THE COLONIES AND TIIE COLONIAL OFFICE.

, Sir William Molesworth has rendered a great service to colonial self- government, by changing the venue of the cause, and treating it as a ques- tion of Imperial finance rather than of Colonial privilege.

This change on his part has produced a corresponding change in the tac- tics of his opponents. Last year we were told that the scheme proposed by the Colonial Reformers was impracticable and visionary; but now it seems, that so far from being impracticable or visionary, it is of a most dangerous practical tendency, leading to nothing less than the abandonment of the Colonies and the dismemberment of the empire.

Such shifting of their ground by his opponents, if not easily excused, is easily accounted for. When the question possessed only Colonial interest, it was not difficult to persuade the House that any scheme was visionary that involved the destruction of Colonial patronage ; but the tables were turned so soon as the subject was domesticated ; and it was scarcely to be hoped that Parliament would reject a proposal involving a saving of a million and a half a year, on the unsupported assertion of Mr. Labouchere, " that it was one of the wildest imaginations that ever entered into the mind of his inge- nious friend Sir William Molesworth."

Driven, therefore, from one claptrap argument, Government has resorted to another; and they have only themselves to blame if they have not ad- vanced their cause by adopting a charge which admits of being completely proved or disproved, in the place of one of which the falsehood escaped de- tection merely from its vagueness and generality. It is no easy matter to fasten on an unwilling mind the conviction, that a scheme of government is either practical or impractical ; but the opinions of the Colonial Reformers and the opinions of their adversaries are perpetuated in the pages of Hansard, and a comparison cannot fail of showing which of the two parties is most justly obnoxious to an accusation of abandoning the Colonies.

In instituting this comparison, I shall confine myself to the Australian Colonies Bill of last year; and shall take Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Labouchere, as the exponents of the Colonial policy adopted by their parts, and Sir William Molesworth as the mouthpiece of the Colonial Re- formers.

Lord John Russell took the first step in the matter, on the 8th of February 1850, by moving a resolution, that provision should be made for the better government of her Majesty's Australian Colonies.

His speech on that occasion was a declaration of the general policy the Go- vernment meant to pursue with respect to Colonial affairs; and as the es- sential characteristics of the scheme were summed up in one paragraph, it will be better to quote it entire. " The result of what I have to say is, that I think that, in conformity with the policy on which you have governed your British North American Colonies, you should as liar as possible proceed upon the principle of introducing and maintaining political freedom in all your Colonies. I think, whenever you say political freedom cannot be intro- duced, you are bound to show the reasons for the exemption, and to show that the people are a race among whom it is impossible to carry out free in- stitutions ; that you must show that the colony is not formed of the British people, or even that there is no such admixture of the British population as to make it safe to introduce representative institutions. Unless you can show that, I think the general rule would be that you should send to the different parts of the world and maintain in your different colonies men of the British race, and capable of governing themselves ; men whom you tell, they shall have full liberty of governing themselves, and that while you are their repre- sentatives with respect to all foreign concerns, you wish to interfere no further in their domestic concerns than may be clearly and decidedly necessary to pre- vent a conflict in the colony itself."

What he meant by "political freedom" the noble Lord had already ex- plained, by stating that our ancestors acted justly and wisely in providing that wherever Englishmen went, they should enjoy English freedom and have English institutions," identifying, as was natural to an Englishman, "political freedom" with English freedom and English institutions. This speech was followed by the introduction of the Australian Colonies Government Bill ; which created a Colonial Legislature, consisting of a Go- vernor appointed by the Crown, and a single chamber ; of the members of which two-thirds were elective, and one-third was nominated by the Crown. Their power was very large, and extended to making any laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of the colony, provided such laws were not repugnant to the laws of England, and did not interfere with the sale of the Crown lands or the revenue arising therefrom. No tribunal was provided for deciding what laws were in contravention of the above proviso; but a general clause was inserted, reserving all bills for the approval of the Colonial Office.

Having thus stated the opinions of the Government and the manner in which they proposed to carry them out, it is time to turn our attention to the pro- ceedings of their opponents. The first feature in the bill Stich struck them as inconsistent with-the declaration of Lord John Russell, and as fo- reign to English institutions, was the creation of a single-house instead of two legislative houses. This appeared a dangerous innovation, and of a most democratic tendency : accordingly, on the 22d of March, Mr. Walpole, a Protectionist, and member of the Colonial Reform Society, moved an amendment, the object of which was to substitute two houses of legislature in the Australian Colonies for the one proposed by the Government ; the upper house to consist of nominees of the Crown, the lower house to be entirely elective.

The proposition of Mr. Walpole was supported by Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Gladstone, and the Protectionist party ; but, under the di- rection of the Government, was negatived, by a majority of fifty-one. Mr. Walpole having thus failed to establish a nominee upper house, Sir William Molesworth determined to try what could be done by making the upper house elective, and thus assimilating it to the American Senate. Accordingly, on the 19th of April, he moved a second amendment, proposing the establish- ment of two houses of legislature, with the avowed intention of making them both elective, but of conferring on the upper house a permanent character by making it indissoluble with a regular rotation of members. This amend- ment also was rejected, by a majority of sixty-eight ; and no further opposi- tion on the part of the Colonial Society was offered to the bill in its progress through Committee.

Pausing at this stage, one cannot fail to observe the Conservatism of the Colonial Reformers, as opposed to the Radicalism of the Government : every amendment proposed was of an anti-democratic tendency, and the objections, which were constantly urged by Sir William Molesworth, were not directed against the principles of Colonial legislation announced by Lord John Rus- sell, but against the bill itself, as failing to carry out those principles, and as neither giving to the colony any specified rights of local government, nor af- fording to the mother-country any guarantee for her imperial rights. The system of legislation advocated by Sir William Molesworth on oppos- ing the Government bill was fully developed in a scheme, which was brought forward by him on the 6th of May. The object of the scheme was to put in a working form the theories propounded by Lord John Russell and assented to by himself; in other words, to make a statutable demarcation of Imperial and Local matters, and leaving to the colony the latter, to reserve the former to the mother-country.

The adoption of this principle involved, as it was intended to do, a change in the superintending power : when rights became certainties and were em- bodied in an act of Parliament, there was no longer any place for the inter- ference of the Colonial office ; and questions arising upon the statute, in re- ference either to Imperial or Colonial privileges, were submitted like any other legal question to the decision of an Imperialcourt of law.

The opposition to Sir William Molesworth was conducted by Mr. Labou- chere and Sir George Grey ; who treating it as an acknowledged fact that the Government and the Colonial Reformers had the same object in view, and differed only as to the method by which it should be attained, grounded their resistance to the scheme on the impossibility of defining with sufficient precision the distinction between Colonial and Imperial interests.

The examples quoted by Mr. Labouchere of material subjects left unpro- vided for by the scheme were singularly ill-selected : the first of these al- leged omissions, "martial law," fell under the 26th and 28th clauses; the second, " escheats," under the 6th-section. Throughout the discussion, not a word was said as to abandonment of the Colonies; and the scheme was rejected, as imperfect in form, and not as deviating in principle from the legislative views of the Government. Such, then, is the history of the Colonial legislation of last year ; and nothing can show more plainly than this statement, the treatment which the Colonial Reformers have received at the hands of their opponents. This year, they abandoned as untenable an argument on which last year they rested their whole opposition, and in its stead have advanced a charge, of which their declarations in support of their previous argument afford the most conclu- sive refutation. Against influence so extensive as to command success by such means, it is vain for Sir William Molesworth to struggle, or to hope that his scheme will, as get, be tried upon its merits: in justice, however, to him, it may be well to state once for all the points which distinguish his amendments from the system of legislation developed in the Australian Co- lonies Bill.

The distinction, then, is this : Lord John Russell and Sir William Moles- worth both agree as to the principles of Colonial government ;just as the Emperor Nicholas and her gracious Majesty might agree that a Monarchical is a better form of government than a Republican.

Here, however, in both cases the agreement stops : Lord John Russell makes the Colonial Office the arbiter of the degree of self-government which may be conceded to a colony, and Nicholas makes his will the measure of the degree of despotism to be exercised over his subjects.

On the other hand, the English constitution and the Colonial constitution proposed by Sir William Molesworth have this in common, that the rights to be enjoyed under each are alike ascertained and defined. In the latter, this is etfteted by .a line of demarcation being drawn between Imperial and Colonial rights ; in the former, Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and many other less historical statutes restrict the prerogatives of the Crown and de- clare the liberties of the subject.

The parallel thus drawn is not imaginary ; the rival schemes represent respectively arbitrary and constitutional government ; and not only is the control of the Colonial Office an arbitrary power, but it is exercised in the most offensive way by means of an absolute veto reserved to it over every Colonial ordinance.

This veto is the more galling, that it is not a simple veto by the Crown to a. bill of the Colonial legislature, but a veto to a bill which has received the sanction of the Governor, the representative of the Crown in the colony. The Crown therefore in England dissents from a bill to which it has in the colony already given its assent. Nothing similar to this could happen in the Mother-country, unless acts of the British Parliament after receiving the Royal assent were submitted for approval to the Secretary of State before they acquired legal validity. The necessity for this interference of the Colonial Office is less apparent than its injustice, when we consider that the Governor himself exercises no un- fettered discretion in allowing or disallowing bills, but is furnished on taking his office with instructions pointing out the course of policy he is to pursue, and declaring generally the subjects on which the colony may or may not be permitted to legislate.

It is against this power of the Colonial Office, recent in its creation, and vexatious in its exercise, that the Colonial Reformers have raised their pro- test. Their scheme may be'incomplete, and critics of more learning than Mr. Labouchere may yet be successful M the discovery of real, instead of fancied omissions ; in proving that some Colonial power ought to be re- trenched or some Imperial power added. The addition may be made orthe power withdrawn without altering the character of the system. All Sir Wil- liam Molesworth asks is, what every wellwisher of his country and the Colonies must desire he should obtain, a fair trial by

an impartial jury, Tree from Government influence and bureaucratic prejudice.