at home from his own bad qualities. I do not object to a man, as an emigrant, of native goodness and energy, who from the injuriousness of fortune or from any unfavourable outward circumstances, is hampered and hindered in his course here. No doubt such are most eligible Colonists. One class there is in particular which I miss no opportunity of mentioning, as furnishing from various reasons the most admirable subjects for emigration: I mean healthy, unmarried, well-behaved young women of the lower orders, who from any cause have a difficulty in finding a sufficient and honest livelihood at home. Their prospects here are those of anxiety and poverty, often, alas ! leading to vice and ruin. No class is more needed in our Colonies; and with the blessing of Providence they may there anticipate, with as much confidence as can be felt in anything human, a period of respectable service, and a married life of competence and happiness.*

In thus encouraging emigration, I do not forget that I spoke of the spiritual destitution of the Colonies. But I know no one of them in which that destitution is not on the decrease, and likely to be more so; and we may be satisfied of this (as has been suggested before), that the best way to remove that evil is to send out those who will feel it to be an evil, and will not be content without exerting themselves to abate it.

Nor let us have that vain fear, which we hear sometimes expressed, that we shall be injuring this country

* I cannot but add one word in regard to Mr. Sidney Herbert's design, with which I have become acquainted since this Lecture was composed; and for which, as part of a great scheme, I would express my humble but sincere admiration.

by sending away the good and keeping only the bad. There may possibly sometimes be ground for such a notion, in the case of an utterly disorganized and distracted country, as is said to be now the case with Ireland. But England can well afford to pour healthy blood into the veins of her Colonies, while retaining abundantly enough for her own growth and vigour. It is not human strength, and skill, and talent that is likely to be deficient in this country. What we need is the blessing of God upon these, to sanctify them; and we may assuredly hope to draw this down upon ourselves rather if we build up our offshoots and Dependencies with the best that we have, than with the worst and most refuse. Whether we like it or not, such is our plain duty. It is for us at home to strengthen what is weak, purify what we can purify, neutralize what we cannot, in our own body. If we fail in this, ours is the blame, and ours be the loss; but let us not visit our short-comings on the Colonies, by thus poisoning the fountains of their national life.

It is true that, as I have said, a Department of the Executive Government does much to regulate emigration, and does it to a great extent well. The character indeed of emigrants is inquired into; but such a supervision by Government in any case can be but imperfect, and at best will be more negative in preventing great evils, than positive in producing good.

But this leads me to a more general observation, applicable to the whole subject, and to much more. This whole matter of Colonization, it may be thought, is an Imperial one, and belongs to the Government of the country. Undoubtedly it does, to a great extent. But what is the Government of this country?

I do not touch, for a moment, the sacredness that surrounds the Throne; and I know who administer the Government of the country. But I am speaking of the real power, in so far as it is a human power, which actually determines the political course of this nation; and of that power what is commonly called the Government is but a part, though a very important part. In the long run, and on the whole, the people of England are self-governed. I do not mean that the blind will of a numerical majority governs. I allow great weightnot indeed so much as there should be-to whatever wisdom and virtue exists, and can make itself heard, in the land. I allow great weight-perhaps in some cases rather more than there should be-to the influence of various classes and interests among us, from the highest to the lowest. But allowing for all this, and remembering that of course such statements are not correct as to small details, and are to be taken with reference to the broad lines of history and the abiding principles of the nation's course, I say that the ultimate deliberate issue and expression of the various balanced forces which make up the mind of the whole people, is that by which England is moved. This was felt even seventy years ago by that great writer whom I before ventured to differ from, not in the absurd presumption of opposing my opinion to his, but because the general advance on such subjects has conducted us to a point beyond that on which he stood, but whom I now quote with complete assent. Mr. Burke says: "The general opinion of those who are to be governed is the vehicle and organ of legislative omnipotence. Without this, it may be a theory to entertain the mind, but it is nothing in the

direction of affairs. In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination-to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislation.'

So wrote Mr. Burke in 1777: much more would he have said now. Again I must plainly declare that I do not say this with any desire to set before you ideas of uncontrolled freedom, the majesty of the people, or any such claptrap topics: not in the least. Again, as before, I would have you look upon this mighty power which resides in the great body of the people, as a matter of solemn and awful responsibility before God and the world. Every one of you who votes at an election exercises that power in the most direct and manifest manner. Every one, who, whether a voter or not, ever swells by his voice a popular cry, or even reasons and talks in common conversation on political matters, contributes something towards that great stream of public feeling and opinion, by which, as by a huge water-power, the machinery of the state is turned. Make no empty boast of this; act upon it humbly and conscientiously, in all matters of national interest that may come before you. Not one of the least of these is that towards which this evening I have at least directed your thoughts, though I could do but little towards guiding them further, the Colonies of England: the consideration how best they may become free and orderly, powerful and religious communities.

For this should be our great and first object. I have almost anticipated the next suggestion which I would make namely, that we should endeavour to frame and * Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol: Works, Vol. iii. p. 179.

to cherish worthier notions of our Colonies than we are apt to have. Let us not look at them merely as subordinate provinces of England, but as the germs, which many of them are, of mighty nations. Even at this moment there is not one of them in which the labouring classes are not better off, in the usual sense, than in England; in our new Australasian Colonies I believe no case has ever occurred of physical destitution among those classes. For many of them it is not impossible that a more glorious and powerful career is in store than ever England has had; and our hope and care ought to be that they should be imbued with as much as possible of what is good, and tainted with as little as possible of what is evil, in our own country. Our course hitherto has not been such that we can flatter ourselves that we have even approached this lofty object. In the Colonies the prevailing evils are an excess of the democratic spirit, an excess of the money-getting spirit; not improvements upon what is good at home, but exaggerations of what is bad. But there is yet ample scope in these for the victory of good over evil; and our part in this great work will be worthily engaged in, if we set before us, as our great object, the real good of the Colonies, and not the supposed gain or the false pride of ourselves. I lately heard it well urged in the House of Commons by my eminent relative, under whom I was honoured by serving in the Colonial Office, Mr. Gladstone, that we were wrong in so anxiously considering whether such and such a course of policy tended to preserve the connexion between us and the Colonies. "Let not that," he said, "be your first thought. Inquire and do what is for the good of this country and what is