economic reform.[258] But in another quarter the different schools of individualists were united with conspicuous success. The most complete and the most successful application of Liberal principles during this period was in the reconstruction {204} of the colonial system. The American Rebellion and the restoration of Canada had been isolated examples, the first of Liberal defeat, the second of Liberal victory. But by the middle of the century this casual wisdom had been developed into a deliberate and consistent policy. The growth of the other Colonies at the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand forced upon the Home Government the reconsideration of their methods of transacting colonial business. The Cape had been taken from the Dutch during the French War. Australia and New Zealand had been discovered at the end of the eighteenth century, and by 1840 were both recognized as British Colonies. The Government were then faced with the same problem as that which had confronted them in America. The old system was government by the Colonial Office, and in one respect it had been more deliberately egoistic than in any other part of the world. The Australian Colonies had for a long time been used as a dumping ground for social rubbish. The people for whom the Home Government could not provide in England, it had been accustomed to send to New South Wales, to Western Australia, and to Van Diemen's Land. A large part of the population of these countries consisted partly of transported convicts and partly of paupers whom public or private money had enabled to emigrate. As Sir William Molesworth bluntly described it, "Colonial Office colonization consists in the transportation of convicts and the shovelling out of paupers."[259] The time was at length reached when the independent emigrants and the descendants of earlier settlers who were themselves of good character protested against this use of their country without their own consent.[260] {205}