Page:The new British province of South Australia.djvu/25

 regard to the numerous and minute circumstances on which society depends. Many a modern colony has perished through the inattention of its founders to little matters which, it was supposed, would take care of themselves. Of those modern colonies which have not perished, many suffered in the beginning the greatest privations and hardships; while, in the least unfavourable cases, it has been as if a full-grown oak, carelessly removed and soon dead, had dropped acorns to become in time full-grown trees. But in the present case, the greatest attention will be paid to details. The present measure of colonization may be likened to the careful removal of full-grown trees from a spot in which they were injured by want of room, to one where they should have ample space to expand and flourish. The details of the measure form the subject of this explanation.

In order to render so brief an explanation as clear as possible, the subject may be divided into several parts, all of which, however, it will be seen presently, are closely related with each other. The whole measure consists of three parts: first, precautions for the removal, not of people merely, but of society; that is, of all the different classes of people who, by means of combining their powers and dividing their employments, obtain every advantage that a society enjoys over savage life: secondly, precautions for preventing that social colony from degenerating into an unsocial