Many persons hoped, as we did, that we had done
with New Zealand in Parliament, and that we were not for the present to hear of that far distant colony again, save in the accounts of its growth and of its increasing prosperity under the self-government accorded to it by the Imperial Legislature. But Sir John Poking- ton, this week, has only performed a duty in bringing before Par- liament the fact that the Governor intrusted to carry out the Con- stitution Act introduced by Sir John, and passed by the Imperial Legislature nearly two years ago, has suspended the most important operation of the act, has arrogated to himself the powers of the General Assembly appointed by the statute, and has left the govern- ment of the colony in a kind of anarchy. Astonishing as this de- feat of the decree of Parliament should have been, the House of Commons listened complacently while Mr. Peel delivered a fluent and plausible tissue of representations, which reminded us of the first appearance of poor Mr. Hawes, holding a brief for Downing Street against the present Minister for the Colonies, in the time of Lord Grey. Indeed, New Zealand is not the only colony to remind us of the recent inconvenient duplication of duties in one department. Cer- tain islands of the West Indies complain that the Colonial Minis- ter is sacrificing their interests to the War Ministry. They are discontented that troops are withdrawn from the smaller islands, and concentrated upon Jamaica and Barbados; not because they dread attack from without, but because they dread insurrection within, of which the Blacks have already given signs in Tobago. This is one more consequence of the rash unprepared emancipation ; a consequence also of the bad rule which has wasted the time sub- sequent to emancipation, in bickerings between colonists and offi- cias, instead of cultivating such relations with the industrial class as would have prevented these too natural apprehensions. The West Indies cannot expect always to be dependent upon the Horse Guards in Whitehall ; they must look to themselves : and they know as well as we do that if they organize some of the Black races handsome treatment and discipline will transform them into guardians of order as efficient as if their visages were white.
We hope to find that the American story about a misunder- standing between a Yankee mariner and the Government at the Falkland Islands belongs to the "cock and bull" order; but it does furnish one more illustration of the manifold complexities of business in the Imperial department of War and Colonies.
