ON COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT. [From tbe Times, April 18.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume v, Issue 426, 1 September 1849, Page 3

ON COLONIAL SELF-GOVERNMENT. [From tbe Times, April 18.]

That the colonial question does not as yet excite within the House of Commons half the interest that it does out of the House is proved by the scanty attendance of members on Monday night. We do not indeed profess to believe that the direct attainment of Mr. Scott's object, viz., the appointment of a committee, would have effected very much good, but we do think that for the colonies, the Co-lonial-office, and the great body of the ppople, nothing is so desirable as frequent and repeated discussion in Parliament on colonial subjects, and the patient and minute investigation of colonial complaints. But a committee appointed in the way and for the purposes named by Mr. Scott would involve a multitude of inquiries, each of which would diverge into a hundied collateral immaterial issues, and — as far as we may judge from what we have hitherto seen of colonial committees, might end by gratifying private pique and personal vindictiveness, rather than by settling any axiom of government or any principle of statesmanship. The very terms of Mr. Scott's motion precluded the possibility of its being carried advantageously. He proposed to lump together in one and the same inquiry, and to embrace within precisely the same principles, colonies, dependencies, and garrisons; countries peopled and settled wholly by men of English or European origin, and those of which the British or European population form but a fractional part, as well as places held for military defence ; Canada and Ceylon, Guiana and South Australia, Malta, Gibraltar, and the Cape. A confusion so singular would be sure to damage, hamper, and obstruct an inquiry which even in its simplest form is com* plicated enough. ' The evil of the case is this, — There is no one who cannot recognise anomalies and absurdities enough in the present colonial system. They are patent, striking, marvellous. They are easy to indicate, and not difficult to

declaim about. Any one who runs may read them an') denounce them. When to the natural facilities of the subject are added the stimulants of wounded pride, disappointed hopes, and foiled schemes — when the Secretary of State for the Colonies is an ill-man-nered or an ill-natured or a discourteous man — when the relations between the colonies and the mother-country are in any degree warped by internal factions or mercantile embarrassments — then from a thousand voices and ten thousand pens are launched the weapons of a not innocuous assault against the numberless weak points of the office." When Mr. Scott assails the " idea" of the Colonial office, one secretary, assisted by three or four subs, governing some forty different colonies and dependencies from Downing street, or allotting to one obscure head-clerk or another the real though not ostensible government of some dozen islands and plantations, he merely echoes the unanimous voice of all thinking and unthinking men — a voice which acquires a peculiar force and significance when some half-dozen colonies seem — as they just 'now seem — to be on the eve of a crisis. In doing this he does good thus far, that he concentrates many minds and various intelligences .on a point of great public interest. But here he slops. He proceeds no further ; he has no remedy except a committee, an interminable investigation and a "blue book," which might doubtless be very armsing, but would, we fear, be wholly useless. We agree with Mr, Scott that the Colonial Secretary has too much to do, and by the nature of his antecedents, is the last man to do it. -well. He is the accident of an acciJent. He comes into office imperfectly acquainted with its details ; he goes out of office just as his experience is becoming of use, and leaves his successor to pace through the same circle of pupillage, experiment, and disappointment. He is distracted by a thousand conflicting in terests, and perplexed by a million petty details. He is the appellate judge on every colonial question, from the charter of a constitution 10 the dismissal of a tide-waiter, from convict transportation to Parliamentary privileges. It is absurd to suppose that one man could do all this work well. But the substitute ? Some office must exist in the place of that which is now fixed in Downing-street. It is impossible that self government should be conceded to the colonies of such a nature as would do away with the functions of an intermediate agency between them and the mother country. On constitutional grounds that is undesirable. It is undesirable on the very grounds which Mr. Scott alleges. Part — and that too, no small part — of the complaints urged by the old colonies of North America, arose from the want of some such intermediate agency. They were turned over to the caprices of non-colonial Ministers, without a hearing, without an appeal. They were secondary objects in the eyes of statesmen. They were treated in all their transactions with the British Government with less regard and coiwderation than they obtain now. A despatch went forth, or a motion emanated from a secretary at war or a Secretary for one of the Home Departments, affecting the interests of the colonies, but on the purport of which the colonists were not consulted. There was no communication between the Government and the colony. Ac the present day there is a continual correspondence going on between the Colonial Parliaments, the Colonial Governors, and the Colonial- office. A suggestion from Downingstreet to a Governor of Cauada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, is communicated to the assemblies of those provinces, is discussed by them, is approved or conJeraned by them. If they dislike it, it is withdrawn ; if they sanction it, it is passed into law. So, also, petitions aud remonstrances emanating from Colonial Houses of Assembly are transmitted through the Governors to the Colonial-office, and thus brought under the notice of the Crown and the Imperial Parliament. Thus the Colonial-office continues and confirms the correspondence between Great Britain and her settlements in a way which could not be supplied by the bare aud naked intervention ot the English Porliament. In our Parlia-. liament Colonial or Imperial interests would, give way to the squabbles of faction and the grievances' of individuals. Worse than this, tbe jealousy between the provincial Parlia^ meuts and the Imperial Legislature would react fatally on both. The Imperial Parliament would be a far harder and a far more capri* cious despot to the colonies than any Colonial Minister has ever been. In some shape or other, then, there must be a responsible Co* lonial-office, whether it be a board similar to the East India Board, or whether it be a mere multiplication of secretaries, with an appointment of different colonies or dependencies to each. Two things, we think, are plain. First, the business of the "office" is far too heavy for one man. Secondly, the same ma?) ought not to superintend subject dependencies and tree colonies — settlements jike Ceylon, the Mauritius", &c., where the

vast majority of the population consists of multitudes aiien by birth and but recently servile by caste, and colonies like Canada or New South Wales, which enjoy in different degrees the privileges of self-government. For the same maxims do not apply to both classes, but the same habits of thought will gradually and imperceptibly attach to the mind of a man who is exercising the same appellate or directorial jurisdiction over both. Mr. Hawes was successful in shewing that " self-government" is enjoyed by our colonies far more than is usually believed. Of the forty-three colonies belonging to the British empire, nineteen have representative governments in some degree or other. In Canada, Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, it is as free as it can well be. Indeed, in the three first the privilege is exercised with the greatest conceivable degree of freedom. It has gone to the extent of tienching on the powers of the Crown, and infringing tacit compacts with the metropolitan prerogatives. It has proceeded to the verge of clashing with the right of the Imperial Government. It is about to be conceded to South Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. In some petty dependencies, like Bahama, Turk's Island, it is carried to the very climax of caricature, " stoppage of the supplies," being an habitual stratagem in the house of Assembly. In other colonies, where the electoral right is not as yet fully developed, it is recognised as an element of government. In New South Wales it gives a popular character to that which would otherwise be an oligarchical clique. In some dependencies, as Ceylon and Trinidad, it is impossible ; in others, as Guiana, the form which it assumes shows bow inapplicable it is to regions where the mass of the population is alien by birth, manners, and association. Were the utmost possible degree of self-go-vernment to be extended to colonies whose inhabitants are unmixedly British, still the functions of a Colonial Secretary or Colonial Board would be required to control the authority of British oligarchs in settlements peopled by an inferior and once servile race. Even in those where convict slavery has left a taint, the priuciple of self-government must be applied with discretion, discrimination, and caution. We cannot agree with Mr. Gladstone that every community, however composed, of whatever elements, of whatever classes — whatever its education and habits, religion or irreligion, virtue or depravity, knowledge or ignorance, idleness or industry, thrift or heedlessness — that any fortuitous community, provided only that it sailed from the shores of Great Britain, is by virtue of its name and origin at once qualified to erect itself into a civil society and make laws with safety to itself and honour to the empire. We cannot admit this, any mere than we can agree with Mr. Hawes in regarding that as a glorious specimen of colonization which exhibits the annual efflux of some 180,000 British subjects to the soil of a foreign and jealous power. There is no more noble act of statesmanship than colonizing well — none more difficult and delicate than assigning the true limits of colonial and Imperial power respectively. We hope that each of these will be facilitated and promoted by these repeated discussions in St. Stephen's.