Page:Two speeches of Robert R. Torrens, Esq., M.P., on emigration, and the colonies.djvu/17

13 do not need to be told that the result of free trade in rendering England the workshop of the world has been to concentrate a population vastly greater than can be fed upon the produce of these islands, and so has brought it to pass that the very life of our people is dependent upon our retaining command of the seas, the high road for the transport of the people's bread and of the manufactures with which it is purchased. But the time has passed away when our navies spread their sails to the wind as the only motive power; in these days the command of the seas means coals accumulated in secure and convenient depots where our steam navy may replenish; free trade therefore, so far from rendering it unnecessary to retain such of our possessions as afford advantages of this kind, places us under the strongest obligation of necessity to retain them.

Again, free trade, instead of "destroying the only motive for retaining our Colonies," has destroyed the only rational motive for casting them off, since it has abolished monopolies which, under the previous régimé, imposed an onerous taxation on the inhabitants of this country for the benefit of the Colonies, amounting, on the single article of sugar, to over £2,000,000 per annum. The most frequent objection against England maintaining her Imperial position as the central cohesive power amidst the free communities which she has brought into existence is based upon the alleged costliness of that position, and a heavy bill is made out by including the expenses of military posts and convict establishments in the same account with expenditure on account of Colonies properly so called. But, on referring to a Return recently laid on the Table, it would be seen that the charge entailed on this country for military defences, and other purposes of the self-governing Colonies in Australia, amounted, in 1865, to £69,064, and, in 1867-8, to £106,863, giving a mean of £87,963 only, a sum barely sufficient to cover the expenses entailed on these communities by the residuum of an evil inheritance entailed upon them for the relief of this country. So far, therefore, as regarded the five self-governing Colonies in the Australian group, this argument on the score of costliness was absolutely without foundation. If, however, other settlements founded under the auspices of the Colonial Office have entailed enormous cost, that circumstance afforded them no argument for casting them off, though it furnished a valid reason for reforming that management.