27 SEPTEMBER 1851, Page 2

Our Colonial Office and its agents in the Colonies, compelled

by the pressure of opinion to recognize the principle of local self- vernment, betray in all their applications of it the awkwardness

-7" o h s imperfectly acquainted with their new faith or un- embued iqth its sentiment. The whole reeent history of our Colo- nial einpI is an illustration of this assertion, and the most recent events indicate no change for the letter. In Guiana, the obsolete Dutch constitution has been modified, in the vain hope to per- palmate it ; the colonists unequivocally giving the Governor to madtestand, that in accepting this instalment of reform, they are only biding their time. In New Zealand, the Governor has con- twrai-entirely tie spoil the effect of his petV concessions, by re- course to the old insidious policy of setting one district at enmity with the others. By unblushing misrepresentations of the objects of the Canterbury settlers, he has endeavoured to array the other settlements in hostility against them. Luckily, the trick has been seen through. But the little reliance placed by the colonists in the professions and promises of Sir George Grey is amply justified by the fickleness with which, after declaring that the Canterbury settlers were the finest body of emigrants who had yet set foot in the colony, he has turned round in the course of "one little month" and become their unprovoked defamer. Governor Grey is known to have a keen eye for his own advancement, and he squares his conduct, no doubt, by an estimate of what will be most agreeaple to his masters in Downing Street.