The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-25 00:00:00

served 1vi11,0f.,20,000/. for the chief civil department of
the Government Now, one might imagine that that sum
bore some proportion to the ordinary revenue of the colony,
so that in the event of the unfortunate contingency of the
Legislative Council refusing to vote a supply, the Govern-
ment might still be carried on without their concurrence.
But the fact was that the estimated revenue for the colony
of Victoria for the next year amounted to no less a sum
than 1,750,0001., compared with which the sum of 20,0001.
was as nothing at all. Again, we had reserved 2,0001. for
the department of the Colonial Secretary of Van Diemen's
Land ; but, looking to the estimate of the sum required
for carrying on that department for next year, he found
that in consequence of the enormous rise in the rate of
wages and the price of provisions, the sum asked for was
just 11,000/. Therefore it was quite clear that Parliament
could not do better than allow them to vote their own civil
list, in the perfect confidence that they would provide suffi-
ciently for the public service. (Hear, hear.) Then, with
regard to the question of the unappropriated waste lands,
the Crown was proprietor of them as trustee, not for the
benefit of the inhabitants of any particular colony, but for
the good of the people of the empire at large. Here again
an intervention of Parliament took place, regulating the
price the land should be sold at, the manner in which un-
sold land should be occupied, and in which the produce of
the land sales should be disposed of. The right hon. gen-
tleman had not stated that the Legislative Council of New
South Wales had declared the Land Sales Act to be a perni-
cious and impolitic enactment. He was quite prepared to dis-
pute the justice of that description, for he believed that the
manner in which the Crown had exercisea its trust had been of
the greatest advantage. The right hon. gentleman was not
quite correct in his description of the object of that act.
It was not passed with a view of raising an emigration
fund. In 1838 and 1839 as much was raised from the sale
of land as had been raised in any year subsequent to the
passing of the act. He would not undertake to say whe-
ther or not in that Land Sales Act we stopped in the
ascending scale of price at the point most to the interest
of the colony ; but of this he was sure, that the two lead-
ing principles—first, that the land should be sold, and next,
that the price should be a fixed price—were sound and just
principles. With reference to the system of free grants of
land, the right hon. gentleman would recollect that in
British North America under that system enormous grants
of land were squandered on persons without capital to
carry on cultivation or procure a supply of labour. If
they wanted an illustration of the effects of the two sysl•
tems, let them take Western Australia and Victoria. Th6l
first was ruined by the system of free grants, while Vic-
toria, on the contrary, where land was sold at a high price)
was the most prosperous, and had been all along, of any;
colony, acknowledging the supremacy of the British Crown!,
(Hear, hear.) But he was prepared to admit that there
were considerations, having a political complexion, which
overbalanced the economical advantages of the present'
management of this matter. They were told by colonial'
governors that there was a settled and wide-spread opinion,
extending to the most loyal and respectable of the popu-
lation of these colonies, that this was a subject which
should be transferred to the consideration of the respective
Legislatures, as belonging to their functions to dispose of ;
and the present Government were not unprepared to carry
out the intentions of the last Government with respect to
this point. (Hear, hear.) It had been observed that we
admitted a single chamber in New South Wales in 1850,
because that was in unison with the wishes of the
colony ; but that statement was not accurate, because the
object of the proceeding of 1850 was simply to separate
the district of Victoria from New South Wales, and the
Legislative Council of the latter was left exactly as before.
He understood:that the Legislative Council was considering
the propriety of amending its constitution, and a bill had
been brought in for the purpose of transforming the exist-
ing single chamber into two chambers ; and in no long
time the reception by the Government of the ordinances
for that purpose might be expected. -Under these circum-
stances, the Government intended, before bringing in any
measure with respect to the Land Sales Act, to wait and
see what was the permanent basis on which the Legisla-
ture of New South Wales was to be fixed. The right hon.
gentleman proceeded to advert to the question of transpor-
tation, and he concurred very much in the right hon. gen-
tleman's remarks. Whatever might have been the past
colliPion of interests between this country and our penal
dependencies, we had now arrived at a conjuncture when
the interests of this country and its dependencies were
brought to coincide. The object they had contemplated in
selecting transportation as the chief kind of secondary
punishment was to have a punishment which, by the terror
it inspired, should deter from the commission of crime,
and should operate with a beneficial and reformatory tend-
ency on the habits and moral character of those who were
subjected to that legal penalty of crime. The object had
been most effectually accomplished by transportation. The
removal of offenders to the antipodes, and the infrequency
at that time of communication with that part of the world,
tended to invest transportation with a sort of vague and
undefined apprehension in the mind ; and, with respect to
the beneficial effects of transportation on the convicts, he
might cite the testimony of all those who had been to
Van Diemen's Land. But since the discovery of gold
all that had been entirely changed, and removal to the
antipodes was no longer regarded with terror. On the
contrary, the office of the Emigration Commissioners
was last summer crowded with multitudes of persons
asking for nothing more than to be sent to that colony.
With respect to the effect likely to be produced in the
discipline of the convicts, he need not remind the
house that the gold fields of Victoria were in close
proximity to our penal settlements in Van Diemen's
Laud, and therefore the temptation to escape, with the
prospect of making large gains, would in all probability
overpower the apprehension of being recaptured. He must
also remind the house of the immense increase of the expense
of living there, and that it would be impossible to retain the
services of the officers of the penal establishmentunless their
remuneration were increased about threefold. The main
consideration, however, for putting an end to transportation
there was the feeling which prevailed in those colonies, and
the fact that the Legislative Council in each and all of them
hadpetitioned her Majesty, and passed resolutions condemn-
ing in strong language the system, and asking this country to
put an immediate stop to it. With respect to Western Aus-
tralia, however, the hon. gentleman concluded by observing,
as we understood, that communications which had passed
between the different departments had satisfied the Govern-
ment that all the convicts of the present year might be re-
moved there.

Mr. ADDERLEY said, it must be satisfactory to those
gentlemen who a few years back combined together to directthe attention of the country to the properprinciples ofcolo-
nial government to find intim course of the two speeches just
delivered that almost every suggestion of theirs with the ob-
ject of carrying out the entire localisation of the functions of-
he
paperth e G
whicho r
hadnment hadbe
enbpeeunt
into
eiheids out.band,
drawnltappearebd from a
gen-
tleman
who had visited Canada, that the progurpessYofe that
country since it had the entire manegement of its own
affairs was most remarkable, and fully proved the benefit
resulting from localising the fusannicdtdei:on inisn
roefrfeestrpheeene
etGe
ttooovettrnhhee
cwmonbenitetrbo.
bHI
oafdethbeeexecpnorleomsnsadied his approval of the concessions
-
a bl
ei yv both
il
list,
land sales, he was glad that the strong feeling re
by the leading colonies of Australia had at last made
air impression on this country, The cost of sending
perout
cent. thnt. greater e emigrants
than it need tsby that revenue
haveevenue been—that waswasextlyfi tofty
say, while the authorities of this country managed
the emigration under that fund, the cost was 50 per cent.
greater, charged on the local revenue, than that of any
other means of sending out emigrants. The class of emi-
grants sent out was also not such as was desired by the
colony. He believed it was not the intention of the
pre-
sent Government to carry out the proposition of the right
hon. gentleman, but he was certain it was only postponing
that which they must ultimately do. In his opinion, the
right hon. gentleman had proved very considerably thUsu-
periority of his policy to that which he understood to be
the policy proposed by the present Government, by giving
-uP the land revenue to the colony. The giving up of the
gold to the colony was one of the most statesmanlike
things he had ever known, and by taking that course the
right hon. gentleman had gained for himself great credit.
' He had done in time that which he would ultimately have
been obliged to do, and thereby had gained for himself that
grace and those thanks which would have been lost if the
concession had been made from necessity. Upon the sub-
ject of giving up the control of the land revenue to the
colony, the most able arguments had been those of the hon.
gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Control (Mr.
Lehve). The full conviction he himself entertained upon
the subject was mainly to be attributed to the able argu-
ments of that hon. gentleman. (Hear.) There was an-
other point. The thing most pressed in 1850, in the discus-
sion upon the Australian colonies, was that the Govern-
ment did not take the best mode of giving the best consti-
tution to the colonies ; and it was said that, either they
might be given the best constitution, according to
them an
the idea
of 'this country, by two chambers, orb y
ving
efficient constituent assembly, representing the whole
colony, to form a constitution. The bill in fact, did neither
the one thing nor the other. It was stated avowedly that
it
the constitution would not be a perfect tate
one, and that
must be altered ; but then it was said that the power of
altering it should be left to the colonists. The consequence,
however, had been in practice that which was predicated,
o
—namel, that the Government here had been obliged to
advise the colonists to proceed to exercise the powers given
them under the 36th clause, and the Government were
obliged to attach privileges to those who acted upon that
clause, without which it appeared they were not willing to
that
do so. There were only two or three things more
were necessary to give the Australian constitution a per-
fectly British form. Both the chambers ought to be
the
elec-
tiv e. He hoped that would be the case, and also
that
veto of the Crown on local legislation would be distinctly
given up. It was so in New Zealand, or, rather, was
limited to two months, which was practically giving it up;
but why in the one case it should be restricted to two
years, he could not see. So completely did such a system
of reference to this country restrict and impede local legis-
lation, that it was the main cause why the colonies had not
advanced as rapidly as the United States. The right hon.
gentleman had said the colonies had advanced, and that
showed how little could the result of any particular course
be foreseen. The colonies certainly had advanced rapidly,
but, if they had had the foresight to take from the colonies
those difficulties which rested on them, but which did not
rest on the United States, they might have seen the Anglo-
Saxon race advancing in them with the same rapidity
with which the United States had risen to become one
of the first nations of the world. (Hear, hear.) He
would add but one word on the subject Of transporteair
-
tion. That was a point which had been pressed on th
attention from time to time, and which the force of cir-
cumstances had compelled them to consider. He could
conceive nothing more injurious to the interests or honour
of England than the course of sustained prevarication,
breach of faith, and perpetual infraction of promises had be whi
en
ch
had attended the long course of experiments that
adopted to keep up the most anomalous and vicious system
of penal transportation. It had been said that crimin didy
transportation frequently. became honest men
thatb t
never occur to those who used that argument the im-
provement of those criminals arose from their havi
greater space and gain„
he the means of occupationng ?
And he would ask the house whether it would not be better
to use those corrective means of space and occupation before
crime was committed than afterwards ? They were pledged
upon this subject, but from what the hon. gentleman the
nder.Secretary of the Colonies had said he thought the
hon. gentleman did not bear in mind the pledge, as he (Mr.
Adderley) hoped ho would have done, nor did the lion. gen-
tleman seem to condemn as fully as he d d
i the s
system of
transportation, as a selfish system adopted by thi country
in consideration of its own interests, and not those of the
colonies. The unforeseen and wonderful discovery of gold in
Australia had rendered the system of transportation thither
a perfect farce as a punishment ; and the colonists had
shown higher feelings in regard to this subject than the
English Government had done ; for, under the present
pressure of circumstances, while labour at any cost was of
value to the colony, it would have been excusable if the
colonists had sacrificed the point of conscience to self-in-
terest, and had accepted, as a matter of urgent necessity,