FREE INSTITUTIONS. [From the Daily News, February 5.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 407, 27 June 1849, Page 4

FREE INSTITUTIONS. [From the Daily News, February 5.]

The petitions and memorials from the Australian colonists have not been entirely fruitless. The Colonial Office has been moved. A bill for establishing legislative

councils in all the British colonies .on the Australian continent and Van Diemcn's Land has been prepared — is, we are informed, sufficiently matured to be presented to parliament immediately, The first part of the measure is said to be conceived in a broad and liberal spirit, but there are a number of petty provisos and conditions appended to it which will go far to neutralize its good effects. This boon from the Colonial Office to Australia, reminds one irresistibly of the guineas which good Mrs. Primrose gave her daughters for pocket money, with strict "injunctions never to change or spend them. In the first place, the erection of Port Phillip into a separate and independent colony under the name of Victoria, is provided for ; as also the establishment of elective legislatures in Victoria, Van Diemen's Land, and South Australia ; and the introduction of one into "Western Australia as soon as a petition shall be presented, signed by not less than one-third of the resident householders, praying that it may be established, and provision made for charging such part of the civil expenditure as has bee*n hitherto defrayed by parliamentary grants upon the colonial revenue. The provisions for instituting and conducting the first election?, for terminating the authority of the Governor and council of New South Wales over the I 'ort Phillip district, and for transferring legislative authority from the bodies in which it is now vested in the other colonies, to the new . elective councils, are ample and apparently sufficient. The crotchet of a central Australian congress exercising a certain control over these provincial legislatures has been abandoned. Power is given to the legislatures to alter and amend the mode of ! election, the distiibution of the representation, &c, from time to time, as experience may show necessary, In short, had the project stopped here, leaving the new legis ■ latures to manage the affairs of their respective communities, without let or impediment, it would have been unexceptionable. But such simple and rational legislation is beyond the comprehension of the Colonial Office. | One of the appended provisions, indeed, is unexceptionable. The new legislatures are authorised to pass whatever enactments they may deem expedient for the better adI ministration of justice, by defining the constitution of courts of law and equity and Junes, anything to the contrary in the Charter of Justice, or any act of the imperial legislature notwithstanding. This proviso will I prevent chicanery and special pleading with a view to frustrate law reform in the coloj nies, by raising technical difficulties out of acts of parliament and royal chaiters. Otherwise, the specific mention of this legitimate exercise of the legislative functions might have appeared uncalled for, and even dangerous, inasmuch as the phraseology of | the clause conferring the pi wer may possibly be wrested so as to limit it. One additional provision of very question - able expediency, is that which goes to perpetuate in all the colonies the arrangements by which one- third of the members of the legislative council of New South Wales are appointed by the Crown — that is, by n misters or the governors. The obvious intention of this arrangement is to increase the power of Downing Street, and to render the legislative councils a less faithful expression of public opinion in the colonies. At present every civil appointment in the British colonies exceeding the value of £300 is conferred by Government. With the direct nomination'of one-third of the legislative ! council of a colony, and such au amount of 1 patronage to dispose of, government«calculates upon securing manageable legislatures. It has not proved so in New South Wales. Public suspicion was aroused by the arrangement, and the result was that the government nominees being repeatedly left alone in minorities, with the whole of the elective members on the other side, Sir George Gipps, resolute not to yield to public opinion, was obliged to dissolve the first \ council prematurelj . Nor did he gain anything by the dissolution. Ihe obvious desire of government to give the appearance without the reality of representative institutions, would of itself have called into existence a powerful opposition, and it rendered \h:A which already existed irresistible. There is no middle way between despotism and really popular institutions : when a representative legislature is given to a colony, it ought to be given in good faith and without reservation. But more objectionable than even this equivocating policy are the powers proposed to be reserved to the government in matters of finance. Notwithstanding the warning examples afforded by Guiana and Jamaica, of the mischievous effects of a fixed civil list, placed beyond the control of the local legislatures, the bill for conferring representative Institutions on the' Australian colonies

contemplates the introduction and perpetuation of this element of discord in them.- It is expressly provided that the civil lists .of Victoria and Western Australia £hall> be maintained at their present amount after they come to he derived exclusively from the local taxation. The salaries of_ governors and judges are to be unalterable ; _the sums .appropriated to other officers and to other establishments on the civil list may be reduced by the governor, without the in* terposition of the> council, and alj.such savings are to be appropriated to purposes of government in the colony, at the solepleai sure of the Crown. . A statement of expenditure is to be submitted to the legislative councils, but they are not empowered to object to it or even criticise it. The .regulation of the expense and mode of'collecting and managing the receipts from customs duties is reserved to the commissioners of the imperial treasury ; an arrangement which, now that all duties except for the purposes of revenue are to cease in the colonies, can have no practical utility, and* may materially interfere with economy of collection and due control over revenue on the part of the local legislatures. The power of auditing the customs accounts of each colony is also vested in the imperial treasury. In connection with this' subject, the clause exempting the regulations for the sale and appropriation of Crown lands from the legislative authority of the councils, requires notice. Were the" proceeds of the sale of Crown lands entirely and exclusively appropriated to colonizing operations, this would be quite right; but as the Land Sales Act leaves a muiety of them to be appropriated to the general expenditure of Government, it is highly objectionable. The sole end and aim of all these provisos is to withdraw a large portion of the local revenue from the control of the colonial legislatures ; to provide a fund at the exclusive disposal of the governors that may enable them to carry on the government in defiance of the representatives ; and to continue a certain amount of patronage in the hands of the home government. The next proviso that calls for animadversion is that which empowers the crown to grant charters of incorporation to ecclesiastical bodies of all denominations, charters which may invest one such corporate body with privileges in several colonies. This is to create in every colony imperia in imperio, and will be a fruitful and irritating source of collision between the local legislatures and the imperial government. The last proviso to which it seems necessary to direct attention at present is only of importance as indicating' the temper which animates the framers of the measure under consideration. Some time ago we had occasion to remonstrate against the highhanded manner in which the constitutional rights of the colonists of Van Diemen's Land were set aside in a matter of local taxation. A clause is proposed to be introduced into the bill "for thebetter governmentof the Australian colonies." to "remove doubts as-to certain taxes" imposed by the Governor and Council of Van Diemen's Land. Thisisgoing. out of the way to confer a character of \e-" gality upon taxes which have been declared illegal by the courts of law, for no practical ' purpose. These taxes will be either duly enacted, or others substituted in their place by the new Council. The clause will not bring one penny into the local exchequer. It is a gratuitous insult to the inhabitants and tho bench of the colony. - c The measure which Government have prepared for introducing representative legis-f latures into the Australian colonies proposes; ' in the first place, to bestow such institutions; and, in the second place, by introducing a non-representative element into the Councils by neutralising: their financial power, and by abridging their legislative authority, to ren- - der them as inefficient as possible. The. measure, if passed in/ the form -it has at present assumed, will be -a .gain for; the colonies. It will give theJcolonisis enough of power to enable them to extorti more: • But it will only enable them to '.obtain reabrepresentative and responsible government, byv, a protracted series, -of. irritating! struggles.' against, the, imperial government. X vrill,. therefore, iberopst detrimen,tabto> theo;m'e*ther, country ?byiihtrodueing relations of an- i tagonism between itandthjex'olonies, 1 whiche are sure; to render- these: settlements- (less/ useful while the struggles continue, ;andiaret all but certain, to" lead; eventually; t&. a hos*; tile separation. - -j - * ; - ' '~>^ " *" " - ; w