presumes that we could have had the same trade as at present with foreign lands, even though none of our people had gone forth to settle there; that all the countries which we have peopled and converted into growing markets for the sale of our domestic produce would have been just as useful to us, in a commercial point of view, if they had remained "independent States." The independent State of New Holland before we had planted colonies there! The independent State or people of America amongst whom William Penn and his followers settled! Is not Japan, with which we have no trade, one of the right hon. baronet's "independent States"? Have we such a trade, or anything like such a trade, with Java, as we should have had, if we had retained colonial possession of that most fertile country? The doctrine of the right hon. baronet rests on the assumption that the world abounds in "independent States," able and willing to purchase British goods, and that whatever may be the increase of domestic capital and production requiring new markets, such markets will spring up, just at the moment we want them, in the form of "independent States." Has that assumption any foundation in fact or reason? I cannot help thinking that it has none that at all events it is greatly to the advantage of a country like this to plant colonies, and thereby create markets where none exist or are likely to exist by any other means; and that this is pre-eminently the policy of such a country as England, whose power of producing wealth by means of manufacture has no other limit than the extent or number of the markets in which she can dispose of manufactured goods. But supposing this admitted,

and even admitting another great advantage from colonising-namely, the outlet which it provides by emigration for a surplus population--still the hon. gentlemen who agree with the right hon. baronet, the member for Dundee, may contend that there can be no advantage in governing colonies; that the sooner we convert them into "independent States," the better for them and for us. The sooner the better! but when? Should we, for example, now, at once, confer independence on the last colony founded by England, with its 3,000 inhabitants, giving up to that handful of people the disposal, without the slightest regard to this country, of an enormous extent of unoccupied land, and thus enabling them, if they pleased, to put an end to the whole system of colonisation established there, and even to become a slave-holding State, as they would be strongly tempted to do, if they did put an end to that system? Or should we not rather maintain that Act of the Imperial Legislature which gives to the labouring classes of this country, by providing them with a continually increasing means of emigration from low wages to high wages, a property, a sort of inheritance, in the extensive wastes of that colony? Should we allow the few, who have departed, to forbid the departure of the many, who would follow, if we do not abandon our dominion. over this colony? Then again, would it be right to emancipate Upper Canada, where, according to all appearances, the great majority of the people wish to preserve their allegiance to the British Crown? Surely, sir, the emancipation of colonies must be a question of time-a question in each case of special expediency. Might we not say, too, that it is a

question which would seldom or never arise between a colony and its mother country, if all colonies were well governed-not less well governed than were the British colonies of New England before our attack on their chartered rights of local self-government, when they were as loyal, not to say even more loyal-more devoted in their allegiance-than any other portion of the empire?

And this brings me, sir, to what I imagine has given occasion to the unreasonable cry of "Emancipate your colonies." In our possession of colonies there have been, and still are, abuses and evils enough. Surely it was an abuse of colonial possession to appoint Sir Francis Head Governor of Upper Canada; to give him an opportunity for creating a rebellion by encouraging preparations for it with "folded arms." And undoubtedly the present state of Lower Canada, the necessity of setting up a garrison government there, of bestowing autocratic powers on an individual (however worthy of confidence he may be)-this surely is an evil arising out of colonial possession. The Canada timber monopoly is a good example both of an abuse and an evil in colonial possession. It would be easy to multiply examples under each head; but how long soever the catalogue should be, would it, I ask, be more striking than the one comprehensive, all-pervading abuse and evil, of subjecting some forty or fifty separate communities to the rule (I will presently show how it is necessarily irresponsible) of one so incompetent to discharge such arduous and important functions as the present notoriously incompetent Colonial Minister? The abuses and evils of colonisation-this is indeed a

fertile theme, but it is one upon which I am not inclined to dwell now, except for the purpose of declaring that, in my humble opinion, comparing the abuses and evils with the uses and advantages, the balance has been, and is, greatly in favour of the uses and advantages. Those who cry "Emancipate your colonies" appear to have seen nothing but the abuses and evils; they have imagined that colonies and jobbing, colonial trade and colonial monopoly, were synonymous terms. Nor is this to be wondered at, perhaps; for it should be recollected that, until of late years, it was generally and seriously believed that a colonial trade was of no value, unless it was in some way or another a monopoly trade; and secondly, that colonial misgovernment has been far greater and far more obvious in the present generation than it was before. I mean by this to infer that the most enlightened men are apt-and by reason of their hostility to the old system of colonial monopolyto undervalue and disparage colonial trade itself, confounding the uses with the abuses, which last had got full possession of their minds; and in the next place, that since we lost, by maltreating them, our colonies in North America, and since we set up in Downing Street a Colonial Office to conquer and to govern the colonies of other nations; since, in a word, we abandoned the old system of Chartered Colonies and adopted the new one of Crown Colonies; since we exchanged our ancient and successful system of colonising-that of allowing to the colony a large share of local self-government, -since we have pursued the Spanish system of governing in all things from a distance by a

Council of the Indies in Downing Street, -the Street,—the government of our colonies has been far more objectionable, more ignorant, necessarily so on account of the great distance between the subjects. and the seat of all authority; more oppressive, insomuch as local power has been confided to strangers, who have no permanent interest in, or sympathy with, the colony; and, lastly, more injurious to us at home, by furnishing a larger amount of Government patronage, or, in other words, larger means of parliamentary corruption. A new dislike to the old system of colonial trade, and an impression made by the new system of colonial government, under which the evils and abuses, necessarily belonging to all governments from a distance, had increased and become more obvious these I believe to be at the bottom of the opinion, which condemns as mischievous and absurd the old fashioned, but (as it appears to me) sound opinion which is expressed by the cry " Ships, colonies, and commerce." Instead of wishing to separate from our colonies, or to avert the establishment of new ones, I would say distinguish between the evil and the good; remove the evil, but preserve the good; do not "Emancipate your colonies," but multiply them, and improve-reform your system of colonial government. Sir, I yield to no man in this House in a desire to preserve and extend the colonial empire of England. I wish that our connection with the United States had not been dissolved; because one may suppose that, if it had been preserved, slavery in America would have been by this time abolished, and the American tariff would never have existed. While, on the