COLONIES SELF-GOVERNING.
AtrarnAtu'llas under consideration the modes of its own self- governinent, which it is arranging in ways that vary according to the different genius of its colonies. Van Diemen's Land appears to be resting after the final success of her anti-convict efforts ; and Victoria appears to be moat intently busied upon extorting atten- tion to police and some urgent matters from its resigning Governor Latrobe. The Legislature of New South Wales is employing the opportunity afforded by the revision of its constitution to sketch out the plan of a local peerage, after a peculiar fashion ; and the colony of South Australia, equally engaged in self-constitution, is importing for local application the latest improvements in the theory of colonial government. No final and absolute conclusion can be drawn from these distinctions, which are the result in a great degree of accidental circumstances ; but not entirely so. New South Wales, peopled originally by convicts, with free settlers to whom the convicts were as Helots—long torn by social divisions thus introduced, and more recently disturbed by an almost republican reaction against the arbitrary conduct of the Imperial Government—has, it would seem, undergone a counter-reaction. Its social divisions have been renewed by the gold mania and its truculent consequences ; and, according to well-informed accounts and the records of its Legislature, the upper classes are consider- ing either an emigration of its haute noblesse or the enrolling of that noblesse in a formal Libro d' Oro. A proposition is before the Council, in the form of a report from a committee, by which the Queen shall bestow certain titles and honours, with the pro- vision that, when the number of persons bearing tliose titles and honours shall amount to fifty, the nomination of members for the Upper Chamber, in which seats are to be held for life, shall lapse to them ; the candidates to be members of the same body. Thus there would be a titled constituency, with a representation re- sembling the elected Peers of Scotland or Ireland. It is an in- genious device to perpetuate the aristocratic feeling and social su- premacy of the old free families, as distinguished from the emancipists and new emigrants. In South Australia these local distractions and divisions have not existed. The colony was founded upon a systematic plan for rendering it a complete offset of the parent community, and it has done justice to the principles upon which it was founded in nothing more than in the course now taken by its Legislature. Many a constitution has been octroye from Downing Street, but none has provided more completely for the whole round of elements to be represented in the Government than that which has emanated from the South Australians themselves. They propose to divide their Legislature into two chambers,—one of twelve members, nominated for life, and the other of thirty-two members, elected; public affairs to be conducted by four Ministexa, who are to hold office so long as they retain majorities in the chambers and no longer. Thus, the South Australians spontaneously adopt the principle of "responsible go- vernment," introduced at the instance of Lord Durham, Mr. Charles Buller, and Mr. E. G. Wakefield, into the North American Colonies. It is the fashion sometimes to doubt whether colonies have " arrived at a stage " which fits them for self-government : practically the point has been conceded by our Ministers, in re- ferring the revision of their constitution to the Australians ; and the plan adopted by the South Australian Legislature proves how completely the colonists have fitted themselves to undertake their own affairs. It may be doubted whether any public assemblage in this country would so distinctly and so decisively have mastered a principle of government long used in England, but newly brought into distinct recognition. Of course it is not pretended that the Australians are of a better staple than the English people, whence they have so recently been drawn ; but their conduct establishes the two facts, that a practical attention to public affairs perfects the capacity of a people for understanding political questions, how- ever difficult; and that the systematic principles upon which the colony of South Australia was founded led to a selection of the best men for carrying on the development of a new country.
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