Colonial Constitutions and Defences.

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ART. IV.-1. Colonial Constitutions: an Outline of the Constitutional History and Existing Government of the British Dependencies, with Schedules of the Orders in Council, Statutes and Parliamentary Documents, relating to each Dependency. By ARTHUR MILLS, Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law. London, 1856.

2. The Reports made for the year 1857 to the Secretary of State having the Department of the Colonies, in continuation of the Reports annually made by the Governors of the British Colonies, with a view to exhibit generally the Past and Present State of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 9th August 1859. 3. Canada-1849 to 1859. By the Hon. A. T. GALT, Finance Minister of Canada. London, 1860.

4. The New Zealand Constitution Act; together with Correspondence between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand, in explanation thereof. Wellington, New Zealand, 1853.

5. Copy of Report of the Committee on Expense of Military Defences in the Colonies. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 4th May 1860.

OUR Colonial System may be said to be composed of a number of political bodies, revolving round Great Britain as a centre planet, partaking of her progress yet with motions peculiarly their own. The phases which they present, and the phenomena which they exhibit, cannot be objects of indifference to the inhabitants of that central orb, in the destinies of which they must in a great degree participate, and to which they are linked not less by moral affinities than by material relations; for there is a principle of political gravitation which binds them together, regulates their movements, keeps them steady in their orbits, and to which even any irregularities in their apparent course are subordinate, and can be made accountable.

It cannot, however, be denied that much apathy has long existed in considerable portions of the community in regard to our colonial possessions. It does not, happily, characterise the governing classes; nor is it found in that section of our people which originates and organizes philanthropic schemes, and which aspires to extend the blessings of civilization and of a pure religion. to the benighted regions of the earth. Colonies have ever been regarded by these zealous labourers as advanced outposts, from which they may send forth their missions to subdue the vast outlying regions of heathenism. The indifference to which we

have referred, has, however, of late years considerably diminished; and the more frequent discussion of colonial subjects, the progress of emigration, but more especially the wonderful development of the great Australian dependencies, have resulted in creating a general interest in these distant possessions of the Crown, which, at an earlier period of their career, it seemed difficult to believe that they would ever possess. Regarded simply in a commercial sense, there is now a disposition to attach that value to our colonies that was long denied them by some eminent political economists. It was frequently affirmed by the professors of this school, that the colonies would still send their productions to this country, and in return consume its manufactures, whether they continued to be British dependencies or not. But the problem ought never to have been regarded in the light of an abstract speculation, in which facts were assumed for the mere purpose of philosophical investigation. Our colonies are, in fact, dependencies of the crown; and they cannot cease to be so prematurely, without Great Britain suffering an enormous loss of prestige and power and who can measure the influence of such events on her trade and commerce? Nor is it an answer to say that the colonies may now buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, and that they only resort to Great Britain as to the most advantageous market. The inhabitants of the British colonies are British subjects; they carry with them, or adopt English manners, English tastes, and English sympathies; they imitate English habits, and they like English things; their correspondents are generally in England; hence the demand is almost necessarily for English manufactured goods. Even if these should be a little dearer than foreign articles, they would still be bought; and the taste for these things yearly extends into new and more distant countries as the English race spreads over the world, keeping British commerce in the channels it has already entered, and constantly pouring it into new. It would be a bold assertion, and one very difficult to support, that if the colonies now occupied by people of the British race were occupied by another people, they would be the consumers of British commodities to the same extent as at present; and that those who would otherwise occupy them would not prefer the articles of that country of which they might be citizens, to those of another to which they were in no way related. These propositions may be illustrated by a reference to figures :

Population of the under-mentioned Countries, and Exports to them from the United Kingdom in the year 1857.

Imports from
Great Britain.

L.4,668,360

13,175,125 20,076,895

Ancient Systems of Colonization.

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Here the United States exhibits a return, in proportion to its vast population, which contrasts most unfavourably with the two colonies above specified; and it is impossible to doubt that the independence of the country has had much influence in restricting its trade with Great Britain, large as it is, and that it might, and probably would, have been a much greater consumer of British commodities had it remained an integral part of our colonial empire. Nor is there any ground for supposing that its wonderful material development would not have proceeded at an equally rapid rate if it had not separated itself from the parent state.

But the retention of the dependencies of the British Crown is sometimes objected, for special reasons, not without a certain degree of plausibility. An extensive colonial empire, it is said, is a source rather of weakness than of strength; the cost is considerable, and the profit at least problematical. Those countries it is moreover affirmed, which, in ancient or modern times, have indulged the vanity or ambition of acquiring distant and extensive settlements, derived neither wealth in the days of their prosperity, nor assistance in those of their adversity, from their thankless and indifferent offspring. The Greek colonies were peculiar to their age and race. Groups of emigrants, driven by necessity or impelled by the love of adventure, left their homes and renounced their allegiance, fixed their new domicile where they pleased, were bound to the parent state by no political tie, and were indeed wholly unconnected with it except by moral sympathies and traditionary associations. The colonial system of Carthage was founded on a strict monopoly, resembling in many respects that of England in an early stage of her commercial career; and she fell without having experienced, in the hour of her extremity, either aid or sympathy. Roman settlements were merely distant garrisons. Spain and Portugal, in recent times, justly forfeited the allegiance of their colonists, and lost their extended empires, by a combined policy of selfishness and ignorance; and the magnificent countries which they misgoverned took the earliest opportunity of trampling the symbols of their subjection in the dust and proclaiming their independence.

Great Britain alone among modern states has retained a large portion of her colonial empire. The policy on which it was originally founded differed, as we have remarked, but little from that of other countries; but the enlightened liberality of her leading politicians, has given a totally different development to the system from any that had been conceived possible to the less advanced states which have aspired to distant dominion. The rise and progress of the colonial empire of Great Britain, from the first attempt to plant settlements in North America to the last "annexation" in India, embraces only a period of three

centuries, during which a political fabric has been erected, composed of fragments of almost every extinct and every existing nation of the habitable world; and a power has been created to which, in the words of an eminent American statesman, "Rome in the height of her glory was not to be compared a power which has dotted over the whole surface of the globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of martial music."

Whatever objects may have been contemplated in her first settlements, Great Britain has not, certainly, since the unhappy quarrel with her North American colonists in the last century, attempted to obtain a tribute for her support in peace, nor does she hope to enlist troops for her defence in war, nor to increase her ordinary revenue from any of the natural resources or productions of the colonies; for even the untold wealth of the Australian gold-field, the indisputable property of the Crown, was abandoned with scarcely an effort for its retention, nor does she now seek in them an exclusive market for her goods, or any longer make them receptacles for her delinquent population. In truth, the colonial empire of England costs the Imperial Government and the British people rather more than L.3,000,000 sterling per annum. For what purpose, then, is it maintained? To those who look wholly to material results and a pecuniary balance, the question itself involves a paradox; but to those who regard a vast empire as founded for some higher purpose than the creation and development of wealth, the wilful dismemberment of such an empire seems nothing less than the breaking up of some vast and complex machinery for the progressive civilization of the human race, and an impious rejection of an instrument put into our hands by Providence for working out some great purpose of His

government.

Even the most material of our political economists, Mr Mill, while not overlooking inferior objects, recognises colonization, although originating in the enterprise of individuals, as involving consequences extending indefinitely beyond the present. "The question of Government intervention in the work of colonization," he says, "involves the future and permanent interests of civilization itself, and far outstretches the comparatively narrow limits of purely economical considerations. To appreciate the benefits of colonization, it should be considered in its relation, not

The regiment recently raised in Canada is an exception, but the experiment is not likely to be repeated; in fact, the cost was far greater than that of a regiment of the line at home. During the last Russian war, Great Britain, as is well known, had recourse to German mercenaries,

British Colonies Self-Governed.

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to a single country, but to the collective economical interests of the human race. It is also a question of production, and of the most efficient application of the resources of the world. The exportation of labourers and capital from old to new countries, from a place where their productive power is less to a place where it is greater, increases by so much the aggregate produce of the labour and capital of the world. It adds to the joint wealth of the old and the new countries what amounts, in a short period, to many times the mere cost of effecting the transport. There needs be no hesitation in affirming that colonization, in the present state of the world, is the very best affair of business in which the capital of an old and wealthy country can possibly engage."1

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Colonial self-government is only another term for an extension of the principle of freedom and the blessing of liberty over vast areas of the civilized world. This we believe to be the noble mission" of Great Britain; and her colonies are nobly fulfilling the great purpose for which they were called into political existence. It has been well to rule them with firmness during their infancy, and to control their inexperienced youth; but the highest duty is to teach them how to rule themselves. Emancipation from a wholesome restraint may undoubtedly be conferred too soon; for these young communities ought not to be left to themselves until they acquire a maturity at which the capacity of selfgovernment may be legitimately and safely presumed. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made both as to the moral fitness of some of our dependencies for the freedom conferred, as in the institutions which have been framed for them. These we shall have occasion to point out as we pass in review the various colonies of the British Empire, which we shall now proceed to do; taking, in the first place, as the most ancient and not the least interesting of our possessions, those noble North American provinces whose loyalty to the British Crown is only exceeded by the rapid development of their wonderful resources, and the space that they must occupy in the history of the British Empire, and of the great American continent the civilization of which is scarcely now more than two centuries old.

The possession of CANADA by the Crown of England dates from 1759, when it was conquered from the French by General Wolfe. It was ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. In 1791, Upper and Lower Canada were divided, and constituted two provinces. Houses of Assembly were at the same time formed, consisting of 50 members in Lower and 16 in Upper Canada. In 1840, Upper and Lower Canada were reunited, and a Legislative Council formed for the two provinces. This Council was to consist of not less than 20 members, but as 'Principles of Political Economy, Book 5, chapter 11,