The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1849.

On the adjournment of the Commons for the
Easter recess, the Hon. Gentleman the Member for
Montrose availed himself of the opportunity for the
purpose of directing the attention of Parliament to
the disturbed state of the public mind in several of
our most important Colonies. In consequence of his
direct allusions to the excitement prevailing in
Jamaica, Demerara, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Ceylon, and the Canadas, Lord JOHN RUSSELL
appeared to consider himself called upon to deliver a
decisive defence of the conduct -and policy
of the Noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonial
Department. It is a somewhat fortunate cir
cumstance, therefore, that, immediately before
the temporary dispersion of the representatives, the
community is enabled in some measure to arrive at a
correct estimate of the difficulties recently accunau-
mulated round our numerous awl scattered depen-
dencies. In the accusations made by Mr. HUME,
and in the attempted rebuttal of those accusations by
the First Lord of the Treasury, the whole question
with its different arguments, for and against, has been
succinctly submitted to our consideration.
Remembering that there are no less than FORTY.
THREE Colonies obedient to the sceptre of her
Britannic MAJESTY, it is scarcely surprising—
(we admit that at once)—that the Colonial
Government should be liable somewhere or
other to obstructions and misunderstandings.
That discontent should occasionally arise in the ma.
nagement of so many and such remote possessions,
cannot for one moment remain a matter of astonish.
ment, when we reflect that those forty-three divisions
of our empire are distributed through almost every
quarter of the globe, that they are territories extend.
ing into both hemispheres, that they stretch north-
wards and southwards to the arctic and antarctic
circles, that some of them are broiling under the line,
while others are basking in the warmth of the tropics
of Cancer and of Capricorn. In directing the destinies
of their inhabitants, the statesmen of England have per-
petually to take into account their diverse and multiform
requirements--a necessity fraught with embarrass-
ments arising interminably from the variety of races,
of customs, of creeds, and of languages. Added to
these vast and almost insurmountable difficulties, are
the differences existing between the political institu-
tions of our colonial population. When these facts
are seriously borne in recollection, it is absolutely
impossible to deny that the uninterrupted preserva-
tion of amity in each and all of our dependencies is
sufficient to tax the utmost of even the most con-
summate abilities ever applied to the science of Colo.
nial Government.

Nevertheless, while these circumstances are re-
membered, it must be admitted by the Prime
Minister, nay by Earl GREY himself, that the very
presence of all these complicating obstructions to the
glib working of the machinery of the Administration
renders it more than ever essential to temper autho-
rity with conciliation in the treatment of our colo-
nists. Now the real accusation implied in the re-
marks made last evening by the Hon. Member for
Montrose was that the policy of the present Colonial
Secretary did not display this subtle combination of
command and concession, of sternness and leniency.
And the arguments upon which Mr. Huatr, and all
the conscientious opponents of my Lord GREY, base
their charges against his system of managing that
department of the public service are so far from
hypothetical, that they are ac-
being in any resvect
tually furnished by the deplorable condition of affairs
in no less than ten or twelve of our most valuable
possessions. We shall refer, however, to only three or
four out of these discontented dependencies. We shall
give the benefit of every imaginable or unimaginable
doubt to the delinquents in regard to Nova Scotia, to
New Brunswick, to Van Diemen's Land, to the Cape, to
New Zealand, to British Guiana, Trinidad, Deme-
rara and the rest of our sugar-growing territories, We