BOOKS.

BOEBUCK'S COLONIES OF ENGLAND.* THE object of this work is to inquire into the best mode of governing colonies, at least colonies of English original ; Mr. Roebuck considering that a fitting system of government being once established, economical prosperity will follow of itself. To this end, he summarily reviews the history of the British Plantations forming the primitive United States of America ; and decides from this examination, that self-government is absolutely necessary for colonial advancement. According as the ruling power was more or less placed in the hands of the colonists, so was their advance in prosperity greater or less.

This preliminary being settled, the next question relates to the beat mode of establishing self-government ; and here Mr. Roebuck also has recourse to the authority of what may be called history. Many people in their speculations on this subject, he says, wish to raise up a counter- part of English society in a new country; which, from the pressure of economicaL,and social circumstances, cannot be done ; and where it has been tried after a fashion, or rather where some of the elements for trial existed, as in Canada, the result has been a retrogradation. We must look to the practice of the States of America if we would see the most successful example of colonization ; by which term Mr. Roebuck means, throughout his book, the settlement of persons on wild lands with the view of bringing them into cultivation, and establishing a community or state. Upon the ordinance of 1784, by which Congress provided for the formation of a Territory, and in due time the reception of a State, Mr. Roebuck bases his own plan ; the outline of which is as follows.

He divides colonial progress into three stages ; the first of which he calls a Settlement, the second a Province, ad the third a System the last being a federal aggregation of Provinces. The first step in the forma- tion of a Settlement should be a survey.

"A survey not merely to determine the boundaries of private property, but with reference to its political existence and government. "Territorial divisions are necessary for the purposes of government, and the same system of division should be adopted throughout. .

"The first point is to determine the BOUNDARIES of the colony itself.

"The next is then to divide the colony—that is, the lands contained within the

determined boundaries—into COUNTIES.

"Then the counties should be laid out into TowNsinTs.

"And lastly, the townships should be divided into PARISHES.

"For the purposes of deciding upon the rights of each parish should be divided into tors, and sold by authority. This Iv e able a perfect regis-

porourdrtyn,

tration of landed property to be at once established, and thus most materially con- tribute to economy and justice in all judicial decisions on civil rights, resulting from or connected with the land.

"The survey is a most important proceeding. It need not indeed be actually performed of the whole new outlying and unappropriated wild territory; but what- ever is done must be done with a view to the whole eventual survey, and with a comprehensive regard to the great physical features of the whole territories, and with distinct and constant relation to the political as well as the private purposes for which the survey is instituted. For the efficient and accurate fulfilment of this all-important preliminary, the experience of the United States affords ample instruction. There is no pretence for saying that any difficulty exists which can- not be easily overcome.

"For political and social ends, the country must be divided into COUNTIES, TOWNSHIPS, and PARISHES, and roads must be indicated: for private purposes, for the purpose of giving metes and bounds to private and public property, the land to be sold must be divided into Lora."

The survey having been made to the extent above stated, and the land sold, the intended settlers are ready for conveyance to their destination ; and immediately on their arrival self-government begins, under a general act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose.

" By that act of Parliament a system of municipal, that is local management of local concerns, would be at once established. There would be a parish, a town- ship, a county organization. The vestry, the township court, and the county commit: the various parish officers' such as constables, relieving-officers, way- wardens, (churchwardene)t &c.: the township officers' such as the magistrates of petty or township sessions, select men who are sent from the parishes, and other officers, needed to superintend matters interesting to the larger sections of the country, and lastly, sheriffs, and the members of the county council, who would exercise for the county the same sort of jurisdiction that is now exer- cised in England by town-councils in boroughs would all be described and pro-

vided for. * "By the same act of Parliament, not only would this internal domestic or- ganization, if I may so call it, be provided, but so also would that by which the general government of the new community would be carried on.

"The metropolis—or, to speak English and not Greek, the mother-country—is bound to protect her colony from all external aggression. With a warlike navy, therefore, a colony has no concern. The case is not quite the same with respect to the army: as regards foreign enemies, the mother-country must deal with them, and tor her army the colony is not called to contribute anything. But for many purposes a militia is useful: as a police, it is of great use; and if there be Wandering and dangerous natives, the defence supplied by a militia organization is indispensable. For a militia organization, therefore, the general act should provide.

"The new colony should not (except in the way of requiring protection from foreign aggression) cost the mother-country anything.

•

"The colony, then, is to maintain itself: maintaining itself, common justice requires that she should tax herself, and should manage her own money concerns. "In every colony there is, at the moment of its commencement, a property from which a fund may be obtained nearly sufficient in all cases for every colonial ne- cessity. If the fund supplied by this source is not sufficient, the colonists must tax themselves for their own exigencies. The property which is to supply the colony with funds is the wild LAND; which, from the moment of the proclama- tion in the Gazette, ought to be deemed and dealt with as the property the na- tional proilerty, of the colony so called into existence. * "The Secretary of State, acting in the name of the colony about to be a Sr. is directed to open an account with the Bank of England, and to pay m the money derived from the sale of the land to the account of the colony. And in future, whensoever land is sold by the authority of the Secretary of State, be- * The Colonies of England : a Plan for the Government of some Portion of oar Colo- Mai Possessions. By John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. Published by John W. Parker. t "The reason for putting a query here will be seen when I discuss the question of a State Church for the colony." longing thus to the SErrcEstzteT, the proceeds, minus simply the expense of the sale, are to be at once paid to the account of the Settlement at the Bank of Eng-

land. S *

"So long as the supposed country remains in the condition of a colony, whether as a Ssarnmanurr or a Paovurce, there must exist some connecting link in the government between the mother-country and the colony. The governor is usually that link, and is appointed by the Crown. But so long as the condition of SET- TLEMENT exists, the amount of the salary of the Governor, and of all the func- tionaries appointed directly by the Crown is also determined by the Crown. The Judges of the superior courts and Colonial Secretary are, with the Governor, pro- bably the only functionaries that need be so appointed.

The Governor and assistants compose the Legislature of the Settlement."

There are various details and modifications, which may be read in the volume, and more are reserved by the author; but this outline is enough to convey an idea of the fundamental character of a Settlement. The Settlement, however, is only a temporary condition and in a pros- perous colony would be a very brief one. As soon as the number of in- habitants reaches ten thousand, the Settlement becomes a Province ; and acquires a regular Legislature of two Houma, a somewhat greater inde- pendence, and the power of dealing with the wild lands within its terri- tory, which during the Settlement was vested in the Crown. With re- gard to religion, Mr. Roebuck comes to the conclusion that there should be no established church ; not as being himself averse to such a thing, but on account of the heartburnings and contentions to which it would give rise in a community where Dissenters were numerous, as they would be in all British colonies. General education should be provided for. These questions, however, might surely be left to the Province to decide, if it is to be self-governing.

The Federal System is only applicable in the case of large terri- tories, or distinct geographical divisions : in the absence of the last, a Province might rise to the form of a System without its name. Of our actual colonies, New Zealand is an example of this mode; the colonies to which Mr. Roebuck would apply the Federal System are, the whole of Australia with Van Diemen's Land, the various settlements in South Africa, and the whole of British North America, including Newfoundland if she pleased.

It is needless to go into the executive legislative, and judicial par- ticulars of the System, which are explained somewhat fully in the work. The most important points are the vexed questions which in one way or other affect the control of the mother-country. Some of these seem questionable and depend on the discreet exercise of power in the work- ing. The Governor is to be appointed by the Crown, with an absolute veto on the acts of the two Assemblies. He is to choose his own Executive Council and Ministry; which is placing their choice in the Crown as much as under the present plan, although they are to be removeable on the address of the two Houses. The Governor is "to appoint the judges, the officers of the Treasury, Customs, Excise, Militia officers, and generally all public servants not commanded to be otherwise chosen and appointed "; in fact, the Crown or Colonial Office patronage is large. The internal powers of the Federal Legislature are large too; extending to bankruptcy, naturali- zation banks, and banking, copyrights, pavnts, the sights of forming new Settlements, regulating the rates, &c. of the internal postage, and of trade among the colonists. The power of peace and war and of negotiations with foreign countries is denied them : another sign of sovereign power, the regulation of foreign external trade and taxation, is permitted. At the same time, the veto in a Governor appointed by the Crown would render many of these rights nugatory. It would seem more logically con- sistent with the idea of self-government, to allow the Legislatures, if not the people, to elect certain persons from whom the Crown might choose ; or for the Crown to nominate a number, from whom the Legislatures might select. It is superfluous to observe that principles would be in- volved in the right of primal nomination ; the subsequent choice would merely secure a Governor personally aoceptable.

Considered in a literary point of view, The Colonies of Eng- land partakes more of the character of an extended speech or pamphlet than of a complete treatise. There is no deficiency of matter ; but the work does not possess that fulness, or exhaustive process, or perhaps that comprehensiveness, which is looked for in a philosophical exposition. It may be said, indeed, that Mr. Roebuck's book is to be regarded as the application of a principle to a practical end, rather than an elaborate treatise upon colonization in general, or even upon that branch of it which relates to colonial government. In this view it has great merit. The statements are perfectly distinct, very forcible, and, as they stand, conclusive ; the logical defect is chiefly one of omission, not of form. In the allusions to some rival or opposition plans, there is too much of a hostile animus, not virulent, but unneces- sarily obtruded, and occasionally there is something like a sour attack upon classes. The whole, however, exhibits the author's present more subdued manner. The illustrations or sketches have much vivacity and strength, and enforce the argument as well as the meaning. As an example, we may take some passages from the exhibition of the uncer- tainty which now attends every step of the colonist's progress, and the inferiority of the position he is hereafter to occupy. "When 1 speak here of uncertainty, I do not mean that uncertainty which at- tends, and ever most attend, an ignorant man; but I intend by it, that which every man, even the most instructed, must labour under, who endeavours to as- certain the various steps necessary to be taken by those who desire to become set- tlers in any of our colonies, and who endeavours also to discover the probable con- sequences to himself and his family of the acts which he is about to perform in the character of an emigrant. Let any one attempt to form for himself a con- ception of what would probably occur if he were to associate himself with a body of settlers, just about to emigrate, for the purpose of taking possession of a tract of land purchased of the New Zealand Company. . Let us suppose that a band of friends have said to one another, We will buy from the Company a tract of land; we will together expatriate, and make on that land a new home for ourselves and our children.' The land is bought,—it is some distance from any existing settle- ment,—and when they reach the chosen spot, in what condition will they be? I *" This Company has resumed its land-sales, after years of most unnecessary, most unjust delay, created for It by the mischievous—gratuitously mischlevous—oppottlon of the Colonial Mee." do not mean what condition as to material, but as to social things. Friends though these men and their families may be, yet they cannot, as they are not angels, but merely men and women, live without law—without some rule, some order. Well, but where are they to learn what this rule or order is? Where are they to learn if there really be anyrnle? The fact is, that nowhere can they find it. Law will grow up in their new settlement, after the fashion in which it grew up among our savage ancestors—by degrees, and be brought into existence, and reduced to shape, by necessity. At once this little band of adventurers will step out of light into darkness, out of the dominion of regularity and reason into the domain of anarchy and chance. They do not simply leave a well-cultivated country, in which art and labour have conquered the powers of nature for man's service, and go thence to an uncultivated land, whose powers, though not yet brought under command, are in the vigour of youth: they do much more than this ; for they go into a lawless as well as a wild waste. The forms and the spirit of social life have disappeared front their eyes, and are only to be recalled after much difficulty, and often much distress, and not seldom of crime also. The real mischief of this condition of things, however, is not the circumstance to which I wish at this moment to draw attention, but to the effect of it, in the shape of uncertainty and doubt, upon the mind of the emigrant; particularly upon the mind of an emigrant with a wife and children, and some of those children daugh- ters. He will, he must shrink from braving the difficulties which he perceives before him. The rude and the reckless will feel least hesitation; but the rude and reckless are not the best elements for the formation of a new community. Industry is indeed needed, but industry in conjunction with thrift and order, gentle manners and intelligence. The colony that does not begin with these will advance but slowly. You do not desire to impose on your- self the double task of rescuing your colonists, as well as your colony, from a rude, uncultivated condition. But your wish is to plant at once a civilized community upon a virgin soil; and you ought to make your emigrant population feel that such is the task they will be called upon to perform; that by changing the spot in which their life is to be passed, they have not changed that life itself; that they are not required to create civilization, but simply to cultivate an untouched soil; and that with themselves, they have taken out a polity to which they have always been accustomed ; and that while they acquire the advantage of a fresh and fertile soil, they do not lose the inestimable benefit of Civility, and of its ever necessary precursor and attendant, security. The only way of creating this general understanding, and thereby really performing the part which a wise and provident government can and should perform, is to make and publish a predetermined rule for the state of things which the planters of a new colony must encounter. The law should be like the atmosphere, and attend them wheresoever they may go; and they should feel that it does follow and surround them. And when the little band that I have supposed first find themselves standing upon their newly-acquired territory, they should know its boundaries, its name, the parish in which it is placed, the township to which it belongs, the county of which it forms a part. With a map in one hand and an act of Parliament in the other, they ought to feel themselves at once, though in a new country, still surrounded by all that of old produced for them order and security—still, as formerly, possessed of powers and rights, and subject to duties and obligations, defined, clear, and known, or easily to be ascertained. Every step taken by them should have been taken in security, in peace, and with case: and now the new community is born, its pulse begins to beat; life, and civilized life, is there."

The subject of the following passage, the inferiority of position occu- pied by a colonist, has been lately dwelt upon by Mr. Wakefield; as it was touched upon by Adam Smith, when he gave that advice which if acted on might have stopped the American war. The question, how- ever, cannot too frequently be brought before the public mind in refer- ence to passing matters. "The character of a people is always determined by that of the educated classes, and individuals belonging to them. The mass of the population must always be destined to win their daily bread by daily toil. They may pass a quiet and happy life, but it must be in a certain sense monotonous and obscure. Beyond the narrow horizon of their ordinary hopes they seek not to look. Their desires are limited to a wish for the means of comfortable subsistence ; which they only hope or desire to attain by steady toil, and which they hope also may be the happy and quiet lot of their children after them. But the educated man, and they who are above the pains and anxieties of absolute want, and the fear of want, are ren- dered happy or miserable by hope. If they may hope to win renown, gain power for themselves—if a career by which these may be achieved lies before them, they will as a class be content, and love the country which affords this field for their ambition. But there is yet something wanting;—this class of man desires to derive honour from his country. As he and his generations derive advantage from the wealth which preceding generations have stored up and left in various shapes to posterity, so all men desire to enjoy the benefit derived from the glory and great deeds achieved, stored up, and left in many shapes, by their predecessors, to be the estate of renown for generations yet to come who bear the same Dante and will be the same people. In a petty colony there is really no such career; and the hallucination by which sometimes minute and utterly insignificant dots of land, and handfuls of men, are led to think them- selves important, and assume airs of consequence and grandeur, has long been a subject of ridicule and contempt. la such circumstances of real insigni- ficance, to revel in ideas of fancied greatness is a folly of which no sane and sen- sible person can be guilty. The intelligent members of such a community are therefore discontented with their position, and curse the fate which has thus con- demned them to hopeless inferiority. Generally speaking, such is the usual lot of a colonial gentry; and if as colonists they have no hope of escaping from it, the educated classes of colonists will bend their eyes towards the future, which is to bring them independence and open to them the path of renown and power. The career that lies before two men, one of whom has been born and lives upon the Southern shore of the St. Lawrence, and the other on the North of that river, is a striking example of the observation here made. The one is a citizen of the United States; the other a subject of England, a Canadian colonist. The one has a country which he can call his own; a great country, already distinguished in arms, in arts, and in some degree in literature. In his country's honour and fame the American has a share, and he enters upon his career of life with lofty aspirations, hoping to achieve fame himself in some of the many paths to renown which his country offers. She has a senate, an army, a navy, a bar, many power- ful and wealthy churches; her men of science, her physicians, philosophers, are all a national brotherhood, giving and receiving distinction. How galling to the poor colonist is the contrast to this which his inglorious career affords. He has no country ; the place where he was born, and where he is to linger out his life, unknown to fame, has no history—no past glory, no present renown. What there is of note is England's I Canada is not a nation; she is—a colony—a tiny sphere, the satellite of a mighty star, in whose brightness she is lost. Canada has no navy, no army, no literature, no brotherhood of science. If, then, a Canadian looks for honour in any of these various fields, he must seek it as an Englishman; he must forget and desert his country before he can be known to fame. We must. not then wonder if we find every intelligent and ambitious Canadian with a feeling of bitterness In his heart, because of his own inferiority of condition. Few will own to entertaining this feeling if they be prudent, even to friends; some, indeed, contrive to hide it from themselves; nevertheless, there it is, and -must.be, so long as his country remains a colony. But by care the painful part of this condition may be greatly diminished, if not entirely taken away, and what little remains may be, perhaps, more than compensated by the benefits which the colony may derive from -England, by whose friendly aid and honourable kind- ness she may be enabled to hold a higher position among nations than she could do were she entirely independent."

To Mr. Roebuck's "plan," or at least to the authority by which it is supported, and the details by which it is to be carried out, some ob- jections suggest themselves, and require the modification of parts, or at least more convincing exposition. In taking the American ordinance for a model, Mr. Roebuck overlooks the two circumstances of geography and society, which call for more attention than they have received. The lands that form the new "Territory" of the United States are conterminous with the settled district ; a river at the utmost divides the two : it is not 80 much colonization, in the usual sense of that word, as reclamation that is going on. Mr. Roebuck too would charge all the preliminary expenses of surveys, &c. upon the land-fund of the new Settlement, in addition to other claims upon it. This, in a new colony, we do not think it could bear. We do not know Mr. Roebuck's mode of sale ; but be it what it may, the land-fund must be derived from the capital of the intending colonists ; and whatever may be the case with individuals, the class of settlers not labourers in a new colony is seldom overburdened with means, and the capital that policy requires them to disburse for land should be returned to them in the form by which individuals could profit—that is, by importing labour. No doubt, the preliminary expenses might be turned into a debt, and charged upon the colony; and a pros- perous colony might bear them in time, though very grudgingly. Money is scarce in these new communities ; and we have some doubts whether Canada even now would be at the expense of a geographical survey of its own territories, and the more detailed survey necessary for erecting ad- jacent Settlements. The preliminary expenses, if we are to colonize com- prehensively, naturally fall twin the mother-country.

Some other remarks might be made on lesser points or questions of detail ; but these we pass over. We have indicated the leading subjects that seem to us matters requiring reconsideration in The Colonies of England. 1. The great powers given to the Colonial Secretary, either directly or in the name of the Crown ; which, it strikes us, would leave the Colonies as much subject to the discretion of the Colonial Office as now, in many important particulars, if not in all. 2. The doubts which hang over the first formation of the Settlement, arising from having too closely applied an American practice, without sufficiently regarding the frequent difference in circumstances : these doubts seem to suggest some modification so as to make the Settlement a thing in ease, not merely in posse; which in point of fact is the case in America. 3. A different inci- dence in the expense of preparation : though this last is of the least pressing consequence, since we are not at present likely to see the founda- tion of new colonies, that is of Settlements not conterminous or vicinous to existing colonies; and in such cases the land-fund, or the Province, or System, might fairly bear the expense of the surveys.