RESTRAINTS ON COLONIAL LEGISLATION. [From the "Times" January 20th.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 547, 12 July 1851, Page 4

RESTRAINTS ON COLONIAL LEGISLATION. [From the " Times" January 20th.]

To tax the Colonies by act of Parliament has been declared by Hie art of 1 778 to be illegal ,• yet the people of Australia complain, that while the letter of this act is observed, its spirit is notoiiomly violated. Parliament docs not. directly tax the colonies, but it appropriates out of the revenue raised by their own taxation a large civil list, which is placed entirely beyond their control. In the recont act the amount of the sums so appropriated was not less than £150,000 per annum._ Now, the distinction between such an appropriation and taxation is extremely thin, or rather absolutely nugatory. Why was it that the American colonies objected to taxation? It was not because the duties on tea or stamps were levied by act of Parliament, but because, when so levied, they were appropriated by the same power ; the sting of the matter is in the appropriation of the proceeds, not in the imposition of the tax. True, the money thus raised is spent in the colonies, but the a cry essence of the appropriation is to enable the home Government to spend it otherwise than the colonistb wish. Were it not for this purpose no object would be gained by imposing a civil list. The strong feeling' which has always" been expressed throiighout Australia against these Parliamentary appropriations derhes additional force pud justice from the consideration, that while Parliament grants to Her Majesty so large a revenue out of ihe moneys of the colonies, who have no representatives within its walls, it withholds from them the equivalent in consideration of -\\hich the civil list is granted to every king of England on his accession, — the power of appropriating the m enue derived from the sale and occupation of the lands of the Crown. In England, Parliament grants to the Sovereign her civil list in consideration of the cession during her life of hci territorial revenues. In the colonies. Parliament takes the civil list with one hand, and the territorial levcnueswiih the other. One-half of this revenue ought, by act of PaiLamenf, to be devoted to internal improvements, the other half to emigration ; but so greatly has it fallen off from causes before alluded to, that the whole of it is applied to the latter purpose, and is still insufficient to answer the demand. The colonists complain loudly that this revenue is expended rather with imperial than colonial objects. Thus, Australia has had to defray the expenses of a gang of persons concerned in the Chartist riots at Afchton-undcr-line, who were so objectionable that they could not be passed through tho regular emigration-office, but -were placed on board ship at JDeptford, aud watched hy the police till it sailed. Thus, also, the money of the colony has been expended in removing orphan female paupers from the Irish workhouses, who can neither sew, cook, wash, nor perform any other domestic duty, and who, in the midt-t of an urgent demand for female labour, remain by hundreds unemployed in the barracks at Sydney, and supported at the expense of the colony. These emigrants are computed to cost from £15 to £20 a-head, and the Government perseveres in sending them out, neglecting the means afforded it by the enlightened entcrpribc of a private company of reducing the expenses of emigration from the payment of the above amount to a loan of £4 a-head. The Family Colonization Loan Society, founded by Mrs. (Jhibholm, rests on the principle that the emigrant ought to defray his own passage-money, and that as soon as he has raised thi-ee-fourths of the amount he ought to be assisted by a loan of the other fourth, to be repaid by him as soon as possible after his arrival in the colony. One ship, containing 240 persons, has already been sent out, the loan advanced by the society being only £800. There are persons now waiting, who are in a position to pay three-fourths of their passage-money, enough to fill three other ships, but the sociely has not the funds at its command, and no assistance has been afforded to it out of the funds of the colony. The fact, therefore, is absolutely true, though scarcely credible, that while the funds of the colony are employed in paying the whole passage of emigrants, the same advantage might be obtained by a loan of one-third or fourth of tho amount to each emigrant, and yet is wholly neglected and disregarded. We trust that this valuable institution, though not destined to enjoy the smiles of the Colonial Office, may reccive^ap&ibtance from the benevolent and intelligent public; so that the experiment may be fairly tried whether it be not possible to direct, at the expense of the labouring classes themselves, a permanent and ,elf-supporting stream of emigration to the Australian colonies. Passing from the grievances connected with the civil list and the land fund, we would next call xttcntion to the difficulties which cramp and perplex Australian legislation. The colony is bound by a number of acts of Parliament (forgotten iftcn as soon as made), which is not in the power }£ its legislature to repeal. The prohibitory irice of Crown lands, the civil list, and the land •evenue appropriations, are only instances of this general and all-pervading grievance. Parlianent, during its lethargy on colonial matters, has never scrupled to endow the minister of the day ivith any power over the colonies which he chose ,o ask for.- Thus it is in the power of the minister to declare any colony a penal settlement without consulting its wishes, as in the case of the Gape ; or without regarding them, as in that of STew South Wales. When we consider how easy tis for the local Government to mislead the minster as to the state of colonial opinion, we cannot ,liink this arbitrary power ought to continue. ITiup, in the month of August last, an influential meeting was held in Van Diemen's Land, to conradict assertions of Sir William Denison with respect to the decline of the anti-transportation eeling, and a few days afterwards an equally arge meeting assembled at Sydney to accu.^e Sir Dharles Fitz Roy of having represented to Eai'l 3ircy that two meetings held in June, 1849, conlisting each of many thousands of persons, pre>idcd over and addressed by highly respectable colonists, were merely assemblages of a few hunIred idlers of no worth or consideration. It is not ipon data so contradictory that powers so oppressive and so arbitrary can ever be safely exercised. Let our readers suppose that, after an act had received the Queen's consent and was become the iaw of the land, it was subject to be annulled by ■>omc powei at the antipodes, after it had been xcted on in all possible ways, at any time within two years after notice of its arrival had been re- , jeived, and ho will have an exact idea of the fet- ! iers imposed by Parliament on Australian legislation. Ifc is true this power lias not been very frequently or very vexatiously exercised, but the fact that it may be exercised at any time is an avil which can hardly be exaggerated. W e will mention only two instances if its exercise. In 1843, the Legislature of New South Wales passed m act to place mortgages of sheep and cattle on ,he same footing as those on ships, so that they ,hould not pass to the assignees of bankrupt mortgagees, although remaining at their order and disposition at the time of the bankruptcy. This act yas eminently suited to the emergency which >roduced it, as was proved by the immediate loan if 180,000/. on the security of its provisions ["his act the then Colonial Minister announced iis intention to veto, and a Jaw considered the nost valuable which the Colonial Legislature ver passed has only been preserved up to his time by a series of temporary measures enewing it for successive periods of two ears, and thus eluding the intended blow, hiring the seven years in which this act has been l existence, nearly three millions of money have een lent under Us provisions. It is a purely )cal matter, in which the empire at large can aye no interest, and yet it is very doubtful wheler the colonists will succeed in retaining it on leir statute-book, We will mention another in,ance. A large number of burglaries and highay robberies have been recently perpetrated in

Svdneyb) lil>ej .Moil com ids from Van l)leir>on\ Land, who, being unknown to the police, i.icilitaiod then depredations by passing ihemsehes offas free emigrants. To chick these g vowing disorders the Legislature parsed an Act requhin^ these persons to remitter them<-ehi>, and placing them thus within the knowledge and surveillance of the police, tlust as this law lus been put into woiking order 1 , and its good effects begin to be felt, the colony ~5,% 111 receive from Earl Grey a missive annulling the act, and restoring maLters to their former dangerous condition, on the ground that these necessary measures of selfdefence arc an interference with her Majesty's prerogative pardon. "With v»hat feelings is this mandate likely to be received, with what cheerfulness to be obeyed ! Life and property on the one hand, and her Majesty's prerogathc on the other,— a prerogative which scatteis corruption and danger over the Australian colonies, but against which they are not to be perniiUed to take the most ordinary and necessary precautions. "We have endeavoured to give our readers some idea, though in a rompresFod an I imperfect form, of the state of feeling and ss'htem of go\ eminent to which, by withdraw ing our troop.-;, mo are about to consign our Au^ral'mn colonies. How long is it to be supposed that persons o^ or whom we exercise no physical contiol will submit to see their hinds mismanaged, their levonuo squandered, their laws annulled, and their dearest interests tampered with, by a power which has no force to assert its own will jmd claims to lule in opposition to theirs. Vj requires no oxtraoidinary prescience to gee that these invidious and mischievous powers would one by one be v rested from the mother country, even if maintained by a powerful army, but that without such support it needs lint an outburst of popular indignation, by whatever cau&e excited, to destroy them all at once. "We are thus o tiering to our colonies a premium for disaffection and rebellion,' since through them they can with perfect impunity break those fetters which no entreaty or importunity lias hitherto induced us to relax. The remedy is easy and ob-v ious. We have conceded to the colonists the powers of a constituent convention in allowing them to alter their own constitution. It is vain after such a concession to ; seek ,to withhold from them the most ample powers of legislation. A single section of a single Act of Parliament giving to the several governors and councils power to repeal all imperial acts affecting the colonies, and to make other provision in that behalf, would allay these discords and heartburnings for ever, and draw the affections of the colonies far nearer to the mother country than vexatious pretensions to interfere with them, which we cannot support, and will not abandon. "We have already made this concession in fact, by the withdrawal of our troops ; let us do it in form as well as substance. Send out governors equal to the increased responsibility which will thus devolve upon them, and fully instructed as to the principles of imperial policy upon which they are to act. The salary of the Governoi of New South Wales is as large as that of the Prime Minister of England ; why should his responsibilities or his ability to meet them be less ? Thus alone can be avoided that incipient alienation of feeling, which, if not checked, will people the extreme East, as well as the Far West, with nations speaking our language and adopting our institutions, whilst hating the source from which they are derived.