THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 514, 3 October 1867, Page 1

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

(From the Daily Telegraph.) O\K of the radical differences between men in politics, religion, and morals is [displayed in the view which they severally take of the physical world. If anybody thinks with Mr Lowe, that like causes will for ever produce like effects in history, though the conditions are altered, he will dread great and popular measures, because tt.ey have ere now ended in trouble; and he will utter lugubrious Conservative prophecies whenever such reforms are about to be enacted. Ho will, in his heart, deride such a doctrine as Mr Gladstone laid down and as Mr Disralli has adopted, when they said that debts were due from the present generation to posterity. The Conservative—in religion, politics, morals, and science—do.-s not believe in the cmtinuence and general advance of our race and of the natural world, its theatre lie is inclined to think that events repeat themselves; ho believes in to-day much more than in to-morrow ; he instances the Dark Ages, and the decline of sculpture since Phidias and Praxiteles, to prove tnat man’s history moves in a circle, and that if we gain in one thing we lose in another. This makes him anxious to keep what good society seems to have got, especially if he thinks his own share is satisfactory. The liberal, on the other hand, if he deserves the name, has that rich gift of faith which the Tory utterly lacks. His creeu is the creed of aspiration, of enlightened discontent, of bold expectancy. Tit© revolution he dreads most is that which would rise up in defiance of the eternal law of progress, and rebel, by enforcing stagnation, against the manifest majesty of movement, as revealed in everything, from the blade of grass to the procession of the equinoxes. It is really worth while to understand with what different eyes the schools of men look at everything. The generous and fearless leaders of the world push the principles of . justice and freedom, because they are eu- , eouraged by the whole universe. Nature , is the most astonishing and courageous ol Liberal’s, ''he is never contented, never ! afraid, never out of session, never weary . of new Acts of Creative Reform ! A tiling which we observe in her domain, “death,” “ decay,” “ failure,” we call by a thousand , foolish names ; while she, out of what we thought the ashes of her effort, raises a j splendid, new, unthought-of combination. , Philosophers are making shrewd guesses in manj boons wl ai olio um m hie wonderful days when somehow or other, , the paddle of ancient hideous colossal reptiles was succeeded by the wing of the , bird, the foot of the mammal, and, last ot ail, the exqusi e band of man. They oonl jecture that when she crumbled down her pre-Adamite molluscs she was making I marble out of their shells for those Greek , and Homan sculptors of whom Tories talk ; . and that when she covered up their works in Pompeii with red hot volcanic rivers . sue was providing a capital trade in sut--3 phur and sulphuric acid for EngHna’s manufactures and Italy’s revenue. What

[ehe does in the great busy capital, and what -he does in a silent nook of tom* : Brazilian forest, follow, first, that ssS—great law, “ Bad made good,” or “Good made better,” which nowhere stays da falters. She cherishes a butterfly in the palmetto shade for some gift of wing or color, and we think her divine. She weeds a population with her plagues, and we call her cruel; but the physical effect and =uu arc =!??=-=, though iiiVlalblj, uuvanc:ng. Take her in history i those that mourned over the sailing of the Mayflower —because “England ought not to lot* men bold enough to think ” —would bar# stopped the birth of a great State. Taka her in zoology she sets the coral insect working vainly for ages, but by-and-bya he makes her au island, and saves a ship* load of human lives. Take her in tha blending of human races ; she pours Roman, Piot, Dane, Saxon, Norman upon the unhappy Britons, till these kingdoms must have seemed a mongrel hodge-podga of anarchy ; but by-and-fayo she raises out of it the race she had in her mind all tha while, iha “Anglo-Saxon” people we call them for shortness sake—just as Royal children go by one or two out of their twenty names j a race which, springing from this damp little corner of creation* has girdled the world with empire and made English the tongue of half tha globe.

Seldom, indeed, can Nature be caught by anybody actually at the work, shaping histories thus, and dovetailing new race* to new countries, so as to outdo herself in fresh developments of power and happiness. When philosophers like Mr Darwin find her in her beautiful secret labor, their fate often seems to renew the tale of Actaeou and Diana, and they are hounded by those who fawned upon them before. But anybody who would see the great Mother at her silent task of constructing the future need do no more than look at the apparently commonplace tables issued by the .Registrar-General of Victoria. At first sight we find only a record of colonial marriages; and, since land is cheap and food plentiful, the marriages are numerous —that seems all! But look a little closer. Here, in the last six years, are 25,908 males married in Victoria, and, of course, ttie same number of females. Out of the males 12,864 were English, and out of the IVmules 9,718. But these by no means paired off; on the contrary, 5,512 Englishmen of the list married Irish or Scotch husbands. Out of every 100 marriages we find that 28 were between English blood on both sides, 17 between Irish-born colonists, and 9 between Scotch males and females ; leaving neany 50 per cent, of intermixed alliances. This curious calculation is rendered possible because the Victorian lasses, of home growth the aboriginal maidens, so to speak have not yet grown up in numbers sufficient to perplex the calculation. Before long, we shall be unable to say whal nationality, except that of the strong young colony itself, can claim the bride and bridegroom. But for the pest six years we are safe in noting this wide-spread intermixture of the British races, which is working out on a great scale the casual instances to be found here and there, of course, at home, and amalgamating the English, Irish, and Scotch bloods to form a bran-new race of Britons st the Aati* poJes.

Now, whatever difficulty Mr D Israel may End in making a Reform Bill to suit the three kingdoms, we hope to have them unanimous in agreeing with us that the race which will some day result from this miscegenation ought to be strikingly good. All the great deeds of the world hare been done by mixed breeds, as everybody know* who reads nistory in the light of ethnology. What ought not to come, then, in a now and rich land, under a bountiful sky, with the southern half of the globe for a train* ing-field, out of this intermingling of English, Scotch, and Irish stocks, all good to begin with ? Depend upon it, Dame Nature is preparing hero some chapters of human history which will be worth read* mg to those who live to turn the pages. The courage and chastity of the Irish, the sense and solidity of the Scotch, the patience and physical gifts of the English, ought to produce, and will produce, a splendid breed of men and women. Planted on this new and fertile soil together, and growing from one root, what sturdy, lusty, f ragrant human blossoms will there not bo found by-and-bye shooting from the Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle! The stress of circumstances under whiah this happy amalgamation takes place is an instance of me way in which the grand operations of man’s history are initiated and wrought out. Nature plays matchmaker in the young colony, with a wide territory and splendid climate to tempt bachelors and spinsters to their pleasant fate, and settles 1 tne broad lauds m dowry upon three families of her children whom sh# favors 1 and loves. “ But what is all this to us ? those will ask who iieier- felt the delight ' of anticipating and rejoicing in the^manifest destinies of our kind. It is indeed ooubrlul whether the faith and the joy [ which tnese silent changes for good pro* duce in some minds can be transferred by ' argument to others j for there is a radios! I dillerenco between men who trust in the > tut lire of humanity and those who do not. I cull, the wish and the effort to leave the 1 world happier, higher, end better a * noble instinct of nature, and in our colo- ■ uial empire we see it bringing its own * high reward in tangible prosperity and a 1 splendid future.