Mr. E. G. WAKEFIELD'S PORTRAITURE OF SOCIETY IN THE COLONIES. (From "A View of the Art of Colonization, &c.")

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 368, 24 October 1849, Page 4

Mr. E. G. WAKEFIELD'S PORTRAITURE OF SOCIETY IN THE COLONIES. (From " A View of the Art of Colonization, &c.")

Fro'l the sweeping aisertion which cloned my last letter, I wuuld except many individuals in every coloi y. but oily one colonial community. However ma ked ami numerous the exceptions tuny be in tome colfniee, they are but exception* from the rule in all j jiiid ir some, the rule has few exceptions. I proceed 'n exri'iin and justify the s'atemmt. >u il coloaiei, not infected with crime by convict transportation or banishment, crime is rare in comparison wi'h what it is in this country ; it is so, because ir. a country where the poorest are well off, and may evtn grow rich il they please, the temp'ation to crime i^ very weak. In the rural parti of uninfected colon. '"i, the sot ti of crime which fill our gaols at home, and f> utid some of our colonies, are almost entirely unknown. I have known a considerable district in French Carada, in which the oldest inhabitanti did not remember a crime to have been committed ; and in the whole of that part of North America, which i* some hundied miles long, and wh'ch contain! n» many people as the rural counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, the only building! in which you can lock up a criminal are two or three gaols in towns where British soldiers and shovelled-out paupers are numerous. Crime is rare in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ; so it is in South Africa and Western Australia, The colonial «oil r in a word, is unsuitable for ciime, which grows there slowly and with difficulty. In the convict colonies and their immediate neighbours, it is the imperial government which forcei crime to grow abundantly in a soil naturally unfavourable to it. But the colonial soil everywhere seems highly favourable to the growth of conduct which, withont being criminal according to law, is very much objected to by the better sort of people in this country. I mean nil those acts which, in Upper Canada and the State of New York, are called "smart" conduct; which consists of taking advantage or overreaching, of forgetting promises, of betraying confidence, of unscrupulously sacrificing all the other members to " num. ber one.*' In colonies, such conduct is commonly termed clever, cute, dexterous ; in this country, it is called dishonourable ; the honourable colonists who ■trongly disapprove of such conduct, more especially if they aie recent emigrant* of the better order, often call it " colonial." For the growth of honour, in a •word, the colonies are not a very congenial soil. Neithir is knowledge successfully cultivated there. In all the colonies, without exception, it is common to me t willi people of the greatest mark in the colony, who are iprorntit of everything; but the art of getting money. Bn tish i?nora»ce keeps no man down, if he hi in a l-.r.*e degree the one quality which is highly p in . iv tLv col"U C 3 : the quality of kt owing how to grou rei In hardly any colony can you manage, witbnr treat difficulty, to give your son what it estecntie I . superior educa'ion here ; and in all colonies, tlir son* of uunv of the fiist people are hi ought up in a wild unconsciousness of their own intellectual deprari ton Color ;al manners are hardly better than morals, beintf u'vtnlv, coarse, and often far from decent, even in tl»f- b«j;b o " ranks; I mean in comparison with the ni.mncr« Ol rle hi^hpr ranki here. Young gentlemeu who go ■«» fheie, aie apt to fotget tbeir own manners, or to j/!('cr <hoseof the coloiiy ; and oie sees continu j d'y autu i'ir»t as that of a you r ig member of a moit j t'A peel. 1 ?! - i«n.ily here, wbo toon becomes in the co- , ->ny, by w w of contamination, a thorough paced ■ ' ckp .ai i. If the bed p/openßities of colonist! are not as much we couid ■.viiji them under the restraint of either ■'O'm 1 , or reason, or usage, neither are they under „t f icligioi, Here, uowever, I must make one m signal 'xcepiou. There isnot in the world . i ■ » lelig'cu pi'i 'ile than the jrreat bulk of French X v id ans, no. , up. u the whole, I believe, anywheie r v ) I", go \> "c, virtuous, and happy. The French (' <iiai a owe their ro'igious senlin;piita to a peculiar ,<)\i ; ' roiof z »tip», aw respeclg r 1 gion, which ii : > » l•' s> n. 1 ! unv/.'f.; the caio^iz' q blntes either I. , ie < ' rii .. Is .< :ik (<• quite inoiiern . n »»' i' \)\)\ i"t I'iiu-lisU f-.ir.a li M'chigm, , ' . r .■ ii' 1 T / Zealand, whc/i I say ti>at ••i ! > t fliuuh. tiere. 'f lieru i« in all of ieo, uo ai iv , , u good deal of tl C observance of

eligious forms, and the excitement of religious ex. ercises, But in none of them doe* religion exercise the sort Of influence which religion exercifes here upon the morals, the intelligence, and the manners of thoie classes which we consider the best-informed and the best-behaved ; th.it is, the rao«t respectable classes in this country, or those whose conduct, knowledge, and manners constitute the type of ihoise of the nation. Let me endeavour to make my meaning clear by an illuitiation. Think of tome one of your friends who nerer goes to church except for form's sake, who takes the House-of-Commonn oath, " on the faith of a Christian," ai Edward Gibbon took it, but who has a nice sense of honour ; who is, as the saying goei, as honorable a fellow ns ever lived. Where did he get this sense of honour from? He knows nothing about where he got it from; but it retilty came to him horn chivalry ; and chivalry came from religion. He would not do to anybody anything, which he thinks he should have a right to complaia of, if somrbody did it to him : he is almost a Christian without knowing it. Men of this sort are rare indeed in the colonies. Take another case j that of an Engliih matron, whose piuity, and deiiency, and charity of mind, you can trace to the operation of religious influences : such beints are as rare in the coloniei, fin men with that sense of hen our which amounts to goodness. In many part? of some colonies there are, I mny b»y no religion at all ; and wherrver this happens the people fall into a stats of barbarism. If you were a«k>d fir a summary definition of the contiast between barbarism and civilization, you would not err in faying that civilized men diffrr from savage* in having their natural inclinations restrained by law, honour, and religion. The restraint of law is imposed on individuals by the community ; and, as befote observed, tbis sort of restraint, since it only applits to crime, is less needed in colonies tban in old coun'ries. But the restiaint of honour and re'igion is a self restraint ; and at it relates only to matters of which the law takes no cognizance — lo bad natural inclinations which are equally strong everywhere — it is as murh a condition of civilization in the newest colony as in the o'dest mothei -country, lean only attribute the low standard of honour in colonies to the insignificant proportion which em ig: ants of the be'ter order be^r to the other rlaises, and to the foul example of the only privileged class in colomei ; namely, the pnblic funtionadc-s These two causes of the want of honour shall be fully noticed ere long. The weakness of religious restraint is owing to the inadequacy of religious provision! for our colonists : and to this topic my next letter will be devoted.