most flourishing, the most peaceful and peaceable, has attained its astonishing prosperity, has acquired its incredible riches, mainly through emigration; and that—in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of one thousand—voluntary emigration of the poor.
This Paper and the amended Scheme were completed on the date printed at the end. Next morning I called upon the High Commissioner for Canada, who kindly advised me to read a work by the late Mr. E. Gibbon Wakefield, which I first heard of in August, 1 88 1, when an acquaintance showed me in it the Parliamentary motion of Mr. Buller already referred to. I glanced over the pages then, but did not notice anything special in them. Having now consulted this book (entitled, A View of the Art of Colonization, London, Parker, 1849), I have been much struck by the prefatory quotation on page i, from a writer whose words carry weight with Mr. Bright—"There need be no hesitation in affirming that colonization, in the present state of the world, is the very best affair of business in which the capital of an old and wealthy country can possibly engage " (John Stuart Mill).
There is a great deal of highly interesting elaborate argument in Mr. Wakefield's book, generally corroborating much I have advanced, but the ultimate outcome appears to reduce itself to recommendations that Government should sell colonial lands to capitalists, and assist unemployed labourers by paying their passage money out of the proceeds of such sales. Mr. Buller's very valuable speech, given in full, concludes even more lamely as follows—" It is not my purpose to propose any specific measure to the House. … I only ask it to perfect the details of the system now in force." At Sion College, where I read this, another book was shown me, called Lectures on Colonization and Colonies, by Herman Merivale, Professor of Political Economy (London, Longmans, 1861), and, having run through it too, I am more than ever persuaded my own project is original, practical, and unique.
With a confidence, then, resting on solid grounds, I ask all with influence to support it: while to all in power I boldly say—adopt this Scheme quickly, execute it vigorously, courageously, and you shall find its bearing vis-a-vis of disturbing, menacing forces now urging a ruthless disruption of English society, will be that of an efficacious message of peace.
