EMIGRATION AND THE COLONIES 861
had been previously available!, and whether it was no, in A-D. 1776
the existing economic conditions, the best available means ’
for developing the new lands. But a time had arrived when
a better system of recruiting the population could be intro-
duced, and Mr*Wakefield rightly attached great importance
to every circumstance that might induce good citizens to
emigrate ; he was anxious that they should have full political
freedom and abundant opportunity for the exercise of their
religion?, Besides laying stress on the quality and character
of the emigrants, Mr Wakefield insisted on the importance of
attracting capital to the Colonies, and the formation of capital
in the Colonies. The first point of his programme, which
Government adopted? was the proposal to discontinue the
practice of making free grants of land; he urged that by
selling the unoccupied land it would be possible to prevent
boo great diffusion, and to form a fund which might serve to
promote and assist the emigration of selected labourers*.
The agitation which was commenced by Wakefield is He helped
. . oe . . to create
important as marking the beginning of the reaction against g new en-
the indifference with which the Colonies had been regarded. fi an ®
The movement did not make much headway at once, but it §7ve 4
has grown in strength, and given rise to the intense en-
thusiasm for imperial development, which was exhibited at
the Great Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Wakefield did not
regard the settling of mew lands as a mere relief to con-
gestion at home; he believed that this form of enterprise
would react on the old country, so as to insure still greater
prosperity than before. “Colonisation,” he insists, “has a
tendency to increase employment for capital and labour at
home. * * * The common idea is that emigration of capital
t Australian public opinion in 1840 appears to have still been divided on the
question whether it was desirable to dispense with this method of recruiting the
abouring population. Merivale, Lectures on Colonization (1861), 855.
" Wakefield, Art of Colonisation, 55.
3 In 1831 a new departure was taken in the mother colony of Australia, as
Lord Ripon instituted the system of disposing of land by public auction; but the
practice of making free grants was not altogether discontinued till 1838. In 1840
the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission was created, and the rule was laid
lown that the proceeds of land sales should be held in trust by “te Imperial
Fovernment for the benefit of that part of the colony in which the land was
situated. Jenks, op. cit. 62.
t+ Wakefield, 4rt of Colonisation. 44.
