10 MARCH 1849, Page 14

A NEW COLONIAL REFORMER.

Mn. ADDERLEY has given notice of a motion in the House of Commons for the 22d instant, in the following words— "That an humble address be presented to the Queen, praying that her Majesty will be graciously pleased, out of consideration for the honourable pride and mo- ral welfare of her subjects the people of South Africa, to order that this hitherto unpolluted colony may be spared the disgrace and affliction of being made a re- ceptacle for the convicted crinlinals of the mother-country, whether as prisoners, free exiles, or holders of tickets-of-leave."

Let us not doubt that if the Sovereign should chance to read the above lines, her feelings will respond to the assumption of her "consideration for the honourable pride and moral welfare of her subjects," whom the Colonial Office, without leave from Parlia- ment, in the exercise of its despotic authority over and contempt for colonial communities, is thus disgracing and afflicting. Mr. Ad- derley's motion will probably be carried. In the present state of opinion about colonization and colonial government, which gives some interest lo Colonial questions even in the House of Commons, it may be expected that no high minded Member will vote against this motion. The notice is prudently framed. It steers clear of the general question of Transportation, and of the sufferings which convict colonization inflicts on the colonies that are already " pol- luted." Its single object is to rescue a " hitherto unpolluted" colony from "the disgrace and affliction" of convict emigration. But the polluted colonies, and others which are threatened with this pollution, are deeply interested in the success of Mr. Adder- lay's motion. Surely everybody now in England, who is con- nected by any kind of sympathy with New South Wales, Van Diemen 's Land, Port Phillip, South Australia, and New Zealand, will bestir himself to obtain support for this new labourer in the field of Colonial Reform. Cape colonists now in England should hardly leave themselves time for sleep and their meals till after the 22d instant. What has become of that once vigilant and active foe of convict emigration, the New Zealand Company ? If all the colonial interests at home which are affected by convict coloni- zation, would move now, the abomination might get its death- blow through this unpretending appeal by Mr. Adderley from the Colonial Office to the House of Commons. But, at all events, this motion will probably be agreed to by the House in spite of Mr. Hawes ; whose wisest course, indeed, would be to lend Lord Grey a little of his own excessive humility, and so ob- tain leave to let the motion pass without a division—if also without remark, so much the better for Mr. Hawes and Lord Grey.