MS. FROUDE ON THE COLONIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 143, 14 June 1878, Page 4

MS. FROUDE ON THE COLONIES.

Mr. J. A. Froude delived the flrat of two lectures on March 20 at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, on " The Colonies." He said that though many of our ablest statesmen thought that a separation of our English colonial possessions must take place, yet many of the colonists themselves, us well ac the people of this country, were equally in earnest in the desire that the Empire might be kept together, the English nation were occupied in building up America, the Indian Empire, and Colonial commerce at a time when the ruling people of the country were occupying themselves exclusively with Continental affairs. English politicians for the most part had little to do with the matter, and even up to the present day the colonies had attracted comparatively little- interest on the part of the ruling people of England. We bad European alliances, obligations, and responsibilities. Nothing happened ia Europe but what we had a voice in it ; while as to the colonies, he would relate a story which would show how they bad been regarded. Lord Palmer ston, being at a loss for a Colonial Minister, and having talked to one and another without finding one that would suit, said to Sir Arthur Helps, "I think I must lake this office mysalf. Jugt come upstairs, and we will look at the maps, and you shall tell me where these places are," The incident wot very eaßily explained. The English official mind was governed by traditions. Those Continental tendencies on the part of English statesmen were the legacies of old days. He did not say they bad no interest on the Continent—they could not shake off all tbeir inherited traditions.; but he held that their contineulal,interests were merely secondary; their first interests were in their own Empire; and their firstvduties were to themselves. He considered of all the problems which tbeir statesmen had before them, the one of real practical importance was the problem of how the colonies, which were bo anxious to be attached to us should be attached. As to foreign alliances,. for his own part, the .only alliance which he really cared about would be en alliance with America. Whatever once might have been the importance of their connection with the Continent, they were cutoff from the Continent by the channel. Science had enabled them to make their own shores impregnable, and they had as little to fear trom Europe as America had, and as little to gain by mixing themselves up in Continental affairs. They were no longer a European Power, but an Asiatic and an Ocean Power. English enterprise had given (bern an empire oh which the sun never set. They had the colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa — were they to lose them ? They would never lose them if they recognised their own true position ;/but thay would most certainly Jofse/them ifithey persisted in occupying themselves with matters in which the colonies at least could never pretend to hatie ".any interest, but whioh cojild- bring them only a possibility of' harm without any possible good. From, the first, the misfortune had been that the ruling people of England bad regarded the -colonists as a sort of "poor relations." They were made to feel that we had no real care or concern for them, and that iheir interests and wishes were nothing to us when weighed against the imagined exigencies of European politics.