Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

Recollect that it is not slave labour, or convict labour, that we are here dealing with: it is the free labour of one man working for another man, at wages. He gets all the wages he can, and gives as little labour as he can. If the wages are high, and the inducement to save but feeble, he will probably earn by one day's work what will enable him to pass the two next in idleness and debauchery. What boon will Mr Wakefield have conferred upon the capitalist?

The theory of a "sufficient price" is, therefore, placed in this hopeless predicament: – 1. It would be almost impossible to enforce it; and, 2. If enforced, it would fail of its purpose. It would supply the capitalist with inefficient, profligate, and idle workmen, on whose steady co-operation and assistance he could never calculate.

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.

"There is but one object of a price," says Mr Wakefield, (p. 347,) "and about that there can be no mistake. The sole object of a price is to prevent labourers from turning into landowners too soon: the price must be sufficient for that one purpose, and no other." "The sufficient price," he says, (p. 339,) "has never yet been adopted by a colonising government." And a little further, (p. 341,) he thus continues: "There are but three places in which the price of new land has had the least chance of operating beneficially. These are South Australia, Australia Felix, and New Zealand. In none of these cases did the plan of granting with profusion precede that of selling; but in none of them did the price required prevent the cheapest land from being cheap enough to inflict on the colony all the evils of an extreme scarcity of labour for hire. In these cases, moreover, a large portion of the purchase-money of waste land was expended in conveying labourers from the mother-country to the colony. If this money had not been so spent, the proportion of land to people would have been very much greater than it was, and the price of new land still more completely inoperative. More facts might be cited to show the insufficiency of the highest price yet required for new land."

We will continue our first quotation from p. 347. The manner in which Mr Wakefield himself exposes the difficulties of fixing the "sufficient price," and the very inadequate expedient he points out for obviating, or avoiding, these difficulties, may throw some further light upon the matter.

"The sole object of a price is to prevent labourers from turning into landowners too soon: the price must be sufficient for that one purpose, and no other. The question is, What price would have that one effect? That must depend, first, on what is meant by 'too soon;' or on the proper duration of the term of the labourer's employment for hire; which again must depend upon the rate of the increase of population in the colony, especially by means of immigration, which would determine when the place of a labourer, turning out a landowner, would be filled by another labourer; and the rate of labour-emigration again must depend on the popularity of the colony at home, and on the distance between the mother-country and the colony, or the cost of passage for labouring people. Secondly, what price would have the desired effect, must depend on the rate of wages and cost of living in the colony, since according to these would be the labourer's power of saving the requisite capital for turning into a landowner: in proportion to the rate of wages, and the cost of living, would the requisite capital be saved in a longer or a shorter time. It depends, thirdly, on the soil and climate of the colony, which would determine the quantity of land required (on the average) by a labourer, in order to set himself up as a landowner. If the soil and climate were unfavourable to production, he would require more acres; if it were favourable, fewer acres would serve his purpose: in Trinidad, for example, ten acres would support him well; in South Africa, or New South Wales, he might require fifty or a hundred acres. But the variability in our wide colonial empire, not only of soil and climate, but of all the circumstances on which a sufficient price would depend, is so obvious, that no examples of it are needed. It follows, of course, that different colonies, and sometimes different groups of similar colonies, would require different prices. To name a price for all the colonies, would be as absurd as to fix the size of a coat for mankind.

"'But, at least,' I hear your Mr Mother-country say, 'name a price for some particular colony – a price founded on the elements of calculation which you have stated.' I could do that, certainly, for some colony with which I happen to be particularly well acquainted, but I should do it doubtingly, and with hesitation; for, in truth, the elements of calculation are so many, and so complicated in their various relations to each other, that in depending on them exclusively there would be the utmost liability to error. A very complete and familiar knowledge of them in each case would be a useful general guide, would throw valuable light on the question, would serve to inform the legislator how far his theory and his practice were consistent or otherwise; but, in the main, he must rely, and if he had common sagacity he might solely and safely rely, upon no very elaborate calculation, but on experience, or the facts before his eyes. He could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful in the colony. If it were too plentiful, he would know that the price of new land was too high – that is, more than sufficient: if it were hurtfully scarce, he would know that the price was too low, or not sufficient. About which the labour was – whether too plentiful or too scarce – no legislature, hardly any individual, could be in doubt , so plain to the dullest eye would be the facts by which to determine that question. If the lawgiver saw that the labour was scarce, and the price too low, he would raise the price; if he saw that labour was superabundant, and the price too high, he would lower the price; if he saw that labour was neither scarce nor superabundant, he would not alter the price, because he would see that it was neither too high nor too low, but sufficient."