Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
That it may be desirable to tempt the capitalist abroad by securing
him an abundance of hired labour, something like that which lies at
his door in England, we do not dispute. But the thing is impossible.
You cannot manage this by direct legislation. You cannot combine in
one settlement the advantages of a new and of an old country. It is
not in the wit of man to bring together these two stages of society.
Our political economist is in too great a haste to be rich: he forgets
the many lessons he has given to others against bootless and
mischievous intermeddling with the natural course of things. Meanwhile
"the attempt will confound us,"--it will throw an unpopularity over
the whole subject of emigration in the minds of the working classes.
Already we hear it murmured that the land is to be made a monopoly for
the rich; that the man of small substance is to be discouraged; that
the sole object of the moneyed class is to make profit of the labours
of others; and that they are bent upon creating, artificially, in the
colony, those circumstances which put the workmen in their power in
the old country. We would earnestly counsel those who are interested
in the subject of emigration, to consider well before they teach or
practise this new "_art_ of colonisation."
Those who have not perused Mr Wakefield's book may, perhaps, entertain
a suspicion that, in thus separating the objects for which a price is
to be laid on land, admitting the one and rejecting the other, we are
only engaging ourselves unnecessarily in a theoretical debate. If a
price is to be affixed, the result, it may seem to them, is
practically the same, whatever the object may be. But the practical
result would be very different; for a very different price would be
exacted, according to the object in view, as well as a very different
motive assigned for imposing it. The price at which a considerable
fund would be raised for the purpose of emigration, would be too low
to answer the purpose of restraining the labourer from soon becoming a
proprietor of land. Those, however, who are familiar with Mr
Wakefield's book, know well that this last purpose forms the very
substance of the plan it proposes; and that hitherto no
price--although it has ranged as high as 40s. per acre--has been
considered sufficiently high to effect the object of the theorist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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