who profit by the monopolies, the patronage, and the other abuses of the connexion, have always prevented such an acquiescence. And the result generally is war, the intervention of foreign powers, and ultimately separation, after a contest, which sometimes, as in the case of the Spanish colonies, ruins the Dependency, and sometimes, as in the case of the British colonies, subjects the dominant country to burdens which she never can shake off. In the rare cases in which the Dependency is so near to the dominant country, as to be capable of direct government, the remedy is incorporation. If this cannot be applied, we almost fear that there is none. If a Dependency be denied a popular representation, it has no organ to express its wants or its complaints. It has no means of access to the only check on its mal-administration,-the public opinion of the dominant country. While all is externally calm, abuses, vexations, and insults, the results not of ill-will, but of what is more offensive, of contempt and neglect, render the whole population of the Dependency quietly and silently hostile; until some accident, a provocation of a new kind, or the presence of a foreign force, or some calamity or danger affecting the dominant country, occasions a sudden and general insurrection. If it receive a popular assembly, and that assembly be not allowed substantially to direct the local government-if the principal offices and power, emolument and trust, are not filled by persons selected from its majority-if opposition to the executive, or to the other legislative authorities, be the great business of the body which represents the people, it will probably create obstacles which render good government impossible, and constitutional government so difficult, that the dominant country either annuls the representative body, and thus incurs the dangers which we have described as resulting from its absence, or concedes for all internal purposes virtual independence. If the dominant country make this concession that is to say, if it allow to the local popular assembly the influence which naturally belongs to it-it creates a relation more permanent, without doubt, than either of the former, but still fated to the same end. It is a relation requiring from each party a degree of good sense and forbearance, which experience does not allow us to expect. The dominant country will see much in the administration of the Dependency which it thinks absurd or mischievous; for it will probably think mischievous or absurd every institution and mode of conduct which differs from its own. It will probably fancy that it is its duty to interfere; and, if it do interfere, it will be resisted. On the other hand, the Dependency will find fault with the portion of its administration which the dominant country retains. It will not bear that its legislation should be subject to be disallowed, its commerce to be restricted, and its foreign relations to be altogether decided by the imperial government. Having its own government, its own institutions, its own traditions, and its own history, with the strength of a nation it will acquire the feelings of one. It will admit, perhaps, that it owes allegiance to the sovereign of the country which calls itself dominant; it will admit that the inhabitants of that country are the fellowsubjects of its own citizens; but it will deny that it owes any allegiance to the supreme government of that country. It will affirm that its own parliament is co-ordinate with the parliament which calls itself imperial. It will affirm, in short, that it is an independent state, connected, indeed, with another state by the accident of a common allegiance, -as Hanover was connected with Great Britain, or Scotland, before the Union, with England, but in no respect subordinate to that state. And sooner or later, according to the rapidity of its growth, it will establish its pretensions. No one can believe that, even if we had abstained from taxing our American colonies, the United States would now have been subject to a subordinate government. In general, it may be said that one of the chief causes which weakens the power and diminishes the prosperity of a great and enterprising maritime nation, is its liability to be cramped, and weighed down and exhausted, by a parasitical growth of Dependencies. It seems to be the fate of every such nation to waste her resources, first in creating them, afterwards in protecting them, and at last in vain efforts to retain them. NOTE, Respecting certain Misrepresentations contained in the THE Editor of this Journal feels it to be his duty to notice certain misrepresentations contained in the Westminster Review for March last, regarding Mr Stephen, Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. That gentleman is there represented (No. LXXXVIII. pp. 190-1-2) as the author of various Articles, or parts of Articles, relative to the Colonization and Affairs of New Zealand, published in this Journal in the years 1840-1-2, and 4. No one who looks at these allegations can for a moment misapprehend their character and intentions; but it is no part of the duty or business of the writer of this Note to comment upon them; and he, therefore, simply limits himself to a broad and explicit denial of the pretended facts which they set forth. Mr Stephen never either wrote, or advised, or saw, till he saw them in their respective Numbers as published-if indeed he saw them even then-any one of the Articles or passages referred to in the Westminster Review as written by him; and the Editor of this Journal may add, though nowise called upon to do so, that Mr Stephen never wrote for it any Article upon any Colonial subject whatever. The Editor of the Westminster Review will of course judge, according to his own notions of the courtesies proper to such occasions, whether he will insert the above denials in his next Number or not. M. N. No. CLXIX. will be published in July. INDEX. A Acts of Parliament often rendered ineffectual or nugatory by judicial Administration of charitable trusts in England, 476. See Charitable Alexandria, its extent, and what its population was, 361. Alison, Archibald, extract from his History of Europe, on the con- Alleghany Mountains, their appearance, 139-colonies of German Althorp, Lord, death of, 240-character of, 251-252-his language America, North, Lyell's travels in, 129-147. See Lyell. American Union. See United States. Antarctic Regions, dangers attendant on the voyage to, 437—expedi- Arnoldi, Bishop, his circular authorizing the exhibition of the Holy Athens (Ancient), corn trade or corn law of, 352. See Attica. B Bacon, Lord Francis, analysis of his character and conduct, 311-319 Barbier, M. Auguste, his translation of Julius Cæsar, 47—extracts Bavaria―terms demanded by, and received at the reconstruction of Bell's, Benjamin Robert, supplement to Hume's commentaries on the Boeckh, Professor, quoted, on the consumption of corn in Attica, 353-354. Brougham, Henry Lord, his speech on privilege of Parliament, 1— his protest against their proceedings, 2 and 46-his description of Bunsen, M., on the history, hieroglyphical system, grammar and vo- cabulary, and mythology of the Egyptians, 391-398. See Egypt. Bury, Lord Chancellor, his love of books, 301. C Campbell, John Lord-the lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers Canada, its geological features similar to Norway and Sweden, 147. Carthage, its population at the beginning of the Punic war, 361. |