olonies_, which he published
anonymously in 1840. Buller was indeed the ablest of the whole group,
and his early death was one of the greatest losses which English
politics sustained in the nineteenth {241} century--"an intelligent,
clear, honest, most kindly vivacious creature; the genialist Radical I
have ever met,"[11] said Carlyle. The ease of his writing and his gift
for light satire must not be permitted to obscure the consistency and
penetration of his views. Even if Durham contributed more to his
Report than seems probable, the view there propounded of the scope of
Responsible Government is not nearly so cogent as that of the later
pamphlet. Buller, like the other members of his group, believed in the
acknowledgment of a supremacy, vested in the mother country, and
expressed in control of foreign affairs, inter-colonial affairs, land,
trade, immigration, and the like; but outside the few occasions on
which these matters called for imperial interference, he was for
absolute non-interference, and protested that "that constant reference
to the authorities in England, which some persons call responsibility
to the mother country, is by no means necessary to insure the
maintenance of a beneficial colonial connexion."[12] His originality
indeed is best tested by the vigour and truth of his criticisms of the
existing administration. First of all representation had been given
without {242} executive responsibility. Then for practical purposes
the colonists were allowed to make many of their own laws, without the
liberty to choose those who would administer them. Then a colonial
party, self-styled the party of the connexion, or the loyal party,
monopolized office. To Buller the idea of combining a popular
representation with an unpopular executive seemed the height of
constitutional folly; and, like Wakefield, he understood, as perhaps
not five others in England did, the place of party government and
popular dictation in colonial constitutional development. "The whole
direction of affairs," he said, "and the whole patronage of the
Executive practically are at present in the hands of a colonial party.
Now when _this is the case, it can be of no importance to the mother
country in the ordinary course of things, which of these local parties
possesses the powers and emoluments of office_."[13] Unlike the
majority of his contemporaries, he believed in assuming the colonists
to be inspired with love for their mother c