Set sail from England in whichever direction you will, East or West, over whichever ocean, the first thing you hear of, in respect to colonial society, is its proverbial "smartness"--an expression which signifies a determination to cheat you in every possible manner. The Old World, and the worst of it, is already there to welcome you. Nay, it has taken possession of the very soil before the spade of the emigrant can touch it. There lies the fresh land, fresh--so geologists say of Australia--as it came up at its last emergence from the ocean. You are first? No. The land-jobber is there before you. This foulest harpy from the stock exchange has set its foot upon the greensward, and screeches at you its cry for _cent per cent_! There is yet a third and later ideal of colonisation--the ideal of the political economist. With him colonisation presents itself under the especial aspect of a great _exploitation_ of the earth. He is desirous that capital and labour should resort to those spots where they will be most productive. Thus the greatest possible amount of production will be generated between man and his terraqueous globe; capital and labour are with him the first elements of human prosperity; and to transfer these in due proportions, and as quickly as possible, to the new land, when they may be most profitably employed, is the main object of his legislation. Hitherto, it may be observed, the political economist has limited his efforts to the _undoing_ what he conceives has been very unskilfully done by previous legislators. In this matter of emigration he steps forward as legislator himself. It is no longer for mere liberty and _laissez-faire_ that he contends; he assumes a new character, and out of the theory of his science produces his system of rule and regulation. He knows how a small village becomes a great city; he will apply his knowledge, and by positive laws expedite the process. Let us see with what success he performs in this new character. Mr Wakefield's system--for it is he who has the honour of originating this politico-economical scheme--consists in putting a price upon unoccupied land, and with the proceeds of the sale raising a _fund for the transmission of emigrant labourers_. This is, however, but a subordinate part of his project, which we mention thus separately, because, for a purpose of our own, we wish to distinguish it from the rest. This price must, moreover, (and here is the gist of the matter,) be that "sufficient price" which will _debar the labourer from becoming too soon a proprietor of land_, and thus deserting the service of the capitalist.