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

enmethiog ebont Ceylon, but he did not think the cha-
r2'
Liiat ".I:,ti tO5. I 1 Wts tiy :he tsH,go_. iii
statese ef the Ceylon Committee —(Lien', hear.) Tee
history of tao Cape question afforded another instance'.
The Noble Lord had recounted instences of the faquie
of their policy. The strongest measures ever adopted
by the executive Government of this country as to the
Cape were in the time of Lord Gleneig, in censequesete
of the report of a Committee of that House. A Committee
was appointed to examine our relations with the Katirs
in 18e5. It sat during 1836. On that Committee he
(Mr. Gladstone) sat with Sir F. Buxton, who ha believed
was the chairman, and he never saw a Member of Par-
liament discharge his duty with greater zeal or energy,
or with a more complete command of the subject; and
yet what was the result? A total change oF policy was
recommended. It had proved a failure, and the
wars since that period had been more ruinous and
bloody than before.—(Cries of "Hear, hear.") But
he had a greater objection still to a Committee. It was
a stop in the wrong sense and in the wrong direction.
It was impossible to devise in this country any satisfac-
tory system of adjusting the relations with the Kafir
tribes.—(Bear, hear.) It must be done by men on the
spot. He did not say it could be done in a moment.
The consequences of the unfortunate steps taken in
former times were not so easily retrieved. They must
endure much before they could work things round for
the future. Bat let them not take a step in the wrong
direction. This was clear—there could be no new do-
mestic authority in England to give a sanction to the
management of the affairs of the frontier. He objected
to the management being in Downing-street; but he ob-
jected still more to its being vested in a Committee of
that House. If they felt now their responsibility as to
the expense of the war which had arisen when the Se-
cretary of State had managed the relations of the colony,
would they not be tenfold more responsible if they ap-
pointed a Committee to determine on those relations and
the system of managing them, and war were to break out
while that system was in operation?—(Hear.) Those
were his objections to the appointment of a Committee;
but, as he had said, he was not prepared to propose any
remedy of a' domestic character.—(Hear, hear.) He
was persuaded that one great object of their policy ought
to be, as cautiously as they would, but as speedily as
they could,, to carry on the management of this whole
matter by the colonists themselves.—(Hear, hear.) He
agreed with the Right Hon. Gentleman the Member for
Northampton that that was a principle of the utmost
importance, and they could not separate it altogether
from the consideration of any particular case. The
main principle on which he voted against the appoint-
ment of a Committee was the anxiety he felt to avoid any
system that could give a fresh Parliamentary sanction to
the mischievous and unsound system of the management
of the local affairs of a colony from home.—(Hear.)
These wars with barbarians on the frontier were local
affairs; and if they asked him why he was so anxious to
throw on the colony the burden of managing these wars,
he begged they would not suppose it was entirely, or
even mainly, on account of great public economy, which
he believed, however, would result from that policy.
He was ndt ashamed to say that, saving public honour,
no duty was, more incumbent on that House than the
maintenance of public economy.—(Hear, hear.) It was
not for them, as the representatives of the people, and
whose special duty it was to tax the people, and to see
that they were not taxed more than the exigencies of
the empire called for, to be ashamed to propound the
principles of economy—(Hear, hear)—but he felt that
there was a much higher printiiple in this matter. Ii
was not only for economy they ought to give to these
people the management of their own affairs, and leave
them to arrange their relations with the aboriginal tribes
in the colony, but to get back to the old system of colo-
nial policy—that system under which they ruled the
old American colonies. The colonists there did not ask
them to maintain their wars with the Indian tribes. The
real question was not one of- economy. It was this, how
the plague and scourge of war could be best kept down?
He was convinced that could not be done unless the whole
community to be exposed to the war was responsible for
the expense. The burdens of war, were they as unmiti-
gated evil? No. They were a providential correction,
imposed on mankind to check their disposition to quarrels
and warfare. What would this country be if we had some
unlimited fund belerging to other people, and not to us,
upon which we might draw at pleasure to pay the ex-
penses of wars in which we might be engaged? He
trusted that even in such a case our mural sense would
restrain us; but it required to be backed up by other
considerations, and the monstrous expense of war was a
providential check to restrain the fury of men, and to
render them less disposed to war. How was this war at
the Cape carried on ? He might say by the most scan-
delous extraveeance; he was atraid he might go further,
end say by the most scandalous corruption--(bear)—for
he was afraid there was public authority for saying that
peculation and corruption had disgraced this war. Did
they think it cost the Americans in their wars with the
Indians 1,500,0001. at a time? Were those wars dis-
graced by corruption and peculation? Nol because the
responsibility was placed on those most interested in them.
The only parties who could settle or adjust these mat-
ters were these who were directly interested in them.
Those were the persons on whom the burden ought to
lie. As for the proposition of the Hon. Baronet the
Member for Southwark, he had a difficulty in agreeing
to any abstract proposition asserting what they ought to
do as to colonial government, but when they had a prat:-
tical question before them, if they did not assert their
principle in a theorectic form, let them act on the right
principle according to the principles that had arisen.
They had a case of that kind then before them. The ques-
tion was, whether or not they were really to endeavour
to fix on the colonists the responsibility of governing the
colony. He knew of only one objection to that system.
and it was this :—Appeals might be made to their hu-
manity, and it might be said, " You are not going
to expose these colonists to the fury of barbarous tribes."
He did not know how that matter really stood, nor did
he believe that any information he could get in that
House would tell him whether it was true that these
colonists were not able to defend themselves from the
barbarians. He himself had a shrewd suspicion that
they were; and, if they were not, in case of need this
country would be ready to help them; but what we had
to do, meantime. was to require them to do all they
themselves multi for themselves, and to help them in this
by throwing upon them, to the utmost possible extent,
the responsibility of managing their own affairs. He
protested against the doctrine that the normal system of
colonization was what was phrased the preparing colonies
for freedom.—(Hear, hear.) It seemed to be taken for
granted by many of our statesmen that the proper mode
of proceeding, when you founded colonies, was to deal
with them as you deal with children; first putting them
into long clothes, then into short clothes, and by and by
(after careful consideration) breeching them. You
mast found colonies in freedom if you mean them to be
really free.—(Hear, hear.) By founding colonies in
political servitude you displace all the social elements;
you teach the colonists to place reliance where they
ought not to place it; you create a governing class; you
crests a sense of dependence upon the mother country
for purposes which the colonists themselves ought to
fulfil; and, above all, you create a great military ex-
penditure; and you hold out a direct premium for war,
because the more wars there are the greater military
expearliture there is—the greater the profit to be made
out of it by those concerned.—(Hear, hear.) Let the
House beware how it accorded its sanction to any such
mischievous, wasteful, and demoralizing principles of
colonisation as these—(Bear, hear)—let it, by means of
the Executive Government, and the agents of the Exe-
cutive Gevernment at the Cape, endow the colony, as
soon as possible, with entire liberty as to local adminis-
tration, throw upon it the responsibility of managing its
own affair.; and its own relations, including those with
the Kafir tribes, always with the distinct understanding
that the mother country would be ready to interpose her
powerful arm in case of actual need. Do this, and there
need be no fear of dismemberment of the empire.—
(Hear, hear.) As to dismemberment of the empire, let
him point out to the House that we had not at this
moment any colonies more attached to the mother
country than were the whole of the American colonies
prior to the outbreak of the revolution, yet there was
not one of these colonies but must have felt insulted by
' so miserable a bribe being held out to it as military ex-
penditure, or an army to defend it from the savages on
its frontiers.

Lord MANDEVILLE rose, not so much to answer
whet the Right Hon. Gentleman said, as because, having
been in the colony, he might state what would be of use
to the House.—(Eiear, hear.) The Right Hon. Gen-
tl,man said there would be no use in appointing a Com-
mittee. There was a Cammittee now sitting on steam-
;navigation, yet no doubt there were members of the
Government who had information on that subject. Be-
sides, the Committee had the advantage of being at a
distance from the scene of action, and, consequently re-
moved from the party strifes and disputes which would
bias the judgment of persons in the place.—(Hear, hear.)
`.Cho Right Hon. Gentleman seemed to speak as if the
'colony wished for war. There might have been persons,
certain contractors, who, derived a profit frum it, wished
for it; but the colony itself suffered too much to wish
:for war.—(Elear, hear.) The lion. Member for South-
)vark stated that the wars were caused by our encroach-
flientr. The reverse was the ease—the war was
caused by Kafir depredations. The , war of 1846 was
,been
by the murder of De Lange, whose cattle had
,i!heen stolen after the Fingoe who watched them had
been killed. The Boer was shot when he attempted
'to overtake the depredators, and the war, he believed,
was caused by the dissensions consequent on the re-
fusal of the Ketirs to give up the offenders. The lion.
Baronet had a very erroneous impression as to the
length of our frontier. It could not be much more than
a tenth part of what the Hon. Gentleman had stated
to be threatened.—(Hear, hear.) The whole Orange
River frontier was thinly inhabited by people whenever
attacked us. The Orange River sovereignty, he would
observe, was taken on account of the boors, not of the
Kafir§ ; the only part on which were Kafirs was be-
tween the Wintenberg and the sea. The whole of
Natal was surrounded by Zoolahs, not Kafirs. There
were none in any part of i 4 These Zoolalas were per-
fectly peaceable, as had been stated by the Right Hon.
the Under-Secretary. The Hon. Member for Stafford-
shire, in the same breath that he affirmed that not a
month was to be lost, recommended a commissioner to
be sent out. This appeared to be simply a contradic-
tion in terms.—(hear.) Tho Committee itself could
decide whether a commissioner was desirable, and,
meantime, far better than a local commissioner, provide
a constitution, and decide what portion of the expense
,should be paid by the colony. The Hon. Member for
NorthaMpton talked of boors in the Kat River. Why
the whole population there were Hottentots.—(Hear,
hear.) Appoint a Committee, and the Government, no
doubt, wcuid be ready to lay all the papers before it,
;and there would be found plenty of people in England
) able and wiaing to give information on the subject.
Colonel THOIIPSON had heard no answer to the
allegation of the /lon. MoVer that there had been dis-
tinct breaches of treaty, to which were to be referred
the first origin of this war. On the other hand, circum-
stances had been mentioned which bore out that allega-