The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-09-18 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, SEPT. 18, 1849.

THE Colonial policy of Lord John Russell's
government has certainly been productive of results
which must be anything but gratifying to its au-
thors. Last week we directed attention to the con-
dition of the Canadas, with a large class bf their
population exasperated to the verge of outbreak
and rebellion against the mother country. In
Jamaica, and throughout our West Indian posses-
sions, the colonists are estranged, and in active
collision with the government. Our advices this
week add to the catalogue of possessions, whose
inhabitants are dissatisfied with the proceedings of
the Colonial office, the Cape of Good Hope and
Sydney. In every quarter of the globe, in fact,
Earl Grey has managed to establish a quarrel, and
to sow the seeds of enmity towards British rule.
The groundwork of the quarrel in Africa is the
effort of the Colonial office to convert the Cape, for
the first time, into a penal settlement. The decree
for introducing convicts into the colony arrived there
in June last, and was communicated to the colonists
in the official gazette of the 21st of that month.
The indignation excited by its announcement was
universal. Meetings were immediately held at Cape
Town, and remonstrances of the strongest descrip-
tion were addressed to the Governor-General, Sir
11. Smith. The colonists contend, in one of the
resolutions agreed to at the meeting in question, that
" the British government has no right to degrade
into a penal settlement the Cape of Good Hope,
which became a portion of the British empire by
capitulation and cession of a friendly power, and
not by planting or conquest, with its rights and
privileges as a free and not a penal settlement
solemnly guaranteed ; and that all attempts so
to injure and degrade it are unjust and tyrannical,
and may be constitutionally resisted by the inha-
bitants as British subjects." They reprobate
severely the conduct of Earl Grey, in first directing
the Governor to ascertain their feelings upon the
subject, and then acting in direct defiance of their
strongly expressed objections; and they enter into
solemn pledges with each other not to employ or
associate with any convicted felon, and to " dis-
countenance and drop connexion with any person
who may assist in landing, supporting, or employ-
ing such convicted felons."

The reply of Sir H. Smith to a memorial, urging
that officer to use the powers of his office to pro-
tect the inhabitants " from the moral pollution
which they are threatened with," exhibits, on his
part, a sense of the impolicy, ane even danger, of
the proceedings of the Colonial-office. It is true
that he demurs to fly in• the face of the direct
orders received by him. In his verbal address to
the deputation which waited upon him, the fine
old soldier said—" This is the anniversary of the
battle of Waterloo; for forty-four years have I
served her Majesty—l say it with pride—and I
would rather that God Almighty strike me dead
than disobey the orders of her Majesty's Govern-
ment, and thereby commit an act of open rebel-
lion." But it is clear that this is not the language
in which he has already addressed the Colonial-
office. In his written reply to the memorialists,
be says :

" Gentlemen,—My duty indicates the line of conduct I
am bound to pursue, which is recorded in my minute of
the 15th inst., which I laid at that date on the table of the
Legislative ouncil ; and from which, as I there state,
nothing can, or shall, induce me to swerve.
"My despatch to Earl Grey of the 24th ult., accom-
panied by the numerous petitions, addresses, memorials,
&c., signed by so many thousands of the community, will
prevent this colony from becoming a penal settlement, or
I am deeply mistaken.
" This address shall accompany my first despatch to
Earl Grey on the subject."
In the mtantime, he intimates that the convicts
sent out shall be kept under some guard, and pre-
vented from being mixed amongst the population.
The following extracts from the colonial press
afford an index of the state of feeling upon the
subject :

(From the South African Commercial Advertiser of
June 27.)

" Besides the pledge not to em'ploy convicts, and to drop
connexion with those who do so, it will be seen, by nu-
merous notices in this day's paper, that banks, insurance-
offices, capitalists, and others, the most respected and
influential members of this community, are pursuing a
course that will in the end render the enforcement and
the demand of the measure altogether impracticable.
The felons will be thrown for support on the Governor at
once, and so long as they remain in the colony. Will he
venture to employ them on public works, at the expense
of the colony ? The payers of rates will demur to that.
" It is said, that for greater security, the people in the
country districts have resolved to employ no European
labourer whatsoever, until the power of smuggling thieves
and murderers amongst them as free emigrants shall be
taken out of the hands of their rulers by act of Parlia-
ment. This is to be lamented, but it is natural, and what
might have been foreseen."

(From the South African Commercial Advertiser of

July 7.)

" From all parts of the colony accounts continue to pour
in respecting the exasperation of the people. This, itself,
is a most enormous evil, for which the local government,
as well as Lord Grey, are deeply responsible.
" Yesterday, the bankers of Cape Town unanimously
refused to tender for supplies of biscuit to the Commissa-
riat, lest it should be used for the support of the convicts
on their arrival. Every man is doing his duty, as England
no doubt expected. The people are of one mind and one
soul."

(From the Cape Town Mail of July 7.)
" The Governor has, we understand, on good authority,
now decided upon having the convicts expected by the
Neptune, confined on Robben Island, and not distributed,
even on application, until her Majesty's pleasure is known;
and that a proclamation to that effect is to be issued
forthwith. To accommodate them, the lepers and lunatics
are to be removed immediately to Amsterdam Battery and
Saardan Island (Salt River.) If this be so, it may go
some way to satisfy the minds of the colonists, who can
now hope, by continuing a determined and unanimous re-
sistance, to see the hateful order in council revoked, as
soon as the home government shall receive the despatches
of the Governor, and hear of the proceedings of the
people."
What will the home Government do in such a
state of things ? Their position is in every way
humiliating. They cannot compel the colonists to
receive amongst them—to take into their houses
or their fields—the scourings of the prisons of
Great Britain, and the criminals which the gallows
has spared ; and yet we doubt much whether they
will submit to retrace their steps. It must be
borne in mind that this insult to the inhabitants
of the Cape was resolved upon, after their feelings
upon the subject were thoroughly known. It was
pressed forward with the dogged obstinacy, which
is one of the characteristics of Lord Grey's haughty
temperament. It was a deliberate and wanton
aggression ; and it is much to be feared that it will
be persevered in, even although, to save harmless
the vanity of the Colonial Secretary, a job is per-
petrated, in the shape of some useless public works,
to further exasperate the feelings and to mulct the
pockets of the insulted colonists.
A similar state of things has been brought about
in our Australian possessions, partly from the gross
mismanagement, by the Colonial-office, of emigra-
tion to these colonies, and partly by the course
pursued in the transport of convicts and the re-
formed (?) criminals from our model prisons. We
give a description of the present position of these
colonies from the Sydney Morning Herald of the
28th April, just received :
" Immigration has now been going on for some time ;
several thousand souls have been added by it to our
population ; and yet the cry from all parts of the interior
is, that labour is as scarce and wages as high as ever. The
arrivals have produced no sensible effect. For aught that
our distant settlers have experienced, the immigrants may
have been absorbed into the earth, or evaporated into air.
And yet immigrant depOts have been established to the
north, to the west, and to the south, for the express pur-
pose of facilitating the dispersion of the new-comers in
the quarters where alone their services are required ?
How is this ? The cause is very simple, but very alarm-
ing : the immigrants, with comparatively few exceptions,
refuse to go ! Whether they were misinformed in their
"five country as to the nature of the occupations which
avaplied !item in the colony s'olecteskag etr tuturq home,
whet4rAirey have imbibed false Orions respeothig our
remote districts, or whether they are personally unfit for
rural avocations, so it is, that from Sydney large pro.
portions of them will not budge.
"This is a state of things which cannot be contemplated
without serious misgivings. Our former apprehensions as
to the possible redundancy of immigration went on the
supposition that the immigrants would be fairly distri-
buted throughout the lengths and breadths of the land.
But this new aspect of affairs aggravates our fears a
hundred-fold. The colony is now in danger of having its
towns over-crowded, and its farms and sheep-walks de-
serted. Where labour is not wanted, it is coming in
overwhelming profusion ; where it is wanted, and wanted
with extreme urgency, it comes in feeble rills, or not at
all. What must be the issue of this astounding anomaly ?
One result must be, that our land-fund will have been
thrown away ? another, that pur towns will be filled with
poverty and distress. We shall have been spending hun-
dreds of thousands of pounds for the purpose of crowding
our streets with beggars, and goading hungry masses to
violence and robbery. We shall have a repetition of the
disastrous scenes of 1844 and 45 ; only with this differ-
ence, that wages were then at the lowest minimum in the
towns, and at the highest maximum in the interior. The