The Cotton Factory Times. — 1903-11-27 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

OUR COLONIAL POLICY HAS BEEN INTENSELY SELFISH.  The Mother Country has made a convenience of her Ce;onies, and a dumping ground for her criminals and undesirables. Ever since the days of Queen Elnaheth we have been at our wit's end to find profitable work for our felons, and thieves, and murderer,. Queen Bess passed a law that "such rogues a- wore dangerous to the inferior people should be banished the realm." So our enterprising highwaymen end burglars were offered the choice of the sallow., or a term of slavery in our foreign settlement, There was not much to choose between the tws. but thousands of them preferred exile to death, and tliese were rent to our sugar plantations M the Indies, or to our cotton field in America, to work as slaves. The planters and settlers took charge of these poor wretches, and fed them, and flogged th,in. and made them earn their keep and more.  Put flu se undesicablee turned every Colony into a 114,11. They ran away from their masters and beune outlaw. and lived by murder, and robbery, and rapine, and devilment ofevery imaginable kind.  it ie said that the most awful document ever printed ik the appendix to the report of a Government Commikion that eat in 1637, giving evidenoe from eye-witresses as to the horrible condition of social and domestic affairs in the Colonies in consequence Of that :stem.  During the reign of George I. we shipped thousand= of thews criminals to Maryland and other Aniericin Colonies, but the War of Independence put step to this demoralising traffic in North America. When the Yankees gained their independence they Pefus,.4 to have any more of our felons so we had them to the Cape, or to Australia, or to any other (A;lony that was not strong enough to defy US. 'I ho Australians held indignation meetings, and I.endly protested against their country being turned HI!" a human ash-pit. where the scum of English crime could be freely dumped. In 1852 all the legislative weroblies presented a petition against this dreadful trade but it was not until 1868 that the last ennviet ship left our shores with its cargo of moral reto poison and corrupt the Colony.  Another serious trouble in our Colonial policy was As loss of all civil and political rights. Our Crown Colonies were goveined in London. The local governor was chosen oy tho home Government without 1;11Y rezard to his fitness for the post or his know' edge of the needs of the Colony. Sometimes the Post was given to some needy aristocrat to whom the salary would ho very acceptable. Fronde says that a Colonial governorship was once given to a mb" (-rause he wa.4 the biggest bore in the House (.41MTI1Ona. The man had made himself a nuisance t" hi, friends, and had become a thorn in the side party, so he received his appointment as the 14,105 t alid cheapest way of getting rid of him.  11,, Colonists were absolutely at the mercy of the Reven;or M I d his satellites. At one time they were er..n tried by jury. And when trial by jury was INl."bihln,d. the 'Otror; were invariably chosen from offirer.and paid ,ervants of the State. rFO!JiNthc ivl dibilitie utl cruel per6ecullous  the Colonists appeisled to the Mother Country again and again.  In 1824 the Australians appealed to the home Government for the right of trial by jury. In 1830 they presented a petition to the King asking for "a full participation in the benefits and privileges of the British Constitution." In 1841 they petitioned Queen Victoria " to confer on the Colonies the advantages of a Government, based on popular suffrage." In 1842 a vast indignation meeting was held, at. which the following resolution was passed:— "That notwithstending their numbers, wealth, the importance of their commerce, the high rate of their taxation, and the magnitude of their revenue annually contributed for Government purposes (2350,000), the community had no control over their taxes, no some in the management of their own affairs, no repre,entation in a local legislature, and were destitute of those free institution which every Briton was taught to prize as the safeguard of his liberties, and the invaluable birthright of his race."  WE