Private Enterprise and the Peopling of Australasia, 1831-50.

This article reports that the assisted migration from the British Isles to Australasia before 1850 has continued to attract the attention of political, economic, and social historians. A rich historiographical debate has developed on the political economy, both in theory and practice, of colonization. This debate revolves around the twin themes of the ideas and influences of historian E.G. Wakefield and his associates, and the formulation of British imperial policy. Fundamental to both was the recognition by theorists and politicians of the necessity for using the wealth inherent in colonial wastelands, either by cheap land grants to colonization companies for resale to private investors or by schemes of direct public financial assistance from colonial land revenue or loans, to offset the high cost of migration to Australasia. The active participation of private enterprise during twenty years after the beginning of assisted migration in 1831 was vitally necessary to the establishment of colonization companies and the implementation of imperial policies that could be regulated, but not executed, by government.