of upwards of half a million of souls. It will ere long be felt over the ten thousand populous isles of the Western Pacific, as colonization extends to the northward on the Australian continent. It will at length pervade the whole Indian Archipelago—that vast ant-hill of nations,—and perhaps ultimately force open the iron gates of China and Japan, which, like those of the temple of Janus, are uniformly shut upon the European nations, even in the times of profoundest peace. And will his Majesty's government permit that influence to be any longer a curse to the nations of the eastern hemisphere, as it has hitherto most unquestionably been, from the manner in which the transportation system has been managed in the Australian colonies; especially when it is so fully in their power to render it a source of inestimable blessings, by making transportation the pioneer and precursor of advancing colonization? If the measures I have recommended for the future management and improvement of the transportation system had required a large expenditure of British money, or implied a large addition to the public burdens of the nation, I should have hesitated to propose them; but while I feel confident, from thirteen years' experience and observation, that the adoption of these measures would not only tend to diminish crime and to lessen
