Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1929 THE MOTHER OF NATIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 3 August 1929, Page 6

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1929 THE MOTHER OF NATIONS

NOTHING in history exercises a more arresting influence thafi the rise and growth of the British Empire. There have been other great Empires in the past—the Chinese Empire of Kublai Khan ; the Inca Empire; the Mogul Empire ; the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great; the Carthaginian Empire, the Roman Empire; and in modern times, the Spanish Empire; the Portuguese Empire; the Russian Empire; and the Empire of the United States. But none of them can be compared with the British Empire, which comprises more than a fifth of the land surface of the globe, and contains about a fourth of the world’s population. ( A clay or two ago we attempted the task of locating on the map and compiling a list of the Empire's component parts, and had reached the 108th entry when, being confronted with the innumerable Native States of India (dependent, semi-dependent, and independent but nevertheless part of the Empire), tve gave up in despair, hoping that Somewhere in the Colonial Office there exists a correct and complete list of His Majesty the King's kingdoms, dominions, states, colonies, dependencies, and protectorates. and that Mr Sidney Webb, the new Colonial Secretary, and raised to the House of Lords, knows where they all are. But the history of Britain’s colonial expansion is as remarkable as the history of her Empire. . There have been other colonising nations, hut none which has accomplished anything like the colonising success which has attended Britain’s efforts. She has created new nations in every part of the globe. She has literally spawned new nations, in a manner which is positively unique in the world’s history. The Phoenicians colonised Carthage. Carthage colonised the northern coast of Africa and parts of Spain and Sicily. The Greeks founded the colonies of Syracuse in Sicily, and of Massilia in the south of Gaul. Rome had her colonies in Africa, in Spain, in Gaul, and in the many lands which she conquered, including Britain. Then came the Dark Ages, when Rome was wiped out. It took centuries for Civilisation to recover. But when it did, it discovered America. Then were founded the Spanish colonies, the Portuguese colonies; and afterwards the British colonies in North America, the French colonies in Canada, and the Dutch colonies in North America and South Africa. So that Bitlain has hot been by any means the sole modern colonising nation. But she lias surpassed all the others. She absorbed the Dutch colonies at New Amsterdam (now New York), and at the Cape of Good Hope. She absorbed, the French colonics on the St. Lawrence; and, having lost her New England colonies in America, through the stupidity and domineering obstinacy of George 111, she set about founding new colonies in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Never was there such a record in colonising. Britain has been an inveterate coloniser. Nothing could slop her colonising. The colonising spirit was in her blood, and still is. As wo of New Zealand know, a- hostile Colonial Office and Government might do their utmost to prevent the ardour aiid enterprise of would-be rolonisls, but their love of adventure and determination to found new British settlements in wild nnd unexplored parts of the earth, could not bo thwarted—to the eternal benefit |of the British rare and of Britain herself! In fine, the British race has proved j itself to be the colonising race par excellence. without equal, successful beyond imagination, indisputably the greatest colonising Power the world has known. What was it that gave Britain the impetus of colonisation? What were the basic causes which made her colonics evervwhere a success? Spain failed

Portugal 'failed. Holland failed. France failed. Why did Britain succeed? Wo have asked a difficult question. Wo liavo propounded a hard problem. But neither is that question unanswerable, nor is that problem insoluble. Tho British colonies succeeded because Britain is Britain, and her people a unique people. Her colonising powers have been wonderful because her race is wonderful, superior to other races in physique and mind und spirit, a race without a compeer, tilled with the spirit of adventure, composed of inimitable components. And when wo say that we include tho women as well as the men of the British race, for there is no successful colonising unless the women follow the men. That has been the crux of the whole question. In tho case of • the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French and the Dutch, their men were adventurous enough, but their women were inclined to bang back, they did not relish the idea of leaving their comfoldable homes and crossing the ocean; with the result that colonies founded with insufficient women soon lost the characteristics of tho nations from which they sprang, and became colonies of mongrels through intermarriage with native racp* But.the British colonists were able to keep their blood puro in every part of the globe, because British women were, and still are, as adventurous as British men, and were as undaunted as they in the face of trial and danger. No country proves that better than New Zealand, which was colonised by our forefathers at a time when it was inhabited by tho most- savage race of cannibals, who outnumbered the incoming white colonists nearly ten to one. But the British women did not hang back. They came into tho country by the shipload, bringing their little children with them, resolved that where their husbands were they would be. Was there ever higher fortitude? Was there ever a finer display of feminine constancy and devotion? Is it a wonder if these young nations aro jealous of keeping their blood pure, and resent the idea of an Asiatic inflnxion; that Australia and New Zealand are determined to remain white? They have earned the right to be white, and they will remain so or perish. There is not much doubt that t(ie British colonising spirit is attributable to the infusion of Viking blood which is right through the race, especially the English part of it. The Vikings were great rovers. They penetrated as far as Alexandria and Constantinople, in the Mediterranean, and discovered Greenland in the west. They were on the eastern coast of the United States centuries before Columbus rediscovered America. But they did not take their women with them. They did not wish to colonise. There was plenty of room for them in their native countries. It was mere love of adventure which took them abroad, that and probably the tedium of the long northern winters. They were tho people of the Baltic lands, of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. They conquered and settled Normandy. They were behind, indeed they actually were, the influx of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes into England nnd the south of Scotland. They settled in the north of Ireland, on the coasts of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. In fact their strain permeates the British race. The Normans imparted a new infusion of their blood after the Conquest. There is not much doubt that the British race owes much of its spirit of adventure, of its love of roaming, cd' its affinity with tho salt sea, and its capacity for being at home on the ocean, to the Viking blood which it absorbed in the post-Roman era of its history. As seafarers tho Vikings and the English have been without equals, and, England becoming overcrowded, what was more natural than that she turned her love of the sea to her purposes of colonisation ? And when we ask the reason of her womenfolk’s, of British womenfolk’s, alacrity to cross the seas in order to found British colonies, the answer is that, being of tho race and sharing its characteristics with the men,

it was as natural for them to wish to go with their menfolk, as it was for the men to wish to seek new homes in new lands. Thus, because of the adventurous spirit of her men and because 'of the staunchness of her women, Britain became the premier colonising Power in the world, and won the imperishable name of Hie Mother of Nations, for her children are in the four quarters of the globe, and her ships trade to them across every sea.