CHAPTER I
THE INFLUENCE OF THE IDEAS OF GIBBON WAKEFIELD
The year 1831 may well be considered a landmark in the Revival of
• interest in
history of Colonial policy. We have seen that the distress Coloniza- which followed upon the exhaustion of the years after the tion - Peace caused men’s minds to consider once more emigration and colonization as possible cures for social ills. A Committee of the House of Commons, which considered the subject in 1826-7, strongly recommended emigration by local authorities. In the order of nature, they affirm, 1 food must precede population, and colonization—that is, an emigration where the labourers are aided by capital—provides that food. In an unrestricted and disproportioned emigration of labourers, no such provision being made, population, contrary to the order of nature, precedes food.
It had been the intention of Huskisson, 2 when Colonial Secretary, to establish a Land Board in London for the management of the Colonial Crown lands. It has incidentally been noted how lamentably this source of Imperial wealth had been wasted 8 by improvident Governors and greedy Councils. Rules restricting the amount of grants had been ignored or ingeniously evaded.
In 1831, however, Instructions with reference to the Colonial lands were issued by the Colonial Secretary, Lord Goderich, which opened out a new policy with regard to the question.
The credit of this new policy belongs undoubtedly to Gibbon Wakefield. The Colonization Society had been founded in 1830, the object of which was to substitute systematic colonization for mere emigration. Hitherto there had been practice without theory. The aim of the reformers of 1830 was to insist that practice should be carried out in accordance with definite theory.
1 Pari. Pap., 1827. 2 Col. Torrens, Ev. before H. of C. Com. of 1836.
8 The whole of Prince Edward’s Island was alienated in one day.
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