SIR GEORGE GREY ON THE RELATIONS OF ENGLAND TO THE COLONIES.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1981, 10 September 1869, Page 2

SIR GEORGE GREY ON THE RELATIONS OF ENGLAND TO THE COLONIES.

{From the Home News.) Sir George Grey, the late governor of New Zealand, on Saturday, June 2Gth, addressed a meeting of London working men in the Great Ormond street College, on the relations of England to the colonies. He said that if England abandoned her colonies she would inflict a great misfortune on the whole human race. At the present moment they afforded an outlet for the - British population which was of the greatest possible value, and every one who emigrated to them had a good prospect of securing, not only a competency, but a fortune for himself and his family. In those communities the human intellect was cultivated to a greater degree than in any other part of the world except the United States. Every man had a vote, and virtually took a share in the politics of the country. All measures brought forward in the State were discussed in public meetings, so that every person considered and became acquainted with every law that affected the position of himself and his family. The result was that the qualities of intelligence, self-respect, and respectful independence were brought out in a greater degree than in the mother country. Numbers of persons besides himself who had returned to England had remarked the positive difference in the aspect of the populations of the home country and the colonies, To deliberately close the openings offered to this country by the colonies, and thereby to check that friendly intercourse which united the children to the parent state, ought never to be attempted. If it were accomplished, a feeling of ill will towards England would he developed in those colonies, and as they increased in wealth and strength so would that feeling grow, just as it had grown in the United States, till fifty years or a century hence Great Biitain would be almost isolated, and yet surrounded by large communities sprung from herself, speaking the same language, yet with freer forms of government than she, longing to ptfll down a system which by that time would have become utterly distasteful to them. England might nowjoin her colonies in a federation which might hold the Empire together for centuries, and such a federation, if extended to all the English speaking race, like that recently accomplished by the Germans, would practically annihilate' war, and bring such peace and prosperity as history had never known. He, however, feared that there was a foregone conclusion against such a result ; that there was a deliberate design on the part of the Government not to submit this part of her Colonial policy to the Parliament, or to the nation, but by degrees to strike every Colony off’ the roll of the empire. If persons told him that such a circumstance could not take place, he would refer them to the fate of the Orange Bivev Settler ment. It had been struck out of tfia empire by the pen of the Colonial Minister, and was now a struggling republic, desiring to be readmitted to its former position. Though that action swept away the rights of Englishmen, no allusion laid been made to it in the Parliament of Great Britain. He believed that the same system would he continued, and that it was now taking place. The only way in which it could be averted would be to raise what ho would call a national party in this country, and if that party became powerful, and demanded that the whole English-speaking race should be united, and they were united, the entire world would be at once benefitted, If that was not done, these little colonies would be involved in strife with one another, and Great Britain would be disliked by all.