TOPICS OF THE DAX.

THE NEW COLONY.

A early of gentlemen, surpassed by nooe in sagacity, business- like habits, or weight of character, have undertaken to plant a colony on the South coast of Australia. The project may be con- sidered a revival of that which, more than a year since, occupied the South Australian Company, with Mr. WOLRYC TIE W H ITMORE at their head, and was defeated by Mr. HAT, the Tory Under- Secretary for the Colonies. In the present case, it appears that the Committee are in direct communication with the Princi- pal Secretary, Mr. STANLEY ; who, besides never having been a Tory, has visited Canada and the United States, and is just the sort of man not to let an underling decide for him.

4' The disgrace and canker of our public business" (said the Times two weeks ago) " is the bum-burocracy of England—the sitting portion of earth department, which is left behind upon every change of Administration; which nestles, and burrows, and propagates, and pet petuates itself, and becomes at last identified with the routine of office, and hands down the clerk-craft ft out age to age, giv- ing to ordinary official transactions a certain ..iupeificial resemblance to what is called regularity,' but rendei Mg the substance of things impel vin s to any principle of anwridment, which would exact the slightest dual; to prejudice or disturbance of habit, or, worst of all, the most distant sacrifiee of emolument, from those patriarchs of the back-stairs and writing-desk,—your tribe of I'rider- Secretaries and confidential clerks. These immoveables, these ac/sceipti v/e/do, these nominal serfs, are the real tyrants of a Moister."

Mr. HAY is the Tory bum-burocrat of the Colonial Office. Ile no doubt will, as before, strive to prevent the formation of a co- lony which is to be governed at a cheap rate, to defray the whole cost of its government, and to be governed in local matters by the colonists themselves. But we doubt whether he will be able to lead. Mr. STANLEY by the nose, as be led Lord Goeketicit. Mr. STANLEY'S knowledge of colonies, with his undoubted talents

and industry, will enable hint to appreciate the greatness of the present undertaking as an experiment in the art of Colonization. If he should do this—which, indeed, Lord GonERicit did while he thought for himself—he will decide accordingly ; and, having promised to let the colony procetel to its destination, he will keep

his word—which Lord GODERICH did not as to a similar promise.

In short, Mr. STANLEY, notwithstanding some defects of temper, is a man' while Lord Got-teeter!, with the most amiable disposi- tion, is, begging his pardon and speaking- politically, " an old woman." We may therefore congratulate the new Association on the removal of Lord Cowmen O.; the sinecure a the Privy Seal. Two late works have drawn pnb!ie a lien ii to the subject of Colonization,—Mr. PouLETT S: 7 it 0 PE-S Frill! ./1!)/US I. Politiml Economy, and England and America. " The time," says Mr. Sr.;:ore, " cannot be f ds!ant :when the 1144)!C Scheme of a systematic emigration from all the overpsopled parts of the earth to the uuderpeoided, preserving health to the mother countries by moderate de- pletion, and Invigorating infant colonies by the infusion of fruit- grown labour, will he recognized as the true political wisdom of all advanced stures, and gene: rally adopted by them ; when an increase of population. inst, ad of being deplored and discouraged by short-sighted statesmen and philosophers, will be hailed with delight as the means of adding to the sum- of bureau happiness, and ex- tending the empire of civilization over the globe."

On the other hand, the author ef England and America con- tends that "systematic" colonization will never be adopted by the corrupt government of an "advanced state." His reason for this conclusion is, that the patronage afforded by colonies depends upon a total disregard of principle or system in the art of colonizing. He would probably, using words employed in his book, say to this South Australian Association- " If you want the sanction of the Government, you must put a good deal of patronage into your plan. This plan is too cheap, altogether too good, ever to be liked by our Government. Instead of 5,000/. a year for governing the colony, say 20,000/. a year; and give all the appointments to the Colonial Office. If you do this, you will get the charter without trouble: if you hold to the present plan, you will never get a charter, except by appealing to the House of Cmii- mona; and not then until there shall have been two or three elections under the Reform Bill."

Which of these authors has judged the more correctly, will soon be determined. For the present scheme brings the question to practical issue, in England at least. The principles of the under- taking have been more than once expounded in the Spectator; and we feel satisfied, that, if they should be carried into effect in only • one instance, Mr. SCROPE will turn out, as to this country at any esa true prophet. But the question is—will our "Reformed Ministers " permit the first step towards so great and useful a reform of our Colonial policy? Will they allow such men as Mr. WHITMORE, Mr. GROTE, Mr. SENIOR, Mr. SCROPE, and Mr. CLAY, to try whether ,a desert at the antipodes may be converted into a wealthy and civilized colony, without the expense of a shilling to the mother country ? Two years ago, we should have bad no doubt about the answer to this question; but Mr. HAY'S triumph over the South Australian Company teaches us to say, more cautiously, Time will show.

We have just read, and will if possible reprint, a very judicious

statement of the objects of the South Australian Association, and of the moans by which it is proposed to accomplish them. This document cannot but interest many who, on public grounds, desire that colonization should be pursued systematically, with a view to teasing the profits of capital and wages of labour, by a great and aohtinual enlargement of our field of production. It is still more calculated to engage the immediate attention of those amongst the middle classes to whom the following description in England and America applies : some part of the extract appeared in our pages before, and is one of the most affecting and true pictures in th cule of her countrywomen—this is a faithful sketch from domestic life amongst suffer more than the other, because, living in the world, they are more in the way growing elin, pale, listless, and cross; at last, if they du not go mad or die of consumption, seeking consolation in the belief of an approaching Millennium, or denied to them. The picture may displease, even because it is correct. This, the English middle class." aided by their mother, to become honoured and happy wives; then fretting, of temptation, inure cruelly tantalized by their intercourse with happy wives and of English girls tur g into old maids one after the other; first, reaching the bloom of beauty, full of health, spirits, and tenderness; next, striving anxiously, in the single pursuit of that happiness in another world which this world has Americans—you whose doilies-tic manners an Englishwoman holds up to the ridi- of celibacy ? account of its unnatural cruelty. certain state of political economy, pride or prmlence, and custom, occasion more portion of Englishwomen who pine in celibacy, is far greater than that of mothers. There is not in the world a inure deidorable sight, than a fine brood class are ,Iwined to celibacy. One may ten II say, disnincil. Custom forbids unnatural suffering, than the villainous theocracies of Italy and Spain. The pro.. Spanish or Italian women who languish iu convents; and the Englishwomen straiut ' amongst the middle class is, that a great proportion of females in that thein to resort to that sort of ' moral restraint ' to which their brothers resort without disgrace ; and custom is stronger than walls and bars. ID this case, it has more power than the strictest discipliae of a couvent. But why do the there be fortune in the case, tI the' surest means of increasing their embarrassment. 'finis is one of the most importarit features in the social state of England. .ainongst the middle class, amongst all classes except the herald prostitution which shocks au American. Another effect of ' moral re. tween celibacy zunl marriage with one of the uneasy class. Now, a great proportion of young men in the uneasy class dread marriage, unless highe,t ;Lnd the lowest, moral restraint' is a confirmed habit. hence taunt,- rality wallow a parallel in tory other country. This is the cause of that exu- but this would be an exception to the general t tile. The general rule with attaches to imprudent marriages. The second purpose being subject to the beauty, tenderness, modesty, and good sense. Who will take her as a wile, the daughters of leer of small income, whether fixed or not, is a choice be- genet ally elks:tell during childhood ; when, every day, and almost every: hour of first, becomes extremely difficult. If the girl had a fortune, she would belong to Captaiu spending class : we suppose her to have no fortune, except that she would take as a husband ? She may, by chance, or rather her mother may, by dint of great toil and management, catch one of the spending class; the day, something happens to impress them With a fear rd. such degradation as Perkin', bankruptcy."

troubled to provide for his sons, how to provide for his daughters is a more per-

plexing question. first—no, the second point, is to get them married : the first point is to prevent them front marrying into a lower, which commonly means a poorer rank, than that in which they were born. The first point is trade ?—all full, overflowing ; while the last, whether agricultural, manufac- turing, or commercial, requires a large capital, or it will bring uneasiness, too, with a host of needy competitors for miserable cur:ides. The law, medicine, of by profits in the shape of a low preinium,—are but just sufficient to provide a maintenance fur his wife and children after his death. What are the sons to do when grown up ? if grown up? The Army ?—pay for a commission ; and then, tunless you belong to the spending class. look' on proinot ion as hopeless. in the Church ?—buy a living, or your son must struggle, and may struggle in vela in the best way.,--that is, in an insurance aids life, whereby he reaps the benefit Navy, candidates firr promotion are quite as tedundaut as in the Army. The ru troubled, therefore, to tix on a mode of investment, and, when the choice is mad., annoyed because the interest is so low. His savings, therefore, when invested advise you : the Funds are so high, and so likely to fall through political agiuse know not what to do with our money. I have 100,000/. in that drawer ; and if you will tell nue of a better place for it, I shall be very much obliged to you.' He as to the best mode of investment. Upon my word,' says the latter, 4 I cannot savings, he feels the low rate of profit and interest. During the war, he could, with a little management, have obtained ten, twelve, or perhaps fifteen per cent, for his money : now, no one pays five per cent. with good security. He consults his banker lion ; there is so much money, with so much distress and discontent, that we youngest sons and the daughters ? what of all the children, when the property is only for life ? Tile father must save good ; hut the moment he proceeds to invest his the whole of his property. What then, where there is property, must become of the soris and the daughters? No man likes that his on should fall, or his daughter marry, into a circle much inferior to his own ; especially in England, where Englishman of property, moreover, likes that his eldest son should inherit nearly are not large, and who hare children to provide for. What is to become of dis this sort of degradation, like absolute poverty, is disgraceful it not criminal. Every mean landowners, sinecurists public servants, and fundowners, whose incomes English language. And this is the class to whom a new colony offers the happiest " Hut if a man of fixed income, his income Inning small or moderate, be e Many thousands of people, enjoying fixed incomes, suffer deep anxiety ; I

French, Dutch. and Gel mans, regard e..ith horror the legal institution \Veil then, in England, a

change of prospects—men of small or moderate fortunes, having large fanzines to provide for,—a career for all the sons, be they ever so many: husbands for all the daughters, however large the brood ; and for the contented father, a field of profitable exertioa and honourable ambition.

" Magna virtIm canter! exclaims ADAM S3IITII," (we quote again frorn England and Anierica)" when he gives to England the credit of having fur- nished the men lit to establish empires in America. But would those superior men have quitted England for that purpose without a prospect of self-government? NVould such a man as War.lasi PENN have crossed he Atlantic, knowing that, when in America, he should be subject to such a Minister as 110EACR Twiss residing in England ? The greater number, it is true, of the founders of the United .States fled from persecution, but some of them did not ; and all of them may be supposed to have been moved, in part, by a sentiment of ambition. The founders of a colony, which is to be governed by the colonists, are sure to enjoy a greater degree of consideration and importance amongst their compa- nions than they would reasonably have hoped to attain in the old society. By the mere act of removing, they become legislators and statesmen; the legisla. tots and statesmen of a new country too, created, as it were, by themselves. In the charters under which the old English colouies in America were planted, we find recited the names of the men who projected and accomplished those great/ undertakings. It was thus that men of a superior order were induced to run the risk of failure in those enterprises; men who, by their energy, judgment, pa- tience, and resolution, were especially qualified to make those enterprises map ceed."

How many "men of a superior order "—officers on half-pay, awl others with small means and large families—are vegetating ia France, and in English country towns, for the sake of cheap ing I To such men our existing Colonies do not offer a very at- tractive prospect. For, as was well observed by the South Aus- tralian Company in their correspondence with Lord GODERICH, " no British colony exists to which persons of education and re- finement can resort, without incurring moral, social, or political degradation." In New South Wales, they are rendered miserable by the transportation system ; which was called, so long ago as by Lord BACON, "a wicked and unblessed thing." In Canada, they find, not society, but a scattered population, enjoying, indeed, plenty of mere necessaries, but wanting nearly all the enjoyments a social intercourse, and even many of the usual ordinary com- forts of civilized life. At the Swan River, they would be lost in a desert, besides ineuning the political degradation of having to wait nearly a sear before they could receive from the supreme authority an answer to any application for redress of local grie- vances. Whereas, in the present ease, the old principle of self- government is adopted, with the addition of novel precautions for maintaining in the colony the best attributes of a wealthy and civilized society. The men who have undertaken to found the colony are not wild projectors; nor have they, we are con- fident, merely lent their names to a wild project. They are, most of them, public men with a high character to sustain : and they have not embarked in this important work without a sense of the heavy responsibility incurred by their engagement with the public. Here, then, is an opening, such as never was presented before, to young men and heads of families in the mid- dle class, who, with the sense to perceive the difficulties that bis:et their order in England, may have the courage to decide on being amongst the founders of a society in which no such difficulties can exist. To thousands who answer to this description, we recom- mend the Prospectus of the Association adding, however, that in order to understand all the merits of the proposed undertaking, they must not merely read, but study, England and America.

• On account or its length, added to the AININ• alrewly oeetmied. the Inge' t Mu of the rinspeetiis MUst po,Iponed till our next Number. In the mean ' me, our readers will rind, in one of the advertisemmts, a list of the members of the Proviti mai Com- mittee.