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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 55

The Natal Mercury — Commercial Advertiser and Shipping Gazette

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The Natal Mercury

Commercial Advertiser and Shipping Gazette.

The Natal Mercury

A Correspondent in to-day's issue is good enough to volunteer the testimony of a stranger and an outsider to the efficacy of responsible government. Mr. Smithis so fortunate as to be a New Zealander, and is well qualified, therefore, to speak with the authority that attaches to practical experience of the working or the system. New Zealand has had its native difficulties and its native wars, and both only terminated when the Colony undertook the control of its own affairs. War after war, rising after rising, followed in quick succession as long as Dowing Street held the reins. Military operations dragged on at great cost, and with indifferent success, until the happy thought occurred to the guardians of the Empire that a little less Imperial interference and a good deal more colonial control and responsibility might work a change. And so those influences did. In a very short time Maori wars became things of the past, and the Maoris now live at peace and on good terms with the white colonists. New Zealanders would not change the freedom of government under which they live for all the coin that a twenty years' campaign with Imperial troops might circulate in the country. Nor would they emulate the humiliating example set by so many of on neighbours in the Eastern Province in visiting whatever ills they suffer from upon the fact that they rule themselves. Our antipodean cousins would be ashamed to do so. The "Britain of the South" is the abode of sturdy English colonists, who act up to the traditions of their forefathers, and; who trace out current evils to their true; sources. They do not weakly bewail the liberality of the Home Government in giving to their country its freedom. They have their grievances and embarrassments like the rest of us. They are as a colony deeply in debt, but they have derived so much benefit from the expenditure of their borrowed money that they are eager to borrow more. They have a considerable native population in the northern island, but they know how to deal with those people when the occasion arises. They have taxes to pay and party influences to contend against, but they are consoled and sustained by the knowledge that the power of the purse and the power of punishment at the polling booths rest in their own hands. So far from dreading responsibility they value and cherish it as their chief safeguard against maladministration.

Mr. Smithshows us that whether we compare imports or exports per head of the population of the colony, Natal stands a miserably long distance behind Australasia. In the one case the comparison is as £5 to £17 per head; in the other it is as 36s. 6d. to £15 10s. per head. He includes of course the native population; it would never occur to him to exclude nine-tenths of the inhabitants from such a calculation merely because! they are black. That is a method of political argument confined to communities whose page break political vision has been contracted and warped by a long experience of political tutelage. Our natives have a perfect right to be regarded as an integral element in the community by virtue—of their presence amongst us in the first instance, and not less by reason of what they consume, what they produce, and what they contribute in taxes and labour to the support of the government and the wealth of the colony. As a matter of fact they are the peasantry of the country, and a very loyal, if lordly, peasantry too. Mr. Smithis evidently of opinion that in our native population we have good material for the development of a far higher degree of progress and productiveness than has yet been attained; but he believes that no substantial improvement will take place in this direction so long as the " ruling and nomi-" nated class " as Orown servants have it all their own way." For you, at any rate, the first thing to be done is to face boldly your present condition and the causes that are producing it, and those causes are not having responsible government Responsible government will effectually put your local body in such a position as will enable them to do the work which rightly devolves on them, and which must be done if the colony is to prosper. It is selfevident that with responsible government you will be able to address yourselves to real economy, to awaken you to the facts of your position and the responsibility it involves. Waste of revenue will be impossible, representatives will have to face the sensitive taxpayer, every man of whom should know what government is costing. Under the present want of system nobody knows, and few people care." These sentiments are but a repetition of what we have been putting forward for years past, but they are timely and valuable as the unsolicited statement of opinion from an entirely impartial and disinterested observer. We are not aware whether our correspondent means to be sarcastic at the expense of many of our farming friends, when he ventures to state that "there should not be a farmer" against the change; but he is absolutely correct in his inference. No class have a keener personal interest in the establishment of responsible government here than our farmers and planters have. Their wrongs or grievances are just those that would be most effectually treated by a responsible administration, and that are most persistently neglected by the Government under which they live. They may not all see this now—though we rejoice to know that they are fast coming to do so—but they will, because they must, see it in time. It may be said that the verdict of Cape colonists is of more practical value to us than the opinion of a New Zealander; but has that verdict been recorded? Certain politicians on public platforms, and certain writers in the public Press have acquired a habit of charging everything that goes wrong upon "responsible government;" but has the voice of the public at large done so? Let a plebiscite be taken in the Cape Colony upon the question: " Shall we continue to " govern ourselves as we do, or go back to "Downing Street rule," and what would the answer be? We should be greatly astonished were it not overwhelmingly on; the side of freedom—of freedom, that is, weighted, regulated, and curbed by responsibility. The fact is that our Cape neighbours have only yet considered the question from one point of view. They have not seriously asked themselves what their position would be were they again to become the victims of the system they escaped from j fourteen years ago.

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The fear that prevails with so many people is that were responsible government accepted and established here, the Empire would at once be absolved from every sort of obligation to assist in the protection of the country. No idea is more unconstitutional, unfounded or misleading. In what other sphere of activity is the power or obligation of the central authority confined to the centre? Take churches, take banks, take any form of combined and co-operative organisation that you choose to name; where is one that justifies such an interpretation of its duties? Facts, moreover, occurring under our eyes belie this theory. Why did the government of Mr. Moltenoquarrel with the action of Sir Bartle Frere, if it was not because the latter appeared to interfere too directly with the defensive responsibilities of the local government? Why is Sir Charles Warrenin Bechuanaland now at the head of a small Imperial army? Simply and solely to vindicate Imperial obligations throughout the Empire, and to protect Cape interests from injury and aggression? We have to thank Lord Derby however, for a decisive definition of Imperial obligations towards even the freest colonies. Of all the colonial possessions of Great Britain Canada is the most completely independent and self-governed. Its autonomic privileges and powers are probably the purest and best development of the democratic principle that this, or any age has witnessed. It enjoys all the advantages of a constitutional monarchy. It is vast, rich, populous and though intensely loyal, thoroughly independent. Engaged in a struggle with an insurrection in a distant corner of its territories it would have resented any attempt on the part of the mother country to participate in the military operations it has conducted with so much vigour and success. Yet what is the fact as regards the responsibility of the Empire in case of need? The answer comes to us by the last mail. In the House of Lords on May 9, in replying to a question, Lord Derby said:—"That as Canada " had the fullest power to manage its own internal affairs, the question was one that concerned the Canadian Government in its relations with the Indian half-breeds, and was not one that would come before the Colonial Office, except, of course, in the event of the Canadian Government not being able by its own resources to deal with the insurrection. The question was not, therefore, one on which he could give any authoritative information; but judging from such information as he had received, he believed the Canadian Government were themselves in some perplexity as to what the real causes of the movement were." The italics are ours. Even in the case of Canada, were its resources unequal to the strain of putting down a purely internal disturbance, the Empire would, as a matter of course, come to its assistance, This admission on the part of the Colonial Minister is most timely and pertinent; and it ought to satisfy the scruples of those who have been led to regard responsible government as an absolution of the Empire from all its duties as regards the defence of a, self-governed colony.