The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1884. Filling the World

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 6, 15 January 1884, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1884. Filling the World

In writing on the present condition of the nations and their preparations for war, the Spectator says that- the day of contest is not over, has hardly possibly begun, for science is becoming a religion, and when once that religion is believed, the lot of the inferior races will be a hard one ; but the day of Colonies proper seems to be almost over. Not only has discovery so nearly reached its limit that even dreamers cease to fancy new islands or unseen continents discoverable, but the regions fit to grow nations are all taken, mostly by Englishmen, although according to themselves they have no ambition and never annex. The Portuguese have a noble slice of the world — a territory which will one day own a hundred millions — not of Portuguese. The Spaniards own a dozen magnificent States, which one day will have histories, but the English have the remainder, and among these three peoples unoccupied earth is now a property, surveyed and fenced in. If France or Germany wished to found a new France or Germany outside their own borders, it could not be done. Either might conceivably conquer a place fit for future greatness, but of lands to be obtained without conquest, by settlement, or by short wars with savages, there are practically none left. Europe is occupied, we all know ; not an inch which is not fenced <jff by a civilized State. Asia is, over half its expanse, choked with people, besides being held throughout by legal title by States ready to defend their rights- Except an island or two in the Eastern Archipilago, there is notning to take on which the higher races could settle. and expect to flourish. A group or two in the Pacific await the Colonist, but the only unoccupied island of grand magnitude, New Guinea, is virtually occupied. The English are very generous just now, and much bothered by believing two systems of morality at once, but if any one were to touch New Guinea, England would help Australia to fight for it. In Africa all that can be profitably settled is gone ; Madagascar is full. North Africa belongs to the French, South Africa to the English, and between these, from the Chotts to the Zambizi, there is no place where. a great Colony could be founded. There remain only the two Americas, and practically the English and their American children, with the Spanish and Portuguese, possess them both by legal title. There are not a thousand square miles anywhere which Bis. mirck could mark on a map and say ■—•• This skall be mine."