SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 100, 4 December 1852, Page 8

SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

ON THE SECOND HEADING OF THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION BILL. (Continuedfrom our last.) I said that in propagating these opinions I did not rest upon the speculations of philosophers and economists—l rest upon the facts of history. The system Avhich I recommend, which I am certainly convinced will gain ground from year to year in the feelings and convictions of this country, is the very same system in the main with that on which the whole of the great and wonderful operation of colonizing North America was conducted—the system which Mr. Burke studied, examined, and comprehended from top to bottom, and which lie described in his great speech on American taxation, when he warned the Parliament against the erroneous and destructive consequences of attempting to establish administrative power over their distant dependencies, or to extract from them some miserable and contemptible pecuniary benefit, instead of seeing that the great interest and purpose of England in colonizing was the multiplication of her race, that her policy was to trust to the multiplication of her race for the propagation of her institutions, and that whatever course of legislation tended most to the rapid expansion of population and power, in her colonies necessarily tended most to enhance the reflected benefits that she was to derive from their foundation. That sound colonial policy reached its climax in what I may call Tory times, although they were times immediately preceding the invention of our now familiar political designations. In 1662 the charter of Rhode Island was granted. It is .the most remarkable for its enlarged and liberal spirit of all the early charters: yet in its gene-

ral character it is akin to the rest of the charters, under which the infant settlements of New England throve and prospered.. At this day it. is considered a monstrous idea that colonies should have free local jurisdiction for local purposes. It is not considered safe to allow colonies to pass at their own discretion a law relating to the making of a road, the deepening of a harbour, or any local purpose ; so that an act of this kind after passing a Colonial Legislature, nay, even after receiving the Governor's assent, is not secure from, reversal, but is still, as it were, held in a state of suspended existence for two years and upwards. It is remitted to England, considered in England, and again sent to the colonies; and thus, until the news is received there its fate remains uncertain : in point of fact, a period of nearly three years may elapse in our distant colonies between their final decision on local questions —the only criterion of. fitness in this case which is worth a moment's attention—and their final knowledge whether their decision is to take effect. That is the state in which they are placed, and the way in which their affairs are managed. I should like to know what our feelings, temper, and humour would be if this was the mode of dealing with laws passed by us on subjects which we understand—say, for instance, an act for the construction of a Great Western railroad, or other similar purpose—if such an act, passed on our own knowledge of the circumstances and exigencies of the case, were to be transmitted to another quarter of the world, and there kept by somebody in an office for two years, while some person or persons unknown were deliberating upon its fate. That, however, sir, is the system under which, in this age of freedom and enlightenment, Aye are content that our colonies should subsist.—(Hear, hear). But the old idea of a colony may be represented, as I have already said, by a single phrase—it was, in fact, the idea of a municipal

corporation. Now, it will be useful to consider

■the sense attached to that phrase. In the departure' from it Aye find a key to the alteration of our colonial policy from the old model. We do not now treat our municipalities with the same system of mis-placed absolutism as Aye apply to our colonies; we place them under the restraint of the general laAvs of the land, but •for purposes properly local Aye give them absolute freedom. The bye-laws of Liverpool or of Manchester, places counting their population by hundreds on hundreds of thousands, are not sent to the Secretary for the Home Department to be kept two years that he may consider whether they are to be carried into effect or not, hut they go into operation at once. Shall I ask this House to consider, or Avould it be possible for us by any strain of imagination to realise to ourselves Avhat our condition Avould be if it were not so ? Such a system Avould seem to us fitter for Turkey than for England. The system of those times Avas well considered, and

Avas founded on the dictates of political justice. The colonies Avere subjected on one hand to the general restraints of the Taw of England; and again, according to the language of their charteis, they were to have theirlaws, as near as might be, agreeable to the laws of England; Avhilst in other respects they Avere, for all practical purposes, absolutely and entirely free; and I must say, further, the degenerate and degrading ideas we now have of retaining the sub--1 stance of colonial patronage partly, and still more the name, in this country, for the sup- , posed benefit of ministries or influence of the Crown, were totally foreign to the notions of. your ancestors six generations ago. These colonies, on the general basis of municipal corporations, Avere the possessors of their, own soil; they were for all purposes of police, except that ,of conflict Avith civilized poAvers, the defenders of their oavii frontiers ; they Avere the bearers of their town charges: they Avere the electors of their oAvn officers ; and they Avere the makers of , their own laws.- (Hear, hear.) Now, you have Reversed, Avithin the last seventy years, every one of those salutary principles. (Hear, hear.) Your policy has been this ; you have retained at home the management of and property in ■ colonial lands. You have magnificent sums figuring in your estimates for the ordinary expenses of their governments, instead of allowing them to bear their own expenses. Instead of suffering them to judge Avhat are the mea- * sures best adapted to secure their peaceful relations Avith the aboriginal tribes, and endeavouring to secure their good conduct—instead of them that they must not look for help *fiom you unless:they maintain thq principles of

justice, you tell them, " You must not meddle with the relations between yourselves and the natives; that is a matter for Parliament;" a Minister sitting in Downing-street must deter mine how the local relations between the inhabitants of the colony and the aboriginal tribes are to be settled, in every point down to the minutest detail. Nay, even, their strictly internal police your soldiery is often called upon to maintain.—(Hear, hear.) Then, again, the idea of their electing their own officers is, of course,revolutionary in the extreme —if not invading the royal supremacy, it is something almost as bad, dismembering the empire; and as to making their own laws upon their local affairs without interference or control from us, that is really an innovation so opposed to all ideas of imperial policy, that I think my honourable friend the member for Southwark has been the first man in the house bold enough to propose it. Thus, in fact, the principles on which our colonial administration was once conducted have been precisely reversed. Our colonies have come to be looked upon as being, not municipalities endowed with internal freedom, but petty states. If you had only kept to the fundamental idea of your forefathers, that these were municipal bodies founded within the shadow and cincture of your imperial powers— that it was your business to impose on them such positive restraints as you thought necessary, and having done so, to leave them free in everything else—all those principles, instead of being reversed, would have survived in full vigour—you would have saved millions, I was going to say countless millions, to your exchequer ; but you would have done something far more important by planting societies more worthy by far of the source ; from which they sprung; for no man can read the history of the great American revolution, without seeing that 100 years ago your colonies, such as they then were, with the institutions they then possessed, and the political relations in which they then stood to the mother-country, bred and reared men of mental; stature and power such as far surpassed anything that colonial life is now commonly considered to be capable of produ-

cmg. I will proceed to recite in a few words, the main provisions of the charter of Rhode Island —which is, on the Avhole, the best and most perfect exhibition of your ancient maxims of government applied to the American settlements. Its constitution consisted of three orders—a governor, a body of assistants, and a body of freemen. The freemen, as it was anticipated in this charter that they Avould become numerous, Avere to meet by representation ; and thus in these elected freemen, Avith the distinct order of assistants, a principle was laid down, the principle of the double chamber for legislation, which has stood the storm of the American revolution, and the strain of all subsequent political vicissitudes ; and \vhich at present subsists with undiminished vigour, in every single State, I believe, of the American Union. But further, sir, Avhile the first Governor was named in the Charter and Avas to hold his office for a year, his successors Avere to be appointed by the free voice of the colonists; and, doubtless to, many Avho hear me it will appear astonishing that that power should have been conceded in 1662, •■when not merely the -warmth, but the fever, of royalism Avas at its height in this country ? They were not only to elect their oAvn government, but to make their own laws, subject to no other restraint in the world, except that, as far as circumstances would permit, they should be not contrarious but agreeable to the laAvs of England. They Avere to appoint their own officers and judges; they Avere to constitute their own courts of justice; they Avere to arm, embody, and march their oavii force for self-defence, and appoint its commanders ; they Avere to be the possessors of their own soil; and lastly, they Avere to be the bearers of their own charges. It might be asked what security Avas taken for their good behaviour to others. The security taken, whether perfect or not, AA'as certainly as perfect as any more recent policy has furnished ; it was provided that, in case of their offending any prince or power in alliance Avith the CroAvn of England, they should either be bound to make restitution to the satisfaction of the CroAvn, or else (says the charter) they sliall be " put out of our allegiance and protection." Now, sir, two centuries have passed, and, have produced many changes in the character of mankind, and I will not say that in all points, Avhich may now be in debate, that Rhode Tdmul p.harter oughttobftirn^itlv

and blindly imitated; but this I will say, that when we look at the constitutions we have given of late years to our colonies, the Acts we have passed, the difficulties we have had with them, the millions we have paid" for the suppression of insurrections, and for the maintenance of Avars with savages, the worrying processes to Avhich colonists have been subjected, the complaints on all,sides of the deteriorated tone of society in many ot these dependencies, the reluctance; once.universal and still somewhat prevalent of educated and superior men to cast their lot and make their home there— ivhen Aye notice all this, and Avhen we see that 200 years ago a system conceived in another spirit was carried out by. our forefathers, we surely cannot draAV the comparison, I should rather say the contrast, without a blush upon our faces. (Hear, hear.)

I shall now come to the bill of the right honourable gentleman, which.l shall endeavour to discuss in a spirit of Tairness, and without offensive insinuations. I am bound to say, then, that on the Avhole this bill is creditable to her Majesty's Government, not because it goes back-to the system generally represented by the Rhode Island charter, but because on the whole it indicates a real intention to ; approximate to that system, and concedes a larger measure <of freedom than has hitherto been given, .under Parliamentary enactment, without perhaps a single exception, to any ;of our colonies. My honourable friend the member for Southwark complains of the bill as recognizing too much the political existence of the local settlements, and he proposes that it should be left to the central legislature to create local political authorities according to the dictates of expediency. On the contrary, I must say, notwithstanding my respect for his authority and my general concurrence in his views of colonial policy, that I think the recognition of these local settlements one of the most excellent features of the bill. One of the characteristics of our modern legislation, as far as coloniesiare concerned, has been its arbitrary character. You have endeavoured to draw lines for yourselves, instead of following those Avhich nature and subsisting circumstances have drawn for you. It is a mistake in my opinion to say that you require a large amount of population to constitute a selfgoverning political society. The right honourable gentleman the Secretary for. the Colonies has said, here are six settlements, the inhabitants of which are united by proximity to one another, by common pursuits and relations, in a great degree by common ideas, and a common industry and trade ; but generally separated from one another by Avide intervals of space. Well, there is, if I may so call it, the social unit; and the right honourable gentleman has recognised it, and has departed from the modern traditions of colonial policy by granting a considerable share of political power to those small communities Avorking independently one of the other, I am glad to find in this arrangement a protest against those attempts to centralise by IaAV where there is no sufficient attraction to a natural centre, which can only produce Aveakriess and dissatisfaction. When I consider how well an opposite system has worked in North America ; when I consider hoAV much of the character of. the Union and its stability depends on the strict division into states, and the rigid maintenance of their separate authority and jurisdiction, I do not hesitate to say that the recognition of these small communities Avhich are to have a substantive political existence of their own, while they are likewise to be associated together for other more general purposes, is, in my view, one of the fundamental merits of the bill, and; promises, nay, constitutes a real advance in the spirit of our colonial policy. Indeed, as I shall presently show, the Bill would be much better if it Aveut further in this respect, and endowed these settlements severally Avith independent legislative power for all purely local purposes.

T come iioav, Sir, to the passing of laws: and with respect to this part of the subject, I must observe that the-right honourable gentleman has introduced Avhat is called the thin end of the Avedge, although it is a very thin end indeed, to relax, and finally, as I hope, to break up the present system. It is now for the first time proposed by a minister, that bills may be passed in a Colonial Legislature, and may finally pass into law, without being subject to what is termed the veto at home. The district legislatures of NeAV Zealand are to be empowered, if T>.-ni;:nnon) should adqntth^mh^gri^jiaaß

to make laAvs upon all subjects whatever, with certain specified exceptions. These acts are to be liable to veto only from the Governor of New Zealand: and although an unduly prolonged period of time is assigned him for the exercise of that power, yet in principle the concession is important; for if that officer shall not think fit, these measures will never be heard of in Downing Street as subjects for deliberation at all. Now this is a matter in Avhich much care and consideration is requisite, and the ground must carefully be measured and ascertained, before we go the extreme length'which, on general principles, might be thought desirable : but, keeping those principles in view, I thank the right honourable gentleman for the qualified recognition of them by the provisions of his bill.

Another valuable feature of the measure I find in the arrangement proposed with regard to the composition of the smaller or district legislatures. Here, again, the right honourable gentleman has had the courage to burst the bonds of another most mischievous modern superstition : I mean that superstition which prescribes that a certain number of nominees shall be introduced into the legislative constitutions of our colonies, in order to maintain what is called the just influence of the Crown : a topic on which I shall touch more largely by and bye, when I come to the question of "an Elective as compared with a nominated Upper Chamber for the Central Legislature. The right honourable gentleman has provided that in the district legislatures there shall be only one house or chamber. This I so far regret, that I should have preferred a plan based upon the old distribution into tbe two orders of assistants and freemen, which . supplied the groundwork for a division into two separate chambers, whenever it might seem advisable. But as we are to have only one chamber, I am heartily glad that there are to be no nominees in it: no Crown influence is to be cherished by such spurious means : election, and election only, is to prevail: and the Secretary of State has delivered himself and us from that idea, which sat upon us in former times like a nightmare, that a colonial,constitution could not work without an infusion of nominated members, a device that, so far as I can perceive, has service no purpose, except that of solving and perpetuating dissension.

The right honourable gentleman has moreover made another step in advance, a step much in accordance with the old spirit with which our first colonies Avere guided. He has proposed to hand over, with certain restrictions, the control of their own land to the colonists. (Hear, hear.) Now this I take to be no small merit in the bill before us; especially when I remind the house that two years ago, when we were invited to legislate for New South Wales, it was in vain that some members urged upon the Government, and upon Parliament, the necessity and the equity of doing the same thing. The bill gives to the colonists of New Zealand that right of dealing with their oavh lands which we refused in 1850 to the more mature and powerful colony of New South Wales. And although this boon is clogged, as I shall shew, with objectionable conditions, yet by it the right honourable gentleman shows that in principle he is Avilling to assent to the demand made to the colonists in regard to this weighty particular. ( Hear.) There is another point also AA'hich I think of great importance; without Avhich, indeed, I do not think I could consent to yvaive the objections I might take to the details of thisbill. I refer t> the largeness of the power of alteration. (Hear.) Every single regulation, every single enactment of the British Parliament in this bill is subject to revision and alteration. The right lion, gentleman does not attempt to exempt any one of them from the. touch of the profane hands of the colonial legislature. (Hear, hear.) This measure permits the colonists to pass bills for the purpose of altering every political arrangement that may be made for them by the British Parliament, only providing, which I cannot think unreasonable, that such bills as deal with organic changes should be remitted home.—(Hear, hear.) Now these are the great merits of the bill of the right honourable gentleman ; and on the ground of these merits, on the ground that they are so many approximations upon his part to the old colonial system of Ihis empire, I am disposed to sink many of my own peculiar opinions and desires, and to lend a hand, if I can, to the progress of the measure.—(Hear, hear.) (To be continued.)