Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/104

 The remedy propounded in 1829, (repeated with equal confidence in 1849,) is to make land so dear that labourers shall not be able to obtain posession [sic] of land "too soon"—to affix to all colonial land what Mr. Wakefield calls in another work a "hired labour price." And further, that the money for which the land sold should be devoted to the importation of the redundant labour of the mother country an importation which he advises should be conducted with a view to the greatest benefit of the capitalist,—that is to say, it should consist entirely of young married couples under five-and-twenty years of age, unencumbered by children or parents. "Family Colonisation" had no charms for Gibbon Wakefield.

Thus supplied with ample cargoes of healthy young labourers of both sexes, debarred by a sufficient price from becoming freeholders, the writer of the letter from Sydney "promises that the capitalists shall find ample profitable employment for their capital, shall concentrate population, carry on model farming, cultivate art and science."

But he anticipates one important question which he answers thus:—

"It becomes clear that the object we have in view may be attained by fixing some considerable price on waste land. Still, how is the proper price to be ascertained? Frankly, I confess I do not know. I believe that it could be determined only by experience." This was in 1829. Twenty years later, in 1849, after having experimented on New South Wales, and on three colonies in New Zealand, and provided for all his relations in snug colonial berths, he says,—"It is here that I have been frequently and tauntingly required to mention what I deem the sufficient price; but I have hitherto avoided falling into the trap which that demand upon me really is. I could do that certainly for some colony with which I am particularly well acquainted, but I should do so doubtingly and with hesitation, for 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 liability to error."

We may observe that this caution in naming price only extended to books and pamphlets, as Mr. Wakefield never hesitated to assure those who bought lots of land in his model colonies that they would enjoy all the advantages it was presumed a sufficient price would confer. Therefore, of course, the colonising purchasers, seeing Mr. Wakefield in constant communication with the managers of each colony, took it for granted that 12s. in South Australia, or 20s. at Wellington, New Zealand, or 30s. at Nelson, and £3 at Canterbury, according to the colony, was the "sufficient price."

At the period when this theory, in every respect so plausible, was