266 
EMIGRATION. 
for those mild and genial climes, the outposts of the empire, 
a large portion of that stream of emigration which has hitherto 
been lost to the British dominions. 
Another consideration remains to be noticed. Let a liberal 
system be adopted, and it would generally tend to retain and 
increase the emigrant’s attachment to his native land, when he 
could feel that it had exercised a paternal care for him on 
leaving its shores, by thus providing means for his future 
welfare. Had such a plan as this been sooner adopted, it is 
not unreasonable to suppose, that there would not have been 
any of that dissatisfaction and republican spirit which now, 
more or less, pervades the British colonies. A feeling so 
unnatural, can only be traced to the ruined hopes of those 
whose disappointed expectations have had their origin in their 
country’s neglect of them. Under a different system, the love 
and attachment of the distant settler, will still fill his breast, 
and be transmitted to his children’s children, for the land of 
his forefathers. 
It must be confessed, that there is a party strongly opposed 
to cheap land, from the fear that it will make all proprietors, 
and destroy the laboring class. This is especially the fear of 
the gentleman settler, and the successful speculator: the one 
fears the want of labor, the other the depreciation of his 
property. 
There can be no doubt that, whether the price of land be 
high or low, all will be landholders, and labor will be high; 
it is neither possible nor desirable to hinder this. The in¬ 
dustrious will get on, and possess land. Even in New 
Zealand, large land proprietors have been compelled to pay 
their butcher’s and baker’s bills with land. Mr. Peel, the 
founder of the Swan River settlement, found little benefit 
from his monster grant, many as his acres were; they were 
soon paid away for labor, and his servants became the chief 
men. In fact, all those fanciful theories of transplanting 
society, in all its artificial relations and integrity, to a remote 
wilderness, is about as feasible as the removing of an aged oak, 
with all its roots and branches, from its native forest to the 
antipodes. The colony must pass through its varied stages 
