ABSTRACT
In 1816, the War Office decided on experimentation with the settlement of veterans in Canada. Theoretical discussion of the subjects of pauperism, surplus population, emigration, and colonization was prolific throughout the period from 1815 to 1850. To Malthusians and doctrinaire adherents to the tenets of laissez-faire any system of poor relief appeared theoretically unsound and practically mischievous. Emigration and colonization also would lessen the frequent perpetration of crimes in the home country. The expense of shipping, of seamen, of location in the colony, all these, and probably many other items, must, it should seem, of necessity augment in a greater ratio, in consequence of the greatly augmented demand. Proponents of colonization usually depicted the future habitat and life of the emigrant in the most glowing colours. The Wakefieldian theory of colonization rested on the assumption that the mother country suffered from an excess of capital as well as from an excess of labour.
