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

in g passed away—the imports into that settlement amounted
to 248,0001., the exports to 464,0001., and the popula-
tion to 28,000. In 1851, only 6 years afterwards,.the btu-
ports had arisen to 1,056,0001., the exports had risen to
1,423,0001., and the figures of the populatipn were re-
versed—for instead of being 28,000 it had increased to
i
82,000. This was the rapid increase of the colony of Vic-
toria, which Lord Glenelg and the Earl of Aberdeen—
and he was willing to admit that, had he been in their
po-
sition, he should probably have arrived at thesaelifitbai. i
deci-
sion as they did—were unwilling to consent to
He now called the attention of the house to . what
had been the immediate effect of the discoveries of
gold upon the material prosperity of this colony. He asked
leave to compare the revenue of Victoria for the quarter
ending June 30, 1851, with the corresponding quarter of
1852. For the quarter ending June 30, 1851, the revenue
of Victoria amounted to 35,994/. ; that was the general
revenue. For the same quarter in 1852 the general revenue
had increased to 98,4561., being an increase of 62,4621. The
Crown revenue in the same quarter of 1851 amounted to
87,874/. ; in the corresponding quarter of 1852 it was
186,579/.2 showing an increase of 98,7051., and a total in-
crease of 161,1671. In a few months the population' which
in 1851 was 82,000, had risen to 120,000—a result of the
enormous influx of immigrants. This would show the
house the extraordinary progress of the colony of Victoria,
and would show that the state of those colonies was such
as to require the consideration of the late Government.
What had been the amount of emigration during the last
few years? In 1849 the emigration from this country to
Australia amounted to 32,191 persons ; in 1850, 16,037 ; in
1831, 21,532 ; while last year (1852) it was not less than
8f,434. In considering what ought to be the policy of the
Government towards these colonies, the late Government
considered themselves bound to meet them in a confiding,
trusting, and liberal spirit. They thought that the Go-
vernment, living at a distance, could not judge of their
affairs and their expenditure so well as the colonists them-
selves ; and that they ought to place that confidence in
them which, as Englishmen, accustomed to the institu-
tions of this country, they were so well entitled to possess.
The late Government was strengthened in this determina-
tion by that honourable development of the national cha-
racter which had taken place under such extraordinary
circumstances. He should not do his duty if he did not
point out to the attention of Parliament the most creditable
and honourable manner in which the thousands engaged in
mining in Australia had conducted themselves up to the pre-
sent time. So sudden was the change that the local Exe-
cutive were unprepared with the means of maintaining
order, but both in the gold fields of New South Wales and
Victoria the general conduct of the people had been most
orderly and creditably. Notwithstanding the temptations
around them, the Sunday had been rigidly and properly
observed, and Divine worship had not been neglected. Up
to last autumn the Government of Victoria had no troops,
except 50 soldiers belonging to a regiment of the line.
They had no barracks ; they were billeted in the town of
Melbourne ; yet it was a fact highly honourable to the
British army that up to the time when he (Sir J. Paking-
ton) left office he had not heard of a single instance of de-
sertion among the handful of men thus employed near
these boundless fields of exertion. (Hear, hear.) In June
last, considering the expense to which the local Govern-
ment must necessarily be placed by the discovery of the
Victoria goldfields, the late Government determined to
place at the disposal of the local Government the revenue
arising from the gold discoveries. Accordingly, in June,
he sent out a dispatch, in which he announced that the
revenue derived from the gold was to be regulated by the
local Legislature, and expended by them. Just after the
dispatch in question went out a petition arrived from New
South Wales which attracted great attention, and which
was presented to the House of Lords by the Duke of
Argyll. The petition was a recapitulation of what the
colonists conceived to be their rights, and the demands
they were entitled to make. In June, 1851, the then ex-
piring Legislature of New South Wales in their last ses-
sion had adopted this declaration and remonstrance.
They were answered by Lord Grey, who refused every one
of the prayers of the petition. In June, 1852, just before
Lord J. Russell went out of office, and within a week of
the refusal of Earl Grey, the new Legislature, elected
under the law of 1850, adopted the same declaration. The
complaints might be stated under five heads. he first
was a complaint of the civil list. The second demanded
that the lands should be placed Tinder the control of the
local authorities, instead of the Imperial Government.
The third prayed for a reform in the Customs. The
fourth required that the appointment to Government
offices should be left in the hands of the local authorities ;
and the fifth prayed that all legislation upon local subjects
should be finally disposed of by and in the colony. Taking
these topics in their reverse order, he had to remark that
the noble lord (J. Russell) thought it would be possible to
draw a line between those matters which might be nanded
over to the final legislation of the local Government and
those which required the assent of the Crown. The noble
lord (Lord J. Russell), in his speech in February, 1852,
said :

" Another scheme which has been proposed is that a cer-
tain description of laws adopted by the Colonial Legislatures
should require the assent of the imperial authority, but that
with regard generally to the acts of the Colonial Legislatures,
no such sanction should be requisite ; and that a line should
be drawn between those laws which require the assent of the
Crown and those which should be enforced without such as-
sent. Now, Sir, Ido not believe that it is possible to draw
any such distinction."
The noble lord then adduced an instance, and said :
" But I mention this as an instance of the difficulty there
would be in drawing a precise line, and to show that any at-
tempt to draw such a line would be most likely to raise dis-
putes as to whether a particular law came within or shoed
without that line. I believe that any man acquainted with
the administration of the colonies will come to the conclusion
that it is only in rare cases that the authority of the Crown
ought to be interposed, and that with respect to local affairs
the executive and legislative authorities are the best judges."
Now he (Sir J. Pakington) concurred in these expressions,
and agreed with the noble lord that it would not be possible
to draw such a line. He concurred with Lord Grey also in
thinking that any interference on the -part of the Govern-
ment in disallowing the local acts ought to be of rare occur-
rence ; but if the attempt were made to draw the line be-
tween local and imperial legislation, he thought it would
fail. He should be glad to see, however, some such dis-
tinction established as existed in Parliament between private
and public bills. At present he thought that no real hard-
ship existed under this head. With regard to the claim
that the patronage should be confined to the colonies, the
l=ate Government thought that, for the sake of the colonies
themselves, it would not be for their benefit to eiclude the
introduction of persons from this country who might be
appointed by the Crown to offices of trust and emolument.
The general rule was for the Governor to select persons
among the colonists for poblic employments, and he agreed
with Lord Grey, that it was impossible or the Govern-
ment to recognise any monopoly of a right to such situa-
tions on the part of the inhabitants of New South Wales
as to preclude them from being bestowed on others of
her Majesty's subjects. With respect to the Customs,
Lord. Grey had in a great degree met the wishes of the
colonists, and the Customs were now placed on very- much
the same footing tie at home. The civil list was in New
South Wales a great grievance. It amounted to 70,0001.
i'year, Before the civil list was secured by the act of
1850, the Government called upon the colonial legislature
provide a civil list, giving adequate salaries to the princi-
pal officials in that colony, and, the Legislature having met
the wishes of the Government, they were allowed to regu-
late the other salaries subject to existing interests. He
saw in his place the hon. member for Kidderminster (Mr.
Lowe) who was more conversant than almost any other
gentleman with the land question in these colonies. He
believed that the hen. member, while he was a member of
the Colonial Legislature, was a party to the very able• cor-
respondence carried on upon both sides between the Legis-
lai,ure of New South Wales and the colonial authorities of
fnis country-with regard to the maintenance or repeal of
the Land Sales Act. This was a subject of the greatest in-
terest in the colony. The Government of the noble lord
(Lord J. Russell) refused the requests of the colonists with
regard to the management of the land. The colonists had
demanded the management of the land as a right. Upon
this subject Lord Grey said
"It is my duty not to withhold the expression of my de-
cided dissent from the doctrine that the waste lands in New
South Wales, or the revenue derived from them, are in any
reasonable sense the exclusive property of the inhabitants,
or that thetr representatives ought to have, as of right, the
control and disposal of that revenue."
The late Government agreed in these opinions of Lord
grey, and felt that it would be impossible to admit as a
matter of right that which, if admitted, would belong as
fully to the 40,000 inhabitants of Western Australia as to
the 200,000 inhabitants of New South Wales, and which
would indeed have equally belonged to the first few families
which settled in a corner of New Zealand. The right to
the waste lands was, in the opinion of the late Government,
vested in the Crown. Lord Grey admitted that it might
be desirable to transfer the control of the waste lands of
a colony to its local Legislatare ' • but he thought the time
had not yet come. Herein he differed from Lord Grey.
The late Government thought the time had arrived when
the. control of the waste lands might be transferred to the
lo cal Legislature. Having made similar concessions to
IJanada and New Zealand, they had determined to give up
the management of the land to the colony. Parliament,
considering it desirable to secure the means of emigration
to the colony, had determined that half the proceeds of the
land sales should be applied to emigration. That arrange-
ment had worked well during the last few years. But in
the present state of the colony, considering its rapid
increase in population and wealth, it seemed no longer
desirable to continue this allotment ; and the late Govern-
ment thought it might be safely left to the Legislature to
decide at what rate the land should be sold, and to what
purposes the revenue should be applied. On these grounds
P-re late Government decided upon making the concession
to the colonies ; but the concession was accompanied with
certain conditions which were not set forth in the dispatch
announcing it. It appeared to the late Government that,
irrespective of recent events, the Australian colonies had
Cham
outgrowber,n their original constitution of a single Legislative
while their recent rapid advance in material
prosperity made the establishment of a second chamber
more than ever desirable. Seeing that the colonies
had now the entire control of their own lands, and
considering the large revenues they derived from their
gold—the gold licenses issued in the colony of Vic-
torla produced last
that the ofthe late Govern-
rdent were of opinion that the check a second chamber
'would operate advantageously for the interests of the colo-
nists. The proposition for a second chamber was brought
forward in 1850 by the late Secretary for the Home De-
partment, and defeated by the then Government. It was
a second time advanced, and unsuccessfully, by
the right
hon. baronet the member for Southwark, who had long
taken so much interest in colonial matters that it had
caused him (Sir Z. Pakington) some surprise to see the
right hon. baronet intrusted with the care of parks and
gardens, and he regretted also to find that the right hon.
baronet was not present on this occasion. [Lord J. Russell
—" He is ill."] Then, he regretted the cause of his absence
more than the absence itself. At that time the general
feeling appeared to be in favour of the establishment of a
second cha.mbpr. However, the measure was recommended
to the colonies by the late Government, and it afforded him
great satisfaction to learn that the Legislature of New
South Wales had themselves undertaken to devise a con-
stitution, and that a dispatch was on the road to the Go-
vernment containing a plan for a double chamber, not dif-
fering in any essential respect from that which the late
Government sent out and urged them to adopt. (Hear,
hear.) The next paint upon which he would venture to
add- ens a few words to the house was the subject of trans-
portation. The present Government had announced,
through the noble lord opposite and the noble duke at the
lead of the Colonial Department, their intention to adhere
to the decision of their predecessors in favour of the cessa-
tion of transportation to all the Australian colonies. The
step taken by the late, and confirmed by the present Go-
ernment, was an important one, and,the reasons which
Induced it had not yet been explained. Lord Campbell,
he observed, had expressed his disapproval of the aboli-
tion of transPeion, and a similar view of the subject
WaB
taken bY the
before a Parliarne mostt eminent judges in giving evidence
committee in 1847. In the de-
bates which had taken Place on the subject in that house