RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONIES. (From the Times.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1023, 17 April 1857, Page 3

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONIES. (From the Times.)

Till within a very few years, no product of England appeared so impossible to transport across the sp as as her responsiblegovernment. Thegreat Republic which has sprung from our American colonies has developed our loveof liberty, our respecttor individual rights, and our deference for public opinion, but has never been able to appropriate to herself the English executive. In every State, as well as in the Central Legislature, the chief magistrate is elected for a definite period, and the Ministers of the Federal Government are excluded from seats in the Legislature, and may retain their office, although they and their opinions are in a decided minority. The notion of a respon file government holding office so long as it retained the con-, fidence of the Legislative Assembly, has, for the first time in the present year, been brought into in the Australian colonies. Educated hitherto under a system of political tutelage, with one-third of their memb<-is aomin-. ared by the Crown, and consisting partly of officias, whom, no possible success of opposition could displace, the Aus_. tralian Assemblies had but little experience of the theory or practice of constitutional government. How matters are to proceed in Victoria we do not know, for the elections are not yet concluded ; but we have had a notable speci-. men of the turbulent infancy of responsible government in New South Wales The spring of last year was occupied in that colony by an election of members to serve in the Lower House. The electoral districts in the colony were said at the time of the passing of the Act under which it received its Constitution to have been framed with great inequality, and from this cause, or from some other of which our accounts do not infoim us, parties appear to have been, nearly equally balanced. The Governor, Sir William Dcnison — whose couduct throughout all these complicated' transactions appears, so far a^ we have the means of judging, to have been extremely judicious and impartial — fiist devolved the task of forming a Government on Mr. Thomson, the Colonial Secretary under the old regime. On the failure of this gentleman, the duty was entrusted to Mr.'Donaldson, a merchant and settler, who succeeded, though with great difficulty, in forming a Ministry. This Government seems io have been formed of conservative elements, and to have been suspected at least of an intention to maintain the claims of the present occupants of Crown lands in all their integrity. However, the rovernment obtained a majority, but a majority so small that in, August last they resigned, because they did not receive, that amount of support to which they believed themselves entitled. Sir William Denison then summoned to his Councils Mr. Cowper, the leader ot the Opposition, who formed a Government, but was driven to select his At-torney-General from among the solicitors instead of the bar, there being, as it appea.isysfifS'Saine line line of demarcation between the two branches of the piofcssion there as in England. The bar, of cours#, Weie indignant at such a slight, and perso ial objection^ seem to havp existed against the new Attorney-Genjua}' of more frf r ce than his belonging to the wrong bratm* of the legal hierarchy. When this Ministry met the* Bronze, a vote of censure was moved upon them, niainly^&lled at this obnoxious At-torney-General, and carrUH^y a majority of two. Mr. Cowper and his coleajgres thereupon re--i»ned. and the scale, which had inclinWr for the moment in favour of the Liberals, once more favoured the conservatives. By the latest accounts, a new Ministry was formed by Mr. Par-ker a gentleman whose fame, whatever it may be, has not yet penetrated these northern regions. We have been thus particular in narrating these events, because it is of great importance to truth that the difficulties of responsible government should uot be extenuated, so it is of equal consequence to the future well government of our colonies that they should not be exaggerated or misrepresented. It is very easy to raise out of these frequent, almost theatrical, changes of Ministers and Ministries a cry that the colonies are unfit for self government. For our own part, we see nothing in what has happened in New South Wales which might not perfectly well have happened in England itself, always excepting the sensitiveness of ft Prime Minister who resigns office while he has got a working majority of two, and the nomination of an Attorney-General selected from the roll of solicitors. It is nothing new in this country for parties to be nearly balanced or Ministries to be shortlived. Nor is the conflict, as has been represented, one merely for place and' power. There is a vast prize at stake — no less than Ihe unsold lands of the colony, which the one party wish to retain in the hands of the present occupants at nominal , rents, and the other to throw open to purchase. The mi-, nority claim to represent the larger portion of the people of the colony, and only to be outvoted by an unfair division of the electoral districts The struggle must continue till victory decides for one side or the other ; and, instead of cavilling at its course, we ought to rejoice that we have provided our colonists with ah arena on which to fight out their local differences by argument and reason, instead of having recourse to those explosions of fury and discord which a^e apt to agitate those communities for whose passions a safety valve is not provided. Responsible government con do great things, but it can-_ not beforehand ascertain the relative force of parties, nor discern without trial the fittest men to conduct the government, nor remedy by its own innate force the faulty distribution of electoral power ; but there is no reason to doubt that in Australia, as elsewhere, the effect of responsible government, when time has been given it to attain its full development, will prove the same blessing that it has been in England and in Canada. We must beware of copy.ing the impatience of many well meaning persons in 1848, who because their new institution did not at once regenerate . nations utterly unaccustomed to think and act for themselves, and restore a prosperity undermined by centuries, of misgovernment, believed their aspiration aftei liberty a, dream, and sank back into their old lethargy. A remembrance of the struggle and blunders, the crimes and absurdities, through which England floundered into her present constitution, should lead us to look with tolerance and with hope on our rising colonies, and teach us not to, be surprised above measure if they do not realize fully, in six months, a wb/k which cost us many centuries.