ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY.
OUR exposition of the Colonial Expenditure has extended to a greater length than we originally intended; but the subject is of an importance to warrant a still fuller development. The Colonial possessions are a very great source of the national expenditure, and a very considerable cause of our commercial derangements. In no other department of Government are abuses so rife; in no other branch of expenditure is there so much room, or perhaps such urgent necessity, for a keen and searching retrenchment. Ab- solute sinecures, useless or overpaid functionaries, are numerous at home. The sums paid in England for actual labour are gene- rally disproportioned to the money lavished on small or pretended services. But these abuses, this disproportion, is as nothing when compared with those of the Colonies. Enormous incomes are en- joyed by officials who never set foot in the settlement ; pluralities are as numerous in the Colonies as in the Church, and efficiency as little regarded. Half-pay officers, or subservient and unsuc- cessful traders, dispense justice ; veterans, whose notions of civil government have been formed from the absolute authority of the camp, or aristocratic youths, whose experience has extended no further than the clubs, the turf, or even less reputable associa- tions, are appointed to the delicate and difficult task of governing an unsettled community with discretionary power; and if the state- ments of the Colonists are to be credited, individuals are appointed to the office of judge who are even ignorant of the language in which the pleadings are made. Out of an expenditure of rather more than two millions, no less than 372,000/. is divided amongst 166 persons; being on an average upwards of 2,200/. to each individual. Colonies, however closely connected by situation, language, and • community of interests and feelings, must be burdened with a • separate Governor and suite, with their long list of allowances, &c., separate Crown Law Officers, and separate Courts and Judges. Here, then, is ample field for an economical Government to work upon ; and, by a rigid economy in applying the Colonial revenue, as well as by a consolidation of their laws and governments, to enable the Colonies either entirely to discharge their own ex- penses, or to require no assistance from Great Britain excepting for naval protection. Whatever possessions are unable to accom- plish this, should be considered as a dead weight upon the national prosperity. Justice and good faith towards individual interests may compel us to retain them for the present : motives of policy may perhaps render their retention proper for an indefinite period : but let them be set down as what they really are—a cause of ex- pense, and not a source of profit. If the Reformed Parliament be adequate to its duties, one great 'task will be a searching examination into the whole of our Colonial policy, and the foundation of a system by which the national ex- pense, the interference with commercial industry, and the various oppressions to which the Colonists are subjected, shall be eventu- ally got rid of.
The various kinds of Colonies seem naturally reducible to (1) Military Positions ; (2) Penal Settlements ; and (3) Colonies from -which some tributary or commercial advantages are derived, or which may serve as a drain for the surplus population of the Mother Country. If our Colonies be examined according to this ,classification, it is perhaps only Malta, Gibraltar, and the Cape of Good Hope, which should be considered as important in a military point of view; and under a better system, their expense might be .considerably reduced. New South Wales and its dependencies are our only penal colonies; and waving any discussion upon the policy of such establishments, the last observation applies still more strongly to these growing communities as. to the maintenance of their own expenditure. Our Colonies in Western Australia and North America, so far from yielding any thing to the taxation of the state, are an expense in time of peace, and in time of war would be both an expense and a distraction. The commercial advantages derived from the Canadas we have already alluded to. The only utility of these colonies, or of that of Swan River, is in affording an outlet for the surplus population ; and this, after the first formation of the settlement, need never be a source of expense. The clear policy, then, with the whole of these colonies—which will some day or other become independent—is to prepare them for . independence as quickly and as cheaply as we can. For every .fresh political immunity we should grant them, they would gladly undertake some additional expense, and surrender some commer- • eial privilege, till in time their dependence would become merely .nominal, or their separation complete. Not, however, the disjunc- tion of violence, like that between Great Britain and the United States, but such a separation as takes place between parents and • children, when, after years of anxiety and outlay, the offspring . arrive at an age to "settle in the world" and " set up on their own . account."
Of the remaining Colonies, Ceylon and Mauritius might be placed under the government of India, and the pestilential sinks on the coast of Africa cannot be too soon abandoned. But although the Sugarcolonies are a source both of heavy direct and indirect ex.: penditure (and will remain so even after the Colonial revenue shall be diverted from supporting aristocratic idlers, to more legitimate purposes), such extensive interests are involved in their maintenance. that they ought not in justice to be abandoned rashly ; for an instant removal of the whole existing protection would complete the ruin of the planters, and an immediate withdrawal of' our sol- diers would be a signal for general insurrection amongst the slaves. To qualify the Negro for early emancipation, is the object of all ra- tional persons; but more especially is it for the interest of their masters. The only chance they possess of obtaining a remuneration, for their capital, is by the conversion of the slave into a free la- bourer, and by the gradual creation of a class of coloured capital- ists, who, trained to hard and continuous labour, with constitu- tions inured to the climate and with minds attached to the country by the ties of birth and education, may gradually supersede the European planter, and buy him up, at a much better price than he can ever hope to obtain from any other purchaser. We are not enemies to the West Indian planters : we have often recog- nized the difficulties of their case, and to a certain extent the jus- tice of their claims. But it is idle to deny that they constantly oppose themselves both to the feelings of the Country and to the expressed wishes of the Legislature. We cannot shut our eyes ti the fact, that a quarter of a century has elapsed since the aboli- tion of the Slave Trade, without bringing us apparently any nearer to the abolition of slavery ; and that even very moderate proposals which are sent from England for hastening this consummations are rejected in a manner which would be insulting and offensive if the rejecters were not altogether powerless. These measures will not, however, be tolerated under the vigorous government of a Re- formed Legislature. If the planters still persist in their present course of insult and defiance, the course of England will be clear. It will be her duty not to confiscate the property of others, but to look after her own. It will be her duty to S'A cep away the long list of protective duties which impede and oppress the industry of her Sons; to withdraw her fleets and her armies from the contu- macious colonies; and to leave either the slaves and the slave. owners to settle their affairs in their own way, or to give the latter full opportunity to " place themselves under the protection" of any state which may be-foolish enough to fancy that a worn-out soil—that a turbulent and licentious community—that a popula- tion containing within itself the seeds of interminable discord— that a province which, so far from yielding a revenue to its mas- ters, will annually drain them of their treasure, and whose industry cannot exist (under the present management it can neverflourish) without factitious support—can contribute any thing to the wealth. and strength of empire.
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