Tory principles, except under circumstances like the present, when a Government professing liberality adopts Tory principles in order to retain office. If the Tories were under the responsibility of office, they would be as liberal as the country; they would be controlled by the Opposition, just as the present Government is controlled, the only difference being, that whereas the guiding Opposition is at present Tory, it would then be Liberal. That, sir, would be better than the present state of things; and even better than that might happen, unless we are to conclude that the Liberal party has been so degraded and weakened by its submission to the Tories, that her Majesty would find it impossible to form a vigorous and self-relying Liberal Administration, if the present Ministers were to let go their grasp of power. Sir, expecting that insidious motives should be imputed to me, I think it best frankly to state to the House what I feel about the Government; but let me hope that my frankness on this head will obtain for me the confidence of the House, when I declare, that in submitting this motion to them, I am no more actuated by hostility to the Ministry than by personal hostility to Lord Glenelg. I cannot be blind to the possible result of such a motion being carried; but, as far as I am concerned, such a result will be merely incidental or accidental. I have not had it in view -that is not my object. My only object, whatever may perchance or possibly happen besides, is to relieve the colonies from an imbecile and mischievous administration of their affairs-to bring before the House, at a moment when they will give attention to such a subject, the critical state of

many

of our colonies, in various parts of the world-and to establish, for a time at least, some sort of responsibility in the Colonial Office. Are these proper objects, supposing the proposition contained in my motion to be true? All turns, I think, upon the truth of that proposition.

Whether or not the proposition be true depends on the answer to certain questions: Are not many of our colonies in various parts of the world in a condition which requires a more than usually wise and vigorous Colonial Minister? Does not the colonial empire at present exhibit peculiar difficulties and dangers? Is there not at this moment, more than at any previous time, a pressing necessity for placing at the head of colonial affairs a statesman on whose diligence, forethought, judgment, activity, and firmness this House and the country may be able to rely? Is not the present Colonial Minister has he not proved it by his actspeculiarly unfit to deal with the peculiar difficulties belonging to the present state of the colonies? These are the questions which I beg of the House to examine and to decide upon; and I will now proceed to state the grounds upon which I am led to believe that the conscience of every member of the House will answer every one of these questions in the affirmative.

In bringing before the House the critical condition of several of the colonies, and the peculiar neglect of that critical state by the present Colonial Minister, it matters but little with what colony one should begin. Every quarter of the globe furnishes a case strongly illustrative of the positions contained in my motion. But we must commence

somewhere. I will begin with a case as to which I can appeal for the confirmation of some of my statements to several hon. gentlemen; amongst others to the hon. gentleman the member for Newark,' and the right hon. baronet the member for Tamworth. During the last Session of the last Parliament, the House instituted an inquiry into the state of our penal colonies in Australia. The Committee has been revived this Session. The disclosures made before the Committee represent a state of things which it was hard, even for those who heard the representation, to credit. Not that there could be any doubt either of the knowledge or of the veracity of the witnesses examined, but that they described a state of society, a degree of moral contamination, a condition of national infamy, so revolting, that one was loth to believe in the existence of such horrors. The evidence taken before the Committee of last year is in the possession of hon. gentlemen. No one, I think, who has examined that evidence can doubt, that whatever have been the evils attending upon planting colonies with convicts, those evils have of late years greatly augmented, and have just now attained a pitch which requires some prompt, vigorous, and comprehensive remedy. Is not the right hon. baronet opposite of this opinion? The first step to a remedy was ample inquiry. The House will perhaps imagine that the Colonial Minister had some part in the inquiry which has taken place; that it was suggested by him; that he was sufficiently acquainted with the great and growing evils in question to have proposed such an inquiry in

1 Mr. W. E. Gladstone.

Parliament. Not at all! On the contrary, the country is solely indebted for that inquiry to the noble lord the member for Stroud, from whom, before I moved for a committee, I had the good fortune to obtain a promise that the motion should have his support in the House. Considering the colonial nature of the subject, why did I not, in order to obtain the sanction of Government, address myself to the noble lord at the head of colonial affairs? Simply, because I believed that such an application would be in vain. I was afraid of the proverbial indecision and supineness of that Minister; and I believed that the only sure mode of obtaining an inquiry on this colonial subject, was to pass by the Colonial Minister, and apply to another Minister whose department is eminently not colonial. My opinion of the Colonial Minister may have been erroneous; but it was formed on common report and belief; and the fact therefore is, that so far as I am concerned, the important information as to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, now before the House, would not have been obtained if I had not made bold, in seeking a colonial inquiry, to proceed as if there were no such department as that over which Lord Glenelg presides. Sir, if I had wanted any justification for such a course, I should find it in another proceeding, or rather neglect, of Lord Glenelg's, with regard to New South Wales.

While the moral and social corruption of that colony exceeds belief, its economical prosperity is equally remarkable. Nothing can be more clearly established by the evidence taken before the Transportation Committee, than the fact that both the evil and the good have one and the same cause

namely, a regular and increasing supply of convict labourers. If the stream of convict emigration be stayed, the source of the economical prosperity will be dried up, unless indeed some other means be adopted of supplying the colony with labourers. Amongst those most conversant with the subject, there is but one opinion as to the evils which arise from supplying the colonies with labour by means of transportation; but one opinion as to the necessity, if the colony is to be saved from ruin, of promoting the emigration of free labourers. The means, too, of promoting emigration exist to an almost incredible extent; they were called into existence by the noble lord the Secretary at War, when he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies in the year 1831. The noble lord's regulations for the disposal of waste lands in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (which did not take effect until the year 1832) have actually produced an emigration fund amounting to about 400,000l. sterling; and persons, on whose experience and judgment the greatest reliance may be placed, estimate the future revenue from the sale of waste lands at 200,000l. a year in New South Wales alone. Here, then, are abundant means of supplying the colony with a substitute for convict labour. Now, what has Lord Glenelg done with this vast emigration fund? He allowed a portion of it to be placed at the disposal of a private society, who expended the public money in sending out to the colony shipload after shipload of the most abandoned and irreclaimable prostitutes. He placed another portion of it at the disposal of one Mr. John Marshall, a sort of agent or broker for shipping, who performs (without