CARLYLE ON THE COLONIES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 808, 28 July 1870, Page 4

CARLYLE ON THE COLONIES.

F, Huestbouse, an indefatiin gable champion of the Colonies, hav•lK£bg forwarded a copy of one of hii ' : j'4'mjpblets to Mr. Thomas Carlyle, re }] jpeiyed the following answer ;— •> H< mid 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, -.r-r - 28th April, 1870. Dear Sir,—l have read your pamphlet, which you were so good as to senc , ;n jaen.l participate, and have long done, in. your patriotic sorrow, astonishment. >an& indignation at the course our En gliah Government has got into in regard to its Colonies, and to the endless > resources lying open to us there,—especially now when the crisis here at .home is growing stringent, and nc ether feasible escape from domestic jssues which are horrible to contemplate seems to remain for us. England's children perishing, soul and body, herein their choking madden..iogMtßlack Hole of Calcutta;" with fertile continents of English land, in all regions of the world, calling to them, " Come and till us, come and reap us;" and the Government an- > swering " —sel doni before in the history of the world was there seen such a spectacle. For surely, in the nature of things, no axiom of Euclid is more undeniable than what ought in such case to be done; nature herself points out what now is to be got done ! and all English souls have a right to answer their Government in this case: " Impossible, say you? It is impossible for us to.believe it to be impossible ! We advise you to find out what it is in you and your ways that hinders it from being possible; and with great diligence indeed (for the case is getting critical), to try and alter that! " It is, withal, plain enough to me what difficulties a Government like ours will have in organising such an enterprise; too plain to me what the deep-seated (and, for a long time, as yet incurable) origin of such difficulties and among us is: but on that we need not dwell at present;— perhaps our grandsons will see it more clearly, and begin and seek a remedy. Too true it is that with ns and our " Government by National Palaver," all administration, not of Colonies alone, becomes more and more, and is fatefully driven to become, what Dickens calls it, a " Circumlocution office, or a teaching us how not to do it!" which will one day seem a strange Institution in this world.

Nevertheless, in regard to this most pressing interest (of colonies, of emi gration, of pauperism, miilionairism). I still persuade myself that the voice and : instinctive sense of the English people will be got awakened, while it is yet time, on it, and the Government he taught that it is not permissible to cut away the English Colonies, and fling; into the sea, as useless lumber aiid incumbrance (which truly it is, in a Circumlocution office), the most precious possession any nation ever had ; and above all things, that the Government will before long find itself compelled to attempt in concert with its colonies, some veritable National sys tern of Emigration; which salutary enterprise, one can foresee, would be the beginning of all manner of rational* just and solid relations between England and her colonies, and, if faithfully persisted in, and pulled and pushed forward, on both sides of the sea. would more and more teach Eng land and her Colonies whatever is wrong, and how to remedy it, in their /_ relations to one another. With heartiest wishes to this effect, and thanks, for your efforts therein, — J remain, yours sincerely, ': .-Li ',>■■> T. CARLYLE.