COLONIZATION.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 144, 16 October 1847, Page 3

COLONIZATION.

The subject of Colonization grows upou men's minds until it overwhelms them with its vastness. Its shadow darts deeply over the profound abyss of the political future, and darkens the field of enterprize and hope with the indistinctness of immense responsibilities, and unknown advantages. The anxieties of a family now find a parallel in the anxieties of the state. The nation feels like a parent for the welfare of her overgrown offspring. It cannot afford to keep them all at home. Many of them must be sent out into the world to earn subsistence as best they can. In this case the language of the illustration' is less literal than the description of the thing illustrated. The children of the state are verily sent out into the world— the wide world of five con tinents. They snap the cord which connects them with home, and launch themselves upon the unknown ocean of long and unconjectured adventure. The conversation of Tuesday night waidoubtless highly amusing. The statistics it evolved were eminently instructive. The same may be said of the report of the Colonization Commissioners. Within the last ten years, upwards of 100,000 emigrants have left England for Australia—and nearly 800,000 tor the different parts of America. The last three years give an annual aveiage of 94,000 to all parts of the world. Upon certain principles, and under certain conditions, this might be deemed a very satisfactory arrangement. So many poor people are gotten rid of. By so much the labor-market is eased. Superfluous population has emptied itself into the drainage of the Pacific and Atlantic But this idea, consolatory though it be, will hardly end all consideration of the matter. A parent is hardly content with the reflection that his children are off his hands. The happiness and dignity of their futurecareer, their credit in the world, and their affection toward* himself, are source* of interest

long after the exigencies of domestic fortune have separated them (torn the home of tiieir youth —and as far as his own prudence or exertion can influence the chances of their future life, so far does he in general, exercise them. He chooses for tuem the friends whose example maj improve, or whose admonitions may instruct them— he introduces them to men whose patronage may befriend them in the struggle of life, and often the last savings of a slender fortune are devoted to rescuing those who bear his name from ruin or infamy. But, of the 800,000 human beings reared on her bosom, disciplined by her laws, inured to the toil which she impobes upon her poorest sons, and trained by that rude and imperfect education, which is all she can spare to the heirs of poverty and toil, how many have received from her the fostering care of a parent state ? Separated from her by wide seas, they are separated from her by the wider gulf of distinct and inconsistent interests. Ceasing to live on her soil, they cease to be an integral portion of her empire. They may prosper or they may fail m their way of life — but neither is their prosperity any more attributable to her uare, than their failure is mitigated by her solicitude. They are vagabonds, rovers, adventurers, hewers of wood, tillers of the ground, builders of huts, land-sharks, or town-speculators, lucky ot unlucky, honest or roguish, loyal or disloyal, as the case may be : .but no virtue of their? is encouraged, no noble sentiments elicited, and no patriotic spirit excited by any act which is done, or any system which is professed by the mother-country. They are a mob, with all the forms and externals of constitutional government about them, but without that spirit which — in the guardian power of a pervasive polity, and the traditionary memorials of an ancestral faith— animates the sluggish mass of casual associations, With the duties of the emigration agents, at our out-ports in England, and the emigration agents in our colonies, begin and end the care and operations of our Government. The people are embarked according to the provisions of the Passengers' Act, and disembarked, to burrow in the warrens of a vast and inhospitable country. But, is this the end and object of Colonies ? Are they designed to be the mere receptacles of burdensome poverty, competing industry, and squalid ignorance ? Does the possession of boundless territory entail no duiies on the mother country f Are the customs which she has ratified, the principles which she has developed, the institutions which she has perfected, so vile and valueless, that it is no care to her to cherish them in the lands which own her distant sway? Is it enough that she concedes the form, but withholds the vital warmth of that polity which is her boast? That she gives freedom, but does not give that corrective which can alone prevent the growth of a vulgar license— that she allows toleration! but in fact encourages a dangerous and sneet ing indifference — that while she has unshackled her Colonists from the fetters of aristocratic subordination, she has at the same time destroyed those beautiful proportions of social order, to which she owes so much of her own strength and greatness ? It was asked in Parliament — "Is the art of colonization lost ?'* With us it teems to be lost j but many years have not 'passed since it was in its prime. A century and. a half ago, witnessed its best exemplification in Canada, as more than two centuries since saw it illustrated in Massachusetts. At the present moment Montreal affords a better representation of France in the reign of Louis Quatorze, than Tours or Caen— and, till lately, Boston gave a better notion of English society under the Stuarts, than York or Norwich could do. To both these cities, a nucleus of society had been transplanted. The pilgrims to Massachusetts did uot go in a loose, makeshift fashion, but with the orderly discipline of a family, governed by an uniform principle, and acknowledging one common head. The French Colouists were a type of French provincial society— the Noble, the Peasant, the Priest, and the Artizan, were the constituent elements of a settlement which has exhibited more harmony, unity, and individuality, than any other in those regions. Can it be said that in England men are wanting, who would give to our Colouial essays the benefit of those things they so much want, high bearing, gentlemanly feeling, cultivated taste, and strict principles J Can it be that men of family and education, starving on Ensigncies, Curacies, and village-practice, or lounging about Regent Street, and Piccadilly, would not willingly exchange the paltry pittance of their pre sent state for one of usefulness, honour, and adventure, abroad. If this be the case, we fear the reason of it must be found in the apathy of our Government, which looks upon the Senators and officials of Canada and Nova Scotia, as caricaturing the service, rather than deserving the confidence, and earning the rewards of the British Crown— whilst in other Colonies it withholds all those prized privileges, which could excite the zeal and animate the loyalty of brave, honest, and intelligent men.— English Paper.