colonist, like reconnoitring an enemy—to negotiate with which is like a war parley, and to assault which needs almost a forlorn hope and a battery—is, spite of any brilliant abilities existing in it, incapable of discharging, with success, the infinitely varied, numerous, delicate, and detailed duties essential to its business. To every colony, each with its own wrongs, or rights, or difficulties, such an office is sure to appear unwise or tyrannical; because, in its very constitution, its aspect is, to them, foreign."
One feels that the writer of these words is in earnest. As a condemnation of the system they are, no doubt, thoroughly justifiable; and every day should show us the dangers we run in not radically reforming it.
Of course, most of the glaring evils of the Downing Street régime were removed by the establishment of responsible government in the colonies, though not by any means all of them. I feel sure others as well as Mr. Jenkins would like to see a companion sketch to his own of the "Colonial Office," from the pen of Lord Sherbrooke, who thus described the system as it existed when he was in Sydney:—
"Let us see what are the links in the chain. The Governor who knows little and cares less about the colony, whose interest is in every respect
