different and often contradictory modes, in which the governments of modern Europe have disposed of the chief element of colonization.

"What is the best mode in which to dispose of waste land with a view to colonization? In order to ascertain this, we must first determine what is, or ought to be, the immediate object of a colonizing government in exerting its power over waste land.

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Why should any government exert power over waste land, either by giving or withholding? Why not let individuals judge for themselves, as to the extent and situation of new land that each individual should like to call his own? This course has been recommended by some English economists; on the ground that individuals are the best judges of what is for their own interest, and that all unnecessary interference of government with the affairs of individuals, is sure to do more harm than good. But, in this case, the government must necessarily interfere to some extent; that is, it must establish or confirm a title to the land of which individuals had taken possession. Or, perhaps, those English economists who deprecate the interference of government in the disposal of waste land, would have each settler on new land to be a squatter;' a settler without a title, liable to be ousted by any other man who was stronger, and who, being the best judge of his own interest, should think it worth while to oust the first occupier. Passing by so absurd a conclusion from the principle of noninterference, let us now suppose the case in which a colonizing government should confine its interference to securing a property in that land of which individuals had taken possession. In this case, all the land to which it was possible that government should afterwards give a title, would immediately be taken possession of by a few individuals; good judges of their own interest, consulting their own advantage. But what, in this case, would become of all the other individuals, who, in pursuit of

their own advantage, might be desirous to obtain some waste land? This question settles the point. For the good of all, the interference of government is not less necessary, to prevent a few individuals from seizing all the waste land of the colony, than it is necessary to prevent robberies. As it is for the good of all that no one should be allowed to take any other one's property, so it is for the good of all that no individual should be allowed to injure other individuals by taking more than the right quantity of waste land. In the former case, government enforces a compact amongst all the members of society; an agreement that any one who takes the property of another, shall be punished: so, in the latter case, the interference of government with respect to waste land, is nothing but the enforcement of a compact amongst all who are interested in the disposal of waste land; an agreement that no one shall be allowed to injure the others, that the greatest good of all shall be consulted.

"This point settled, what, for the greatest good of all, is the immediate object of a colonizing government in exerting its power over waste land? Its ultimate object being the greatest progress of colonization, its immediate object is, that there should exist in the colony those circumstances which are best calculated to attract capital and labour, but especially labour, from an old country. The advantage of the emigrants, though one of the ends, is also an essential means of colonization. For the greatest advantage of immigrants to a colony, it is necessary that the colonial profits of capital, and wages of labour, should be as high as possible. High profits, then, and especially high wages, are the immediate object of a colonizing government in exerting its power over waste land

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In order to create and maintain a very high rate of wages in the colony, it is necessary, first, that the colonists should have an ample field of production; ample,

that is, in proportion to capital and labour; such an extent of land as to render unnecessary the cultivation of inferior soils, and to permit a large proportion of the people to be engaged in agriculture; a field, large from the beginning, and continually enlarged with the increase of capital and people. But, in the second place, it is quite as necessary, that the field of production should never be too large; should never be so large as to encourage hurtful dispersion; as to promote that cutting up of capital and labour into small fractions, which, in the greater number of modern colonies, has led to poverty and barbarism, or speedy ruin. For securing the first condition of high profits and wages, the power of the government over waste land must be exerted actively, in bestowing upon individuals titles to the possession of land for the second object, that power must be exerted negatively, in refusing titles to waste land. The action of the two exertions of power together, may be compared to that of an elastic belt, which, though always tight, will always yield to pressure from within.

It is easy to grant land, and easy to refuse applications for grants: the difficulty is, to draw a line between the active and negative exertions of power, so as to render the proportion which land bears to people, neither too small nor too great for the highest profits and wages." (England and America.)

The evils of superabundance of land have been fully described in the chapters on Slavery, and on the Art of Colonization in England and America, and have been recently exhibited in practice at the Swan River settlement. The land of a colony having no natural limit, if the government do not place some artificial limit on the appropriation of it by individuals, every individual in the colony is tempted to become a land-owner and cultivator. Hence two

kinds of evil. If each individual, or any great number of individuals, take more land than each can cultivate, the people are dispersed over a wide extent of country, and are separated from each other by intervening deserts. If each person appropriate no more land than he is able to cultivate, still, all being independent proprietors, both capital and labour are divided into fractions as numerous as the cultivators. In either case, society is almost dissolved. The people, whether separated by distance, or, however near they may be to each other, by each one becoming an independent land-owner, are all of one class: there is no class of capitalists, no class of labourers; nor indeed any classification, all being the same. But all being alike, each one is independent of all the others; and, in this state of things, (we must not say, society) it is impossible that large masses of capital and many hands should be employed in the same work, at the same time, and for a long period. And yet, without constancy and combination in the employment of capital and labour, the produce obtained never was, and never can be, large in proportion to the capital and labour. Unless the produce be large in proportion to the capital and labour employed in raising it, it cannot be cheap enough for exchange in distant markets; and thus a people, whose capital and labour were divided as in the supposed case, would necessarily be without foreign commerce. When, too, all are of the same class, or rather, there are no classes, all raise the same kind of produce; and there is no motive for exchange amongst the cultivators themselves. The labour, moreover, of each cultivator who does everything for himself, is necessarily divided amongst

so many occupations, that only a small portion of it can be bestowed on the work of production; and thus, even if the settlers should have a motive for dealing with each other, no two of them would have any surplus produce to exchange. The result is, that civilized men fall into a state of but half civilization; preserving, indeed, the knowledge and tools of their former condition, and, by applying these to very rich land, raising plenty of mere necessaries, but losing the powers which arise from mutual assistance, and the wants, tastes, and habits which belong to an advanced society.

In every colony of modern times, these evils have resulted, in a greater or less degree, from an excessive proportion of land, and, in most of such colonies, have been partially counteracted by the greater evil of negro slavery; as, for example, in the West Indies, North America, Brazil, and South Africa. For, whatever the proportion of land, even where it was so great that every freeman became a land-owner, still, with slavery, with human beings who could be prevented from obtaining land, there was constant and combined labour with which to employ large masses of capital in raising a produce cheap enough for distant markets. In the prosperous settlements of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, convicts have, to some extent, supplied the want of slaves. But those colonies, without any exception, in which there has been superabundance of land without any kind of slavery, have been eminently poor and barbarous ;* and the last

The states of the North American Union in which slavery is forbidden, are only parts of a society, whose slaves amount to 2,000,000, and are worth, to sell at market,