Patrick Matthew

“ It is merely a nursing of misery,—keeping up a vast number of unemployed people, ready at all times, should labour come a little more into demand, to compete with those in employment, and keep down wages to the lowest pitch that the animal machine can be kept working upon. It is the interest of the property-holders to have a very numerous population at this lowest pitch, and their poor-rate and charity contributions are virtually a mere pittance-supply to prevent their indirect slaves from perishing. ”

“ Prevented by our trade-restrictive system from obtaining a market in foreign nations for the immense surplus fabrics which this vast increase of power is capable of producing, there is only one other available resource,—to transplant our surplus working-population to new lands. This would not only bring about a salutary balance in our home economy, but at the same time, by raising up new and most valuable customers, would afford wide and extending fields of consumption, commensurate with the future increase of our powers of production. ”

“ The plain fact is, that the Swan River and South Australia colonization has been sacrificed, and the New Zealand London colonization is about to be sacrificed, to a scheme of master and servants, under circumstances where master and servants, at least to any considerable extent, is impracticable. In a new colony, at least under the present diffusion of knowledge amongst British men, it is imperative that the majority of the colonists be working capitalists. This is absolutely necessary to solder a new society together. ”

“ The proper means to prevent settlers from seizing upon more land than they can put to good use, and taking up too wide an arrangement, is not a high price upon fresh lands (which is merely to suck out the life’s-blood of the colonist just as he is about to commence the arduous combat) , but a low land tax per acre, rated permanently to three or more class qualities of soil. This is the only genuine tax,—should be the only tax, and made available to the whole government of the colony. ”

“ With an overflowing capital, and a population, notwithstanding our emigration, increasing at present nearly 400,000 annually, and as things are regulated beyond the means of full subsistence and labour-demand, Britain is placed under circumstances more favourable than ever occurred at any former period for carrying the principle of colonization into effect to its fullest, most salutary extent. The importance of emigration, as before stated, is proved by the immense and most advantageous trade we now carry on with the countries we have colonized ”

“ Under a properly regulated colonization, to obey the common instincts of nature, “to increase and multiply,” instead of being, as it too frequently has been in Britain, a curse, will become, as in the United States, a blessing. Things have been so far misdirected hitherto, that the greatly increased facilities of production of what is necessary to the comfort and pleasurable existence of man, which, under proper direction, ought to have benefited all classes, has only administered to the luxury of a comparatively small number, the property class. ”

“ We find in Van Diemen’s Land, which approaches the New Zealand climate, that the rose of health is common, although it seldom is so on the main of Australia, where the air is too dry and parching for this species of flower. The British Fair may rely that England’s Rose will not fail to blossom in New Zealand in all its native richness, giving the unmatched tinge of flower-beauty and freshness. ”

“ What is required is, that the extension of colonization should go hand in hand with the extension of manufactures, thus generating new markets in proportion to the increase of fabrics.
But, at the present moment, it is as a salutary drain to our overstocked labour-market, that colonization is so vitally necessary. To bring things to a healthy state, a vast exportation of working-population must in the first place be effected, and to keep them so, a constant great stream of emigration must be afterwards kept up. ”

“ Estimating the advantages of position, extent, climate, fertility, adaptation for trade,—all the causes which have tended to render Britain the emporium of the world, we can observe only one other spot on the earth equally, if not more favoured by nature, and that is New Zealand. ”

“ Colonial intercourse is in effect a circumscribed kind of free trade, under peculiarly favourable circumstances; and the amazing increase, and vast extent and advantage, of our colonial trade, is the most direct proof of the advantage, not only to Britain, but to mankind, which would result from free trade over all. Every enactment to prevent the exchange of the produce of labour between man and man, and nation and nation, if the article is not injurious to health and morals, is truly diabolic. ”

“ We would remit from the heated fancies of ignorant closet colonists to the experienced judgment of men who have seen colonization going on, and more especially who have borne a part in it, to determine of the utter unfitness of the “sufficient price.” Has the attempt at the sufficient price worked well in South Australia? Has not a great proportion of the small capitalists lost their capital and been forced to become servants (in some cases obliged to the servants they had carried out for procuring a master) , while only the larger capitalists have been able to hold out? ”

“ This arises from the favourable field for industry, and the social advantages they enjoy. Nothing hinders Great Britain from enjoying these, and even greater advantages, but her own stupid and guilty neglect. In many respects she is equally favourably circumstanced as America, in some much more favourably. Her climate is better, her capital beyond comparison greater, her machinery and aids of human labour and advantages of combined labour vastly superior, her new unpeopled territory more extensive and more favourably situated for trade, and equally easily reached. ”

“ They, with their families, will themselves cultivate the lands they purchase, as is done in the non-slave portion of the United States, where the principles of colonization, from greater experience, are better understood than in Britain, and where the practice is successful beyond all parallel, the only instance of successful colonization on an extensive scale without slavery,—indeed, the only manner in which colonization can now succeed without slavery, notwithstanding of the “sufficient price,” (merely a new Corn Law!) or any other servant-producing scheme it is possible to devise. ”

“ By a properly conducted colonization, in the first place, diminishing the labour-supply, and acting as a stimulus to our labour-market, and afterwards affording a continually increasing stimulus by means of the new-created, fast-extending colonial field of demand for British manufactures, and all this working in mutual reaction to excite industry, we may in reality go on improving till Britain produce ten times over what she now produces. ”

“ Is the sufficient price calculated for New Zealand? Why import so many servants when it is so politic to employ native labour, and to leave the labour market open for this supply? The natives say they have a double motive for selling land to the British—the price they receive for it, and the employment they procure in cultivating it. ”

“ There will, no doubt, be servants or helps in New Zealand, and need for them, too, in some cases, independent, even, of what the natives will supply. But any scheme of emigration to encourage the system of master and servants to such an unnatural excess as to allot (as it is said they propose) 75 per cent of the whole price of the lands to carry on the servant-trade from Britain to New Zealand, would be attended with the most injurious consequences, not only to the employment and civilization of the natives, but to the prosperity of the settlement, if it did not ruin it altogether. ”

“ When the land, from its redundancy in proportion to population, as in America, is of little or no value, the whole property consists of labour, or the produce of labour; and the covetous man not being able to satisfy his lust for riches by the produce of his own labour, has no other way of gratifying it but by obtaining possession of the persons of his fellow-men, and compelling them to labour the otherwise unprofitable ground for his emolument ”

“ Charity is not less injurious as interfering with the great law of nature, by which pain and death are the established penalty of ignorance, idleness, and improvidence; enjoyment and life the reward of knowledge, industry, and forethought. ”

“ When more than one-half of the earth is wilderness, and transport become so easy, it is treason to the human race to speak of preventive or destructive checks. As things are now situated, every adult in Great Britain has a right to demand of the Government to be put in a condition of marrying, should he incline, with the certainty by common industry of providing comfortably for a family. ”

“ The withering effects of the arid climate of Australia, is manifest in the haggard walking skeletons of the aborigines, while the balmy mildness and moist air of New Zealand exerts a directly opposite effect, evinced in the fine stately forms, smooth polished skin, and rounded beauty of the Malayan population, although they are evidently a little out of climate—so far removed from the Tropics; much more must this delicious climate have a propitious effect upon the Caucasian British race, who are naturally suited to the climate. ”

“ Not only can working small capitalists emigrate in a sufficient number, especially by uniting their efforts, but working men without any capital, have it in their power by forming Emigrant Associations, with weekly subscriptions, to invest money in new lands, [12] and to export portions of their own body to these lands should the hire of labour be too low here, or whenever the want of labour-demand threatened to reduce wages. To diminish the supply and increase the demand is the only legitimate way to keep up the price. ”

“ The natives of New Zealand themselves admit, and every stranger who has been amongst them corroborates the fact, that they are incapable of combining and forming any thing like a responsible government fitted to treat with other governments, and to observe international law, or even to maintain any proper government authority within the territory of New Zealand. They have, therefore, no national or government right to the New Zealand territory, and have only individual right to those parts which they cultivate or derive some benefit from by occupancy. ”

“ No Company in London can assume a government right over New Zealand, which, by first formal occupancy by Captain Cook, belongs of recognised right to the crown of Great Britain. Still less can this company receive any government right, or individual right, to lands in New Zealand from the natives, who, we have shewn, have no such rights to give, except in regard to the small portions which the natives have acquired individual right to by cultivation. ”

“ In the case of a region only inhabited by a few scattered barbarous tribes, totally incapable of instituting any responsible government, and where, in consequence, the country and adjacent sea are infested with lawless bands of robbers and pirates, any nation which possesses the power has a right to interfere, establish a government, and colonize,—surely much more so in the case of New Zealand by Britain than in the case of Florida by the United States. ”

“ The condition of working small-capitalists is generally the consequence of some mental superiority, which has led the individual to be providently industrious, and to despise mere momentary sensual gratification. It is the boldest and wisest of these who will join in this scheme. And amongst the working classes, those who possess the greatest share of moral courage, intelligence, and determination of purpose, will be the men who will join the Emigration Societies, and work out their own and their family’s independence, at whatever cost of present exertion and self-denial. ”

“ In the case of the scant-peopling hunter, the imperative necessity of an overflowing population, such as that of Britain, is a justifiable reason for breaking up his preserves. In the case of the pastoral people of South Africa, it is unjustifiable to invade their territory and disturb their quiet feeding herds, at least while any part of the world available for British emigration remains under the hunter occupancy. ”

“ From the unlimited supply of new land, colonies are especially fitted for a connection with Britain. Being in the opposite extremes of condition, they are in the highest degree mutually beneficial, the former affording the raw material in exchange for the more laboured products of industry of the latter, while at the same time the colonists are by habit great consumers of British manufactures. ”

“ From the unsteady climate and extreme droughts of our colonies in New Holland, they, as they become more populous, will be periodically subjected to destructive famine, unless some neighbouring country, whose climate does not partake of the same vicissitudes, can afford them supplies. Excepting New Zealand, the distance to other countries from whence sufficient supplies could be obtained is so great, that extreme horrors of famine might be experienced before intelligence of their wants could go out, and supplies back could reach them. ”