The Express. — 1850-02-08 (London, England)

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8.  Tut liberal party in this country is accused of holding the doctrine that colonies are not worth keeping : we fear that it is not the liberals who have arrived at this conclusion, bat the officials ; for most certaisly to them, who have been taught, or been wont, to consider colonies in a government point of view, colonies are few of them worth keeping. What were colonies good for, in the eyes of such people ? They were good for taxation, good as a field of patronage, or as a monopoly of trade. The United States long since set the quettion of taxation at rest. No colony of English population will allow any revenue to be exported from it. Those who desire it, must at least come to earn and consume it on the spot in the shape of salary. And even this can only be done by keeping up an ascendancy party in the colony, gifted with the monopoly of political power, and willing to share it merely with a few sect out from Downing-street, in return for the real government and influence in the colony being entrusted to their hands. Bat America is the great colonial reformer; acd while the United States exploded the system of mother country taxation, Canada has exploded the system of governing by a league between official and colonial toryism. As to colonial free trade, that has carried itself. Cho very distance of our colonies rendered it inevitable that they should supply their necessities and make nee of markets in their own hemisphere. We were unable either to coerce them or to pay them, four being poli'ical and commercial enemies of their nearest neighbour,. All the good, therefore, that governments could descry in colonies has passed, or is fast passing away. And the great difficulty is, how are they to supply the absence of the old official links, or how replace them by some connexion more popular, more voluntary, more mutually beneficial, and more strong? That this cur be found, we believe; but let us first await Lord JOHN RVIIBILLL'S colonial programme. England, however, has other lands subject to her, not at all in the same category, and wrongly called colonies. These are countries of populous and conquered races, where the Englishman is only permitted to come as the master, the superintendent, the policeman, or the official. These are countries that know none of the rules or exemptions we have spoken of. They are corria6le d merei. Toey can be taxed for home purposes and for domestic caprice, their trade, nay, their very soil, monopolised. To talk of constitution or liberties connected with such a people is idle. We bold power on the principles of oriental despotism, which we wield as ruthlessly as NICUOLAS; whilst our governors, we are told, are very Havesue for flogging, confiscation, and murder. What control have we for the present, or shall we have for the future, to prevent such atrocities? None, save that wielded by parliament anl its committees. And the great effort of the Colonial-office, its secretaries, and its governors, is to cheat parliament, bamboozle its committees, screen the guilty, and put truth under an extinguisher. How is truth to be got at? It is quite plain, from the conduct of Lord TOSIINOTON, that the first act of a governor who has been guilty of cruelty from folly or from cowardice, is to crush the local press, quash local efforts to get up petitions, and build a thick wall round the colony to prevent accusation from coming forth. Send a commission of inquiry, urges a committee of the House of Commons. Impossible, exclaims the minister, you would discredit the government. Send, then, a sufficient number of witnesses home. Oh, yes. Yon shall have the secretary of the colony to examine and one of the police magistrates. But there are witnesses on the other side, whom it is so advisable to hear. Oh, they cannot be spared; they would cost too much to bring home; the colony could