THE COLONIZATION DEBATE. (From the Morning Chronicle, July 27 )

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 272, 6 January 1849, Page 2

THE COLONIZATION DEBATE. (From the Morning Chronicle, July 27 )

Amid the chaos of conflicting opinions, and ragwc •peculations, and impracticable proposals with whi h Parliament has been occupied and distracted during the giea'er pait of the present session, it is very satisfacto y to see for once a really great subject wworthilyy v treated, and an important practical reform distinctly pointed out and ably advocated. On Tuesday night Sir William Molesworth amply redeemed the fault which he had previously committed in allowing another motion to take precedence of that on Colonial Government j and, in spite of the disadvantages lesuhing from the peculiar circumstances of the time, and in ipite of the difficulties amending the subject, he succeeded in making a very strong and we hope, lasting impression on the House of Commons. If we have a fault to find with his speech, it is, perhaps, thnt it goes too much into details which hearers and readers are apt to think tedious, and hardly puts forward with sufficient prominence the great principles which those details, illustrate, and from whence they proceed by a strict logical necessity. The result must be, we fear, that this elaborate and comprehensive summary of the Colonial question, though most valuable as a magazine of facts and arguments, will not, probably, produce much immediate effect. The question is, however, ~ miking its way into the minds of the thoughtful few, and a conviction is gredually spreading from them, downwards, that colonial government is a subject to which refo matory legis a' ion ougat to be immedia ely di ected. We think, therefore, th it Sir William Mileswoi-'h mny have done mord service to the causer b / the cou se which he hns adopted, than he could (knave done by a more brillimt and popultr oratorical effort. We will not atte.npt to follow him through the Ions? array of facts and figures by which he e*taWished his several propoei ions ; but &o well were they arrange ', and so thoroughly compressed, that no absti a. t could do justice to their force and importance. !n Uct, one rise-, fiom hu expo«iiii<m of the case with a kind of wonder that nobody had s«id all this brfore, and that the Bn'iih nation cau luve so Ion 3 suffered the exist -nee ot a system such as the one which as dei unces. Wd cannot too often repeat (what Mr. Hawes, like other defenders of that system, perbeveres in ignoring) that the political part of ihi ques'ion raised by Sir Wiliiam Molesworth is no. one necessarily or primarily, about tne morits of paiticular constitutional forms, still less is it one between monarchy and democracy. Of cou se, as Englishmen, we wish to see representative institutions made the basis of government in every country inhabited by our countrymen ; but we can easily conceive casts, among our coloniii possessions, wheie a non-representative government may be temporarily necessary. At all events that is not the point. The question is, between government on the spot, and government at a distance— between government by col. mats, and government by strangers. To those who have not studied the theory of our culonu\ government, it is, as we have before said, a matter of melancholy astonishment that its practical operation is so unsatisfactory ; but when they liave odcb • made themselves acquainted with that theory, they only wonder that the effects are only ten times worse. Ie may be shortly designated as the uncontrolled despotism of a foioigner. We say, deliberately, that the colonial minister is practically uncontrolled, except by that consciousness of complete ignorance which occasionally makes him hand over, in despair, his power to a governor or a comnnnder-in-chief, and then they become uncontrolled. Either way the deipotiim it that of a man whose home and t-ympa'hies are far away from those of his subjects whose knowledge of them is imperfect, whose interests are distinct from theirs, whose opinion of them w deroga ory— who has other masters to please, other adjects 'O pursue, other prizes to seek after than those with which they are connected — and who, therefore, as one might expect, in nine cases out of t p n, is, ex ojficio, in a position of chronic and bitter hostility with those among them who are not bound to him by ho|/esof place and pone: As to Pailiamentary control, Sir William was, m no pirt of his speech, more happy than where he described the all but inaccessib c sources from w hich those who take an interest in colonial subjects have to procure their materials, and pointed out the impossibility of arriving at the truth, except at an expense of labour and time such as few can afford. Few, iherefce, undertake the task ; and when they do, and have mastered any part of the subject, they find tint it is next to impossible to make a House for a colonial question ; s<> tint when a case has been prepared there is no tribunal to hear it. Upon the economical part of the subject, Sir William Mole* north had it all his own way — self-govern-ment aieans, or involves, self-support, foreign adiniii tration, foreign pay. If we mismanage the busmess of the colonists, it is right that we should incur the expense of the mismanagement ; if wo appoint their officers, it is right that we should defray their salaries ; if we keep them disaffected, we must of course pay for preserving their allegiance by force. The questions which we hare now to aik ourselves, are the»e :— ls our system of Colonial government worth our support? What do we get by it ? Extended commerce ? Yes— at the cost of nine shil. lings in direct expenditure for every pound steiling of our exports. Ihe prestige of extended sway? Taut is impaired, if nut lost, by the uuiveral disaffection.

of thoie who live under it. Field* for emigration ? More than half our emigrants go to a foreign land, and the value of our own dependencies, for that purpose, is diminished, instead of being augmented, by our controul, as it is at present exerciied. But we can show not only by reasoning but by examples, that every one of these advantages may be enjoyed without costing us a farthing— rxcfpt for the parchment of an Act of Parliament. It is our present system of mischievous and costly interference which hazards the loss of them all, and imkes it almost a matter ot doubt whether we should not gain by losing them. The strong point of Sir William's case ii, that we do not get the advantages we p«y for. Other nations have misgoverned their colonies— have retarded their pros perity and alienated thfir affections ; but, at any rate, they have got something out of them — the/ have made a source of wealth, and flourished on their ruins. But it was reserved for us to pay tribute to our colonies, and to get nothing from them, while, at the I same time we appear iv their eyes, and in the eyes of the world, to be keeping them, against their will, for fur our own purposes and iatereiu. The feeling with which we have read Mr. Hawes's speech is chiefly one of sympathy and compassion, at seeing an able and honorable man in iurh a thoroughly false position. He would have sacrificed half his reputation to have been allowed to hold a brief on the other side. We are not surprised that.he spoke badly ; the old arguments — the converse arguments— must have been rising in his mind at every moment, and confuting his recollection of the new " instruction*." But it was most injudicious for him to take upon his shoulders the defence of the whole " colonial system." He might have said a good deal very plausibly, about the difficulty of making rapid and extensive alteration, or he might have defended the colonies which we hold as military posts, and on which we thiuk Sir William Molesworth was unfairly hard— or he might have frankly declared his concurrence in the spi it of the resolutions, and promised to promote their piactical adoption, but no — he absolutely came out as the champion of Downing-streer, was prepared to break a lance with the "old American system," made himself merry with the " pet colony" of South Australia and its " amateur administration," glorified its recovery under the wing of the Colonial Office (as if Sir William Molejworth twd ever thought of advocating amateur administrations) re d two or three *' didactic despatches" of Lord Grey in favour of representative government, and exultingly asked the House whether they called that nothing— and, abovp all, " could not imagine what clear or intelligible cause existed for the disfavour into which that office had fallen in the opinion of his honourable friends behind him !" This last sentence is really too good ; as we write it, we feel our compassion o zing out at our finger's ends, and nothing bu', want ot space, and a sense of our own inability to do justice to so tempting a subject, induces us to forbear: Oh ! tor one hour of Charles Buller. qualis erat, free fiom the trammels of office, and in his element, a% of old. How he would have revelled in such an opportunity for the exercise of his peculiar powers as that afforded by the reply of Mr. Hawes! But the fates have otherwise ordained, and we can only say to him, in sorrow, " Pends-toi, brave C/illion— aous avons combat tu a Argues, et tv ny, ctais pas."