ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 63, 26 March 1842, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

ONE-SIDED ECONOMY FOR THE COLONIES. From the Colonial Gazette, September 22, 1841. There is a passage in Sir Robert Peel's speech j in the House of Commons last which may cause among colonial readers a mistrust, only to be removed by some further explanation. Sir Robert Peel was alarmed at the general tendency to increased expenditure on account of the colonies ; and he enumerated several instances—the Canadian loan guarantee and the fortification grant; the Sydney emigration orders issued by Sir George Gipps, to the amount of nearly a million ; and the South Australian bills. this alarm was expressed after Sir Robert had declared that a reduction of expenditure might be one means of meeting the deficiency in the Imperial revenue. Such hints, we say, obscure as they are, will create no little alarm in all who are interested in the colonial expenditure. Now we believe that Sir Robert Peel is too discreet a statesman to commit any flagrant injury upon the colony ; too good a " Conservative" to sacrifice any practical advantage for a theoretical good,or to remove a theoretical evil at the expence of a much greater evil; and moreover, though it is to be doubted whether Sir Robert is much more familiar with Colonial affairs than a diligent reader of newspapers and blue books might well be, yet it does not follow that the Colonies will suffer to the extent of his ignorance ; for, master as he is to be in his Cabinet, it is not supposable that Lord Stanley is to have no weight in the deliberation on Colonial questions. Therefore the alarm which Sir Robert's ominous hints would excite may be allayed. Nevertheless, there are some considerations which it were as well to urge before Sir Robert is too far committed in the perpetration cf any mistaken economy. First, the new economy of the Conservatives, if the Colonies are to be first visited with it, should be a real economy. It is very proper to check Sir George Gipps' plan of incurring liabilities to the amount of a million in two years for immigration, while the immigration fund is but a small fraction of that amount; but then, Sir Robert did not begin to impose that checkit was Lord John Russell. From his manner of speaking, it might be inferred that Sir Robert was dissatisfied with Lord John's check ; could he, however, go beyond it ?—could he apply any more stringent ? Lord John took steps to prevent any of the emigratton orders from being en-' forced, except those upon which arrangements were already concluded ; and even of those he secured the use of such only as had been- the basis of bona fide engagements, by requiring all to be registered by a certain day, and executed by a certain day, at a brief interval. . That was all that it was safe to do : to have enforced any infraction of existing arrangements would have given a shock to the general confidence in the eligibility of New South Wales as a site for immigration, and in the facility of transport, for which any "amount saved would have been but a small compensation. Then as to the South Australian bills ; would Sir Robert have refused payment of them, and have flnng the colony to destruction ? It may be answered—he would not; he would have done just what Lord John Russell did—paid the bills, and recalled the improvident Governor who drew them, Colonel Gawler's expenditure is no part of a system of colonial expenditure, still less of the "South-Australian system ;" it is a monster in the history of colonies ; and if it illustrates any system at all, it is that which has prevailed at the Colonial Office, of making anybody Viceroy over a colony who happens to be of a certain standing in the. Army or Navy, and to be able to give good testimonials as to his general respectability and due attendance at the Established Church on Sundays. The South Anstraiian expenditure therefore, was no case in point, to be enumerated among Colonial expenditures ; and its being included in Sir Robert's list must awaken the fear, that he may have some confused and sweeping views which include absurd outlays, pressing emergencies, and ordinary expenditure, all in one condemned category under the head of a ' tendency to increase.' Then again/the Canadian guarantee : it does not take much consideration to shew that vast sums might be expended in Canada not only to the immense benefit of the Canadians, but to the incalculable profit of the mother-oountry. It might take millions to buy up all the appropriated waste lands under some rational system of forfeitures, such as that recommended by Lord Durham, but what enormous benefits might accrue to this country from money so laid out, and more, laid out in the encouragement of emigration to Canada upon a scale such as the world has never witnessed. Those enterprises are not upon the cards now, and we do not urge them upon Sir Robert Peel just at the threshold of office ; but the speculation serves as an illustration to shew that the "economy'' of an expenditure on account

of the colonies is not be estimated by the amount saved, but by the mode of its disbursement. On the other hand, suppose the whole amount devoted to the Colonies were struck off the Estimates by a stroke of the pen, what would be gained by that ? Why, the separation of one and all of the Colonies, except perhaps, the worst used and most helpless, and the loss of their markets for our manufactures. Sir Robert Peel must knew, as a self-evident position, that money may be saved to lose ten-fold, and that it may be liberally spent to return ten-fold. Surely it is not necessary, at this time of day, to remind him, when he comes to details, that penny-wisdom is poundfoolishness?

There is yet a more important question to be asked;—What has England done for her colonies that she should call upon them now for such a strict account ? Has she done her duty to them in every respect ? Has she sent them out, the young colonies as they left their home, completely educated, and equipped to combat the hardships of the wilderness ? Has she removed those hardships to the graatest possible extent; shown her colonists where 'they might provide for themselves, or where they have found out the site without her assistance, left them alone to improve its natural resources ? Has she conducted her navigation laws upon a principle of strict equality, allowing her colonies to seek their markets in all parts of the woild equally with herself? Has she taught the colonies, to whom her money is now grudged, to raise it within themselves, to find the means and the mode of taxing themselves, and enforcing a rigid economy in their own control ? England has done none of all these things. She has done, for a long series of years, but one thing for her colonies —she has given them money. Like the undutiful parent, she has let that one easy virtue of pecuniary liberty suffice as the substitute for all others. And is this sole benefit to be withdrawn ? Good, let it be withdrawn ; —but first, in the name 6f justice and common sense, enable the colonies to supply themselves with the riches which you withdraw. Let these be the terms of the bargain, and the harshest economy which can be exercised here will have no alarms. Endow the colonies with the equal power of trading" in the markets of the world;- let them be open to every grade and condition of society, so that the staple of their population may be the same as your own ; let them no longer be held by the Colonial Office as patronage preserves for incapable or disreputable importuners who cannot be fed at home ; give them, incomplete representative institutions, the means of raising funds within themselves, and of exercising that economy which you demand; set them free to derive from the natural resources of their own countries that capital which you deny; and your future justice will be preferred to your past lazy generosity. No longer prevent the prosperity which you will not help ; do not withhold from the West Indies the fie& black labour which alone can save them, if you are prepared to make no further sacrifice to their welfare ; do not inflict a Gawler upon a colony and refuse to pay his bills ; do not, all in one breath, deprive the settlers in New South Wales of their emigration orders, take away*their convict labour, and refuse them a self-taxing power because they are a community of convicts and not of free emigrants. If you will not pay the colonies, enable them to pay themselves. On these terms welcome the austerest economy. But do not think of withdrawing any of the ordinary allowances, "extravagant" as they may-seem, until you are prepared to look a little further at other considerations. Do not withhold the single paltry service which England performs for her colonies, and leave them nothing to thank the mother country for.. Where would be the sense, or expediency, or economy of that?