GAVAN DUFFY ON THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

Evening Post, Issue 174, 29 August 1865, Page 2

GAVAN DUFFY ON THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

2lr. Gavan Duffy has [icen entertained at a dinner in St. James's Hall, by about one hundred Irish members of Parliament and Australian gentlemen in London. In returning thanks for the toast of his health, he said— AH the fascinations of Europe would not have drawn him across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, if there had not been also om the other side the friends of hia early manhood. It was in Ireland chiefly lie expected to meet them, but he was rejoiced and moved to see round that table men with whom he had been associated — some earlier, some later — over the entire period during which he had been connected with public affairs. himself again among so many old allies and associates, his first impulse naturally was to recur to the subject which they had treated in common — the politics of Ireland. But many considerations restrained him from doing so. Returning after an absence of nearly ten years, and from a distance of more than 13,000 miles, he desired to see and hear rather than attempt to teach ; especially as almost every man there, from his position and duties; might rather teach him. He rather turned to a country, of which he mi^hfc speak freely, as having a recent knowledge of it, and in respect ot which he had only to guard against the temptation to exaggerate its advantages which sprang from a sense of gratitude. No man, indeed, had more reason to be grateful . He had found in that country all the essential conditions of happiness — work to do, which he was pleased to be enagaged in, and which had sufficient success to be easy and agreeable — a liberal and even a bountiful reward for labour— friends health, and contentment. Coming back with such recollections and impressions he felt surprised and wounded at the tone which prevailed in respect of the AustraliaD colonies in the Press and in the Parliament of this country. He thought there was a great mistake of policy, and a strange lack of good feeling, in the eagerness with which every fact, that appeared to damage or lower the reputation of the Australian communities was received in England. A century ago tho same prejudices existed towards the colonies of North America; and the evil consequences had not died out yet, and perhaps would never die out. li there were less friendly feeling towards this country^in the America of Andrew Johnson that*, in the

Ainfticfl o f George Washington, the chief cfiu«c, he~V El kved, was the ill-feeling created by the contemptuous criticism in En "land. We are puzzled to account for this* sentiment towaids Australia. What had Victoria, for example, done to provoke hostility? She had never cost the imperial treasury a guinea except foist rictly Imperial purposes. She had managed her own affairs without pestering tiic Imperial Parliament, and managed them with notable success; she had poured n tide of gold— averaging nearly a quarter of a million sterling every week— lor the last dozen years into the commercial capital of England, and from which wealth every class and almost every individual in this community was more prosperous than he would otherwise have been. la the reform debate Mr. Gregory read au extract from an Australian newspaper to show how the Legislative Assembly in Victoria under democratic influence had refused to grant .£50,000 a year in aid of tl c assisted iemale immigration, notwithstanding a great inequality of the sexes in our population. But Mr. Gregory had omitted to tell Parliament the extract was i i ora a paper nearly five years old ; and he omitted to tell Parliament, if he new it, that every year since the date of that paper, £.saooO a year had actually been spent on .'insisted immigration ,• in iact, the London daily papers of the very week in which tlik speech was made contained advertisements offering free passage to the colony of Victoria to suitable female immigrants. H Mr. Gregory wished to present to Parliament a startling contrast between the oh I country and the new, he would furnish him one which had the advantage of being founded on fact. He might ride over a district in Victoria larger than the county lie represented without meeting a man who had not sufficient to eat and drink and wear, and without seeing a farmer who did not own the land he tilled in lee f-imple, or held it on terms of independence, without seeing a clergyman living at the cost of the country without a flock, or a church built by the State without a coii<rre S ntion. When Mr. Gregory could •ny as much for Galway he might throw the first stone at Australia. He asked the gentlemen around him to remember that tin; people of Australia were simply their nun countrymen who had passed through the tropicßto a new home; that they were not the worse lor that adventure, but rather the better, as evincing their courage and self-reliance, and that the friends a\ horn they had left behind ought to rejoice in their prosperity, and feel that til. ir character was part of the possessions of this country.