THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9182, 11 October 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1888.

♦ In a recent cable message .it was announced that the Pall Mall Gazette strongly opposes the annexation of Bechuanaland to the Cape, and urges that, together with Western Australia, it should be reserved as a Crown colony, to relieve Great Britain of her surplus population. Bechuanaland of itself is probably of not much value for the purpose contemplated, but the suggestion contained in a London paper of the influence possessed by the Fall Mall Gazette, and an exponent of the opinions held by a large and influential

party in England, is significant of the feeling that lias latterly been gaining a powerful hold on the public mind at Home, that England committed a grave mistake, if not a positive wrong, in surrendering the possession of the vast areas of territory made over as a gratuitous gift to the comparatively limited number of people who had chanced at the time to have settled themselves on the outskirts of the British dependencies. This feeling has been intensified by the unadulterated selfishness that has commonly characterised the policy of the self-governing colonies in relation to the mother country which had conferred such a valuable gift, the property of the whole of the people of the British Empire. The deed, for good or ill, was done in an indolent desire on the part of the Government to be freed from the trouble of administering from England, and the imprudence of it is being generally recognised by those at home who see the growing evils arising from the congestion of population ; and we venture to say that the same thing is recognised by a very large number of thinking colonists themselves.

We speak boastfully sometimes of the progress which these colonies have made, but if we take into account that they were started on their career with a free gift of capital in the form of lands of the value of many hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, we are driven to the conclusion that such a capital administered less recklessly should have led to incomparably better results. Indeed, in view of such an amount of capital in hand, the colonies have been little less than an appalling failure. Everywhere colonists have fought and wrangled over the disposal of this wealth, and every'in-"e they have been largely living on that capital, consuming the proceeds of these lands for the necessities of the time, and mortgaging what could not be sold rapidly enough in the raising of huge loans, under which every colony more or less is now groaning. We can hardly conceive of worse results from any other form of administration ; and though it is a species of political blasphemy to say it, we declare that there would not have been such a wasteful and profitless disposal of the public lands under any form of Crown Colony, or from the worst administration from Downingstreet. The public lands have, in fact, been the playthings of political parties, they have been bought and sold for speculative purposes much more than for bona-fide settlement —indeed in such a way as has in many cases actually interposed barriers to settlement —while the principal part of the proceeds of them has been consumed for temporary purposes, for the benefit of the colonists resident at the time, and as a means of sparing them the necessity of taxing themselves for the carrying on of their own public business ; and to all intents and purposes they have been used for the interests of those happening to be in the colonies at the time quite as much as if so much of the public estate had been actually partitioned oti' among them gratuitously. We have no reason to look with any kind of satisfaction on the manner in which Ave have administered this munificent gift. We have simply taken it thanklessly and used it or abused it recklessly, and solely for our own personal interest. That it was intended or expected to be held in trust for the whole British people is probable ; but that it, or any part of it, should be used to relieve the depression or congestion of the people of the United Kingdom, is the very last thing that would enter into the heart of a colonist to conceive. The conduct of colonists in this respect has been selfish, greedy, grasping, and thankless in the last degree, and that the people of the United Kingdom are awakening to the folly of what has been done is nothing more than what was reasonably to be expected. This advice of the Pall Mall Gazette is the expression of that awakened feeling. Like a man who had settled all his property on a bad wife, and is turned by her out of doors, England has given up all these valuable lands to a handful of wanderers, and is told that she has neither right nor claim to them, when an arrangement is sought to be entered into for relieving the straitened condition of her crowded population ; and with an insolence that is little credit to us she is told to keep her paupers at home. There are but a few portions of the dependencies of the Crown in which the freehold has not been thus parted with, and it will certainly be a stupendous act of folly on the part of the Imperial Government if, under any consideration whatever, or under any pressure, it parts with the freehold of any territories that have not yet been gifted with the blessings or otherwise of self-government. The most notable of these unalienated lands is Western Australia, a territory capable of giving homes, in a comparatively temperate and genial climate, to an immense number of people ; and which, if judiciously used, might be made the means of affording substantial relief to the painful sufferings of the crowded and homeless millions of England. And though Bechuanaland is not a very inviting locality for the residence of a European population, it is to be hoped, in the interests of humanity, that in relation to that as well as the newly-annexed territory in Eastern Africa, and all other dependencies of the Crown similarly circumstanced, the prudent principle of conserving the rights of the people of the whole Empire to the lands, will be observed. That the self - governing colonies may yet come to see the wisdom of co-operating with the Imperial authorities in the re-distribution of population, is not improbable ; but in the face of the purely self-seeking policy which has unfortunately characterised every one of the colonies in relation to England when gifted with self-government and endowed with public lands, we venture to think that the principle of Crown Colonies, which we have hitherto been accustomed .to revile, will more and more commend itself to the people as well as the governing circles of England. It is commonly said that the administration of waste lands in the colonies by a colonial department in England, must necessarily be accompanied by abuse ; but it could not possibly be worse for intrigue

and jobbery and downright dishonesty than has been the whole history of the administration of the Crown lands everywhere in the colonies. Beside.? that, administration in detail need not necessarily remain in the hands of the Imperial Government; but retaining the power of entering into negotiations and arrangements with associations charged with colonisation, it may learn to avoid the errors and abuses of the past, whether Imperial or colonial, and successfully inaugurate a new system to be worked, not in the interests of the greedy, grasping few, but of the whole body of the homeless people of the Empire.