THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1858.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 106, 26 October 1858, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1858.

In a former number we treated at some length upon tlie subject of the disposal of the lands of the Crown in her Majesty's Colonial Dependencies. We now propose to take a review of the relative duties and interests of mother countries and colonies, In reviewing the various features by which England is distinguished from all other nations, there is not one more striking, or more important, than the vastness of her distant possessions, and the successful conquests and complete control which she lias established over separate portions of tbe globe, each exceeding in. size, if not in its population, the country on which it is.dependent, and forming in tiie whole much more than sufficient for the colonies of every nation in Europe. ' If, therefore, it be an object of importance to any people to understand clearly the relative duties aud interests of the mother countries aiid colonies, it is pre-emi-nently so to'the English people. And yet it .is no exaggeration to say that even at the present day, though a step has for the first time been taken in the right direction, that there is no country iv Europe where the true policy' on this subject is so imperfectly understood, nor any country either in ancient or modern times that ever behaved practically towards its foreign dependencies with so little wisdom, or so little justice, as England. This will be considered a bold, nay, perhaps even a libellous assertion bysome. But we think it will be amply borne out by the evidence of fact, and consecutive reasoning, before we conclude. And that we may reach this conclusion through the progressive stages of progressive inquiry and legitimate deductions, we will begin at"the fountain head. The universal passion—the love of power— which shews itself afc every stage of. human existence, from infancy to old age, and in every state and condition of man, from the lowest extreme of barbarism to the highest pinnacle of refinement, is alone sufficient to account for that thirst of foreign conquest which has, at different periods of the world, led men in large** bodies first to explore, then to enslave and bring under their dominion countries weaker than their own. The glory of subduing millions to the will of one has been the only avowed motive of nearly all the great invaders, who, from time to time, have quitted their own countries to overrun, if possible, the, whole habitable, earth. Alexander, though achieving more than most of his successors, was but a type of that class of which his age and prowess placed him by universal consent at the head. He did for himself, indeed, what others of less enterprise and energy, in later times, have been content to have done for them by delegation—excepting the so-styled Corsican Tyrant, who,. not content to sigh in the voluptuous repose of sovereignty, for " ships, colonies, and commerce," encountered cheerfully the perils of battle and the rigours of opposing elements to open for himself a path to these objects of his intense desire. In this succession of nations struggling in continual strife for. mastery,' every portion of the ancient world, and much of the modern, has alternately heen placed in the condition of master and slave. It is very true that conquest by arras is not the only means by which colonies and dependencies have been formed. The ancient Greeks and Romans established colonies which appear to have consisted of large bodies of persons dissatisfied with their condition at home, from polititical or other causes, and emigrating, and under the leadership of some one of their own choice, taking peacable possession of favorable localities for the purposes of settling permanently down. But the latest, and on.; the whole the most remarkable, of the modes in which colonies have been planted are those which led to the possessions of the British in Asia and America,"and the new continent of Australia'; in each of which there has been a mixture of meanness, perfidy, and fully disgusting to contemplate, and the stain of which will require ages of good government to wipe away! Religious persecution, that most hateful and hitherto, even in tbe enlightened nineteenth century, most incurable oi all the. plagues by which the world has yet been afflicted, first led to'the peopling with exiled 'Englishmen of the wilds and .savannas of America. The outpouring of her gaols and dungeons first led to the settlement of the great continent of Australia (whose aborigines have withstood the soothing influence-of civilisation intact to the present day) with Her most incorrigible criminals, and latterly with her political victims. And the mean and treacherous manner in which our first footing was obtained in India—where a few merchants, humbly seeking permission to build warehouses for their merchandise on the coasts, of Coromandel and Malabar, had scarcely entrenched themselves within the asylums allotted to them,- than they turned the very protection for which they had sued against the power that granted it—-is not to be Surpassed in baseness and ingratitude by the annals of the world, rich as they are in every variety of crime, if we except our conduct in moi*e recent times towards the members of " the Celestial Empire." If, however, the manner in which we have acquired our distant possessions be less glorious and less honorable than that pursued by other nations, the maimer in which we have used. them is still more remarkable for its difference,. It was the boast of the Greeks-and Romans that they imparted to the harljariaus whom they subdued the superior knowledge and civilisation of the Western world ; and although the Indians of that day were much higher in the scale of all that dignifies existence than we find them in their present degenerate condition, there is no doubt that a very considerable infusion of useful knowledge followed the march of Alexander to the Indus, and that he left

behind him more splendid and more durable monuments of Grecian excellence than the altars he erected on the banks of the Hyphasis; while the state of Egypt, Syria, and' Decapolis, proved beyond all doubt, while colonies of Rome, that so far from any restrictions being placed on the full development of their resources of wealth and power," the highest encouragement must have been given to have raised them to the proud distinction in which they lived. The very ruins of their cities exhibit, even after a lapse of nearly twenty centuries, greater indications of splendour and magnificence than is to be found at the present moment in England and all her dependencies put together. ■ The folly of the' English people is not however greater than their ignorance in all that' concerns the welfareof their distant possessions, notwithstanding tlieir boastingly proclaiming themselves to be the greatest people, and bombastically fancying themselves " the envy of surrounding nations and the admiration.of the', world." They know-just, enough to repeat, cuckoo-like, that thousand times reiterated assertion, that ''upon the British dominionsthe sun never sets," and that /India is the brightest jewel in the British Crown. We should rather say the reddest, for they know nothing of, the, dark and bloody spots by vvlncji ihe lus're of that: jewel is bedimmed They defended the reparation of the Spanish colonies in America from the mother country on the ground ofthe unjust treatment of the parent state; but they do not know that their own conduct towards their own colonies in India has been, and still is, more base, more impolitic, and more tyrannical, than any ever pursued by Spain ! No; the English Government and the English nation, notwithstanding the example of the splendid success of the United States, the successful revolt of the Hay flans, and the still more recent, as well as more striking example of the whole continent oj South America shaking off the fetters that bound them in vassallage fa their European mastei*,-^----the English Government and the English people have gone on, and still continue .to go.on, in. that contented ignorance and apathy on every thing that concerns their foreign possessions, as if they had no more concern in them than they have with the temperament of the comet which we see nightly above our heads. And as regards our Indian possessions, we may truly say never was,a trust so slightly regarded, so shamefully neglected, so grossly abused, and it may be. safely added, never was the guilt of such conduct on the part of the Government more deeply participate^ by, or more justly chargeable on the people, than iv this particular case ; and to no portion of that peo-da does thismost crying abuse owe its continuance more than those who style themselves the 'Fourth,' Estate, namely,. " The Press," which profe.-fses.to>exist only for the purpose of exposing and resistiiigthe enemies of liberty and mankind. What then, we would askyis the only natural, the inevitable conclusion Uo be deduced from such a state of national debasement, but that their apathy has been more criminal than the deeds of the perpetrators and their abettors. ~.-.... We. must now pass from general reflections, important as we deem them, and capable as they are of being extended, to the more detailed consideration of the subject. Seeing; however, that we have occupied more Space than we intended, we must reserve our details for a future number..