ABSTRACT
One of the fruits of this renewed interest in colonization and colonial reform was the organization of the Canterbury Association. Canterbury was to be the model colony of the Colonial Reformers. Another of the fruits, characteristically shaped so as to tempt the Cobdenites into alliance with the Colonial Reformers, was the motion of Sir William Molesworth on 25 July 1848: 'that it is the opinion of this House that the colonial expenditure of the British Empire demands inquiry, with a view to its reduction; and that to accomplish this reduction, and to secure greater contentment and prosperity to the colonists, they ought to be invested with large powers for the administration of their own affairs.' 5
The military force in the colonies, said Molesworth, was over 42,000 men, and at least one...;third of the ships on foreign stations-45 ships with a complement of about 8,000 mencould be reckoned as being maintained on their account. Yet most of the military stations were so far removed from the centre of the Empire that in time of war they would be sources of weakness and not of strength. The Cape should be left to defend its own frontier: Ceylon should be transferred to the East India Company: the Falkland Islands, where a colony had been established in 1841, and the West African stations should be abandoned: and the establishments in
