times. There is the old Greek plan of relieving the population of the cities, with their contracted sources of food-supplies, by organised swarming in the manner of bees, the new colonies being given practical independence. There is the opposite plan which was used to weld together the Roman empire with its intricate military and political organisation and a centralisation which in the end proved fatal. There is the modern European method or (in its origins) want of method with colonies founded partly by private adventurers in search of gain, especially gold and silver, and partly by political and religious outcasts in search of freedom; all other objects being finally subordinated to the idea of making the monopoly of the colonial trade a perquisite of the mother country.1

§ 5. Causes of Prosperity of New Colonies.

In Part II. of this chapter Adam Smith examines the causes of prosperity of new colonies, and the inquiry is extended to ancient as well as to modern times, and illustrations are taken from all parts of the world.

The general reasons assigned for the rapid progress of the colonies of civilised nations planted in waste or thinly peopled countries are those which have been examined at length in dealing with "the nature and causes of the wealth of nations." The colonists take out with them an advanced knowledge of agriculture

1 Cf. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 119, on the origin of "plantations" due to Englishmen in search of new lands and new homes.

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and other useful arts; and they carry out with them also more advanced notions of subordination to government and law. The emphasis by Adam Smith of the importance of law and government is noteworthy. Among savage and barbarous peoples the natural progress of law and government is still slower than the natural progress of the arts, after law and government have been so far established as is necessary for their protection." Next to these various forms of immaterial capital, there is the abundance of undeveloped land. "Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate." With the abundance of land wages are naturally high, and with the high wages there is a rapid increase in population. "In other countries rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior orders of people oppress the inferior one"; but in new colonies the interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one "with more generosity and humanity at least where that inferior one is not in a state of slavery." Later on, Adam Smith shows that even as regards the slaves good treatment is good economy; the French sugar plantations were better, so far, than the English, because their slaves were better treated.

All new colonies have made rapid progress under good conditions whatever their origins; e.g. the French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and freebooters, and when they at last acknowledged the authority of France "these banditti had to be treated with great gentleness," and yet the population and improvement of the colony increased very fast. Other

instances of progress are given, "but there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America. Plenty of good land and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies."

§ 6. Special Causes of Rapid Progress of North American Colonies.

Special causes are given why these colonies have prospered relatively to others: the lands have not been so much engrossed; there has been greater freedom of alienation and freedom from entails and family settlements; "the engrossing of land destroys its plenty and cheapness, and the engrossing of uncultivated land is the greatest obstruction to its improvement." The expenses of government in these colonies have been relatively small.

"All the different civil establishments in North America, exclusive of those of Maryland and North Carolina, did not before the commencement of the present disturbances cost the inhabitants above £64,700 a year; an ever-memorable example at how small an expense three millions of people may not only be governed but well governed." The commercial policy of the mother country allowed the colonists much greater freedom relatively as is shown in detail; some nations have granted the commerce of their colonies to exclusive companies, "the most effectual of all expedients for stunting the growth of a colony"; some have confined the colonial commerce to particular

ports; "but though the policy of Great Britain, with regard to the trade of her colonies, has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other nations it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than any of them. In everything except their foreign trade the liberty of the English colonists to manage their own affairs in their own way has been complete."

This examination of the causes of the prosperity of new colonies is summarised in a most graphic passage, and culminates in the question: "In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the first establishment or to the present grandeur of the American colonies? In one way and in one way only it has contributed a great deal. Magna virúm mater. It bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions and of laying the foundation of so great an empire."

§ 7. Advantages to Europe of Colonies in New

Countries.

In Part III. of the same chapter Adam Smith discusses the advantages which Europe has derived from the discovery of America and of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. These advantages may be divided into two groups: general and national. The general advantages are those that emerge from the natural development of foreign trade: the increase of consuming power and the augmentation of industry with an increase of the employment of productive labour in the old countries. Even those

nations which had no direct trade with these new countries, and did not even obtain colonial produce indirectly for consumption, had gained by the increase in the wealth of their neighbours.

§ 8. National Advantages from Colonies in Military Power or Revenue not realised.

The general advantages to Europe have been undoubted; but when we come to the peculiar and special advantages which each nation might have been expected to derive from the possession of colonies and dependencies the case is altered.

It is this part of the treatment of colonial policy which has a vital interest at the present time.

"The common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces subject to its dominion consist, first, in the military force which they furnish for its defence; and secondly, in the revenue which they furnish for the support of its civil government. The Roman colonies furnished occasionally both the one and the other. The Greek colonies sometimes furnished a military force, but seldom any revenue. They seldom acknowledged themselves subject to the dominion of the mother city. They were generally her allies in war, but very seldom her subjects in peace." But when we come to the colonies of European nations in modern times we find that they have never yet furnished any military force for the defence of the mother country. The military force has never yet been sufficient for their own defence; and in the different wars in which the mother countries have been