The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-24 00:00:00

THE DEP RTURE OF Slti. G
GIPPS, THE NINTH GOVERNOR OF
_NEW
SOUTH WALES.
(From the Sydney Spectator of July 11.)
To-day, after administering the government of this
colony for eight years, Sir George Gipps embarks for
England. Valedictory addresses from Teetotal Societies,
the Mechanics' School of Arts, from certain of the citi-
zens of Sydney and settlers in one or two country dis-
tricts, have been moved, adopted, and presented on the
occasion. A subscription for a testimonial to his Ex-
cellency (which, at the time we write, amounts to
1,0101.), has been got up by the Very Rev. the Vicar.
General and a few other z:-slobs opponents of the Local
Legislature's earnest endeavours to establish a compre-
hensive system of general education in the colony. And
in so far as the applause of these parties is concerned,
Sir George Gipps will embai lc with " all the honours."
That many highly respectable persons have joined the
clergy in their demonstration, will be seen by reference
to the subscription lists; but that it represents the bulk
of the colonists of New South Wales, we are compelled
in the most unqualified terms to deny. Of the money
subscribed nearly one-half has been given by officials,
Crown nominees, and others indirJetly connected with
the Government, and we look in vain through the list
for the names of our principal land and stockholders,
the real representatives of the property and intelligence
of the colony. The officials, of course, save and except
the Chief Justice, who peremptorily refused to become a
party to the priestly demonstration—gave, each his ten
pounds to the Testimonial Fund—some have c tndidly
confessed that they can ill afford it. Newly-created
magistrates have also subscribed the same mystic sum,
and the Vicar-General who, on his pale horse in their
streets, has recalled to the astounded citizens a vision of
the Apocalypse,* has truly had cause to boast that "he
went forth conquering and to conquer."
When we see (says Lord Brougham) the most amiable
men, fast friends of liberty, champions of popular rights,
dazzled by comparatively trivial accomplishments and
services, exalt a ruler as a benefactor of his subjects
without duly reprobating the darker shades of his cha-
racter, we are unavoidably led to blame the eulogists as
well as their hero. They do not reflect when they
palliate the misdeeds of men whose merits in some par-
ticulars they may record, that their very virtues suffer
by the association with errors ; and he who permits a
Governor's encouragement of 1 terary institutions, his
example of temperance, or his conciliation of religious
differences to abate his dislike of despotism, forgets that
such merits do contract a stain by being found to ally
themselves with the dangerous propensities of our nature
instead of keeping us above such contamination.
The attempt of the clergy to commemorate the depar
ture of Sir George Gipps may mislead the people at
home, but it misleads no one here. His Excellency and
the colonists are directly at issue in regard to the prin-
ciples which should guide the most important function
of the Government's authority—the administration of
the waste lands of the colony—the solemn protests and
resolutions of the Local Legislature, the petitions and
addresses of the representatives of the landed interests—
have been disregarded, or treated with unseemly levity in
a Downing-street dispatch. Yet the parties who have been
the chief sufferers by Sir G. Gipps's determined adher-
ence to Lord Stanley's wild land theories were unwilling
to commemorate the termination of his own and his
Lordship's administration by any mark of exultance.
They knew that the " bold irresponsible despotism " of
the Colonial-office was a power to which prouder men
than Sir George Gipps had been compelled to succumb.
They felt that a reform upon constitutional questions
concerning the colonies must be begun by reforming the
Colonial-office. They knew that in examining that most
difficult question, the possibility of discovering a suffi-
cient price for our waste lands—the to kalon, as Mr. Pou-
lett Scrope calls it, of this branch of economical- re-
search—Sir George was influenced by those darling
conceptions which once flourished so fairly in Adelphi-
terrace. They were aware that ' the Governor' must
be influenced by the inclination of the metropolitan legis
lature and government to retain a branch of Cominion
which the colonists contend ought to be confided to the
colonial legislature and government. They were almost
inclined to forgive Sir George's contempt of the axiom
that a pervading and permanent interest exists recipro-
cally between the mother country and her colonies."
And, above all, they were not unmindful of the state of
his Excellency's health—shattered as it is said to be by
his laborious application to the details of office.
But the attempts of the bigoted Denominational-
ists' to commemorate the departure of the professed
fr:end,' the real opponent' of General Education, ha,
compelled those who (in the same spirit as that which
influenced the Legislative Council in its late adjourn-
ment) desired to avoid any angry demonstration, to
record in the most unqualified manner their dissent from
the fulsome eulogies of the priesthood, the ten-pound
tribute of the colonial bureaucracy.
A subscription for the erection of a column to com
tnemorate the retirement of Lord Stanley and the rec.]
of Sir George Gipps has been made by the landed in-
t--rests. A site for the column, upon one of the most
commanding positions in the harbour of Port Jackson,
has been already granted fcr the purpose; and (as we
understand) the following is the inscription by which
the subscribers propose to record their opinions of the
administration of Lord Stanley and the government of
Sir George Gipps:—

This column is erected by
The colonists of New South Wales,
To commemorate the
Retirement, or rather the dismissal, of
The Right Hon. E.le and Geoffrey Lord Stanley
From office as Secretary of State for the Colonies;
And also the recal of
Sir George Gipps, Knight,
From the government of this Colony.
Individuals by whose acts every interest
In New South Wales has been sacrificed,
And whose exercise of arbitrary power
Has done more to alienate the
Affections of a loyal people from
Monarchical institutions than
Many years of good government
Can redeem.
We are not disposed to examine, at this pressed mo-
ment, the tactics of either of the contending parties. We
simply desire to record, as a "great fact," another signi-
ficant result of a system which the Home Government
must speedily reform.
It was formerly said that if the advantages of colonial
dominion were fairly inquired into, they would be re
duced in every case to the profit accruing to the officers
dispatched to mal-administer the affairs of the colonists.
We think that in the modern cases of the Canadian and
Australian Governors, this axiom as to profitable satrap-
ship must be modified. Death appears to be the penalty
of the vicegerents' sins, and in reviewing the acts of a
Durham, a Sydenham, a Metcalfe, and a Gipps, the
future historian will refer with mingled feelings of pain
and indignation to the system by which so many victims
to " bureaucracy " were sacrificed.
That we differ entirely from Sir George Gipps in
his proposals for the future administration of the lands
of this colony, we need not remind the readers of the
Spectator. Whether as regards his Excellency's pet
ideas in regard to a " precise proportion between land,
labour, and capital ;" or, " the abstraction of our land
funds for emigration purposes ;" or, " the mathemati-
cally sufficient price for our waste lands," we have en-
tered our compromising protest against the transfer of
the " Adelphi-terrace conceptions" to this " unwatered
wilderness." We have attempted to illustrate the fal-
lacy of determining by the Wakefield rule the "precise
proportion of the three great elements of colonization."
We have endeavoured to prove that the economical ad-
vance of the colony has been in every respect retarded
by the appropriation of its land funds to emigration pur-
poses. We have submitted our belief, that the calcula-
tions made by Sir George. Gipps and the " Clerks of
Downing-street," in order to ascertain that imaginary
standard of price which will secure the presence of labour
in the best proportion to land, have been formed on in-
sufficient premises. And we have entered our protest
against that unconstitutional, that un-English system of
" Taxation by Proclamation," which it is the main prin-
ciple of Sir George Gipps's Pastoral Code to establish
in a British colony.
As regards his policy in respect to the Administration
of the Lands—the most important function of his au-
thority—we, therefore, are entirely at issue with his
Excellency, and although we do not go the extreme
length of desiring to commemorate by a columnar monu-
ment his recal from the seat of government, we sincerely
believe that the real revival of the prosperity of New
South Wales will be dated from this, the day of his de-
parture from its shores.
The " only theory" of the Colonial-office was confided
to Sir George, and be has brought it up with all the ten-
derness of parental affection. That he imagined his
patronage of the pet bantling to be conscientious we really
believe. Sir George, in his zeal, tried to carry out
Lieber's famous axiom, that wherever the application of
a principle or rule is required, whenever an abstract
principle passes over into practical life, conscientious
action is required, or it will fail to attain its object. But
in place of endeavouring to ascertain by what moral
principles he ought to be guided in the specific case
before us, and what it was that experience pointed out as
the wisest course for a conscientious man under the law
and in relations established by political science, Sir
pps clung to the red-tape prescriptions of the
George Gi
Stephens and the Gairdners of Downing-street, and made
their dispatches serve as the substitute for that essential
element of action which he pi ofessed to exercise.
But the reign of Lord Stanley and Sir George Gipps
is over, and England sees that a new and great colonial
career is fast opening to her. The necessity of a re-
form in the Colonial-office, to render it equal to the task
of suitably taking the lead in such a career, and of in-
troducing a system worthy of an enlightened people in
an enlightened age, is denied by none; and we scarcely
think it necessary to recapitulate the calamitous results
which seemed to threaten us when the ignorance of a
Minister, and the servility and obstinacy of a Governor
formed the main basis of England's colonial system of
administration.
That Sir George Gipps quits the scene of his long
government with impaired health, we do sincerely re-
gret: and had it not been for the injudicious attempt
of his friends to commemorate his departure in a
manner that may tend to impress the people of Eng-
land with the idea that the peculiar ethical theory of

• " And I looked, and behold a pale horse ; and his name
that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him."—
Rev. vi. 8.