Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (born March 20, 1796 in London , † May 16, 1862 in Wellington ) was a British statesman who took part in the Congress of Vienna as one of the representatives of the United Kingdom and who played a key role in the colonization of Australia and New Zealand .
Wakefield entered the diplomatic service early. In Turin , the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont , he worked as a diplomat from 1814 to 1816. During this time he was from King George III. sent by Great Britain to the Congress of Vienna to represent British interests. In addition to the main representatives of Great Britain, Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry and Viscount Castlereagh, Arthur Wellesley and Robert Banks Jenkinson , Wakefield played a rather less important role.
After working again as a diplomat in Paris from 1820 to 1826, he fell out of favor at the English court. In 1827 Wakefield was sent to Newgate Prison in London for trying to kidnap a girl. There Wakefield wrote the manuscript for a book on the death penalty. Two years earlier he had written the work "A letter from Sydney" in which he developed a theory of colonization. He worked out this book in 1833 in "England and America".
- Colonization theory
In 1849 "A view of the art of colonization" was created. In it, Wakefield suggested that the colonies should be populated with volunteers and not with convicts, as was the custom until now. His theory of colonization also includes the thesis that if capital were equally distributed among all members of society, no one would have an interest in accumulating more capital than he can use with his own hands. "This is to a certain extent the case in the new American colonies, where the passion for property prevents the existence of a class of wage workers." Mankind has been divided into owners of capital and owners of labor as the "result of voluntary agreement and combination" of owners of capital and workers. The relationship was not established in the colonies. “Although the product to be shared between worker and capitalist is great, the worker takes so much of it that he quickly becomes a capitalist. .. In contrast, few, even if they live unusually long, can accumulate large amounts of wealth. ”The workers“ will soon cease to be wage laborers, they will soon turn into independent farmers or even into competitors of their old masters on the wage labor market itself. ”The Wakefield sees the solution in high land purchase prices, which force the worker to sell his labor.
His ideas led to the founding of the South American Association in 1834, which became a British colony in 1836. In 1837, Edward Gibbon Wakefield founded the New Zealand Association , so that in 1854, because of his services to that country, he became a member of the first legislative assembly of New Zealand . Thanks to this association, the number of settlers rose from 2000 in 1839 to 22,000 in 1850. This was achieved through the recruitment of voluntary settlers who received some perks as a "lure".
Works
- Edward Gibbon Wakefield : A letter from Sydney principal town of Australasia . Ed .: Robert Gouger . London 1879 (English, net.au ).
- Edward Gibbon Wakefield : A View of the Art of Colonization . Ed .: James Collier . Clarendon press , Oxford 1914 (English, archive.org ).
Web links
- Graeme L. Pretty: Wakefield, Edward Gibbon (1796-1862). In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2. National Center of Biography, 1967, accessed February 6, 2017 .
- Hugh JM Johnston: Wakefield, Edward Gibbon. In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography. General Bibliography, accessed February 6, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wakefield, Edward Gibbon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British statesman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 20, 1796 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 16, 1862 |
| Place of death | Wellington |