THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE versus LORD GREY'S CONVICT-COLONISTS.
REBELLION is the term that properly characterizes the position of the Cape colony—rebellion against the Imperial Government as it is actually administered. Yes, the word is rebellion, although the demeanour of the colonists is self-possessed and decorous ; although the resistance is not one of a party against the authori- ties which usually administer the laws, but a resistance of the whole colony ; although the chief officer administering the local government sympathizes with the resistance. The generally peaceful bearing of the colonists does not detract from the force of the opposition ; quite the reverse. The wonderful unanimity of opinion has no doubt saved many overt signs of the rebellious spirit; but some symptoms are not to be mistaken. Among the meetings which were held in all parts of the colony, to remon- strate and to organize resistance, one of the largest at Cape Town, and another very large one at Graham's Town were held on the 4th of July—the anniversary of the independence of the United States of America. The general concurrence of the bankers, merchants, and traders of the colony, to refuse cash, credit, and goods, for fulfilling Government contracts, exceeds in the troublesomeness of the annoyance the American declaration of non-consumption. The women were adding their remonstrance to that of every class. The press appears to be unanimous, dif- fering only in the degrees between settled resolve and flagrant rebellion. "The public" was of the same mind ; as we see when the very few exceptions, gentlemen who were inclined to tem- porize in order that "her Majesty's Government might be carried on," were hissed, hooted, and kicked. They had consented to ac- cept posts which had been vacated in the Legislative Council ; several members of that body setting a formidable example of re- fusing to serve under a "Convict Government." Resignations of that kind were recorded from day to day with exultation. And to crown the universal accord, the Governor himself openly avowed his sympathy with the opposition. Although inaccessible to fear and faithful to his Sovereign, Sir Harry Smith had seen fit to make a series of concessions, under the pressure of a public opinion that was clearly becoming more manifest in its strength. It does not appear that the colonists were emboldened by these concessions to encroach, but that they were from the first resolved to be effectually rid of the disgrace and danger to the social welfare of the colony, involved in any admission of convicts. At each point the worthy soldier endea- voured to make a stand on behalf of the authority intrusted to him; but as the pressure continued, he successively gave way from each : he assured the colonists that the convicts were not Of a sort to demoralize the colony—then promised that they should not be dispersed, but only assigned to persons applying for large numbers—then, that they should be strictly detained in custody —then, that they should be lodged in the hulks,—then, that they should not be removed at all from the vessel in which they were to arrive : and each point was yielded except the last ; when the colonists wanted the Governor to send the ship away, he refused to do that, as being beyond the limits of his jurisdiction. In all this there can be no doubt that the Governor yielded under com- pulsion; but his perception of the necessity probably saved no small amount of bloodshed.
It is evident that the colonists were drawing very detrimental contrasts between the singleminded Governor and the equivocat- ing statesmen of the Colonial Office. They had conceived the very lowest opinion of the morality and frankness of the states- men in Downing Street. They infer from the facts a settled in- tention to convert the colony into a penal settlement. The boys from the Philanthropic Society are now found to be, in eighteen cases out of thirty-five, convicted criminals under a conditional Pardon: although most of us in England knew as much, in the Cape they did not—they were deceived; and now they dis- cover that it must have been "a plot." The criminals from Ber- muda were to be mere political offenders; but the authentic state- ments show that of the number sent out there were several ticket- of-leave men. That is not all : Lord Grey has also endeavoured to steal a march upon the colony by making it a receptacle for regimental offenders against military discipline. Ile professed to offer the colonists an experiment; but they find that he has taken steps, in various directions, to anticipate and override their choice. They have ceased to believe the Colonial Office upon its word; they complain of the garbling of public documents, and treat the Secretary of State as unworthy of belief.
Beyond that disgraceful and humbling position, the course be- fore the Downing Street Government is embarrassing. To en- force the landing of convicts against the feeling of the colony might scarcely be safe; to retract would be to give a very start- ling confirmation of the official hint thrown out last session, that if colonies were to resist enough, the institution of convictism would not be forced upon them. The example could not fail to have effect elsewhere. In New South Wales, for instance, the repugnance of the Capemen to receive the convicts, their obvious sense of degradation in being forced to do so, and their successful resistance, must have an influence very detrimental to the author- ity of the Government ; not less so in Van Diemen's Land : Ca- nada would see a weaker colony than herself successful in rebel- lion ; so would Jamaica and British Guiana. This dilemma is no fault of the colonists; their position is plain and simple enough : it is the fault of those who have counted too readily on the weak- ness of the Cape. The official excuse is put by the Times, which is pro hac vice a Ministerial journal. On Saturday last, it naïvely asked— "When the colonists next hold a monster meeting, like the first French Revolu- tionists, in a shower of rain, we wish they would favour us with satisfactory replies. 1. What are we to do with our convicts? 2. What is the good of a colony? Unless a criminal is sentenced to death or perpetual imprisonment, he must be some time turned loose somewhere or other; and as far as he is con- cerned, he had much better have a fresh start in a colony. To turn him loose at home, is simply making England a penal settlement. That is no visionary danger. The forcats of the Continent are everywhere the chief agents of revolution, and a few thousand such men would be a formidable addition to the dangerous classes of this metropolis. Yet the Colonies are not altogether unconcerned in our domestic peace and prosperity. Why are they not to share the common burden ? This brings us to the second question—the use of a colony. Cul boner We have recently spent 2,000,0001. for the Cape of Good Hope, for no other object that this country was aware of except to give the colonists a little more elbow-room and rid them of some troublesome neighbours. Nobody in England knew any- thing of the inarrel till the colonists were in the thick of it and the bills were coming in. the colonists embarked in it hastily, not to say gladly. They had to undergo some inconvenience and some hardships; but the expenditure of 2,000,0001. of British money amongst them was some sort of compensation. The fruits of the contest were theirs; we paid the piper. But while we are allowed to pay 2,000,0001. we may not send two hundred juvenile delinquents or re- formed convicts. There is a peculiar hardship in the case, for there hap- pens to be a relation between the two figures, the money and the men. Our bur- dens produce our distress, and our distress our crime. It is our debt that clogs our industry and obstructs the channels of employment; and it would not be too much to say that every million of that debt generates at least a hundred crimi- nals. When a colony therefore adds to our debt, common justice requires that it should take the consequent burden of crime. If it refuses to do so—and we can- not be surprised at its reluctance—there remains the question, which presents it- self with a daily increasing force, What is the good of a colony?"
This is the official apology, that was scouted when Lord Grey first essayed its virtue; and the Times gave a second dose of it on Tuesday. The colonies would bear their" share" of the criminal burden, if they had to deal only with their own criminals. Sup- posing we had no colonies,—a supposition by no means so extra- vagant as would once have been thought,—we should be com- pelled to provide for that criminal population which our bad ar- rangements so greatly tend to multiply ; and surely it is a most unsatisfactory argument, to say that we are forced to endanger great sections of the Colonial empire because we lack the in- telligence or the disposition to contrive a plan for disposing of our own criminals at home. As to the debt, the Border war was forced upon the colonists by the absurd policy of the Colonial Office ; which plays fast and loose with the ignorant but cunning tribes of savages on the border. If we had left the colonies alone, they would soon have made the British flag feared by those tribes, without any very costly war. And if the war was a wrong war, where was the Imperial authority in permitting it ? The Imperial Government is responsible for the war ; and the taxpayers of England, who are responsible for appointing the Ministers of the Imperial Government, are justly left to " pay the piper."
" What is the good of a colony," asks the Times, if not to re- ceive the foreats of England ? And it backs the question with a circuitous plea about the National Debt. The journalist could answer the question well enough, but he is obliged to assume an official ignorance of the fact, that the use of colonies is, to receive colonists and emigrants ; and that by that grand process, of con- verting the redundant labourers of the United Kingdom into co- lonial consumers of British produce, colonization does more to diminish our burdens at home, both fiscal and criminal, than all the convictism that we could force upon them. The Ministerial journalist twits the Cape with having displayed "less energy and spirit" than colonies "twenty or thirty years younger," to wit "Australia" and "New Zealand "; designations somewhat diffi- cult to understand on account of the dates and the geographical vagueness. Those Colonial dependencies, says the Times, have absorbed 100,000 emigrants sent out by means of the Colonial labour-fund : and who is the author of that fund !—Certainly not the Colonial Office, upon whose reluctant adoption the measures were forced ; and who has prevented the honest emigration of which the Cape colonists are so desirous? This is the old habit of Downing Street—to charge the Colonies with the sins of the Office and the consequences thereof, and to take credit on account of the very measures which the Office opposes. The occurrences at the Cape will create no surprise among those who are ac- quainted with Colonial affairs: the fear may awaken the public to a sense of the mode in which those affairs are conducted.
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