ABSTRACT
The attacks of the Colonial Reformers were on a wider front. Mr. Francis Scott undoubtedly had New South Wales chiefly in mind, but his motion was for a Select Committee on the political and financial relations between Great Britain and the colonies. He accused the Colonial Office of levying taxes without the colonists' consent by enormous civil lists, of wasting and misappropriating their money by a faulty and extravagant system of emigration unjustly carried on at their expense, and of refusing them self-government by introducing blocs of nominees into their Assemblies and arbitrarily proposing to alter their constitutions without their concurrence.! Hawes pointed out the unfairness of ascribing to the Colonial Office the entire responsibility for all kinds of friction that might exist between Great Britain and the colonies, and the motion was lost by 81 to 34-but not before Gladstone had made a significant speech in its support. The Colonial Minister, Gladstone admitted, had been too much blamed, but he thought nevertheless that the colonial policy of recent years suffered by comparison with the policy before the American Revolution. 'I do not think that the expenditure of large sums from the Imperial Treasury tends to strengthen or perpetuate the connexion; and this, at least, I do not hesitate to say, that I think it is a mistake to propose the maintenance of that connexion as the one and the sole end which we ought to keep in view. What we ought to keep in view is the work and the function which Providence has assigned to this country in laying the foundation of mighty States in different quarters of the world. What we ought to keep in view is to cherish and foster those infant communities on principles that are sound and pure-on the principle of self-government.'
