THE BONDS OF UNION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5465, 2 October 1878, Page 3

THE BONDS OF UNION.

(From the Queenslander) Less than a month ago the staunchest and most eloquent apostle of the political disseverance of the Australian colonies from the mother country. Dr. Lang, passed away full of years from the scene of his varied and useful labors. The event is well adapted to impress one with the change that has come over tho tone of public feeling both in Australia and in England, during the last ten or twelve years, with reference to the mutual relations of those in point of distance so widely dissevered, while in other respects so intimately connected, lands. Time was when this class of topics supplied endless material for discussion, when projects for “ cutting tho painter” on the one hand, or for claiming special representation in the British Parliament as members of a worldwide Federal Empire on the other, were wont to turn up as thick as blackberries, and when an amount of enthusiasm and study was expended in regulating—on paper—these weighty concerns, which might mere profitably have been bestowed on matters of humbler but more practical import. All this is changed now. We are no longer deluged with lectures and pamphlets for or against the disintegration of the British Empire, and even tho “ Royal Colonial Institute,” as it calls itself, that melancholy refuge of absentee old-fogyism, can find metal more attractive for its vapid discussions than to settle the terms of relation and intercourse on which tho various members of the AngloSaxon race shall henceforth stand with one another. Speculation on these matters lias given way to the conviction that the issues at stake are not of a nature to be controlled by the imaginings of doctrinaire theorists, and will work themselves out, unassisted, according to the fixed though unascertained laws that lie at the root of all historical development. Nor is the cause of the change very far to seek. Something may be due to the changed policy on the part of tho Imperial Government, which has gradually caused England’s colonial possessions to bo regarded as an integral part of herself, and no longer as a costly and troublesome burden, as was tho case during the heyday of Mr. Gladstone's Liberal administration. But this reaction from a hard and dry utilitarianism is iu its turn the product of other conditions lying outside the range of a mere political creed. Among these the nearly simultaneous opening of telegraphic communication between Australia and Europe, and of the Suez Canal, the declining demand for English manufactures in foreign markets, and the impetus given to emigration to Australia by tho frequent strikes and generally unsettled condition of tho labor market at Home, may be reckoned as the most potent. While in a material and literal sense tho distance between the mother country and her offspring is being to all intents annihilated by the achievements of engineering science, the twain are simultaneously brought nearer together in sentiment by a growing knowledge ot,their .mutualinter-dependenoc. With the continual 'lncrease of points of contact, both commerce and administration, the disposition to coutemxjlato political segregation as a contingency to bo provided for, or to speculate on tho concessions by which it may bo averted, has proportionately diminished. The more wo feel ourselves to be parts of an organic whole whose every member contributes in some way towards the welfare of all, tho less do we care to trouble ourselves about what shall happen when, according to tho analogy of mundane affairs, tho mighty organism decays through tho absorption by its offshoots of tho parental stock of .vitality, to bo ro-combineu undor other, For the present, least, thtVo no rVa’tftfn to rtpprehenji itrty

decline of that vigor which has planted British institutions all over the globe, and. founded a dominion to which the empire of the Cresars was a garden patch. .One after another of the waste places of the earth is being brought under the asgis of Britain for redemption from savagery or maladministration, until it would seem presumptive to place n limit on the absorptive capacity of the nation. Everywhere we behold embryo states a arting into vigorous existence* under the style and title of the old firm, and the very looseness of the political bond by which they are held together secures for the aggregate a degiea of elasticity which is proof against assaults such as would shatter to fragments a more rigidly constituted administrative and territorial system. Small wonder, then, that the filial sentiment waxes stronger in proportion as lb becomes manifest that such coherence is the first condition of individual development, and that it is only iu isolated instances, where political charlatanry has caused some misguided member of the group to retrograde, a hankering after the phantom of “independence ” still finds vent.

■ And as we have ceased to take interest in the wider topics of artificial disseverance or consolidation of the British Empire, so does the more special one of Australian federation cease to amuse, and for similar reasons. Whereas almost all attempts hitherto made to assimilate our varying tariffs and other divergent institutions with each other, so as to bring about such uniformity of administration as would clear the way for cementing the federal bond, have ended in failure, steam and tiie electric wire have, in the meantime, been bringing the various Australian communities nearer to each other, and interweaving their interests more closely than was possible until the existence of insuperable differences of opinion in administrative matters became manifest. If there is less talk of nominal federation, there is at least more interest shown in everything that tends to diminish existing obstacles to-mutual intercourse, more disposition to profit or bo warned by each other’s experimental legislation, and more faith that tbe federal problem will sooner or later work itself out somehow, by internal necessity, without officious interference on the part of those parlor philosophers who hold themselves commissioned by some not very clearly defined authority to set right all national anomalies that may come in their way.