fidence in the judgment and integrity of a minister, who in colonial arrangements, affecting the property and even the lives of thousands of families, has such a strong personal or family interest in favour of a speculative colony!

With respect to the grant of one million of acres to "the Australian Agricultural Company;" at the end of the sixteenth year, it appears that there were not one thousand acres in cultivation-that the population of a tract of country equal in area to the county of Kent, in England, consisted of seventy-nine free individuals, and 547 convicts without wives-that the whole colony of New South Wales was subject to a monopoly of the supply of coals by that Company, and a price charged accordingly for that indispensable necessary of life. All these results have taken place from plans which were formed or approved of by the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, while a member of the government from 1824 to 1829.*

The national feelings of the people of this country are in favour of colonization, because the people are persuaded into the belief, that colonies promote our manufactures, commerce, and, above all, our shipping. But to a great extent, there is a mistake on all these points.

The annual report published on the 31st January, 1843, confirms the statement in the text. The Australian Agricultural Company, established under the auspices of Sir Robert Peel, while in the government, is a miserable failure, and a disgrace to the country, and to the very age. From December, 1838, to December, 1841, the population has increased from 626 to 713 souls, of whom 389 are convicts. The sheep have diminished from 85,647, in 1838, to 78,569, in 1841-and in 1841 the value of the "growing crops" of a Company, with a grant of one million of acres is put down in the accounts at £245!

The only item that appears to have increased is 1,401 tons of coals more in 1841, than in the previous year; and be it observed, that the Company possesses a monopoly of the supply of coal to the colony of New South Wales!

Our manufacturers, our merchants, our shipowners, and our industrious farmers, are certainly very little benefited by 620 individuals employed in tending cattle and sheep spread over a million of acres. These lands are picked and chosen for the advantage of situation, for their fertility, and, above all, for the command of water, and consequently they ought to be able to maintain a considerable population.

The country must be poor indeed, if it could not support 20,000 families, of five persons each, thus affording a farm of fifty acres to each family: plenty of markets for the produce would be found in the towns and villages near.

Now, the supply of these 100,000 inhabitants would be an object to manufacturers, and the conveyance of the supplies would require a good many vessels.

There is another interest to be taken into account, namely, the banking interest, which in the Australian colonies appears of value and importance. All persons acquainted with the principles of business must agree, that in banking, an amount divided into a great many small sums, affords for business more security and profit than the same amount made up of a few large sums. In trade, in banking, and also in politics, it will be found that the larger the number of persons interested in them, the greater is the security for all. Would that this great truth could be impressed on governments, in the management of Colonies!-but provinces are granted to individuals who allow the lands to remain deserts, and millions are doomed to perish, or wander over the earth in search of a resting place.

In confirmation of an extravagant and unscientific assignment of the public lands in British Colonies, it is only necessary to state, that in the Canadas, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the Australian Colonies, without taking

in New Zealand, there are upwards of seventy-eight millions of acres, granted almost without valuable consideration. It is to be particularly noticed, that that vast territory assigned to a comparatively small number of individuals, is all picked land, of good quality, and in the most favourable situations as respects water and other advantages. The area of Great Britain and Ireland, with the adjacent islands, including mountains, lakes and rivers, and sterile land, is only about seventy-seven millions and a half of acres. The proportion of population to gross numbers of acres in the year 1841, was as follows:

Average of England, about 24 acres for each soul.

The argument incessantly urged by the favourers of colonization is, that the waste lands are for homes for our overplus population; but this over-abundant population is not treated fairly, as it finds a third party standing between it and the state, as the owner and lord of the public lands. With such resources as Great Britain possesses, it is a melancholy thing to say, that our emigrant farmers, and hardy labourers, will find a system established in the United States of North America, under which they will experience more attention to their necessities.*

* Now, that the question respecting the frontier line between the British settlements of New Brunswick, and the North-eastern States of the North American Republic, has been settled by treaty, it may be stated, that the delay and the uncertainty for fifty years have preserved about ten millions of good land from having been granted in the usual grasping manner of English ministers. In this view, it is a happy thing that the lands have been retained for the use of hard-working agriculturists, whether American or British, rather than fall into the idle hands of court favourites, or of the unenterprising poor cousins of secretaries of state. Do not suppose that

As the author of these pages has bestowed a good deal of attention on our systems of colonization, he cannot resist offering a few remarks whenever the subject presents itself. As the matter comes in the way, the people of this country may be reminded that they have just been charged with a debt of three hundred thousand pounds, incurred in the foundation and gross mismanagement of a colony planted in Australia so late as the year 1835.*

this idea is an idle imagination. The whole of the lands in Prince Edward's Island, in the neighbourhood of New Brunswick were granted away in one day to seventy-five grantees. The quantity of public land thus spoliated was 1,457,209 acres.

"The whole of the land was granted in one day to absentee proprietors upon terms which have never been fulfilled."-Lord Durham's Report on the Canadas, p. 14.

The whole sum received for the lands was £731.

• Refer for particulars to the proceedings in the House of Commons, in the month of July 1842.-"The Mother-country was charged with a debt of £300,000, and with 20,000 a year for the maintenance of paupers in the colony of South Australia, founded on what are called the Wakefield principles !'”—Among the millions voted to be charged on the impoverished people of this country, by forty-five or fifty men, who go through the farce of legislation between sleeping and waking, there are few items which contain more secret history than the above-mentioned sum of £300,000!

CHAP. IX.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF THE ASSIGNMENT OF PUBLIC LANDS IS FORMING A NATIONAL CHARACTER WHICH COMBINES THE SUBTLETY OF THE JEWISH AND THE ENERGY OF THE ROMAN.

THERE is one nation in the world, that, under our own observation, is advancing by gigantic strides to population, wealth, and power. This nation is the United States of North America; and if the cause of this extraordinary progress be sought for, it will be found in the mode of the assignment of the public lands to the people. Without having copied the laws of the ancient Jewish or Roman legislators, the Americans adopted the principles of them so far in their land-regulations, as to offer to every man, on equitable conditions, as much land as the circumstances of his family demand.

By the law of Moses, the lands were divided among all the citizens, with the exception of the priesthood, in proportion to their families, and by this plan the means of subsistence were provided, and the principle of equality was recognized, for all. Perhaps it was even compulsory on the Israelites, to occupy and cultivate the farms assigned to them.

By the laws of the United States, there is no division of the lands made among the citizens, but the principle on