- TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. STEPHEN: THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
Mn. STEPHEN has fulfilled a long expectation, by abdicating. He retires from the Under Secretaryship of the Colonial Office, and leaves behind him no one who can take his place. It is his singular fate that such a statement should be made of so able a man without regret.
Mr. Stephen is followed into his retirement by quasi-official panegyrics, which might pass unquestioned, on the principle de inortuts, but for two facts : the country has still to cope with the consequences of Mr. Stephen's administration ; and, there is no surety that it is yet finally relieved of Mr. Stephen himself. He is translated into the Privy Council ; and, apart from the possi- bility of his still exercising some tutelary influence over official departments, there are not wanting rumours that, after a reno- vating tour abroad, he is to reenter office in some higher capacity. With respect to technical and official information, probably no man knew so much as the retiring Under Secretary. His knowledge made him chiefly powerful as an antagonist. In this matter-of- fact country, the man who can outrun another in exactness or copiousness of information possesses a formidable advantage : to convict an opponent of "ignorance," even on a triviality, is to lower and weaken him ; and there were few of the importunate claimants that besieged the Colonial Office whom Mr. Stephen could not convict of that disgrace. With unequalled tact and discretion, he hail acquired some literary repute without letting it go so far as to override his official reserve ; and if his literary repute was not greater, the official reserve passed as a plea to al- low him credit for more than he had done. According to this constructive repute, he might have been a Macaulay, but he chose to be a Stephen. In office, like the shield of gold and silver, his manner was different as it was viewed from above or from below ; but in both aspects imposing. His superiors have uniformly, we be- lieve, been impressed with the conviction that Mr. Stephen was the least presuming, the least obtrusive, the most zealous and able servant they had ever known. In his presence, men whose "station," not less than personal abilities, placed them at the head of a department in which subordinates possessed more knowledge and more ability, became inspired alike with official wisdom and with a delightful self-reliance : at first mistrusting their formida- ble subordinate, fearing to commit themselves before him, they were speedily reassured: they seemed to become possessed of all his knowledge and power without any humiliating obligation : their own powers expanded ; they found themselves, as they imagined, throwing out suggestions which even he received as masterpieces ; and many an official Dombey has dictated just what the Carker required. The aspect of the Under Secretary viewed from below was that of a man whom it was impossible to thwart, avoid, or circumvent : everything must pass through that one medium. Mr. Stephen had acquired a reputation for philanthropy : he belonged to the Evangelical section of officials, and encouraged Missionary enterprises. He was reputed to be incorruptible : to be otherwise would have been fatal to one who had pretensions as a purist, especially as corruption is obsolete among the respectable ranks of official people. It is undeniable that he so managed as to be virtually and effectively the real Co- lonial Minister, without offending those who bore the title and were content to bear the responsibility. If Mr. Stephen's astuteness and unquestionable command of technical knowledge were animated by enlarged views and a generous benevolence, the practical result must have been found in the contentment, or at least the prosperity, of the wide regions subject to his administration.
So far as concerns their official relations, the British Colonies present a spectacle altogether the reverse of this.
The British Sugar Colonies are in the last throes of a struggle for existence. For a dozen years their history has been that of a rapid descent from bad to worse. The policy of the British Govern- ment has professedly been, to emancipate labour in the West In- dies, and to prevent the extension of slave-labour in foreign coun- tries by intercepting the supply of slaves ; and for that purpose a vast sacrifice of life and money is made every year on the Western coast of Africa : the actual results are, that slave-labour is not checked in foreign countries, but that in the West Indies the sup- ply of labour is cut off. Just as Mr. Stephen is leaving office, the West Indians are meeting to declare that they must give up the struggle against ruin, unless Ministers revise their policy and restore "protection "—the West Indian body of London 'have been up to Downing Street this very week, and the colonists have been planning an aggregate meeting of deputies from the several colo- nies to be held in one of the islands. The new feature in the present stage of West Indian depression is, that the colonists have lost hope : unless they are in some way relieved by Govern- ment from the influence of the Colonial Office as it has hitherto been administered, they despair, and, with the natural exaggera- tion of despair, anticipate nothing but literal and final ruin. That is the state in which Mr. Stephen leaves the West Indian Colonies.
A policy which, in the name of "philanthropy," sought to treat savage Aborigines like spoiled children, alienated the loyalty of the Anglo-Dutch population in the Cape colony, ceded to this country by treaty ; and in order to bring back the Anglo-Dutch to their allegiance, it was necessary to use force of arms. The war against the Anglo-Dutch is succeeded by a frontier war against the Aborigines, whose behaviour became intolerable to the veritable British colonists ; and in order to wean the sava- ges from the false notions instilled into them by a past policy, it will be necessary to shed much of their blood. Meanwhile, to carry on the war with anything like spirit, and yet with a re- mains of tenderness for the misguided creatures is a task that has foiled even the spirited and ingenious Sir henry Pottinger. That is the state in which Mr. Stephen leaves the Cape colony ; to say nothing of its impoverished and backward condition.
A similar spectacle of internecine savage war may now be seen in the youngest of British colonies—New Zealand. A show has been made of complying with the general demand for "systematic colonization " ; but the pretence of doing so has merely sufficed to prevent the reality. So totally unlike any- thing ' systematic ' is the emigration to North America, that half of it strays to an alien country, and the other half is the sub- ject of loud complaints that it is a nuisance, introducing pauper- ism and pestilence into Canada. Looking to the opposite group of dependencies available for systematic colonizationz we see a most extraordinary sight. Mr. Boyd, a leading colonist in New South Wales has sent an expedition for the purpose of recruiting the labour of the colony from Polynesia : savages, if not canni- bals, are to be introduced into New South Wales as shepherds, at the very time when a Committee of the British Peers has been solemnly inquiring how it can dispose of the starving Irish I Such is the state in which the governing Under Secretary of the Colonial Office leaves "systematic colonization."
It does not appear that Mr. Stephen has trained any one to be his successor : Elijah carries his mantle still to wear it himself in the upper region to which he is translated. The removal of so much and such concentrated technical information, will make it very difficult to carry on the routine of the office, impossible to carry it on as it has been. It is to be hoped, therefore, not only that Mr. Stephen will have the solace of finding that he is much "missed," but that some totally new Colonial policy will be forced upon the Imperial Government. It would be quite pos- sible that a better policy should also be a policy easier to adminis- ter. Much of the voluminous knowledge attributed to the retiring Under Secretary was rendered necessary by the needlessly minute meddling of the Government in Downing Street. Mr. Stephen is reputed to have possessed an intimate acquaintance with "the various constitutions" of the settlements : an intimacy of which the necessity would be quite superseded if the " constitutions " themselves were superseded by the substitution of simpler and better forms of government ; permitting, not prohibiting, the self-development of the settlements by some kind of representative system—encouraging, not checking, the growth of political talent—inviting the influential among the colonists to accept a. larger share in directing and fostering those purely localinterests which contribute to the weal of the community, but are too remote and local for comprehension or attention in London. Downing Street would govern the Colonies better if it did less, and used the talents which are to be found in the British citizen wherever he may dwell. It might console the Colonial empire for the loss of Mr. Stephen, if his retirement were thus to hasten the adoption of a policy consistent with the safety and prosperity of the British Colonies. Such a novelty would constitute a new rera in the history of our Colonies, and would immortalize the statesman who should seize the occasion for establishing it.
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