COLONIAL GOVERNMENT. [From the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, March 6.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 733, 11 August 1852, Page 4

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT. [From the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, March 6.]

At length the colonists of the Southern Hemisphere have got their wish. Earl Grey is no longer colonial ministe/t. How far the change will be beneficial to them remains to be seen. We have always upheld Earl Grey's colonial governrnent, for several reasons, amongst which the most prominent .are?— lst,' That from him have ema-

nated all the measures'of lelf-government and liberal institutions which the southern colonies at this moment enjoy, 'not in perfection, but as an instalment which every preceding colonial minister, without exception, bad refused to them. 2jidly, That be was the constant butt of quack theorists, from whose errors and crotchets, adopted by the present premier himself when secretary. for the colonies, colonists have severely suffered, and are at this moment severely suffering. The land ! jobbing school, to judge from the abusive tone of their organs, are miserably disappointed at the result which has followed the secession of the Russell-Grey ministry; but colonists hare abundant causa to congratulate themselves that the theory clique has not been able to consolidate its ingenious devices by a participation in ministerial power. The real point upon which tie Australian co" lonists have been at issue with Ejrl Grey is the transportation question. But they forget, as on a previous occasion we told them, that the House of Commons itself has a direct interest in making i the colonies the receptacles of English crime. On this point, the House of Commons in the aggregate has no sympathy whatever with colonists. The county member cares not who gets the poacherof his game, so that be is rid of him ; and the borough member more than insinuates tliat colonists need not be so fastidious, for that they have been well enough supported from the public purse. It would be utterly useless for any colonial minister to propose the abolition of transportation, unless he were provided with some plan for the disposal of convicts ; whilst,, if such plan involved an outlay of public money, the economists would assail him in full cry. In the consciousness of his inability to contend with the evil, Earl Grey has strained every nerve to lessen the number of convicts sent to the antipodes. Home prisons have been erected, public works of great magnitude undertaken, in the hope of absorbing them, and it is scarcely to be wondered at, that, from the inefficiency ot these steps, the colonial minister eagerly caught at the willingness of the Swan River and Moreton Bay settlements to receive convicts. No one will suspect us of being supporters of transportation to colonies, for we abhor a system so fraught with moral degradation. Neither are we panegyrists .of any minister who .should uphold a practice so degrading to England as a nation. But we like to see the saddle on the right horse, and the right horse on this point is the House of Commons, itself. To petition that body for the abolition of transportation to colonies, is of as much use as it would be for the slaves of the Southern United States to petition their masters against the continuance of slavery. With the example of the Cape and Port Phillip before their eyes, it is as much the fault of the Van Eiemen's Land people that the moral plague contipnes to infect their shores, as it is the fault of the Colonial Minister. They are strong enough to say,-»-We will have no more convicts. If they will not say this, and act upon it too, they have little right to vent their wrath upon a Colonial Minister who maintains a system which he has not the pow.er to alter, whatever may be bis will ; — and the repeated declarations of Earl Grey on the subject, can leave little doubt as to what his will was bad be possessed the power. We can afford to state thus much, for the antitransportation cause has had no^ more earnest supporters than ourselves, however humble may have been our efforts in its favour. The mistake colonists commit, and it is a mistake arising from distance, is, in supposing occasjonal parliamentary declaimers in their favour to be in earnest — the fact being, that,' with one or two" honourable exceptions, their very champions regard them as the stalking horse to parliamentary distinction, and in no other light ; — whilst others openly use the colonies for party purposes. Were it not that we dislike personal allusions, we could furnish them with instances of this in abundance. In thi§ respect, then, the present Colonial Minister will be as powerlessas the past, whatever may be his intentions. \Lf Swan River will have convicts, he will send them to their hearts' content. If Van Diemen's Land steadily refuse to admit them, as did the Cape and Port Phillip, they will get no more of them. Before the secession of the late ministry, a new convict station, which should -obviate all future complaints, was in contemplation and progress, under Earl Grey's auspices. Let us see how his successor will carry it out. It has not, then, been our course to run down a minister for. what he could not avoid, nor shall it be. Any real good ' for colonies has been of such rare occurrence, that we have hailed with pleasure any measure for good, even though it be but an instalment, — and of such instalments Earl Grey has given more to the southern colonies than any minister who has preceded him. It will be w.ell for them if they have to say as much of his successors. ~ ~ ~ The immediate successor of Earl Grey is a conntry gentleman, of- high standing, estimable character, and no- colonial experience whatever. It has pleased the conductors of the leading organs of the press to ridicule the appointment. We are not so sure as to the wisdom of the cachination, however funnily it may have been intended. The great fault of his predecessors has been, that they have known too much,~i. c., in their, own estimation ; and of the value of such knowledge, as evinced in their crotchets and their acts, colonists have had but too painful evideuce. From this defect, Sir John Pakington is, at any rate, free, and the defect is, in a colonial minister, a serious one. We shall not, then, join in the cry, but shall wait and see what good will come of it. Old practica/ colonists ourselves, we are as t indifferent to English politics or party as is the inhabitant of Woolloomoloo, or the' Hunter's River ; caring nothing what party may be in office or out, aud considering- nothing beyond what it is our province as a colonial organ to consider. Within this, boundary, oar' opinions are respected, and beyond it we have no inclination to go. There are two circumstances which alone must necessarily prevent any truly efficient government of colonies, so long as the measures of that government originate in the mother country ; Ist, That all Downing-street colonial government emanates, from men who, never having been in colonies, cannot have any definite ideas of what is necessary for them ; but, as in our day, their

measures are a conglomerate of the theories of one, the opinions~of another, and the crotchets of themselves ; 2ndly, Th N at it is impossible to eradicate the old world notions of a legislator who ha« had no experience of new world, or colonial requirements — these varying, too, with every colony in the empire. There is an old story of an .Irishman being asked whether he could play the violin ? -His replywas, " that he never did play the violin, but had no doubt he could if he were to try." It is the same thing in Anglo-colonial legislation. Statesmen whose colonial knowledge, for any practical purposes, does not extend beyond Arrowsmith's maps — if it embrace so much — have no "doubt whatever of being able to. play the colonial fiddle much better than any colonist. Should any real colonist venture to hint that the Dowing-street Orpheus is playing out of tune, he is met with a dignified assurance that he himself knows nothing of colonial harmony. - And this must necessarily be the case so lojig as the present system of governing the colonies in Westminster is in vogue. The requirements of colonies vary with their number ; and if a statesman, by dint of hard study and a careful - sifting of the most reliable information, happened to stumble upon the measure* requisite for any one colony, this would be almost more than could be expected of him during his brief and Always precarious term of ojffice. But if, as h«s nor unfrequently been the case, he were to apply his acquirements to the government of, all-other colonies, he would inevitably be committing iujustice to all colonies but one. It has been proposed by the theorists, who have throughout our modern colonizing career, been the stumbling-block to colonial progress, to .establish at home a presidential board for each colony or group of colonies ; each board to be composed of men who had devoted their attention to a particular colonial branch, not of colonists practically versed in that branch. To English ignorance of colonial requirement!, this proposition appears singularly plausible ; but its practical effect would be to introduce a system of colonial joLbery beyond all precedent even in Downing-street jobbery, themostextensive already that history has on record. This measure would, however, have one good effect : it would speedily become so intolerable to the colonies themselves, that in less than three years they would rise as one man and shake it off. Even this measure might thus be useful as a means .to an end. But why not go at once to that end ? Let the colonies govern themselves as did the early American colonies. If they go'wrong,,as at first they would be certain to do, let them set themselves right, as they would be equally certain to do, having both the expense and the annoyance of their false or inefficient legislation. As soon as an infant is out of leading-strings,~the mother puts him down on the carpet, and leaves him to find the use of his legs as he best can. - What would be said of a parent who should persist in the use of leading-strings till the infant became a roan ? Or, in what condition would be the man who had been so brought up, even though he had tried occasionally to break his leading-strings ? His -manhood would be marked by indecision, if not imbecility, in place of firmness and .vigour. England was once a -colony, in one point resembling but two many of our own. * Its denizens were not permitted by their Roman masters to stand alone, and scarcely to look, but as they were ordered. What was the result when their Roman masters left them, in order to uphold the falling • destinies of the parent state ? That the colonists became an easy prey to every iuvarler, and were at length driven bodily out of their own country by an invincible few wbo hat! been accustomed to stand alone, and whose descendants have, in our day, already subdued half the world. * If Sir John Pakington be desirous of making a name, the opportunity is before' him, and that by the simplest process^ imaginable. Let him say to colonists generally, " Gentlemen, you know better than Ido what is for your own good. Do it ; only do not let it be anything preposterous, so that I cannot sanction it." Colonists would at once understand "him, and would instantly check that exuberance of feeling and action, which, for the most part, evinces itself only when people feel accutely, but'are restrained from acting sensibly. In this sense, it is in his power- 4should his duration in office permit— to become great as a colonial minister. He may rest assured that, by such a course, crflonists will attribute greatness of mind to him, whether he possess it or not. But if he listen to quack theories, -or even to the representations of returned and expectant colonists, with whom this metropolis abounds, his career will be nipped in the bud, and he will be even more luckless than any of bis predecessors. Sir George Gipps was the most perfect- model of a colonial governor we ever met with, and his golden rule should be that of every colonial minister :—": — " Impress upon everyone seeking to impart colonial information, however apparently valueless, the idea; that he bad communicated something valuable"; bat never act on it, unless worth making your own." There is no colonist from whom something may not be learned'; it it for- the statesman to separate the wheat from the chaff. No easy >task, perhaps, but one worth performing. It, "is, however, more than probable that the" Earl of Derby intends to carry out some of the colonial measures which, as Lord Stanley, he has preconceived. From one of these we augur that. he is no. friend to the continuance of transportation. If we recollect rightly, his lordship, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, issued an oider to the then Governor of Van Diemen's Land to assign no more convicts, and to put those unassigned into the chain-gang. From the severity of the order, the Governor declined to act on it. It shews, at any rate, that the Earl of Derby is no friend to the " ticket-of-leave "■ system at present in vogue, to the horror, of the comparatively few free inhabitants now left in Van Diemen's Land. The gold regions of Australia have* now. rendered the " ticket-of-leave "system preposterous. The ticket-holder is as free as any one else, except that at stated times he has to shew himself; but when there is, nothing whatever to prevent hit being off to the diggings also, it is absurd to suppose that he will' stay, to endure his pro--bat ion.