudal suit and service. This ingenious scheme was not adopted ; but the island was sold by lottery to proprietors in England, in sixty- seven shares. These became subsequently consohdated in a few hands ; and the principal portion belongs now, I believe, to eight proprietors, of whom the lands are held by the occupiers, nominally, on payment of a quit- rent. The effects of this as well as other systems of land granting vdll fall hereafter more properly under our consideration. Lastly, Newfoundland is a colony of which the prosperity and the very existence depend on the fisheries carried on along her shores, the most valuable m the world. It is only within these few years that this island appears to have possessed any thing like a fixed population; and agriculture is as yet in a very back- ward state. The chief products of our North American colonies are agricultural ; but the surplus of this class of commodities, which the settler has to exchange for the luxuries and conveniences of hfe, is as yet inconsiderable. This will appear from a short analysis of the export trade of these important provinces. In 1832, out of exports to the value of 2,450,000/., the produce of land was only 276,000/.; in 1835 the whole amount of exports was 2,706,000/., and the produce of land had fallen to 121,000/. But in order to estimate the whole amount of surplus agricultural produce, there must be added to this quantity that which the North American grower supplies to the lumberer, the timber merchant, and the persons engaged in the fisheries ; in return for which he obtains British manufactures and other foreign commodities, through the intervention of traders. Pro- Lect. rV.] IN NOKTH AMERICA. Ill bably, this quantity may amount in ordinary years to double or treble that which is exported ; but I have no data whereon to form such an estimate. But the staple articles of export are the produce of the forests and the fisheries. The export of timber, ashes, &c., amounted ia 1835 to 1,478,000?., or considerably more than half the whole exports of the colonies. This branch of commerce is well known to exhibit the prin- cipal remnant, next to the sugar trade, of our old colonial system, the duty on colonial timber being in 1840 10s. a load, that on foreign timber 55s. a load. Its effects on the wealth and industry of the mother-country will be more fully considered hereafter. Its results in the colo- nies have been matter of much debate. By some it is contended, that the lumber business (that of the wood- cutter), besides the amount of wealth which it furnishes, is of use to agriculture, by clearing the forests for the emigrant. But this is certainly not the case : the lum- berers select only a few trees for their operations, leaving the rest of the forest untouched ; and what they do serves rather to encumber than to clear the soil, as the loppings are left on the ground. It is contended, also, with what justice I do not know, that the lumberers are in them- selves a bad and troublesome part of the population. At present (and it is impossible to legislate with a view to a contingent futurity), the trade is certainly the source of great wealth to these provinces ; and, probably, would continue to flourish to a great extent, even were the pro- tection withdrawn. But it is not of a very durable character. The proportion of North American timber fit for the purpose of exportation seems to be singularly small, considering the vast extent of soil covered by forests. It may seem a visionary speculation to contemplate the possibihty of a scarcity of timber in the great wooded zone of the earth which stretches along the eastern coast of America, where the dense shade is as yet only pierced 112 BEITISH COLONIES [Lect, IV. at intervals for the habitations of men ; and yet it is a fact, that of late years a considerable export trade in this article has arisen from Canada to the neighbouring states of the Union, the forests of New York, Vermont, and Maine, being already thinned of their most valuable produce. New Brunswick is now the richest timber country in North America — a few years will probably bring com- plaints of scarcity from that quarter also. The fisheries form a more durable branch of commerce. Along the coasts of our colonies " the nations of Europe " have for several centuries laboured indefatigably with " nets, lines, and every process that can be contrived or " imagined ; and yet, not the slightest diminution of fruit- " fulness has ever been observed."* Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with its dependency Cape Breton, are the great seats of it. A curious change has taken place of late years in its locahties, and the manner in which it is carried on. For centuries the great ambition of colonizing nations was to encourage the fishery by ships, on the great bank of Newfoundland, at a distance from all shores. The importance attached to this pursuit may be estimated from the numerous treaties in which it is made the subject of mutual arrangement, but it is still more evinced in the systematic efforts which were made for centuries to put down the coast fishery, and prevent the establishment of resident fishermen on the coasts of Newfoundland and its aeighbourhood. All these efforts seem at last to have been abandoned ; and the coast-fiishery seems now to be oauch more important than the bank-fishery, to the great advantage of our colonies. The exports of the fisheries imounted in 1832 to the value of 792,000Z. ; in 1835 to 352,000Z. : nevertheless, it is doubtful whether this branch jf trade is progressively increasing ; and there is certainly ittle prospect of its again attaining the height it had 'eached during our monopoly in the late war, when its * Murray's British America, ii. 277. Lect. IV.] . IN NORTH AMERICA. 113 produce, in one year, reached the enormous value of 2,800,000/.* The trade of these colonies is chiefly carried on with England, the United States, and the West Indies. It has been subjected j" to the principle of the old navigation laws, namely, that foreign goods can only be imported into the colonies in vessels of the countries which produce them ; which practically excludes the vessels of all foreign countries except the United States from their ports. But it may be doubted, whether these restrictions have in re- ahty much effect in controlling the channels of commerce, or whether much alteration would be made in the carry- ing trade by their removal — a subject which will be more properly discussed hereafter. It will be evident from this brief outline, that ouj North American colonies offer no great temptations for the em- ployment of large capital, or facihties for the accumulation of great fortunes. The agricultural wealth of individuals cannot be great, where there is so small an amount of foreign export, and so small a non-agricultural population to supply ; and were the facilities for disposing of surplus produce greater, stOl no landlord could expect to become rich by letting his land in a country where any one may become a freeholder on the easiest possible terms. Capital is invested in considerable quantities in the timber trade and the fisheries ; but a great part of it is British, and has no local abode in the provinces. It is, I believe, only since 1830 that mercantile houses of consequence, having Canadian partners, have been estabHshed in Quebec and Montreal. For, again, do these provinces afford that paradise to emigrants of the labouring class which has * In 1856, the total value of the exported produce of the Newfound- land fisheries was 1,254,737^. f Until their repeal, completed in 1854. I 114 BRITISH COLONIES , [Lect. IV. been sometimes held out in fallacious descriptions. Where there is not much capital invested in productive industry on a great scale, the demand for hired labourers must be precarious ; the emigrant cannot establish himself in the wilderness without a fund to subsist upon, and means to clear and prepare the place of his occupation ; and clear- ing alone in Canada costs from 31. to 41. per acre. The only mode in which the land can be rendered available for the reception of settlers of the poorest order, is through the agency of land companies or other speculators, who are willing to undertake the expense of clearing with a view to attract emigrants, from whom they may obtain repay- ment at a future time. But the class of settlers to whom these regions appear to afford the greatest temptation is that of small farmers, and others, possessed of some means, however shght, and at the same time able and willing to maintain themselves by the labour of their hands. To them it is not too much to say, that with good conduct from their own parts, and exemption from extraordinary casualties, North America offers, after four or five years of probation, a certainty of a happy competence, a proba- bihty of acquiring moderate wealth. These form the core, the most useful and most healthy part, of the great mass of settlers whom this country annually sends across the Atlantic, destined to augment the increasing myriads of small yeomanry who constitute the body of the people in our colonies, and in the Northern States of the Union. Emigrants have very rarely professed themselves disap- pointed in the soil of any part of our possessions. The climate is a more questionable attribute. The fierceness of its extremes tries some constitutions ; the severity of its winter is felt as a drawback by aU except the thoroughly acclimatised : its monotony is wearisome, and has the disadvantage of encouraging the favourite vice of the region, intemperance ; seven months being spent, for the most part, in forced idleness, and all the labours of the Lect. IV.] IN NORTH AMERICA. 115 year crowded into five. These are its drawbacks : its advantages are, its general salubrity, its serenity, its steadi- ness, and the comparative certainty with which the farmer can calcLilate on its periodical vicissitudes. It must be remembered that it varies, though not very considerably, in the different provinces ; it is most severe in Lower Canada and New Brunswick ; more humid, and less intense in heat and cold, in Nova Scotia and the islands ; these, however, are subject to the serious drawback of heavy fogs, with the exception of Prince Edward's Island, which seems to enjoy all the advantages of an insular chmate, with few of its inconveniences ; mildest, and on the whole most favourable, in Upper Canada. The state of society in provinces thus circumstanced is and must be essentially repubhcan, whatever may be the character of their institutions. It must be that which necessarily results from the general diffusion of well-being, and among a people of whom the great bulk are small landed proprietors, with very few wealthy individuals, without an estabhshed aristocracy or hierarchy, and with- out the elements for constructing either. A love for British principles and institutions may prevail among them : we have had the strongest proofs that it does pre- vail ; but with them it must of necessity be rather a sentiment than a principle. Our American empire extends, as I have said, over vast tracts of the Western continent, as yet unoccupied by Europeans. The greater proportion wiU probably always remain so, or only see a population accumulate here and there in its most favoured spots, when the fertile regions to the southward, as yet scarcely marked by cultivation, shall begin to disgorge their overflow of people. But there is one tract which seems to invite colonization ; that which extends along the Pacific, in the neighbourhood of the Columbia river. It possesses a climate very superior to I 2 116 BEITISH COLONIES [Lbct. IV. that of Eastern America in the same parallels, and a soil shaded by the noblest forests to be found under the tem- perate zone.* The Cape Colony, or South Africa, is a region possessed of some great natural advantages, which seem to ensure it eventual prosperity ; but these advantages are so balanced by its deficiencies, that it has not hitherto afforded great temptations to the British settler. Its situation is highly commodious, lying in the middle of one of the great high- wajs of maritime communication. It enjoys a chmate which may, perhaps, be called, without exaggeration, the most salubrious known, that is, the most adapted to the human constitution in general without distinction of race, and one of the most dehghtful.f This chmate is more- over particularly suited for variety of production ; the vnnes, sUk, fruit, and corn of Southern Europe flourish * (1860.) The British portion of this region lies N. of lat 49°, and comprises the now celebrated gold-producing region of British Columbia. Its climate has proved much better, and in particular much drier, than hitherto supposed ; its soil not generally attractive, but very various. Whatever use Britain may ultimately make of her portion of North- Western America, it is a region of no small interest to observers of our times, as aifording the last open field for European emigration. The remainder of the extra-tropical vyorld is novr filled up. No other site is left for the foundation of future eaiipires. Its occupiers will be the latest adventurers in that vast work of European colonization which began scarcely four centuries ago. The duty left for future time will be only to fill up the outlines already ti-aced in days of more romantic adventure. vvv 8' ore Travra iidaarai .... varepoi C!i(7T£ Spoixov KaToXenrofiEd', ovSe Ttrj lort TTCivrfj tvaTTTaivovta vcoi^vyEg ap/ja 7rz\a.(TiTai, f " In 1830, at Hottentots' HolJand, out of a population of 1500 persons there died only five, among whom two old persons and one by accident." — Martin's Statistics of the Colonies, p. 477. But a more remarkable testimony to its healthiness is to be found in a comparative statement of the mortality of British troops at difierent colonial stations Lect. rv.] IN SOUTH APEICTA. IIT there in perfection, together with some of the produce of tropical countries. But, on the other hand, few habitable countries seem to have a larger proportion of useless land. Long ranges of dreary sandstone or granite mountains are divided by flat high plateaux of red clay, on which nothing can be made to grow ; and the physiologist is puzzled to account for the manner in which subsistence is procured by the amazing herds of wild animals which swarm, at particular seasons of the year, from the unknown north into these inhospitable plains. There are in parts fine tracts of land, abounding in picturesque scenery and rich in produce : but the difficulty of communication between these oases is great ; there are no navigable rivers ; pro- bably there is not a stream in the colony, extending as it does over 120,000 square miles, which brings down in summer so large a body of water as the Thames. The aridity of the chmate, which seems to belong more or less to the whole southern temperate zone, is here pecuharly felt. Yet, all things considered, it is not easy to account for the comparative slowness of advance of this colony — and at home. The following are some of the most remarkable ex- amples : — European Soldiers. Annual Deaths per thousand United Kingdom Cape of Good Hope . Nova Scotia and New Brimswick Malta Canada . Ionian Islands . Mauritius Bermuda Madras Presidency . Bombay Presidency Ceylon ..... Bengal Presidency . Windward and Leeward Command Jamaica ..... Sierra Leone .... — (Statistical Society's Journal.) I 3 14-0 15-5 18-0 18-7 20-0 28-3 30-5 32-3 52-0 55-0 57-2 630 85-0 143-0 483-0 118 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. comparative only, for it has doubled its population in the last thirty years. Something is owing to the long prevalence of the usages of the Dutch, who systematically discouraged the estabhshment of a dense population, by granting away their land in insulated tracts, or in circles touching each other and having unoccupied spaces in the interstices.* But the small amount of British immigra- tion seems to prove that the soil has been found on the whole indifferently adapted to those species of industry to which the British are accustomed. This was certainly the case in former years, whUe the chief trade of the colony consisted in the supply of shipping with agricul- tural produce, and in raising wine for exportation. The cultivation of the vine was introduced by French refugee Protestants. In the time of the French war, govermnent thought it desirable to protect this branch of industry by discriminating duties. In 1813 these wines were admitted at the payment of one third the duty then charged on the produce of Spain and Portugal. Cape wine, eo nomine, was then a common article of consumption, and certainly oore no favourable reputation. In 1825, when the duties on other wines underwent an alteration, this protection was reduced fiom 28Z. to 11^. a pipe. The complaints of the colonists at the change were lamentable. But since it appears that the amount of wine exported, which in 1824, before the revolution, was 16,000 leaguers, had * The following is an outline of tlie primitive system on wliich tlie original Dutch grants of land were made : — " It was the practice to " allow the settlers to select their own location, but no title deed was " issued to them, nor anything but a mere written permission to use the " land. The extent allowed to each was 3,000 morgen (about 6,000 " acres), and from its being merely held on loan or sufferance, these " locations obtained the name of ' loan places.' A central mark or " beacon was assumed, and called the ' ordonnantie,' and a man's walk " of half an hour (or 750 roods) diverging in every direction from the " ordonnantie, was thought sufficient at that time to define, without the " expense of siu-vey, the limits of each of these circular 'places.'" Lbct. IV.] IN SOUTH AFRICA. 119 risen to 20,000 in 1828, it cannot be tliought that they really suffered much by the alteration. Since that time, . the import has been pretty stationary ; but under what form it comes into the market, we must not inquire too anxiously ; for the name of " Cape wine " no longer reaches the ear of the consumer.* But another and more important species of production has been very lately introduced. Wool is now exported in consider- able quantities. In 1830 the export was only 33,000 lbs., in 1836 it had risen to 373,203. f The Dutch boers form still the mass of the people, living in single famihes, at a wide distance from each other, occupied in the pasture of their numerous herds, and in the most animating and dangerous exercises of the chase ; they are strangely changed in outward cir- cumstances from their Batavian ancestors, yet are said to retain much of the same national character.^ Passing by Mauritius, a flourishing island, formerly a French possession, on which an experiment of much im- portance is just now in progress, the cultivation of the soU by imported labourers from India, of which more will be said on a future occasion ; and Ceylon, in which colo- nization, properly so called, has scarcely commenced ; we arrive at Australia, the land of promise to modern emi- grants, and the most remarkable field of British industry, out of the limits of Britain, at the present day. After the coast of New S6uth Wales had been discovered by Captain Cook, it was made a penal settlement, with a view to rid * According to M'Culloch and other authorities, 698,000 gallons of see above Cape wine were imported in 1827, 423,000 in 1844, 242,000 in 1852. t In 1845 to 3,250,532, in 1858 to 16,500,000. j (1861.) Since this was written, a rich and flourishing dependency (Natal) has been added to the Cape ; and a country as large as England (the Orange Hirer Free State) occupied by a few thousand Boers, after being for a few years annexed to the British territory, has been formed into an independent republic. I 4 120 BEITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. our gaols of the number of prisoners who were accumu- lating there after the American war. In 1787 the Sirius frigate landed 800 convicts at Botany Bay. The coast of _ that inlet, which had appeared so tempting to Captain Cook, was soon found to afford nothing but swamps and sand ; an instance, among several, of the ease with which government has allowed itself to be misled by the reports of naval discoverers, to many of whom all land is much ahke, and who, even when better qualified to judge, see the tract they have explored only at one season of the year, and are almost certain to be unreasonable either in their praises or their disapprobation. On the 26 th Janu- ary, 1788, the little colony removed to Sydney. In the period which has since elapsed, the progress of New South Wales -has been so astonishing, as far as regards the production and accmnulation of wealth, as to afford the most remarkable phenomena of colonial history. In 1789 the first harvest was reaped; in 1790 the first permanent settler (a convict)- took possession of the plot of land allotted to him. Li 1793 the first purchase of colonial grain (1200 bushels) was made by government. The first newspaper was printed in 1802. In 1803 Mr. Macarthur exhibited in London the first sample of Merino wool from the sheep of the colony. In 1807, 245 lbs. of that wool were exported from the colony ; in 1820, 100,000 lbs. ; in 1830, 3,564,532 lbs. ; in 1844, nearly 14,000,000. Sydney is now a fine city, with all the appurtenances of a great provincial town, and exhibiting much greater signs of wealth than one of similar size would display in England. In fact, notwithstanding the check which the prospects of this colony received in 1842, on which, and its causes, much remains to be said elsewhere, no communities have probably ever advanced so rapidly in economical progress as our Austrahan settle- ments for the last fifteen years. Not, indeed, in the mere increase of numbers : in this, various American states of Lect. IV.] IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 121 recent origin, such as Oliio, has far outstripped them. But the exports of Ohio are trifling in comparison. It is the relative increase of trade and surplus wealth in proportion to population which gives to these settlements their dis- tinctive character. Our exports to New South Wales alone, in the year 1842, amounted to the value of 600,000Z. ; so that each individual of the population (about 130,000) consumed the value of more than 50*. per head; and as this was a great fall from the amounts of the years immediately preceding, so it may be taken as a pretty fair estimate of the actual demand, irre- spectively of those various causes which often swell the apparent consumption of colonies beyond th'e reality. It may serve to illustrate the great wealth of the colony to compare this with the consvimption of some other parts of the world, in which British manufactures are pretty ex- tensively used. Each inhabitant of the United States con- sumed in 1840 British manufactures to the value of about 10s. per annum; each Portuguese, about 6s.; each German, 5s. And, in return for these manufactured goods, we de- rive from Australia one of the most valuable raw materials in the commercial world. The wool of that region is now exclusively used in some kinds of manufacture ; it may be anticipated, that it will compete more and more effectively with that of the wool-growing countries of Europe, where heavy rents enter into the costs of pro- duction, and the Hmited extent of soil restricts the sup- ply; in fact, as it has been truly observed, Australia possesses, in regard to this important article, something approaching to the kind of monopoly which Mexico enjoyed, in the days of her prosperity, in the produc- tion of the precious metals. This advantage is partly owing to pecuharities of soil and cHmate. The former is, generally speaking, little attractive to the agricultural labourer. Australia, as far as it has yet been explored, has been quaintly termed a 122 BEITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. region imperfectly formed, in which the deposits have not been sufficiently upheaved by volcanic action, so as to produce that variety of surface, and prepare the strata to furnish that perennial supply of water, which are found in most habitable parts of the earth. In the only parts over which discovery has as yet extended, there is a great proportion of arid plains, alternately swamp and sand, and of barren rocky tracts of horizontal sand- stone. "The amount of surface," says Major Mitchell, " comprised in European kingdoms, affords no criterion " of what may be necessary for the growth of a new " people in Austraha."* Elsewhere the same writer says, speaking of the old colony of New South Wales, " Sand- " stone predominates so much, as to cover about six- " sevenths of the surface. In the regions of sandstone " the territory is, in short, good for nothing, and is, " besides, very generally inaccessible, thus presenting a " formidable obstruction to any communication between " isolated spots of a better description." The very ease with which the soil is cleared from the thin sprinkling of the heavier timber, would suffice to prove to a North American that it was not worth the trouble of cultivation. This, however, would be an erroneous conclusion. A few tracts have been found extremely productive, although wanting in the recognised American token of fertihty. And if New South Wales has never yet raised sufficient corn for its own consumption, tliis seems in reahty more attributable to the existence of much more profitable employment for labour, than to the deficiencies of the soil itself. While the inhabitants can afford to purchase flour from the distant markets of America with their own surplus commodities, they are probably turning the advantages of their situation, to far better account by persevering in the industry which has hitherto proved * Vol. ii. p. 526. Lect. IV.] IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 123 SO successful.* The climate is remarkable for its singular dryness. The great droughts, it is said, are supposed to return about once in every ten or twelve years, and last two or three ; that of 1826 — 29 was peculiarly severe ; hardly any rain fell, and the cultivation of the earth was nearly suspended. Even in ordinary years, there are only between forty and fifty days of rain. This vast continent, of which scarcely one sixth has been explored, seems in- deed to promise a very small extent of habitable land. Mountains rise at a small distance from the east coast, which give out streams to the westward ; these appear to be lost in interminable plains, covered with sand or hope- less " scrub," and sometimes converted into marshes and lakes by a few days of rain. The once favourite theories of an inland sea in the interior, or of high ranges of un- discovered mountains, seem now to be nearly abandoned, from observation of the hot winds which proceed in aU directions from thence towards the sea; and aU search after the outlets of large rivers has proved unsuccessful. f * I am not sure whether any subsequent observer has confirmed or controverted the very curious remark of Count Strzelecki {Physical Description of New South Wales, 1845) that the wheat of these colonies is very deficient in gluten. "WhUe the average of this element in the com of most other parts of the world varies only irom 20 to 22 per cent., in Australia it was found on some farms not to exceed 4 per cent. "I" (1860.) Except the Murray. In the last twenty years oiu- know- ledge of the interior has not increased to the amount which might have been expected. Three principal expeditions may be noticed. 1. That of Gregory, from the northern coast, who crossed three or four hundred miles of tolerable country, and then struck the desert. 2. That of Sturt, from South Australia nearly to the centre, over groimd which he describes as almost as hopeless as the Great Sahara. 3. That of Stuart (1860) a little west of Sturt's line, but nearly parallel with it, and reaching much farther north ; in fact nearly joining that of Gregory. This latest explorer reports much more favourably of the capabilities of the interior ; but it remains to be proved whether owing to any more permanent cause than a difference of season. The new district of Queensland, scarcely known when these lectures were composed, must now be separately noticed, as enjoying a climate adapted to a great 124 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV This character of drought appears common to all the Australian colonies ; greatest, perhaps, in the old counties of New South Wales and in South Austraha ; rather less severe in Port Philip ; shghtest in Western Austraha, anc in the island of Van Diemen's Land ; but here I am en- tering on debatable ground, for no subject can be more fiercely contested than the comparative excellence of then chmate between the citizens of these rival commonwealths But notwithstanding its agricultural disadvantages, i better chmate on the whole for the health and comfori of man and beast than that of Sydney is not easily found In this respect, New South Wales ranks only second if at all, to the Cape of Good Hope. It is free from the pests of malaria, deleterious dews, musquitos, and the other mischiefs, both of hot and cold regions. It is ad- mirably suited, in all probabihty, to the vine, the ohve the mulberry, and other productions of dry and temperate countries, which as yet have scarcely been tried there while observation has shown its pecuUar adaptation fo] the growth of its staple commodity, wool. There i some quahty in the climate, say observers, not hitherte ascertained, which improves the fleece of the animal aftei its transportation from "Europe. And the multiplicatioi of flocks, particularly on the grassy plains which extenc westward from the Blue Mountains, in South Austraha and round Port Phihp, is already great, and may be extended beyond calculation. But these advantages could hardly have been turned tc account as they have been, withoxit that abundant supplj of labour which New South Wales in its early progress furnished to immigrant capitahsts. By transporting thither on the average 3000 convicts per annum, the variety of produce, from its situation on the limit of the tropics, anc from its terrace-like ranges of different height above the sea. A settler on the highlands above Moreton Bay tells me that his estati gi'ows both the banana and the apple. Lect. IV.] IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 125 government in fact presented the settlers with labour to that extent, free of the expense of importing it ; just as if it had taken iipon itself to furnish a plantation with so many slaves or indented labourers. And the nature of its staple requiring rather attention than the labour of many hands, enabled the colonists to use this advantage to the utmost extent. It has lately been thought expedient, with a view to the moral state of the colony, to hmit this supply ; ap- parently with the view of causing it, at some future time, to cease altogether. The reasons for this change, and its probable effects, wiR form the subject of separate discus- sion.* The colonists have now to look to the influx of free labour to supply the deficiency. This it is necessary that government, or capitalists, should supply ; few emi- grants of the poorer classes are likely to undertake so distant a voyage on their own means. And the stream of emigration has in fact been turned of late years so abundantly towards these shores, that the population of New South Wales alone is now increased by the arrival of 8000 or 10,000 new comers annually. But this supply can only be kept up by systematic measures ; and the nature of those which are now adopted wiU also be con- sidered by us hereafter with some minuteness. It is scarcely necessary to dwell on the peculiarities of our other Austrahan colonies, for there is a striking general similarity in point of natural features. The insu- lar position of Van Diemen's Land modifies its chmate to a certain extent: it appears, in fact, to be singularly variable in respect of temperature. This also has been a convict colony from the beginning, and more exclusively so than even New South Wales. In 1821 free emigration commenced, and for some time its progress was very rapid ; but the settlers having been allowed, in the usual * See Lecture on Convict Labour, and Appendices. 126 BRITISH COLONIES [Lect. IV. inconsiderate manner, to spread themselves at random on the soil, it is alleged that this island, as large as Ireland, and peopled by only 50,000 inhabitants, has already arrived at that first point of retardation in the history of colonies, v^^hen the best land in available situations is already occupied or taken out of the market. This seems hardly credible ; yet there are some circumstances in its economical condition not very accountable. Its own in- habitants speak in magnificent terms of its capabilities and prospects : it was confidently foretold, that it would become the granary of the pastoral settlements of the Austrahan continent ; yet, of late years, comparatively httle capital has found its way there ; and it is said that the re-emigration to Port Phihp* and New Zealand has fully equalled the. immigration. But notwithstanding this temporary depression, there can be httle doubt of its resources and eventual prosperity. It has a great advan- tage in its favourable situation for the command of the whale fisheries. The recent advance of Port Phihp has been more strik- ing than that of any other Austrahan colony. South Aiistraha is remarkable from the pecuHar circumstances attending its foundation. Authority was given by Act of Parhament to commissioners to manage the disposal of its pubhc lands, on the express condition that the purchase money was to be apphed, without distinction, to the con- veyance of emigrants from the mother-country. The price has been uniform, and fixed for some years at 11. per acre. This was the practical apphcation of a principle then recently promulgated, and vsoll form one of the most important subjects of consideration in my present lectures. It is perhaps to be vsdshed, that the experiment had first been tried in a region of greater natural capa- * The " district " of Port Philip, formerly part of New South Wales, became the separate " colony " of Victoria in 1850, and is, in 1860, the second in population and first in wealth of the colonies of Great Britain. Lect. IV.] IN NEW SOUTH WALB£(. 127 bilities ; for the accounts of recent explorers respecting the extent of useful land in South Australia are not very- encouraging.* Still much remains to be explored ; and although the colony has suffered a little in public opinion from the disappointment which has followed on exag- gerated expectations, a community which has passed through the first years of existence, usually so trying to a new settlement, almost without a struggle ; into which capital has poured with a profusion unequalled in colonial history ; which, in five years from its foundation, counted some 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants, possessed of 100,000 sheep, and has now under cultivation 1000 acres of land, besides its great pastoral wealth ; can afford to submit to a httle detraction, and point to the evidence of facts as the most conclusive answer to it. " There is not at the " present time one of the Austrahan colonies where wages " are so high as in and round Adelaide." f The colony of the Swan Eiver, or Western Australia, was founded, on very opposite principles, in 1829. The government made over the soO at a very low rate to a number of great undertakers, who engaged to carry out emigrants. An enormous quantity of land was speedily appropriated ; according to Sir J. Stirhng, at the rate of about 2000 acres to every man in the colony. J It proved impossible to keep the labourers in the service of the ca- pitalists in a country where land was squandered with such profusion. The laboiurers were unable to support them- selves on the son without assistance : great hardships were experienced, and serious difiiculties incm-red, from * (1860.) At the time when this was written, the great region watered by the Murray was as yet unltnown. Since that time the South . Australian government and people have bestirred themselves more energetically than those of any other colony in the exploration of the continent, perhaps for the very reason mentioned in the text — that on the whole their own resources are inferior. ■]■ Westminster Keview, Jan. 1841. I Report of the Land and Emigration Board, 1840, p. 22. 128 BRITISH COLONIES, ETC. [Leot. IV. which the colony is only beginning • to recover. Its po- pulation scarcely exceeded 3000 by the latest accounts. But its natural capabihties are great; superior, perhaps, on the whole, to those of any other region of Australia. I have last to mention the new settlement of New Zea- land ; and to mention it only ; for' though we may be disposed to prognosticate the best success to a colony founded under such good auspices, and in a spirit of enthusiasm unequalled in modern colonial enterprise — which carries the mind back to the days of Ealeigh and his adventurous contemporaries — no accounts have as yet reached this country on which we can safely build our speculations. The situation for trade is admirable, the climate appears highly favourable for agricultural pur- poses, and there is doubtless no deficiency of fertile soU. The energetic and comparatively industrious natives con- trast very advantageously with the degraded tribes of Austraha, and even with the American Indians ; but whether this superiority shall form a blessing or a curse to the settlement, depends mainly on the settlers them- selves. But they will find the process of colonization a far more laborious work, in a country so mountainous in surface and, so abundantly clad with vegetation, than in those Austrahan regions from which many of the adven- turers proceed ; requiring rather the dogged and solitary perseverance of the American backwoodsman, than the lighter quahties of enterprise and readiness which lead to success in the savannas of New South Wales. Lect. IV.] APPENDIX. 129 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE IV. Statistics of the principal British Colonies. No. I. Canada : — 1859 1855. From Great Britain . „ „ North American Colonies ,, ,, British West Indies . ,, ,, United States . ,, ,, other foreign countries Imports. Jl,400,000 . . 3,325,865 . . 216,496 . 3,533 . . 5,206,358 . . 269,288 . Exports, £950,000 1,684,610 255,861 937 5,000,572 105,133 £9,021,540 £7,047,113 Population. Year. 1763 1814 1823 1831 1844 1848 1851 Lower. 70,000 335,000 427,000 512,000 699,000 770,000 890,261 1855 (estimate) 1,040,000 Upper. 12,000 95,000 150,000 260,000 500,000 721,000 952,004 1,250,000 Total. 82,000 430,000 577,000 772,000 1,199,000 1,491,000 1,842,265 2,300,000 K 130 APPENDIX. [Lect. IV. No. IL Lower North American Provinces. 1. NJKW BEUNSWICK. 1824. 1834. 1840. 1851. Population Imports . . . Exports . . . 1822. 74,136 1828. 119,467 (1831. 166,000 1835. 193,800 1358. £276,628 272,177 £266,528 457,138 £603,871 427,318 £621,599 577,211 £1,162,771 810,779 2. NOVA SCOTIA AND CAPE BRETON. Population . . . Imports .... Exports .... 181V. 1827. 1840. (Supposed.) 18S4. 98,913 1S22. 153,878 1830. 200,000 1835. 276,117 £481,453 246,862 £1,405,163 714,865 £1,035,660 887,367 3. PEINCE EDWAED'S ISLAND. 1827. 1841. 1854. Population . . . 1823. 23,266 1833. 47,033 1 71,496 !58. Imports . . . Exports . . . £28,813 28,747 £70,066 31,738 £186,229 153,071 Lect. IV.] APPENDIX. 131 4. NEWFOTHSTDLAND. Popiilation Imports . Exports . 56,719 £576,796 737,022 (Fish.) 437,306 (Oil.) 236,301 75,094 £579,799 787,099 122,638 £1,172,862 1,318,836 No. m. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. Poptdation . . 1797. 1815. 1823. I83G. 18.56. 61,947 82,363 1835. 116,205 1839. 150,110 1854. 267,096 1856. Exports . . £362,280 £534,750 £662,936 £1,210,625 Revenue, £348,362 Population - Total Imports . Exports . No. IV. MAURITIUS. Whites . . . Free coloured Slaves . £660,518 699,000 3,163 587 18,777 22,537 1858. 6,489 6,919 65,367 77,768 8,111 15,444 69,076 92,631 I 29,612 Appren- tices. 61,045 90,657 241,847 241,847 2,785,353 2,209,076 Eevenue. £395,103 K 2 132 APPEKDIX. [Tject. IV. No. V. Population Exports NEW SOUTH WALES. 1?88. 1,030 29,?83 71,070 77,096 Last return before 1860. 342,062 £90,650 Revenue, 1857 £384,344 £602,316 £1,185,558 £1,092,392 TASMANIiV. Population Imports .... Exports .... 4,996 24,504 40,283 43,89S 48,963 Last return before 1860. 84,080 ^62,000 14,500 £683,646 320,679 £332,548 258,609 Revenue, 1857 . £423,973 SOUTH AUSTRALIA. Population, 1843 Last return before 1860 Eevenue, 1857 . 15,020 118,215 £748,291 Lect. rv.] \PPENDIX. 133 VICTOEIA. Since its Sepaeation feom New South Wales. Population (end of 1858.) Males . 323,576 . Females . 180,943 = 504,519 Total Immigration before 1851 .... 69,673 „ „ since 1851 .... 539,467 609,230 Excess of Immigration over Emigration . . . 366,529 Revenue, 1857 . £3,308,589 Gold Exported . . 1851 . . 145,146 oz. „ . . 1856 . . 2,985,695 „ . . 1859 . . 2,280,675 (Archer's Statistical Tables.) Population. Western Australia . 1843 . . 3,274 J? ,, last return before 1860 . . 14,837 New Zealand. , European . 1843 . . 12,664 n 5) 1858 . . 59,326 J) Native . 1858 . . 87,766 Imports. Exports. New Zealand : — . 1853 £597,827 . £303,282 !) 1859 1,551,030 . 551,484 134 APPENDIX. LLect. IV. a O a o o M o s o o u§ cT '*" co" o" ^ i-H 00 CO *o I-H o «a 00 10 O CO CO rH 1 O l>^ CO cq cTotT Oi CO kcTocT CO « .-( OS CO 00 CO '^ co" OS • rf 'C £00 >: oj o_o ^ o-^C Ir^ « ■^^o" o"co" 3 QO ^ t* '^ 00 t^ i-^i-H «-< CO 0^ «a <© £ r-r i-T ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ _Am « , , . , , ■ ira G>^ s r-T i-T 00 ■ ■ CO i-H • ■ s cT to ■ ■ • ■ CO . , , . , 0- QO CO ■ ■ • ■ 0" $■ • • -1 4 ^ g g 1 § g III 5^ S ll 1 II rt ■^1 .C8 •S r^ F-i JS ii 1 1 1^1 PAET II. ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF COLONIZATION ON THE PARENT STATE. Lect. v.] effects of emigeation, 137 LECTUEE V. EFFECTS OF EMIGEATION ON THE PROGRESS OF POPULATION AND 'WEALTH IN THE MOTHER COUNTKy. The portion of my subject to which I am anxious next to call your attention relates to the effects produced by colonization, and by the maintenance of colonies and in- tercourse with them, on the wealth of the mother country. It is not, perhaps, a topic of so much general interest as those of which we have treated on a former occasion, or to those of which we shall at a future time direct our- selves, when the development of colonies themselves is brought in its tiim under our view. The fortunes of the new shoot, when separated from its parent stem, afford a more pleasing object of contemplation than the sHght changes which may be produced in the condition of the old familiar tree. The mere effort of directing the mind to travel abroad to those new regions of romance and ex- pectation, where all is life, and hope, and active energy, affords a rehef to the spirits, which again feel wearied and fettered when it is called back to fix its attention at home. This yearning after the distant and the unseen is a common propensity of our nature ; and how much is the force of that " secret impulse" cherished and strength- ened, in the minds of us Englishmen, by all the associa- tions in the midst of which we are educated ! Masters of every sea, and colonists of every shore, there is scarcely a nook which our industry has not rendered accessible, scarcely a region to which the eye can wander in the map, 138 EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION [Lect. V. in which we have not some object of national interest — some factory for our trade, some settlement of our citi- zens. It is a sort of instinctive feeling to us all, that the destiny of our name and nation is not here, in this narrow island which we occupy ; that the spirit of England is vola- tile, not fixed ; that it lives in our language, our commerce, our industry, in aU those channels of inter-communication by which we embrace and connect the vast multitude of states, both civiHsed and uncivilised, throughout the world. No circumstance, in my view, afibrds at once such a proof of our vocation to this great end, and such an augury of our success in the pursuit of it, as the pecuHar and (in a certain sense of the word) unselfish interest with which schemes of colonization are regarded by almost aU classes of society ; the sanguine hopes we are apt to en- tertain of their success, the sacrifices we are willing to make for their promotion, even with httle or no regard to the manner in which they may affect our economical prosperity at home. Nor, indeed, would any reasoning, however subtle, readily convince the mass of mankind, that any evils can attend on a process which seems to be dictated by nature itself When labourers are starving for want of employ- ment, when capitalists are vainly stretching their in- genuity to devise some profitable investment for their wealth, or ruining each other by overstrained competition, he must be a most ingenious sophist, who should succeed in persuading the community that its interest was to for- bid the first to emigrate, or the latter to employ their capital abroad. " It is as natural," to use the language of Burke, " for people to flock into a busy and wealthy " country, that by any accident may be thin of people, a§ " it is for the dense air to rush into those parts which are " rarefied." It is by the migration of barbarous tribes that the whole earth has been peopled ; by the colonizing genius of some more refined nations, that its civihsation, Lect. v.] on the mother COUNTRY. 139 as far as that has hitherto proceeded, has been effected. Every recorded fact in the history of man seems to indi- cate these as the appointed means through which his social development takes place. Nor has there ever yet been an instance in which a colonizing nation can be shown to have deteriorated, in popiilation or in wealth, by reason of her efforts in that direction, however lavish and long-continued. It might seem therefore almost un- necessary, with the whole weight of experience incUning us in one direction, to enter into any examination of prhi- ciples on a subject apparently so clear and elementary. StiU there are theories on the subject, to which, although practically considered they are httle more than the leisure speculations of ingenious men, it behoves us as students to direct oiu- attention. With regard to the exportation of capital, there is a school of pohtical economists who regard it as necessarily injurious to the community in its immediate effects. Their opinion will require a detailed investigation. With regard to emigration, I am not indeed aware that any writers, whose views are at all worth examining, regard it as economically mischievous. I mean, of course, emigration carried to any probable amount ; for it is a question of degree. It is clear that the emigration of labourers to some indefinite extent, would injuriously derange the market for labour : the only real question is, whether there is any substantial apprehension of that extent being reached. Such a result was indeed, as we all know, one of the favourite bugbears of pohtical economists in former times. But in point of fact there never were wanting, long before the subject had been scientifically investigated, observers of a more vigorous cast of mind, to whom the tendency of population to become redundant, and the obvious remedy for such redundancy, were well known, and who altogether discarded the imaginary terrors which pre- 140 EFFECTS OF EMIGKATIOIf [Leot. V. vailed upon the subject. Among many such authorities to which I might easily refer you, I will content myself with citing a state paper of Lord Bacon, adduced by Sir Wilmot Horton in his third letter on emigration. It was dehvered to James I. in 1606, by way of exhortation to pursue vigorous measures for the colonising of Ireland. " An effect of peace in fruitful kingdoms," said he, " where " the stock of people, receiving no consumption nor dimi- " nution by war, doth continually multiply and increase, " must in the end be a surcharge or overflow of people, " more than the territories can weU maintain, wMch many " times insinuating a general necessity and want of means " into ah. estates, doth turn external peace into external " troubles and seditions. Now, what an excellent diver- " sion of this inconvenience is ministered, by God's provi- " dence, to your Majesty in this plantation of Ireland, " wherein so many famihes may receive sustentation and " fortune, and the discharge of them out of England and " Scotland may prevent many seeds of future perturba- " tion ; so that it is as if a man were troubled for the " avoidance of water from the places where he hath built " his house, and afterwards should advise with himself to " cast those floods, pools, or streams, for pleasiure, provi- " sion, or use. So shall your Majesty on this work have " a double commodity, in the avoidance of people here, " and in making use of them there." * Such has been the general language of the better class of pohtical philosophers, and such, in general, the en- couragement given by enlightened statesmen to schemes of emigration. And it is, I think, hardly necessary for me to notice, even in passing, the strange doctrines which it has been attempted in our own day to set up in some quarters, in opposition to these dictates of ordinary reason and experience. Those tenets have, indeed, themselves * See Quarterly Eeview, No. Ixxiv. 575. Lect. v.] on the mother COUNTRY. 141 fallen into the contempt and oblivion which they me- rited. There was one writer, celebrated for a short time, and, I do believe, sincerely honest in his views, however unjustifiable the means to which he resorted in support of them, whose fate ought to serve as a warning to all who embark in these controversies, from any other motive than a pure love of truth. Addressing himself to the prejudices of the vulgar, great and small, by misrepre- senting doctrines which they could not, and by attack- ing the authors of them with slanderous abuse which they could, understand : appeahng to the rehgious sensibihties of a better class of minds by misquoted and misinterpreted texts, and by unwarranted, not to say blasphemous, as- sumptions, respecting the course of the providential go- vernment of the world ; declaiming against what he called theory, and setting up, in opposition to the views of others the most unfoimded and gratuitous speculations which ever were seriously committed to writing, he succeeded for a time by means of party patronage, in raising for himself a name among supporters as credxdous and as pre- judiced as himself. He has met, no doubt, with the usual fate of such pretenders : his works, quoted not ten years ago as high authorities in society and in the senate, have altogether disappeared from circulation. But the spirit which produced these works, and ensured them a recep- tion, still survives ; the readiness to embrace any imaginary hypothesis, by which the cogency of philosophical argu- ment from known premises may be evaded : the readiness to beheve and circulate any ill of the supporters of tenets which we suspect and dread to be true.* * " There are supposed to be now upwards of one million English BOTils in North America" (said Franklin in 1751) " though it is thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over sea : and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on account of the employment the colonies aiford to manufacturers at home. This million doubling, suppose biit once in twenty-five years, wiU in another 142 EFFECTS OF EMIGEATION' [Lect. V. The tendency of opinion of late years has run so strongly in favour of emigration, and such a variety of schemes have been pressed on government and on pubhc notice for relieving the market for labour of a part of what is termed our surplus population by encouraging it, that we shall find ourselves called upon to guard against exaggerated expectations of good, rather than fears of evil, when we come to consider the subject more attentively. " The difierent progress of population in different " countries and periods is not a consequence of any " variation in the principle or instinct which prompts " man to multiply his species, but depends chiefly on the " facility with which food, and the various articles neces- " sary for his subsistence and accommodation, may be " procured under different circumstances." * The ordinary rate of wages in any country depends on the magnitude of that portion of its capital which is appropriated to the payment of wages compared with the number of labourers. Their condition, consequently, improves or deteriorates, according as either that portion of capital or their num- ber increases fastest. But the tendency of numbers to increase, considered by itself, is nearly a constant quantity. The tendency of the fund for the support of labour to increase depends on many and variable causes : first and foremost, on the relative fertility of soils. It increases at a certain ratio while the most fertile soil only is cultivated. As soon as an inferior soil is resorted to, its rate of in- crease diminishes. And as the next soils resorted to for the purpose of obtaining food become more and more barren, so its rate of increase, generally speaking, di- centiiry be more than the people of England, and the greatest number of Englishmen will be on this side the water." — Tracts reprinted by Lord Overstone, 1859, p. 171. The population of Great Britain (without Ireland) was in 1851, in round numbers, 21 millions: of the United States, in 1850, omitting slaves, 20 millions. * M'Culloch's edition of Adam Smith, p. 30, n. Lect. v.] on the mother countkt. 143 minishes more and more. If the population continues, during this process, to increase at the same rate as before, there is gradually less and less food to divide in propor- tion to the mmiber of mouths which are to consume it, until at last its further progress is checked by famine. But the rate of increase of the population can only be re- strained (extraordinary contingencies apart) by an exercise of power and will on the part of the labourers in keeping down their own numbers. Supposing that they have the power, it is obvious that their destiny is under their own control ; that is, as far as the exercise of , each indi- vidual will can operate. According to the habits pre- vailing among them, the rate of real wages will fall or remain stationary, or for a time even rise, while that natural retardation of the increase of capital, of which I have already spoken, is actually going on. But let us suppose, that the rate of wages is in a course of diminution. By the removal of a certain number of superfluous hands, it is obvious that 'the balance can be restored vsdthout the necessity of any increase of prudence and self-restraint on the part of the labourers. But it must be remembered, that this cannot be effected without some sacrifice of capital in transporting them. Of course, therefore (unless we suppose both capital and population redundant, a supposition of which I shaU speak by and bye), the economical success of that experiment depends on whether the abstraction of capital, and consequent diminution of employment for labour, overbalances, or not, the relief which the emigration gives to the market for labour. Leaving, however, this difiiculty for the pre- sent out of the question, it is plain that when the surplus labourers are removed, those who remain at home will again be called upon to exercise prudence and self-re- straint, or their rate of wages must again diminish, or the emigration must in a short time be again repeated. Let a very short period elapse, and the population will again 144 EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION [Lbct. V. require a similar drain. There is only one other alterna- tive ; namely, that in the interval between the emigration and the filling up of the vacuum thus created, some cir- cumstances should occur to give a sudden impulse to the productiveness of labour. Such is the direct effect of great improvements in agriculture : such is also the result produced, indirectly, by the extended use of machinery in manufactures, and the discovery of new markets for exportable commodities. These circumstances may un- doubtedly, for the time, raise again the rate of wages, and render that exercise of self-restraint, of which I have spoken, unnecessary. The truth then appears to be this, that in a natural state of things, and leaving wholly out of view any excess of population above the means of employment which bad laws or pohtical circumstances may produce, emigration is no remedy for over population unless it be continually repeated ; which, on a really great scale, is scarcely hkely to happen in any country. Any single emigration, how- ever large, can have no permanent effect in checking the undue increase of numbers unless it be followed either by increased forethought, or by an increase in the pro- ductiveness of labotu: ; and either the one or the other of these causes must infalHbly have produced the same effect on the progress of population, only in a somewhat longer time, if there had been no emigration at aU. And thus much, I think, is pretty generally admitted even by the most zealous advocates of systematic emigra- tion. But it is commonly said on the other hand, that there are various circumstances in the actual condition of this and other communities, diseases as they may be termed in the body pohtic, which produce, from time to time, a great temporary redundance of population ; and that before economical or moral remedies can be apphed at home, room must be made for their operation by the re- moval of the large surplus created by these evils. " Colon- Lbct. v.] on the mothee countey. 145 "ization abroad," says Sir W. Horton, whose efforts in this cause are well known, " as a remedy for the evils " of a relatively redundant population, is, and has been " with me only a subordinate subject of inquiry. I con- " sider it only as the best and cheapest mode of disposing " of that abstraction of superfluous labouring poprdation " from the g^ieral labour-market, which I contend to be "the main remedy for the distressed condition of the " labouring classes of the United Kingdom, inasmuch as " it is that superfluous labour which is not wanted by any " party as a means of production, which deteriorates the " condition of the whole labouring classes collectively." In considering the question thus raised, of the apphca- bihty of emigration on a large scale to a country circum- stanced hke our own, with a view to reheving its supposed redundancy of labouring people, it must be remembered, in the first place, that we are utterly unable to submit our speculations to any test of experience. At no time, and in no country, since the migration of the barbarous tribes in Europe and Asia, has the experiment ever been tried. We have no instance on record of a country getting rid, by voluntary sacrifice, of a large portion of its people. We have no very authentic data to reason on respecting the effect of such an abstraction when pro- duced by violent means — by famine or pestilence — so softened in their character have these scourges of the human race become in the eiviUsed parts of the world. All the great empires which European energy has founded, have been raised by voluntary emigration ; and this, as it has been truly said, "is never carried " so far as to occasion any sensible diminution of the " numbers of a people, or to raise the rate of wages. " If it did this, it would immediately stop." * We are apt to forget how small the seed has been which has produced the great crop we see before us. The largest * M'CuIloch's edition of A. Smith, p, 457,. h 146 EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION [Lect. V. number of emigrants which has ever left the shores of the United Kingdom in a single year, has httle exceeded 100,000, something more than one fourth of the estimated annual increase of our people ; the ordinary proportion is much smaller; and even were it to continue at the highest point, it is obviously far too small to make any sensible alteration in the balance of the labour market. And as with ourselves, so elsewhere, few of those who leave their native country are pressed by absolute neces- sity ; the greater number are persons above the average in point of energy, who are driven abroad less by the fear of worse, than the desire of better. Spain and Portugal have been, after England, the countries which have sent forth by far the largest number of emigrants in a series of centuries ; and it has been sup- posed by many writers, that the emigration has been such as to be sensibly felt, and that its effects have been perni- cious. Social laws of a mischievous economical tendency, strict entails, large quantities of land held by the church and corporations, narrow municipal regulations, oppres- sive fiscal enactments, and, far worse than all these, a political system destroying the national spirit, have in these countries for many ages produced precisely the same effect on pubhc wealth as if the soil were more barren and capital less productive than elsewhere. It was not an unnatural supposition, that, under such a state of things, large masses, both of population and of capital, were continually leaving the country for America. Yet it appears that such was not the fact. By far the larger proportion of Spanish emigrants to America was furnished by the most populous and industrious, and least oppressed, provinces, Biscay, Catalonia, Galicia, the Canaries. And it is clearly proved, that whatever may have been the case in the rest of the monarchy, the population and wealth of those districts has been slowly but steadily increasing all the while. Emigration there, Lect. v.] on the MOTHEK COUNTRY. 147 as with ourselves, was in reality nothing more than the almost imperceptible overflow of a minute portion of the national strength and substance.* Its direct effects on the progress of population may pass for nothing. China is another of the great colonizing countries of the globe ; for although colonization, with a view to dominion, is not a part of its pohcy, yet its industrious people swarm into every part of the Eastern Ocean, where there appears to be an opening for their exertions, and settle there under foreign governments. It is a country in a great part of which the increase of capital appears to have reached almost its last point of retard- ation ; the soil in some provinces is nearly all occupied, while the stationary condition of the people, in regard to the arts of life, presents no prospect of improvement in * The mode in wMcli Mr. Sadler accounts for this phenomenon {On Population, i. 471), is clearly inconclusive. Nor is there any proba- bility in his supposition, " that the pauses, not to say the retrogression, " which evidently occurred in the movements of the population of Eng- "land in the earlier part of the last century, was mainly attributable to " the great drains which the plantations, as well as other causes, had " made upon the inhabitants during the preceding one." But his chap- ters on emigration contain a valuable collection of facts, tending to establish his position, that the amount of emigration to North America, .since its first settlement, has been very generally imderrated, and especially by Mr. Malthus. It is remarkable that the province of Ulster in Ireland, which has always been the great source of emigration from that coimtry, is also the most populous part of it. In 1729 it was estimated that it sent 3000 annually to America; which number afterwards greatly increased. In the years 1771, 1772, 1773, it averaged 9500 per annum. — Sadler on Population, b. ii. c. 5, 6. Yet the population of Ulster has in- creased for a century at a greater rate than that of any other part of Ireland. Suabia, with the old Palatinate, has also contributed very largely to the present population of America. From the end of Queen Anne's reign to 1755, it is said that from 4000 to8000 Palatines went annually to Pennsylvania alone. — Sadler, b. iv. ch. 5. Yet it was, and is still nearly the thickest peopled part of Germany. See Appendix, on German Emigration. 1.2 148 EFFECTS OF EMIGEATION^ [Lect. V. their condition by increased productiveness of labour. Population is therefore continually pressing on the means of subsistence ; but such an amount of emigration as actually takes place, consisting also, entirely of persons who are able to emigrate at their own expense, can have no more effect in regulating the increase of that vast multitude, whether of 150 or 300 millions of human beings, than the water which is let into or out of the London docks on the tide of the ocean. Infanticide, famine, and early mortality, are, it is to be feared, the real checks wHch keep it doAvn to the necessary level. "We are reduced, therefore, to discuss this question on theoretical grounds only, by speculating on the effects which an extensive abstraction of people would produce on the relation between that portion of capital which is destined for the maintenance of labour, and the supply of labour, such as they are in our own country. With us, the natural retardation of the increase of capital, of which I have already spoken, has long commenced. We are continually applying fresh portions of it to less and less productive portions of the soil, while, at the same time, the importations of those necessaries on which the labourer subsists from foreign countries is greatly impeded by com- mercial restrictions. These causes tend to make the cost of the production of necessaries continually rise. On the other hand, they are, to a great extent, comiteracted by improvements in agriculture, which tend to depress that cost of production ; and the extensive foreign market for our products creates a demand for labour which tends to raise wages, and enable the labourer to command a greater proportion of necessaries. Such has been the operation of these conflicting causes, that, on the whole, the real wages of labour have probably rather advanced than diminished during the last half century, while popu- lation has increased more rapidly than in any European country, " The great increase of population of late years Lect. V.J ON THE MOTHEK COUJ!irTKY. 149 " in England and Scotland," says Mr. Malthus in his last work*, " has been owing to the power of the labouring " classes to obtain a greater quantity of food, partly by " temporary high wages in manufactures, partly by the " increased use of potatoes, partly by increased task-work " and the increased employment of women and children, " partly by increased parish allowances to families, and " partly by the increased relative cheapness of manufac- " tures and foreign commodities." But the demand for labour, in a great part of England, is pecuHarly inconstant. Variations in foreign demand, changes of fashion, not to speak of the great commercial crises which, in the present state of the civihsed world, affect many nations at once, but the wealthiest most violently, are continually occurring to such an extent that the market for manufacturing labour is almost always overstocked somewhere, sometimes almost everywhere. The unemployed labourers must be supported, either on their own savings or the charity of others. But suppose that, on the occasion of some one of these crises, the nation were to rouse itself to the effort of getting rid by emigration of some hundreds of thousands of superfluous arms, what would be the consequence? That, at the first returning demand for labour, there would be a deficiency. However rapid reproduction may be, it takes at all events the space of a generation to replace the loss of adult labour. Now the profits of our manu- facturers depend mainly on the power of making use of the prosperous moment when demand is brisk, and thus compensating themselves for the interval during which it is slack. This power is secured to them only by the command of machinery and of manual labour. They must have hands ready by them ; they must be able to increase the activity of their operations when re- * Political Economy, p. 235. .150 BPFECTS OF EMIGEATION [Lbot. V. quired, and to slacken it again according to the state of the market; or they cannot possibly maintain that pre-eminence in the race of competition on which the wealth of the country is foimded. I am not discussing the question, whether or no a state of things which renders the employment of large masses of the people so precarious as this (although more so, perhaps, in appearance than in reality) is politically or morally desirable. But unless we are prepared to face the national revolution which must follow any violent blow to our manufacturing interest, any large abstraction from that part of our population would be a suicidal measure. But with respect to another great division of our people — our agricultural labourers — it is thought by many that a permanent redundancy has been produced by artificial means ; by the bounty on population afforded by our poor laws, as they were at one time administered. That they did afford such a bounty cannot reasonably be doubted. They diverted a portion of the national capital which would otherwise have been used for some other purpose, to the production, of necessaries for idle or half- employed paupers, just in the same manner as if govern- ment were to tax productive industry in order to raise and feed additional regiments of soldiers. The bounty being withdrawn by the late enactment, the population thus created, so far as it was altogether in excess over the demand for labour, was of course redundant. And no one can doubt that emigration was the true remedy for such redundancy, provided only that the cost of such emigration did not exceed the cost of maintaining them at home until the surplus should become absorbed by some increase of employment. But the experience of a few years has shown us, that this excess, although to a certain extent real, has been greatly exaggerated. Aided, undoubtedly, by favourable circumstances, es- pecially by the sudden demand for labour which our Lect. v.] on the mother countey. 151 great public works have occasioned, the balance seems to have redressed itself, and along with the abuses of the old system the apparent redundancy has in most cases nearly disappeared. Parishes have been enabled to effect the emigration of labourers on favourable terms by the assistance of government ; but they have availed themselves only to a very small extent of these advantages. The reports of the Poor Law Commissioners show that in seven years, from 1835 to 1842, only 10,000 emigrants were sent out by their assistance, and that the sums authorised by them to be raised or borrowed for that purpose amounted to no more than £60,000.* I am far from thinking that in this respect aU Is done which it would be desirable for the national welfare to effect. However sceptical we may be as to the results of an extended and general emigration, its beneficial conse- quences in particular localities, when accompanied by good management in other respects, are evident enough. It is remarkable how small an amount of it, together with the adoption of good regulations, has been found in a few years to produce a material revolution in the rates, and improvement in the condition of the poor in particular places. In the parish of Ewhurst in Sussex, the population increased from 840 in 1801 to 1220 in 1821 ; in 1831 it amounted to 1200 only, having been kept down by the emigration of about 100 labourers in the interval. The rates in 1822 had been £3370 ; in 1832 they had fallen to £1630 : this, be it observed, was * English agricultural paupers generally make bad emigrants at first ; although they improve. " Under the influence of the system which "at once confines the labourer to a narrow neighbourhood and relieves " him from the care of providing for his subsistence, he has acquired " or retained, with the moral helplessness, some of the peculiarities of " a child. He is ofl;en disgusted to a degree which other classes scarcely " conceive possible by slight difierence of diet : and is annoyed by any " thing which appears to him strange and new." — First Report of Poor Law Commissioners, p. 158. 1,4 152 EFFECTS OF EMIGEATIOK [Lect. V. before tlie new act.* There v/ere in the latter year no supernumerary labourers, of which the strongest proof is to be found in the fact, that the rector of the parish having offered small allotments of land to the labourers at a low rate, was able to let three acres only : the offer of nine had been rejected. f Such instances as this certainly appear to indicate that much might have been done before the new enactment, to restore a healthy state of the labour market in many locahties by a spirited system of emigration ; and, doubtless, there are still similar cases. But on the whole, the infinitely small extent to which parochial emigration has been carried, notwith- standing the present facihties for it, seems to indicate that there cannot be such a need of it as to call on government to take it in hand at the expense of the nation. But there is another part of our kingdom of which the condition is said to call stiU more loudly for the rehef of extensive and systematic emigration under government assistance. In my lectures on the subject of poor laws for Ireland, I had occasion to dwell at some length on this proposition. I then referred my hearers to the work of Colonel Torrens on the subject, and to the suggestion of the Commission of the Irish Poor Law Inquiry, and exposed, at some length, my reasons for hesitating to agree with those authorities, both as to the results and the practicability of such an expedient. It is impossible, within my present hmits, to do more than very briefly to recapitulate my former reasoning. In Ireland a far more stimulating and pernicious bounty on population, than that afforded by the Enghsh poor laws, has been for centuries apphed — ^namely, the sub- * Report of tlie Poor Law Commissioners for 1834. •f On the other hand I am infsrmed, that the number of emigrants from the parishes of the Eye Union, of which the population is about 12,000j amounted in the last few years before 1840 to nearly 1000 ; and that no perceptible effect was produced on the progress of numbers. Lect. v.] on the mother country. • 153 division and subletting of land. By far the greatest proportion of the labour, and a very large part of the capital, of that country has thus been diverted from all other employments to that of raising necessaries for small cultivators, each obtaining only the lowest quantity on vrhich hfe can be sustained after payment of his rent. Two-fifths of the people, or nearly 3,000,000 souls, appear to consist of cottiers and their families, cultivat- ing their own small holdings. Besides these, there is a proportion of landless labourers who subsist on wages and have constant employment, and another portion differently estimated by different calcrdators, but probably amounting to some hundred thousand, who are either destitute — that is, mainly supported by charity, or, at least, unable to sup- port themselves throughout the whole year by their own exertions. Now, in order to remedy the evils of the cottier system, almost aU economists are agreed that it is desirable to introduce that mode of cultivation by combined capital and labour — that is, with larger holdings, greater skill, and fewer hands — with all practicable expedition. But it is evident, from the very nature of such a process, that it must be extremely gradual. Were it possible to re- move whole bodies of the existing cultivators at once, it must take time to import capital, and still more to create s kill . Suppose, then, that while the importation of capital is as yet in its infancy, a milhon of cottiers, or one-third of the whole, as Colonel Torrens would pro- pose, were at once transferred to America. What would be the consequence ? Merely that one-third of the land' would remain uncultivated. That third would eventually be the most barren. The landlords of the more fertile soUs, whenever these happened to be depopulated by the emigration, would be able to invite hands from the less fertile by the offer of a slight remission of rent. Things would remain, at the end of the experiment, precisely 154 EFFECTS OF EMIGKATIOIf [Lect. V. where they were before, except that the number of cottiers would be smaller, and their condition a httle better. That the natural progress of population would soon bring them back to the former number — there being no sufficient motive to any alteration of habits on their part— is most certain. In no class, perhaps, is the tendency to keep up or augment their number so strong as in that of smaU cultivators. It is said that, from the Isle of Skye, out of 11,000 inhabitants, 8000 were carried away by emigration in 1755 and a few following years ; and yet, that, before the end of the next generation, the number had reached more than its first amount. Ire- land, on the supposition which I have just made, would only exhibit the phenomenon of Skye on a larger scale. With respect to the destitute, and to the landless, labourers of Ireland, the case is somewhat different. The removal of the former (supposing it possible, and leaving the expense out of the question) would of course leave things as they were, except that industry would be relieved from that tax which it now pays for their main- tenance in the shape of charity or poor's rates. As to the landless hut not destitute labourers, it seems imde- niable that the removal of any large number of them must tend to raise the rate of wages in Ireland. "With a somewhat higher rate of wages, cottiers would be enticed from the cultivation of their own smaU. holdings to enter the class of labourers for hire in lieu of those thus removed. Thus far it would appear that the country would gain by the process. But here another difficidty presents itself. Although labourers receive but very low wages in Ireland, it does not appear that productive labour is ill-remunerated ; that a less share of the produce of labour falls to the labourer than in other countries. The same amount of wages advanced will not, in most employments, secure a greater quantity of work done in Ireland than in England. The Irishman who receives Lect. v.] on the mother country. 155 oiily one-third of the daily gains of tlie Englishman, does generally speaking, not more than one-third of the work. Supposing, therefore, that wages were suddenly raised in Ireland without any increase of the productive powers of labour, the capitalist would necessarily be placed at a disadvantage. It is true that the productiveness of labour would eventually be increased ; better fed and better paid, the energies of the workman would be augmented : but what is to become of capital in the meantime? On the first rise of wages, it will imme- diately tend to disappear, and seek employment else- where ; and the labourers wiU consequently be driven to underbid each other, and return to their former rate of wages again. The rise of real wages, in any state of society, must be gradual to be permanent. Such are the objections, very briefly stated, which seem to suggest themselves to schemes of wholesale emigration. I have noticed these schemes, partly on account of the favour with which some high authorities have regarded them, partly on account of their being constantly put forward, in popular oratory and pubhca- tions ; among the many other economical nostrums for the grievances of society which are so ghbly enumerated by those who have never spent an hour in endeavouring to examine their real worth and apphcabihty. Were we dealing with what is practical only, our attention would have been thrown away. There is no reasonable probability of this country ever submitting — as no other country has ever yet submitted — to the enormous ex- pense which would be required to carry any really great experiment of emigration into effect. And, as I have noticed on a former occasion, the cost of extensive emi- gration is by no means fairly estimated by merely multi- plying the expense now incurred in conveying small parties by the proposed number of emigrants. The ex- pense of shipping, of seamen, of location in the colony, 156 EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION [Lect. V. all these, and probably many other items, must, it would seem, of necessity augment in a greater ratio, in conse- quence of the greatly augmented demand.* With its present means, government can do httle ; but that httle may be employed to considerable ends. It has now a certain fund for this purpose, although as yet a small one ; namely, that derived from the sale of lands in some of the Austrahan colonies. The statistics of this part of the subject will be considered elsewhere. Supposing the funds to admit of it, I cannot but think that good might be done in Ireland, and in some parts even of Great Britain, by loans on easy terms to proprietors who are anxious to assist their tenants to emigrate, with a view to what is called in Ireland clearing their estates — a process asso- * (1861.) — Not many years after this work was first published, the question, how far emigration en masse could be practically effected from an old country across the ocean, received a most unexpected solu- tion. The events of 1847 and the following years in Ireland discon- certed far more elaborate calculations and better founded conjectures than can be found in these lectures. The emigration of 1846 from the United Kingdom was already somewhat greater than that of any previous year. But in 1847 it sud- denly doubled. Of 260,000 emigrants of that year, probably 160,000 were Irish: although this amount can only be given, as a conjecture. From 1841 to 1850 inclusive the Irish emigration abroad may be pro- bably estimated at about 1,000,000. But between 1841 and 1851 the population diminished by 1,600,000. And out of these years the first six were probably years of increase. After allowing for this increase, and also, per contra, for emigration to England, the residue represents the actual ravages of famine and disease. Nothing similar has occurred in Europe, at least since the decay of the French population at the end of the reign of Louis XIV., and of the German after the Thirty Years' "War. For the following decennium (1851-60) Irish emigration abroad may also be estimated at somewhat above a million. The effects of this farther drain on the progress of poptdation must be matter of con- jecture until the next census appears. As to the effects on the social economy of the country, I leave the speculations contained in the text unaltered ; but it must be admitted that the theory of Colonel Torrens as to the probable results of a very large removal of the cottier class has been miTch more nearly justified than I anticipated. Lect. v.] on the mother COUjSTTET. 157 dated, unfortunately, in our minds with tlie notion of a cruel and reckless abuse of the rights of property; and yet one most essentially necessary to its prosperity, and which it should be the object both of the owner and the government to render a source of advantage instead of sufferiag to the poor tenants who are the first affected by it. It has been also proposed of late, that parishes in England should be presented with a certain quantity of waste land in the colonies, to be vested in the guardians of each parish, and used by them as a permanent site for the estabhshment of persons willing to emigrate from it. But there are various practical objections to a scheme which appears to have captivated some imaginations. It would increase the evil already existing to so great an extent in our colonies, of interposing unsettled lands in the hands of absentee proprietors between settled dis- tricts. And the mere location of parish paupers on waste land, as I shall again and again have occasion to show, is not rehef There is no part of our wide colonial empire in which small settlers without capital have a reasonable prospect of immediate success. It is far better for emigrants of this description to begin their course as labourers, and be absorbed gradually into the population. While we are engaged on this part of our subject, it remains to inqxiire, very briefly, into the modes which have been proposed to remunerate the mother country for these first expenses of colonization. Mr. Wakefield, in his able pamphlet on colonization (1830), enumerates two different methods, as having been chiefly followed in the course of the experiments which we have made in this science in the last two hundred years. By the first of these, a free passage is provided for emigrants, who on their arrival are indented, as apprenticed labourers, to settlers, who are bound to pay for them a certain re- muneration to the government. This is equivalent to 158 EFFECTS OF EMIGEATION [Lbct. V. a tax on wages in the colony; and it has been proposed to raise a similar tax by direct levy from the labourers themselves, by attaching a part of their wages. The second is, the exaction of a rent from emigrants located on government land ; which, in the first stage of society, amounts to a tax on profits. There appears in theory no objection to either of these modes, provided the tax were not sufficiently heavy to interfere with industry. But both have been found impracticable. In the earher history of our American possessions, the difficulty of holding indented einigrants to their bonds was so great as to lead to the well known system of kidnapping in England for the plantations, which subsisted up to the American revolution. The attempt to draw a quit-rent from lands, only led to "squatting ;" that is, unauthorised ' occupation ; and the exhaustion and abandonment of farms. In fact, these and similar schemes are all too inconsistent with that " mera Hbertas," which seems the great prerogative of early settlements, to produce any beneficial results. A third mode of making colonisation pay for itself, as it is termed, has been within these few years put in practice : it is that of raising a fund for the purpose of emigration, by the sale of lands within the colony. I shall have occasion to recur more than once to this great experiment, both the theory and the results of which will demand our serious attention, when we come to investigate the progress of colonies. But with reference to that part of our subject on which we are now engaged, I can only observe in passing, that to term this scheme a mode of replacing the capital expended by the mother country on emigration is a fallacy. It is merely a mode of repaying government, or the party selling, at the expense of some one else. The greatest proportion of the land is bought in England. By far the greater part of it is bought on speculation, and with English capital ; that is, by an advance of English capital, Lect. v.] on the mother countey. 159 to be repaid at some future period by the resources of the colony. The effect of the whole transaction, in nine purchases out of ten, amounts to this— that the English settler, who has to export a certain quantity of capital in order to commence operations, has also to transfer another portion to government by way of price. A fairer, or more unobjectionable, tax on speculation can hardly be devised ; but it is a strange misnomer to term it a repay- ment of the national expenditure. "Unless a plan of " finance is in the nature of a commercial undertaking, it " cannot give government more than it takes away, either " from individuals or from government itself, under some " other form. Something cannot be made out of nothing " by the mere stroke of a wand."* But the capital sunk in well directed emigration is speedily replaced with interest by a far surer process than the ingenuity of financiers or economists can invent. Wherever England plants a colony, she founds a nation of customers. Ahready, in return for the shght expense which has attended the removal of a few of her less fortunate inhabitants from her shores, she receives the profits of the trade of a vast confederacy, which th^se outcasts have raised to an equahty with the proudest empires of the earth. And the extraordinary progress of her recent colonies justifies us in hoping that empires as vast and wealthy stiU remain to be founded, and new branches of commerce as extensive and as prosperous to be created. *Eicardo, p. 317. 160 NOTE TO LECTURE V. [Lect. V. NOTE TO LECTUEE V.— (1842) I FIND that some statements in this Lecture have been consi- dered adverse to the promotion of emigration to the colonies. Such certainly was not my intention. But I was anxious to lead my hearers to distinguish between the practical and useful objects of emigration, and those which appear to me visionary. The principal object of the first description is, that of open- ing new sources of production, and new outlets for our trade. For this purpose, it would be difiScult indeed to overrate the advantage of colonization. But the growth of new branches of trade must be gradual ; and a bounty on emigration for such a purpose as this would be, at the best, a very expensive mode of purchasing a distant benefit. 20,000 or 30,000 emigrants are now sent out annually by government or parochial assistance : that number might be increased to a very considerable extent by the judicious employment of colonial funds, without burden- ing the mother country ; and any measures ensuring such a result would be equally beneficial to herself and her colonies. In the next place, emigration is generally advantageous to the individual who emigrates : it often rescues him from a state of destitution. It not unfrequently relieves overburdened parishes and estates in which the consolidation of farms is going on : it may relieve to a still greater extent overpeopled corners of the empire, such as the western islands : it may possibly (I wish this could be stated with more confidence) relieve the working classes in particular trades and places in times of great pressure. And these individual or local reasons are quite suSi- cient to induce any reasonable politician or philanthropist to encourage emigration, without thinking it necessary to require proof of national benefits to be obtained by it. But the popular mode of representing emigration is as a cure for national evils ; a remedy for the distress so perpetually re- curring in a country dependent on trade and manufactures for the support of one third of its population. And it is against Leot. v.] emigration. 161 the sanguine adoption of such views as these that caution seems to me to he peculiarly requisite. Those who speak of emigra- tion in language such as this, must mean (whether they have reflected orT the extent of their own meaning or not) emigra- tion carried to such an amount as to alter the existing propor- tions between capital and labour. If the project does not aim at accomplishing this, it aims at nothing, and is a mere delu- sion. Such a project I cannot but regard as chimerical ; altogether unwarranted by past experience ; of very doubtful benefit at home, and productive at best only of temporary relief; and, if found practicable in its details, certain to be attended with enormous evils in the execution. In fact, it seems pretty well admitted by all who have re- flected on the subject, that to effect any such change by indis- (xi^minate emigration, in a kingdom of which the population increases nearly at the rate of 300,000 per annum, is altogether out of the question.* But then it is argued that a great effect might be produced with comparatively little difficulty, by select emigration : that is to say, by sending out, annually, a moderate number of persons of both sexes, just arriving at the marriage- able age. In this way, it is said, population might be stopped, if it were desirable, from increasing altogether, by a very mode- rate amount of emigration ; and, therefore, relief to the labour market might easUy be afforded. Mr. Wakefield's calculation on the subject is this. He takes the population of Great Britain (1833) at 14,000,000; the annual marriages at 105,000, or 1 in 134 ; and therefore that by removing 210,000 persons per annum, Britain would soon be depopulated. " But this effect would occur through the removal of a much " smaller number. It would occur by the yearly removal of all " who in each year should attain the age of puberty. It is " reckoned that the yearly births are to the whole population " in the proportion of about 1 to 31. Taking the yearly births, "then, to be 451,612, or, for round numbers, 450,000, and " assuming that not above one third of these, or 150,000, reach " the age of puberty, it appears that England might soon be " depopulated by the yearly abstraction, for some years, of a * (1861.) Written before the great lesson afforded to the country by the Irish catastrophe of 1847. But the proposition is generally true. M 162 NOTE ON • [Lect. V. " number of persons not much greater than the number who " did actually emigrate last year. But there is a way by which, " with a still smaller yearly outlay, England might be depopu- " lated : by taking away every year a number of young- couples " sufficient to reduce the whole number in after years ; so that the " whole number of young couples should be in time reduced to " one. Supposing that this might be effected, though not so " quickly as if all were removed by removing every year half of " the young couples who had in that year reached the age of " puberty, then might England be depopulated by the yearly " removal, for some years, of 75,000 persons," &c. — England and America. Now let us first consider the soundness of this argument with respect to the effect of emigration on the number of the people. J think it must strike every reader at once, that there is evidently some mistake in the first calculation. It is impos- sible that only 150,000 persons can reach the age of puberty in every year, and yet that 105,000 couple should be married in every year. But, without examining into the causes of this oversight, let us examine the latter part of the calculation, which is the more practical. Mr. Wakefield estimates the births at 1 in 31, and upon this datum assumes that the removal of 75,000 persons per annum would depopulate England, if they were to emigrate at the proper age, and in equal numbers of each sex. Now, both he and other writers who have taken the same view, seem to me, I must confess^ to have fallen into the same fallacious rea- soning which misled Sir Francis Divernois, and other calculators of the early part of this century, who foretold the decline of the French population from the enormous drafts which 20 years of war made on those who, in every year, attained the marriage- able age ; drafts far greater than any which the boldest scheme of emigration could effect. They have assumed the ratio of births to the population, of an age to have children, as some- thing invariable. The fact is, that if a certain number of mar- riageable couples were removed in every year, the ratio of births to the remaining population, of an age to have children, would immediately increase. Suppose a gross population of 20,000,000, and births at the rate of 1 in 30 per annum. About two fifths, or 8,000,000, Lbct. v.] EMIGEATI0I7. 163 may be considered as persons of an age to have children. The births, compared with these are as 1 in 12 per annum. Sup- pose 1,000,000 of these removed : if the ratio of births to the population of an age to have children were to continue the same, of course the increase of population would receive a check ; the ratio of births to the whole population would fall from 1 in 30 to nearly 1 in 34. But the ratio of births to the number of persons, of an age to have children, would not con- tinue the same if the removal were effected without a propor- tional loss of capital. The removal of so many persons in the vigotu- of life, the amount of employment remaining the same, would raise the rate of wages, increase the number of mar- riages, and very speedily the number of births. The 7,000,000 might easily produce as many as 8,000,000 did before. The rate of both marriages and births might rise to a proportion far exceeding any thing that economists, judging merely from the ordinary circumstances of English society, could anticipate. In the State of Gruanaxuato, in Mexico, marriages are estimated at 1 in 50 or 60, and births at 1 in 16, per annum. Without anticipating that such extraordinary proportions as these might prevail in England, it would, at all events, be easy to show that the rise would be so great as to disconcert altogether the cal- culations of Mr. Wakefield and his followers. A new bounty would be afforded to population, precisely in the same manner as it would be afforded by the sudden addition of a large and fertile tract to the surface of Britain. But let us admit Mr. Wakefield's reasoning, and suppose that the removal of 50,000 or 70,000 persons, of a particular age, per annum, might prevent the increase of population: what would be the results ? It is no advantage, in the abstract, to check the increase of population. What we seek to attain is present relief for the labour market. How would the removal of young couples effect this, more than the removal of people of other ages? The removal of 1000 persons just arrived at the marriageable age produces, in the first instance, no greater effect in the labour market than the removal of any 1000 other persons of an age to obtain employment. All that follows from Mr. Wakefield's supposition is, that 20 years hence another effect may begin to be perceptible, in the diminished number who would then attain the age of labour. But is it really pro- m2 164 NOTE ON EMIGRATION. [Lect. V. posed, ttat government should legislate for present necessities, with a view to the condition of the labour market 20 years hence ? Those who maintain such a proposition ought at least to state the grounds for it, and not to propose select emigration, as it is called, as a remedy for existing evils, which it obviously would not touch at all. Under a well-regulated system of emigration, young persons, in equal numbers of both sexes, and unencumbered with many children, will always be preferred ; less for the sake of the mother country than of the colony, or rather of the emigrants themselves, since such emigrants are rarely able at the outset to burden themselves with the support of great numbers of use- less hands. But these are precisely the people whom it is most difficult to induce to emigrate. Nor is it desirable that it should be otherwise. We axe not yet come to such a condition that the young, full of strength and hope, and with all the pleasures of an English home in prospect, should be driven to seek an eleemosynary passage to some distant region, as the greatest boon that can be offered them. " The object of the promoters of this scheme," says Lord John Russell, speaking of a recent project for wholesale emi- gration, " is — ■ to relieve the mother country of those whose " labour is the least profitable, and who, at present, form the " greatest burden on its resources. But the object of the colo- " nies is naturally of a totally different nature. Their object is " to obtain, not the worst, but the best, class of labourers. "They want neither the old nor the very young, ■ — but those " who are so capable of working as to be sure of employment " even in this country. Now, from the papers that have been " laid upon the table of the house, it does not appear that there " is any disposition on the part of good and efficient labourers " to emigrate. There is no doubt that labourers who are bur- " dened with large families, and those who have arrived at an " age when much exertion cannot be expected from them, and " who in this country find it difficult, from these causes, to " obtain a livelihood, are willing enough to emigrate; but these " are the very classes that the colonists do not want ; the very " classes whom they regard as an evil and an injury, whenever " they are thrust upon them. If, on the other hand, it be said, f "We will confine ourselves to those young couples who are " ' perfectly able to work, and to earn their subsistence in this Lect. Y.] APPENDIX. 165 ' ' country,' then it will be found (and I must say that I am ' not sorry that this is so) that the class of persons who are •enabled to obtaia sufficient employment at home are not dis- ■ posed to separate themselves from their relatives and friends ; ' and, consequently, in almost every instance, decline the boon ■ that is offered to them in the shape of free passage to a • strange and distant land. Therefore, if this bridge were made, ■ it is not to be supposed that there would be at once a rush ' of the better and only valuable class of labourers over it to " the colonies." — Mirror of Parliament, 1840, p. 3522. APPENDIX I. Return of the Emigration from the United Kingdom, from 1841 to 1859. Year. England. Scotland. Ireland. Total. 1841 72,104 14,060 32,428 118,592 1842 74,683 13,108 40,553 128,344 1843 36,255 7,931 13,026 57,212 1844 50,257 4,504 15,925 70,686 1845 65,524 4,272 23,705 93,501 1846 87,611 3,427 38,813 129,851 1847 153,898 8,616 95,756 258,270 1848 176,883 11,505 59,701 248,089 1849 212,124 17,127 70,247 299,498 1850 214,612 15,154 51,083 280,849 1851 254,970 18,646 62,350 335,966 1852 306,279 21,044 41,441 368,764 1853 279,601 16,503 33,833 329,937 N.B. Pre-rious to 1854, the Records in the Commissioners' Office do not show the native origin of the Emigrants. The above figures merely represent the numbers who sailed from each of the three Kingdoms. The following Table exhibits the native origin of the Emigrants so far as can be ascertained from the Passenger Lists famished by the Custom House authorities. Year. English. Scotch. Irish. Foreigners. Not distinguished. Total. 1854 90,966 25,872 150,209 37,704 18,678 323,429 1855 ^7,132 14,037 78,854 10,554 16,230 176,807 1866 64,527 12,033 71,724 9,474 18,796 176,554 1857 78,560 16,253 86,238 12,624 19,200 212,875 1858 39,971 11,815 43,281 4,560 14,345 113,972 1859 33,930 10,182 52,981 4,442 18,897 120,432 M 3 166 APPENDIX. [Lect. V. No. II. Emigrants from tlie United Kingdom, in periods. To the British North To the To Australia and American Colonies. United States. New Zealand. FromlSlS to 1824 inc. 119,635 69,636 No returns. 1825 to 1834 283,446 208,495 18,604 1834 to 1840 129,211 189,774 65,685 1841 to 1845 170,632 239,394 47,696 1845 to 1850 258,312 865,154 79,428 1851 to 1855 171,727 1,038,982 306,360 1855 to 1859 63,772 368,761 176,140 Total Emigration from the United Kingdom to all parts of the World, 1815 to 1869 inclusive, 4,917,598. No. III. Emigration from Germany, from 1848 to 1857. 1848 81,895 1849 89,102 1850 82,404 1851 112,547 1852 162,301 1853 162,568 1854 203,637 1866 84,761 1866 88,983 1857 .... .... 118,990 Total 1,187,088 In the same 'period, 1848-57, the emigration from the United Kingdom amounted to 2,742,668. In proportion to population, this would amount to about three times that from Germany. But it must be remembered that neaily half Germany (Austria, Bavaria, &c.) is supposed to furnish hardly any emigrants at all. Prom some of the Rhine Pro-vinces, the emigration has been so large as to have produced (it is thought) an actual decrease of the population. Electoral Hesse had 736,392 in- habitants in 1855; 726,739 at the end of 1858. Dr. Wappaus (Deutsche Aus- •wanderung) already estimated the German population of the United States in 1846 at 1,600,000, probably too high. Lect. VI.] THE ESPOETATION OF CAPITAL. 167 LECTUEE VI. EFFECTS OF THE EXPORTATION OF CAPITAL, WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE PROCESS OF COLONIZING, ON THE WEALTH OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY. The next subject which requires our attention is not per- haps of much practical importance, but interesting to the scientific inquirer, namely, the effects produced upon the amount and distribution of wealth at home by that export of capital which takes place in colonization. Few famihes leave the shores of their native country in so destitute a condition as to carry along with them no portion of the accumulated wealth of that country : many are in com- paratively easy circumstances, and anxious to reaHse as much of their property as they can readily turn to ac- count, in order to assist their industry in the new region which they are about to inhabit. This they partly do by carrying away with them valuable articles, more exten- sively by means of credit, that is, by reserving a title to receive on demand a certain quantity of Enghsh produce or its eqmvalent. A colonist in Canada or New South Wales draws a bill on England for 1001. ; England is bound to send out that amount in gold and sUver ; but gold and silver are only procurable by England through the medium of her own exportable commodities, that is, the produce of her manufactures. The transaction there- fore comes in effect to this, — that England has to export, without return, a hundred pounds' worth of her cottons, her hardware, or whatever may be the commodities for which she can command a market. So much capital, therefore, is taken out of the country by the transaction. Let us now trace the result, supposing the drawer to M 4 168 EFFECTS OP THE EXPOETATION [Lect. VI. belong to what is commonly called the productive class in society. The small farmer or manufacturer has a stock consisting of accumulated sairings, on which he trades, and by which he sets in motion a certain quantity of pro- ductive labour. He converts that stock into credit for the purpose of emigration, that is, he carries with him the power of giving orders, by means of which the equivalent of that stock in gold and silver, that is, in British manu- factures, may be transferred at such times and in such portions as may suit him, to the spot of his new residence. But the same result follows equally, although not so di- rectly, if the emigrant belong to what is commonly called the class of consumers. Suppose his fortune to be in- vested in government funds ; he possesses, under the guarantee of the . nation, a right to demand a certain quantity of the capital of the country — of that stock which, while it remains in the hands of the farmer and the manufacturer, serves to bring into existence the an- nual income of the country, — and receives by way of interest a fixed portion of that amiual income. So long as he remains in the country, he spends his portion unpro- ductively, as it is termed. Let us attend for a moment to the meaning of the phrase. A portion of the annual produce of the country is made over to the fund-holder in right of his claim on government, under the form of a sum of money. As has been stated before, money, in every country, may be fairly taken to represent the ex- portable commodities of that co^mtry by which alone money can be procured. Let us therefore regard the income of the fund-holder simply as so many bales of cotton. He exchanges a portion of that cotton for Enghsh agricultural produce, on which he feeds ; gives some, in wages, to members of the Enghsh labouring class as menial servants ; probably gives a portion, as rent, to the owner of the spot on which he resides ; another portion, and perhaps by far the largest, he exchanges for articles Lect. VI. 3 OF CAPITAL. 169 of luxury and convenience, which he procures at the cheapest market to which our fiscal regulations wiU allow him to go, regardless whether they have been produced by the Enghshman or the foreigner. He procures aU these by exchanging for them the bales of cotton of which we have supposed his income to consist. Now if, in re- moving to a foreign country or a colony, he were to con- tiaue to draw only his annual income, the loss sustained by England would merely amount to that portion of the income which, residing at home, he would have exchanged for labour or commodities produced at home, and which, when he resides abroad, is exchanged for labour or com- modities produced abroad. He wiU consume food pro- duced abroad instead of food produced at home ; I mean such articles of food as it is cheaper in every country to raise than to import, leaving duties out of the question. The owner of the house which he rented in England wiQ lose his rent, the amount of which the emigrant wiU have to pay to a foreign landlord. A certain amount of goods, which would have been given to Enghsh servants as wages, or to Enghsh workmen who serve to supply ordi- nary wants — carpenters, masons, &c. — wiU be given to foreigners. The whole quantity of goods which he had while in England exchanged for these various services, will go abroad in the first instance. That portion of his cotton which he exchanges for articles of luxury and convenience, will be used just as it was before, whether he consumes it at London,- Paris, or Sydney, except so far only as the expense of carriage may affect the price of a few commo- dities, rendering the home made article, though intrinsi- cally dearer than the foreign one, yet cheaper to the home consumer. But how would the Enghsh landlord have spent that portion of the goods which he would have received as rent if the emigrant had remauied at home ? To answer this, we must go again through the analysis which has 170 EFFECTS OF THE EXPORTATION [Lect. VL been given of the consumption of the emigrant himseE So again of the servants, the retail dealers, the masons, plasterers, and carpenters. Each of them expends that portion of his customer's goods which he receives, in buy- ing vfith them necessaries and comforts at the cheapest market. Whether they are Englishmen or Erenchmen, they will aU alike, if exchequer laws allow them, spend a portion in English manufactures ; a portion in agricultural produce, grown abroad or grown at home, as it comes cheapest ; a portion in rewarding the services of other labourers, who again will expend their portion according to the same analysis. Therefore, in all cases, the en- couragement given to the productive industry of any country by the expenditure of an income at home, will be found, on examination, to exist only in those few instances in which the difference of cost by reason of car- riage induces the buyer to resort to the home instead of the foreign market. But the effect of taxes on goods imported from foreign countries will modify these results to a certain extent, and render absenteeism a httle more injurious. This I beheve to be the true solution of that puzzhng question concerning the effects of absenteeism which has exercised the ingenuity of so many writers, and respecting which the disciples of the school of Smith and Eicardo have been accused of venting so much paradox and ab- surdity. When the question is asked, Whether a country loses by the absenteeism of a landed proprietor or fixed annuitant? I apprehend that it will be impossible to answer the question, unless the disputants are agreed upon the meaning of the word " loss." I place out of the argu- ment all the effects of taxation, whether prohibitive or merely for the purpose of revenue, in order not to com- phcate the question. Suppose, then (all taxation apart), that all the gentry of England — or of any district of Eng- land — were to emigrate. If they, and the whole number Lect. VI.] OF CAPITAL. 171 of servants and workmen of different classes, and retail dealers, and professional men, who must emigrate along with them or lose their custom here, were to resort abroad to the same markets respectively for almost all their articles of consumption, to which they would have resorted if they had continued to hve at home (and by following out the analysis which I have briefly indicated, you will find that the course of trade would eventualjy compel them to do so, were it not for international re- strictions), there would be very nearly the same quantity of capital productively employed, and the same quantity of annual produce as before. But if inhabitants dwelling and consuming their wealth in any country or district are themselves to be regarded as a portion of its substance, then the district would be so much the poorer. The en- joyment of riches, as well as their production, forms part of the national well-being. If Hyde Park were to be deserted by all its splendid array of equipages, it would hardly be a misnomer to say that the wealth of London was diminished. And yet, so far as productive industry is concerned, if a carriage is built in Long Acre, it mat- ters nothing whether its owner display it in Hyde Park, or in the Bois de Boulogne, or on the Esplanade at Calcutta.* But in considering this question, we are digressing from the subject before us ; for, in point of fact, men do not emigrate to colonies in order to subsist there upon their income derived from capital in England. They carry their capital along with them. The fund-holder converts his claim on the state into ready money for ex- portation ; and, in doing so, he does, in effect, subtract a portion of the capital stock of the country, just in the same way as the emigrant farmer or tradesman, whose capital was employed in production. Por although he * See Malthus's Political Economy, book ii. chap. 1. sec. 6. 172 EFFECTS OF THE EXPORTATION [Lect. VI. 'the fiind-liolder) did not employ his capital productively, it was, ia point of fact, so employed by some one else to whom he had lent it, and from whom he must now with- draw it. The question therefore is, Whether every subtraction Erom the fund for the maintenance of labour is necessarily injurious to the well-being of society ? _ The argument on the affirmative side seems to be fairly stated by Colonel Torrens*, although that writer em- braces the contrary view : — " The power and wealth of every country is in propor- ' tion to the number of its people, and to the amount of ' the capital which affords them employment. When ' labour and capital are abstracted, for the purpose of ' estabhshing a new colony, the aggregate power and ' wealth of the mother country must be diminished in ' the same degree in which the prosperity of the new ' settlement is advanced ; while the condition of the ' reduced population remaining in the mother country, ' instead of being improved, may be impaired. The ' well-being of the people, the amount of real wages ' which they can earn, depends upon the proportion ' between labour and capital. If, in the establishment of ' new colonies, we subtract labour and capital in equal ' proportions, the labourers who remain in the mother ' country wiU receive exactly the same wages as before. ' And if, as is most probable, the first estabhshment of a ' new colony should cause capital to be withdrawn in a ' greater proportion than labour, then, in the mother ' country, wages would not even remain stationary, but ' would be actually reduced. Colonisation, while it must, ■ as a strictly necessary consequence, diminish the aggre- ' gate power and wealth of the parent state, may, as a • highly probable consequence, reduce the demand for * Colonisation of South Australia, part ii. Lect. VI.] OF CAPITAL. 173 " labour in a greater proportion than it reduces the " supply ; and thus deteriorate, instead of improving, the " condition of the industrious classes remaining ia the " mother country." Thus far Colonel Torrens, stating, as I have said, the argument to which he afterwards rephes. It is obvious that this argument rests entirely on the position that there can be no redundancy of capital at any time in any country, and no general glut of commodities ; a position, as some of my hearers may be aware, which is much debated among economists, and which has given rise to some of the profoundest reasonings in the science. It was the opinion of Adam Smith, that the fall of profits which generally takes place in the progress of society, and as countries increase in wealth and civihsa- tion, was a consequence of the accumulation of capital, and of its competition in all the different trades and busi- nesses carried on in the same community. This opinion was controverted by Mr. Eicardo and his followers. Ac- cording to Eicardo, no permanent lowering of profits can take place, except through some cause which permanently raises wages. Using the words " lower " and " raise " as he always uses them, that is, in a relative sense, this is obvious enough. If the whole produce of industry be divided between profits and wages, nothing can lower the one without in the same proportion raising the other. And he denies that any accumulation of capital can pro- duce this effect, except in certain cases which he after- wards mentions.* " K the funds for the maintenance of " labour were doubled, trebled, or quadrupled, there " would not long be any difficulty in procuring the requi- " site number of hands to be employed by those funds " Demand is only hmited by production. No man pro- " duces but with a view to consume or sell ; and he never * Principles of Political Economy. 174 EFFECTS OP THE EXPORTATION [Lect. VI. " sells but with an intention to purchase some other com- " modity, which may be immediately useful to him, or " which may contribute to future production. By pro- " ducing, then, he necessarily becomes either the consumer " of his own goods, or the purchaser and consumer of the " goods of some other person. It is not to be supposed " that he should, for any length of time, be ill-informed " of the commodities which he can most advantageously " produce, to attain the object which he has in view, " namely, the possession of other goods ; and therefore it " is not probable that he will continually produce a com- " modity for which there is no demand. There cannot " then be accumulated in a country any amount of capital " which cannot be employed productively, until wages " rise so high in consequence of the rise of necessaries, " and so little consequently remains for the profits of " stock, that the motive for accumulation ceases." In other words, as Mr. Eicardo's principle has been briefly expressed, the increase of capital is, in itself, sufficient to increase the field of employment, and the demand for labour. And it obviously follows, that com- petition between capitahsts, which Adam Smith considered as the chief cause of a low rate of profits, can have no effect in lowering profits at aU. It cannot in any way affect the productiveness of industry. In the words of Mx. M'Culloch*, " All that competition can do, and aU " that it ever does, is to reduce the profit obtained in " different businesses and employments to the same com- " mon level, to prevent particular individuals realising " greater or lesser profits than their neighbours. Farther " than this, competition cannot go. The common and " average rate of profit depends not on it, but on the " excess of the produce obtained by employing capital, * Note to A. Smith's "Wealth of Nations," p. 477. Lbct. VI.] OF CAPITAL. 175 " after it is replaced along witli every contingent expense. " Competition cannot affect the productiveness of industry: " neither can it, spealdng generally, affect the rate of " wages ; for, such as the ordinary demand for labour is, " such will be its supply, and it has no influence over " taxation. It is plain, therefore, that it has nothing to " do with the determination of the common and average " rate of profit. It prevents individuals from getting " more or less than this common rate ; but it has no " farther effect." It might, perhaps, not be difiicult to reconcile these conflicting authorities, were it not for the opposite prac- tical consequences which have been deduced from their doctrines. Let it be conceded, upon Mr. Eicardo's prin- ciple, that no other cause being given for the lowering of profits and raising of wages, mere competition among the capitalists cannot have that effect. But the question is, whether under the actual circumstances of society, there being always a natural hmit, close at hand, to the employ- ment of capital at that rate of profit which now prevails, competition has not the effect of forcing capital to pass that limit, and inducing its possessor to be content with a continually lower and lower rate of profit, until the boundary is reached at which, in Mr. Eicardo's language, " so Httle is left for the profits of stock, that the motive " for accumulation altogether ceases." Now, in every country raising raw produce, the limit in question to the employment of capital at the existing ra1;e of profit is, as Mr. Eicardo himself has most con- clusively shown, the extent of the worst soil at present in cultivation. Let us, therefore, suppose that the in- crease of population has so far increased the value of raw produce, that is to say, its exchangeable value as compared with other commodities, that the same amount of value will be obtained by the capitalist, by applying 176 EFFECTS OF THE EXPORTATION [Lect. VI. his capital to a fresh and inferior soil, which he now obtains from the better. This will, perhaps, be more clearly explained by an instance : — Let the capital of a farmer amoimt to 100/., with which he raises 55 quarters of wheat, at 40s. a quarter. The total return is 1101. ; of this let 80/., or the equi- valent of 40 quarters, have been spent in wages, 15 quarters remain to the capitahst. Let 10 quarters, or 20Z. replace capital expended in other ways; then 101. equal to 5 quarters, or 10 per cent, on the capital advanced, is left as net profit. Rent is left for the present out of the question. Now, suppose the price of wheat to rise to 42s. the quarter. Let the next quahty of land be such, that, to produce the same quantity of wheat, with the same advance of capital, wiU require the expenditure of an additional quarter of wheat in wages to additional labourers. The la- bourers now obtain 41 quarters, which, at the price of 42s. per quarter, amount to 86/. 2s. Fourteen quar- ters only are left to the capitalist : price 29/. 8s. Thus, supposing the cost of replacing stock to be the same as before, or 20/., there remains 9/. 8s., or within a fraction of 10 per cent, as profits. But 9/. 8s., at 42s. a quarter, represents only 4 quarters and a httle more than four-sevenths of a quarter. Thus, by the supposi- tion, the rate of profit remains the same, or 10 per cent., although the value both of capital and profit, as estimated in corn, is diminished. In order to simplify the calculation, I have supposed the rate of wages to remain unaltered. It is, however, the more probable supposition, under the circumstances stated, that it woidd fall. The same increase of popu- lation, which raises the price of corn, so as to occasion the resort to inferior soil, would be accompanied by com- petition among labourers for employment. Out of the diminished return to industry, they would obtain a di- Lect. VI.] OP CAPITAL 177 minished share.. As, therefore, wages would be less than heretofore, we may suppose that the capitaHst would find it possible to obtain the same rate of profit by the culti- vation of such soil at a somewhat less increase of price than that which I have supposed ; say 41s. instead of 42s^, But by what means is the capitahst enabled to extend his business, and bring fresh soil under cultivation ? By the employment of capital previously idle ; for, by the supposition, it could not have been employed at a less rate of profit than 10 per cent. Whence does he obtain that capital ? By accumulation : by savings out of former profits. Suppose the capitahst, on the rise of the price of corn, were to refrain from cultivating fresh soil, and aUow his savings to remain idle: what must be the consequence? JSTecessarily, a rise of profits. He would obtain, say 11, instead of 10, per cent, for his investment, wages falhng, by reason of the supposed increase of population, or even remaining the same. What then induces him to under- take that cultivation ? The desire to employ a larger amount of capital, although at a lower rate of profit. It is better for him to employ 200/. at 10 per cent, than to employ lOOZ. at 11 per cent., and spend 100/. unpro- ductively. But precisely the same motive will operate to induce him to employ his accumulations, even al- though instead of yielding, as in the example already adduced, the same rate of profit as heretofore,, they should produce him a lower rate.. Suppose the capi- tahst to have accumulated savings lying idle in his hands ; the existing rate of profit is 10 per cent., but all the sou which will yield such a profit is occupied; it is practicable to obtain 9 per cent, by the cultivation of fresh soil ; the very same motive which operated in the former case will operate in this : as soon as the capitahst feels it better to employ a larger capital at a smaller rate, than a smaller at a higher rate, he wUl do so ; and consequently, by the necessary force of com- 178 EFFECTS OF THE EXPORT ATION ILect. "VI. petition, will bring down the average rate of profit in the cultivation of the soil to that amount with which he himself chooses to be satisfied. This is one mode in which competition operates to lower profits. It does so, because industry is neces- sarily less and less productive, as population and wealth advance (temporary exceptions, arising out of improve- ments in productive industry, left out of the question) ; and because the tendency of men in a prosperous state of society, to accumulate and to employ their capital, is continually driving them to extend their business, although new undertakings must be carried on with less profit. It is this cause which produces that low rate of profit which all observers have remarked as characterizing communities far advanced in opulence, and which renders a continual lowering of profits com- patible with a continued advance in national industry and activity, up to a certain point ; that is, up to the point at which accumulation ceases to be profitable from the diminished return — a point which may be practically Unattainable. It is scarcely necessary to remind you, that the first cause, namely, the Hmited extent of productive soil, operates not only on the profits of capital used in agricultural production, but on the profits of aL. capital whatever. Profits cannot fall in one branch of industryj without the occurrence of a corresponding faU in all other branches, for no one wiU continue to be content with a lower rate of profit if he can obtain a higher. And thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that the increase ol capital is not in itself sufficient to increase the field for its employment and the demand for labour. If the hmit hag been already reached at which that capital can be profita- bly employed, any further saving out of its returns musi be spent unproductively or left idle. But if these propositions, plain and elementary as thej Lbct. VI.] or CAPITAL. 179 appear, are once admitted, the question respecting the beneficial or mischievous nature of the exportation of capital seems to be answered. Suppose that society has arrived exactly at the poiat just now supposed ; namely, at which the capitaHst will be tempted to employ his ac- cumulations at a reduced rate of profit, rather than allow them to remain idle. If at this moment another field for the employment of labour present itself — if in AustraHa or in Canada he can reahze remuneration sufiicient to in- duce him to remove it there — it is obvious that while he consults his own advantage by so removing it, the mother country is benefited by the warding off, for a time, of that fall in the rate of profit which must have ensued had he contented himself with employing it at home. And who is ignorant that this is the point towards which Enghsh industry is continually gravitating ; that notwithstand- ing all that energy and ingenuity can do towards in- creasing the productiveness of labour, we have before us the prospect of a continually increasing accumulation of capital, with a continually diminishing rate of profit in the employment of it ? It is answered, however, that the result to which I here advert cannot follow in a cotmtry freely importing food. Competition cannot then drive capital to the inferior soils, because the suppHes required can be derived from abroad. Here then, it is said, the prin- ciple of Mr. Eicardo apphes ; and it is impossible that mere competition can lower the rate of profit. Supposing the proportion of capital and labour to remain unaltered, this may be the case. Let us sup- pose capital to have accumulated in any particular branch of trade supplying a foreign market, so that there is some of it unemployed and seeking for in- vestment, say in the cotton trade. Let us suppose that a bale of cotton, of a given size, will now exchange for ten hogsheads of French wine ; that out of these N 2 180 EFFECTS OF THE EXPOKTATIOX [Lbct. VI. one hogshead goes to the capitahst, nine to pay wages; that the rate of profit (leaving for the present the re- placing of capital out of the question) is 10 per cent. The owner of the accumulated capital must be content with a less return, if he seek to employ his additional capital in the same business ; he must be content, that is, to obtain less wine for his cotton. Suppose this competi- tion carried to such an excess that the cotton exported exchanges only against half the quantity of wine which it did before ; or, in other words, its price falls to one-hah its former amount in the French market, and the return is only five hogsheads for the bale of cotton which formerly sold for ten. But if the number of labourers has, at the same time, iucreased in such a proportion that their services can be commanded for one-half the wages which they cost before, then the rate of profit will remain unaltered. The capitahst now only gets half a hogshead in heu of a whole one; the labourers, four and . a half in heu of nine ; but their respective proportions of* the whole return are the same. Now it admits of easy proof, that if the competition of capitahsts could produce such an efiect in a single branch of industry, supposing that to be the only , one in which the community was engaged, it would produce the same in aU its branches of industry taken collectively. The result would be, that Enghsh labour and skill would command less return in the foreign market : they would produce less exchangeable value : the mass of commo- dities, the amount of the comforts and conveniences of life enjoyed in England, would diminish ; but the rate of profit would not fall. If the progress of population caused the competition among labourers to be greater than thai among capitahsts, it might even rise. Whether such 8 state of things as I have here described is probable, is another matter ; but I cannot see that its theoretical pos- sibiUty can be contested. Lect. vl] of capital.. 181 But let us put another case, and suppose that the capi- tahst who wishes to employ his savings in the cotton manufacture, does not find labourers willing to accept of a lower amount of wages. Suppose that, for every bale of cotton exported from England, nine hogsheads of wine must go to the labourers, because, in the existing state of the supply of labour, the competition among capitahsts keeps wages up to that point. There remains no resource to the capitahst but to be content with a lower rate of profit. He may, for instance, sell his bale of cotton for 9^ hogsheads instead of 10 ; in which case profits wiU have fallen from 10 per cent, to 8 per cent. This reason- ing appears equally incontrovertible. Mr. Eicardo, as we have seen, regards the su.pposition as nugatory ; he con- siders that the supply of labour could never be much in arrear of the increase of the funds for the employment of capital. Mr. Malthvis difiers from him so vridely, that he regards the abundance or scantiness of capital, as com- pared with the labour which it employs, as a cause " having a powerful influence on profits." But however the question of fact may stand, thus much must be admitted at least in theory. And a most important practical consequence follows ; for whether the efiect of increased competition, under given circumstances, be to lower the price of exported articles, or to lower the rate of profits, it must, in either case, be advantageous to reheve that competition by opening new fields of employment for the capital thus in excess. Whether its abstraction prevents the value of English products abroad from falling, or the rate of profits from faUing, or both, it must be beneficial to industry. This is the view expressed, in somewhat difierent lan- guage, by Colonel Torrens, in the work already cited. " In a manufacturing and commercial country," he says, " importing raw produce, the field of employment, and 182 EFFECTS OF THE EXPORTATION [Lect. VI. " the demand for labour, cannot be determined by the " amount of capital ready to be invested in manufactures " and commerce. In a country thus circumstanced, em- " ployment and wages -will depend not so much upon the " amount of commercial and manufacturing capital, as " upon the extent of the foreign market. If the foreign " market does not extend, no increase of manufacturing " capital can cause a beneficial increase of production, or " a permanent advance of wages. Indeed, an increase of " manufacturing and commercial capital, unaccompanied " by a proportionate extension of the foreign market, in- " stead of being beneficial, might have a necessary ten- " dency to lower the profits of trade, and to reduce the " wages of labour."* " It is a fact, estabhshed by experience and universally " admitted, that, in an industrious coimtry, savings may " be made from incomes, and that capital may be in- " creased ; and it is also a fact, established by experience " and universally admitted, that, in countries in different " states of improvement, capital may increase in different " ratios. When, in England, the capital employed in " supplying cotton fabrics for the foreign market increases " faster than the capital employed in foreign countries in " raising the raw materials, by the expenditure of which " cotton fabrics are prepared, then, as I have already " stated, and as experience has too abundantly proved, " the value of cotton fabrics, in relation to the elementary " cost of produ.ction, will dechne ; and, in the cotton " trade, wages, or profits, or both must come down. " Now causes similar to those which produce these effects " in the cotton trade may at the same time be producing " similar effects in the silk trade, the woollen trade, and " all the other branches of industry in which goods are " made for foreign markets. If the capital employed in " preparing cotton goods for foreign markets increases * Colonization of South Australia, p. 232. Lect. VI.] OF CAPITAL. 183 " faster tHan the capital employed in foreign countries in " raising the materials of cotton goods, the capital employed " in preparing wooUen goods may, at the same time, be " increasing faster than the capital employed in the grow- " ing of foreign materials. The Hke may occur in all other " trades. In aU, manufacturing capital may increase " faster than the foreign capital, which raises the ma- " terials of manufacture ; and thus, in all the departments " of industry ■ supplying goods to the foreign markets, " there may be contemporaneous overtrading, or a con- " temporaneous ' home competition,' occasioning a general " faU of prices, of profits and wages, want of employment, " and distress."* In these reasonings I think we shall concur ; and if this be so, then the abstraction of capital from produc- tive industry may, under certain circumstances and for a certain time, be the most effectual mode of preventing a reduction of profit, and stimulating further accumula- tion. However paradoxical the doctrine may at first sight appear, it cannot but be thought that a change from saving to spending- — from productive to unproductive expenditure — may sometimes operate to relieve national industry from temporary plethora or oppression. How far this can be the case, is one of the most difficult prO' blems in pohtical economy, and one of which, no doubt, no purely scientific solution can be given. Mr. Malthus has made this observation with respect to the enormous expenditure of British capital during the revolutionary war. f " One of the strongest instances," he says, " of the " truth of this remark, and a further proof of a singular " resemblance in the laws that regulate the increase of " poptdation and of capital, is to be found in the rapidity " with which the loss of capital is recovered during a war * Colonization of South Australia, pp. 242, 243, •f Political Economy, p. 329. N 4 184 EFFECTS OF THE EXPOETATION [Lbct. VI. " which does not interrupt commerce. The loans to " government convert capital into revenue, and increase " demand at the same time that they at first dimmish the " means of supply. The necessary consequence must be " an increase of profits. This naturally increases both " the power and the reward of accumulation ; and if " only the same habits of saving prevail among the capi- " talists as before, the recovery of the lost stock must be " rapid, just for the same kind of reason that the recovery " of population is so rapid after some great mortality." The analogy in this passage m^ay be rather rhetorical than accurate ; but the reasoning, I must confess, appears to me conclusive. The gross produce of the taxes, during twenty years of the war, exceeded 1300 millions ; 600 additional millions were added to the funded debt. To take a single item of that expenditure, which may bring its character more distinctly before our eyes, the expenses incurred by this country, on account of the armies in the Peninsula, in 1812 and 1813, amounted to 31,767,000^.; of which 3,284,000^. was exported in bullion. If it were true, as some economists seem to imagine, that capital finds or makes the field for its own employment, then any abstraction of it from productive industry must diminish the resources of a country ; and in that case it is inconceivable in what manner these pro- digious drains of her lifeblood could have been endured by the nation, not only Avithout sinking under them, but with scarcely the shghtest appearance of a diminution of her vital circulation and energy. I have endeavoured, perhaps not very successfully, to give a succinct view of this important question; a question touching on some of the most recondite pro- vinces of economical inquiry, especially on the much debated argument respecting the possibility of a general glut or over-production. It is, however, as I have said, of httle practical importance ; and that for two reasons : Lect. VI.] OF CAPITAL. 185 in the first place, when we reflect on the enormous ex- penditure which has been borne by this country in war — on the profuse manner in which her treasures are lavished in peace on objects of national interest — on the vast por- tions of her annual revenue which, instead of being ac- cumulated to form fresh capital, are every year spent on the purposes of private luxury and magnificence — the minute fractions of her wealth which are, or can be, devoted to such an object as colonization, sink into utter insignificance in the sum of her transactions. The ut- most that she ever has done, or in all probabihty ever can do, in this way, would have no perceptible effect on her prosperity, even if the arguments of the Eicardo school of economists, to which I have already adverted, were true to their fullest extent. In the next place, the capital spent on colonization by a country exporting manufactures, is not wasted unproductively, or lost to the resources of the parent state. It is spent in founding a fresh market for her goods, and in stimulating a new and more intense demand for them. Let the whole of the capital, which was expended by England in the foun- dation of the North American colonies, be estimated at its fullest amount ; is it credible that the total annual increase of that capital, fr^om their first settlement to the era of American independence, would amount to the income which England has derived in the last twenty years from the American cotton trade ? Note. — It is extremely difficult to form even an approximative con- jectTore of the quantity of capital withdrawn from an old country by emigrants. The following are a few scattered hints on the subject : D^g(Srando {Bienf. PuUique, iv. 112) says, that from 1828 to 1837, 14,365 emigrants fi-om the lower Rhine carried with them 8,200,000 francs of capital ; that is, 630 francs or 2hl. per head. 50,000 francs in gold were found on the person of an emigrant who died at Havre of ch.o\exa,.—IUd. 98. Mr. Buchanan thinks that the emigrants of 1834 to Canada carried out 1,000,000Z. " The balance," says Mr. Murray 186 EFFECTS OF EXPORTATION OF CAPITAL. [Lect. VI. {British North America, vol. ii. p. 39), " is liquidated by the funds " brouglit into the colony by immigrants, by government expenditures, " and by the transfer of capital from this country for investment in the " colony." Probably a large part of the excess consisted of goods im- ported to be smuggled into the United States. But a similar calculation may be applied to other colonies. The same results will be observed in the statistics of the trade vrith all the colonies or foreign countries to which emigration takes place. The excess of imports into over exports from Canada, in the eleven years ending 1843, is estimated by Mr. Porter at 6,000,000/. {Progress of the Nation, 1846,) In 1855, it was 1,600,000/. But with reference to all comparisons of exports and imports, Mr. M'Culloch's remark must be attended to. " The value of an exported commodity is estimated at the " moment of its being sent abroad, and before its cost is increased " by the expense of transporting it to its place of destination : whereas " the value of the commodity imported in its stead is estimated after " its arrival at its destination, and consequently after its cost has been " increased by the expense of freight, insurance, importer's profits, " &c." The pecuniary amount of imports has, therefore, in general, in the statistical tables of eveiy country, a tendency to apparent excess over that of exports. The statistical tables framed in New South Wales give for the five years, 1854-1859, imports to the amount of 29,000,000/. ; exports only to that of 18,500,000/. Victoria, by her own returns, imported, in the two years, 1857, 1858, to the amount of 32,000,000/. ; exported, to that of 29,000,000Z. Lect. VII.] ON COLONIAL TRADE, ETC. 187 LECTUEE VII. ON COLONIAL TRADE AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." * The chief advantages of colonization to the mother country ( economically spealdng ) are twofold : the opening of new sources of production, whence articles of necessity, conveniences, and luxmry may be obtained more cheaply or more abundantly than heretofore, from the unexhausted resources of a new soil ; the opening new markets for the disposal of the commodities of the mother country, more profitable and more rapidly ex- tending than those previously resorted to, by reason of the speedy growth of wealth in new communities. I have mentioned these two as separate advantages, in order to adopt, as far as possible, the popular language; yet, in point of fact, importation, not exportation, is the great interest of a country ; not the disposal of her own commodities, but the obtaining other commodities in return. The first is only useful as a means to the last; and yet it is singular to observe how the latter object, that of importation, is overlooked in ordinary reasoning on the subject, as if the only benefit of co- lonies resulted to our producers — our merchants and manufacturers; and not to our consumers, that is, to ' * (1861.) The so-called " colonial system" of trade, to -whicli this and the following lecture relate, has been abolished piece by piece by this country, and is only partially maintained by foreign countries. But the subject, though practically out of date as regards ourselves, is not without its historical and philosophical interest. I have therefore only shortened them by the omission of some details. 188 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lbct. VIT. the great bulk of the people. This strange omission is ia reahty the consequence of those very narrow views of conunercial pohcy, which have become so inveterate by long indulgence, that even those who are convinced of their futility can scarcely shake off the prejudices produced by them. Thus we constantly underrate those commercial benefits which are common to us with all the world, or which we only enjoy in a superior degree, in so far as superior industry and manufacturing advantages fairly command it. To suit our contracted notions of economical gain to a parti- cular country, the gain in question must be something exclusive and monopohzed. Now the plan of monopo- hzing the productions of colonies, or the imports from them, although undoubtedly a part of the ancient colonial system, is so difficult of execution, that it can scarcely be said to have been ever seriously put into operation, except in the ruinous pohcy of Spain and Portugal with regard to the precious metals, and the management of the spice trade by the Dutch. Our own endeavours to control in this manner the exports of our North American colonies, in the earher period of the navigation laws, were speedily abandoned as fruitless. Sugar, and coffee, and cotton, and tobacco, and the other staple products of colonial industry, have never been practically monopolized by any European power. Each has been able to obtain such a share of them as her own industry could procure, by offering articles in exchange for them ; and hence these great accessions to our wealth and om* comfort, because open to all, have never been rightly estimated by each as national benefits. On the other hand, since it has been found practicable to a certain extent, by fiscal regulations, to confine colonists to the use of the products of the mother country ; and since, in all commercial history, we find that producers have ever been able to give to their own the semblance of the national voice, and make it appear that Lj3Ct. VII.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 189 their gain, and not the comfort of the consumers, was the great object of economical legislation; public attention has been almost exclusively directed to this part of the subject. Nothing is more common, even now, than to hear colonies spoken of as if they were only so many emporia, where certain quantities of cotton and hardware may be disposed of with advantage to the manufacturer and shipowner. That the poor man possesses additional articles of food and clothing, and many little comforts or enjoyments, which were unknown to his forefathers ; that members of the richer and the middle classes, in return for the outlay of a similar proportion of their income, can indulge in many luxuries which were heretofore denied them — can surround themselves with a refinement and elegance heretofore unknown ; these are, after all, the great primary benefits which the discovery of America and the spread of colonization have secured to us : and it is to a similar increase of our physical well-being that we ought to look as the chief economical advantage to be de- rived to us from its further extension. The increase of the demand for products of national industry is a good, not because it enables us to part more readily with these products, but because it increases our means of aci5[uiring articles of necessity, comfort, and luxury in exchange. It is not the export of so' many millions' worth of cotton goods which benefits England* ; it is the acquisition of the sugar and coffee, the wines, tea, silk, and other numberless objects of vakie, which we receive in return. Our best customers are, not those who take most of our produce, but those who give us the greatest amount of value in exchange for it. Under an entirely free system, the benefit of colonies, that is, the enjoyment of the articles which they produce, would * See the witty illustration of this very plain proposition in Bastiat's ' Sophismes ficonomiques" — " Balance du Commerce." 190 ON COLONIAL TRADE ILiict. VII. ultimately result, not to the motlier coimtry, but to that country which, could supply the colonies on the cheapest terms with goods in exchange for those articles. A coun- try producing only articles not wanted by her colony, could not of course find a market there, or have any direct trade with it. Russia may colonize, as it is termed, large tracts of desert coimtry by drafts from the super- abundant population of her central provinces ; but the Eussian producer can derive no direct advantage there- from, because he can only send thither articles of raw produce, of which the colonists have probably enough and to spare. It is perhaps true, that even under a system of free competition, the mother country will long retain an advantage in the market of her colony from the durability of national tastes and habits.* Thus * (1860.) This is certainly a prevalent opinion. The following forcible expression of it is extracted from a paper in the Colonial Gazette of December 12, 1846. " Our own colonies are in reality only an exteii- " sion of the home market. The colonies of other nations are only an " extension of the foreign market. The home market is always rela- " tively more active, more secure, more rem\inerating than the foreign. " The tastes and habits of the British colonists are the same with those " of their fellow-countrymen in the old country ; their mode of conduct- " ing business, their notions of obligations, are the same : the com- " modi ties of the old country suit its colonial market better than those " of any other : ti-ade is carried on between them with a more frank " confidence and perfect understanding. The bond thus created to " unite the colony to the mother country is found to survive political " severance. The trade with Great Britain is still immeasurably the " most important part of the commerce of the United States, although " we parted in anger. The trade of Mam-itius with France, and of the " Cape with Holland, is still considerable, though these colonies have " now been British, to all intents, for nearly half a centui-y." But I question whether either more accurate economical reasoning, or statistical inquiry, warrants these conclusions. Plainly expressed, the theory amounts to this : So long as British nationality prevails, and untU an absolutely new commimity is created, so long there will be a tendency in the colony to buy a dearer article from England in prefer- ence to a cheaper article from elsewhere. And when thus expressed, it Lect. VII.] AND THE " COLOmAL SYSTEM." 191 it is said by travellers, that the wines of Spain and Portu- gal are even to this day in general use in South America although naturally less suited for its ardent chmate than the hghter growths of Northern Europe. And a greater and more permanent advantage wiU result to her from that identity of language and customs which attracts to each other the traders of kindred nations, and mo- difies even the instinct of gain. But such exceptions to the general rule are comparatively slight and transitory. It has therefore been the favourite object of European governments, ever since modern colonization began, to confine the inhabitants of their colonies as far as possible to the use of articles produced in the mother country by legislative enactment. seems to me almost to convey its own refutation. It is not to be denied, indeed, that such a tendency may exist ; but that it can exist to such an extent as substantially to control " the force and violence of the " ordinary course of trade," the simple preference for the cheapest market, is extremely difficult to believe. Such a position is not to be established by a few select instances of articles of taste and fancy. It may be (though I am unaware of the fact) that such commodities as Enghsh cutlery, Parisian jewellery, and the like, preserve for a time among kindred consumers a preference disproportioned to their real value ; but hardly to such an extent as can deserve attention, in considering a subject of such magnitude as the present. The question is perhaps better illustrated by reference to the economical history of the colonies of foreign nations than to that of our own. Now we have seen that Spain preserves hardly any trade with her old dependencies. Porto- rico is a peculiarly Spanish island, with a large white population : of its imports (in 1851) only twenty-one per cent, came from Spain, against nineteen per cent, from the United States, and thirty-foirr per cent, from the other West Indies. From Java — though the Dutch "colonies are but imperfectly emancipated from the colonial system of trade — complaints arrive of " I'accroissement assez constant de Timportation des articles " de I'industrie anglaise. En g&eral on estime que I'importation " totale de I'Angleterre dans cette ile, depuis les 30 derniferes ann^es, " s'est accrue de sept fois, tandis que celle de la N^erlande ne s'est " augmente<3 que du double." {Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1857 8, " p. 5a5.) 192 OK COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. \JI. That sucli prohibitions, if unaccompanied by counter- vaihng protection, are unjust and repugnant to ordinary- notions of equity, needs no demonstration. Whatever treatment of a conquered country by a conqueror usage or popular feeling may sanction, the case of a mother coimtry and colony is wholly distinct. The colonist who goes out with the sanction of the government at home retains aU the rights to protection and equitable govern- ment which he could have possessed- had he remained under its superintendence. And besides the sohcitations of justice, states have generally, in no long time after the foundation of colonies, been withheld by motives of policy and fear from doing them wrong. They have feared to encourage their colonists to seek their independence, or to range themselves under the banner of hostile nations. Hence, as the producers of the mother country have never been wilhng ,to let go their own monopoly, it has been found necessary to make to the colonists a compen- sation at the expense of the consumers. The mother country has voluntarily bound herself to the use of colonial articles produced by her colonists only. This, then, will be found (not I think in theory only, but in historical truth also) to have been the ordinary course of the colonial system. First, the mother country has en- deavoured to secure the monopoly of some precious commodities produced in the colony. Next, she has subjected the colonies to the necessity of consuming ar- ticles of her own production. Thirdly, she has granted the colonists the exclusive right of producing particular articles for her own consumption. And such has been the course of events, brought about far more by the exigencies of commerce than by any legislation, that I think we shall find that this last is the only substantial fragment of the old colonial system which now remains. It- is my present object, leaving out of the question the economical effects of that system on the development of Lect. Vn.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 193 colonies themselves, to consider it simply in relation to the mother country. Five different classes of restrictions contribute to make up the entire commercial system, which most Eiiropean nations have thought it advisable to adopt towards their colonies, and which England endeavoured to estabUsh by her navigation acts : — 1. Eestrictions on the exportation of produce from the colony, elsewhere than to the mother country. 2. Eestrictions on the importation of goods into the colony from foreign countries. 3. Eestrictions on the importation of colonial pro- duce into the mother country from foreign countries or colonies. 4. Eestrictions on the carriage of goods to and from the colonies in other shipping than that of the mother country. 5. Eestrictions on the manufacture of their own raw produce by the colonists. 1. With regard to the first of these, I shall not think it necessary to discuss the question of their utihty to the mother country on the present occasion ; because, as I have said, they are now nearly obsolete. The effects of the Spanish system of monopohzing the precious metals, or rather of the delusive attempt to do so, are no where so ably exposed as in the great work of Adam Smith. The Dutch persist to this day in a similar pohcy with respect to the spices of the eastern islands ; and the fol- lowing estimates of the present condition of that famous trade by a recent writer, as compared with that of a branch of colonial commerce but of yesterday, the southern spermaceti whale fishery, may give us some idea of the success of the experiment :— - " The spermaceti whale fishery employs 32,100 tons of " shipping, and 3210 seamen ; the vaunted spice trade, " 700 tons and 80 seamen : the tonnage is thus forty-six 194 ON COLONIAL TEADE [Lect. VII. " times greater ; the number of hands employed forty " times greater. The value of the fishery is 1,070,000/., " that of the spices, at three times their natural price, " 120,000Z., a httle more than one-half of the value of " the fishery. This amount from the fishery is obtained " by the labour of 3210 men, among the boldest, most " active, and most hardy that human institutions are " capable of breeding. The spices are obtained through " the enslaving of a population of 46,000 ; or with the " labour of 11,500 persons, taking the labouring popula- " tion at about one-fourth of the former number, vsdth " perhaps a million more, who are by means of it robbed " of the most ordinary rights of human nature, and kept " in slavery and barbarism to ensure an unworthy and " contemptible object."* 2. The next and more important branch of the system consists in restrictions on the importation of goods into the colony from foreign countries. It is, as has been shown, a contrivance for enabhng the producers of the mother country to buy cheap and sell dear ; to dispose of a portion of the produce of their capital and labour at a higher rate than they could have done, had they been subjected to the competition of foreign producers. In considering the principle of this contrivance, we must ne- cessarily return to a certain extent over the ground which we traversed in our last lecture. It was the opinion of Adam Smith, that this class of restrictions had the efiect of raising the rate " of profit in the mother country. Supposing a country to acquire, by conquest, a considerable extension of her dominion, whether colonial or foreign ; and supposing her to re- strict the consumers of that province or colony to the use of her own manufactures ; foreign capitals employed * Torrens' Colonization of South Australia, p. 190 (from Crawford's Indian Archipelago). Some recent changes have taken place in the mode of conducting the spice trade, of which I do not know the details. Lbct. VII.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 195 before in supplying it with goods, would necessarily be withdrawn from the trade : the capital of the conquering country would supply its place. Competition being thus diminished, the remaining capitalists would be enabled to make large profits ; to buy cheap and to sell dear.* " But in such an employment," says he, " the profit must " have been very great, and much above the ordinary " level of profit in other branches of trade. This su- " periority of profit in the colony trade could not fail " to draw from other branches of trade a part of the " capital which had before been employed in them. But " this revulsion of capital, as it must have gradually " increased the competition of capitals in the colony trade, " so it must have gradually diminished that competition " in aU other branches of trade ; as it must have gradually " lowered the profits of the one, so it must have gradually " raised those of the other, tiU the profits of aU came to " a new level, different from, and somewhat higher than, " that at which they had been before." And he imagined that this result had actually been produced to a certain extent by our navigation acts. Eeasoning, therefore, upon his own pecuhar theory, that high profits were injxirious to a country, he employed this as one of his arguments against the colonial monopoly. This, however, is well known, is a view in which he is singular ; and as, according to received doctrines, a comparatively high rate of profits, so far from being dis- advantageous, is one of the very best tests of increasing prosperity, it is clear, that if the restricted colonial trade really did produce the effect here ascribed to it, it would be a blessing to the mother country, whatever it might be to the colony. But Eicardo and his followers contend, that the whole argument is without foundation. According to them, as I yesterday showed you, the rate * Book iv. chap. 7. o2 196 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VH. of profit in every country depends not upon the ex- tent of the field for the employment of capital, but upon the productiveness of capital and labour. No extension of the foreign trade would increase the productiveness of capital and labour ; consequently, it would not raise the rate of profit. There would undoubtedly, as Adam Smith asserts, be high profits made at first by those who were in a position to avail themselves of it. But the competition between the capitahsts of the mother country would speedily bring them down again to the average rate of profit. The result, therefore, of this forced ex- tension of the foreign or colonial trade would merely be this — the goods of the favoured country would com- mand in the market of the other a greater quantity of the goods of that other, than before the restriction was imposed. If England can force Prance to take her goods in exchange for wine, a smaller quantity of English goods will buy the same quantity of wine as before ; the price of wine as estimated in Enghsh commodities will fall ; the Enghsh consumer will have a greater mass of com- modities to enjoy ; English wealth wiU be increased ; but the rate of profit in England, that is, the proportion of profit to the remaining parts of the produce of Enghsh capital and labour, wiU remain unaffected. The only exception to this law would be the case of an exclusive company. If any foreign trade were to be suddenly extended, and were to be committed to the hands of monopolists, who have the power of excluding home competition, they of course would continue to make high profits ; profits limited, in theory, only by the intensity of demand in that foreign country for the articles which they might furnish. It would be impossible for me, in such an incidental discussion as the present, to enter into that coi)Jse of reasoning, so close and logical as to be ahnost incapable of abridgment, by which Eicardo supports these cele- Lect. VII.] AND THE "COLONIAL SYSTEM." 197 brated positions. I must refer you to his work, especially the sixth chapter, and to Mr. M'Culloch's notes to A. Smith on the Eate of Profit and Colonial Trade, to the review of Eicardo's work ia the Edinburgh, and to the article " Colony" in the supplement to the Encyclopasdia Britannica, as forming, perhaps, the most useful com- mentaries on it. On the other hand, as I also mentioned in my former lecture, Mr. Malthus's view of the causes which influence the rate of profit more nearly coincides with that of Adam Smith, and he considers the compara- tive abundance or scantiness of capital to be one of the most prominent among those causes.* In one case, at all events, it is evident, that a rise in the price of manufactured articles in a foreign market, to- gether with a great extension of that market, would raise the rate of profit in the manufacturing country. It would, of course, immediately attract a large additional amount of capital. Supposing the supply of labour to be such that wages did not rise, it is plain that the capital so employed would continue to reahze high profits, until the competition of capital flowing in from aU quarters reduced them to the original level. But that capital would flow in from other employments. Suppose it to flow in from agriculture. A portion of the fields of the country would be abandoned. But the price of food would not greatly rise ; for food would be purchased (I am supposing a state of commercial freedom) with a part of the foreign produce imported in return for the manufactured goods. But in such a state of things it would immediately become profitable to the landlords to retain capital on their soil by a remission of part of the rent. This could only take place on soils yielding a rent : the worst soils yielding Httle or none must be abandoned. We have only then to suppose that the * Political Economy, book i. chap. v. sect. 3. o 3 198 ON COLONIAL TEADB [Lkct. VII, extension of the foreign market is so sudden, and so great, that this necessary process, the abandonment of the -worst soils, takes place before the vacuum in the foreign trade is filled up by competition. Then the balance will be adjusted in this way; an additional quantity of food will, no doubt, be imported from abroad : but a permanent, because natural, rise of pro- fits will take place, the productiveness of industry being increased. It seems impossible therefore to argue, that, supposing a country could secure the monopoly of the supply of a great foreign market, the efiect would not be a real in- crease of wealth, whether by the rise of profits, or, in the language of Eicardo, by an increase of the mass of com- modities. But it is obvious that such a supposition as I have here made, is quite, inapphcable in its very nature to the colony trade. The growth of colonies, though com- paratively rapid, is far less so, under ordinary circum- stances, than that of the capital and labour apphcable to manufactures in the country which is to supply them. Competition among the native manufacturers would there- fore as surely bring down the price of their goods to the lowest rate at which they could afford to supply them, ia the colonial market, as in the home market. Any such unnatural enhancement of profits, either in rate or in amount, as that of which I have spoken, might indeed take place if some vast and flourishing continent, some new Atlantis, were created for our benefit, and brought within reach of our ships and om- orders in council ; but assuredly not in the usual progress of sublunary afiairs. Let us look at the subject, then, in a more practical light. Suppose England to have the artificial monopoly of supplying Canada with silk, which France could supply cheaper. A certain quantity of Enghsh capital is then invested in the silk manufacture, wliich otherwise would not be so invested ; inasmuch as, without the monopoly, Lect. VII.] AND THE "COLONIAL SYSTEM." 199 it could not be so employed at the ordinary rate of profit. Canada, of course, loses by this arrangement aU the dif- ference between the price of Enghsh and French silks ; but we are not at present considering the interests of Canada. Suppose the trade thrown open to France ; Canada would gain aU that difference ; England would have the whole of the capital, now, by the supposition, in- vested in the silk trade for this particular purpose, thrown out of employment. Now, it is undoubtedly a conceivable case, that there could be no other employment found for that capital — that it must perish ; and it is the common fallacy which misleads the multitude of those who argue against free trade, to suppose that this conceivable case is the probable one. It is in fact scarcely possible, and for this reason : few countries, if any, certainly no great and colonizing countries, are without some advantages for the employment of their capital in particular branches of industry. If England, in hardware, in cottons, in wool- lens, has the natural monopoly of the supply of the world, it does not practically admit of a doubt, that should the artificial monopoly which we have supposed her to possess of the supply of Canada with silk be broken up, the capital thus engaged would speedily seek and find employ- ment in those, her rightful and prerogative branches of production. We should buy Canadian timber and corn, as we bought them before ; but we should buy them by exporting more wooUen and cotton goods, more hard- ware, and less or no silk. On this supposition, then, Canada would gain something by the removal of the monopoly ; England would lose nothing. In point of fact, England would gain also. I have spoken of the artificial silk trade, as realizing, in common with other trades, the ordinary profits of stock ; but in truth a forced trade seldom does so for any length of time ; it is essentiahy subject to fluctuation, uncertainty, and disappointment, beyond all others. One reason of o 4 200 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VII. ' this, among many, is very obvious. When the price of any article not absolutely necessary is enhanced by mono- poly, the consumer submits for a whUe, because his acquired habits uiduce him to reduce his consumption of the article as httle as possible. But in the course of time he either discovers substitutes for the high priced article, or, if that is impossible, he accommodates his taste to his circumstances, and learns to do without it, and the trade falls to the ground. Again, when the price of an article in the consuming country is raised by monopoly very far above the cost of production, it follows that a comparatively shght fall of that price may occasion a total loss of profit to the pro- ducer. " The price of timber in Canada is trifling ; but " in England, being augmented by high charges, it is five " times the original cost ; so that a fluctuation of 20 per " cent, in the price in this country amounts either to a " total loss, or a profit of 100 per cent. Hence, a trifling " decline in our market is completely ruinous to the colo- " nial shipper." * According to another calculation, 5 per cent, fluctuation in England causes 30 per cent, ia Canada.f " In providing a forced market in the colonies for articles " that we should not otherwise be able to dispose of, we " really engage a portion of the capital and labour of the " country in a less advantageous direction than that into "which it would naturally have flowed. We impress " upon it an artificial direction ; and withdraw it from " those secure and really beneficial businesses in which it " would have been employed, to engage it in businesses, " the existence of which depends only on the continuance " of oppressive regulations, and in which we are surpassed "by foreigners." J It wUl readily occur to those of my hearers, who are * Murray's British America, vol. ii. p. 33. ■f Debate in the House of Commons, July, 1839. I M'Culloch, Diet, of Commerce, art. " Colony." Lect. Vn.] AND THE " COLOOTAL SYSTEM." 201 in any degree familiar with the subject now brought before their notice, that the arguments here adduced are precisely as apphcable to the great question of free trade in regard to home or foreign as to colonial commerce. Let us suppose that the manufacturers of Spitalfields have the exclusive monopoly of supplying England with silk. The consumer loses all the difference between the price which the Spitalfields manufacturer charges him, and that which the French manufacturer would charge him. Let the monopoly be removed, and that whole difference is immediately saved to the consumer. But the capital of the Spitalfields manufacturer is lost. Not so : for some parts of it there is immediate and permanent employment, owing to the demand of the consumer, part of whose revenue is thus saved to him, for new articles of consump- tion. The remainder, we need not doubt, will by degrees be absorbed into the healthy system of the country. There will, indeed, be some exception for the fixed capital employed in the business, which must partly perish ; nor is it denied, that a forced trade cannot be destroyed with- out more or less temporary, and some httle permanent, loss : but this, although it may sometimes afford a reason against the hasty aboHtion of an estabhshed monopoly, raises a far stronger argument against the estabhshment of any new one. Let us now, if we cannot learn to regard the world as one country in regard to commercial intercourse, at least look on the British empire as a single body : let us view Canada in the hght of Yorkshire or Wales ; and the real effect of such restrictions will at once be apparent. But were the case otherwise, governments, however powerful, are utterly unable to impose such restrictions as shall secure to their subjects the real monopoly of this or that species of manufacture. " Even were it conceded," says Mr. M'Culloch, " that the possession of an outlet in "the colonies for goods, that could not otherwise be 202 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VH. " disposed of, was an advantage, it is one that can exist "in theory only. Practically, it can never be reahsed. " The interests of the colonists, and the dexterity and " devices of the smuggler, are too much for custom-house "•regulations. Cheap goods never fail of making their "way through every obstacle. All the tyrannical laws "and guarda costas of Old Spain, did not hinder her " colonies from being glutted with prohibited commodities. " And we may be assured, that the moment a competitor " appears in the field, capable of supplying the Canadians "and people of Jamaica with cottons, wooUens, hard- " ware, &c. cheaper than we can supply them, that moment " win they cease to be our customers. All the revenue " officers, and aU the ships of England, supposing them "to be employed for the purpose, would be unable to " avert this result." In point of fact, aU the regulations which legislative ingenuity can suggest, for the purpose of excluding manufactured articles from a country, only end in adding a small per centage to the price of them, which goes in the nature of a premium or insurance to the smuggler. But these considerations are not at the present day of much practical hnportance to ourselves. Our unrivalled superiority in manufactures gives us the command of the supply of our colonies without the necessity of having recourse to artificial restrictions to maintain it. Importation into them is, accordingly, very little afiected by prohibitive laws, with the exception of those which restrain the com- merce of foreign countries with some of our dependencies in grain, fish, and other articles of raw produce. These are rehcs of our old navigation laws, not intended to benefit the mother country, but in point of fact to favour the industry of our North American settlements at the expense of those of the West Indies, which were supposed to be sufficiently encouraged by their exclusive supply of the home market. Their eiFect on the depressed trade of Lect. "VII.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 203 .these colonies has been of late years extremely injurious, and measures for their alleviation are now actively in progress. But I fear the supposition that they, in any degree, counterbalance the effect of the protective duties on West Indian produce ; that, in the words of the recent Committee on Imports, " the difficulties of modifying the " discriminating duties which favour the introduction of " British colonial articles would be very much abated, if " the colonies themselves were allowed the benefits of free " trade vdth all the world," is far too sanguine, and likely to lead to disappointment. 3. Such, therefore, has been the singular course which the fortunes of commerce have taken, and such the passion of our governments to favour and enrich distant colonies, that while we have no longer any need of those apparent advantages, which, according to the old mercan- tUe theory, the monopoly of their supply with manufac- tures would have secured us, we stiH continue bound to take certain articles of raw produce exclusively from them. The purpose alleged for these mutual restrictions in the preamble to one of our old navigation acts, namely, " the maiataining a greater correspondence and kindness " between the subjects at home and those in the plan- " tations," is now pursued by means of sacrifices on our part, made absolutely without any consideration from theirs. For, unless we admit the argument sometimes used in this discussion, that it is right to grant com- mercial privileges to our colonists, in order that they may the more rapidly become wealthy customers (which is nearly the same thing as asserting, that a tradesman will gain by giviag a shilling to be laid out in his shop), it must be confessed that the colony trade, as now con- ducted, rests on prohibitions of which the burden falls almost exclusively on the mother country alone. Nor in this instance, as in that of manufactured goods, does the contraband trade render that burden little more than 204 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VII. nominal. Eaw produce, from its greater bulk, can in general be effectually protected by prohibitions. Besides the direct loss to the national income, occa- sioned by prohibitive duties on the importation of raw- produce, enhancing its price above that which it bears in the free market of the world, two other effects are worthy of observation : the one is, the diminution of consumption which they occasion ; the other is, the forcing into use inferior articles, and exclusion of bet- ter. All these are exemphfied in the colonial trade at the present day.* West India sugars are at present subjected in Eng- land to a duty of 24s. per cwt. ; East India to a duty of 32s. ; foreign sugars, of 63s. The price of West India sugar, exclusive of the duty, has averaged, in a series of years, about 30s. per cwt. ; inclusive of the duty, 54s., not equalling altogether the duty on foreign sugar ; so that the latter is what is termed prohibitive, amounting, that is, to an entire prohibition of its use. It is probable that sugar might be supplied from Cuba, Brazil, and other countries, at less than 20s. per cwt. ; supposing therefore the prohibitive duties to be repealed, and the 24s. duty to be retained, the price in England would fall to 44s. But with such an extension of con- sumption as this fall would produce, it would be practica- ble to lower the duty considerably, and thus produce again a farther increase of consumption to an almost incalculable amount. The duty on coffee was lowered in 1825 one-half; and by 1832 the consumption had risen from 8,000,000 lbs. to 32,000,000 lbs. f It is * That is, in 1840. •j" The following details on the subject of the consumption of coffee were presented by Mr. Porter to the Committee on Import Duties, 1840: — Year. Duty per lb. CoDsumption, per head. Duty paid, per head. 1801 Is. 6d. l-OQoz. 1^. 1821 1 8-01 6 1831 6 21-13 8 Lect. Vn.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 205 scarcely possible to estimate the effect of a similar abatement on an article so extensively useful and agree- able as sugar. " Those who have not seen with their " own eyes," says Humboldt, " what an immense quan- " tity of sugar is consumed in Spanish America, even " in the poorest families, must be astonished at finding " that France requires for her supply not more than " three or four times as much as the island of Cuba," which, when Humboldt visited it, had a population of only 340,000. It is a misfortune, that the necessity under which we are placed, of maintaining an enor- mously expensive machine of government, should thus narrowly hmit and curtail the enjoyment by the great bulk of our people of the free bounties of nature. But for that sacrifice we receive an abundant reward in the preservation of those institutions, to which we owe the far greater blessings of security, order, and liberty. "What return we obtain for that farther sacrifice, which is made exclusively for the sake of enriching the West Indians, it is not so easy to determine. As matters stand now, however, it is plain, that about two-fifths of the price of every pound of sugar which we consume are the natural cost of the article, two-fifths are paid to government, and one-fifth as a tribute to the planters of Jamaica and Demarara. These considerations are suggested by the state of the colonial sugar trade, such as it has been for a long average of years. But the time for reflection is almost past : it is now menaced with a serious revolution. Erom causes not under our review in the present lec- ture, the cost of production in our colonies has in- creased within the last seven years to a perilous amount ; or, to speak more accurately, production has been so cramped by the deficiency of labour, that it is utterly inadequate to meet the demand. The price of brown sugar rose from 395. 6d. in 1839 to 57s. 6d. in 1840. 206 ON COLONIAL TEADE [Lbct. VII. The total quantity of sugar supplied by the British West Indies feU from an average of 3,860,484 cwt. in 1830-34 to 3,354,833 cwt. in 1835-39. In November 1840 the stock of sugar in hand was less by one-half than in the corresponding month of 1839 ; nor is there any reasonable expectation that the productiveness of oiu- colonies will be speedily increased. The monopoly, therefore, ap- proaches its termination, for this country vdU not long endure the increasing price and diminishing quantity of an article so essential to the habits of the present day. Even those who see many and serious reasons for re- gretting the change, which may have so unfavourable an ejQTect on the prospects of the African race, cannot but foresee its approach ; while those who contemplate it with a view only to the economical progress of the country, regard it with unmixed satisfaction. The colonial and foreign timber trade affords a re- markable instance of the other result of prohibitions on the importation of raw produce already alluded to ; namely, the forced consumption of inferior in heu of better commodities. The discriminatiag duties on tim- ber are owing to commercial regulations of very modern origin, having been first adopted in 1808, in a time of war between ourselves and the Baltic nations, and not very materially altered since. The duty on timber from our North American colonies was 10s. a load, on Baltic timber 45s. until the tariff of 1842. It was stated, when a shght reduction of the duty on European timber, ac- companied by the imposition of that on the colonial, took place in 1821, that the protection then continued was merely sufficient to counterbalance the difference of cost, chiefly in freight, between the two commodities, and enable the producers to meet on equal terms in the Enghsh market. But, as Mr. M'Culloch observes, the fact that vessels have been known to load timber in the Baltic, and cany it round by North America, in Lect. Vn.] AJ^fD THE " COLOMAL SYSTEM." 207 order to import it as tlie produce of the latter country, seems conclusively to show, that this is not the case. StiQ, Baltic timber is supphed to a considerable extent. It was stated the other day in Parliament, that of the annual supply of timber requisite to meet our consump- tion, three-fifths were furnished by North America, one- fifth still by the Baltic. This may be partly owing, no doubt, to the lower cost of production of the latter article, which enables the seller of it to compete in some in- stances with his rival, notwithstanding the duty with which he is loaded ; but it is owing in a much greater degree to its superior excellence. We are restricted from the use of an article at once cheaper and better, and compelled to employ one dearer and worse. Nor can we with justice set off against this loss, as is some- times attempted to be done, the consequent increase of our trade with Canada. For every customer whom we gain there, we lose one in Eussia or in Sweden. We buy Canadian timber with our manufactures ; and were we to return to the use of Baltic, it is only with our manufactures that we could buy it.* Another argument, indeed, for maintaining these pro- tective duties, especially those on timber, arises from the increased employment which the trade, thus regu- lated, is supposed to give to our shipping, both absolutely and relatively, as compared with foreign countries. But the encouragement of the shipping of the mother country being, as it were, a separate head of the colonial system of commerce, will deserve separate consideration ; as well as the remaining head which I indicated at the com- mencement of my lecture, the restriction, namely, laid on the manufacture by colonists of their raw produce. Having briefly touched on these two subjects, I shall * Tbe duties on colonial and foreign timber were ultimately equalized in 1860. See Lect. VIII. "208 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Lect. VIE. conclude to-morrow's lecture by a few general remarks on some economical advantages derived, or supposed to be derived, by the mother country through her relations with her colonies — the per contra, as it were, of the great account which I am now laying one side before you. Lbct. VIII.] EESTRICTIONS ON CARRIAGE. 209 LECTUEE Vin. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. The next branch of the colonial system to which I have to direct your attention consists in restrictions on the car- riage of merchandise to and from the colonies in other shipping than that of the mother country. The attempt to confine commerce with foreign parts to Enghsh vessels has been a favomite point of policy with our statesmen from very early times. The object, how- ever, of the more ancient enactments and regulations on this subject seems to have been almost wholly the defence of the kingdom. Dependent for safety, in our insular situation, chiefly on our command of the seas, it has been in all times a matter of the deepest national in- terest with us, to provide for the maintenance of that superiority. Hence the encouragement offered to the mxiltiphcation of shipping and seamen, by bounties on particular branches of maritime employment, and by heavy duties on the importation of goods in foreign bottoms. I may refer you for notices respecting the English navigation laws previous to the 17th century, besides Andersoii's History of Commerce and other well known authorities on the subject, to that very entertain- ing compilation, Southey's Maritime History of England. You win there see how these various prohibitions, always enforced when war was apprehended, were sure to be again relaxed or evaded in time of peace, when the pri- vate interests of merchants prevailed over the care of the public security. How far our naval greatness has really 210 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Lect. VIII. been promoted by our commercial legislation, it is no part of my province to inquire. Undoubtedly no political philosoplier will dispute tlie proposition, that it may be advantageous to a state to sacrifice a portion of her wealth — to lay her merchants under certain disadvan- tages — with a view to provide for those paramount objects of pohcy, the means of defending herself against foreign aggression, and maintaining her rank among other powers. Nor was it, apparently, untU the 17th century .that these legitimate intentions began to be mixed up viath others of a more objectionable kind arising from the errone- ous notion, that the national wealth could be increased by regulations compelling a portion of it to flow into definite channels. The extraordinary commercial success of the Dutch served at that time as the principal stimulus to the jealousy of our statesmen. The Dutch had monopohsed a great part of the carrying trade of Europe, and ahnost the whole of that which was carried by the American settlements of all nations with Europe and with each other. In the reign of Charles 11., Sir Wilham Petty roughly estimated the whole mercantile shipping of Europe at 2,000,000 tons, of which 800,000 belonged to the United Provinces. Nor was this monopoly the result of superior natural advantages. Inhabiting a country rich neither in timber nor metals, and with every branch of industry heavily taxed, they could neither build nor man their vessels so cheaply as many others. But they possessed a great accumulation of capita], which enabled their shipowners to be content with a lower rate of freight than was necessary to satisfy the smaller capitahsts of other countries ; and the stiH greater advantage of a moral capital, if it may be so termed, of energy, industry, habits of business, and hberal institutions, which, in the long run, proved far more precious than the richest gifts of Nature, in hands unskilled or neghgent in the use of Lect. VIII.] THE NAVIGATIOIf LAWS. 211 them. Most of this, it will be observed, was the conse- quence of their commercial supremacy, which enabled them to accumulate that capital and to contract those habits. The carrying trade, as Adam Smith truly ob- serves, "is the natural effect and symptom of national " wealth ; but it does not seem to be the natural cause " of it." The Enghsh of that day, however, thought otherwise : they resolved to deprive the Dutch, as far as in them lay, by legislative measures, of the exclusive source of riches which they conceived them to have ap- propriated. Hence the famous navigation laws of Crom- well and Charles II., to which I have so frequently had occasion to advert, and of which I need not now recapi- tulate the provisions. As far as regards the colonies, they were intended to compel the colonies to use Enghsh ship- ping for the exportation of their merchandise to Europe and to each other, and to secure to the Enghsh ship- owners the monopoly of supplying the colonies both with English and foreign commodities. The enactment of the navigation laws was contempo- raneous with the rise of our supremacy, both commercial and maritime, and the decay of that of Holland. And for more than one hundred years, they were universally regarded by ourselves as among the chief causes and most important bulwarks of our prosperity. Adam Smith him- self (speaking, however, of the measure in a pohtical and not economical point of view), says that " National ani- "mosity, at that time, aimed at the very same object " which the most deliberate wisdom would have recom- " mended — the diminution of the naval power of Holland, " the only naval power which could endanger the security " of England." * Nevertheless, as far as the accumulation of wealth is concerned, it is absolutely impossible but that they must have been, in the first instance, injurious. If Dutch shipping was at that period cheaper than * Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. 2. F 2 212 ON COLONIAL TEADE. [Lect. VIII. English, the merchant who was forced to embark his commodities in English bottoms lost the whole of that difference. The English shipowner did not gain the whole of it ; a portion was sunk, at a dead loss both to the nation and to the capitahst, as has already been ex- plained. If we were to exclude French wines, for the purpose of growing dearer wines at home, in despite of the difference of soil and chmate, either a larger portion of our revenue must be devoted to the production of wiae than is now devoted to its purchase, or our consumption of an useful and agreeable article must be diminished. And, in the same manner, any restriction on the use of foreign shipping for exporting our commodities must either divert a portion of capital to be unprofitably em- ployed in the production of ships, or must cause a diminu- tion in our exports. If the navigation laws, therefore, did really contribute to increase the wealth of England, it must have been by some mysterious and indirect mode of operation, inexplicable on ordinary principles of eco- nomical reasoning, such as the defenders of commercial restrictions are continually suggesting, but rarely or never attempt to define. But it is to be observed, that many of these effects which have been ascribed to the navigation laws must, in point of fact, have followed from other causes, if those laws had never been enacted. The Dutch, it has been said, possessed no natural advantages for the monopoly of the carrying trade, or, indeed, of any other branch of commerce. And great as are the conquests which human skill and energy can achieve, no dominion is durable in the foundation of which nature has not co-operated. Hol- land had also political difficulties to contend against. In the middle of the seventeenth century, while England and other countries were pressing into the lists as rivals, she was toihng under a load of taxation such as no other community has ever endured. On the whole it seems Lect. VIII.] THE NAVIGATION LAWS. 213 reasonable to conclude -with Mr. M'CuUocli, tHat " The " decline of her maritime preponderance was owing rather " to the gradual increase of commerce and navigation in " other countries, and to the disasters and burdens occa- " sioned by the ruinous contest the repubhc had to sustain " with Cromwell, Charles II., and Louis XIV., than to the "exclusion of their merchant vessels from the ports of "England." And if the amount of their loss by our legislation be problematical, that of our own gain by it is certainly much more so. In 1825 the truth of the principle was tested by the extensive alterations which then took place in our navi- gation laws — alterations, indeed, which have affected the foreign more than the colonial trade and shipping of the empire. But the pohcy of what is termed the " recipro- city system" has been matter of so much debate, that it may be advisable to pause a httle in our review, in order to examine what hght the experience of late years has reaUy thrown upon it. Let us employ for this purpose the statement of the case by Sir A. Alison, in his work on Population (chap. 15), — a professed enemy to the legislation of Mr. Huskisson and his successors. The tables to which he refers show that between 1801 and 1822 British tonnage increased from 922,594 to 1,664,186, — in other words, nearly doubled ; while foreign tonnage diminished from 780,155 to 469,151. Foreign to British was, therefore, at the first period, nearly as eight to nine ; at the latter, less that one to three. From 1823 to 1836, under the reciprocity system, British tonnage increased from 1,740,859 to 2,505,473, or about one third ; foreign tonnage from 582,996 to 988,899, or about two-fifths. In the first of these years, it was to the British as one to three ; nearly, in the last, as two to five. From this table Sir A. Alison infers that the proportion p 3 214 ON COLONIAL TEADB. [Lect. VIII. of foreign to British tonnage has increased since the reciprocity system was adopted, and that the system was unfavourable to our shipping. It is important, however, before we proceed in our calculations, to observe how fortunate he has been in his selection of the particular year, 1801, as the basis of his calculations. It was a year of war, in which the amount of British tonnage was small, and that of neutral unusually large. If he had taken the following year, 1802, as the groundwork of his comparison, it would have appeared that, in his first period, the British tonnage had only increased about a fifth, while the foreign had remained absolutely sta- tionary. We need not accuse Sir A. Alison of unfair intention in adopting so fallacious a test ; but it is obvious that any argument by comparison of single years is very unsatisfactory. But he proceeds to analyse the returns more minutely, with a view to prove, first, the diminution of the British shipping in the trade with countries on terms of reci- procity with us, — secondly, the diminution or slight increase in our export trade with those countries ; by which it was thought, when the system was adopted, we should be remunerated for any loss to om: shipping interest. He shows that the tonnage of British vessels, which cleared outwards to the countries included in the reciprocity treaties (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Eussia, France, the United States), had increased, between 1822 and 1838, from 469,726 tons to 714,881 only. Foreign, from 383,924 to 990,328. Exports, from 18,084,013^. to 21,270,705/. To non-reciprocity countries, British tonnage had in- creased from 407,847 tons to 783,359. Foreign, from 82,432 to 217,515. Exports, from 8,355,854/. to 15,101,765/. Lbct. VIII.] EFFECTS OF RECIPROCITY TREATIES. 215 To the colonies ; British, from 786,613 tons- to 1,287,157. Foreign, from 795 to 2,823. Exports, from 10,526,156^. to 13,689,367^. He also shows that the increase under the first of these heads, in British tonnage, is entirely referable to our trade with the United States. Our tonnage in trade with the nations of Northern Europe has shghtly declined. " Thus," he says, " it distinctly appears, both from the " Parhamentary Eeturns and the admission of the most " able and well-informed advocates for the reciprocity " system, that the anticipated and promised extension of " our foreign trade, from the adoption of that system, " has not taken place : that, so far from it, our trade has " rapidly and signally declined, during the last 25 years, " with the old states of Europe, fifteen of which have " been spent under the reciprocity system ; and, there- " fore, that we have gratuitously ioflicted a severe wound " upon our own maritime interests, without having pur- " chased thereby any equiva.lent advantage, either for " our foreign trade or our manufactures." " It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the reciprocity " system has had no tendency to check the serious decay " which is going forward in our European trade ; while " the restrictive system, which is still applied, with un- " diminished force, to our colonies, at least in their in- " tercourse with their parent state, has had as httle efiect " in checking the rapid and astonishing growth, both of " our shipping and foreign trade, in the three distant " parts of the empire." The alleged failure of the experiment, he contends, proceeds mainly from this cause ; that the reciprocity was not real but nominal. " If the article can be reared " cheaper abroad than at home, it is a perfect delusion to " say that we have entered into a fair reciprocity treaty, p 4 216 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Lect. VIII. " because we admit that article on the same terms with " them : real reciprocity consists, not in admitting the " same article into our ports on the same terms on which " our neighbours receive ours, but in obtaining admit- " tance for a corresponding article on our side in which " we have a corresponding advantage over them. Unless " this is done, reciprocity is entirely illusory, because it " is aU on one side Every one knows that the Baltic " powers can carry on ship-building far cheaper than " England, for this plain reason, that the materials of " ships, timber, cordage, hemp, and tar, are produced by " nature on the shores of the Baltic, in countries where " labour is not half so dear as in the British Isles. On " the other hand, cotton goods and iron of aU sorts can " be manufactured far cheaper in Great Britain than " either in France or the Baltic states, in consequence of " the accumulation of capital and great skill in machinery " in this country, and the incalculable advantage of our " coal mines. Eeal reciprocity, then, would have con- " sisted in a treaty, whereby, in consideration of our " admitting their shipping into our harbours on as favour- " able terms as they admitted ours into theirs, they con- " sented to receive our cotton goods into their ports on " the same terms as we received their cotton fabrics into " ours." Whether this would have been " real reciprocity " or not, it would certainly have been a very gainful treaty for us. But it was scarcely hkely that we should per- suade the Prussian government, acting on the ordinary principles of commercial pohcy by which governments conduct themselves, to such an exchange of golden for brass armour as the free admission of the staple produce of our industry, cotton goods, in retmrn for so shght a boon as the free admission of their shipping. But the Baltic states have two great staples of their own, timber and corn. We restrict ^e admission of both by differ- Lect. Vm.] EFFECTS OF EECIPBOCITT TREATIES. 217 ential duties of a very onerous character. Now, when the reciprocity system commenced, the fatal effects of those restrictions on oiir Baltic trade had only been felt for a few years. Ever since that time they have been sedulously maintained, and as sedulously met by counter- restrictions on the import of our manufactures by the Baltic powers. With or without reciprocity, therefore, our trade with them must equally have declined. If we had not admitted their shipping, which, in point of fact, we were imable to prevent, except by a total cessation from aU commercial intercourse, it must inevitably have declined in a greater proportion. After making some allowances which must be made in the comparison, such as the difference of measurement in EngHsh and Baltic vessels, which makes our tonnage appear relatively smaller than it is, there is no doubt that, from superior cheap- ness, the vessels of the Baltic ship-owners are able to compete pretty equally with ours, for those short voyages by which this trade is carried on. Narrowed as our market is, by legislation, for their most valuable pro- ductions, it is probable that this circumstance is the principal cause which keeps alive the remnant of this once important branch of our commerce. With the United States, the other great reciprocity country, although the trade is still chiefly carried on in American vessels, the proportion of our tonnage to theirs has increased since the system began; and this is, un- doubtedly, the fairest test of the effects of that system. As the law now stands*, goods can only be imported into our colonies in the shipping of the country which produces them ; and then only if the country in question be on terms of reciprocity with us. I will not discuss the apprehended danger to our maritime supremacy, if, by relaxing these restrictions, we were to lose the carry- * That is, before the measures which terminated in the final repeal of the Navigation Act restrictions, 1854. 218 ON COLONIAL TEADE [Lect. VUI. ing trade. But whether we should, in fact, lose any im- portant part of it is extremely questionable. If the received accounts of the strength and durability of the Baltic shipping are correct, it would certainly not be able to compete with our own in Transatlantic navigation. The shipping of the United States, our most formidable com- petitor, might interfere, to a certain extent, in this branch of commerce : but, considering that oiu' tonnage is at present gaining upon theirs, even in the direct trade between our ports and their own, it would hardly suffer much by their rivalry in what would be to them the more circuitous traffic between Great Britain and her colonies. A more important remnant of the old navigation laws, as regards the colony trade, consists in restrictions on the direct importation of provisions and other articles from the United States into the West Indies. The duties on Baltic timber may also be regarded as maintained, in part, with a view to the advantage of the British shipowner ; masmuch as the Canadian timber trade is carried on en- tirely in British or colonial bottoms, while in that of the Baltic Prussian and Norwegian vessels have a share. The number of vessels employed exclusively in the American timber trade is estimated, by an impartial vrriter*, at 684, and the men at 8700. How large a proportion of these would be thrown out of employ- ment by the equahzation of the duties, it is not very easy to conjecture ; but the necessity we are under of maintaining our maritime strength, renders it incumbent on us to proceed with caution towards such a measure, however confident we may be that the path wiU ulti- mately turn out right.f * Murray's British America, vol. ii. p. 24. t (1861.) The restriction of the differential duties on colonial and foreign timber Tvas accordingly very gradually effected hy successive stages, imtU their equalization in 1860. Judging from the returns of the cargoes imported (see M'Cullooh's Commercial Dictionary, 1859, Lect. VIII.] AKD THE "COLONIAL SYSTEM." 219 The injury wliich restrictions on tlie carrying trade effect to national "wealth, by forcing the merchant to employ home shipping in preference to foreign, has been already explained ; and nothing so plainly illustrates its nature and extent, as the singular evasions, or circuitous modes of proceeding, which they usually introduce into conamerce when war interposes difficulties in the way of national intercourse: the great price to which commodi- ties often rise will render it profitable to effect their trans- port by means of the most extraordinary routes. In the late war, American merchandise not unfrequently reached Paris by way of Salonica in Turkey.* On one occasion, says Mr Tookef , in his work on Prices, two parcels of silk were despatched from Bergamo, in Lombardy, to this country ; one went vid Smyrna, the other vid Archangel ; the first was one year arriving, the latter two. Now all restrictions, especially those on the carrying trade, place neighbouring nations, as it were, in a perpetual state of commercial hostility ; and cause, precisely in the same manner, a profitless expenditure of national property in circuitous modes of transit. 5. The last branch of the prohibitive system may be treated of in very few words : namely, the prohibition laid on colonists to manufacture their own raw produce. Such, indeed, was the importance once attached to these restrictions, that even Lord Chatham went so far as to declare in parliament, that " the British colonists of North " America had no right to manufacture even a nail or a " horseshoe." But the jealousy of manufacturers on this point was surely a little extravagant. To follow out Lord Chatham's expressions literally, to prevent colonists from manufacturing for themselves the coarse and ordi- " Timber "), it would appear that the general increase of the colonial timber trade of late years has been very slow, but that the Baltic trade has absolutely fallen oiF. * Say, Cours, iii. 361. t Vol. i. 310. 220 ON COLONIAL TEADE [Lbct. VIII. nary objects of every day want, is, of course, impractic- able ; and nature itself prohibits them from engaging in manufactures, ia the more extended sense of the word. So long as they are thinly spread over a fertile surface, so long as land is cheap and labour dear, their own interest will always point out to them that the most advantageous taode of procuring manufactured commodities is by giving their own raw produce in exchange. And when their numbers are multipHed, and their capital accumulated so far as to render manufactures profitable, they will as- suredly cease to be colonists. Such prohibitions, there- fore, may be regarded as, in general, Httle more than nominal. But there are some few branches of industry in which they have been productive of considerable injury to colonies ; where the article produced is of great bulk, and the process of reducing it to a consumable shape simple and easily executed on the spot, such as that of sugar refining. It has been the ordinary pohcy of European governments to forbid the refining of sugar in the islands where it is produced ; partly for the advantage of a few capitahsts engaged in that business at home, but more for that of the ship-owners, to whom it is more profitable to bring home the article in its bulky than its reduced shape. The business of sugar-refining, however, for some reason difficult to conjecture, has been long regarded with very exaggerated views of its importance by European govern- ments. It has been the practice both with ourselves and others, to encourage it by a drawback on the exportation of refined sugar, rather greater than the amount of the duties which the refiner has to pay for the use of the raw article, amounting, therefore, to a bounty. In France this was formerly carried so far, that of 40,000,000 francs, the whole amount of duty on colonial sugar in 1832, 19,000,000, were returned to the refiners.* * (1861.) The drawback on the exportation of British refined sugar is one of the few relics of the old artificial system still in existence, Lect. Vm.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 221 We have now gone through, I fear, in somewhat fatiguing detail, the principal points of the so-called colo- nial system. We have thus far directed our attention wholly to its effects on the wealth of the mother country. The result of our investigations has been, that although, imder certain contingencies, and granting a variety of favourable circumstances, a country might gain by the possession of an artificially monopohzed market for her manufactured commodities, yet, in actual practice, such gain is found to be almost wholly illusory ; that the dis- advantages of a forced trade in manufactured commodities are almost always greater than its advantages, but that to a country possessing the means of manufacturing cheaper than the rest of the world the benefit must be visionary altogether ; while, in order to secure this delusive profit, we are forced to concede to our colonists a monopoly for their raw produce, which is a real and substantial loss to ourselves. It is plain, therefore, that the whole fabric is, in truth, maiatained by sacrifices on our part, amounting to an enormous national expenditure. But it is commonly urged, that if the system of mo- nopoly were to be abandoned, the colonies protected by it must be injured, and our trade with them either crip- pled or totally lost ; and the enormous value of the colo- nial trade to this country is then dwelt upon as a sufficient answer to all those who complain of the monopohes by which it is surrounded. The value of that trade is shown by numerical estimates ; and when it has been proved, as it is easUy proved, that a greater quantity of British manufactured goods is exported to the colonial market, in proportion to the population to be suppHed, than any other, and a greater quantity of British shipping em- ployed in the commerce, the disputants in question appear to think that sufficient proof is given of the importance although reduced from 46s. to 17s. per cwt. since this lecture was published. 222 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Lect. Vm. of maintaining it. Let us turn again to the pages of Sir A. Alison for illustration. " From Mr. Porter's tables, it appears that, from 1802 ' to 1835, the trade of Great Britain with Europe has de- ' chned from 65 per cent, to 48 per cent. With the ' British colonies in America, it has increased from 18 ' per cent, to 26 per cent. With the United States of ' America, it has increased from 6 per cent, to 9 per cent., ' and that with India has increased from 3£ per cent, to ' 5 per cent. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the ' reciprocity system has had no tendency to check the ' serious decay which is going forward in our Euro- ' pean trade, while the restrictive system, which is ' still apphed with undiminished force to our colonies, at least as to their intercourse with the parent state, has had as httle effect in checking the rapid and ' astonishing growth, both of our shipping and foreign ' trade, with those distant parts of the empire. Nothing ' but adherence to theory and insensibility to facts can enable any person to resist the conclusion, that it is in our intercourse with our colonies that the real sinews of British strength are to be found." * I have not space to quote the rest of the passage ; in which the author concludes, that our true pohcy hes in " cultivating, with the most assiduous care, our colonial dependencies." There is one fallacy on the face of the numerical state- ments by which this argument is supported, which it may be as well to caution you against, although I do not mean to say that it materially affects the main question. Several of our colonies are important dep6ts for our foreign trade. * Vol. ii. p. 368. (1861.) Such were the prophecies of 1835. If the tables subjoined to this Lecture by way of appendix are correct, it would appear that our exports to Continental Europe have increased about sixty per cent, in the last twenty years ; to the American and West Indian Colonies, less than forty per cent. Lbct, VIII.] CONSUMPTION OF BRITISH GOODS. 223 Articles conveyed thither from Britain are reshipped for foreign parts. This takes place in two ways ; in the au- thorized trade and by smuggling. Some of the West India islands, especially Jamaica, send a considerable quantity of English goods, in the regular course of traffic, to the countries of the old Spanish Main. These goods appear in the account of the colony both as imports and exports, and swell the apparent consumption of the colony, while the real consuming country, that for which they are ultimately destined, figures for so much less in the account of exports from Britain. I have before me the official tables of revenue and population for the Colonies for 1836, the latest in print. From these the imports from Great Britain into Jamaica appear to have amounted in that year to 2,108,606Z. ; the exports from the island to 3,315,670Z. Taking the population of Jamaica at 400,000 (rather an over estimate), it would thus appear, that each inhabitant consumed rather more than hi. worth annually of British commodities ; that is, about * ten times as much as each native of the United States or Brazil, which are two of our most valuable foreign markets. But when we examine this table a httle farther, we find, in the first place, that a very large proportion of the manufactured goods thus brought into Jamaica are re- exported to South America. The following table comprises the principal : Imported into Jamaica . . Exported &om Jamaica , . Eemain for consumption . Cotton manu- factured Articles. Iron and Steel and Hardware. Linens. Woollens. 497,675 273,138 100,397 12,308 231,444 47,256 65,896 7,475 224,533 88,089 184,188 58,421 * See the Appendix to this Lecture, where will be found a table illus- trating these positions. 224 ON COLONIAL TEA.DE [Lect.VIH. Thus affording a considerable correction of the general result. The next necessary deduction from the apparent con- sumption of British goods in the colonies is to be made on account of the unauthorized, or smuggling, trade. Of this it is obviously impossible to estimate the amount. Whether the goods which are conveyed from the British West India islands to St. Thomas and other smuggHng depdts in the Gulf of Mexico figure as exports in ovti tables, I have . no means of ascertaining. But it is clear that the great im- portation from Canada into North America, along the hne of the St. Lawrence, makes no appearance at all in them. Its amount, if the representations of American manufac- turers are to be behaved, is very great indeed. The ex- port of British manufactured goods to British America amounted, in 1838, to 1,9 9 2,4 57 Z., or IZ. 7s. per head in proportion to the population ; that direct to the United States to 7,585,760Z. only, or about 10s. per head*; but how much of the former sum ought in reahty to be added to the latter ? Another shght correction necessary to be made, when calculations are framed merely on the gross amount of im- ports from Great Britain, is for the circumstance that few articles reach foreign ports from Great Britain which are not the produce either of Great Britain or her co- lonies ; whereas in our colonial trade we are the carriers of the produce of aU nations, which appears, along with our own, under the general head of imports from Great Britain. But these deductions, as I have said, very shghtly affect the main argument. It is very true that our colonies are on the whole our best consumers, and, if the value of our trade is to be reckoned by the consumption of our pro- duce, our best customers. But I must intreat your atten- * See Quarterly Eeview, vol. xlii. p. 534. Lect. Vm.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 225 tion once more to the principles which were laid down at the beginning of my last lecture. A customer who con- sumes what I produce injures instead of benefiting me, if he makes me no return, or a bad one. Now, how stands the case as to the intercourse between ourselves and those colonies whose productions we are forced by fiscal regu- lations to purchase ? If I am forced to carry on a traffic in which I sell cheap and buy dear, — if I buy coats with hats manufactured by myself, and, giving my own hats at the market price, am bound by contract to take the coats for twice as much as they are worth — surely I should be reckoned a strange calculator, if I persisted in estimating the value of my trade by its amount ; boasted of the number of hats which I had sold, when I had parted with them for half their value, and measured the value of the coats I had purchased, by setting them all down at the fictitious and exaggerated price I had agreed to give for them. Yet this is precisely, and without any exaggeration, the or- dinary line of argument adopted by the advocates of the colonial system. Three millions and a half of British exports to the West Indies, in 1838, purchased less than half as much sugar and coffee as they would have pur- chased if carried to Cuba and Brazil. Goods to the amount of 1,750,000^. were therefore as completely thrown away, without remuneration, as far as Britain is concerned, as if the vessels which conveyed them had perished on the voyage. Yet this sum of 1,750,000Z. is gravely set down, along with the remainder, as part of the annual " value of our colonial trade." The common and popular reasonings used on this sub- ject, therefore, turn out, as popular arguments in matters of political economy generally do, to be the merest falla- , cies. But there is another class of arguments sometimes employed, to which it may be desirable briefly to advert. There is a prevalent opinion among some classes of Q 226 ON COLONIAL TEADB [Lect. VIII. political economists (which I have already had occasion to mention, when considering the effects of the abstrac- tion of capital on national wealth), that, in consequence of the rapid accumulation of capital iu England, and great competition among its owners for the employment of it, the foreign trade is always carried on by us at something of a disadvantage ; that the effectual demand for our commodities, and the production of those goods which are to exchange for ours, does not increase so rapidly as the supply furnished by ourselves. Some of these rea- soners, consequently, argue, that preference should be given by the government to the home trade, m which the country cannot lose by this over-supply on the one part and deficiency on the other ; and they appear to put the colonial trade on the same footing as the home in this respect. The following passage is extracted from the writings of one of the best known disputants on that side of the question.* " It is evident, that if the general pro- ' ductive powers of a commercial cotmtry increase much ' faster than those of the world at large with which it ' deals, not only does the competition of capital prevent ' any permanent increase of its returns, — not only does ' the benefit derived from its ingenuity ultimately fall to ' the sluggish foreigner, who is supplied with continually ' increasing quantities of conveniences and luxuries in ' return for fixed quantities of his own produce, — but, ' unless the industry of the foreigner is, by these advan- ' tages, stimulated to increased exertions, the improving country actually loses by its intercourse with him. Its imports will be diminishing while its exports in- crease ; and its capitalists must be contented with ' diminished profits, its labourers with diminished wages. ' The only remedy to this state of things, which we can- ' not but consider to have been for some years past the ' condition of Britain, is to transfer the excess of its pro- * Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 24. Lect. Vill.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 227 " ductive powers, • its capital, and labour, to other spots " on the globe possessing facilities for the production of " those objects which it habitually imports, so as both to " diminish the competition of its home producers, and, at " the same time, to impart to the foreign market a portion " of its own energy, industry, ingenuity, and spirit of im- " provement. We may perceive from this the important " superiority possessed by the home and colonial trades " over the foreign ; and a sufficient reason for a pre- " ference and encoiu-agement to be afforded, in modera- ' " tion, by government to the former over the latter. The " aggregate demand and supply of goods in the home *' and colonial markets are necessarily always on a level. " What one British subject loses by a change in the rela- " tions of particular commodities is gained by another ; " but, in the foreign trade, the gain may, for a very con- " siderable period, fall exclusively to the foreigner, the " loss to the British party." The writer of this passage appears to me to employ two distinct hnes of reasoning, in such a manner as to occasion some shght confusion. Assuming that an ex- port trade is generally carried on at a loss, he argues, in one place, that the colonial trade is better than the fo- reign, because, in the latter, the foreigner gains what the Enghshman loses, whUe, in the former, both the gainer and the loser are British subjects. Whatever the value of this reasoning may be, it is not to our present purpose, as we are merely engaged in considering the effects of the colonial trade on the wealth of the mother country. But, in another part of the same passage, he appears to contend that, although the foreign trade be carried on at a loss, the same is not necessarily the case with the colonial; because, in the latter, British industry and capital being concerned on both sides, and the colonists having the additional advantage of a fertile soil, the de- mand for our products may be made to keep pace with a 2 228 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VUI, the supply, the colonist increasmg the mass of his ex- portable commodities at a rate which the " sluggish " foreigner " cannot equal. Now, without for one moment assenting to the sup- position on which the whole of this reasoning is founded, namely, that the export and import trade of this coun- try is less profitable than the home — in other words, that the producer knows his interest so httle as to prefer selhng abroad at a loss to selHng to his own country- man with profit ; I can nevertheless readily agree to so much of it as shows the economical advantages of colo- nization. In partiQg with a portion of our capital for the foundation of colonies (it has been repeatedly said already), we are, in effect, placing it out at interest. Applied to a new and fertile soil, it produces far more than it could produce at home ; and the benefit of that superior productiveness is felt by us in an increased supply of useful commodities, for which we are able to give the produce of our own industry in exchange on favourable terms, from the strength of the demand. And when the trade between the mother country and her rising colony, tinfettered by monopoly, is gainful to both, such as that between Britain and her Austrahan settle- ments, the strongest opponent of colonial dominion can assign no reason to desire the severance of the connection beyond the very shght expense which it occasions ; there may be great prospective advantages in maintaining it, especially so long as it is necessary to convey a portion of the stream of emigration in that direction, a point to which we shall hereafter have particularly to attend. But when such arguments are adduced in favour of preserving commercial restrictions by which we are the losers, for the sake of maintaining our connection with colonies, we are bound to demand plain proof of the economical utUity of that connection. What real reason is there for sup- posing that the inhabitants of any old and peopled colony, Lect. VIII.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 229' if severed from the mother country, would augment their capital less rapidly, would produce a less rapidly increas- ing amount of goods to exchange for ours, would cultivate our commercial connection less assiduously, than they do at present ? In considering such a question, the states- man would have to weigh the chances of the interruption of commerce between independent states from war and mercantile jealousy, against the chances of its interruption between colony and metropolis, by mutual animosity ; the peril of losing a free trade by foreign competition, against that of keeping up a restricted trade under some change of circumstances which may destroy its profits and leave its burdens ; the comparative effect of a state of indepen- dence and a state of subjection on the increase of national wealth in a new country. And when our supposed poh- tician had mastered all these abstruse considerations, and struck in his own mind the balance of advantages, he would probably find the whole of his calculations confounded in practice by some unforeseen circumstance — some Httle cloud arising unnoticed from the sea, and overshadowing in an hour that firmament in which he had traced, to his own satisfaction, the future destinies of his people. There could be no more dangerous error, in politics, than to build up artificial fabrics, not with a view to present emergencies, but to that future which a thousand contin- gencies may alter in a moment : most of aU, if they are built and maintained at a loss. But, in point of fact, this has never been done. The colonial system, like every other system of the kind, was constructed with a'view to the present gain of particular classes : once estabhshed, it has found ingenious advocates to defend it, on the ground of prospective utility. Experience, at all events, speaks, as far as we have any, on the opposite side. Before the American Eevolution, we possessed colonies even more extensive and valuable ihan at present. Yet the trade with those colonies, a 3 230 ON COLONIAL TRADE [Lect. VIII. thougli a thriving one, never seems to have been in a wholly satisfactory state. It was subject, like all other trades involved in prohibitions, to the fluctuations arising from that uncertainty of supply and demand which is produced by monopoly.* And during the latter years of the connection, mutual jealousies and antipathies, more powerful even than self-interest, nearly reduced it to ruin. As soon as the connection was severed, what was the consequence ? Did the industrious colonists become " sluggish foreigners," and cease to supply goods fast enough to meet the craving of the Liverpool and London markets? Was our profitable colonial trade turned into a losing foreign trade ? All the world knows, on the contrary, that the commerce between the mother country and the colony was but a peddling trafiic, com- pared to that vast international intercourse, the greatest the world has ever known, which grew up between them when they had exchanged the tie of subjection for that of equahty, fi l\oiQ iToXue Tt iroKeai avfip.a.-)(OVQ rt tTVfJ.fia)(oig No one now really doubts, notwithstanding the hostile tariff of the States, that the separation of our North American colonies has been, in an economical sense, advantageous to us. And yet precisely the same argu- ments are current at this very day respecting the superior profit of colonial commerce, and the wealth arising from colonial domination, which were in every one's mouth before that great event had occurred, and, by its results, confounded all such calculations. So easily does our reason contrive to forget the strongest lessons, or to evade their force, when prejudice and love of power warp it in the contrary direction. * Say, Coiu-s, iii. 438. Lect. Vm.] FUKNISHING TRIBUTE. 231 It remains for me to notice, under my present head, one more mode in whicli it has been supposed that colonies may be made serviceable to the mother country ; namely, by furnishing a revenue, or tribute. After the various arguments and details into which we have entered, I need not caution you against a fallacy which is occasionally employed, but only by the most superficial reasoners on these subjects ; I mean the speaking of duties levied on the importation of colonial products as so much revenue furnished by those colo- nies. For example : probably you, as well as myself, may have occasionally seen the 4,000,000^. which are annually raised by the duty on West India sugar repre- sented as a tribute from the West Indies ; and inferences raised as to the enormous value of those colonies. A more ludicrous misrepresentation cannot be imagined. We have already seen, that if the colonial monopoly were abolished, or the West India colonies no longer in our possession, we might stOl raise 4,000,000^. on sugar, and save, in all probability, a mUhon by the diminution of price — consumption remaining the same. So that, instead of receiving a tribute of four millions from the planters, we, in effect, pay them a tribute of one. But without attending to such mistakes or sophis- tries, let us consider the substantial question before us. It is, of course, a conceivable case, that the revenues drawn by a government from a colony, as well as from any other possession, may be made to exceed its ex- penditure, and thus afford a surplus, or tribute. But' there are two reasons which render such a result highly improbable; namely, the greater cost of governing a colony, and the greater difficulty of raising a revenue in it. With regard to the first : so long as the colony is to be governed by functionaries, and defended by. soldiers and sailors, drawn from the mother country, the cost of their transport must be added to the general a4 232 ON THE TEIBUTE [Lect. VIII. expenditure ; and in addition to this, tte higher salaries and greater pay which those employed by government on foreign service always require. Although the ne- cessaries of life may sometimes be cheap in a colony, luxuries, and all imported articles, are invariably dear. Every soldier in the French colonies costs, accordiog to M. Say, twice as much as if he had remained at home ; and I beheve the proportion is rather higher in our own service. Civil functionaries must be well paid ; because, without securing the services of a good class of fimctiona- ries, it is impossible to prevent peculation and misconduct in locahties far removed from the superintendence of ordinary disciphne and pubhc opinion. Almost every item of public expenditure is higher, many much higher, in the colonies than at home. i As to the second of these causes : taxes are raised I ultimately either from general profits, wages, or mono- i poly profits ; that is, rent. Profits and wages being usually high in new countries, may seem, at first sight, to be fit subjects for taxation. Yet it is impossible to carry it far withoiit ruining a colony ; because, if this were done, capital would speedily leave the settlement, and emigration to it would cease. In an old country, capi- talists will endure a considerable amount of taxation rather than break the connections which attach them to it. But when men have moved to a new one, simply for the sake of obtaining a more ample return for their industry, it would be impossible to tie them and their riches to the soil if any considerable proportion of that return were forcibly taken from them. To this subject we shall revert hereafter. There remains the resource of monopoly profits, or rent. Comparatively little harm would be done to co- lonial industry by the raising of a revenue to any amount if it fell wholly on this source. If government were to monopolize the whole surplus produce of the land of a Lbct. VIII.] FURNISHED BY SOME COLONIES. 233 country — as is usual in the East — no direct injury to production would follow ; it would merely stand in the place of the landlords, and consume its share of the pro- duce much as they would have consumed it. But in most colonies (wherein, that is, the extent of fertile and unoccupied land is considerable) rent is necessarily low, if not unknown altogether, and can furnish no source of revenue. The principal exception to this general rule is where the colony possesses pecuhar advantages for the production of any commodity. Let us take the precious metals for an instance. The value of the precious metals in Europe, at any period, is regulated by the cost of extracting and transporting them from the least productive mines then worked. The difference between the produce of the least productive and the more productive mines is rent. If, therefore, in any country the mines are uniformly, or for the most part, more productive than elsewhere, that country must yield a very great amount of rent, or surplus produce. Now this, as I mentioned in a former lecture, was precisely the case with Mexico under the old Spanish govern- ment ; and, accordingly, that province seems not only to have furnished enormous rents to its landed proprie- tors, but a very considerable revenue, over and above all its expenditure, to the crown of Spain. It is said that the same power derives a considerable tribute from Cuba and Porto Eico at the present time.* And in our * I have found it difficult to ascertain the real amount of this tribute. The Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1858-9, p. 551, gives the following figures : — Expenses (in Piastres). Eeceipts. Cuba . . . 25,316,041 . 25,395,904 Porto Rico . . 2,568,353 . 2,604,634 PhUippines . . 10,452,728 . 10,017,341 But it is pretty obvious from the nearness of the balance that these figures are attained by some artificial mode of computation ; and in effect, the same authority adds that the expense placed to the account 234 ON THE TRIBUTE [Lect. Vni own Australian colonies — althougti we are far from receiving a tribute from them, the expenditure still very greatly exceeding the income — the latter is, compara- tively speaking, very large. The very high amount of public contributions is owing, in part, to the great profits lately made by the use of the soil for sheep-farming, on which much of the taxation imposed ultimately falls. These, however, are extraordinary cases. In general, it has been found, not only that colonies have not afforded a surplus revenue to the mother coimtry, but that the latter has maintained their pubhc estabhshments by very large contributions of her own. By an Act passed in the eighteenth year of George III. England bound herself not to levy any taxes or duties on the colonies, except for their own use ; a provision wMch circumstances have rendered somewhat nugatory, since our settlements have only recently paid their own civil estabhshments, and none have defrayed the extra mihtary expense of pro- tecting them. There is, however, yet another manner in which colo- nies, of which the soU yields rent, may farnish a tribute or revenue to the mother country. This is by remit- tances to absentee proprietors, resident in the latter. Undoubtedly a considerable amount has been, in prospe- of Cuba comprises many items really domestic. On the other hand, in the Spanish budget for 1860 and 1861, the net receipts from the colonies are estimated at 139,000,000 reals = nearly 2,600,000Z. {Revue des Deux ,Mondes.) But whatever the amount of revenue really yielded by Cuba to Spain may be, it clearly falls on what are described in the text as " monopoly profits." Those earned in Cuba must be very great indeed. If the tables can be trusted, this single island must raise more sugar than the British and French West Indies together. It does so through slavery and the slave trade. And it can well aiFord to pay to the mother country a certain proportion of its monopoly gains by way of tribute for defending it. So (to some slight extent) did the English West Indies in the most flourishing period of their monopoly. To argue from this imique instance to the practica- bility of deriving revenue from other colonies would be an error. Lect. Vni.] FURNISHED BY SOME COLONIES. 235 reus times, transmitted in this way annually to England from our West India islands; of which many of the landowners are non-resident, and mortgages are held by English capitalists on the estates of many more. The imports from the West Indies averaged, for some years before 1840, upwards of 8,000,000^. in value. The ex- ports to them, little more than 4,000,000^.* A very large proportion of this excess of imports over ex- ports consists of produce sent here for the payment of rents and interest of mortgages due in England. I scarcely need remind you, after what has been said in my last lecture on the subject of absenteeism, that there could not be a greater- error than to regard the whole of this sum, whatever it may be, as so much annually added to our national income, f A portion of it is exchanged for British manufactured articles, a portion for foreign manu- factured articles, used by the owner resident in England. But if that owner had resided in Jamaica he would equally have consumed those manufactures, both Enghsh and foreign. The gain, therefore, on this portion accrues only from the circumstance of the act of consumption taking place in England ; which, in one sense, may be said to render this country richer, as was explained in my last lecture ; but the productive industry of England gains nothing, so far, by the owner's residence here. But the true addition to our revenue, or rather to our national income, consists in that portion of the West Indian pro- duce so imported which, if the landlord had remained at home, would have been consumed by him there, or ex- * To take a single year, 1833, by way of criterion. The exports from the whole "West Indies in that year was 8,448,000Z. ; imports, 3,941,000Z. f See Malthus, Political Economy, p. 390. " I see no difference " between a. present from a Jr-oac? and the unusual profits of a new foreign " trade, in their effects upon the wealth of a state. They are equally " calculated to increase the wealth of a community, by an increase both " of the quantity and value of the produce obtained." 236 ON THE TEIBUTE. [Lect. Vllt. changed for foreign commodities, but, in consequence of his residence in England, is exchanged for Enghsh com- modities. In his own country he would have fed his negro menial servants on North American flour and fish, while his English servants consume English provisions ; his house would have been built and repaired by the labour of negroes, consuming West Indian or American products, instead of Enghsh masons and carpenters ; West Indian shop-keepers, instead of Enghsh, would have sub- sisted on the profits of retail dealing with him, and they, too, in part, would have consumed West Indian or American produce. All these items, be they great or small (it is impossible exactly to calculate their amount, but we should probably err in estimating it very high), constitute the gain which the domiciling country obtains from foreign sojourners, and which may, in one sense, be termed a tribute. In the case of the West India colonies, it ought to be admitted as a set-oflF against the annual expenditure which they cause. The amount of that expenditure which Great Britain is annually called on to incur on behalf of her colonies, over and above their own revenues, although it has been much exaggerated by opposers of the colonial system, is still very great. By a parhamentary paper of the session of 1835, it appears that the total charge on our revenue, on account of their mihtary, naval, and civil estabhsh- ments, amounted to 2,360,000^. To this must be added, in fairness, the annual loss to this country occasioned, as before explained, by the colonial monopohes, chiefly those of sugar and timber, which is estimated apparently on reasonable grounds, at two millions more ; and the charge which we have recently incurred for the liberation of our colonial slaves, is not less than 600,000^. or 700,000^. per annum. If we were to add to these sums the cost of the wars of which our colonies have furnished the direct cause, the account against us would be enormous indeed. Lect. Vm.] ON COLONIAL EXPENDITURE. 237 "By the war of 1739 (said Lord Sheffield), which may " be truly called an American contest, we incurred a " debt of upwards of 31,000,000Z. ; by the war of 1755, " we incurred a further debt of 71,500,000^. ; and by the " war of the revolt we have added to both these debts " nearly 100,000,000^. more. And thus we have ex- " pended a far larger sum in defending and retaining " our colonies than the value of all the merchandise we " have ever sent them." This, however, is rhetoric rather than argument: it is hard to set down as expenditure occasioned by our colonies, sums of which by far the greater part was spent to gratify our own pugnacity.* But this is a digression from my present subject; though it can hardly be considered an inapposite one, when it is remembered how large a portion of our wars of the last century were undertaken chiefly with the view of protecting and strengthening that very trade with our colonies which, I have endeavoured to show you, we were crippling and injuring aU the while by the manifold re- straints of our prohibitive system. And the true ground * (1861.) Imperial expenditure on the colonies by Parliamentary return of 1857, 4,115,000/. But this included the whole of the convict expenditure, as well as the military, marine, Sec, and is, therefore, of not much use for our purpose. It may, however, be said that the civil expenditure of Great Britain on account of her colonies is now confined to the salaries of some West India governors, and the maintenance of one or two trifling settlements which do not pay their expenses. Her total military expenditure, on account of the colonies, is estimated by Messrs. Hamilton, Godley, and Elliot, in 1857-8, at 3,600,0001 : but this very large return includes several charges, such as transport and freight, " proportion of departmental expense," &c., not heretofore brought into account. From this sum should be deducted about 1,100,000/. for the Mediterranean and other garrisons not properly colonial. Out of the residue, 2,500,000/., 800,000/. were absorbed by the Gape colony alone. See, on this head, some remarks in subsequent lectures. ' Eeport of Committee on Expense of Military Defences in the Colonies, 1859.' 238 ON COLONIAL TEADE [Lect. Ylll. on which that system is still defended by many of its supporters is, that the favour thus afforded to the colonies (for the effect of the system, as I have endeavoured to point out, is now almost confined to the affording favom^ to them) tends to keep them in. connection with the mother country ; a notion which I do not believe to be well founded, but which, if it be, affords indeed a political justification for maiataining the system, but not an econo- mical one. The misfortune is, that its supporters will not be satisfied with putting its vindication on their own real ground. They cannot be content without maintaining that the country gains by it, in the immediate course of commercial transactions, as well as in respect of the main- tenance of the national defence and supremacy. And those whose reasons could not be persuaded of the reality the commercial gain, long had to submit to the imputation of entertaining novel theories and un-EngUsh sentiments ; as if the economical defence of the system were necessarily involved in the political, and the prin- ciples of Malthus and Eicardo were inseparably connected with those of Franklin and Bentham. You, I am sure, will learn to despise this foohsh and vulgar outcry. There is no novelty in the plain and simple arguments which show the mischief of restrictions on trade ; but if they were novel, they would not be the less cogent. There is nothing un-Enghsh in pointing out the fact, that England suffers a certain loss by the maintenance of a particular system : but if it were otherwise, love of coun- try is a poor substitute in inquiry for love of truth. But these are considerations which need but httle con- cern us now. The rapid tide of sublimary events is carrying us inevitably past that point at which the main- tenance of colonial systems and navigation laws was practicable, whether it were desirable or no. We are borne helplessly along with the current ; we may struggle Lect. Vm.] AND THE " COLONIAL SYSTEM." 239 and protest, and marvel why the barriers which ancient forethought had raised against the stream now bend hke reeds before its violence, but we cannot change our destiny. The monopoly of the West India islands cannot stand ; and its faU wiU be followed by the crash of those minor monopohes which subsisted along with it ; for the branches of the colonial system were nearly connected with each other. And when these are gone, the same curious result vsdll foUow which has attended the over- throw of so many other institutions and systems, pohtical and intellectual, which have held for their respective periods a powerful sway over the minds of men. All the theories which have been founded on it by induction, or raised on baseless assumption^, in order to support it, — all the volumes of statistical facts, tortured into arguments, — all the records of the eloquence or the reasoning by which it has been defended, which once were in vogue with the million, which swayed senates and silenced cap- tious objectors, and governed and dehghted the pubHc mind, — will pass with it into nothingness, or speak to us as it were in a dead language. Let us look back a few years, and ask where are the monmnents of aU. the zeal and ingenuity which were once vented in defence of the Slave Trade ? or of the Stuart succession ? or in opposing the mitigation of the penal code .^ Buried together with the learning which was expended on the topics of witch- craft, alchemy, astrology, and the Ptolem^an system. I do not make these comparisons in any sneering or critical spirit, but merely from the illustration they afford of the dependence of that vanity of vanities, the fame of human speculations, on the durabihty of the subject or the cause which gives origin to them. We stand, in respect of economical philosophy, as well as other matters, on the very verge of time, between two distinct eras. I do not say that we are wiser than ourpredecessors ; but circum- 240 ON COLONIAL TKADE. [Lect. VIII. stances have thrown a new hght on the subject-matter of our studies ; and, whatever theories may occupy the thoughts of a futuxe generation, of one^ thing we may be sure, — that the shadowy arguments by which commercial prohibitions have been so long defended will be remem- bered only as ingenious and worthless disputations on imaginary premises.* NOTE TO LECTUEE VIII. ON COLONIAL TRADE (1842). Since this Lecture was delivered, an attempt has been made to place the relative value of Foreign and Colonial Trade in a new light, by Colonel Torrens, in his publication entitled "The Budget." The view of the subject taken by this distinguished economist is, — that any country, by imposing a duty on the goods of another, has the power of attracting to herself a greater proportion of the precious metals, raising the price of her own commodities, and lowering that of the commodities of the country in question. And hence Colonel Torrens deduces the * (1860.) The last remnants of the old system of differential duties on colonial produce were swept away, so far as this country is con- cerned, by the equalization of duties on colonial and foreign sugar (1854) and timber (1860). And disquisitions such as those contained in this lecture now possess little more than an historical interest ; and that, perhaps, only for those who still remember the heat and vehemence of a by-gone controversy. But France and Spain still maintain the principles of protection with more or less of rigour as regards their colo- nial trade. The exportation of produce elsewhere than to France is subject to prohibitions, varying in the different colonies. Holland has made great advances towards fi-ee trade by her commercial laws of 1860. Nevertheless it would appear from M'CuUoch's Commercial Dictionary that differential duties to the amount of fifty per cent, were still levied in Java on manufactured articles imported from foreign places. Lect. VIII.] NOTE. 241 conclusion, that hostile tariffs should be met by retaliatory duties, and the trade with our colonies left free ; in short, that the old colonial system should be maintained, so long as our foreign customers cannot be induced to deal with us on terms of perfect reciprocity. " The prosperity of the country cannot " be arrested by the hostile tariffs of foreign rivals, if England " will establish throughout her wide-spread empire a British " commercial league — a colonial ZoUverein." I am not aware that any political economist has ever disputed the proposition, — that when one country imposes an unfavoiir- able tariff upon the goods of another, a disturbance of the distribution of the precious metals is produced, to the disadvan- tage of the country of which the commodities are taxed ; at least in the first instance. To maintain the contrary would be to maintain that a country suffers nothing by the imposition of duties on her produce in foreign markets. But the extent to which Colonel Torrens carries his doctrine is so unusual, and the consequences he deduces from it are so startling, as to have attracted considerable attention to his arguments. " By the abstraction of money from one country," says Mr. Ricardo *, " and the accumulation of it in another, all commo- " dities are affected in price ; and consequently encouragement " is given to the exportation of many more commodities besides " money, which will, therefore, prevent so great an effect from " taking place on the value of money in the two countries as " might otherwise be expected. Besides the improvements in " arts and machinery, there are various other causes which are " constantly operating on the natural course of trade, and which " interfere with the equilibrium and the relative value of " money. Bounties on exportation or importation, new taxes " on commodities, sometimes by their direct and at other times " by their indirect operation, disturb the natural trade of barter, " and produce a consequent necessity of importing or exporting " money, in order that prices may be accommodated to the " natural course of commerce ; and the effect is produced, not " only in the country where the disturbing cause takes place, " but in a greater or less degree in every country of the com- " mercial world." It appears to be on the foundation of this passage, and * In his Chapter on Foreign Trade (p. 170, 1st. edit.) K 242 ON COLONIAL TEADE. [Lect. VIII. generally of the well-known chapter from which it is extracted, that the theory of Colonel Torrens is raised. And I will pro- ceed to state it, as nearly as my room will serve, in his own words ; hoping that I may not render it unintelligible by com- pression : — 1. " When commercial countries receive the productions of " each other duty free, then (the eflScacy of labour being the " same in each) the precious metals will be distributed among " them in equal proportions, and the general scale of prices will " be the same in each. 2. "When any particular country imposes import duties " upon the productions of other countries, while those other " countries continue to receive her products duty free, then " such particular country draws to herself a larger proportion " of the precious metals, maintains a higher range of general " prices, than her neighbours, and obtains, in exchange for the " produce of a given quantity of her labour, the produce of a " greater quantity of foreign labour. 3. " When any country is deprived of that command over " the precious metals which is due to the efficacy of her labour " in producing articles for the foreign market, by the hostile " tariffs of other countries, she may recover her due command " of the precious metals, by imposing retaliatory and equivalent " duties upon the importation of the productions of the coun- " tries by which the hostile tariffs are maintained. 4. " When, from foreign rivalry and hostile tariffs, a country " begins to lose a portion of her former command over the " metals, and to experience a contraction of the cm-rency, a fall " in prices, in profits, and in wages, and a falling off in the re- " venue ; then, the lowering of import duties upon the produc- " tions of countries retaining their hostile tariffs, instead of " affording relief, would aggravate the general distress by occa- " sioning a more rapid abstraction of the metals, and a deeper " decline in prices, in profits, in wages, and in the revenue, ac- " companied not by a diminution, but by an increase, in the " real extent of taxation." This doctrine may be illustrated by a supposed instance, which I will also give in the language of Colonel Torrens ; having merely changed his imaginary parties from England and France to England and Cuba. Let us assume, in the first instance, that labour is applied Lect. Vm.] NOTE. 243 with equal effect in England and in Cuba; that, in consequence, the metals are distributed in equal proportions throughout the two countries ; and that the commerce carried on consists in the exchange of cloth, worth in England 1,000,000^., for sugar, worth in Cuba, 1,000,000Z. This being the previous state of things, let us assume further, that, while England receives the sugar of Cuba duty free, Cuba imposes a duty of 50 per cent, on English cloth. The effects of this duty would be to alter the distribution of the metals in favour of Cuba, and, conse- quently, to raise prices in that country, and to lower them in England. The process would be as follows : — In Cuba, the price of English cloth would be increased by the amount of the duty, and its consumption in that country diminished in a cor- responding degree ; while in England, m the first instaTice, the price of Cuba sugar would not be enhanced, and the consumption would, consequently, continue as before. The result of these changes would be, that England would not now send to Cuba such a quantity of cloth as would pay for the sugar she received, and would be compelled to discharge a part of her foreign debt by a transmission of bullion. This would raise prices in Cuba, and depress prices in England. In England, there would be less money applicable to the consump- tion of sugar, and the consumption of the article would gradually diminish. In Cuba, there would be more and more money applicable to the purchase of cloth, and the consumption of cloth would gradually increase. And these processes would continue untU the quantity of cloth sent to Cuba again became sufficient to pay for the quantity of sugar received, and until no further transmission of the metals should be required. But when the commerce between the two countries should thus be restored to a trade of barter, the precious metals would no longer be equally distributed between them, and the scale of prices would be higher in Cuba than in England. In discussing these views of Colonel Torrens, it appears im- portant to consider, in the first place, whether their truth would be at all affected by the omission of the precious metals from the supposed case. Let us examine how the imposition of a duty of 50 per cent, on English goods in Cuba would affect trade, and the exchangeable value of commodities, if the com- merce were entirely carried on by barter ; all other assumptions being the same as before. B 2 244 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Leot. VIH. Suppose that Cuba lays on a duty of 50 per cent, on English cloth, oTj in other words, that the government retains one bale for its own use out of every three imported. Supposvng the demand for Cuba sugar to contvnue in England as before, it is evident that Cuba sugar will no longer be bought directly with English goods, if it can be bought circuitously with English goods through the intervention of the produce of other countries. England will buy Cuba sugar, say vrith French silks, by ex- changing cloth for silks, and exporting the silks to Cuba. But inasmuch as the demand for English cloth in France at its pre- sent exchangeable value is fully supplied, England can export no more cloth thither, except by submitting to a reduction of the exchangeable value of English cloth as compared with French silks. England must buy a smaller quantity of French silks with the same quantity of English cloth as before. England must next carry the silks so purchased to Cuba, to exchange for sugar. But the demand in Cuba for French silks, at their pre- sent exchangeable value as compared with Cuba sugar, is already supplied. Therefore, in order that more French silks may be taken by Cuba, their price, estimated in Cuba sugar, must fall. The result, therefore, of the whole transaction is, that English cloth falls in exchangeable value relatively to French silks, and French silks fall in exchangeable value relatively to Cuba sugar. When this has been accomplished, the trade between England and Cuba continues on a new footing, and one disadvantageous to the former country. It will be perceived at once that the commodity which I have here called French silks is affected precisely in the same manner and proportion as the precious metals introduced by Colonel Torrens into his argument. And if my views are correct, pre- cisely the same effects would be produced by a duty imposed by one country on the productions of another, whether the precious metals existed or not.* This being the case, let us now revert to the supposition ex- cluding the precious metals, and assume that a third country, Brazil, also produces sugar in sufficient quantities to supply the * Of course I am omitting from consideration the effects which would be produced by the lowering of money prices on existing pubKc and private contracts, and the national credit. These are important practical featiu'es of the subject, but have nothing to do with the specidative docti-ine. Lect. VIII.] NOTE. 245 English demand, but that Brazil sugar is 5 per cent, deaxer than Cuba: that is, that if 100 bales of English cloth sell for 100 cwt. of Cuba sugar, 105 bales of English cloth will only obtain 100 cwt. of Brazil sugar. If the quantity afforded by Cuba is sufficient to supply the English consumption, it follows of course that no sugar from Brazil is imported into England so long as free trade between England and Cuba continues. But as soon as the new tariff has been established, and English cloth begins to fall in relation to French silks, English cloth begins also to fall in relation to Brazil sugar. And as soon as Cuba sugar begins to rise in relation to French silks, it begins also to rise in relation to Brazil sugar. Under this double alteration of circumstances, the point is very soon reached at which Brazil sugar comes into competition with Cuba sugar in the English market. And if the Cuba tariff is persisted in, the effect must very soon be, that Cuba sugar is entirely driven out of the field, and Brazil sugar supplies its place. England loses to the amount of 5 per cent, at the utmost on the exchangeable value of her cloth, by its exclusion from the ports of the cheapest sugar-growing country; but the foreign commerce of Cuba is absolutely ruined. And I confess that I do not see in what way the introduction of the precious metals can vary the supposition. It appears to me that gold and silver would then occupy precisely the same place in the argument which I have assigned to French silks, and be subject to exactly the same laws. Suppose that, before the tariff is imposed, cloth is worth 20s. per bale in England, sugar 20s. per cwt. in Cuba: 1,000,000 bales of cloth exchange for 1,000,000 cwt. of sugar. Brazil sugar cannot be sold under 21s. per cwt. so as to repay the cost of production, and does not reach the English market at all. The effect of the imposition of the tariff is, that Cuba sugar is purchased by England with gold obtained for cloth, instead of directly with cloth as heretofore ; and it follows, says Colonel Torrens, that the money price of Cuba sugar rises. But as soon as the price of Cuba sugar rises above 21s., Brazil sugar immediately becomes the cheaper of the two, and competes successfully with it in the English market. Nor is this all. It appears to me that, upon Colonel Torrens' supposition, not only the price of Cuba sugar would rise, but the price of Brazil sugar would fall. The Brazil grower cannot afford, in the first instance, to sell his sugar at 20s. per cwt., B 3 246 ON COLONIAL TRADE. [Lect. VIII. because with 20s. he cannot purchase English cloth enough to repay him the cost of production. But as soon as English cloth fell in price, as by Colonel Torrens' supposition it soon would do, 5 per cent., the Brazilian grower would be able to obtain for 20s. a sufficient quantity of English cloth for that purpose. Thus, I cannot but think, the price of Brazil sugar would fall accordingly. Thus, whether we introduce, or do not introduce, the precious metals into our supposition, the same commercial causes — the rise in exchangeable value of the commodities of Cuba, and the fall in exchangeable value of the commodities of England — would soon bring into play the competition of the next cheapest country producing the same commodities as Cuba. The ima- ginary country which I have called Brazil, without altering in any respect her existing tariff with England, whatever that may have been, would reap the real benefit of that imposed by Cuba. And, therefore, if we were to allow the theory of Colonel Torrens its fullest operation, the effect of the whole transaction would merely be a slight loss to England on her export trade, and the total destruction of the English trade of Cuba, if she persisted in maintaining that hostile duty by means of which the Colonel represents that she is to " obtain, in exchange for the produce " of a given quantity of her labour, the produce of a greater " quantity of foreign labom-." And surely this would be the practical result, if any nation possessing only the ordinary commwcial advantages should en- deavour to improve her position by excluding from her markets the goods of her customers. It is idle to inquire what might be the effects of such a policy, pursued by a country possessing exclusive facilities for the production of any commodity, and that an vtidispensable commodity to other countries ; for in the present state of the commercial world the idea of such a mono- poly is visionary. And it is almost equally idle to examine into the effects of such prohibitory duties, if they were simultaneously adopted and put in practice by all the foreign nations with which we deal. If they were, what possible advantage should we obtain by retaliatory duties, the imposition of which is the policy re- commended by Colonel Torrens ? No one can deny that a hostile tariff produces evil to our industry. None but a very determined adherent to system will deny that a retaliatory tariff may some- times be the best means of bringing a refractory customer to his Lect. Vni.] NOTE. 247 senses. But the admission of these partial truths will in no de- gree damage the great conclusions of the doctrines of free trade : that the country which imposes prohibitory duties on foreign productions injures itself in the long run more than its rival ; and that the country which retaliates, and persists in retaliation as a permanent policy, injures itself in the long run more than the original aggressor. Still less would these conclusions justify the British statesman in encouraging colonial at the expense of foreign trade. As I have endeavoured to show in these Lectures, the " colonial sys- tem " is one of which the advantages in the present state of the world almost entirely result to the colonies, — the losses to the mother country. Under such circumstances there would cer- tainly be very little difficulty in forming and maintaining a " colonial Zollverein " on the grandest imaginable scale. Many an independent state would gain, commercially speaking, by sur- rendering its sovereignty, and becoming enlisted in the catalogue of British dependencies. But every extension of such a commer- cial league could take place only at the expense of additional burdens on British industry, and additional loss to British con- sumers, if the products of the regions comprised in it required protection in order to enable them to compete with foreign pro- ducts in the British market. 248 APPENDIX. [Lect. VIII. 00 CO OO .a o O 5H o pq '3 bo .g I -a .t~oootn 1— I i-H rHT!COr Ci o:) CM CO CO O^ CO CO CO -^ i-Tco" i-T 2fl ■<*( Oi o en o O CD CO CO CO t^ t— I CO t^o^ ■ co■>o~-^f -^(rf t- 00 (N -^ r-l (N (N 00 O CO i-l t- (N CO ■«:J^ t^ T-H lO C5 CO O CO t— t CO CO 00 CO CO O^ 00 O CO CO t- CO^O^CO_ t> (^f od"r-rr-rco"t-rTH~(>f vrtCOOtACO-^COO lOOOCOt^OJOt-t- co^o_oq_oq^im_[~ o^ lo co" oo~ co~ co" crf~ i-T T-T i-T iCtT— (COi— (-^COlOlO (M CO OOlOCiCOt^COC^CM COi— lOOOCOGCICO t-^"^-^CO^i— I cq 00 Oi co'-^-'^-^co'-^io'co' »ccoo5{?qiOOcocM O (N CM 00 (N Oi t*t>a500vot*o^cN O Ci-^CO-^ODCOOiO a>^ (N^01^CO_CO_>0^(M r c^oc^I-^(^^»f^c£^co~o^ a> (MfMOt^ot^cMio 05^ CNOOCOt-O-^OCO r-T IC^r-T Co~ C0~ r-T >0~ i-T CiT CO CO m iM I-H o o o M frt to o a; CD o Lect. viii.] appendix. 249 No. 11. A Table, showing the comparative Amount of Exports of Articles of the Manufacture and Produce of the United Kingdom to foreign Countries, and to the principal Colonies, in the Years 1839 and 1844, and the Average of the Five Years, 1839 — 1844, (real or declared value) in pounds sterling. Collected from M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary : Imports. Average of the Five Average of the Five Years 1839-44. Years 1853-57. Europe . . . J23,100,000 £37,000,000 Asia . . . 8,000,000 13,000,000 Africa . . . 1,500,000 5,500,000 North American Colonies 2,700,000 4,400,000 British West Indies . 3,000,000 2,000,000 Rest of America . 12,900,000 32,000,000 Australia . . 1,300,000 10,900,000 Average of Imports into the United Kingdom from certain Parts of the World for the Three Tears 1856—58. From Russia £12,200,000 France 12,100,000 Spanish West Indies . . 3,300,000 BrazU 2,700,000 United States . . . 35,000,000 North American Colonies . 6,000,000 British West Indies . . 6,700,000 Austraha .... 5,600,000 East Indies and Ceylon . . 20,000,000 PAST III. PROGRESS OF WEALTH AND SOCIETY IN COLONIES. Lect. IX.] SCAECITT OF LABOUR IN NEW COLONIES. 253 LECTUEE IX. SCARCITY OF LABOUR IN NEW COLONIES ; ITS EFFECTS ON THE PROGRESS OF WEALTH. I PKOCEED, in the next place, to enter upon the more important division of my subject — the economical de- velopment of colonies, and the causes by which their advance may be retarded or accelerated. In doing this, it wiU be necessary that I should pass over for the present the practical difficulties which always occur in the first foundation of such estabhshments, and consider the young community as already launched. On a future occasion we may, perhaps, be able to enter into some details respecting the first steps which are pre- liminary to the formation of new settlements. It is, I fear, next to impossible, that any first experiment in colonization should succeed ; if history be consulted, it will be found that, in modern times, none ever has suc- ceeded, in the way and at the rate which its projectors have expected. " Of the colonies planted in modem " times," says Mr. Wakefield, " more have perished than " have prospered." Either they have failed altogether, and it has been necessary to commence the work afresh, or they have struggled into prosperity through a long series of privations and discouragements. Far from the first settlers on a new soil being the most amply recom- pensed for their labours, they have almost invariably fallen victims in the cause, and served only by their own sacrifice to promote the success of some new band of colonists. "The moral and mechanical habits," says 254 ELEMENTS OP PEOSPEEITY [Lbct. IX. Malthus, " adapted to the mother country, are frequently " not so to the new settled one, and to external events, " many of which are unforeseen ; and it is to be re- " marked, that none of the Enghsh colonies became very " considerable tiU the necessary manners were born and " grew up in the country."* Neither courage nor in- telligence, nor ample means, nor unwearied enterprise, seem to serve as substitutes for that appreciation of cir- cumstances, that practical adaptation of his means to the proposed end, which experience only gives to the emi- grant. His mind, as weU as his body, must become acchmatized before his industry can be really effective, or his operations well directed; and some years must generally pass before either the one or the other object is attained. This subject, however, I must for the present pass over ; merely remarking, that it is impossible to place in too strong a light the errors which our national jealousy and contracted views have imported into our popular theories of colonization. It has long been a subject of complaint with us, that of our poorer class of emigrants who go to Canada, so large a proportion in- variably find their way, after the first winter, or earher, across the frontier into the United States. Had it been practicable, we should, doubtless, long ago have pre- vented this second emigration, and forced them to locate themselves, raw and unprepared, in the forests of our own provinces. We ought to be able to appreciate more justly the great value to us of a country like the United States, where there is an active demand for labour in the old settled districts, in close juxta-position to our North American possessions. In this way a great number of persons, who would be really useless to our colonies in the outset, are annually drafted off. By their apprentice- ship as labourers on pubhc works, or as hired workmen in the better inhabited parts of the country, they acquire * Essay on Population, vol. iii. cliap. 4. Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 255 some degree of experience in its habits, and become more fitted for the Avilderness-; whUe our own unoccupied and fertUe lands attract those settlers, both British and Ame- rican, who have acquired somewhat of the necessary experience, and are fit to begin the work of civihzation*; and the experience of very recent years has shown that this tendency to re-emigration from Canada to the United States is by no means constant, but depends as might be expected on the demand of labour in the latter. Each country serves, to a certain extent, as a reservoir to re- ceive the overflow of the unoccupied population in the other. Let us however, for the present, regard these difiicul- ties as subdued, and reflect on the principal causes which tend to produce the prosperity of new settlements. Adam Smith disposes of the subject briefly enough, attributing that prosperity to one great cause, economi- cally speaking, "plenty of good land." The abundance of produce, he says, at once induces the landlord to collect labour from all quarters, and enables him to reward that labour by high wages; and the labourer is speedily enabled to become independent, invest his accumulated capital in land, and employ other labourers in turn. The fundamental principles of the subject cannot be better" expressed than they are by this great writer, in the well-known passage which I have here briefly con- densed. But a very little reflection will convince us how necessary it is to take into consideration many other circumstances, before we can arrive at the full com- prehension of it. * Before the gold discoveries, the principal emigration from England was directed to the United States and the Australian colonies ; from Scotland to Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton ; from Ire- land to Canada and Newfoundland. But of the emigrants from the latter country, a great number chose the Canada passage merely as the cheapest way of reaching the United States. 256 ELEMENTS OE PROSPERITY [Lect. IX. Land, however ricli, is of very little value to the owner without capital to cultivate it. The soil on which some of our first American colonists landed, when the primitive forest was removed, was prodigiously fertUe — as fertile as that of the "Western states of this day. It was to be had for nothing in the state of forest ; but it cost from SI. to 4Z. to clear a single acre of it, princi- pally expended in labour. Of the first settlers, few were rich enough to command so much of the labour of others as was necessary to execute this operation to any extent ; they wasted their strength in insulated efforts; they perished, therefore, miserably: ten or twenty thousand settlers are said to have landed in Virginia in the latter years of Ehzabeth ; and in the reign of James I., Vir- ginia had to be colonized anew. Land and capital are both useless unless labour can be commanded. When the colony at Swan Eiver was founded, magnificent grants were made to the chief contributor, Mr. Peel : he took out with him, it is said, 50,000Z., and 300 individuals of' the labotiring classes ; but they were aU fascinated by the prospect of obtaining land in a country where the prehminary labour of clearing is imusually sHght ; and in a short while he was left without a servant to make his bed, or to fetch him water from the river. These, it may be said, are instances taken from the very beginning of infant settlements ; such errors are Ukely to be avoided in their farther progress. If a judicious system of co-operation were put in practice, so that no labour or capital were wasted, a much smaller amount of both would be requisite to produce the desired results ; and " plenty of good land" would be, what Adam Smith represents it, nearly the one thing needful. This is undoubtedly true ; but we must deal with men such as we find them. We must remember, that tlie leading desire of every man who seeks a home in Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 257 the wilderness is to make himself independent. It may- be that, as men are wont to reconcile as far as they can their views of interest and their inclinations, he believes, that in so doing he will best further his other great object, the acquisition of wealth. But experience teaches us that this is often a delusion. If Mr. Peel's labourers had remained with him, they might in a short time have accumulated earnings sufficient to commence the career of landowners under the most favourable circumstances. As it was, many perished, some returned to England, and only a few, after long struggles, attained at last a state of comparative ease. And similar causes will continue to produce similar, although less striking, effects in the whole course of colonization ; that is, until a country is peopled up to that average mark which we vaguely designate as "full." So long as abundance of good land is to be had for httle, so long it is the appa- rent interest of the farmer, as well as most suitable to his incHnation, to exhaust that which he occupies, and then to remove to a fresh spot, instead of endeavouring to improve his original farm. " When you talk to the " American farmers," says Mr. Stuart, " of the necessity " of manuring with a view to preserve the fertility of " the soil, they almost uniformly teU you, that the ex- " pense of labour renders it far more expedient for them, " as soon as their repeated cropping very much diminishes " the quantity of the grain, to lay down the land in grass, " or make a purchase of new land in the neighbourhood, " or even to sell their cleared land and proceed in quest " of a new settlement, than to adopt a system of rotation " of crops assisted by manure." In short, there are two principles constantly at work : the desire of obtaining land, which is hostile to all combination of labour ; the natural diminution in the fertihty of occupied land, which continually urges its possessors to change it for jfresh. Where these prevail, there must be great obstacles in 258 SCARCITY OF LABOUK [Lect. IX. the way of accumulation of capital, and of the raising of surplus produce, and a constant tendency of the population towards barbarism by their dispersion ; each settler, as he advances in the wilderness, leaving behind him whole tracts which he considers as unprofitable, or which he has rendered so by exhausting them. These premises are, undoubtedly, true. We must next examine the deductions which have been drawn from them by the new school of writers on colonization, who have thrown, of late years, so much light upon the subject. Let us take them from the pages of its two most distin- guished disciples; the latter of whom, indeed, has high claims to be regarded as its founder — Colonel Torrens, and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield ; to both of whom we shall have to look for assistance and enlightenment over a great part of the ground which now remains for us to traverse. " It is impossible," says Colonel Torrens *, " to estabhsh ' a colony in an unreclaimed country, without applying ' capital and labour to its waste lands .... There is, in ' every country, some proportion or other between capital ' and labour which is most conducive to the progress of ' wealth, and which gives the highest rates of profit and ' of wages which the state of industry and the quahty of ' the soil render possible. This proportion is the best ' proportion ; and it may be called the proportion of ' equihbrium and of rest ; because it is the obvious interest, ' both of capitalists and labourers, not to disturb, but to ' maintain it. Should the capital and labour first planted ' in the colony be in this best proportion, in this pro- ' portion they will naturally remain," " The ultimate ' object of government," says Mr. Wakefield f, "being ' the greatest progress of colonization, its immediate ob- 'ject is, that there should exist in the colony those * Colonization of South Australia, 13. t England and America, ii. 149. Lect. IX.] m NEW COLONIES. 259 " circumstances whicS are best calculated to attract capital " and labour, but especially capital, from an old country." The principle, therefore, which these writers lay down is, that government ought to restrict the natural, or, as it may more properly be termed, casual, distribution of capital and labour which takes place over the surface of a newly occupied country, so as to secure to capitahsts a supply of labourers for the most profitable cultivation of the soil ; to secure to labourers the advantage of abundant capital, so as to render their operations more productive, and remunerate their industry more highly. The pecuUar mode in which they propose to effect these objects, namely, by setting a high price on unoccupied land, and applying the proceeds to the purpose of emigration, must be reserved for future discussion. At present we are only concerned with the inquiry, whether there is anything in the condition of young colonies which calls for the adop- tion of any regulations to control the natural course of circumstances ? Now it is a rule prescribed by common sense, in all economical discussion, that the burden of proof lies on the party which proposes such regulations. The principles of the school of writers on systematic colonization to whom I have alluded may be reduced, I think, to two elementary propositions. Let us first attend to some general considerations respecting them, and proceed to examine how far they are borne out by historical facts. The propositions in question are, I think, the fol- lowing : — - 1. That it is desirable to provide colonists acquiring land with a greater supply of labourers, to work on their ac- coimt, than their capital would naturally attract. 2. That it is desirable to prevent the population of new colonies from spreading over so large and scattered a surface of land as it would be tempted to occupy, were every facility given for the acquisition of land. s 2 260 SCAECITY OF LABOUE [Lect. IX. These are their practical principfts ; and another pro- position appears to be implied in some of their reason- ings : that an ample supply of hired or compulsory labour tends not only to increase the wealth of the community, but also to produce this second object, namely, the concentration of the people. Now it is important to observe, that the colonies of modern times may be divided into two very different classes : the difference having arisen, in some, from the different views with which they were originally founded ; in others, from various circumstances subseq^^ent to their foundation. The fiurst are those which have established themselves in countries possessing no peculiar advantages for the production, by agricultural or mining labour, of articles of value in the foreign market. Many of these have been originally formed by colonists, anxious chiefly to find a refuge from poHtical or social uneasiness at home, not to become the producers of a great amount of wealth. Others, founded with views of profit, have been forced to pursue a less ambitious career, fi'om natural impediments in the way of their advance to opulence. In colonies hke these the first object, and it may be said the main object, of their social economy, has been the providing of a sufficient maintenance for a population of moderate wants. Exportable wealth, of course, they have had, otherwise they could not have provided themselves with the common comforts of hfe ; but its production has been merely a subsidiary end, and not the principal object of their existence. Such were the Enghsh plantations in the northern part of the United States, for at least the first century and a half after their foundation — coimtries of which almost the whole population was engaged in agriculture, and yet the chief exportable wealth consisted, not in agri- cultural commodities, but in the produce of what may Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 261 be termed secondary branches of industry — the timber of their forests and the fish of their seas ; which traded in these alone with Europe, and exchanged only a small surplus of their corn and cattle against the pecuhar staples of other colonies. Such are, even more distinctly our " Lower Provinces " in North America at the present day ; such was the original character of our Austrahan settlements, untH the discovery of their great capabilities for the production of wool. The second class of colonies comprises all those in which the industry of the settlers has been principally turned towards the raising of staple articles of produce for the European market — articles for which their soil or chinate has been found to possess peculiar capabihty ; or towards mining operations, which fall under the same general law. To this belong most of the ancient Spanish and Portu- guese colonies in South America, the southern provinces of the present United States, and the establishments of all European nations in the "West Indies. It wiU appear, on consideration, that those elementary propositions of the theory of " systematic colonization," to which I have already called your attention, are by no means equally applicable to these two classes of settle- ments. When a colony is established on a soil possessing no capabilities for the raising of any peculiar produce fit for the foreign market, the first impulse of the settlers is generally to spread themselves over the country, each taking possession of whatever spot of fertile land he may secure, and each tilling his own farm ; some, possessed of a httle capital, with the assistance of a few hired labourers, 'chiefly emigrants not yet located ; others, by their own industry, and with that small combination of labour which the voluntary assistance of neighbours in new countries commonly affords. And although it is said (by Mr. Wakefield), that " scarce any operation of s 3 262 SCARCITY OF LABOUR [Lbct. IX. " agriculture can be very productive, unless there be " employed in it several pairs of hands in combination, " and constantly at the same particular work, at the same " time, and for a considerable period of time together," * yet it is certain that the average industry of an imas- sisted colonist on fertile soU, and in a temperate chmate, win be sufficiently productive, after a little time, to afford him, not only the necessaries of Hfe, but a certain quantity of surplus to exchange for its comforts. Now, suppose the tract had been " systematically " colonized, and that each settler had been furnished with a sufficient number of labourers, effectually restrained fcom deserting his service, and from spreading themselves over the land as independent farmers, it would undoubtedly raise a greater surplus : a farm cultivated by a capitahst and twenty labourers would produce more than ten small clearings, each managed by the slovenly industry of one farmer and one labourer — mere earth-scratchers, as Mr. Wake- field calls them. But, by the supposition, there would be a difficulty in finding a market for this additional surplus. If Upper Canada were amply provided with indented labourers or slaves, it might produce more corn and cattle than it now produces ; but Canadian corn and cattle are not, hke Georgian cotton and West Indian sugar, articles for which there is a constant and urgent demand out of the colony: the distance from any available market is very great ; and any such extended production would probably turn out a very unprofitable speculation, f Ca- nada, therefore, would gain little or nothing, at present, by the change from the system of small-farming to that of combined capital and labour, even if the labour came uninvited, and no sacrifices were made to secure it. And * England and America, vol. ii. p. 10. t (1861.) It must be remembered that these lines were written before the modern extension of railway communication, which has gi-eatly altered the position of Canada as a producing countiy. Lect. IX.] m NORTH AMEKICA. 263 if it were necessary to make sacrifices — to undergo the moral contamination of slave. or convict labour, or to make the economical sacrifice of raising the price of land, and checking the spread of cultivation, in order to procure the labour of free emigrants — -it vrould assuredly not be worth the while of the Canadians to make the attempt. StiU less would the concentration of her inhabitants, produced by any artificial means, be of advantage to such a colony in the earlier stage of her progress. Con- centration of inhabitants of course can only take place where some of the settlers rehnquish the advantage of appropriating the most fertile land within their reach, in order to secure the real or supposed advantages of congregation. Now fertile soil is, to the settler, the machine with which he works ; it is that for the sake of which he is content to forego all the benefits which he might have derived from remaining a member of an older and denser community. To prevent his occu- pation of the most fertile soil within reach, either by raising its price, or by any other conventional arrange- ment, is to force him to resort to the use of a less pro- ductive machine ; it is to force him to waste a portion of his precious labour, to forego a part of his expected reward, with a view to certain speculative advantages for the community. It may be indeed true, as I have on a former occasion mentioned, that the mere spirit of independence may occasionally induce a man to take a wrong view of his own interest, and to move into the wilderness, when, for his own sake, he would better have remained in the clearing. But these are only exceptions to the general rule : nor could even these be prevented, except by a sacrifice involving greater loss. It is the energy and enterprise of the individual which leads him to commit the oversight. You cannot save him from the commission of the oversight, but by controlling that s 4 264 SCARCITY OF LABOUR [Lect. IX; energy and enterprise, and preventing Mm from per- forming tlie part for whicji lie is evidently fitted — that of a pioneer of civilization. And this is, after all, the most formidable of aU the objections to any scheme for controlling the natural course of capital and labour in a new colony, for confining its injudicious expansion within a belt of restrictions, to use a favourite metaphor of the advocates of those schemes. Every deduction from the liberty of man as a free agent is, in an econo- mical sense, a diminution of his power. This is true in old countries, truer still in new ones ; it forms the im- movable basis of the general argument against public interference with the production and distribution of wealth. Are then these colonies — such, namely, as belong to the class to which we have as yet confined ourselves — to remain, it will be said, always in a state of poverty and infancy ? Are their lands to be always carelessly cultivated by the scanty labour of small farmers, hasten- ing to desert them as soon as they become unproductive*, spreading themselves over enormous tracts, with deserts interposed between their scattered habitations ? Is pro- * The same complaints of depopulation and abandonment of land, whioli are now heard in so many districts which have passed from the first into the second stage of improvement, such as the eastern states of America, were rife throughout the Anglo-American colonies a little before the revolution, when they were far less popidous than now. See a passage from the traveller Kalm, quoted in Adam Smith, p. 103, M'CuUooh's edition. " "We are told by one who knows their country " well, that 200,000 people, bred to the cultivation of the earth, are "■ thrown out of employment for want of land." {Political Essays con- cerning the Present State of the British Empire, 1772, p. 384.) There have never been wanting those who have argued that the process of abandoning old land for new is a losing one. Mr. Shirreff seems to think that in Canada the restoration of the most exhausted land is easier than the removal of a dense forest. {Murray's British America, vol. iii. p. 131.) But the balance of opinion, asevidenced by practice, is the other way. Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 265 perty never to accumulate ? are towns never to rise ? On the contrary, the progress of such a community towards wealth, if no external circumstance interfere, is in reality fixed and certain, and slow only when com- pared with the impatient anticipations of political philo- sophers. And there cannot, I must add, be more palpable exaggerations than those in which some writers have dealt, who have endeavoured to contrast its pros- pects with those of settlements founded according to their own economical views. In the first place, however prone colonists may be to dispersion, there is a hmit which the boldest backwoodsman does not pass ; and that is fixed by the situation of the nearest market. " In the history of American colonization," says Mr. Wakefield himself, " there is but one instance of a " person having settled totally out of the reach of " markets — the celebrated Daniel Boon." As the mar- kets extend, therefore, the settlers will spread ; but no faster. Meanwhile, a certain quantity of capital is ac- ctimulated by the farmers : they advance from a state of necessity at first to comfort, then to competence. There is no doubt a strong tendency among many to desert their farm as soon as its cultivation begins to re- quire more labour or render less immediate profit ; but there is a counteracting tendency also, the love of home, the love of adorning and preserving that which each has won from the wilderness; if many spirits are se- duced by the one, many also foUow the latter. Mean- while, subsidiary branches of industry, such as fisheries, or coarse manufactures, arise ; people are congregated round the spots most favourable for such pursuits ; towns are built ; land rises in value from their vicinity ; soil, \perhaps, which had been cultivated while it retained its oiiginal fertility, and abandoned as soon as it had lost it, acquires new and secondary attractions, and is brought into permanent occupation. When once the accumu- 266 SCARCITY OF LABOUR [Lect. IX. lation of capital has begun, the remainder of the ad- vance to opulence is easUy achieved ; nor is it neces- sary for me to trace the steps by which the peddliag trade is converted into a vast commerce, the towns become cities, and the scattered farms a wide tract of cultivated land. All this, I repeat, not only may, but inevitably will, take place, unless there be some extrinsic interruptions to the course of events, in every colony of this description, possessed of good natural advantages ; even although land be from the beginning lavished on aU who can appropriate it, and there be no provision whatever for securing a supply of hired or compulsory labour. And it cannot fail to be observed, that prosperity thus gradually attained is of the safest and most certain character. A community may advance far more rapidly to wealth from natural advantages in the production of exportable commodities ; but its fortunes are hable to be overthrown as rapidly as they have arisen, by the competition of newer soils, or by a mere change in the demand for particular articles of consumption. But a society of which the course is such as I have described, is independent of all these external vicissitudes, or feels their shocks but slightly ; and they may fairly be com- pared in the language of the poet, who is not answerable for the absurd practical doctrines which his beautiful verses have sometimes been dragged in to illustrate : — " Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away ; Wliile self-supported power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky." And these views are so amply justified by the broad and plain results which history presents to us, that to sup- port them by argument is almost a waste of labour. A line drawn from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, nearly Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 267 along the course of the Delaware and the Ohio, wiU se- parate pretty accurately the two classes of colonies which I have distinguished in this lecture. To the south of it He the regions where the great staples of American export have been raised, namely tobacco, rice, and, more lately, cotton. To the north, those which produce corn and cattle, and from which little or no exportation takes place to Europe, except of timber. Let us fix our attention for a while on a small portion of this latter region ; namely, the older New England states. Never were colonies founded under circumstances more necessarily tending, if the theories which we are now considering were true, to perpetual weakness and poverty. Their soil is, at the best, only of moderate fertility ; while they border on the rich and interminable regions of the West. No restric- tions were ever adopted in the granting of their lands ; each settler could always provide himself with the most fertile, wherever he might find it. They never had, to any extent worth mentioning, the assistance of slave labour, or convict labour, or apprenticed labour ; and they were peopled by the most enterprising and independent of men, the least attached, it is generally thought, of all men, to home and its associations, — the most determined enemies to aU control. From them have issued innum- erable swarms of emigrants ; insomuch, that a great part of the United States has actually been colonized by des- cendants of the first New England colonists. It is true, that, on their first foundation, they exhibited a degree of concentration not often found in Enghsh settlements ; partly from the strong rehgious and municipal feelings which bound the settlers together in townships or villages, partly from the density of the forest, partly from the hos- tility of the natives. But this concentration lasted only during the few first years of struggles and difficulties. Self-interest soon prevailed over the earher principles of their foundation. Twenty years after their settlement '268 SCAKCITY OF LABOUR CLect. IX they found Massachusetts too narrow for them; and swarmed into Connecticut and New Hampshire, " because " the Bay was overstocked." In 1682, the governor.. of Connecticut writes of the land of that province, " what is " fit is taken up ; what remains must be taken out of the " fire, by hard blows, and for small recompence." Con- necticut had then scarcely more than 10,000 inhabi- tants.* What cotild be prognosticated of such settlements as these, according to the arguments which might be de- duced from some passages of Mr. Wakefield and his fol- lowers, but, at best, a slow, languishing advance through long periods of poverty and discouragement ? Let us con- template the picture presented by their actual condition. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Ehode Island, had in 1840, about 1,200,000 hihabitants on 12,000 square miles Enghsh, or 100 to a square mile. Connecticut alone, of which, in the opinion of its governor, aU the good land was taken up when it had 10,000 people, had 300,000, almost all agricidturists. But the population of England, at the beginning of the last century, was not much above 5,000,000 on 50,000 square miles. So that New England had reached, in 200 years from its first settlements a density of population equal to that which Old England had attained, six centuries after the Norman conquest. It is now, notwithstanding its enormous annual drain by emigration, actually suffering under the evils incident to an old and over-peopled country. There is a very remarkable passage, in Miss Martineau's " Society in America," respecting the embarrassed state of many of the New England landowners, from the difficulty which they aheady experience in finding productive employment for their capital. Surely, when we hear of the necessity of stimulating the progress of young colonies, through arti- * Grahame's History of the United Provinces before the Eevolution of 1688, ii. 62. Chalmers' United (Colonies, 308. Lect. IX.] 1^ NEW COLONIES. 269 ficial combinations of capital and labour, and reflect on the advance of communities like this, in which no such systems were ever attempted, we cannot but be tempted to ascribe such proposals to that impatience of gradual results, which is the common parent of rash political spe- culations. Let us now turn our attention to the state of things in those colonies, where the chief employment consists in raising staple articles of produce for foreign markets. In such communities as these, it is obvious that the necessity for an ample supply of labourers is of a far more urgent character. In them, aU that has been said of the impor- tance of combined labour to the productive employment of capital is of pointed application. And in point of fact, all such colonies have hitherto, in some way or other, been supplied from without, or have found the means of supplying themselves, with this essential condition of their improvement. It is this necessity which caused the en- slavement of the original inhabitants of Spanish America ; which produced negro slavery and the slave trade ; which has turned to profit the compulsory toil of convicts ; and to satisfy which, without a resort to any of these odious resources, is now the greatest practical problem of coloni- zation. It is, however, to be observed, that settlements of this description have often flourished for a time, even although exposed to all the difficulties arising from the dispersion of settlers, and the want of compulsory labour. In the early progress of colonies, and while the land imme- diately adjoining to ports and navigable rivers, or other- wise possessing facilities for transport, is stiU unexhausted, raw produce can often be raised for the foreign market in considerable quantities by the rude labour of smaU landowners. We have already seen that this was the ordinary course of events in tjie West Indian islands ; that the first period in the history of each, presents the aspect 270 SCARCITY OF LABOUR [Lect. IX. of a fertile region, carelessly cultivated with a considerable profit by numerous free settlers. We have seen that Portorico exhibited the same spectacle in very recent times, and is only now beginning to pass into the second stage, that of large capitals and cultivation on a large scale. And the same general features present themselves in the annals of our older North American provinces, south of the Potomac. When Mr. Wakefield describes, in melancholy language, the early state of Virginia while unprovided with compulsory labour, and speaks of the casual arrival of a Dutch vessel laden with slaves in the Chesapeake as the critical event which turned its retro- grade career, and opened the way to improvement and abundance, he is drawiag a striking illustration of his theory, but surely not narrating historical facts. In Sir W. Berkeley's description of that colony in 1671, whefi.it was already carrying on a flourishing trade in tobacco, he estimated its population at 40,000, of whom only 2000 were black slaves, 6000 " Christian servants for a short time." " Yearly," he says, " we suppose, there come in of " servants about 1500, of whom most are Enghsh, few " Scotch, and fewer Irish ; and not above two or three " ships of negroes in seven years." This is the picture of a country in which the state of transition from the occu- pancy of small landowners, to that of proprietors of large estates cultivated by slaves, is only just beginning ; when once begun, it is certain to proceed with continually in- creasing rapidity, until the new condition of society is developed. The usual course of events appears to be this : that it is not until the more fertile and best situated lands have been occupied, and to a certain extent exhausted, that the superior productiveness of capital in masses, and labour in combination, begins to be practically felt. The stimulus, too, afforded by an increasing market acts strongly in accelerating this inevitable change ; and Lect. IX.] IK NEW COLONIES. 271 it is, at least, highly probable, that it may be still further accelerated by measures taken at the outset ; by taking thought for the adjustment of the due proportion of • capital and labour in the original foundation of the colony. Thus far, I think, the advocates of " systematic " colonization" rest on very sure ground, and are en- titled to the credit of having' been the first to draw the attention of the community, at a very critical period, to this truth ; that it is of the highest impor- tance to find some artificial substitute for the slave and convict labour, by which our colonies have hitherto been rendered productive. A- truth which many are now ready to term self-evident, and to accuse the writers in question of having laboriously demonstrated principles which no one denies. All, who are conversant with the history of human speculation know that this is the reproach invariably thrown on the authors of important discoveries, of which the very simpHcity affords to ordinary minds an argument to show the want of originafity of the inventors. But with regard to the other theory of which I have spoken, namely, that an ample supply of labour tends to concentration of people, that seems still less appficable to colonies producing valuable agricultural commodities, than to the other class which we have just, considered. The abundance of new and produc- tive soil is the very first condition of the prosperity of such settlements. If they have not this, neither capital nor industry, nor multitude of people, will avert that inevitable decay into which they must fall from the competition of newer lands. What has been the cause of the decline of Jamaica, and most of the smaller Antilles? The limited extent of their available land. Why did Demerara, within these few years, produce more than half as much as Jamaica, with less than one-third of its number of labourers .? Not because its population is 272 SCARCITY OF LABOUR [Lect. IX. concentrated, or capital accumulated, but because it possesses an extensive surface of alluvial soU, over whicli cultivation is constantly spreading, and of which probably not one himdredth part has yet been brought under it. Now the scheme of the writers of whoin I speak is really neither more nor less than to substitute an artificial limit in all colonies for that hmit which nature has assigned in our islands, — to make an island of a settlement in a wide continent. " The turning point " of the system," says the author of the pamphlet put forth by the Colonization Society in 1830, " is the necessity of " fixing such a price on land as shall prevent the aban- " donment of old for new soU ;" that is, in other words, which shall prevent the colonist from making free use of that machine which nature has put within his reach. Surely Mr. M'Culloch is right in saying, that " all this " proceeds on the exploded assumption that colonists are " not, like other individuals, the best judges of what is " for their own advantage."* In what manner they have usually exercised that judgment, colonial history sufficiently shows. The growers of tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar for the market have required a far greater extent of soil for their cultivation than the mere ordinary agriculturists of the northern settlements. So far from an ample supply of labour tending to concentrate population, it has, in North America, invariably gone along with the greatest possible dispersion. The early settlers in Vir- ginia did indeed imagine the construction of such a society as the systematic colonizers have sometimes projected — an old society in a new country. For a short time it seems to have realized, in some degree, their imaginary model. The estates of the landed pro- prietors, congregated together along the banks of the numerous navigable rivers, each with its httle hamlet * Note to Adam Smith on " Colonial Policy," p. 602. Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIKS. 273 peopled by indented servants or slaves, the rural aristo- cracy, the well endowed church establishment, seem to have presented for a few years, slavery alone apart, the resemblance of what has never been exhibited else- where in the New World ; a httle province of Old England, transplanted into the other hemisphere. But the progress of events was not to be thus checked. The landowners found their estates become yearly less productive of tobacco, the most exhausting of crops ; they had no alternative between removal and a total change of system. Now, if they had not had abundant labour at their command, it is probable that their course would have been, to abandon their tobacco cultivation, remain on their estates, and sink into mere raisers of ordinary agricultural produce. But the possession of an ample supply of labour was the very cause which promoted their dispersion. They and their slaves mi- grated in quest of new soil; they spread from the eastern to the western limits of the province, from the Atlantic coast to the mountains, and thence to the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi; and at this day, the traveller finds, amidst the deserted " old fields" of Vir- ginia and Maryland, the traces of that ephemeral state of society which I have described — aged mansions, resembling those of the country gentlemen of England, the dwelhngs of men whose habits and anticipations were widely different fi:om those of the migratory American of the present time. While New England, almost un- supplied with dependent labourers from the beginning, has attained a density of population exceeding 100 to the square mile, that of Virginia, which has been more amply furnished with slaves than any other part of the Union, does not much exceed thirty. So far is it from being true, that an ample supply of labour in colonies tends to concentra- tion of the people. But it is not to be supposed that Virginia does not flourish ; she is no longer a great ex- 274 SCAECITY OF LABOUR [Lect. IX. porting province, newer soils having come successfully into competition with hers ; but the increasing opulence of the whole country reacts upon her, and she becomes rich by supplying the cotton-growing states with the articles of which they stand in need.* Can any one in his senses suppose that, if Mr. Wakefield's "belt of iron" had been put round the infant colony, — if the original settlers of Virginia had been forced to remain in their first clearings, and to expend their capital in main- taining them in a state of productiveness after their first fertility had disappeared, — Virginia herself, not to say the Union in general, would have been wealthier at the present day ? The conclusions, then, to which I would draw your attention, as deduced from the reasonings and facts laid before you in my present lecture, are these : 1. That an ample supply of labour is not only de- sirable, but essential, in a colony raising valuable articles of produce for the general market. 2. That in a colony not raising such produce in any abundance, it is unnecessary ; and that any attempt to ensure it, by controlling the freedom of action of the settlers, or preventing them from the easy acquisition of land, would occasion a dead loss. 3. That an artificial concentration of population, by restraining the abandonment of occupied lands, would seriously check the prosperity of most new colonies, and especially of such as raise valuable produce foi exportation. 4. That, allowing that such concentration, if it tool? place from natural causes, might be desirable, the mer( ensuring a sufficient supply of labour would not in anj degree tend to promote it, but rather the contrary. * (1861.) Unhappily, since this lecture was written, the " articles' chiefly supplied by Virginia to the newer cotton States have been home gi'own slaves. Lect. IX.] IN NEW COLONIES. 275 It will remain for us on a future occasion to consider, ■wiietlier, in order to secure the advantage of a supply of labour, it may be sometimes wortli while for a colony of the exporting class, to sacrifice some portion of its power of expansion ; as, for instance, by setting a high price on -unoccupied lands, in order to expend the produce on im- migration. The subject, however, must not be dismissed, without observing that much of the character and progress of a colony, in respect to the modes in which the three elements of land, capital, and labour combine themselves, depends upon extrinsic circumstances, which control and modify these general laws. The tendency of settlers to isolate themselves, and spread over the surface of the land, may be counteracted, in the first place, by the hmited extent of the land itself ; as in islands, or valleys surrounded by impracticable mountains, hke those of the upper Andes ; by the density of natural forests, ren- dering clearing more difficult * ; by the numbers and warlike character of the native population, as in parts of the Cape colony, where the boors are forced to congregate together for self-protection, and in the new French colony at Algiers. In Spanish America, wherever the popidation was collected in mountain plains, and * (1861.) This very important consideration of the relative expense of clearing in different colonies, appears to me to have been too much overlooked by the advocates of "systematic colonization " and sale of land at a high price. In Australia, the preparation of land for settle- ment requires but a trifling outlay. In Canada the clearing of wild land costs, as we have seen, SI. to il. an acre. In British Colimibia, (1860) it is said, from 151. to SOL per acre ! Such amounts as these, in point of fact, render clearing by hired labour almost impossible ; the first work must be done by the settler himself, and a system of small holdings and low prices or free grants become almost unavoidable. In Australia, clearing costs in general very little; and the settler can there- fore afford a higher price for his land, if he is repaid by the devotion of the proceeds to immigration. A remarkable illustration of this over- sight is afforded by the history of the colonization of New Zealand. See Appendix to Lecture xiv. T 2 276 SCAKCITT OF LABOUR. [Lect. IX, especially where mining operations were carried on, large cities were early founded; Quito, lima, Mexico, were wealthy and flourishing when there was not a single town containing more than 20,000 people in British North America. A large government expendi- ture in a colony will produce a similar effect ; as in the Austrahan provinces, where the population of the capital towns has always borne an unusually high pro- portion to that of the country. On the other hand, the causes which increase to its maximum the natural ten- dency to dispersion are, a wide extent of fertUe soU, a wholesome chmate, the absence of dense forests and other natural obstacles, and the want of navigable rivers, upon the banks of which men are usually inclined to estabhsh themselves in communities. In colonies thus circum- stanced, the inclination of men for the ease and inde- pendence of pastoral, semi-savage hfe, a propensity which seems to overcome that of self-interest, even in the most enterprising and industrious races, undoubtedly places great obstacles in the way of civilization. Such appears to be the state of the inhabitants of the Pam- pas of Buenos Ayres and the plains of New Mexico and Cahfornia ; and the danger of falling into a simi- lar state is probably the greatest to which our Austra- han colonists are exposed. Whether the difference oi their moral and intellectual condition, or the prospects of opulence to be derived from conabined labour whicli may probably open upon them, will be sufficient to avert it, is matter of speculation ; but it is undoubtedly difiicult to conceive, that any government regulations, least of all those of a government estabhshed at the distance of half the earth's circumference, can effectually control their future career. Lect. IX.] APPENDIX. 277 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE IX. Quantity of Wool shipped from Australia at diflTerent Periods, prior to tlie Gold Discovery. lbs. 1825 .... 411,600 1,968,000 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850 4,210,000 9,721,000 24,177,000 39,000,000 T 3 278 EMPLOYMENT OF LABOUR [Lect. X. LECTUKE X. EMPLOYMENT OF THE LABOUR OF SUBJUGATED NATIVE RACES. LEGIS- LATION OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT WITH RESPECT TO THE AMERICAN INDIANS, AND THEIR CONDITION. ESTABLISHMENTS OF THE JESUIT AND OTHER ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES. I SHALL proceed to consider in order, in this part of my course, the different methods by which the requisite sup- ply of labour has been procured in European colonies. The expedient by means of which the earhest of modern Em^opean colonists made available for their service the rich territories they had subdued, was the labour of subjugated native races. In various parts of their conquests, but more especially on the table lands of Mexico, Peru, and New Granada, or Cundinamarca, the Spaniards found the soil already culti- vated by tribes advanced in civilization far beyond the ordinary condition of the natives of America. Into the curious problem of the origin and extent of that civiliza- tion it does not fall within my province to inquire. It has been exaggerated by some writers, but unduly depre- ciated by more. It is, at aU events, clear, that they were so far advanced in industry and the mechanical arts as to be capable of developing to the utmost, under proper di- rection, the vast resources of their native regions. But they were delivered over, in the defenceless state in which the conquest had left them, to the extremest tyranny which men unrestrained by law or by religion could exercise. The sovereigns, nobles, and wealthy classes were destroyed, and their property confiscated.* * However we may grieve to hear it (says Mr. Helps) farther re- search only more and more supports the statements of Las Casas, who was wont to estiniate the loss of lives by millions. Lect. X.] OF NATIVE RACES. 279 The commonalty passed through various degrees of servi- tude, beginning at the lowest and worst, and gradually emerging into a more mitigated condition. At first they were treated simply as slaves, or rather as a portion of the stock on each estate; and the oldest grants of land in Hispaniola, it is said, mention the number of natives whom the proprietor was thus authorized to treat as cattle. Se- vere oppression, and particularly the laborious service of the mines, diminished their numbers to such a degree, that the interest of their masters in their preservation absolutely required the adoption of an amended system. The next scheme put in general practice appears to have been that of repartimientos, by which the Indians, divi- ded into villages and famihes, were allotted to the owners of the land, who had a property in their labour, but not in their persons ; thus they were adstricti glebas, like the serfs of feudal countries, and incapable of acquiring pro- perty of their own.* Finally, the system of encomiendas superseded, or became engrafted on that of repartimientos. The " Encomienda" was a district within which thelndian labourers were bound to render not services, but tribute, to the encomendero or proprietor, to whom they had been thus granted or recommended ; the proprietor being bound to render them protection in return for their tribute, f In the towns, however, the Indian artisans appear to have early acquired a greater degree of hberty, to have worked on their own account, and in some, as for instance in * In the greatest financial distresses of Philip the Second, it was proposed in the Spanish council to sell these " Repartimientos." But the project was strenuously opposed by the king himself, partly through fear of the great proprietors aiming at independence, but more from consideration for the Indians, who would thus be removed from the protection of the state. In consequence of the king's opposition (an unusual circumstance in his councU) the scheme fell to the ground. This should be remembered to his honour. — Ranke, Fiirsten und Vblher von Sud-Europa, i. 361. f See Helps, Spanish America, book. xiv. ch. 1 and 2, for an analysis of this rather complicated subject. T 4 280 EMPLOYMENT OF LABOUR [Lect. X. Quito and Bogota, to have constituted the bulk of the labouring population. These various systems all became altered and modified in practice, and out of them grew that heterogeneous state of legislation and custom which Humboldt describes in his Essay on New Spain. The superior privileges en- joyed by the Mexican Indians were owing, in part, to the hberal enactments of King Charles III.*, who annulled the encomiendas, and forbade the repartimientos. In 1800, when Humboldt visited that country, the Indians of the rural districts seem to have been no longer under the obhgation of legal compulsory service, either to the crown or to individvials. But they were treated by the law as perpetual minors. They were incapable of enter- ing into vahd contracts, to an amount exceeding ten s hinin gs Enghsh. They dwelt together in villages, which they seem to have occupied on a system resembhng that termed Eyotwar in India f ; that is, cultivating the fields of the village in common, paying a gross amount of rent to the proprietor, and personal tribute to the crown. They were under the control of the secular priests of their vil- lages, who seem to have been maintained by the government as the most ready and effective instruments of poHce ; and of alcaldes and corregidors of their own blood, who were often not the least severe of task-masters. Though not legally attached to the soil, they seem to have been practi- cally restricted from the free disposal of their labour. But while the peasantry were in this low condition, it appears that both the inhabitants of the towns and the labourers in the mines were not only free, but able to command high wages and indulge in a lavish expenditure. The remnant of the old Indian nobihty was possessed, in some provinces, of considerable wealth ; and, through some * Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. i. chap. 6. •f Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. i. p. 42^. 8vo edition. Leot. X.] OF NATIVE RACES. 281 evasion, doubtless, of the existing laws, the amassing of considerable fortunes, even by Indians of ordinary con- dition, was not altogether an uncommon event. In Peru, the state of things was somewhat different. There, too, the Indians of the cities were free ; but those of the country were subject, until the revolution, to the burden of the mita, or conscription. The villages were compelled to furnish annually to the manufacturers, planters, and mine-owners of the neighbourhood a certain proportion of their labouring hands, at wages to be fixed by the crown. The time of service was also fixed, and the distance from their homes at which the Indians might be compelled to serve ; and all by regulations, which, if hteraUy followed, do not certainly appear to have been very severe or burdensome.* What was the actual condition of the Indians under this legislation, and how did it affect their productive in- dustry ? These are questions not easUy answered by re- ference to such authorities as we possess, and there seems to have been a considerable discrepancy of opinion about them. There are, in point of fact, two very distinct sets of preconceived opinions with which they may be re- garded ; two different points of view from which observers have contemplated them ; and ia this manner the differ- ence between the conclusions at which these observers have arrived may be partly accounted for. According to the feelings prevalent in the nations of western Europe, in which aU classes (some few privileged bodies left out of the question) have long been equal in the eye of the law, and enjoyed the same degree of personal freedom, the regulations to which the Indians were subjected were un- doubtedly vexatious and tyrannical ; and the mere idea of retaining the bulk of the people out of the pale of citizenship, rendering them incapable of entering into legal engagements, or assuming any honourable posi- * UUoa, Voyage k rAm^rique M&idionale, Discours 18. 282 LEGISLATION WITH EESPECT [Lect. X. tion in society, appears monstrous and unnatural. But it must be remembered, that, in the eyes of colonists, and it may be added of colonial governments, the nor- mal state of the subject Indian had always been re- garded as one of servitude or quasi-servitude. Every advance from that state towards freedom, every step by which the native was hberated from any of his ancient burdens, was in this view a progress; and many such steps of high importance had been taken by the Spa- nish government. If the Indians were de jure equal to the whites, which is the doctrine of modern philosophical pohticians, then they were an oppressed race. But if they were de jure a subject class, which was an uncon- troverted tenet, both in Europe and America, during the whole period in which the Spanish colonial legislation was framed, then their condition was highly advantageous, a little below freedom indeed, but far above slavery. If it was necessary to maintain the domination of the whites, to preserve the existing gradation of ranks, the existing distribution of property, it was, perhaps, impossible for the Spanish government to have placed the Indians in a state of full equality with their former masters. And if so, the condition of perpetual minority, which a fiction of law created, was, not altogether an imwise invention. By placing the Indians under the direct protection of the law and its ministers, and by rendering it almost impos- sible for serious quarrel or opposition of interest to arise between them and the wholly emancipated classes, it per- haps removed them from the reach of oppression, while it provided at the same time a security against revolution.* * (1861.) And I must add, that the more we compare the results of the Spanish system of placing natives, as minors, under govern- ment protection, with those of the system of declaring them equal to the settlers in rights, and then leaving them without protection, the less we shall be inclined to believe that humanity has made any pro- gress through the prevalence of the latter principle. " It is not the " Spaniards alone," says Mr. Helps, " who have found exceeding diffi- " ciJty in preserving nations, comparatively barbarous, whom they have Lect. X.] TO THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 283 Humboldt truly observes, that we should find the lot of the Mexican Indians less unhappy, if we compared it with that of the serfs of Courland or Eussia, or of a great part of North Germany, at the time when he wrote. With respect to productive industry, it cannot be sup- posed, that a system of legal incapacity, still less one of compulsory service, was well calculated to develope the energy of the labourer. Accordingly, we find, that in the manufactures carried on in the larger cities, and in the mines of Mexico, the most productive and the best managed Indian labour was free — experience having, no doubt, demonstrated, that it was more profitable than compulsory, wherever much exertion was required. But even where this was not the case, the Indians, when well treated, seem to have been industrious and tolerably effective labourers. Their indifference and hstlessness were, mdeed, remarkable ; but these very quahties ren- dered them submissive under the tasks imposed upon them. Like most half-civihzed people, they had pecuHar aptitude for imitation, and little for invention, and the utmost patience in the execution of minute and trivial operations. The Indians, says UUoa, are in general re- " markably slow, but very persevering ; and this has given " rise to a proverb, when anything of little value in itself " requires a great deal of time and patience, ' That is " ' only fit to be done by an Indian.' " The enormous increase of wealth already noticed in some of the " subjugated. And it is admitted by all who Lave investigated tte sub- "ject, that it would be one of the highest triumphs of civiHzation, and " one of the foremost proofs of extraordinary vigour of government, if a " conquering nation were to succeed in subjugating, civilizing, and at " the same time preserving, the aborigines of any country that they may " conquer." (Book xx. ch. 6.) He might, in my belief, have defended Spanish legislation in a much less apologetic tone, and pointed it out as the most successftd, or rather the only successful one, in this great particular, notwithstanding abuses in practice. See the subject more fully discussed hereafter. 284 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lect. X. Spanish colonies, particularly Mexico, during the thirty or forty years previous to the revolution, seems conclu- sively to prove, that the system under which labour was regulated was neither inefficient noi; oppressively arbi- trary. The chief abuses to which it was hable arose, not from the conception, but the execution of the laws. The In- dians were purposely rendered defenceless, and placed entirely under the protection of appointed officers, both lay and ecclesiastical. Whenever, therefore, these guard- ians were themselves corrupt and oppressive, no security remained for them. According to Humboldt, the highest of these offices, — those of the Protectors of the Indians — ^were in his time so remarkably well fiUed, that, even in so cor- rupt a community as that of Mexico, not a suspicion of mal- versation was breathed against the holders of them. But if this were the case, their virtue certainly did not descend to their subordinate instruments. The memorial of the Bishop of Oaxaca, in favour of the Indians, which Hum- boldt has himself translated, exhibits but too vivid a pic- ture of the ill-treatment which they had frequently to suffer from those to whom by the law was assigned the office of protecting, representing, and acting for them. And a more remarkable document has since appeared, the " Secret Notices " of Antonio de UUoa. That writer, in his published works, had spoken with moderation, even with praise, of the general conduct of the Spanish autho- rities towards the Indians ; he had even given it as his opinion, that the " Mita " of Peru was not injurious to them. But he addressed manuscript representations of a very different nature to the Court of Spain ; and left be- hind him documents, which have found their way to the hght almost a century after his visit to America, in whicli a series of frauds and oppressions committed towards these inoffensive people is said to be developed, sufficient tc account for the rebelHon of Tupac Amaru in 1782, and Lbct. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 285 for the part taken by the Indians in the more important movements of these later days. Of the condition of the civihzed Indians of Spanish America since the revolution I am unable to speak ; nor is there, probably, any very definite notion to be acquired of the position which they occupy in the chaotic state of society which now prevails in those regions, where the most absolute principles of democratic equahty seem to be strangely blended with customary fi-agments of the ancient servitude.* The pohcy adopted towards the natives in these ancient Spanish colonies furnishes, perhaps, no example of close application to ourselves, who have never been placed in similar circumstances ; for no tribes approaching the Mexicans and Peruvians in industry or civilization have ever fallen under British sovereignty, in regions open to our settlers. Nevertheless, this brief sketch would hardly be complete without some notice of the extraordinary system of spiritual government under which both Spain and Portugal suffered the subjugated and Christianized Indians to be brought, in the vast frontier provinces of their American dominions. Although the modes em- ployed by the superintendents of these missions to bring the natives into habits of subordination and regular government * Since these Lectures were published, Europe has become ac- quainted with the very remarkable history of the subjugation of Guatemala by the pure-blooded Indian Carrera, and his army of Indian peasants. But they do not appear to have established permanent supremacy over the whites. The leader of the " Liberal" party in Mexico (1861), is said to be a pure-blooded Indian. On three points the imsubdued Indians appear stiU to make successful head against the descendants of Spain : on the northern frontier of Mexico ; in Yucatan: and on the southern frontier of Chili and La Plata. Two years a^o an Englishman, in the heart of central America, was endeavouring to intercede with a band of Yucatan Indians for the lives of some Spaniards. The leader rejected his interference and defied England as having lost her power since the East Indian mutiny. So rapidly does political intelligence now pervade the world. 286 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lect. X, might fall, perhaps, more properly under our considera- tion hereafter, when we have to enter more generally intc the question of colonial pohcy towards aborigines, ye since some of the missionary bodies actually succeeded ir converting whole tribes of wandering savages iato flourish- ing agricultural communities, I should hardly have com- pleted this part of my subject without noticing the means which led to this extraordinary result ; to which nothing similar has occurred in the whole course of history. The Missions of Spanish and Portuguese America were at one time of far greater extent and importance than it generally remembered. From all the points where the peopled provinces touched on the unsubdued forests oi deserts of the interior, missionaries of the monastic orders but more especially Jesuits, were constantly issuing intc the neighbouring wilderness, spending their hves in ob- scure but unremitting labours among the savage multi- tudes which peopled it, and estabUshing a chain of settle- ments along the frontier. These settlements, termec Missions or Eeductions, (from the reduced or converted Indians which they contained), were left to the interna" government of the ecclesiastics, subject only to the genera control of the governors of the adjoining provinces They extended more particularly along the great watei communications ; the Amazons, the Orinoco, the tribu taries of the Plata, in the forests at the eastern foot of th( Andes, and to the extreme north of the Spanish posses sions m Cahfornia. Each establishment served the doubL purpose of a receptacle for the converted or reduced In dians of the vicinity, and of a factory or place of tradf and communication with those as yet unsubdued. Anc where a military outpost would probably have found it self involved in constant wars with its barbarous neigh bours, the missionaries dwelt for the most part in a stat of peace and confidence. Thus far, they were of essentia though subordinate, utility ; but the only missions whic. Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISIIME.VTS. 287 ever attained to any great importance, and called the eyes of all Europe to the working of the singular principles developed in their institution, were those of the Jesuits, principally in Paraguay. The history of the Jesuits of that country, which deserves to be called a philosophical episode in that of the human race, has been the ground- work of much controversy, and of exaggeration, both by friends and enemies. Charlevoix's History of Paraguay, Ulloa's Travels, Azara's Paraguay, and many other works, may be consulted as original authorities on the subject ; but it will be nowhere found so agreeably treated, or in some respects so fairly summed up, as in Southey's His- tory of Brazil. The great Jesuit repubhc, or rather republics, consisted of three different sets of Eeductions, comprehended within the same Spanish government, namely, the lieutenancy of Buenos Ayres, but at a considerable distance from each other ; those of the Guaranis, the Chiquitos, and the Moxos. The first of these were the most ancient and the most famous, and comprehended the most numerous popu- lation ; they were situated, not within the hmits of the modem republic of Paraguay, celebrated in our times as the seat of the singular despotism of Francia, but in a neighbouring district, now forming part of Brazil. The Guaranis were a very numerous people, whom the Jesuits found the means of reconcihng to Christianity during the seventeenth century. Unwilling to lose the fruit of their labours, by the reckless violence of the Brazihan slave- hunters on the one hand, or through the contaminating society of the Spanish colonists on the other, they ob- tained, by degrees, from the crown, the privilege of governing these Indians under laws of their own contri- vance, arming them for their own defence, and excluding from the hmits of their territory aU strangers, sojourners, and even all visitors whatever, unless admitted for their own purposes. 288 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Leci. X The Guarani Eeductions contained, at one time, froii 100,000 to 150,000 souls. They were divided into mis sions, each of which held several thousand. The peoph of each mission were collected into a large village oi town. In each there resided two ecclesiastics of th( order ; namely, one with the title of Curate ; the other i sub-director, or assistant, to whom the details of the tem- poral management of the mission were entrusted ; and nc other white whatever. The Indians of each elected theii own municipal officers, after the usage of all Spanisl towns ; but the nomination was subject to the approva of the curate, and, in point of fact, their authority wa titular only ; every function of power, from the highest t( the lowest, was lodged in the hands of the spiritual go vernor. AU, the natives were armed, and officered b] Indians of their own nation ; being occasionally put unde temporary training by Spaniards, under the especial super intendence of the priests. The houses of each town o: village were exactly alike, and no distinction admitted ii dress, or in the enjoyment of domestic comforts and luxu ries. The only sumptuous building was the church ; it adornment, and the pomp of divine worship, almost thi only mode in which the surplus wealth of the communit; could be expended. The land of the village was dividet into two portions ; the field of the community, and thi field of God. The latter was cultivated, by the labour o all, for the purpose of raising articles , which were ex changed by the Jesuits for such commodities as weri wanted for the piuposes of maintaining the splendour o their ritual, and supporting estabhshments for the sid and orphans, and for such other charitable ends as si simple a society could require. The other field was cul tivated for the sustenance of the community, and for ob taiaing by exchange those manufactured articles whid they did not themselves produce. How far each indivi dual Indian was allowed to acquire property, either ii Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 289 the soil itself or in the fruits of- it, is not very clearly as- certainable. Southey, following the common account, says, that a separate portion of the field was allotted by the priest to each individual, as soon as he became of an age to labour, which at his death was again assigned to another. Ulloa, who is generally worthy of credit, says that there was a difference between the government of the Chiquito and Guarani Eeductions in this respect ; that, in the former, each Indian enjoyed the fruit of his own field, but in the latter all the surplus produce of the soil was sold for the community by the Jesuits. The same omnipotent masters allotted to every man, at the com- mencement of the day, the tools with which he was to labour and the seed he was to use ; they superintended the pubhc slaughter-houses, and dehvered to each family the necessary meat (the common food of the country), and every other article of which they stood in need ; so that, notwithstanding what is said of the division of fields, it is difficult to understand in what sense, if in any, the idea of property could have been received among them. It wUl be seen at once how striking a resemblance this system bore to some of those which have been devised, and partly put in practice, in our own times, by the partisans of social equality. The principle, that every man's labour belongs to the community ; that his right of property extends only to his aliquot part of the produce of the cooperating industry of all ; the regulated exchange, under fixed laws of value, between the produce of the day's laboiir of each separate artisan or labourer ; the exclusion of the use of money ; aU these, whether asserted in theory or not, were actually practised by the Jesuit rulers of Paraguay, and that for more than a century, with unin- terrupted success ; whereas no scheme of socialism, or Saint-Simonianism, or Fourierism, or any other of the philosophical dreams of modern times, has ever endured the test of above a few years' imperfect apphcation. And u 290 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lect. X. the reason is obvious. While men are bom with different tendencies and unequal powers, no means of maintaining equahty among them can be found, except of a compul- sory nature. Now, not a single one of the various systems to which I allude has ever contained, or, from its very nature, could contain, any provision for enforcing the ob- servance of that equahty on which they all insist. The Jesuits had the means at hand ; their subjects were bound to them by ties of absolute unqualified obedience, such as no government but that which controls the spirit of man can command. And it is, probably, no very adventiurous philosophical speculation, to foretel that no scheme of social equality will ever develope itself among mankind, except under a hierarchy. " An Indian of the Eeductions," in the eloquent lan- guage of Southey, " never knew, during his whole pro- " gress from the cradle to the grave, what it was to take " thought for the morrow ; all his duties were comprised " in obedience." To estabhsh such a system, in the out- set, required great acuteness, great energy and perseve- rance. To maintain it, when once fairly established, the Indians having been thoroughly brought u^der the spiritual yoke, and convinced of the infaUibihty of their masters, required httle more than zeal and self-devotion, joined to habits of order, obedience, and regularity. For the Jesuit governor of the village was as completely a slave to the laws of his own community as any one of his Indian parishioners to the regulations which he imposed. The first care which he took of his subjects was devoted to their education. This, however, extended, for the most part, only to instruction in rehgion, so far as it might be orally given, and to the art of church singing ; reading and writing were only taught to a few, who were intended to fiU subordinate offices in the church. Mar- riage was then enjoined, as a duty, at the earhest possible period ; so far were the Jesuits, as Southey has truly Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 291 observed, from carrying their monastic sentiments into their civil government. The rest of the hfe of the Guarani was devoted to labour in the vocation which the priest at first allotted to him ; reheved by military train- ing, and by the observance of fast-days, numerous pro- cessions, and strictly regulated pubhc amusements. But unless men are compelled as slaves, the most absolute spiritual control will not force them to be industrious without an object. The Jesuits supphed that object ; the one great end of industry which they held out to their simple converts wa's the honour of God, in the decoration of his church and his service. To this the ingenious man was encouraged to devote his skill, the strong man his strength, the singer his talent ; in the pursuit of this alone, those natural inequahties of ability and temper, which even Jesuit disciphne could not wholly eradicate, were turned to account. Of the character of the spiritual instruction given to the Indians, by means of which tliis extraordinary docihty was maintained, it would not become me in this place to speak. It is sufficient to observe, that although, of course, deeply impregnated with what we deem the superstitions of the church of Home, it was not by any means of so monastic a character as, from the position of their in- structors, we might have been led to imagine. It was, perhaps, a pecuhar and faulty characteristic of Jesuit disciphne, that while the fathers kept almost all possibOity of gross sin out of the reach of their converts by the most jealous measures, they encouraged a dehcacy of conscience in trifles, a kind of spirit of casuistry in self-examination, which it seems remarkable that they could have instilled into the minds of such simple creatures. Thus we are told that the confession of an innocent Guarani lasted generally four or five times as long as that of the most profligate Spaniard ; and that the attending to this duty was, in fact, pretty nearly the hardest labour which a b2 292 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lect. X.' missionary, amidst all the multiplicity of his avocations, had to perform.* But knowledge, except religious, was altogether excluded. " The object of the Jesuits f," says Southey, with truth, " was not to advance their subjects " in civilization, but to tame them to the utmost possible " docility." This they justified on the plea of a real inferiority in their mental capacity; and, as the same writer observes, with much acuteness, the Jesuits were placed in a somewhat false position, by having to main- tain two different theses, in each of which there was some degree of truth, against two different classes of antagonists. In opposition to the Portuguese slave-dealers and the Spanish encomenderos, who represented the Indians as brutes, to justify their own treatment of them, they had to contend that those poor creatures had souls to be saved and minds to be enlightened. Against the partisans of the civil government, who accused them of keeping the natives in abject slavery for their own profit, they ad- vanced the position, that the natural inferiority of the Indian intellect rendered them incapable, not only of self- government, but of any degree of free action, except to their own detriment. With respect to the accusations of avarice and ambi- tion to which I have here alluded, which contributed in no small degree to the eventual downfal of the society, these seem to have been utterly unfounded. The Jesuits never appear to have turned the labour of their numerous flock to the production of wealth for themselves, and no trace whatever has been discovered of the treasures which they were supposed to have amassed. And as such wealth' must have been raised in exportable articles, and aU the * See some curious details respecting the eagerness of the converted Indians to practise confession, at a much earlier period of the history of the church 'in Spanish America, in Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, B. XV. chap. iii. t History of Brazil, ii. 225. Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 293 traffic of the Eeductions with other parts was carried on under strict regulations by the Jesuits themselves, no such accumulation could have been made without attract- ing notice. The ecclesiastics of the Eeductions had salaries from the Spanish treasury : the Indians paid to the crown a small tribute, which, it was said, nearly balanced the expenses which the missions occasioned it, and no more. Of avarice they stand fully absolved ; and in the absence of aU substantial objects of ambition, to what does the charge of ambition reduce itself.? The society was proud, no doubt, of its own wonderful re- pubhcs, in which fifty of its members governed in peace and affluence 200,000 reclaimed savages : and the indi- viduals employed on that most heavy and responsible service must often have felt their hearts uplifted at the thought of the great interests committed to their charge, of the important office which they were called to fulfil on the earth : and such an admixture of human natiu-e as this can scarcely be said to dishonour the purest zeal. But the society derived no temporal power or wealth from the expenditure of its best and noblest spirits in the secluded pursuits of the American missions. And, on the whole, whatever may have been the faults of their system, we shall hardly refuse to repeat the words of Southey, that " there never was a more absolute despotism : but " there never existed any other society in which the wel- " fare of the subjects, temporal and eternal, has been the " sole object of the government : " even if we do not go so far as to say, with Eaynal, that " perhaps never was so " much good done to mankind with so httle admixture of « evil." Two important practical lessons, I think, may be drawn from the history of the Spanish missions, and especially those of Paraguay. The first is this : that history has no example to offer tis of any successful attempt, however ghght, to introduce u 3 294 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lect. X. civilization among savage tribes in colonies, or in their vicinity, except through the agency of religious mission- aries. This is no question of a balance of advantages, no matter of comparison between opposite systems : I repeat, that no instance can be shown of the reclaiming of savages by any other influence than that of rehgion. This is a subject to which I shall have occasion to recur : I will merely therefore say, on the present occasion, that there are two obvious reasons why such should be the case : the first, that rehgion only can supply a motive to the governors, placed ia obscure situations, and without the reach of responsibility, to act with zeal, perseverance, and charity ; the other, that it alone can supply a motive to the governed to undergo that alteration of habits through which the reclaimed savage must pass, and to which the hope of mere temporal advantage will very rarely induce him to consent. Of this more hereafter : at present, I must confine myself to briefly showing how remarkably the history of the South American missions confirms the position which may be stated in the words of Southey, " that the wealth and power of governments " may be vainly employed in the endeavour to concihate " and reclaim brute man, if rehgious zeal and Christian " charity, in the true import of the word, be wanting." In the middle of the last century the Spaniards, by a blundering treaty, ceded to Portugal the territory com- prising the Eeductions of the Guaranis. . The Jesuits bade their flock submit to the transfer ; but the Indians them- selves, finding that they were to be deprived of their spiritual masters, took up arms, and defended themselves for some time. At last the Portuguese government re- stored the Jesuits ; but in a few years they were again and finally expelled, at the destruction of the order. Civil governors were then substituted for the spiritual, with similar powers, and retaining, as far as possible, the ancient regulations. But it was found at once that in Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 295 these new hands the system was inoperative : it fell to pieces ; the natural inequahties of society made way to the hght through the fragments of the old artificial re- strictions ; some Indians, says Azara, became rich, many more were ruined : but the tendency to decay prevailed, the habits of savage hfe returned, and the traveller who visits the wUd banks of the Parana now finds only a few scattered remains of churches half buried in profuse ve- getation, marking the site of the ruined towns of the Guaranis. The same experiment was tried in Brazil, when the Portuguese Jesuits were expelled from their missions on the Amazons : and in that instance it is better worth attending to, because Pombal, who directed it, was a man of enlarged views, and a philosopher, after the fashion of his time ; and his agent, Carvalho, seems to have been humane and well-intentioned. The history of it will be found in the third volume of Southey's Brazil. Civilians were substituted for the Jesuit missionaries, with the title of Directors, and paid by a proportion (one sixth) of the specified compulsory labour of the In- dians. That provision alone was sufficient to ruin the undertaking. The directors having their own interest in the labour of the Indians, soon increased their daily tasks, until they perished or fled into the wilderness. La Condamine, no partial witness, describes the flourish- iag state of the Jesuit settlements when he descended the Amazons ; twenty-five years afterwards their site was desolate. But although missions have thus been the imiversal instruments for communicating the rudiments of civiHza- tion to savages, they have rarely succeeded for any long time in preserving them. Those of the Jesuits answered better ia'this respect than others, owing to the strong and Spartan constitution of that society itself; yet even the best of these seem to have contained in them the seeds of c 4 296 JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. [Lbct. X. decay. In general, as Humboldt observed with respect to the missions which he saw on the Orinoco, " the feeble " civiHzation introduced by the Spanish missionaries pur- " sued a retrograde course." It is easy to assign a cause for this ; the first missionaries who found a community of reclaimed savages are commonly men of greater energy and greater zeal than those who take charge of a society abeady framed : and their task is more inspiring and exciting. But the pohcy of the Spanish and Portuguese priests was invariably to keep their converts from doing anything for themselves — to make them, in the language of Sismondi, great children, listening without understand- ing, and obeying without knowing why : everything, therefore, depended upon the personal character of the superintendents ; and as these diminished in zeal and intelligence, the societies necessarily feU to decay. Fur- ther proof of these positions may be found in the melan- choly description of the state of the Spanish missions under the Mexican government in California, in Mr. Forbes's work on that country.'* — The second lesson which I would draw from this most interesting narrative is, that no kindness of treatment, no vigilance of superintendence, no physical well-being and moral instruction will compensate to man for the loss of his individual hberty of action ; of that which he some- times regards as a burden, but which is also a privilege, the right of taking care and forethought for himself. It may be thought, at first, that the history of the Paraguay * The Californian missions, not merely neglected but continually plundered by the Mexican government, were broken up in 1845. In that year a considerable number of missions were sold by public auction. The price (and rent of the remainder) was divided into three parts : one bestowed on the missionaries ; one on the Indians ; the last converted into a "Pious Fund." In 1846 California was occupied by citizens of the United States, and what became of the "Pious Fund" I have not discovered. (See the "Annals of San Francisco," New York, 1855.) Lect. X.] JESUIT ESTABLISHMENTS. 297 missions rather affords examples to the contrary. Since, for several generations, men were retained together in communities, free from the corroding cares and the cor- rupting vices of civilization ; amply supphed (superstition apart) with rehgious instruction ; their heaviest fault, disobedience to their spiritual master; their severest punishment, his displeasure, and the shght penance which he might enjoiu for self-infliction ; what more, it wiU be asked, remained to desire ? And in these days when the very idea of freedom of action for the half-instructed man is connected in the eyes of many with those of hcence, self-will, and infidelity, I know not whether some may not be tempted to contrast the content and the quiet morahty of this theocracy with the turbulent passions and vices which deform human society in every other shape. Were I to combat these views on ethical groimds alone, it would be difficult perhaps to meet, certainly to convince, the adversary ; because, were I to say that the minds of men kept in this slavish condition are brutahzed and de- graded, we should probably not agree in the definition of those words ; apathy and contentment, ignorance and simphcity, obedience and servitude, are terms which often so nearly approximate in practical apphcation, that an argument founded on the difference between them could scarcely be conducted to a satisfactory issue. But there is another and a very singular test of the success of the experiment of these rehgionists. It is this ; that in aU the missions, the great Eeductions of Paraguay among the rest, the number of inhabitants was constantly diminish- ing ; an irrefragable proof that there was something in the system inimical to the physical or mental develop- ment, or both, of the complex creature man. Writers have failed altogether to assign any general cause for this. They attribute it to a feebleness of constitution in the race ; but so unnatural a supposition is wholly unsup- ported by evidence, and seems to contradict itself, since 298 THE JESUITS. [Lect. X. their numbers are not said to have diminished before their reduction ; to the small-pox and other epidemics ; but, in flourishing societies, epidemics have often swept off great masses of population, but have never produced regular and constant decay : to early marriages ; but the frequency of these every statistician knows, tends to pro- duce a contrary result.* Yet the fact is undoubted. The missionaries seem to have been httle distressed by it. Enthusiasts in the cause, they regarded, as Charle- voix f says, every simple Indian who perished as an additional intercessor above for them and their labour of charity : but, in order to mamtain their communities, they had recourse to the expedient of constant forays among the neighbouring tribes, bringing home captives, and more particularly children, to serve as recruits to the Christian population. J This was one of the worst features of the system. The Jesuits have told their own story as to these transactions, and they assert that they only used the means of persuasion and conciliation. But Humboldt, Forbes, and other writers, give fearful accounts of the cruelty with which this work of pretended piety was prosecuted in many missions, and the strange alliance between the practices of the African slave-hunter and the views of the missionary. What was the latent cause of this decay ? What was the reason why people well fed, well cared for, entirely without spirituous hquors, inhabit- ing the chmate to which they were accustomed, exempt * " Now that fresh recruits can be procured with difficulty," says Mr. Forbes of the Cahfomian missions, " and consequently the stock " maintained only by the procreation of those already domesticated, " it is probable that the whole race will gradually diminish, and in a " few generations become wholly extinct." f Hist, du Paraguay, vol. ii. J The practice of kidnapping and seizing wild Indians for slaves was still carried on, in 1840, by, the Brazilians in the north. See the narrative of Mr. Schomburgk's voyage down the Eio Negro. Lect. X.] THE JESUITS. 299 for the most part from external hostility, not only did not multiply, but uniformly failed to keep up their numbers ? Was it not want of liberty ? Is it not the most probable solution of the phenomenon, that where the mental action is restrained altogether, the physical constitution hkewise suffers : that men in a state of complete servitude, hke caged animals, will not multiply : that, in the absence of aU. excitement and care, the faculties become torpid, the bodily strength sinks, and the man dies early of a prema- ture and painless decay, hke Southey's young savage in his tale of Paraguay? while communities, composed of men thus circumstanced, waste away by that unseen de- struction which Hesiod enumerates among the calamities "inflicted on guilty nations. aTro(j)Bivvdov(Ti Se Xaot ' ohde yvvaiKEQ TiKTOvai' fuvvdovm Zk olnoi, Zrjvoe (ppaSfioavvricnv '0\v[nriov, Such are the consequences of contravening the laws of nature : of which it is assuredly one, that man shall pro- vide for himself by the sweat of his brow, whatever the suffering with which that condition of life may often be accompanied ; and another, that man shall choose his own course of action, and distinguish for himself between the right and the wrong, however dangerous the liberty thus enjoyed, however beset with snares the path of self- guidance may be. In a future lecture, I shall endeavour to point out the apphcation of these principles to the conduct of our own colonial governments towards the aborigines of their re- spective territories : at present, I have merely introduced them by way of digression from my subject, — the various modes, namely, in which colonies have been, and may be, supplied with labour. 300: EMPLOYMENT OF [Lbot. XI; LECTUBE XI. EMPLOYMENT OF SLAVE LABOUE. PRESENT CONDITION, AND PROSPECTS, OF NEGRO SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. EFFECTS OF EMANCIPATION ON THE BRITISH COLONIES, AND REMEDIAL MEASURES NOW REQUIRED. FRENCH PROJECT OF EMANCIPATION. The diminution in the numbers of the native inhabitants of the Spanish colonies in America drove the conquerors, in httle more than half a century after its first discovery, to resort to the importation of negro slaves to supply the deficiency. For three centuries, from that time to the present, every year has witnessed the arrival of fi-esh car- goes of these doomed children of servitude on the shores of the Western continent and its islands ; destined in part to replace the waste which excessive toil and unnatural restrictions continually make in their numbers, in part to accelerate the multiphcation of the black and coloured races in that hemisphere, which seems hkely either to balance or to outweigh the influence of the white and civilized race over great part of its surface. The difficult and intricate character of the questions involved in this fatal subject of slavery — the very wide extent of the interests embraced by it — the feehng of reluctance, and almost abhorrence, with which the mind approaches the mere economical consideration of matters so deeply inter- esting to every social and moral feehng of our nature, all these render it extremely difficult for me to enter on it at all, and make it almost a bewildering endeavour to compress the treajkment of it withia the compass of a lec- ture. I mu^t'^ontent myself with bringing its features Leot. XI.] SLAVE LABOUE, 301 very generally, I fear very indistinctly, before your view ; and -what space we have for more minute investigation must be devoted to what is of the most immediate interest at present to ourselves — the economical condition of those colonies in which slavery has been recently abrogated.* Of the great multitude of labourers, of coloured race, enslaved and free, inhabiting former or existing depen- dencies of European states, almost the whole are occupied, directly or indirectly, in raising exportable produce, chiefly for the European market. Nearly all our sugar, and the greater part of our cotton, tobacco, and coffee, not to mention other and less important articles, are raised by negro labour ; nine tenths of which is that of slaves. About one third of our export trade is now carried on to slave countries, and the products which we receive in ex- change for the goods which we send there are raised by slaves. I mention these circumstances, not only in order to ex- cite that general interest which the magnitude of the sub- ject may provoke, but in order to exhibit, in some degree, the extent of that moral responsibihty under which we in England he with reference to this wide-spread system ; that responsibility, I mean, which still remains to us, after we have by solemn enactment renounced, for ourselves, the right of keeping our fellow-creatures in bondage. I am quite aware that many will look on that supposed re- sponsibility as somewhat of a visionary character. Cases of conscience, it is truly said, must not be unnecessarily * (1861.) I insert in a note the probable numbers of coloured slaves in different countries, which I had placed in the text of my first edition, together with more recent estimates. 1840. 1860. United States 2,500,000 3,800,000. Brfi'^il 1,800,000 3,500,000. Spanish (American) colonies 500,000 900,000. French 300,000 emancipated. Of other countries 200,000 chiefly emancipated, 302 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XI. multiplied, or too subtly investigated. To say that every one who shares in the common physical benefits of civili- zation is answerable for his share of all the moral evil at the expense of which those benefits are produced, would be nearly equivalent to a sentence of banishment from the world. Still, in this particular instance, the distinc- tion between direct and indirect participation in the gain arising from slavery and the slave trade does appear to me too minute to be substantial and honest. While we retained the system of slavery in our colonies, it was most justly said, that we could not lay the guilt of it, whatever that may be, to the account of our planters, while we were enriching ourselves at home by importing their produce in exchange for our own goods. In what way is the American government, or the cotton planter of Louisiana, or the cabinet of Spain, or the tobacco grower of Cuba, precluded fi:om making the same reply to us, when we taunt the,m^ with the miseries which their in- stitutions engender ? ' We speak of the blood-cemented fabric of the prosperity of JSTew Orleans or the Havanna : let us look at home. What raised Liverpool and Man- chester from provincial towns to gigantic cities ? What maintains now their ever active industry and their rapid accumulation of wealth ? The exchange of their produce with that raised by the American slaves ; and their present opulence is as really owing to the toil and suffering of the negro, as if his hands had excavated their docks and fa- bricated their steam-engines. Every trader who carries on commerce with those countries, from the great house which lends its name and funds to support the credit of the American Bank, down to the Birmingham merchant who makes a shipment of shackles to Cuba or the coast of Africa, is in his own way an upholder of slavery : and I do not see how any consumer who drinks cofiee or wears cotton can escape from the same sweeping charge. If this be so, we cannot consider that we have exo- Lect. XL] SLAVE LABOUE. 303 nerated ourselves by our own acts from all participation in the great offence, as some have termed it, of modern times. The abohtion of the slave trade was indeed a great and noble action : it deserves to be called so, inas- much as it was in truth that rarest of all achievements, a deed of national self-denial : by it we sacrificed (to a greater extent, it must be admitted, than we were then aware) the means of preserving and extending our colonial opu- lence. The recent emancipation was also a just and be- neficent measure ; but I cannot attribute to it the same high character of self-denial as to the former, inasmuch as slavery without the slave trade, and in the then circum- stances of our colonies, was rather a loss than a gain, and the prosperity of most of them, as I have shown on a former occasion, is now almost entirely factitious, and maintained only by a heavy tax on industry at home. And by that enfranchisement the natural course of events was, in all probability, only anticipated by a few years ; the slaves must have become free from the increasing burden on their masters of maintaining them, and slave labour is dearer than free wherever abundance of free labour can be procured. But by these public atonements, our state may have discharged its duties, but we, the people, have not earned the right of calling ourselves saints, and the rest of the world sinners. We cannot rid ourselves so easily of our HabiHties. If, then, the encouragement of slavery were, in itself, and necessarily, that black and inexcusable crime which some represent it, I confess that my casuistry will not fur- nish me with any defence for those millions of individuals who aid in encouraging it by their commerce or their consumption.* But if we look at that system more calmly * (1861.) Many of those who have watched the oonrse of events during the last twenty years, and have witnessed the fearftil growth of inhuman practices and more inhiiman legislation in the Slave States of the Ame- rican Union, will doubtless consider the expressions in my text as a very 304 EMPLOYMENT OP [Lect. XI. —if we regard it as a great social evil indeed, but an evil differing in degree and qviality, not in kind, from many- other social evils which we are compelled to tolerate, such as the great inequahty of fortunes which our institutions produce, or pauperism, or the overworking of children, or the state of the poorer classes of our manufacturing labourers, which no legislative interference can greatly amehorate while our system of manufactures exists, we shall, perhaps, be more reconciled to take the world as it is, endeavouring each in his own sphere to improve it ; we shall feel that there is a bond of connection, a more com- pulsive one than the mere common tie of humanity, be- tween each of us and the meanest slave who toils in the cotton field or the boihng-house ; that we, who enjoy the fruits of his labour, are not free from the duty of protect- ing him ; that Great Britain, the great commercial metro- polis of the world, is bound, above all communities (regard being had to prudence, and to that due respect which must be entertained for the independence of other states), to watch, as far as in her hes, over the interests of the negro race. After the consideration which we gave in a former lec- ture to the subject of the scarcity of labour in the new or increasing colonies, it will be easily understood, that the great demand for slaves and the great profitableness of slavery, at the present day, arise altogether from that hikewann commentary on what they regard as -the most monstrous of existing evils. But I leave it, as written, to the judgment of those who have studied history widely and impartially. The present condition of slavery in those States is in truth anomalous and exceptional. When a higher civilization, and more scrupulous morality, are brought into direct contact with slave institutions, the vices of these latter are not only brought out in relative importance, but they are actually aggra- vated. The passions of the slave-owners are roused, their safety is in their belief menaced ; they revenge and defend themselves by creating a reign of terror around them. And so the hours which we may hope precede the dawn are inevitably the darkest. Lect. XI.] SLAVE LABOUE. 305 scarcity. Slave labour, it has almost passed into an axiom, is dearer tlian free ; that is, whenever the demand for labourers is abundantly supphed. When the pressure of population induces the freeman to offer his services, as he does in all old countries, for httle more than the natural minimum of v^ages, those services are very certain to be more productive and less expensive than those of the bondsman, whose support is a charge to the master, and who has notlung to gain by his industry. This is true, vsdthout any exception for the effects of climate, which some have set up as a kind of justification or excuse for the enforcement of compulsory labour. Free Indians raised sugar in Mexico * before the Eevolution ; the labour of Portorico has been, iip to a recent time, performed al- most entirely by free whites and coloured men. In the burning atmosphere of the Malay islands, the free Chinese labourer exerts skill and energies as far superior to those of the enslaved negro as the power of the English peasant is to that of the Eussian serf. This being the case, it is obvious that the limit of the profitable duration of slavery is attained whenever the population has become so dense that it is cheaper to employ the free labourer for hire. Towards this Hmit every community is approximating, however slowly. And although pohtical institutions and old habits may prolong the existence, either of slavery or of viUenage, to a much later period, as they did among the Greeks and Komans, and as they stiU do among the nations of the east of Europe, still, from that moment, the state of society be- comes favourable to its abohtion. But it happens most unfortunately, in some respects, for the interests of society, that this favourable turn of events, as far as regards colonial slavery, is rendered al- most incalculably distant by the extent of fertile unappro- * Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. iii. 177 8yo. edit. X 306 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XI. priated soil in or adjoining to the principal slave countries. As has been already remarked (and it is a truth to be particularly remembered in all discussions on this subject), neither skill, nor capital, nor abundance of labour have ever been found able to compete, in tropical cultivation, with the advantage of a new and fertile soU.* Notwith- * This position seems to be disputed by some of those who argue against the remission of our duties on foreign slave raised produce. And since much reliance has been placed on it in these pages, a few words in explanation may not be out of place. No one contends that the land in Jamaica or the smaller Antilles has anywhere become exhausted so as to be unproductive. No one ever disputed that with the help of labour, capital, and skill, the oldest estates in the West Indies may produce as much as or more than the newest clearings under slovenly cultivation. Barbadoes affords the strongest possible evidence in the affirmative. But this has nothing to do with the question : which simply is, whether new and fertile soil, cceteris paribus, i. e. with equal expenditure and skill, is not far more produc- tive than old. It is difficult to conceive that there can be any doubt on thi.s point. The writer of the able paper in the Spectator of April 15, 1843, on this subject, speaks of land in the West Indies being "ig- norantly termed exhausted," and gives a statement by which it appears that some new plantations in Cuba return aboiit 2175 lb. of sugar to the acre, while the average return of Jamaica is 2000. But as the same writer depicts in the strongest language the wretched state of sugar cidtivation in Cuba, the fact seems to prove the very reverse of his theory : as would pretty distinctly appear if the capital employed in producing these equal amounts were compared. And he elsewhere quotes, without any remark, the language of Mr. TurnbuU respecting the "wom-out districts'' of Cuba itself. How came they worn out? Undoubtedly there are practical men (some of the witnesses before the Committee of 1842 among the number) who speak as if they main- tained the paradox that the large cultivated soils are as productive as the new : just as there are people, in North America, who wUl have it that it is as profitable to occupy the " old lands " as to break up the soil of the forest. There are always to be foimd many ingenious men who will support such unusual views : and some clever agriculturists, who by industry and contrivance will here and there realize them. But the broad evidence of facts is the other way. Wherever there is room enough, and European energy at work, cultivation does desert old soils for new : and in tropical countries even more than others. In Demerara the abandoned land is already as extensive as the occupied. Of course the Lect. XL] SLAVE LABOUE. 307 standing all the improvements in agriculture, wliicli ex- perience or accumulated knowledge can bring about, it has always been found, that whenever a new district has been opened to adventurers, it inevitably attracted the capital, and eclipsed the prosperity, of the older ones. In a former lecture, I had occasion to show you how com- pletely this fact is borne out by the history of the West Indies : how Jamaica, after its first occupation by the English, after the expulsion of the Spaniards, undersold and outstripped the older Antilles ; how St. Domingo rose for a time, while Jamaica remaiaed nearly stationary ; and how, in these later times, even the indolence of the Spaniard and Portuguese has been overcome by the temp- tations of an extending market and a rising price ; and Cuba and Portorico are rising in wealth with unexampled rapidity, while our own colonies and those of Prance either dechne or advance almost imperceptibly. So long, then, as there is new soil to break up, so long the continuance of slavery is secured ; because workmen must be had at all hazards, and it is more profitable to cultivate a fresh soil by the dear labour of slaves*, than an exhausted one inferior accessibilify to commerce of remoter districts offers some clieok to tMs process : but it has not prevented the desertion of the lands along the side rivers of Virginia for the distant interior beyond the Alleghanies ; nor, if any great social revolution were to infuse new energy into the society of Brazil, would it prevent the untrodden plains along her vast rivers from worming the seats of the gi-eatest tropical cultivation in the world. (See Lect. ix. p. 264.) In small islands, and peninsular spots of continent, the process of abandonment cannot easily take place; men's wits and patience are taxed to compel the soil to continue to make ample returns after the loss of its first fertility ; men are necessarily more sparing, more provident, more ingenious in turning the minor usances of labour and art to account ; one reason among many for the earlier and higher civilization of such spots, generally speaking. * The profits of slave cultivation, with an abundant supply of hands and a fresh soil, seem to be enormous for a few years. The net produce of a plantation in St. Domingo paid the purchase-money in six years. — Say, Traite, u. 301. Adam Smith considered that the rum and molasses X 2 308 EMPLOrMEKT OF [Lect. XI. by the cheap labour of freemen. It is secured, I mean, as far as the immediate interest of the masters can prevail ia maintaioing it. For example : the limit of the ill-gotten prosperity of Cuba wUl, of course, be found in the exhaustion of the fresh and fertile soil in that island. How near that limit may be, it is impossible to conjecture. We have seen that the old sugar plantations in the neighbourhood of the Havanna are already abandoned : but that clearing is con- tinually extending ia the interior. About three milHons of acres in Cuba are said to be in cultivation ; that is, a sixth of the surface of the island. But if that hmit had been reached, no perceptible advance towards the abohtion of slavery would be gained. The southern part of the New "World stOl offers its vast and almost untouched con- tinent to the speculations of avarice. Brazil, the second, if not the first, slave state in the world, has soil available for every kind of tropical produce beyond all practical limit : and if unchecked by any other than economical causes, there seems no reason why the slave trade and slave cultivation should not extend with the extending market of Europe, until the forest has been cleared, and the soil exhausted of its first fertility, from the Atlantic to the Andes. * North America affords a still more remarkable instance of this general truth. I entered, in a former lecture, into some details of the economical history of Virginia, as an on a West India estate, in Ms time, paid the rent, and all the rest was net profit. In the Mauritius, on virgin land of the best quality, it is even said that 5000 lb. of sugar per acre are obtained. " But this produce " is materially lessened the second year : and when the land has been " cropped for several years in succession, the crop is often reduced to " 1100 lb. or 1200 lb. per acre." (Porter on the Sugar Cane, p. 239.) These statements are rendered credible by the evidence of the present prosperity of Cuba. * Since these lectures were published the slave trade has been abo- lished by Brazil (1853), and Cuba remains the only region of any im- portance to which it is legally carried on. Lect. XI.] SLAVE LABOUR. 309 example of the natural course of things in regions of Hmi- ted fertiUty, raising exportable produce by compulsory labour. You will have perceived from that statement, how slavery, from having aflforded a high rate of remune- ration to the planter, becomes at last a burden ; the profit of his cultivation falhng off along vnth the gradual dimi- nution of fertility, while the expense of maintaining his slaves remains the same or increases. Therefore, if the Alleghany Mountains had offered as formidable a barrier to the migration of slaves and slave ovraers as the sea which washes our island colonies, it is very easy to perceive that, in the older slave states of America, aU economical reason for the maintenance of slavery would by this time have ceased ; its continuance, if it continued at all, would have been owing only to habit or to fear, and free labour would by degrees have been superseding compulsory. But, un- fortunately, a new source of profit opened to the Virginian slave-holder. Whether from better institutions, or from a healthier chmate, the negro race multiphes in slavery in America, while it declines or remains stationary m the West Indian Islands. While, therefore, capital is migra- ting farther and farther westward, and new lands are daily taken up as the old -ones are abandoned, slaves are bred in the older states, and supphed, by a regular do- mestic slave trade, to the new. This tide of population has already overflowed the boundaries of the States. Texas is now the land of promise of the slave-holder ; its savannahs are beginning to swarm with wealth and in- dustry, and the price of slaves in its sea-ports is said to be three or four times as high as at the Havanna. It seems, therefore, but too evident that no economical cause can be assigned on which we may rely for the extinc- tion of slavery, and that those who have persuaded them- selves that nations will gradually attain a conviction that its maintenance is unfavourable to their interests are under a delusion. What political or moral reasons may operate X 3 310 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XI. against its continuance in those societies in which it pre- vails, it is not within my province to inquire. It is cer- tain that in most slave-holding communities, in which the population contains any intermediate class between slaves and masters, that class has an interest in its abohtion; although prejudices sometimes interfere to prevent its being clearly perceived by them. The Spanish islands, for instance, contain a free white and mixed population of many hundred thousand, who themselves hve by labour ; these find themselves opposed by the slave in the market for their own commodity ; and even if they belong to a class somewhat higher than this, that of the small land- owners, they share very httle in the prosperity of the sugar planter, while they are famihar with all the social evils which that dearly purchased prosperity engenders. It is thought by recent observers that this class is pretty gene- rally opposed to Spanish connection, to the slave trade, and to slavery itself ; and that these are chiefly maintained by the influence of the richer landed proprietors, aided by the colonial government : and the example of the freedom granted in our own islands, and shortly to be announced m those of France, may operate more powerfully and ge- nerally than we can anticipate. It is, however, but too plain that httle reliance is to be placed on such uncertain speculations ; and the prospects of this question, it must be confessed, have at no former period been so generally dark and discouraging. Such, I repeat, are its present prospects. Nevertheless, there are measures of internal pohcy, entirely unconnected with any kritating and unjust interference in the afiairs of other nations, by which I cannot but beheve that it is in our power at once to develope our own latent re- sources, and to deal a heavy blow to the abominable system which thrives to our cost and to the disgrace of humanity. The attempt to cut oiT the supply of slaves by repressing the trade appears almost as impracticable as it Lbct. XI.] SLAVE LABOUK. 311 would be to compel the enfrancliisement of those now in captivity. After all the fruitless expenditure of treasure and negociation which has gone on for the last thirty- years, even those zealous partizans who have aU along urged our government to its continuance, beaten by the force of circumstances, now come forward to aver that not a single step has been gained towards the accomphsh- ment of the object ; that the foreign slave trade has quad- rupled under our benevolent endeavours to check it ; that force is of no avail, and that its employment must be abandoned. I refer to the recent work of Sir FoweU Buxton, which is as important, as a manifesto of the pre- sent sentiments of leading abohtionists on the subject, as it is, unfortunately, unsuccessful in pointing out a substi- tute for the present system" ; the best resource which the ingenuity of the writer can point out being the chimerical speculation of civihzing Africa, by estabhshing a legiti- mate commerce with her inhabitants, through the force of government bounties. I would not speak in any other than respectful language of the promoters of a scheme in which some of the best and most philanthropic minds of the day take so warm an interest ; but, surely, among the thousands who welcomed its announcement with enthusi- astic applause, few indeed could have reflected on the utter disproportion between the means and the object, even were there any reasonable probabihty of those means being carried into execution.* Let us leave the consideration of these visionary plans * The expedition here alluded to failed, some time after this lecture was printed, even more lamentably than its greatest opponents antici- pated. But philanthropy is not easily discouraged. The great enter- prizes of Dr. Livingstone have been supported by numbers of our best citizens, merely on account of their seeming tendency to open new ground, on which to try an experiment, which, on old ground, has failed everywhere — that characterised as chimerical in the text. Fortunately, the good results of such achievements as his are not the less certain be- cause they do not exactly answer, either in amount or in character, the anticipations of their abettors. x 4 J12 EMPLOYMENT OP [Lect. XL )f cutting oflf the present supply of labour, and reflect on he other means whicli may exist of meeting the demand "or it. I have already said, that while some of our sugar iolonies are full of people and poor of soil, others are suf- "ering under the most distressing want of labourers, and ibounding in land, which scarcely any conceivable exten- sion of supply could exhaust. The necessary consequence, of this state of things, during the interval between the abohtion of the slave trade and the abohtion of slavery, was that the value of slave labour in the market differed to an extraordinary extent in our several colonies. As slaves could not be imported from one into another, there was no mode of equalising it. Each settlement was restricted by law to the employ- ment of its own native labourers. However great the demand for additional hands which a fertile soil and an accumulation of capital might produce, they were not to be procured except through the natural movement of the population ; that is, not at aU, for the negro population did not increase. This truth is remarkably proved by the official returns of the money value of slaves in the several colonies at the period of emancipation, which are sub- joined in the appendix to this lecture. The price of a field labourer, of the class there called proedial attached, which comprised the great majority of the negro peasantry, was assessed by the compensation commissioners in Demerara at 169^. which is a continental colony, with a highly pro- ductive soU, and a great scarcity of population in propor- tion to it ; in Trinidad, the least populous of the islands, at llOZ. ; while in Barbadoes it only reached 75^., in Do- minica 70^., and in Jamaica 67^. This statement of figures will indicate to us the different state of circumstances in which the several classes of co- lonies had to undergo the process of emancipation, and the different manner in which they were affected by it. It will also point out to us the different character of the Lbct. XI.] SLAVE LABOUR. 313 measures to be adopted, if any measure should be deemed advisable, in the present crisis of their respective fates. It will be found, I think, that the British slave colonies, at the time of emancipation, might be divided into three classes, as respects their economical situation : — First, the oldest of our settlements, estabhshed in the smaller Antilles. Some of these had been, for many years previous to this great event, in a very depressed state ; but others, comparatively speaking, were in a flourishing condition. They were those in which the land was nearly all occupied, population extremely thick, cultivation ancient, and capital accumtdated. Such was Barbadoes, the most densely peopled spot of the western hemisphere, perhaps of the world ; such was Antigua ; possibly, also, St. Vincent's, Dominica, and one or two more. In these, population and production had been nearly stationary for a long series of years ; the cost of production was gene- rally great, and profits moderate. They had not been injured by the abohtion of the slave trade, for they were always fully supphed with labour. They were less injured than any others by the immediate effect of emancipation ; for the negroes had no resource except in continuing to work ; there was no unoccupied land for them to possess, no independent mode of obtaining a subsistence to which they could resort, stiU less of obtaining those luxuries which habit had rendered desirable to them. There ap- pears to have been in most of these really no serious inter- ruption at aU, either in production or the ordinary course of social hfe ; and those appear to have fared the best of all, in which the masters were wise enough to perceive their own position, and to feel that, as the force of cir- cumstances must drive the enfranchised negro to depend on them for wages, to retain them in any degree of servile control was only to postpone the period of satisfactory adjustment. In the hltle island of Antigua, densely peopled by 35,000 inhabitants, of whom 29,000 were slaves, the 314 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XI. masters voluntarily rejected the proposed apprenticeship, and allowed their slaves to pass at once from servitude to perfect hberty.* The result of this bold experiment has been, that, far from having suffered by emancipation, pro- perty is said to have greatly increased in value ; the negroes are aU employed, and apparently in perfect content, at very moderate wages, by no means exceeding the former cost of maintaining them.f It would, perhaps, be rash to conjecture that, in colo- nies such as these, the cultivation of sugar might still be maintained on an extensive scale without protecting duties ; but it is certain that they are in the best condi- tion for that skilftil apphcation of combined labour and capital which alone can make head with any success against the advantage of superior fertihty. And it is equally certain, that the continuance of slavery must have been highly detrimental to them ; for- the expense of maintaining it, in densely peopled countries, is perpetually on the increase. Their chief complaint at the present day is of the emigration of thefr emancipated labourers to co- lonies in which wages are higher. They will probably find, hke other countries from which emigration takes place, that it is no loss in the end. 2. The next class is that of colonies in which the fer- tile or advantageously situated soil was all cultivated, and becoming exhausted ; but there remained much unoccu- pied soil, of a less valuable description, and the population was not dense in proportion to the whole surface. This is the case with some of the smaller Antilles, but most * See De Tocqueville's Eeport on tlie Frencli Project of Emancipa- tion, p. 39. ■\ Allowance must be made for the years 1836 and 1837, in -which, I believe, the seasons were very unfavourable in Antigua. The physi- cal circumstances of this island are very peculiar. Not only is the cul- tivable land all occupied, but in time of drought there is no access to fresh water except where it is preserved on the plantations, of which there are 130. The negroes are therefore absolutely dependent on the owners of the soil. Lect. XI.] SLAVE LABOUR. 315 conspicuously with our most important tropical colony, Jamaica. For many years the state of that island has been extremely unsatisfactory, beautiful and rich as it un- doubtedly is. In my former lectures I have traced the course of its fortunes; and have shown by numerical statements the gradual decHne of its prosperity. Its popu- lation has remained nearly stationary since 1800 : its pro- duction of sugar had diminished from about 100,000 hogsheads at the peace, to httle more than 60,000 before emancipation ; and of other articles in proportion. About two thirds of its surface are under cultivation. The best soils for the raising of sugar appear to be very limited in extent, and have been wrought for more than a century. But there is a great breadth of land, both cleared and uncleared, available for the raising of provisions and other articles, sufficient to supply the necessary wants of the negro labourer. The colonists, therefore, suffered, during the continuance of negro slavery, by the unprofitable nature of their cultivation. They were injured, perhaps, by the abolition of the slave trade ; and they suffer now, since emancipation, by the difficulty of compeUing the negroes to perform hired labour while they have their own pro- vision grounds, and other resources, at their disposal. It is difficult to ascertain the real amount of the injury which the measure has inflicted upon them, amidst the conflictitig exaggerations of both parties. The language of many of the colonial party is despairiag. It would be absurd to pronounce with confidence in the midst of such opposite testimony. But, on the whole, we cannot avoid perceiving, in the first place, that poHtical and social causes have rendered the working of the great experiment in Jamaica difficult ; but that, in the second place, even should that difficulty prove only tem- porary, the economical evils under which the colony suffers have a deeper root. Nothing maintains cultiva- tion on the large scale, at the present high rate of wages, except the high price of sugar ; if that cannot 316 EFFECTS OF EMANCIPATION [Lect. Xf. be maintained, it is difficult to see in what manner the colony will weather the storm. But it is equally evi- dent that the dangers which have beset it have an origin long anterior to emancipation ; and that nothing can give a favourable turn to its destinies except some new development of energy which freedom may peradven- ture exhibit, and which under servitude would have been impossible. " 3. The destiny of these two classes of colonies, how- ever, it is not in the hands of government to control, nor has our legislation as to slavery materially affected it. Let us turn to those of another class, in some of which the fertihty of the cultivated soil is as yet unexhausted, in others there is abundance of fertile and unoccupied land. Such are the Mauritius and Trinidad, and, in a far higher degree, Guiana. The last is one of the most productive countries on the face of the globe. A vast alluvial level extends from the foot of a chairr of low interior mountains, along the banks of three large rivers, and along the sea- coast. This soil is rich to an excess of luxuriance, and a most insignificant portion of it only has been brought as yet into cultivation. Between 1814 and 1825, the ex- ports of Guiana increased from about 600,000^. to 859,000/. ; the negro population in the same period diminished from 102,000 to 92,000. Since that period, except in some remarkable years, its production has been stationary or retrograde : its slave population has continued to diminish, and amounted to 86,000 only at the period of emancipation. Now here it is impossible not to perceive that the abolition of the slave trade has very seriously checked the economical progress of the province. The existing labourers have been worked to excess — their diminution unhappily proves it — more were not to be procured. Guiana had abundance of land, and the means of attracting abundance of capital ; but the thh'd great requisite, labour, was wanting. With the Lbct. XI.] IN GUIANA AND TEINIDAD. 317 slave trade, and with British enterprise, Guiana would at this day have exceeded Cuba in prosperity. It is with no feeling of regret that I state this truth ; but in order that, the evil and its remedy may be clearly before our eyes. Upon these colonies the effect of emancipation seems to have been partially unfavourable, though the returns are as yet uncertain and unsatisfactory. The negroes have found it easy to obtain a subsistence in a country overflowing with natural wealth : they have been rescued from a servitude involving, perhaps, a greater amount of labour than in any other settlements : they have abun- dance of land to resort to for their • maintenance. The accounts, both from Guiana and Trinidad, seem to report the negroes as generally peaceful and well-inchned, but indisposed to labour, to which they can only be tempted by the most exorbitant offers of wages. An able-bodied and willing negro is a prize, which the owners of neigh- bom'ing estates intrigue against and countermine each other to obtain, with aU the artifices of rival diplomatists. The production of sugar and its associated articles seems to have fallen off in the first year of emancipation about one ■ fourth in Guiana, and the same in Trinidad. But these results, it is plain, are comparatively unimportant : with or without emancipation, the same general conse- quence must have followed : the wealth of Trinidad and Guiana must either have remained stationary or declined, through absolute want of the necessary labour. Now for the evils under which these colonies suffer, both those of immediate and of more recent origin, we have the remedy in our hands. A supply of labour is the one thing needful, to enable them to resume or maintain their superiority in the production of tropical wealth. Could the supply only be equalled to the demand, much more than this might be done ; they might be enabled to compete successfully with the foreigner, even if the pro- 318 EFFECTS OF EMA]!fCIPATION [Lbct. XI. tection now given to British colonial produce were with- drawn. Could the planter of Guiana only obtain hands to work at moderate wages, what would he have to fear from the rivalry of the Cuban or the Brazihan ? His soil is fully as fertile as theirs, his climate as propitious, his situation for commerce as favourable ; while he has all the advantage of British capital and British enterprise on his side. The immigration of free labourers could pro- duce no benefit in the smaller Antilles, which are over- peopled already ; its advantage would be very doubtful m Jamaica, where the people are sufficient for the work to be done, and the present disinchnation to labour, and high rate of wages, may perhaps arise from temporary causes only; for Demerara and Trinidad it is the one great requisite, the sine qud non of their future prosperity. Its immediate effects would be to bring down the enor- mous rate of wages by fair competition : its ultimate effects would be to extend production indefinitely, and convert the. precarious condition of those settlements into one of unexampled prosperity. What then are the reasons which prevent the imme- diate attention of our legislature from being given to this, by far the most important exigency of our colonial ad- ministration at the present day ? It is really with sorrow that one who is impressed with the deep importance of this ciisis is compelled to advert to the class of objections which have hitherto been urged against the adoption of decisive measures by some of those who have been most influential in furthering the cause of negro emancipation. One favourite bugbear is, the fear of introducing a new system of slavery under the guise of regulations for the newly imported free labourers ; surely a most chimerical fear, when the eyes of government and of the pubhc are so jealously fixed on the subject as they now are, and when our suspicions are so easily awakened by the shghtest suspicion of encroachment on the rights of the Lect. XI.] IN THE WEST INDIES. 319 labourer. The danger of injustice to the employer is, just at present, the greatest of the two. Another is still more difficult to define and to contend with — it is the fear lest the importation of free labom-ers should interfere with the satisfactory adjustment of differences between the employer and- their former slaves — with what is called the working out of the great problem of emancipa- tion ; in other words, lest the competition thus produced should force the labourer to be content with lower wages than he can now obtain. I cannot but think, that any one who has impartially examined the present condition of these islands will see that, sooner or later, this result, the lowering of wages, must arrive ; the only choice is between the ruin of the capitahst and the labouring class together, and the proper adjustment of the relations between labour and capital. The present rate of wages is maintained only by the unnaturally enhanced price of sugar. The moment that this gives way, if a reasonably cheap supply of labour be not introduced, the whole social system wiU give way along with it. But, argue some reasoners, is it necessary for the wel- fare of the West Indies and the happiness of the negroes that the vast surplus produce which they now export should continue to be raised ? We did not emancipate our slaves in order that these island factories might con- tinue to flourish ; but in order to procure a free, moral, and contented population. Let the great plantations go to decay, if it must be so ; the loss wiU be abundantly compensated by the establishment of numerous small occupiers, each maintaining himself by the produce of his own industry; and the gangs of slaves who in former days assembled under the lash of the taskmasters, will be exchanged for an independent yeomanry, if I may use the expression, of the coloured race. There cannot, I fear, be a greater delusion than this. The great danger of emancipation, which all its reasonable friends have 320 WANT OF LABOUR IN ILect. XL foreseen, and against which they have been most anxious to guard, has been lest the half-civilized freedmen should sink into the indolence and apathy so natural to their chmate and condition ; content themselves with an easily acquired subsistence, and relapse by degrees into the savage state. Now, the immediate effect of freedom has been just the reverse, — to stimulate their love of luxury and display. Their expenditure has been greatly in- creased. The high rate of wages has enabled them to maintain it ; and the consumption thus excited has given for the time an air of activity to aU those branches of commerce which contributed to supply this consumption. But unless the profuse expenditure of capital among them, in the form of wages, be continued — that is, in other words, unless the production of staple articles of export be maintained — all these acquired tastes will die away, from the utter impossibiUty of gratifying them. Each negro will be able to support himself in tolerable comfort; but, without the aid of capital, he cannot produce surplus wealth ; without it, therefore, he must remain a stranger both to the wants and the refinements of civihzation. The example of Hayti is before our eyes. There the gradual relapse from comparative civihzation to barbarism, of which I have spoken, actually took place during the first twenty or thirty years after the recovery of liberty. At first, the negro community retained much of the wealth and industry of the old colony ; but the wars con- sequent on the French invasion destroyed its remaining capital ; and the people sank into that condition which some philanthropists appear to desire for our West Indian feUow subjects — that of small occupiers, vegetating in barbarous indolence on then- proHfic soil. The cultiva- tion of sugar disappeared ; the production of molasses, the less finished article, increased ; that of coffee diminished, but has of late years again increased, though not to such a height as it had attained before the revolution ; mahog- Lbct. XI.] THE WEST INDIES. 32 X any, dyewood, and other products of rude and unorganised labour, altogether neglected in the flourishing days of the colony, were shipped in increasing quantities from the ports of the island. In short, to use the language of an observer, "every branch of cultivation requiring steady " systematic labour fell into decay, while all that called " for occasional exertion, and might be resumed at inter- " vals, rather increased ; " * and the people, in spite of severe laws for the enforcement of labour, fell into a state of easy indolence from which they have never since been able to raise themselves. Emigration of labourers being recognized as the great want of these colonies, the next question is, from whence these labourers are to be obtained. For this is a matter in which undoubtedly government must interfere, and not leave it to be wholly settled by the voluntary pro- ceedings of individuals. Emigrants of the lower orders are among those classes of subjects to whom aU govern- ments owe the exercise of a sort of protective authority. Emigration from Europe, I fear, cannot be encouraged. After all the precautions which humanity and prudence can suggest, the chmate presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the prosperity of a white labouring popula- tion. It is true, that the Spanish race have become naturalized, not only in Cuba, which possesses a com- * Evidence before the Lords' Committee on Hayti. " I believe," says one witness, " that Hayti is the only country where chairs are " placed for the sentinel on duty : this was introduced in Potion's " time, and may be considered as a fair sample of the system." Sometimes, however, by way of variety, they carry with them a mat to sleep in their sentry-boxes. (Schoelcher, Hayti, p. 254.) The small negro cultivators of Hayti (says this writer), live in exactly the same destitution and indolence as the Xivaros of Portorico. Coffee exported from Hayti, — 1789 (before the Revolution) 77,000,000 lbs. 1826 .... 32,000,000 1840 . . - • ■ 43,000,000 1859 .... 60,000,000.— M'CuUoch. 322 EMIGRATION TO [Lect. XI. paratively temperate climate, but also in Portorico, as well as on some parts of the burning shores of the Spanish Main ; but this naturalization has been the work of time, only accomphshed in several generations, and at great cost of life in the commencement, while we stand in need of immediate results. Often as the venture has been tried, no body of European labourers, transported under this beautiful but treacherous sky, has ever thriven. The lamentable account of the latest experiment of this sort in Trinidad, pubhshed in the last report of the Land and Emigration Board, is sufficient to discourage the warmest advocate for this species of colonization. I win not carry you now into the controversies which have been raised respecting the importation of other classes of free labourers from Asia and Africa, Chinese, Indian Coolies, and native Africans.* Another, but a hmited source of supply, will be from the heretofore slave population of the thickly peopled AntiQes. This cannot, of course, be prevented, if it were desirable to do so ; as freemen, the negroes have a right to carry their labour where they will ; but there can be little doubt that it wiU prove beneficial to both the colonies they leave and those in which they settle. But no quarter which has hitherto been suggested appears to promise so favourably for this purpose as the United States of America. The southern and middle states are said to be peopled by great numbers of free coloiired people, of inferior condition, whom their laws degrade, and who under the system of slavery can find only a precarious employment. The white Americans themselves are said to be so jealous of the numbers of this dangerous class, that emigration from thence would meet with every encouragement at home. They are of the same kindred with the West Indian negro, and their * See Appendix at the end of this Lectiu-e. Lect. XI.] THE WEST INDIES. 323 importation would obviate that mixture of races which some' profess to deprecate. They are far superior in in- telligence, and said to be faUy equal in strength, to the natives of Africa. They are certainly better adapted to the chmate than Europeans, and probably than any race of Asiatics ; and whatever the danger of the oppression of free emigrants by their employers may really be, it is evident that it would be far more easily guarded against in the case of American negroes than any others. They would not readily suffer themselves to be placed in a worse condition than their brethren, the natives of the islands ; it would be impossible to prevent the knowledge of their condition from reaching their kinsfolk in America ; they would therefore be protected, both by their own greater means of self-defence and by the interests of the planters, from such injustice as might, by the supposition, be practised on other classes of labourers. There is still another instrument which England has in her possession, which may be powerfully used in her war against slavery, but the use of which is not, I fear, equally acceptable to our planters. I mean the employ- ment of free labour in the wide and fertile regions of the East. The British East Indies already supply us with 500,000 cwt. of sugar per annum, or nearly one-sixth of the quantity furnished by the West Indies. After long opposition to so equitable a measure, the duties on this sugar have been lowered to an equality with those on West Indian, and there is every reason to expect that its production wiU greatly increase. The equahzation of the duties on other kinds of produce is now contended for. But our islands and maritime settlements in the Indian Archipelago, particularly Ceylon, might probably raise sugar in much greater abundance, and on cheaper terms, than the main land of Hindostan. China is at hand, to supply labourers to almost any amount, and the best of labourers, — active, persevering, and intelligent. In the T 2 324 PLANS OP [Lbot. XI. eventual cdurse of things, and as the artificial fabric which European governments have so long toiled to construct gradiiaUy gives way, under external shocks and internal decay, it is difficult to imagine that the tropical East, with its ancient civilization and its abundance of labour, will not compete successfully with the West, laden as it is with the curse of negro slavery. It remains for me to notice very briefly the various plans for the emancipation of slaves which have engaged the attention of statesmen. The fears which were at one time so widely entertained, and almost prevented all calm discussion of the question, of bloodshed and confusion as the immediate consequences of their liberation, may now be regarded as obsolete ; so complete, in that respect, has been the success of the British measure. It has been tried in countries in which the proportion of slaves to freemen was higher than in any other part of the world. It has been brought about without a single day of disturb- ance, without a single shot fired in anger. The question which now remains to be solved is, in what manner this great change can be efiected with the least loss of the negro's labour, and with the fairest prospects for his civi- lization. Three different modes of accomphshing this object naturally present themselves to the mind : namely, imme- diate and general emancipation ; emancipation of indivi- duals, one by one, as the reward of good conduct ; and general but graduated emancipation; the latter to take place, as has been most commonly suggested, by continuing the system of compulsory labour, but taking the slave out of the control of the master, and placing him imder that of the law. The apparent advantages of the two latter plans are so great — they recommend themselves so readily to the natural fears which men entertain of any sudden and violent change — that there is no wonder that they have generally Qbtained the suffrages of speculative writers and statesmen. Lect. XL] NEGEO EMANCIPATION. 825 The author of the " European Settlements in America " entertained, nearly a century ago, the idea of placing en- franchised slaves ill a sort of vUlein condition, dependent on the government.* " What, if in our colonies we should " go so far as to find out some medium between liberty " and absolute slavery, m which we might place all mulat- " tos after a certain limited servitude to the owner of the " mother ; and such blacks whom, beiag born in the " islands, their masters, for their good services, should " think proper in some degree to enfranchise ? They " might have land allotted them ; or, where that could " not be spared, some sort of fixed employment, from " either of which they should be obliged to pay a certain " moderate rent to the public. Whatever they should " acquire above this, to be the reward of their in- " dustry." And similar views have been expressed by most of those who have since speculated on the subject : namely, that enfranchisement should be the reward of good conduct, and that the slaves should be conducted, one by one, from the state of servitude to that of hberty. Nevertheless, there are serious objections, although not at first sight so obvious as its advantages, to any scheme of individual enfranchisement. They are strikingly brought forward by M. de TocqueviUe, in his Eeport already cited. The most important of them, and that on which alone I shall at present dwell, is that by making Hberty a condi- tion of good conduct a stigma is inevitably cast upon labour. AU know how completely toil is a badge of de- gradation in slave colonies. One of the principal objects of their institutions should be the destruction of this most injurious prejudice. The plan to which I have alluded must necessarily foster it. The enfranchised negro feels his own superiority to his comrade chiefly in his freedom from compulsory labour. Thus enfranchised negroes in * Vol. ii. p. 13. Y 3 326 PLANS OF [Lbct. XI. slave communities prove, in general, an idle and a disso- lute part of the population. Any scheme by which they should be called one by one to freedom would probably only augment the ranks of the useless, at the expense of the useful, portion of the community. This error our government avoided, by placing the negro population simultaneously in a state of apprentice- ship. Thus, we adopted the second of those plans which were just now enumerated — namely, universal but gradual emancipation. But, in doing this, we committed what some have considered two capital mistakes. The first of these was the fixing a definite term for the apprenticeship. It is difficult to conceive how it could have been imagined, that with certain freedom before them at the end of six years, the negroes were to hug their remaining chains durmg the whole of that period, and apply themselves quietly to heavy and con- tinuous labour. And, on the other hand, the masters, having nothing to gain and nothing to lose by their con- duct towards their apprentices, and certain of being de- prived of all power over them at the end of the stipulated time, were too often tempted to make the most of their brief authority, and to employ the arm of the law, wherever they could influence those who wielded it, to wreak upon these dependents that vengeance which they could no longer personally exercise. The next and more important error was, that our plan of emancipation, as M. de Tocqueville too truly observes, seemed to have been framed with a view to the interests of colonial wealth alone, and to secure as httle inter- ruption of labour as possible. For this purpose, the negro was simply converted from the slave of the master into his apprentice, instead of the relations which bound the one to the other being entirely broken asunder, and subordination to a new authority introduced. The master could no longer sell his slave ; he could no longer Lect. XI.] NEGRO EMANCIPATION. 327 punish him, but was forced to recur to justice for that purpose ; but the apprentice was, as before, his compelled labourer, only the compulsion was administered from another quarter. Under these restrictions, the period of apprenticeship, in almost all our colonies, was one of mutual discontent, suspicion, and aversion ; the worst of all possible prepa- rations for that condition of absolute freedom which was to follow. The former of these steps, even M. de Tocqueville, I am surprised to find, does not propose to avoid. He recom- mends to his government a plan of apprenticeship for a definite period, similar in this respect to the British measure. But in some of its features it difiers essentially from our own. The apprentices are to be transferred at once from the power of the masters to the control of the state. All property in their labour is to cease. They are to remain under the tutelage of government until the period of their full emancipation ; and government is to assign their services, on such terms as it may judge ex- pedient, to those who require them.* External circumstances seem to promise favourably for the success of this experiment. The principal Erench colonies, Martinique, Guadaloupe, and the Isle Bourbon, are much in the condition of our own smaller islands ; that is, their available soil is almost all cultivated, and the cost of production is high, which renders slavery unprofitable; while, on the other hand, the slave can with difiiculty find resources for subsistence except by his hired labour. They have also one inestimable advantage over ourselves, on which, being purely moral, it is scarcely within my province to touch; complete unanimity be- tween the ■ government and the ministers of religion, on whom so important a part of the task of civUization * Eapport, p. 50. T 4 828 FRENCH PLAN OF - [Lect. XI. devolves.* How far our own colonies have been from en- joying it, is unfortunately too notorious ; that the miserable neglect of the negroes by our national church, during the last century, threw their instruction almost entirely into the hands of a class of ministers, whose merits towards them have doubtless been great, but between whom and the landowners and colonial authorities perpetual oppo- sition has existed. It is wisely proposed by the French government to accompany, or rather to anticipate, its proposed enfranchisement by a large addition to the number of ministers of rehgion in the colonies, and by considerable institutions for negro education. -J* * It must be confessed, however, that the reports of the character of the CathoKc priesthood in the islands, and of the results of their ministry, are not very favourable. Having under our eyes the daily exhibitions of conflicting sects, we are apt to exaggerate the ad- vantages of external unity for the purpose of these missionary labours. On the other hand, some French observers seem to attribute the indolence and small influence of their own clergy in the Antilles to want of competition. " Je n'ai point trouv6 dans le clerg^ catholique,'' says the commandant Layrle, a French official visitor to the islands, " cette s^v^rit^ de mosurs, ce d^sint&essement que Ton remarque k " un si haut degr^ chez les ministres du culte r^form^. II m'en cofite " de dire qu'4, quelques exceptions prfes, je n'ai pas vu les pretres a la " hauteur de leur mission. C'est un aveu penible pour moi, mais je " le dois a la v&-it^. G&&alement je n'ai trouv^ que desordre, que " depravation chez les membres du clerg6 remain; et je les ai vus " plus occup6s de satisfaire leurs passions et leurs int^rets que de " ramener dans la voie de la v&itd des popiilations qui ont tant besoin " de conseils et de bons exemples. . . . J'ai remarqu^ que dans les " lieux oil les noirs professent le catholicisme, le concubinage toit " presque g^ndral ; non pas parce que les hommes dont il s'agit " different en rien de ceux des iles voisines, mais parce que les " efforts tenths pour les ramener dans la voie de la morale ne sont " pas aussi soutenus que si des sectes ri vales ^taient Ik pour rench&ir " les unes sur les autres." (V. Schrelcher, Colonies Etrangeres, i. 195.) t (1860.) After many years of cautious discussion, the slave emancipation of the French sugar islands was effected at a blow by the Eepublican legislatiire of 1849 ; as that of St. Domingo had been by the National Assembly of 1790. The results, however, showed a wide difference of times and circumstances. Some disturbances, Lect. XI.] NEGEO EMANCIPATION. 329 Still, the eventual result of their endeavours, as well as of our own, is yet in the womb of time. The keenest eye is baffled in the attempt to penetrate the clouds which overshadow that province of futurity ; the acutest judgment can hardly attain to any clear view, even of the immediate prospect, amidst the mis-statements and recriminations of conflicting witnesses. It would seem as if the spirit of partizanship must distort, not the in- tellect only but the very senses, when we compare the recent accounts which we have received of the state of the enfranchised commonalty in our West Indian possessions. Eead the descriptions of the friends of emancipation ; they admit nothing of doubt or uncertainty, they speak not even of partial success ; they pronounce the result of the grand experiment to be triumphant, — ^the state of the new commonwealth happier than any which the world has ever known. A free, orderly, industrious, moral, religious people ; abundance of work, wages reasonably high ; a new taste for luxuries and rej&nements hitherto undreamt of; man raised in his own estimation, and by that increased self-respect converted at once from a savage into a civiHzed and virtuous citizen ; a general passion for education, a zealous attachment to rehgion ; labour performed with all the wiLhng strength of freemen, and consequently twice as productive as the listless efforts and muoh derangement of industry, took place in the Antilles. In Reunion a resolute governor placed the emancipated slaves by his own authority under a year's compulsory service, and tided over the difficulty successfully. In three or four years the production of sugar seems to have nearly equalled its former amount, except in Cayenne. And in 1858 the production of the two Antilles had reached 56,000,000 kilos, against 36,000,000 in the last year of slavery. But the cost of production is great, and these colonies in general show little sign of advance, with the exception of E^union. Their sugar has still certain privileges in the French market : but it has had to compete not only with foreign sugar under lowered duties, but also with the fostered industry of the beet-root. (See Lect. II. p. 67.) 330 PROSPECTS OF [Lbcx. XL of slaves; commerce, wealth, increasing with gigantic strides ; these are all the phenomena which strike their imaginations. If their attention is recalled for one mo- ment to the fact that, in the middle of all this prosperity, the production of staple articles of export is stiU annually diminishing, it is but trea,ted as a temporary and trivial mischief — the consequence of the natural clinging of the masters to the shadow of their abohshed tyranny — a shght cloud which is already vanishing under the beams of that new and glorious day which has dawned on the negro race. Turn to the statement of another class of observers, and aU is gloom — difficulty and discontent in the fore- ground of the picture, ruin in the distance. The breach between the capitalists and the working class is complete and irremediable. It is absolutely impossible to count on the steady labour even of the best disposed among the negroes ; a fit of idleness or caprice., or the desire of procuring unreasonable and unattainable wages, will induce them to abandon the fields at the most critical period, and leave the ripe crop to rot ia the ground. Production is diminishing year by year in the larger colonies, estates are faUing into decay ; a less breadth of soU is annually devoted to the raising of exportable articles ; in fine, all betokens the approaching abandon- ment of these ill-fated regions by the white races, with their knowledge, enterprise, and accumulated capital, and the rapid degeneracy of the negroes, on the soil which they will have conquered from its owners, into a condition of abject and apathetic barbarism. It is impossible for the candid inquirer, at a distance from the scene of action, to satisfy himself of the real truth amidst accounts so strangely contradictory. Thus much we cannot fail to perceive, and with unmixed satis- faction : that the moral condition of the negro mind, in most respects, is higher than the best friends of the Afri- Lect. XI.] THE WEST INDIES. 331 can race could have ventured to pronoiuice it, before it was tested by the dangerous acquisition of freedom : that the subjects of our experiment have passed through the ordeal of enfranchisement most triumphantly, as far as order and good conduct are concerned. There is scarcely a population in the world with so httle of civil crime. The eagerness for the marriage tie*, and the happiness of domestic life among those to whom ancient tyranny had nearly denied both — the sincere and earnest desire for the blessings of education, blessings which it is difficult to understand how beings emerging out of a state of compulsory ignorance could have been found to appre- ciate — the love of comfort, the show of self-respect in externals, which prevails among them — all these are most gratifying testimonies to the innate powers and excel- lences of the race, as they are also to the eternal, but much neglected truth, that freedom in man is the soul of virtue as well as of energy. But the display of these quahties does not solve the great question of the future. The present flourishing condition of the negro peasantry cannot continue without steady industry. We are not now discussing the abstract question, whether civiliza- tion may not flourish in the absence of wealth. In the present state of the West Indies, the growth of wealth alone can insure the growth of civihzation. Their tastes for comforts and luxuries, and the great in- crease in the importation of articles consumed by them, on which so much stress is laid by writers on the pros- perous side of the question, prove that they are able just at present to obtain very high wages for very shght and irregular labour — the worst of all preparations for an orderly and industrious state of hfe. WTien those wages fall, as fall they inevitably will, and that shortly — what * Marriages in Antigua for six years before emancipation, (1828 to 1833.) 294 " " six years since (1834 to 1889) 2,025 332 PROSPECTS OF [Lect. XI. will be their conduct then ? WiU they be content to work more steadily for less remuneration ? or will they prefer to continue in their present desultory habits, and drop, one by one, their acquired wants, rather than un- dergo the additional fatigue which will then be necessary to satisfy them ? This is not only the great question of the day in reference to the actual condition of our tropi- cal colonies, but it is perhaps the most important of all the questions which now agitate the political world, in its ultimate bearing on the destinies of the human race. If all our sacrifices, aU our efforts, end but in the estab- hshment of a number of commonwealths, such as Hayti now is, flourishing, in contented obscurity, side by side with the portentous and brilliant opulence of slave-owning and slave-trading states — the best interests of humanity will have received a shock which it may take centuries to repair. If, on the other hand, we do but succeed in bringing about a state in which wealth shall continue to grow, and civilization to spread, however slow their pro- gress at first may be, — if the seed can but germinate at all, — then the ultimate destruction of slavery, and the redemption of the children of Ham from their age of captivity, may be contemplated as within the range of speculation. Fortunes, such as never hung suspended on the issue of battle or revolution, are involved in the peaceful crisis which is even now in operation. Are we prepared to meet it ? Have we seriously thought of its importance? Much must be left to the control of a higher Power ; but something we ourselves can effect ; and if I have at all succeeded in pointing out the way in which a copious immigration may operate in stimulating the negroes in our larger colonies to labour, and in lower- ing the cost of production of colonial articles, it must follow that no measure has more urgent claims on pubhc attention, if we would not remain resigned and apathetic spectators of the threatened catastrophe. Lect. XI.] THE WEST INDIES. 333 APPENDICES TO LECTUEE XI. No. I. Price of Slaves of the Class called " Prsedial attached," in the un- dermentioned Colonies, from the Returns made for the Purpose of assessing Compensation under the Emancipation Act. £ s. d. Honduras Guiana Trinidad Grenada St. Vincent Antigua Mauritius Montserrat St. Lucia Barbadoes Dominica Jamaica St. Kitt's Nevis Tobago Virgin Islands Bermuda Bahamas Average Indemnity on Abolition of Slavery in the principal French Colonies, 1849. Per Head of Slave. Martinique .... 438 Francs. Guadeloupe . . . . 477 " Reunion . . . . 738 . " 190 19 3 169 10 4 110 2 11 100 97 6 9 94 8 11 93 15 4 90 80 75 70 67 1 8 59 15 9 57 55 55 51 18 35 10 334 APPENDIX. [Lect. XL No. II. Importation of Sugar into the United Kingdom from the British West Indies. cwt. Six years before free trade, 1841 to 1846 . 14,629,550 Six years aflter free trade, 1847 to 1852 . 17,918,362 Six next years, 1853 to 1858 . . . 18,443,331 Importation into the United Kingdom from Cuba. cwt. In 1846 .... 596,380 In 1854 .... 1,997,370 Importation of Coffee into the United Kingdom from the British West Indies. lbs. 1831 .... 20,080,802 1845 .... 6,355,970 1858 .... 2,964,058 No. in. Return of Immigrants and Liberated Africans introduced into the West India Colonies and Mauritius in each Year, from 1848 to 1858, as far as known. Rest of 1 Jamaica. Guiana. Trinidad. West Indies. Mauritius. Total Immigration. 1848 1.940 6,542 873 5,302 From ^ 1849 1,080 197 1,868 7,282 East Indies . 175,971 1850 468 2,259 775 9,823 Madeira . . 11,622 1851 808 2,256 173 9,334 Sierra Leone 6,543 1852 16 4,082 1,328 16,796 St. Helena . 7,147 1853 199 6,509 3,081 12,144 China . . . 2,107 1854 472 2,576 687 18,516 Other places 4,282 1855 212 3,397 2,270 291 12,915 12,854 1856 628 207,672 1857 362 2,925 1,586 12,725 1858 Total 3,162 2,083 29,946 5,557 74,135 13,368 5977 148,595 Total introduced i nto Maui itiua 1843-.Minci. Adult m ales . 187,317 Females , . 44,557 Childrei 1 ■ . 29,463 261,327 Lbct. XI.] APPENDIX. 335 No. IV. Total Production of Sugar for Exportation. 1859. EngKsh Colonies and India 351,500 Spanish Colonies 325,000 Brazil .... 200,000 Dutch Colonies 65,000 French Colonies 64,000 Danish Colonies 7,500 United States 136,500 Spain (Andalusia) . 7,500 ■ No. V. Showing by tabular Statement the Progress of Sugar Cultivation in the British Colonies since Emancipation. Production of Sugar in Cwt. Average of six Years preceding Apprentice- sllip. Average of four Years of Apprentice- ship. Average of four Years before first Step toward Equaliza- tion of Average of seven Years during Pro- gress of Equaliza- 1855. Duties, 1842 to 1846. 1847 to 1853. Colonies of the Pirst Class (see p. 313.) Barbadoes . . . Antigua .... 343,513 173,947 409,354 143,878 335,315 187,881 541,784 186,152 590,656 219,939 Of tie Second Class Jamaica .... St. Vincent . . . Grenada .... 1,362,798 222,732 200,708 1,040,070 194,223 161,327 677,875 132,094 79,902 595,270 156,469 101,467 451,726 98,122 66,981 Of the Third Class OMnidad .... British Guiana . . 310,797 874,347 295,787 936,849 314,508 537,029 426,042 634,007 418,902 761,946 336 APPENDIX. " [Lect. XI. No. VI. Slave Labour (1860). It would be an undertaking far exceeding the limits of a work like the present, if I were to endeavour to append to this lecture anything like a complete account of the econo- mical and social progress of our formerly slave colonies since the period of its first publication. And I am bound to add, that I am acquainted with no subject of the same class on which it is so very difficult for one who aims at impar- tiahty and truth to form a correct opinion. For nearly fifty years this subject has been the continual battle-field of two inveterate parties. And such publications as I have seen respecting it, whatever appearance of weight and authority they may carry, are nearly aU impressed with the characteristics of party pamphlets, and can only be regarded in that Hght. Official reports from the colonies contain matter much more reliable ; but it is very rare for an English functionary to remain long enough in those colonies to form correct notions respecting them, without acquiring local prejudice on the one side or the other, if he did not carry it out with him. Statistical returns are conclusive within certain limits ; but every day's expe- rience shows how very difficult it is to draw from them general inferences, and how utterly unsafe to rely on those drawn by others. Thus much is certain ; that we have to deal here, un- fortunately, with a very different class of phenomena from those presented by other colonies or recently colonized countries. We have a very different aspect of things to contemplate from that presented by the triumphant pro- gress of free^communities, such as those of North America and Austraha ; very different from that of the scarcely less brilliant, though insecure and sinister, prosperity of Lbct. XI.] APPENDIX. 337 Cuba and Louisiana. Like their neighbours on the Span- ish Main, the British West Indies, with some remarkable exceptions, are in the whole in a stationary condition at best. They subsist, but do not accumulate wealth. Their towns, their buildings, their roads, their outward appli- ances of mechanical civiUzation, are barely kept up to the ancient standing point ; no marked improvement strikes the eye, even where .there are no signs of absolute decay. The old magnates of the land, the great planters of former days, have disappeared wholly in some parts, nearly so in others. Their successors are men of a lower position in the social scale, and with less means of expenditure, how- ever they may be better adapted in other respects for present times and circumstances. How far the great mass of the population are physically and morally better off than in the times of slavery is a question not easily an- swered, notwithstanding all the confident assertions which have been uttered respecting it. There seem, however, to be signs of the slow, but steady, formation of a middle class of inhabitants, chiefly coloured, independent of manual labour, and occupied in various branches of commercial industry ; and this is perhaps the most favourable feature in the general condition of these colonies. But one class of reasoners regard these facts as conclu- sive evidence that the West Indies have been governed and legislated for during the last thirty years on false principles, and that their permanent cultivation by free labour and without protection is hopeless. Others believe that the old artificial system, which produced a brief prosperity, had in it the seeds of speedy decay, and that emancipation and free trade have arrested that decay, if they have not as yet replaced it by rapid progress. This is the real question at issue. It was endeavoured to be shown, in this eleventh lec- ture, that the abolition of the slave trade was the real death-blow to the old fabric, such as it was, of West z 338 APPENDIX. [r.ECT. XI. Indian prosperity. Whatever emancipationists may hold to the contrary, there can be no doubt that, with plenty of fertile soil, and a slave trade, tropical production may continue to thrive and augment for an indefinite period ; as Cuba has proved of late years, and as Jamaica and St. Domingo had in truth proved before. But the slave population, without the slave trade, had not in these islands the power to maintain its numbers. Whatever the reason, such was unquestionably the fact. In some years prior to emancipation it was diminishing so rapidly, that if slavery had not been destroyed by law, it must have died of inanition. Emancipation was therefore a necessity ; but it is not the less certain, that its immediate result was a great diminution in the production of exportable commodities. The predictions of those who rehed on the ordinary doctrine of motives for labour were abundantly falsified. After some years of struggle the tide began to turn, and prospects brightened ; but then came a series of unfa- vom-able events, teUing severely against the struggHng interests of the planters. In many of the years between 1840 and 1850 the seasons were most unfavourable.* In 1846 came the beginning of the free trade measures, for the equalization of the duties on British and foreign sugar, completed in 1854, and with it the unavoidable, though temporary eyils of such a change ; and, lastly, in 1847, came that great commercial crisis, which visited many regions in many shapes, but which was felt in the West Indies in the shape of an unparalleled fall in the price of their produce. That of sugar fell from 37s. to 245. per cwt. ; in other words, the money value of the whole ex- portable produce of these colonies was dimuiished by more than a third at a single blow. The effect of such a visitation on struggling producers, for the most part in * See Ed. Eeview, vol. cviii., " The West Indies as they are." Lect. XI.] APPENDIX. 339 debt, and with scarcely any reserve of capital to fall back upon, was undoubtedly disastrous in the extreme. Seldom has a bolder experiment in commercial legisla- tion been carried into effect than that of the equalization of the sugar duties. The party of monopoly had on its side not only the usual support of those who defended protection on general principles, and of those who de- fended protection as a means of maintaining colonial empire ; but also the zeal and energy of the philan- thropic party, generally supporters of free trade, but in the present instance shrinking from the exposure of recently emancipated labourers to open competition with foreign slaves. It required great resolution and strong faith, to triumph over an opposition not only so powerful but ^possessing such especial title to respect. The result has amply vindicated the right cause. It is not only that the signs of progress, shght as they still are, become more and more distinct, but there are still more unmistakable signs of the improvement of the pubhc feehng — of that improvement which inevitably arises from the consciousness that there is no farther reliance to be placed on external aid, no farther tribute to be derived from the sympathies, or the pohcy, or the econo- mical errors of governments or consumers : no more room left for the endless miscalculations, deceptions, and mis- application of means to end, of which protection is the fertile parent ; signs of the arousing of heart, and hope, and energy. Far from accelerating the downfall of the West India interest, free trade has at the worst delayed it, and, it may be hoped, averted it. These general views, however, require to be modified by regard to the very different circumstances, and pros- pects, of different classes of these colonies. The first class of our old sugar colonies (following the division already made in this lecture) is that in which surplus land is scarce or none, and population z 2 340 APPENDIX. [Lect. Xt. presses closely on the means of subsistence ; of wMch we have seen that Barbadoes presents the most striking instance. In Barbadoes the disturbance of industry, produced by emancipation, was shght and transient. The colony soon recovered to more than its former prosperity. Notwithstanding the extremely limited area of the soil, and its diminishing fertility, production has increased and is still increasing with uninterrupted steadi- ness. The negroes — so commonly represented as desti- tute of the very capacity for continuous industry — are as regular in their daily labour as the operatives of the old communities of Europe. The abundance of labour seems to have had, indeed, only one bad effect, that of rendering the planters less anxious to avail themselves of scientific improvements than those of less populous colo- nies.* And its surplus overflows into the neighbouring islands, though not to any great extent, since it seems to be difficult to tempt a Barbadian to leave a home which he, with some reason, esteems superior to aU its neighbours. No other island approaches Barbadoes in this order of prosperity ; although Antigua, and one or two more, may perhaps be comprised within the same general category, as regions in which the want of labour is not seriously felt, and in which production is steadily though slowly on the advance. Jamaica is the principal type of the second class. In Jamaica, and almost in Jamaica alone, production has receded since emancipation, and that very largely. A very considerable proportion of its sm-face has gone out of sugar cultivation, and either been devoted to other and * See Mr. Trollope's "West Indies and Spanish Main," 1859. His visit to that part of the world was but a short one, and he is accused of having seen it .too much with the eyes of the Planter party : but he is an observer of no common acuteness, and one to whom the maxim of ridentem dicere verum is peculiarly applicable. Lect. XI.] APPENDIX. 341 less productive purposes, or abandoned to the busb. The landed fortunes have all but disappeared ; the great com- mercial profits of old times have disappeared likewise ; nor is there any settled prospect, though there may be occasional hopes, of prospective amehoration. Of course this phenomenon is differently accounted for, according to party views. The doctrine of the West Indian interest is, that Jamaica has ceased to flourish because the free negro will not work. The opposite theorists urge several pleas, with more or less success, in mitigation of that general doctrine ; they point to the general indebtedness and mismanagement of Jamaica properties ; the inveteracy of the old habits and nations of the times of slavery, which have prevented the land- owners from deahng justly with the labourers, from ofier- ing sufficient wages, and allowing the use of the soil on liberal terms. Among those who insist much on this lat- ter argument, Governor Hincks, one of the most acute of West Indian observers, -is particularly worthy of notice. But those who are accustomed more to rely on general than on special causes for the explanation of very general phenomena, wiU perhaps be disposed to look a httle farther into the case. They wiU remember the position, laid down by the best authorities, and which it has been endeavoured to illustrate in great part of these lectures ; that for the successful raising of exportable produce in new, and especially tropical, countries, abundance of fresh soil is the first requisite, abundance of labour the second. When the old system of production was checked in Jamaica, first by the abohtion of the slave trade, and then by emancipation, it possessed neither of these requisites. It had a great extent of virgin soil indeed, but not of virgin soil adapted to cane cultivation. The sugar land was beginning to show signs of exhaustion, or rather of entering into that second stage, in which additional capital and labour are required to maintain production. The % 3 342 APPENDIX. [Lect. XI. possession of other waste but fertile land, of the extensive mountain pastures and savannas, where men might hve and multiply at smaU cost, was an evil and not a good, in a commerical point of view. It enabled the emancipated labourer to subsist without uniform industry, and only to lend his aid to the planter reluctantly and irregularly, when stimulated by the desire of high wages to miusual exertion. This is, unfortunately, true ; at the same time there is • much in the economical circumstances of Jamaica which seems to me unexplained, and many phenomena ap- parently inconsistent. Judged by the test of statistics, its decline is evident ; and the observations of eye-witnesses go far to confirm, in some respects, the result thus ob- tained. The higher classes have suffered greatly ; and yet the middle class seems to be very numerous, and advancing in prosperity. There are in Jamaica, we are told, 70,000 coloured people, all, or nearly aU, of the com- mercial order. There are 300,000 of the negro labouring class. The first seem to possess a fair share of the comforts, and some of the luxuries of Hfe. Whether the latter are improving or dechning in condition is much disputed; but there can be no doubt that they have a superfluity beyond the necessary minimum of wages, and that some of them spend considerable sums for purposes of enjoy- . ment. Now, in Jamaica, there is scarcely any domestic industiy, except in the production of the staple articles of export. Dress, ornament, the usual articles of better domestic life, even food, to a considerable extent, are derived from abroad. All are purchased with exported commodities. How they are purchased so largely and distributed so extensively, in an island of which the whole exports are not much more than estimated in statistical tables at 1,000,000/., it is really difficult to understand. Possibly contraband trade may still help, to some extent, as in old times it did very extensively. But I can only Lect. XL] APPENDIX. 343 leave the circumstance as one wHich West Indian con- troversialists, on both sides ahke, have failed in my jiidg- ment to account for. To the same category as that of Jamaica — the category, that is, of colonies possessing no available soil for the cheap extension of sugar cultivation, but a good deal of it available for other purposes, so as to exempt the negroes from the necessity of continuous industry — ^belong, perhaps, St. Vincent's, Dominica, and other islands of less importance, which at diflFerent periods, under slavery and with newer soil, have been highly productive. The third division of our West India colonies comprises two only, Trinidad and Guiana. As stated in the text of this lecture, these two regions possess untilled soil, avail- able for sugar cultivation, in an abundance which for present purposes may be termed inexhaustible. Eegions so circumstanced at once needed labour in abundance, and could pay for it. The aboHtion of the slave trade, not emancipation, was, as has been said, the real check to their prosperity : but as soon as the first eifect of both measures had been felt, the energetic communities which inhabited them turned their thoughts at once to the supply of her labour by immigration. It is not within my province here to recount the opposition which their projects met with from the powerful party at home who deemed it right that the experiment of emancipation should be tried in the most favourable manner for the negroes, without exposing them to forced competition in the labour market : the long controversies, duriag which the mother country, sometimes wisely, but sometimes, it was thought, in a vexatious spirit of interference, endea- voured to protect the imported labourers from sufferings on the voyage, and from oppressive contracts of service in the colonies : the still greater financial difficulties which beset the scheme at its commencement, — suffice it to say, that these difficulties are now wholly or partially z 4 344: APPENDIX. [Lect. XL overcome, and every reasonable encouragement given to this kiad of immigration, including the guarantee by the mother country, of colonial loans for the purpose : but the statistical results are instructive. Since 1848, Guiana has imported 34,000 free labourers ; Trinidad 13,000 ; whUe Jamaica has imported 5000 only ; and the rest of the West Indies 6000 only. In other words, no free labourers have been imported in any numbers worth mentioning, except into the two former colonies. It appears, therefore, that the benefit of the system, to the West Indies in general, has been of a very hmited de- scription : and further, that it has not succeeded for the particular object which its promoters originally had in view. That object was, to counteract, by competition, the alleged unwillingness of the negroes to labour, and supply the deficiency occasioned by their indolence. But we see that the importation, in the greater number of colonies, including those in_ which the complaints of this indolence have been greatest, has amounted to very Uttle. Immigra- tion really thrives, not where the native labourers are too idle to do the work, but where there is more work than those labourers are able to perform. The profitableness of introducing immigrants depends on this general cause, not on any supposed moral disquahfications of the Creole labourer. On the whole, these' colonies appear to have regained, by the application of imported labour, about the same amount of productiveness which they possessed before emancipation ; but hardly as yet to have ex- ceeded it. Lastly : the case of the Mauritius, since emancipation, stands alone. To mix up the statistics of its progress with those of the West India islands, as is constantly done in this controversy, does but disturb the numeri- cal results, and throw confusion on the whole subject. Mauritius, hke the two last colonies mentioned, possesses an extent of sugar soil beyond the power of its former Lect. XI.] APPENDIX. 345 slave population to cultivate : but it possesses over them the great advantage of being in close proximity to the great reservoir of free labour, British India. The cost of conveying a Coohe from India to Mauritius is believed to be not a third of that of carrying him to Trinidad, and no source has hitherto been foimd, except British India and China, from which any regular supply of laborious immigrants for hopeful cultivation can be derived. Accor- dingly, when once the planters of Mauritius, by vigorous and continued efforts, had removed the obstacles which opposed the early success of the experiment, it proceeded and prospered at such a rate as to constitute an absolutely novel phenomenon in economical history. In ten years, nearly 150,000 Coohes have been imported into Mau- ritius : they constitute much more than half the inhabit- ants of the colony : they are not voluntary immigrants in the ordinary sense, led by the spontaneous desire of bet- tering their condition : they are not slaves, seized by vio- lence, brought over in fetters, and working under the lash. They have been raised, not without effort, like recruits for the military service, imported under government care, assigned by the local authorities to masters, but with their freedom and rights carefully watched over, and then- option to return to the mother country after a Hmited period of industrial service, carefully secured to them.* In the same period the exports of Mauritius have nearly doubled, and while the Coohe labourers are themselves * " WTien carefully managed, as I know them from personal obser- vation to be both in Bourbon and the Mauritius, they are far better off than in their own homes. They leave India full of prejudices, utterly ignorant, and as low in the scale of humanity as it is possible to imagine such beings to be. They acquire in their transmarine experience habits of thought and independence, a knowledge of improved means of cultivation, a taste for a higher order of amusements, a greater pride of personal appearance, and an approach to manliness of character rarely if ever seen in the same class in their native villages." — Report of Dr. Mouatt, May, 1852. 346 APPENDIS. [Lect. XI. well paid and contented, the Creole negroes have greatly- benefited by their introduction ; as they have had opened to their industry the new and extensive market which the wants of these very Coohes occasion. Thus much is unquestionably true ; and it is impossible not to admire the energetic will and practical vnsdom which, sharpened by necessity, thus repaired in a few years the breach which abolition measures had made in the continuity of industry, and raised the prosperity of this splendid island to a pitch far exceeding what it had attained in the times of slavery. But, however imjust it might be to interfere in any way with the process thus going on, it cannot be denied that it has a ten- dency towards evils which were scarcely anticipated at the period of its commencement. Its results are in the main unsatisfactory, because forced and unnatural. Granted that aU objections to the recruiting, convey- ing, and apprenticing these Coohe labourers are unsub- stantial or fairly overcome : granted that their freedom is sufficiently cared for, their condition improved by the change : still the question will recur, what are the future prospects of a colony, in which industry is exer- cised, not by the native population, but by a multitude of strangers, brought over by an artificial arrangement for a temporary purpose ? If they return to their home (wliich comparatively few do as yet) they carry with them their earnings, and impoverish the country they were brought to enrich. If they do not (by far the more common case), then, whenever the temporary purpose for which they were imported is served, or whenever it receives a check in unprosperous seasons, they become a helpless mass of people, to be supported by charity. They are unpopular with the coloured labourers, who regard them as interlopers, and who cannot but feel that their im- portation is mainly provided for out of the revenue raised by the taxation of all classes, including them- Lect. XI.] APPENDIX. 347 selves. They are almost all males (about one-sixth only- females in Mauritius), and tlieir society subject to all those rooted evils, not the less real because they make httle external show, which, when occurring in collections of our own countrymen, have been deemed sufficient to justify the abandonment of great schemes of pubhc works and reformation. They are (comparatively speaking) barba- rians imported into a civilized region ; heathens among Christians; either hated and avoided by the natives, or apt to communicate to these some of their worst habits. In short, in everything but the compulsion and the cruelty, the immigration trade is but a repetition of the slave trade, and the economy of Mauritius resembles that of Cuba. Such a colony is but a great workshop, rather than a miniature state. And, whenever a serious check to its prosperity occurs in the ordinary course of com- mercial vicissitude, it may be that this wealthy commu- nity will see cause to envy the far less brilliant but more sohd fortunes of such regions as Barbadoes. This brief summary ought not to be concluded without some notice of a feature in the state of the West India islands, httle noticed in controversy; but which affects their prosperity far more seriously than ordinary observers suppose. I mean their system of government. Jamaica and the Enghsh Antilles (except St. Lucia) being old English settlements, or conquered colonies into which Enghsh rights have been imported, have English constitu- tions ; that is to say, each httle community, of a few thousand souls only, has its miniature king, lords, and commons, its governor, council, and assembly, together with a host of administrative and paid functionaries, most disproportioned to its importance. And each as- sembly guards (or until very recently guarded) with the utmost jealousy, not only the right of taxation, but the anarchical prerogative of voting away the pubhc money at wiU, without any initiative proposal by the 348 APPENDIX. [Lect. XL- governor. All this overweighted system of local govern- ment is a relic of times past away. So long as England con- tinued tributary to these islands, by the monopoly which she accorded to their sugar, she requited herself, to some extent, by maintaining in the West Indies places for Enghsh functionaries and sinecurists, paid by West Indian money. The system has ceased ; but many of the places remain ; and the impoverished communities, which can scarcely afford to pay the salaries, seem, nevertheless, to entertain the strongest objection to reducing or con- solidating offices which have become objects of local ambition. All this Parhament might redress, to the incalculable benefit of the community. But Parha- ment is justly reluctant to exercise a power over poor and defenceless colonies, which it abstains on principle from using towards rich and great ones, pos- sessed of similar rights. It Hes with the colonies to take the initiative. And something has been done. Jamaica has within these few years materially im- proved her institutions by approximating, under restric- tions, to the ordinary type of responsible government. In other islands, the initiation of money votes has been rehnquished to the governor ; a simple but most practical reform. But far more than this is re- quired. Whatever shght reason there may have been in former days for the maintenance of these small local governments, has been wholly taken away by modern facihty of communication. They should be united, and this rather by consohdation than federation. Supposing Jamaica and Guiana to remain independent, from their importance, and Bahamas from insulation, two, or at most three, distinct executives and legislatures would amply suffice for all the remainder ; and economy of pubUc money, and improvement of the efficiency of the public service, would in this instance coincide even more closely than they are found to do in ordinary cases. Lect. XII.] CONVICT LABOUK. 349 LECTUEE XII. EMl'LOYMENT OF CONVICT LABOUR. REASONS ASSIGNED FOR THE NEW- MODELLING, OR ABOLITION, OF THE PUNISHMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AS FAR AS THEY CONCERN THE COLONIES. RESULTS OF MEASURES LATELY TAKEN BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. The employment of the labour of transported convicts in colonies is necessarily so limited in extent, that in- quiries relating to it may appear altogether insignificant, when compared with those suggested by the interests which we had under consideration in my last lecture. The subject presents, nevertheless, some important econo- mical questions, and has only lately received the atten- tion which it merits on the part of the pubhc of this country. The Portuguese appear to have been the first European nation who employed transportation and penal labour in the colonies as a mode of punishment, and offenders are still frequently banished to their African settlements. We have seen that the energetic Pauhstas, or people of San Paulo in Brazil, are said to have sprung in great proportion from the original stock of convicts. England adopted, in the seventeenth century, the system of trans- portation to her North American plantations, and the example was propagated by Cromwell, who introduced the practice of sending his pohtical captives to serve as indented servants or slaves there and in the West Indies.* But the number of regular convicts was too * See an interesting passage in Palfrey's History of New England, vol. ii. p. 35, as to the Scots prisoners of Dunbar carried to Massa- chusetts. They seem to have been liberally and kindly treated. 350 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XII. small *, and that of free labourers too large, in the old provinces of North America, to have allowed this in- fusion of a convict population to produce much effect on the development of those communities, either in respect of their morals or their wealth. Our own times are the first which have witnessed the phenomena of communities in which the bulk of the working people consists of felons serving out the period of their punish- ment. The penal colonies under the British government f were, in 1840, four in number — New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Bermuda, and Norfolk Island. In Ber- muda there were about 900 convicts only, working in gangs, and employed exclusively in the government dock- yards. Norfolk Island was used as a place of temporary punishment ; originally, for convicts banished from New South Wales for first ofiences ; since, in some cases, for convicts sent thither direct from the United Kingdom, who were employed there in severe labour, and obtained the privilege of removal to New South Wales by good conduct. The two Australian colonies contained in 1836 more than 40,000 convicts ; of these it appears, in the height of the assignment system, that about 26,000 were " assigned " people ; that is, made over to settlers as ser- vants to perform compulsory labour ; the remainder were disposed in the following ways, as enumerated by Colonel Arthur: — "In the service of government, in the road * In the middle of tlie last century Maryland was estimated to contain 107,208 inhabitants, of whom 1981 only were convicts. Yet Maryland was one of the principal receptacles of criminals. — Sadler on Population, i. 447. f (1861). As to the discontinuance of transportation to the gi-eater Australian colonies, see Appendix to this lecture. Bei-muda and Gibraltar are retained as places in which male convicts imdcr sentence of penal servitude serve out their time on public works, as in old times in the hulks ; but they are not places to which transportation, properly so called, takes place. Ebct. Xir.] CONVICT LABOUK. 351 " gangs, in the chain gangs, in the penal settlements, or " in the chain gangs in the penal settlements." * From 1787 to 1836, 75,200 had been transported to New- South Wales, and 27,757 to Van Dieman's Land. These facts are furnished by the Eeport of the Transportation Committee of 1838. The causes of the early and rapid growth of wealth in these colonies are not difficult to trace. They were, in fact, almost wholly artificial — on the one hand an ample supply of labour, on the other a large government ex- penditure. Instead of being forced to support their own servants, the colonists received in truth a bounty- for employing them, their produce being taken off their hands by the government at high prices, for the purpose of maintaining those very labourers. " The extraordinary " wealth of these colonies," to borrow the language of the same report, " was occasioned by the regular and " increasing supply of convict labourers. The convicts " were assigned to settlers as slaves. They were forced " to work in combination, and raised more produce than " they could consume ; for this surplus government pro- " vided a market, by maintaining mihtary and convict " estabhshments, which have cost this country above " seven milhons of pubhc money. Thus the government " first supphed the settlers with labour, and then bought " the produce of that labour : the trade carried on was " a very profitable one for the settlers, as long as the " demand of the government exceeded the supply ; and " this excess of demand over supply has continued up to " a late period." When the scales of the balance here indicated began to turn, it would be perhaps difficult to ascertain ; but it appears certain, although the annual expenditure of these * Number of convicts in 1836: — New Soutli Wales, 27,831; Van Dieman's Land, 16,968. Assigned (1833), New South Wales, 20,207 ; Van Dieman's Land, 6475. — Beport of Committee on Transportation, 352 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XII. colonies has averaged of late years half a milhon, that they no longer depend in any essential degree on that government expenditure for their prosperity. Although a certain amount of stimulus is still given to production by the artificial demand, it is no longer the main econo- mical feature in the state of their society. And it becomes of less importance every day, as the increase of the colonial resources is far more rapid and' certain than the increase of the government expenditure. These settle- ments have, therefore, passed out of the first stage of their progress, that of dependence and infancy, into the second, or stage of adolescence. And situated as they now are, it becomes important to trace the effects produced on their condition by the continued influx of convict labour, and the probable results of its discon- tinuance. These are both economical and moral ; and the latter are so intimately connected with the former, that it would be treating the subject unworthily to pass them over on the present occasion, although with us they must of necessity be secondary objects of inquiry. 1. In the first place, the effect of the extensive in- troduction of convicts on the progress of population is to be considered. The great disproportion between the sexes, which is Lmavoidable under such circumstances, neces- sarily prevents it from making a rapid advance. Accor- dingly, the increase of numbers in Austraha was very slow, until the great influx of free labourers which commenced in 1838 ; while that of wealth was uncommonly rapid. It appears that the convict emigration alone into New South Wales, between 1788 and 1833, was larger than the whole population of the colony in the latter year, while there had been a considerable free emigration also ; consequently, the deaths in that interval had very greatly exceeded tlie births. But a population -which grows in this manner, by adult emigration and not by propagation, must be, for some time at least, favourably Lect. xu.] convict labour: 353 constituted with respect to the productiveness of labour : there must be a smaller number of unproductive persons, such as children, and to a certain extent women, to support out of the wages of labour— just as it is cheaper to import slaves than to breed them. But slaves are short-hved ; the success of the speculation in their flesh and blood greatly depends on their dying before they are past labour : convicts, in a healthy country like Aus- traha, grow old : it may be doubted therefore whether, after a certain period, such a population is really more effective than one which grows by natural movement. 2. The labour of convicts is probably the dearest of aU labour ; that is, it costs more to some portion or other of society. The master himself obtains it cheaper than the services of a free labourer ; but this is only because the state has aheady expended a much greater sum than the difference on the maintenance and restraint of the convict ; and, when obtained, it is not in the long run equally efficient or valuable. In our colonies the convicts, as we have said, are divided into two classes, those em- ployed on public works, and those assigned as servants to individuals. From the first of these classes it is pro- bable that as much labour is obtained, for an equal ex- pense, as would be procured from hired labourers, at that high rate of wages which prevails in young com- munities. But with reference to the other class, that of assigned servants, the case is very different. The difficulty of employing them profitably and at the same time ren- dering their condition one of punishment is extreme. The ordinary labourer may be compelled, by dread of severer coercion, to perform a certain quantity of work ; about two thirds of what would be done by a free labourer, according to the estimate of an inteUigent wit- ness before the Transportation Committee.* But severity wHl never compel the skilled mechanic to exert his • Mr. Heath's Eeport, p. 267. A A 354 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lbct. XII. powers. Their development can only be won from him by fair means — by good treatment, and indulgence, per- haps in his most pernicious habits ; and thus, with respect to those very criminals who are in general the most depraved, there is a constant temptation to the master to treat them with the greatest lenity and favour, by which the object of punishment is entirely frustrated. To this Sir George Arthur, who has become conversant with the system by ample experience, bears testimony. " Those who have any mechanical skill," says he, " are " unfit for assignment ; because, though men may be " compelled in private service to do a certain given portion " of rough work, it has been found that the appHcation " of their skill can only be ehcited by coaxing and in- " dulgence." These are causes of general operation : there are others, pecuhar to Australia. The staple ia- dustryofthe country is pastoral.: the great demand for assigned convicts is for the purposes of that industry : in 1837, no fewer than 8000 of them were serving as shep- herds and neatherds m New South Wales. It is impos- sible to conceive a mode of employment less calculated either to terrify or to reform. It encourages habits of indolence ; it gives ample leisure for that soHtary medita- tion, which, unaccompanied by labour, is generally found to have the worst effects on the ignorant and depraved intellect; it gives ample opportunity, not only for the formation of barbarous tastes and habits, but for the actual commission of crime. On the other hand, those assigned servants whom there is no object iu treating with indulgence are often subject, if not to cruelty, at least to capricious and unreasonable iH treatment at the hands of their masters. 3. Lastly, to return once more to the economical view of the subject : our great Austrahan colonies seem to have advanced beyond that point at which the import- ation of convict labour can be of any material service to Lect. Xn.] CONVICT LABOUR. 355 the body of landowners and capitalists. It is true that a strong opinion prevails, both here and in Australia, of its importance, and of the evils occasioned by its loss.* Indi- viduals stni suffer from the diminution in the supply of convict labourers ; and they attribute to that cause much more than its real effect ; for the consequences of the vastly increased demand for labour, which has followed from the large emigration of capitalists, are very naturally compounded in their mind with those which result from the measures of government. But it is strongly argued by the opponents of the assignment system, that the great interests of the colony cannot be materially touched by a change of this description, whatever temporary iacon- venience it may occasion to many proprietors. Supposing that the practice of the assignment of convicts imme- diately on their arrival were to continue in its full extent, little more than three thousand labourers would thus be added every year to the working people of New South "Wales. The population of that colony amounted in 1840 to 110,000 ; it then began to increase with great rapi- dity, both from births and from free emigration ; and as the supply of convicts cannot under any circumstances be very materially augmented, it must bear every year a less and less proportion to the wants of the colony, and become at last altogether insignificant. Such were some of the arguments urged against the practice of transportation, as carried on until of late years, with reference to its effects in the colonies. These argu- ments have so far prevailed, that the practice of the im- mediate assignment of convicts has been generally discon- tinued. It is intended that aU convicts should be employed, in the first instance, under military superintendence in separate " penal settlements," or in pubhc works in the * It must be remembered that this was written long before the tide of public opinion in Australia had turned against the reception of convicts. See Appendix. A A 2 356 EMPLOTMENT OF [Lect. Xn older colonies; and the assignment to colonists as ser- vants is to be considered as a reward for good behavioiu- — a first step in that gradual rehabilitation which is to replace the offender in his former rights and honour as the citizen of a free community, so far as this can be done with safety to the community itself Thus far pubhc opinion seems to concur m approving of the scheme of reformation, which has been mainly prepared by the labours of the Transportation Committee of 1838. But it is well known that the views of many reformers of our penal code go farther. They are anxious for the entire abohtion of the punishment of transportation. You are probably aU aware of the very active part which Archbishop Whately, my predecessor in this chair, has taken in advocating this great change. It has, indeed, been rendered pubhc enough, if such pubhcity were needed, by the violent attacks of which he has been made the object, on account of his pictures of the moral condi- tion of our penal colonies under the present system. Whatever the result of the alteration may be, there is no one on whom the responsibihty or the credit of effecting it will rest more decidedly than on him. Now, by far the most important of the considerations which are adduced in favour of this change relate to the efficacy of transportation as a punishment : its effects, or rather its alleged want of effect, in deterring from crime ; its inadequacy as an example. These do not fall within the range of our subject. But, since the advocates of its abohtion have also laid great stress on the utter demorali- zation which they suppose to be the result of it in the colonies themselves, we may be permitted a cursory glance at this portion of their arguments. The general features of their statement admit of no denial. The state of pubhc morals in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land is but too plainly evinced by the criminal returns from those countries. It is notorious Lect. XII.] CONVICT LABOUE. 357 that a large proportion of their community consists of men restrained from the commission of every crime merely by the exercise of severe and constant watchful- ness over them. It is notorious, that ahnost every wick- edness of luxurious and corrupt societies is practised there, amidst a scanty, laborious, and unrefined popula- tion. Nor is it possible to deny the extensive influence which the contagion of this vicious class exercises on the remainder of the community. The habit of entertaining convict servants introduces crime and recklessness into the families of respectable emigrants. Of the " emanci- pists," as they are termed, or convicts who have passed the term of their sentence, too many are apt to faU into one or the other of two classes, each in its way pernicious to society : the low and brutal, " whose habits," it is said, " are nearly the same as those of the convicts, while " they are imder less control ; " and the able and dex- terous, who contrive to attain competence, or even to amass considerable fortunes, often by the most iniqui- tous means. One individual of this class was said, a few years ago, to have acquired property to the amount . of 40,000^. a year ; having begun his career, after the expiration of his sentence, by keeping a pubhc house, which was frequented by the drunken settlers of the neighbourhood, at the time when the prosperity of the colony ran highest, where they were inveigled into fraudulent bargains in a state of intoxication. Such men as these, not to mention the evil effect produced by their example, often become the most bitter enemies of institutions by which a certain line of demarcation is stdl preserved, at least in society, between the hberated cri- minal and the man of unstained character. All this is only too true ; and yet the question would not be fairly judged, unless certain other circumstances were taken into consideration. In the first place, it must be considered that many of A A. 3 358 EMPLOYMENT OP [Lect. XII. these evils belong, not to transportation itself, but to trans- portation as hitherto conducted. They will be much diroinished by the mere discontinuance of the mischievous practice of indiscriminate assignment, of which the effects have already been fully developed. In the early stages of the colony, all thoughts of punishment and reforma- tion seem to have been set aside in the ardent pursuit of wealth. The first object was to make the labour of con- victs as productive as possible ; and it appears to have been fancied that in this manner they performed that res- titution which they owed to the country whose laws they had infringed. It is unfair to charge upon the general system consequences which have flowed from so mani- fest and flagrant an abuse of it. If, from the beginning, assignment had always been made conditional on good conduct, and reversible at pleasure, and in no instance allowed until some part of the term of punishment had been served out in severer and more penal labour, it is not too much to conjecture that the convict servant would have brought far less of corruption into the fami- hes of his employers, that he would have been in general more orderly and industrious, and that the rapid rise of emancipists to prosperity as individuals, and to im- portance as a party, would have been materially im- peded. It must be added, that this last unfavourable circum- stance has been mainly produced by the mistaken views which long prevailed in the administration of these settlements. As Archbishop Whately truly says, the governors of our penal colonies had the problem pro- posed to them of accomphshing two different, and ia reaUty inconsistent objects : — to legislate and govern in the best manner with a view to, 1. the prosperity of the colony; and, 2. the suitable punishment of the convicts. But some rulers increased their difficulties by adopting a third object, incompatible with both the Lect. XII.] CONVICT LABOUR. 359 others. One of the governors of New South Wales, whose conduct had a very extensive mfluence on its subse- quent fortunes, discouraged free emigration altogether, and is said to have declared that his province " was a " convict colony, established for the benefit of convicts, " and had been brought iuto its present state of prosperity " by their means." — " He looked," says one vraiter, " upon " no title to property ia New South Wales as so good or " so just as that which had been derived through the " several gradations of crime, conviction, sentence, eman- " cipation, and grant." It is needless to add that such mistakes as this are not likely to be repeated.* Next, it is obvious that these colonies have already passed, or are quickly passing, through the first and most unfavourable stage of their moral progress. A new gene- ration is advancing with daily increasing rapidity to occupy the stage ; a generation bom in the colony, nur- tured doubtless under many discouraging circumstances, but free at least from the utter debasement of the original settlers. And the free emigration, now so enormously on the increase, wiU tend most powerfully to accelerate this change in the general face of society. The members of the Committee on Transportation, who have undoubtedly done much to throw hght on the subject, but whose voluminous pages must nevertheless be perused with con- siderable caution, so evident is the bias on the minds both of the examiners and of a great number of the witnesses, lay down formally in thefr report, as one of the reasons against transportation, the disinclination which it produces in the minds of free emigrants to choose the penal colonies • Upon the subject of this governor's conduct in advancing pardoned convicts to public stations, and endeavouring " to force their society " upon the undetected part of the colony," the reader may consult an article of the Eev. Sydney Smith's, ftill of his peculiar combination of humour with sound practical sense, in the Edinburgh Review for 1823, reprinted in his works. A A 4 360 :emplotmext of [Lect. xii; for their place of abode. I cannot help suspecting that the Committee have here, by help of a lively imagination, metamorphosed their own theories iato supposed facts. I cannot find, either in the evidence collected by them- selves or elsewhere, any proof whatever of the alleged reluctance. On the contrary, when the witnesses were asked, after the usual parliamentary fashion of putting leading questions, whether, in their opinion, such motives did not actuate the labouring population at home, and render them unwilhng to emigrate to Austraha, the answer has generally been that they were not aware of anything of the kind.* And facts speak far more strongly than witnesses. Voluntary emigration has certainly never been directed towards that region, on account of the expense and the distance. But as soon as government began to oiTer encouragement to emigrants of the labouring classes, there was no lack of candidates for its assistance ; the number of emigrants to Sydney in the years 1838 to 1841, was great beyond all anticipation— proof positive, I fear, that the Committee were doing an unmerited honour to the moral delicacy of our peasantry in the motives which they attributed to them. In a community thus expand- ing, the effect produced on society by the contagion of the one bad part must continually diminish. If poison and water be poured into a vase, the latter in a continually increasing proportion to the former, the mixture must at last be rendered innocent by the dilution ; and in Austraha, as in America, according to all the probabihties of the case, the convict taint would in time utterly disappear. * The Committee do not, however, quite go so far aa the distin- guished Captain Smith, in the reign of James I., who attributes still greater refinement of feeling to the thieves of his own time. He says of Virginia that " the number of felons and vagabonds transported did " bring such evil characters on the place, that some did choose to be " hanged ere they would go there, and were." — ChraharrCs Eise and Progress of the United States, i. 71. Lect. XII.] CONVICT LABOUB. 361 To dwell for a moment on a single cause of demoraliza- tion — the disproportion between the sexes. By the census of 1836, New South Wales contained 55,000 males and, 21,000 females ; that is, the former were to the latter as five to two- The births were about one in thirty-six an- nually ; deaths one in forty-seven. Supposing the annual emigration to consist of 3000 convicts in the proportion of five males to one female, and 10,000 free persons in the proportion of three males to two females, which is stating the position unfavourably for my argument, it may be shown arithmetically that in five years the females would amount to one half the number of the males *, and pro- bably in twenty more (although I have not taken the trou- ble to carry the calculation so far) the relative numbers would approximate as nearly as is necessary to maintain a community in a healthy state. And lastly, it is most important to control those san- guine expectations of good, and that impatience of present evil, which are apt to bias our minds in the investigation of questions such as this, by the recollection that the solu- tion of them ofiers, most emphatically, nothing but a choice of difficulties. Crime, and misery, and punishment, con- sidered abstractedly, are evils in every shape ; the last * (1860.) The estimate in the text (singularly enough) has been exactly verified by the result. The census of 1841 gave 87,298 males, and 43,558 females. The proportion of the sexes in the principal Australian colonies by latest returns (1860) is nearly as follows : — New South Wales Victoria ..... South Australia .... Tasmania . . . . • 631,000 407,000 The great diminution of the former disproportion is owing partly to births, but more (as we shall see more distinctly hereafter), to the judicious management of the emigration fond of the colonies by the authorities at home. Males. 200,000 Females. 143,000 323,000 181,000 62,000 58,000 46,000 35,000 362 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XII among the heaviest evils which society must necessarily endure. Nothing that philanthropy or sagacity can sug- gest will ever render human punishment other than it is — a coarse, undiscriminattng, and imperfect preventive of crime, often demoralizing instead of reforming, and only inflicted because, on the whole, it represses, as we hope, more mischief than it occasions. Now the mind, in dwelling strongly on this or that special form of evil, ac- quires by degrees an intensity of feehng respecting it which renders it quite incapable of adopting the true test, that is, the relative one, and compels it to regard that form, and that alone, as something to be got rid of by any sacrifice. And thus the old history of the good bishop Las Casas, who introduced negro slavery in order to relieve the enslaved Indians of America, typifies the character of a whole class of reformers, moral and so- cial, not a few of whom have done much service to humanity ; for perhaps no great changes would ever have been brought into execution, if reflection had always ac- companied enthusiasm. Such persons are always desirous to shift the burden from the galled shoulders, with httle consideration for those on which it is next to be imposed. The whole history of the theory of punishment affords abundant instances of this truth. Our ancestors preferred to punish offenders by the compendious methods of the gallows and the lash. The inefficacy, as well as cruelty, of those time-honoured practices were abundantly proved ; and transportation gradually superseded the infliction of death, as the ordinary punishment for the class of offences next below the heaviest. Evidence has now been care- ftdly accumulated of the HI success and injustice of this once admired system. A better regulated method of im- prisonment is the proposed substitute. But all punish- ments are ineffective — all punishments are imjust, except by comparison only. If the attention of the observer is directed to any one alone, the inevitable evils attending it. Lect. xii.] convict laboue. 363 ■will so press upon his attention, as to drive him to un- favourable conclusions ; and, should imprisonment be adopted as the ordinary penalty for serious offences, it needs Uttle foresight to anticipate, that in few years it will be assailed by objections to the fdl as heavy and un- answerable as those which are now urged against transport- ation. It is so already in the United States, where more attention has been paid to the subject than in any other country. To apply these remarks to the subject immediately be- fore us ; it should be remembered that for a long time after the estabhshment of our penal colonies public opinion ran high in their favour. There was general confidence in the then favourite theory, that the best mode of punish- ing offenders was that which removed them from the scene of offence and temptation, cut them off by a great gulf of space from all their former connexions, and gave them the opportunity of redeeming past crimes by becom- ing useftd members of society. Was this theory altogether without foundation ? Erroneous as the treatment of con- victs in many respects has been, have none of these expec- tations been realized ? Have not numbers of convicts found what at home they never could have found under the best devised system of punishment : space for exertion, reward for industry, and comparative obhvion of the past .? Is not a flourishing community, tainted though it be with the remnant of its original impurity, gradually rising into importance, of which their labour has been the primary instrument ? Let us adopt, if we will, the language of a candid observer, biassed by none of these theories, either for or against the system. " On the whole, as a plan of " punishment, it has failed : as a real system of reform it has " failed, as perhaps would every other plan : but as a means " of making men outwardly honest ; of converting vaga- " bonds, most useless in one country, into active citizens • " of another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid 364 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lect. XII. " country, a grand centre of civilization, it has succeeded " to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history."* Is there, then, no plan by which transportation might be rendered more effective as a punishment, and at the same time prospective advantages secured to the convict, conditionally on good behaviour ; that social " jus post- hminii," without the hope of which life spent imder punish- ment is hardly endurable, and reform, let the lovers of gaols and penitentiaries say what they will, almost impossible ? It was with this view, as we have seen, that the scheme originally suggested under Lord Stanley's administration has been put of late years into execution : namely, the aboHtion of assignment in the first instance ; the employ- ment of convicts in public works, or in distant and strictly penal settlements, such as Norfolk Island, for a part of their time. Another suggestion has been made by some practical men. They propose that convicts should be employed in the first instance as pioneers in the formation of new colo- nies. That a gang, for example, should be immediately despatched as soon as an ehgible site has been discovered, to cut down wood, to make roads and harbours, to pre- pare the soil for the reception of free emigrants, who would thus enjoy the great benefit of possessing at once those mechanical advantages which are usually attained by new settlements only after a considerable period of shifts and privations. The convicts are to be sedulously kept from mingling with the free settlers so long as they are thus employed. But as soon as the gang is broken up, its purpose being fulfilled, the ban may perhaps be withdrawn, and the better conditioned convicts allowed to begin their course of service as assigned labourers. The chief objections that have been urged to these plans, besides those which apply generally to the whole system of transportation, are twofold. The first is that of ex- * Darwin : Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle. Lect. Xn.] CONVICT LABOUR. 365 pense. It is contended that, considering the quantity of military and police superintendence required, employment on pubhc works is among the most costly modes of main- taining convicts. This is a subject on which it is extremely diflScult to speak with precision. But it is to be observed, that those who have entered into calculations on this subject, have made their comparison, in general, between the systems of employment on pubhc works and assignment. That the former is very far more expensive to the revenue than the latter, admits of course of no doubt. But the datum from which we set out is, that assignment, at least in the first instance, is to be abohshed : that although cheaper to the mother country, and possibly more beneficial to the colony in an economical point of view, than any other mode of disposing of convict labour, the moral objections to it far outweigh these advantages. The real comparison to be made, is between the expense of maintaining a convict on public works in the colonies, and in a penitentiary at home. What may be the balance between the two sys- tems, I mean those of imprisonment and colonial public employment, on the profit and loss account of each, it is not easy to estimate. But this must always be remem- bered, that the labour of the convict in a colony paves the way for the iutroduction of capital into the most produc- ' tive of all fields, that of new colonies : that it raises up a nation of producers, supplying the wants of the mother- country, and receiving her commodities in exchange : while that of prisoners in penitentiaries is almost inevita- bly a loss to society, both present and ultimate. The other objection to the continuance of this species of punishment rests on moral grounds. It is thought by many that the spectacle of gangs of convicts, employed in penal labour, has a pecuHar tendency to brutalize and degrade the minds of the population accustomed to be- hold it. And, on the other hand, the terrible statements, 366 EMPLOYMENT OF [Lkct. XII. recently made public, of the vice and barbarism whicli are said to prevail among the gangs of convicts in our remote penal settlements, have produced a feeling of re- pugnance in tbe minds of many which it is difficult to combat. Nevertheless, it is peculiarly necessary to remember, in this instance, the truth of what has already been said, that a choice of punishments is a choice of evils. It is impossible to deny that the spectacle of felons working in gangs has the effect of familiarizing eye-witnesses with the sight of crime and punishment, and, to a certain ex- tent, producing indifference to it. But let this be faicly weighed against the objections which can be urged against other modes of secondary punishment ; and let it be re- membered that many nations, not among the last in civi- lization and morality, well acquainted with penal theories, have been able to find no satisfactory substitute for this : that although nothing is more common than to hear the practice denounced in general terms, no one, that I am aware of, has ever distinctly pointed out the connexion between cause and effect, any pecuhar prevalence of vicious habits in those parts of France and Switzerland, for example, where this species of exhibition is, or lately was, matter of every day : and let it be also recollected, that the effects of such exposure must be very different in the middle of the crowded and idle population of Euro- pean countries, and among the scattered and busy settlers of a new colony. As to the moral condition of convicts themselves under such a system of punishment, the real question is, not whether it is hideous and fearful, whether it forms a subject of contemplation from which every well constituted muid must shrink with horror, but whether it is substantially worse, upon the whole, than that of bodies of similar criminals undergoing any other course of second- ary punishment. I do not dispute the evidence of the witnesses who have visited Norfolk Island ; though I am, Lect. XII.] CONVICT LABOUR. 367 perhaps, justified in attributing to it something of the colouring which is inevitably communicated to such pic- tures by the feehngs of men viewing, for the first time, with their own eyes, such receptacles of misery and vice : and although I think it will be found, that the vivid lan- guage in which they depict the general features of the case is not always fully borne out by the minute details of what fell under their own observation. But I would ask the calm inquirer, before he pronounces judgment against the system, to compare that evidence with what has been collected respecting the state of things in some of the boasted penitentiaries of other countries ; even in those conducted according to the most approved and best con- sidered theories of prison discipline. To those who sincerely indulge in expectations of the moral reform of prisoners in gaols and penitentiaries, I am well aware that these observations will appear ex- tremely defective, as passing over with Httle regard what, in their view, is one of the greatest ends of penal law. They naturally regard the system of transportation as wanting in the chief essential of discipline, and consider its continuance as an obstacle to the development of their theories. But to those whose views of human nature, or of the power of human institutions, are of a less sanguine character, — who have been led to consider the prospect of reformation hy punishment, in the great majority of cases, as altogether hopeless and delusive, — it must appear doubt- ful whether it be not more advisable to improve the sys- tem than to destroy it ; whether there was not something of truth and reason in a scheme where the hope of refor- mation rested, not on the effects of the punishment itself, but on the prospect held out beyond it,, in the only plan yet devised by human ingenuity which could secure one object on which enUghtened penal reformers have laid great stress, namely, the rehabihtation of the ofiender — the ofiering him what, in his own country, he never can 368 EMPLOYMENT OF CONVICT LABOUR. [Lbct. XIH attain, his fair chance of prosperity and success, after the payment of his penalty to society. Not much attention is due to any proposed scheme of secondary punishment, unless the projector is able to answer one very obvious question : What is to become of the convict after he has undergone it ? Imprisonment, with the notions which now prevail in society, is of aU punishments the most in- tolerably defective in this essential particular. Nine out of ten who undergo it, for any but the very slightest of- fences, if not destroyed body and soul, are ruined for life as citizens, and condemned to an existence not only use- less but pernicious to society, from the first day on which they enter the walls of their house of confinement. Speak- ing generally, no one who has suffered this punishment can recover character, except through the purifying pro- cess of labour, and the respect paid to usefiilness and in- dustry : the discharged convict at home seeks in vain for opportunities of honest exertion, and is driven back to crime, both by habit and necessity ; in the colonies, if he have but the will to restore himself, he cannot fail of suc- cess. Surely this consideration alone, if no other were involved in the question, ought to induce the nation to pause before she revises this part of her institutions, and condemns some thousands more of her criminals annually to undergo the inefiaceable brand of her hulks and peni- tentiaries. Lbct. Xn.] APPENDIX. 369 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE XII. • CONVICT LABOUR. The preceding lecture may already be regarded almost as an essay on some interesting but antiquated historical subject. A great social question has been either closed or adjourned — time must show which — not by the victory or defeat of parties, but by an entire change in social circumstances. It becomes therefore super- fluous to go into details respecting the violent conflict between the mother-country and certain of the colonies, on the subject of transportation, which occupied so large a share of public attention in the years 1850 — 1854. The motives which actuated the colonial opponents of the system were in part of the highest order, — a desire to rescue their society from supposed contamination : but these were mingled with sentiments of a very mis- cellaneous description, — the spirit of opposition to home dictation, some ostentation of independence, popularity- seeking in its various forms, and (among many of the people) that mistaken desire to maintain a high rate of wages which has since led to serious evils in the Austrahan communities. The colonists prevailed at the time, as colonists, when determined, always have prevailed in the councils of Great Britain since the pre- sent balance of parties began ; and the whole problem may for the present be, dismissed as aprocesjuge et non plaidi. But, independently of these disputes, causes arose which rendered the maintenance of the system at once unprofitable and impossible. A marked dimi- nution of domestic crime, in comparison of our wealth and population, began to render the difficulty of deahng with our criminals at home a manageable one, nearly at the period when the discovery of gold in Australia B B 370 APPENDIX. [Lect. XU. made that region entirely unfit for the reception of convicts, had its inhabitants been content to receive them. But what has been may be again, and we may look forward to the probable recurrence of times when the ancient expedient may suggest itself for the rehef of pre- vailing embarrassments in deahng with our criminals. It may therefore be worth our while to pay a httle atten- tion to certain lessons suggested by the great controversy between the mother-country and the colonies to which I have above adverted. To the mother-country, the object of transportation is simply that of getting rid of certain classes of convicts : for the secondary object of founding new co- lonies, and creating new sources of wealth, may be left out of the question as comparatively unimportant to her. This main point secured, it is further desira- ble (in the interests of justice and humanity) that the convicts in their new home may be employed in such manner and under such conditions as may be most conducive to their reformation. To the colonies, the object of transportation is to receive such classes of convicts, and to employ them in such manner, and under such conditions, as may be most conducive to the production of wealth. If the mother-country acts despotically, it will of course carry on transportation with a view to the first, or first and second, of these objects only, whether the result be a Few South Wales or a Cayenne. But wheijL the problem presented to the State is that which existed in the early case of the North American set- tlements, and of Austraha from 1845 to 1855, — namely, how to carry on transportation to a free colony and with the good will of the colonists, — the preHminary diffi- culty at once presents itself, that the objects of the two parties to the arrangement are not the same. For neither are the conditions of labour, which are Lect. xu.] appendix. 371 regarded by philanthropists at home as most conducive to reformation, those which are regarded by the co- lonists as most conducive to the production of wealth ; nor are the classes of criminals, of which the mother- country is most anxious to get rid, those which the colonists are most desirous to receive. The first of these positions was very amply illus- trated in the course of the Austrahan controversies. We have seen that convicts, in the earher period of trans- portation to New South Wales, were " assigned," that is to say, reduced to a state of enforced servitude ; and it is shown abundantly in these lectures that compul- sory labour in some shape or other has always been the great agent in producing staple articles of export in young colonies. As long as assignment prevailed, transportation had always a large class of colonists, namely, the employers, interested in maintaining and defending it. But philanthropists at home became dissatisfied with " assignment." Forced labour on government works ; " tickets-of-leave," which entitled the criminal to work for whom he pleased and where he pleased, provided he remained within the local limits of his sentence ; finally, " exile," or the sending to the colonies, as free labourers, men who had served a period of punishment in prison at home : these were the devices which it was endeavoured to substitute for the old system. How far they would have answered the objects in- tended by their authors was hardly proved ; for they were cut short by that general storm of unpopular- ity in which transportation perished, an unpopularity which the devices themselves were singularly calculated to enhance. Their effect on the colonial mind seems hardly to have been contemplated at all. They took away from transportation that quality which alone made it palatable, the insuring a supply of forced labour to individual employers ; consequently, they left the B B 2 372 APPENDIX. [Lect. XII. system almost witliout a colonial defender. It was in vain to, prove to tlie colonists, by economical argument, that a supply of labour was valuable, althougli individuals could no longer insure the advantage of that labom-. The proposition might be true, but interested no one in its defence. It was felt, truly enough, that the con- vict system, retaining all its real and supposed moral evil, was now an engine worked whoUy for the purpose of the mother-country, and not (as heretofore) for that of colonial capitaUsts also. The second of these positions has been illustrated, on a smaller scale, by what has taken place in the recent history of transportation to Western Australia. That distant colony, being at once so poor as to desire a supply of labour, and so far from the gold regions as to be beyond their dangerous influence, and not having as yet popular institutions, was selected with much judgment for the continuance of so much of the system as it was still thought desirable to maintain, after it had ceased on the larger scale. But under our modern enactments, transportation was reserved as the last penalty for the worst offences short of death, or for repeated offences only. The class of criminals of whom we wished to get rid comprised only those whom it was thought as a class impossible to reform, and whose return to society would be dangerous. Now such criminals form precisely the least useful and the most dangerous class to the colony which receives them. Professional criminals of long standing are very ill calculated for productive labour. If they have served long periods in prison, so much the worse in most cases. The transportation of this class, therefore, produces (to the colony) the greatest amou.nt of moral evil with the least amount of econo- mical good. This has been much felt and expressed in Western Austraha, though the experiment is on too small a scale to be of great importance as an example. Lect. XII.] APPENDIX. 373 As far as the colonies are concerned, the most desi- rable subjects of transportation are the old " seven " years' " class, of whom such numbers were sent to Aus- traha in the earlier years of the system; men whose moral nature was as yet unhardened by habitual crime, their physical energies unabated by long imprison- ments. And, imdoubtedly, "assignment" is the most profitable mode of employing them ever yet devised. WMle at the same time they constitute the class on whom the sentence of expatriation has the greatest deterrent effect. Novices in crime mostly dread it. Hardened cri- minals desire or disregard it. If, therefore, the balance of reason is against the transportation of minor offenders, then it is against transportation altogether. The transportation of har- dened offenders, whether after other discipHne or not, is of no good to the mother-country, beyond the mere trivial relief by the expulsion of the individuals. It is of no good to the colony, as we have seen. Except in- deed in one limited case. Benefit might no doubt be derived from the employment of any class of convict la- bour in very young colonies, on their first settlement, on those elementary public works which are so essen- tial to their progress, and, to find means for the exe- cution of which is their greatest practical difiiculty. The early advance of New South Wales is attributed in great measure to the excellent roads constructed by convicts through wild regions, long before settlement had reached them. It is scarcely possible to estimate the addition which might have been made to pubhc wealth, had a similar power been apphed in British Columbia. It is unnecessary to advert to the difficultieSj pohtical, financial, and disciplinary, which oppose the reduction of such schemes to practice. They are not insuperable, but .such as are not Kkely to be overcome except under the pressiire of urgent motives, B B 3 374 OBTAINING LABOUK IN COLONIES [Lect. XIII. LECTUEE Xin. METHODS OF OBTAINING LABOUR IN COLONIES WITHOUT SLAVES OR CONVICTS. INDENTED LABOURERS. PRINCIPLES OF THE WRITERS ON SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION, OH MR. WAKEFIELD AND HIS FOLLOWERS, RESPECTING THE PROCURING OF LABOUR BY THE REGULATED DISPOSAL OF LAND. The various methods which have been formerly devised for furnishing colonies raising exportable produce with that supply of dependent labourers which they so greatly need, without introducing a servile or quasi-servile popu- lation, need not long arrest our attention. They have been evidently inadequate to their purpose ; and their history is of no great importance, except as showing in- directly how much the want has been felt, by the nature of the shifts resorted to for reheving it. In the infancy of our West India colonies, and of our tobacco and rice-growing settlements in North America, it was common for the colonists to procure indented labourers from England. These were invited by the promise of high wages ; and as the captains of vessels obtained considerable emolument by this valuable part of their cargo, they were induced to use, in addition, the most disgraceful methods of raising the required con- tingent. Not only crimping, but actual kidnapping, seems to have been of common occurrence ; and persons brought over, in extreme poverty, by the ship-owners, frequently had to pay for their passage by submitting to a species of slavery, and being disposed of by the skipper to the best advantage in the colonial market. But, as may naturally be supposed with respect to recruits procured in this manner, the difficulty was extreme of holding such in- dented labourers to' their bonds. Unprincipled settlers Lect. Xlir.] WITHOUT SLAVES OR CONVICTS. 375 were constantly on the watch to seduce away the ap- prentices of their neighbours ; and those who had actually gone to a great expense in providing themselves with this species of wealth, had not unfrequently the mortification of seeing it vanish altogether from their grasp, and go to enrich some other proprietor, whom the acquisition of it had cost notting. And, in North America, the vicinity of the uncleared tracts, and the ease with which good land might be procured for nothing, were powerful seductions to the enterprising labourer, who, if he thought at all about the matter, would probably consider himself amply justified in breaking his engagements by the delusive and fraudulent natifre of the system under which they had been contracted. The extreme inadequacy of this mode of supply na- turally led to the introduction of slavery, both in the islands and on the continent. It continued, however, to be practised, on a limited scale, up to the period of the American revolution. Something similar to it has been proposed in our own time, by advocates of systematic emigration, wdth this difference, that, according to their views, the labourer should not be bound to perform ser- vice for any specified individual, but should be left free to choose the market for his own labour, subject to work- ing out the price of his passage, and repaying by instal- ments the government at home, which has furnished in the first instance the funds for his emigration. Two plans are set forth for the accomplishment of this object (by Mr. Poulett Scrope, I believe) in a paper in the " Quarterly Eeview," vol. xiii. The first is that of securing the repayment by a direct tax on the wages of the labourer in the colony. " An ofiice might be appointed in the colony," he says^ " at which every labourer, as soon as he arrived, should " be registered : the cost of his passage, with that of "insurance on his life long enough to repay the sum, B B 4 376 OBTAINING LABOUE IN COLONIES [Lect. XIII. " debited to him : and lie might then be allowed to work " when, where, and how he chose, on the sole condition " of paying a sum weekly or monthly to government, "towards the redemption of the debt incurred by his " importation." The author, however, seems to be himself aware of the extreme unlikelihood, to say the least of it, of the success of a scheme Hke this. The difficidty of attaching wages for payment of a debt, even at home, and where the labourer is under strict legal superintendence, is weU. known to all who are practically conversant with the con- dition of the labouring classes. In a colony where the inhabitants are scattered over a wide extent of territory, it would be enormously increased ; and without saying that such a method would be impracticable, it is certain that the machinery of it must be expensive, and the exe- cution odious. " The plan of taking labourers out with " an agreement to repay their passage-money out of the "proceeds of their labour," says Mr. Wakefield, "has " been tried in a vast number of instances, but has always " failed. Great pains were taken to carry that plan into " execution in New South Wales : a great deal of capital " was invested ; and it seems at first so easy and natural "a thing to do, that one is loth to beheve it will not " answer : but it did not answer." The only exception with which he was acquainted was that of some German emigrants during the last American war, who were con- veyed to the United States by those contractors who were styled " redemptioners," and kept in a kind of slavery through their ignorance of the language.* Mr. Scrope, therefore, proceeds to propose as a sub- stitute "a general tax on the employment of labour in " the colony, to be paid by the employers. A tax of this " kind would readily be paid by capitahsts, if they knew " that its produce was fairly and economically expended * Keport of Committee on South Australia, 1841, p. 254. Xect. Xin.] WITHOUT SLAVES OE CONVICTS. 377 " in the introduction of fresh labour : since the cost of " cultivation would be by no means increased — the re- " duction in the price of labour more than compensating " the tax. It would soon be seen, that the tax will be " paid in appearance only by employers, who will be in- "stantly repaid by their labourers in the shape of a "diminution of wages — for this reason. In aU new " countries, where fertile land is to be had upon easy " terms, labour always obtains the maximum of payment ; " that is, it keeps up to the highest point at which, under " the circumstances of soil, climate, competition, markets, " &c., it is profitable to supply it. A tax on the employ- "ment of labour would turn this point, by rendering "labour unprofitable, except at a rate diminished by " exactly the amount of the tax ; wages will therefore faU " to this extent, and the tax wiU really be paid by the " labourer himself ; and this is as it should be." The writer goes on to explain why : it is, he says, no more than just and equitable that the labourer, to whom govern- ment has afibrded the means of obtaining ample remune- ration for his toil, and enjoying the comforts of Ufe to a degree which he could never have hoped for at home, should submit to a sHght deduction from his gains until the cost of his conveyance be repaid. And he proposes a tax, to be imposed in some indirect way on the capital of the colonists, amounting to &d. a day, for a hmited time, on each labourer imported. We shall return to this passage hereafter, in order to examine the doctrine contained in it respecting the inci- dence of such a tax as is here mentioned. But a pre- hminary objection to the plan will perhaps akeady have struck the minds of such of my hearers as may remember what was said in a former lecture respecting the causes of the deficiency of labour in new colonies. It con- tains no provision whatever for retaining the labourer in the service of the capitalist, who will be charged, in the 378 OBTAINING LABOUR IN COLONIES [Lect. XUI. first instance at least, witB the expense of his emigration. The writer supposes throughout that land is to be left of easy acquisition to every one, as it has been until lately in most of our colonies. But if this be so, then, wherever land is plentiful, it would be utterly impossible to prevent the better and more enterprising class of mechanics and agriculturists from leaving service and becoming settlers on their own account, long before the benefit of their labour had been substantially felt. Supposing it were desirable, from pecuhar circumstances (such as have lately arisen in our old slave colonies), to import fresh labourers into ancient settlements, where the land is already occu- pied, and men must work for wages or starve, some modi- fication of Mr. Scrope's proposal might possibly be found beneficial : in other instances, it would be merely pouring water into a sieve, as aU experience demonstrates. It was chiefly from a conviction of this difficulty that the suggestion was first made, and pressed on government by the original members of what was termed the Colo- nization Society, about 1830, of fixing a comparatively high price on government lands, in order at once to fur- nish a fund that might be exclusively appropriated to the purpose of emigration, and to prevent the poorer emi- grants from acquiring a dominion in the soil on too easy terms, and becoming occupants in heu of labourers. The first fruit of their project was, as you are aware, the foundation of the colony of South Austraha : since that time the same principle has been apphed with more or less strictness in all our Austrahan colonies. In order to a clear comprehension of the South Aus- trahan, or Mr. Wakefield's, "principle," on which I touched, and only touched, in a former lecture, it is ne- cessary that we should estabhsh in oui- minds a few clear and definite notions respecting the objects of colonization ; the mode in which it may be rendered most useful to the settler, and to the mother-country : for nothing, I will Leot. Xni.] WITHOUT SLAVES OR CONVICTS. 379 venture to say, can be more indistinct than the ideas which a first and superficial review of the subject almost necessarily presents to the mind. Passing by all political considerations, as irrelevant to our present inquiry, the economical objects of coloniza- tion are two only : — First. To furnish a means of bettering their condition to the unemployed, or ill-employed, portion of the people of the mother-country. Secondly. To create a new market for the trade of the mother-country. That these two objects are very nearly connected in practice needs no demonstration. Every emigrant, whose energies, unproductive at home, are transferred to the new soil of a colony, becomes a raiser of valuable com- modities for the benefit of the mother-country ; com- modities which the mother-country will purchase, if she is herself the producer of any articles of value in the market of the world, either directly or indirectly with those articles. In the case of our own country, with which we are more immediately concerned, every emi- grant becomes rapidly a raiser of raw produce for the advantage of our consumers, and exchanges it for our manufactures. StiU, although these objects are thus nearly connected, it would be a mistake to suppose that they are co-ex- tensive in every case, and that the one result always ac- companies the other in the same ratio of progress. We have seen that some colonies aise fitter for the purposes of emigration, others for the pm-poses of trade ; that in some, commodities of great value are raised with a com- paratively small expenditure of labour ; while in others, the quantity of net exchangeable produce which can be raised is comparatively insignificant, but abundant room is afforded for the settlement of great numbers of emi- grants, and for their comfortable maintenance. Between 380 PRINCIPLES AFFECTING THE [Lect. XIII. 1820 and 1840 (taking a rough average), the population and export trade of New Brunswick increased in pretty nearly the same ratio, that is, each doubled.* In the same space of time, the population of New South Wales a Uttle more than trebled ; her exports increased about fifteen- fold. Therefore the progress of foreign trade, as com- pared with that of population, was in that period in New South Wales about five times as rapid as in New Bruns- wick. Others of the North American colonies would exhibit a still slower rate of progress. The emigrant, therefore, 'to New South Wales becomes much more rapidly a producer of value than the emigrant to British America. But New South Wales, both irom its distance and from other circumstances, is by no means so well adapted to receive a large amount of emigration as British America. Colonization, directed to the latter country, more readily promotes the first object; colonization directed to the former is more serviceable for commercial purposes. The more rapid increase of production in New South Wales has been partly owing to the use of convict labour, but much more to the natural advantages which the country possesses for the production of the great staple, wool ; a staple from its very nature requiring, relatively to other commodities, much capital and httle labour. And this brings us back to the distinction which I endeavoured to establish, in my ninth lecture, between colonies possessing peculiar facihties for the production of exportable commodities and colonies not possessing them. This is a distinction which it is absolutely ne- cessary to bear in mind throughout the discussion on wliich we are now entering. We must not take it for granted, as has been hitherto generally done, that the same principles of colonization apply to both, but follow those principles into their results, as afiecting each class respectively. * See the tables at the conclusion of Lecture IV. Lect. XIII.] DISPOSAL OF WASTE LAND. 381 We have, then, now to consider in what mode the government can best employ the waste lands at its dis- posal in new colonies, for the furtherance of this doiible object : first, to provide a home for emigrants ; se- condly, and I must add, at the hazard of aU miscon- struction, as the far more important purpose of the two, to render it most attractive to those classes of settlers who will most rapidly increase the wealth of the commu- nity, and by so doing further the prosperity of all. The only exception (if such it can be called) is to be found in the reservations which it may be necessary to make for certain ulterior pubhc purposes — such, for instance, as education and rehgion — if it shoidd appear, on -in- vestigation, that this is the most ehgible mode in which they can be provided for : a subject which wiU be con- sidered hereafter. Yet, obvious as this principle appears to be, it is habitually disregarded by those who speak of the un- occupied lands of our colonies as if they were so many wide commons, into which our surplus population, chiefly consisting of needy persons without capital, is to be turned in great multitudes, to find subsistence as it can. For, supposing the first difficulties of location overcome, it is impossible that small settlers, unaided by the accumulated wealth which we term capital, can turn those lands to the best account in raising the ex- portable commodities through the production of which colonies become rich. In order, therefore, to promote wealth and commerce, and with them employment for the poorer classes, it is desirable so to regulate the dis- posal of land as to secure the introduction of capital and labour in the most convenient proportions. Now those proportions, as has been so frequently remarked, must depend upon the character of the colony ; whether it is one producing in abundance staple articles of export, or th^ reverse. In the former case, the intro- 382 PRINCIPLES AFFECTING THE [Lect. XIII. duction of abundant capital will be relatively more ne- cessary than in the latter. But, iu every instance, the requisites which the settler needs, in order to render his capital productive, are three — land, labour, and what I may term Prepa- ration ; that is, accurate siureying, convenient commu- nication with the neighbouring markets by roads and navigable waters, watching and defence, and similar preliminaries to a profitable occupation. To obtain any of these requisites cheaply or gratuitously is to save so much capital and insure so much additional profit. If the bond fide settler gets his land for nothing (as under the- old free-grant system), he has so much more to spend in labour and in contributing to matters of pubhc con- venience. If he has an ample supply of labour offered him at a cheap rate (as formerly in New South Wales under the plan of convict assignment), he will have more to lay out on land. If the state chooses to take on itself the expense of road-making and surveying, his funds, freed from those burdens, will be more available for the purchase both of land and labour. The econo- mical effect of either of these methods of disposing of any fund which the state possesses for the purpose, supposing each to be equally convenient to the settler, must be the same. Now such a fund the state pos- sesses in its wild lands, or the money for which they may sell. And, therefore, divesting the subject of some Httle mystery, in which it has perhaps been enveloped in recent controversies, the question seems to be simply this : In which of these modes is it most convenient for the settler that the fund should be applied ? First, Let us suppose a vast and virgin dominion, such as British America may once have been, added at once to our colonial empire. Let us suppose it under the same physical circurQstances with that region ; a country of very various degrees of fertility and natural Lect. Xm.J DISPOSAL OF WASTE LAND. 383 advantages, possessing neither a climate nor soil pecu- liarly adapted to the produce of any commodities of great value, and requiring much capital to raise them, but able to supply in abundance the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. If the state were to commence its system of colo- nization by offering the lands gratuitously to emigrants, and if any mode could be devised of securing that these grants should be made to persons really intend- ing to occupy them, we may perhaps conjecture that the following would be the economical results of the experiment. Few capitahsts would probably avail themselves of the offer ; or, if they did, the experiment would end in disappointment. I have supposed, in the first place, that the district affords no pecuhar facilities for the rapid increase of capital by the production of articles of great value. Still, there, as everywhere else, the possession of capital would insure great advantages to the cultivator, if he could only command a sufficient supply of labour. But this would be absolutely im- possible. If the rich emigrants could contrive to carry with them, or cause to emigrate to their settlements, any conceivable number of labourers, they would find it impracticable to retain them in their service. As in the case of the settlement of Swan Eiver, and in every other instance of the same description, they would rapidly spread themselves over the soil, and desert the service of the capitahsts for the condition of independent occupiers. Secondly, Such a state of things, however promising the prospects which it might appear to hold out, would prove in reahty most unpropitious to the fortunes of the great body of poor emigrants. These would land destitute of capital, and equally destitute of experience in the new mode of life on which they are about to 384 PEINCIPLES AFFECTING THE [Lect. XIII. embark. To suppose that they would voluntarily as- sociate themselves with the capitahsts, and content themselves with the state of dependent labourers until they had saved enough to start for themselves, would be to make a supposition which history and reason alike confute. And as capital, from the uncertainty of labour, would flow slowly into such a colony, this resource would soon cease to be offered them. The land of promise would turn out to them a mere land of disappoint- ment and distress, perhaps of destruction. Instead of stimulating the emigration of this class of people, it would soon become abundantly necessary to discourage it, and allow the influx to follow the tardy growth of capital and increase of employment. But, thirdly, The middle class of emigrants, those who go out intending to labour with their own hands as small farmers, but who leave their native country with a com- petent stock of wealth, sufiicient to carry them through the two or three years of privation which must ne- cessarily precede their successful settlement in such a country as I have been describing : these, I apprehend, notwithstanding all the representations of a school of economists already frequently cited, would have every prospect of thriving in such a country and under such conditions as I have described. And if so, there is no doubt that these alone would suffice to raise it eventually to a high pitch of wealth and prosperity. This is a class of colonists which must of necessity be altogether deterred from setthng in a colony where there is a high price fixed on land. The httle capital at their command is barely enough, for the most part, to carry them through the preliminary expenses of clearing their ground, and through the long and difficult period of abstinence which must precede the reaping of a single crop. The time during which a small settler must ne- cessarily subsist on his former resources appears to be Lect. XIII.] disposal OF WASTE LAND. 385 at least a year and a half in Canada ; and it is con- sidered that three, four, or five years must elapse before a creditor, who has advanced him money for these pur- poses, can expect his first instalment.* To suppose that such persons can afford, any additional drain on their slender finances, without immediate return for it, is out of the question. A system of free grant, or some- thing approaching to it, seems the only one under which a population of small yeomen can plant itself successfully over an extensive surface. But, as we have seen, they must renounce the advantages of an abundant supply of labour, and with it the prospect of great profits and a rapid accumulation of capital. A country thus colonized would be a land, as Lord Sydenham said of Canada itself, affording " no lottery, with a few exorbitant prizes " and a large number of blanks, but a secure and certain " investment, in which a prudent and reasonable man " may safely embark." f If, however, the country thus added to our dominion was one possessing peculiar facihties for producing ex- portable articles of value, by the expenditure of capital ; if it was a land fertile in sugar, coffee, or cotton, hke the West Indies, or the southern states of the American Union ; or rich in mines ; or eminently adapted for the multiplication of flocks and the production of fine wool, as Australia has been discovered to be ; then it is ob- vious that the disposal of the land by free grant would prove most inauspicious for the development of such natural resources. The impossibility of procuring a * See the opinions of a great many observers, collected and com- pared, in Mr. Murray's British America, vol. iii. ch. 3. p. 124, &c. The progress of internal communication has of late years somewhat abridged this period of abstinence. I " It is undeniable — if such a circumstance may not rather be " called admirable — that the agricultural wealth of Canada has chiefly " fallen into the hands of the poor practical farmer, and the still poorer " labourer." — Canada, a Prize Essay, by J. S. Hogan. Montreal, 1855. C 386 ■ PEINCIPLES OP THE [Lect. XIII. suiEcient supply of labour, -where all labourers might immediately become independent landowners, would render the accumulation of capital extremely slow, and profits very precarious. 2. This, then, is the fii'st disadvantage attaching to the system of disposal of land by free grant. The second is, the difficulty which has been found in obhging the owners to cultivate the soil. It is evident in how prejudicial a manner their neglect to do so influences the fortunes of a colony. The consequence is, the in- terposition of neglected and unprofitable tracts between the settled portions of the district; aggravating to a high degree the necessary evils of a dispersed popula- tion ; rendering the scanty means of communication which settlers possess with each other, and with the markets and navigable rivers, still scantier ; and imposing great additional expenses on the infant community in maintaining such roads as cannot be dispensed with. In a future lecture, we shall consider historically the results of the systems of free grant, and of sale at low prices, in those colonies in which they have been gene- rally adopted ; and on that occasion we shall be able more conveniently to examine how far the evils here alluded to are necessary results of the former system, and how far they might have been avoided by proper measures, without the imposition of high prices. At present I will merely allude to them, as among the most prominent of those mischiefs which the framers of the South Austrahan scheme had it in their view to correct. 3. Another supposed or real mischief, attributed to the system which rendered land easy of acquisition, was the facility with which old land could be abandoned for new, and the consequent dispersion of the population of colo- nies. In my ninth lecture I gave some reasons for doubt- ing whether this tendency, regarded in a general point of Lect. Xm.] SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SVSTEM. 387 view, can be regarded as injurious at all ; or, at all events, to the extent and in the manner in which the school of writers on systematic colonization have represented. I will not repeat what was there observed, bu.t proceed to lay before you the fundamental principles of their specu- lations. The so called South Australian system is developed, with aU the arguments which zeal and ingenuity can sug- gest in its behalf, in a remarkable pamphlet pubhshed by the Colonization Society in 1830 ; in Mr. Gibbon Wake- field's " Letter from Sydney," 1829 ; in his greater work, entitled " England and America ; " by the same very able individual, in his examination before the Committee on Waste Land, 1836 ; and by Colonel Torrens in many writings, especially in a work already often quoted by me on the Colonization of South Austraha. You will find it criticized and impugned in many publications, with vari- ous success ; but I would refer you especially to Mr. M'Culloch's note to Adam Smith, on Colonies, and to an article in the Edinburgh Eeview for July, 1840. The principles of that system' may be very briefly stated as follows : — 1. That the prosperity of new colonies mainly depends upon the abundance of available labour at the command of capitalists, in proportion to the extent of territory occupied. 2. That this abundance is to be secured by introducing labourers from the mother-country, and other well peopled regions, and taking measures to keep them in the condition of labourers hving by wages for some considerable time ; at least two or three years, according to the suggestion of Colonel Torrens. 3. That the revenue derived from the sale of new land is the fund out of which the cost of introducing them is best defrayed. 4. That the most convenient way of preventing them from rising too rapidly from the condition of labourers into that of independent landowners is to seU the land at a sufficiently high price. 5. That the entire proceeds of c c 2 S88 PBINCIPLES OF THE [Lbct. XIII. the land sales ought to be devoted to the purpose of ob- taining emigrants ; and that only by devoting the whole, and' not any portion, wUl the exact equUibrium between land, labour, and capital be secured. 6. That the sale of land should be at a uniform price per acre for all quali- ties and aU situations, and not by auction. 7. (which is not necessarily connected with the others.) That this system will lead to concentrate the population, and check that inconvenient dispersion which is apt to take place in new colonies. It is obvious that these propositions may be regarded in two very different points of view ; either as a series of practical rules for the disposal of colonial lands and the fund arising from their sale, of which some may be more important than others, and all may admit of modifications according to the several circumstances of different coun- tries ; or as a connected system, of which each part neces- sarily depends upon all the rest, of which no hnk can be injured without rendering the whole chain a valueless encumbrance. This latter is the character under which the projectors have themselves uniformly represented their theory. I confess that after the most minute attention I have been able to give the subject, I have failed in tiioroughly comprehending the whole of their arguments on this subject. I shall therefore do the best I can for the purpose of my present lectures : examine, one by one, the propositions here stated ; examine the objections which have been started to them, as well as the reason- ings which are adduced m their favour ; and see how far each is really and practically involved in the others. I will then conclude this part of my subject with an exami- nation, historical and statistical, of the results of the old Enghsh system of free grant, the American system of sale at low prices, and the modern system of sale at high prices ; including a sketch of the remarkable career of the model colony of South Austraha. Lect. XIII.] SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM. 389 The first proposition is, — 1st. That the prosperity of new colonies mainly de- pends upon the abundance of available labour at the command of capitahsts, in proportion to the extent of territory occupied. I discussed this proposition in my ninth lecture at con- siderable length, and suggested the necessity of modifying it greatly, when we are considering the circumstances of colonies not possessing peculiar facilities for raising ex- portable commodities of value. It is in my opinion not true in respect of these, "that an abundance of available labom* at the command of capitahsts is at all necessary to their prosperity. Colonel Torrens, I cannot but think, has neglected, in considering this subject, one very important feature of the case. I will state in liis own language* (which is nearly the same with that used by the other supporters of the scheme) his view of the effect of the combination of labour with capital in ordinary agricultural industry. He supposes that in a new settlement in which land is given away to all who apply for it, four labourers locate themselves on four separate lots, of fifty acres each. He shows, what is undoubtedly true, that each of these four must undergo considerable expense of labour and time in constructing his own house, clearing his own ground, making his own road, disposing of his own produce. He then varies the supposition, and assumes that the land, instead of being given away, is sold at a proper price ; and that " our four labourers, instead of dispersing them- " selves over the wild, and occupying four farms of fifty " acres each, as independent cultivators, work for wages " with a capitalist, who purchases a farm of 200 acres, " and proceeds to cultivate it with their aid. This farmer " and his four labourers, working in combination, may * Colonization of South Australia, p. 35, &c. c 8 390 EFFECTS OF THE COMBINATION [Lbct. XIII. " raise at least four times the quantity of produce whicli " could be raised by four isolated labourers." Now, in this passage Colonel Torrens assumes that the connected farm of 200 acres is of equal fertiUty, acre for acre, with the separate lots of 50 acres ; and this is the assumption which, I cannot but think, vitiates to a certain extent his whole theory. In very few countries is land of the first fertility found in extensive patches. It is commonly dispersed here and there, in spots of comparatively small dimensions. This is preeminently the case in Austraha, the country which the Colonel has in his immediate view. There the pro- ductive spots of arable land seem not only to bear an unusually low proportion to the barren, but to he in a re- markably scattered disposition, along the borders of water- courses, in narrow valleys separated by large tracts of table land, and often in irregular masses, affording a diversity of soil for which it is difficult to account on any philoso- phical theory. Now in old countries, lands of inferior quaHty have been long occupied, and a farm of 200 acres, although containing soil of very various excellence, might be all under cultivation together. In this case it is most true that it would return more net produce, cultivated by a farmer and a small number of labourers, than by two or three times as many small occupiers. But in a new country, imder the system of free grant, the most fertile spots only are occupied. Each of the four labourers would choose his fifty acres in some pro- ductive locality Suppose that the owner of the 200, if he wishes to secure the same advantage, finds it neces- sary to have his 200 scattered in different lots instead of in one compact block ; that 200 acres, for example, with only twenty of water frontage, are far less valuable than four lots of fifty acres with twenty a piece. He must then make his choice between the advantage of combined Lect. XIII.] OF CAPITAL WITH LABOUE. 391 labour and the advantage of first-rate land ; for he cannot spread a small number of labourers over a large tract of country. If the most productive portions only are to be cultivated, the cultivation must necessarily be in small patches ; and there can be little doubt vrhich alternative the emigrant would select. The best land will always be the first occupied, the land being disposed of, on the sup- position, by free grant, or at a uniform low price; Thus, in transferring to a colony suppositions which are perfectly true of an old country, the school of writers, whose views we are now considering, seem, as I have said, to omit one of the most essential features of the case. The great privilege of the colonist is, the use of first-rate machines of production only ; and so long as these only are employed, if the colony is only engaged in ordinary agricultural industry, it may, I think, be pretty safely pre- dicted that, in whatever proportion the land may be divided between owners, it will be profitably occupied only by small cultivators. As soon as inferior soils begin to be taken into hand, then, and not tOl then, combined capital and labour wall be employed with the greatest advantage. Nor let us imagine, once more, that the rise of a com- munity, in this natural manner, is necessarily slow, un- certain, or liable to serious interruption. The state of Ohio, in North America, is entirely a new country, or colony from the older states : its first settlement began scarcely fifty years ago.* It has, from the beginning, possessed no supply whatever of dependent labourers, slavery having been unknown. Its lands have been pur- * The "New England Ohio Company'' was formed in 1786. The first settlement was founded in 1788 : but its growth was impeded, for several years, by Indian wars, and by the exaggerated notions which prevailed of the uflhealthiness and other perils of the wilderness. In 1791, the entire population of the country between Pennsylvania, the Mississippi, the Lakes, and the Ohio, was estimated at 15,000 only, exclusive of Indians (North American Review, October, 1841). c 4 392 PEOGEESS OF WEALTH IN [Lect. XIII. chased from the government, lot by lot, at a price rarely exceeding 6s. an acre, and sold by speculators to emi- grants from the Eastern states. These have been, with scarcely any exception, small yeomen. There have been no masses of capital, and scarcely any large farms. The land has been rescued from the wilderness, bit by bit, by occupiers, beginning with the most fertile and advanta- geously situated, a few acres at a time. Its industry is almost entirely confined to ordinary agriculture ; it raises no exportable produce except corn and cattle. Now the rise of this state, although under these circumstances, has been by far the most extraordinary in the annals of the world. I have said that fifty years ago it was an un- broken forest. In 1840, it already contained 1,519,000 inhabitants, and was then the third state of the Union in population, although only the sixteenth in size.* It was, in 1841, the first state in productiveness, in respect of wheat ; the third for other grain ; the third for sheep ; the second for horses ; and proportionably rich in other raw produce of the same character. It would, of course, be unfair to make any comparison between the growth of an American state, surrounded by districts sending into it an abundance of emigrants, and an English colony, at 3000 or 12,000 miles from the mother-country. The argument which the marvellous creation of Ohio affords is only conclusive on the question, whether a country can rise rapidly into wealth, without any combination of capitalists and labourers. f * Now (1860) 2,300,000. But Illinois, in the last decennium, has far outstripped the progress of Ohio. Its economical history is pre- cisely similar. f Mr. Wakefield, when pressed with the example of Ohio, attributes its prosperity to the indirect effects of slave labour, because New Orleans, the chief place of export for the foreign commerce of Ohio, is in a slave state. (Report of Committee on Colonial Lands, 1836, p. 178.) An explanation with which it requires some faith in his theory to be satisfied. Lect. XIII.] COUNTRIES NOT POSSESSING IT. 393 The result, therefore, is, that such a combination is only necessary to prosperity where the colony has facili- ties for the production of exportable articles, which require the labour of many hands in co-operation, or a large outlay of capital. 394 EESTRICTIONS OJST THE ACQUISITION [Lect. XIV. LECTUEE XIV. DISPOSAL OF LAND IN NEW COLONIES. EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WRITERS ON SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION CONTINDED. The next position of the writers on systematic colo- nization which we have to consider, following the order proposed in my last lecture, is this ; That the requisite abundance of available labour is to be secured by intro- ducing labourers from the mother-country, or other weU-peopled regions, and taking measures to keep them in the condition of labourers living by wages for some considerable time. This proposition need not detain us long. Slaves and convicts being now out of the question, the only means by which a supply of dependent labour can be now procured, where requisite, is free emigration. The only method by which dependent European labourers can be retained, is to prevent them from passing immediately into the condition of landholders. It is true that the danger of their immediately aspiring to become owners of land must greatly vary according to the circumstances of parti- cular colonies. The temptation in North America, where the soil has high agricultural capabilities, and accumu- lated capital is comparatively rare, must be much stronger than in Austraha, where the land is generally barren, and high wages are attainable in the service of large pro- prietors. Consequently, the American back-woodsman is a farmer ; the Australian " overlander " * is a drover by profession. StiU the danger everjrwhere exists, in a greater or less degree. And aU other modes of obtaining labour, together with all other modes of keeping the la- bourer in dependence, may be pronounced both unsuited * See Captain Grey's Journals, vol. ii. Lect. XIV.] OF LAND IN NEW COLONIES. 395 to the genius of the present age, and demonstrably pro- ductive of more evil than good. But it may not ba out of place to notice here an ob- jection which has been urged against this part of the scheme ; namely, that it is an undue interference with the rate of wages ; that by securing artificially an abun- dant supply of labour, the remuneration of labour will be artificially lowered. This is the view taken among others by Mr. M'CuUoch, the most determined assailant of the scheme of sale at high prices. " It is a part of " this new project," he says, " on the excellence of " which much stress is laid, that the sums got by the " sale of -lands in the colony are to be expended in " defraying the expense attending the conveyance thi- " ther of labourers. This is a species of bait held out " to tempt capitahsts to buy land by making them be- " heve that though land be artificially dear labour wiU " be artificially cheap, and that, on the whole, they will " be very well off. This, however, is merely attempting " to repair an injury done to the capitalists by inflicting " a more serious injury upon the labourers. In a colony " where a large portion of the capital is swallowed up " in the purchase of land, the demand for labour must " be comparatively Hmited, and this limited market is " to be glutted by throwing upon it crowds of paupers, " transported gratis from England."* This is a view which appears plausible at first sight, and until we have examined the real state of circum- stances in new colonies. Labour, as Mr. Poulett Scrope truly expresses it, obtains the maximum of Wages in new countries where land is easy of acquisition. The maximum of wages, be it remembered, is the highest amount which can be obtained, leaving the necessary profit to the capitahst. The competition of emigrants, * Note xxiii. to Adam Smith. 396 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lect. XIV. and the difficulty thrown in the way of the purchasing of land by its dearness, seem to have a tendency to keep the market more amply supphed, and lower the price of labour. If so, it is contended, that whether or not it' offers advantageous terms to colonists, it must artificially depress the condition of the working classes. But the fact appears to be far otherwise. The real pressure which is felt by capitalists in new countries raising exportable produce arises not so much from the high price of the labour that is to be had, as from the difBcuIty of procuring any. Without the assistance of slavery, or some of those substitutes for it which we have recently considered, it has been found scarcely possible to obtain it at all ; absolutely impossible to obtain it in such proportions as to render capital most productive by a proper division of employment. Ac- cordingly, as we have seen, the history of most colonies raising much exportable produce shows a considerable waste of wealth in their early stages, untU this deficiency was in some way remedied ; it shows also great disin- chnation on the part of the wealthier classes at home to embark any part of their fortune in so unpromising a venture as the cultivation of the earth in a region without a labouring class. But if the supply of labour be once secured, capital is immediately tempted to flow in by the abundance of the return from a new soil ; and the combined exertions of a sufficient number of labourers will, under that capital, be so far more efficient than it could be without them, that there is every reason to conclude that high profits and high wages may both be realized ; that, instead of suffering by each other's com- petition, the industrious emigrants may find that they mutually assist each other and the capitahst in drawing from the earth the largest amount of produce, to the proportionate advantage of all. And, to conclude this part of my observations in the language of Colonel Lect. XIV.] IN NEW COLONIES. 397 Torrens, " while the increased production would en- " able the capitalist to pay high wages, his own interest " would compel him to do so : because the rapid accu- " mulation of capital would cause a competition for " labourers wherewith to employ it ; and because a suffi- " cient supply of combined labour could not be main- " tained, unless the augmented production which it " created should be so di\dded as, at one and the same " time, to increase both profits and wages." When we examine in detail the economical history of the colonies in which this scheme has been wholly or par- tially put into execution, we shall easily satisfy ourselves of the truth of these views ; and that the very last evil which there seems to be any reason for apprehending is an unnatural depression of wages. 3. Our next proposition was, that the revenue which may be derived from the sale of wild land is the fund out of which the cost of introducing emigrants is best de- frayed. This is the suggestion which in reahty forms the great discovery of Mr. Wakefield, and does the greatest credit to those who have supported and enforced his views. About the speculative parts of his scheme many doubts may be entertained ; respecting this, few who have con- sidered the subject are likely to disagree with him, except in so far as he has propounded as a universal rule, what is only of partial application. The mere change from the system of free grant to that of sale, as we shall see when we examine the historical part of the question, was a great benefit under the circumstances of most of our colonies ; the appropriation of the fund thus raised, or a considerable part of it, to a definite, useful, and honest object, and one in which the interests of the colonies are so closely involved, is, at the least, a practical measure of the highest value, omitting the peculiar economical advan- tages which are supposed to attend it. But, 4thly, the advocates of the scheme further contend, 398 " SUFFICIENT PRICE " OF LAND [Lect. XI"\'.. that the most convenient way of preventing these emi- grants from rising too rapidly from the condition of la- bourers into that of independent landowners, is to sell the land at a sufficiently high price. What is meant by the phrase, a sufficiently high price? The answer to this question will more distinctly lay before us the principles of the theory than any other part of our investigation. By a sufficiently' high price cannot be meant a price which shall adequately represent the actual value of the land. In old countries, the price which land bears is regulated by the returns from it. The yearly income derivable from it is a thing easy to be estimated ; and the number of years' purchase is determined chiefly by the rate of interest. But the value of wild land in a colony is, properly speaking, nothing. It is, in its actual condi- tion, useless and unproductive. The purchaser only hopes, that, by the apphcation of capital and labour, it may be rendered otherwise. The price of aU land, therefore, must at first be arbitrary, whether it is a uniform price or a varying price. That is, in other words, govern- ment may impose a tax on speculators in the purchase of wild land, in proportion to the expectations which these may entertain of rendering it valuable, wliich is the system of sale by auction ; or it may impose a uniform tax per acre on the acquisition of land, which is the system of sale at a uniform price. In either case, the imposition rather resembles, in many of its effects, a tax laid upon the pur- chaser, than the exaction of purchase money in the ordi- nary sense ; and I do not know whether some erroneous views might not have been avoided, if it had been called from the beginning by that name. What, then, is a sufficient price ? A price which will answer two conditions : first, the preventing the prema- ture purchase of land by individuals in the labouring class : secondly, the price which will enable the purchaser to command the necessary quantity of labour. Let us Lect. XIV. J IN NEW COLONIES. 399 confine ourselves to the last consideration only. Let us suppose, that 100 acres, in South Austraha, require, on the average, the labour of three men ; that these, with their families, amount, on the average, to twelve indivi- duals ; and that the price of conveying emigrants to Australia is, what it is roughly estimated at by the land and emigration commissioners, about 15/. per head. Then the entire expense would be 180/. ; and the suffi- cient price, supposing that the whole of it were devoted to this purpose, would be about 11. 16s. per acre ; or if we follow the strict rule of allowing only young couples without children to be conveyed at the colony's expense, then half that sum, or 18s. per acre, would be sufficient. It would then only be necessary to ascertain, whether this price would be sufficient to attain the other object, viz. to prevent premature purchases by labourers ; and if it were found to answer in that respect also, we should have solved the problem proposed to us. And thus we are enabled to understand that which I have stated as the fifth fundamental proposition of the theory — that the entire proceeds of the land sales ought to be devoted to the purpose of obtaining emigrants ; and that only by devoting the whole to this purpose, and not any portion, will the exact equilibrium between land, labour, and capital be secured. This follows almost as a corollary from the problem above stated. The result of Mr. Wakefield's reasoning on this subject, when examined before the Committee on Waste Lands, is thus stated, and appears to be fairly stated, in the Edinburgh Eeview : — " There is a certain ratio between " the supply of labour in the market and the surface " of land under cultivation — a ratio varying, indeed, " with the varying circumstances of the case, but in " each case discoverable — by which the greatest quan- " tity of produce will be raised. If you miss this ratio " either way, you fall into the evils, on the one side. 400 " SUFFICIENT PRICE " OF LAND [Lbct. XIV. " of an under-peopled country, in which the land is " scratched and the population scattered : in the other, " of an over-peopled country, in which the competition " of labourers reduces wages to a minimum, and the " competition of capitalists reduces prices to a minimum ; " and the land will not yield enough to feed the people. " To keep up always the proper ratio, you must keep *' the ratio constant between the emigration of hireable " labourers and the price of unsold land ; and this must " be done, by first fixing the just price, and then determin- " ing to apply the whole of that price to emigration. " You might, indeed, fix a higher price, in the first " instance, than would be necessary to bring in the just " supply of labour ; and, in that case, you might use the " surplus fund for other purposes, without losing the " desired portion between land and labour ; but you " would introduce an evil of another kind ; you would " place an unnecessary restriction upon the field of culti- " vation : with a lower price, the same money would " have been spent in buying more land, which land would " have supported more labourers, which labourers would " have raised more produce ; and the money you want " would be obtained at less cost by taxing the produce " raised, than by taking the fund which goes to raise « it." * But the reviewer proceeds to show that a very obvious difficulty appears to suggest itself to this simple mode of arriving at the required result, — a " sufficient price." The assumption is, that a certain number of labourers are requisite for the cultivation of a certain portion of soil. ISTow nature admits of no such ascertained pro- portion of labourers to acres. It may be that four in- dividuals, the number assumed in this instance, may suffice to render 100 acres of land in Australia productive. * Edinburgh Review, July, 1840. Lect. XIV.] IN NEW COLONIES. 401' But six would make them more productive. Therefore whether or not the capitalist would employ six labourers instead of four, supposing him to be able to obtain as many, would depend entirely upon the rate of wages. When it is said that four labourers are necessary to ren- der 100 acres productive, the expression must mean four labourers at a given rate of wages. If wages could be lowered, it would be far more advantageous to the capitahst to employ six. But wages would be lowered if the number of emigrants were increased. The greater the number of labourers who arrived, in proportion to the number of acres occupied, the lower the rate of wages would be. Therefore it might very possibly be desirable for the capitalist to give a still higher price for land, if he could thereby secure the importation of a greater number of labourers ; and, in point of fact, the proposition, as has been truly and acutely observed, seems to reduce itself to this : that the sufficient price of waste land, if it is to be estimated by the quantity of labour required, will be the highest price which any body thiuks it worth while to give.* And another objection presents itself to this compen- dious mode of calculation. Every one who has written on the subject appears to assume that it is not desirable to restrict the labourer from the purchase of land for more than a limited time : a time which it would be * Mr. Wakefield, ' indeed, seims, to a certain extent, to antieipate this objection, when he says that " beyond a sufficient price, every farthing of price would tend to lower wages." But the lowering of wages is not necessarily an evil : wages may be so high as to check production. Mr. Wakefield must mean, lowering beyond the right standard. Then if, indeed, we could ascertain the maximum of wages desirable for the colony, at a certain stage of its progress, and the price which would insure that maximum of wages, we should approximate to a solution of the problem before us; but, until this is done, to make the test of a sufficient price depend upon its securing the best rate of wages, is to explain ignotum per ignotius. D D 402 " SUFFICIENT PEICE " OF LAND [Lect. XIV. unreasonable to attempt to define, without an accurate practical knowledge of the circumstances of particular colonies ; but probably not exceeding three or four years in ordinary cases. Now the plan which we have been considering provides only a supply of labour in proportion to the quantity of land bought : the price of 100 acres is to be spent in the importation of the labour necessary for 100 acres. No provision is made at all for the land which will, in every year, be losing its available labour by the conversion of its husbandmen into landowners. Con- sequently (unless it is to be assumed that the natural increase of the population wiU supply the gaps thus occa- sioned, a supposition which requires proof at all events, and would probably be a wrong one in the case of a very young colony), there wUl be a competition between the new comers who require labour, and the old settlers who have just lost theirs, for every working man who is brought from the mother-country by the expenditure of the capital of the former. Wages, therefore, will rise ; the purchaser wUl not obtain the whole benefit of his outlay ; the imaginary equihbrium between land and labour will be disturbed, and the proposed test of a suffi- cient price will prove altogether inappUcable. It appears, therefore, that whether or not it may be possible to ascertain that imaginary standard of price which will secure the presence of labour in the best possible proportion to land, the calcidations hitherto made proceed upon insufficient premises.* * We have the authority of Mr. Wakefield himself to support us in this view of the question. His experience on former occa- sions, and especially in his evidence before the Colonial Lands Committee of 1836, have certainly been thought to give colour to the opinion, that a "best possible" price might be ascertained: but he now says, " I have seen attempts made by very ingenious " persons to lay down what they imagined was the rule for deter- " mining the price of lands in a colony theoretically, but it appears Lect. XIV.] m NEW COLONIES. 403 Another diflSlculty in the way of fixing the " sufficient price " of waste land in colonies arises from the double object which the framers of the theory have in view : the obtaining a sufficient number of labourers, and the restraining these labourers from the acquisition of land for a sufficient, and not more than a sufficient, time. Now it may happen that the price which is adequate to the one purpose is either inadequate or excessive in reference to the other. This will appear plainly enough, when we consider the manner in which the nature of the soil, and its staple cultivation, must affect the ques- tion of price in different colonies. Most of the great articles of colonial exportation — sugar, coffee, tobacpo, •&c require careful cultivation on a small surface. The proportion borne by the quantity of labour em- ployed to the extent of soil is in such countries extremely high. Hence the very dense agricultural population which has been supported in a small space in various tropical colonies ; for example, our own smaller West India islands, as noticed in a former lecture. Other articles of export require of necessity a very extensive range of country, and a very small number of labourers ; such are those which are produced by pastoral industry — hides, of which the importation is now so great from Spanish America, and the more valuable article of wool, the wealth of our Austrahan settlements. Now it is obvious that there must be extreme difficulty in adjusting any such principle as that which we are here discussing to the relative wants of communities so widely different. The tropical colonist requires but a very small extent of land to become rich, if that land be of superior quahty ; but without a profusion of labour his land is worthless. " to me impossible." — Report of Committee on the Affairs of South Australia, 1841, 2731. See, for his last observations on the subject, his "View of the Art of Colonization," 1849, p. 353. p D 2 404 "SUFFICIENT PRICE" OF LAND [Lbct, XIV. The Australian must have a range, to be measured by- square miles rather than acres, to serve him as a sheep^ walk ; but a few herdsmen and shepherds will afford him nearly all the assistance he requires to render it pro- ductive. Will it not then be possible, it may be asked, to adjust this difference by the simple process of measur- ing the price of the land by its expected value, estimating, in "each case, the average amount and value of the annual produce of an acre of land, say in Guiana and in Australia, and correcting the estimate by the necessary allowance for the relative outlay of capital and labour in each kind of cultivation? But then we are embarrassed by the other essential requisite of the scheme ; namely, the tem- porary restriction of the labourer from leaving the service of the capitalist and taking land for himself. In order to effect this, the price must be reasonably high. But it may very well happen, that for the purpose of raising exportable produce there may be an enormous difference between the value of land in different colonies, and yet for the labourer's purpose — that of raising necessary subsistence — the difference may be small. It is possible, for instance, that an acre of land employed in raising sugar in Guiana yields as great a net produce, and re- quires as many labourers, as fifty acres of farm and pas- ture land in Austraha, and yet that a well-selected acre in Australia will go nearly as far as an acre in Guiana towards supporting a labourer and his family by the work of their hands. On this supposition, the necessary price for procuring labourers would be fifty times as high in Guiana as in Austraha ; the necessary price for restrict- ing purchase would be nearly the same. If, then, it be possible in either of these colonies to ascertaia the exact price which shall serve both purposes, how can it be possible to ascertain it in the other? It may, perhaps, be thought, that I have directed attention at somewhat unnecessary length to this theoret- Leot. XIV.] IN NEW COLONIES. 405 ical question of the possibility of discovering a sufficient price for waste land, the ro xa.Xov, as Mr. Poulett Scrope calls it, of this branch of economical research ; to what you may, perhaps, be disposed to consider a mere idle speculation, or exercise of ingenuity. But this is not quite the case. On the soundness or unsoundness of the assumption, that such a price may be ascertained, depends the solution of one or two of the most important practical" problems in colonisation ; problems which have been very strongly debated between opposite parties, both at home and in the colonies. Thus it is contended, as we have seen, that it is a necessary part of the scheme of systematic colonization, that the whole produce of the land fund should be apphed, without any deduction, to the purpose of immi- gration. This you wiLL find insisted upon uniformly, by aU the writers who have expounded its principles, as the very key-stone of the whole system. And so it un- doubtedly is, upon the supposition that a sufficient price can be discovered; for the preservation of the right proportion between land and labour is, as we have seen, the essential property of that supposed price ; and any diversion of the fund from the object of obtaining labour must necessarily derange this proportion. But if the idea of a sufficient price is altogether visionary, then this un- deviating application of the land fund cannot be a funda- mental rule. It may, for anything we know, be highly expedient, desirable, and important; but its necessity cannot be demonstrated as a mathematical truth. We will proceed, therefore, to discuss this much debated question as one of expediency, and not of economical science. » Besides the hypothetical arguments to which I have alluded, it is, moreover, strongly contended, in favour of the exclusive appropriation of the land fund to the pur- poses of emigration ; first, that it is the mode by which r D 3 406 EXCLUSIVE- APPKOPEIATION [Lect. XIV. the economical advance of the colony is most effectually- promoted, because every shilling laid out on emigration is more productive than if laid out on any other object vrhatever.. Secondly, that it furthers the purchase of land, because nothing is more attractive to the capitalist than the prospect of having the whole of his outlay returned to him in the shape of labour. Thirdly, that the strict adherence to such a regulation is the only mode by which governments can be restricted from irregularly appro- priating and squandering the wealth of young colonies. Assuming, say the patrons of the scheme, that the highest price which can be obtained for land, in a new colony, is not more than sufficient to purchase the requi- site labour, (an assumption which may be very safely made, for the price has probably never approached that amount,) any diversion of it from that purpose occasions a loss of part of the necessary labour. But that labour is the one great requisite, without which the land cannot be rendered productive at all. The various purposes of government, and of preparation for settlement, surveying, road-making, pubHc works, poUce, and so forth, are aU undoubtedly necessary; but expenditure on these objects is not expenditure which repays itself with interest. But the introduction of labourers is the actual introduction of wealth. By checking it, you check the increase of wealth, and . stop the source of taxation. And therefore, they say, it is demonstrably cheaper to provide for such purposes by direct taxation as far as possible, and when that is impossible, by loan, than by appropriating a portion of the land fund. This argument cannot be more distinctly stated than it is by the Board of Land and Emigration Commissioners, in one of their Eeports.* " In South Austraha," they say, " the expenditure of " 20,000^. in conveying emigrants to the colony has been " found to increase the population by about 2000 souls, * Report of the Land and Emigration Commissioners, 1840. Lect. XIV.] OF THE LAND FUND 407 " including those above and below the regulated age who " pay their own passage, as well as the settlers of a su- " perior class who accompany each emigration ship. And " it appears by the latest financial reports, that the " revenue raised in the colony amounts to 21. per head " upon the whole population. Taking these facts as data, " it foUows that withdrawing 20,000Z. from the emigration " fund, and applying it to the general purposes of govern- " ment, would occasion a loss of population to the extent " of 2000 souls, and a loss of revenue, from internal " taxation, to the extent of 4000Z. per annum. Now the " commissioners were able, even in the first infancy of " the colony, to obtain a loan upon colonial securities at " seven per cent., and could probably at the present time " obtain a loan upon the same securities at five per cent. " Eaising a loan of 20,000^. ^ five per cent., for defraying " the expenses of the local government, would entail an " annual charge of lOOOZ. upon the revenue of the pro- " vince ; while withdrawing the sum of 20,000Z. from " the emigration fund, in order to defray the expenses of " the local government, would occasion an annual loss of " revenue to the amount of 4000Z." " There is another point of view in which the finan- " cial question may be considered. The expenditure of " an emigration fund of 20,000/. conveys to the colony " 1000 adult emigrants of the labouring class, and each " adult of the labouring class has obtained upon the " average in money and rations wages to the amount of " about 50/. per annum. The wages of the adult labour, " conveyed by an emigration fund of 20,000/., may be " taken at 50,000/. per annum. But the rate of profit " in the colony is at least twenty per cent, and therefore " the capitahsts who advance 50,000/. per annum in " wages must obtain in return a reproduction to thd' " amount of 60,000/. per annum. It foUows, that with- " drawing the sum of 20,000/. from the emigration furid D D 4 408 TO THE PURPOSE [Lect. XIV. " for the expenses of the civil government must occasion " a diminution in the gross produce of labour and capital *' to the amount of 60,000^. per annum." " There is still another point of view in which this " question may be considered. When the proceeds ob- " tained by the sales of waste lands are employed as " an emigration fund, each successive emigration leads to " a further increase. Thus, when the operation of an " emigration fund amounting to 20,000^. has caused, an " increase of population to the extent of 2000 souls, the " eflFect upon the progress of the colony through the " means of emigration does not terminate with the first " increase. The additional population creates an ad- " ditional demand for food, and causes an additional " quantity of land to be purchased for supplying it : the " proceeds of this purcha^ become a new emigration " fund, and the new emigration fund again increases the " population, the demand for land, and the fund apph- " cable to emigration." The first of these arguments, which is the most prac- tical one, appears to me defective in one or two points In stating the revenue at 21. per head, and the con- sequent loss of 2000 emigrants as a loss of 4000Z. to the revenue, the commissioners have assumed that the loss of labourers, occasioned by a deduction of 20,000^. from the emigration fund, will be accompanied by an equal loss of emigrant capitalists. This seems to be assuming the point in dispute, and something more. Let us suppose that, in one year, 4000 emigrants are carried out for 40,000Z., and that 200 capitahsts like- wise arrive. Suppose that in the next year half the emigration fund is diverted, and 2000 emigrants only arrive ; but, making for the moment the contrary as- 'sumption to that of the commissioners, the same number of 200 capitahsts. Then 400 capitalists will have to bid for the labour of 6000 labourers, instead of Lect. XIV.] OF IMMIGRATIOIsr. 409 200 for that of 4000, as in the former year. Wages will rise. So much will be lost by the capitalist. But the capitahst will gain, on the other hand, by saving aU that deduction from his profit which would be ne- cessary to pay the interest of the loan. Admitting that the loss on wages would more than exceed this gain, stiU it is not to be considered as a total loss ; and it is plain, there- fore, supposing capitahsts to act with a right view to their own advantage, that their emigration will not diminish in quite the same ratio as that of the labourer, and, con- sequently, that the amount of revenue which the colony loses by the operation is something over-estimated. But, in the next place, the commissioners seem to be considering the case of some extraorduiary emergency requiring a very large outlay. And it may be very true, that such an outlay is better provided for by loan than by drawing on the land fund. But will the .same reasoning apply to " ordinary purposes of revenue ?" Might we not as reasonably justify a government in always borrowing to meet any unusual outlay, great or small; nay, when the argument is pushed to the extreme, to meet the current expenses of the year? Let us assume the rate of profit at 10 per cent., 1001. at the beginning of the year becomes 1101. at the end. At the end of the second year, the sum would be 121/.; at the end of the third, 133Z. 2s. But, at the end of the first year, a tax is imposed which reduces profits to 9 per cent. The amount at the end of the second year is only- 119/. 18s. ; at the end of the third, not quite 130/. 14s., and so on. Why is it not more advantageous to prevent this diminution in the rate of progression by borrowing every year, and charging profits only with the interest of the loan? The answer is to be found in the nature of credit itself. If it was certain that the rate of pro- fit would always continue the same, and if the lenders entertained this confidence, there is no assignable rea- 410 TO THE PURPOSE [Lect. XIV. son why the process should not continue ad infinitum, and fimding of perpetual loans supersede the raising of all revenue whatever. Since this report to Lord John EusseU was composed, the commissioners have had practical experience of the effect of relying, too con- fidently, on the credit of a new and flourishing settle- ment. It might have been better for South Austraha, if something had been deducted from her land fund for purposes other than those of emigration, instead of both land sales and emigration coming to a stop together, as has recently been the case. And the same observations apply very forcibly to the second argument above noticed; namely, that a colony is rendered much more attractive to capitalists by the certainty that the whole of the price of land wiU be repaid in labour ; that this certainty raises the price, and extends the purchases, to the maximum. Now there are certain expenses — very considerable expenses — which necessarily accompany the foundation of a co- lony, and continue heavy, although diminishing in pres- sure, for a long time after its first estabhshment. And the more rapid the colonization the greater the ex- penses, — nay, they may rise even in a greater ratio than capital and population ; that is, in a colony where 2000 persons settle in the course of the first year, they may be more than twice as heavy as where 1000 only settle. Tor instance, to take one item of many, it may and often * does cost more than twice as much to survey a million of acres as half a million ; the time, labour, and traveUing expense being more than doubled, because the surveyors have to go farther into the wilderness to execute the second half of their survey. But if a capitalist is wUling to give more money for land, and to buy more land, in a new settlement, on the faith of the promise that every shilling will be expended on immigration, this must be either in utter carelessness and ignorance of Lect. XIV.] OF IMMIGRATION. 411 these preliminary expenses, or because he rehes on their hquidation in some way or other. But how ? He must rely on their being defrayed by loan, and on the re- payment of that loan by future exertions on the part of the colony ; he must look forward with brilliant and vague conjectures to the rapid prosperity of the young community, and determine confidently to anticipate its imaginary revenues; or, lastly, he must entertain a lurking belief that if the worst comes to the worst, and all these magnificent expectations should fail of accomplishment, the burden will be taken on its capa- cious shoulders by the government of the mother country — the ultimate guarantor to which such adven- turers always look. Now, to rely on each or any of ttese resources, and to advance capital in such rehance, is mere speculation in the worst and most mischievous sense of the word. The prosperity created by such speculation is sure to be temporary only, and followed by reverses as signal as the original success. Were a colony to proceed in the career of wealth with even greater rapidity than the most ardent fancy has ever suggested, we may be sure of this, — that, if founded in speculation and on fictitious credit, the ardour of the speculators would outstrip her progress, that the original deficit would never be filled up, that loan would succeed loan, and expense be accumulated on expense, until — although not, perhaps, until long after the original adventurers had made their fortune — the tide would turn at last, and pubhc enterprise and private accumulation receive at once a check, the more stunning in proportion to the rapidity of the movement. Even if we had not the example of South Australia before us, mere reasoning on ordinary principles ought to suffice to lead us to this result. It seems to follow from these consideration-s, that it is essential to the safety of any scheme of colonization 412 APPLICATION OF [Lect. XIV. that some thought should be taken beforehand for those preUminary expenses which cannot be left to be gra- dually defrayed by the settlers without entailing on them a long period of discouragement and privation. And it would be difficult to suggest any more appropriate fund for this purpose than that which is derived from the first sales of land ; either to be directly applied to it, or, if the sum thus raised be insufficient, to be used as a specific security for the raising of money by loan. There is no reason why a loan, not raised in the spirit of mere speculation on the possible resources of the colony, but limited in amount and charged on a definite fund, may not be serviceable, possibly necessary, in the outset of a colony. But it must be added, that governments and official people seem by no means disposed to be contented with this limited appropriation of the land fund to certain objects. They show a very strong desire to have a fund, so convenient, so abundant, so easy to be got at, entirely at their own disposal ; to make it serve to fill up all the deficiencies which the reluctance of settlers to submit to taxation, or the extravagance of those in authority, may occasion in the ways and means of a colony. It is this habitual tendency of governments to apply all the resources under their control to the nearest emergency — that is, in this instance, to squander the very . hfe-blood of a colony for piirposes of the most trivial expediency — which constitutes, in reality, the best apology for the pohcy of the South Austrahan Acts, by which this revenue was exclusively appropriated to immigration. For example, the people in New South Wales are disinclined to local taxation for ordinary municipal and local purposes ; the land fund is at hand, and it is immediately suggested, with no small show of reason, that if the people wiH not tax themselves, they must submit to lose the benefit of a supply of labour. Lect. XIV.] THE LAND FUND. 413 Again : Sir George Gipps is of opinion " that the charges " which may properly be said to belong to the territorial " revenue are the following : — 1. All charges of coUec- " tion and management ; 2. Expenses incurred on ac- " count of the aborigines, the first possessors of the soil, " from whence the wealth of the colony is derived ; " 3. The expenses of immigration." Others have thought that the poHce establishment of a colony, use- ful works, roads, and many other branches of the pubHc v^service, have at least equal claims on the land fund with the objects already specified. And, lastly. Lord John Eussell, in his original Instructions to the Land and Emigration Commissioners, proposed that it should be appropriated to immigration, " only so far as this use " of it may be compatible with a due regard for the " pressing and necessary demands of the local govern- " ment, for which no other resources can be found." If this proposal were once adopted by a lavish ad- ministration — if the land fund were turned into a fund for miscellaneous estimates — it needs httle sagacity to conjecture how much benefit the colonists would derive from it in the shape of labour. It appears, therefore, very essential that this appropriative tendency of colonial governments should be controlled, -as far as this can be done by the adoption of stated regulations. And the best-adapted regulations for this purpose would be such -as should not only specify the branches of the pubhc service to which any part of the land revenue should be devoted, but also the proportion of that re- venue which should be sacredly set apart for the primary purpose — the procurement of labour.* * To this opinion Lord John Eussell appears himself to have approximated, when additional experience in oiSce had opened to him new views of the subject. He is aware (he says in a despatch of 1840) " that objections have been made, of considerable weight, " against any separation of the revenue derived from the sale of land 414 SYSTEMS OF UNIFORM PEICE [Lect. XIV. The principle of distribution establislied, it would be idle in a work like the present to pretend to decide on the fittest proportions : it is enough to indicate what appears to be the safest general conclusion on a subject of considerable difficulty ; namely, that the land ftind should be charged, in the first instance, either directly or by way of anticipation, with those preparatory ex- penses which are absolutely necessary for the foundation of a colony ; and that, subject to this deduction, if the whole of the residue be not apphed to the purpose of immigration, a definite proportion at all events should be set aside for that essential object ; remember- ing, however, the irregularity of the source fi:om which these supplies are to be derived. The extreme variations from year to year in the quantity of land sold in our colonies were certainly not anticipated by the first authors of the project. 6. In the next place it is contended, by those whose views we are now considering, that the sale of waste lands in colonies should be at a fixed and uniform price, and not by auction. This proposition likewise depends upon the assump- tion that a sufficient price can be discovered. If it can, then sale by auction would evidently be disadvan- tageous. The price at which land would be sold would " from the general mass of the revenue of a colony ; but if this dis- " tinction is not made, and a separation of this kind is not estabhshed " by positive rule, experience shows that the immediate temptation " of a large expenditure without taxes is strong enough to overbear " the permanent interests which are involved in the constant supply " of fresh labourers to the colony. The rule fiiUy and firmly es- " tablished, both the colonies and the mother-country will be sensible " of the benefits derived from it." His lordsMp then proposes to devote fifty per cent, of the land sales to immigration : the remaining half to the other expenses of the colony. (Which proposal, as we shall see, was ultimately adopted as the basis of the AustraHau land system, after the date of these lectures.) Lect. XIV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION. 415 •be, in all probability, either under or above that which is by the theory sufficient. If under, the requisite supply of labour would not be obtained ; or, the requisite re- striction would not be placed upon small purchases. If above, there would be an unnecessary taxation of the settlers, and an abstraction of a portion of that capital which they would otherwise import into the colony. But although we may reject this theory of a sufficient price, several strong reasons are still adduced for pre- ferring the practice of sale at a fixed amount, on the South Australian plan, to that of sale by auction. At first sight, the latter system certainly appears the more natural one. Lands in new colonies vary infinitely in value to the speculating purchaser ; they do not vary only according to the fertUity of the soil, but even more according to situation. The land which has the advantage of water-frontage, or of vicinity to harbours and navigable rivers, is far more' valuable than similar soil of equal quahty ; while the ground which has been selected for the site of an intended town wiU sell for ten, twenty, or fifty times the price of mere farming land. Why, therefore, it is asked, should the colonial revenue lose all the difference between the ordinary or average price of land and the highest ? for it must be assumed, that the uniform price will coincide, on the most favour- able supposition, with the ordinary or average price in colonies where land is sold by auction ; no one would give 11. an acre in Austraha, if average land sold for 15s. at Port PhiUip. Why should the speculating pur- chaser appropriate to himself all that advantage which under the auction system would result to the land fund, and consequently to the general resources of the country ? Why should the money which ought to be collected for the sake of the colony be thrown away ? Why should not the " natural course" of things be followed, accord- ing to which land would fetch exactly that price which 416 SYSTEMS OF UNIFOEM PRICE [Lect. XIV. the adventurer would be willing to give for it, having- fairly weighed aU its qualities of soil and locality ? The answer to these questions carries us back to the first principles of the scheme which we have already con- sidered. Land, as we have seen, can scarcely be said to have a present " value " in that state in which it yields no return. The more capital is apphed to it in that state (supposing that labour can be procured), the greater the return will be. The less is abstracted from the pocket of the capitalist in the shape of purchase money or taxation, the more he wiU be enabled to apply to the land. Con- sequently all preliminary taxation or exaction of purchase money, whichever it may be called, is an evU, and is only imposed for the sake of obtaining a certain good. As soon as that good is secui'ed, all further imposition is su- perfluous and injurious. If, therefore, the scheme of sale by auction brings more into the revenue than the scheme of sale by uniform price, that is no advantage, but dis- tinctly the contrary, supposing that the uniform price is a good one. The revenue gains, for the time, by the higher price ; but the resources of the colony are dimin- ished. In the next place, the " natural " course of settlement is, that which would take place, not if land were sold at the sum which it will fetch, but if it were granted away without any purchase at all. Free grant is the " natiu-al" system ; deviations from it are for the sake of particular results, and produce artificial, though perhaps very useful, effects. Now, under a system of free grant, settlers would first occupy the most fertile and best situated lands — those from which the return to the capital expended would be greatest. A system of imiform price produces exactly the same effect. As soon as land becomes worth IZ. per acre, or whatever other price may be established, " whether its value is given by fertility or position, or, " what is most hkely, by a combination of both, it becomes Lect. XIV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION. 417 " occupied ; it is not occupied till then, and it is not " likely to remain unoccupied long after it acquires that " value." Inferior land will, therefore, become occupied in the regular order, as soon as it has acquired a value to speculators by the progress of the colony, and not before. The whole district will be settled precisely in that succes- sion in which it is mogt advantageous for the purposes of production and wealth that it should be settled. Sale by auction produces the very contrary effect. In- ferior land, in point of fertility or position, is cheaper than superior, precisely in proportion to the difference. There- fore there is no inducement to the individual settler, in the first instance, to prefer the latter to the former. If he gets less by the worse land, he spends less in buying it. A considerable number of purchasers will be attracted by the inferior price ; and these will generally be the poorest, whom it would be most desirable to place in such a situa- tion as to avail themselves to the utmost of the natural capabilities of the land of their adoption. These are the principal reasons commonly urged in favour of the system of sale at a uniform price. There are also various practical arguments in support of it ; but these, from their nature, can only be touched upon very generally by us. The question is altogether one of detail and convenience, on which it would be pre- sumptuous for inquirers like ourselves to pronounce. The principal points insisted on by the supporters of the fixed price system, especially Mr. Wakefield in his evidence before the Waste Lands Committee of 1836, are, the delays which a settler must undergo, under the auc- tion system, before the lands on which he is desirous to fix are advertised by the government for sale ; the advan- tage of having colonial lands purchaseable by speculators or settlers in this country, which is impossible if the sale is by auction ; and that of avoiding the competition of bidders anxious to take advantage either of the ignorance E E 418 SYSTEMS OF UNIFOEM PRICE [Lect. XIT. of Others or of their supposed skill. The settlers " may " have to encounter competition active in proportion to " their supposed knowledge of the quahties of the soil, " and may be compelled either to pay an excessive price " on account of their own skill, or else to make another " selection, and after renewed delay to incur the hazard " of renewed disappointments." Under the system of auction, also, numerous frauds, it is alleged, are practised on the government, as weYL as impositions on the pur- chaser. Parties combine to keep down the price of land, and then resell it among themselves and -divide the profit, — a species of conspiracy for which they some- times, although rarely, become amenable to law. The objectors reply (and with truth), that some of these evUs are not necessarily inherent in the system : that the delay may be diminished by giving the intending pur- chaser a right to caU peremptorily for the sale of laud, — say at a month's notice, as is the case in New South Wales ; that unfair competition may be prevented by aUowing the tenders for biddings to be closed, so that the bidders may not be known. They contend, also, that the plan of selling to individuals in England merely gives an encouragement to baseless speculation ; that the uniform price makes the purchase of land a lottery, in which per- sons embark only for the chance of re-seUing at a profit. " Land throughout the wide extent of New South Wales," says Sir George Gipps, " is to be found of such varied " quahty and value, that I feel persuaded a complete " scramble would ensue if any price - whatsoever were " fixed at which the first claimant might be entitled to " take such portion of it as he chose. Every acre of " good land would be immediately bought up by our " great capitahsts, at whose mercy all newly arrived emi- " grants would infalhbly be placed." This last objection is the only one to which I will call your attention more particularly. I do not think that Lect. XIV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION. 419 the warmest admirer of the South AustraUan system of sale at uniform price can deny, that it does power- fully conduce to promote " land-jobbing " and speculation. Lands are offered for sale in England as well as in the colony, and are extensively purchased by buyers entirely ignorant of their quahty and real advantages or disad- vantages ; many of whom merely purchase with a view to re-sale at a higher price. Now, the promoting of this sort of rapid sale was one of the objects most zealously pursued by the original founders of the colony. Econo- mically speaking, speculation of this sort is only disad- vantageous to a colony in one particular case ; when capitahsts are induced to lay out, in the purchase of land which they cannot use profitably, a portion of that capital which they would otherwise have employed in the cultivation of land which they are able to occupy. And it may be reasonably doubted, whether this specific evil is likely in any case to arise : that is, whether the quantity of capital thus vested is not generally over- balanced by the quantity of capital which the spirit of speculation forces into employment in the colony, over and above what would have been attracted there in the natural course of events. Certainly in South Austraha and Port Phillip, the most remarkable seats of land spe- culation among our colonies, it cannot be truly said that a want of capital for productive employment has arisen irom the lavish expenditure of it in the land market. But the evils of this kind of speculation are of another nature. The feverish excitement which it com- municates to aU the transactions of ordinary business ; the impatience of slow results, the restless disposition, the languid inattention to regular labour, which it in- fuses into the spirits of all classes ; the enormous and discreditable puffery to which the speculators resort to increase the value of their lands, which is sure to raise extravagant expectations in the first instance, in the E E 2 420 SYSTEMS OF UNIFORM PKICE [Lect. XIV. minds of those who embark themselves or their fortunes in the colony, and then to end in discouragement and disappointment : these, not to mention, for the present, some still heavier moral evils, are the certain and fatal results of the over-prevalence of speculation ; and so far. as the South Austrahan system encouraged this, we shall have Httle hesitation in pronouncing it mischievous and mistaken. And it is obvious that the gain to the bona fide settler by the " uniform system " which the theory supposes, is at best only partially reaUzed. " The one thing needful," say the South Austrahan Commissioners *, in young colonies, " is to offer high bounties on the introduction of capital ; " and they consider in the nature of a bounty the encouragement given when town lots in South AustraHa, for instance, are sold to a purchaser at 11. an acre, which would have fetched three, four, or ten times that amount at an auction. And this is very true : but it must be remembered, that a large proportion of these town lots are probably purchased by persons having no intention to employ them profitably at aU ; or who, if they ever had such intention, are led to abandon it by the temptation of the high price which they can obtain at a re-sale. The land thus finally passes into the hand of the bon4 fide occupier at the highest attainable price, whether by pubhc auction or private contract. He, therefore, obtains it at last on precisely the same terms as his neighbour at Port Philhp, where sale by auction prevails. The only difference to the colonies is this : that in South Australia the difference between the original and the second price goes into the pocket of the first purchaser, who may possibly have no connection with . the colony whatever, or, at all events, may have no intention of expending his gains there : at Port Philhp, the whole sum goes to the government, which employs it * Foiirtli Report, p. 11. Lect. XIV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION. 421 on public purposes for the benefit of the colony. What proportion of the purchases of land in South Australia have been made on speculation by parties intending to re-sell, I have not the means of ascertaining : it is evident that in all such instances the chief argument adduced by Mr. Wakefield and others, in support of the system, namely, that it spares the capital of the colonist, has no apphcation v^hatever. It must, however, be observed, that if government profits by the high prices reahzed by the sale of town lots and ehgible situations, government must take upon itself the functions of the land-jobber. In the United States, where, as we shall see, the sale of land is virtually at an uniform price, companies or individuals make the original pmrchase; the sites of towns and so forth are selected by them and by the public, not by the govern- ment which sells in the first instance : they benefit by success, and are responsible for failure. And " it may " be questioned whether the government does wisely to " encumber itself with the pursuit of a business so hable " to miscalculation, so often ending in disappointment " among the buyers and reproaches against the seller, " and, above aU, when undertaken by the government, so " apt to stimulate merely speculative investment, as that " of choosing the sites of intended towns, in a half-ex- " plored country, and selling suburban lots by auction."* With regard to the selection of the best lands only, which is said to be an advantage of the uniform price regulation, it must be remembered that if the best lands only are selected over a pretty wide extent of territory when the quahty is very various, the tendency of modern colonists to spread themselves over an inconvenient ex- tent of ground wiU be very much increased. Now this the writers whose views we are considering represent as * Letter of Mr. Wake&eld.— Spectator, Dec. 4, 1841. E E 3 422 SYSTEMS OF UNIFORM PRICE [Lect. XIV. a great evil : I believe that they exaggerate its import- ance ; but any thing which tends to it must be incon- sistent with their views ; and all must admit that the loss of capital by distance, and by the expensiveness of com- munication, may in some instances be greater, when the best lands only are occupied, than would have taken place if nearer but inferior land had been first settled. " Suppose two fertile valleys," says a writer in the " Edin- burgh Eeview," * " separated from each other by a barren " tract. On the uniform price system, the fertile would " be bought up and cultivated, the barren left waste and " unappropriated. An easy communication between these " fertile tracts would no doubt increase the value of. " both ; but whose interest will it be to make it ? "-— which seems, at all events, to point to the conclusion that the uniform price system, in order to be successful, should be accompanied by the creation of some definite fund for those purposes which may be generally termed " prepar- ation." It should, however, be added, that in AustraHa the intervening land thus described would probably be found valuable to let as " natm-al pasture," but not worth the while of any settler to purchase, whether by auction or otherwise. One other serious difiiculty presents itself in some locahties ; namely, how to restrict the monopoly by a few settlers of pecuhar natural advantages, of which it is very desirable that a share should be left to a great many. Population naturally estabhshes itself, in the first instance, along great lines of commimication : thus the banks of the St. Lawrence, from Quebec upwards, have been well peopled for a century, while ten miles from the river the country is often a wilderness. This is the natural progress of events, and it would be unwise in a government to attempt to check it. But take the instance of a country where vyater is scarce, as in AustraUa, gene- * Vol. Ixxii. p. 543. Lect. XIV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION. 423 rally spealdng. It is absolutely necessary that the oc- cupier of land for pastoral purposes should have access to a stream. But its banks ■will be immediately monopohzed by a few. The first capitalists who purchase land will rush to seize them. Under the auction system, the price of such situations would rise to such an extent that no one would be anxious to purchase more water-frontage, as it is called, than was absolutely necessary for the sake of his other land. Under the other, every one would secure as much of it as his money would buy. The only mode of meeting this danger appears to be by absolutely restricting the quantity of water-frontage which may be bought by each, and making it preserve a fixed propor- tion to the rest of his purchase. I have laid before you in some detail the arguments on both sides on this question, because it is one of those which have been most strenoilsly contested of late years, both among speculative writers and practical men in the colonies. I do not pretend to form any judgment upon it, or to give you more than a few of the materials for forming one. It has unfortunately produced some of that vacillation in judgment which always exercises a certain degree of injurious influence on the transaction of busi- ness. Mr. Wakefield, I believe, was at first inchned to the auction system ; he afterwards advocated the uniform, which, mainly owing to his representations, was adopted in the experiment of South Australia. In all other colonies auction was the rule. In 1840, ofiicial opinion inchned to the other plan. The Commissioners of Land and Emigration recommended that " public land should " be open to sale at the uniform price of 11. per acre " in all parts of Austraha, except the old counties of New South Wales. In Canada the same principle was on the point of being adopted, the only difference of opinion being as to the amount ; and also in Western Australia. But, shortly afterwards, the sudden embarrassment into E E 4 424 SYSTEMS OF UNIFORM PRICE [Lect. XIV. •which the affairs of South Australia fell, threw a discredit on principles which were then rapidly becoming popular. And, in the main, the system of auction prevailed. 7. The last proposition we have to notice is, that the system would tend to promote concentration of the people, to restrain that inconvenient dispersion which is apt to take place in new colonies, and to prevent the abandonment of old land for new. On this subject I AviU not detain you long. I may refer you to my ninth lecture for some arguments against the supposition that this natural dispersion is practically injurious, that is, on a fair balance of conveniences and inconveniences. To reason from extreme cases, on so comprehensive a subject, is only to mislead the inquirer. It may be true that at Swan Eiver the dispersion of the original colonists was so great that some settlers died of hunger, because, although ' there was food at the govern- ment-house, the governor did not know his way to them, nor they to the governor ; but the instance of Swan Eiver is that of an extreme case — a case of very great practical mismanagement, and of much personal misunderstanding between the leader of the colony and the labouring emi- grants, independently of whatever errors of principle may have been committed.* Generally speaking, the body of settlers will not disperse beyond the limits of tolerably easy communication with each other ; and none, or a few hermits only, will go beyond the reach of markets. The theory of " concentration " cannot be better stated than in the words of a despatch of Lord Glenelg : — " The territory, expanding only with the pressure of " population, is commensurate with the actual wants of " the entire community. Society, being thus kept toge- " ther, is more open to civilizing influences, more directly * Evidence of Mr. Wakefield before the Waste Land Committee, 1836. Lect. XrV.] AND SALE BY AUCTION-. 425 " within the control of the government, more full of the " activity which is inspired by common wants, and the " strength which is derived from the division of labour ; " and, altogether, is in a sounder state, morally, pohticaUy, " and economically, than if left to pursue its natural " course." All this may be true ; and yet, on the other hand, the economical loss which the colony inevitably sustains by not being left to follow its natural course — by being forced to concentrate itself on the less valuable soils — wUl probably overbalance aU these real or ima- ginary advantages. But (which is of more importance to us than the abstract question, whether an enforced concentration would be advantageous), it is extremely difficult to prove that the South Australian system, or any system, would produce that concentration. The historical illustrations adduced by its supporters seem very httle appUcable. Mr. Wakefield relies on the example of the early Greek colonies, and attributes their httle expansion without the walls of their towns to the abundance of slave labour. It is difficult to see the supposed connection, of cause and effect ; but, in point of fact, we know that the habits and principles of Greek colonists were altogether opposed to such expansion ; and that, if this had been otherwise, they were far too feeble, and their plantations situated for the most part in countries too fully occupied by native agricultural races, to admit of their spreading over the surface hke modern settlers. And the course of modem colonial history seems to point altogether to an opposite conclusion. Abundance of slave labour has certainly not promoted density of population; for the slave states of the American Union are uniformly less populous than states of cotemporary foundation without slaves. It certainly has not prevented the abandonment of old land for new : we have examined on a former occasion the instance of Virginia ; and it may be added, 426 DISPERSION AND CONCENTKATION. [Lect. XIV. that in Demerara the cultivated land is not more extensive than the abandoned. And, lastly, in South Austraha itself, the " model colony," the experiment seems to have entirely failed in obtaining anything like concentration. In March 1840, when the population could not have ex- ceeded 12,000 souls, " the purchases had far exceeded " its agricultural and pastoral requirements. The lands " akeady surveyed would well bear from 50,000 to " 40,000 inhabitants, while the districts actually sold " would support in comfort double those numbers." * This, argue the supporters of the theory, only proves that the price of land is not high enough, and ought to be raised. It would be possible, no doubt, to raise it ; but the moment that the intended compression began to make itself felt, the operations of the squatter would interfere, and no government could prevent the unlicensed occupation of land if it persisted in excluding colonists from the lawful acquisition of the best within their reach. The only ascertainable principle on the subject appears to be this, — that the tendency to dispersion will in all cases be greater in proportion to the value of the produce of the soil. The greater the profit to be drawn from the land, the more certainly the temptation of occupying the most fertile portions will prevail in the mind of the settler over attachment to society, and the feeling of the inconveniences which that dispersion must occasion. All artificial methods of restricting the extension of a colony over the surface, and cramping it, hke a Chinese lady's foot, according to some unaginary standard of elegant proportion, seem injurious ; such, for example, as the plan of continuous surveys, by which the government only ofiers adjacent portions of territory to purchasers in succession, instead of acceding to the wishes of the settlers themselves, by surveying at once those for which the * Despatch of Colonel Gawler, March 21, 1840, in the Appendix to the Eeport on Soiith Australian affairs, 1841, p. 262. Lect. XIV.] DISPERSION AND CONCENTKATION. 427 greatest desire is manifested, within a reasonable distance of the nucleus of the settlement. For the most part, such methods are fortunately impracticable ; that is, the squatter, who is the natural corrector of land monopolies, as the smuggler is of commercial, would render them to a great extent nugatory. But in whatever degree they could be carried into effect, in the same proportion the young community would be checked in the development of its vigorous principle of expansion. Before quitting this part of my subject, it is essential to remark that the natural exigencies of a pastoral country and community must considerably modify the character of any scheme of " systematic colonization " applied to it. For example, in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land it has long been the practice to grant to the owner of cattle and sheep hcences to occupy, for the purpose of pasturage, tracts of land, of which the ownership is in the crown, at a low rent. " Certain " boundaries are established, by the name of the boun- " daries or limits of location : within these limits land is " either sold or let on lease ; beyond them it is not either " sold or let ; but licences are granted for the occupation " of such tracts as may be desired for pasture by pro- " prietors of stock, on each of which licences a fee of " 101. is payable annually, and an assessment under a " local ordinance is based on the stock depastured thereon. " Each of the tracts thus occupied is called a station, and " the size varies from 3000 to 5000 acres." — (General Eeport of Land and Emigration Commissioners, 184-3).* I have now gone through the principal features of the modern scheme of systematic colonization. Let us divest it of the too exact form in which it has been presented by some of its supporters ; let us dismiss aU * This system was the foundation of the great pastoral wealth attained by these communities. See Appendix to Lecture XVI. 428 SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION. [Lect. XIV. idea of a precise proportion between land, labour, and capital, an exclusive employment of the land fund on emigration, and of a mathematically "suflGicient" price; let us consider its principles as confined to the sale of land at as high prices as can reasonably be obtained, and the strict devotion of the proceeds to a few essential purposes, among which the supply of labour holds the principal place ; let us consider it, moreover, as ' chiefly apphcable only to colonies raising large quantities of exportable produce, and perhaps also to other colonies so distant from the mother country that the stream of emigration needs to be artificially directed to them ; let us, I say, subject the theory to all the qualifications which I have suggested, although not all of them with equal con- fidence, and we cannot then faU of being struck with its simplicity, its facility of adaptation, its high practical utihty. Never was there a more remarkable instance of the success of a principle against all manner of mis- apprehension — against the fear of innovation — against corrupt interests — against the inert resistance which all novelty is sure to encounter. At its first announcement, if warmly advocated by a few supporters, it was received by the multitude with incredulity, by the learned with derision. The idea of putting a high price on that which it had been the uniform practice to lavish with unhmited profusion, and expecting thereby to promote colonization, was received by them as the climax of absurdity. " The whole scheme," said Mr. M'Cidloch*, " seems, in fact, to be little else than a tissue of delu- " sions and contradictions ; and it says httle for the " discernment of the pubhc that it should have attracted " any notice. It is true that the Americans seU their " unoccupied lands ; but they seU the richest and finest " lands in the valley of the Mississippi at less than a " dollar an acre, whereas, we exact five shillings an acre * Note xxiii. to Adam Smith. Lect. XIV.] SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION. 429 " for the worst land in Canada, and no less than twelve " shillings or twenty shillings an acre for the worst land " at the antipodes, as in that terra incognita called " Southern Australia ! If these regulations be intended " to direct the current of voluntary emigration from our " own colonies to the United States, they do honour to " the sagacity of those by whom they were contrived, " and there is not a word to be said against them. But " in all other respects they seem to be as impolitic and " absurd as can well be imagined." The experiment was tried in South Australia. It succeeded, in respect of the quantity of land sold and the number of emigrants conveyed, beyond the expectations of the boldest specu- lators. The government at home shook off its prejudices, and resolved on applying it, though prudently and even timidly, in New South Wales. The attempt, however, coincided with one of those paroxysms of speculation which are so characteristic of modern British enterprise, and m four or five years upwards of 1,700,000^. were reahzed in the Australian colonies by the sale of land. And although this fever passed off, as to all impartial observers it was evident that it would, and the invest- ment of capital in the purchase of waste land for some years almost wholly ceased, yet the experiment was attended with success, and with advantage to the nation at large, inasmuch as it was the means of conveying to the colonies, with reasonable prospects of obtaining work, thousands of labourers who must otherwise have struggled on at home against the difficulties of their social position ; and of fiu-nishing labour to many capi- tahsts, who must without it have invested their capital elsewhere. It is net to be supposed that the rapid advance of New South Wales, or Port Phillip was the result of direct economical causes ; that there is any magic in the maintenance of a certain proportion be- tween land and labour, which can, as it were, by a kind 430 SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION. [Lect. XIV, of mechanical operation, make the fortunes of a com- munity rapid and certain. The true origin of that advance is, doubtless, to be sotight in the confidence given to capi- tahsts — to speculators, if you will — by the certainty that their large outlay is honestly and systematically devoted to supplying their demand for labour. They look forward to prosperous results, because they see things conducted on a plan (although not quite so steadily as might be wished), instead of being left to the blind operations of chance as formerly ; they see that a definite object is proposed by the managers ; that this object is not shrouded in diplomatic mystery, but fully and frankly explained ; that all are invited to discuss its merits beforehand, to examine how far it has been at- tained. The wealthy settler feels that he has no chance of being abandoned, like Mr. Peel at the Swan Eiver, by the whole army of labourers whom he has induced, at an enormous expense, to accompany him; of under- going all the degradation and annoyance to which the supply of convict labour, precarious as at best it is, would expose him ; of strugghng for years, like our West India planters before the Emancipation Act, against the heavy necessity of maintaining labourers whose resources were becoming less and less profitable, and being placed at last under the torture of a desperate experiment, which may reheve or may destroy him. And if we carry our views beyond mere economical results, without relying too much on hopes which a thousand circumstances may render abortive, we may perhaps indulge in the conjecture, that communities thus founded begin their career under higher auspices of political and moral happiness than those mere casual off- springs of industry or of discontent which European civi- lization has scattered over the globe, and left to perish or to flourish by their own resources. The early influx of men of wealth and education attracted by a state of Lect. XIV.] SYSTEMATIC COLOlflZATION. 431 society in which wealth must confer power, and conse- quently education must meet with some degree of sym- pathy and encouragement, while the curse of slavery is absent ; the mutual dependence in which, if the system can be carried into practical effect, the different ranks must be placed towards each other; — these seem to furnish a promise that the population of a settlement thus founded wiO. afford some of the features of a common- wealth, instead of a mere body of unconnected specula- tors ; that it may reahze, in some degree, the idea of a colony such as it presented itself to the ancients, and such as Coleridge and Whately have pointed out as one of the desiderata of modern civilization. 432 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lbct. XV. LECTUEE XV. EFFECTS OF THE DISPOSAL OF LAND IN NEW COLONIES BY FREE GRANT, AND BT SALE AT LOW PRICES, EXAMINED, ESPECIALLY IN NORTH AMERICA. We have now examined together the principal theories which have been promulgated respecting the disposal of waste land in colonies, and have endeavoured to follow them out into their economical consequences. I propose to conclude this part of my inquiries with a very brief investigation (as it necessarily must be) of the facts which experience furnishes respecting it ; confining myself to those chapters of history which are the most instructive and important to us : namely, the recent annals of our North American colonies, the United States, and Austraha. These will present to us, in succession, the results of the system of free grant, the system of sale at low prices, and the system of sale at high prices. " In the North American colonies, as in the United " States," Lord Durham has said, "the function of au- " thority most fuU of good or evil consequences has been " the disposal of pubhc land." The phrase may be ex- aggerated; but of its great importance, in aU colonies, no doubt can be entertained. But, as we are now considering the case of old colo- nies, I must revert to a question touched upon in an earlier portion of these lectures. If this function be of so great importance, and if it be one strictly domestic in its character, and requiring, above most others, that practical knowledge which is best attained on the spot, why is it not confided to the colonial governments, especially Lbct. XV.] IN BRITISH AMEEICA. 433 to the colonial legislatures, where these exist ? I do not here speak of very new settlements, but of those in which society has made a certain degree of progress, and institutions have attained a certain amount of soli- dity. Surely, if we recognize the principle that colonists should govern themselves, except in those particulars where the exercise of self-government would necessarily clash with imperial sovereignty, this is one of the functions which should seem in theory more pecuharly fit to be exercised by the colonial, not the imperial, authorities. It is a power of which the employment, in one way or the other, can in no way affect the su- premacy of the crown, or the existing interests of a single subject of the mother-country. To contend, as is com- monly done, that the colonists ought not to have it, for fear they should misuse it, is to contend against the concession of pohtical or municipal freedom to colo- nists in any instance ; or else it is an example of that wavering political faith, that halting between two opi- nions, that offering of boons with one hand and with- holding them with the other, which have characterised for a series of years only too large a portion of out- colonial policy. But, however ignorant we may choose to suppose colonial legislatures of their own interests, what pubhc body, after all, could mismanage the lands of its own demesne more than those of our American colonies have been mismanaged by the imperial government ever since their foundation ? But the most plausible argument advanced in favour of retaining the disposal of pubhc lands, as an essential prerogative of the crown, is, that the mother-courftry is interested in the manner in which that disposal is effected, with a view to the rehef of her surplus popu- lation by emigration. Now, in answer to this, I may refer you, in the first place, to the reasons advanced by many of the soundest economical writers, and shortly 434 DISPOSAL OF h^SD CLect. XV. stated in a former part of this course, for believing that the possibility of any extensive relief frona emigration is altogether imaginary. But even those who look to emigration v^ith greater confidence will perhaps find, upon inquiry, that by far the greater portion of what actually takes place, and is likely to take place, is alto- gether uninfiuenced by the measures which may be adopted for the disposal of pubhc lands. Half a million of emigrants went from the United Kingdom to New York and Quebec in the ten years before 1840 ; of whom, idtimately, full three-fourths settled in the United States. Of all this multitude, it is difficult to discover that any were in the shghtest degree afiected by the pro- ceedings of government in reference to public land, ex- cept, perhaps, a few hundreds or thousands settled by the Canada and other land companies on tracts recently purchased by them from the crown. And, at aU events, full scope for all the eiforts which government is able to make in the way of encouragiag emigration would be left in those newer settlements in which, by vmiversal consent, it shordd retain the dis- posal of land. Nor need this power be conceded to the colonial legislature in all parts of the colony at the same time. There would, probably, be httle difiiculty in retaining it, for example, in each county, or district, until a certain proportion of the land were granted or occupied. Thus the wild frontier belt of an extensive colony would remain under the control of the crown, long after the more settled districts had passed under that of their own assemblies. And the competition of these imperial lands would be a strong check on the oflering unfavourable terms to settlers in those under tl;e colonial jurisdiction. This, however, is a mere matter of speculation, on which the views of many of my hearers may be different from mine. At present the inclination of the metro- Lect. XV.] IN BRITISH AMEBICA. 435 politan legislature and government seems to be strongly in favour of retaining this branch of dominion. Such is the decided opinion of Mr. Wakefield, although a warm friend to the extension of the representative system in colonies. Such was the strongly expressed recommendation of Lord Durham ; and similar lan- guage has been held by our statesmen in general during the many discussions to which this subject has lately given rise. " It is for the Imperial Parhament," says Mr. BuUer, " to reconcile the different interests, and, " by providing for the greatest development of the " resources of the colonies, to enable them to offer a " market for the manufactures, and a home for the sur- " plus population, of the United Kingdom." I do not pretend to point out to you the better opinion in this conflict of sentiments ; nor to decide whether some of the reasonings advanced in favour of the pohcy of retaining this power in the hands of government may not be conclusive, although others certainly ap- pear httle better than the common arguments by. which the strongest always persuade themselves of their own superior fitness to exercise power.* But we must now confine ourselves to our own more appropriate sphere * (1861.) This great question was decided, soon after the pub- lication of these lectures, by the concession of the revenue and management of public land, in all the more important colonies, to the colonial legislatures. Not ihat this concession was the result of political reasoning. But the iagenious and able school of the " Co- lonial Eeformers" of 1840 — 50 overdid their own work. They wished to promote colonial independence. They wished also to promote their favourite experiments in colonization. But the two purposes were in truth incompatible. The emancipated legislatures soon endeavoured to appropriate the land revenue as their first prize, and the home government did not find it worth while to make any serious opposition. For, cotemporaneously with these events, the development of firee trade and consequent prosperity of England robbed the "emigration" question of all that pressing interest which attached to it when these lectures were delivered. (See Lecture V.) F F 2 436 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lect. XV. of investigation — the economical effects of the different modes of disposing of land. The general behef in former times, to judge by the practice, seems to have been, that the best mode was to give it away. And so, in many cases, it might have been, if any security could have been obtained that the parties who received the grants were bond fide settlers, possessed of sufficient capital to render the grants avail- able for their own comfortable support, and the pro- duction of wealth ; for it was soon obvious, that if the owner neglected to cultivate his grant, the community was injured by the interposition of vacant spaces be- tween the occupied lands. But in finding this security lay the real difficulty of the case. The modes which were devised to meet it were, to annex conditions to the grant, and subject it to forfeiture if these were not fulfilled ; or to impose a moderate tax or quit rent, either on uncultivated land only, or on all land, at an amount not oppressive to the settler, but rendering it not worth the while of any one who did not intend to settle to keep it. But both these methods were found in prac- tice very imperfect, from the difficulty of enforcing them. Conditions might be easily evaded, for it was both invidious and difiicult, as well as very expensive, for government agents to ascertain whether or not they had been substantially executed.* The same objection apphed to the pajonent of fines for non-cultivation ; and general taxes on the land were unpopular, and difficult of imposition. These objections apply to the system of free grant in general ; but it must be owned that its evils, what- ever they may be, have been much aggravated by gross * "All conditions," thints Mr. Wakefield, " must become dead " letters wliicli are in the nature of a promise, or something to be " done after the land has been obtained." — Evidence before Com,' mittee on Colonial Lands, 1886, 655. Lect. XV.] ly BRITISH AMERICA. 437 abuses, and that these abuses have furnished an oppor- tunity for exaggerated invectives against the system itself. In our North American colonies, and partly in our Australian also, land seems to have been long re- garded as a mere present made by nature to the colo- nial government, for the purpose of being re-distributed as freely as it was given, without the sUghtest regard to the effects of its distribution on the prosperity of the community. The history of these abuses will be found detaEed in many works ; but nowhere so fuUy and clearly, as regards North America, as in Mr. Charles Buller's Eeport.* A few instances out of many may suffice for our purpose. In Lower Canada (under the ingenious invention called the system of " leaders and associates," by which regulations restricting the amount of grants were evaded f), 1,425,000 acres were made over to about sixty individuals, during the government of Sir A. Milne ; that is, a territory nearly equalUng in extent the county of Devon. In Upper Canada, about seven- teen millions of acres had been surveyed in 1825 ; that is, a surface as great as that of Ireland : all this had been granted away, except about 2,000,000 acres ; and yet the population scarcely reached 150,000. Three miUions had gone by way of reward or compensation to " American Loyalists," of whom very few seem to have settled in the province ; six hundred thousand to mi- htia men ; half a million to discharged soldiers and sailors, of whom very few turned cultivators, so that their grants, as Mx. BuUer very truly observed, amounted in fact to little more than small and variable gratuities in money, according to the price they might get for their * Appendix B. to Lord Durham's Eeport, 1839. + As not more than a certain number of acres could be granted to a single person imder the existing regulations, a number applied for grants at the same time, and then the associates made over their shares to the leader. — See Lord Durham's Report,, and Bouchette, V T 3 438 DISPOSAL DP LAND [Lect XV. lots. In Nova Scotia, out of about six million acres of useful land, 5,750,000 have been lavished in free grants. Lastly, " the whole of Prince Edward's Island was given " away in one day," in 1767, to about sixty grantees, subject to quit rents and conditions of settlement which have never been fulfilled ; and thus, says Lord Durham, " its prosperity was stifled in the very outset of its exist- ence." In the catalogue of these abuses most writers have inscribed the system of crown and clergy reserves, a characteristic part of our land disposal in America. The clergy reserves were instituted in Lower Canada by the constitutional act of 1791 ; the crown reserves by the executive government. Originally one-seventh of each entire lot granted was reserved, I believe, for the clergy, and as much for the crown ; which clumsy method of appropriating made the reservations, in the language of the surveyor-general, Mr. Bouchette, " present the as- " pect of chess-boards, every second or third lot alter- " nately in each range being a reserve, one for the " protestant clergy and one for the crowa." After 1821 these scattered fragments were consolidated into " blocks ; " a less inconvenient arrangement, it seems, but still presenting the difficulty of interposing desert tracts between the cultivated, except in those cases where takers were found to occupy the reserves on long leases. The crown reserves were afterwards abandoned. Of the clergy reserves, one fourth were sold in 1831, another portion in 1836, and the remainder has been rendered disposable by an act of parliament of 1840.* The his- tory of these reserves in Upper Canada is nearly the same. * (1860.) Under this and later acts of parliament these reserves were afterwards converted into money ; and in 1856 the last vestige of the system was abolished, by the absorption of that money into the general revenues, vested interests alone being respected. Lect. XV.J in BRITISH AMERICA. 439 These peculiar features of our colonial land system have, as you will perceive, no necessary connection with the method of disposing of land by free grant ; and to confound the practice with the abuse has been in this, as in many instances, rather too much the habit of zealous reformers. But even in regard to the abuses themselves, without wishing to defend them, we may reasonably imagine that their efTects have been some- what exaggerated. For to a certain extent these evils bring their own remedy along with them. The persons who have acquired large grants, which they have been unable to cultivate, sooner or later find it their interest to make them over in smaller portions to others who will ; and thus the land is eventually disposed of to the actual cultivator at a fair price ; the only difference being (and I do not deny that it is a difference, and an unfavourable one), that there is a period of delay during which the land hes idle, and that the price goes into the pockets of individuals instead of the government. Thus, although the power of the state to assist settlers may be almost extinguished, the process of settlement, under favourable circumstances, will nevertheless go on. In Upper Canada, since 1825, government has had scarcely any lands left to part with, that is, lands attractive to settlers ; and has, in fact, disposed of only 600,000 acres ; yet in those fifteen years the popula- tion of the province has increased from 150,000 to 400,000 : thus almost the whole of this population must have estabhshed itself on lands purchased from private owners. Prince Edward's Island presents a remarkable instance of the same kind. You will see it constantly cited by writers on colonial subjects as a kind of prerogative example, to use Baconian language, of the vices of the old system of dealing with land. Its soil was granted away to a few large proprietors, of whom scarcely any, with the honourable exception of F P 4 440 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lkct. XT. Lord Selkirk, have ever resided or paid serious atten- tion to the improvement of their estates, while they have steadily and successfully resisted any attempt to tax themselves, or to enforce the conditions of their grants. What is the actual state of the island ? Its population, although it increased slowly up to 1820, has nearly doubled since that year. Its trade and revenue have increased in nearly the same proportion. Its state of society is pronounced by Mr. M'Gregor superior to that of our other North American colonies. "It is a " common plan," he says, " with those who own farms " they do not occupy, to let those farms ' on the " ' halves,' that is, to stock the farm with horses, homed " cattle, sheep, and hogs, provide half the necessary " seed, and then give possession to a practical farmer, " who will cultivate it and find the labour. After har- " vest, the produce, even to that of the dairy, is equally " divided between the proprietor and farmer." A good plan, he adds, for " farmers who dishke commencing at " once in the wood."* I mention this in passing, as the only instance I have met with, in the wide regions colonized by the British race, of a recurrence to that primseval plan of division between landlord and tenant, called in modern Europe -the Metayer system, which dates from the very origin of civilization. This picture may present no very extraordinary features of rapid advance or towering fortunes. But no one, I think, would conjecture that it described a colony of which Lord Durham said, that "its prosperity was stifled in " the very outset of its existence." With respect to the mischiefs of reserves of land for ptiblic purposes, especially the clergy reserves, which must be inahenable on principle, they are, no doubt, obvious enough, even to the mere speculative inquirer ; their actual amount is not so obvious ; and either it must * Brit. N. America, vol. i. p. 462. Lect. XV.] IN BRITISH AMERICA. 441 be much exaggerated, or some of the praise so liberally- bestowed on the land-revenue system of the United States must be withdrawn. For in that country educa- tion, and many other pubhc purposes, are provided for by means precisely analogous to the " reserves " of Canada, although smaller in amount. In every American township, a section of 640 acres, or one square mile, is I beheve still appropriated to the purpose of education, forming one thirty-siKth part of the whole township.* And yet Lord Durham, and writers of the same views, are in the habit of mentioning the American mode of dis- posing of public lands as one of the great causes of the superior condition of the Northern States to the neighbouring British provinces. It must be added, that whatever the economical disadvantages of these reserves may be, they are necessarily diminished, either when a high price, is placed on land by government, or when adjacent land becomes valuable by the progress of set- tlement ; for in either of these cases it becomes worth the settler's whUe to rent the reserved land. * Although observers in general have expressed themselves very unfavourably of the eifect of the clergy reserves, Archdeacon, now Bishop, Strachan says, " On my inquiries a few years ago on the occa- " sion of the attempted sale to the Canada Land Company, I found a " greater number of inhabitants in proportion on the clergy sevenths " than on the granted lands of the crown, as they offered facilities to " settlers which cannot be otherwise obtained." — Appendix B. to Lord Durham's Report, p. 123. An ingenious plan was devised by Archbishop Whately for retaining the benefit of a landed establishment for the church, and avoiding the evils of the reserve system. As I understand it, the purchaser of land was to pay for a certain portion, and occupy another portion gratuitously for a time. For instance, the purchaser of 80 acres might occupy 100 more. After a period, he was to be called upon to single out 20 of those 100 for the tise of the church. These 20 were to be selected in the following manner : the purchaser was first to select 40, and then the agent of the church 20 out of the remaining 60. A similar scheme was proposed for adoption with respect to the lands reserved for the aborigines in South Australia; but never carried into execution. 442 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lect. XV; I have brought these considerations before you partly with a view which my hearers may perhaps think that I have akeady enforced, on various occasions, ahnost to weariness, namely, in order to remind you how much we are apt to overrate the effect of particular laws and institutions, both on economical prosperity and on the movement of society. It is the natural propensity of the sanguine and inquirmg mind, as soon as it has de- tected an abuse, to refer to that abuse, by the most in- genious deductions, all the evil and imperfection appa- rent upon that face of things which it is contemplating. Then comes the eagerly embraced conclusion, that the specific remedy for that abuse is, at the same time, a cure for all the disorders which the reason perceives, or the imagination can conjure up. "We withdraw our eyes from dwelHng on the action of the great laws of economical and social progress, because^ we feel a secret sense of dissatisfaction in our own inability to control them ; we prefer to be busy about the forms and accidents of things, matters which we can regulate and mould according to the theories which may have posses- sion of our fancies ; and to these we attribute the powers which really reside in the great springs of the machine. However, a great change was unquestionably effected for the better when the anomalous practices which had prevailed from earher times were superseded in aU our colonies by the uniform system of sale for such a price as the land woidd fetch. Its introduction m Canada began in 1826 ; but previous payment of pur- chase-money, an important feature in the plan, was not required imtil the date of the instructions of Lord Glenelg in 1837. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick sale by auction was established in 1827. In all these cases the sales were by auction, and the upset price, with the above exception, pretty generally regulated by the sum fixed for that purpose in the United States of Ame- Lect. XV.] IN THE UNITED STATES. 443 rica ; namely, about 55. As the system adopted in those States was the great model followed in these proceedings, it is now time to give a general account of it. " The greater portion of the unoccupied lands of the " United States constitute the national domain, and " are, of course, under the control of the national go- " vernment. " The lands are surveyed on an accurate plan, ac- " cording to a general system ; afterwards they are " offered for sale, by proclamation of the president, " and, by law, must be sold by public auction, the " minimum price being one dollar and a quarter per " acre, ready money. If no one bids for the land at " that price, or upwards, it is subject to private entry " at any time after, upon payment at time of entry ; " for no credit is allowed. " One section in each township is reserved for the " support of schools in the township ; and all salt-springs " and lead-mines are reserved from sale, unless by special " order of the president. " The surveys are founded upon a series of true meri- " dians, which run north, principally from the mouth " of some noted river. These are intersected at right " angles with Hues running from east to west, called " base-hues. There are five principal meridians in the " land-surveys of the western states. " Each of these meridians has its own base-hne, which " forms the base of a series of surveys, of which the " Hnes are made to correspond, so that the whole coun- " try is at last divided into squares of one mile each, " and townships of six miles each ; and these subdi- " visions are distributed with mathematical accuracy into " parallel ranges. " The township consequently consists of thirty-six " square miles. A square mile is called a section, and " contains 640 acres. The section is subdivided into 444 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lect. XV. " half sections of 320 acres each, quarter sections of " 160 acres each, and half-quarter sections of 80 acres " each : these last, under certain conditions, are sold in " equal subdivisions of 40 acres each, which is the " smallest amount of public lands disposed of by the " general government. Any person, whether a native- " born citizen or a foreigner, may thus purchase forty " acres of the richest soil, and receive an indisputable " title, for fifty dollars, being at the rate of a dollar and " a quarter an acre ; and lands sold by the general " government are not subject to taxation under five years " after purchase. " The parts of townships, sections, quarter sections, " &c., made at the hues of either townships or meridians, " are called excesses or deficiencies. The fractional sec- " tions, which contain less than 160 acres, are not sub- " divided. The fractional sections, which contain 160 " acres and upwards, are subdivided in such a manner as "■ to preserve the most compact and convenient forms. " A series of contiguous townships, laid olF from east to " west, is called a range. These are numbered east and " west, from the principal meridian running due north " and south. Townships are counted either north or " south from their respective base-lines. " By this admirable system all the townships and " subdivisions are in regular mathematical forms, pre- " eluding the fruitful source of htigation arising from " the uncertainty of butts and bounds, in forms with " curve, meandering, or zigzag lines. " The land sales unite three essential objects — the " right of selection by the highest bidder at the pubhc " sales, extreme cheapness at the private sales, and a title " of clearness and unquestionable surety commensurate " with the stability of the government. The convenience " and excellence of this system constitutes an essential " element in the rapid population of the new states. Lect. xvJ in the united states. 445 " The public lands are laid off into districts, in each " of which there is a land office, imder the superintend- " ence of two officers appointed by the president and " senate, called the register of the land office and receiver " of pubhc moneys. " All deeds, conveyances, mortgages, or title papers " whatsoever, must be recorded in the recorder's office " in the county where the land is situate. Deeds and " title papers are not in force until filed in the recorder's " office." The three main features of the system, it may be col- lected from these particulars, appear to be, 1. That territory possessed by the state is held by the government in trust for the people, to be sold individually. 2. That all lands are sold at an uniform upset price. 3. That all proprietors are subject after a few years to local taxation. It must be added, in order to obtain a tolerably complete view of the system, that " squatters," when the land on which they have estabhshed themselves is sold, are in some cases entitled by law to a right of preemption ; and where this is not the case, they exercise a similar right by usage. But the American government has never aimed at any- thing beyond the carrying into effect of these simple principles. It has never sought to render the sale of lands subservient to the purpose of constructing the frame of society after a preconceived pattern. The funds raised by it have gone into the general coffers of the Union. No attempt has been made to accumulate labour in particular localities, or to discourage the acquisition of land by the poorest class. In point of fact, pubhc land in the United States is sold very cheap. The ordinary price seldom exceeds 6*. Sd. an acre.* The system gives, as may be supposed, great encouragement to speculators : land gene- * The upset price was two dollars until 1819, lowered in that year to one and a quarter dollar. 446 DISPOSAL OF LAND [Lect.XV. rally passes in the first instance into the hands of pur- chasers whose only object is to re-sell it at a profit ; but it is not hkely long to remain unoccupied, in consequence of being subject, whether occupied or not, to local taxa- tion. The difference at present (1840) between our system in North America and that of the United States is, that the upset price of our land is generally smaller. Ideas have been entertained of late years of taking a further step, and raising the price of land in our North American colonies. Mr. Charles Buller recommends an miiform price of IO5. per acre.* The Land and Emigration Commissioners suggested to Lord Sydenham uniform prices of 7s. Qd. per acre for a portion of the colony, and 5s. for the re- mainder. His lordship thought these prices too high, and preferred 6s. and 4s. respectively. The commis- sioners subsequently recommended 6s. per acre for aU landf, from which Lord Sydenham dissented. I am not informed that either of these suggestions was carried into effect ; but it is hardly possible that government can in- troduce into those colonies any method which shall have much effect on their economical progress. Except in very new locahties, they appear to have long passed that stage at which such measures are of any great impor- tance. And the proceedings of the crown must evidently be governed by the competition of private owners and of the United States. And, in the next place, the facilities of communication are so much greater in the United States, from their admirable system of local taxes, that, in the opinion of Lord Sydenham, their land at 6s. Bd. was cheaper than Canadian land at 65., even when the liability to those taxes was taken into account, the benefit more than countervaihng the expense. Therefore the * Appendix B. to Lord Durham's Keport, p. 33. t Eeport, 1840, p. 101. Despatch of Lord Sydenham, in " Coree- " spondence relative to Emigration to Canada," 1841, p. 36. Eect. XV.] IN BRITISH AMERICA. 447 prospect of forming any considerable emigration fund by the sale of land in Canada seems visionary, even if sucli fund were needed. If settlers are to be attracted thither, it must be, as heretofore, by the easy acquisition of land. And the government seems to have been all along entertaining plans of this description, although seemingly inconsistent with the theory of high prices. There are two projects for hmited grants of free land to emigrants of the poorer class, both of which have been partially tried. The one is that of giving small lots of iive acres to labourers of the lowest class : this may be sometimes useful in the case of emigrants who arrive at a time when the demand for labour happens to be slack, but obviously only in the neighbourhood of great towns or markets : it has been tried near Quebec and elsewhere, and, says Lord Syden- ham, has answered tolerably well, although it has been attended with expense. The object is to attract persons who may be useful as labourers, not having land enough to be wholly independent. The other plan is that of making grants of 50 or even 100 acres to emigrant famihes in new townships, and especially along great hues of communication, it having been first satisfactorily shown that they possess capital to cultivate them. This project is especially pressed on government, for poHtical reasons, under the present circumstances of Canada ; but, independently of these, there seems every reason for be- heving that it might prove economically advantageous. The class of smaU yeomen, as I have endeavoured to show before, is precisely that by which colonization in such countries as the newer parts of Canada is best carried on. But in order that it might be so, or rather in order to prevent its execution from proving a mere nuisance to the colony, it is absolutely necessary that the preliminary inspection into the means of the settlers should be rigorously carried out. Now I am afraid that 448 DISPOSAL OF LAND IN BKITISH AMERICA. [Lect. XV. the more we have studied the history of land-granting in British colonies, the less reliance we shall be disposed to place on the satisfactory enforcement of this or any other condition imposed upon occupiers. But while httle can probably be done for these colonies in the way of the disposal of waste land, much might be done in other ways ; by attending to the fulfilment of such conditions where they have been imposed already ; by the bond fide exaction of fines, and even of forfeitures, for the neglect of them ; and, above aU, by the estabhsh- ment of a system of local taxation, for the purpose of local wants, such as those of roads and pubhc works. To this we shall return on another occasion ; at present it is sufficient to observe, that of aU the economical causes which have been suggested for that painful inferiority in the evidence of pubhc spirit, wealth, and activity, which seems to strike all observers in passing from the United States into our neighbouring pro\dnces, this absence of local taxation is the most substantial, perhaps the only substantial one. But with these things our government can have httle to do : our northern colonies possess legis- latures of their own ; and it remains to be seen whether they have sufiicient perception of their own interests, and sufficient pubhc virtue, to impose on themselves the ne- cessary sacrifices. Lect. XV.] NOTE. 449 NOTE. (1861.) I have allowed the foregoing account of the land system of Canada to remain, although antiquated, as possessing perhaps his- torical interest for soijie inquirers. The suggestions of Charles Buller and others, made when the " Wakefield system" occupied men's minds, for the raising of the price of government land in that colony, never met with favour there : and it is plain that they could not have been acted upon, while United States' land in close contiguity was sold at low prices. Canada has been peopled almost entirely by the gradual aggregation of small independent settlers, with some slight assistance from the efforts of land companies. The present system (Land Ke- gulations of 1859) is briefly as follows : — Wild land is sold at upset prices not exceeding one dollar an acre an credit. The purchaser of an entire township has certain advantages, but has also certain ex- penses of surveying thrown upon him, and is liable to forfeiture if the land be not "settled" within a certain number of years. Land has also been extensively offered in "free grant" along some great lines of interior road, which road the settlers are bound to keep in repair. The settler in Canada therefore obtains his land with great cheapness and great facility. But on the other hand we have seen that his expense of clearing and fencing is from 32. to 4J.. per acre. And no system — or rather a variety of systems — prevails for defraying expenses of com- munication. Some roads are maintained by turnpikes. Others (in Upper Canada) by the municipalities. Others by the adjoining settlers : and, in Lower Canada, under the venerable plan of " corv6e," or statute labour. I have been informed by a traveller that he has seen roads in that province parcelled out by the surveyor into small segments, each to be repaired by a neighbouring "habitant" — at the expense pro- bably of a day or two's work of his cart and horses : so profound is the objection entertained by Jean Baptiste to anything in the shape of a pecuniary rate. There is no material difference as to land regulations between Canada and the other North American provinces. The chief alterations in the United States' land system, since these lectures were delivered, have been; 1. Through the operation of the "Preemption Act" of 1841 and ancillary measures; under which great quantities of land have been made over to " squatters " on what are considered equitable terms, before they were ready to be offered to purchasers. 2. By the great and increasing proftision of grants to States for purposes of education, the construction of railways, " over- " flowed lands," &c. &c. So far have these been carried that the whole G G 450 NOTE, [Lect. XV. revenue derived by tte central government from its gigantic landed estate seems to amount to barely a million and a lialf of dollars per anmim. In five quarters of 1858-9, five millions of acres only were sold, 3,500,000 " located," eight millions granted to the several States. This profusion, however, is represented to be in accordance with established policy. The United States, it is said, " as a proprietor, " receives fi-om the application of the grants to the prescribed uses a " compensation in the enhanced value of the remaining lands." Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTEALIA. 451 LECTUEE XVI. EFFECTS OF THE DISPOSAL OF LAND IN COLONIES AT HIGH PRICES. SKETCH OF THE HISTOKT OF SOUTH AUSTEALIA. The colony of South Australia was founded in 1836, imder a system of government and of economical ad- ministration altogether new. It must, however, be stated, that this system was in several respects different from that which the projectors imagined.* Their mtention was to found a chartered colony, resembhng those which were estabhshed in North America in the seventeenth century. According to their plan, an incorporated com- ^pany would have exercised, by delegation from the crown, many of the powers of sovereignty within the intended province ; and besides disposing of the waste lands, and controlling the finances, would have appointed the governor, enacted the laws, and levied the taxes. This project did not suit the views of the government at home, and was therefore considerably modified by the act 4 & 5 W. 4, c. 95, the original constituent law of the settlement. The ordiaary executive and legislative powers were vested in a governor and council, according to the common method ; but in addition to these, a board of commissioners was appointed, one of whom was to reside in the province, who were to have the disposal of the land, and the management of emigration. The whole of the funds raised by the disposal of land was to be devoted * " The experiment did not attain the success of being fairly tried," says Mr. Wakefield, apologising for its comparative failure in his latest work (Art of Colonisation, Letter IX.). a G 2 452 HISTORY OF [Lect. XVI. to the purpose of conveying labouring families to the colony. By this act no specific provision whatever was made for what I have termed the preparatory expenses of a colony — the land-surveying, the pubHc works, the foundation of establishments, the construction of roads, and other com- munications. But a general power was given to the commissioners to begin their operations in sending out labourers, by levying 50,000Z. on land, on the security of the land fund ; and to defray " the necessary cost, charges, " and expenses of founding the colony," and provide for its government in the first instance by raising 200,000^. on the security of the future colonial revenue, exclusive of the land fund, which, however, was to serve as a collateral security. It was one of the original views of the projectors of the colony, that it should support itself. The principle on which it was founded — that of applying the land fund to the purposes of emigration — was called by them* the " self-supporting " principle ; as if it involved in itself sufiicient security that a settlement so regulated could not cost anything to the mother country; or, at all events, that its prosperity must be so certain and so rapid as to place the danger of its becoming eventually bur- densome altogether out of the question. Mr. "Wakefield himself, to whom the pubhc has looked in great measure as its author, denies that he was at all concerned in pro- pagating this view of it.* But it was certainly put forth in a variety of shapes by the friends and promoters of the original estabhshment ; nor can it be questioned that, upon their own theory, they had some ground for anticipating its reahzation. Difficulties soon arose as to the working of various * " I never called it the self-supporting system : I look upon the " calling it the self-supporting system as a sort of puff." — Report of South Australian Committee, 1841, 2584. Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTEALIA. 453 parts of this act. There was no sufficient hne of demarca- tion between the powers of the governor and council, and those of the commissioners ; " ignorant and careless ama- teurs," as Mr. Wakefield styles them. Although this pro- duced no disagreements at home, in the colony the case was otherwise : the infant settlement soon became divided between a commissioners' party and a governor's party ; and it was found that the powers of raising money by loan were too loosely given ; or rather, in point of fact, that the notion of raising 200,00OZ. on the security of the future local revenues of a land where the soil was yet unbroken, was impossible, even on the terms of 10 per cent, allowed by the act. 39,000^. only had been borrowed upon it in 1838, when a new act was obtained (1 & 2 Vict. c. 60). This statute introduced some ma- terial improvements in the administration of the affairs of the settlement ; but it also materially increased the power of the commissioners as to borrowing ; in fact, to such an extent that it was said, not without truth, to have materi- ally infringed on the fundamental principle of the settle- ment. They were empowered to apply the money raised on the security of either of their two funds convertibly, keeping separate accounts : that is, money raised on the security of the land revenue might be applied to purposes of general necessity, and vice versd : which some deemed a covert mode of enabhng them to anticipate the readiest of the two funds, namely the land fund, without appearing distinctly to do so. But to this borrowing from the land fund a limit was placed — that the total debt due from the general fund to the land fund should never at the end of the year exceed one-third of the whole amount of the sums received in that year by the land fund. That is, if the sums raised by land sales amounted, for instance, to 30,000Z. in any given year, the commissioners were to take care that, at the end of that year, the debt from the general fund to the land fund should not exceed 10,000^. G G 3 454 HISTORY OP [Leot. XVI. Matters therefore stood thus : There was a power to raise a very large sum for general purposes on the credit of an imaginary fund, that of the general revenue, which no sober man could for a moment imagine would nearly equal the ordinary local expenses for many years to come ; and there was a very restricted power to aid those pur- poses by borrowing from the land fund, a real and available fund, which was rapidly increasing every year, but which was hmited by the constitution of the colony to one pecu- har purpose. Tou wiU see at once that the first part of the provision was altogether inadequate ; and you will also see what a powerful stimulus was given thereby to the curse of young colonies — the eagerness to attain rapid results. The whole system rested on mere speculation. Nothing was real but the land fund, and that was appro- priated. There were a very large sum to be repaid, and very heavy charges to be b orne, by the general revenue as soon as it began to exist : it was therefore of immediate importance to create one as soon as possible — to force the colony as if in a hot-house. The numerous specu- lators at home who had joined in the original project, with anticipations of profit mingled with their honour- able desire to carry into effect a great experiment, were driven to use all their exertions to raise the colony's credit in the market. The artificial advantages of the scheme, the natural advantages of the colony, were placed in the most tempting fight before the pubfic, and pufied through every possible channel. Every means were to be used to force the stream of Enghsh capital into this distant pro- vince, even before any thing like a satisfactory certainty could be obtained as to the profitable investment that existed for it.* * The original price of town sections in Adelaide was 12s. per acre : only three days after tlie completion of the plan of the town, 560 sections were sold at the average price of 61. 3s. an acre: and in 1839 it was thought that those in the best situations were worth Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTEALIA. 455 Meantime the settlement advanced. By the end of 1838, 5300 persons had left the United Kingdom for South Austraha, and some hundred Germans had gone thither also ; while it was supposed that 600 at least had emigrated to it from the neighbouring provinces, attracted by its vaunted excellencies. The price of land which at first had been 12s. per acre, was very soon raised to 11., at which sum it has ever since remained fixed. Nearly 50,000^. had been raised by the sale of land, and apphed to emigration ; but almost the whole of the sales, up to that epoch in the history of the colony, had been effected in England, and of course were to a great extent of a very speculative character. The year 1839 was the most prosperous era of the experiment, as far as the influx of a great stream of capital and number of emigrants into a field, as yet altogether unprofitable, can be called prosperity. In that year 5316 persons emigrated from the United Kingdom : 50,000 acres of land were sold in England, and nearly 100,000 in the colony, at 11. per acre ; and the land revenue of this infant settlement considerably exceeded the whole land revenue of New South Wales, including Port Phillip. Up to the end of 1839, the commissioners had borrowed about 125,000^. on the credit of the future revenues, out of the 200,000Z. which the act allowed them ; it wiU be observed that the interest of this sum was a heavy charge, much having been raised at 10 per cent., or even on higher terms ; while the revenue was, of course, in- sufficient for the mere local expenses of the settlement, the civil hst, and pohce department. It was at this state of affairs that the most extraor- <3inary system of public expenditure in the colony began, lOOOZ. to 2000Z. per acre ! (Fourth Eeport of the Commissioners, p. 11.) Surely, instead of quoting suoli facts as evidences of pros- perity, they ought to be recorded like the events of the tuUp-mania and the South Sea bubble. G 3 4 456 HISTORY OF [Lect. XVI, which, perhaps, the annals of financial extravagance can disclose. It must be recollected, that most of this ex- penditure was brought on by the determiaation of the patrons of the colony to force it mto prosperity. " The " one thing needful," such was the perpetual language of the commissioners, "is to give high bounties on the " introduction of capital." There was an indifierent natural port : but foreign commerce must not be checked or embarrassed, and enormous sums were, therefore, spent on the port at all hazards. Land was to be sold as fast as possible ; but land, in order to be sold, must be sur- veyed in still larger quantities ; surveys, therefore, were pushed on, laboiir being enormously dear, until they actu- ally rose to an average of 3s. 6d. or 4s. per acre, and ia some cases 10s., or half the price of the land. Thousands of emigrants arrived in a few months of the "season :" and, although they eventually found employment at enormous wages, still there was an interval during which they en- tailed a heavy expense on the government. The item of pohce was twice as high, in propor4;ion to the population, in this colony without convicts, as in New South Wales. And with these expenses upon him, the governor thought fit to commence the erection of a government-house, to cost 25,000/. We need look no farther for the cause of all that afterwards befell the settlement. At the expiration of four years from the commencement of the colony, there was an expenditure at the rate of 140,000/. per annum, the revenue of the colony not being more than 20,000/. No kind of dissatisfaction, it must be added, seems to have been excited in the colony by these marvellous pro- ceedings. All seem to have been seized with the same spirit of vertigo, or the same desperate resolution to gamble on, and trust to that golden future to which the commissioners had always been pointing as the ultimate result of the experiment. The immediate mode which the governor took of meeting the enormous calls upon Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTEALIA. 457 him, was by drawing bills on tlie commissioners, 12,000 miles off, in utter ignorance of the state of their funds. They, as we have seen, had already borrowed, at the end of 1839, three-fifths of all that they could borrow, and had spent the proceeds. He drew to the amount of 123,000Z. in the course of 1840 only. In the mean time a change had taken place in the constitution of the colonial board in England. The original commis- sion had been revoked, and a board of land and emi- gration commissioners constituted for all the colonies. South Austraha included. They entered on their func- tions in the beginning of 1840. About the middle of that year, the governor's bills began to arrive in press- ing quantities. The new commissioners, after taking a little time to consider the position in which they were placed, refused to accept them. The colony became bankrupt. The emigration and land sales ceased in August, 1840 : and a sudden and complete stop was put to the rapid career of so-called prosperity. There are friends of the colony who maintain that the commissioners might have retrieved its affairs and- maintained its credit, by raising new loans (we have seen that they had not done so quite to the extent of their powers), in order to pay these bills. But the remedy of more borrowing seems rather a desperate one, for a disease which over-borrowing had engendered in the first instance. The result was, that parliament was obHged to inter- fere, and to empower the government to advance a very considerable sum to meet emergencies, on such security as could be obtained without over-burdening the re- sources of the colony. And so ended the " self-support- ing " part of the scheme ; and South Australia, hke other settlements, was content to depend for a while on the mother country for assistance. I have thought that it might be worth our while to 458 HISTOKT OF [Lect. XVI. devote thus much of our attention to the brief history of a particular province, because it really does afford some valuable lessons to the inquirer, and because it has been popularly supposed to afford others, which cannot be deduced from it by any candid reasoner. It furnishes no evidence whatever against the reasonable apphcation of those principles respecting the disposal of public land which we have been so long considering. Besides many minor circumstances which may have con- tributed to the ill success of this experiment (such, for instance, as the inconvenient division of duty and respon- sibility between the governor and commissioners), the candid inquirer cannot but perceive three primary causes of failure. First, that the situation was ill selected for so critical an attempt ; for, although South Austraha is far from being the inhospitable desert which some have thought fit to describe it, it does not appear to possess any of those extraordinary advantages which enable a com- munity to become rapidly rich ; and we have often had occasion to observe, that natural advantages are in the long run of far more importance than sound economical doctrines, to the progress and well-being of a colony. Secondly, the total omission of all means to provide for the preparatory expenses of colonization, except by a general power to raise loans to a certain amount on the credit of a future revenue, which could not come into existence for years, and was certain for a long time to be unable to support the immediate charges on it. Thirdly (and this cause was by far the most injurious of all), the unnatural encouragement given to speculation, and to its inseparable companion — extravagance. Every thing tended to this one residt. The sale of lands in England threw great part of the boU into the ' hands of capitalists here, eager to make the most of it, and to raise its value as soon as possible, whether for resale or investment ; and if the real value could not be raised rapidly enough, Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 459 to give an imaginary value to their purchase, by acqui- escing iu delusive representations, if they did not actually propagate them. The commissioners were anxious, at the same time, to force on the settlement of the colony, in order to raise its credit hi the market ; and to force Tip its credit in the market, in order to provide funds to carry on the settlement. And the colonists themselves were only too ready to fall into the example which the patrons of the project had set them. Time was wasted, and the interest of capital sacrificed in land-jobbing opera- tions, which might have been profitably employed in sheep-farming or agriculture. And let its pause a moment to consider the social state of a community introduced into life under such auspices. There was surely something short-sighted in the policy of its first founders — those, I mean, who looked to greater results than the mere production of wealth. It was impossible to evince a more creditable care than they did, in matters of detail, for the moral well-being of the colony. Convicts were excluded from it, and great discrimination was exercised in selecting the emigrants : the interests of rehgion and education were put prominently forward. And yet it never seems to have occurred to them, that a community urged on by the spirit of speculation which they sought in every manner to encourage, cannot be morally or socially healthy. " The one thing needful," thought they, " is to " encourage the rapid influx of capital by high bounties :" and they never thought of the tide of evils which flow in along with a rapid influx of capital, when that capital is not gradually attracted by the opening field of employ- ment, but comes in hopes of finding or creating such a field. The wealthier emigrants, finding no useful occu- pation for their means, took to land-jobbmg, that is, gambling, while waiting for it. The poorer emigrants, attracted by the hope of large wages, were disappointed 460 HISTOEY OF [Lect. XVI. by the high prices, and found even the high sums which they actually realized insufficient to satisfy their anticipa- tions. The moral consequences of such a state of things it would not be difficult to depict ; and I am afraid there is some truth in the high-coloured representation of a recent visitor .to those regions, nor is it altogether con- fined to South Austraha — that though actual crime is rare, it seems an admitted principle that all means short of crime are legitimate for obtaining money.* * (1860.) The more agreeable task now remains of tracing the recovery of the colony fi-om the depression under which it laboured when the first edition of this work was published. In 1840, things were at their worst. 8000 persons were congregated in Adelaide ; nearly half the population of the colony. The working men " scouted " the idea of proceeding into the country," being employed by Colonel Gawler on government works : and the young metropohs numbered seventy public-houses ! In the last quarter of 1840, the government expenditure was at the rate of 240,000Z. per annum. The self-sup- porting system came down with a crash. Colonel Gawler was recalled : a sxmi of 155,000Z. voted towards the temporary liquidation of the bills drawn by him ; and Captain (now Sir George) Grey sent out to reform and retrench. And the colonists soon found that these needful operations mitst commence in every man's home. The prospects were fearful. The land sales, and influx of money, ceased at once and completely. They fell fi:om 170,000 acres sold in 1839, to about 600 in 1843. The new governor reduced the expenditiu-e in a single year from 90,000Z. to 30,000^.: and nearly 2000 persons were thrown on Captain Grey's hands, as absolute paupers, at the end of the first year of his ad- ministration. The moneyed men were bankrupt : the workmen all but in a state of insurrection. The young colony was pruned to the very root ; and it shot forth with a health proportioned to the imsparing vigour with which the knife had been applied. Of course government had to bear, amongst some just reproaches, the whole weight of what was really due to private avidity and over speculation. But while the colonists thus vented their dissatisfaction, they set to with English resolution to save themselves. At the end of 1842 one-third of the houses in Adelaide were deserted ; their tenants, the surplus popula- tion created by the land-jobbers, had turned to the cultivation of the soil in earnest. Now, instead of paying 270,000Z. in one year (1889) for the necessaries of life, the only want of the colonists was a market. Wheat was at 2s. 6d. a bushel ; sheep were fattened with it. But this Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 461 I will conclude this lecture with a brief notice of the success which has hitherto attended the raising the price of land, and employment of the land fund on emigration, in our other Australian colonies. great desideratum was soon supplied by the increasing communication with the other Australian colonies, and their greatly increasing de- mand. In a year or two more, the colonists were poor indeed ; but they were out of debt, and working their way to prosperity; the governor, by his sturdiness and far-sighted economy, had redeemed their financial position ; though not until the self-supporting system appears to have cost the mother country about 200,000Z. Lastly, to close the history of the singular vicissitudes which this young community underwent in ten short years of life — the discovery of copper-mines *, containing a richer ore than the richest known in England, and accessible from the coast with the utmost facility, seems to have revived the spirit of speculation, and lent additional activity to agricultural pursuits. In 1851 occurred the gold discoveries of New South Wales and Victoria. None of the precious metal has ever been discovered in South Australia. The consequence, for the time, was so heavy a blow as made the young industry of the colony stagger, and induced many to abandon it in despair. The young and adventurous made their way to the diggings, leaving the useless mouths behind. The copper mining interest first, and then the agricultural, seemed to collapse for want of hands and abstraction of capital. The local government and legislature showed themselves iully equal to the occasion. Instead of attempting in any way to check the emigration of their people, they encouraged it ; but strove to hold out inducements to return. They turned their attention to the possibility of placing themselves in commercial connection with the gold regions. They enacted a law, by which uncoined gold brought into the colony was enabled to be assayed and stamped, and invested with part of the qualities of a legal currency, long before a mint had been established at Sydney. In this way the solvency of the colonial banks was maintained until a sufficient importation of coin could arrive from home. Their efforts were crowned with complete success. The first shock of the gold discoveries over, South Australia resumed her course of prosperous advance with singular readiness, and has continued it ever since. Founded to a considerable extent by speculative politicians, the South Australian community has always been at once of a very democratic * Wheal Maxia, the richest in England, furnished copper at 81. 18s. &d. per ton in 1845 : the " Kapunda Mine," 2il. 15s. 3d. 462 HISTORY OP [Lbct. XVI. I have already touched more than once on the series of disasters which attended and followed the original settlement of Swan Eiver, or Western Austraha. So great was the distress at one period, that the settlers were reheved by subscription in the neighbouring colonies ; and this settlement which now contains only 4000 people, has cost this country, first and last, 150,000^. But the most unfortunate feature in its early colonization was, that the land was squandered with such profusion in enormous grants to parties who found it impossible to turn them to account, that the fund by which its pro- sperity might have been best promoted can now with difficulty be raised.* In Van Diemen's Land, likewise, the great extent to which the appropriation of land has been carried renders it difficult, or impossible, to raise any considerable fund at present by means of land sales. In the important colony of New South Wales the system of sale by auction at an upset price of 5*. per acre, commenced in 1831 ; and the quantity sold under turn, and yet orderly and regular. It stands to those of Victoria and New South Wales in somewhat the same relation as New England to New York and Pennsylvania. Its legislature, of its own accord, when emancipated from the constraint of the Australian Land Sales' Act, maintained the principles of that law and of the Wakefield system for the disposal of land; and maintains them still. It is because this colony exhibits, in its history, so much of the normal character — free from all disturbing causes — from slavery, native wars, convicts, gold discoveries, large pastoral interests — because it displays more com- pletely than any other of modern times the particulars of the advance of an industrious colony without staple exports of high value — that its annals are worth studying in greater detail than its mere statistical importance would justify. * Nearly 1,600,000 acres were given away in the first seven or eight years. (See Beport of Land and Emigration Board for 1840, p. 23.) Yet with all the facts of the original settlement before their eyes, the colonists seem to have disKked the change ; and one writer, Ogle {Western Australia, p. 136), compares its effects to "stop- " ping a vehicle in rapid motion." Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 463 these regulations soon became extremely large. In 1831, the sales of land reached the sum of 126,000Z. The average sum realized appears to have been about from 7*. to 8s. per acre, including town allotments. In August, 1838, the government at home wished to raise the upset price to 12*. per acre ; and this resolution was carried into effect in the following year. Great opposition was excited in the colony by this alteration : all the ordinary arguments which have been put forth against the sale of waste land at high prices, both by those who understand and those who do not understand the principle of the system, were brought to bear against it. And it appears that the first effect, as might have been expected, was to diminish both the quantity of land sold and the number of emigrants ; although part of that dimiriution may perhaps have been owing to the appre- hension which began at the same time to prevail respect- ing the diminution of convict labour, and part to the great popularity of Port PhUHp, But this opposition almost entirely died away, as soon as the fears of the colonists had become really excited, and incipient in- convenience began to be felt, through the gradual discon- tinuance of the practice of assignment. What amount of injiirious effect that measure may reahy have had in depriving them of the necessary supply of labour, it would be difficult to estimate. But it probably occasioned some immediate loss, and greater indirect injury, by the discouragement which it threw on the investment of capital. Now, in such a state of things, a system under which any considerable number of free emigrants could be introduced into the country was the greatest boon which government had it in its power to offer ; and this result rapidly followed, through the increase of the land revenue consequent on the increase of price, and through the apphcation of an increased proportion of that revenue to the purpose of obtaining labour. In the three years 464 HISTORY OF [Lect. XVT. 1838-40, from 8000 to 10,000 emigrants were amiually carried to Sydney by the expenditure of this fund; a more copious supply of labour than assignment could furnish, although undoubtedly not so easily procurable and controllable, nor at least, in the first instance, so cheap. The good effects of this extensive importation were soon felt even in the remotest part of the colony. A settler in the interior, giving evidence on the subject before a committee at Sydney, says, " Indirectly the im- " migration of free labourers has benefited me ; as it has " disengaged a description of labour which is of greater " service to me ; that is, of men who formerly found " employ in the settled districts, but are now obhged to " come farther to look for it." This seems to point out that the influx of emigrants disposed of itself in the most satisfactory manner ; the new comers, who are not so well fitted to encounter a change of hfe to the wilder- ness, remaining for a time in the settled districts. Lastly, the singular good fortune which has attended the youngest of aU these colonies. Port Phillip, since its commencement, although owing mainly to natural ad- vantages, has certainly been promoted by the good management of its funds, and the high price of its land. Its foundation was carried on, in all respects, under happy auspices. It was not made, like South Austraha, the subject of an experiment. It was not an insulated settle- ment, but a district of ISTew South Wales, and enjoyed the benefit of the government of that colony, and assist- ance from its revenue. It owed its existence, not to speculation, but to the actual wants of the neighbom'ing colonies : the increasing capital of Van Diemen's Land, u.nable to obtain sufiicient profit in that island, where so much of the land was appropriated, found a new field in this adjacent region, — the nearest part of the continent, and, as far as yet appears, the most favoured by nature. Lect. XVI.] SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 465. Its land has sold at tlie great average price of 30s. per acre : 3000 emigrants went there in 1840, a larger number than to South Austraha; and it furnished, in 1841 nearly 800,000 lbs. of wool to the Enghsh market, exceeding the produce of the Cape of Good Hope. Let us suppose that its land had been given away, or sold at low prices : those who are stiU sceptical as to the pohcy of the present system may ask, whether the purchasers would not in that case have retained more of their capital in their pockets, and been able to provide labour for themselves? The answer is, in the first place, that capitalists would not have got the land at aU : it would have been appropriated, for the most part, by numerous and poor settlers, if these had equal chances of obtaining it -with, the rich ; and, in the next place, the few capi- talists who might have settled there could not, by their insiilated efforts, have procured labour half so cheaply or effectually as government has been able to do it for them ; besides the other advantages which the territory has derived from the partial application of its land fund to other branches of necessary expenditure, H H 466 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVL APPENDICES TO LECTUEE XVI. No. I. To continue the extraordinary economical history of Victoria (formerly Port Phillip) since the gold discoveries of 1851, is a task beyond the compass of this work. I have only added in an appendix, some of its leading facts in relation to our immediate subject, the disposal of pubhc land. The statistics and results of the gold dis- coveries down to 1856 inclusive, are fuUy developed by Mr. Newmarch in his sixth volume of " Tooke's history of Prices." These had then attained their maximum. In 1856, gold to the value of 11,943,458/. was shipped from Victoria (besides about 2,000,000/., supposed to have been raised in addition). In 1859, only 9,122,037/. shipped. " Dividing this among the persons on the gold fields, it would scarcely average 45/. per head per annum." (Mark Lane Express, Eeb. 1861.) The dechne of production has been gradual. Thus far, Victoria presents no exception to the general law of gold adventure. The first explorers only scratch the surface, and astonish the world by their success. Their successors work in partnerships, with more labour and better ap- pliances, dig deeper, and obtain (individually) less. The last comers expend capital in applying aU the resources of machinery, and obtain less stUl. Nor can anything except the discovery of virgin gold fields alter this course of events. Lect. XVI.J APPENDIX. 467 No. n. Quantity of "Wool imported into the United Kingdom in lbs. Total. From Australia, From South Africa. 1845 65,713,761 24,117,317 3,512,924 1858 126,738,523 51,104,560 16,597,504 Average jprice in 1859. Australian Wool Is. Sd. to 2s. lid. per lb. , Soutb African Is. 2d. to Is. 9^d. ,, (M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary.) No. ni. New South Wales, Waste Land sold from 1840 to 1858. Total. Average Price of 1 ■ Acre. "» l"^' Years. Number of Acres. Purchase Money. A. E. P. £ i. d. 1840 105,900 27 99,231 6 7 14 11 1841 19,546 1 36 21,923 12 2 15 1842 7,711 1 7 13,406 14 10 1 1 2 1843 5,259 2 34 9,564 12 2 1 9 1844 4,079 2 8,030 16 10 1 16 4 1845 4,061 2 10 14,104 1 8 1 18 8 1846 3,105 3 17 10,997 10 1 1 10 6 1847 2,652 3 36 9,182 2 4 1 7 4 1848 3,472 1 39 8,865 8 9 1 4 5 1849 8,166 1 38 22,740 16 7 1 8 5 1850 11,800 2 33 35,261 10 7 1 6 7 1851 24,030 15 67,912 3 2 1 7 1 1852 26,650 2 5 56,875 10 11 1 16 6 1853 72,158 3 2 261,667 3 7 2 2 4 1854 83,396 1 39 272,078 18 11 1 10 3 1855 127,952 32 269,131 14 5 — 1856 167,753 3 23 274,200 2 7 — 1857 145,102 1 8 219,961 8 — 1858 169,214 2 28 248,726 8 3 ~ "Squatters' Euns," in 1866, estimated at 31,600,000 acres. H H 2 468 APPEinJIX. [Lect. XVT No. IV. Victoria, Waste Land sold from 1838 to 1858. TOTAl. • Years.: Number of Acres. Purchase Money. A. E. P. £. s. d. 1838 38,694 1 12 34,328 12 6 1839 38,348 1 8 70,049 13 10 1840 83,887 2 16 218,019 16 6 1841 66,229 2 11 71,615 3 3 1842 2,962 4 6,039 1 1843 811 3 32 1,770 1 3 1844 181 1,001 8 10 1845 3,685 2 1 8,717 2 4 1846 4,677 3 17 19,186 8 10 1847 26,073 2 31 67,780 5 3 1848 18,007 2 34 33,054 10 1849 28,090 3 39 71,171 19 ' 1850 18,398 3 18 98,667 7 6 1851 99,769 3 31 194,174 14 4 1852 163,897 2 1 599,310 10 1853 305,693 1 12 1,568,113 9 7 1854 404,472 1 1,378,858 18 11 1855 438,972 2 20 763,664 2 4 1866 437,662 749,317 13 3 1867 500,383 1 3 1,067,460 8 1 1868 265,724 2 28 638,660 1 3 I/BCT. XVI.] APPENDIX. 469 No. V. South Australia, "Waste Land sold from 1835 to 1859. Years. Number of Acres. Purchase Money. 1835 I i. B. P. £ o'. d. to \ 297,167 272,878 1840 J (of which 160,000 sold in England.) 1841 8,310 8,310 1842 17,081 2 17,081 10 1843 598 613 13 9 1844 3,428 5,666 13 1845 49,658 62,902 8 1846 59,402 35 98,594 9 1847 35,033 1 8 36,336 17 1848 29,200 31,762 13 a 1849 56,607 59,677 17 3 1850 64,349 90,385 18 2 1851 82,589 1 88,740 15 1852 86,672 1 5 99,081 1853 213,321 1 4 291,660 1 1854 213,925 9 383,469 13 3 1855 171,610 1 29 233,745 1 1856 187,451 18 235,460 3 1857 179,138 2 6 216,289 8 1858 158,015 3 18 202,468 1 1859 188,065 34 229,732 4 No. VI. DisposAi OF Eevenue derived from Waste Lands in New South Wales, 1831—40. Eeceived from Sales of Crown Lands in New South Wales, from 1831 to June 1840 inclusive . . £958,000 Charges of various kinds, including Expenses of Settlement at Port Phillip, and Protection of the Aborigines . . . £41,300 Actual Charge of Survey and Management, about ..... 149,700 Emigration General Expenses -£191,000 , 502,000 . 265,000 £958,000 H H 3 470 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVI. No. vn. (1861.) At the time wlieii these lectures were dehvered and first printed, the so-called South Australian, or "Wake- field " scheme of colonization, occupied to a great extent the minds both of pohtical philosophers and of practical men engaged in the conduct of emigration. Like most projects based on theory, however far-sighted and com- prehensive, it took in practice a different course from what its inventors anticipated, and its results were in many respects curiously divergent from those with a view to which it was constructed. But it would be a great error to infer on that account that it was unsuccessful : on the contrary, there are in history very few instances to be found in which a system, devised in the closet by studious men, and put in execution in a new and distant world which those men had never seen, has produced such extensive and beneficial results. Although Wake- field and his disciples are already almost forgotten, and to some extent deservedly so, because they erred by at- tributiag an imaginary scientific exactness to what was in truth but a sound practical rule of action, yet it is not too much to say, that the success of our Australian colonies is in very great measure attributable to their lessons. The Home Government were so far persuaded by the arguments of this school, that in 1842Parhament was in- duced to pass the " AustraHan Land Sales Act," in general accordance with their doctrines. The more ardent disci- ples, however, were dissatisfied with this law, which they regarded as a timid and evasive measure. Listead of adopting the favourite principle of a " fixed price," it es- tabhshed the system of auction at an upset price of 1^. per acre. Instead of applying the whole proceeds to sur- veys and emigration, it devoted one half only to the latter purpose, the other half being placed in the hands Lect. XVI.] APPENDIX. 471 of government, which apphed it to the expenses of land management, pubhc works, and other outlay of the nature which I have termed prehminary. The conduct of emigration was placed under the control of Com- missioners in England. A farther deviation from principle was soon intro- duced through the necessity of the case. The great and rapidly increasing pastoral interest of Australia could not be made dependent on this kind of legislation. Purchase at high price, or any price, was inappHcable to their case. They obtained therefore " licences " of pasturage over their enormous "runs " on easy terms. This practice also was rendered legal by an act of ParHament passed shortly after the Land Sales Act, and amending its provisions. This law has been often represented as repealing the " Wakefield " code. In truth it was only the complement of it. While the squatters *, under the hcence system, were spreading far and wide over the interior, the ehgible sites'for agricultural purposes were probably appropriated, sold, and occupied by emigrants, under that of sale at high price. The process of this colonization was not rapid : Austraha is not, Hke North America, an attractive region in general to the small settler, and is much more distant : but it was on the whole singularly steady, and almost entirely free (thanks to the rigid provisions of its institution) from those evils which have so extensively arisen from the engrossing of land by speculators in free- grant or low-price colonies. And a crisis soon arrived in which the value of the practical portion of the system was severely tested. The early labour of the colony, both in making roads and the Hke, and in pastoral pursuits, had been performed by the * It need hardly be said, that wliile the so-called " squatter " of North America is a small farmer settling on vacant land, his Australian namesake is a flock-owner engrossing a whole district for temporary oc- cupation. H u 4, 472 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVI. assigned convicts. I have adverted elsewhere to the causes which first reduced, and ultimately annihilated .the supply of convict labour, between 1845' and 1851. Although the "pastoral interest" were forced to con- form to the times, and even to take a leading part against the continuance of transportation to Austraha, yet in truth they felt the blow very severely. Although their industry did not require any very extensive supply of labour in proportion to the capital employed, it did re- quire that this supply of labour should be steady and rehable. In this emergency, the operation of the Land and Emigration Commissioners came most opportunely to their assistance. By pouring in a regulated supply of emigrants, in proportion to the funds annually received from the sale of land, and therefore pretty nearly in pro- portion to the amount of capital annually invested in the colony, they furnished the stockholders with avail- able labour, not indeed to such an extent as their wants required, but to an extent which it would have been utterly hopeless for them to attain, had the land been low priced and emigration unassisted : and thus pre- served the staple interest of the colony. Another and greater trial awaited the system. The gold discoveries directed towards the Australian shores in 1851, and the following year, a vast number of unas- sisted emigrants ; adventurers proceeding there on their ■own account. The same discoveries raised immediately the price of land, greatly augmented the sale of it, and placed, accordingly, a greatly augmented amount of funds in the hands of the commissioners. These were no longer needed (at least in the vicinity of the gold regions) in order to furnish a supply of labour. That was rapidly furnishing itself, in even alarming abundance. But this influx of " unassisted " emigrants consisted almost wholly of males. Scarcely any women accompanied them at all. It is difficult to see how the gold colonies could have prospered at all, although not diflicult to see that they must have I.ECT. XVI.] APPENDIX. 473 contained a mass of moral contamination, had it not been for the "Wakefield system " and its wise application by the commissioners. They turned their attention, as far as they possibly could, to the essential (and by no means easy) task of organizing an extensive female emi- gration. In one year they appear to have sent out emi- grants, to all Austraha, in the proportion of five females to three males ; to the gold districts in a higher proportion of females, and the result of their operations was highly successful. While in Cahfornia — ten years after the gold discovery — the females constituted only one fifth of the population, in Victoria, after the first rush to the diggings, they never seem to have constituted less than a third. It scarcely requires to be very conversant with the social economy of communities to judge of the enormous difier- ence in happiness, morahty, and industry, which this difierence of proportion represents. If Victoria has been free from the worst features of the turbulence, vice, and insecurity, which attended the height of the gold fever in California — if law and order never ceased in the roughest time to prevail there substantially — if it has formed itself rapidly and completely into a thriving civihzed com- munity, from a mere collection of fortune-hunters — it owes this pre-eminence in part, we may flatter ourselves, to the advantages of British institutions, but probably much more to the accessions to the female population contributed through the "Wakefield system." Here, then, that system has produced a result highly beneficial, but altogether beside the views of its founders, and which could not by possibihty have entered into their contem- plation. That system has served its purpose in the more advanced colonies, and is now at an end. The " unappropriated " half of the proceeds of land sales (that is, the half not apphed to emigration) had been handed over by the British to the colonial government several years ago. The entire control of the land fund has been gradually 474 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVI. surrendered to them likewise, and the transfer was com- pleted in 1855. These governments now exercise it ac- cording to rules of their own ; and (as might have been expected) the distinction between land and general re- venue has been generally broken down. But they have hitherto preserved (for the most part) the usage of sale at comparatively high prices, and that of encouraging im- migration by large grants of public money. It is, however, most essential to observe, that the success of the system of high price in Austraha has been attained under peculiar natural conditions. Krst, speaking gene- rally, the cost of clearing agricultural land in that region is trifling, and the even surface of the land affords singular facility for the construction of roads, or rather for dis- pensing with roads in the first stages of settlement. Secondly, the easy acquisition of pastoral land, and the rapidity with which wealth has been created by sheep- farming, have furnished a constant stimulus to agriculture, and a constant field for the employment of surplus labour. The mere purchase-money of the land has formed, conse- quently, a very considerable part of the purchaser's ex- penditure. He can afford to pay to the land fund what the Canadian purchaser must devote to clearing. He conse- quently reaps the full benefit of his expenditure by the importation of immigrants ; while these, gaining for the most part high wages and easy employment, are the less tempted to abandon at once the character of hired labourer for that of landowner. While the Austrahan colonies were thus aflfordiag ample testimony to the practical utihty of the Wakefield system when apphed to a region admitting of its apph- cation, the history of New Zealand was exhibiting the reverse of the medal, and proving the entire unfitness of that system under different physical conditions. All that portion of New Zealand to which British in- dustry was earhest directed (the Northern island, and the northern part of the Middle island) is either forest Lect. XVI.] APPENDIX. 475 country, or overgrown with the native ferns, even more difficult and costly of extirpation than the forest itself. And, when cleared, it has not hitherto been found avail- able for the prosecution of any productive industry on a large scale, although eminently so for ordinary agricul- tural purposes. It is only within the last few years that the wide grassy plains of the south (Canterbury and Otago) have been opened to the squatter. New Zealand in general, therefore, presents a similar character to that of North America : a region in which clearing is very expensive : communication very difficult, and expensive likewise : in which the labouring settler finds abundant scope for his exertions, with secure but gradual results, the capitahst few openings for his capital. A country, in short, in which the natural process of settlement would appear to be gradual colonization by small holders of low-priced land. But the celebrated scheme for the colonization of New Zealand, 1841 — 45, was originated by adherents to the opposite or high-priced theory. According to the original proposals of the New Zealand Company, land in its three settlements (WeUington, Nelson, New Plymouth) was ofiered to purchasers at 21. per acre, the price to be apphed, according to certain fixed rules, to the several purposes of surveys, emigration, public works, and even public institutions. And they possessed so much influence in the councils of this country, that when, in 1847, go- vernment entered into an arrangement by which it placed three fourths of New Zealand at the disposal of the com- pany, it pledged itself at the same time that land in its own portion (Auckland) should not be sold for less than a poimd per acre. The failure of this ambitious project, on which no small amount of capital and an unrivalled amount of ingenuity had been expended, was in truth complete. Many subsidiary causes were assigned for it, and discussed with controversial ardour ; the failure of government to 476 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVI. secure a fair field for the operations of the company ; the mistakes committed by the company in its early selections of land ; the difficulty, enhanced by adminis- trative delays, of obtaining titles from the natives ; the land speculations of individuals ; pohtical motives, and personal favouritisms and jealousies ; aU were cited by par- tisans in mutual accusation, and some of them may doubt- less have had their share in producing the catastrophe. But, as has been said, the grounds of iU success lay deeper. Purchasers vs^ho had invested as much as they vrere vfilhng to devote to the experiment in the acquisi- tion of large tracts of land, found that this was only the commencement of expenditure. The ground was to be cleared, roads to be made, in a wilderness more than usually impracticable ; surveyuig was in arrear ; the emigrants collected by the expenditure of their purchase- money arrived, from the antipodes, slowly and imcer- tainly, and when arrived evinced as usual a marked desire to set up for themselves. Nor were the means of gratifying this desire long wanting. Land obtained by original subscribers was soon forced into the market on low terms. Purchase on the original terms consequently ceased. When the land, and land fond, of these settle- ments were handed over to the Httle provincial govern- ments after 1852, things were ahnost at their worst. The provincial governments resorted, less from any economical persuasions than from the uniform popular tendencies of such governments, to the opposite system of low price. Under the recent Auckland land regulations, the price of country land was fixed at 10s. an acre : and a similar di- minution of price has taken place in the other settlements above mentioned. Immigration is now steadily increasing, and although the great attraction of the neighbouring Aus- tralian colonies has prevented New Zealand from achieving so rapid a rate of progress as was once anticipated, its advance during the last five years has far exceeded what was attained imder the principles of its first foundation. Lect. XVI.] APPENDIX. 477 But the history of the southern settlements (Canterbury and Otago) furnishes again a distinct illustration of the general principles I have endeavoured to estabhsh. Can- terbury was founded ten years ago, on a scheme which was even then deemed an exaggerated offshoot of the "Wakefield" theory. Land was offered to purchasers at Bl. per acre. The sum thus realised was not only to furnish immigrants and preliminary expenses, but it was also to supply institutions for rehgion and education. Canterbury, in short, was to reahze that favourite vision of so many ardent minds, the transplantation into a new region of a complete section of old British society. If the physical circumstances of Canterbury had been similar to those of Nelson or Wellington, experience now enables us to say with certainty that such an experiment could only have ended in a very costly failure. But the projec- tors had drawn a fortunate ticket in the lottery of adventure. Canterbury is a region comparatively free from forest and undergrowth, where the expense of clearing, and of first communications, is comparatively small. And adjoining to that part of the settlement adapted for agricultural occupation, are vast and fertUe plains, singularly adapted to the purposes of the squatter. In such a region, the rule of high price has in the main a beneficial tendency. The immigrant labourers, who were imported out of the land fund, were easily set to profitable laboiu', and were prevented by the enjoyment of high and ready wages from indulging too far in the ordinary tendency to set up as small landholders. The system of high price, supplemented, as in Austraha, by the easy acquisition of runs for pastoral occupation under licences, continues to prevail in this thriving settlement, and bids fair to maintain itself through the actual demand for land. And I beheve the progress of the second southern settlement of Otago to have been of a similar description, and under similar natural circumstances. 478 PREPARATORY EXPENSES. [Lect. XYH, LECTUEE XVn. EXAMINATION OF SOME SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE DISPOSAL OF LAND IN NEW COLONIES. PEEPAEATORY EXPENSES. — LAND COMPANIES. We have seen of how great importance it is that it should be distinctly ascertained, at the first foundation of a colony, out of what fund its preparatory expenses are to be defrayed. We have seen the dangers attend- ing the practice of borrowing on the credit of a future and contingent fund, such as the general revenue of a young colony ; an experiment, indeed, which is not very hkely to be soon repeated. We have seen that the only available fund, to serve as security for loans, is that derived from the sale of land ; a fund which is most copious precisely in those early stages of the existence of the settlement during which the general revenue is as yet of trifling amount. Let us briefly examine to what extent this fund can be safely anticipated. Let us suppose that a fixed portion of it is devoted to the purpose of procuring labour, and another fixed portion, as proposed in a former lecture, to other speci- fied purposes. It appears to have been lately suggested in many quarters, that it is desirable to raise money on the credit of the former portion of the fund, in order to send out a larger number of emigrants in the first in- stance. It admits, of course, of easy proof, that the greater number of emigrants originally sent out, the less exorbitant the wages of labour will be ; the greater attraction will be afforded to capitahsts, the greater scope given to enterprize, the greater stimulus to the purchase of land. AU this is extremely plausible ; but Lect. XVn.] PREPAEATOBY EXPENSES. 479 the scheme seems peculiarly open to the objections which have been already urged against aU forcing experi- ments. The example of South Austraha has shown the danger of accumulating emigrants on a newly occu- pied spot to find emplojrment, instead of waiting until there is an efiective demand for labour. And, besides these general objections, the pecuhar nature of the land fund must be considered. As has been aheady shown, it is a fund which must diminish relatively, and wiU probably diminish positively, along with the progress of colonization. If such a fund (or rather the portion of it of which we are speaking) is charged at the very outset with the interest of a heavy loan, its eventual utihty must be much diminished ; and it must be a serious question whether, in order to obtain a temporary result by dispatching a few thousands of additional emigrants in the first instance, and thus setting the machine of production in motion a little earlier than would have been done under the natural course of things, it is wise to cause a permanent deduction fi:om that income which should serve to pour in a continuous stream of immigrants, and enable population to spread in propor- tion to the extent of surface purchased and occupied. With respect to that other portion of the land fund which, by the supposition, is appropriated to the pur- poses of roads and pubhc works, the case is very dif- ferent. The necessary preparation for the reception of emigrants, the preliminary general surveys, the laying out of town sites, the rudiments of internal commu- nication, are all requisites for the success of the co- lony, which cannot be obtained without considerable expense : and for these legitimate purposes it cannot be far wrong to pledge, by anticipation, that portion of the land revenue which belongs to them. This is quite a difierent consideration from that re- specting the mode of providing for the more permanent 480 PEEPABATOKY EXPENSES. [Lect. XVII. expenses peculiar to young colonies, wHch require re- gular disbursements, inasmuch as these are of a con- tinuing character, and necessarily accompany pari passu the advance of the settlement} if they do not even outstrip it. Let us confine our attention to the two most important of these burdens — the surveying of lands for the purpose of sale, and pubhc works of absolute necessity, of which road-making is the principal. When the sale of land was stimulated in South Austraha by the prospect that the whole of the pur- chase-money was to be retiu-ned to the purchaser in the shape of labour, an urgent demand for surveys was the immediate consequence. This raised the price of what is at all times an expensive operation in new colonies. It was stni farther enhanced by the permission given to purchasers to demand what were called special surveys ; that is to say, a person who proposed to buy 4000 acres was entitled to demand that 16,000 should be surveyed for him in a single block, as it is termed, out of which he might make his own selection. Whether this practice is a good or a bad one, in reference to the natural progress of wealth, empowering, as it does, the purchaser to select the lands possessed of the greatest natural advantages, and reject the remainder, must be decided by reference to principles touched upon in my former lectures. But it has of course the immediate effect of rendering it necessary that much more should be surveyed than is actually occupied, and thus throwing on the colony the expense of undertaking labours of which the benefit is prospective only, and which en- tail much additional burden on her young resources. In this way the cost of surveys has risen to a height perfectly astonishing, when compared with that of simi- lar work in this country, or in the United States. And as the labours of the surveyor, under the operation of rapid sales, and the special survey system, are carried on Lect. XVII.] SUEVEYING. 481 farther and farther from the coast and the inhabited districts, the cost per acre is of course at present an in- creasing one. Now for all this the South Austrahan system made no provision at all. It was, 1 may perhaps say, an un- foreseen difficulty. The expense was thrown, hke all other expenses, on the general funds of the settlement. The warmest friends of that project now admit that a great mistake was committed in this particular; and the consequences seem certainly to bear strong evidence to the necessity of providing against such contingencies, instead of relying bhndly on the course of events for the discovery of remedies or preventives. Warned by this example, some have now proposed that a preliminary survey of a district should in aU cases precede settlement : but it may be doubted whether this is practicable. If surveying is, as hitherto, to ac- company the sale of land, it seems that. the expense of surveying ought, upon the whole, to be defrayed out of the price of land, either by separately taxing each purchaser for the survey of his purchase, or out of a general fund formed by reserving a certain proportion, out of the purchase-money. The latter mode is the most convenient, if sales of colonial land in England are to be encouraged; because any thing like uncer- tainty of taxation must prejudice them. It is desirable also to fix a minimum number of acres to be sold by government in a single lot; and that on a tolerably high scale, in order to lessen the expense of surveying. This is not suggested with the view of placing difficulties in the way of the purchase of land by people of small means ; but these are never likely to be customers of government to any extent. They generally buy land ready surveyed in small lots from private owners. With regard to the other and more important pre- paratory labours of a colony — the construction of roads, 1 1 482 EOADS AND PUBLIC WOEKS. [Lect. XVII. harbours, wharfs, bridges, and other pubhc works of actual necessity, the first common conquest which must be achieved by the combined exertions of all over the wilderness — there is greater diificulty in determi n ing whether or no these ought to be paid for out of the pro- ceeds of land sales ; and, if not, what other fund ought to be made available for the purpose. As the fund to be raised must, in any case, be ade- quate to its object, it seems at first sight to make httle or no difference to the general capital of the colony which mode is adopted. Either the price of land must be raised so high that a per-centage out of the whole land fund will suffice, year by year, for the construction of roads ; or the purchasers must submit to raise the same sum by aimual taxation ; or a certain proportion must be paid out of the land fund, and the deficit supplied by a rate. In either of these cases the capital taken for the purpose is presumably capital which, if that purpose had been otherwise provided for, would have been profitably employed in other ways, and would have increased the annual income of the colony. Whether the purchaser pays 1^. an acre, to receive it aU back in labour, and make his own roads, or 15s. to be received back in laboiu-, and 55. to have his roads made, the same drain appears to be made on the means of the capitalist. He gains as much by rehef from the burden of making his road, as he loses by losing the benefit of 5s. worth of additional labour. But this, the advocates of the South Australian system might say, is not exactly so. On the first supposition, twenty labourers are imported ; on the latter, fifteen. In both cases the road has to be made : the owner is to pay for it in the first, the government in the second ; but the road can only be constructed by labour. Say that two labourers are required for the piu-pose : in the first case, these win be selected out of twenty, in the latter, out Lect. XVII.] EOADS AOT) PUBLIC ■WOEKS. 483 of fifteen; the same amount of capital being imported in both. Wages in the latter case will therefore be higher ; the construction of the road will cost the go- vernment, and consequently the settler, more than in the former. And if, as they contend with reason to be the case, the entire application of the land fund to immigra- tion will barely afford a sufficient supply of labour, any deduction from labour and addition to wages must be inconvenient to the colony. It seems plain, therefore, that the colony would gain something if it were, at the earhest possible period, to submit to local taxation for the purpose of road-making, and set free a portion of the land fund for the purpose of purchasing more labour. Besides this, the former system seems to have other advantages, both political and economical. The control of local assessments must of necessity (according to the British system of government) be vested more or less absolutely in municipal bodies. The control of funds drawn from the land revenue would probably be vested in the general government, to which the land revenue belongs. It is therefore the interest of the colonists, if they value self-government, to substitute the former for the latter as soon as practicable. And, in the next place, the principle of local assess- ment seems to work more fairly. It is imposed, of course, according to the annual value of land ; whereas the appropriation of a sum from the purchase-money would be a tax of so much per cent on the pmrchase of land ; a purchase necessarily of a very speculative character — a transaction in which the value of the thing purchased might be far above, or far below, the money given for it. This would be the case even under the system of sale by auction : under that of uniform price the disparity would be enormous. I I 2 484 EOADS AND PUBLIC WOEKS. [Lect. XVII. When all these considerations are weighed, you will probably inchne to the opinion, that the best mode of providing for this class of expenses is by a local rate or assessment, levied according to the wants of each par- ticular district, and by local municipal bodies wherever these exist ; and that the apphcation of the land fund to such purposes is a mere expedient, and ought to be carefully restricted to those hmits within which it appears absolutely necessary, viz. the construction of the first lines of communication before the process of settlement has fully begun. Lect. XVII.] APPEISDIX. 485 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE XVH. I HAVE omitted from this lecture a series of details whicli have lost much of the interest which attached to them in 1840, when schemes of regulated colonization were rife. Pubhc opinion has for so many years ac- quiesced in the conclusion that such matters are better left to the settlers themselves, that the best mode of raising funds for what I have termed the preparation of the land for settlement has ceased to be a matter of special interest at home. And no kind of principle has in general been observed by the colonial authorities. As to the methods of road-making in Canada, see note to Lec- ture XV. The simple but wasteful system of constructing pubhc works by special votes of the legislature prevails pretty generally in British settlements. It would be scarcely within my present province to speak of the great loans recently effected by Canada and by Victoria for railway and similar purposes. These are the resources of advanced states, not of ordinary colonies. It is however a question of some interest, how far loans of this kind constitute a permanent burden on the resources of a young com- munity in which there is as yet no great accumulation of capital. " If the capital taken in loans is abstracted from " funds either engaged ia production or destined to be " employed in it, their diversion from that purpose is " equivalent to taking the amount from the wages of the " labouring classes." (I. S. MUl, Principles of Pohtical Economy, book v. ch. 7.) There must therefore be a temporary loss, even though the loan be employed on an ii3 486 APPENDIX. [Lect, xvn. tiltimately reproductive object. But if tlie capital be abstracted from some fund not so engaged or destined, as, for instance, wliere it is advanced by foreign capitalists, this consequence cannot foUow: the fund is so much added to the wealth of the colony : and the loss consists in the tribute paid hereafter to the foreigner by way of interest and redemption of principal. Now this last is the case of aU colonial loans : the capital is advanced by foreigners, in the economical sense of the word, and diminishes in no appreciable degTee the fund destiaed for the maintenance of labour. The injury which this kind of profusion may produce is by its ultimate effects on the solvency and commercial character of the community. Lect. xviii.] treatment of abokigikes. 487 LECTUEE XVIII. POLICY OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS TOWABDS NATIVE TRIBES, AS REGARDS THEIR PKOTEOTION AND THEIR CIVILIZATION. I HAVE now to treat of a very important division of my subject, and one to which it is unfortunately impossible for me to devote an attention at all proportioned to its importance — for this could not be done without over- stepping the hmits I have imposed myself — I mean the duty and right policy of colonists and colonial govern- ment towards the native inhabitants of the regions which they occupy. I shaU. not detain you over the wretched details of the ferocity and treachery which have marked the conduct of civQized men, too often of civilized governments, in their relations with savages, either in past times, or during the present age, rich almost beyond precedent in such enormities. They have been of late the subject of much attention, and of much indignant commentary. You may study them in the accounts of travellers and missionaries, in the reports of our own legislature, in the language of philanthropic orators and writers. You will there read of the barbarous and incessant warfare which has thinned the border tribes of South Africa; of the natives of Tasmania reduced to a few famUies by long maltreat- ment, and those few transported, six years ago, to a small island in the vicinity, almost as a measure of pre- caution, to save them from the settlers, who shot them down in the woods, or laid poisoned food within their reach ; of the ancient race which inhabited Newfoundland 1 I 4 488 TREATMENT OF ABORIGINES [Lbct. XVIII. reduced to a single pair, man and woman, and those two shot by a British colonist in 1823 ; of the shores of New Zealand, infested by the outcasts of society, the very refuse of our refuse, escaped convicts and runaway sailors, exciting the savage passions of the natives against one another, and imparting every imaginable vice, in addition to their own ; of the unequalled course of oppression pursued by American governments towards the defence- less tribes domiciled in their territory on the faith of treaties ; of the numerous and gallant nations of the interior of North America actually perishing before our eyes. To dwell on all this would be a painful, and I am sure an unnecessary, task. The general features of the subject are by this time sufficiently known, and perhaps regarded with sufficient abhorrence : it remains for us now to act ; and with a view to that purpose, it is per- haps desirable that we should cease to dwell so exclusively on the dark side of the picture, as many have hitherto done ; still more, that we should not rest contented with vague and general desires of good, or imagine that the evil influences at work are to be counteracted by great undirected efforts — by proclaiming principles — by or- ganizing societies — by pouring forth the lavish contri- butions of national generosity, without examining for ourselves the channels into which they are to flow. All this is httle better than mere idle philanthropy ; or, it should rather be said, than the mere ftdfilment of certain ceremonies, by which the mind reheves itself of the sense of a debt. But the subject is one of which the consideration pecuharly requires practical and dispas- sionate views ; while to act upon those views requires, in addition, patience under discouragement, contentment with small successes and imperfect agents, faith in sound principles, zeal without bhndness, and firmness without obstinacy. And, in truth, there is something extremely painful Lect. XVIII.] BY EUROPEANS. 489 in the reflection with which we are driven to conclude all our speculations on this subject — namely, that the evils with which we have to contend are such as no system, however wise and humane, can correct. Our errors are not of conception so much as of execution. Nothing is easier than to frame excellent theories, which, if they could be carried out, would go far towards re- moving the stigma under which we he, and redressing the miseries which we have occasioned. But we cannot control the mischief which is going on at a far more rapid rate of progress than we dare expect for the re- sults of our most practicable schemes of improvement. Of what use are laws and regulations, however Chris- tian and reasonable the spirit in which they are framed, when the trader, the backwoodsman, the pirate, the bushranger, have been beforehand with our legislators, poisoning, the savage with spirits, inoculating him vdth loathsome diseases, brutalizing his mind, and exciting his passions for the sake of gain ? Desolation goes before us, and civilization lags slowly and lamely behind. We hand over to the care of the missionary and the magis- trate, not the savage with his natural tendencies and capacities, and his ancestral habits, but a degraded, craving, timid, and artful creature, famiharized with the powers and the vices of the whites, rendered abject or sullen by ill-treatment, and with aU his remaining facul- ties engrossed by the increasing difficulty of obtaining subsistence in his contracted hunting grounds. What success could the ablest and most zealous philanthropist promise himself out of such materials ? And what must. be our expectations, who have mainly to rely on agents necessarily removed from close control and responsibihty, and often very imperfectly quahfied for the work we have to undertake ? AU the anticipations of success which a reasonable ,man can frame to himself from schemes of reform and amehoration must necessarily be 490 TREATMENT OF ABOBIGINES [Lect. XVIU. subject to one reservation — namely, if they be not thwarted by the perverse wickedness of those outcasts of society whom the first waves of our colonization are sure to bring along with them. If their violence and avarice cannot be restrained by the arm of power — and it must be confessed that there appears scarcely any feasible mode of accomphshing this — it is impossible but that our progress in the occupation of barbarous countries must be attended with the infliction of infinite suffering. Nor is this state of things pecuHar to our own times, though increased demoralization, as well as increased energy and activity in colonizing, may, of late, have rendered it more conspicuous than heretofore. The history of the European settlements in America, Africa, and Austraha, presents everywhere the same general features — a wide and sweeping destruction of native races by the uncon- trolled violence of individuals, if not of colonial au- thorities, followed by tardy attempts on the part- of governments to repair the acknowledged crime. If, therefore, the means on which I shall dwell in my present lectures be in truth inadequate to perform what they appear to promise, it must be remembered that their efficiency is necessarily cramped by the contrary tendencies of causes over which our policy has scarcely any control. But because they are but too imperfect, it does not follow that they must be altogether ineffec- tive ; and true pohtical wisdom, on subjects such as these, consists in making the best of the instruments at our disposal, and assuming those results as within our reach towards which we feel that it is possible, at all events, to approximate. And thus far, perhaps, we may be satisfied with the improved prospect of our relations with these much abused members of the human family, that there is now httle fear of their being treated with injustice and oppression by the founders of colonies, armed vdth the Lect. XVin.] BY EUROPEANS. 491 authority of governments. We have at all events out- lived the days in which they were considered a lawful prey for the ferocity of the zealot, or the cupidity of the adventurer. We are removed alike from the age of the exterminating conquests of South America, and the plundering practices of Dutch and Enghsh settlers in a more recent time. Colonial officers no longer make, in their despatches, the simple avowal of rapacity in which the first Dutch governor of the Cape indulged, when he describes himself as looking from the mud walls of his fortress on the cattle of the natives, and wondering at the ways of Providence, which had bestowed such very fine gifts on the heathen. " If we had been allowed," he adds, in a subsequent paper, " we had opportunity too, " to deprive them of 10,000 head ; which, however, if " we obtain orders to that effect, can be done at any " time ; and even more conveniently, because they will " have greater confidence in us." Nor do we now hear such sentiments as those expressed by the colonists of Virginia, in a kind of manifesto pubHshed in the year 1622, in which they rejoice in some late warhke incur- sions of the Indians as a pretext for robbing and subjuga- ting them, " Now their cleared grounds in aU their " villages, which are situate in the fruitfiJlest places of " the land, shall be inhabited by us, whereas heretofore " the grubbing of woods was the greatest labour. The " way of conquering them is much more easy than that " of civilizing them by fair means ; for they are a rude, " barbarous, and naked people, scattered in small com- " panics, which are helps to victory, but hindrances to « civihty." * Compare such language as this vsdth that now com- monly used by colonial authorities, and I think we shall not be guilty of presumption in congratulating ourselves * Tracts relating to Virginia in the British. Museum, quoted hj Bannister, British Colonization and Coloured Tribes, p. 49. 492 NATIVE TRIBES UNDER [Lect. XVni. on the change which a century or two have wrought in pubhc opinion ; for though our practice may yet be far short of our principles, it is impossible but that the con- duct of officers (I do not speak here of that of indivi- duals) must be in a great measure regulated by their responsibihty to it. In prehminary deahngs with savages, whose indepen- dence is recognized, common justice and Christian hu- manity will readily point out the leading rules to be ob- served ; the rest is far more matter of tact, prudence, and firmness in each separate emergency, than for previous deliberation. On this part of the subject therefore I will not touch, but take it up at what may be .termed an advanced stage. When the colony is founded, and al- ready extending itself over a considerable tract of terri- tory, the period has arrived at which a more systematic course of proceeding becomes absolutely necessary. The duties of the colonial government towards the natives comprised within the hmits of the colony, then seem to arrange themselves under two heads — protection and civilization. It is of course true, and must be stated in the outset, that any rules which can be laid down must vary in their application according to the different character, degree of civilization, and numerical force of the tribes with whom' we have to deal in the wide circuit of our colonial enter- prise. Of the races with which we have been brought in contact in our colonies, properly so called (those in which the soil is occupied by our settlers), perhaps the South Africans are, upon the whole, the most advanced in con-' dition, as well as the most formidable in number and warhke character. " Although as yet unciviUzed," says Governor Wade of the Caffres, by no means a friendly' witness, " they could not with truth be called a nation' of savages."* They are a pastoral people, rich in flocks * Bannister, British Colonization and Coloured 'Tribes, p. 244. Lect. XVIII.] BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 493 and herds ; to wliom the notion of property appears to be familiar; subject to chiefs maintaining a greater state, and ruling larger bodies of men than the natives of our . other settlements ; warlike and sanguinary, and rendered, unhappUy, more so by the constant hostihties between them and our colonists, which appear to have been for many years encouraged by our authorities ; but evidently susceptible of much improvement. The North American Indians are well known to us by description ; the fa- vourite study ahke of philosophy and romance for these two centuries, their character is fixed in our minds as almost the type of that of man in a savage condition ; yet they have many pecuhar features. They seem possessed of higher moral elevation than any other imcivilized race of mankind, with less natural readiness and ingenuity than some, but greater depth and force of character ; more native generosity of spirit, and manliness of disposi- tion ; more of the rehgious element ; and yet, on the other hand, if not with less capacity for improvement, certainly less readiness to receive it ; a more thorough wildness of temperament ; less curiosity ; inferior exci- tability; greater reluctance to associate with civilized men ; a more ungovernable impatience of control. And their primitive condition of hunters, and aversion from every other, greatly increases the difficulty of including them m the arrangements of a regular community. Of the South American Indian, our neighbour in Guiana, we know less ; but, by the best accounts, he seems to be a feebler hkeness of his northern brother. The Polyne- sians, on the whole, appear to be a race of less concen- trated energy, perhaps an iaferior mental organization to the Americans; but with greater gaiety, and greater docility of disposition ; even more superstitious, if possible, in exterior observance, yet with less intense consciousness of the reality of the invisible world ; cultivators of the soil, and living associated in more numerous communities, inviting instead of repelling the society of Europeans ; 494 PROTECTION OF NATIVES. [Lect. XVIII. altogether more promising subjects for experiment. Lastly, the poor Australians have usually been represented as the lov^est of the human race in point of acquirement, of capacity, and even of physical organization. They have indeed all the appearance of a race depressed by constant want, or rather a constant struggle with an un- gratefiil nature for support ; placed by Providence in a condition more approaching that of the animal, they ex- hibit less of sentiment and more of instinct, or rather animal habit, than any other people with whom we are acquainted : but that not only their capacity of improvement, but their actual attainments and mental condition, have been strangely underrated, some recent evidence plainly demonstrates. 1. For the protection of aborigines the first step necessary is, the appointment in every new colony of a department of the civil service for that especial pur- pose, with one or more officers exclusively devoted to it. The estabhshment of Protectors, or Commissaries of the Indians, has been long known in the old Spanish colonies. They are spoken of in Mexico by Humboldt as officers of high station and character; in Chili, by Captain Fitzroy, a late observer, as highly serviceable functionaries, to the effect of whose exertions he bears witness.* It is singular that Enghsh colonies have been long without the advantage of a similar institution. I am not aware that it has ever been included ia the original plan of a settlement, except in the two most recent foundations of South Austraha and New Zealand. In Demerara such officers have been for some time es- tabhshed. In Canada there is a considerable and expensive Indian department, vnth superintendents, se- cretaries, and interpreters; but the mismanagement of * Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle, p. 345. Lkct. XVIII.] PEOTECTION OF NATIVES. 495 the afiairs of that colony, as regards the natives, seems to have rendered them of httle service, except to super- intend the mischievous practice of the annual delivery of presents. That the protection of natives should in all cases be withdrawn altogether from the colonial legislature, and intrusted to the central executive, is a principle in which, I think, even the most jealous friends of colonial freedom must acquiesce. One of the most useful func- tions of a distant central authority — counterbalancing to a certain extent its disadvantages — is to arbitrate dispassionately between classes having so many mutual subjects of irritation. I believe that the duties of these officers, as far as the protection of the natives is concerned, are confined in our colonies to those within the pale of the settle- ments ; the conduct of treaties and trade with bor- derers belongs to another department. Perhaps such division is unnecessary. The good execution of such an office seems better attainable by accumulating, than dividing, responsibility. And any scheme appears too elaborate, which imports the machinery of mutual checks and supervision, necessary for the good conduct of routine administration, into an office which depends for its able execution far more on individual tact, zeal, courage, and humanity, than on the goodness of its systematic ar- rangement. A single individual, thoroughly quahfied for the task, can accomphsh more good among savages in a given time than the best code of regulations which ever was put upon paper. The obvious duties of these officers, in the protec- tion of the natives, are the detection and prosecution of offences against them : the regulation of contracts be- tween them and the whites, particularly that of master and servant, which requires careful supervision : and here it may be observed that some have proposed fixed. 496 PEOTECTION OF [Lect. xvhi. laws on the subject, as, for example, that no such con- tract should in any case exceed half a year ; all which appears much better left to the discretion of the pro- tector, if he can be relied upon for the proper execution of his office. He should also, it has been proposed, be the ex officio defender of the natives, or appoint de- fenders for them, in all cases where complaints are preferred against them by whites. It has been sug- gested, in addition, that he should have the right of controlling the summary power which travellers, and others who employ natives for temporary piuposes, seem often apt to assume, of inflicting corrections upon them. And here the important question opens itself: how far, and in what mode, are natives, resident or found within the hmits of an Enghsh colony, to be brought within the pale of Enghsh law? That all crimes com- mitted against them should be tried by its provisions, and that aU the protection which it extends to the life and property of Enghshmen should be also extended to theirs, is admitted on all hands, shamefully as the prin- ciple has been neglected in former times by colonial governments. But are the savages themselves to be considered amenable to British criminal justice, con- ducted according to forms of British law, for acts com- mitted by them against the colonists ? " Whenever it " may be necessary to bring any native to justice," says Lord Glenelg, in a dispatch to Sir J. Stirhng, " every " form should be observed which would be considered " necessary in the case of a white person." It is easy to understand the benevolent feehng which suggested this direction : namely, that such forms should be in- terposed as a shield between the savage and the sum- mary justice which an injured colonist would be likely to exercise towards him. But how far is the principle to be carried ? Are " ignorant savages to be made Lect. XVin.] NATIVE RACES. 497 " amenable to a code of wliicli they are absolutely " ignorant ; and tbe whole spirit and principles of which " are foreign to their mode of thought and action?" Are they to be punished, in short, with all the forms of justice, for actions to which they cannot themselves by possibility attach the notion of crime ? Whatever temporary expediency may suggest, the moral feehng on which aU criminal codes must rest for sanction cannot but receive some shock by the straining of thertr enactments to comprehend persons as incapable of ia^ curling voluntary guilt against them as the lunatic or idiot, who are in all societies exempted from their infliction.* * (1861.) One of the most unfortunate instances of tlie misapplication of notions founded on English law to the case of savages has been, in my belief, the system adopted in New Zealand as to the so-called " tribal ownership" of land by the natives. The New Zealand tribes had as between themselves some recognized rights over the soil. One tribe respected the boundary of another, unless in cases of disputed right. Each tribe cultivated patches of land occasionally, moving from one to the other, within its own district, but regular occupation there was none. This title the British Government thought fit to erect into the absolute right of an owner to the soil, according to strict European usage. By the " Treaty of Waitangi," the crown gua- ranteed " to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the families " and individuals thereof, the fuU, exclusive, and undisturbed possession " of their lands and estates." They yielding to the crown "the " exclusive right of preemption over such lands as the proprietors " thereof may wish to alienate.^' Thus, by a few words of con- veyancing language, the "tribes" in their collective character were recognized as the private landowners of the whole of a great island, into which at the same time European settlers were poured by thousands. Lord Grey indeed contended, on very strong grounds of abstract reason, and in conformity with the general understanding of nations, " that the savage inhabitants of New Zealand have no " right of property in land which they do not occupy, and which " has remained unsubdued for the purposes of man." But this assertion of general principle came too late to be of much practical use, after the treaty of Waitangi. And the friends of the Aborigines in New Zealand and in England, in what I must deem mistaken K K 498 PEOTECTION OF [Lbct. XVIII. So long as the natives remain in their uninstructed state, the first purpose for which they are to be brought within the pale of criminal justice is that of deterring them from attacks on the persons and property of colonists. Until this is done, other considerations are premature. And perhaps this result would be better attained by placing them, in the first instance, under a species of martial or summary law, to be administered by the chief police functionaries ; with opportunity for defence, or for apphcation in mitiga- tion of punishment, in serious cases, by the protector and his agents. Such a scheme, besides avoiding the extreme inconvenience and striking absurdity of formal process in such affairs, would have the additional advantage of re- moving the white settlers themselves . from any share in judicial proceedings against the natives, with whom they have already too many causes of collision ; which with a jury system is inevitable. And it would have this further zeal, insisted on the literal execution of that treaty, not simply as a treaty, but as in itself founded on correct principles. They stood up for native rights, forgetting that when a right is established, without at the same time establishing the corresponding power to maintain it, evil instead of good is done to the protected party. If the doctrine that the natives were absolute owners of the soil, and not compellable to paxt with it, was to be maintained, British settlers should have been ex- cluded and the Northern island maintained as a native preserve. The doctrine, and th« practice, were incompatible. To induce the natives to part with their land has required a constant exercise of diplomacy and cajolery, and sometimes, doubtless, of fraud ; whUe on their part, the caprice of uncultivated minds, or mistaken notions of self-interest, or the evil counsels of others, have constantly interfered to make them retain land urgently wanted ; and the disputes of the tribes themselves about a " right," artificially rendered so valuable, have led to bloody feuds, and at last to a disastrous war, which nothing but singularly temperate management could have averted so long. Had the New Zealanders, fi-om the beginning, been treated as clients for whom the British government was authorised to act — no fancied " right " of owner- ship acknowledged, but fair compensation always made them whenever land, over which a tribe was accustomed to range, was taken for the use of settlers — it is probable enough, not only that these evils might have been averted, but that a noble race, now hastening apparently to decay, might have been preserved to Christianity and civilization. Lect. XVin.] NATIVE EACES. 499 advantage, — that it would leave an opportunity for the admission of the native to full civil rights at a future period, when converted and instructed, and able to satisfy some sufficient test of his fitness for full participation m the rights and duties of civil society. Of the nature of the punishments to be inflicted, the colonial government must probably judge. It has been recommended that in no case should death or corporal punishment be inflicted on a native ; but merely confinement in prisons and penitentiaries. I doubt the practicability of this himiane suggestion. Although, in most of the regions in which we are brought into contact with savage races, it does appear that the settlers are very rarely exposed to acts of violence from the savages, unless they have themselves given the first provocation, yet it must be remembered that all savages are habitually pilferers ; that the difficulty of securing movable property and stock against their depredations is one of the greatest with which colonists in exposed situations have to con- tend ; and that a mode of punishment so expensive and- inconvenient may not always be foimd adequate for the exigencies of the moment. But with respect to death, one thing appears plaiu ; that if it must be inflicted at all, it should bei confined, as far as possible, to cases ia which it may fallow immediately upon the act as a con- sequence ; as when the murderer is taken in the manner — that it may strike terror as a retribution, not appear as an act of dehberate justice ; a view of capital punishment which no uncivilized mind can possibly entertain. But a more important question remains : — how far ought the natives to be brought at once within the juris- diction of EngHsh criminal law, in respect of their conduct towards one another ? Upon this subject I shall take the Hberty of tran- scribing the words of an observer, who has studied with no common diligence and success the characteristics of the K s 2 500 PKOTECTION OF tLECT. XVIII. natives of the regions visited by Mm. What he says is intended to have apphcation to the case of the Austrahan aborigines, but it will be seen at once that it bears equally on other instances. He observes, that the principle which has hitherto regu- lated us ia our dealings with native races has generally been the following: — that, although the natives should, as far as the persons and property of Europeans were concerned, be made amenable to British laws, yet, so long as they only exercised their own customs among them- selves, and not too immediately in the presence of Euro- peans, they should be allowed to do so with impunity. " This principle," he goes on to say, " origiaated in "philanthropic notions, in total ignorance of the peculiar "traditional laws of this people. . . . They are as "apt and inteUigent as any other race of men I am ac- "quainted with ; they are subject to hke affections, pas- "sions, and appetites as other men ; yet ia many points "of character they are apparently totally dissimilar to ." them ; and, from the pecuhar code of laws of this people, "it would appear not only impossible that any nation sub- "ject to them could ever emerge from the savage state, "but that even no race, however highly endowed, however " civilized, could remain long in a state of civilization, if " submitted to the operation of such barbarous customs.'' This is very nearly equally true of the New Zealanders, and, to a great extent, of the American Indians. " The plea generally set up in defence of this principle "is, that the natives of this country are a conquered " people, and that it is an act of generosity to allow them " the full power of exercising their own laws upon them- " selves. But this plea would appear to be inadmissible : "for, in the first place, savage and traditional customs "should not be confounded with a regular code of " laws ; and, secondly, when Great Britain ensures to a " conquered country the privilege of preserving its own Lect. XVIII.] NATIVE EACES. 501 "laws, all persons residing in this territory become " amenable to those laws, and proper persons are selected " by the government to watch over their due and equit- " able administration. Nothing of this kind either exists, " or can exist, with regard to the customs of the natives. " Between these two cases, then, no analogy is apparent. " I would submit, therefore, that it is necessary, from " the moment the aborigines of this country are declared " British subjects, that they should, as far as possible, be " taught that the British laws are to supersede their own ; " so that any native who is suffering under their own cus- " toms may have the power of an appeal to the laws of " Great Britain ; or, to put this in its true Hght, that all " authorised persons should, in aU instances, be required " to protect a native from the violence of his fellows, even " though they be in the execution of their own laws. " So long as this is not the case, the older natives have " at their disposal the means of effectually preventing the " civilization of any individual of their own tribe ; and " those amongst them who may be inclined to adapt " themselves to the habits and mode of hfe of Europeans " vsoll be deterred from so doing by their fear of the " consequences that the displeasure of others may draw " down upon them. " So much importance am I disposed to attach to this " point, that I do not hesitate to assert my full convic- " tion, that whilst those tribes that are in communication " with Europeans are allowed to execute their barbarous " laws and customs upon one another, so long wiU they " remain hopelessly immured in their present state : and " however unjust such a proceeding might at first sight " appear, I beHeve that the course pointed out by true " humanity would be to make them, from the commence- " ment, amenable to the British laws, both as regards " themselves and Europeans : for I hold it to involve a " contradiction, to suppose that individuals subject to 502 PEOTECTION OF [Lect. XVIII. " savage and barbarous laws can rise to a state of civili- " zation, wHcii tbeir laws have a manifest tendency to " destroy and overturn." * This is a passage which opens a wide field for specu- lation to the inquirer. The reasons which Captain Grey gives for at once suppressing by law injurious customs, instead of waiting for the operation of conversion, or of European example, undoubtedly appear very strong. But it may be easy to apply a rule to so ignorant and defenceless a race as the aborigines of Australia, which would be very partially practicable in the case of more numerous and powerM communities. If however his principle be correct, it will scarcely suffice to extend it to such customs as Lord John EusseU designates as " violations of the eternal and universal laws of morality," such as cannibahsm, human sacrifice, and infanticide.f It will be necessary to apply it also, with discretion, to cus- toms less horrible, yet, from the greater frequency of their operation, perhaps still more injurious and incompatible -with civihzation : such as the violent abuse of the authority of husbands over wives, and barbarous ill-usage of the weaker sex in general ; and some of the features of slavery among the New Zealanders, if not the practice itself. It win be necessary, in short, that the colonial authorities should act upon the assumption that they have the right, * Captain (now Sir George) Grey's suggestions with reference to the practicability of improving the moral and social condition of the abori- ginal inhabitants of Australia. (From the South Australian Eecord of Nov. 7, 1840. Printed also in the Parliamentary Papers concerning New Zealand, 1841 ; and in the journal of the Captain's travels.) ■f Instructions to Governor Hobson, Dec. 9, 1840. His lordship distinguishes three classes of native customs : — 1. those here alluded to, which must be suppressed ; 2. other customs, pernicious in them- selves, but of which the abolition is best attainable by example and gradual enlightenment; 3. such as are rather absurd and im- politic than directly injurious. — Papers relating to New Zealand, 1841, No. 17. Lect. XVIII.] NATIVE EACES. 503 in virtue of the relative position of civQized and Christian men to savages, to enforce abstinence from immoral and degrading practices, to compel outward conformity to the law of what we regard as better instructed reason. But to particularize instances would lead us far astray from our main purpose. The duties of the protectors ought, as has been said, to extend also to the regulation of civil contracts between natives and settlers. In none of our colonies has the Spanish system of placing the former in a state of legal minority been regularly adopted. It certainly seems, upon the whole, the best adapted to the necessities of a young settlement, whether it was right or not to con- tinue it in communities so far advanced as those of Mexico and Peru before their revolutions, may be more questionable. The contract of master and servant is one pecuharly requiring this sort of interference. Some have proposed a general law for limiting such contracts in various particulars ; for example, as to their duration. But the expediency of such anticipative regulations is very doubtful ; practical experience is necessary to as- certain what terms are fair and beneficial in different countries, and different employments. This subject should be left to the discretion of the protector ; and, notwith- standing the temporary inconvenience to the parties, all such contracts should be subject to the approval of him or his agents, at least during the first years of the ex- periment, until the state of society in the colony is mature' for general legislation. Otherwise, there is a constant danger, either of the reduction of the native to actual- slavery, or of the uncertain, and therefore mischievous interference of the authorities to prevent hardship in par- ticular cases. I leave undiscussed, from regard to the very narrow limits vfithin which I am forced to compress my observ- ations, some other important duties of the protector's K K 4 504 CIVILIZATION OF [Lect. XYIIT. office ; for example, that of regulating tlie exchanges between settlers and natives, and that of preventing, as far as possible, the supply of the latter v?ith ardent spirits. This is an offence by the laws both of the United States and Canada : and in the former country, some boast is made of the efficacy of the Indian agents estabhshed on the frontiers, in enforcing the prohibition. Unfortunately, all that government can do in repressing this and other offences against the unhappy savage is the merest trifle when opposed to the enormous power for evil of the lawless aliens from all communities who roam the Ame- rican deserts and the Pacific Ocean, the successors of the Paulistas and Buccaneers of past centuries. With respect to the latter class of adventurers, it has been proposed of late that certain powers should be given to her Majesty's cruisers in the Pacific, so as to constitute a sort of loco- motive tribunal, to take cognizance of offences committed by British subjects against natives on the high seas and in the islands. Whatever may be the practicabOity of this scheme, the atrocities of these brigands have had at least one good effect, namely, by forcing on the coloni- zation of New Zealand ; an enterprise in which this university — removed as her homely avocations usually are from these distant adventures — may be said to have had her pecuhar share, one of its most distinguished patrons being a high officer of our ovra, and some of its most zealous promoters among the most eminent sons of Oxford. I pass from this subject, very imperfectly treated, to one of greater interest, and more permanent importance; the duty and office of colonial governments in regard to the civilization of aborigines. And first, it is necessary to consider in what physical circumstances these are placed by the progress of new set- tlements. Unfortunately, the early colonists of North- America were not compelled, by the force of events, to Lkct. XVm.] SAVAGE EACES. 505 take this subject into their consideration. And hence, we have no course of precedent to direct us : no plan has been matured, no principles aimed at, in the long course of our colonial experience : our measures, when at last we have been obhged to act, have been irregular and arbitrary, and merely adapted to the wants of the moment. Those early colonists only occupied, httle by little, the fringe of a vast region, inhabited by savages* Those whom they encountered defended, for a time, their hxmting-grounds and their villages ; but, when expelled by superior force, they merely retreated farther into the wilderness. It was not until centuries had passed that it was discovered that, wide as the habitable part of that region was, and reduced as its population had been, almost equally, by war and peace with the invaders, its space was yearly becoming too narrow even for those diminished numbers. At last it failed to contain them. The vast surface of the Prairies was unable to receive the retreating myriads who had been expelled from the Forest. Then the reflux took place. Thinned, dispirited, degraded, the remnants of powerful tribes returned eastwards towards their former seats ; and either threw themselves on the mercy of governments, or attracted attention to their wants by becoming dan- gerous neighbours on the skirts of the settled country. Then, and rarely tOl then, reserves of lands were allotted them, in various parts, both of the States and of Ca- nada; and endeavours were made to Christianize and civilize them. Up to that time, the notion of assigning to them a property in a part of the soil they once oc- cupied seems to have been hardly entertained. Even Perm did not fully admit it into his scheme : he gave the natives free leave to settle in certain parts of his territory ; but he did not set aside any definite tract of the soil as their property, which should rise in value along with other tracts, and thus afford a stimulus to their gradual 506 EEMOYAL OF INBIA]!^' [Lect. XVIII. improvement wHch is the common definition of a "native reserve." (I may observe in passing, that it was the want of systematic views in this and other respects which ren- dered the benevolent intentions of Penn towards the natives of httle ultimate avail ; so that, after all, the chief good which he effected was by setting an example of benevolence and justice in the principle of his deahngs with them.) In this manner, the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks were settled by the United States on lands within the states of Georgia and Alabama ; the remnant of the Dela- wares, of the Six Nations, and other tribes famous in early colonial history, in New York, Ohio, and elsewhere : and a similar pohcy has been adopted by oiirselves in the case of another part of the Six Nations, the Mohawks, and Chippeways, in Upper Canada ; the Algonquins and Ni- pissings, placed ia the same country in 1763* ; the natives of Cape Breton ; and in many other instances. This course (namely that of forming "reserves" at a late period) has the evident disadvantage of fixing a body of people, generally harassed by defeats and wanderings, and in a condition most unfavourable to speedy improvement, in the midst of a country hi process of rapid settlement. The estabhshments of the white soon press on the hmits of the Indian ground ; generally long before the Indians, kept, by the pohcy hitherto observed by American govern- ments, in a state of insulation from the whites, have learnt * The treaty by which, this was effected is a remarkable instance of the mischievous manner in which even the best intentions towards the Indians have been carried into execution. After declaring in the most solemn language the perpetuity of the cession of the lands, it ends with the saving clause, " unless the Indians shaU be inclined to part with them." By virtue of this proviso, every art has been introduced to obtain their consent to the usurpations made upon them : bit by bit they have been deprived of their magnificent hunting-grounds, which are now altogether possessed by whites. — Betumsfrom Canada, 1839, p. 66. Lbct. XVIII.] TKIBES BY GOVERNMENTS. 507 to improve it. Tracts of half desert territory are thus in- terposed in the middle of cultivation. This is a real inconvenience to the district ; and it is always much exaggerated by the cupidity of the whites. Then disputes and animosities are engendered ; these are stimulated by the land-jobbing class of the community, eager to seize on any pretext for encroachment ; until, at last, the government is half driven by the influence of a rapacious party, half induced by the hope of protecting the unfortunate natives from insult and outrage, to remove them once more into some distant territory. In other cases this becomes a matter of necessity. The game in the Indian reserves is destroyed by the progress of culti- vation around them ; and, where they have made no ad- vance at aU in agriculture, they must be removed to save them from starvation.* Instances of both kinds will be found in the too notorious history of the recent proceed- ings of the United States government. AU the tribes above enumerated, and many which I have not mentioned, have within these few years been removed afresh to the vast prairies which constitute the western border of the present states : some of them merely consisting of a few wretched families, whose miserable existence might pos- sibly be prolonged by the change ; others numerous and powerful, and which, as I shall by and by have occasion to show, had made a progress in improvement, which some philosophical sceptics, and numbers of those logi- cians whose axioms are founded on a desire to justify in- justice, had chosen to pronounce beyond the capacities of their race. The original error here mentioned, that of leaving the natives wholly unprovided for, is one not likely to occur in modem colonization. We have been so far taught by the experience of our predecessors, and, I may add, sen- timents of humanity and justice have so far gained ground * Quart. Eeview, vol. Ixv. 508 EFFECT OF REMOVALS. [Lect. XVIII. among us, that in recent settlements reserves of land have been invariably made at once, and appropriated to the natives. But it is plain that the evd day is only postponed by such measures as these, unless they are combined with a fore-seeing and far-reaching policy hitherto altogether unknown. For whether or not the natives, residing on these reserves, attain in their insulated condition to a cer- tain degree of civilization, the same result vdU inevitably foUow. After a time, the colonists wiU cast an eye of cupidity on the native lands ; they wiU complain, and with perfect truth, of the economical disadvantages which attend the interposition of large uncultivated or half cultivated tracts between populous districts ; of their own sufferings by the proximity of the natives ; of the pohtical mischiefs produced by these httle inert repubhcs, stagnant in the very centre of a rapidly-moving society. And government will find itself, as it always has been, unable to resist these importunities, and cajoled by the thousand plausibihties advanced in favour of removing these unfortunates a far- ther stage into the wilderness* ; it vdll comply with the exigencies of the times, and the natives will be transported to some other region, to be followed there again with sure and rapid steps by the encroaching mass of European population. Eemoval is therefore, inevitably, only a temporary re- * Such, for instance, as the representation always industriouslY put forward on these occasions, that the natives themselves are anxious for the change — as if the assent of the poor harassed victims justified the act of the oppressors — the assent of a minor the act of his guardian. Sir F. Head seems to attribute any desire expressed by the Canadian Indians to retain their reserves rather to the persuasion of interested Europeans than to any feelings of their own. He considers the state- ment of some Wesleyan missionaries, that the Indians in their neigh- bourhood were anxious to get title deeds, as a palpable trick, to get a control over the lands for themselves ; and ridicules the notion in his own peculiar vein. " The Methodist ministers might as well declare, " that when wild beasts roar at each other, it is to complain of the want " among them of marriage licenses." — Betumsfrom Canada, 1839, p. 150. Lect. xviii.] civilizatiok oj? savage eaces. 509 medyfor permanent evils, and must be continually re- peated ; but, besides this, nothing is more destructive of those first elements of civilization, which may have been implanted at the expense of time and toO.. The proofs of this truth are almost too obvious to need any statement. In the first place, the loss of capital and of comfort entailed on the removed is very great. Next, a tribe, become agricultural, is thus placed in a country far more abound- ing in game than its former seats, and exposed to the strongest temptation to relapse into the hunting condition. Again, the price of those articles which have become ne- cessary or convenient to them, especially those which are useful in their acquired habits of industry, is higher the farther they are removed from the civilized frontier ; so that here, again, a temptation is held out to be content with inferior substitutes, and to unlearn one by one the habits and the arts which they had acquired. It is pre- cisely as if a savage had been nurtured in European habits and costume untO. his own were forgotten, and then turned naked into the wilderness, and told to thrive as he did before. And, as the last and greatest of all these causes of degeneracy, we must not fail to estimate the insecurity, the despair of permanence, the conviction of approaching annihilation, which are inevitably engendered in their minds, and drive back into sullen apathy spirits in. which the Promethean spark of enterprise had been for a moment elicited. One only way suggests itself by which this fatal con- summation can be avoided ; and, in order to consider it, we must look steadfastly at the broad outlines of the ques- tion, What is the ultimate destiny of the races whose interests we are now discovering? There are only three alternatives which imagination it- self can suggest: — The extermination of native races. Their civilization, complete or partial, by retaining them 510 CXVILIZATION OF [Lbct. XVni. as insulated bodies of men, carefully removed, during the civilizing process, from the injury of European contact. Their amalgamation with the colonists. Those who hold the opinion that the first is inevitable, are happily reheved from the trouble of aU these consi- derations. Their only object must be to insure that the inevitable end be not precipitated by cruelty or injustice. The second alternative 1 cannot but beheve to be impos- sible. Eeason seems to demonstrate this, and experience abundantly confirms her conclusions. If it be possible to civihze the savage at aU, iu a state of insulation from Europeans, except his own instructors (which, after the ill success of the Spanish and Portuguese experiments, may be regarded as very doubtful), it must, at all events, be a slow, uncertain process, hable to be interrupted at any moment, and only to be carried on under the defence of laws hedging them in from all foreign intercourse with a strictness impracticable in the present state of the world. The savage thus educated may be morally a more innocent creature, but, iutellectuaUy, he must be feeble and depen- dent, and quite unable to resist extrinsic influence, when brought to bear upon him. And (which is of still greater consequence, and is the peculiar cause that renders such projects certain of failure) long before the seeds of civi- lization have made any eifectual shoot, the httle nursery is surrounded by the advance of the European population ; the demand for the land of the natives becomes urgent and irresistible, and pupils and instructors are driven out into the wilderness to commence their work again. There remams only the third alternative, that of amal- gamation ; and this I am most anxious to impress upon yom- minds, because I firmly beheve it to be the very key- stone, the leading principle, of all sound theory on the subject — -that native races must in every instance either perish, or be amalgamated with the general population of their coimtry. Lect. XVIIl.] SAVAGE EACES. 51 1 By amalgamation, I mean the imion of natives with settlers in the same commimity, as master and servant*, as fellow-labourers, as fellow-citizens, and, if possible, as connected by intermarriage. And I mean by it, not that eventual and distant process to which some appear to look, by which a native community, when educated and civi- lized, is to be, at some future period, admitted en masse to the full rights of citizenship ; but I mean an immediate and an individual process — immediate, if not in act, at least in contemplation. To answer the view which I am anxious to lay before you, each native must be regarded as potentially a citizen, to become such in all respects as soon as possible. To this end, every step in his instruction and management must conduce. It must be the object in framing every law, in making every provision for his sup- port. Nay, the first steps of the actual operation should rather be accelerated than retarded. I mean that, although prudence must be the guide in all cases, it must be a fixed principle, that less evil is likely to be done by over haste than by over delay. These views must undoubtedly appear somewhat vidld and chimerical. Be it so. I will endeavour presently to develope them a httle more fully : at present I am chiefly anxious to point out to you, that, however improbable the success of any particular project of amalgamation may seem, amalgamation, by some means or other, is the only possible Euthanasia of savage communities. And * (1861.) This last kind of connection (of master and servant) lias been carried out witli more success in South Africa than in any other British possession. In Natal, and on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony (especially since the strange ooUapse of the Cafire power, under the in- fluence of scarcity and superstition in 1857-8), great numbers of natives appear to have taken voluntary service under the settlers, and to have performed it with reasonable steadiness. It is true that the experiment was superintended by one of those men who seem to possess the rare faculty of entering into the savage mind and becoming themselves in- telligible to it, the governor. Sir George Grey. 512 ClVILIZATIOIf OF SAVAGE EACES. [Lect. XVHI. one negative lesson even tlie most cautious may draw from this plain truth, namely, that all endeavours to civilize the savage, in which tliia end is not kept in view, are useless, or worse than useless, and must end in dis- appointment, as they ever hitherto have ended. And we have this advantage at least, that we are on untrodden ground. The experiment of amalgamation, or even of taking means tending to this as their ultimate result, cannot be said to have been hitherto tried in earnest by any government. Lect. XVm.] APPENDIX. 513 APPENDIX TO LECTURE XVin. (1861.) Whatevee maybe the value of the various maxims and suggestions for the guidance of colonial governments in deahng with natives, which were collected from various quarters ia these lectures, they have ceased, for the most part, to have much practical interest for ourselves. The. emancipation, for aU purposes of domestic government, of our larger colonies, has transferred from us to the colonists the responsibility of dealing with those remnants of savage races which still exist within their borders. No great change in their condition has followed this transfer of power. It cannot be said, so far as I have learnt, that the aborigines of North America or of Aus- traha are dealt with either better or worse by their present managers than by those who were heretofore specially commissioned from home for the purpose. There is the same contrast as of old between good intentions and very ineffective performance. But, on the whole, these feeble survivors of an obsolete world seem to be passing on, with at least a fair protection from injustice and oppression, towards that extinction which we have become accustomed to regard as the melancholy termi- nation of the prospect. But the general problem of the best means of dealing with what we usually call "inferior " not merely " savage," races, ia subjugated dependencies, has lost no part of its importance. On the contrary, the questions which it raises are become far more urgent and engrossing than ever, as European empire, and ours in particular, extends over the older regions of the world. These do not however pro- perly belong to the theory or practice of colonization. In L L 514 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVIIT. populous and semi-civilized regions, the European appears as a conqueror and a master, rarely in our tunes as a colonist : and the relations between him and the native inhabitants form a subject very nearly allied indeed to those considered in these pages, but too extensive to be included within them. There are, however, still certain portions of our colonial empire in which the Europeans are stni placed in cir- cumstances analogous to that of the first settlers of Ame- rica: in contact with numerous and powerful tribes of uncivilized men, — imperfectly subjugated, or not at all,— sufficiently intelligent to be at once dangerous in warfare, and capable more or less of friendship and of improve- ment. Su.ch are* South Africa, New Zealand ; and (look- ing into the near future) such will apparently be our new plantations on the north-west coast of America. To the partizans of extreme views of colonial inde- pendence, cases such as these present no difficulty : none, that is, with which the mother country need in any way concern herself. Upon their principles, the management of the relations between themselves and the natives should be left entirely to the colonists. Their own interest, it is contended, will ensure in ordinary times forbearance and good faith towards their neighbours, until at least the increase of the European element render these no longer formidable ; after which, the latter will disappear before advancing civihzation, as they always have done. When hostihties are inevitable, the same sense of self-interest will induce the settlers to bring them to the speediest, and therefore most merciful termina- tion ; while their superior knowledge of the country, and of the method of native warfare, to any which regular troops can possess, wiU afford them great ad- * It is an unusual instance of tlie fitness of tlie man for the post, that both these dependencies have been governed, in succession, by the man of our times who has displayed the most special talent for the purpose. Lect. XVm.] APPENDIX. 515 vantages for doing so. Those who hold these opinions point out with perfect truth that they prevailed without dispute in the old colonizing times, and that the idea of sending soldiers from home to America to protect colonists against Indians, or Indians against colonists, would have been deemed equally preposterous by the Enghsh states- man and by the American provincial. And they bid us contrast with this example the wretched instances of Caffre wars and New Zealand wars, with which the present generation has become familiar. They dwell on the exorbitant expense which the system of Imperial de- fence against natives devolves on this country : it having been shown in a former part of this work that South Africa alone inflicts upon us two-fifths of our whole colonial military expenditure. And they insist that this expenditure is in itself a cause of greater and permanent expenditure ; that it gives the colonists an interest in exciting and maintaining native wars ; inasmuch as the gain to the general community by a large mihtary expenditure far exceeds the sufferings which the war itself may inflict on a few borderers. Not only are these arguments of great weight, but it is very difficult on soHd principle to combat them. They must not, however, be received without duly weighing certain opposite considerations. In the first place, when we dwell on the success with which our early American settlers subdued and harassed the Indians without any expense to the mother country, we must not forget that this very circumstance of being left wholly to their own exertions cramped their develop- ment, and rendered their economical progress extremely slow. The advance of a New England settlement thus left to itself was a snail's pace indeed, compared with that of a modem New Zealand" settlement, where the European population are encouraged, and the natives in general controlled, by the presence of a regular force. Nor is the L L 2 516 APPENDIX. [Lect. xvni. comparison an unfair one ; for the physical circumstances of the two regions are reasonably similar, while the dis- tance of New Zealand from England now may be supposed equal, practically, to that of New England two centuries ago. It is, indeed, hardly easy in our days to realize the life of terror and watchfulness led by the pioneers of our American enterprise for some generations, while the slowly receding forest around them was the abode of watchful and implacable foes, " "Witli dreadftil faces thronged, and fiery arms." Nor was the evil confined to discouragement. The in- cessant labour and vigilance imposed on the militiaman interferes most materially with his value as a producer of wealth. "While so large a proportion of the able- " bodied men were in the field," says Mr. Palfrey in his account* of one of the early Indian wars, "production " was stinted on the one hand, and debt incurred on the " other." The population of New England increased only to 24,000 souls in the first twenty-three years of settle- ment.f New Zealand has already 60,000 after fifteen. And the same cause — the unspeakable terror of Indian warfare — continued to hang over the exposed parts of the border, and prevent the expansion of the reclaimed region, even after the American colonies counted their numbers by a milhon. Governor Pownall, just a hundred years ago, wrote on this subject as follows J : — " The perpetual in- " creasing generations of Europeans in America may supply " numbers that must, in the end, weat out these poor " Indian inhabitants from their own country : but we shall " pay dear, both in blood and treasure, in the meantime, " for our horrid injustice. Our frontiers, from the " nature of advancing settlements, dispersed along the * Hist, of New England, vol. i. p. 471. f lb. vol. ii. p. 5. I Administration of the Colonies. Third Edition, 1766, p. 163. Lect. XVni.] APPENDIX. 517 " branchings of the upper parts of our rivers, and " scattered in the disunited valleys amidst the mountains, " must be always unguarded and defenceless against the " incursions of Indians. And were we able, under an " Indian war, to advance our settlements yet farther, they " would be advanced up to the very dens of these savages. " A settler wholly intent on labouring the soil cannot stand " to his arms, nor defend himself against nor seek his enemy. " Environed with woods and swamps, he knows nothing " of the country beyond his farm. The Indian knows " every spot, for ambush and defence. The farmer, driven " from his httle cultured cot iato the woods, is lost : the " Indian in the wood is everywhere at home; every bush, " every thicket, is a camp to the Indian, from whence, at " the very moment when he is sure of his blow, he can " rush upon his prey. The farmer's cow, or his horse, " cannot go into the wood, where alone they must subsist: " his wife and children, if they shut themselves up m their " wretched log-house, will be burned in it : and the hus- " bandman in the field will be shot down while his hand " holds the plough. An European settler can make but " momentary efforts of war, in hope to gain some point, " that he may by it obtain a sense of security, under which " to work his land in peace ; the Indian's whole life is a " warfare, and his operations never discontinue." It is well to bear iu mind pictures so obviously life-like as this, of a state of society to which a counterpart may still be found in some of the distant frontiers of the United States, Mexico, and the South American EepubHcs, before the costliness of the modem English system is too un- hesitatingly condemned. In the British colonies we have named, the red coat is the great preserver of order ; and it is difficult to overestimate the advantages of that order. Frontier wars occasionally occur ; there is, indeed, as has been already shown, a somewhat special temptation to them. But such a horrid state of insecurity as that described by JL L 3 518 APPENDIX. [Lect. X"VTn. Governor Pownall does not nor can exist, save with rare exceptions ; the border country is as flourishing as the rest of the settlement, or more so from its border trade. Men do not exercise themselves in self-defence, nor attain those mihtary habits which keep savages in awe: but neither do they plough and sow under arms, and pass their available time in drill. Considered, therefore, in its simplest Hght, and as a mere question of cost, the issue appears to be this : — • Does the wealth of the Empire, or, if you wiU, of the mother coun- try, gain by the faster development of a colony under military protection, more than it loses by the expense of that military protection ? An issue not quite so readily decided as ordinary writers on the subject appear to sup- pose. But -vphen we take into consideration other than econo- mical reasonings — whether we regard the mother country as under a subsisting and binding duty towards the natives of a colonized region, or whether, waiving the question of duty, we simply entertain a respect for the tie of common humanity— the pohcy of having the relations between natives and settlers absolutely uncontrolled is matter for very serious reflection. We must not indeed exaggerate its difficulties. We must not overstate the inherent evils in the relations of the two classes, nor suppose that justice, and humanity, and enhghtened self-interest, have no place in the councils of colonists. Nor, on the other hand, must we forget that the statesmen of the mother country, or their trusted deputies, may be very apt with the best in- tentions to miss their mark, and increase existing mischiefs or create new ones. Still, when all allowances are made, it cannot be doubted that a consistent and regulated system of management of the natives by the home executive would be better, as regards justice towards the natives, than the arbitrary will of the settlers. Unfortunately, no such sys- tem has ever been estabhshed by us, or seriously attempted. Lect. XVIII.] APPENDIX. 519 The truth is, that the estabhshment definitively and on a sohd basis of either system, that of home control, or that /of abandonment to the settlers, requires a degree of consistent firmness on the part of the executive, which it is difficult to secure under constitutional government. No colonial minister can venture to oppose, with dehbe- rate steadiness, the supporters of any prevalent and popu- lar doctrine. If he recalls troops from distant colonial possessions, and maintains the principle that their inhabi- tants must provide for their own internal peace and secu- rity agaiast natives, he will no doubt find strong assistance from those who beHeve that the colonists should be taught to rely on themselves, and still stronger from the prevailing desire for economy in national expenditure. But, on the other hand, he has to encounter aU the interests connected with the particular colony in questioxi : and he has, in addition, to reckon on opposition from that body so long and justly powerful in British assembHes, who con- stitute themselves the protectors of inferior races, and re- gard with apprehension any measure which tends to with- draw them from the exercise of that protection. And, besides all this, there are real or supposed dangers in every such change of moment, which it requires great pohtical courage to confront. An extermination of natives — a mas- sacre of settlers — these are the terrors ever present to the mind of the executive at home, which render it loth to part, until the very last moment, with that security which has hitherto been enjoyed at the easy cost of mihtary ex- penditure. And besides this, there is always looming in the distance the phantom of colonial disafiection. There is the fear lest the colonists should lose the wish to remaiu longer connected with a country which refuses to spend money on them. That the fear is unphilosophical all statesmen will admit, and that colonial attachment will not be retained by this kind of tribute, if it were worth re- taining at such cost. But though prepared to recognize 1 li 4 520 APPENDIX. [Lect. XVin. colonial independence as the natural ultimate result of modem colonial policy, none of them wish to see the revolution commence in their own day. The consequence of these opposing political tendencies is a vacillation of purpose greatly to be regretted. The same series of events continually recurs in colonies thus circumstanced. In every period of tranquillity, some preparation is made for weaning colonists from their rehance on Imperial arms. Troops are gradually with- drawn. But the colonists — pretty well assured of what is coming — make very slight effort to create a defensive force. Then conies a rebeUion, or a border war. Troops are hurried back from England, and the danger is at length averted at an expense greatly exceeding what would have occurred if they had remained in the colony. Then the old process of withdrawal begins again. The colonists are again threatened with being left to them- selves, and again exhorted to mihtary preparation— threats which they have learnt to estimate at their just value, and exhortations which have no power to stir them from their inertness produced both by habit and by calculation. For there is a principle in their resistance. The same community which will cheerfully contribute, with a generosity far outstripping its apparent means, to any object of pubhc munificence in which Old England is interested, wiU hold out as long as it can against any invitation to take on itself its own charges, hitherto de- frayed by the mother country. And thus the course of affairs goes on, period after period, in the same vicious circle. The principle of mihtary protection from home, openly avowed and consistently acted on, would have cost far less money than the opposite principle main- tained in theory, and perpetually departed from in practice. Similar inconsistency has attended our dealings with the civil government of colonies thus circumstanced, Lect. XVm.] APPENDIX. 521 Notliirig can be more reasonable than that, where the mother country protects, at her own expense, the settlers from the natives, she should retam m her own hand, to a very considerable extent, their domestic ad- ministration. Unless she does so, she is hable to be dragged on all occasions into conflicts which the measures of the colonists themselves have provoked, and then to find the employment of her warlike resources impeded by want of harmony between the civil and military authorities. But these very obvious maxims have been disregarded. We have given the class of colonies of which I speak free institutions as a kind of bribe to take care of themselves. The colonists have taken the bribe, but shown no disposition whatever to take on their necks the yoke of the supposed condition.* The subject, in short, is one which has been dealt with by perpetual compromises between principle and immediate exigency. Such compromises are incidental to constitutional government. We are accustomed to them : there is something in them congenial to our national character, as well as accommodated to our in- stitutions ; and, on the whole, we may reasonably doubt whether the world is not better managed by means of them than through the severe apphcation of principles; But, unfortunately, in the special subject before us, the uncertainty created by such compromises is a greater evil than even errors of principle. Whether it be the right policy for the mother country to defray, or not to defray, the expenses of Kafire and New Zealand wars, to save money by refusing to prepare for them, and then * I must add that I cannot but regard the suggestion of establishing in the same colony " responsible " government for the settlers, and a separate administration of native aifairs under the Home authorities, as unpractical. There cannot be two governments in the same com- munity; certainly not unless some mode can be devised of having two public purses. 522 APPENDIX. [LECT.XVm. to spend it by engaging in them, is the most expensive course of all. And while the local authorities are left in continued uncertainty, whether the military protection hitherto accorded to them will or will not be prolonged, it is impossible for them to introduce any methodical system into their deahngs with the aborigines themselves : people absolutely requiriug a vigorous uniformity of government, and as acute in detecting inconsistency or opposition in the councils of their rulers, as wild animals are said to be sagacious in discerning any hesitation of purpose in the features of their human subduer. And, lastly, there shoiild be no hesitation in acting on the broad principle that the natives must, for their own protection, be placed in a situation of acknowledged infe- riority, and consequently of tutelage. This is the old Spanish system of which much has been already said in the course of these lectures, and the only one which has success to appeal to in its favour. It has been in later years too much the fashion to rely on phrases ; to imagine that by proclaiming that all fellow-subjects of whatever race are equal in the eye of the law, we really make them so. There cannot be a greater error, nor one more cal- culated to inflict evil on those classes whom it is intended to benefit. The Caffre or the Maori may be rendered equal in legal rights with the settler, but he is not really equal in the power of enjoying or enforcing those rights, nor can he become so until civilization has rendered him. equal in knowledge and in mental power. But a state of fictitious equahty is far worse for him than one of acknowledged inferiority, with its correlative protection. If we intend to deal with the aborigines of countries of which we have taken possession as equals, then we must exclude settlers from contact with them. We must adopt what in these lectures has been called the pohcy of insulation — that of the United States — and leave them, in their allotted re- serves, su.bject to their own laws and usages, so far as Lect. XVin.] APPENDIX. 523 our established morality may allow of these prevaihng. There we may entrust them to the good offices of the mis- sionary, and the " protector," so far as these can reach. But, if we adopt the opposite pohcy, that of " amalgama- tion," then we shall assuredly find that they can only meet with the whites in the same field of hopeful iadustry on the footing of inferiors, and that, if such subordinate position is not recognized by law, and compensated by legal protec- tion, it will be enforced, at a heavy disadvantage to them, by the prevailing sentiment of the conquering race. 524 KBLIGION THE BASIS [Lect. XIX. LECTUEE XIX. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. MISSIONAET INSTRUCTION. AMOUNT OP CIVILIZATION- HITHEETO ATTAINED ET SAVAGE TRIBES IN MODERN EURO- PEAN COLONIES. Having reviewed the preliminary steps which, axe neces- sary to place native tribes, in colonized countries, within reach of civihzation, the next point to be considered is, the duty of government in promoting that most desirable work itself. And here I must begin by reminding you of an opinion already expressed in a former part of these lectures, namely, that the only experiments in civihzing savage tribes, which offer the remotest prospect of success, are those which commence with their rehgious instruction. This opinion, I am aware, has been much controverted : there are many who hold the reverse ; namely, that Christianity is the rehgion of civihzed man, and the savage must therefore be prepared by partial civilization before he can receive its truths with profit. But if this were so, the difficulty of commencing the operation would surely be insuperable. That difficulty is, to find a fulcrum for the engines which we are to put in action. In what mode are we to excite the mind of the savage to desire civihza- tion? Its wants and tendencies are unknown to him. Its restraints are intolerable. The greater number have little curiosity respecting it, but acquiesce resignedly in the superiority of their white invaders. Of the few who are sufficiently advanced in intellect to be excited even to a feel- Lect. XIX.] OF CIVILIZATION. 525 ing of emulation, there are still fewer — if any — in whom that feeling would be sufficiently powerful to overcome, to the extent of a brief and occasional impulse only, the indo- lence and the spirit of independence natural to their race. The only way in which even temporary success coidd be looked for in a scheme of civilization not founded on re- ligious instruction, would be to abandon the existing ge- neration to its fate, and attempt only to educate the young. But it is difficult to conceive how even thus much could be effected, unless famihes were separated by violent measures, such as the Spanish missionaries are accused of having made use of in founding their settlements. So long as the native households dwell together, the children can- not be rescued from the fortunes of their parents. But this necessary motive, this ttoD o-rto of the philanthro- pist, is furnished by rehgion, and by rehgion only. It is impossible to mistake the accumulated testimony of aU experience and observation, which assures us, that in the savage races of mankind, from the most advanced to the most degraded, the sense of rehgion not only exists, but exists accompanied by that which may be termed its ne- cessary condition in the human mind — a feeling of press- ing want, a longing for support, a craving after instruction. Even the most apathetic savage, when his heart is gained by kindness, or opened by the address of one conversant in his ways, rarely fails to exhibit this impulse of his nature. It may be repressed by mismanagement ; it may be rendered inactive by unconquerable indolence ; it aflFords no certain stimulus to action, but it affords the only one. And the strong impression of the superiority of the whites as a different race, which leads the savage to despair of raising himself out of his abject condition in respect of material or intellectual advancement, seems, if his senti- ments be properly studied and directed, rather to have the effect of disposing him to welcome instruction in those doctrines which point out that the diversity of gifts in this 526 EELIGIOrS CHAEACTBK [Lect. XIX. ■world is consistent with the equahty of all under one com- mon Father. The North American Indian, as I have said, is of a disposition pecuharly rehgious ; and it is remarkable, considering the great amount of observation and of theory which has been expended on this singular race, how im- perfectly and unjustly its qualifications in this particular have been appreciated. For it is not by the positive tenets of its behef, if such they may be termed, that the rehgious tendencies of the savage mind are to be es- timated. In the first place, it is seldom that travellers attain to any trustworthy knowledge of what these tenets actually are ; particularly in the case of a nation so reve- rentially reserved on these subjects as the Americans. In the next place, it is necessary to disentangle the mass of mere traditional notions and observances, which rest, as it were, on prescription only, and rather influence the habits and the fancy of the savage than his reason (to use that word in its highest sense), from those doctrines in which his faith properly consists ; few, probably, and obscure to himself, but partaking of the unchangeable characteristics of the rehgion of nature. With respect to these, it is clear that the creed of the Indian is no mere superstition received on trust. He can combine, reflect, and discuss their principles. " We have con- versed," says Mr. Fhnt, " with Indians who were atheists, " and treated as fabulous all notions of the immortahty " of the soul ; and defended their opinions with as much " ingenuity as abandoned people of the lower orders " among ourselves, who profess to hold the same " opinions."* To be capable of such reasoning, however the ingenuity may have been misapplied, indicates a con- dition of mind far advanced beyond that which submits to mere Fetichism ; or, if we prefer so to express our- * Geography of the Mississippi Valley, p. 119. Lect. XIX.] OF SAVAGE RACES. 527 selves, in which the great truths of earUer tradition have not yet disappeared in the progressive degeneracy of the race, leaving mere superstitious impressions behind them. But a far truer insight into the religious state of the American Indian will be obtained, by observing how pecuharly and emphatically he is, in the words of the apostle, " a law unto himself." I mean, how distinctly he evinces, in the whole moral conduct of his hfe, that he hves under a strong and awful sense of positive obHga- tion. It is of httle matter with what doctrines that sense of obhgation connects itself It often appears to connect itself with none. The Indian cannot teU why a burden is laid upon him to act in this or that manner. He obeys a law imdefined, unwritten, but mysteriously bind- ing upon his spirit. All the compulsive force which what we call the law of honour has upon the conscience of a man of the world — I had almost said, which reUgious sanctions have upon the man of principle — is scarcely to be paralleled with that kind of moral necessity which seems in some cases to actuate his proceedings. If re- ligion be what its name imphes, id quod relligat, that which binds the will and enforces self-denial and self- devotion, be the object or motive held out what it may, then no people, taken in the mass, is to be compared, in this respect, to the savages of America. There is a curious passage on this subject in the work of Mr. Fhnt already cited ; the more curious, because the author, as it appears to me, is so far from aiming at fine writing, or romantic exaggeration, that he has a real difficulty in expressing his fuU meaning.* " After all," says he, " that which has struck us, in contemplating the " Indians, with the most astonishment and admiration, is " the invisible, but universal, energy of the operation and " influence of an inexpHcable law, which has, where it * Flint, Geography of the Mississippi Valley, p. 125. 528 RELIGION THE BASIS [Lect. XIX. " operates, a more certain and controlling power than all " the municipal and written laws of the whites united. " There is despotic rule without any hereditary or elected " chief. There are chiefs with great power, who cannot " tell when, where, or how they became such. There is " perfect unanimity on a question involving the existence " of a tribe, when every member belonged to the wild and " fierce democracy of nature, and could dissent without " giving a reason. A case occurs where it is prescribed " by custom that an individual should be punished with "death. Escaped from the control of his tribe, and as " free as the winds, this invisible tie is about him, and he " returns, and surrenders himself to justice. His accounts " are not settled, and he is in debt. He requests delay till " he shall have finished his summer's hunt. He finishes " it, pays his debt, and dies with a constancy which has " always been, in all views of Indian character, the theme " of admiration." Now, when we consider that the same creature, whose moral organization is thus wonderfully developed, is one who has frequently not the sHghtest taste or appreciation for the advantages of material improvement, and who ranks so low, in point of intellectual acquirement, that he is perhaps unable to count beyond ten* — can any one en- tertain a doubt at which end the process of culture ought to begin ? Surely the comparison of their moral state with their condition in other respects is, as it were, the crucial test, pointing out infalhbly the direction in which alone, if in any, success is to be reasonably expected. In the ex- * Which the learned De Pauw considered as a sure sign of barbarism. (Recherches sur les Amdricains.') Captain Hall observed a reluctance to count beyond ten among the Creeks, rather an advanced tribe, ■who have lived long among the whites. In a grand game at ball, in which the points were scored with sticks, the umpires, as soon as the scores exceeded ten, always pulled out the sticks and began again. Lect, XIX,] OF CIVILIZATION. 529 pressive words of Penn, " What good might not a good "people graft, where there is so distinct a knowledge both "of good and evil ?"* The Indians of North America are, as I have said peculiarly a religious race, in the sense which I have been endeavouring to affix to this word. But the same remarks will apply, with nearly equal force, to other barbarous and semi-civilized tribes. And I may add here, that to judge, as some have done, of the rehgious capacities of native raees by their religious state, in countries where they have been christianized in the mass, and admitted into a church which too often substitutes rehance on the efficacy of its own ordinances for the development of their faculties, is to employ a test which would be deemed extremely un- * Report on Aborigines, 1837, p. 116. I would not insert the fol- lowing high-colonred expressions, in a work edited by Washington Irving, were it not for the remarkable agreement between all capable observers of the nncontaminated races of Indians on this subject. " Simply to call these people (some tribes of the Rocky Mountains) re- " ligious, would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and " devotion which pervades the whole of their conduct. They are more * ' like a nation of saints than a horde of savages." — Adventures of Captain Bonneville ; and see the deliberate judgment of Mr. Cathne, vol. ii. p. 243. " Que n'est tombee sous Alexandre, ou sous ces anciens Grecs et " Romaines, une si noble conqueste, et une si grande mutation et " alteration de tant d' empires et de peuples, sous des mains qui eussent " doucement defrich^ et poli ce qu'il y avait de sauvage, et eussent " conforte et promu les bonnes semences que nature y avait produit; " meslant non seidement k la culture des terres et ornement des vUles " les arts de deqk, en tant qu'ils y eussent 6ti n^cessaires, mais aussi " meslant les vertus Grecques et Romaines aux originelles du pays? " Quelle reparation eut ce 6t6, et quel amendement k toute cette " machine, que les premiers exemples et d^portements notres qui se sont " pr^sent^s par del^ eussent appell^ ces peuples k I'admiration et imita- " tion de la vertu, et eussent dress^ entre eux et nous une fraternelle " society et intelligence ! Combien il eut &t& aise de faire son profit " d'flmes si neuves, si afFam^es d'apprentissage, ayant pour la plus part " de si bons commencemens naturels ! " — Montaigne, Essais, 1. iii. " oh. 6. M M 530 RELIGION THE BASIS [Lect. XIX. just, if applied to civilized men in a similar condition. Humboldt, admirable observer as he is, is not free, I think, from this imputation. " It is not," he says, speaking of the Christian Indians of Mexico, " a doctrine which has "succeeded a doctrine, but one ceremonial which has made "room for another. The natives know nothing of reUgion " except its external forms. Fond of everything relating " to a prescribed order of ceremonies, they find particular "enjoyments in the observance of the Christian ritual. "The festivals of the church, the fireworks which accom- "pany them, the processions mingled with dances and "grotesque masquerades, are a fertile source of diversion "for the Indian commonalty. It is in these festivals that "the national character displays itself in all its individuahty. "In all countries the observances of the Christian rehgion "have taken a colouring from the region into which it has • "been transplanted: in the Philippine and Marianne Islands, "nations of the Malay race have mingled with it their own "peculiar ceremonies ; in the province of Pasto, on the "ridge of the CordiUera, I have seen masqued Indians, " armed with rattles, performing savage dances round the "altar, while a Fransican monk elevated the host."* If by "national character " this distinguished writer means not the outward character of the Mexican or Peruvian, as formed by circumstances, but the general disposition of the Indian people, he is surely as hasty as a traveller who should judge of the genius of the Teutonic race by the scenes which he might occasionally observe in a procession at Cologne, or a pilgrimage to Maria Zell. Nor are there instances wanting, both of bad and good success -^rare, unfortunately, as the last have been — which seem powerfully to confirm, to any unprejudiced inquirer, the opmions here expressed. The Eeport of 1837, already referred to, contains some remarkable in- * Nouv. Espagne, i. 411. 8vo. edition. Lect. XIX.] OF CIVILIZATION. 531 stances in the history of the Canadian Indians, particularly the Mohawks and Chippeways, of the utter inefficacy of steady and long-continued efforts at civilization, until a new impulse was given to them by conversion, and the change which then ensued. It is true these rest on the testimony of missionaries, who may be prejudiced in favour of their own pecuhar system ; but they must be considered in conjunction with the rest of the evidence. Missionaries themselves have not unfrequently attempted the opposite course. The American Society of Friends, for nearly a century and a half, "laboured for the civiliza- " tion of the Indians, under an idea that civihzation would " make way for the introduction of the pecuhar doctrines of " the Christian religion." " We have now come to the con- " elusion," says one of their most distinguished members, " that we erred, sorrowfully erred, in the plan which we ori- " ginaUy adopted in making civilization our object." Simi- lar language was held to the committee by a clergyman of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand. "Kfteen " years we attempted to civilize without effect ; and the " very moment that Christianity estabhshed itself in only " one instance, from that moment civilization commenced ; " and has been going on, hand in hand with Christianity, " but never preceded it." I will not now detain you by dwelling on instances of missionary success ; when aU fair deductions are made for the exaggeration which is too perceptible in many re- ports, enough wUl remain to which credit cannot reason- ably be denied. I have already described the siagular repubhc of the Jesuits in South America, and have en- deavoured to point out the inherent vices, as weU as ex- cellencies, of the system which they pursued. The labours of the missionaries in the South Sea Islands have extended of late over a field nearly as wide ; and if the results which they have obtained are not quite so romantic in their character, we may, perhaps, hope that they will M M .2 532 KELIGION THE BASIS [Lect. XIX. prove more durable, and more progressive ; for they have the character of progress, however imperfect ; which the other wanted altogether. But South Africa, and the con- tinent of Forth Ameriea, abound with other instances, although of a less striking character, in which patience and quiet confidence have been crowned with a well- merited reward ; and it is cheering to discover, on minute examination, how many httle insulated spots of hght ap- pear to present themselves in the gloomy map of abori- ginal ethnography, — how many httle communities exist, almost overlooked by travellers who perceive only the general face of things, in which Christianity is professed, and the arts of life cultivated, and orderly and moral habits prevail, at one and the same time, because the development of rehgion and civilization has proceeded together. How far the comparatively slight amount of good which has resulted, after aU, from so much zeal and self-devotion, is owing to its misdirection ; whether a dif- ferent mode of teaching Christianity might not, in many cases, have led to a more satisfactory result ; whether the instructors of savage tribes have not dwelt too much on their deficiencies, and too httle on their advantages, regarding them rather as creatures out of whom the old life was to be utterly extirpated, than as possessed of an exquisite moral sense, and high religious capabilities ; — these are deeply interesting questions, but far beyond the province of my inquiries. And I can only venture to suggest, in passing, another consideration, — whether the process which is here recom- mended for savage nations, namely, that of making rehgious instruction precede, or at least closely accompany, all other teaching, does not rather require to be reversed when we were dealing with people possessing an estabhshed religion, a literature, and an ancient though imperfect civilization : such as the Hindoos. In them, the craving after religious knowledge is stilled : they have their sys- Lect. XrX.]' OF CIVILIZATION. 633 "tern ; monstrous, perhaps, and strange to the perceptions of the natural man ; but still complete, and to which their moral sense has for ages accommodated itseE To persuade them to change doctrine for doctrine, mystery for mystery, without other preparation, seems nearly a hopeless task. Preaching and arguing are ia vain. The Eoman Cathohc system of adaptation and compromise, practised so largely in the East, may have had more seeming success ; but even this was apparently quite temporary and facti- tious. But, on the other hand, these very people, when brought habitually in contact with Europeans, appear to become deeply sensible of their own inferiority in mental and social attainments. The intellect of the Hindoo is the faculty to which excitement can be apphed ; and that es- pecially when his mind has been prepared by education. But although the missionary is not merely useful, but indispensable, as the pioneer of civihzation, it does not appear that he is sufficiently adapted to complete the work. Hitherto, this most important view of the subject has received very little consideration. So little advance has reaUy been made in the improvement of native races — the operation, so often begun, of impartmg a little knowledge and a httle material comfort to small fractions of them, has been so constantly checked or destroyed, and again recommenced, without ever in any one instance proceeding beyond the same hmited distance — that phi- lanthropists in general have contented themselves with discussing the elementary part of the question as the only practical one. Nor has it been seriously inquired into, whether that discouraging blight or check has not fre- quently been occasioned by the mere absence of aU means to carry on the necessary cultivation beyond the point to which missionary exertions had brought it : for non progredi est regredi ; and civihzation, except in some rare and singular instances, has always either advanced or fallen back. This topic was already partially dis- M M 3 534 EDUCATION OF [Lect. XIX. cussed when we considered the reasons for the decay of the missionary settlements in Spanish and Portuguese America. It was then suggested, in the first place, how difficult it is to keep up the zeal, and consequent effi- ciency, of missionaries who succeed the first fathers of a native flock in estabhshed settlements ; and how neces- sarily unfitted, even were this difficulty got over, rehgious teachers must be to combine with their proper office that of training the intellect and the material energies. Where the offices of the rehgious instructor partially fail, those of government, through its agent the protector, ought to begin. Education should not be wholly left to the missionary ; it should, at least in the higher grades, be under the superintendence of some central authority. This is necessary, not merely on account of the better quahty which may be anticipated from the instruction thus communicated, but also in order to elevate the subject of it in his own estimation. It is most important that he should not feel himself, longer than is absolutely necessary, a mere passive creature in the hands of his rehgious superintendent. When his passions are tamed, self-respect is the next essential towards his improve- ment. Whether, for this purpose, the young natives (in the case of a tribe already settled on land as agriculturists, and converted to Christianity) should be educated apart, or should be admitted into the neighbouring schools of the whites (I mean, more particularly, those who have reached the stage of adolescence), is a question of diffi- culty, and one on which I have not been able to meet with authorities or reasonings entitled to much consider- ation. Certainly the reasons against such a mixture are not to be soLight for in the inferior capacity of the savage. AU those who have expressed an opinion on the subject seem to agree, that children of most native races are fully or more than a match for those of Europeans in aptitude Lect. XIX.] NATIVE RACES. 535 for intellectual acquirement. Indeed it appears to be a singular law of nature, that there is less precocity in the European race than any other. In those races in which we seem to have reason for beheving that the intellectual organization is lower, perception is quicker, and maturity earher. And it is easy to perceive the very great benefits which would result from the associa- tion of Europeans and natives in early hfe. The character of the education best adapted for the converted native offers a wide field for inquiry, iato which it is impossible for me to enter. It is, of course, easily understood, that what may be termed a material training, in the arts and industry of civihzed hfe, must be a very important element in it : that much, which we leave to be acquired by the children of ordinary citizens in the course of service, of apprenticeship, and the busi- ness of hfe, must with them be made matter of special and independent instruction. By awakening their in- terest and ingenuity in these matters, some security is obtained against the danger of their relapse into bar- barism, which for some generations must always be imminent. Even for adults, houses of industry, with lands annexed, appear to be the training schools encou- raged at the present day in Austraha. But for them, being still at the lowest point of savage life, there seems to be httle prospect of permanent good from such institu- tions, at least until some degree of rehgious instruction has been communicated. Experience must determine, in each particular case, what branches of industry it may be most desirable to teach. Philanthropists are unsafe guides in matters of such a merely practical character.* * A governor of Western Australia, Sir James Stirling, was much praised for the establishment of native " normal schools, to teach them " (among other things) hunting and fishing." It is not for us to judge of the wisdom of a course of study adopted at the Antipodes ; but these are subjects on which it might have been thought, a priori, that any M M 4 536 CIVILIZATION OF [Lect. XIX. But the great problem of all in the civilization of savage tribes, the step which has never yet been passed and never seriously attempted, is that of amalgamation. We have seen that, sooner or later, the period for this step must arrive ; and it is equally evident, that here the missionary training must fail. That system is based on the insulation of the natives from the rest of the com- munity. As soon as this is interrupted, the influence of the missionary must diminish, and his eflbrts must be carried on at an increasing disadvantage. This is the reason why the most successful missionary experiments have generally taken place in uncolonized regions, such as the islands of the Pacific ; or in frontier districts of thinly-peopled colonies, as in South America : for where the experiment of insulation has been persisted in, m the middle of rapidly increasing settlements, disappointment has inevitably followed ; and this is said to have been the cause of the eventual failure of the schemes of EHot and the early Puritan missionaries in New England. And on this account it vdll be found that missionaries are apt to entertain a certain repugnance to schemes of new colonization : the stronger, perhaps, the more zealous they are in their calling ; and are apt, also, to view with jealousy any project for bringing the natives and settlers in contact in older colonies. But, vdthout entering again into the question, whether the permanence of this theo- cratic regimen is desirable, it is enough to say that it is impossible ; since it has been shown that the natives must eventually either mix with the colonists, or remove, and that to remove is to relapse into barbarism. If they remain, then, one way or the other, the commixture will take place. If the natives be not elevated into the rank of the sound and healthy part of the population, they native might have imparted some useful lessons to Sir James Stirling and all his council. Lect. XIX.] IfATIVE EACES. 537 will inevitably faU victims to the contact of the more degraded. It seems generally admitted that, for' this purpose, the relation of master and servant, between colonist and native, should, after the first stage of reclaiming is past, be encouraged as far as this can reasonably be done. The exaggerated dread of slavery which prevails ia many quarters, the source of innumerable mistakes in colonial poHcy, has perhaps interfered to prevent this relation from being formed so extensively as ia some colonies it might have been. As I have endeavoured to show already, the relation of hiring and service, such as we find it at the present day in the western countries of Europe, is one pecuhar to high civihzation. Service without depend- ence, dependence without control, are ideas foreign to the conception of the savage or the half reclaimed. If he ia to be a servant, he must needs be subject to many. of the incidents of slavery. The mistake is, to regard these incidents as constitutiag the substance. Many a well- meaning friend of aborigines, in his jealousy of any re- straints wearing a servile appearance, has forgotten that without some restraint they cannot be rendered useful to the settlers ; that unless useful to the settlers, they cannot long hve in peace with them ; and that a state of warfare between settlers and natives ends at last in the extermina- tion of the latter. There are employments, such as the management of cattle, for which the aborigines of many countries seem particularly well suited. The native South Africans are among the best herdsmen in the world ; and the natives of Swan Eiver, it is said, have shown great aptitude for the same occupation. The New Zealanders are, to a certain extent, an industrous race, whenever a sufficient motive is afibrded them, and ready in learning the trades of civilized life. But more is to be hoped, in this respect, from the young than the adult. 538 CIVILIZATION OF [Lect. XIX. There is one mode of amalgamation of the races which it would probably be impossible to prevent, were it desir- able : I mean by the mixture of blood. Some observers seem to consider that the multiplication of "half castes" is proceeding at such a rate, wherever unrestricted inter- course exists between natives and whites, as to threaten the extinction of the pure blood of the former. Certainly, in many Canadian and North-western tribes, a very large proportion of the present generation is supposed to partake of European blood. Now, this result — except so far as it proceeds from corruption of morals, an enormous evil in new settlements, and one of the great causes of the degradation of aborigines — does not seem, in itself, un- desirable. Certainly, the custom of intermarriage between the two races — perhaps even that of forming durable connexions — affords a considerable check to that mutual repulsion which arises merely out of prejudices of colour, and for which there can be no substantial reason where slavery does not exist. And there is strong testimony to the superior energy and high organisation of many of these half-blood races.* We have now conducted together a few very hasty and imperfect inquiries into a subject deserviag a much more copious and more laborious consideration. And when we have done thus much, — when we turn round to review the track over which we have passed, — it is impossible, I fear, to deny that a sense of unreality is apt to mingle with our reflections, and to cloud our anticipations. Is there any substance, any truth, in the speculations in which we have indulged, respecting measures to be taken, and results to be expected ? or have we been deahng only with the creatures of our own theories — constructing Utopian commonwealths — and shutting our eyes to the broad and sad picture which experience presents; wQfally forgetting the radical unfitness of the savage for civihz- * See Appendix. L-ECT. XIX.] JiTATrVE EACES. 539 ation, the inadequacy of our means for making the expe- riment, the visionary nature of our hopes and our argu- ments? Let us hear what an objector might urge against the views which we have been hitherto considering. You speak, he might say, of the measures to be taken for the civilization of native races, as if that were a work which must needs be commenced anew from the founda- tion : and are you ignorant that in so. doiQg you are pass- ing the severest commentary on the futiUty of your entire suggestion ? This is no new direction for the exercise of zeal and self-devotion. For two centuries it has been the favourite dream of the speculative, the favourite employ- ment of the active philanthropist. It has been a task always beginning, and never advancing. Numberless in- stitutions have been formed, numberless communities have been half reclaimed, under the superintendence of govern- ments and missionaries ; but they have never been able to maintain themselves ; nay, the utmost exertions have never sufficed to preserve them. Either the savage has, of his own accord, returned to barbarism, or European invasion has rooted him out, or his households have perished by new diseases and premature decay. Every government, every sect, has tried its hand in turn ; Protestants and Eomanists have rivalled each other in their boasts of the blessing which has attended their endeavours ; but all their works have perished, and' the forest has spread again, or the white colonist has encamped, ahke over the labour-fields of Eliot and Brainerd, of Baraza and Vieyra. All experience shows that the savage is irreclaimable : not that he may not shake ofi" the outward habits of barbarous life, acquire elementary notions of rehgion, and superficial habits of industry ; but all this is the mere result of careful inspection and con- straint: he has no principle of improvement in himself; the moment he is neglected, he relapses. Certain races of mankind only are adapted to civiKzation ; their organiza- 540 DIMINUTION OF [Lect. XIX, tion shows it ; they admit of gradual progress. No indi- vidual, of the races we call savage, has ever, in these three hundred years, distinguished himself m the career of civihzed hfe ; nay, none of those who have been thus partially reclaimed have ever exhibited the same degree of intellectual development which has been shown by some in their wild and natural state ; such as a few of the war- rior chieftains of America and Polynesia, whose names have passed into history ; the sachem Phihp, the leader Tecumseh, and Feenow, the royal savage of the Society Islands. And even were this otherwise, they will add, there is another and more fatal obstacle : the feebler race must yield to the stronger ; the white is destined to extirpate the savage. AH the civilizing efforts of governments must lag far behind the destructive consequences of European inva- sion. It is not only by appreciable causes, by warfare, or the destruction of game, or the introduction of spirits, or of new epidemics, that the savage perishes from before the face of the colonist ; there are deeper and more mysterious causes at work : the mere contact of Europeans is fatal to him in some unknown manner. This theory of necessary depopulation has been ad- vanced of late in so many quarters, and presents so for- midable an aspect to the inquirer, that I may perhaps be excused for dwelhng a httle upon it, as well as the other objections I have been stating, before we draw to a con- clusion. With Sir Francis Head's opinions on the subject we are akeady acquainted. Sir Eichard Bourke writes to Lord Glenelg respectiag New Zealand (1837) : — " Disease and death prevail, even " amongst natives who by their adherence to the mission- " aries have received. only benefit from Enghsh connexion; " and even the very children who are reared under the " care of the missionaries are swept off in a ratio which Lbct. XIX.] NATIVE RACES. 541 " promises, at no very distant period, to leave the country " destitute of a single aboriginal inhabitant. The natives " are perfectly sensible of this decrease ; and when they " contrast their own condition with that of the English " families amongst whom the marriages have been pro- " lific to an extraordinary degree of a most healthy " progeny, they conceive that the God of the Enghsh " is removing the aboriginal inhabitants to make room " for them ; and it appears to me that this impression has " produced among them a very general unhappiness " and indifference to hfe." * Thus vrates the philosophical traveller, Mr. Darwin, on the occasion of his visit to the same region : " Besides these several evident causes of destruction, " there appears to be some more mysterious agency gene- " rally at work. Wherever the European has trod, death " seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the " wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of " Good Hope, and Austraha, and we shall jfind the same " result. Nor is it the white man alone that thus acts the " destroyer. The Polynesian of Malay extraction has " in parts of the East Indian archipelago, thus driven " before him the dark-colouxed native. The varieties of " man seem to act upon each other in the same way as " different species of animals ; the stronger always extir- " pating the weaker." Finally, to quote the language of Mr. Poeppig, a German naturahst, who has resided for some years in South America : — "It is an unquestionable fact that the " copper-coloured man cannot endure the spread of Euro- " pean civihzation in his neighbourhood ; but perishes in • Lords' Eeport on New Zealand, 1838. In the Eetums from Lower Canada, 1839, it is stated, " that the average number of '' children living from an Indian marriage, in Lower Canada, is not " above four to five married couple.'' At this rate, their extinction is very near at hand. 542 SUPPOSED DIMINUTION [Lect. XIX. " its atmosphere, without sufferiag from ardent spirits, " epidemics, or wars, as if touched by a poisonous breath." And he proceeds to compare the substitution of the one race for the other, with the destruction of the j&rst growth of low vegetation, in the recently formed islands of the Pacific, by the vigorous crop of forest trees which suc- ceeds it." * Whether there be or be not truth of fact in the opi- nions thus expressed, there is surely something startling to the imagination in the language in which they are conveyed. Perhaps I may ventiu"e to attribute some of the colouring to that taste for fancifiil analogies, and speculations partaking of the mysterious, in which natural philosophers are apt to indulge when they apply their knowledge to subjects not immediately within their pro- vince. Wlaen we find one race of animals, or one class of vegetation, extirpating another, there is nothing iaex- phcable in the succession of cause and effect. The stronger destroys the weaker by natural agencies : indi- genous kinds of animals become the prey of imported ones ; or their food is destroyed by the multipHcation of the latter : the seeds of one class of vegetables cannot spring up where a stronger growth has estabhshed itself : and so forth. What is there, in these or similar pro- cesses, analogous to the supposed mysterious influence of the mere contact of one family of the human race upon another ? f If it be true, that the mere presence of a white popidation is sufficient to cause the red Indians, or * Art. " In(Rier," Encyclopedia of Erz and Gruber. ■j" I may here refer to the very singiilar law of nature which Count Strzelecki hints at (Physical Description of N. S. Wales, p. 845), but without offering his observations " as evidences for the deduction of an " ultimate conclusion." His opinion is, that native women, after forming connections with whites, become unfruitful in their subsequent connections with men of their own race. This theory seems not to have been adopted by subsequent observers. See Thompson's Story of New Zealand, vol. ii. p. 288. Lect. XIX.] OF NATIVE RACES. 543 the Polynesians, to dwindle and decay, -without any assignable agency of the one or the other, it must be confessed that this is an anomaly in the laws of Provi- dence utterly unexplained by all our previous knowledge, wholly at variance with all the other laws by which animal life, and human society, are governed. But on what proof does the supposed fact itself rest ? We might take reasonable exceptions to many of the ordinary instances which are adduced to support it. No rehance can really be placed on the rough conjectures of the numbers of native tribes made by the first visitors of savage countries. As some of the witnesses on the N'ew Zealand committee very truly remarked with regard to the South Sea islands, the discoverers seem to have magnified the native population, by judging of it from the concourse of people attracted by their own appear- ance. Por example : Cook estimated the population of Otaheite (the instance given by Mr. Darwin) at 200,000. When the missionaries first reached the island (about thirty years ago) they found it 16,000.* Now this is a difference far too great to be at all accounted for on any reasonable theory of depopulation ; we must therefore take the course of rejecting the first calculation as altogether unworthy of credit. But again : in other instances, it wiU be found that the population of regions long visited by Europeans has not diminished, even in comparison with the first estimate. No country has been so often referred to, as affording an instance of depopulation by white intercourse, as New Zealand : yet Porster, the com- panion of Cook, conjectured that the northern island * Estimated about 1850 at 8000 or 10,000 only ; but on doubtful grounds. Quarterly Review, vol. xciv. p. 93. The Sandwich groupe show a similar process of decay. In 1841, the annual deaths were estimated at nearly 7000 ; births little more than 3000. In 1849, deaths 4320, births 1422 (ih.). These numbers can- not be relied on ; but the general fact is undoubted. 544 SUPPOSED DIMINUTION [Lkct. XIX. contained 100,000 inhabitants. Mr, Williams, in his evidence, now gives it 106,000. I mention these num- bers because others have assumed them as data in reason- ing ; but vdthout beheving that either of the calculations is really to be relied upon. But the true subject for investigation is this : Is there a single instance of depopulation among aboriginal races since their intercourse with the whites, in which that depopulation cannot be traced to appreciable causes ? That the waste of human Hfe, at the present moment, is frightfully enormous, we too well know. The recent revelations of Mr. Catline, concerning the rapid destruc- tion of the tribes in the interior of the North American continent, have added most painfully to our knowledge of the devastation which our race is occasioning, and of our own utter helplessness to prevent it. But there is not a single example which he adduces, in which the mortality is not accounted for ; either by the more san- guinary character which fire-arms have given to their wars, or by the destruction of their food, or by the effects of spirituous liquors, or, more fatal than all, by the introduction of new epidemics, such as the small-pox, which lately, in two seasons, cut off nearly the whole Mandan tribe, 2000 warriors strong. To these we must add, as another appreciable cause, too great a change of habits, and too close restraint, as in the case already described of the Jesuit missions. AU this affords no answer to the question : If the native can be reclaimed ; if he can be placed in safety from hostile aggression ; if a sufficiency of food can be secured to him ; if time can be given him to become fortified against the virulence of epidemic diseases, which are always most destructive in their first assaults on a race previously free from them ; if aU these causes of death are removed, must he stiU perish ? Now if it be found, that in any one instance where aborigines have been thus reclaimed and settled, Lect. XIX.] OF NATIVE RACES. 545 they have increased, or even remained stationary in num- bers, in the midst of a white population, then the sup- posed law of Mr. Poeppig and Mr. Darwin is imaginary. They claim for it an universal operation ; and it is ob- vious that they must do so ; if the contact of one race is necessarily fatal to another, the result must follow in aU cases ahke. Let us then examine the very scanty collection of facts which lies within our reach. In Mexico, and perhaps in Peru, the labouring Indian population, after suffering great losses in the first ages after the conquest, was steadily on the increase up to the end of the last century, when Humboldt wrote, and has probably continued so, allowance being made for the effects of civil war since that time. Now it is true, that the great body of these people was agricultural before the conquest, and therefore their condition affords no test of what may be practicable with savages ; but it surely affords at once a conclusive answer to the notion of a noxious influence of race upon race. The instance of the Indians of our North American provinces is one of the most unfavourable which can be selected, oAving to the course of mismanagement which has been adopted towards them. Yet, even there, there seems no evidence that the long settled tribes of Indians are now in general decaying in numbers. In Cape Breton, says Mr. Haliburton, " they are much diminished, " but stiU exist ; and probably wiU, as long as lands are " reserved for their use." Those of Lower Canada, some observers think, are disappearing ; but they are a very degraded remnant. In Upper Canada, aU that the evi- dence in the Eeturns, already so often quoted, amounts to is, that they " are not likely to increase rapidly." Mr, Beecham, the missionary, goes farther and says, that " among the tribes that have been the greatest length of " time under the influence of Christian principles, the 546 MOVEMENT OF THE :N'UMBEES [Lect. XIX. " population has begun to increase."* But no enume- rations are given, and I should not rely on this evidence farther than as establishiag that there cannot be in these instances any sensible process of depopulation going on, In South Africa, the numbers of the native races appear to increase where there is protection against war and famine. The old tribe of the Hottentots, supposed to have been verging on extinction, increased fom 17,000 in 1809 to 30,000 in 1823. The numbers at the British settlement at the Eed Eiver, far in the interior, increased from 500 to 5000 in a few years, as a Avitness before the Aborigines Com- mittee expresses himself, " with the natives coming down " to settle, and the half-breeds." f But, in the United States, the testimony of Mr. Fhnt is clear and decisive, and of the utmost importance. " The Cherokees and Choctaws increase in the country " east of the Mississippi almost in a ratio as great as that " of our people." These tribes, as we know, had become agricultural. This was written before the recent removal of part of the Cherokees and the Choctaws from their settlements by the United States government. J * Report on Aborigines, 1837, p. 47. ■f Ibid. p. 73. They have increased, however, very slowly of late years (1860). J (1860) The case of the New Zealanders has been often referred to, of late years, in proof of the rapid diminution of native races. If we can rely on the estimates, they now Ml short of 60,000 souls. Of the fact of diminution there is no doubt, although to what extent is still questionable ; for I cannot think the recent enumerations, notwithstand- ing the care with which they have been made, of any very conclusive authority. But the cause is surely not far to seek. The various con- jectural reasons put forward in Mr. Fenton's ingenious " Eeport on the Maori population of New Zealand " (Statistical Journal, December 1860), seem rather superfluous, although it is no doubt possible that some of them may have more or less contributed to the result. For it appears from the same paper, that in a particular district (which may be taken apparently as a fair criterion of the whole), the Maori population in 1844 and 1858 consisted of the following proportions : — Lect. XIX.] OF SAVAGE RACES. 547 With these facts before us (and others may be cited), we may perhaps dismiss, with Httle scruple, the theories of those who tell us that aboriginal races are hastening to an inevitable destruction. But I cannot leave this branch of the subject, without a few words on another and a very different view of it. It is the opinion of some observers, that the depopula- tion of America did not commence with its settlement by Europeans, but was even then rapidly proceeding, owing to causes which the arrival of the Europeans might aggra- vate indeed, but could not produce. They refer to the 1844 1858 1 1844 1858 Adult males . . 630 575 ' Male cMldren . 281 178 Adult females . 594 474 Female children . 194 142 These numbers speak for themselves. It is plain that in 1844 there had been a great recent mortality of female children. It is farther plain, that this exceptional mortality had not then been of long duration, because the number of adult males did not very materially differ from that of adult females. But such a disproportion as this must needs pro- duce a diminution of population as soon as the children become adults; which diminution will continue until nature restores the balance of the sexes, and no longer. Probably, in 1844, the long preceding series of sanguinary wars between the tribes had produced great privations, and their usual effect, among savages — extensive infanticide, chiefly of females. Add to this circumstance the undoubted temporary effect of new diseases introduced by contact with Europeans, and the depopulation certainly seems to be accounted for without reference to those recon- dite causes which physiologists are so ready to dwell on. Dr. Thomp- son, for instance, imagines " breeding in and in " to be the leading cause of the diminution. Surely, if this were so, the population in lonely and little visited portions of the earth woiild long ago have died out altogether. But facts are against too exclusive a reliance on this supposed law of nature. There are portions of the Scottish Highlands, the Swiss and Italian Alps, and doubtless many other mountain regions, in which the constant intermarriage of kindred has prevailed for ages from the very necessity of the case. And yet finer races of men are not to be found in the world than those produced by these unions, nor is there any tendency to depopulation. " Breeding in and in " will not deteriorate the human race by itself. There must be some other causes in combination, with which we are not acquainted. NHS 548 CIVILIZATION ATTAINED [Lect. XIX. constant wars between the tribes ; their sangtdnary cus- toms, particularly that of infanticide ; the frequency of deaths at an early age: and the inferior productiveness of marriages, caused apparently by the hardships pecuhar to their mode of hfe ; as circumstances which are inconsis- tent with the possibility of a healthy and natural move- ment of the population. They refer, too, to the habitual complaints of diminution of numbers, which have been heard by white visitors in regions to which they were the first to penetrate ; as for example, by Major Pike in his journey to the Eocky Mountains, more than thirty years ago. But they point also to more striking proofs than these. In the valley of the Ohio, on the shores of the Great Lakes, and far in the interior, exist the monuments of a race which, in numbers and in civilization, must have been far more superior to the Indians with whom Ealeigh and the Puritans made acquaintance, than these could be to the most degenerate tribe which now visits the markets of Montreal or Saint John. There are the traces of cities of vast extent ; there are mounds, to raise which, says Mr. Flint, would task the labour of a thousand men for a year, aided by aU the apphances of modern art. Now there certainly appears much reason for supposing that the Indians of the present day are the descendants of those very people : it is not easy to beheve that so mighty a nation was destroyed at once, that new races succeeded it, and that those new races were by degrees augmenting in numbers and in power when the Whites discovered them. The far more probable theory seems to be, that the hunting tribes which first became known to Europeans were the mere fragments of a great famUy of the human species, losing, in every successive generation, something of the qualities which had distinguished their predeces- sors, diminishing in numbers and resources, and on their way towards extinction ; and there are some who hold Lect. XIX.J by native . RACES. 549 the same opinion respecting all the races commonly called savage. If so, and if it be true at the same time, as I have en- deavoured to show, that these races will multiply when their habits are changed, and their security provided for, then we must view, in the occupation of their country by the Whites, not the necessary cause of their destruction, but the only possible means of rescuing them from it. We are then not their predestined murderers, but called to as- sume the station of their preservers. If we neglect the call, we do so in defiance of the express and intelligible in- dications afforded us by Providence. And I think that a mind once satisfied that there is any approximation to truth in these conclusions, will scarcely attach much force to the other objection which I have stated, namely, that of the incapacity of the savage mind for cultivation. Even if it were granted, that it is not susceptible of improvement beyond a certain point — that the North American, for instance, highly as he is gifted in respect of moral perception, has not intellectual facul- ties of commensurate strength, all which must be con- sidered as assumed, or resting at best only on negative proofs — there is surely no reason in this why they may not enter by degrees into the sphere of civilization, although remaining always a subordinate race to the Whites ; or, considering the smaUness of their numbers in most cases, becoming quietly absorbed in the course of a few generations in the mass of the people. Different fates may be in store for them, according to the different powers they may evince, and their different physical cir- cumstances : there are many ways in which the great problem may be solved. But that even the lowest of them are capable of acquiring settled habits, and suscep- tible of spiritual and intellectual training, I do not think any dispassionate inquirer can possibly doubt. If my limits would permit, I should gladly close this IS TJ 3 550 CIVILIZATION ATTAINED [Lect. XIX. lecture by dwelling on the proofs of this truth which are even now exhibited in many quarters. I would refer particularly to the instances of the South African tribes under the superintendence of missionaries, chiefly Moravians ; of the remarkable progress of the Eed Eiver settlement, a territory very remote from any fully colonized country, in which the Indians seem, of their own accord, to be adopting agricultural habits ; of the Chippeways* of St. Clair in Upper Canada ; of the rem- nant of the Six Nations in the same country, some of whom are said to hold extensive farms of 150, 100, and 80 acres of cleared land.f The United States present much more remarkable results. ISTo Indian tribe reclaimed from the himting state has ever made so great a progress as that which had been attained by the Cherokees, prior to their last and unhappy removal. " In 1824," says Mr. Stuart J, " when the population of " the Cherokees was 15,560 individuals, it included 1277 " negroes (slaves) ; they had 18 schools, 36 grist-mills, 13 " saw-mUls, 762 looms, 2480 spinning wheels, 172 wag- "gons, 2923 ploughs, 7683 horses, 22,531 black cattle, " 46,732 swine, 2546 sheep, 430 goats, 62 blacksmith's " shops, with several pubhc roads, ferries, and turnpikes. " They had also newspapers in their own language." This flourishing repubhc is now transplanted to new seats, where its continued maintenance is problematical ; but the example remains. § * Report on Aborigines, 1837, p. 49. f Returns, 1839 ; or to have held. I do not know whether they were comprehended in Sir. F. Head's intended removal. Sir R. Bonny- castle speaks thus of a body of Micmac Indians, settled in Gasp^ : — " This branch is entirely separated from the rest of the nation, and " fast merging into civilization, the squaws having adopted the dress " of the surrounding peasantry, and all speaking both English and " French." — The Canadas in 1841, vol. ii. p. 204. I Three Years in North America, vol. ii. p. 42. § See Appendix, No. IV. Lect. XIX.] BY NATIVE RACES. 551 The recent history of Tahiti presents one of the most singular chapters in modern annals; and that of the Sand- wich Islands is hardly less remarkable. So great has been the success of the missionaries in the former island, that it raight even suggest a doubt as to the soundness of a principle which I just now endeavoured to estabhsh, namely, that those agents are the fittest to introduce civili- zation, but not to preserve it. But there are reasons for .doubting, whether the country is not now ripe for a change of system, over which I cannot detain you. The best way to study this very interesting subject is that which Mr. Darwin suggests, namely, to correct the colour- ing (I will not say the statements), of Mr. Ellis, the mis- sionary, in his Polynesian Eesearches, by the remarks of the prejudiced Kotzebue and the impartial observer Cap- tain Beechey. It is worthy of remark, that the mission- aries for fifteen years obtained no results at aU ; yet they persevered. I wiU mention, last, a communication in the parhamen- tary Papers on Australian Aborigines (1839) from Mr. Eobinson, commandant of Fhnders' Island, respecting the remnant of Van Diemen's Land natives, who were lately removed there. " There never," he says, " existed a race " of their character so degraded as were the primeval oc- " cupants of Van Diemen's Land ; and yet, by the philan- " thropic interference of the local administration, their " wretched condition has been ameliorated, and exceeds " by far the majority of the humbler grade of European " inhabitants ; and in their general conduct, I venture to " afiirm, they are much superior." And he proceeds to give details of their present state in point of material com- ■ fort, their industry, and their moral and rehgious improve- ment, which are perfectly astonishing, when it is remem- bered that these people, only six years ago, were prowling savages, plundering the settlers for subsistence, and ex- posed to be shot like wild beasts. Their occupations are N N 4 552 CIVILIZATION ATTAINED [Lbct. XIX. chiefly tillage, and making roads, and other government employment. The women have learnt knitting, and other branches of female industry. The means which Mr. Eobinson represents himself to use for their civilization seems to prove, in the first place, how far that civilization akeady extends. They are, what he calls " an aboriginal fund," — a chculating medium for the payment of wages — an aboriginal pohce — a weekly market — and a weekly periodical. Unfortunately their numbers seem to be di- minislung ; probably from the sudden change of habits, and the comparatively narrow hmits to which these wan- dering people are now confined.* If, then, it be insisted that these indications are fallacious — that such experiments have been often made, and never permanently successful — our safest answer is, that they have never been persevered in. Never has anything like the combination of means, which I have ventured to sug- gest in these pages, and most of which have been separately pressed on pubhc attention by men practically acquainted with the subject, been put into operation. It is not enough to protect the native from wrong ; there must also be re- ligious instruction, to give a stimulus to his indolent facul- ties : it is not enough to effect his conversion ; there must be the education of knowledge and industry, and admission into the pale of civilized life. Until the whole experiment be tried, the language of despair is unreason- able and vmjust. Por myself, notwithstanding all the dis- couraging appearances which the present aspect of affairs may exhibit, I am inclined to think hopefully of the great cause of aboriginal civilization, and to apply to it the noble language of Herder, true, as I verily beheve it to be, in his owia wider sense:' — "All the doubts and complaints of " mankind over the dark confusion of events, and the im- * (I860.) I have suffered this passage to stand as a testimony to the futility of sanguine expectations. The number of these aborigines -was 111 in 1835 ; 45 in 1845 ; in 1855 they were reduced to 16. Lect. XIX.] BY NATIVE EACES. _ 553 " perceptible progress of good in human history, proceed " from this, that the eye of the melancholy traveller can " comprehend at once only too small a portion of his road. " Could he but extend the sphere of his vision, and impar- " tially compare with each other those ages with which " history makes us most familiar ; could he but penetrate at " the same time into the nature of man, and weigh what " reason and truth really are, he would doubt as httle of " his own progress as of the most certain facts in natural " philosophy. "* * Ideen, book xv. c. 4. 554 APPENDIX. [Lbct. XIX. APPENDIX TO LECTUEE XIX. No. I. In Dr. Prichard's researches into the Physical History of Mankind (vol. i. p. 147, ed. 1831), a variety of facts are collected respecting mixed races. He considers the pro- lificness and the energetic character which distinguish many of these races, in the hght of evidence that mankind are of one species ; otherwise, such races would foUow the general law of hybrid productions. " The Griquas, or bastard Hottentots, the mixed race " between the Dutch colonists and the aborigines of South " Africa, form, on the borders of the colonial settlements, " a numerous and rapidly increasing race. " Another mixed tribe in Africa has become one of the " more powerful nations in that continent. The Pellatahs " are, according to the most recent and accurate accounts, " a mixed progeny from the intermixture of the Eed " Poules, the old inhabitants of Fouta DhiaUo and Fouta " Torro, with the JoUofs, JaUouka, and Torodos, as well as " with other black nations with whom they have coalesced- " The intermediate race resulting from this intermixture " has become so much more numerous and powerful, as " to have superseded the original Poules in their native " lands, and to have spread themselves moreover by con- " quest over a great part of the interior of Soudan." In Paraguay the mixed breed constitutes, according to Don Felix de Azara, a great majority of the people termed Spaniards, or White Men ; and they are said to be a people superior, in physical quahties, to either of the races from which they have sprung, and much more prolific than the Lect. XIX. J APPENDIX. 555 aborigines. The following is the description given of them by Azara : — " Ces metis s'unissent en general les uns aux autres, " parcequ'il ne passe en Am^rique que tres-peu de femmes " Europeennes, et ce sont les descendahs de ces m^tis qui " composent aujourd'huiau Paraguay la plus grande partie " de ce qu'on appelle Espagnols. lis me paraissent avoir " quelque superiorite sur les Espagnols d'Europe, par leur " taOIe, par I'elegance de leurs formes, et meme par la " blancheur de leur peau. Ces faits me font soupgonner " non-seulement que le melange des races les am^hore, " mais encore que I'espece europ^enne I'emporte k la " longue sur I'americaine, ou du moins le sexe masculin " sur le feminin. Mr. Cathne's opinion of the mixed races between the North American Indians and the Whites and Negroes is tmfavourable, at least as to their moral development. But his work contains several striking instances, which seem to militate against this view. It is particularly observable that many of the principal chiefs seem to be half-breeds. On the other hand the most remarkable among the many remarkable men whom Hayti has produced have been pure Negroes. The sagacious, far-reaching Toussaint, Dessahnes, the bravest of the brave, and the vigorous- minded tyrant Christophe, were of that complexion.' Petion and Boyer, both of them Mulattoes, were men of less marked energy, though of greater flexibility of cha- racter than the black chiefs, with the exception of Tous- saint. Henri Christophe, King of Hayti, like his contemporary Murat, King of Naples, began life as a waiter at a tavern. He was possessed to a very remarkable degree of that mixture of quahties consisting of a stubborn will, perse- verance, and aptitude for the conception of great ends, joined with very minute powers of observation, strong memory of details, and habit of parsimony, which con- 556 APPENDIX. [Lbct. XIX. stitutes that race of men of -whom Mr. Carlyle makes his heroes par excellence, — men called to construct empkes from small begmnings, or barbarous materials — Peter the Great, Frederic the Great, Doctor Francia. He had, too, the same peculiar vein of caustic humour, in which these great personages were wont to season their acts of des- potism. The following anecdote gives an idea at once of his style of wit and his method of government. He never remounted his cavalry : every newly enrolled horseman was presented with a horse, and then was expected to ap- pear at all future parades well mounted and equipped. If he did not, he ran a great chance of being shot. The consequence was, that the cavalry generaUy looked well : no particular iaquiry being made from whence the horses came, Henri used to point them out to foreigners with much self-complacency, and say " The king's horses " change their skins sometimes : but they never die." Sou- louque (the late Emperor Faustin), a man also of very considerable mental energy, notwithstanding the ludicrous associations which attach to his empire, was also, I be- Heve, a pure Negro. In Kew Zealand Dr. Thompson estimates the mixed population (1858) at 2000. " They are singularly free " from scrofula, the diseased taint in the Maori blood. " Physically they are a noble and beautiful race." H. It is remarkable, however, that Mr. Stephens, the last and most accurate observer of the great ruined cities of Central America, ascribes those erections to a date not long preceding the conquest, and gives very good reasons for doing so. Lect. XIX.] APPENDIX. 557 The following passage is curious, as showing the strong hold which the traditions of Eldorado still retain on the Spanish imagination : — " The rest of the Tierra de Guerra (land of war) never " was conquered ; and at this day the north-eastern sec- " tion, bounded by the range of the Cordilleras and the " state of Chiapas, is occupied by Caudones, or unbaptized " Indians, who hve as their fathers did, acknowledge no " submission to the Spaniards, and the government of " Central America does not pretend to exercise any con- " trol over them. But the thing that roused us was the " assertion by the padre, that four days on the road to " Mexico, on the other side of the great Sierra, was a "hving city, large and populous, occupied by Indians, "precisely in the same state as before the discovery of " America. He had heard of it many years before, at the " village of Chajul, and was told by the villagers that, " from the topmost ridge of the Sierra, this city was dis- " tinctly visible. He was then young, and with much " labour chmbed to the naked summit of the Sierra, from " which, at a height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he " looked over an immense plain, extending to Yucatan " and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a distance a large " city spread over a great space, and with turrets white " and ghttering in the sun. The traditionary account of the " Indians of Chajul is,, that no white man has ever reached " this city ; that the inhabitants speak the Maya language; " are aware that a race of strangers have conquered the " whole country round ; and murder any white man who " attempts to enter their territory. They have no coin, " or other circulating medium ; no horses, cattle, mules, " or other domestic animals, except fowls, and the cocks " they keep underground to prevent their crowing being " heard." — Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central Ame- rica, Chiapas, and Yucatan, vol. ii. c. 11 ; and see his Incidents of Travels in Yucatan, vol. ii. p. 408. But I 558 APPENDIX. [Leot. XIX. fear that later travellers have pretty nearly dispelled the haze of Mr. Stephens's charming romance. III. The history of the three semi-civUized tribes (Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees), is altogether so curious that I may be pardoned for inserting the following extracts from two travellers, one who describes them in their former seats, and one in their present. It will be seen that they have not retrogaded, as yet, by any means, to the extent which might have been feared. " The three first named tribes (Creeks, Cherokees, " Choctaws) certainly hold out a promise of the gradual " attainment of civihzation, many not only cultivating "large tracts, but holding in their own persons many " slaves, and Hving altogether by agriculture. They may " become permanent possessors of the soil they now cul- " tivate. The recent invention of written characters, by a " full-blood Cherokee, consisting of 84 signs, expressing " all the dominant sounds of that language, and the great '■'■number of half-breeds among them, are both favourable " to this change of hfe. The best proof that they are ad- " vancing from their savage state to a higher grade is, " that their numbers increase, while almost all other "Indian tribes spread over the American continent far " and near are known to diminish in number so rapidly, " that common observation alone enables any one to pre- "diet their Litter extinction before the lapse of many "years." — Latrobe, Rambler in America, vol. i. p. 163 (1832). " The Cherokees, living in the vicinity of Fort Gibson " on the Arkansas, and 700 miles west of the Mississippi, " are a third part or more of the once very numerous and Lect. XIX.] APPENDIX. 559 " powerful tribe who inhabited, and still inhabit, a consi- " derable part of the State of Georgia, and under a treaty " made with the United States government have been re- " moved to those regions, where they are settled on a fine " tract of country ; and having advanced somewhat in " the arts and agriculture before they started, are now " found to be mostly living well, cultivating their fields "of corn, and other crops, which they raise with great "success." " The Creeks (or Muskogees), of 20,000 in number, " have exchanged their possessions in Mississippi and " Alabama for a country adjoining to the Cherokees, on " the south side of the Arkansas, to which they have " already aU removed, and on which, like the Cherokees, " they are laying out fine farms, and buUding good " houses, in which they live, in many instances sur- " rounded by immense fields of (Indian) corn and wheat. " There is scarcely a finer country on earth than that " now owned by the Creeks ; and, in North America, " certainly no Indian tribe more advanced in the arts " and agriculture than they are. It is no uncommon " thing to see a Creek with 20 or 30 slaves at work " on his plantation, having brought them from a slave- " holding country, fi:om which, in their long journey, " and exposure to white men's ingenuity, I venture to " say that most of them get rid of one half of them " during their long and disastrous crusade." The Choctaws, of 15,000, removed from the northern parts of Alabama and Mississippi withta the few years past, now occupy a large and rich tract of country south of the Arkansas and the Canadian river, adjoining to the country of the Creeks and Cherokees, equally civihzed, and Hving much in the same manner. (Catline, Letters and Notes, vol. ii. p. 119. 1857.) It appears that most of the ancient tribes which re- sisted the Enghsh in their gradual settlement of the 560 APPENDIX. [Lect. XTX, eastern sea-board still exist, though in extremely di- minished numbers, having been moved, for the most part, step by step into locations far vs^est of their original seats. Some of them, who have been the least exposed to this process, seemed to have attained some degree of civihzation, e.g. the Tuscaroras, lately seated near Buffalo in New York, and the Senecas, in the same vicinity. But these also have been removed within the last year or two. Some others, like the Delawares, retain, in their dechne, the same warlike and indomitable character which distinguished them in the early times of American colonization. — See the sketch of these tribes in the same work, letter 47. IV. (1861.) The history of missionary enterprise among barbarous nations, since the first pubhcation of these lectures, presents very little on which the mind can dwell with satisfaction. Much good has been done in insulated cases. But it is impossible to say with truth that any general or substantial progress has been attained. And, as usual in such cases, honest zeal, disappointed in the re- sults of the past, finds its compensation in exaggerating the prospects of every new undertaking. In missionary matters, it is " he that putteth on his armour" who boasts himself, rather than he who is taking it off. A great pro- ject is heralded with precisely the same exultation as if it had been a great success. Among ourselves, the Me- lanesian mission, the Niger expedition, the recent South African scheme, — all have been introduced to the world with such prefaces of self-congratulation, that even far greater triumphs than has been allotted or seem hkely to be allotted to either of them would appear inadequate to Lect. XIX.] APPENDIX. 561 anticipation thus excited. And, among these ebulHtions of very honest, but not very far-seeing exultation, there is but httle evidence of an adequate perception of the fatal truth that it is our own evil deeds — our profligacy, oiu- fraud, our extortion, our invasions, the terror and the hatred which Europeans excite at almost every point of the" earth where they are brought into contact with un- subdued races of inferior civihzation — which render our Christianity a by -word, and the efforts of the missionary fruitless. The project of national civihzation, which at once multiphes the numbers of Europeans in the distant parts of the earth, and arms them with even greater superiority of force than heretofore, tends also to diminish the caution and considerateness which formerly to some extent Controlled them in their intercourse with its feebler inhabitants ; more easily able to awe them, to subjugate them, to exterminate them ; less fit to excite their love or their respect, to evangelize or to civilize them. These may be deemed by many too discouraging views ; and it is well at least to qualify them by some attention to what has been actually effected of late years. In Polynesia there is no doubt that a tolerably numerous and inteUigent race, scattered over a vast archipelago, have been brought mainly within the limits of Chris- tendom. And though a period of discouragement and relaxation seems for^ the present to have succeeded the over-strairted energy of the first generation of missionary converts, this is in all probabihty no more than a natural fluctuation in human affairs. The work, externally at least, is done ; there seems httle danger of relapse into heathenism, or (visited as they now are by numbers of Europeans) into barbarism, in the old sense of the word. There seems literally to be more fear of the physical decay, than the moral decline, of the Polynesian Chris- tians, including the New Zealanders : for the complaints of diminishing population seem to continue without abate- 562 APPENDIX. [Lect. XIX. ment.* Of the success of Eoman Catholic proselytism in the same regions (chiefly the western, or Melanesian, section of the Pacific) we know little authentic, except from the published missionary relations, which must be taken with the usual allowance. In South Africa, under the British government, and in the frontier regions, our missionaries have acquired great power among the chiefs, and guide in great measure — and for good — the pohcy which governs numerous tribes, among whom, indivi- dually, rehgion has hardly penetrated at all. For though there are a few thriving missions, there is httle evidence of any extensive progress made in the conversion of the South African races. In India, while the effect produced by misssionary exertion on the established rehgions of the country has as yet been next to nothing, there has been of late years a marked and singular tendency, among outlying tribes of low caste or no caste, to embrace Christianity ; and that, to all appearances, not superficially alone, but with real change of morals and conduct, and much self-denying exertion. But, undoubtedly, by far the most remarkable pheno- menon in the recent rehgious history of the heathen world is the great Chinese rebelhon, and the attitude assumed by its leaders towards Christianity. I say their attitude ; because their own religious profession is un- doubtedly entitled to no regard at aU. It was only a veiy natural delusion which disposed our missionaries to recognize a tendency towards gospel truth in that hetero- geneous mass of tenets, the compoimd of pohcy and super- stition, which these innovators formed, after the organizing fashion of then- race, mto regular articles of behef. But the remarkable feature of the movement is, that the out- ward, though most unreal, approximation towards the * See, in particular, Admiral Ersldne's very interesting volume on the " Islands of the Pacific." Lect. XIX.] APPENDIX. 563 foreign and once despised religion of Christ, which that creed presents, should have been regarded as poHtic by the chiefs, and accepted as attractive by the multitude. This proves at once that the foundations of old belief are utterly shaken, and that the superior civilization and higher qualities of that European race, which they had held for ages in contempt, are beginning to tell on the imagination of the masses, even in that remote but populous interior where scarcely an European face has as yet been seen. As the Fetichism of Africa is just now breaking to pieces before Mahometanism, so, apparently, are the philosophical superstitions of the extreme East before the faith of the West. And although, in both instances, a mere caricature of the conquering rehgion alone has as yet been produced, who can estimate, even by conjecture, the vastness, or the nearness, of those changes in the fortunes of the human race which these obscure movements at once herald and prepare ! oo 2 564 PROGRESS OR WEALTH CLect. XX. LECTUEE XX. PEOGKESS OF WEALTH IN COLONIES. RATE OF WAGES KATE OF PROFITS. TAXATION. Let us proceed to investigate very briefly the causes and character of the economical progress of colonies in what •maybe called their second or adolescent stage, when they are already estabhshed as communities, and before they have attained that density of population which charac- terizes old states. I need not repeat what has been so often urged in these lectures, that the cause which impels adventurers to the foundation of new colonies, and the reward of the exertions of the emigrant, is the increased produc- tiveness of labour when apphed to a new soil.* The labour of every man in the colonies, said Sir Josiah Child in the early days of our American plantations, is four times as valuable as if he had remained at home. The industry of those who go into a foreign plantation, says * " The question (of colonization) is, in general, treated too ex- ' clusively as one of distribution, of relieving one labour-market and ' supplying anotlier. It is this : but it is also a question of produc- ' tion, 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. . . . The ex- ' portation 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." — Mill, Political Economy, Book. v. chap. 11. Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. .565 William Penn, is worth more than if they remained here, " the product of their labour, being in commodities of a " superior nature to those of this country ; " that is, greater either in amount or value. According to a cal- culation of Humboldt, the return of wheat in Prussia in his time might be estimated at 4 or 5 to 1 ; in France, on the average, at 5 or 6 to 1; in the best soils, 13 to 1; in La Plata, 12 to 1; the North of Mexico, 17 to 1; Peru, 18 to 1; equinoxial Mexico, 24 to 1. These, no doubt, are remarkable instances of fertihty ; but if the comparison were made between the amount of exchange- able value which may be produced by an European labourer raising wheat on a soil of average fertihty, and a negro on a sugar estate in Cuba or Demerara, the dif- ference would probably appear still more remarkable.* But it is a general law that "the possession by any " country of superior advantages in producing commodi- " ties extensively demanded in foreign markets, confers " upon that country a greater command than her neigh- " bours of all the productions of foreign industry ; and " enables her to maintain a higher scale of prices for all " the products of domestic industry, "-f- This law has been very ably demonstrated by Mr. Senior, in his Lectures on the Cost of obtaining Money. The average rate of profit in England is supposed to be about one tenth, or 11 per cent. In Hindostan, Mr. Senior estimates it, conjecturally, at one sixth, or 20 per cent. But the average annual wages of labour in England are calculated by him at from nine to fifteen pounds troy of silver. In Hindostan they are from one to two pounds troy of silver. In other words, those countries which give the silver in exchange for the pro- duce of the labour of England and Hindostan (for neither of these produce silver), are willing to give more than * See a computation made by Don Ramon de la Sagra, in Ms statis- tical work on Cuba. f Torrens, Colonization of South Australia, pp. 163, 164. o o 3 566 PROGRESS OF WEALTH [Lect. XX. eight times as muc;li for the commodities which an Eng- lishman can produce in a year, as for those which a Hindoo can produce in a year. Or, which is merely to vary the expression once more, labour in England is eight times as productive of exportable commodities as in Hindostan : after allowance has been made for the different rate of profit in England and Hindostan, the labourer's wages for a year having been, by the suppo- sition, advanced to him by the capitahst. " In the mining countries," proceeds Mr. Senior, " all " prices ultimately depend on the cost of producing the " precious metals. Although the remuneration paid to " the miner is not identical with that received by other " producers, yet it affords the scale by which the remu- " neration of all other producers is calculated. When " once experience has ascertained the comparative advan- " tages and disadvantages of different occupations, they " will continue to bear, as to wages, the same proportion " to one another. A fall in the cost of producing sUver " must raise the wages of the miner. If those of the " agriculturist were not to rise in proportion, the miner's " wages would be more than in proportion to his sacri- "fices, and they would be reduced by the consequent " competition. And, on the other hand, mining would " be abandoned, if, when the cost of producing sUver were " increased, the wages in other employments could be " stationary. The mine worked by England is the ge- " neral market of the world. The miners are those who " produce those commodities by the exportation of which " the precious metals are obtained ; and the amount of " the precious metals, which, by a given exertion of labour " and advance of capital, they can obtain, must afford the " scale by which the remuneration of all other producers " is calculated."* Mr. Senior proceeds to show in what manner money * Lectures on the Cost of obtaining Money, p. 15. Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 567 prices, as well as money wages, are raised by tlie increased command of the precious metals whicli results from in- creased productiveness of labour. He assumes that the average wages of the manufacturing labourer are 155. a week, and those of the agricultural labourer 10s. a week. These are, of course, the sums which are necessary at the existing rate of prices to afford each of them that amount of remuneration which the habits of the country have established. He supposes, therefore, that on an estate of one hundred acres, 200 quarters go annually to the land- lord in the shape of rent, and 200 are retained by the farmer to divide between himself and his labourers. The value of those 200 quarters must be equal to the wages of the labourers, after deducting the farmer's profit for having paid those wages in advance. " We will suppose " that the farmer in question employs ten labourers, whose "wages are advanced for a year before the produce is " sold, and that the average rate of profit is one tenth, " or about 11 per cent, per annum. When wages are 10s. " a week, or 26Z. a year, per labourer, the wages of ten "labourers amount to 260Z. a year, making with the " addition of one tenth for profits, 286/., which must be " the average price of the 200 quarters annually retained " by the farmer to pay his profit and his laboiurers' wages. " And as the landlord's 200 quarters sell for the same " prices, his rent must also be 286/. a year." But if any improvement in Enghsh manufacturing skill should raise the value of Enghsh manufactures in the foreign market, and consequently the wages of Enghsh manufacturing labourers (say from 15s. to 30s. a week), the wages of all Enghsh labour, says Mr. Senior, would rise in the same proportion ; and consequently the prices of those commodities, such as corn, in the production of which no such improvement of skill had taken place, must also 'double. I presume that, in this calculation, Mr. Senior is exclu- o o 4 568 HIGH WAGES AJSTD PRICES. [Lect. XX. ding the eiFect of foreign competition. If foreign com were admitted, it is clear that the price of British corn could not double under the circumstances which he supposes ; it could only rise to that height at which the produce raised by the foreign grower would compete with it : either, therefore, the wages of the agricultural labourer would be kept down (but this they could not permanently be, the resource of manufacturing industry being open), or less corn would be raised, and the less fertile soils thrown out of corn cultivation ; more goods would be produced to exchange for corn from abroad, and a certain number of hands employed in agriculture gradually absorbed in ma- nufactures. The prices of all domestic articles consumed by the labom-ers would rise ; but they would evidently not rise to the extent of the rise in wages, unless in those instances in which competition from abroad was impos- sible : the command of the EngHsh labourer over foreign articles would be doubled, if the increased demand thus produced did not raise their price ; but this it would in- evitably do to some extent. The skin of English manufacturing labourers is, there- fore, the great advantage by which Enghsh high wages and high prices are maintained. And precisely a similar advantage must be enjoyed by any country which has ex- clusive facilities for raising produce bearing a value in the general market of the world. Such facilities are enjoyed in a pecuhar degree by the countries producing the precious metals : and in these, accordingly, the money wages of labour, and the money prices of most commo- dities, are excessively high. Such facihties are likewise enjoyed by all new countries possessing much land, ap- phcable to raising exportable produce ; the cotton-grow- ing States of America; the flourishing parts of the West Indies ; the new wool-growing colonies of the southern hemisphere. To all these the fertihty or the other ad- vantages of their soil are what skill and machinery are Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 569 to England : they command high money wages, and. con- sequently the money prices of many commodities are proportionally high.* This is a permanent cause of high money wages and prices ; permanent, so long as the advantages mentioned continue to exist. But there is another temporary cause, less important in an economical point of view, but very striking in its effects. This is the great importation of money by emigrants into colonies to which the stream of emigration is directed : particularly those which are the resort of capitahsts. Government expenditure has of course the like effects. High money wages and prices in very young colonies, where production has as yet hardly commenced, are mainly owing to this circumstance. The money wages of bricklayers, masons, and carpenters, in Van Dieman's Land, amounted, in 1824, to 125. a day ; in 1830 they had fallen to 10s. ; in 1838 to 6s. or 6s. 6c?. Yet between 1830 and 1838 the exports of the colony were trebled, while the population of the colonydid not nearly double. The fall in money wages must have been mainly owing to the cessation of the influx of free emigrants, and consequently of money from Great Britain, the course of colonial enterprise having taken in the interval another direction. And in this way we are enabled to account for the paradoxical phenomenon which appears to have surprised many visitors to flourishing infant colonies, where wages have appeared to rise instead of falling with every fresh arrival of immigrants, although as yet production had scarcely commenced and the labours of preparation were not concluded. To return, however, to the investigation of more general principles. Although money prices and the * It is necessary to distinguish between " money " and the precious metals. The reason why these are ahnost uniformly scarce in young countries is examined by M. Chevalier in his Cours d'Econ. Politique, vol. iii. sec. x. ch. 2. 570 HIGH WAGES AJSTD PEICES [Lect. XX. money wages of labour are necessarily high in countries possessing exclusive advantages for raising exportable produce, it by no means follows that the real wages of labour, that is, the amount of necessaries and comforts obtainable by the labourer, are necessarily high also. Eeal wages depend altogether upon the proportion be- tween the number of the labouring classes and the amount of the fund for the maintenance of labour : and that proportion mainly depends on the habits and tastes of the labourers themselves ; or rather, in countries where the rate of wages is low, the cause and the effect, inferior self-respect and superfluous numbers, are continually reacting upon each other. Therefore, money may be cheap, and labour cheap also. It does not appear that the condition of the Mexican miner was a very prosperous one, and that of the Mexican peasant was very indifferent, at a period when Mexico produced nearly half the precious metals which entered into the commerce of the world, and when money wages and prices were inor- dinately high. But where labour is scarce, and the influx of capital great, in consequence of exclusive facihties for production, there not only money but real wages are necessarily high. And this is the ordinary case with new settlements raising exportable produce. If we analyse the enormous rate of money wages realized by a labourer in New South Wales, at the present day, we shall find that four different causes concur in producing it. Money is cheap, because ISTew South Wales possesses great facihties for the production of wool, in consequence of which a day's labour in Austraha raises a greater value in exportable produce than a day's labour in most other countries, according to Mr. Senior's principle which we have just been investi- gating. Money is also cheap, secondly, because a quan- tity of silver, or its equivalent, is annually brought into the colony without return by immigrants. Thirdly, the Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 571 necessary rate of wages is Hgh, because the exchangeable value of foreign commodities, articles of necessity or com- fort, consumed by the labourer, is enhanced by the length of the transit. And, lastly, real wages are high, i. e. the quantity of commodities which the labourer can command is great, because the demand for labour is great in pro- portion to the supply, in a country where labourers are few, and land cheap and abundant. And the effect of real wages being high is this, that the capitalist cannot profit- ably apply his capital to inferior soils, or in less valuable situations ; and, consequently, that the productiveness of labour continues at its maximum. It might not be difficult, with the aid of a little labour and tolerable statistical materials, to assign its relative proportion to each of these causes ; but I do not find that this has been done by any of the authorities whom I have been able to consult. After all deductions made for the high prices of things consumed by the labourer, his real wages must reach from twice to three times the amoimt he could have commanded at home, So, again, in British America : although the application of Mr. Senior's principle does not, at first sight, appear equally plain in the case of countries producing in com- paratively small proportion valuable articles for the foreign market, yet we shall find that it is so in reahty. In Upper Canada and the United States, Mr. Senior estimates wages at from fifteen to twenty pounds of silver per annum, a rate which has probably rather fallen since the publication of his lectures : while " the quantity of " labour requisite ""to obtain the necessaries of life is not " much more than half as great" as in England. A day's labour in Canada is consequently far more productive of exchangeable value than a day's labour in England. Not because the actual quantity of produce obtained from the soil is great, relatively to the extent of land cultivated : eighteen bushels of wheat per acre, in Canada, is thought 572 HIGH WAGES AND PEICES [Lect. XX. a fair average return. But it must be remembered, that the comparison is between labour unassisted by capital in Canada and in England. The question proposed is, How much exchangeable value is produced by the labour of an individual, without any reference to the machinery, the stock, the expensive appliances by which labour may be assisted? If, in addition to the necessary profit on aU these advances in the two countries respectively, the labourer in Canada obtains the equivalent of twenty pounds of silver, and the labourer in England fifteen, the value of the produce of the Canadian's labour, in the market of the world, is to that of the Enghshman as four to three. And although the return to labour in the former country would appear moderate enough if it were estimated by the produce per acre, it is in reahty con- siderable in proportion to the expenditure of labour and capital. The worst land cultivated in England — that which pays no rent — may, for any thing I know, pro- duce more per acre than land in Canada which returns not more than the average rate of profit. But in the former case the expenditure of capital is much greater, the remuneration of labour much smaller. It is plain, therefore, that the improvement which takes place in the condition of the labourer by removal to a colony depends on two distinct causes : increase of the remuneration of labour, by reason of its application to the raising of articles of greater exchangeable value, and by reason of its application to more fertile soils. In coun- tries where both these causes exist together, the remu- neration of labour may be, for a time, even extravagantly high. But the latter cause alone is sufficient to produce a numerous, happy, flourishing peasantry, the produce of whose industry is of no great value in the general market, but who subsist, amid their own rude plenty, in a condition perhaps as prosperous as any which can exist in this world of imperfect results. " It is when the market price of Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 573 " labour exceeds the natural price, that the condition of " the labourer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in " his power to command a greater proportion of the " necessaries of hfe, and therefore to rear a healthy and " numerous family."* " In all countries and at all times," says the same writer, " profits depend on the quantity of labour requisite to " provide necessaries for the labourers, on that land or " with that capital which yields no rent." That is, the re- lative amount of profits to wages depends on this circum- stance. By " necessaries " Mr. Eicardo here means, in effect, that quantity of commodities which the labourer himself determines to accept as his share of the produce of his labour. It is therefore a fluctuating quantity ; depend- ing chiefly, or almost entirely, on the relative abundance of labour to capital. In new colonies, where labour is so scarce that the salaried engineer, who is employed by go- vernment to survey waste land, scarcely receives so much as the day-labourer who carries his chain for him, the quantity of commodities which the labourer consumes is great, and his condition flourishing. Nevertheless, if the whole amount raised by his labour is very large, it may well be that wages are low in Mr. Eicardo's sens^ of the word, because the quantity of labour required to raise that large quantity of commodities may be very small. Profits, therefore, may be high. Suppose that, in a country where the best soil only was cultivated, the labourer, with the advance of capital to the value of 23^., could raise produce to the value of 150Z. in a year ; wages might be 40s. a week, and profits 20 per cent. Suppose that in another country the labourer, on the worst soil cultivated, with the Hke advance of capital, could only raise produce to the value of 50/., profits might be 10 per cent, only, and yet wages would not exceed 10s. 6d. a week. In the latter country wages would be higher * Ricardo, Principles, chap. 5. 574 RATE OF PROFIT [Lect. XX. than in the former, in the sense in which Mr. Eicardo uses the word ; they would absorb a larger proportion of the total produce, although the condition of the labourer would be very far inferior to that which he would enjoy in the other ; because " a greater quantity of labour would be requisite to obtain necessaries for him." It is very evident, therefore, that in new colonies, in which fertile soil only is cultivated, both profits and wages may be for a considerable time absolutely high ; the condition of the labourer may be enviable, and yet the capitalist may accumulate with great rapidity. But what is to induce the labourer to be content with such an amount of wages as I have supposed, great as it is in proportion to what he could have earned in his own country? He is evidently the party who stands on advantageous ground in the contract ; he dictates terms to his employer. When labour is abundant, as in old countries, although the amount of natural wages is fixed by distinct and independent causes, the market price of labour often is for a short time, and always appears to be, chiefly at the discretion of the capitalist. In new countries this state of things is reversed. The owner of property, who has transferred it to the colonies in hopes of obtaining a better return from it, wiU be content with any amount of profit greater than he could have realized at home, or could reahze in other accessible markets for labour : that is, he wiU not remove his capital as long as he can obtain thus much. The labourer can raise his demands to any point short of that which would actually drive the capital from the colony. And if high profits are reahzed in such situations, where labour is free, and there are no slaves or convicts to work on compulsory terms, it is in reality owing only to this : that the wants and habits of the labourer are not calculated on so high a scale as the remuneration which he luight command; that he is not himself aware of the superiority of his Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 575 position ; and therefore, when men speak of the exor- bitancy of the demands of labourers in new colonies, the word is only to be understood by comparison with the modest scale of remuneration which contented them in the mother country. It may be questioned whether they are at all in the habit of asking for as much as they might obtain. So long as cultivation continues to extend itself over land of the first quahty, the rate of profits is more likely to fall than rise, unless large supphes of labour be intro- duced, larger than the ordinary course of emigration may be expected to bring. " In new settlements," to adopt again the words of Mr. Eicardo, "where the arts and " knowledge of countries far advanced in refinement are " introduced, it is probable that capital has a tendency " to increase faster than mankind : and if the deficiency " of labourers were not supphed by more populous coun- " tries, this tendency would very much raise the price " of laboiu-." Some collateral causes which lead to this result are well pointed out by M. Say. He shows that in colonies accumulation is nearly the only object of the capitahst : that the desire to spend, which counteracts it to a certain extent in old countries, scarcely exists. " Capital," he says, " is created more rapidly in such " countries than in anciently civiHzed states. It seems " as if the colonists, in leaving their native country, " leave behind them also a portion of their vices." I will not detain you here, except for a moment, to remark on the moral character of M. Say's views, which unfor- tunately display, at times, far too much of those charac- teristics which prejudice has attributed to the sentiments of pohtical economists in general. He too often con- founds the object of his science with the great ends of human fife ; and treats man as a creature born to accu- mulate wealth, and all laws, usages, and sentiments which divert his energies from that legitimate direction as in- jurious and impertinent. So, in the -passage before us, 576 RATE OF PROMT [Leot. XX. he appears to regard the habit of spending as simply vicious, and to consider the transition from it to a habit of money-maldng as a step in moral advancement. " They " renounce display : that display which costs so dear in " Europe, and which serves so httle purpose. In the " regions to which they have emigrated, people are " found to pay no regard to any but the useful quahties ; " and no more is consumed than is required by reason- " able wants, always less insatiable than factitious ones. " They have few cities, and no great ones " (we have seen that this is not an universal rule). " The agricul- " tural hfe which they are in general compelled to lead, " is the most xsconomical of all : lastly, their industry is " proportionally the most productive, and that which " requires least capital to carry it on." * But the result of this rapid accumulation is, as we have seen, an increasing demand for labour, and a power- ful tendency towards a rise of wages and a lowering of profits ; and hence, as we have also seen in former lec- tures, the urgent desire for cheaper and more subservient labourers — for a class to whom the capitahst might dic- tate terms, instead of being dictated to by them — which produced and maintained slavery and the convict system. And here, it must once more be repeated, is the cri- tical point in the history of colonies. The course which their development takes at this period — when capital begins to accumulate — determines their career and the character of their society for many generations. If they succeed in procuring and preserving a compulsory supply of labour, they become, virtually or actually, slave coun- tries ; and the sources of their prosperity, and causes of their decUne, have been traced in former lectures. And we have seen that there is, as yet, no instance in history of a colony possessing abundant fertile land, * Traite d'Ec. Politique, liv. i. ch. 19. Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 577 which has continued to raise exportable produce in large quantities without the aid of compulsory labour ; what- ever may be the success of the experiments now in pro- gress. We have seen, also, that in colonies possessing an extent of fertile soU, but not raising staple exportable produce in large quantities, the accumulation of capital has been slow and uncertain, while the remuneration of labour has continued high ; that the land has been di- vided into small estates ; that equahty of fortunes has led to equahty of social distinctions, and the rising community has necessarily assumed a democratic form. We wiU examine more closely in my next lecture the characteristics of a community which is in the course of such development. Let us retrace our steps for a while, and consider the mode in which taxation affects the ad- vance of a new colony. We have seen that surplus profits, or rent, may be and have been taxed in some colonies. In our own, however, the revenue is chiefly derived from two sources : the land sales, which have only of late years formed a considerable item in our receipts ; and duties on imports.* Of the former, enough has been already said ia the course of these lectures. We have seen that they inflict taxation on the colony in no other sense than this, — that they levy beforehand from the purchaser a portion of capital which he would otherwise have carried to it. The duties on imports in new colonies fall almost entirely on articles of immediate consumption. They im- port no raw produce for the purpose of converting it into * Principal sources of revenue in Australia : — New South Wales, 1857. Victoria, 1856. Customs .... J533,000 ^1,660,000 Land 382,000 900,000 Total ... . 1,157,000 2,950,000 P P 578 TAXATIOIT [Lect. XX. manufactured articles, but receive these in exchange for their own commodities raised by agriculture and pastu- rage. The burden of supporting the government of these colonies is therefore principally borne, in the first instance, by the consumers of those ordinary luxuries which are common to aU classes wherever the rate of wages is high : in other words, chiefly out of the wages of the labourer. But a tax on the " necessaries " of the labourer (which word for our present purpose includes such or- dinary luxuries), says Mr. Eicardo, must, by raising wages, lower profits. It is " partly a tax on profits, partly a tax " on rich consumers." * Leaving rich consumers out of the question, then, if wages were at the maximum, leaving only so much profit as would keep capital in the colony, such a tax must fall on wages only. If wages were not at the maximum (as it has been already shown that they are not hkely to be), then it must faU on profits. And if it were possible to remit the duties levied on imports in any of our colonies, it is probable that the immediate effect would be a rise of profits only. We should, indeed, deceive ourselves if we imagined that, in an old country, the effect of a tax on necessaries ends here. Indirectly it lowers the rate of wages. Falling, as we have seen, on profits it operates in the same manner as a tax on the employment of capital would do. It lowers the rate of profit, and retards the accumidation of capital, or dimimshes it. "Taxes, generally," adds the same writer, " so far as they impair the real capital of the " country, diminish the demand for labour ; and therefore " it is a probable, but not a necessary nor a pecuHar, con- " sequence of a tax on wages, that, although wages would " rise, they would not rise by a sum precisely equal to " the tax." . . . "All the effects which are produced on the " profits of stock and on the wages of labour by a rise of * Principles, cli. 14. Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 579 " rent and a rise of necessaries, in the natural progress of " society and increased difficulty of production, will be " produced by a rise of wages in consequence of taxation ; " and therefore the enjoyments of the labourer, as well as " those of his employer, will be curtailed by the tax ; and " not by this tax particularly, but by any other which " should raise an equal amount." But the effect of such taxation is by no means the same in new countries, in which the first stage of diminished productiveness has not been reached, nor lands of the second quahty resorted to. We have seen that it would be possible in such countries for the labourer to engross the whole value of the produce of his labour, except only so much as would remunerate the capitalist for trans- ferring his capital from the mother country; that is, a rate of profit exceeding what he could have obtained at home, or could obtain in any other accessible situation. We have seen, also, that the labourer does not in fact do so ; that, high as his wages are, his habits are still such as to render him content with a less share of the fruits of his industry than he might obtain ; and, consequently, that profits are very high, and accumulation very rapid, even when all allowance is made, as it should be, for the increased remuneration rendered necessary by the risk and uncertainty of advantageous employment. This being the case, taxation falls only on profits ; and the ease with which a very heavy load of it is borne, in new colonies, raising exportable produce, is the strongest proof of the productiveness of capital.* In New South Wales every individual paid in 1840 between 21. and 3Z. per annum to the government, independently of the revenue raised by sales of land ; while the inhabitants of Great Britain and * (1861.) In Victoria, the annual contribution of each individual to the provincial revenue amounts to about 41. independent of land receipts ; probably the greatest amount of ordinary taxation ever paid in any community. p p 2 580 TAXES ON tAND [Lect. XX. Ireland paid about 11. lbs. per liead ; and those of France little more than 11. It must, however, be remembered that in New South Wales there was no local or municipal taxation. It need scarcely be observed, that if taxation were made to fall directly on wages, it could not vary in its effects from taxation on the articles used by labourers. " Taxes " on wages wiU raise wages, and therefore diminish the " profits on stock."* And, therefore, such a tax as Mr. Potdett Scrope recommends, on the wages of labourers introduced into a colony, to be paid in the first instance by the employer, would be in reality a tax on the em- ployment of capital, f There are, however, other modes of raising a revenue in colonies, which have been proposed by pohtical economists, although, as far as I am aware, never yet put into practice to any extent in those of our country. Land is the great source of wealth in such regions, and it is natural, therefore, that schemes for making the land bear a considerable share of the burdens of government should have occured to the minds of many inquirers. A tax on land might be imposed either in the form of an annual payment per acre, without reference to quaHty, or in proportion to the produce ; in which last case it would resemble tithes, rent, and the tax paid in India, as in other oriental countries, by the cultivator to the state. The difference between the incidence of these two modes of taxation is considerable in old countries, where lands of many degrees of fertihty, all yielding rent except the worst, are cultivated. A land tax of so much per acre presses, of com-se, more heavily on the inferior lands, more lightly on those of better quahty, than a corn-rent, or tax proportioned to the gross produce. Consequently (sup- posing the total amount of the sum to be levied in either * Ricardo, Principles, ch. 14. j See Lect. XIIL Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 581 way the same), if foreign produce were admitted to com- petition, the imposition of the former tax would throw out of cultivation land of a superior quality to that which would be abandoned in consequence of the latter. The price of agricultural produce would be unaltered, being fixed by the foreign competition. But if foreign produce were excluded, then the efiect of a land-tax would be to raise the price of produce to a higher amount than a tithe-duty of equal amount would raise it ; because a greater amount of taxation would have to be paid by the worst land cultivated. It would, therefore, diminish consumption to a greater degree ; from which farther ef- fects would follow, which it is .not necessary here to trace. But iu new countries the difference between these two modes of taxation would be less marked. There is in such regions comparatively httle difference in quahty between the lands occupied. It is true that one farm may yield considerably more per acre than another ; but if so, we may be pretty certain that the more fertile of the two has inferior advantages in point of situation : some speculations will of course be more successful than others, but, all things considered, land used for the purpose of cultivation wiU not yield much more, or less, than the average profits ; and rent has not yet begun to be paid, or monopoly profits to be realized by the cultivator on his own land, except in some few pecuharly advantageous locahties, such as the immediate neighbourhood of towns, and so forth. Therefore a tax imposed in proportion to the gross produce of the land must more nearly approxi- mate in its effects to a tax per acre. And it appears to be the opinion of some observers, that this, the most ancient of aU modes of taxation, is pecuharly appropriate to the circumstances of new colonies. Tithe, or any burden similarly assessed on the produce of the land, is felt as a grievance in old countries, because the superior productiveness of one piece of land, in p p 3 582 LAND TAX [Lect. XX." comparison witli another, is often produced, not by superior fertility, but by greater expenditure of capital. Every improvement whicli renders the soil more pro- ductive subjects it, under the tithe system, to a higher amount of taxation. If tithe fell ui reahty only on the consumer, as Mr. Eicardo supposed, this would matter httle : but this is not the case ; and although I have not space on the present occasion to carry you through the details of proof necessary to refute his proposition, you will find, on studying the subject, that even m countries where foreign produce is excluded from the market, tithe falls partly on the consumer and partly on rent. Now what is called rent, in old countries, is partly profits: profits on capital expended on such improvements. Tithe is therefore, in part, a tax on the employment of such capital, and is injurious' accordingly. But in countries where only the most fertile soil is cul- tivated, the expenditure of capital in permanent improve- ments is as yet comparatively small. A proportional tax on gross produce is therefore unattended by the same mischievous efiects. Such a tax is, in fact, little more than a duty levied on the free bounty of nature. In so far as it raises the price of corn and other necessaries consumed by the labourer, it is, as we have seen, a tax on general profits. In so far as it diminishes the return fi'om the land to the cultivator, it is a tax on profits also. Its efiect on the progress of wealth must therefore be nearly the same as that of an equivalent tax imposed indirectly, such as a customs or excise duty on articles consumed by the mass of the population. But there woidd be practical difficulties of considerable weight in the way of such a tax ; that is, if it were raised to any considerable amount. If it were imposed on all land indiscriminately, as soon as purchased, it must have the effect of checking the progress of settlement, and thereby retarding the progress of wealth in the colony. Lect. XX.] IN COLONIES. 583 If, on the other hand, it were only imposed after a certain period of cultivation, it would then tend to promote the abandonment of old land for new : a process which it may not be desirable to counteract; but which, for the general interest of society, ought clearly not to meet with artificial encouragement. In short, if we investigate the question, I think we shall find that even in new countries, the system of tithe or corn-rent is only appropriate and serviceable where the agricultural population is strongly attached to the soU ; either by rehgious observance, as in the case of some ancient nations ; or by positive law, as it was in the later Eoman and feudal society, and as it is at the present day in all those countries in which corn-rents prevail — as, for instance, in the eastern parts of Europe. It would be impossible to apply it with success in regions where the hghtest of aU recognized ties are those which bind the cultivator to the land which he occupies. Lastly, taxation which falls on rent is, of all kinds, the least injurious to the productive industry of a country. It merely substitutes, fro tanto, the government for the land- lord as owner of the soil. In new colonies rent is com- paratively inconsiderable. Yet it arises early, not in the land generally used for agricultural purposes, but in that which possesses certain monopolized advantages of situa- tion ; such as suburban tracts of ground, spots commanding falls of water, the immediate vicinity of harbours and navigable waters. A moderate tax on rent, as soon as it begins to be paid, in locahties like these, would operate only to the disadvantage of speculation, and would leave unimpaired the real resources of the colony. But it is not easy to devise a practicable method of imposing it. We have now cast a rapid glance on the main features of the economical condition and progress of colonies before the first point of retardation is reached : that at which the productiveness of capital begins of itself to diminish, independently of any effects of taxation, com- p p 4 584 LAND TAX IN COLONIES. [Lect. XX. mercial restrictions, and other political causes, and merely from the limited character of the assistance which Nature lends to human industry : a point which it may be said that none of o'ur colonies, regarded generally, have yet reached, except the older West India islands, and from which many of them are centuries distant, as far as human anticipation can be rehed upon. We shall return to this subject, and observe the social condition, as well as the economical, of a community in the earliest stage of its progress. But we wiU first discuss some particulars re- lating to the expenditure of colonial revenues, and the mode of providing for pubhc institutions. Note. — The following table very briefly exhibits the rise which has taken place in wages in the colonies employing the greater amount of labour, between 1840 and the present time. It is compiled from tables of revenue, &c., and colonization circulars. Canada, West . Nova Scotia . New South Wales . Cape of Good Hope, E. div. Agricultural Labourers (with board). Carpenter (per day). 1840. 1858. £24 to £36 2s. 6d. per day 1840. 1858. 6s. Sd. to 7s. 6d. 6s. 1840. 1856. £15 to £25 3s. 6d. per day without board ? 1840. 1856. 4s. 4s. 6d. to 5s. 1840. 1858. £25 £30 to £40 1840. 1858. 6s. 8d. lis 6d. to 12s. 1840. 1858. £20 to £30. Is. 6d. to 3s. ed. per day. 1840. 1858. 3s. 9d. to 6s. 4s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. Lect. XXI.] EXPENDITUEE OF KEVENUES. 585 LECTUEE XXI. EXPENDITURE OF COLONIAL REVENUES. MODES OF SUPPORTING PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE BRITISH COLONIES. I DO not mean to enter in detail into the subject of the expenditure of colonial revenues, or what is sometimes termed the financial question as between the mother country and her colonies. We have seen, in our review of past history, that there have been colonies, although rarely, which have yielded a revenue to the mother country. There have been more which, in time of peace, have cost the sovereign state nothing, their own revenues being amply sufficient to defray the expense of adminis- teriug and protecting them. And I think that even the warmest friend of foreign dominion must feel that there is some serious defect in the principles of our colonial government, when, so far from realizing either of these conditions, our settlements occasion us a constant and heavy expense, which seems rather to increase than dimi- nish ; and appear to lean more and more on our financial support, instead of hastening towards the period of eman- cipation from it. It is true that exaggerated notions prevail respecting the extent of the assistance which we afibrd them ; but the reahty is sufficiently serious. It appears, from a parliamentary paper of 1835, that the an- nual nett expenditure incurred by Great Britain on account of her foreign possessions was then about 2,350,000Z. Of this sum about 700,000^. were spent in the main- tenance of mihtary and maritime stations, with which we have no concern at present. There remains about 586 COST or colonies [Lbct. xxi. 1,650,000Z. ; but from this there should be also deducted about 250,000/., which must be set- down to the mainte- nance of the convict estabUshments ia Australia, and was not strictly an item of colonial expenditure. There re- mains 1,400,000/. for the nett expenditure of Great Britain, in time of peace, in the civil and military admin- istration of her " plantations and settlements," to use the official term. This is no very large aliquot part of the vast annual expenditure of this country ; and if any por- tion of it is actually spent ia the furtherance of those pubHc works which prepare the soil of colonies for the reception of their future inhabitants ; or, which is the same thing, if the colonies themselves, by reason of the assistance thus afforded them, are able to devote a larger proportion of their funds to that great object, — it is probable that such portion is repaid, with abundant interest, by the increase of the colonial commerce, and consequently of the general wealth of the empire. But by far the greater part is in reality expended ia a very different manner. At least three fourths is apphed to the maintenance of the mihtary estabhshments esteemed necessary to protect some of our colonies from danger- ous neighbours ; and necessary, in others, to maintain the frame of society itself* Most of the remainder goes * Military Expenditure on Colonies. — The above remarks on civil expenditure by the mother country in colonies, are retained as histo- rical only. They are now no longer applicable, as regards British poKcy, for such expenditure l^jis almost ceased. But the subject of mihtary expenditure, already briefly touched on in an earlier lecture, is one on which it still continues peculiarly necessary to aid the judgment, by the estabhshment, in the first instance, of definite principles. Assuming that colonial dominion is or may become valuable to the mother country, it is most essential to form some estimate of the relation which that u.tility may bear to the military expenditure which colonies occasion, and also whether the utility can or cannot be preserved without the expenditui'e. The reader wiU find these questions placed in a very distinct light, and detailed with no common ability, clearness, and conciseness, in the Lect. XXI.] TO GEE AT BRITAIN. 587 in aid of the revenue raised in the colonies for the support of their civil establishments. Now, there are " Eeport of a Committee on expense of military defences in tlie colonies," printed in parliament, 1859. Instead of being merely what its dry name would indicate, this paper contains a thorough political discussion of the general subject, by Mr. Godley of the War Department, and Mr. Elliot of the Colonial Office, whose opinions widely differ, and are powerfully defended. This discussion originated in a proposal by Sir. W. Denison, the Governor of New South Wales, that the military expenses of that colony should thenceforth be halved between the colony and the mother cormtry. Mr. Godley was led to propose the extension of this rule to all the colonies (properly so caUed, and omitting mere military posts), although as a compromise only, avow- ing his own belief in the expediency of leaving the colonies to rely mainly on themselves for defence. Mr. Elliot argues that such a course would be to apply an unvarying rule to cormnunities widely differing both in means and in wants, and that the " absence of any " fixed principle in determining questions of colonial military expendi- " ture," of which Mr. Godley very justly points out certain attendant evils, is, nevertheless, unavoidable in an empire constructed of such heterogeneous materials. When we approach the subject closely, we find that mihtary ex- penditure is incurred in colonies (whether defirayed by the mother country or by the colony) for three distinct purposes. 1. For precaution against foreign war with civilized powers. 2. For the maintenance of internal tranquUlity. 3. For precaution against the hostihties of natives, whether within the colony or bordering on it. The first of these objects it has been usual in British policy to con- sider as of imperial interest. " As a general i-ule, it is undoubtedly " the duty of this country to protect our colonial possessions from " foreign aggression at all hazard and at all expense." — Duke of New- castle, Feb. 1854 (Hansard). And such protection no doubt includes precaution. But it is essential to disabuse the mind of the common and superficial notion, that what appears in public returns as colonial military expendi- ture is reaUy such, except in a very small proportion. This great com- munity, of which we are members, is no longer limited, in these its days of vast but only beginning expansion, by local bounds, whether of mother country or colony. Every sea has its British population, con- veying the trade of Britain. Every foreign country, almost every fre- quented port, has its colony of British residents with their commercial property. And in every region of the world we have our political 588 COST OF COLONIES [Lbct. XXI. many who reject, -with contemptuous displeasure, the sug- gestions of those who consider these estabhshments as interests, be they real or imaginary. Now, it is to protect this trade, these fellow-subjects, and these interests — not to protect the people of Malta, Gibraltar, Mauritius, Hong Kong — that these posts, and others, are occupied by expensive British garrisons. Whether such expendi- tiu-e be wise or foolish, is not the purpose of our present inquiry ; it is sufficient that it is not colonial. Thus much Mr. Godley admits : but he does not see (as it appears to me) how far the admission must lead him. Adding, to such places as those just named, a few others where the expenditure is really incurred for convict, not colonial purposes — and others again where it is incurred in the maintenance of factories for mixed trading and anti-slaveiy purposes — we arrive at a deduc- tion of more than 1,500,000Z. from the sum of 3,500,0002., at which the report estimates " imperial expenditure for mihtary purposes." Of the remaining two millions, one fourth is appropriated to the North American Colonies. In these great provinces, no danger from natives is possible, and it would be contrary to all recognised principle to assume 'their protection against internal trouble. The whole amount must, therefore, be regarded as an insurance against foreign invasion. And, as such, the colonists urge that it ought to fall on the mother country to contribute largely towards their security. "We, they say, have no interest in provoking foreign wars. If ever we are engaged in them, it will be in consequence of imperial quarrels, not of our own. We can at any time relieve ourselves fi'om all danger of this class by a peaceful separation. If you think it worth your while to prevent this, the expense ought surely to fall, to a considerable extent, on you. And, besides this (they argue), your expensive fortresses of Quebec and Halifax are, in reality, rather posts for the protection of your general interests, like Malta or Gibraltar, than for the colonial piu-poses of Canada or Nova Scotia. The answers to such reasoning ultimately resolve themselves into the proposition, that the maintenance of the connection is not (in the eyes of those who adopt those answers) worth the expense. Mr. Godley refers, in a very spirited comparison, to the early history of our old North American Colonies. He shows that the system of maintaining regular forces in them only commenced in 1754 : that, before that time, they not only had defended themselves, but conquered Nova Scotia and Cape Breton for England. " They were content," he says, " to know that with the greater advantages of a new country, they ■" must meet greater hardships and dangers. They never thought " that they were to take the former, and be protected at other " people's expense from the latter." AU this is true : but, unfor- Lect. XXL] TO GEEAT BEITAIIf. 589 burdensome, and the general scale of colonial expenditure as extravagant. It appears to be a favourite opinion, and tunately, it is one of those truths whicli are very effective when clad in general language, and lose most of their force when we change the ground from generals to particulars. The old English colonies had no foreign enemy to fear, except France. Against France, all their in- stincts of self-defence were roused into immediate activity. Had Eng- land absolutely deserted them, nothing but downright force would ever have driven them into subjection to a country of absolute govern- ment, of foreign language and religion. AH that was needed to ward off danger was, that England should be practically as near to them as France, and ready to help as soon as occasion required. Their own courage, and hearty good will, were sufficient for the rest, at least until the changes produced by the seven years' war. At the present day, the menace against which the British troops are thought to guard pro- ceeds, not fi-om France, but from the United States : the cotmtry of a powerful and warlike people, conterminous with our provinces for thou- sands of miles, ready, from geographical position, to throw at any time a strong force against any weak point, and secure of considerable sym- pathies among large classes of our colonists. Against such enemies as these, the maintenance of a few fortified posts, by imperial expenditure, to serve as rallying points in the event of sudden invasion until assist- ance can arrive from the mother country, may, or may not, be a suffi- cient and a wise precaution, may, or may not be imperially expedient. These are open questions, of a mixed political and military character : but to refer for guidance on them to a precedent so utterly dissimilar as that of our ancient colonial dominion — or to imagine them capable of solution on any general principles of colonial administration at all — is, I cannot but think, a waste of ingenuity. 2. To keep troops, at imperial cost, in colonies, for the purpose of maintaining their internal tranquillity, is undoubtedly contrary to sound policy. Colonies which cannot or wiU not do this for them- selves, can scarcely be worth retaining. And it is in pursuance of this principle, that a kind of rough compromise has been established in some colonies — the Australian, for instance ; under which the mother country is regarded as charged with external, and the colony with internal de- fence, an3 each contributes a portion accordingly, very much in ac- cordance with Mr. Godley's proposal for colonies in general. StiU, serious difficulties do occur in the application of a rule so just as that which would cast the expense of internal self-defence on the com- munity. Take the case of the West Indian colonies. They cost this country annually about 400,000Z. for military purposes. It is a con- siderable expenditure ; and it is useless with a view to foreign dangers ; 590 COST OF COLONIES [Lect. XXI. I do not mean hastily or rashly to controvert it, that we owe this species of tribute to our colonies : that, by a high scale of remuneration, we seciire them the services of able ofScers, both of their own growth and from the mother country; and that we encourage a feeling of loyalty in them, and remove the danger of separation, . by maintaining at our own expense a munificent scale of pubhc services, promoting the expenditure of weU- salaried officers, and giving them an interest in support- ing a government which so amply repays fidelity and for tlie defence of the West Indies, in the event of foreign war, would be the concern of the navy. But, at this price, about 4000 British soldiery (themselves mostly coloured) have maintained for many years the most perfect tranquillity, in a population stiU thought to be formid- ably influenced by the ancient animosities of colour. And it is scarcely supposed that in their present impoverished condition they could them- selves maintain the force. 3. There remain those colonies, in which the expenditure of this class is wholly, or almost wholly, incurred by way of insurance against danger from natives. It will surprise those not familiar with the sub- ject, to know, that out of the sum of two millions, for which the im- perial expenditure of 1858 for colonial military purposes was fairly reducible, one million was expended in two colonies only, the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand — both, at that time, in profound peace with their savage inmates or neighbours. I have already touched on this subject (Appendix to Lect. XVIII.), and wiU only here observe, in passing, that, of all items of colonial expenditure, this is the least easily justifiable, but that to " halve it " with the colonists wotdd be a very- inappropriate proceeding. According to the best estimate I can frame, the " expenditm-e in- curred for the defence of the colonies by the impei-ial government " in 1858, the year of the Eeport, and one of remarkable quiet throughout our colonial empire, was thus roughly divisible : — Defence of posts for military, convict, com- 1 . . mercial, and other special purposes . J ' I ' Of colonies against foreign powers simply . 400,000. Against foreign powers, and internal dis- 1 ... turbance, but chiefly the latter . • J bOO,OUO. Against warlike natives .... 1,000,000. £3,600,000. Lect. XXL] TO GEEAT BRITAIN. 591 ability. But it were well to consider whether this species of policy does not, in fact, operate in two directions at once, and which of these two directions is the preva,iling one. We may send them able ofl&cers from the mother comitry : there is no class of men fitter for their duties than the greater part of the colonial servants of the British crown ; but the preference shown to British candidates for ofiice over their own natives, whose- education for such purposes has generally been inferior, and who have not the advan- tage of parhamentary and government interest, must be a constant provocation to the disaffected, and try the loy- alty even of the loyal. And a high scale of government remuneration, especially to officers appointed by govern- ment, and over whom the people have little practical control is certainly a powerful stimulus to discontent. If it offers prizes to the loyal, it holds them out also, although at a greater distance and at the expense of a different kind of exertion, to the active and able partisan of opposition. It renders far more intense the zeal of reform, Avith all its consequences of grievance-monger- ing and agitation. It tends to widen the inevitable disunion which exists in aU communities where the popular voice has an influence, whether with or without representation, between the party in and the party out. The greater the rewards a government has to offer, the more numerous its places and minute its subdivisions of office, — the more a country is governed, to use a common phrase, the more intense is the zeal both of the impugners and defenders- of its administration. I cannot help thinking that we have had some striking illustrations, of late years, of the reasonableness of these views, unpopular as they have been with all administra- tions, and with the generahty of Enghsh statesmen in modern times. But I must not dwell on a subject so exclusively political. It falls more within my province to draw your attention 592 MAINTENANCE OF [Lect. XXI. to one or two questions regarding public expenditure in colonies, considered as affecting the wealth of the com- munity. The first of these is, — in what manner it is best to provide for certain permanent branches of the public service, which form, in most countries, 'k fixed and pre- viously ascertained burden on the resources of the com- munity : such, for instance, as the rehgious estabhshment, and pubHc education. I assume, at the outset, that these objects are to be provided for out of the pubhc means. The question between Estabhshments and the Voluntary System, whether in respect to religion or education, is not one to be discussed incidentally in a series of lectures on Pohtical Economy. It being granted that estabhshments of this^ description are to be maintained, the subject for our inquiry is — in what manner this is best done in colonies ; both at their outset, and in their more advanced pohtical stage. There appears to me to be four distinct methods of making such provision, which the first view of the subject suggests to our consideration. The first is, by setting apart a fixed proportion of the gross annual income of the land. This is the ancient system of tithes ; once the universal mode in which national and individual piety provided for the service of rehgion, now so rapidly becoming obsolete in European communities. The second is, by appropriating land to the assumed purpose, with absolute restrictions on its alienation, with the view that it may rise in value, along with the neigh- bouring occupied lands, until it becomes worth the while of individuals to pay rent for it. This was the plan originally adopted in Canada for the maintenance of the Protestant Church Estabhshment. We have seen that it appears to be also the mode in which reserves are made for pubhc education in the United States. The third is, the appropriation of land with qualijied Leot. XXI.] ESTABLISHMENTS. 393 . restrictions on its alienation : that is, empowering some constituted authority to sell it in portions from time to time, and invest the funds so realized, applying the interest to the proposed object. This modification of the former scheme was also partly adopted in our North American colonies ; although I am not aware that it was ever carried into effect, except by the clumsy machinery of acts of parhament enabling commissioners to sell portions fro singuld, vice only. The fourth is, to provide for these objects in the same manner as other pubUc exigencies ; by grants out of the common reveniies of the colony, with or without the assistance of the mother country. And this has been, of late years, the method commonly pursued. Of the first of these modes I shall say little here. Ab- stractedly considered, we have seen that a tax on the gross produce of agriculture appears to be among the least objectionable ways in which a revenue can be raised, in a country possessing a great extent of fertile soil. It is merely the appropriation to pubhc piurposes of a part of that share of the produce which, if the good land were practically hmited in extent, would go to the owner in the form of rent. In eastern countries this is the mode in which the great bulk of the revenue is raised ; the govern- ment being itself the landowner, and receiving, by way of rent, a fixed proportion of the produce. We have already seen that such a land-tax, in countries so circumstanced, is only burdensome when it is exorbitant. But when the land begins to yield less and less return to the capital appHed to it, and its fertihty requires to be stimulated by expensive and laborious processes, then it is that tithe or land-tax begins to be felt as an onerous imposition; because a considerable proportion of the gross produce — - a proportion always increasing as cultivation becomes more expensive — ^belongs to the category of profits, and not rent, and goes to remunerate the landowner or the farmer " Q Q 594 MAmTENAKCB OF [Lect. XXI. for the improvements whicli he has introduced. A tax on gross produce is therefore a tax on improvements. And it may be thought that if a young community, newly planted in unoccupied land, were, after the fashion of former ages, to devote, in this manner, a portion of its annual substance to the support of national establishments, it would provide for those objects in the most permanent, the most natural, the least injurious method — a method from which no great inconvenience could be felt until ages had elapsed, and society had grown into a new shape and character. But, in my last lecture, I endeavoured to show some reasons why a tax proportioned to the gross amount of the produce of land could not be beneficially imposed, for purposes of ordinary revenue, in a new country- in which the cultivator is free to abandon old land for fresh. And, as a question of practical policy, it is useless to con- sider the policy of imposing such burdens for the purpose of maintaining estabhshments; because our British system of government does not give us the power, if we had the disposition, to compel colonists tmder a system of free representation to contribute, in such a manner, to the sup- port of institutions which we may think useful or salutary. And fortunate it is that we have not such power ; lest, under the impulse of inconsiderate zeal, we might be tempted to abuse it. Such sacrifices must, in the first instance, be voluntary; they must come from the free gift of the people, or they do but engender hostility to those very establishments and those very principles which they are intended to support. A community may well bind itself by a solemn act, and dedicate a portion of its annual substance : offered by the national will, the gift may be revoked by the national will again, although woe be to the nation which rashly and profanely revokes it ! But it is not by imposing taxation on an unwilling people that true religion has ever been propagated, or salutary • education disseminated. Lect. XXI.] ESTABLISHMENTS. 595 The second method, or that of inahenable land-reserves, has been akeady several* times under our consideration ; and it has been seen that although some of the evils attending it have been exaggerated, still its inconve- niences are so great as to render it extremely objection- able. Such land will not, in general, be brought into cultivation until the purchaseable land in the vicinity is all occupied ; for in new countries men wiU not pay rent if they can possibly escape it : and in the mean time it remains an unsightly impediment in the way of advancing colonization. But no such objection can be urged to the third plan above mentioned. The only reason against giving a power to sell pubhc land, and investing the proceeds for the furtherance of the object for which the grant of land was originally made, seems to be the danger of disadvan- tageous or dishonest alienation : a reason in which there may be some weight, when we are striking the balance between the comparative advantages of different methods of providing permanently for estabhshments ; but the ques- tion in our colonies appears to be between this method and none. And even if the two which we have already discussed were practicable, that which we are now con- sidering has one great advantage over them. It secures assistance in the form in which it is by far the most useful and acceptable, namely, in money. An establish- ment amply endowed with land, or with the annual produce of land in the form of tithe or rent, might pass for wealthy in societies such as those of feudal Europe, where the means of exchange were scarce, and the proudest baron, no less than the richest ecclesiastic, was often at a loss for means of disposing of his surplus agricultural produce, after feeding and clothing his chents and re- tainers. But in a country and age where the conve- niences and luxuries of life are highly valued, where they are easily procurable with money, and the only Q Q 2 596 MAINTENANCE OP [Lect. XXL diiSculty is to obtain regular supplies of money in ex- change for raw produce, the crwner of a fixed money income has frequently the advantage over a landowner whose nominal revenue is far higher in amount. On the whole, therefore, the most convenient disposal of the national resources for these purposes appears to be to permit of the gradual disposal of trust lands, reserving from sale only so much as may be immediately useful for the convenience of each local establishment : glebe lands for clergymen, farms, &c. for educational insti- tutions. For the modern system of providing for these things by grants, made as occasion serves, at the caprice of a government or a legislature (a system into which we appear to have been driven in some of our North Ame- rican colonies by the political difficulties which arose respecting the appropriation of pubhc lands, but which, in other parts, seems to have been spontaneously adopted), is surely not only inadequate to its object, but most mischievous in its effects. Looking at the subject only from the point of \iew of ordinary and daily expediency, we cannot fail to perceive the precarious and unsatis- factory state in which it leaves the public service — the discords which it is certain to engender among the parties who have the control over the gift, or whose interests are in any way affected by it. It turns those who should be wholly independent of the passions or interests of the day, those, namely, who administer the fimds granted for national and permanent purposes, into mere bidders for popularity or the favour of the exe- cutive. It malies it impossible to undertake plans of comprehensive utility, m which the outlay is large and the results future, and renders the task of the ministers of the grant one of mere expedients — making the most of what their masters have accorded them for this year, and trusting to chance or intrigue for the necessary Lect. XXI.] ESTABLISHMENTS. 597 supplies of tlie next. And, lastly, where the grant is made by a representative assembly, whether at home or in the colony, it imposes on the executive the disagree- able task of requiring contributions for objects which are certain to be unpopular with many, and the necessity for which is at best imperfectly understood by the ma- jority ; and raising each time the often repeated debate respecting their expediency. The first principles of government are not things to be annually discussed in voting on the estimates. But there are far higher considerations behind. Surely, few things are more important to the welfare of an infant nation than to be impressed with a sense of its own per- manent existence — its own nationahty, so to speak — by the evidence of institutions rooted as it were in the soil, and protected by the same safeguard with which the constitution fences the property of individuals and the sovereignty of the monarch. The situation of a modem colonist is very different from that which imagination rather than history suggests, when we carry our minds back to the foundation of states and empires. He comes from an old country, his habits regulated by its usages, his mind fuU of its institutions. Perhaps he is strongly attached to those institutions : perhaps he is discontented with them. But, in either case, his strongest impressions, his most vehement emotions, are connected with them. He hves mentally in the past and future rather than the present, in the society which he has left, and that of which he dreams as a distant possibihty, rather than that which he contributes to create. He regards the immediate social prospects of the new community, as such, at first with comparative indifference ; it is the home of his indus- try, not of his thoughts : he cares little about its develop- ment from within; but all his old party feehngs are excited in furthering or in opposing the transplantation of laws and establishments from the mother country. And Q Q 3 598 MAINTENANCE OF [Lect. XXI. these feelings are inherited by his descendants for many- generations ; their strength diminishes very gradually. There is something almost grotesque in the institution of Orange Lodges in Upper Canada*, and Pitt Club dinners in Austraha. But a more remarkable instance will be found in the political hterature of the United States, for a long period after the achievement of their independence, and before the consolidation of their present system. It is strange to observe how far more the principles maintained, the illustrations used, the very feehngs expressed, both by federahsts and democrats, seem European than American ; how httle progress had been made in two centuries of colonization-, and seven years' war of independence, towards the creation of a national heart and character. The consequence of this is, a tendency in new colonial communities to allow those institutions which are of do- mestic origin to grow up carelessly and at random ; to frame laws merely for actual emergencies ; to fill up the foundations with rubbish, and let future generations care for the finished building. There are some who believe such improvised and practical institutions to be the best of all, or rather the only useful ones. But those who con- template national estabhshments not merely with a view to their immediate adaptation for use, but as contributing most essentially, among other causes, to form the mind and temper of the people itself, cannot but think that it is well to commence the building with some reference to a preconceived idea, not inflexible indeed, but still independ- ent, and to give pledges, as it were, to the future, binding the people to revere and guard the durable elements of moral greatness. Nothing could tend more decidedly towards imparting the requisite fixity and self-existence to colonial societies, than to place on a permanent footing * (1860.) These, however, have, in later years, acquired a local meaning, being connected with party demonstrations against the French and Roman Catholic body of the commimity. Lect. XXI. j public institutions. S99 endowments for education, both for popular schools and colleges. And, the same would be true in a still higher degree of a national church estabhshment, if that esta- bhshment could reaUy comprehend the mass of the community. Happy in that case the people among whom that most important of civil institutions should be planted and rooted from the beginning of its career, to grow with its growth, and overshadow successive generations with its expanding branches ! Even in a pohtical sense alone, such a people would possess a principle of union and stabihty, the hke of which no other invention of social wisdom can afford. But here we are rather giving vent to the language of theory than experience : for we are dreaming of a church suppoirted from the beginning by the free adhesion of the people, while history gives us none but instances of churches founded imder the injurious protection of penal laws, guarded by the sword, sowing oppressions and reap- ing hatred, and encumbered in all their after history by the recollections of the past. And even to those who re- cognize in the fullest manner the value of an established or endowed national church, it is quite another question, whether or not the government of the mother-country should fix and endow, in every colony which it founds, a provincial branch of its own church establishment. The policy of such a course of proceeding requires much con- sideration, and must not be discussed in this incidental manner. I speak of course of colonization by countries such as ours, in which the utmost latitude is given to freedom of opinion, and in which numerous denominations of Chris- tians contribute each their quota to the annual overflow of the population. With unity of rehgious belief at home, such questions need not be debated ; but in the present condition of the British community they become of most pressing and practical interest, a ft 4 600 CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT [Lect. XXI. No situation, say those who support the negative view, can be conceived more disadvantageous, I might almost say more hopeless, for the Church, — not only more ad- verse to the prospect of extending her influence, but more injurious to her character and working, — than to stand by the support of the State, and in connection with it, with a small minority of the population attached to her. The greater the privileges which the civil authority under such circumstances accords to the members of the Church, the worse for the Church herself If the monopoly of court favour and civil employments be secured to them, the Church will be encumbered and dishonoured by the pro- fession of careless or dishonest adventurers ; the national spirit, instead of being merely indifferent, becomes fiercely hostile to her ; and every honest sentiment of pride and patriotism combines with the irritating feelings engendered by exclusion to make war upon her. If no reHgious dis- abilities exist, but the Church only enjoys an estabhshment founded or supported by government, her position is less unfavourable, but it is still inauspicious. She must be stiU unpopular. But this, it may be said, is owing only to the self-conceit and self-will of mankind ; and the Church is sent expressly to combat such enemies, and is not out of her vocation when placed in collision with them. Those who estimate human nature and its motives with more considerate judgment will scarcely think so. It is not unnatural — it is hardly blameable — that men should chng to their own altars with rather the greater tenacity from seeing that the State has thought fit to build and endow those of another faith. It is not a dishonourable pride which leads men to devote more of their substance to the maintenance of their religion, and the religion of their immediate fathers, — to watch more closely over its dignity and independence — as if in rivalry of the gratuitous endowments afforded to another. Nor is it possible, under such circumstances, that the excluded can feel themselves Lect. XXI.] IN COLONIES. 601 as nearly-attached to the government of the mother-country, that they can be as loyal, as the favoured. However well disposed in other respects, in one point they must be hostile. This, then, is all that is needed to give a bond of union to innumerable sects, which have no natural motive for seeking each other's alliance, to combine civil with ecclesiastical opposition, — to place the common grievance- monger, the pretended patriot, in connexion with the steady but zealous dissenter, — to unite all the scattered force of the majority against the governing body. There is unhappily too much truth in this statement of the case, even as to old communities. But every part of it applies with tenfold force to the circumstances of new ones. In the first place, we must remember what has already been said, and wiH be again insisted on : that the tendency of society in such communities is republican; that social equality is almost universal, except in colonies possessing servile or quasi-servile labour ; and that, how- ever desirable it might be to correct such tendencies by the force of institutions, institutions themselves are stiU less able to stand in new countries than elsewhere without the aid of public opinion. In the next place, viewing the subject in relation to our own colonies, it must be con- sidered that while the Established Church is generally feeble in nuinbers, it is not peculiarly strong in property or in intelligence : what is commonly called the " best society " undoubtedly belongs to it ; but, on the whole, it has no such marked superiority, in respect of the wealth and education of its members, as it possesses at home. Lastly (and this is a point which I have not seen much considered in the discussions on this subject), dissent itself is materially changed in its character by transplantation. Sects acquire in a more marked degree the external character of churches. A dissenter at home knows that the body to which he belongs qiiitted the Estabhshment at no very distant era, and has probably undergone 602 CHUECH ESTABLISHMENT [Lect. XXr. several changes in character and doctrine since that period : consequently he has but the principle of freedom of opinion to rely upon ; the sentiment of reverence for antiquity and things estabhshed is all against him. Abroad, he feels himself the member of a church which has planted itself in the wilderness, and is, as it were, aboriginal in that soil which he inhabits ; and no greater antiquity is needed to satisfy the imagination of the multitude. It would be extremely difficult, and of very doubtful policy, to establish and endow a branch of the national Church, under such circumstances, even in colonies not possessing a free government ; but in colonies possessing one (and aU British colonies expect the privilege sooner or later) it seems well nigh impossible for the mother- country to maintain such an institution for any length of time. An endowed church, and a legislature of which the majority is, or is Ukely at any election to become, composed of dissenters, could not exist together, imless the church were removed from the control of the legislature. This could only be accomphshed by with- holding from the provincial assemblies one of the most important functions of domestic legislation ; giving the colony pohtical freedom, and yet reserving to the mother- state the control over a great and strictly domestic in- stitution. It has been attempted of late years, for the first time in British pohcy, to maintain this species of anomalous and exceptive government, but the success of the experiment is such as to afford little encouragement. And I do not think that those who took a contrary view of the subject, in the recent discussions respecting the destination of the Canada Clergy Eeserves, were generally aware how very small a minority the members of the Church of England form in most of our colonies. In Lower Canada the great body are Eoman Catholics ; the remainder, or British portion, are split into many sects. Lect. XXL] IN COLONIES. 603 In Upper Canada, a purely British colony, according to the returns of 1839, out of about 400,000 persons whose profession was ascertained, rather less than 80,000 be- longed to our Church. In Nova Scotia, in 1827, they formed about the same proportion of the whole, namely, less than a fourth ; and were greatly exceeded by those of the Church of Scotland. In Newfoundland, more than one-half are Eomanists ; the Church of England has about two-thirds of the remainder. The reasons for this state of things in North America are obvious enough. Our provinces in that quarter have been for many years the resort of Scottish and Irish emigrants, while the bulk of English trans-Atlantic emigration has taken the direction of the United States. This is said to arise from the greater poverty of Scottish and Irish emigrants, which makes them prefer the cheaper passage. It arises also in part, no doubt, from habit, which makes the emigrants of one year follow in the track of their predecessors ; and the Scots, especially the Highlanders, seem to have a singular preference for the fogs and rocks of the Lower Colonies, so nearly resem- bling their own. It is obvious how this cause operates to the disadvantage of the Church of England ; and it must be added, that the Dissenters, being, in proportion to their numbers, the most active and enterprising part of the middle and lower classes at home, probably send out more than their numerical share of EngUsh emigrants. In the Austrahan colonies, which are more English, and also the resort of a larger proportion of wealthy emi- grants, the members of the Church of England are more numerous.* But this weakness of number, it is commonly answered, is merely a consequence of the neglect of government in not providing for the establishment of the Church at the * See the statements in the Appendix to this Lecture. 604 CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT [Lect. XXI. time of the foundation of colonies. Numbers are driven into dissent merely because they have no legitimate resources offered them for satisfying their rehgious wants. Unquestionably there is a certain amount of truth in this argument. If the Church, in our colonies, had been from the beginning amply provided with the means of ministering to the spiritual wants of the people, it cannot be doubted that the numerical proportion between its members and those of other denominations would have been somewhat different from that which actually exists. And with those who hold that this alone constitutes a sufficient answer to all objections — that it is the absolute and primary duty of the State to supply the people with religious instruction — that it, the State, has neglected its duty if a single member becomes lost to the Church on account of the absence of such instruction: — that no considerations of policy or expediency can for a moment be admitted to outweigh this great original responsibility, — with such reasoners, this is not the time or place, if it were my inclination, to enter into controversy. If, however, we are permitted to weigh conveniences and inconveniences in the balance in such a question as this, and to consider, according to the light of our precarious wisdom, what may on the whole be best for the interests of the people and the Church herself, I think it must stiU admit of a doubt whether the Church would really gain strength by this addition to her force in new colonies such as we are now considering. More of the ignorant and helpless, as well as of the remiss and worldly part of the community, would undoubtedly be numbered among her nominal adherents. But the opposition of the active, zealous, and educated part of the masses would still be what it has been described, and produce the same effects on which I have already dwelt. Amply endowed, but placed amongst ill-wishers and lukewarm friends, standing alone, unconnected with any territorial aristo- Lect. XXI.] . IBT COLONIES. 605 cracy, or great educated body of adherents, — the danger is, lest the Church herself should sink into discouragement aad decline ; lest she should lose altogether that mission- ary spirit and character which is, more or less, necessary to her usefulness among a scattered and migratory people. Such was her fate in Virginia and Carolina ; where she decayed, not from lack of temporal sustenance, for she was hberaUy endowed; not because estabhshed too late, for her estabhshment was coeval with the colonies themselves : but because, unable to win over the body of the people, • she fell into a languid apathy. It is useless to ascribe this failure to want of zeal, and misconduct, in the Church ministers. Similar causes wiU always produce the hke eifects : seasons of extraordinary excitement apart, and exposed to the same temptations, the conduct and cha- racter of the collective ministry of established churches, as of other men and bodies of men, have been marked by the same features in aU ages and countries. All these considerations bear forcibly on the question which was debated in our legislature in 1840, respecting the apphcation of the Canadian Clergy Eeserves, and the fund raised by their sale. It would be altogether out of my province to enter with you on the discussion of this or any measure of pubhc policy not directly connected with economical science. I can only lament that it was decided, as such questions usually are, more with a view to the temporary satisfection of parties here and in the colony, than on any distinct principle. But, however we may settle in our own minds these great problems as to the duties of the State, the duty of the Church as a distinct body, and of her members as individuals, is plain and clear. Where the government vnll not, or cannot, or ought not, to set apart a portion of the funds of a colony for the purpose of main- taining a religious estabhshment, there a most productive field opens itself for the exertions and sacrifices of its 600 CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT [Lect. XXL members. We belong to by far the richest religious commuaity in the world : I am not sp eaking of the riches of our Church, but of the individuals in her communion. If we had but a tithe of the zeal which ought to dis- tinguish us, and which we are too ready to profess, not a band of emigrants would leave the shores of England without being certain of ample provision for its religious wants, as ample as the inevitable difficulties of new and scattered communities vsill allow, in whatever corner of our vast dominions they might choose to fix themselves. It is scarcely possible to point out a manner in which the contributions of churchmen might be so usefully employed. Numbers might in this manner be brought within the pale of the Church who have not been led away from it, nor are hostile to it, but are simply left to lead the life of heathens in the utter absence of external aid. We hear much of the spiritual destitution of millions in this country, and no doubt with abundance of truth ; but here, at aU events, it cannot be denied that those who seek rehgious instruction can obtain it ; there are few, very few indeed, from whom the opportunity is withheld : the difficulty is, to inspire them with the knowledge of their own wants, and the will to seek relief; and church extension, is scarcely the specific remedy for this disease. What is sought for the colonies is not to stimulate the appetite for food, but first and foremost to supply the food itself. To endow a branch of the Church in a new settlement, such as those of Western or Southern Australia or New Zealand, — to endow it sufficiently for immediate wants, and to make some provision for its gradual extension, — would really be a shght efibrt compared with many which are daily executed by private zeal and combina- tion in undertakings for the public benefit ; and aU the difficulties which impede the healthy action of a govern- ment establishment, that is, an estabhshment imposed by the government of the mother-country, would be avoided. Lbct. XXr.] IN COLONIES. 607 And let me remind those who look back to the earlier ages of the Church for examples, that this is the mode in which the Gospel was anciently propagated from land to land. The Church in every instance, out of the wealth with which the liberahty of those ages had en- dowed her, contributed to defray the expense of those missions which began the work of conversion in new pro- vinces of her dominion ; individual zeal among the new convicts or settlers, contributed to its farther extension ; and it was not until the first stages had been passed that the government of the now Christianized region in- terfered., and undertook the maintenance, or rather pro- tection of those institutions which voluntary zeal had founded. I do not say that the parallel between the colonies of a Christian country, and lands rescued from heathenism, is exact ; but there is much practical analogy between the cases ; and as in those instances, so in the present, — if the. infant estabhshment be but amply main- tained by the exertions of her own friends, in the first instance, the fairest prospect is afibrded that the young community, when become so far sui juris as to provide for her own domestic institutions, may have wisdom and incHnation to take charge of this, the most important and most truly national of all.* * (1860.) I have retained the observations at the conclusion of this lecture, as evidences of a tone of thought-and expression very prevalent twenty years ago. What were then anticipations only have since become realities. While State aid has been almost wholly withdrawn from the service of religion in the colonies, the zeal of the several denominations has suppKed the deficiency to an extent which it would then have been deemed wild to conjecture. The Church of England, in particular, has now more than thirty colonial bishoprics ; of these only one or two in North America derive from Great Britain a small income, limited to the lives of the present incumbents, and a few, in different parts of the world, are partially supported by the colonial revenue. ■But, speaking generally, they are maintained on the " voluntary •' system." Of the practical result of this multiplication of bishoprics it is too 608 CHUECH ESTABLISHMENT IN COLONIES. [Lect. XXI. early as yet to speak with confidence. It is a subject on whicli we are apt rather to indulge in habitual common-places, than to exercise a discriminating judgment. There are many who regard the estabUsh- ment of a see as in itself a spiritual benefit, and, therefore, not a thing to be measured by ordinary considerations of expediency. Those who regard it only as a means to an end cannot be so easily satisfied. There is no doubt that certain special advantages attend it. So much of the respect and love of educated men clings, in the colonies, to that which was the established church of their fore- fathers, that a bishop of that church occupies a very conspicuous and very advantageous position in its society, and may do more than any other man in forming and maintaining a tone of religious and moral feeling superior to that low practical materialism which is the common vice of young communities. And, in extensive districts, where there are many clergy to superintend and great distances to traverse, the im- mediate benefits of the presence of a chief devoted to that especial duty, are of the very highest order. But, when we come to the estabhsh- ment of bishoprics, according to the modern fashion, wherever lihere^s a separate community, however trifling — in small islands, in places where the bulk of the population is of other creeds, and the English element confined to a few of the upper class — the result is at best a balance of good and evil. A bishop, with nothing to do but to super- intend half a dozen clergymen, is, in truth, in a very false position. If, in those circumstances, he undertakes regular parochial work, he places himself necessarily on a level with those he superintends, and to recon- cile the two characters is no easy task. And, lastly, with respect to the great missionary work among the heathen, it admits of very serious ques- tion, whether more is not effected by the unpretending position and power of fi-ee action of ordinary missionaries, than is likely to be gained by systematic measures under episcopal superintendence. I do not point to the Church of Kome as an example in these matters, for her success, in 300 years of admirable efforts, has been far from matter of triumph ; but that success, such as it is. Las been chiefly achieved by the religious orders, not throiigh any episcopal system. State aid to religion in Canada finally ceased when the Clergy Re- serves Fund, after many years of struggle, was handed over to the Provincial Parliament in 1856. In New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, a system still subsists which originated in the necessity of supplying spiritual aid to the convicts. A sum is annually reserved from the revenue, with permanent laws, and divided among the lead- ing sects in proportion to their numbers. But it falls far short of the increasing wants of the communities, and wiU probably soon disappear altogether. In the "West Indian colonies alone, the Church of England' has something like a permanent establishment. Lect. XXL] APPENDIX. 609 APPENDIX TO LECTUEE XXI. Numbers of Members of different religious Persuasions in several British Colonies. Compiled chiefly from the Colonial " Statistical " Tables published by the Local Governments. Lower Canada. 1831. Eoman Catholics . . . 403,472 Clrarcli of England . . . 34,620 Presbyterians, &c., and not classed 15,069 Total . 453,163 Upper Canada. 1839. Church of England . 79,754 Methodists . . 61,088 Presbyterians . 78,383 Eoman Catholics . 43,029 Baptists . 12,968 Miscellaneous Sects . . 22,806 Not classed . 34,760 Returns not received . . 67,558 Total . 400,346 1852. 746,866 45,402 97,993 890,261 1852. 223,190 207,658 194,148 167,695 45,353 63,671 50,289 952,004 E R 610 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXI Nova Scotia. 1827. 1851. Cliurcli of England . 28,659 36,482 Church of Scotland . 37,225" 3 . . . 4,825.' 72,914 Dissenters from ditt fioman Catholics . . 20,401 69,634 Baptists . 19,790 42,243 Methodists . . 9,408 23,596 Lutherans . 2,968 ■ Quakers, &c. 355 ■ 11,376 Doubtful 817. Total . 123,848 Newfoundland. 1836. 1845. Church of England . 22,712 34,281 Other Protesta,nts . . 10,591 — Roman CathoUcs . . 36,899 46,783 Total . 70,208 Van Dieman's Land. (Free Population.) 1838. 1857. Church of England . 16,094 47,714 Presbyterians . 2,551 7,220 Roman Catholics . . 2,288 16,852 Wesleyans . 1,289 4,721 Other Sects . . 1,022 4,985 Total . 23,244 81,492 New South Wales. 1841. 1856. Church of England.^- '.•;; . . 73,727 132,112 Presbyterians . ■ , '"'. . . 13,153 27,803 Roman Catholics . 35,690 78,869 Methodists, other denominations,! ctkc- J 15,604 t 11,801 and u.naccounted ?■ u,±uu Lect. XXL] APPENDIX. ViCTOElA. 1857. ChiKoh of England . 159,677 Presbyterians . 56,156 Roman Catholics . 77,351 Methodists . . 28,305 Other denominations and unaccoimted . . 79,277 South Australia. 1855. Church of England . 33,812 Presbyterians . 7,520 Roman Catholics . . 8,335 "Wesleyans . . 11,178 Other Protestants . . 18,810 Not specified &c. . . 6,156 611 R E 2 612 SOCIETY W COLONIES. [Lect. XXII. LECTUEE XXII. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHAKACTEEISTICS OF COLONIAL COMMUNITIES. — POLITICAL RELATION OF COLONIES TO THE MOTHEE-CODNTET. PEIN- CIPLES OF COLONIAL GOVEENMENT. The social characteristics of a community just formed, and engaged in subduing the powers of wild nature for the purposes of civilized man, depend partly on the cir- cumstances in which it is placed, and partly on the con- dition and character of those classes of the population of the mother-country from whence the supply is derived. In such a community, the mere wants of Hfe are abun- dantly suppUed, but not supphed without labour. There is none of that depressing poverty which elsewhere weighs down the energies of large masses of mankind ; or of that almost equally depressing dread of poverty which perpetually harasses the minds of a class somewhat higher in circumstances, which produces in some an abjectness of disposition, in others an irritable and discontented tempe- rament ; and if it sometimes sharpens the intellectual powers, often does so only to the detriment of the moral character. On the other hand, everything which adorns human life, everything which stimulates the more artificial appetites of men, be they sensual or spiritual, is either difficult of acquisition or unattainable. The colonist has httle temptation to long for the enjoyment of such super- fluities ; for the stimulus of envy is wanting : he does not see them heightening the pleasures of others, and therefore thinks httle of them. During the first period of his con- flict with the genius of the wilderness, his thoughts are necessarily intent on his immediate occupation ; after- wards, his daily labour for ordinary comforts, though not Leot. xxil] society m colonies. 613 engrossing like the toil of men in fall employment in old and industrious societies, is sufficient to occupy the common faculties of body and mind. He is in danger, therefore of sinking into a state of listless and inglorious indolence, — a state in which whole communities may vegetate on an extensive surface, raising httle surplus wealth, and each generation contenting itself with the habits and the enjoy- ments of that which preceded it. To counteract this tendency, he has only what may almost be termed the abstract desire of accumulation ; I mean the desire of amassing wealth, unconnected with the passion for its enjoyment. If there are any to whom the strong influence of this motive, unreasonable as philosophy may hold it, appears strange and unaccountable, they must recoUect that the mind, in an orchnary state of vigour, re- quires an excitement : it must have objects, hopes, occu- pations, apprehensions. Pohtical institutions may so utterly deaden it as to extinguish them : there have been examples of whole societies thus arrested in the career of material civilization. But when these are good or toler- able, the love of accumulation must, in all communities, be among the most important sources of national activity, — in new communities, it is the only one. Money-making becomes the popular passion. The acquisition of wealth confers the only substantial title to pubhc regard. As all talent seeks one and the same channel to exert itself, he who has best succeeded in this engrossing pursuit enjoys the double honour of being at once the most powerful and the cleverest citizen of the commonwealth. No social distinction except that of comparative wealth can exercise much positive influence in such a state of things. Where land is abundant and people few, only two forms of society are possible — ■ that of servitude or feudahsm, and that of equahty. For inequahty of ranks must be produced by one or the other of two great causes. The first is, the pohtical subjugation of the in- B B 3 614 SOCIETY IN COLONIES. [Lect. XXII. ferior class : such as gave birth to the aboriginal distinc- tions between patricians and plebeians, in very early times ; freemen and slaves in later ages ; the viUenage of feudal Europe or modern Eussia ; the institution of caste among the Egyptians and Hindoos. The second is, the necessary dependence of poverty on wealth, when profitable land is all occupied, commerce extended, and capital accumulated in few hands. Now it is remarkable that European his- tory shows a gradual passage from the first to the second of the two conditions here described, without any inter- vention of a third — that of social equaUty. So long as land was abundant and people few, so long has feudalism almost everywhere maintained itself. The decay of that compact and magnificent edifice did not begin until popu- lation was dense, until capital was amassed, and every- thing prepared for the second stage ; that in which the many are dependent on the few from economical causes. And,if this were the place for such. a disquisition, it would be interesting to point out the strange anomahes in European manners and usages, which have b,een produced by the maintenance of feudal distinctions, and their forced apph- cation to a new and totally difierent state of things, namely, that created by the ohgarchy of wealth. Strange ano- mahes, but certainly not without their use in modifying the coarse and degrading characteristics of plutocracy. There is only one European community in which feudal inequahty has been destroyed before the inequahty of fortunes arising from national affluence had yet begun to prevail : cities being still few, commerce and manufac- tures undeveloped, and popidation scanty : namely, that of Norway. Accordingly, the social conchtion of Norway is extremely democratic ; and would be scarcely less so, were it imder an absolute monarchy instead of a free con- stitution ; the mass of the people being in the condition of small yeomanry, and there being no hereditary privi- leges or powers. Now, the phenomena exhibited by Lect. XXII.] SOCIETY IN COLONIES. 615 Norway are displayed in all new colonies, and even in countries of vast extent and popidation, so long as there is no gradation of ranks secured either by the trans- mission of great hereditary estates in a small class, and the slavery or quasi-slavery of the multitude, or by the de- pendence of labourers on capitahsts. Such are pre-emi- nently the phenomena of the condition of British North America and of the United States. In the latter country there are large cities and manufacturing districts, and others in which cultivation is carried on by rich slave- owners ; and consequently, scattered here and there, the elements of ohgarchy ; but these are at present altogether kept under by the democratic spirit of the mass of the community. Countries thus circumstanced are essentially repubhcan. The influence of modes of government may pass for something in the formation of the character of the people ; but it is far less powerful than that of economical causes. If the wildest dreams of those who speculate on the transplantation of a complete society into new colo- nies could be realized, the aristocratic part of it must perish for want of soil to exist in. In colonies where valuable ex- portable produce can be raised by the apphcation of large capitals, if a supply of labour could be secured by the suc- cessful development of Mr Wakefield's principles, aristo- cracy might barely take root, but its existence would at best be frail and precarious. Individual wealth, of course, exists in such communities ; and wealth gives influence there, as well as everywhere else; but it must be available wealth, joined with activity in its possessor : a distinction of too fugitive a nature to form even the basis of a graduated scale of ranks. The mere ownership of a quantity of land gives none whatever, where the lord cannot command the services of labourers to till it. The fertile colony of Prince Edward's Island belongs almost entirely to ten or twelve proprietors by legal title. It is inhabited by 40,000 people, peaceable R R 4 616 SOCIAL EQUALITY [Lect. XXII. industrious, and well disposed in every other respect.* But rent, to absentee proprietors, it is said that they will not pay ; the small dues claimed by the landlords cannot be recovered. The mere attempt to do so has on one occasion excited an insurrection in one of the quietest societies in the world ; and, if the law had been rigorously enforced, the only consequence would have been emigra- tion. When land becomes scarce in Prince Edward's Island and the neighbouring colonies, rent will be paid. In Canada the great landed proprietors seem to have taken scarcely any part, and exerted scarcely any in- fluence, in recent political events. Their names are al- * (I860.) Since these lectures were delivered, the poptdation of Prince Edward's Island has nearly doubled, and her wealth has increased with gradual but steady progress. But the contest between landlord and tenant has continued with little abatement of its rancour : and its history is a curious one, as exhibiting, though on a very small scale, the pertinacity with which in English communities a social quarrel is sometimes carried on for generations, without reconciliation or settle- ment, and yet without resort to violence. Neither side stands clearly in the right. The landowners appeal to all the ordinary arguments against encroachment. But they have this defect in their title, that the original conditions of their grants were never complied with. The acquirers of land in the island were bound to colonise that land in a specified manner, which they wholly neglected to do. The present holders contend that the crown never took advantage of the foi-feiture. Their enemies con- tended that this laches of the crown did not bind the community, and the doctrine of " escheat " was for many years the popular one, always maintained at the hustings, often by the majority of the assembly, but always repudiated by the council, consisting of the crown's nominees. At last, in 1850 and following years, responsible government was established in this small community, not without great and natural apprehensions on the part of the landowners, that their interests would be sacrificed by the new democracy. But these apprehensions have proved erroneous. Power brings a sense of responsibility. Although some unjust measures of taxation afieoting the landowners have been enacted, yet, in the main, the popular party has shown itself more forbearing than in former days, when the assailants of property felt certain that the crown would interfere to check their own excesses. There are now (1860) terms of arrangement pending, which bid more fairly for success than at any former time. Lect. XXn.] IN COLONIES. 617 most unknown to the mass of the community. The most influential members of the richer class seem to be, — first, the few great merchants who are by degrees estabhshing themselves at Montreal and Quebec ; next, and perhaps exercising a more direct power among their fellow-citizens, the enterprising retail dealers and small traders who pur- vey for the numerous httle markets of a thinly scattered community of settlers.* The effects of this natural equality of ranks on the genius of a people have been the theme of numberless pohtical writers, and have been ably traced of late years by those who have observed the experiment on a greater scale than any former ages had witnessed. I scarcely need recapitulate them here. There is a general spread of ele- mentary education, vdth httle care or value for the higher branches of knowledge. As there is httle gradation of ranks, there can be but httle of those amiable quaUties which are chiefly valued for their tendency to soften and amehorate the relations between poor and rich : courtesy among the higher classes ; its correlative quahties of faith- fulness, respectfulness, loyalty, among the lower : and not only are they httle known, but they are rather contemned, as out of place and keeping, as rehcs of servitude, frag- ments of the chain which the colonists broke when they abandoned their mother-country. Self-dependence, self- confidence, pride both intellectual and spiritiial, are pecu- liarly encouraged. But, with httle courtesy, there is generally much kindness and helpfulness, and a spirit of fellowship and mutual support replaces that of mutual de- pendence ; though humility be rare, there is much manh- ness and simphcity of disposition ; for the mind is freed from many of those oppressive influences which warp and degrade it amidst the extremes of excessive toil and idle- ness, of bitter want and pampered luxury. Add to these natural tendencies the prevalence of that exclusive eager- * I must remind the reader that this was -written in 1840. 618 CHAEACTEE OF SOCIETY [Lbct. XXII. ness for acquisition and accumulation which I have abeady mentioned, and we have most of the elements of the character of a new society, so far as this is produced by the cifcumstances of its economical situation. But the picture would be very incomplete without reference to that other set of causes which I have already mentioned, and which is too often overlooked ; I mean the condition of the society from which the emigrants have proceeded, and the example of neighbouring com- munities. It is evident that many of the common qualities above specified can scarcely be called, in them- selves, good or evil ; they owe their good or evil stamp, or at least their strength and intensity, to the influence of habits and feehngs acquired from other sources. Sup- pose a population chiefly comprised of emigrants of a poor but industrious class ; proceeding from a community in which freedom prevails, but in which, as yet, the usages of old times, and an affectionate reverence for antiquity, have hardly died away; from a commimity possessed of commercial activity, but not engrossed by it ; reUgious in popular sentiments and observance ; and governed by wise and equal laws, cherishing the self- respect of the citizen. And let us suppose that this population, brought into happier physical circumstances by its removal, has no very extensive scope for ambition, or for great commercial speculation : that it knows itself small and powerless, hemmed in by the forest and the savage, — not so as to have its peace or safety endangered, but so as to feel and estimate the virtue of moderation. Perhaps we have now before us the picture of the happiest condition — the most favourable, on the whole, to the moral as well as physical weU-being of the mass — which ever has existed in the innumerable revohitions of human affairs. Many drawbacks there would be, and many imperfections ; but, on the whole, no state of society would be so free from them. Such was the I.ECT. XXII.] m COLONIES. 619 picture exhibited by a few English, colonies, for instance, Pennsylvania, for many years before the war of indepen- dence ; the pohtical Arcadia of modern times ; a picture which never can be presented again, amidst all the vicis- situdes through which the civiUzed world may pass : for although the like constantly recurs in political history, the same never does, and society has outgrown this specific form. Yery different in many respects is the state of such a community when political causes from abroad have exercised an unfavourable influence on its development ; when, for example, the nation or the class from which the emigration proceeds has lost much of that attachment to old usages and opinions which once characterized it : for this quahty, though not always without its mis- chievous working in the body politic at home, exercises a steadying and counteracting influence on the progress of society in new circumstances. So, too, increased ani- mosity between the poor and the rich ; discontent with poHtical institutions ; a commercial spirit, impatient of slow results, and eager for great gains ; — the existence of all these in the mother-country, whatever their aggre- gate effect may be at home, must act unfavourably on the colony composed of emigrants from it, because they contribute to augment the force of those very tendencies to which colonial society, as we have seen, is naturally prone. The exaggerated spirit of democracy, in a people necessarily of democratic habits, renders all government more diflicult, and self-government more dangerous. The feverish activity of mercantile speculation cannot but tend to injure a community in which the absorbing propensity is naturally the pursuit of gain. Nor must we omit, in considering the circumstances of modern colonies, the effects of example : the effects of the great and rapid supremacy to which one repubHc has raised itself, on the spirit and character of all the 620 CHARACTBE OF SOCIETY [I.ect. XXII. infant republics of the world : the influence exercised on the mind by the habitual contemplation of the gigantic increase of human power through the progress of me- chanical invention. The future and the distant form the domain in which the imagination of the colonist dehghts to revel. Exempt from pressing want and engrossing toU, with little to occupy his thoughts in the mono- tonous scene around him, he wanders wilhngly forth into visionary regions of future opulence and grandeur : his ideas, his expressions, acquire a certain colour of habitual exaggeration. The half-formed streets and rude build- ings of his neighbouring markel^town are scarcely so famihar to his eyes, as the splendid emporium of a popu- lous repubhc, in which his children are to dwell, is to his fancy. The solitary steamboat which traverses, at intervals, his remote waters, is to him the symbol of commerce on its most magnificent and world-embracing scale, — connects him, in fancy, with the realms of the farthest east and west, and renders them tributary to his anticipated greatness. We have seen, in our own times the spectacle of whole nations indulging in dreams as gorgeous and fantastic as those in which our old drama- tists plunged the lordly epicures of their fancy. All this pampered luxuriance of imagination is not without its real utihty : not to mention the powerful manner in which it sometimes contributes to economical progress, it also has a tendency, in its way, to elevate the mind above the mere objects of the hour. But it contributes only too powerfully to lead the colonial commonwealth into its besettiag errors of self-will and presumption, and ignorance of its real position. On the whole, however, let us not exaggerate to our- selves the moral evils pecuhar to new societies. It is a common saying, that such a country is no place for a gentleman ; and certainly it cannot be congenial to the habits of the artificial class, the joint produce of feudahsm Lect. XXn.] IN COLONIES. 621 and wealth, so called among ourselves. It does not follow that, all things taken into consideration, it is not the best for the great mass of mankind ; the best, I mean, considering man not merely as a creature born to eat and drink, and keep himself warm, — but considering him from as high a point of view as the most exalted philo- sophy requires. Let us admit all that has been urged, and can be urged, respecting the low moral condition of the mass of such a people as the Canadians, or the Ame- ricans of the newer states, more unrestrained and violent in their conduct, but otherwise not very different from the former. But let us remember also, that those regions possess no proletary class, Hving on mendicity and crime ; that, however low we may consider the ordinary standard of rectitude among the people, the petty pilfering dis- honesty of the lowest ranks in old states scarcely exists ; -that there is no overgrown manufacturing population, with its fearful mass of vice ; that the life and energy of infancy are not ground down by incessant toil ; that domestic morahty is in general peculiarly pure and sound ; that religion is honoured, whatever the extravagances and errors with which rehgious zeal is impregnated ; — ^^ and we shall be disposed, on the whole, to think that the comparison, if pressed with odious minuteness, might possibly turn out not so favourable to ourselves as appears to be the fashionable opinion. On the other hand, in colonies raising valuable export- able produce, the necessary accumulation of capital in a few hands, which has a tendency, as we have seen, to take place at an early period, is calculated to correct the natural proneness of colonial society towards demo- cracy. It must, at the very least, break the abrupt transi- tion from the old state of society to the new. If a supply of dependent labour could be provided, the gradation of ranks might possibly be maintained. As I have often explained, there is no instance in colonial history of the 622 GOVEENMENT [Lbct. XXU. combined operation of capital and labour, except through the medium of slavery or quasi-slavery. But if those mis- chiefs could be avoided — if, by turning political reveries into realities, we could create a class of men, free and their own masters, willing to work for wages, able to obtain an ample remuneration for labour, and unable or unwilling to make the immediate passage from the con- dition of hired labourers to that of independent land- owners, — either an aristocratic state of society might be maintained, with aU its consequences, good or evil ; or, at aU events, the progress of equahzation would be less rapid and more safe. Now, if the so-called South AustraUan scheme, by which an abundant supply of labour is to be procured, and the price of land at the same time kept up, turns out to be practically efficient, this will certainly be the mode of its operation, in whatever degree it may reahze such consequences as I have here anticipated. I have already dwelt, at length, on its economical character, and the prospects which it holds out. These pohtical resillts, though more distant and uncertain, are deeply interesting, and render it a matter of still more serious importance that the experiment should be fairly tried. These considerations, as to the peculiar quahties which characterize society in young colonies, are pecuharly im- portant as an introduction to the difficult problem of their pohtical government. Let us now briefly address ourselves to a few of the elementary questions which enter into the composition of that problem. There are two methods by which a colony may be retained in pohtical connection with the mother-country. The first is that of absolute government ; surrounded with more or with fewer controlhng institutions, which may delay or divide the action of the governing wiU ; for the chief executive officer may act in conjunction with councillors sent from the mother-country, or with coun- cillors appointed by the sovereign from among the colo- Lect. XXII.] OP COLOSIES. 623 nists,— as in the ancient colonies of Spain and France, and in the crown colonies of Great Britain, which have no representative assembly. Under this system the colonists may be kept in subjection by force ; by that habit of submission which is produced by such a poHty ; by a sense of interest, nay, by attachment, when substantial pros- perity is secured to them, and the administration is wise and temperate. In this case the mother state can intro- duce such domestic institutions as she may deem advisable for the welfare of the colonists ; such, for instance, as an aristocracy, privileged classes, a dominant church, or esta- bhshments for public education. She, the mother-country, charges herself in this case with the welfare of the governed, and is bound to mould their young society in such a manner as those in whom her own sovereign authority resides consider the most expedient for it. The other is that of absolute freedom ; in which the ex- ecutive power in the colony claims no greater rights than it has in a representative government at home. To bor- row the description of a community thus governed from Mr. (now Sir Gr.) Lewis's recent work*: — "In respect of " its relations to foreign countries, its practical dependence " on the dominant country is complete. It is related ami- " cably to every foreign country with which the dominant " country is at peace. It is related hostilely to every " foreign country with which the dominant country is at " war ; although it does not maintain a standing army or " navy of its own, and is defended by the arms of the "dominant country from foreign aggression or insult. "The dominant country, moreover, regulates the com- " mercial intercourse of the dependency with other inde- " pendent states. In respect, however, of its internal " afiairs, the condition of the dependency approaches closely "to a state of practical independence. The dominant * On the GoTernment of Dependencies, ch. x. p. 802. 624 GOVERNMENT [Lect. XXII, "country determines the form of the government by " which the dependency is immediately governed. But, " for other purposes, the dominant country interferes as " little as possible with the internal economy of the depen- " dency ; and especially the dominant country does not " require the dependency to contribute to the expenses of " the general government of the empire." In this case the colonists are left to tax themselves, to administer them- selves municipally, to superintend their own domestic insti- tutions. Under such a government there should seem much reason to expect that the colony would remain an integral part of the empire just as long as mutual interest appears to recommend : there need be no prejudice or irritation at work to bring about premature separation ; nay, perhaps the con- nexion might be maintained, by mutual good- will, longer than mere considerations of advantage would have upheld it ; for there is, undoubtedly, a natural attachment between a colony and its metropohs, wherever the inhabitants of the former do not feel their sentiments or their interests interfered with by the conduct of the latter. And this natural attachment is kept alive to a great degree by the process of immigration. So long, for instance, as every year continues to furnish a great body of British colonists, fresh from the mother-country, and with all her feehngS and habits clinging about them, to reinforce the population of our North American provinces, so long we are assiu-ed of a powerful influence at work to coimteract those ten- dencies to separation which the neighbourhood of the great Eepubhc, or political causes originating in the colo- nies themselves, may chance to produce. This latter system was that adopted by our ancestors in the foundation of colonies. Arbitrary interference on the part of the government at home with what may be called the domestic institutions of the settlers, was so rare an occurrence that it might fairly be considered as the violation of an estabhshed rule : whether the constitution Lect. XXn.] OF COLONIES. 625 were charter, or royal, or proprietary, the system was, in practice, almost the same. The crown, or the proprietors, ordinarily claimed nothing beyond the rights expressly reserved to them in the charter or deed of incorporation. It was not esteemed any part of the duty of the central authority to superintend the affairs — civil, moral, or reli- gious — of those to whom had been given, by tacit imph- cation, a right to control themselves. We have seen that this connexion, sHght as it was, maintained itself until new doctrines began to prevail at home, and rights of sove- reignty were insisted upon which had never been prac- tically asserted before : then the separation took place. It may, however, be contended, with justice, that, in the present circumstances of the world, absolute pohtical freedom is a more dangerous boon than it was in the days of our ancestors ; more dangerous, that is, to the conti- nuance of the connexion between the home government and the dependency, — which is the point we are now considering. Pohtical excitement is stronger than of old, or at least more continuous ; high democratic doctrines more prevalent ; the animosity of classes and ranks more open in its manifestations. And to all this must be added, as we have seen before, the effect of the example of the United States, ever present and fructifying in- the ima- ginations of colonial reformers in every corner of the world. There wiU always be a government party and a popular party ; a party resting for its existence and influence on the detection of abuses, and inflamed repre- sentation of grievances ; a party which must of necessity, be it consciously or unintentionally, inchne towards principles of national independence. And it has been observed, with some truth, that a popular party in a colony is invariably more extreme in its views than a popular party (except the very ultra section of it) in an old country ; because the former can entertain compara- tively Httle of those hopes of power which continually s s 626 ANCIENT AND [Lect. XXH. influence the latter, and induce the leaders of opposition to refrain from advocating violent measures, which, if in ofiice, they might be called upon, for the sake of con- sistency, to propose. This last consideration would be of less importance, if the prizes held out to poHtical partisans by our system of government were of a less tempting kind ; if administra- tion were cheaper than it is. It is one of the many evils attending over-government, that party spirit is created and fostered by the mere hope of partaking in the profits of the great expenditure which accompanies it. Our own times are probably the first in which the governing body, in large states, has sought to acquire strength by multiplying dependants on the public purse ; a matter of state-craft now well understood in some great European kingdoms. Under our old colonial system, no temptation whatever was held out to self-interest assuming the mask of patriotism. The expense of the civil establishment in Massachusetts Bay, before the commencement of the American war, was estimated by Adam Smith at about 18,000/. a year ; that of ISTew Hampshire and Ehode Island, 3500Z. each ; that of Connecticut, 4000Z. ; that of New York and Pennsylvania, 4500Z: each ; that of New Jersey, 1500/. ; that of Virginia and South Carolina, 8000/. each. " An ever-memorable example," as he most truly adds, " at how small an expense 3,000,000 of people "may not only be governed, but weU governed."* In 1836, the civil expenditure of Newfoundland, paid out of its revenue, was 36,000/.; of Prince Edward's Island, 13,000/. ; New Brunswick, 52,000/. ; Lower Canada, at least 100,000/.f If this enormous difference were compensated by superior government, I, for one, should be httle disposed to cavil at the amount of the sums which * Wealtli of Nations, book iy. eh. 7. t Montgomery Martin's " Colonies of the Britisli Empire." Lect. XXII.] MODERN SYSTEMS. ' 627 the people of the colonies are called on to advance for the purchase of so inestimable a blessing. But I might safely ask those who entertain the highest notions of government and its duties, whether any of. its functions, moral or material, are better fulfilled in our colonies of the present day than they were in the ancient American provhaces.* But to return from this digression. We have seen, in a former lecture, that since the American revolution there has been a propensity in the minds of British statesmen to construct a system of colonial government answering to neither of these descriptions, but partaking of the charac- teristics of both. It is perhaps not strictly correct to designate by the name of a system a series of aims and conceptions which were probably connected by no very definite unity of purpose in the minds of those who framed them ; but their tendency, on the whole, was, to construct subordinate commonwealths, not merely united to the mother-state for purposes of commerce and external relations, but of which the domestic institutions were to be controlled and modelled by the superior power at home. We have granted them, as formerly, representative go- vernments. But both the right and the poHcy of inter- fering with the internal administration of those govern- ments, — of introducing from Britain such institutions as * (1861.) It IS unnecessary for me to do more tlian advert, in passing, to the corrections wliich subsequent events have rendered it necessary to make in these speculations. It was a pardonable error, in 1840, to believe that public expenditure was fostered by govern- ment interference from home in the internal affairs of colonies, and (relying on precedents of old times) to imagine that self-government imphed cheap government. Twenty years of colonial history have taught us a very different lesson. Canada, the Lower Provinces, but above aU Australia, have proved that the absence of imperial control, fer from diminishing the public expenditure, has enormously increased it, and that domestic independence, whatever its other merits, has brought in its train an extravagant profusion beyond all proportion with the present resources of those communities. See more on this subject in the appendix to this lecture. s s 2 628 ANCIENT AND [Lect. XXII. we British, approve of, — of exercising a sort of paternal jurisdiction in forming and training the political society of the colonists — have been much insisted on among ourselves, and partly put in practice where we have had the power. Every one who has attentively studied the history of our present colonial discontents will see that I have correctly stated this inchnation of modern opinion ; and every one who has studied the history of the past will probably agree with me that it is a departure, whether right or wrong, from the policy of our ancestors. And it is one which certainly involves us in many diffi- culties ; which opens to the mind altogether new combina- tions and oppugnancies of pohtical powers ; which seems to require some new system of checks, some contrivances as yet unimagined, in order to work for the benefit either of the governing or dependent community. A represen- tative body, having the power of taxation, is apt to think itself omnipotent in domestic matters, and to act upon that supposition ; and if it then becomes necessary to control it by force, it is impossible to intrust it safely any longer with the power of taxation. An assembly, such as exists in many states and provinces under absolute government, charged with the power of apportioning taxation, may very well subsist without intrenching on the prerogatives of the real legislature ; but an assembly which originates taxation, which grants the supplies, could hardly do so. As Sir G. Lewis expresses it, " If the government of the " dominant country substantially govern the dependency, " the representative body cannot substantially govern it ; " and, conversely, if the dependency be substantially go- " verned by the representative body, it cannot be substan- " tiaUy governed by the dominant body. A self-govern- "ing dependency (supposing the dependency not to be " virtually independent) is a contradiction in terms." * If so, it seems difficult (except by the continued apphcation * Essay on the Government of Dependencies, p. 296. Lect. XXn.] MODERN SYSTEMS. 629 of force, and with repeated disturbance in the motions of the machine of state) to give to a people a representative assembly with the usual powers of such a body, and at the same time to estabhsh among them domestic institu- tions to which they are not attached ; dispose of their land to such purposes as we, and not they, may deem expedient ; introduce our jurisprudence into their tribunals (as the criminal law of England was transferred to Canada by act of parhament in 1774*) ; govern them by officers selected as friends to our state, and not as popular among them- selves, exempting these from all responsibihty to the colonial legislature. K it is not only expedient, but im- peratively right, as many wise and excellent men beheve it to be, to give to a subject-people those elements of social well-being which they are not sufficiently advanced to appreciate for themselves, can this be done without the introduction, I will not say of arbitrary government, but at all events of a more stringent system than any which England has hitherto adopted towards her colonies ? And there is one other problem in pohcy which is sug- gested by a view of the progress and institutions of our modem colonial empire. Whichever character the state means ultimately to impose on her offspring, — that of subjection, or that which Sir G. Lewis calls virtual inde- pendence, — should the choice be made at once or should an experimental, temporary scheme be first adopted? The latter has been the modem plan, among themselves. Many of our existing colonies have only had constitutions granted them at a pretty advanced period in their settle- ment. And some have been subjected at their foundation to absolute government, with an understanding that they will by and by receive one : one (South AustraHa) with a promise, guaranteed by act of parhament, that the boon shall be given when the number of its inhabitants amounts * I cite this as an example of the fact, rather than to estabhsh the reasoning ; for Canada had at that period no representative assembly. s s 3 630 GOVERNMENT [Lect. XXH. to 50,000. Certainly to observers imbued with tlie notions of these times, such a course is apt, at first sight, to appear the most advisable. We rather shrink from the idea of saddling the first laborious settlers in the wilderness with the duties of self-government : plain, practical institutions we Imow to be the best adapted for them ; and these we are apt to identify with absolute rule. Yet it is worth whUe to pause, and consider in how difierent a light our ancestors regarded this matter. They did not dream (that is, in by far the majority of instances) that the colonist was not fully fitted to enjoy at first whatever measure of hberty was to be ultimately his portion. We have seen that the people of Massachusetts Bay made their own con- stitution almost as soon as they arrived there ; it was ratified at home, its provisions were transferred not many years afterwards to a royal charter, and continued to exist during the whole period of its dependence. When the enthusiast Eoger Williams settled Ehode Island, with a few people escaped from the persecution of their Puritan brethren in Massachusetts, he framed in the very next year a republican policy for his dozen or two of famihes. It was confirmed by charter in 1662, and continues at this very day to be the constituent law of that flourishing httle commonwealth. According to our present ideas, Ehode Island would not have been " entitled " to a constitution until a century and a half after its first settlement. It cannot be questioned that this as weU as other pohtical problems is much complicated by the prevalence of high political theories at the present day. The settlers of New England were repubhcan in habits, not in senti- ment (which only grew up at a later era), and valued their free institutions just at their practical worth. In our times, we must always expect that a community possessed of political powers wiU be influenced more or less by ex- aggerated views and feehngs in the exercise of them. But the question remains substantially the same, — whether Lect. XXII.] OF COLONIES. 631 500 men of ordinary Britisli habits and notions, and not too much scattered over the soil, cannot administer them- selves as well as 50,000 ; whether the size of a community — supposing it protected from external violence — has anything to do with its capacity for self-government. And it is to be observed, that the more dangerous influences of the democratic spirit do not easily grow to a head in a very small community ; every man is known, every man is responsible ; and free institutions, formed during this period of comparative simplicity, are perhaps more likely to endure safely the expansion of the commonwealth, than to be received with safety by a people already adolescent. Whatever may be the vantage ground secured lay the central government during the period of delay, it is certain that when the expected boon arrives it will find the colony divided into two classes — those who are its masters now, and those who expect to be its masters hereafter ; and that it win find the minds of a large number possessed with a prejudiced hatred toward those elements of good society which may have been introduced during the period of minority. I can only refer you, in passing, to the recent history of Newfoundland, as afibrding perhaps the most striking example of events which have taken place, more or less, in nearly all our present colonies soon after their passage from a state of pupilage to freedom. Is there, then, no practicable method of drawing the bonds of xmion closer, and giving each member of a great colonial empire a greater sympathy with the mother country, without impairing its individual strength and freedom '? Is it possible (and this is the last pohtical ques- tion which I wOl discuss) to admit into the Imperial Par- hament representatives from the colonies ? It is well known with how much favour this project was received in England before the American war; how strongly it is advocated by Adam Smith, among other high authorities; and how powerfully it is controverted by s s 4 632 EEPEESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT. [Lf.ct. XXTI. Burke. But there seems to be one radical objection to it, widch the arguments of Burke do not touch. If the union is to be complete, provincial legislatures must be abolished. There can be no more a separate parhament for Canada than a separate parhament for Torkshire. Canada must then submit to be taxed and governed by a body in which Canadian representatives would form an infinitely unim- portant fraction, while the great mass would be utter strangers to Canada and its interests. Canada would have really no voice in the state whatever, and no recognized pubhc organs at home. It would be as mere a dependency as Malta or Gibraltar. This is a mode of government to which it would be very undesirable, if it were practicable, to submit great colonies. But if colonies were to retain their own legislatures for internal taxation and the smaller details of government, and at the same time send representatives to the central parhament, then the question would necessarily arise, what functions do these colonial representatives actually perform ? Where the power of taxation is, there resides in truth the supreme domestic authority. The trans- oceanic members of parhament, destitute of real impor- tance, would become mere hangers-on of parties in the mother country ; the provincial assembly would represent public opinion, as it does now, and the quarrels between it and the executive would be altogether unafiected by the influence of the httle knot of gentlemen who might be sent to enact the visionary part of legislators in London. We have now accompanied the colony, in this rapid review of her progress, to that critical stage when the years of her apprenticeship are past, and Nature has pro- nounced her free. But it does not foUow as a necessary consequence that the attainment of domestic freedom is Lect. XXII.] PEEIOD OF INDEPENDENCE. 633 inconsistent with a continued dependence on the imperial sovereignty. The epoch of separation is not marked and definite, a necessary point in the cycle of human affairs, as some theorists have regarded it. Union might be pre- served, for any reason which theory has to show against it, long after the sense of necessary dependence is gone. I do not speak of that inglorious and unlovely subjection which may be maintained by force ; a possibility to which the last few years have given more colour than ever, from increased facilities of communication, and the terrible strength which has been added to the resources of modern, war ; but one which every wise man must deprecate as a far worse result than that which it prevents. But the mere pohtical Hnk of sovereignty may remain, by amicable consent, long after the colony has acquired sufficient strength to stand alone. Existing relations may be pre- served, by very shght sacrifices, on terms of mutual good- will. But this can only be by the gradual relaxation of the ties of dependence. The union must more and more lose the protective, and approximate to the federative, character. And the crown may remain, at last, in sohtary supremacy, the only common authority recognised by many different legislatures, by many nations politically and socially distinct. Such, at least, are the reveries of speculative pohticians. Whether such a future is to be expected, as within the range of reasonable probabOity, for our own magnificent and daily expanding empire, is a question on which I for- bear to dwell. If the anticipation of it be only a dream, it is one which elevates and inspires the imagination. Eome, for .five centuries, controlled under one sceptre the *' thousand tribes nourislied on strange religions And lawless slaveries " — which occupied half the surface of the ancient world. And the character of her supremacy -altered precisely as I 634 MAINTENANCE OF [Lect. XXII. have supposed that of my imaginary colonial empire to alter. In the first ages of her dominion, there was a ruling people, controlHng the rest of mankind with equal laws and firm pohcy, but retaining to itself all the benefits of power, and nearly aU the privileges of municipal freedom. ' Gradually, by steps more or less marked, this form of polity was succeeded by a very different one. There was no longer any pohtical distinction of nations. The name of province was retained : but the province, from a sub- ject district, became a mere territorial division of the empire. Its people were still called provincials : but the provincial was substantially on the same footing vsith the Itahan, the Italian with the Eoman. Eome herself was looked up to with reverence, not with jealousy; as the fountain of laws, order, and civilization, but no longer as imposing them on a conquered world. And the Eoman Empire subsisted inviolate to the last, — torn asunder by foreign violence, but never divided from within. On such conditions as these — and assuredly, if not on these, then on none — may we not conceive England as retaining the seat of the chief executive authority, the prescriptive reverence of her station, the superiority belonging to her vast accumulated wealth, and as the commercial metropohs of the world ; and united, by these ties only, mth a hundred nations, — not unconnected, hke those which yielded to the spear of the Eoman, but her own children, owning one faith and one language ? May we not figure to ourselves, scattered thick as stars over the surface of this earth, communities of citizens owning the name of Britons, bound by allegiance to a British sovereign, and uniting heart and hand in maintaining the supremacy of Britain on every shore which her un- conquered flag can reach ? These may be extravagant views ; but, if rightly understood, they have this advan- tage, — that the pursuit of them cannot lead the mind to wander in an unprofitable track. They are altogether Lect. XXII.] COLONIAL DOMINION. 635 inconsistent with the notions which have at different times led this country so fatally astray, in the defence of valueless rights or imaginary advantages ; they are altogether inconsistent with the idea of a subjection en- forced by bayonets — of a subjection bought through the means of a constant and galling expenditure, or by the stiU more injurious method of conceding com- mercial monopohes. Every step which could be taken towards the construction or maintenance of a union thus cemented would be a step favourable to the individual well-being and prosperity of every member. Every experiment in this direction would be serviceable alike to the colony affected by it, whether the ultimate destiny of that colony were an equitable connexion, or a bloodless separation. 636 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXII. APPENDIX TO LECTUEE XXH. (1861.) Whew these lectures were published, the experiment of what is now called "responsible government" for colonies had not as yet been tried. That is to say, although the majority of British colonies possessed in 1842 a free legis- lature, comprising an elective assembly with power of taxation, the executive administration was, in all ahke, in the hands of the Crown. It was conducted by a Governor appointed from home, with the assistance of an Executive Council. This was a smalL body of fimctionaries, also appointed by the Crown, but virtually to a great extent on the nomination of the Governor : in name " dming pleasure," but practically for hfe. Most pubhc acts were (as they still are) legally performed by the Governor " in Council : " and although he always possessed the power of overruling the decisions of that body, yet it may easily be conceived that in local matters its influence usually pre- dominated. The change to "responsible government" was one which reqiiired no legislative process to effect it, and scarcely rendered necessary the change even of a few words in the Governor's " Commission and Instructions," the organic instruments of colonial government. It consisted merely in this : that the Executive Council, or a certain number of them, were appointed with the understanding that they would have to resign office in case of an adverse vote of the legislature. But all appointment to places of power and profit in the colony virtually passed, by reason of this change, so shght in form, from the hands of the Governor and the home authorities into those of the Executive Council, or " responsible " ministry. Lect. XXn.] APPENDIX. 637 Many regarded this change, at first, as effecting httle more than a transfer of local patronage from the old ex- ecutives — commonly a local and unpopular "clique" — to the popular side. The real importance and magnitude of the revolution, though fuUy foreseen by the statesmen who planned it, were scarcely understood by the colonial or by the British pubHc until some time later. Eesponsible go- vernment was first conceded to Canada in 1846 ; that great province had been formed in 1840 by the union of Upper and Lower Canada, and the old system of government was soon felt to be incompatible with its .new position : but some years of struggle were required in order to wrest power from its estabhshed holders, and to teach its new possessors the limits of their acquirement. The same con- cession was gradually made to the other North American colonies, under the administration of Lord Grey, between 1847 and 1852 ; and a httle subsequently to the Austra- han. A system approximating to it has been estabhshed in Jamaica and one or two other West India Islands. The Cape of Good Hope presents now the only instance of a large colony, with a free legislature, but as yet without a "responsible" executive : nor does its community appear at aU impatient for the acquisition. Before entering at greater length into the pohtical con- dition and prospects of our principal colonies under the democratic polity to which they have recently attained, it may be advisable to take a brief review of the general principles and practice of colonial government as now estabhshed. The historical portion of this great subject vsdll be best understood by keeping in mind that leading distinction, established in men's minds, though but confusedly, ever since the earhest days of British colonization and con- quest, elevated to the rank of a legal principle by Lord Mansfield, and ever since the time of that great judge scrupulously observed. 638 APPENDIX. [Lecp. xxn. Every Englishman carries with him Enghsh hberties into any unoccupied country in which he may settle, so far as these are compatible with his position. It follows that no legislature except representative (or, to speak more strictly, in which one house is elective and originates taxation) can be estabhshed by the Crown in any such new settlement, however minute ; nor can the Crown legislate for it, by orders in cormcil or otherwise. But, on the other hand, the Crown has absolute power of legislation (commonly exercised by Order in Council) in every " conquered or ceded " colony. And the Crown has usually constituted in such colonies legislative coun- cils, consisting of members wholly nominated by itself, some of them official persons, some distinguished private colonists. But such councils are rather to be regarded as auxiliary to the Crovm's power of legislation than as superseding it. But if the Crown thinks proper to call together a re- presentative assembly in a conquered colony, the franchise so given is irrevocable, and the Crovra's power of legis- lation is gone. This was decided by Lord Mansfield in the celebrated case of Campbell v. Hall, considered as the leading one in this branch of jurisprudence : the subject being the constitution of the conquered island of Dominica. The powers of Parhament are of course limited by no such restrictions. We shall see presently in what sense it is legally omnipotent in colonies as well as at home. The aid of Parliament has been therefore many times invoked, and that for two different purposes : sometimes, to give free institutions to colonies which lacked them, and could not for special reasons receive them from the Crown alone ; sometimes, to enable the Crown to legis- late for very small communities, founded by Enghshmen, but in which the exercise of the fuU franchise of English- men was deemed inexpedient. Lect. XXn.} APPENDIX. 639 There are, therefore, four classes of colonies, as regards their constitution. Those on the old English model, resembhng in general outline those of the Thirteen Provinces, now forming the old United States. In these the legislature is a miniature parliament, with an elective assembly, an upper house or legislative council nominated by the Crown, and a governor whose assent is necessary to give validity to enactments. This class still subsists in the old West India Islands and some of the Lower Provinces of North America. Crown colonies : in which the Crown has never parted with the power of legislation, and the legislative councils (where any exist) consist of nominated members. These are now but a few, of which Ceylon and the Mauritius are the most important. Colonies to which the Crown has by an exercise of prerogative given complete, or partial, representative in- stitutions. The Cape is the most remarkable instance, in which the experiment was first tried, and by Crown authority alone, of constituting two elective chambers. Lastly : colonies of which the constitution is framed by Acts of Parliament ; comprising almost every variety of institutions, from the double elective chamber and demo- cratic sufik'age of the golden colony Victoria, to the close and peculiarly constituted body which makes laws for the vast empire of India. But, so strangely various are the circumstances of colonial societies, and, it must be added, so powerful is that taste for piecemeal legislation, so instinctive that dis- Hke to systems and uniformity, which have ever charac- terized the political mind of England, that of the fifty dependencies termed colonies, perhaps no two (unless the exception is to be found in a few old-fashioned West India islands) possess an identical constitution of the legislature. 640 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXII. Two only, fundamental principles are common to all. In all, the Governor has the right of the "veto." And in all, the Crown has the power of disallowing acts of the legislature : although the modes in which this power is reserved to the Crown are various. For executive purposes, the Governor has in almost all colonies the aid of a special council, termed, as we have seen, Executive, and composed of certain official persons named by the Crown. This, however, is a modem in- stitution. According to the oldest West Indian pattern, the " Council " was at once the Upper House in the legislature, and the body of constitutional advisers of the Governor in executive matters. The old colonial form of constitution worked as old institutions will work — quietly in the main, but subject on the one hand to a constant internal antagonism, on the other to much corruption. The antagonism lay in a perpetual conflict between the legislative and executive powers, of which neither was responsible to the other, and neither could control the other. The Crown could not compel the imposition of a tax, or the payment of a single public officer. The assembly could not compel the Crown to nominate or to dismiss any functionary. As a general rule, all held their offices practically for Ufe. The pohtical existence of a community so formed necessarily consists of a series of quarrels and reconciHa- tions between the two opposing authorities. Compro- mises were constantly being effected, and sometimes at the cost of the community. The abuses and corruption, of which standing complaints were made, were of two kinds : the appointment of unfit men, or creation of sine- cure places, by irresponsible authority in England or the colony ; and the uncontrolled voting of public money by the assembhes. For these bodies, jealous of the executive to which they were constantly opposed, never would part with a most mischievous branch of their power, by- Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. . 641 surrendering the initiative of money votes to the local governments. To this day, in most West Indian colonies, any member of assembly can propose a money vote. This form of constitution may still be studied in action in those small communities, politically, as well as eco- nomically, stationary for many years past. We have seen that in the North American and Australian colonies it has now given place to that which is popularly termed responsible government. The general meaning of " responsible government " has been already explained : and it has been shown that, technically, its introduction requires no legal change at all. The executive council is constituted by the Crown, as before : only it is an understood thing that its members cease to hold ofl&ce when outvoted in the legislature ; and a new council, or, as the popular phrase now is, a new ministry, is constituted. The greatest of all pohtical changes hitherto effected in colonies is accomphshed ■with scarcely the alteration of a single word in the venerable documents which constitute their charters — the " Governor's Commission and Instructions." The magnitude of that change — the extraordinary rapidity of its beneficial effects — it is scarcely possible to exaggerate. JSTone, but those who have traced it, can reahse the sudden spring made by a j'^oung community under its first release from the old tie of subjection, moderate as that tie really was. The cessation, as if by magic, of the old irritant sores between colony and mother country is the first result. Not only are they at an end, but they seem to leave hardly any traces in the pubhc mind behind them. Confidence and affection towards the "home," still fondly so termed by the colonist as well as the emigrant, seem to supersede at once distrust and hostility. Loyalty, which was before the badge of a class suspected by the rest of the com- munity, beconies the common watchword of aU : and^ T T 642 APPENDIX. [Lkct. XXII. with some extravagance in the sentiment, there arises no small share of its nobleness and devotion. Communities, which but a few years ago would have wrangled over the smallest item of pubhc expenditure to which they were invited by the executive to contribute, have vied with each other in their subscriptions to purposes of British interest ; in response to calls on humanity or munificence, for objects but indistinctly heard of at the distance of half the world. Nor is the advance in social progress, contemporaneous with this change, less remarkable than the improvement in pubhc feeling. Progress of this description depends so far more on eco- nomical than pohtical causes, that it is necessary to pro- nounce with caution respecting its origin : nevertheless, the fact itself is undeniable. But time has not yet been afforded to test the real merits of the system, or to ascertain whether it ftn-nishes in truth a practical and durable form of government or no. It is to be observed that it has worked very differently in the North American and in the Austrahan colonies. In the former, ovdng mainly to pecuharities already ad- verted to in these lectures, there is no aristocracy of wealthy landed owners. Eaising no exportable produce of much value and requiring much labour, they have afforded no field for the apphcation of masses of capital to the soil. Such fortunes as are made in those regions are acquired in trade, and do not give to their possessor pohtical influence, or place him in a false position if he has none. The general tendency to democracy, already commented on in these lectures, was therefore not espe- cially promoted by the introduction of " responsible " government. The kind of oligarchy which it overthrew, leaning on mother country interest for support, had no root in the communities themselves. Power was easily trans- ferred from that class to another, which attained it through the ordinary means by which the favour of the miiltitude Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 643 is purchased. There was no other change. Faulty, no doubt, in many respects, particularly in their extreme instability, their reckless mode of dealing with the public money, their subjection to the control of partisanship in its least dignified forms, their governments do nevertheless on the whole fully and fairly represent the general spirit of the communities, and move in accordance with it. In AustraHa the circumstances of the colonies, when domestic independence was thus attained by them, were very different. The community, new and unfixed as it was, nevertheless represented more truly than in North America the character of the mother country, with its diversities of ranks and fortunes. The convict system had rendered familiar the idea of classes of masters and labourers. The production of wool, requiring capital to a considerable amount, both for the proper management of flocks, and because it is a business of slow returns, created a very wealthy territorial aristocracy. The production of gold added to this a moneyed class. Great towns rapidly arose. Montreal, in Canada, is the only place in British North America which would admit of comparison with Sydney and Melbourne, and it falls far short of them ia wealth and population, although a century and a half older than either. And there was antagonism between the wealthier and poorer classes ; greatly as that anta- gonism was exaggerated by those who sought their own profit ia maintaining hostiUty between them. There was probably some truth in the assertion, that the large pro- prietors or lessees in Australia conceived themselves to have an interest in impeding the general acquisition of land, and in keepiag down the wages of labour. Under these circumstances, the revolution which snapped the shght tie of dependence, on the mother country left the colonial aristocracy desirous, but unable, to make head against numerical majority. And yet this revolution was mainly brought abotit by that aristocracy T T 2 644 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXIL itself. Such is tke usual course of events. The able and wealthy leaders of the old Australian legislatures wanted to transfer power from Downing Street to them- selves : they succeeded in transferring it to their inferiors. The home government gained a release from the un- popular and useless office of interference : relief from wearisome struggles, and kindliness instead of hatred. Australia gained what all communities appear to gain by emancipation, however unfavourable some of the features of that emancipation may have been. StUl, the aspect of its pohtical condition is such as to give rise to very serious apprehensions in the minds of those whose confidence in the ultimate success of free institutions is not unboimded. We see the higher and more educated class, as a class, pohtically ostracised there as in the United States. We see them, consequently, looking to England as their home ; anxious only to accumulate wealth in the colonies as fast as they may ; and using such indirect pohtical power as they may still possess ahnost whoUy for the purpose of maintaining their own pecuniary interests against apprehended encroachments of the multitude. We see them at once disHking and fearing democracy, and yet adopting its commonplaces in their political diction, and ready to make any submission rather than encounter the unpopiilarity of opposing it.* On the other hand, the attempt by the classes in possession of power to form anything hke a stable government has been hitherto quite * " D'autres membres de I'opposition, pins preoccup^s de leur situa- " tion poiDiilaire que de leur mission parlementaire, se conduisaient en " toute occasion enverslesmeneurs les plus aggressifs, avec les plus pusU- " lanimes menagemens. J'en temoignais un jour quelque siu-prise a I'un " d'entre eux, banquier consid&-able dont je connaissais les opinions tres " monarcliiques. ' Que voulez-vous ? ' me dit-il ; ' vous autres, vous ne " me ferez pas de mal ; mais ces gens-la seront quelque jour les " maltres, et ils ont des amis qui pourraient bien avoir la fantaisie de " me prendre mon bien et de me couper la tete : je ne reux pas me " brouiller avec eux.' " — Oiiizot, Memoires, vol. iii. p. 208. Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 645 •unsuccessful. The legislative chambers of provinces con- taining now more than a million of people, and a vast amount of property, seem to present little more than stages on which factions, without substantial party dis- tinctions, are for ever trying to supplant each other in the enjoyment of insignificant places and paltry patronage, while the local energy of the community is concentrated on economical progress, and directed by a very different class of leaders from those who swim or sink in the turbid waters of local politics. And, to speak last of that which is one of the worst inherent embarrassments in working a free constitution in thinly peopled communities, especially where universal suffrage prevails, the power of the few great towns is exorbitant. Their representatives are at once strong in numbers, and (what is more important) always on the spot. Distant sections of the province are virtually disfranchised : and finish by succumbing quietly to the loss of political influence, contented enough if they are treated with moderate justice, and their in- terests not whoUy sacrificed to metropolitan jobs. The worst practical result of the Austrahan political systems has hitherto been the extreme profusion with which the pecuniary resources of the colonies have been squandered : a profusion only to be paralleled by the rapidity with which those resources have grown under the influence of the same institutions : but which must assuredly have taught the colonists, by this time, that the budgets of an irresponsible are economy itself com- pared with those of a " responsible " government. But of the other social mischiefs commonly apprehended from the spread of democracy, no serious proof has as yet been exhibited. We must distinguish, in this investigation, between evils latent and patent, to use a legal distinction. The educated classes necessarily chafe under a polity which places them in habitual subordination to the mul' titude. And they insist, naturally and forcibly, on what T T 3 346 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXII. they deem the low tone which that polity introduces: but this is not a measurable, not a "patent" evil. Patent evUs would be — insecurity of life and property, want of confidence in the tribunals of justice, tangible restraints on hberty of thought, life, industry ; and with these no community under the British crown can be justly charged. In Victoria, indeed, under the scarcely controlled sway of the working classes, there are said to have been various attempts to interfere with the freedom of capital, and fix the minimum of wages. Such attempts can of course lead to no result except to drive capital from the province, and apprehensions are expressed that this is already the case. But serious invasion of rights of property could scarcely proceed far, in communities where the intense appreciation of property, and eagerness for its possession, render aU sociahst theories even more impracticable than they are in older commonwealths. Let us next cast a rapid glance at the various schemes which have suggested themselves to political observers, both in and out of the colonies, for the correction of the excesses and errors, such as they are, of responsible government. We may dismiss, as of little practical interest, those which have for the base the creation of some oligarchical element by way of balance. But a few years ago, about the period of the colonisation of New Zealand, the pro- ject of establishing an Enghsh constitution in new settle- ments — of removing thither a whole section of Enghsh society with its various classes — found favour in a good many minds. The utterly impracticable nature of so seductive an idea had not become fully manifest. Enghsh liberty is too old and free to bear such transplantation. The young slips which may be cut from it grow up in their natural wildness, and derive from the parent stock only a generally cognate form and nature. To speak without metaphor, aU such schemes are inconsistent with Lect. XXn.] APPENDIS. 647 colonial freedom. Left alone, the usages of a colony necessarily shape themselves into democracy. And de- mocracy never lets go an advantage which it has gained. Its course is always onward. A democratic community may refine itself in many ways ; may become less incon- siderate, more steadfast, more virtuous : but never less democratic. Aristocracies widen, and admit the popular element by degrees : tyrannies grow feeble, and give place reluctantly to slowly won liberties : democracy, so far as history teaches us, " ne'er knows retiring ebb," and has its advance only repelled by violence. The upper house, or council, in a colonial legislature is a very feeble check indeed, when composed of members for life nominated by the Crown ; antagonism between the two houses soon arises, ia which the council must give way and must lose its force and credit accordingly. Nor are nominee councillors good legislators. They have this great defect — they are responsible to no one. They have no constituencies. The Crown, which has appointed, has no hold on them after their appointment. They have no " order," no esprit de corps. And, lastly, councils thus estabhshed have this drawback in small communi- ties, that they absorb many of the men whom it would be very desirable to have elected by constituencies. The present tendency, however, in British colonies is to substi- tute an elective for a nominated upper house, or senate. Such a body, it need hardly be said, fulfils no political end whatever, except the single one of insuring some delay and some consideration in legislative proceedings. Many perhaps will find more interest in considering whether, in so wide a field for experiment as that pre- sented by our colonies, room might be found for trying some of those expedients which ingenuity has suggested for securing the representation of minorities, uniting a widely extended suffrage with the preservation of a certain share of influence to the less numerous classes. Such T T 4 348 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXir. are, the graduated suffrage according to property, or ■' Timocracy," as the Greeks called it: devices for cu- mulating votes in favour of one candidate, and the like ; 3uch as Mr. Mill, in his last work on " Eepresentation," bas just urged once more on the pohtical -world with all the cogency of his reasoning. But the same objection ipphes unfortunately to all of them. They cannot be initiated, unless democracy can be voluntarily induced to part with a portion of its power. If democracy were 30 self-denying, there would hardly be any need of such expedients at all. Institutions of this class may have a living existence for ages, but only where they rest on some principle more strongly actuating the human mind than naked reason. Such was the curious ma- chinery of the Eoman Comitia ; but this was based on superstition. Such, in truth, were the "rotten boroughs" of England, founded on what had once been real prin- ciples of representation, but had long ceased to have any application to modern society ; they subsisted as a mere " sham " or device for controUing the democra- tic tendencies of the constitution. Such is the Senate of the United States, a body ia which Delaware, with 100,000 inhabitants, has the same voice as New York with three or four millions ; a fortunate anomaly, grounded on a theory — that of the independence of the several States ; but maintained in reahty for its practical usefulness, forming a check on mere numerical power, rude and imperfect, yet felt to be invaluable. But the power of such institutions is great, precisely because it is fortuitous : they are unhkely to be created on purpose ; if created, most hkely to fail. We may turn, therefore, to the more practical ques- tion, whether, -ndthout any change in the legislative institutions of these young commonwealths, means may not ^ be devised for improving and rendering more efEcient the executive, without intrenching on popular power. I.ECT. XXII.] APPENDIX. 649 As " responsible " government is understood in British North America and Austraha, the functions of the Go- vernor of a colony are very critical and peculiar. He constitutes the only pohtical Hnk connecting the colony with the mother country. So far as regards the internal administration of his government, he is merely a constitu- tional sovereign acting through his advisers ; interfering with their pohcy or their patronage, if at all, only as a friend and impartial councillor. But whenever any ques- tion is agitated touching the interests of the mother coun- try — such, for instance, as the imposition of customs duties, or the public defence — his functions as an inde- pendent officer are called at once into play. He must see that the mother country receives no detriment. In this duty he cannot count on aid from his advisers : they will consult the interests either of the colony or of their own popularity : he may often have to act in opposition to them, either by interposing his veto on enactments, or by referring those enactments for the decision of the home government. But for these purposes, the constitution furnishes him with no pubhc officers to assist him in counsel or execution, or to share his responsibihty. The home government looks to him alone. The object desired is to constitute for his assistance an executive which shall possess a certain degree of stabihty and permanence, without at the same time being emanci- pated from that control by the legislature which consti- tutes the essence of parhamentary government. For this purpose, the system which has grown up in the United States presents some obvious advantages over the EngHsh. The cabinet consists of servants of the president, appointed by him, responsible in the first instance to him and not to the legislature, and holding office by the same tenure as the president hiiffself. The temporary and terminable character of their offices secures the state from the possibility of a serious per- manent difference between them and the legislature, and 650 ■ APPENDIX. CLect. XXI] preserves to the latter, ultimately, a sufficient amoun of control to prevent all tendency to degenerate int( oligarchy. Possibly no American institution has contri buted more than this to the stability and energy o the administration of foreign afiairs, and of one or twc federal departments of the state : ordinary domestic mat ters being in truth placed out of the cognizance of th( federal government. But, not to speak of other objections to this system, i is clearly incompatible with colonial institutions under s governor appointed by the Crown. His ministers woulc be ministers of the Crown, and antagonistic, or so consi dered, to the community and legislature. It might work i governors were elected by the people, as is the Americai president. Endeavours have been made in one or two of th( colonies, to constitute a permanent councU of respectabL officials — analogous in theory, not in reahty, to the Privj Council in England — as a counterpoise to the fluctuat ing ministry ; but without success. Democracy is toe jealous a power to admit of such curtailment of its pro vince. And, if this were otherwise, such a system woulc be too comphcated and cumbrous for the simple require ments of a colony. There remains an experiment which appears to me tc offer better chances of success. It is that of separating administrative office from pohtical place. In this country we find by daily experience (and more, I think, as par hamentary institutions grow older) the practical difficult] of combining the party duties of a member of cabine with the departmental functions of a minister. But nc separation could be effected here without an entire chang< in the nature of those institutions. In colonies, the de partmentaMunctions of most of the pubhc offices migh be very safely intrusted to subordinate, but permanent officers. The " cabinet," as colonists are fond of terming Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 651 it, might consist of one or two of the holders of depart- mental office only (such as the colonial secretary), and one or two ministers " without portfoHo," as the French phrase it ; charged with the general conduct of the politi- cal affairs of the colony in the legislature. This very simple expedient is under trial in Jamaica and one or two small West India Islands : the " executive councillors " who form the responsible " ministry " exercising no de- partmental functions at all. And it is remarkable that the experiment has been devised and conducted by an able politician trained under the Canadian system. Go- vernor Hincks of Barbadoes. It might be farther im- proved, if the permanent occupiers of important offices, excluded from the " cabinet," had seats without votes in the legislature. The present essay is far too recent, and the communities themselves of too httle importance, to aUow of its being regarded as a precedent. It may however be justly thought that some modification of it is required to correct the minor, but pressing and practical, evils of responsible government. For the correction of its greater and more fundamental evils, we can but look to a troubled, but by no means discouraging, prospect of the future. The next improvement in our colonial polity, long, but as hitherto vainly, called for, is the establishment of municipal institutions. It was long ago pointed out — and never so well as by De Tocqueville, — that the peculiar pohtical advantage, which above aU others enabled the founders of the American Union to estabhsh and consoli- date that commonwealth, was the antecedent existence of local self-government. Local self-government, with the North Americans, was no voluntary creation : it arose from necessity. Without administration from home, they were forced to administer their own affairs. This they did with success, and had constructed an excellent machinery for the purpose, long before they had begun to dream 652 APPENDIX. [Lect. xxir. of independence. When, therefore, independence arrived, it did but complete an existing order of things.* To advance from the township to the county, the county to the state, the state to the Union, was a process of ex- pansion only, not of change. It seems singular at first that the remaining settlements of the English race should be (with one exception only) almost entirely destitute of that system of local self- government which is so widely spread in the Union : but such is the fact. The reason hes in their history. In the West Indies, slavery checked its development. In our modern North American (and subsequently Australian) colonies, the old system, or rather no system, of leaving things alone, had been superseded by the modern plan of governing from home. Municipal institutions had there- fore no room to grow up. The province, and provincial government, were formed before the township and the county had been raised into independent existence. When the need of municipal institutions became felt, it was necessary that, if created at all, they should be en- grafted on an existing system. A most difficult and un- promising undertaking. In colonies absokitely governed, it is pretty uniformly found that the inhabitants, whatever fault they may find with their governors, prefer to have the trouble and self-restraint which the details of local go- vernment impose taken off their hands. New created municipahties fall into the management of an inferior class of citizens : and, step by step, power falls back into the accustomed channels again. In colonies possessing free legislatures, the creation of municipahties requires that the legislature should part with a portion of its power — a sa- crifice which democratic habits render extremely difficult. * " With sometliing of the same propriety with which the nation " may be said to be a confederacy of republics called states, each New " England state may be described as a confederacy of minor republics, " called towns." — Palfrey, History of New England, vol. ii. p. 12. Lect, XXII.] APPENDIX. 653 "Chez les peuples democratiques," says De Tocqueville, with perfect truth, " le gouvernement ne se presente natu- " rellement k I'esprit humain que sous la forme d'un pouvoir " unique et central, et la notion des pouvoirs intermediaires "nelui est pas familiere." Neither within nor without the Assembly will pubhc opinion, in new and free so- cieties, be found generally favourable to the creation of municipahties ; they thrive only where they existed before the central power. Upper Canada presents an exception to this general rule, and the only one with which I am acquainted. In that great province, American example, and the practical good sense of the community, produced the creation of a municipal system at a very late period of its history. The district Councils have now been in operation httle more than ten years ; but their action is recognised as extremely beneficial. The same organisation is spreading in Lower Canada, but has far greater difliculties to con- tend with. Elsewhere, in British North America, municipal orga- nisation seems to remain in a most imperfect state ; and instead of local rates, public works and improvements are effected by grants from the central legislature ; a system leading both to improvidence and to corruption. But the great Australian colonies present a far more remarkable instance of the truth of De TocqueviLle's propositions. New South Wales being at first adminis- tered as a convict settlement, administration by local elective bodies was of course impracticable. But when a free legislature was granted to the settlers, the necessity for their estabhshment was strongly felt by statesmen at home, whUe as yet no desire whatever was manifested for it by the people themselves. "District CouncUs " for New South Wales were created in 1842 by Act of Parliament. It must be admitted that the experiment was premature ; a pastoral country, of wide extent and thinly inhabited, 654 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXU. is ill calculated for the frequent meeting of local boards. The Act remained a dead letter. When the constitution of the colony was amended, under Lord Grey's adminis- tration, in 1849, his lordship considered it best to con- tent himself with authorising their creation by the local legislature * : holding out, at the same time, the inducement of intrusting to those bodies a portion of the Crown lands revenue. The suggestion and the bribe remained as ineffectual as the enactment had been. The legislature would not stir an inch in that direction. It became a point of oddly perverted patriotism to oppose it, partly because advice from the Colonial Office was almost as insufferable as dictation to men who conceived that they understood their own affairs ; partly because its adop- tion would 'have diminished the excessive power of the central legislature, cherished by that body itself for ob- vious reasons, blindly cherished by its constituents for the reason so ably developed by M. de Tocqueville. And up to this day there is comparatively Httle sign of municipal organisation in these colonies, where it is needed, perhaps, more urgently than in any other region. " Je pense," says the same profound thinker whom I have already cited, "que dans les siecles democratiques qui vont s'ouvrir, ' I'independance individuelle et les Iibertfe locales seront ' toujours un produit de I'art. La centralisation sera le ' gouvernement nature!" Victoria, however, has within these three or four years commenced, apparently in sarnest, the experiment of a district organisation. There is one more measure calculated to promote the beneficial action of democratic government, wliich may ippear at sight almost of too minute a character to de- serve notice in so general a survey as that in which we ire engaged. But great importance has been attributed to it by practical statesmen. The age in which we Uve lias been emphatically called the age of large cities. * See Lord Grey's Colonial Policy, vol. ii. p. 327. Lbct. XXII.] APPENDIX. 655 Owing to economical causes, which it would not be diffi- cult to trace if our space admitted, a much larger pro- portion of the people in most countries are collected in a few great centres of population than heretofore. There was not a town containing 30,000 inhabitants in the Thirteen American Provinces, when they contained three milhons. Melbourne now contains 70,000 or 80,000 out of the half a million who inhabit Victoria : the proportion borne by Sydney to JSTew South Wales is still larger. It has been already said that cities such as these exercise an enormous and in many points mischievous power over the colonial legislatures. Their representatives are not only very numerous, but while the delegates of distant districts grudge their attendance, and evade it as far as possible, these are always on the spot. And aU the influence of the cities themselves — of their wealthy merchants, their in- fluential tradesmen, their formidable mobs — are brought to bear on a body which has neither moral force, nor strength of caste, nor civil or mihtary power, to rely on for the protection of its independence. The conse- quence is that the legislatures of many colonies (I have mentioned two as instances only) are looked on by the people of their remoter parts as mere metropohtan clubs, invested with the dangerous power of law-making and spending the pubhc money. Probably Victoria — cer- tainly Queensland — would not have been separated from New South Wales, had a system prevailed under which these distant portions of its territory felt that they were treated with equal justice. A remedy, or at least a valuable palhative, for this tendency of modern democracy, -was long ago discovered and acted on by the Americans of the Union. They early learnt to remove the seats of their legislatures from great cities to obscure places, possessing the partial advantage of a central situation, but possessing also the far more sub- stantial advantages which resulted from their obscurity. 656 APPENBIX. [Lbct. XXir The establishment of Congress at Washington, which has never grown into a place of commerce, has proved a most fortunate accident for the nation : one of which one can only estimate the value by imagining what would have occurred ha,d it remained at New York. But the same practice has been consistently followed, and maintained to this day, in the selection of state capitals. That of Kew York is Albany ; that of Pennsylvania, Harrisburgh. It is only within these few years that the seat of govern- ment has been moved from Natchez, in Mississippi, and MobUe, in Alabama, to remote places in the interior of those states. This is a touch of practical wisdom which no British colony has as yet learnt ; for the projected estabhshment of the Canadian metropohs at Ottawa was a mere poHtical compromise. But uowhere is there greater reason for its application. Such measures as those above suggested : namely, the admission into the executive of some permanent mem- bers, municipal organization, the removal of seats of government from the chief towns : if of any value, are at best of a very limited character. They might aid the temperate working of democracy, and smooth away some pressing difficulties. But they would in no respect affect its real spirit and tendencies. It remains to consider the far more important question, what effect may be produced on these by the advance of time, by the increase of popular power, and the increase along with it of popular intelligence. And now, in conclusion, let us devote a few words to those great questions which occupy the hearts and thoughts of all earnest politicians more powerfully at this moment than at any former period of history. What are th^ prospects of the durability of free institutions in the communities sprung from Great Britain, and what the Lbct. XXnJ APPENDIX. 657 amount and character of that civilization at which they are hkely to arrive under their influence ? We can no longer be content with those short and perfunctory answers to such questions as would have satisfied the ordinary British mind not many years ago. Democratic opinions have undergone too rude a shake of late years, have lost ground too extensively, — and more especially in that class of minds which adopted them a generation ago with aH the heat and energy of a new rehgion, — to allow of that general acquiescence with which a few plausible generahties on the subject would heretofore have been received. How far the prosperity of a commonwealth depends on its institutions is an old problem. But, speaking of civilized communities, I believe it for my own part to depend less on the institutions than on the national ■character. How far that character is the product of those institutions, is no doubt a very interesting question. But it is scarcely a practical one. The eifect of national institutions on national character, at the best, is gradual and slow, to a degree which Httle suits the impatience of political theorists. To infer that, because what are termed free institutions have produced certain quahties in certain nations, therefore by giving the institutions you secure at once the quahties, is as if a geologist were to expect to make slate or coal by creating those geological conditions which have produced slate and coal in the laboratory of uncounted ages. The establishment of pohtical liberty, where the national character has not the requisites for its reception, cannot succeed. Courage and energy, promptitude of action, readiness of resources, the habits of self-reliance and self-re- spect, together with mutual confidence among citizens, — these and similar active quahties make up the national character fitted to employ and enjoy pohtical freedom. Where these qualities do not exist, the gift is useless. u u 658 APPENDIX. [Lect. xxn. Conceive the grant of liberal institutions to a community of Chinese. Moderation in success : self-denial in the exercise of power : habitual consideration for the opinions and feelings of others : readiness to compromise differences : love of justice and fair play: reluctance to push principles to extremes : the moral courage which will dare to stand up against a majority : the habit of constantly and, as it were, instinctively postponing self to the pubhc interest, and this whether arising from moral choice or from the con- straint imposed by public opinion : these are the balancing quahties which prevent the misuse of political freedom. Where these are unknown, it can but lead to anarchy, as in the familiar case of the Spanish American repubhcs. The Enghsh character, by its combination of the active with the balancing quahties, seems to have shown itself as yet the most highly adapted of aU for the enjoyment of such freedom. On the continent of Europe, the in- stitution of self-government has hitherto proved a failure. This I must venture to assume, whatever hopeful ap- pearances some may perceive for the future, without going into details for which these pages would not be appropriate. In a few of the smaller states (omitting Switzerland, Holland, and Norway as obvious excep- tions) it has been chiefly maintained since 1815 by the dread of intervention from the great powers. Parties forbear to press each other to the utmost, merely because they apprehend the interposition of some too powerful arbitrator ; they keep the peace at home, from regard to that formidable pohce which stations outside the door. In point of fact, the existence of large standing armies alone, now the common lot of Europe, is ' quite incompa- tible, in the long run, with pohtical freedom, and incom- patible with those social habits which alone can preserve freedom. So our ancestors judged, and rightly, though the truth has been a good deal kept out of sight in these later days. Institutions under which the standing army is Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 659 popularized and placed more on the footing of a militia, sucli as those of Pirussia or Sweden, may soften this incoibpatibLlity ; but they by no means remove it. For the real danger arises from this ; not that the standing army forms an instrument which is always at the disposal of the executive against the legislative (though this be the common case), but that it is always the ready in- strument which some one may seize — its master for the moment — whether the sovereign or the popular leader ■• — to put down opposition when too troublesome. There is no arguing with the master for the time being of the legions. And the habit of thought and feehng which their formidable presence engenders, — the habit of re- cognizing the existence of a power in the state de facto superior to the popular will, the law, or the state itself, however rarely resorted to, — absolutely precludes that un- fettered independence of judgment by which alone free institutions can be administered. Large standing armies have often failed in preventing revolution : but they have always prevented the enjoyment of hberty. In colonies and states of Enghsh origin, the active quahties of which I have spoken, as ensuring the success of free institutions, have been developed with even more intensity than in the mother country. They are suffi- ciently famous all over the world as the chosen seats of the " go-ahead " elements of modern society. And if the United States remain the first in the career of fierce competition, it must be acknowledged that some of our colonies are but little behind in the race. It has been said, with truth as weU as point, that to characterize any invention as a novelty has, at the first blush, the effect of prepossessing an Enghsh mind against it, an American in its favour. And the colonial mind in this particular resembles the American. Minds so disposed, and the all but absolute freedom of the institutions under which they five, work admirably well together for progress. u n 2 660 APPENDIX. [I^ECT. XXI And if any one is disposed to undervalue the in portance of that political freedom to new communities,- if lie is disposed, by not an uncommon mistakfe, t attribute too large a share in their progress to naturi advantages, and too smaU a share to moral causes, — 1( him note one social phenomenon, which is almost a cnicii test of truth on this subject. Southern Eussia possess( tracts of fertile unoccupied soil, second only to those ( the United States, and a chmate but httle inferior. The are nearer than the Western States of America to Ge many, and quite as accessible. For a century pas Eussia has invited colonization in that direction. SI has ofiered great advantages to German settlers, an exempted them from many restrictions to which her o"w people are hable. America ofiers them nothing, exce] a fair start with others in the common struggle fi advancement. The German is equally a stranger in bot And yet from 150,000 to 200,000 Germans annual cross the Atlantic ; while, of agricultural colonists, Euss scarciely receives a few scattered families. What is tl cause of the difference ? The attraction of freedor political and commercial ; and that, apparently, alone. But British communities, out of England, have n exhibited an equal share of the balancing or steadyit quahties which I have characterised as equally necessai to the permanent success of free institutions. It is u: necessary here to dwell on what _we are aU too famiUi with, — the bad features presented by the ultra-democrat tendency of society in the States. And we have seen th similar tendencies prevail, and at present increasing prevail, in our colonies, notwithstanding the gener connection which binds them to the monarchy. Wh prospect is there of amelioration ? To check democratic tendencies by force is out of t] question. To check them by ingenious devices is speculative expedient. A few practical improvements local government, such as those above suggested, wou Lect. XXII.] • APPENDIX. 661 be slight palliatives only. There is one plain remedial cause, and one alone, — the slow effect of education on the pubhc mind ; not the education of schools but that of circumstances. Many will hold reliance on this merely visionary. I cannot share their opinion. Where there is a store of sound rehgious and moral feehng at bottom, there is, together with them, a great and strugghng tendency against the actual tide of mere democratic im- pulse, a struggle for refinement of thought, forbearance, generosity, self-restraint, — those quahties of which society, in short, is felt the most to stand in need. But the first great difficulty with which these at- tempts at improvement have to contend arises from the essentially fluctuating nature of colonial society during the period of immigration. So long as an EngHsh colony, or a Western State, is annually receiving and parting with a large share of its population, so long its institutions are provisional and temporary in their working : and democracy — while even more a ne- cessity than elsewhere — presents at the same time an exaggerated picture of itself. The very same insti- tutions under which Texas . and Kansas present all the repulsive features of backwood life, — under which the ever shifting community of New York city has fallen, if we may beheve its writers, into the very worst abyss of local misgovernment and corruption, — are those under which the long estabhshed states of New England enjoy their profound peace and their enUghtened practical freedom,, and exhibit on the whole the most successful poHty on which the eye of the statesman can rest. It is to this latter standard that we may hope to see Upper Canada, New South Wales, and Victoria approximate. If this hope be fallacious, there remains no alternative but that of anarchy and its consequent tyranny. u u 3 662 APPENDIX. ■ [Lbct.XXII. It remains, in order to complete this very general sketcli of the modern constitution of the British colonial empire, that we should ascertain what are the legal and administrative ties which maintain the dependence of the free colonies on the mother country, and the unity of the whole fabric. In various parts of these lectures, the gradual relaxa- tion and ultimate severance of most of the links of the old chains of subjection, commercial and pohtical, has been fuUy discussed. Those which remain (in colonies having responsible government) may be reduced to four : — 1. The legal omnipotence of parhament. 2. The power of the Crown to allow and disallow laws made by colonial legislatures. 3. JVDhtary protection. 4. The administrative authority vested in the governor, who is appointed by the Crown. 1. As to the legal omnipotence of parhament, very fe^\ words win suffice. It is scarcely likely that any one wil be found to contest it in theory now. That conflict— and it was not a sHght one — was fought out in an earhei period of our constitutional .history. The vagueness o the idea of "right" — the confused but deeply rootec feehng, that what an authority ought not to do it canna do, "JSTe hceat facere id, quod quis vitiabit agendo,' produced at one time many fantastic crotchets in th( mind of statesmen. Something unreasonable and mys terious — some ideal of abstract pohtical power, greate than and controlhng king, lords, and commons, like tha " dreaded name of Demogorgon" which ancient mytholog; shadowed out as something mightier than the god and the fates, continually recuxxed to minds not as ye thoroughly practised in the hard reahties of pohtics hfe. Those argumentative contests which preceded th conflict of arms with America exhausted the subjec and demonstrated how entirely unstable was the founds Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 663 tion whicli theorists of this class endeavoured to lay* — a foundation so fancifuRy described by Burke, as " That Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Wlere armies whole have sunk." A written constitution may no doubt create a supreme legislature with hmited authority, notwithstanding the apparent contradiction in terms. When the enactments of such a legislatui'e exceed its written powers, the courts of justice may pronounce them void, and the citizen is not required to obey them. But, in countries having no written constitution, but one founded, like that of England, on immemorial usage only, the supremacy of the legislature has no legal hmit. No court of law can question its enactments. If the force of law could be denied to an act of parliament, the reign of law would cease and that of arbitrary will begin. If its decrees are unjust, tyrannical, anarchical, refusal to obey them may be unavoidable, but cannot be , legal ; for (to borrow the phrase of JBlackstone) " no human laws will suppose " a case which at once must destroy all law, and compel " men to build afresh upon a new foimdation." these simple maxims are as true in the colonies as * It cannot, however, be said that these notions are absolutely, ex- tiQct among colonial lawyers. Mr. Haliburton, in his account of Nova Scotia, says, " To what extent the British Parliament has a right to in- " terpose its authority, or how far the power of the colonial assembly " extends, it is impossible to ascertain with accuracy." (See Lewis on the Government of Dependencies, p. 302.) And Mr. Sydney Bell, a Judge of the Supreme Court at the Cape, expresses himself thus, in his work on Colonial Administration, published in 1859 : " The Parliament " of Britain is omnipotent for good ; for everything that shall tend to " proniiote the welfare and the safety of the empire and its inhabitants ; " but powerless for evil, or for the doing of anything which shall have " for its avowed object injury to the welfare or safety of the empire, " or of any of its inhabitants." See the correct doctrine laid down in Macaulay's History of England, chap, xxiii. u u 4 664 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXI at home. All dependencies of tlie empire are subjec to imperial legislation. How far an act of parliamer which does not name the colonies has force in th colonies : how far (if at all) principles of the commo: law prevail in the colonies of their own force and in dependent of enactment : these are curious legal ques tions, but in no way affect the general position. It follows, that it is an error to speak (as is sometime done hastily) of the province of a colonial legislature a distinct from that of parhament. Both exercise swa; over the same subject matter ; but the former is inferio to the latter. In the strict sense of words, it has i municipal authority only. Where the function of a co lonial legislature is defined by the ordinary words of i governor's commission, " to make laws for the goo( " government of a colony" its power -within its loca jurisdiction is without limit, except that its enactment cannot alter existing imperial laws and are subject t( future imperial laws. When it is created by act o parliament, its powers are of course circumscribed by th< words of the act, but these are usually of the most com prehensive character. 2. The next tie of dependence is constituted by th power of the Crown to render nuU the acts of colonia legislatures. This power extends to every British de pendency, although it is by no means uniform in it technical mode of operation. In the old common-la-? colonies, the crown " allows " or " disallows " every la^v though with some varieties of technical language. I colonies of which the organic law is an act of parliameni the power reserved to the crown is commonly that o disallowing only, leaving enactments not disallowed if operate tacitly. The practical effect is, of course, th same. As far as the purely domestic affairs of free colonie are concerned, this power approximates more and more, a the tie of subjection becomes looser, to that possessed, hv never exercised, by the crown at home over bills passed b; Lect XXII.] APPENDIX. 665 the two houses. But it cannot be said that it has fallen into disuse, or is ever likely to do so, as long as that tie remains, and while colonial legislatures have the power to make laws which may interfere with the general interests of the em- pire. Such for instance, are laws imposing duties on im- ported goods : and it is one of the most difficult problems of recent colonial government to decide where the au- thority of the crown should be interposed to check this kind of legislation ; as, for instance, in the case of differential duties, to which these legislatures are con- stantly tempted to recur, whole they are steadily con- demned by the advisers of the crown, and by parhament. It must be admitted that this occasionally exercised prerogative of disallowance is not free from inconvenience both to the mother country and the colony. It has the evils iucident to arbitrary power, however cautiously exercised. That the crown disallows some few colonial acts is received as holding out some promise that it may disallow any act, and the home government is consequently hable to continual siege on the part of dissatisfied minorities ia the colonies. On the other hand, it is with, reluctance, and some sense of humiliation, that a British minister authorises an enactment which it is in his power to disallow, and which shocks his sense of justice, or some cherished views of pohcy, though strictly within the domestic functions of the colonial legislature, and, there- fore, not to be disallowed without violation of recognised principle. And, in the colonies, there is always some sUght sense of insecurity from the possibility of the dis- allowance of a measure already passed into law. But these inconveniences, which have often been the subject of party exaggeration, are but trifling in practice ; and we shall presently have to examine whether the exchange of a dependence on mutual forbearance for a dependence on strict organic laws might not introduce evils far more substantial. 3. Of military protection enough has been already said. 666 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXI 4. The executive powers of the governor of a colonj This high officer is popularly said to represent the crow: (but rather loosely, since, in fact, the power of the crow and the governor in a colony are different, and no unfrequently antagonistic ; for the assent of the govemo is necessary to an act of the colonial legislature ; th crown, by disallowance, can overrule the governor's assent He possesses an authority technically the same in a colonies, though virtually very different. In crown cc lonies he is without check in executive affairs, and i the distribution of patronage, except such as may b administered from home. In the old representativ colonies, his acts are subject to the indirect check whid may be given by the disapproval of the legislature, an the refusal of supphes, but to no direct interference. Bu under responsible government he becomes the image, i little, of a constitutional king — introducing measures t the legislature, conducting the executive, distributing pa tronage, in name only, while all these functions are i reahty performed by his councillors. And it is a commo supposition, that his office is consequently become on of parade and sentiment only. There cannot be a greate error. The functions of a colonial governor under re sponsible government are (occasionally) arduous and di: ficult in the extreme. Even in the domestic pohtics of th colony, his influence^as a mediator between extrenie partiei and controller of extreme resolutions, as an independer and dispassionate adviser, is far from inconsiderable, hovs ever cautiously it may be exercised. But the really oneroi; part of his duty consists in watching that portion of colonis poHtics which touches on the connection with the moths country. Here he has to reconcile, as well as he can, h double function as governor responsible to the crowi and as a constitutional head of an executive controlled b his advisers. He has to watch and control, as best li may, those attempted infringements of the recognize principles of the connection which carelessness or ign( Lect. xxii.] appendix; 667 ranee, or deliberate intention, or mere love of popularity, may, from time to time, originate. And this duty, of peculiar nicety, he must perform alone ; as we have al- ready seen in considering the subject of executive councils. He can have no assistance. His responsible ministers may (and probably will) entertain views quite different from his own. And the temptation to surround himself with a camarilla of special advisers, distinct from these ministers, is one which a governor must carefully resist. It may therefore be readily inferred, that to execute the ofSce well requires no common abihties ; and I must add that the occasion has called forth these abilities. I do not believe that England has been better served in any pro- vince of her administration than she has been of late years, by her higher class of colonial governors. Such is the pohtical connexion, shght enough in prac- tice though stiU considerable in theory, which at the pre- sent day connects Great Britain with her more important colonies. But the question has been continually asked and debated. To what purpose are forms of subjection kept up, which no longer correspond to the reahty ? Why not amend the theoretical shape of our institutions, vdth- out altering their substance, by substituting for the existing anomalous pohty a system of federal union, under which the colony should be, for certain recognised purposes, the constitutional equal of the mother country ? Two different modes have been suggested of effecting this object. The first is that of admitting to Parhament representatives from the colonies. I have nothing to add on this subject to what has been already said in these Lectures. It is plainly out of the question to admit colonial representatives to a share in imposing taxes on the mother country, while Parhament abstains it- self from taxing the colonies; and, frequently as the suggestion has been made, none of its ad^^ocates have ever, in the shghtest degree, removed or confronted this obvious difficulty. 668 APPENDIX. [Lbct. XX The other plan had much vogue among the spec: class of statesmen who assumed the title of colonial i formers a few years ago. It was based on the constitutii of the United States. They proposed that the distincti between imperial and domestic subjects of legislation, colonies, should be laid down by a fundamental law. j to the former, the right of the Crown to disallow coloni enactments was to be retained : as to the latter, it was be abohshed. But in the event of a question axisii whether the subject of a particular colonial act was imp rial or domestic, and consequently whether it was val or not without the royal assent, they proposed that t] Judicial Committee of the privy council (which they repr sented as analogous to the Supreme Court of the Unite States) should have power to decide, either immediate or on appeal. This proposal appears to me to involve a serious m: conception of the difference between the respective re] tions to each other of portions of the British empire ai portions of the American federation. The constitution of the United States is written, establishes a distinction between subjects of general ai local legislation. Consequently, whether an act, wheth of Congress or of a State, be vahd or no, becomes at on a legal question. It is a mistaken notion to suppose th the Supreme Court has any special prerogative for i decision of such a question. It may arise at any time, ai in any court throLighout the Union. The judge of ai district may have to pronounce on the vahdity, accordii to the constitution, of an Act alleged before him on question of private right. The Supreme Court (except a few special cases) has no more to do with the questi than this, that it may be brought hke other questio before that court in virtue of its general appellate powe Now, supposing this system transferred to our colon empire, we should have this momentous question lega Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 669 raised in every colony, and generally decided (according to the unavoidable bias of human action) in favour of the local authority. It would then be removed by appeal to the Judicial Committee. A court essentially British would have to pronounce, in the last resort, on a question between Great Britain and the colony ; and the question must be decided by this tribunal, regarded in the colony as foreign, on grounds of law alone. Here is no room for compro- mise or concihation. If a Secretary of State considers it impossible to advise the Crown to assent to a colonial act, he prepares the way beforehand for this exercise of autho- rity. He remonstrates or suggests amendments ; and in some form or other an arrangement between the con- flicting interests is very often arrived at. A tribunal could only affirm or deny the vahdity of the law. If legally obnoxious to condsmnation, it must be condemned, though really free from pohtical objection, though masses of property may have been settled under it, or though its annulment must necessarily throw some great branch of pubhc administration into confusion. The colonists would soon feel the difference between the arbitrary, but timid and manageable, control of the executive, and the regular inflexible discipline of the law, administered too iu the last resort by strangers ; and it can scarcely be believed they would long endure the new system. And now that our investigation of the relations between a parent state and her colonies is brought to a conclusion, we can scarcely dismiss the subject without one glance at that practical question which has been present, doubtless, to the minds of many of my reader's throughout the whole of this inquiry. What is the benefit which a country derives, from colonization in the first place, and from the maintenance of political connexion with her colonies in the second place ? Wliat, in particular, is the advantage to Britain of her enormous colonial dominions ? • With regard to the first branch of this question, the 670 APPENDIX. [i^ECT. xxir. advantages, namely, of colonization, the various suggestions with which these Lectures have dealt may help to enable the reader to systematize his views, and to form conclu- sions which shall be permanent, because free from exag- geration as well as from fundamental misconceptions. The benefit of colonization, as such, is wholly economical. It costs much to the mother country to rear the product Man to his full stature, and to make him an able ageat for the creation of wealth. It is a loss to part with him by emigration. It is a loss to part with the capital which he must carry away with him, in order that his mdustry may be applied with advantage to the creation of that wealth in a new country. But if his industry in that country is sufficiently remunerative to counter- balance the cost of his rearing and of his exportation, and to produce a surplus of ijseful articles ; and if the country from which he is sent has also such a com- mand of foreign trade as to be able • to purchase these articles more cheaply than another country could purchase them, either with her own goods or with gold the produce of those goods ; then colonization is advantageoils. But both these conditions must concur to make it so. Expor- tation of capital and people to an unremunerating field is mere loss, as many an unsuccessful adventure in British colonization testifies, although the freedom with which individual enterprise can change its area has prevented these experiments from involving great national loss. Exportation of them to a remunerating field, but one of which the produce does not return directly or indirectly to the mother country, is also a mere loss, excepting to that very limited extent which was once popularly regarded as the rule instead of the exception, namely, when there is for the time a pressure of over-population at home. The vast northern hives of nations, whence issued the swarms that occupied at different times the south of Europe and Asia, were but the poorer for their Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 671 conquests. No portion of the wealth which their children acquired or created returned to them. It may be rea- sonably doubted whether Germany at the present day has not been a loser, instead of a gainer, by the emigration of more than a million of her people in the last ten years. The emigrants have gained incalculably. The world at large has benefited by the transfer of their industry from a poorer to a more productive area. But their mother country may not have repaid herself the real cost of their shipment. The question is, however, one which it would require a very Avide induction to solve with accuracy. That the endeavour, on the part of the colonizing coun- try, to control the general course of trade, and secure to herself the benefit of the productiveness of her co- lonies by fiscal laws, is fundamentally erroneous, it was the object of part of these Lectures to establish ; but the contrary doctrine was fast losing ground when they appeared, and is now all but extinct. Nor can I, for my own part, ascribe much more of reahty to a notion still commonly entertained, that na- tional habits and tastes may secure to the colonizing country a larger share of the trade of her colony than would result to her from merely economical causes. This subject has been already discussed in the seventh of these Lectures. To return therefore to our former point : the benefit of colonization to the mother coimtry consists solely in the surplus of advantage which it derives from the trade of the colony, over the loss which has been suffered in establishing and defending the colony. Yet, even thus limited, that benefit has been enormous, calculated in figures alone, such as our commercial statistics furnish. The imports from our colonies alone amount to 26,000,000/. Those from the United States (equally the result of British colonization) to 34,000,000/. Those from all the rest of the world, (including our own Lidian posses- 372 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXII. iions) to 114,000,000?. (average of 1856-58). And it nust be remembered that these last include imports from various regions (such as BrazU, Cuba, Java) which are n truth the result of colonization, though not of British jolonization. But then, it might be objected, and is indeed frequently objected, a very large portion at least of this trade would squally exist if the regions in question were not British colonies at all. Take, for instance, our North American provinces. Had they been abandoned by us when the United States became independent, they would have been settled, when it became profitable to settle them, as other portions of America are settled ; they would have been as populous and commercial as now, and England would liave received just as large a share of their valuable commerce, barring, of course, that which was created by prohibitions under the colonial system, and therefore to be regarded as mere loss. The only difference is pohtical, not economical ; they would have been foreign [customers, and are colonial customers. But it is forgotten by those who reason thus, that the original cost to this country — the expenditure, namely, on North American colonization, by Great Britain — would have been just the same had Canada since 1783 been a portion of the United States. For the United States are themselves colonized from this coimtry. Not only were they so originally, but they are in constant process of colonization. The annual increase of settlement in the United States is defrayed out of two sources ; ex- penditure of American accumulated capital ; and ex- penditure of British capital, wliich annually overflows into America. The impulse which conquers state after state from the wilderness, and adds them to the body of the mighty Federation, is directed by American energy, but it is mainly fed by British wealth and labour. The only possible difference which the retention of British Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 673 sovereignty over so large a portion of North America has made in the economical course of events is the following; that it may have diverted artificially to the British provinces a somewhat larger share of emigration and capital than they would have received from hence had no pohtical connection subsisted. Assuming, there- fore, that the whole expenditure by Great Britain on American colonization had been the same in the one case as the other, the Western States might have absorbed a httle more, Canada a httle less. If so, the result has been a gain to Canada, but a loss to this coimtry ; for by the supposition, the capital thus artificially diverted to Canada would have earned higher profits elsewhere. But leaving this trifling, and perhaps imaginary, result out of the question, it is plain that the clear pecuniary loss to Great Britain from the retention of her North American empire is confined wholly to the sums which may have been spent by the British treasury in its government and defence. These, I have already had occasion to show, are much overrated in public esti- mation ; and are partially, though of course not wholly, compensated by the increase of local wealth and trade produced by government expenditm-e. When we turn to our other great modern group of colonies, the Austrahan, we find the problem of gain and loss by their settlement one of much simpler so- lution. Australia has been created, economically speak- ing, by British colonization. Had anti-colonizing maxims prevailed with our governments, there would have been (so to speak) no Australia at all; for no considerable communities would have estabhshed themselves there, in these days, mtending to exist without British protection, and to become exposed, as an abandoned property, to the incursions of the first maritime nation which might think it worth while to annex or annihilate them. And calculations founded on the supposition that the coloniza- X X 674 APPENDIX. [Lect. XXIL tion might have been effected by otlier nations, without cost to ourselves, are theoretical only, there being no other nation possessed of the means or inchnation to have effected it. The clear gain of Australia to England is, therefore, the profit of the Australian trade, minus the considerable cost of colonization, and the small cost of defence (extremely trifling except in New Zealand). But when we reflect, in addition, on the probable future expansion of that trade, it must surely become manifest by how shght a sacrifice, comparatively speaking, a vast increase of national wealth has been secured to us and our posterity. Thus far the problem is one which admits of an approximative answer. We can calculate from existing retiurns the value of our colonial trade, and the cost of our colonies, for many years past. We can arrive at some rough approach to an estimate of the cost of colonization. But when we address ourselves to the farther branch of the inquiry, — What is the value of a colonial empire when formed, and, as it were, full grown, to the mother country, — we find ourselves at once within the range of a host of considerations admitting of no such reduction to simple elements. The strict economical answer to the question would doubtless be this : — The maintenance of the dominion of the mother country over a colony is useful, so long as it tends to develope the internal resom-ces of that colony, so as to produce a net profit by commerce, beyond the cost of governing it. Pohtically, it may be said, in addition, to be useful when the colony contributes to the defensive strength of the nation, or protection of trade : when its abandonment would throw it into the hands of a country whose aggrandisement is dangerous to us : and so forth. And, to mention last of all a con- sideration which is perhaps the most powerful of aU, it is socially useful so long as the colony affords an outlet for the younger and more adventurous spirits of every Lect. XXII.] APPENDIX. 675 class in the mother country — not of that which per- forms manual labour alone. But to retain or to abandon a dominion is not an issue which will ever be determined on the mere balance of profit and loss; or on the more refined but even less powerful motives supplied by abstract political philosophy. The sense of national honour, pride of blood, the te- nacious spirit of self-defence, the sympathies of kindred communities, the instincts of a dominant race, the vague but generous desire to spread our civilization and our religion over the world : these are impulses which the student in his closet may disregard, but the statesman dares not, for they will assuredly prevail, as they so often have prevailed before, and silence mere utiHtarian argument whenever a crisis calls them forth. In the mean time, we must regard the poHtical connec- tion now subsisting between Great Britain and the various portions of her vast colonial empire, as created far more by what we may term accident,, that is, through the operation of unforeseen causes, than as the result of pre- meditated policy. Nay, it subsists, in some particulars, rather as a consequence of ancient pohtical theories, now abandoned and almost forgotten, but which have left results behind them of which it is not easy to get rid, were it certainly desirable. Many of the possessions de- nominated colonies are in reality mere posts, taken and held in obedience to maxims once eagerly advocated, as important for purposes of foreign pohcy. Some (the West Indian in particular) were created and fostered for the sake of a commercial system, of which the last rehcs are now abandoned : it can scarcely be said with justice that they add to our strength or our wealth, and yet there are probably few who would not agree that their ' peculiar social circumstances, and their ancient connection with ourselves, render them the deserving objects of a jealous protection, and that the expense of securing X X 2 676 APPENDIX. [Leci. XXII. them from foreign violence and internal commotion is incmTed in fulfilment of a national debt of honour. Others, our West African settlements for instance, were also founded in pursuance of bygone ideas, generous, but not very practical at any time ; but such has been their utility in the development of commerce, that they "wOl probably in the end well repay the exertions made for their estabhshment and defence. While there are some, such as those of Southern Africa, for the maintenance of which pohticians are really hard pushed to find any substantial justification at aU, and must appeal to the general law of self-assertion. But these are not the instances we commonly have in view, when we speak of the connection between Great Britain and her colonies. We think of the two great dominions of the British Crown in North America and Australia. Politically spealdng, these are united to us, doubtless, by the very shghtest link which ever held together distant com- munities. But, in a national sense, its very sHghtness seems to admit of greater durability. Any forcible ac- cident may sever it with httle resistance ; but it is not easy to foresee from what quarter such an accident should arise. The spirit of commercial jealousy, the behef that one nation gains by the loss of another, and the doctrine of restriction and protection thence derived, are going out of date everywhere, and yielding the ground, step by step, to more liberal sentiments. And, even if this were otherwise, there could scarcely be serious diver- gence in commercial pohcy between communities raising raw produce and a community of manufactvirers. On questions of merely internal pohcy the present system scarcely admits of mutual disputes. Questions of foreign policy (unless in the instance of Canada) seem very shghtly to touch, at any of its pomts, our colonial empire. And common danger does but tend to cement our union : not so much through calculations of advantage ; for there Lect. xxil] appendix. 677 will always be those in the mother country who wiU esteem colonies a burden in war, and those in the colonies who wiU esteem the inconvenience of being dragged into the wars of the mother country greater than the profit of its protection; but through the impulse which it gives to the common spirit of brotherhood, to generous sympathies, and to the proud feehngs of self-sacrifice and self-devotion. And with these happy auguries let us now be content. Eash, indeed, would he be who should presage more than a temporary duration for that calm of prosperity and contentment which our colonial empire now enjoys. We can count but little on the permanence of common interests : on the permanence of friendly tempers and considerate feehngs, hardly at all. As the wealth of earth and the flower of human strength fade, so, says the tragic poet, decay leagues and alliances. Kui Toiai Qfi§aL£ ei ravvy ArijitpEl KoXSiQ Tu irpoe tre, jivpiae o fxvpioc y^poyoQ TCKVovTai vvKrag rifxipag t is;)', tv ale Ta vvv ^v/itpiava St^toiyuara iv Bopl diatnCE^Qini' Ik tr/xmpov \uyov. And whenever the disruption may arrive, it will pro- bably be evident that it was a s. Qd. *^* The Fourth Edition of " Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers," vrith 8 coloured Illustra- tions, may still be had, in One Volume, square crown 8vo. price 2\s. XTIII ^ rpHE OLD GLACIERS of NORTH WALES and SWITZER- JL LAND. By A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S. and G.S., Local Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. Reprinted from Peaks, Passes, and Giaoiees ; with Map and Woodcuts Fcp. 8vo. is. Qd. XTX "THE EAGLE'S NEST" in the Valley of Sixt : a Summer J- Home among the Alps. By Ali'red Wilis, Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition. With 12 Illustrations on Stone, and 2 Maps Post 8vo. 12*. 6rf. 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