The Express.
London, England, 1852-06-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 19.

THE petition of the Legislative Council of New
South Wales, presented, read, and received in the
Houses of Commons and Lords, is a document
that can scarcely fail to arrest the attention even
of the most thoughtless. It embodies a protest
by the late Legislative Council of that colony—to
which the council that has been substituted for it,
ander the government act passed last session by the
imperial legislature, solemnlyiudliere—against the
constitution forced upon the Australian colonies. It
Is couched in a higher tone than any remonstrances
that have previously been addressed from that quarter
to the imperial legislature or government; we might
almost say it breathes a tone of menace. It takes
as high ground as the old thirteen North American
colonies did at the commencement of the war of in-
dependence. It denies the right of the mother coun-
try to tax the colonies ;—to intei fere with the disposal
of their waste lands- to nominate any public officials
except governors—to legislate for them in any
matters of imperial concern. It is, ae it were, a
draft bill of rights for the Australian colonies, the
doettibes of which are not now avowed by them for
the first time, but oclaimed for the first time with an
uncompromising boldness, inspired by wearied-out
endurance of wrong, and a consciousness of the
rapid development of their material resources.
This petition must be attended to, and that speedily,
unless the fatal blunder with relation to America in
the eighteenth century is to be acted over again with
relation to Australia in the nineteenth. This country
is on the eve of being compelled to make choice be.
tween the maintenance or disruption of the ties
which connect it with the Australian colonies—per-
haps to make choice between a friendly or a hostile
separation.
The practical urgencies of the time invite us to a
deliberate review of the natural relatioo.i of a state
to its colonies, with a view to regulate our
conduct in the emergency now impending. It is
not a little gratifying at such a moment to find that
the petition of the New South Wales Legislature
corroborates the views we took of the government
bill when it was before parliament, both wherein we
differed from its supporters, and wherein we differed
forest its opponents. We said then that the provi-
sions of the bill relating to the administration of
waste lands and the land fund would be unpalatable
in Australia ; that the exemption of the civil list
from the supervision and control of the local legisla-
lature would not be acquiesced in by the colonists;
that for the hair-splitting objections of certain colts.
nising theorists to the peculiar form of the legisla-
ture the colonists did not care a straw. Our remon-
strances were unheeded by the promoters of
the bill and a majority of its opponents, but the
colonists now prove that we were in the right.
They waste not a word on the constitution
of the legislative body, but they aro vehement and
indignant in their denunciation of those provisions of
the bill which bear on the financial and land distri-
bution questions. They authorise us to speak con&
dently on the infinitely more momentous question
that is now being raised.
In a free state colonists arc citizens who, without
renouncing their rights of' citizenship, go forth
to seek in distant and unoccupied, or imperketly oc-
cupied lands, the means of obtaining independence
or wealth more easily than is possible in an over-
crowded old country. They continue to owe to the
state—to the executive government—the same alle-
giance as before ; to be entitled to the same privileges
and immunities as before. By the theory of the British
constitution no laws can be enacted, no taxes imposed
upon citizens, except by parliament in which they
are really or virtually represented. But in parlia-
ment the colonists are neither really nor virtually
represented. Legislation or taxation, even by parlia-
ment, is a usurpation on their rights of citi.
senship, to be tolerated, even for a mo-
ment, only in so far as it can ho shown to
be indispensably necessary. Such necessity war.
rants the demand that the colonists shall cede those
rights in so far as the assertion of the empire's
independence against foreigners is concerned; that
they abstain from interference with the diplomacy
or defensive establishments of the state, and sub-
mit to the regulations required to render them
efficacious; and that they abstain from any acts
that may paralyse tho foreign policy of the state.
But they are entitled to legislate for themselves
in all matters of merely. local concern, so long as
their legislation is not inconsistent with the gene.
rap legal system of the empire; to provide for the
administration and enforcement of their laws, under
the guidance of a governor, the delegate and re-
presentative of tho imperial government ; and to tax
themselves for the necessary expenses of local go-
rernmenL
The right of all colonies to entire local self govern-
ment in the widest acceptation of the word is no
mere theory: it was the practice in all the earlier Log.
lish colonies. And they flourished under this system
exactly in proportion as it was honestly enforeed.
SMITH has remarked in his " Wealth of Nations"
that no communities had ever been so well governed
and so cheaply governed as our North American
provinces. Under this system, these provinces added
immensely to the national wealth and power, as long
as they continued colonies, and have added scarcely
less since they became independent. They would
have added more but for the absurdities of our old
commercial system. And under this form of colonial
government were trained and disciplined the great
men who established the liberties and framed
the institutions of the United States. The mother
country and the colonies benefited equally by this
liberal system of colonial administration.
Experience, therefore, establishes both the justice
and expediency of attributing to our colonies unre-
stricted self-government in all merely local concerns,
under the guidance of a governor appointed by the
crown. The claim of the Australian colonists to
legislate for their local wants, to impose and appo,-
tion the expenditure of local taxes, to nominate all
public officers except the governor, is irresistible.
It is only by such a policy that they can be made
and kept prosperous, morally and intellectually
vigorous, contented and loyal: an outlet for oar
superabundant population, and a market for oar
home-manufactures.

has been proposed that an act of the imperial
legislature should define what are imperial and what
purely local matters of legislation and administra-
tion. There would be great danger, alike for the
colonies and the mother country, in any such sts
tempt at precise definition. It would be certain to
err either by defect or excess, and the errors would
occasion quarrels instead of preventing their occur-
rence. It is better that the distinction between local
and imperial should be left to what is called the
common law; each controverted case to he settled as
it arises by friendly negotiations and compromise.
Governors compelled to act constitntiomllc by means
of parliamentary majorities could not encroach on
colonial rights; and the colonists, unprovoktql by
such encroachments, would deal liberally and cor-
dially with the claims of the imperial gownorient.
To the class of questions left to be thus settled
belongs that of the administration of waste lands.
In this we are far from entirely concurring in the
views of the petition from the legislature of New
South Wales. The waste lands in the colonies. we
agree with them, are only held in trust by the crown,
but they are held in trust for the benefit, not alone
of the resident colonists, but of the citizens of the
whole empire. The colonial lands yet unappro-
priated in private property belong to the British
people; every British citizen has the same title—
!wither more nor leas—to acquire a portion of them
in private property, and by the same means. With
a view to protect the rights of emigrants kind intend-
ing emigrants against partial administration by the
resident colon :stir, the imperial government is entitled
to a voice in their management. The administration of
waste lands is more a matter of imperial
than loes.l concern. At the same thou it toast
be admitted that through ignorance of broil relations.
and inattention to local remonstrances, the imperial
government has hitherto scandalously mismanaged

the vote lands of the colonic* Some compromise
ought to be attempted on this head, and may be
oily effected. In regard to local legislation and
fin owe, the petition of the legislature of New South
Wales speaks the opinions and sentiments of all
Australia; in reglad to the disposal of waste lands,
it spodis only the wishes of the preponderating in-
tenvt in the .L.egislatiye Assembly at Sydney—the
gnat stockholders of New South Wales--the " squat "
they are designated in local parlaere.
re; conduct of ministers with reference to the
s,„ south Wales pe_titiou has been egregiously
chirseteristic. As Mr. Wairoi.L announced his
militia qualification without previously consulting
colleagues, so Lord NAAS presented this impor•
tor petition without forewarning even the SS-
(1:1: \RI for the Cotosigis, apparently with.
eat taking the trouble to muter its contents
Limit Hence the contemptible and indecent spec.
mi.: of a Chancellor of the Exchequer opposing the
herption of a petition presented by one of his own
ea.:agues. But the ministers in the House of Com-
mons lstrayed on this occasion something even worse
this A frivolous and indolent lack of concert among
thrum:Yes. Mr. Dttaaril, catching at a single
iwhich he misapprehended) in a petition, the
~puurpm/ of which was imperfectly known to him,
4.played a vulgar eagerness to flatter the court at
the espense of irritating beyond hope of reconcilia-
tion an important portion of the British empire.
This sycophancy will be appreciated at its due
sorth at head-quarters ; there is no risk of its doing
harm there. But the inconsiderate precipitancy of
the .yeoph.int on so momentous a question shows the
haunt the country runs of an irretrievable embar-
rassment of its colonial relations by the unworthy
and incompetent hands in which the power of the
state is at present lodged. With the DERBY ministry
in power our colonial relations are in as unsatisfae.
tare and perilous a state as our foreign.