IMPERIALISM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2897, 9 October 1916, Page 9

IMPERIALISM

. Sir,—"Whether race autagonism is a' , . supreme law or not might be clebat-' able, but that it is a law which must be reckoned with in any comprehensive study of history will be admitted. Nature prpvents loss of species among the lower animals by* the infecundity of hybrids, and she seems to have protected raoe types amongst men by race antagonism.' y"'. As'the most'successful - coloniser-in . ... history,: the trail of the Anglo-Saxon down the 1 centuries is full of incident.' The illiiminism<of his ,race has caused liim to think in empires and stand .. astride of continents.He has dealt with more coloured and aboriginal races ■ than any man living/and lias absorbed • to his own benefit- the .h'o'sfcjlxme- and' SRoB of- oUlor ,-wlkitcp migratory 'ra<iesj> and' his'Tace' cbarafeteristics.are' as pro-'-nouueed ta-diy-as-theyvwero two- thousand "-years' ago."" The other Germanic'tiibes 'wiio-over-•• . whelmc^the" "Ramai! Empire failed'to' change the-names of the-country which they over-ran, and lost their-race identity and language at tho hands of the ' Bubject race. ■ Italia, is Italy, Hispania' ■ is Spaincertainly'tlio Franks" changed : tho- name of Gallia to Prance/- but- they lost their race identity, and'the French aro head of the Latin races • to-day. V Tho Celt held Britain for five hundred years, but the' Saxon changed'the name, to Angleland,' and jt has been England evor since. He touched the Celt, and. in a hundred years there were no Celts : except in the mountains of Wales and tho mountains, of Scotland. ' He chased the Frenchman from the mouth of the St,_ Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, and that vast, region knows the Frenchman no'more. , Hq touched the lfcdman, and : tho Redman, has gone to his happyl hunting-ground. His descendants, tue Anglo-Americans, touched tho children of his pre-migrar tory foes, and tho Spaniard vanished from this hemisphere. He torched tho Boers, and tliose sturdy Republics aro abasing the Gorman off the map of . 'Africa with" great enthusiasm. '■ In India ho has; succeeded., where other Empires have failed, becauso,-ho has adopted his official I .machinery to its laws, manners, customs,-and opinions, v Hero it might .be rom'arked that ho has done alj this without an Imperial Parliament or cvon an Imperial constitution.

It might asked: "What lias this array of simpio facts, known to. every Third Standard schoolboy, to. do with the vast Imperial problems which are engaging tho" thought of earliest and patriotic men throughout the Empire? To this I icply that •illuminisni often springs from the apparently commonplace and ordinary, and that w'liilo wo ■to looking to the sky for signs and guidance, the trail to success lies at our feet.—l am, etc., FRANK BELL. Shannon.