1st. To improve the condition of those who emigrate, by placing them where they may obtain subsistence at less cost than at home.
2d. To improve the condition of those who remain, by increasing the ratio of capital to population.
3d. To improve the condition of the colonized region.
To fulfil the 1st of these objects, the colony must be so located as to insure health and abundance to its members; and it must be so organized as to secure the due co-operation of labour and capital.
To fulfil the 2d object, the removal of each individual must be less costly than his maintenance at home would be; and the selection must be made with a view to lessening the amount of human productiveness at home.
To fulfil the 3d object, the colonists must be selected with a view to their productiveness, both as regards capital and population; which includes a moral fitness to compose an orderly society.
It follows from all these considerations that a new settlement should be composed of young, healthy, and moral persons; that all should not be labourers, nor all capitalists; and that there should be a sufficient concentration of their numbers on the new lands to insure a facility of exchanges.
Home colonies may afford a temporary relief to a redundant population, and also increase the productiveness of the lands which they appropriate; but this is done by alienating capital from its natural channels; and with the certainty of ultimately injuring society by increasing the redundancy of population over capital.
Home colonization then, though less injurious than the unproductive distribution of the Charity-fund, is inferior to foreign colonization, inasmuch as the one yields temporary benefit to a few at the expense of ultimate injury to many; and the other produces permanent benefit to all.
The objects of Penal Colonization are,