craft, the object of which is "apparent power," should be a little angry, is not surprising; but, let me observe, people are sometimes angry, or affect to be angry, not only when they are told new and unpalatable truths, but when they are told their own thoughts.-I am, &c., GOLDWIN SMITH.

Feb. 14, 1862.

III.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT".

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY NEWS."

SIR, I have just read the speech of the Duke of Newcastle, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the Australian Anniversary Dinner b. He enters into a defence of the present connexion between the Mother Country and the Colonies; and whether we look to his office or to his character, the importance of his words on this subject can hardly be overrated. We may be sure that from him we shall have the truth.

The Duke dwells upon the greatness of the Colonial trade as triumphantly proving that "the Colonies are still of some advantage, even in a low pecuniary aspect, to the commercial welfare of the Mother Country." But, as has been said before, arguments drawn from the amount of the Colonial trade prove nothing, unless it can be shewn that the prosperity of the trade in some way depends on the continuance of the political connexion. The immense increase of our trade with the United States since the severance of their political connexion with the Mother Country proves that the reverse is the truth. The defenders of the system of dependency seem always unwilling to face this fact.

a This letter stands in place of the original postscript to No. II. b Reported in The Daily News, Thursday, Feb. 13, 1862.

Το prove that our dominion over the Colonies is real and effective, not a phantom of self-deluding pride, the Duke mentions one instance in which a Colonial legislature altered a money bill on his "venturing to express an opinion, without interposing the authority of the Crown, that it would not be wise or just to pass it." Suppose the Colonial Legislature, notwithstanding his gentle whisper of disapproval, had passed the bill, would he have ventured then to interpose the authority of the Crown? That is the real test of the reality of his dominion. Christopher Sly the Tinker might possibly persuade the Emperor of All the Russias to desist from an objectionable course of action, if his reasons were good, and if he had a persuasive tongue. But this would not prove that the Emperor of All the Russias was subject to the dominion of Christopher Sly. The Secretary of State gives advice to the Colonies: so do our newspapers, and probably with at least as much effect. The newspapers, if their advice is disregarded, have no veto neither, I apprehend, has the Secretary

of State.

The Legislature of Canada, in defiance of the Colonial Secretary's expostulations, laid a heavy protective duty on British goods, whereby they not only did the greatest injustice to their fellow-subjects in this country, who were all the time being taxed for their protection; but gave to the winds the settled commercial policy of the Empire. Did the Home Government dare to use the veto of the Crown? No, they signified their dissent and their submission.

In like manner, when the same Legislature resolved

to contravene the policy of the Empire in the highest matter of all, the matter of religion, by secularizing lands which the British Legislature had reserved for the maintenance of the Established Church, did the Home Government, seeing so vital a principle at stake, dare to assert its power? As in the other case, it surrendered; and the Colonial Secretary who has recorded the transaction congratulates himself on having escaped, by the promptitude and grace with which the surrender was performed, the awkward alternative of having an Act of the Canadian Legislature passed in direct contravention of the Act of the Imperial Parliament securing the endowments to the Church. He thinks indeed that, had such an Act been passed, he would have put the veto of the Crown on it. In that case we should have been drawn into a contest with the Canadians for the theoretic right of forbidding that which we did not mean or dare to prevent, just as we were drawn by the statesmen of former times into a contest with the Americans, in effect for the theoretic right of taxing them, when it was admitted that we could not exercise the power. The Governor General of Canada was directed by the Home Government, in hauling down the Imperial colours, to tell the Canadian Parliament that "in coming to this conclusion, Her Majesty's Government had been mainly influenced by the consideration, that great as in their judgment would be the advantages which would result from leaving undisturbed the existing arrangement, by which a certain portion of the public lands of Canada were made available for the purpose of creating a fund for

the religious instruction of the inhabitants of the Province, still the question whether that arrangement was to be maintained was one so exclusively affecting the people of Canada, that its decision ought not to be withdrawn from the Provincial Legislature, to which it properly belongs to regulate all matters concerning the domestic interests of the Province." If the question of a Religious Establishment and of the relation between Church and State is a Provincial question, what question is Imperial? If on this subject the Home Government at once gives way, on what subject will it make a stand?

The Duke of Newcastle tells us that the Colonists are adopting the laws, the law courts, and the legal processes of this Country. But the independent States of America have equally adopted, or rather they have kept as a part of their English heritage, our laws, our courts, our forms of legal procedure. The decisions of our great judges are cited and the authority of our great jurists is invoked before their tribunals with as much respect as if they were the nominal liegemen of an office in Downing-street. And surely there is a charm and a value in this free homage to our law and its great expositors which does not belong to the constrained submission of provinces still dependent on the Crown.

The Duke goes on to say with proud satisfaction that the Australian Colonists have "the same institutions generally" as the Mother Country. He adds the qualifying words "as far as they are adapted to a new country like Australia." But a further qualification, of the Earl Grey on Colonial Policy, vol. i. p. 254.