BRITAIN'S COLONIES. From the Times.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 193, 5 April 1848, Page 3

BRITAIN'S COLONIES. From the Times.

The boast of Enghnd is her tr.msraajal.ime empire. The sun never sets on her dominion. Iv every continent and in every hemisphe c, sha exerciseb wilh compirative peacefulness, and wvh acknowledged beneficence, an almost unlimited s\uy. The number and variety of natons, of co'ours of dimes, of reh-, gions, and of laws, unhed into one vast whole under our Queen, reduce to an empty ostentation the antique or ba.barous titles of Einj.cior or Czir. To lule the Waves, indeed, would be an idle ambition, were it not that wherever those waves beat the f>hore, whether though Australasian aichij c ago, or the peninsulas ot tropical Asia, or habitable Africa, or the Antilles and forests of the New World, we have claimed or founded a home. The fairest regions, the most docile and industrious races, the most cardinal promontories, straits, Hnd stations, aie ours. With so proud a position, sitting apart and on high, yet gilding the earth with the chain of our p nver, we have a right to take some iiwular pride, aid <i ked take little heed of continental envy. Did the account of Bri» taint lotty titles and additions cud here, we might suppose that posterity would have nohing else to do than to proclaim the splendour aud beneficence of our empire. But it is wise to note betimes whit poste rity will see with noon-day distinctness, and to anti" cipute with amendment, if it be possible, the irreversible judgment of time. Is there no bbi in this gorgeous escutcheon ? Wisdom as well as candour will reply that there is. In all this great dominion, the work of ages and the fortunate result of many opportunities, we have but few colonies, and scarcely one worthy of our name. Amid tbe»poil» of every clime, Britain nowhere sees the likeness of herself. A true child of that majestic mother is not to be found. Much as we profess to value the traditionary character of this kingdom its happy admixture of various elements, its freedom tempered with reverence, and its practical usefulness dignified with conventional graudeur, we do not so much value these blessings as to carry them to our adopted homes. We have stocked plantations with slaves, we have occupied rocks with soldiers, and peopled solitudes with crime; we have subjugated heathens, with whose religion and manners we dare not interfere ; we have perm tted, and even encourage misery, discontent, and vice, to find a refuge withiu the range of our laws, and the protection of our arms ; wa have increased the nominal rent-roll of the empire by almost any compliance and at any expense ; yet the who once embarks, from these

shoies, will never again see happy England till returns. Lower Canada w<»s — nay, is still a piovm ce of Franre, and even retains that identity of usa# es and manners which at home the revolution has de*.tro\ed, Spain lives and flourishes again in South and Central Aineiica, England 'alone is travestied and libelled in a neglected and degenerated progeny. The truth is that with all our immense capabilities for the task, we never «yet have attempted to colonise in a great and worthy manner. We have scarcely yet put the question, What ought a Btitish colony to be ? Antiquity had left splendid examples . in the diffusion of mankind, and in the spread of leligion over the known world, there were precedents enough for sny possible reqaiiements ; and the discovery of a new world opeiud 'he field for the grandest designs. Our race is prjlific, adventurous and succ s ful. Yet a certain <aie has always stood in the way. England was not only the last tnaratime power in Europe that gained a footing in the New Woild, but was whole generations behindhand. Daring moie thin a century that elapsed from the day when Columbus sent hi* brother to solicit the aid of Henry VII., to the close of the Tudor dynasty, the English Government g>\ve itself no concern whatever, and contiibuted nothing whatever, except one or two ujeless and ridiculous clutters, to the colonization of the opposite shoies. Queen Elizabeth defeated the Invincible Armada, and received Drake on his retnrn from a voyage round the wot Id ; but on tlie day of her dentil there was not & single Englishman settled in Amprica. The hi'tuy of British Amenca dates from (he first year of Jamei 1., but the puvate memoirs and other \vi ßings of that and the uucceeding lemns |>iove bo.v vainly the enlightened, the noble and the pious strove that England might be tiausplanted, Mich as she is, in church and in State, in her new possessions. There exists a continuous chain of piote^s from the age of Raleigh, Hakulyr, and Bacon, down to the fatal yeai 1775, against the petty, giovelling, and sordid spirit in which cnlonizaion was conducted. Traders, sailois, deserters from the army, outcasts, convicts, slavts, the democratic and the fanatical, were the first, and, for generations, the only ingredients of a society destined to elb >w lib out of the New World, and even to heard ug in the Old. It was truly a plantation or a settlement, but a colony it never was. A crowd whom we ha<i suffered to gather togeiiei and grow up in ab olute iiibulatiou from ah the influences which form Bntibh society and are the hie of the British state, as soon a< they were many and strong enough, renounced the .authority of the Government with which they had hardly a sentiment or an instim icn in roramon. When that iudp «nd indigested mass fir.it felt the instincts of political life, they were such as irresistibly diew it fiotn the parent country. Hence, the darkest pa.«e in British story; — the darkest page as yet: for as we still pursue the same impolicy, perhaps a darker page isstill to come, What is it that has preserved Camda tou» thus fur ? Not anything it hai deuved from this country. Not political nffinity. Not similarity of race. Not community of institutions. Not force of arm? . To the Fiench origin of Canada, we owe that it is ours. Social hdbits prevailed over national antipaihieg ; and a piimitive regime of seignors, piiests, acid habitans itood by us, their iecent conquerors, when our own flesh and blood abhored us. and were driving us from the soil. Rihe Canada to the level ot England, and she is safe to our rule: — el-e, but it is needless to repeat \i hat eveiy one foresees ; which however, the Legislature will not p actically recognise. What inau of rank, of wealth, of connexions, of generous ambition, of superior attainments and capacity, will goto a Dmitry which is nol Eitgland, which he feels to be a banishment and a final exclusion from all that we prue in this countiy ? Ask any one pining for opportunities, and will. ng to run any ii>ks> for honoiable advancement, why he does net see life and try his for* tune in the colonies. He will answer that it is banishment ; colonial life is altogether low, the utmost that a colonist can hope for is to g3t money, and so to fight his way back to the land ot his birth. To fraternize with colonels, and have the entice ot mess-rooms, to make up to functionaries, and be one of a clique, is the height of colonial ambition. Thence there is no return. The soldier biings home his glory and promotion, but the founder ot a town and ihe reclaimer of a forest, should he wish to letum, bring* back nothing but his money. The cis the sure sign of a stigma. The degradation is irretrievable. A colonist can never be ought but a colonist, a better sort of backwoodsman. In England, the chairman of tae session, the county member, the millionaire, the keeper of a pack of hounds, the clever pleader oi debater, may rise to the peerage, whi'e baionetcies have been showered on the humbler cla-s of supporters and useful public men. A man that s'lould give the Queen aproviuce on the shores of Lake Huion might ugh in vain for a place in the British roll ot honour. It is not without ivason and o -eas'ion that we endeavour to stir up the good sense and noble instincts of this countiy to an entirely new sysrem of colonization. If little should be thought of our opinions, the whole world is this year the spectator ot" a fact absolutely and utterly beyond all former preredent, and one which seems to call with a voice ot thunder tor measures to prevent its too probable recurrence. The po-pula-ion of British IVorth America in 1844 was 1,851,241. ttefore the close of this present }ear nearly 100,000 pep-ons, amounting to a twentieth of the existing population, wid have ariived in the St. Lawrence," almost emiiely from Ireland. Instead of that enormous immigration representing in any ddgree whatever the wealth, the education, tlieiank, the habits, the loyally, and the whole chaiacter of t'le mother country, they a-e to a man from the lower; ordeis of Ireland. They represent, they carry with them, misery and degradation a vibionary temperament and a factious teligion, a deep sense ot injury, and a burning hatred ot (he British name. Centuries will not efface from their vindictive memories and their inventive imaginations the dark cucumstances of th^ir banishment, their landing, their dispersion over the inhospitable wild. Let any one read the extracts from Canadian journals in oik columiu last Fuday, and find a parallel, if he can, in any annals. Is it possible that it should ever be forgotten ? These hundied thousand, after the loss of thousands by disease on the passage, and as many mure in hospital sheds, are forwarded up the river to Toronto, and thence to the Upper provinces, still perishing, still scattering disease wherever they go, and entirely dependent for support on the piety and alms of the benevolent. The clergy, the medical men, and other charitable persons who have tendered to their wants, have iallen by>holesale, martyrs to that service. The grand jury of the Mayor's Court at Toronto has made a presentment show n<j that the city is no longer capable of bearing the increasing burden thrown on its resources ; and offering too valid reasons to apprehend that the myriad* passed upwards, at this period otyhe year, will peiish miserably by the way. Suck is British colonization under the present system, or rather want of system altogether. What else is to be expected than a demoralized a. "I disuffected population, a lost colony, and an aggiand.zsd rival ? And wbom have we to thank for tusse iaeYitablcresuUs ?

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