THE COLONIES.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 437, 20 July 1850, Page 83

THE COLONIES.

[From the Spectator, January 367] Down to the last week of the recess the British Colonies continue to force themselves on public attention. Cape settlers are still keeping tteir Governor at Bay, in resisting the admission of convicts. Western Australia, specially promised the boon of convict-labour which other colonies reject, ungratefully joins in repulsing the favour. The West Indies brood over their grievances and and ruin; and Essequibo, under Mr. Barkly's " extended " franchise, elects two members of the local Legislature by a constituency of two I Canadians are demanding an " independent union" of the British North American Provinces. And New Zealand demands justice, with the constitution which Lord Grey offered, but retracted on the advice of his namesake the Governor. The case against Governor Sir George Grey is set forth in a document remarkable for emanating from a multitudinous body and yet being a calm recital of plain facts. The Colonial Office has relied strongly on the justification afforded by Sir George Grey's despatches for the arbitrary and slighting treatment of the New Zealand settlers : the papers just received show that the settlers convict him of the grossest misrepresentations — as to the opinion of the colonists, the state of the finances, the condition of the natives, in every particular on which he rested his case. His representations ought to be set aside at once ; but the practice of referring all points in dispute backwards and forwards between the Colonial Office and a Governor, even with respect to the most distant settlements, will allow the dispute to be protracted beyond Sir George Grey's term of office. Meanwhile, the pattern Governor succeeds in defraudincr the colonists of their due.

g the practice of referring all points in dispute backwards and forwards between the Colonial Office and a Governor, even with respect to the most distant settlements, will allow the dispute to be protracted beyond Sir George Grey's term of office. Meanwhile, the pattern Governor succeeds in defraudincr the colonists of their due.

We were not unaware of what was going on, for private letters now and then had kept us au courant ; but we saw no reason why the mischief should not be left to work itself out. It will add one to the many cases that must come before Parliament.

f.From the Daily News, February o.]

The Liberal party in this country is accused of holding the doctrine that colonies are not worth keeping: we fear that it is not the Liberals who have arrived at this conclusion, but the officials ; for most certainly to them, who have been taught, or been wont, to consider colonies in a Government point of view, colonies are few of them worth keeping. What were colonies good for, in the eyes of such people ? They were good for taxation, good as a field of patronage, or as a monopoly of trade. The United States long since set the question of taxation at rest. No colony of English population will allow any revenue to be exported from it. Those who desire it, must at least come to earn and consume it on the spot in the shape of salary. And even this can only be done by keeping up an ascendancy party in the colony, gifted with the monopoly of political power, and willing to share it merely with a few sent out from Downing-street, in return for the real government and influence in the colony being entrusted to their hands. But America is the great Colonial reformer ; and while the United States exploded the system of mother-country taxation, Canada has exploded the system of governing by a league between official and colonial toryism.

As to colonial free |frade, that has crued itself. The very distance of our colonies rendered it inevitable that they should supply their necessities and make use of markets in their own hemisphere. We were unable either to coerce them or to pay them, all being political and commercial enemies of their nearest neighbours.

All the good, therefore, that Governments could descry in colonies has passed, or is fast passing away. And the great difficulty is, how are they to supply the absence of the old official links, or how replace them by some connexion more popular, more voluntary, more mutually beneficial, and more strong ? That this can be found, we believe ; but let us first await Lord John Russell's colonial programme.

England, however, has other lands subject to her, not at all in the same category, and wrongly called colonies. These are countries of populous and conquered races, where the Englishman is only permitted to come as the master, the superintendent, the policeman, or the official. These are countries that know none of the rules or exemptions we have spoken of. They are corviable a merci. They can be taxed for home purposes and for domestic caprice, their trade, nay, their very soil, monopolised. To talk of constitution or liberties connected with such a people is idle. We hold power on the principles of oriental despotism, which we wield as ruthlessly as Nicholas ; whilst our Governors, we are told, are very Haynaus for flogging, confiscation, and murder.

What control have we for the present, or shall we have for the future, to prevent such atrocities ? None, save that wielded by Parliament and its committees. And- the great effort of the Colonial Office, its secretaries, and its governors, is to cheat Parliament, bamboozle its committees, screen the guilty, and put truth under an extinguisher. . How it truth to be got at ? It is quite! plain, from the conduct of Lord Torrington, that the first act of a governor who has been guilty of cruelty from folly or from cowardice, is to crush the local press, quash local efforts to get up petitions, and build a thick wall round the colony to prevent accusation from coming forth. Send a commission of inquiry, urges a committee of the House of Commons. Impossible, exclaims the Minister, you would discredit the Government. Send, then, a sufficient number of witnesses home. Oh, yes. You shall have the secretary of the colony to examine' and one of the police magistrates. But there are witnesses on the other side, whom it is so advisable to hear. Oh, they cannot be •pared ; they would cost too much to bring home ; the colony could not spare them. There is not a single member in the house who does not here perceive the complicity of the Colonial Office in the crimes of its governor. The vote of condemnation rises to every lip. And then, as a forlorn hope, forth steps the Prime Minister, and makes a cabinet question of it Lord Torrington must be permitted to escape, or Lord John Russell resigns. If Parliament allows itself to he befooled in this way, there can be no chedC^o

hope of correcting abuses. In English- peopled colonies, indeed, the colonists will take care of themselves by taking matters into their own hands, li'ut if Parliament does not do this itself for Ceylon and India, the population of those countries will right themselves one day — not by petition or constitutional agitation, but by insurrection and massacre.

In order to mark the working of the Colonial Office more closely, and the way in which it seeks to nullify inquiry, and even defeat the plainest recommendations, let us examine Mr. Hawes's conduct. It will be in the recollection of our readers that the committee of last session was appointed to inquire into -the affairs of Guiana as well as Ceylon. Mr. Adderley complained on Wednesday that the reconimendations of the committee with regard to Guiana, and in particular its suggestion that the salary of the governor was excessive, had been disregarded. Mr. Hawes denied that this was the case. The words in the Committee's Report are : — " Your committee is of opinion that it is a subject of inquiry, not merely whether the special grounds on which the increase in question took place still exist, but whether, all circumstances being considered, a salary of less amount than £5,000 per annum would not suffice to induce a person perfectly qualified in every respect to undertake the duties of the office, and to bear the requisite expenditure." Mr. Hawes, after reading this passage, declared — amid indignant cries of " Ob, oh " — that it was not a recommendation to reduce the salary. When the committee calls for witnesses in express terms, Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes say that this is dictation, to which the Colonial Government cannot submit; when the committee points out the exorbitant amount of a salary, Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes maintain that it ought expressly to have recommended its reduction. But Mr. Hawes went further; he broadly asserted that the colony approved of the high salary. "New elections," he said, "had taken place in Guiana on a more extended constituency and the Court of Policy had not again raised the question." This statement is contrary to fact. The registrations under Governor Barkly's franchise ordinance gave a constituency, less by 200, than the constituency under the old system. Mr. Hawes knows that the question of the governor's salary has been dropped by a court elected under a system that enables the Governor to pack the Court of Policy with manageable members. He knows that in most of the districts the electors refused to compromise themselves by taking part in the farce of the elections.

Mr. Hawes has by a shuffle postponed the arrival of witnesses from Ceylon in this country, and urges on the resumption of inquiry in their absence ; he has justified the neglect of the committee's recommendations with regard to Guiana by assertions that are at variance with facts ; and to bring his disingenuity to a climax he has thrown out groundless imputations as to the motives of those who have promoted inquiry into the affairs of Ceylon. He called the charge against Lord Torrington " a most malicious case ;" he represented Mr. Baillie's conduct as " marked by his usual want of candour." While extenuating the conduct of the Government of which he forms a part, in a tissue of quibbles and evasions worthy of the Old Bailey, Mr. Hawes showers down all sorts of unworthy imputations upon his opponents.

It is clear from this first debate of the session on a colonial topic that colonial reformers have to expect a vigorous and pretty unscrupulous resistance on the part of Ministers. They have also, it is equally obvious, to be prepared for obstruction and misleading from parties who will volunteer their assistance in order to make them subservient to their own sinister ends. We have heard that Mr. Disraeli, when pressed to join the Colonial Reform Association, declined on the ground of his peculiar position in Parliament, but professed approbation of their objects, and great readiness to promote them to the utmost of his power. He showed on Wednesday how be intends to redeem this pledge. He made the dispute between the Colonial Office ' and the Ceylon Committee the pretext for moving a formal vote of censure on Miuisters ; he thereby enabled Lord John Russell to shift the question from the conduct of Ministers with regard to Ceylon to a general question of confidence in them. Lord John thus obtained a vote, which, in point of fact, went no further than a declaration that the House of Commons think him less unworthy of confidence than Mr. Dieraeli; but which Mr. Hawes may represent, when it suits his purpose, as exonerating his extraordinary conduct towards the Ceylon Committee. The colonies are, for Mr. Disraeli and many of his party, a mere stalking horse, from behind which they seek to shoot their arrows at Ministers. If the colonial reformers are not on their guard Mr. Disraeli's faction will perplex and hamper all their movements throughout the session, as they did that of Wednesday.

And yet the result of Wednesday's discussion is most encouraging to those who have the cause of colonial reform sincerely' at heart. Before Mr. Bright could place the question really at issue in a clear point of view Lord John Russell had successfully conjured up the bewildering mists of party passion ; and yet even with their aid he only parried Mr. Bright's motion by a majority of 109 over 100. There is, therefore, good reason to hope that if the cause of colonial reform is skilfully and judiciously advocated, the temper of the Hosue of Commons is such as to compel Ministers to give way to it.

[From the Morning Chronicle, February 9-]

The nation is at length in possession of the Premier's general views on Colonial Government. The measure for reforming the Australian constitution was last night the text for a comprehensive survey of the past history and the present exigencies of all the various possessions of the Crown which are peopled by the Anglo-Saxon race. We are forced to add that the discourse was in harmony with the text. A retrograde scheme very fitly introduced a " finality " policy. Strangely incongruous, however, with both, was the exordium in wheih bis lordship thought proper for a time to expatiate. The House was again and again reminded that the ancient maxim of British colonial government was, that " wherever Englishmen were sent, or repaired, to settle, they carried with them the freedom and the institutions of the mother-country." "As to the mode of govern-

meut," he reiterated, "we cannot, as a general rule, do better than refer to those maxims of policy which governed our ancestors — namely, that wherever Englishmen went to settle, there should be introduced English freedom and English institutions. In that respect they acted justly and wisely.. They acted for the immediate harmony of the mother-country and the colony. They acted, likewise, in a way which enabled those who went out to a distant possession tc sow the seeds of communities of which. Englishmen might always be proud." Who would have expected that these emphatic appeals to the liberal wisdom of our forefathers were to be followed by a proposal to put Australia, Malta, Guiana, Trinidad, the Mauritius, and the Cape under various forms of a new-fangled bureaucracy — to leave the subjects of transportation and emigration in statu quo — and, for the rest, to do simply — nothing I The rhetorical contest can only be paralleled by the cry of the Mussalman hawker — " In the name of the prophet— figs !"

The House, indeed, was repeatedly informed that in the case of each colony " representative institutions," as the phrase is, were about to be introduced or extended. But we need hardly observe to such persons as are at all acquainted with the working of the bureaucratic system, that the mere right of what is here meant by " representation " implies no real power of self-government,' beyond a very trifling control over the local revenues, which it is rarely practicable to exercise. A colony in which the officers of departments hold office irrespectively of the confidence of the people may, indeed) by a stretch of terms, be said to be " represented " — inasmuch as the popular element is, to a limited degree, admitted into the Legislature. But the Executive clearly never can, unless by a happy accident, represent the wishes of the community, in the absence of responsible government. Now, we could not desire better arguments in proof of the injustice of withholding responsible government from the West Indies and the Australian group, than those which are furnished in Lord John Russell's own speech. So far as we are aware, the fitness of these particular dependencies' of the Crown for the privilege in question has not latterly been denied by a single politician of weight. But, were it otherwise, we might well reply, in the words which the Premier himself quotes with approval from Lord Harris, that "if it were determined that because a people are, at any given moment, unfit for popular institutions, therefore no attempt should be made to introduce such institutions— in such a case there would be a perpetual bar to political improvement." How is it, then, we ask, that Ministers are unprepared to extend a privilege so essential to local freedom, to a single colony at present groaning under the bureaucratic system ? Must we always wait for disorders, such as those which formerly convulsed our provinces in North America, before we accord a boon which, according to his lordship's own testimony, has there worked so well ? One would really think that the Premier had forgotten the policy he was advocating, when he thus described the benefits of the change in some of the enfranchised provinces : — ,„ " When Lord Glerielg held office, a change was made, separating the Legislative Council from the Executive Council, and causing the Executive Council to be chosen in such a manner as to consult the opinion of those persons who commanded the support of the majority of the Legislature of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and we have not heard of late years of those unhappy discussions that used to prevail when the Executive Council of the Government found themselves in a small minority in the Legislature. Now, sir, it will be seen from this statement that in Nova Scotia and Brunswick, the principle which those gentlemen wish to see adopted in all the colonies has been carried into effect. I should say that the consequence has been that there have been fewer questions relating to misconduct of inferior functionaries and other local matters brought before the Secretary of State than .used to be. Those matteis were causes of great embarrassment to the Colonial Secretary when he was called upon to decide upon them. Theg are now settled in the colony."

While thus advocating the very policy which he was in practice repudiating, his lordship, with characteristic temerity, did not fail to represent the colonies as self-evident proofs of the determination of himself and his colleagues to render every community of English settlers an image of the parent State. Supposing that such is really his conviction, the censure which he thought fit to pronounce on the Society for Promoting Colonial Reform seems to us not a little inconsistent. What possible harm can arise from " the correspondence " of gentlemen, whether in or out of the Legislature, with communities so free, so happy, and so contented as the subjects of his eulogium ? And why, if these colonies are in truth but homogeneous extensious of the parent State, should combinations between their politicians and our own be more inconvenient, unconstitutional, or improper, than if their several points of communication were situate within the area of Great Britain?

One portion, however, of his Lordship's speech, we heard with much satisfaction. He professed himself heartily alive to the value of our colonies ; and he declared that any attempt to sever Canada from her Majesty's dominions, whether by annexation or otherwise, would be decisively resisted. But while we fully concur in the reprobation expressed in this portion of the speech, of the efforts made in various quarters to use the existing colonial discontents as a means of dismembering the empire, we only regret the more that no guarantee should have been given of any measure calculated to neutralize those efforts by decisive and conciliatory reforms. Lord John Russell's speech will, we fear, have a far more baneful power than a whole army of the agitators whom he reproves. What hope will remain among our colonial fellow-subjects of peacefully obtaining their rights, when the first Minister of the Crown, after laying down principles of freedom which would be regarded as almost revolutionary in their own bureaucratic assemblies, leaves them, after all, at the mercy of their present irresponsible Governments? Or what confidence will they have in the British Senate, when so able a tactician could assimilate their constitutions to that of the Mother-country, in safe reliance on the ignorance of his audience ?

[From the Daily Newt, Feb. 11.] A marked prominence has been given _to colonial policy among the topics of the session by Lord John Russell's speech on Friday night, and the remarks of the speakers who followed him. This is the consequence not only of the early period at which the Premier has introduced the discussion, but of the comprehensive view he took of it. Nor is the prominence greater than the importance of the subject deserves.

Lord John<indicated two considerations which forcibly illustrate the importance of colonies. In oceans, the shores of which are peopled by rude tribes, or are altogether uninhabited, colonies serve as harbours of refuge for the mariners whom trade or the fisheries expose to the risk of shipwreck vu such regions. Colonies supply also fields of remunerative employment for the intelligent and enterprising who, amid the dense population of an old country, find it difficult to make their way in the world. To these considerations we may add the importance of colonies as markets for the produce of the mother country. The astonishing ratio at which population increases in the settlements of a new country, converts a few straggling Bhanties in the lapse of a few years into affluent and busy cities. And these cities are reared by English emigrants ; their population retain their hereditary tastes for articles of English produce, and for the business connexions formed before leaving their native country. China is acquiring, but slowly, a taste for our manufactures; the Mauritius, which has been a British dependency for more than thirty years, still draws its supplies of wine and furniture from France ; but the Austrolians cling to' the broad-cloth and porter of old England. In point of fact we can grow new markets for our surplus produce as fast as we can open those already existing to which we have not formerly traded. Our colonising emigrants not only attain to wealth they might in vain have laboured for at home : they provide employment in the old country by their consumption of its manufactures, for a more numerous population than would have been made up of themselves and the friends left behind them, had they remained there.

■ These considerations suffice to show of what consequence it is that we should weigh 'well £our colonial policy; and the present unsettled and unsatisfactory state of almost all our colonies shows that the attention of the Legislature has not been invited to the subject a moment too soon

Lord John Russell, in his very comprehensive and judiciously toned speech, adverted ao three cardinal considerations in our colonial policy — the government of the colonies, the question of emigration or colonisation, and the subordinate and only in part colonial question of convict transportation. Upon the latter two his remarks were comparatively vague and cursory ; and in a speech which, however general in its nature, was still prefatory to the introduction of a bill for the government of a group of colonies, this was natural enough. Following Lord John's lead we shall restrict ourselves at present to the question of colonial government ; not that we think it either more important, or, in the present state of affairs, more urgent than either of the others, but because it is the question upon which legislative action is most directly and immediately invited.

In the general views of colonial government enunciated by Lord John Russell we entirely concur. "It appears to me," said his lordship> " that in saying wherever Englishment, there they should enjoy English freedom and English institutions, our ancestors acted at once justly wisely." And he concluded his speech with this truly admirable declaration : —

" ( I do, of course, anticipate with others, that some of those colonies with which we are now dealing may so grow in population and in wealth, that they may say to us, ' Our strength is now sufficient to be an independent country ; the link of the connexion with you has now become onerous to us ; the time has arrived when we think we can ourselves, in amity and alliance with England, maintain our independence.' That day, however, has not yet, I believe, approached; but I say, make them in the meantime, as far as possible, fit to govern themselves—give them, as far as you can, the capacity to manage their own affairs — let them increase in wealth and in population, and whatever may happen to this great empire, we shall at least have the consolation of saying we have contributed to the happiness of the world.!'

The general principles of colonial policy avowed by Ministers are unexceptionable. The question of the separation of colonies from the parent State is not now before us ; we are called upon to decide how colonies which still continue integral parts of the empire are to be governed. The true way of governing them is to let them "enjoy English freedom and English institutions " — let them have' self-government in everything except those matters which are always reserved for the management of a supreme Central Government — which even in the republic of North America are reserved by the Congressional Government. The Ministerial principles are sound; but the question still remains open — are the measures which Ministers are about to take sufiicient to carry those principles into effect? ' . Special reference was made on Friday night to the course which Ministers intend to pursue in relation to the Australian colonies, the Cape of Good Hope, New Zealand, Guiana, and Trinidad. Special objections'were started by one or another of the members of the House of Commons, to the Ministerial plans for each of these colonies. We cen scarcely hope to escape the imputation of presumption in observing, that for want of basing their remarks upon a principle sufficiently general, neither the Ministerial advocates nor their critics were altogether satisfactory or conclusive in their reasonings. The debate turned in a great measure upon the question whether there ought to be one or two councils in the constitutions to be given to the colonies. This is a mere formal question; the really important consideration is, whether the constitutions given to the colonies will give them the reality or merely the appearance of selfgovernment. Whatever the form of the constitution for a colony be, if it enables a governor, or any number of officials appointed by the Home Government to rule the colony by means of a minority in opposition to local public opinion, it will inevitably lead to corruption and intrigue on

the one band, and to discontent and chronic agitation on the other. The question really at issue is not whether there ought to be two legislative bodies as proposed for the Cape, or one as proposed for' the Australian colonies, bat whether the local legislature or legislatures are so constituted as to give the colonists the reality of self-government. Candidly speaking, it does not appear to us that either the constitution proposed for the Cape, or that which is proposed for New South Wales and its sister colonies, will give real self-government. Under both the governor will have at his command an organised body sufficient to counteract the views and wishes of the majority of the colonists. At the Cape the elective legislature will be balanced and it may be neutralised by a legislature nominated principally by parties holding office under Government. A governor bent upon following 6ut an upopular course of policy, willbe able, by the constitution of the Cape, to secure a majority in the Legislative Council, and thus counteract the proceedings of the House of Representatives. A governor in New South Wales bent upon following out an unpopular course of policy will be able' to accomplish his ends by means of the Nominee members of the Legislative Council, and by corrupting a few of the elective, or even insidiously availing himself of misunderstandings between the stockholders (who are the aristocratic party in the colony) and the town populations (who are more democratic in their leanings). The truth is, that the schemes of two legislative bodies appointed by different constituencies, and of one Legislative Council composed in part of Government Nominees, both have their origin in a lurking misgiving as to the safety and expediency of entrusting the colonists with the entire control of their local affairs. They are meant to give the Governor — that is, the Home Government which appoints him — power to check and counteract the popular will of the colony. For this reason we think that both the contemplated forms of government for the Cape and Australia are susceptible of improvement. Whether there are to be one or two legislative bodies is a question of very secondary importance i but in either case the legislature ought to be really and fairly elected by the colonists. This end may be obtained in Australia by making all the members of the legislature elective ; at the Cape by giving every district an elective municipal organisation, and vesting the choice of the Legislative. Council in the elective local magistrates to the exclusion of all parties holding office under Government. Though we regard the question of one or two legislative bodies as of secondary moment, our convictions are, we confess, in favour of one only. It is a false analogy that leads men to imagine there ought to be two legislative bodies in each colony because there are two in the British Parliament. The more correct analogy would be to say that there ought to be only one, because, as has been found, it is sufficient for the municipal government of our great towns. Due weight ought to be given to the wishes of each colony in this matter ; and, therefore, we regret to observe a desire on the part of Ministers to jump at the conclusion that the Australians are perfectly satisfied with the constitution of the Legislative Council in New South Wales upon rather inconclusive evidence. The opinions of two New South Wales newspapers, and of the Nominee Council of Van Diemen's Land are light in the halance against facts. The Legislative Council of New South Wales worked so ill that Sir George Gipps had to' dissolve the first prematurely, and had he lived long enough would have had to dissolve the second. Even under the comparatively popular sway of his successor the Nominee ingredient in the Couucil has been a constant source of jealousy and discontent

Our object in these remarks is to call, the attention of Ministers to the expediency of acting fully up to the principles of colonial policy they have avowed. These principles are sound, and may safely and advantageously be acted upon. The only danger is in a timorous attempt to retain in part the old system of governing colonies by a local minority while professing to, concede entire self-government in local matters. The only safe and dignified course for the Imperial Commons is to purge the constitutions for Australia and the Cape of Good Hope of the remaining leaven of nomination; to simplify the constitution of New Zealand, and. bring it into operation at once instead of postponing it ; to give Guiana a really popular representative system instead of Governor Barkly's sham ; and to confer real representative institutions upon all colonies (in the real sense of the term, as contradistinguished from mere dependencies and military stations). In other words, we would have Ministers have faith in their own principles and act boldly upon them.

Mr. George Lomax, the celebrated temperance lecturer, is at present lecturing in Lincolnshire in favour of emigration to New Zealand. On the 22d December, he was received with great attention by a numerous auditory at Winterton, and it is said that he will soon go to Hull and other places for a similar purpose. The Commissioners 6f Improvement in Plymouth have recently purchased land to the extent of seven hundred square feet •at the enormous price of a guinea a foot. The land is required for widening Bedford-street. The same land might a few years since have been bought at less than one-fourth the price. In the Legislative Assembly of France, the bill authorizing the transportation of the insurgents of June to Algeria was adopted, by a vote of 416 to 203. The Nottingham Journal not** the case of a man "born to misfortune." Thrice bis legs were broken, twice his feet were crushed, and ultimately one foot was amputated except the heel. FnenfUi subsequently purchased for him a patent foot; but recently he again 1 fell and broke his leg. Twelve cows have died on a farm in Glamorganshire, from eating the bulbs of waterwort, whicti, in cleaning a ditch, h*d been thrown up into the field in which they were pastured. National vanity is but personal vanity magnified many million times.