1831 Aug. 11
Colonization Society
Title and Contents
Title
Colonization Society /Company/ Proposals
being a Proposal for the formation of a Joint Stock Company by the name of the Colonization Company on a /an entirely/ new principle intituled the Vicinity-maximizing or Dispersion-preventing principle.
Contents
Preface. should not this come before, and be independent of - the Contents?
Ch.I
Special ends in view.
Ch.II
Means of effectuation - primary characteristic and distinctive - the Vicinity-maximizing or Dispersion-preventing, principle.
Ch.III
Mean of effectuation; pecuniary and quasi-pecuniary.
§.1. Grant of land to the Company from the Sovereign power of the Mother-Country
§.2. Formation by the Company of a capital say of £500,000, to be employed as a means with reference to the above special ends.
§.3. Division and dispersal proposed to be made of the land forming the subject matter of the grant.
§.4. Primary distribution and application proposed to be made of the Capital sum, as above. For the ulterior distribution see Ch.IV, §.1.
Ch.IV
Means of effectuation, incititive. To the several parties whose co-operation is necessary or would be beneficial, inducements to take the several parts respectively required of them /desired at their hands:/
§.1. Shareholders - or Members of the proposed Company and other contributors.
§.2. Settlers without capital - their inducements
§.3. Settlers with Capital - their inducements
§.4. Government of the Mother Country - its inducements.
Ch.V
Company's and Colony's Constitution taken together
§.1. Difficulty suggested
§.2. Remedy proposed
Ch.VI
Company's Constitution
Ch.VII
Colonial Constitution
§.1. What it can not be
§.2. What it may be
Ch.VIII
Colonial Management, what
1831 Aug. 5
Colonization Proposal
§.1. Special Ends in v
§.1. Special Ends in view
1. Transferring individuals, in an unlimited multitude from a state
of indigence to a state of affluence
2. Affording to a great part of the remaining portion of the
population of the Mother Country, relief, from the pressure of a state of continually
encreasing indigence, from which they can not at present be relieved, but by a
continually encreasing tax imposed upon the people of all degrees above the lowest in the scale of opulence.
4. Affording to the relatively opulent such tax-paying portion of the
people of England, immediate relief, more or less
considerable, from this pressure
5. Affording to them a security against all future encrease of the
existing pressure: a security which will not terminate, till the Australasian
Continent contains a population as dense as the European.
6. Giving to the immigrants into Australasia not merely the means of
existence, as above, but through means of education, the means of well-being in all time to come, as well in respect of the
mind, as in respect of the mind.
1831 Aug. 5
Colonization Proposal
§.1. Special ends in
6. Giving, in that Colony, in a correspondent degree, encrease to the market for the produce of the Mother Country: thereby, in this same Mother Country, over and above prevention of substraction from, making positive addition to the existing stock of the matter of wealth.
7. Giving to those same beneficial states of things, not merely a temporary, but a permanent, not to say perpetual existence, an existence having no other termination than that which will be produced by a density of population in the Colony equal to that which at the time in question has place in the Mother Country.
8. Giving to the Stockholders, a reasonable, and it is hoped a constantly encreasing rate of interest and profit on the capital advanced by them by the purchase of their respective shares.
1831 Aug. 9
Colonization Proposal
§.1. Special Ends in view
§.1. Special ends in view.
1. Transferring individuals in an unlimited multitude from a state of indigence to a state of affluence.
2. Relieving the remaining portion /a great part/ of the population of the Mother Country from the pressure of a continually increasing state of indigence from which they can not at present be relieved but by a continually increasing tax imposed upon the people of all degrees above the lowest in the scale of opulence.
4. Affording to the relatively opulent in the first instance a relief more or less considerable from the pressure.
5. Affording a security against all future increase of the existing pressure - a security which will not terminate till the Australian Continent contains a population as dense as the European.
6. Giving to the immigrants into Australia not merely the medium of existence as above but, through the medium of education the means of well-being in all time to come, as well in respect of the mind as in respect of the body
1831 Aug. 9
Colonization Society
Means of Effectuation
§. Pecuniary Means
Original Means of effectuation - Scene, England
1. Formation of a Joint-Stock Company, by the name of the Colonization Society or Colonization Company.
A certain number of individuals have agreed together to constitute themselves into a Joint Stock Company; if, for that purpose, they can obtain, at the hands of Government, the necessary powers. Name of the instrument by which these powers are granted - a Charter.
For the formation of it, a Charter from the Crown would be necessary
2. Name of the spot proposed a spot discovered by Capt. Flinders and by him named Gulph Vincent
Capital proposed to be raised £500,000
Disposal of it, as follows -
1. Paid to Government - to be employed by Government in defraying the expence of the transportation of persons consenting to be so dealt with on condition of their being provided for a certain length of time with the means of subsistence in consideration of the labour to be by them respectively employed, under the direction and for the benefit of their respective employers ... £125,000
2. To be employed in loans made to small capitalists on condition of their employing the money in the expences of making [?] settlement in the Colony, and advancing for that purpose each of them a sum equal to the sum advanced to them by the Company .... £125,000
3. To be employed in means of communication of all sorts: such as Roads, by land and water, Bridges for the purpose of giving a factitious value to all lands in contiguity with them and near vicinity, to an indefinite extent. £250,000
________
500,000
1831 Aug.
Colonization Society
Ch.II Means of effectuation - primary
§.1. Vicinity maximizing Dispersion-preventing
§.2. Dispersion - its evil effects
§.2. Dispersion - its disad[van]tageous effects.
Dispersion bears reference to the center of government: of defensive force and of commercial intercourse.
Of its disadvantageous effects, examples are the following.
In general, of the evil from dispersion, the magnitude is as the distance between the one object and the other
But the distance in question is susceptible of two diversifications: viz the distance in question may be the distance 1 of the several individuals from the seat of government, as above 2 of two or more of the individuals in question from one another.
1. Of Evils, springing from the proportioned to distance of the individual in question from the seat of government examples are the following
1. Insecurity against damage to person and property from the hostility of the uncivilized aborigines
2. Insecurity against the like from disorderly Settlers
3. Distance from the only place at which material of subsistence and materials of instruments necessary to production and communication say conveyance can be obtained; obtained, - whether by purchase, hire, or borrowing
4. Distance at the only place in which means of reparation for instruments of all sorts can be obtained:- as above
5. Distance from the only place at which value for surplus produce in any shape can be obtained
6. Distance from the only place, at which intelligence of good or evil, present, past, or future probable, from any source, can be obtained.
1831 Aug.12
Colonization Society
Ch.II Means of effectuation primary
1. Vicinity maximizing or say Dispersion minimizing
§.2. Dispersion - its evil effects
7. Distance from the only place, at which social intercourse at large, and the various and endless comforts that depend upon it can be obtained.
8. Distance from the only place, in which in so far as the co-operation of other persons, other than the members of ones own family can, for any purpose, on any terms, be obtained.
9. Distance from the only place at which medical advice or assistance can be obtained.
10. Distance from the only place, to which for the purpose of obtaining return in any shape, produce, in any shape can be conveyed.
11. Distance from the only place in which instruction or useful information in any shape can be obtained.
12. Distance from the only place in which amusement in any shape can be obtained
By vicinity of the settlers to one another, the evils of all from distance on the part of all from the only place from which any thing needful or desirable can be obtained will of course receive alleviation from and in proportion to the number of those between which the vicinity has place, and the degree of the vicinity as between every two of the places of abode.
13. Impossibility of obtaining loans of money on any terms: owing to the distance from the seat of judicature; from which alone can eventually be obtained the means of procuring repayment by seizure of effects.
1831 Aug. 9
Colonization Society
Ch.IV Means of Effectuation
Inducements to
§.2. settlers without capital
Settlers who in the first instance are not to have possession any one of them of any portion of land, (with the exception perhaps of his own domicile) - but are to view in the wages of their labor - wages to be paid to them by employers of a certain description, (of whom presently) their sole means of subsistence
But, except in so far as a number is at hand, in which those who have the money, will be sure, of obtaining in it, whatsoever things there are, the possession and use of which is necessary for the continuation of their existence, money is of no value.
In the first instance therefore and for and during a certain length of time, in exchange for a man's labour, instead of any sum of money the amount of which may be engaged to be given to them when the time is ripe for it, these labouring settlers, or say settling labourers, must have the money's worth: in a word day by day, a certain allotment each of them of the several things regarded as necessary to subsistence: in one word - and this word the customary one -rations
To each individual or rather to each couple of individuals (for an essential part of the proposal is that they shall go out no otherwise than in couples, and this without children, (Children being dead, or not having had time enough to be born). Say then to each couple on each day on condition that if not done, a certain proportion of the [...?] daily hours, labour, under the direction of their respective employer and paymasters will have been performed by them respectively, a certain set of rations in lieu of money will be delivered: the quantities of the several sorts of things to be receipted in lieu of the correspondent sum of money being settled by previous agreement.
1831 Aug. 10
Colonization Society
Ch.IV Means of Effectuation
Inducements to
§.3. Settlers with capital
§3. Settlers with capital in hand - their inducements
1. To each such Settler advances limited to £500 to be made to an amount not exceeding that of which he himself has proved himself to be in possession and has actually in the shape of stock [...?] in the Colony.
2. Assurance of the existence of a quantity of stock in the Warehouses of the Colony or the Metropole, composed of the instruments of husbandry
3. So of all other articles regarded as necessary
4. Of all these several articles, lists should be printed with a specification of the several quantities of each
4. Of the outgoings and in-comings of each sort of article a regular account, open to all inspectors, should be kept in an Office for this purpose in the Colony.
5. Against engrossing, adequate precautions should be carefully taken. In the Mother Country, enactments for this purpose are generally speaking [...?] and pernicious. Not so in a Colony, at the distance of a four months Voyage ... Buying up the whole stock of this or that article, an astute capitalist might be able to screw up the price to a most oppressive amount
6. Moreover, by false reports, if not obviated, the requisite supply might be kept back from being sent by traders at large from the Mother Country: and by this means, in the Colony the scarcity might be kept up and encreased.
[Copyist’s hand]
nd [wm 1831]
In a moral point of view, the formation of the people into little combinations and fraternities is of the greatest importance. It concentrates the eyes of all upon each dividual; and renders good conduct a thing of infinitely more value to him, as it renders bad conduct for men detrimental. It is this circumstance which the sage mind of D r Adam Smith loads with such emphatic praise in the supposed case of the division of a country into so great a number of religious sects, that each congregation might be regarded as differing from the rest. In this manner, without difficulty, & without care, is exercised one of the most vigilant & effectual of all censorships; the most salutary of all inspections. When an ignorant, or almost any man can say to himself, my conduct is regarded by nobody, – it is astonishing how easy it is for temptation to subdue him; when he must say to himself, I cannot perform a disgraceful act without reading aversion & contempt in the eyes of all my acquaintance – it is astonishing how much he his strenghened for resitance.
There is yet another thing of cardinal importance. If it were possible for the superior to do everything for the inferior people, and to leave them nothing to do or care about for themselves, nothing would be more calamitous than the accomplishment of such an event. The mass of the human species would thence become what the people of Paraguay became in the hand of the jesuits, most perfectly helpless, and ready, on the least derangement in the machinery which conducts them, to fall into the deepest wretchedness and barbarity. As that machinery would be liable to be deranged by the slightest accidents, it could not be preserved in order long, and would then serve as an introduction, a necessary and certain introduction, to one of the most deplorable conditions of human affairs. The case is altogether different where the power of suffering for themselves gene-
rally spread throughout the community; when the people have resources; where every man is accustomed to combine for himself the means of warding off evil, and attaining good. There the machine of society cannot be easily disordered, and human happiness is placed on a much more secure foundation. Then, if any of the larger arteries of the body politic is obstructed, the nourishment of the system is carried on by the admirable service which may be rendered by the smaller. To a system which has thus a vis medicatrix in all its parts, no shock can be given that is not immediately repaired. Were the greatest disorder introduced, things of their own accord would hasten to their proper place.
It is, therefore, a prodigious recommendation of Benefit Societies, that in them the people act for themselves. We do not mention this, however, as one of the circumstances in which they differ from Savings Banks. It is, indeed, true, that in most of the Savings Banks which have yet been started, the upper people have taken upon them to manage for the under. But this is not necessary . The contributors to Savings Banks may themselves, if they choose, manage a Bank just as well as a club-box; in fact, the business of the Bank is far more simple than that of the Box. There is one important example of a Bank, conducted by the people themselves, is tha established in Clerkenwell, at the suggestion of Charles Taylor Esq.