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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

In other countries rent and profit eat up wages, and thetwo superior orders of people oppress the inferior one. Butin new colonies, the interest of the two superior orders obligesthem to treat the inferior one with more generosity and hu-manity ; at least, where that inferior one is not in a state ofslavery. Waste lands of the greatest natural fertility, are tobe had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the pro-prietor, who is always the undertaker, expects from their im-provement, constitutes liis profit; which in these circum-stances is commonly very great. But this great profit cannotbe made without employing the labour of other people inclearing and cultivating the land ; and the disproportion be-tween the great extent of the land and the small number ofthe people, which commonly takes place in new colonies,makes it difficult for him to get this labour. He does not,therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing to employ la-bour at any price. The high wages of labour encourage po-pulation. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourageimprovement, and enable the proprietor to pay those highwages. In those wages consists almost the whole price of theland ; and though they are high, considered as the wagesof labour, they are low, considered as the price of what is sovery valuable. What encourages the progress of popula-tion and improvement, encourages that of real wealth andgreatness. _

The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies to-wards wealth and greatness, seems accordingly to have beenvery rapid. In the course of a century or two, several of themappear to have rivalled, and even to have surpassed, theirmother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily , Tarentumand Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, ap-pear by all accounts to have been at least equal to any of thecities of ancient Greece. Though posterior ill their establish-ment, yet all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, andeloquence, seem to have been cultivated as early, and to havebeen improved as highly in them, as in any part of the mo-ther country. The schools of the two oldest of the Greek phi-losophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras , were established,it is remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in anAsiatic, the other in an Italian colony. All those colonies hadestablished themselves in countries inhabited by savage andbarbarous nations, who easily gave place to the new settlers.They had plenty of good land, and as they were altogether