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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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."

      Admirable machinery! No steam-engine could let its steam on, or off, with more precision. The legislature or governor "could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful," and open or close his value accordingly. "No legislature, hardly any individual could be in doubt" about the matter! Indeed! when was hired labour ever thought too cheap – in other words, too plentiful – by the capitalist? When was it ever thought too dear – in other words, too scarce – by the labourer? Could the most ingenious man devise a question on which there would be more certainly two quite opposite and conflicting opinions? And suppose the legislature to have come to a decision – say that the labour was too scarce – there would still be this other question to decide, whether to lower the price, in order to tempt emigrants, might not be as good a means of rendering labour more plentiful, as to raise the price in order to render it still more difficult for labourers to become landowners? Here there is surely scope for the most honest diversity of opinion. One party might very rationally advise to entice thither the stream of emigration: – "Let it flow more copiously," they might exclaim, "though we retain the waters for a shorter time;" while the party thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of the "sufficient price" would devise fresh dikes and dams, and watch the locks more narrowly.

      In his "sufficient price," Mr Wakefield has discovered the secret spring that regulates the economical relations of society. He has his hand upon it. He, or his lawgiver, will henceforward regulate the supply of labour, and the remuneration of labour, upon scientific principles. Unenviable post! We should infinitely prefer the task of the philosopher in Rasselas, who fancied himself commissioned to distribute rain and sunshine, in just proportions, to all the farmers in the neighbourhood.

      It is quite curious to observe how strong a faith our projector has in his theory of a sufficient price, and how singular a bias this has exerted on his mind in some other matters of speculation. He finds that slavery, both in olden and modern times, has been all owing to "cheapness of land." Could he have fixed his sufficient price upon the arable land in Chaldea, or about the cities of Athens and Rome, neither the patriarchs, nor the Greeks, nor the Romans, would have known the institution of slavery. "Slavery is evidently," he says, "a make-shift for hiring; a proceeding to which recourse is had only where hiring is impossible, or difficult. Slave labour is, on the whole, much more costly than the labour of hired freemen; and slavery is also full of moral and political evils, from which the method of hired labour is exempt. Slavery, therefore, is not preferred to the method of hiring: the method of hiring would be preferred if there was a choice." – (P. 324.) Most logical "therefore!" The mode of hiring is preferred by those to whom experience has taught all this; but slavery, so far from being the "make-shift," is the first expedient. It is the first rude method which unscrupulous power adopts to engross the produce of the earth. The stronger make the weaker labour for them. "It happens," he continues, "wherever population is scanty in proportion to land." It happens wherever people prefer idleness to work, and have been able to coerce others to labour for them, whether land has been plentiful or not. Was it abundance of land, or the military spirit, that produced the amiable relationship between the Spartan and the Helot? – or was there any need of a "sufficient price" to limit the supply of good land in Egypt, which lay rigidly enough defined between the high and low margin of a river? Or could any governor, with his tariff of prices, have performed this duty more effectually than the Nile and the desert had done between them?

      But the most amusing instance is still to follow. "It was the cheapness of land that caused Las Casas (the Clarkson or Wilberforce of his time, as respects the Red Indians of America) to invent the African slave-trade. It was the cheapness of land that brought African slaves to Antigua and Barbadoes." – (P. 328.) It was the cheapness of land! If land had been dearer, the Spaniards would have worked for themselves, and not have asked the Red Indians for their assistance! If land had been dearer in Antigua and Barbadoes, the climate would have lost its influence on European frames, and Englishmen would have laboured in their own sugar plantations!

      Doubtless the difficulty of obtaining hired labour has been sometimes a reason, and sometimes an excuse, for the continuance of slavery. It is also true that the willingness of the discharged slave to work, as a hired labourer, is almost a necessary condition to the extinction of slavery. But, losing sight of all our amiable passions and propensities, to describe slavery as originating altogether in the scarcity of hired labour, (as if the slave had first had the offer made to him to work for wages, and had refused it,) and then СКАЧАТЬ