| COLONIES AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY. (II.) |
By JAMES COLLIER.
THE growth of the relations between a colony and the mother country closely follows the development of the relationship between an organism and its offspring, or (in higher species) between parents and children. When an infusorian subdivides into two cells, the new cell produced swims away and henceforth leads an independent life. Most of the Phœnician and most of the earlier Greek colonies were social infusoria which parted from the parent organism by segmentation and had no further relations with it. As we rise in the animal scale a new relationship, that between mother and young, and a new instinct, the maternal, come into existence. These begin as low down as the mollusks, and expand and heighten, though not without strange lapses, in both insects and birds as species develope; but we need not trace the evolution here. Let it suffice to note that there are successive degrees of specialization; a site is chosen suitable for depositing and hatching eggs; means are found for making them secure; a shelter is built for them; they are deposited near substances adapted to nourish the young; special food is prepared for them; they are reared through food disgorged or brought to them. The accession of the male to the family marks the dawn of the paternal instinct; it appears earliest among fishes. This evolution is repeated in the history of colonies, where, however, the maternal and paternal offices melt into one another insensibly.
The mother country founds and nurtures colonies. Most of the earliest colonies are the work of adventurous bands or navigating merchants or fishermen, who seek their own habitats, carry with them their own equipment and fight their own battles. Then the metropolis settles its surplus or discontented citizens in territories previously chosen, provides them with all that is necessary for their start, and often nourishes them during the infancy of the colony. Hispaniola was a state colony manned with miners and artisans who were provided with tools, and this at the cost of a loan and a draught from the confiscated property of the Jews. Nor was it until gold began to be found in large quantities that the receipts equalled the expenditure on the young colony. Louisiana was founded and fostered with a royal munificence that conferred on it "more than was contributed by all the English monarchs together for the twelve English colonies on the Atlantic." Georgia was a one-man
