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    8 M * 5 'ts =. ? : « S : HH 5 ' * SS ^ Siisi ^ Gui in 1846 ) two shillings and

    four-Stogi / ethrnVoes ( as - ana See forS hours ' work , nor could the negroes have supportedI thenisel ^ es on the earnings of four , three , and sometimes even , two days in the week In the absence of those natural difficulties which stimulate inLX Lord Grey wished to give to the West-Indian negroes the trynfaSsphere of competit ion with the world , both as workers an 4 as indirecTSors of a marketable commodity The first part of the competition he supplied by immigration-with a niggard ; the second part P refusing to colonial sugar any ^ cep tionaf advantage in the Oish markett-a congenial duty inexorably fulfilled . More . quest ionably acting on this principle , he determined to create artificial difficulties for the enervated negroes , by laying on a direct taxation on the lowest kinds of industry , and proportionately relieving luxuries from social

    fiscal dues ; in fact , creating , by act of Parliament , that -European condition , which makes state burthens fall more heavily on the humbler than on the higher classes . To these circumstances in this country , . Lord Grey attributes the industrial energy of our people , who must work that they may live ; and he wished to import such influences into tropical countries as would produce the same result , and thus counteract the baneful fertility of the soil , and the idle luxury of the climate . Stated in this form not couched in the long words and circumlocution of the Colonial Office , this peculiar policy seems something new and scarcely consistent with thorough Free-trade . It was a new kind of Protection for the artificial maintenance of industrial difficulties !

    Lord Grey's history of Canada is extended ; but Canada has been long since freed from the practical interference of Downing-street . She has worked out her own salvation ; and that Lord Grey should congratulate himself and colleagues , on a state of things they promoted simply through their compelled non-intervention , is somewhat unwarrantable . The management of the land sales in Australia and transportation are questions that , though seemingly settled by recent arrangements , to the colonies possess a permanent interest , as touching on two great points ot colonial policy . The old colonial system of granting territories to new settlers , was productive of the worst consequences ; it left large tracts of land in the possession of men who could not cultivate one-fourth ot the ™ . ™ ortxr it -nvp . vftntfid the spread of population , the cultivation being

    confined to the choice bits which a colonist having interest with the Crown would select for a settlement , and by making the allotment of land a matter of official favouritism , it shut out the hardy industrious colonist who had neither time nor inclination to beg favours . The system wellnigh ruined Western Australia . In South Australia a different systemafterwards extended to all Australia—was instituted . The land was sold m suitablv-sized lots by public auction , and the upset price being fixed ot lands

    rather high and being uniform for all lands , the prices over alL the district were to a great extent reduced to a leve . This plan precluded all private jobbing ; it tended to distribute settlers , and the comparatively high amount of the upset price ( 11 . an acre in both colonies ) prevented the colony being injured by the disposal to a knowing adventurer of land richly profitable but officially unvalued . The fund arising from the sales remained at the disposal of the home Government , by ™ i ™ n ,, liftlf was anulicdto the encouragement of immigration , and the

    , other half to local improvements . After this system had been worked for some time , its beneficial effects wero so striking , that all controversy as to its advisability were ended . It is well , however , not to forget that time was when the primary principle of this plan was first _ set forth by Mr . Edward Gibbon Wakefield . Lord Grey , who , as Lord Howick , made political capital out of Mr . Wakefield ' s ideas , and who , as Colonial Secretary , was often guided by them , might have had the candour to acknowledge the debt . But some retribution for his want of just ni , nh , iinn hpoh « in his own incapacitv to act consistently on a thoroughly

    satisfactory plan . When the manner of selling the lands , and the general diBposal of the land fund had been Bottled as above , there came the question " Who should have the management of the sales in luturo , and tlio disposal , even to diversion , of the fundP" Lord Grey pertinaciously stickled for the rights of the Crown ; and even in this book ho argues against giving any power to the local legislatures on those two points , lie alleges that mismanagement of the sales and malversation of the money would assuredly follow local power ; ho foresees the diversion of tlio fund from immigration to something el « o ; and as a prool points out refusedto lthe land fund

    that the South Australian legislature lately —appy t o immigration P no-to apply the land revenue " to the improvoment of a harbour on tlio coast and the establishment of a railway ! It may bo mentioned to the credit of Sir John Pakington , that being only a country Kcntlcman , and not a thoroughbred official , lie conceded to tlio local Legisfaturos the disposal of tl . o land fund . As to the particular application of tho fund , there was not much likelihood that m any easo the local management would alter tlio practice that had been pursued ; but it was part of Lord Grov ' s policy to distrust colonists , and to know what was good lor

    thorn bettor than the peoples themselves . But his bickerings on the land fund—and his harmless , because frustrated , erotukefc of nn Australian Congress—were petty errors compared with the course he pursued in tho matter of transportation . His own trvidenco HUHtains the indictment ; be ban " written a book , " and whoever counts Lord Grey an " enemy" may exceedingly rejoice . The history of tho attempt in 1848 , to make Now South Wales a convict colony , is as follows -. —Years back , Wakeficld's Letters pom Sydney disclosed tho horrible © fleets of transportation in establishing a community of male

    criminals , whom ignorance , low training , and desolate life , rendered wicked to an unspeakable extent . Sir William Molesworth's committee of 1837 virtually settled the question ; convict labour was taken away from Australia , much against the liking of the colonists , who angrily prophesied their own ruin . They were not ruined , and they learned to value the cleansing of the land . In the year 1846 , Van piemen ' s Land was so terribl y demoralised by the immense mass of criminals that had been imported into the colony , that it was deemed advisable to cease the importation for a time > and it was necessary to find some other place for the convicts . The then Colonial Secretary ( Mr . Gladstone ) trrote to New South Wales , inquiring whether the Legislature would consent to receive " a limited number "of convicts . A Committee of the Legislature considered the request ; they

    had also to consider that for two or three years before , Port Phillip , then a district of New South Wales , had beeri compelled to receive convicts tinder the name of exiles , and with the dangerous privilege of freedom ; and they had in view the necessity of theTBritish Government and its unmistakable intention to import the convicts in one way or another . They saw the colony plagued with the stray ruffians who wandered from their allotted district into the older settlements of the colony ; they saw impending an inevitable inundation of fresh convietism : and with a timeserving prudence they ( first stating their dislike to all convietism ) consented to receive the comine convicts on certain important conditions :

    namely , that the convicts should be assigned to individual settlers , that ; the charges for police , gaols , and administration of justice being almost entirely the result of English convietism , should be borne by the Crown ; that the male convicts should be balanced by an equal number of female convicts or female emigrants , that the transportation of the whole number of convicts ( male and female ) sliould be equalled by a simultaneous immigration of free emigrants of both sexes , and that not fewer than 5000 male convicts be annually imported into the colony . Other conditions of less importance were attached . The supply of labour which would thus come with the convictism was the inducement with the committee to consent , at all , to the proceeding . The two first conditions Lord Grey declined to accede to ; the rest he granted ; and the Legislative Council of Sydney after first flatly rejecting all convicts , at length consented ,

    clearly influenced by the fact that with or without their consent ' exiles , ^ that is , abandoned convicts , would beseiit to Port Phillip , and would spread themselves over the colony . When this consent reached England , Lord Grey sent out the convicts without the free emigrants that had been expressly stipulated for , and agreed to by himself . This gross breach of faith he excuses on two grounds—first , that Parliament not being sitting at the tinfe . he could not obtain a vote for sending out the free emigrants ; and , secondly , that the country was in no condition to afford the expense even if he waited for the sanction of Parliament . This is his own apology . He afterwards pleads guilty to " an error in judgment . " is to which it is

    Lord Grey ' s conduct towards the Cape one necessary to advert emphatically , for he has no sense of sorrow for the course of ofiicial action which , in more cases than one , led to disafiection and disaster in the colony . His remittance of convicts from Bermuda was an . impudent outrage on the colony . In relating the facts , Lord Grey is almost pathetic in allusion to the excluded convicts cooped up m the Neptune in sight of land . This " sneaking regard" for convicts , that may be drafted here and there , and drilled into order , in preference to colonists continually complaining , is an official idiosyncracy . The people at the Cape were hard-hearted in two ways : they refused to aid the Government in a " serious difficulty" by receiving " just this one" shipload of convicts ; and they were cruel enough " to visit those measures on the heads of those unfortunate men . " A story , so often quoted that it should be obsolete , tells , that a lady guilty of a youthful indiscretion , excused

    the fault , tho child was " such a little one ; " and Lord Grey , caught in . the fact of sending convicts to the Cape , defends himself on the ground that they were Irish , and had committed crimes for political reasons . But what did the Capo colonists know of that P Where had they the information that those men were not tho worst from our jails P Or , if they could penetrate the usual secrecy of criminal administration , had they any guarantee that that first cargo might not have been made into a most pernicious precedent P On another Cape topic Lord Grey is remarkably silent . " Insurrections" and permanent " unfriendly feelings of the Boers are passed over without one word of explanation . The fact that these thrifty , hard-working , men have been entirely alienated from British rule is , indeed , such a damnatory fact , that an ine uwoiw

    English official escapes beat by evading point , uixoguucu , and a fussy philanthropy anent tho treatment of the native herds , wore the first causes of the dislike of tho Dutch farmers to the English rule-They emigrated into the unsettled district ; a district where the British flaw was never planted , and whore , by law , it could not bo planted . Hero they led a hard but improving life , surrounded by the nativo tribes . Sir Harry Smith , released from more proper duties by tho close of the Kafir war of' 47 , visited tho district , to " inspect" it ; and without authority from England , and against tbe original intention of a restricted territory at tho Capo , ho proclaimed the Queen ' s rule in tho Orange Jiivor Sovereignty . In fivo months afterwards the Bocra revolted : they were crushed but a smouldering insurrection always remained up to a recent

    period , when the practical independence of the emigrant-farmers was concoded as a matter of necessity . The colonial policy of Lord Grey was a mixturo of Imperial arrogance and occasional expediency . If a contumacious colony were weak , it waef crushed ; if a ' resisting peoplo were strong , tho Colonial Oflioo yielded with a bad grace . Civil lists have been carriod with a high hand in Guianp ., but Clergy RoBervba wore quickly conceded * in Canada . Van D ' iemen ' s Land was long subjected to tlio convict nuisance , but tho Capo colonists had but to make a show of light , and tho Secretary gave way . A policy with such varieties cannot bo traced to a principle Its practice was as contradictory as Lord ( Jrey ' H career , and its tone as varied aa his tompor .

    * A bill , placing | -ho IlooorvciH nfc tho dinpomu of tho local logmlaturn , would havo boon introduced Dy Lord Groy , had not tho dissolution of tho lluaacll Administration prevented it . '

    Untitled Article

    404 THE kEAj > i % . [ SAfpftD 4 ¥ ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 23, 1853, page 404, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1983/page/20/