THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES BILL. [From the Times, May 7.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 557, 4 December 1850, Page 4

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES BILL. [From the Times, May 7.]

If there is a mystery in the Colonial-office, there is a mystery alsu in the utter failure of Sir William Molesworth's crusade against it. There is no roan in the House who can write a more interesting pamphlet, or deliver a more catting philippic. It is for no lack of talent that he has been unable to discover a Sicily in Australia, and a Verres in Lord Grey. Neither industry nor confidence has been wanting to his cause. His "Constitution" testifies to both. Yet last night, in spite of an appeal from a Protectionist organ to its readers in his behalf, and in spite also of Mr. Gladstone's fortuitous concurrence, the Colonial Reformer did not muster more than 42 votes against 165. We must confess ourselves surprised that in these days, when new lights are rather in vogue, ani when there is not much enthusiasm for Government, so specious a scheme as Sir William's has not taken more widely. What are we to conclude from so decisive a majority against it? Is the House wiser than we take it for; or the condemned scheme more transparent? Yet Sir William, we confidently believe, intends nothing beyond what he says. His ideal of empire is a parent State helping and protecting their independence, as a father his son's, as soon as the latter can make his own way. There is much to be said, and much to be felt, in favour of this view. A sensible parent is as anxious as the child to cut the lead-ing-strings, and to close the dispensation of rebukes. The saying that " home-bred youths must needs, have homely wits" applies to all excess of home instruction. Every British prejudice is in favour of letting the colonies go, at least so far as relates to their own private affairs. Unfortunately, however, questions cannot always be decided in this ci priori fashion. We must consult the facts of the case, and among the first of these facts we find that the colonies are not actually in a condition to make their own way. Nay, it is not pretended that they are. They are exposed to very great dangers from within and from without, and are in a position to require, any day, the parental assistance. So the analogy of the parent and the adult child falls to the ground, and any scheme founded on that analogy may be very ingenious, but is very illusive. On a close examination of Sir William Molesworth's compromise between the claims of the empire and those of the colony, we believe it will appear that, however unintentionally on the part of its author, it awarded the kernel to the colony and the husk to the mo-ther-country. If there is anything which in politics may be called the kernel, it is municipal law and social institutions; and if there is anything which may be called the husk, it is the unfortunate necessity for providing against foreign foes or intestine war. Sir William's division of colonial and Imparial powers assigns the most onerous responsibilities to Her Britannic Majesty, and her representa-

five in the colony, and the most important powers to the colonial Legislature. The colony, under bis proposed dispensation, would be able to remodel all its institutions on the republican or any other model, to show any degree of hostility it pleased against the British Crown and British institutions, to create or perpetuate any social distinctions which the unfortunate origin of our Australian colonies might suggest, to offer any premium to disaffection at home, and almost any insult to our Government, to establish or proscribe any sect of religion ; in a word, to make society, life, and manners in Australia as different as possible from those of the mother-country ; all the while, as it were, under the shelter of our vast naval and military power, and secure against all consequences, against the explo-. sions of the democracy it cherished within, or the just vengeance of the rivals it provoked abroad. We can understand two alternatives — to retain our colonies as at present, with a check on their legislation, or to bid them "good bye" at once, and have done with them. But we cannot understand the mixed course of leaving the colonies to do entirely as they please, and to change their social system in any direction they please, though ever so much at variance with our own political principles and their own true interests, yet holding ourselves entirely responsible for the results, so as to be bound to defend the colony with our whole force from the natural consequences of its own wilfulness. It is the case of a son who demands "that which falleth "to him," to spend it as he pleases, to live the life he pleases, and form the connexions be pleases, with the intention of falling back on the parent should he happen tofind out his mistake to his cost. The responsibility we have already brought on ourselves by the extent and variety of our colonial empire is formidable enough. We may any day be called on to defend this or that distant colony from our own enemies in the event of war, from its own savage neighbours, from its own demoralized population, a d from other dangers incident to new states founded in ne-w soils. What is worse still r we may any day have to' interpose to put down some great social enormity. If we refer to such con'ingencies, it is act because our own colonies seem paniculaFly exposed to them, but because the apprehension is suggested by the uniform tenor of all colonial history. People are apt to refer to the Grecian colonies as if they were models. We should do well to imitate, as far as the nineteenth century can, a heioic age. But in the few scattered notices of these colonies we find sometimes a war of extermination between the colonists and the natives, sometimes a mischievous alliance between the natives and a party in the colony, or between a party in the colony and a party in the mother-country, sometimes & horrid wir of classes, sometimes piracy and kidnapping, sometimes great calamities. Though the very incidents themselves may not be likely to recur — for misfortune does not observe precedent — yet we may learn to distrust the infaucy of States. Our recent experience indeed is sufficiently chequered with evil to make us provide for the worst. Our present responsibility, we say, is grave enough. Sir William Molesworth's scheme would have left it undiminished. He would even have aggravated it. On the other hand he would have deprived the British Legislature and Government of all power to regulate and check the internal growth and conduct of communities for whose safety we are yet to be answerable. Nay, more. If Englaud and her colonies are still to be under one Government,—if Queen Victoria, as styled by Sir William Molesworth in his new constitution, is still to be lawful Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the colonies, then the credit of the mothercountry is at stake, and must necessarily be affected by the character of the colouies. The day may come indeed when England may be content with a supremacy rather than a sovereignty over its colonies ; when it may retainonly such a dominion, as Themistocles founded and Pericles completed over the.32gean is- • lands and States. Such a supremacy we believe to be only a state of transition, however useful for temporary purposes. We do not therefore desire it; much less do we desire such a supremacy as that which Sir William Molesw orth's measure would have given us, viz., a vast responsibility without an equivalent to compensate for it, without the securities to facilitate it, or even the proper naeans to discharge it.