A NOTE FOR NEXT YEAR'S DEBATE ON COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 619, 20 March 1852, Page 4

A NOTE FOR NEXT YEAR'S DEBATE ON COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

(Fioin the "Spectator.") When Lord Brougham in the House of Lords spoke of Lord Durham's despatches from Canada as causing their " noble friend" Lord GJenelg so many " sleepless days" he unconsciously indicated certain not distant effects of the Durham mission to Canada on the department over which the most indolent of Ministers then presided. The occupiers of the great house at the bottom of Downing-street have been a worried race ever Bince. Until the publication of that treatise on Colonial Government which bears the name of Lord Durham's Report, they were the most comfortable of all our officials. 'Inhabiting a country where nobody thought of controlling them, and ruling over subjects who submitted with ignorant patience to the evils of a distant authority, the only days in the year when it was necessary for them to be awake were those quarter-days on which salaries became due. They could do 01 leave undone just what they pleased But in the midst of their drowsy nonchalance, the Durham Keporfc came upon them like an earthquake. From the hour when the Times newspaper prevented the official suppression of that remarkable work, the nature of Colonial mingoverninent Hps been understood in the Colonies ; the more important dependencies of England have continually Bought to obtain a full measure of authority for the management of their own affairs in their own

way ; an! the Colonial Office has been as incessantly ringed in a fruitless struggle to retain its power over these distant communities. That power was most agreeable, because wholly irresponsible and abounding in patronage ; so that the efforts to maintain it, proving vain, have been full of disappointment and mortification. For twelve weary years, the bureaucratic toad has been under a harrow of perpetual defeat. Bearing in mind how unpleasant it is to be always in hot water, one might -wonder that no Minister, a successor of Lord Glenelg, should have deliberately and systematically promoted the transfer of governing authority from Downingstreet to the Colonies, which Lord Durham's work made sooner or later inevitable, -were it not that the preference which all our Colonial Ministers since 1839 have given to a course of reluctant bit-by bit concession is explained by two considerations of greater weight. These are, first and generally, that the spontaneous surrender of power appears contrary to ordinary human nature ; and secondly in particular, that our ever-changing Colonial Ministers, have to deal with a vast mass of complicated details about which they can really know nothing, fall necessarily, or at any rate naturally, into the hands of those obscure but permanent officials who have always wielded the power of Imperial England over her Colonies. Not our Chief Secretaries in succession, but the everlasting Under-Secretaries and head clerks whom the system places virtually above them, have resisted and complied with Colonial demands for local self-government. Perhaps the most wilful and even tyrannical of those chiefs, being the most prone to get into scrapes, have been the most completely overridden by their smooth, patient, time-biding subordinates. But, be that as it may, the practice of the whole Office, as respects granting self-government to the Colonies, has been resistance as long as possible, and then concession exhibiting in the manner of it the reluctance with which it is made. Thus, for example, it was only by the threat of more rebellion that the Canadas gained the immense advantage of constitutional government by Ministers locally responsible; Port Phillip or Victoria (so the colonists boast) obtained relief from its miserable dependence on New South Wales by the insulting election of Lord Grey as its representative in the Council at Sydney ; and the Cape, after years of supplication for free government, extorted by its anti-convict revolt the most liberal of Colonial constitutions. That constitution was iiTdeed suspended the moment a Caffre war had suddenly brought the sturdy colonists into a state of weakness and dependence on Imperial ,aid : but this snatching back of a great concession was iccording to rule ; for the reticences, and repentances, and hesitations of Colonial Downing-street, illustrate not less plainly than the motives of their concessions the unwillingness with which they yield when they must. According to the direction in which circumstances press them, they deny the principle whilst they give up the thing, or withhold the thing whilst they acknowledge the principle. It was not till some time after government by responsible local Ministers was a settled fact in Canada, that Lord Durham's theory on that subject was ever mentioned by Dowing-street without a sneer ; and when the thing was actually conceded, (by Sir Charles Bagot, under Lord Stanley.) the principal was eagerly repudiated by the authorities, at home. In like manner, Lord Grey had no sooner carried out his Opposition theory of a policy for New Zealand, by promulgating a free constitution for that country, than his subordinate?, who had indulged him to that extent, but who knew that so great a concession to so weak a colony was not then unavoidable, induced him to destroy his own work, on the ground that it was premature and impolitic. Again, just at the time when, under Lord Metcalfe's government of Canada, the Office had wholly parted with its power of appointing strangers to places in that colony, it sent out people from England with letters to the Governor recommending them for appointments. A volume might be filled with examples of this inconsistency, the natural vaccillation of power stripping itself reluctantly of authority and patronage; but the few which we have cited will suffice to introduce a case of self-counteraction by Downing Street which was barely stated in our last week's news. As might have been expected, the colony to which Lord Durham's Report had especial reference, has been the most successful in its pursuit of the object which that document taught all the true colonies of England to desire. With respect to this one colony at least, not to mention others in North America, the principal of local authority in local matters is at length avowed by Downing Street as the rule of its policy ; and practically, although Lord Grey's individual dislike to Parliamentary debates on Colonial questions has withheld the formal concession of some points in which the Imperial Act for the Union of the Provinces is at variance with that principle, yet the colony is generally allowed to have its own way in matters of the greatest and the smallest importance, from legislation relating to the constitution of its Parliament to the appointment by its own Government of the meanest of of its public servants. Generally, but not universally : for in the midst of a general abandonment of the active and negative functions of \ government which the act of Union reserves to the Colonial Office, that branch of the Imperial power interferes to thwart the colonists in a matter which they deem of great moment. With regard to many subjects of political economy, Canada is necessarily, from her geographical position, deeply affected by^ the laws of the United States. Her currency is more especially subject to this influence ; an influence from which she can no more escape than from that of the South wind upon the state of her climate. After long experi- , ence and careful inquiry, her Parliament passes a law the object of which is to assimilate her currency to that of the United States. Neither the people nor the Government of this country has the slightest interest in the question : whether the currency of Canada resemble that of England or that of the United States, is a matter of perfect indifference except to the Canadians and perhaps to the American States bordering upon Canada. But Eai*l Grey, or somebody about him, or somebody in our Treasury, holds abstract opinions relating to currency which differ from those of the Canadian Parliament. So the deliberate legislation of Canada is frustrated by an exercise of the Imperial veto. A correspondence on the subject takes place between the Imperial and Colonial Government ; but it is not carried on in the usual way, by the Governor and our Secretary of State. These high functionaries, apparently conscious of the awkwardness of so inconsistent a meddling by the Imperial Government with a purely local business of the self-ruled colony, hand over the conduct of the dispute to a subordinate officer of our Treasury and the InspectorGeneral or Finance Minister of Canada. The latter, Mr. Hincks, writes what Lord Elgin could not have decorously addressed to Lord Grey — " Following out the liberal views of Colonial policy which have been for some years avowed by the Imperial Government and Pai'liament, deference has been paid to Parliamentary majorities in Canada in points of great public importance, whilst at the same time irritation is kept up by interference in matters of really trivial importance as far as Imperial interests are concerned, but concerning which the entire public opinion of Canada is united." In other words, " You blow hot and cold #ith the same breath : but take warning that we shall not submit to an inconsistency which is very hurtful to us and can be of no service whatever to you. Indulging some currency theorist of your own, you let him pedantically set aside our practical legislation ; and this whilst you tell us that we alone are to manage our own affairs as we please. We won't stand it." Of course they won't. Of course the Colonial law will be passed over again, and the Imperial veto will not be

repeated. But how idle, or rather mischievous, is the interference without eftect or object— the vain attempt to withdraw in particulars the grand concession which has been made unreservedly in generals ! Let us note, however, that the source of these capricious irregularities is the neglect of the Imperial Parliament to deprive the Colonial Oflice of all " discretion" with regard to what power shall or shall not be given up to colonies obtaining free institutions. The memorandum may be usefully recalled in the next session of our Parliament, when the Union Act of Canada, and the Constitutions of the Cape, the Australias, and New Zealand, will inevitably be the subjects of debate and legislation.

Revenue ron the Octobir Quarter. BitiTHS, Deaths, and Marriages.— Tbe twelfth nnnual report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England, was published. Glancing at the tables contained in thig document, we find the general result of them may be thus stated :—: — The total number of maraiages solemnised during the year ended 3 1st December, 1850, was 141,883; of which 123,182 were according to the rites of the E-tabhsbed Church, and 18,701 of miscellaneous de-ioi mmations. Wlulbt marriages have been contracted by 19,647 widowers, there have been but 12,594 widows married ; these latter appear to have been equally divided between bachelors and widowers, whilst 13,155 widowers were married to spinsters. Of those who signed the marrmge register with marks, 44,027 were men and 65,135 women. The December quarter appears to be most prolific of marriages ; next to which is the June quarter, whilst the March quarter is lowest in the scale. The births for the year comprise '295,158 males, and 283,001 females -total, 578,159. Tlip abstract of illegitimate births shows 20,049 males, and 19,285 females. Of these, the London division, with a population of 2,361,640, contributed 2,828; tbe north-western or chief manufacturing division, with a population of 2,487,351, furnished 6,766, whilst the south-eastern (agricultural) division, having 1,628,08-J souis, contributed 3,219, aud the eastern (agricultural) division, with a population of 1,113,710, furnished 3.0J3. The registry of deaths shows 221,801 males, and 219,052 females, together 440,853. Ofthpse, the largest number appear in the threo months ending on tbe last day of September— viz., 135,235, whilst the jowe.st number, 97 594, are in the December quarter.