THE SWAN RIVER " JOB "—A BETTER DEFENCE OF IT
THAN MR. PEEL'S.
TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WE shall be very much obliged to any of the writers who amuse their leisure in vituperating the Home Secretary for all he does, says, or imagines, if they will furnish us with a reason why his relations should receive less favour from Government than those of any other man ? Weare quite sincere ; for, not having the slightest wish to excuse an officiary where he is really blameable, we have been seeking for such a reason for the last eight days, and have not yet found it. We have at present no more than a charge, rashly made and weakly supported, on the one side,—and a defence, as rashly entered on and as weakly sup- ported, on the other. The charge is, that Mr. THOMAS PEEL, whom nobody in the world but his second cousin the Home Secretary appears to know any thing about, has received a grant of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land on the banks of the Swan River. There has been an attempt to complicate the transaction. It has been said, first, that Mr. THOMAS PEEL was one of four persons who made proposals to the Colonial Office for a grant of a million of acres to form a Swan River Company, similar to the Australian and Canada Companies ; and that three of these gentlemen received a refusal, while Mr. THOMAS PEEL'S application was grantee. Secondly, it has been said, that Captain STIRLING and Major MOODY, previous to the proposal of the Swan River Company, made certain other proposals to the Colonial Office, which were not listened to, while those of Mr. PEEL'S second cousin were. The deduction made from each of these statements is, that Mr. THOMAS PEEL has been principally indebted for success to that which even we money-loving English allow to he as good as a penny in the purse. We admit the premises, but we cannot make out the consequence, notwithstanding our patriotic jealousy of power and its favourites. The history of the joint stock company of two, and the joint stock company of four, seems to amount to this,— that in each case conditions were offered to Government with which it did not think fit to comply ; and that Government offered land to the applicants on other conditions, with which one applicant in the one case, and three in the other, did not think fit to comply. In point of fact, Captain STIRLING has received a very large grant of land—one million of acres we believe ; and the three gentlemen who made the joint offer with Mr. THOMAS PEEL might have received two hundred and fifty thousand each on the same conditions as lie did, and they may still.—Oh, but there must be something in it, for how else could Mr. THOMAS PEEL sell the land which he has had granted to him ?- Now if any man is so simple as to pay one farthing for any part, or for the whole of Mr. THOMAS PEEL'S grant, under the conditions on which that gentleman received it, then is he a goose, yea a gosling, for his pains, and utterly unworthy of feeding on the banks of a stream that is sacred to his nobler congener. But if he pay many farthings for a part of Mr. Thomas PEEL'S grant on the conditions under which Mr. T. Peel disposes of it, he may do so without impeachment of his judgment, were it as fine as that of the goose's arch-enemy. The selling business we shall explain. One-fifth of the Government grants is reserved for public purposes—roads, sites of towns, &c., and may therefore be left out of the count. Mr. THOMAS PEEL carries out, and settles on the half of the remainder, a certain number of families, say four hunched. To each of these he assigns two hundred and fifty acres of land, free. They pay nothing for the land ; it is worth nothing; but they pay, and very properly, for the capital ad- vanced in the shape of passage, rations, agricultural implements, &c , to enable them to reach and to cultivate the land. Every family that receives capital in this way from Mr. THOMAS PEEL pays it him back by labour bestowed on the unappropriated sections. It is this unap- propriated part which he proposes to sell ; and those who purchase it do not purchase land, but that labour which the original grantee has covenanted for, and for which he has given a fair equivalent. The de- scription of the charge against the Home Secretary, as we have already given it, is therefore in reality the true one ; and we repeat our offer of thanks for a good and sufficient reason why his second cousin may not receive a grant of land in New Holland as readily as the second cousin of any one else ? Now to the defence. We have stated that it was unadvised and weak ; and we know not for which of these qualities we should most admire it. " I had nothing to do with the business," says Mr. PEEL ; " I merely gave my cousin a letter of introduction to Sir GEORGE MURRAY, and Sir GEORGE did the rest." That Mr. PEEL, who has been so long habituated to office, should for a moment imagine that the in- troduction of a relation by the second personage of the Cabinet to a member holding an inferior place, was no more than a mere routine piece of business, is to us an indication of the happiest unconsciousness of evil purpose that has come under our notice. From his way of arguing, it would follow, that had the transaction been as scandalous as it was described to be,—had it been a job of as much rankness as his enemies would have the public to believe,—the nefariousness must of necessity have been as fairly engrossed in all its length and breadth, as if he had intended to take out a patent for a new de- scription of knavery, and it were essential to be particular in the spe- cification in order to save the invention from being pirated! This is simplicity par excellence, and we think it is but ordinary charity to hive the Right Honourable Secretary credit for the innocence of pur- pose which it supposes. We have stated the nature of the grant. The land is utterly valueless. Tom, Jack, and Harry have only to walk down to the Colonial Office, and they will get as much as they please. We hear sometimes of a peppercorn rent, but the fee simple of Swan River is not at present worth a peppercorn. Of the comparative a lue of the different sections, there is no more known than is known of the comparative fertility of the different provinces of the moon, Captain STIRLING surveyed the coast, took the soundings of the river, counted the trees on an acre of ground, and this is all we know about the matter. But had the state of our information been as accurate as it is indefinite, the naivete of Mr. PEEL'S defence would have led us to conclude, that, wherever the imputation of wrong might light, it should not light on his head. Under the present circumstances, we see no reason for disbelieving that he has been kept from jobbing, not more by the physical impossibility of jobbing on nothing, than by an honest disinclination towards the trade.
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