CO885-(1-2) — Page 180

Muscellanemus

A VIT

CONFIDENTIAL.

On Propositions to Reform our Colonial System.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference --

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON |

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

THE following opinions are likely to find advo cates in Parliament:

1. That our Colonial system requires reform.

2. That the government of our colonies by a Secretary of State directly representing the Crown is unsatisfactory, and that a Board of Commis- sioners should be substituted.

3. That previously a Commission should issue to inquire into the administration of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, to remove causes of com- government, plaint, to diminish the cost of Colonial

and to give free scope to individual enterprise in colonizing.

4. That our colonies should govern themselves; should possess the power of local self-government. 5. That the powers of local self-government should alone be limited "by the prerogative of regulating relations with foreign Powers," which the Crown is to be allowed to retain. This opinion seems to involve the choice and election of Gover- nors, the unfettered control over taxation and expen- diture, over the duties of customs and excise, the land fund, the civil list, and all the consequences of these powers, so far as they relate to the internal interests of the colony.

It is not necessary to point out the inconsistencies or the effect of these powers. Mr. Godley in his published letter maintains this doctrine. These opinions are entertained by those who still profess a desire to maintain a Colonial Empire.

6. That colonies are a costly incumbrance, and that our policy should now be, to leave them to

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govern themselves and pay their own expenses;

and,

7. That no system of home or central govern- ment can succeed, and hence that the system should altogether be discarded, in order that our Navy and Army may be reduced, with a view to

a corresponding reduction of taxation, which is the object sought.

These propositions resolve themselves really into three very simple ones:

1. That our Colonial system of government and administration demands reform, if not a total change. 2. That the colonies should govern themselves, simply maintaining their allegiance to the Crown.

3. That our Colonial Empire should be aban- doned.

As to the first proposition, I leave Lord Grey's papers of this year and the last to speak for themselves. If our system requires re- form, in dealing with such distant, varied, and important interests and possessions, the evidence should not only be clear, but the principles and the plan to be substituted should be well defined, in order that something at least approaching to a moral assurance of improvement may be attained.

I am aware only of three distinct plans proposed

for either the conduct of Colonial Government or

the regulation of our Colonial relations.

1. Sir William Molesworth's proposal to place

the seals of the office of Secretary of State for the

Colonies in commission.

2. Mr. Godley's plan of offensive and defensive treaties with our colonies, based upon a common allegiance.

3. Mr. Cobden's, to leave our colonies to govern themselves as they may, maintaining our connexion only through the common interests of trade.

The question of Colonial Policy appears to me

After

to have gained little in the progress of time. all that has been said and written, the old system

of Governor, Council, and Assembly, subordinate

to the Crown advised by a Minister responsible to Parliament, appears to no disadvantage when com-

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pared with the new schemes proposed. It can at least appeal to the past and its history, the steady progress of modern colonies, the foundation of civil and religious liberty, and the establishment of all those institutions which are identified with the greatness of the mother-country. This is a great fact.

Our modern colonial statesmen have not as yet shown themselves superior to their predeces- sors; nor, indeed, have they even propounded any scheme of colonial management, control, or polity, equal to that which a French writer proposed, now

nearly fifty years ago. "Crier," says the Abbé de Pradt, “ne remédie à rien; il vaut mieux travailler pour égaler, ou pour surpasser."

Accordingly, he proposed that the colonies of all. European Powers should be grouped and confede- rated; and under their protection and common guarantee be declared independent, and enjoy free trade. Such a scheme is at least that of a states- man in its scope and design. His main object was

to prevent war, and develope the resources of the colonies free from the conflicts of European Powers. Colonies, he says, are now but the “farms” of En- ropean proprietors or Powers; then they would be States created and protected for the benefit of all.

If this scheme could be accomplished, there are

many advantages in it compared with any modern policy hitherto propounded.

But if we have advanced hut little in improving forms of Government, a great progress has been made in the art of founding and establishing new colonies. Contrast the following account of the foundation and progress of Virginia, extracted from Chalmers' Political Annals, with the rapid advance of the most recent of our Colonial possessions, South Australia and New Zealand :-

"The final settlement of a permanent colony in Virginia occasioned a lamentable waste of the human species. Thither were transported during the foregoing period upwards of 9000 English sub- jects, at the enormous expense to the nation of 150,000. But the distempers incident to such a country, the desolation of famine, the strokes of the natives, thinned their numbers prodigiously. And we are assured by Smith, that of all the emigrants there remained only about 1800 in the