WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1848.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 235, 30 August 1848, Page 2

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 18 48.

It is a singular, but a sorrowful, fact that the governance of the two elements, the most conducive to the supiemacy of England— -her Navy and her Colonies— should be delegated to bureaus, each, in their lespectivc sphere, more unstable, moie conupt, moie dependent upon Puiliameutary tiickeiy, more fruitful of peivershe patronage, than e\ cry other depaitment of the British State. But so it is. And it is still more remarkable that the two elements thus constiaincd, should be riccessarily co-existent, and should derive much of their mutual value, much of their individual greatness, each from the efficiency of the other. As legauls the Navy, we need but point to its ever shifting placemen at the Admiialty, inr.pncdmoic with the desiic to provide ships, j 01 fl.igs, or .stations, for the creatures of their Parliamenlaiy constituents, and their own particular followeis, than impressed with a patuotic and single hearted devotion to the honour of the scivicc, or the welfaie of their country ! In witness; let any candid inquirer inves- | tigate the Admit alty records. Let him ponder < their selfishness, and, we may say, their siniulness. Let him but glance at that quaiteily issue of infamy— "the base Blue List." Theie, in evciy callous page, he will lead of blighted hones of mctitunrew aided, talent unappreciated, \alour undistinguished, and deserving disregarded—all saciificcd to the Moloch—Pa--rnoNAor,! Let him puisue the search, and sif(, in developoment of the rottenness of the system, the masterly expositions of England's gicatest admiral, Loid Sr. Vincent. Let him remember the ceaseless complainings of England's worshipped Nelson. Let him dive beneath the smface, and expose to ic probation the long and bitter list of cruelties and oppressions, that, in sheer despair, provoked the mutinies at the Nore,S pithead, and on board the Hermione. Let him consider appointments, conferred without talent, and, as in a recent instance, at a reckless sacrifice of the public pmse, in construction of ships the most costly; and, at the same time, the most faulty ; and of sleameis, whose discreditable defects, •would expel them with contempt from the mercantile maiinc. Let him pore over the glowing achievements of the last gloiious Avar, whethei in general actions, or with light squadrons, or single ships, and he will perceive that the Navy, like the Colonies, although ciushcd and coerced, has been indebted to her own inherent energy, foi her unexampled success. That her triumphs have been gained in defiance of superiority, both in materiel, and (as far as numbeis go,) in personnel, take three fouithsof eveiy fiigate action as a test — or, if the authority of a foe be moie conclusive, take that of Vaixneuvr, who sought to inspiie confidence at Trafalgar, by painting Nu.son's ships, as they unquestionably were, far inferior in size, men, guns, aud sea-going condition, to his own. These aie incontrovertible, and easily demonstiable facts, — and we repeat, that the Navy and the Colonies, subject equally to the worst misrule, are proud and parallel examples of success, and that in the tery teeth of Biitish injustice. As with the Navy, so with the Colonies. Their departmental rule is transferred to a JBuieauciacy, beset with insatiate expectants •. — cormorants, created with each successive change of ministry, crying, like the daughter of the hoise-leech, "Give, give!" On the Colonies aie quartered panders and parasites of every variety and degree — from the pimp who defiles, to the spy who betiays blood — whilst against the sons of the soil place and preferment appear to be invariably and systematically closed. But there is this disadvantage to the Colonies, fiom which the Navy is exempt ; the voice of the colonist is ever remote, whilst that of the Navy is occasionally enabled to proclaim its grievances in the halls of St. Stephen. We lequire not to be told that there are political economists who insist that the colonies are a source of weakness rather than of .strength to Great Britain ; and that the cost of their defence, outweighs the gain derived by their commercial contributions to the national treasury. The war of the American revolt, accoiding to Loid Shm-'i-ield, saddled England with an addition of £100,000,000, to her national debt ; and the Naval and Military disbursements of Canada and the West India islands, even in a time of peace, exceed by a million and a half, the revenue collected in them. Now, admitting these statements to be correct to the letter, — in wlnt manner do they prove that colonies aie a source of inheient -weakness to a nation '* Theic must have been tome powerful incentive to induce a nation ot shopkecpeis to expend one hundied millions, in the attempt to coeice a colony, which co-

lonial misrule had diiven to seek refuge in independence ' For nothing but misiule could ha\e lcndcied inherently weak and projitle&s, those thiitcon United States which, even in a lifetime, took iank amongst the warlike, the mighty, and the most piospcious of the nations. How is it, that the States acquired riches and honour wheie, as a colony, they leaped only poveily and displace ? The answer is easily found. As English colonists they wcie the seifs o{ English misiule, the cesspools of English pahonagc — (heir native energies were lcptcssed — their native talent despised. Bound to lender implicit obedience to the mandates of a clique, ignoiant of their best inteiests, and indilleient to theii most reasonable complaints, giievmce followed gnevance, until strength became pcifected in weakness, and a profitless colony became cociced into a gieat and a wealthy people. From facts like these, we may glean that if a hundied millions were expended in the attempt to compel allegiance, a much less costly sacrifice, a moderate share of deference to the colonial voice — a magnanimous removal of obnoxious trammels laid on industry — a lesser inteiference in its domestic concerns — might have obviated an appeal to arms — might have conciliated where it could not command —aud might, by tendering the colony actually an initial poilionof the empire, have retained in the bands of mutual inteiest, a giant poi lion of the slate, instead of driving it into separate and rival national existence. Said we sooth? England is neither the moat intelligent nor the most practical of colonizing nations. We appeal to her dissevered Anglo-Saxon scions, of the United States, in ! proof. But, whilst we point to them as an example of England's colonial misgovernment, we, also, point to them as glorious illustrations of another fact — that Englishmen are the best, thft most enterprising, the most successful, ay, and the most loyal of colonists. Contrast the United States, with any of the umwhile Spanish colonies, now lepublics, of South Ameiica, and the asscition becomes'a truism. They who insist that colonies are a source of national weakness would do well to consider the strength of Spain, deprived of hers. What is now her rank, — scarce fifty years since the mightiest of maritime nations'? Divest England of her transmaiine possessions, and what influence would shcietviin — now that stream has biidged the channel — in the councils of the potentates of Europe'? Where would she find a nurseiy for her seamen 1 ? Where a vent for her manufactuies ? How maintain a commerce the most colossal ever beheld ? If it were only to uphold these in their present position, the colonies it must, we think, be acknowledged, area, soiuce of incalculable stiength. Misruled, and misunderstood, they impait strength ; but of what are they not susceptible, if swayed with justice and with generosity — in a spiiit that sought to learn their interests in order to piomote them— not with the rapacity of an exacting task-master, seeking only to discover to v> hat amount they may be made to minister to his desiies !—ln! — In a word, governed in such a way as to confer the greatest benefit on the greatest number — to render every avenue the most easily accessible to industry — to give eveiy facility to the acquisition of waste lands — to vend those lands at the most modelate prices — to leave them untiammeled by quit-rents, royalties, or other odious and grinding imposts — to avoid, as, unhappily, at piesent, is not done, the setting up of Imperial, in contradistinction to colonial inteiests, thereby engendering a bitterness against almost eveiy Governor, who, in obedience to instructions " from home," is too frequently biought into undignified collision with inteiests abroad. Especially, of late, in land questions, which are dealt with, both by the Colonial-Office and its delegates, in the most Chapman-like spirit, each huckstering with the unfoitunate settler, as if the veiy salvation of Great Biltain depended upon the amount of purchase-money, the maximum of squattage or of quit-rent, and the dcx- , teiity with which they can be sacucd from the hand of haid and struggling industry. Away with such ignoble legislation. It never yet j made a nation wealthy — it is ceilain to render its subjects malcontents. England, or, at least, England's Government, is profoundly ignorant of colonization as a science. Her bmeaucrats, each in their tv m, seek to astonish the world with the profundity of their colonial wisdom, the magnitude, of their colonial research ; and colonial oidinances are piled, session after session, upon the fated colonists, who are killed, it may be, with the kindness of over legislation. » Of this interference — this mischievous interfeience,—with their domestic affaiis^veiy colony loudly and indignantly complains. They aie over ruled and over driven. Specifics aie invented by quacks ignorant of the first causes of the disease they undertake to cure. The whole colonial frame-work is disjointed. It requhes le-casting — but not at the ColonialOllice Foundiy. Whence comes it that almost every Governor is moie 01 less unpopular, we had almost wuttcu detested* Simply because he is sent to gcvi'ih — to cfoue Colonial-office oideis — to inflict Colonial-Office wrongs. He is made independent of the people over whom he is elected to ude, and the good or evil he may

vi,sit upon their heads is moic the result of peisonal character than of personal responsibility. The colonies are but stepping-stones to aggrandize individuals appointed without any pievious recommendation for the office they aie called upon to fill. They come and they go, beginning, it may be, with the lowest, and climbing upwards to the highest province ; the colonies, the while, having no voice in placing the viceroy they are compelled to pay. Nor would we that they should ;—; — although we think they ought to have some voice — some reasonable voice — in the recall of fools 01 tyrants ; who, at [resent, may pocket then gold, and laugh them to scorn ; playing their passing builesquc upon kingciaft — bottluig up their consequence in a cloud of statesmanship — manufacturing, by the gross, despatches. Full of sound and fury— signifying— Noth ing! i or, at all events, nothing beneficial to the i hapless colonies — and thus they may pass their proconsulate; surrounded by a mock aiistocracy — the five hundred and fifty -fifth cousins, or valets, or frien ds of Lords and Dukes, who, " for some gracious service unexpressed" shoulder the native-born and intelligent colonists fiom their legitimate birthiight. We write strongly, but we write truly.— and we do so, because we deshe to see England piospeious — the colonies happy, and we know of no Avay to compass that end so effectually as by rendering the one vii tualty an integral portion of the other. What lures the prodigious mass of British subjects to exalt the antagonistic United States in preference to the [advancement of the native Biitish colonies'? Merely the facility of acquiring, in fee simple, an ample supply of land of the best quality, at five shillings an acre, in the one —an impossibility of obtaining land, of very inferior quality, and fettered with grievous and fluctuating exactions, below twenty shillings per acre, in the other ! The taking place beneath the banner of a free and liberal state in the former ; the being placed beneath the ban of an ignorant absolute Colonial-Office in the latter ! These are questions England would do well to ponder !

Yesterday afternoon, the schooner Coquette, arrived in poit, Avith a cargo of Oil, from Tongataboo, calling at the Bay of Islands. — The state of European affairs was unknown at the peiiod of the Coquette's departure from the islands. H. M. Ship Calypso, 20, Capt. Woith, with Mr. Prilchard, Consul at the Navigator's Islands, on boaid, had visited the Fejces, when " severe punishment" was inHicted upon some natives because of their having murdered two Englishmen. The natives of the Navigator's lblands were at bitter feud with each other.

Saturday's Flood. — On Thursday last, we were visited with a stiff North Easterly breeze which set in dry but hard, and increased to a gale on the following day, blowing with unabated violence throughout the whole of Friday night, and ending, on Saturday morning, in heavy rain. During that day much wet fell, especially in the squalls, which were frequent and fierce. Between 4 and 5 in the afternoon the rain descended in torrents,—washing the hills and sweeping into the hollows with prodigious force. Every cut, every drain, became a brawling brook, dashing its fretful waters towards the Queen-street Rivulet, which assumed the breadth, depth, and volume of an impatient mountain torrent, "on mischief bent." The valley, above and below the Court House was in a state of perilous flood — each minute increasing the lake-like character of the scene. Cottages were inundated; the gaol yard, its garden, public pound, and circumjacent lowlands, were plunged under a course of unexpected and unwished-for irrigation. The bridges were engulphed; only a small portion of their hand-rails being left to indicate they were not afloat. This vast accummulation of back water was caused by the stables of the Blue Bell, which, being built across the course of the stream, acted as a perfect dam, and would speedily have isolated the hostelry itself, had not recourse been had to the battering-ram, which beating out the sides of the stables, operated like a sluice upon ihe superincumbent deluge, which gradually sunk to a less formidable level. The lower part of Queen-street, was in a woeful plight — water welling through its pervious walls in all directions. As for that muck-heap called Fort-street, it was washed of many of its pollutions, although still — to use a school-boy simile — in a state enough to frighten the French. Although we have heard of many "moving accidents," and of a vast amount of personal discomfort by " flood on field," we have not ascertained that any vast degree of mischief has arisen. Until some measures be adopted to rectify its level, Queenstreet, during a heavy fall of rain and strong North Easterly gale will always be liable to inundation.

Supreme Court. — We beg to remind jurymen, witnesses, and others, that this Court will open its Criminal Session on Friday morning next, at 10 o clock,