SEPARATION AT LAST.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 November 1859, Page 3

SEPARATION AT LAST.

Se [aside or apart], and paro [I pare off.] So the Queensland colonists have at length obtained their long looked-for separation—and much good it will do them. The old adage of the bundle of rods and their united strength is totally repudiated in the modern dogmas of political chicanery. The smaller tbe stronger, on the principle of reeds bending to the blast, or Dr. Lang's mad notion of Australian independence, in the vain hope that if at peace with | Britain's foes they would have the magnanimity to let us alone and quarrel amongst ourselves. But will the cat spare the mouse when in her power ? No, first she plays with and then devours it. Would the eagles mercifully pass the young lamb ? No, first pick out its eyes ahd then feed on the carcase. It is a sad drawback in mortal affairs that no joy can come without some dregs in the cup of our happiness. Even so it is with the new cot lonists. Although now a spick-and-span new and independent state of some 20,000 inhabitants at the most, yet with separation they have not got a gold-field, as was lately proudly vaunted by the North Australian.— -Alas, how have the mighty fallen ! Is New England, or the Riohmoud, or Clarence districts included within their boundary ? Hinc lacrymce dolorosa. It was well and truly observed by Mr M'Alister, at an Ipswich Separationist meeting, "that, without these districts, the boon of Separation was not worth accepting;" exactly the opinion of a majority, perhaps, of the Queensland inhabitants, and the greater portion of all New England's and the Clarence residents. Mr. Darvall's motion, therefore, •' that separation of rhe northern colony was premature," perhaps, found responses in the breasts of all thinking persons in those regions, and was scouted only by the denizens of Brisbane and her dearly-beloved, but rather termagant sister, ivy-crowned Ipswich, from motives which are too transparent to admit of cloaking any longer. But, farther, if it is true that a house divided against itself cannot stand, so may not Qeenslarid colony in all her queenliness. Queens have gone a-begging before now, and have " fallen, fallen, from their high estate." The men of the more northern division iu the Queen of the north—and pretty far north some of these folks are—seem highly dissatisfied about something; so that those who choose to scrutinize the legislative majority of the members from those far-away places, will find them voting valiantly—that in their minds separation was premature, and the fact of £2000 having been voted for bringing witnesses from Maryborough and other northern quarters, to attend the Circuit Court at Brisbane, via Sydney, is of itself proof conclusive that the intercourse by land and sea was about as little between the wide North and Brisbane as it was between Ipswich and Grafton, or Tenterfield; infinitesimally small— nothing. It is now an absolute aphorism that the people of New England^ and the Clarence are congratulating themselves on their escape from the thraldom ofthe northern Nebuchadnezzars, and they rejoice in "not bowing down to the tinsel image of separa tion so temptingly set up. The inhabitants of Grafton have had a foretaste or test (read both ways if it so pleases), of what they might have expected if conjoined with Moreton Bay. In the Toloom affair, have not the Ipswichians done all they possibly could to take the wind out of the Grafton sails and tried to fill their own. D>id they not applaud these diggings to the height of Kilkenny echoes, thinking all that time—the sages, that Taloom was situated within their own beneficent boundary, whereas they just knew as much of Taloom topography as they did of Mount Erebus' position near the South Pole. Ofthe separation advocates in Grafton township and its vicinity A few now blush, Who seldom blushed before, ' And those who blushed before Now blush the more; j While all the antis j Thunder but encore ; ' and. bless the men who possessed the foresight! of saving them from Moreton martyrdom; all flashes in the horizon, it won't last. Like children roused by some new excitement or toy, those folks make a mighty fuss at first outset, and those who did not know, them would imagine that nothing could restrain their impetuosity; yet wait a little, and watch how their high thermal heat cools down to alcoholic temperture. It was even so when an attempt was made to form a Banking Company of their own. The ignominy belonging to that proposal shall sleep in peace at present. It was even so when a plan was started of forming a Moreton Bay Steam Navigation Company, and Agricultural and Pastpral Association Company, a Cotton-grow-ing Company—with various other companies, none of which have succeeded—except; the worst of all, the Separation Company, and 'tis a wonder they stuck to that so long. It was not without just cause that many of the Assembly cried " Oh, oh!" when the hon. member for Newcastle pronounced the Brisbane to be the finest river in New South Wales. He certainly had never seen the noble Clarence or else so great a bouncer would not have escaped from his lips. Why, your Brisbane is only navigable forty miles, at most, above the Brisbane bar, and half that distance, only fit for steamers of light draught. The Clarence is capable of carrying vessels of 350 tons as high as sixty miles above its bar, up to the Falls, erroneously so called, as there is no fall, only a wide and smooth expanse of the river, over which the tide flows twice a day, making a channel for light vessels of 100 tons full forty miles further. Compare your Brisbane to the Clarence, although, look ye, there are salmonts in neither; it was equally easy to class the Bay river with the Moraven, the Ganges, or Murray r if grandiloquence would do it. We hope this memorable saying will not be ommitted ib a work to be published A. Q. (Anno Quotaslandieo) 10, provided tbe new colony endures so long; either at the Darling Down Gazette office, or at the Northern Cerberus establishment, and which may be placed side by side with the Walpeli and Scaligeriana and other anas; to be entitled Hodgsoniana; tha pirport of which is, verily, self-eyident to any edacity, as in all probability will also be the cont^te.'*^ Sydney Herald, .November 8, )