第63章

I have said that those who are called on to labor in these States have their own hardships, and I have endeavored to explain what are the sufferings to which the town laborer is subject. To escape from this is the laborer's great ambition, and his mode of doing so consists almost universally in the purchase of land. He saves up money in order that he may buy a section of an allotment, and thus become his own master. All his savings are made with a view to this independence. Seated on his own land he will have to work probably harder than ever, but he will work for himself. No task-master can then stand over him and wound his pride with harsh words. He will be his own master; will eat the food which he himself has grown, and live in the cabin which his own hands have built. This is the object of his life; and to secure this position he is content to work late and early and to undergo the indignities of previous servitude. The government price for land is about five shillings an acre--one dollar and a quarter--and the settler may get it for this price if he be contented to take it not only untouched as regards clearing, but also far removed from any completed road. The traffic in these lands has been the great speculating business of Western men. Five or six years ago, when the rage for such purchases was at its height, land was becoming a scarce article in the market. Individuals or companies bought it up with the object of reselling it at a profit; and many, no doubt, did make money. Railway companies were, in fact, companies combined for the purchase of land. They purchased land, looking to increase the value of it fivefold by the opening of a railroad. It may easily be understood that a railway, which could not be in itself remunerative, might in this way become a lucrative speculation. No settler could dare to place himself absolutely at a distance from any thoroughfare. At first the margins of nature's highways, the navigable rivers and lakes, were cleared. But as the railway system grew and expanded itself, it became manifest that lands might be rendered quickly available which were not so circumstanced by nature. A company which had purchased an enormous territory from the United States government at five shillings an acre might well repay itself all the cost of a railway through that territory, even though the receipts of the railway should do no more than maintain the current expenses. It is in this way that the thousands of miles of American railroads have been opened; and here again must be seen the immense advantages which the States as a new country have enjoyed. With us the purchase of valuable land for railways, together with the legal expenses which those compulsory purchases entailed, have been so great that with all our traffic railways are not remunerative. But in the States the railways have created the value of the land. The States have been able to begin at the right end, and to arrange that the districts which are benefited shall themselves pay for the benefit they receive.

The government price of land is 125 cents, or about five shillings an acre; and even this need not be paid at once if the settler purchase directly from the government. He must begin by making certain improvements on the selected land--clearing and cultivating some small portion, building a hut, and probably sinking a well.