7 July, 1847

Niel Black, Esq.

My dear Mr. Black,

I did not receive…

I have said it twice, and I need not say, with (just pleasure) and interest, that I am wiser for this reading. I agree with its conclusions, that the minimum price of land is far too high, and that (most) costs arise from labour coming upon us in large and (uncertain) masses … exceeded by still greater (dearths). This latter cost I always think will be best assisted by borrowing on immigration fund on (ten percent) of the lands, and the instalments of the fund so borrowed would be called for and expanded in immigration in amounts proportional to our average (requirements), and not to the chance sales of any one year.

But I suggest to you to reconsider a very important branch of your argument, namely that “the sale of waste lands is mainly a medium (scale) use of () to abstract the capital of the Colony.” Now it always appears to me that the sale of waste land abstracts the Capital of Great Britain, for when the chain Sales of Land and immigration is set in motion, each producing the other as cause and effect, capitalist immigration always goes hand in hand with it, and if you could analyse the proceedings of the years of prosperity, (so called) you would find that we imported cons. more capital than the absl. amount, large as it was, that we paid for land.