Mr. Roebuck and Emigration--Self-Government and the Colonies--Unsympathetic Whig Policy--Radicals and the Colonial Office--The Peelites and Hudson’s Bay Company--Financial Reform--Mr. Cobden at Variance with Mr. Bright--Combined Agitators--The Demand for Retrenchment--Trade and the Flag--Tories and Taxes--A _reductio ad absurdum_--A Raid on a Surplus--International Arbitration--Parliamentary Reform--Parliament and the Jews--The Tories oppose the Alteration of the Parliamentary Oath--Episcopal Prejudice--Tory Obstructionists--An Ordnance Department Scandal--Mr. Delane’s Attacks on Lord Palmerston in the _Times_--The Queen Remonstrates against Lord Palmerston’s Recklessness--An Anti-Palmerstonian Cabal--Lady Palmerston’s Intrigues--Lord Brougham Betrays the Cabal--Palmerston’s Victory--Rome and France--The Second War--The Disaster of Chillianwalla--Indignation of the Country--Lord Gough’s Recall--Napier to the Rescue--The East India Directors Oppose Napier’s Appointment--The Convict War at the Cape--Boycotting the Governor. Another notable event in the Colonial history of 1849 was the introduction by Mr. Roebuck, on the 14th of May, of a Bill for the better government of the Colonies. The debate on this measure brought vividly before the minds of thoughtful men the folly upon which our step-motherly treatment of the Colonies was based. “Emigration by itself,” exclaimed Mr. Roebuck, “is misery;” and yet the idea of colonisation which prevailed at the Colonial Office was simply to transport as many people as possible to distant wilds, utterly regardless of their ultimate fate. Why should we not introduce something like system, asked Mr. Roebuck, into our Colonial policy, and recognise the fact that it was now not tribute, but trade that we might expect to get from them? His proposal was to have one plan for settling a colony, another for organising it when settled, and a third for groups of colonies in confederation or union. His panacea for all Colonial ills was to get rid of “red tape” at the Colonial Office and to give the Colonies Home Rule. The difficulties, said Mr. Hawes, as representing Lord Grey and the Colonial Office, in the way of granting Home Rule to North-American Colonies would be insuperable; besides, England had far too many Colonies already, so that it was of little use to bring forward schemes for settling new ones! Whigs like Lord John Russell condemned a policy which tended to substitute a fixed Parliamentary rule for the discretion of a responsible Minister, and contended that physical impediments rendered the union of Canada into one Dominion impossible. Mr. Gladstone, however, warmly supported Mr. Roebuck’s policy. Even then the leaven of the Home Ruler was working in his mind. Mr. Roebuck was beaten by 116 to 73. But this did not put a stop to these Colonial debates.