Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1884. NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 235, 1 September 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1884. NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Most men who leave the country of their birth to live m a colony, cast off or alter to a degree the primness and regularity of habits with which their natures are inculcated m early youth. Those who have belonged to strictly Conservative families even, commence to talk about holding Liberal views when their stay m the colony has become at all prolonged, and many of those whose friends at Home were Liberals burst forth to extremities m the heat of a newly acquired Radicalism, that seems to result from the

invigoration, by change of climate of the primary Liberal seeds. In America, we read of the immigration that has of late years taken place, and find the same thing occurring as we find it m almost every other off-shoot of almost every country. The spirit of the emigrant seems no longer fettered with the old national chains of formality and custom, and breaks lose and becomes almost uncontrollable m the freedom of its sudden release. The Irish-Ameri-cans are described as being singularly impetuous, especially on their first arrival m America, and apparently the first thing they do is to enter into politics and declare strongly m favor of one political faction or other, the chief of these being based upon Fenian, Orange, or ■ religious disputes. Impetuosity at least when entering upon colonial life, appears to be a general characteristic of the Irish-man. He is hardly content to buckle down to work immediately upon arriving m the 'land of the free,' andhence probably the giving vent to political and other feelings. Not so, however, with the Englishman. He is described as entering the American colonies, at once settling down to work, and soon^btecoming most thrifty m his habits. Wherever the mines or mills are, there the English-colonials are to be found. Of late years, too, so many have emigrated to the States that really a great power, lies with them, did they choose to use it. But they do not. They are content to rest easy m the knowledge that there is the power and allow their less potent but more talkative cousins to do the blustering. Perhaps the same rational traits of character can be traced m New Zealand, only to a smaller extent. The Irish colonists m this colony, however, are wise enough to live more practically than devote much time to politics. The only time when we notice the inclination is perhaps once m three years, when all are alike discussing the common subject. But everyone becomes more or less Radical who makes America his home. The go-ahead-ism of the Yankee is too much for the caution of most new arrivals, and perhaps a good deal of the steady thrifty ways that the English are said to drop into upon arriving m America, are due rather more to a want of energy and an innate solidity and slowness of action, as compared with the impetuous, sensitive and excitable nature witb which many Irishmen are so strongly imbued almost from birth, than to the possession of the abstract qualities of thrift and steadiness. In New Zealand, there is so little difference between the two, they may be safely said to have almost the same national characteristics.