COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 67, 28 August 1852, Page 4

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

" SELF-GOVERNMENT TITO ONLY PA.NA.CEA FOB COLONIAL EVILS." In a recent number of the " Melbourne Argus," an article on the above subject appears, in its columns, from which we copy the following extract." The writer, after commenting on the future greatness which awaits Australia, notwithstanding the grievances they have at present to contend with, by the mismanagement of their internal affairs, speaks out in the following strain : —

" The giant evil which afflicts all the Australian colonies, and indeed, all British dependencies — that which presents the greatest obstacle to their general and particular advancement — is the present system of Colonial Government. The truth is so palpable that it is trite ; people will scarcely listen with patience when you begin to speak of it. But now, more than ever, it is an evil- and seen and felt to be an evil; and now, more than ever, it is the duty of the public writer to insist upon its immediate remedy. The Australian journalists should loudly and constantly proclaim to the people of England, that the existing system of Colonial Government is the greatest grievance under which

Colonists labour ; and that it is equally fatal to the well-being of the Colonies, and the general interests of the British Empire.

" Look at our own case, for example ; see the mischiefs that perpetually threaten us, the actual danger that imminently impends over us, merely because a timid and vacillating Ruler is either unable or afraid to put forth that manly promptitude of action which every commercial man is called upon to evince many times in his career, and without which he would be deservedly ruined ! And why this miserable exhibition of weakness and cowardice ? Merely because our Ruler is but the hack of an avaricious merchant at the antipodes, and does not dare to spend a shilling on waste paper, or hire an errand boy without sending over the globe to consult his employer ! Is it any wonder, that pondering these things, even the sober ' Sydney Herald' is betrayed into strange enthusiasm, and with unwonted boldness, declares that—' the speedy recall of Mr. LaTrobe has become indispensable to the salvation of Victoria.' Yes ! Mr. LaTrobe must be recalled speedily, if Victoria is to be saved. But that step is only the first of an inevitable series ; and the • Sydney Herald' would be quite right if it proceeded to show that Sir Charles Fitzßoy must be speedily recalled, if New South Wales is to prosper. Our neighbours have no more cause to rejoice over their Ruler than we have over ours. Indeed, it is notorious that they have actually greater reason for complaint than we have.

" But as we have said, the whole system of Colonial Government must be altered. We must have a clean sweep. If Tasmania is to be redeemed, Sir William Denison must be removed ; and if South Australia is ever to witness reviving prosperity, Sir H. Young must be called home. And not only must new men be appointed, but they must be invested with new powers. Their functions must be made more expansive, and more independent. Their responsibility must lie, not with a capricious and faithless lordling in London, but with the people they govern. The system of relations between Britain and her colonies must be thoroughly remodelled. The Downing-street regime must cease for ever, and the word ' Dependency' must be forgotten. All this, we emphatically assert, must be accomplished if the Australian colonies are to continue an integral part of the British empire.

" A few days since we were enabled to announce, that the poor journal which we conduct had obtained the largest circulation of any newspaper in the Australian colonies. As furnishing the most authentic records of the richest mines in the world, we know that these columns are scanned with interest over a far wider sphere than is bounded by the narrow limits of Victoria ; and we therefore feel that the part which we have to play in the great game of Colonial Reform is not altogether an unimportant one. To the Press of these colonies we appeal, conjuring its conductors to layaside all petty jealousies, and local prejudices, and to lend a hearty hand in endeavouring to secure a better system of Colonial Government. If we do it here, the electric spark will flash and kindle other hearts in other climes ; and acting and reacting upon each other, we may early and steadily and progressively wring concession after concession from British negligence and apathy, every step in which shall be important, but the completion of which shall be freedom itself.

" For our own part we take high ground, and we shall maintain it to the last. We tell the Colonists of this fine country, that it is beneath the dignity of free and intelligent men to bow down to the ' dictum' of some whippersnapper at the Colonial Office, of whom they know nothing, who knows nothing of them,

hut who, in the plenitude of his conceit, fancies that he can control the destinies of forty colonies, better than each can control its own. We say, taking our own alone, without reference to thirty-nine others, that it is monstrous and unnatural to allow that the fortieth part of the attention or information of one brain can compare favourably with the collective wisdom of all the best heads amongst ourselves. It is monstrous, unnatural, and false, and it is time that its monstrosity and falsehood should be exposed and corrected.

" Let us hoist, then, the flag of Selfgovernment — Representative Institutions in their reality ; not the contemptible caricature with which we are now favoured ; responsible Government really amenable to the opinion of the people over whose lot they have so much power. Let us never rest till we have the widest field thrown open to the Colonial talents — the highest honours of the State attainable by the ability and merit developed amongst ourselves. The Colonies have long enough been mere pension-places for discarded servants at home! Let us no longer submit to bee them degraded into pasture-grounds for the brokendown- hacks of public life in Great Britain. We have better men amongst ourselves than they ever have sent us, or ever will send us ; and if a fair field were opened to Colonial ambition, public spirit, and patriotism, we should learn more than we ever otherwise shall learn, what men we really have. It is beneath the dignity of free men of limes like these to bow down slavishly to any stock or stone which may choose to stick a cocked-hat upon its head, and call itself a ' representative of Royalty.' Let us never forget that we do not sacrifice either our social rights or our national character, by the mere act of leaving home. We are the friends and equals of those we leave behind us. We are not their slaves.

" This is what we believe, that the Colonies should ask — the very least that they should be satisfied with. They should insist upon it ; and never falter, nor alter — lag, nor flag, till they are allowed to manage their own affairs; to make their own laws ; to elect their own officers, Governors and all. England should retain the right to veto anything opposed to her interests, or repugnant to her constitution. But to assume any other power is to act the part of an old hag of a mother, who, with forty grown up daughters, chooses to interfere in the contiol of all their several households, and pretends to dictate what they are to have for dinner, or how they are to dress their children.

" It is a system liberal like this, and adapted to the age in which we live, that will link the Colonies in the most endearing ties to the mother-country. It is under such a ' regime' that a hearty generous friendship to the land of our birth, a warm and dignified loyalty to our Queen, and a cordial love for British institutions, can be best fostered both in ourselves and in generations yet to come. But such feelings cannot be developed, and ought not to exist, when the mother-country condescends to enact the meddling tyrant; when our institutions are mere bye-words for incapacity and faithlessness, and our dear little Queen is " represented" by men who were designed by Nature for third-class clerks, hedge school-masters, or petty shopkeepers.

" These, then, are the opinions upon the subject of the reform of Colonial Government, of the 'Argus,' the leading journal of Victoria. Self-Government is the true and only panacea for Colonial evils. Heal, undoubted, uncompromising Self-Government in all its entirety. This is the object to which our endeavours tend ; the goal for which we shall unceasingly struggle. The present system is rotten to the core ; it is time that it should be crushed, and scattered to the winds,"

Perseverance.— The Chinese have the best illustration of the principle we have ever seen. One of their countrymen who had been making strenuous efforts to acquire literary information, discouraged by difficulties, at last gave up his book in despair. As he returned to manual employment he saw a woman rubbing a crowbar on a stone. On inquiring the reason, she replied she was in want of a needle, and thought she would rub down the crowbar till she got it small enough. The patience of the aged female provoked him to make another trial, and he succeeded in obtaining the rank of one of the first three in the empire.

Life in a Tub at a Shilling a-day.— ■ " Schmidt, I say, what are you doing here ? Why are you not at your work in Whitechapel ?" — " Because some one has knocked a nail into my cask, and I've run that nail into my foot." " Some one has knocked a nail into your cask !" said I. What do you mean ?" — " Why," said he, turning to me, while the money-changer left the room, " I am a carpenter by trade ; but finding no work, I engaged myself with a fellow in Whitechapel to ' cure'

skins. I have done it now a fortnight, but some one who wished for my place disabled me by knocking a nail into my cask." I could not make out his meaning. " I h.id to get up at three in the morning," he explained ; " I undressed and then went into a cask with hareskins, which I had to stamp upon all clay long. If I continue that work till seven or eight in the evening I could earn about a shilling a day — just enough to keep me alive." "And were you tricked out of so miserable an employment ?" — " Certainly. There are dozens who wait for a workman to fall ill ; and, if they have to wait long, they make him fall ill by secretly disabling him. Every one has his place as long as he can keep it. They are all Germans who work there, and many of them clever in their trades; but they cannot find other employment," This afforded me food for reflection. What a market is London to bring one's labour to. — Dickens' Household Words.

Sensible Proposition.— A prisoner in gaol lately sent to his creditors the following proposal, which, he believed, would be for their mutual benefit : — " I have been thinking that it is very bad for me to lie here and put you to expense. My being so chargeable to you has given me great uneasiness. I know not what it may cost you in the end ; therefore, what I would say is this : — You let me out of prison, and, instead of nine shillings, you shall allow me only seven shillings a week, and the oth-jr two shillings go towards the debt." — BRITISH Banner.

American Sentiment. — I encountered today in a ravine some three miles distant, among the gold-washers, a woman from San Jose. She was at work with a large wooden bowl by the side of a stream. I asked her how long she had been there, and how much gold she averaged a day. She replied, " Three weeks and an ounce !" Her reply reminded me of an anecdote of the late Judge B , who met a girl returning from market, and asked her, " How deep did you find the stream ? — what did you get for your butter ?" "Up to the knee and ninepence," was the reply. " Ah !" said the Judge to himself, '• she is the girl for me ; no words lost there :" turned back, proposed, and was accepted, and married the next week. And a more happy couple the conjugal bonds never united ; the nuptial lamp never waned—; its ray was steady and clear to the last. Ye who paddle off and on for seven years, and are at last perhaps capsized, take a lesson of the Judge, that " up to the knee and ninepence" is worth all the love-lstters and melancholy rhymes ever penned. — American Paper.

A ludicrous occurrence, most laughable but for its gross bigotry, occurred on Saturday at the Marylebone vestry meeting, when a Mr. Timms is reported to have called the attention of the vestry to a most extraordinary breach of contract which had taken place in the recent fittings of All Souls Church on the part of the contractor. Instead of the hangings and upholstery being according to sample, " the unpretending crimson of Protestantism," fittings of cloth of the light scarlet colour had been substituted, and that of a material of very inferior quality to the sample. Mr. Dwyer, the churchwarden of All Souls, said he had the sample of the cloth for the curtains and fittings, which was ordered, and, on comparison with those which had actually been supplied, he found that the present fittings of the church, of which he also had a sample, were nothing more than scarlet baize. Great indignation was' felt at the present glaring appearance of the church, and he had, as churchwarden, received several anonymous letters charging Popery against them, and asking him whether he had not robbed Cardinal Wiseman of his cloak ? He moved that the committee be re-appointed to see if the contract had been fulfilled. (Samples of the cloth were here handed round the vestry.) Mr. George said, as a practical man, that the colour of the cloth supplied was what was called "ponso" crimson, and was merely a shade or two lighter than the sample. Mr. Rook, also a clothier, said that the cloth supplied was superior. Mr. Hodges said he had made a discover)'. He had had placed iuto his hands a sample of the cloth ordered by the board, which had been retained by the surveyor, and which was, of course, the official sample, and on comparing it with the sample produced by the churchwarden of All Souls (Mr. Dwyer) it was infinitely superior. Mr. Scace, the surveyor — Why, I tore it from the same piece as Mr. Dwyer did, at the same time. (Laughter.) Captain Probyn denounced the 1 waste of the time of the board about such trivial matters. Mr. J. Wilson denied that the cloth produced was of the Romish colour. Mr. M-Evily cared nothing for the rubbish of Mr. Tirams that the cloth was the cloth of the scarlet lady, the cloth of the Church of Rome. It was proved that it was superior to the sample, and therefore he opposed the committee. The resolution for a committee was negatived. — (From the London " Guardian.")