The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-16 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY

lion;' thsre hal ;wee semsthieg ineeitione:l .Jett putting
ate ihot, neon tee neck ef a chief; shut would have
aeon call La l Sandiili proposed to put his foot upon the
neck of the Governor ? Tee Howie ha l beard, too,
about a brass-headed stick, under circumstances pre-
senting a very near approximation to a certain hat by
which one Geseler. once upon a time involved hinieelf
and his principals in a consideralile difficulty, He (Col.
Thomp;on)•lred, both in Africa and Asia, seen evidence
net to treat seini•barbarians with justice was the sure
key to their attacarneut and good faith.—(Hear, hear.)
The question was, who had applied the match to this
train? Gunpowder, everybody knew, was explosive,
and so wore the Kafirs.—(Hear, and laughter,) He
wanted to know who it was that had fired the train,
and so begun the mischief? It would be quite sufficient
for the House to say that in case of need it would pro-
tect our fellow-subjects in that part of the world from
being overwhelmed; but as to any proposition that we
would couquer all that portion of the African continent,
and thrust back and back the irreclaimable savages whom
we ourselves had wantonly insulted and injured,
let the House take heed how it sanctioned any such
thing, for be sure the retribution of Providence that
ever, throughout the world's history, had, sooner or
later, punished injustice, would, sooner or later, punish
that injustice also.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir E. N. BUXTON was rejoiced to bear this asser-
tion of the right of the aborigines of Africa. There
was ample ground for considering that very great en-
croachments had been made on the lands of the natives,
especially on those of the Kefirs, who, a fierce, warlike
people, had done that which it might have been expected
they would do in resistance of the aggression. We had
already been encroaching and encroaching, in Southern
Africa, until our empire there exceeded in extent the extent
of Great Britain. He denied that the policy of Lord Gle-
nelg had totally failed; on the contrary, it was the de-
parture from the Noble Lord's policy which had occa-
sioned all this mischief. Lord Glenelg's policy, as laid
down for the guidance of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, was—
" a systematic and persevering adherence to justice, con-
ciliation, forbearance, and the honest arts by conciliation
may be advanced, and Christianity diffused among the
people." Had that policy been adhered to the result
would have been totally different from those now un-
happily before the House. Ho was of opinion that it
might be dangerous to place the affairs of the colony
wholly in the hands of the colonists. The colonists,
no doubt, might be able to defend themselves,
but he was afraid it would be by means wholly dis-
tasteful to the Christian feelings of this country, by
bloodshed, devastation, and the final extermination of
the native tribes. The real cause of these hostilities was
described in the words of Lord Glenelg, with relation to
the conflicts of the colonists with the natives in Australia
—" The real causes of these hostilities are to be found in
a course of petty encroachments and acts of injustice
committed by the new settlers, at first submitted to by
the natives, and not sufficiently checked in the outset by
the leaders of the colonists."—(Hear, hear.) The only
right course open to the Government was a return to
the policy of Lord Glenelg.—()near.)
Mr. ROEBUCK said that much had been said about
justice and humanity, and the necessity of adhering, as
between our colonists and tbo savage tribes by whom
they were surrounded, to the same principles which re-
gulated the relations between nations of equal civiliza-
tion, the Honourable Gentleman, in common with every-
body else, blinding himself to the leading fact that in
all these cases we, of necessity, began with that which
in the abstract, and upon general principles, was
gross injustice. What had we done in Kafraria? Why,
we had begun with taking away people's land
from them, and then Honourable Gentlemen got up
in the House and said, " Oh, you must follow oat the
principles of justice in this cese." The real question
was, injustice having been done, whether there was no-
thing to justify the injustice? He, for one, affirmed that
there was. Take America, discovered in its islands by
Columbus. in its continent by Cabot; take it at the time
it was so discovered, and ask yourselves what was the
amount of human happiness which that vast continent
then contained?—(Hear, hear.) Compare it, as it then
was, not with what it is now, but with what it is in its
splendid expectations—weigh its past mischiefs, great,
enormous, overwhelinning as they were—terrible as the
conquests of Cortez, direful as those of Pizarro, cruel as
those of the Puritans of Massachusetts, miserable as the
devastations of Virginia;--compare all this with that ex-
hibition which its wide-spread plains now present—the
developments of modern science, the myriads of popula-
tion, the progress of human happiness and well being;
—weigh these two even together, though sorrowing, you
could not but accept the' one for the sake of the other.
Why should he blind himself to the consequences? Did
not the history of the colonies tell him that the mo-
ment the white man, and mere especially the Anglo-
Saxon, placed his foot by the side of the brown native,
wherever he might be found, whether in North
America, in South Australia, in New Zea-
land, or in South Africa, the inferior man vanished
before him? and the only question was between the long
agony of pretended justice and the immediate expulsion
of the aborigines. Let there not, then, be any false
modesty or false philanthropy about this question.—(A.
laugh.) We were going to expel the natives for the ex-
press purpose, and it was a false, hypocritical pretence,
to say that we were going to do anything else. Let the
House take the case of any one of our colonies—begin-
ning with Massachusetts, for example. That was a very
religious colony. They were a pure people, who went
out to cultivate the vineyard 'of the Lord according to
their own peculiar views. What did they do? Why,
one morning they rose up, and they said they were about
to smite the heathen hip and thigh, and to draw the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And they did draw
the sword, and did smite them hip and thigh, and alto-
gether exterminated the natives. That was what they
did, and they did it in the name of the Lord! Take
Massachusetts now, and what was it as compared with
the state in which the colonists found it? As he said at
first, he accepted the difference. He mourned over the
intervening circumstances; but he did say that it was im-
possible to avoid the consequences. He wanted to apply
this practically. We had no business in Kafraria, except
upon the understanding that we were about to plant there
a people of higher intelligence. It was impossible to bring
the degraded heathen up to that state of civilization
at which the white man had arrived. The native would
vanish before the face of the white_ man. The mode in
which we had commenced our colonization proved that
we believed such to be the case. We found in Kafraria
a body of mon who lived by hunting—whose Modes of
life required a vast expanse of territory. We took that
seizing the most fertile spots.
territory, and began by
What could the natives do? Nature told them what to
do—to fight, to oppose cunning to force, artifice to know-
ledge; and cunning and artifice sank before knowledge
and force. Then came poor Sir Harry Smith, and talked
asif these people had committed some dire offence against
morality when they rose against his dominion; and the
Hon. Baronet (Sir E. Buxton) asked them to do unto
others as they would be done to. But suppose the
Honourable Barone: were a Hottentot, or member for
Kafraria, would ho then apply the golden rule? Or,
suppose the Hottentots came to England, and seized it,
and some brown Sir Harry Smith were to begin talking
about his tender mercies, would the Honaurable Gentle-
man think that ho militated against morality by putting
a musket ball through him? Why, he would think
that he was doing a patriotic thing, and that his paint)
would he held up to future ages as a !kciltiades, a The-
, miatocles, a Wallace, or any other patriot. But to re-
turn; having begun with a gross act of injustice, by
dispossessing the country, he yet said that if they were
enabled to introduce a large body of English colonists
there he was quite prepared to go the whole length of
the conef quences; but it was an utter pretence to talk
,
of honesty, in the ordinary same of the term, of justice,
or humanity. They ought not to tnix up this matter
with the question of the colonization of the Cape of
Good Hope, because British Kafraria was in no way
connected with the Cape colony, British Kafraria was
a large tract of territory telten possession of by the
British Government, into which they had sent soldiers,
but no colonists. The Katirs had risen, because they
thought that a gross injustice had been done theen
They were right so doing, and we could only put
them down by force. Those men had steeled their
hearts with the deepest sen,e of injury. We had de-
prived them of that which was dearest to them. The
lands over which they had been used to roam in quest of
the means of subsistence we had taken from them. We
had circumscribed their means of living, and could it be
wondered at that they should rise against us? We had
planted in their nation military colonies, and we were
about to destroy them as a people. He wished English-
men to understand that we wore about to introchrce
among a people rather more than usually populous for
the extent of territory an English power with the ulterior
object of placing there English colonists. English co-
lonists could not be placed there without the inevitable
consequence of annihilating Cie aborigines. That was
what
had
been done in New Zealand, in Australia, in
North America, in all our colonies, and that was what
would be done in South Africa if the present syetf m
were continued. Toil the colonists—" We will plant
you here; wo will protect you from aggression against
the great nations of the earth; seaward, you shall be
safe; against the aborigines you must protect your-
selves." What would be the consequence? A militia
would be at once formed; we should march into, the
midst of the country and plant a town; an insurrection
would arise; we should put down the Ksfire; punish-
ment would follow; we should dispossess them of their
land, and the poor wretches would be driven back and
exterminated. That was when had been done in Massa-
chusetts, in Virginia, in New York.
The colonists had
put down a gallant and chivalrous race—a race warlike,
and possessed of many high qualities. We had dispos-
sessed them, and where now, he would ask, was the
North American Indian? He lived in history—he was
unknown in fact—and scarcely in the whole range east
of the Mississippi could be found one single nation of the
aborigines that was not like a wandering tribe of Gipsi • •es
—all their high chivalry gone—all their claims as a na-
tion melted away. They had become the subjects of ro-
mance. In their most cherished resting-places the axe
of the Anglo-Saxon had cut down and crushed the vast
forests through which they had been wont to wander,
and their hunting-grounds had become the seats
of art, of civilization, and of human happiness in a diffe-
rent form.—(Hear, hear.) This made all the difference,
and this, he said again, we must face, if we intended to
extend the present system to South Africa, As regarded
the proposition of the Noble Lord, he looked upon it as
a complete abdication of the power of the Government.
He (Mr. Roebuck) could put a meaning upon it, because
he could suppose a Government eo weak and so inca-
pable of governing as to be glad of any excuse for get-
ting rid of a difficulty. A responsible Colonial Govern-
ment shrouded itself under the miserable subterfuge of a
Select Committee, and in the mean time money was to
be spent, war and slaughter were to be perpetrated, artd
the great name of England was perhaps to be prostituted.
Time was when the Noble Lord would have said, had
such a proposition been made to him, " Do you think
we are going to abrogate our infections as a Go'vern-
ment ?" But he said to the Noble Lord, if he were ;wil-
ling to abrogate the functions of the Colonial-offiee.to a