The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-26 00:00:00

THURSDAY EVENING,

persuaded the magic of hisssb-genius can put new life
into their defunct political
a straightforward working-
day
and that his dex-
terity will enable them to juggle and cajole and mis-
leadErnoust, alas, be followed by
upon whapto
thriven by their adhesion t
The ceremonial of to-day day nation who have
political common sense.
cannot the work
always oof to -
bem o
goingrr to-morrow. w.
palaces
new-born Ministers
piewho
00
terms
kissingthis
Tory
h the
Ministry, Queen's
They
ahnedys .
mustT hke n
opwe people
things—and pay for them
reared by an architect from
Theye i
rh hear
no of
ranks,these
intends
ngtreanndds
will look for results.
gives power to the state a
to ask for national support.
the men who think—the men whose busy industry
whose r field, whose labour re-
quireswh o s e ingenuity
freedom,
bread—all these waaislnlhdws children want cheap
Disraeli-
Derby Ministry intend to With the prover-
bialhn ta
wot
thehtnh ewroerakl
m and—
generosity of their race,°.
the Ministers time ;" withthe they may say "Give
every true Englishman in his honourable spirit which
cry, "Let them have fair l heart loves, they may
the law cannot be expected) toplay;"
;"
but the time and
Dis-
raeli must pronounce. With l last long. Mr. 1
his
appre-
ciating the realities of a questiona power for
believe in its shadows ;in place he may pretend to
he may offer us political shamus of economical truths,
for prompt statesmanship, mayB ; and where we ask
procrastina-
tion and official juggle. He
may propose
very atmosphere of eloquence, do all this in a
and pungent with repartee. B sparkling with jokes
In the broad clear light of the
it will never do.
England in 1852, to bring forwaeed common sense of
stage tricks of the last century wouldthe old political
in the presence of the free industry be an insult;
re-
ductions of taxation, offers at th that, despite
hour a national
treasury containing a surplus of threes millions ster-
ling—to propose a rent-raising bread-tax
sheer selfish mania. To offer ead-tax would be
legislativeto leading
strings to a nation long since able
be insolence. The new Chancellor of
ther alone would
Exchequer is
far too clever not to know all this. Let us hope
he is far too sensible to take any step he believes
to be absurd. With a hostile Parliamentary
iitary majority;
with an expiring income-tax; withblatant bigotry
asking impossibilities; with an undefended.h coast in
very presence of an armed despotism ;
and navy scattered over the extremities
wit an army
aa i t f
taoni
ddkn
riches
we
hmewes
of an empire
its
whose heart is left exposed, whilst coffers are
groaning with repletion; with a popular demand for
extension of the suffrage whilst his colleagues think
Parliament already too democratic; and
with loud
requirements for an extension of free-trade principles
whilst his colleagues are pledged to protection
; with
the innate aspirations of a man of genius towards
liberty, and his official pledges to oligarchic service—
with all these difficulties in his path, men
need be
merciful and patient towards the man sprung from
the people—although in the full pride of
a realised
ambition he this day goes to " kiss hands" on thersed
for-
mation of his new obstructive Tory Ministry: He
has reached the top round of the ladder. with an
overload of promises it is impossible to fulfil, and of
pledges no man could keep, how can be avoid top-
pling over ?
TlMES.—There is no appointment in Lord
Derby's Cabinet which has given occasion to more
unfavourable criticism than that strange ca
fate which has intrusted to a gentleman, rice of
hithertogty
principally known at quarter sessions, the sovereignty
over ver the forty-four colonies of Great Britain. Then
transition from discussing public-house licensee
punishing poachers to the obscure and stormy politics
and
f so many remote and discontented communities is
o
certainly rather violent, besides that there are
wanting those who assert that the appointment not
Sir John Pakington is a pledge to the West Indian
interest that the Ministry are prepared to preventali
hat decrease in the protection of sugar which 's
about
to come into operation. Adhering to thei
rule we have laid down for ourselves of prejudg-
ing
nothing, and estimating impartially tie,..merits of the Ministry by their acts rather than
by their antecedents, we deprecate any attempt to
prejudice the public mind unduly against the new
Colonial Secretary. Certainly we have no reason to
thec
suppose that he has ever devoted much attention to
_ e orriPlicated duties which he has undertaken, and
havew no difficulty in assuming that he is utterly
unequalthosel to the discharge of one-twentieth part of
aims which so many and such varying inte-
rests c
make
upon the time of the Colonial Minister.
But have we ever had, or are we ever likely to have,
Secretary of State for the Colonies of whom athe
same
thing cannot with truth be said ? Has any one
over
e
yet held the seals who was not to a considerable
degree wanting, not only in that local knowledge of
our colonies which nothing but a personal visit can
impart,
factory
information which is derived from Parlia-
metary
blue
.books and the accounts of travellers ?
So long
as we choose to govern our colonies by a
centralised despotism, ex •
ercised by persons who
have never set foot on the shore of any of
them, and who are not brought
up to the business,
ignorance in the governing
Iperson must be unavoid-
able, and the question cano
a y' be one of amount and
degree. Every Colonial Minister under our present
system is necessarily unfit for and unequal to the
office he undertakes. It is the fault of the system
more than the individual that we choose to take upon
ourselves the government of people who know their
own interests much better
and that, being resolved onthan we can teach them,
it up by the second abs this first folly, we follow
single person duties urdity of requiring from a
which, divided among several,
would still be inadequately performed. A Colonial
l‘linister may know more and be able to discourse
more plausibly about Col
whom he encounters either than the gentlemen
inent ; but this would availr in
society or in Parlia-
ment
positive disadvante ehim little—nay, would be
rely on his own F if it induced him to
he is, therefore, able judgment and believe that
in their affairs. No to intermeddle successfully
knowledge less than that
possessed by the colonists
themselves will do this, and
that knowledge it is quite
certain no Colonial Minis-
ter can or ever will possess' Placed at such un-
avoidable disadvantage in the execution of his office,
the Colonial Minister li
open for his adoption. He may
three courses of action
judgment ; he may attend may either follow his own
Colonial-office ; or, lastly,to that of the clerks of the
of the colonists themselves. he may consult the wishes
to have been the course pi' The first we apprehend
with very considerable knowledge.rsued b Lord Grey, who,
and great confidence in h of colonial affairs,
behind him a reputation !As- own judgment, has left
successors has no occasion which the least skilful of his
pose that our new Colonial t° envy. We cannot sup-
have acquired even a rudimentary Secretary, who can scarcely
subject, is likely to fall into
between
the first of these errors.
to be guided implicitly by
thetsveen suffering himself
he is the nominal head, or b bureaucracy, of which
themselves. The firs?' the opinions of the colo-
nistseasiest and most natural ; tb of these courses is the
re-
commend it beyond its justice° second has little to
permanent officials of the Colonial-office and expediency. The
terest—nay, very exi enial-office find their in-
theirper-
petuating the present system of
in
in withholding that self-governmentef centralised despotism,
often nominally bestowed but, often promised,
America, never really gie'en. except in the case of
useful and dexterous, as these gentlemen are, the Able and well informed,
pre-
valence of their influence over
bodes little good to the consolidation of our empire or
the Colonial Minister
the extension of our commerce. The Colonial-office
point of view is neither imperial nor colonial, it is
bureaucratic, and requires te
continuance of our
present mischievous system of
meddling, not for the
sake of the colonies, nor of the
mother country, but
for the sake of those into whose
hands the manage-
ment of that system almost necessarily
John Pakington must, we
should devolves. Sir
1,
with one great advantage over e:think, enter office
thorough consciousness of his own"'s. predecessors—a
be wise, he will make this consciouisgnerance. If it
principle, and seek information, not fromness his
guiding
subor-
dinates of his office, whose interest the
him in a state of perpetual minority it is to keep
but from the data which will be and tutelage,
furnished him
the numerous remonstrances and
addresses of
the colonists themselves. From these he •
that however excellent may be the will learn
b. y which the Home Government has arguments
justify its interference with the domestic sought to
the colonies, that interference basbeen concerns of
regarded by those best informed and roost
uniformly
as a source of unmixed evil. lie e interested
hope to carry on this system with betteratinot possibly
men who, like Lord Grey, or his official success than
Derby, have been for years at the h chief, Lord
affairs ; but he can, if lie will, do better ad
of colonial
for he can remit the decision to the than they,
.colonists them-
selves, and thus, while disembarrassing
ob-
tain credit by placing power in the handhineself,
to wield it. Thus, our new Colonial 8 best able
Secretary will
find that for the last ten years the
Home Government and the opinions policyof of the
the Aus-
tralian colonists have been running in
opposite directions, the one tending to precisely
a
other to a low price of colonial lands ;
high, the
he will
also find the question additionally s
complicated by
the recent discoveries of gold, which render prompt
resolutions, taken on the spot, absolutely necessary.
he
Under these circumstances he will not,if
be wise,
questions
embarrass himself with the complicated
relating to Australian lands, which it
would require
months to master and deal with, but
will
decide at
once to remit the whole decision of the question,
with which no authority on this side of the globe
is competent to deal, to the governors and councils
of the respective colonies. So, also,
with
regard
to New Zealand, he will be content to delegate to
an assembly formed by representatives of the
several colonies that power of legislation which
Lord Grey has already exercised and been obliged
to recal. In the Cape the application of the prin-
ciple may he more difficult; but as it •
is easy to
gee that the struggle must end in leaving the defence