ENGLAND’S IMPERIAL MISSION.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 473, 21 December 1875, Page 3

ENGLAND’S IMPERIAL MISSION.

Under this title the Hour has the follow ing

“ We have now received all the particulars of the cruel and cowardly murder of Commodore Goodenough, The letters of the Kev James Peyton, the chaplain, and of Mr Corrie, the surgeon, of her Majesty’s ship Pearl, have given full and valuable details. The idea that Commodore Goodenough’e death was the result of imprudence has now been abandoned He was, in the strictest sense, a martyr to duty. One of the most important functions of the Commander on the Australian station is to visit the outlying islands, to restrain the licence of illicit white traders and kidnappers, and in every way to cultivate friendly relations with the natives. Goodenough, like a true British sailor, preferred the rougher and more arduous to the more agreeable and luxurious portions of his official task. He delighted to go from island to island to aid the missionaries, and to infuse a spirit of justice and mercy among degraded and blood-thirsty savages. As a rule, if he landed on an island believed to be disaffected or suspicious, be went unarmed, and in fact a few miautes before he was wounded by the poisoned arrow he had been engaged in a kindly conversation and barter with Santa Cruz men. Nothing that we can say can add to the simple and natural eloquence of the narrative of Messrs Peyton and Corrie. With the courage and constancy of a hero, Goodenough combined the gentleness of a devout Christian. His first thought after the perfi lions onslaught of the Santa Cruz islanders was the safety of the boats’ crews that had accompanied him. Shortly before his death he wrote a formal report to the Lords of the Admiralty, in which be spoke of himself as being temporarily unfitted for active duty. When informed that his end was approaching, he resigned himself quietly and absolutely to the will of God. He never murmured, but thanked the Creator for all His past mercies. No man discharged his allotted functions more assiduously and honourably than Commodore Goodenough. He met his death-wound only thirty miles from the place where Bishop Patteeon was martyred There was this resemblance between the sailor and the prelate. To both the mandates of duty and conscience wi re imperative, and both were indifferent to the charms of this earthly life whenever they clashed with the requirements of a sublime moral mission.

“We trust that Commodore Goodenougb’s murder will not be used as an argument for any departure from the policy which we have hitherto followed in Oceania, We entirely disagree with one of our contemporaries as to the course to be pursued for the future. No doubt the group of islands of which Santa Cruz and Bspiritu Santo are the chief hare an evil reputation for ferocity and bad faith. Their inhabitants had both these sinister propensities by nature, and we fear that their early experience of. the Spaniards—the most odiously inhuman race that ever pretended to civilisation did much to augment their innate penchant for brutality. But it i mpresses us as a weak and panicstricken kind of suggestion, to hint that the best thing we can do is to leave these repulsive islanders alone. In reality our duty is precisely the opposite of this suggested abstention. Out of the clemency and generosity of his heart Commodore Goodenough did not punish the Santa Crup barbarians as

they merited. He reluctantly gave orders to burn the huts. This was done, but not until two volleys of blank cartridge had been fired, so as to warn the natives, who irame- ; (Jiately evacuated the village. The commodore’s leniency, coupled with the previous assassination of Bishop Patteson, will be interpreted by the natives as proofs of their power, and what was meant as humanity will be regarded as pusillanimity. Hence it is plainly our business not to beat a retreat from any part of Melanesia, and especially from the Santa Cruz cluster, but to remind the natives on an early occasion that civilisation is the foe of barbarism and everywhere destined to be its master. Moreover savages should be taught that crime never goes unpunished, and that civilised vengeance, though slow, is sure. To take an illustration from the story which Byron, who borrowed it from Voltaire, has immortalised in verse, Mazeppa delayed the day of reckoning with his inhuman enemy, but when that day arrived he wrote his lesson of retribution in letters of blood and fire. The discipline by which the higher races educate those that are inferior is always the same. The higher race, from the Romans downwards, first gain ascendancy by sheer force. The path of progress is cut with the sword. Then comes the true civilising epoch. The conqueror’s force is gradually recognised as being not merely animal or mechanical. It is accepted by the conquered as being in its ultimate issues salutary and beneficent. The result is a true and lasting civilisation. The process is everywhere the same. A more civilised and human power should never recoil before barbaric cruelty or treachery ; it should grapple with it and become its destroyer. Vestigia nulla retrorsum should be the motto of every State which unites or desires to unite in itself the dual conditions jof material and moral progress. The Comtist notion of a Republic of the West which would be the lord of the whole world is of course, in its actual form, at once visionary and chimerical. Nevertheless, in a grotesque and exaggerated shape it embodies the truth that man is created to govern man, and that the predestined rulers of the weak and uncivilised are the strong and civilised. We must not allow any consideration to make us flinch from our duty as the moral police of the waters of the earth, and above all in Melanesia and Australasia. This task, and it is, we confess a Herculanean task, is a necessary corollary of our naval supremacy. We must ‘cut Rahnb and wound the dragon,’ or to drop the Oriental metaphor we must break the neck of barbarism wherever we find it.

“There is no necessity for indulging in such a fruitless speculation as to ask what will be the end of this coin prehen si re imperial policy which we advocate. The very enquiry is foolish and idle. It is as absurd to say that we should not subjugate New Guinea, and if it suits our purpose the Santa Cruz Island, because we would then have too much on our hands, as it is to say that we ought not to chastise Chinese insolence, because our victory might conceivably saddle us with a second India. Wars of aggression are doubtless inexpedient, All we contend is that a State like ours has a definite mission before it of a genuinely imperial character. That mission is certainly not to annex for the sake of annexation, but consists of a loyal acknowledgment of the obligation to strengthen the empire at every strategical point, and to establish strong and orderly government in all those regions which form, as it were, its fringe or outskirts. We repeat that an aggressive war is invariably a crime and a blunder. But it is otherwise with justifiable annexation, whether forcible or pacific Three crucial rests c’n be easily applied Have we a reasonable prospect of ameliorating an inferior race by saving it from anarchy and intrndncincr sound and equitable methods of government ? Won d conquest or annexation give us a military or commercial advantage? And, thirdly, have lawless and demoralised Europeans already intruded into the country and caused the enemies of civilisation to blaspheme? Our conquest of India is amply justified by the first two of these tests, and our annexation of the Fiji Islands by all three. The last of the tests which we have mentioned is, as far as Melanesia is concerned, the most important. The South Pacific swarms with Europeans and American traders and slave dealers. These men familiarise the Maley and Negroid populations with the viler and baser side of the more vigorous races. Theft, drink, and lust are the evil plants which they only too successfully acclimatise in Polynesia. This lamentable fact creates a corresponding obligation on the part of civilised States. Whenever anarchic whites, with the wit of political adventures and the dashing physical buccaneers, have gained a footing in barbarous countries, then it is time for organised and righteous governments to interfere. England is the only European Power established in Polynesia, and therefore her Imperial office is manifest. It is nonsense to say that empires can become unwieldy, and that they break to pieces through their own weight. When Rome lost Dacia, the last acquired and the first severed of her provinces, it was not because the empire was too large, but because there was a fatal paralysis at the seat of authority. As in individuals, so in nations ; there is something elevating and invigorating in an ideal and romantic view of the duties of the present and the brilliant hopes of the future. This has been the felicitous secret of the attainment both of Italian and German unity. Nations should set before them higher aims than the coarse and palpable expediency of the moment. All over the world the imperial destinv of England is written in language of unmistakeable .clearness. Throughout the empire the watchwords should he consolidation —as in South Africa —and when necessary, expansion also —as in Australia and Polynesia.”