ABSTRACT
Of the Governors and other functionaries sent out to the colonies Molesworth complained still more. All these ills, he said, could be cured by the application of one simple remedy -government on the spot. l
It could not be said with truth that the Government were indifferent on the subject of defence expenditure in the colonies. 'I have always thought,' wrote Russell to Grey in 1846, 'that the British colonies should provide militia for their own defence, and pay for the construction of fortifications.' 2 They not only held these views: they lost no time in acting on them. Of all the colonies, those on the mainland of Australia were the most secure. They had not suffered from the commercial legislation of 1846. There was no longer a large convict establishment requiring a military guard: the troops, except those at Sydney, had merely been doing police duty. Accordingly in November 1846 Sir Charles FitzRoy was instructed to send nine hundred men to New Zealand. Two regiments were brought back from the West Indies, also, in 1846, and two from Canada in 1847. In New Zealand and at the Cape reduction was a more difficult proposition, but there too it was kept in view. An attempt was, however, made to mitigate it by settlements of military
pensioners, who would, it was hoped, be available for productive employment as well as for defence. The men were to be of good character and not too old: they were to be located in villages under the control of their officers, and were to relieve the regular forces of mere garrison duty. I At the Cape there was, of course, war until 1848. Financial mismanagement, unauthorized expense, and peculation had been rife;2 and Grey distinctly warned the colonists 'not to expect that any new war of the same kind can be carried on at the cost of this country'.3 In the new Orange River Sovereignty it was to be understood that the settlers must defend themselves. In principle, therefore, there was no very wide divergence on this matter between the Government and Molesworth and th~ Cobdenites.
