GOLDWIN SMITH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 838, 9 June 1910, Page 5

GOLDWIN SMITH.

e . DEATH OF A GREAT PUBLICIST. By Teleeraph—Press Association—CoDTrieht Ottawa, June 7. The death has occurred here of Professor Goldwin Smith, historian, publicist, anti-Imperialist, and formerly Regius Professor of Modem History at Oxford; aged 86. APOSTLE OF SEPARATION. STOOD IN THE FACE OF POPULAR ' . FEELING. The many phases of Professor Goldwin Smith's long and extremely active career can hardly be comprised in a brief notice. A mere list of his works, apart from its length, shows a scope of talents and an energy that can only be described as immense. In his earlier life in England he speedily became known by his Liberal and Free-trade convictions, his grip of tho education question, and his historical work. A prominent championship of the North during the American Civil War was followed by his crossing the Atlantic in 1888, arid becoming Professor of English and Constitutional History in Cornell University; but in 1871 ho wont to Canada, where he has 6ince resided, preaching the doctrine of the separation of Canada from the Empire and Canada's joining- with the United States.

Canadian Separation Gospel,

Writing on his last birthday (August 13), a Canadian f correspondent of an English paper says of him:—"His has been a curious career in Canada. It has toon his fortune to stand 111 the teeth of many a gale of popular passion. Ho has breasted many a wave of prejudice, and has taken the spray from many a storm of national feeling. There is a sense in which Uo lias seemed lonely and remote from the actual life anil sentiment of the country. Ho has hated the slavery of party. He never could be obedient to the authority of a caucus. He saiv much in the party quarrel that was trivial and sordid, and much for which he had only aversion and contempt. But his vital ground of difference with Canadian statesmen of all parties, and with the body of the people, lay in his conception of a future for Canada which was repugnant to national feeling.' He has believed that the inevitable destiny of Canada was an equal and honourable union with the United States, and a peaceful and orderly separation from Great Britain. He came to Canada full of this conviction; and possibly, in" no ignoble spirit, cherished the hope that he would be the handmaid of destiny to effect the great result. As far back as 1866 Mr. Goldwin Smith delivered an address on the Civil War in America at tho Inst meeting of tlio Manchester Union and Emancipation Society, in which he said:—The British North American Colonies will, in time, and probubly at no very distant time, unite themselves to 'ho group of States, 01" which they are already by race, position, commercial ties, and the character of their institutions a part. No one can stand by the side of the St. Lawrence and doubt that in the end they will do this;, but they will be left to do it of their own free will.' Public Opinion Passes Him By. "This, at the time, was not .an uncommon opinion in England, and possibly tho view was entertained by some British statesmen who now wear the halo of Imperialists. It was in the colonies rather than in the' Mother Country that this doctrine, which Mr. Goldwin Smith called 'Gradual Emancipation,' and which an American writer has roughly described as 'the ass-born policy of the British Empire,' was flouted ami hated., Besides there have been times even in Canada when tho vision of Imperialism was less splendid, and when 'Gradual Emancipation,' leading towards Independence, had powerful out-spoken advocates and a great host of secret sympathisers. In the Old World, however, as in the Ne.w, tho course of destiny runs at last towards Imperial consolidation, and even Mr. Goldwin Smith waits upon events with philosophic calm and tolerant resignation. Who but must regret his divorco from the active public life of Canada? It would be pitiful to quarrel with a man's fidelity to his intellectual conviction, but who can doubt that if fate had tuned his mind to a more sympathetic identification with Canadian sentiment he would have adorned the Canadian Commons or Senate? His Literary Style. The correspondent also states that "his resolute opposition to the war in South Africa was peculiarly distasteful to Toronto. ■ Hardly less distasteful is his attitude towards Imperial defence. ... It may be I hat he lias seldom gone to original sources, and it is doubtful if lie has added greatly to the sum of human knowledge; but his writing has Hie ease of the master and an enduring felicity and Iwniity. No other man who writes on Canadian affairs can so measure a politician in a sentence or so endow a gibe with the quality of eternal justice. We read even when we do not follow Goldwin Smith, and from him we have learned something of gentleness, of courtesy, and of dignity, in all those minor controversies which do not touch the vital things of life and character. Moreover, the field in which lie speaks with authority is wide. On the relations between capital ami labour. 011 all that concern? public honour and socinl duty, on the great interests of the schools ami universities, 110 one counsels so soundly or speaks with such authority as he commands."