THE AUSTRALIANS ON TRANSPORTATION.
(Trom tbe Saturday Review.) It is a curious fact that the AngloSaxon blood, which in its own home is liable to err rather upon the side of dignity and reserve, when transplanted to a new country generates the most malignant type of brag known to civilized humanity. Five-and-twenty years a?o it was the fashion to believe that this was an American peculiarity. But we did the Yankees wrong, as a more mature experience has fully demonstrated. The largest of our colonies consisting mainly of our own race, outside America, are situated on the eastern and south-eastern fringe of the Australian continent, and they have shown themselves fully competent to maintain the reputation of the emigrated Anglo-Saxon for bounce and bluster. It may be supposed that the habits engendered by a settler s life are favorable to this unamiable weakness. Colonists would never get on if; they hampered themselves with the prudence of the Old World and recoiled j from difficulties which would be thought insuperable at home, Their advance in the enterprise of conquering a wild country depends on their readiness to put up with mortifications a«d defeats. They have become used always to try it on, and to take their risk of failure; and the philosophy which they have learned in their struggle with nature they instinctively put in practice iv their conflicts with the less stubborn resistance of Imperial statesmen. Whatever the cause, it is certain that modesty is not the salient fault of our Australian fellow subjects. The controversy which has been Tecently going on upon the subject of transportation to Western Australia is a curious specimen of the Americanised tone which has long mad-e itself visible in Australian thought and language. The position of the Eastern Australians upon tbis question was very clear. They had a perf«ct right to their own opinion upon the merits of the transportation system, and were justitiod in resisting its application to themselves if they thought fit. They had a right also, if they had formed and opinion that transportation to Western Australia would indirectly injure them, to collect the facts upon which that opinion was founded, and lay them before the Imperial Government. Such evidence, if it bore out their allegations, could not fail to have great weight with Plnglish statesmen. It would be necessary before arriving at a decision, to balance the rival claims of England and of Western Australia; but the conclusion- would be formed in a Spirit of earnest goodwill to fellow-subjects whose moral and material welfare it is both our wish and our interest to promote. • R'}t whatever concession upon this subject was asueu tor by Eastern AustraMans could only be asked for as a favor. They had no rights in the matter. They can have no rights as a dependency which they would not possess if they were an independent nation ; and England would never submit to be dictated to by another Government as to the mode in which she should dispose of any part of the terrritory over which her flag floats. The mere fact that Western Australia is no part of New South Wales puts either of those two colonies out of court, as far as bare right goes, in protesting against any arrangement which the mother country might make with the other. Nor is the case of the Eastern colonies, even for a concession of favor in this matter, prima facie very strong. If Western Australia bordered on New South Wales, the claim of the latter colony to consideration would be evident at first sight. But Western Australia is distant by an interval which, to a European mind, would represent many independent kingdoms, and there is po coiumunica tion except by sea. New York might almost as reasonably cqSnplain of the depots at Portland and §pike Island as being dangerously near. The trade is not very active, and the probability seems small that any considerable number of expirees are in the habit of leaving a colony where "certain advantages are secured to them, to thrust themselves into communities where they are so much detested. The presumption is the other way, and it would have to be rebutted by statistics. But, at best, supposing that the inhabitants of New South Wales could dispose of the rights which the Western Australians have to be chiefly considered in the matter, they could only make out a case for a favor, to be asked for in tones of courtesy and granted from a feeling of good-will. This is not, however, the view the colonists take of their own position. That madness for a vast expanse of territory which bids faijc to reduce the United States to a lesel of anarchy lower than that from which Mexico is still emerging, has turned their heads also. Because they are settled upon the fringe of a vast continent, they already count it as their own, and dream of an .Australian 1 Empire. And to give something of a practical expression to their dream, in humble imitation of their great models upon the Potomac, they have|et up a Monroe doctrine as far exceeding in extravagance the doctrines of President Monroe as he outstripped the usage of older nation". It is only to the prevalence of some such .Hea that this bold attempt to registet a claim to a vested interest in- the whole Australian continent can be attributed, for it is only because the settlement on the banks of the Swan River is included under the name of Australia that they can take such a deep concern in its destinies. It is not a question of proximity. Singapore is as near to ■ Sydney as Perth; but the Australians
have never objected to the depot for convicts kept by the Indian Government at Singapore. This bright dream of the future may help to explain the tone they have adopted in this controversy. A certain Mr Edward Wilson appears as their representative before the public on this occasion. He asks no favor; or at least his tone of supplication is that which would befit a very valiant beggar, armed with a very formidable stick. He not only rates us soundly for the meanness of our conduct in seeking to continue the system to which these Eastern colonies of Australia owe their very existence, but he threatens us with the sovereign displeasure of those same colonies unless we abandon our evil ways. Any amount of scolding is, of course, perfectly legitimate ; . but menaces b.'come undignified unless there is some slight substratum of actual power to support them. Mr Wilson's threats lose themselves so much in ! words that it is not very easy to discover what their actual import is. Of course, they be<jin with the threat of separation, which of late years has been the firs 1 ", idea that has usually suggested itself to any English colony that could not get all that it wanted out of the Colonial Office or the Exchequer. It is a pity the colonists cannot persuade themselves that this menace has been used too often, and that we are callous to it now. In the present imtance, it can only be compared to the favorite threat of a Spoiled child, that he will hit his head [ very hard upon the ground if his | mamma do> s not give him a cake. The ! only effect of such a threat being realized would be that the Eastern Colonies would put it entirely out of their power to object to the contiuuance of transportation to Western Australia. If they were independent communities, th-eir remons-.rances would not be listened to for a moment. The next threat is, that colonial debentures and railway bonds will be repudiated- A very serious threat, indeed, if Mr Wilson is to be taken as leprcsenting in any way the financial or other morality of the , Australian Governments — serious to those who have already tiusted ' them, still more serious to , their own future credit on the markets of Europe. But the prospect of Australian repudiation, even if we could believe Mr. Wilson to be justified iv representing it as a possible contingency, is not one that will materially affect the feelings of the bulk of the English people. The last menace which he has added in his most recent letter is the most comical of all. He threatens that if we send villains to Western Australia, Eastern Australia will send villains to England. It does not seem to occur to him that we might possibly resist this quaint mode of retaliation ; and that untii the greatness of the future Australian Empire really dawns. New South Wales »-■» scarcely be strong enough to land them at Liverpool in spite of us. The sanctimoni. us unction with which he lecures the Western Australians upon the wickedness of desiring to have convicts to make their roads, considering the seed from which the whole of Australian colonisation has sprung, and the conditions under which it long flourishe 1, can only be described as a masterpiece of impudence. It may be said that it is unjust to identify the Australians with the extravagances of their volunteer advocate. It would be so if their own formal language did not fully correspond with his. When, in their petition, solemnly addressed to the Queen, they could venture to threaten her that if Great Britain and Western Australia carried out an arrangement perfectly agreeable to both of them, the Governments of the Eastern colonies would be compelled to assume a "defiant" attitude towards her Government, it is evident that they are as eager \ to disccunt the future might of the Australian Empire as Mr Wilson himself. Such language on the part of the colonists is to be regretted. It only plays into the hands of those who de--sire that a severance should take place. English politicians cannot but feel that if such demands, so phrased, are tobe submitced to, it is Great Britain that is the dependency of Australia, and not Australia of Great Britain. It is possible so to aggravate the practical annoyances attendant upon the colonial connexion as to neutralize the feelings and aspirations in obedience to which alone it is maintained.
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Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 13, 7 December 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)
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1,700THE AUSTRALIANS ON TRANSPORTATION. Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 13, 7 December 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)
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