THE AUSTUALIAN COLONIES. FIRST ARTICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 174, 6 June 1862, Page 5

THE AUSTUALIAN COLONIES. FIRST ARTICE.

The Australian colonies are determined that England shall be better acquainted with them. New South Wales has for some months maintained a missionary here to spread unions; us the glad tidings of prosperity in Biore in that colony for perishing Englishmen; and' Victoria lias resolved to follow the example. A considerable sum has been set apart to defray the expenses of a commissioner, who is to go about, huld meetings, gire lectures, and answer inquiries. We ratty hope, therefore, that before long there mny be no more reason for a Melbourne journalist.to complain that "educated men in England are better acquainted with the habitat of the.Gorilla than with the relative position of Melbourne and Sydney." We cannot but wish the fullest succory to these efforts. Our energetic but over-driven working population ought to know what patli3 to competence are open to them at the Antipodes; and it ia equally important that our governing classes should be kept informed of the changes which are so rapidly taking place in the iuternoA condition and reciprocal relations of the several colonial group?.

The impressions under which most people at home regard the principal Australian Colonies were uc- -j quired at a time when great interest in theln was excited by the discoveries of the gold fields. But their condition 13 now very dift'erent from that which then prevailed. Victoria, .although it is still thinly and irregularly peoplid. having upon an area nearly equal to that of England, Scotland, and Wales put together, a populattcn of only eighteen persons., to the square mile, is nevertheless no longer a laud of squattera and diggers with their followers. In Victoria, indeed, the squatting interest is almost wholly dispossessed. The iioek and herd masters, for whom the ea^y and secure occupancy of large tracts of grassy and watered country is indispensable, are retiring beforrf the increasing mining population, whose pur- | suits derange their industry, and to supply whose wants their largo runs must be broken up into farms for the production of grain. Wool is no longer king in Victoria, and is losing its ascendancy in New South Wales. Accordingly, the squatters are moving in a vast Ajnigrcttion to unsettled territories, and having occupied Queensland, are still sending out exploring parties to discover new districts suitable for pastoral settlements. And the agriculture of tie Australian colonies is so fast overtaking the wants of the population that a great fall in tiie price of produce is general, and in some of the colonies, as South Australia and Tasmania, the export of wheat to England has been seriously contemplated. We do not expect to I hare to record the arrival of such a cargo just at present; the agriculture of Australia will either acquire a versatility of its own, or submit to the di- I rcction of commercial aptitude, and supply the wants j of Queensland and the new mining districts of New Zealand, or put up flour for Calcutta, long before its scanty laborers will produce wheat for us. But the permanent reduction of the price of food is effecting great changes in the colony, by causing a general fall of tiic rate of wages. This has brought on a period ef trial to the laboring population of the colonies, and is connected with what we have learned of discontent and ■strife. It has, however; been well borne, and '"'hat may excite surprise, the democratic legislatures both of Victoria and New South Waies are large sums to stimulute an increase of the inumber of' laborers by assisting immigration. It has been argued in England that under the regime of universal '■ versal suffrage this would never take place ; and lindeed, in Soiith Australia, which is much less demoicratic than its neighbors, the use of tho money derived i from the sale ,'; ;of Crown lands, in importing, .laborers, has -been not only resisted hitherto ■ with success, but resented as gross injustice by the ' workers for wages. In Victoria and New South' Wales ! the more general extension of the suffrage has precluded this feeling, and there has been nothing to prevent the body of the people from perceiving theiT ; true interests : accordingly Jarge sums of money have '. been freely voted for immigration purposes. An elec--1 tion forthocity of Adelaidelast December, turned upon ' the Immigration Grant, and candidates were asked, " I 'o you think it fair to spend the taxes paid by working men, in bringing in others to beivt down their wages by competition 1 " Jealousies like these are caused by irritating political distinctions. But where these are absent, prejudice disappears, and in Melbourne the hostility to immigration, once so prevalent among the working classes, has died out. Last year Victoria appropriated £79,000 to assist immigration;^ this year she increases the amount to £125,000.—i3a% News, 18th March. SKOOND ARTICLE., While we are thus making up our minds about our duty to the colonies, there is one duty, perhaps of all others tho rao3t difficult, which we certainly owe ; and it happens to be the one ■which our brethren in the self-governing colonies most urgently call on us to fulfil. The good opinion of England, as the head of the great family to which they belong, is more precious to them than that of all the world besides. On this account, therefore, whatever eke we do or leave undone, whether we extend or refuse our protection, whether we protract dependence or facilitate emancipation, it is our duty to understand their circumstances, in order that we may not unwittingly (falumniata their conduct. But this, they complain, isjustwhatwe will not take the trouble to do. The colonial newspapers are constantly under the necessity of making the observation. Since the adoption of the present system of non-interference at the Colonial office, they fai oftener praise than blame the Home Government; but of us, the English people and the.English press, they say that we have two weights and two measures for them; that when profit is in question we are painstaking, observant, and inductive, indulging no imagination, and leaving nothing to conjecture; but that when we are about to pronounce a political judgment affecting their good name, we take the rery opposite course, and pick up any idle opinion which comes foremost. They say that we have studied their markets, taken stock of their wealth, and nicely calculated vtheir powers of consumption; bat that as new societies, exposed to trials and acted on by forces altogether different from thoie of the old country, we do not care to bestow ftny attention on them. Nor is this all. As an aggravation of our injustice it is alleged that while we decline to inform ourselves of the social and economical circumstances which to a great extent determine the political character and constitution of our colonies, we insist on criticising them by standards of our own, borrowed from an entirely different state of tilings, and tiro thus frequently led to pass on them judgments which are as ignorant as they are severe.

The most common reproach made against those of the colonies-which are self-governing in the true sense of the word, is tho extremely popular form of their political institutions; and it is here that the unthinking transfer of maxims gathered from the experience of old socioties is seen to be most misleading. It is altogether erroneous to suppose that our brethren in the colonies are unaware oi the perils and inconveniences of the democratic forms of government which they have been led to adopt. They are well aware of them, and are occupied in every colony with the inquiry how they may best be neutralised. But they also know that while every form of government has some weakness which renders it liable to become a source of danger, there are none so unsafe as those which rest on a false social basis. A stranger to the facts, who should judge entirely by the reasoning of some of our journals at home, might be led to suppose that the colonists had deliberately, but most foolishly, cast off some form of government well fitted for them, and free from ail risk, in order to embrace one beset with every imaginable evil. But those who have looked into the matter know better. To withhold self-government from the colonies was not possible, and as soon as the fact was adinitted,and the colonies of Australia began to manage their own affairs, and the democratic form o"f : government became, not only inevitable, but also wise a and by comparison safe. The Australian colonies have adopted a democratic form of government because it is the one which corraspondp most closely with their social equality. No differences of race, no conquests, no violent political subjueation, gave occasion to the servitude, or to distinctions akin to servitude, upon which the political institutions of the Old World were founded. The cmigrnnts took out with them English liberty, but they took it to a new soil, better adapted to some of its elements than to others. The desire for political equality which possesses the mass of the populations of Europe, with all the vehemence of a passion, but is principally counteracted by the necessary dependence of poverty on wealth, finds in the colonies no power to withstand it. The British Government has clearly seen this, and the present century can show us no higher examples of political wisdom than its conduct in first discerning the real seat of power in its most prosperous colonies, and then in frankly recognising it. This magnanimity, as we all see, already has its reward in the more than friendly relations which subsist between the colonies and the mother country. What, perhaps, we do not see is the great benefits we have conferred on those young societies by permitting their political developenient in the only natural direction to take place without a struggle with authority. It is to this wise forbearance that is due the fact that although the colonies are as democratic as they can be by their habits and institutions, they are not revolutionary in sentiment.

It is evident that the common-places to which our politicians so often recur when America is mentioned, can be of no real service to our colonial brethren. The pinching wedges and screws by which political society is kept in its place in the Old World Uo not exist among them ; and if they could be invented they could not be applied. ■ To be genuine and useful, must arise ' out of their circumstances and on the scene. The conservatism of Europe, irreparably damaged by a long defence of institutions inimical to colonial life, cannot be naturalised on new soil, nnd wonM be purely mischievous it it «ould. .