THE " BOSTON RIOTS" IMITATED. (From the Spectator.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 316, 9 June 1849, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE " BOSTON RIOTS" IMITATED. (From the Spectator.)

British Guiana is in a state of financial revolt against the Government, and public affairs are administered through a Provisional Government appointed by Eai I Grey. Though that state of the case is not recognised in terms, it is so. The last of the Boiton rioters has just died, but not before he has seen another colony justly refuse to pay taxes, and another Governmentcomposed of Whig Ministers ! — doggedly attempting to enforce the levying of impoits. No explaining away, no accounting for the mode in which the quarrel begin, no pleading of stipula'ed bargains can get rid of the substantial facti. British Guiana and the British Government are in dispute on broad qaes ioni of financial policy and national justice; ami if the issue is narrowed for the moment to the question oi the Governor's salary, the other great questions remain- The colony has been tnated unj.istly; it resents the bad treatment, but in a constitutional manner j Lord Grey employs the power intiustcd to

him by the Briti«h Crown and Cabinet, to follow up and enforce injustice with a tyranny that exceeds the boundary of the constitution. If Brilish Guiana were " an English county," he would be impeached. We have already explained the case. Under the policy of the Imperial Government, which first deprived the West Indian planters of slave-labour, 'ben persisted in re> using the requirment of iaboi"-, and only granted effective permission after the withdrawal of protection from the sugar trade, the ta\-payir>» power of British Guiana has been seriouily impaired. Its demßnds for relief were slighted ; and it then, but not before, set itself to the work of retrenchment. That process bad already been enforced on the managers of estates, the employes, the labourers— indeed on all connected with the soil; and necessarily so; the pi ice and value of sugar falling, with the amount produced, a reduction in the price of labour was inevitable. To the officials the colonists said, " You have taken awry our power of paying taxes ; you refuse the means of restoring that power ; and therefore you must do with less taxes." The Combined Court proposed a scale of official salaries reduced by 25 per cent. The Governor obstructed the progress of the measure, and the Combined Court took its stand upon the first item in the civil list, Sir Henry Liglu'a own salary; reducing it to its old amount of £3,500 in lieu of £5,000. The Court being obstinate, it was adjourned sitie die; the ordinance authorizing the impcrt duties expired ; the Governor is levying duties under old statutes of doubtful validity— in fact, without any authority except that of absolute power; and Lord Grey has directed him to apply the funds at his disposal in payment of certain favoured salaries, intimating that if the colonists will not provide all the funds, the public service must suffer. The quarrel t therefore, technically as well as virtually, has been allowed by Lord Grey to hinge precisely on the same question as that raised by the Mohawks of Boston ; except that a still more irritating dispute on substantial grievances is added in Demerara to the dispute Oil principle. If you ask how a Whig Minister can have been betrayed into a position so false, there is but one conjecture of the immediate motive — the wish to keep up a preserve of patronage in well-paid colonial posts. The patronage is convenient in two ways, both illustrated by facts. The Governor of Trinidad has no more than .£3,500 a year, and his poverty excites no sympathy in Downing-street: but Lord Harris is a popular Governor who speaks out In the interest of his colony, Sir Henry Light has been the pliant tool of the Colonial Office. Colonel Reid, who has won the perfect confidence of Barbadoes, and promoted in that colony a degree of concord unknown for years, is suffered to gc» the moment his " usual term of service" has expired j and is replaced by Sir William Colebrooke, a mere routine Governor, who has won the confidence of the Colonial Office. Sir Henry Light is retained at his lucrative post for ten years, and receives the honour of " X.C.B."— for keeping the colony in hot water The Governors who demean themselves as servants of the Colonial Office, rather than servants of the Colonies or the Empire, are duly favoured. Another motive explains such appointment as that of Viscount Torrington, whose short reign in Ceylon has been as disastrous a compound of absurd measures, wrangling, and insubordination, as if Earl Grey himself had gona over : the Viscount, it appears, is related to the Earl, and the immense salary of £7,000 a year is a convenient income. Thoroughly to understand the viewi on Colonial sal. Aries propounded by Lord Grey before the Committee oti the Miscellaneous estimates it is necessary to bear such, facts in mind. The Minister for the colonies threw out a proposition that the colonies should take upon themselves certain expenses, and that the salaries of the Governors should be paid by this country. " My reason for that opinion," he said, " is this, that in order to have efficient persons in the situation of Governors, it is necessary that their salaries should bear some considerable proportion to what men of eminence in other careers obtain in this country, . . . If salaries sufficient to secure such services are given to the Governors, and are paid by the Colonies, in the Colonies, they are compared with the incomes of persons there : Hie general scale of income which people enjoy in the Colonies is notoriosuly very much less than in this country ; and the consequence is, that inadequate salaries are given to the Governors." Why gentlemen should have an English scale of income to reside in a country where the scale of income and the cost of livi q are low, does not appear. Lord Grey mentions the necessity that a Governor should " make some saving for the time when he returns home ;" so that the Demerara version of the Boston quarrel originatts iv a resolve that Sir Henry Light should screw a retiring annuity out of British Gu'aua ' But we cannot recognize the necessity for giving to particular persons in a country an income out of all proportion with the universal scale of incomes in that couutry. If Englishmen will not go to live on a moderate income in a cheap place, why not select a Governor from among the colonists, and win their affections by opening to them the highest places in their owa state ? Perfectlyjcompetent men could be found in almost every colony that we possess, most certainly in every group. Nor is n true that Englishmen would not go : men quite competent might bo found by hundreds} only they would not be" gentlemen," in the Whitehall sense of the word— not proteges of the " governing family." It must be confessed that the scale of Colonial incomes is below the scale of incomes in Belgrava Square ; and so long as the higher Colonial posts are regarded as mere appendages to that aristocratic region, convenient retreats for poor Peers, " gentlemen" who find it necessary to save, the political adherents who vote up to the Colonial Office mark of servility, it will he necessaiy to maintain Colonial salaries at a Belgrave Square standard. There is inJesd one position which might warrant the payment of Governors' salaries at an English scale and from English funds—if the Governor were considered, not as an officer of the colony, I ut simply as the representative of the Crown, a true Viceroy. But the complement to such an office would be a complete representation of the colonists, and administration of the goveinment by responsible Miuisteis chosen and paid bv the colonists. The Crown would then be present in the colony by proxy; its interests as custodicr of the Imperial interests would be duly guarded ; but the Governor would be as incapacitated for meddling in the detail and working of affairs as our own Sovereign it. Under bitch an arrangement, tn« occasions for communication with Downing-street would be infinitely diminished in number , the colonist* would really enjoy self*goverument, and vrou.d find open to them every post that is open to a subje t at home. But under such an arrangement, the Go« vernoi would not be competent to that function which is so naively avowed by the evening journal of the Colonial offiue — ■' The office and duty of the Home Government in the colony (Guiana) consists chiefly in protecting tba eighteen parts, the labourers and 9mall proprietors (Negroes) against the nineteenth, which, excluding the immediate agents of the H me Government, caimsls almost entirely of re»idjnt punters and the agetus of the owners of sugar ami coffee estates

Resident in England." The colony would be governed, as every free country ought to be, l>y the dominant influences within it ; the broad imperial lelation being kept up by the Governor. Then we the English taxpayers might ]mv him out of English taxes and endow his thioni with Im, oii.l splendours, and yet, thiough a mori' constilut onal and ordeily government of the Colonies, he game sby the tiansaction. At present, thcioloiiHS .ire lumuil, exasperated, and driven into rebdh' n, in oiMei th.it thn tools ut the Colonial Office ra-iy be " sui puted," and that the relatives or connexions ot the Seer tary of State for the time being may have a gemlemaiiiy income. It has been such cormpt n-eof imperil power which has brought revo* lulioii in 1 "" the vi'iy cnpit-tls of Europe