COLONIAL FEDERATION.

Evening Star, Issue 2983, 10 September 1872, Page 2

COLONIAL FEDERATION.

(From the Argus.) It was but the other day that Lord Kimberley and Mr KnatchbulMiugessen were protesting their ardent affection for the Colonies as an integral portion of the empire ; and now we have the leader of the Tory party declaring to a great gathering of working men at the Crystal Palace, that the second great object which ho and his political friends have at heart is to maintain the empire intact, and that, in his opinion, no Minister of Great Britain “ can do his duty who omits any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our Colonial Empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which are, a source of incalculable strength and happiness to the land.” This declaration, wo are told, was received with cheers ; and wo can readily understand that they were both fervid and sincere, for to the working classes of the mother country hur Colonies are a land of promise. They are the patrimony of the disinherited of fortune. To the inhabitants of a couple of narrow

islands, in which every rood of land has passed into the possession of a small and privileged class, and upon the very highways and public thoroughfares of which, if a man loiters, he is liable to be ordered to “move on.” or to be apprehended as a vagrant, Canada and Australia present themselves as the possible home of themselves or of their chi.dren. There, at least, the earth hunger of the landless may be ap 4 peared, and the artisan who wearies of the gmoni and squalor incidental to the back street- of am >',ngiish city, may not despair of sec-ingtlm Iright eunshinc of an Australian sky. sifted tnrough the green leaves of a vine of his own planting, clambering over a cottage of his own erecting, in the midst of a plot of land of his own procuring borne of Mr Disraeli’s projects for effecting “a great Imperial consolidation” may not be such as colonists would approve ef, or as experience would be likely to sanction ; but the sentiment which pervades his declaration is admirable. And perhaps there can be no more effectual guarantee for the consolidation he desires, and for the permanency of the union, than the prevalence of the Imperial sentiment in the minds of those who are entrusted with the Government both of the mother country and of its colonies. For this will inspire mutual consideration and mutual respect, the conviction of a common interest, the pride generated by the participation in a common history and a common destiny, and the arnbitiou to rise to the grandeur of an Imperial policy in dealing with all questions affecting the honor aud the integrity of the empire. Hitherto, as was pointed out by Mr Hmtington at Canada, at the annual dinner of the Colonial Institute, the colonial mind has been “ disturbed and disconcerted ” by the uncertainty and vacillation which have marked the policy of the governing classes at home with respect to casting loose or drawing closer the bonds of union between the mother country and the outlying portions of the British dominions. Happily, we may regard that uncertainty as entirely dissipated, and it would be unjust not to acknowledge our obligations to the members of that institute for having assisted to bring about a healthy change in public opinion in Great Britain on the subject of the unity of the empire; or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, for having quickened into active life the dormant sentiment of the people wdth regard to it. As an evidence of the spirit of kindness and conciliation in which the Imperial Government is anxious to act towards these Colonies in particular, the Times points out • hat the Earl of Kimberley’s circular despatch intimates, in an indirect and inferential sort of way, that if the Australian Legislatures, after mature deliberation, should petition the Homo Government for a repeal of the law against differential duties, the concession must eventually be made.” At thesama time a confident hope is expressed that thic concession would be met by a corresponding display of good feeling towards the mother country, and would not be abused by making it the pretext for “ adopting intercolonial reciprocity in a protectionist sense as distinct from a simple customs union.”