The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-22 00:00:00

geath Airtrsha has already a surplus revenue, and
Western Australia costs us annually upwards of
7004 with no more prospect of its ever baring an
ettate revenue than on the day Mr. Pam. first set
'for it. Why ? Because when South Australia
,as handed over to the Colonial-office, a system of
eslonitation was baud d over along with it, which
the office could not in decency allow to drop ; while,
with regard to Western Australia, the colonial
autheritiea in Downing-street have acted upon their
recogii•ld system of keeping a government on foot,
sad leaving the growth of a colony. to chance.
Some hints were thrown out while these and the
other colonial votes passed last night were on the
espie, about the expediency of relinquishing the
patronage exercised by the home government in
the colonies, and leaving the colonies to
ageman-
their own Orin, as the beat means
d promoting economy. These rennrks elicited
some rather startling averrnents from Lord JOUN
11C$SELL and Mr. NIACGREGOR. Lord JOIIN de-
clared chat " many of the colonies could rot produce
persons qualified to take some of the offices which
nevus were sent out from this country to fill." We
aemur to the justice of this imputation on colonial
intellect. We believe that the British colonists of
our day are in every respect quite equal to the colo-
sista of the era which receded the American revolu-
tion. Yet before that event the very highest offices
in the colonies were habitually filled by native colo-
nists, and AD.iat SMITH has borne testimony to the
great efficiency and economy which charac-
terised our colonial . governments in those
&ye. But even admitting that "some" colo-
/dal offices should require a degree of talent
which cart only be found in natives of the
mother country, this sirely is no reason for con-
tinuing to fill up with ministerial dependents all the
colonial offices which at present are so filled. Surely
there are some colonists competent to act as land-
surveyors, or customs collectors, or district magi-
strates, and yet, year after year, young Ecglishmen,
for whom their friends and patrons can find no other
way of providing, are tent out to hold such posts, to
the entire exclusion of natives of the colonies. Mr.
MACGREGOR said that since 1832 " great care had
been exercised in the appointment of officers to the
North American and West Indian colonies."
This testimony is so cautiously worded that it cannot
be easily impugned. We must, however, be allowed
to remark--and we do so from a very intimate obser-
vation of the exercise of official patronage in the
West Indies during the period referred to—that if
great care was taken in the appointments for these
colonies, the condemnat.on of the system of home
patronage is complete ; for it would be difficult for
the local legislatures to make such a large propor-
tion of inefficient, and sometimes positively discre-
ditable, appointments within the tame time even
though they were to try.

FANCY and romance have combined to paint a
delicious picture of the varied beauties and delights
of the New Forest. A greenwood ringing with horn
and hound, a close, umbrageous shade of pendulous
boughs, verdant swards, and sunlit glades, herds of
red deer bounding from the fern into the deep recesses
of the woods, shades in which the sylvan deities
might dwell, and openings in the deep forest to
which fairies might be supposed to throng—

Ar
el
A
one

i.og

;

In minus game and rere.r.e to past
The summer night, as riltae atones tell.
There is not a charm with which the royal chase is not
invested by the imagination of poets and novelists.
By " my Lords Commissioners," and by the passing
traveller. the popular idea of the New Forest might,
not unreasonably, have been deemed well founded.
Nothing can be more charming in summer weather
than the forest scenes which present themselves to the
traveller upon the old mail coach forest road. Every-
thing along the roadside is u well ordered as a
scene at Madame VESTRIS'S theatre. Not a single
object can be discerned to raise a doubt as to
the excellence of the forest management. Here a
young plantation, well preserved—there a group of
fine old oaks or birch : a-head of you a keeper in green
livery, mounted on his forest pony, and looking
about him with a practised eye; to the right a dozen
or so of felled trees, legibly marked with the red
arrow, and just prepared, of course, for carriage to
the royal dockyard; to the left a pile of cuttings,
lotted out for sale by auction to the highest bidder,
at the great half-yearly timber sale ; not a
gipsy nor an uncomfortable looking day-labours
to be met with in five hours' ride ; not
the slightest prospect of a squirrel leaping from one
bough to another without its being known to every
bow-bearer, ranger, verderer, steward, regarder, and
forester, whom her MAJESTY keeps specially to report
to herself, through " my lords," as to all that is done,
doing, or attempted.
"My lords," of course, had even superior reason
for satisfaction and gratulation. Once a year, having
signified his approach a month before, down there
came, just when the forest was gayest and the venison
fattest, the great permanent and responsible commis-
sioner from Whitehall-place, to see with his own
eyes everything that was going on. At the
entrance of one of the nine bailiwicks, or fifteen
walk', " my lord" was met by steward and lieute-
nant, and all the forest officers, and conducted in
state procession to the Queen's house, or the more
refined privacy of the new park. The pasty being
washed down with a cup of claret, and "my lord"
being proportionately refreshed and jolly, he was
considered in sufficient condition to receive the official
report of the " Purveyor for the Navy" and the
" Sarveyor-Oeneral of the Woods," to both of whom
he, of course, expressed his high satisfaction and the
pleurae he had in assuring them of the undiminished
confidence of their sovereign conveyed through
her commissioner. "My lord " being then trotted
out was taken down the roads and through the show
places of the forest, was shown the great osk and
the last new plantation (of which he was pretty
sure to ask something, as a bill for a few thousands on I
account of " finery, &c." had very recently received
the official signature of his department) and after
having gone sufficiently far to acquire an appetite,
was brought home again to partake of the turtle
brought from London, the ham ch expressly pre-
pared for the occasion, and the other good cheer
made ready for the purpose, and understood to be
adapted to the palate of "my lord."
The age we live in is, however, a decidedly commer-
cial, practical, businesslike, and money, making age.
It in also a somewhat prying and vexatiously invest-
igating age ; and such being its character, it is
scarcely wonderful, though, upon the whole, it mast
be decidedly annoying to " my lords," to have the
fact discovered for them, that there is such a thing as
" a-behind-the-scenes," even to the fairy visions of the
New Forest.
Some two or three years ago it heppened that a
body of gentlemen took it into their heads that they
should like to have a railway from Southampton to
Dorchester. Now, as every one knows, to construct
such a railway you must cut right through the New
Forest. The gentlemen in question accordingly ap-
plied to "my lords." "My lords" took time to con
-
eider. They asked the warden, deputy-warden, lieu-
-
tenants, bowbearers, verderers, and all the other
officers for their opinions. Their opinions were de-
cidedly and unanimously unfavourable. "Oh ! it
would never do • the forest would be ruined ;
the old timber 'wasted • the young plantations
cut through; the timid deer alarmed ; the rights
of the commoners prejudiced; the crown pro-
Petty irreparably impaired." "My Lords," ac-
cepting these reports, set their faces against
the railroad. " The Woods and Forests were re-
solved." But these railway people were, u most of
their class are, a somewhat dogged, obstinate, and de-
termined body of people. They had " resolved" also.
They were not to be treated that way. To the asto-
nishment of "my lords," they were not to be pat off
hj a short letter on a large sheet of paper. They had
the audacity to reply thereto, and they sealed with as
such wax and used u big and as official-looking a
as any in Whitehall-place !" My lords" had
' nuer met with such a thing in their flve-and-ibrty
years' experience ' • and even the *dor clerk, as he
Pared the nail of his bedew with as cdleial