COLONIAL MISGOVERNMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 54, 29 May 1852, Page 2

COLONIAL MISGOVERNMENT.

(From the Times, Nov. 15.)

The apathy of the public and of parliament upon the subject of our colonial government, is the cause of serious .evil, not only to the colonists, but also to ourselves. So long as affairs go quietly in appearance, the nation, unfortunately, is satisfied. Any appeal to Parliament is useless, a deaf ear is turned to every complaint, and by dint of sheer indifference, every critic of the existing system is effectively silenced. The officials of Downing-street have full liberty to do as little or as much as they please, and the Colonial Secretary is a potentate exercising uncontrollable sway. The consequences of this neglect on the one part, and freeiom on the other, are made remarkably manifest from time to time in each colony successively. There U discontent, indeed, in all, and at all times ; but occasionally there occurs serious disaster. The colonists are constantly in a state of suffering — the mother-country begins to be sensible of the mischief only when some more than ordinary misfortune calls for extraordinory exertion, and leads to extraordinary expense. A shout of anger is then raised, some hard words are used with respect to the Colonial Secretary and his subordinates, and the money required is invariably paid. With this useless grumbling the anger evaporates, nothing is done to reform the faulty system, or to check, in reality, the vagueries of the Minister. He continues to do as he pleases, and the old tune is played 'da capo. 1 Such, for example, has been the conduct of Parliament and the public with respect to the colonies of South Africa, and we have now, as regards them, arrived at one of those periods of disaster which excite a momentary attention, give rise to passing complaint and rebuke, and produce enormous expense. Never was there a more striking illustration of our mischievous system of colonial rule. Lord Grey has, so far as England has been concerned, had full license to do as he pleased. He has indulged without let or hindrance in every crotchet that his fancy has suggested. He has exhibited every phase of his variable temper with respect to the unhappy colonist*, and hns finished by Considering them generally as his personal enemies. Because he could not make the colonists acquiesce without a murmur in all he proposed, his sensitive dignity deemed itself insulted, and he consequently insulted in return, and oppressed the helpless objects of his petulance and anger. In no instance in our colonial history can the misfortunes which have occurred be more directly and fairly traced to the conduct of the Colonial Secretary than in the case of the Cape colony. The present disastrous condition of affairs there is the legitimate consesequence of Lord Grey's conduct. To his mischievous meddling the outbreak of the Caffres is solely attributable. The unprepared state of the colony is the result of his policy. The discontent of the colonists was produced by his ill-temper and unwarrantable conduct. From the first moment of his colonial rule lie has in every colony resisted to the utmost every attempt on the part of the colonists to manage their own affairs, and in South Africa he has been especially successful in giving efficiency to this the cardinal principle of his policy. He has compelled the colonists to submit to enforced inaction, but whilst thus retaining them in the leading strings of the Colonial Office, he has not failed to keep alive in them feelingß of bitter indignation. He has thus rendered it impossible to employ them usefully in the defence of the colony, while he has left untouched every mischievous power they possessed.

The state of affairs is now at length seriously alarming. The Horse Guards talk of five fresh regiments in addition to the ten either on their way to, or serving in South Africa. We cannot desert the colony and the colonists, withdraw our troops, and put an end to our dominion. That is impossible; neither can we continue the present harrassing hostilities. The war must be put an end to, either by submission on our part, or on that of the Caffrcs. But submission on our part will, under present circumstances, bring ruin upon the colony. Flushed with success, the wild tribes of Cam-e-land will, by constant incursions, keep the colonists in continued alarm. The insecurity of life and property will put an end to improvement and settlement, and the colony will soon dwindle away. The Boers and the Caffres will then occupy the country, and wage incessant war with each other. Submission, then, or retreat on our part, must not be thought of; but to subjugate the people whom we have thus roused to hostility will entail enormous expense. The last Caffre war took from the Imperial Treasury above three millions of money, and the present state of affairs proves for what pur-

pose that money "was expended. Still, there is but one course before us. The Caffres must be subdued and brought to complete and permanent submission. The most economic mode of proceeding will be to employ a force sufficient to bring about this result in one campaign. The one large expense ard the one great effort •will be far less expensive, even as regards the immediate outlay, than a petty warfare continued for a series of years. To the colony such a decisive and rapid plan of action would be of incalculable benefit. Security would be at once re-established, emigration would attend on security, and a rapid advancein the material well being of the colony would be the immediate effect. With a little war, continued for years, such an advance would be impossible. Every day would see the condition of the colony deteriorate, and many long years of trying toil would be needed to give to a colony in such circumstances a substantive existence. It would contiuue dependent, even for its very being, on the mother-country- ; would be ever craving for support and aid, instead of being, as it ought to be, a self-supporting and useful possession.

But, suppose the war ended, and the Caffres subdued and humbled, and excluded permanently from British Caffraria,— suppose the enormous expense again provided for, — is nothing to be done to prevent a recurrence of such disasters ? Is the Colonial Minister, be he Lord Grey or any one else, still to have the power to bring upon us at any time precisely similar evils ? "Will Parliament never address itself to the task of framing a system of colonial rule, — a code of colonial law, by which regularity and order may be made to take the place of the present hopeless confusion that pervades every portion of our colonial empire, and a settled and de&iite rule to exclude the mischievous workingwf whim, caprice, vanity, and ignorance ? Are our colonists to be for ever subject to a succession of Lord Greys, in place of being under the dominion of prudence and common sense ? We fear that no satisfactory answer will be given this questioning. A colony at present is considered by every Administration as a patronage preserve; and our colonies are looked upon with complacency by those in power, not because they may be rendered the means of extending our influence, our language, our civilization, to regions where barbarism, ignorance, and misery are. now alone to be found— -not because friendly provinces may be created in which our manufactures may find a ready and remunerative market, and our overflowing population happy homes, but because they afford the means of providing for distressed connexions and importunate partisans. A colony and its inhabitants are of importance, because, under the pretext of governing them and it, a host of dependents can be quartered on the public. This patronage, and a love of ease and power, make the whole body of our colonial officials fierce enemies of any plan by which the powers of government are conferred on the colonies themselves. So soon as a colony provides all its own officers of government, its secretaries, its judges, its lawyers, its bishops, &c., it ceases to be a subject of interest in Downing-street. Canada at this moment is less prized at the Colonial Office than any other of our colonial dependencies, simply because now Canadians fill a large proportion of the offices in their own Government, which consequently affords but a small harvest of patronage to the Administration here. Every colony possessed of a representative government tends necessarily to the same disagreeable state of things. It is therefore the policy of the Colonial Office to withhold, up to the latest possible period, from every colony, a representative constitution ; and, when at length that is no longer possible, then to grant as defective a plan of government as the ingenuity of its officials can devise. Every improvement is steadily resisted, and every shift is resorted to, every mistake recklessly braved, in order to continue the mischievous power of official patronage. Parliament, if it really felt for the imperial interests of England as regards her colonial possessions, could put an end to this baneful struggle without difficulty and without danger. A definite rule might be established with respect to colonies generally, which would obviate the necessity of passing an act of parliament for each separate colony, when its demands for the power of self-government must bi: attended to. The rule that is good for Sydney is good also for New Zealand and the Cape. The men who have founded the colony of South Australia are of the same race, have the same education, habits, thoughts, and feelings, as those who established Port Phillip. The institutions which the one set of colonists need \ the others also require ; and the representative constitution that would work well in New Zealand would be equally useful in South Africa, j Why, then, does not Parliament apply itself to the task of framing a law which would meet the exigencies of all our colonies of this de-

scription ? By so doing it would supersede all the mischievous influences of our present system, and effectively guard against the repetition of those monstrous evils of which we have at this moment so striking an illustration in the bloodshed, expense, and misery of the present Caffre war.