The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

Sittrature.

The Colonial Policy of Lord John Rumen
Administration. By Earl Grey. Vol. 11.
Li radon : Bentley.
(sEcosn spa CoNCLUDING Nortcc—SubJeets: TRANSPORTA.
TION, dud thZe LElibD, ILATIoN for AtkiTNALIA, NEW
EALAN stud the WK.]
ONE of the chief defects of Lord Grey's book
as a practical manual of politics is its dealing
principally with questions now definitively set
at rest. No subject can be less promising as
material for au author than the legislation
which is so far complete as to have ceased to •
be a part of the present, and yet so recent as
not to be susceptible of being judged by its
results. The controversies of three or four
years back arc past and gone ; no power of
treatment can restore to them the interest of
novelty ; yet we all feel that it is too soon to
have them disinterred from Hansard and the
blue-books, and paraded in the garb of his-
tory. Lord Grey, in dwelling on topics which
have not lost their importance for him, allows
too little for popular apathy, and the speedy
satiety which succeeds an interest only tem-
porarily and artificially roused. Hence his
book, though valuable for the light which it will
throw on future researches, has commanded
no great degree of attention ; and, indeed,
owes most of its circulation to the personal
position of the writer. One, and one only, of
the questions to which it refers is at this mo-
ment agitating the public mind both in
England and Australia. We refer, of course,
to the subject of transportation, or penal
exile, and especially to the decision an-
nounced by the Duke of Newcastle last
winter, though, as it should appear from Lord
Aberdeen's speech, now reconsidered, whereby
that punishment was to be abolished finally
and in all its modifications. From the step
thus hastily and unadvisedly taken by his suc-
cessor, Lord Grey, as might be expected, dis
sents. He expresses approval of the reforms
effected by Sir John Pakington in this depart-
ment ; admits fully the rights of colonists,
among whom public opinion may have posi-
tively declared itself, not to have convicts thrust
upon them against their will ; does not deny
the overcrowded state of Van Diemen's Land,
or the inconvenience arising therefrom (though
the latter he proves to have been in a great
measure exaggerated); but contends, and, as we
think, unanswerably, that, balancing the good
against the evil, and taking the Australasian
dependencies as they now are, the transpor-
tation system has worked well on the whole,
even in that respect where it is usually consi-
dered as most fatuity, namely, its effect on
the recipient colonies. A few facts not men-
tioned by Lord Grey will bear out this argu-
ment more strongly. It is indisputable that, of
all the colonising experiments on record, none
has ever attained an equal success with that
which in half a century has peopled the Aus-
tralian continent. In 1788, when the British
flag was first hoisted on the shores of Sydney
Cove, 1,030 souls, of which nearly 800 were con-
victs, formed the nucleus of the future settle-
ment. These were speedily followed by about
1,800 more ; among whom. as among their pre-
decessors, famine and disease made fearful
ravages. Every kind of danger and difficulty
was endured by the infant colony. Scarcity
of supplies, failure of crops, quarrels with the
native population, mutinous convicts and,
tyrannical authorities, want of friends, igno-
rance of the country, neglect on the part of
England, concurred to threaten the existence
and hinder the spread of the settlers. Yetthey
grew and multiplied, for in 1817 the population
of New South Wales alone exceeded 17,000, of
whom 6.700 only were convicts. The returns
of 18:13 give a total of 60,000, of whom 16,000
were convicts : those of 1848 a total of 220,000,
wholly emancipated, and of whom a compara-
tively small proportion were either voluntary
emigrants or the descendants of such. This,
be it remembered. was before the discovery of
gold ; and we may reasonably assume that the
rapid growth of the colony was due to the
penal element which it contained. when it is
observed that no one of the North American
provinces, though so much nearer, has thriven
to an equal extent, or absorbed so large a
population. Nor is the wealth of New South