The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-31 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 31.

Lam evening a Bill, very 'modest in title and
appearance, of most unassuming merit, but of
large mope and purpose, was reed a third time in
the House of Lords, after an antedated passage

through the House of C 01311110611. Lord DAL-
EOS:TM paid it • just compliment is a =ware
very creditable to the Government, but it bas not,
we think, received all the attention it deserves. It
is entitled the Colonial Naval Defence Bill, and it

Lae • significance of its own as en act of policy,
apart from ita character as, in some sort, a sponta-
neous development of the naval power of the
British Empire. The object of this Bill, as ex-
plained by the FIRST LORD of the ADDILLAITT, is
"to enable several of the colonial possessions of
"her Mammy to make better provision for their

" own defence." There is something in this simple
description which evidently marks a new era in the
history of our colonies, sad a new phase in their

relations to the mother country. The time seems
to have arrived when these children of ours—a

little unruly and seltwilled sometimes, but

fall of filial 'affection for the old household, im-

patient of restraint, and not afraid of separation,
yet not divided in heart and spirit by absence or
by distance, but clinging still to the common roof-
tree of the early years—are ready and eager to
hold their own in the wide world. The young
man has gone out and fought his way end won a
fortune for himself, but he would fain take counsel
at the old hearth ; be is not too indomle to seek
a father's sympathy and succour, too inde-
pendent to claim a share in the wisdom and
strength of a father's experience.
It is by this mutual menu of duty and fidelity
to the common interests of parents and children
that the strength and dignity of old families are
preserved. Those mighty peoples sprung from
England, compared with whose destiny the balance
of power in Europe is but a shuffle of cards, are
"come of age," and with all the ardour of that
golden prime, they demand its privileges, encounter
its responsibilities, and confront its dangers.
Such is our interpretation of the various
proposals which have been made by the
Australian colonies, and which the Colonial-office
has had for some time under its consideration,

towards making a better provision for their own
defence. It cannot but be satisfactory to the
British taxpayer, whatever may be his theoties
of • colonial empire, to learn that these powerful
and enterprising communities on the other side of
the world, have offered to undertake • large por-
tion of the necessary cost of self-defence. The pre-
sent
Bill, which has passed so quietly and unob-
trusively through both Houses, appears to have
solved the difficulty which very naturally occurs
to both parties when it is • question of ascertaining
the proportion in which the one and the other
should undertake the cost of operations which the

one proposes and the other approves. Defensive
operations on the coasts of Austral a are clearly,
aocording to the most modern theory on the sub-
ject, undertaken rather in the interest of the Austra-
lian colonists than of the homekeeping population

of Gre►t Britain. It would be difficult to persuade
the most generous of taxpayers in this country
that be has an equal interest in keeping up a costly
Channel squadron, and • costly squadron for the
defence of Sydney, Adelaide, or Melbourne. He
would admit that questions which the Colonial-
office, iu a sort of honorary capacity, is invited
to decide, aro in a certain sense Imperial quer
tions ; but he would be equally persuaded that it
would be almost an insult to free and rich
communities, in the full enjoyment and exercise of
all the rights of complete self-government, to
include their gunboats and iron-clads in oar
Navy Estimates. We fail to apprehend what
the Duke of Somalian means by difficulties
" not so much in • colonial as an international
" point of view," which this Bill has surmounted.
Enough to know that • great principle is asserted
and an excellent result attained by the provision
that the whole cost of the naval defence of these
colonies is, at their own instance, to be undertaken
by the colonies themselves. All they ask for, and
all this Bill undertakes to supply, is " the arrange-
" manta for this purpose "—that is, the organi-
zation of their naval forces, which is to be
undertaken by them in concert with the Home
Government by means of Orders in CounciL
Nothing, it should seem, can be more harmless,
from the taxpayer's point of view, than this mutual
understanding between the colonies and the mother
country ; nothing, from the Imperial point of
view, more dignified and easy ; nothing, from the
colonial point of view, more effective. Our
Australian brethren will " find" themselves in
ships ; the mother country will " find " them in
organization and discipline, In the akin and