The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1853.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 719, 5 March 1853, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1853.

Be just and fear not: Let all tlie ends thou aim’st at, be Country’s, Thy God’s, and Truth’s.

Is the brief notes on the Queen’s Speech made bribe Colonial journals through which it has reached us, it lias been remarked that bat a small proportionate share of attention has been directed to the affairs of the Colonies, which now form so widely extended and increasingly important a portion of the empire of the British Crown. And yet the Speech is above the average length, and embraces a great number and a wide variety of topics, from the universally interesting tribute to the memory of the Great Duke with which it opens, down to the acknowledgment of “ Her Most Faithful Majesty’s’’ decree for lire abolition of discriminating duties on the export of wine. The Agricultural Classes arc encouraged by the hope that—although Protection may not be restored, yet the injury inflicted on them by Free Trade will be mitigated by other provisions. The timid are cheered by statements of the maintenance of friendly relations with all foreign Powers, of the effective aid the Militia is calculated to afford to the regular Army, and of the amicable temper in which the Fishery question had been treated by the United Stales. Ireland lias the promise of a “ liberal and generous policy.” Philanthropists are gratified by an -assurance of the large measure of success which lias attended the efforts for the suppression of the slave trade on the Brazilian Coast. Church Reformers, and University Reformers, and Law Reformers have all some reason to expect that their respective objects will be at least taken into consideration. While the lovers of Science and the Fine Arts are quickened intojoyful anticipation of “a comprehensive scheme”—worthy of a great and enlightened nation”—which shall prove that—though the Crystal Palace has so entirely passed away that the ground upon which a little ago it stood in its magnificence has been ploughed up and sown with grass seed, —yet the spirit which originated the Great Exhibition lives on in uudiniinished energy, and still is likely to shed a radiance—notlhe less bright and glorious because it is pure and peaceable—over the Victorian age. But while other parts of the empire and other interests arc thus attended to, there certainly is very little recognition of the Colonies. As respects our possessions in India, there is, indeed, a reference to the necessity of a resumption of inquiries with a view to future legislation for them ; although even here we find no allusion to the Burmese War. Not a word is said of the Kaffir War, notwithstanding the continued expenditure of life and treasure which it involves, and the generally confessed fact that Sir Harry Smith’s successor in the government has disappointed the hopes entertained of his administration, and proved less, rather than more, competent than Sir Harry himself. It may appear still more remarkable that there is no allusion whatever to Ujq Australian Gold Fields, although they have made the names of New South Wales and I oi t Phillip familiar as household words throughout the civilized world, and although their attractions arc drawing away from the United Kingdom such multitudes as already to excite grave apprehensions lest an„emi-

gralion which at first was hailed as a welcome relief to an overcrowded population should, if kept up at the present rale, become injuriously exhaustive,—an aspect in which the subject is regarded in extract front the Timet which will be found in another column. Even Jamaica, which, before Sir John Pakington’s accession to office was known lo engage his most anxious attention —Jamaica where, since the Free Trade adniis-' si on into England of slave-grown sugar, half the estates have been abandoned and depopulated, whilst in Cuba every estate is in full and successful operation—Jamaica, where the recent severe visitation of Cholera has gone fiir to complete the work of ruin—| s not noticed in the Speech. We cannot imagine that these and other Colonial interests are forgotten or lightly regarded; but still the fact stands manifest—that they were not adverted to in the Speech from the Throne.

These and similar omissions, however,— to whatever cause, intentional or accidental, they may he attributed—only invest with more significance one passage which must excite lively emotions of pleasure and thankfulness throughout the Australasian colonies. The reader will anticipate that we allude lo the following

“ The system of secondary punishments hja ß usefully occupied the labours of successive Parliaments, and-I shall rejoice if you shall find it possible lo devise means by which, without giving encouragement to crime, transportation lo Van Diemen’s Land may, at no distant day, be altogether abolished/’ The Melbourne Argus makes this passage the theme of a leading article headed “ Glorious News,” and hails it as affording matter for a jnbileb more joyous than that called forth by the separation of the colony from New South Wales. The deliverance of Tasmania from the blighting curse of Convictism was, indeed, a consummation towards which events and the force of public opinion have been for some time tending with a strength that evidently could not long be resisted. Its own Legislature, and the Legislatures of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia have formally protested against the perpetuation of Transportation lo its shores. New Zealand, if less authoritatively yet not less distinctly, has joined in the protest. The Australasian League—however its influence on the English mind may have been hindered by the indiscretion of some of its vehemently political members—has condensed into a mighty organization a vast amount of colonial conviction and feeling on the right side of the question. A powerful section of the London press, including the Times , has, especially during the last year, thrown its weight into the scale of justice lo Tasmania, and its appeals have doubtless found a ready admission to the clear judgment, moral principle, and generosity of the best classes of the British people. Against such a combination as this, the efforts of the interested Transportation party in Van Diemen’s Land, —even though that party is numerically copsiderable, very violent, and, we regret to add, backed by the support of Sir William Denison—could not ultimately, or long prevail.

At the same lime it is to be remembered that the fact is not actually accomplished#, and that—invested as the subject of secondary punishments confessedly is with difficulties Which have embarrassed the most astute lego-political minds—many discussions and .differences of opinion may be looked for in Parliament before a new and better system can be finally established. The question of the abolition of Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land necessarily involves the additional question,—What is'to be done with the criminals whose offences the the law visits with the penalty of banishment ?—and there can be no doubt that the difficulty of solving this latter question has, as much as any other hindrance, interfered with an earlier adjustment of the former. The Royal Speech itself intimates the complicated nature of the subject, while it affords no cine to the scheme by which it is contemplated to meet the several requirements of the case. Rut still it is a gain of vast magnitude that the righteousness of the step as respects Tasmania, and the necessity that action should be taken to advance it without delay (ns we may interpret the words ,£ at no distant day'’ to mean) have engaged the attention of the Imperial Government fo fully and practically as the formal introduction of the matter in the Speech from the Throne proves- There can be little doubt that Ministers had resolved to bring forward a plan for the attainment of the object, and we shall await with anxious interest their development of that plan. We trust our feelings would be the reverse of apathetic on such a question as this even if our own colony were wholly unconcerned in the issue. But such is not the case. It is true that New Zealand has always bceu, and was solemnly guaranteed to bo kept, free from the contamination of Transportation to its own shores; but it was not possible that in its geographical proximity to Australia, it should wholly escape the indirect effects of the Convictism of the neighbouring colonies. When, indeed, Mr. William Fox, in his dishonest book, “ The Six Colonies of New Zealand bad the effrontery to charge upon this settlement a large amount of crime, he uttered calumnies which, on former occasions, we have refuted by an unanswerable array of official returns and publicly notorious facte. And new, on looking back through the business of the Supreme Court for the throe years ending in December last, we find that there were no less than five of-the Quarterly Sessions at which no criminal cases whatever were tried, —so'that, within the Province of New Ulster (which included the of Auckland, the Bay of Island- Sonffanui, and New Klymoulli). *ri.,g aiteen months out ot the there was absolutely no crime of graver character than the conh • parativcly petty offences summarily dealt with in the Police Courts. Wp find, more-! over that the total number of convictions in the Supreme Court within those throe yeafs amounted only to twenty-three; several of which were for offences only barely exceedmg hi gravity those usually determined at the Resident Magistrate’s Court. But*, iu the

cases such ns they were, the major part of the criminals were importations, from Van Diemen’s Land, and in the only case of a capital sentence which has occurred here since the year 1848, the culprit was well known to he an old convict. Though, therefore, our own interests may not be largely, or directly , mixed up with the question, we undoubtedly have some concern in it. Independently of this, however, we can most sincerely rejoice at the prospect of the deliverance of Tasmania from the degradation and curse which has made her—as one of her own writers has lately expressed it — c ’the Cinderella of the Australian Sisterhood,” and at the future benefit which the adjacent gold-producing colonics, especially Victoria, may anticipate from the abolition of the present system —by which the criminals of England are, at the expense of the country, brought into immediate neighbourhood with the auriferous districts, which must furnish a temptation 100 strong to be resisted —except by a morality higher and healthier than any reformatory discipline has hitherto been able to produce in the great bulk of those whose crimes have hrough them under the penally of our Transportation Laws.