Is

fully justified by precedent; but I will not rely at all on this justification. I rely wholly on the truth of my proposition, and the expediency of affirming it. This appears to me to be a case for which we ought to make a precedent, if there be none to direct us in providing a remedy for the evil. Whatever may be thought of the motion, the case, I will venture to say, is without precedent. Were our colonies ever, since we established a central Government for them, in so critical a state before? When did so many and such grave questions press upon the attention of a Colonial Minister? there a single member of the House who will say upon his conscience that the present Colonial Minister possesses any one, or is not deficient in all, of the qualities mentioned in the proposed address to the Crown? Sir, my proposition is true, and upon that I alone rely; for if such a proposition be true, who will deny the obligation upon us to provide an adequate remedy for the evil? Sir, instead of searching after precedents, I point to the millions of our fellow-subjects who are unrepresented in this House; to the great branches of domestic industry which depend upon the well-being of our colonial empire; to New South Wales, sinking into a state of irreclaimable depravity, with its free emigration fund locked up in the Government chest, and its oft-promised Constitution withheld year after year; to the Mauritius, with its 20,000 freemen held in bondage by the insolent and would-be rebel planters; to South Africa, almost denuded of its native inhabitants, distracted by factions who agree in nothing but their curses of the Colonial Office, and its horde of rebels gone

forth into the wilderness to conquer an inheritance of oppression over the helpless natives; to the "white man's grave," that job of jobs, which is rejoicing in the recall of a reforming Governor; to the West Indies, bordering on the ruin of their industry, inventing a new slave trade with the sanction of the noble lord, in order to counteract the noble lord's total neglect of the means which he himself has pointed out as necessary to preserve the use of capital in those fertile lands, grossly evading the Emancipation Act, after pocketing its enormous price, and fast approaching the time when, without a single precaution with a view to that strange event, 800,000 negro slaves will in one day acquire the same political rights as their masters of another race, and with the most important of those possessions in a state little short of open revolt; and lastly, to the North American provinces, where open revolt has just been suppressed, where civil bloodshed has excited the passions of hatred and revenge, where a Constitution is suspended, and martial law is still in force, and where there is no prospect of peace and contented allegiance, but in the prompt settlement of a great variety of questions of surpassing complexity and difficulty. I point to all these colonies in a state of disorganisation and danger; and then to the interests at home, which depend, more or less, on the productiveness of colonial industry, to Birmingham and Sheffield, to Leeds, Liverpool, and Glasgow, and to the great colonial shipping port of London. This done, instead of searching after precedents, I would remind the House of the noble lord's system, as described by his immediate

predecessor in office -the fatal system of doing nothing at all! If truth and the public interest are to prevail, the House will surely accede to my motion, whether or not it be according to precedent.

One word more, and I shall no longer trespass upon the patience of the House. It has been suggested to me that my motion would have been more likely to be carried if it had applied, not to a particular member of the Government, but to the whole Administration. For the following reasons, I have not listened to that suggestion. The subject relates strictly to the Colonial Department, and I wish to confine myself to the subject. It may be true that the whole Cabinet should be held responsible for the errors and defects of the Colonial Office; that may be a good constitutional principle, but I am not aware of it. Not being aware of it, I have pursued the plain and simple course of attributing to the Colonial Minister alone his own errors and deficiencies. The other course-that of proposing a vote of want of confidence in the Ministry on account of the state of a single departmentwould have been far more agreeable to me in one respect, inasmuch as it would have relieved me from the suspicion (which, however, I trust that none who know me will entertain) of being actuated by personal hostility to Lord Glenelg. On that account alone I should have much preferred moving for a vote as respects the Cabinet; but I felt that my first duty was to place the subject before the House in the light best calculated to obtain their attention, and therefore have I confined to the Colonial Minister the proposal of a vote of censure

1 Lord Aberdeen.

for matters which are exclusively of a colonial nature. I have very likely erred through inexperience of the usages of Parliament and the Constitution; but I have acted according to the best of my judgment, and throw myself upon the indulgence of the House. I conclude by moving, "That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, respectfully expressing the opinion of this House that in the present critical state of many of her Majesty's foreign possessions in various parts of the world, it is essential to the well-being of her Majesty's colonial empire, and of the many and important domestic interests, which depend on the prosperity of the colonies, that the Colonial Minister should be a person in whose diligence, forethought, judgment, activity, and firmness this House and the public may be able to place reliance; and declaring, with all deference to the constitutional prerogatives of the Crown, that her Majesty's present Secretary of State for the Colonies does not enjoy the confidence of this House, or of the country."

ON THE WAKEFIELD SYSTEM OF DISPOSING OF THE COLONIAL LANDS.

JUNE 27, 1839.

[The resolutions seconded by Sir W. Molesworth were as follows:

1. That the occupation and cultivation of waste lands in the British colonies by means of emigration tends to improve the condition of all the industrious classes in the United Kingdom by diminishing competition for employment at home, in consequence of the removal of superabundant numbers, creating new markets and increasing the demand for shipping and manufactures.

2. That the prosperity of colonies and the progress of colonisation mainly depend upon the manner in which a right of private property in the waste lands of the colony may be acquired; and that amidst the great variety of methods of disposing of waste lands which have been pursued by the British Government the most effectual beyond all comparison is the plan of sale at a fixed uniform and sufficient price, for ready money, without any condition or restriction, and the employment of the whole or a large fixed proportion of the purchase money in affording a passage to the colonies cost free to young persons of the labouring class, in an equal proportion of the sexes.

3. That in order to derive the greatest possible advantage from this method of colonising, it is essential that the permanence of the system shall be secured by the Legislature, and that its administration should be entrusted to a distinct subordinate branch of the Colonial Department, authorised to sell colonial lands in this country; to anticipate the sales of lands by raising loans for emigration on the security of the land sales, and generally to superintend the arrangements by which the comfort and well-being of the emigrants are to be secured.