Rangitikei Advocate WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1907. SECOND EDITION EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8807, 8 May 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1907. SECOND EDITION EDITORIAL NOTES.

WE publish the following extract from the New Zealand Herald, not because wc entirely agree with the views expressed, but because it puts - in. readable form a problem which must have excited the interest of , many of our readers: — ‘ Whether Britain will be able to permanently retain her great possessions in the East is a question that constantly crops up whenever unwelcome symptoms manifest themselves in India. 31 That she has been able to rule there so long would at first sight appear it strengthen the assumption that; • she .will continue to rule for ceu- : j furies longer. And if she is fulfillj ing some inscrutable destiny among ; I the nations of the earth, as many ! j believe, that may actually happen, i But looking in the light of past | history at facta as they are, we confess to a feeling of doubt regarding the durability of British rule in India, while fully convinced that it ha-4 enormously ameliorated the lot. of the brown races in the great pen- ■ insula, and reduced the aggregate of human misery. In the first place Asia, whence has come so much .that has moulded the thoughts and creeds of Europe, has never been' seriously or permanently influenced by the ‘West. On three occasions at least since the eighth century Europe has been threatened with subjugation by Asiatics, who but 'for some’ strange want of staying power might' have succeeded. On three occasions Europe has made an effort to sub- : jugate Asia, and has failed each time. Greeks, Romans, and Crusaders have all alike passed away," but the East remains Asiatic still, unchanged, and unchangeable. ‘She has bowed before the blast in patient, deep disdain, and let the legions thunder past, then plunged in thought again. ’ There is no evidence that wo liave influenced India. On the contrary all competent observers believe that not a single trace of our rule would he found five years after our departure. The cleavage between the races is as pronounced as over. There has been neither amalgamation nor assimilation, not even an increase of friendliness. As the crystal touches the crystal hut never junctions there is contact without union. And in the second place there has been no decrease in the Asiatic’s deep dislike of the European. However much it may be concealed under a thin veneer of i outward politeness and imperturbability, it is always there, ready to , burst out as it did during the ■, Mutiny,, whenever the opportunity I occurs. No native troops -wore ever treated with greater kindness and ( consideration by their white officers ; than the Sepoys; yet the Sepoys not only turned upon their officers, hut j slaughtered their wives and families, n The Sikhs stood hy ns during the i

Mutiny, not because they loved us more but because they hated with an inveterate hate the Empire, of Delhi. t But the Sikhs would have been ready to fly at our throats had Diraleop Singh’s design to seize the throne of his father not been nipped in the bud by his arrest at Aden on his way to fire India. And Dhulecp Singh himself who had been treated in England almost as a member of the Royal family, who was allowed a fortune of £40,000 a year, who was received everywhere in English society as a groat noble and was on terms of friendship with the highest

families in the laud —oven he was prepared to give a signal which he knew would have meant the massacre of hundreds of English women and children. This race hatred is certain to burst into flame some day when a great native leader makes his appearance in India. That may not happen for another 50 years but we are inclined to agree with those wixo hold that when it does the India which we have constructed with so much labour and at the expenditure of so much blood and treasure will fly to pieces and the ‘ Empire which came in a day will disappear in a night.’ ”

THE Wanganui Herald is indignant that the British Government has not received the colonial demands for preferential treatment with an immediate surrender of the principles it was elected to support. “We venture to say” writes the Herald, “that if Mr Deakiu and Sir Joseph Ward could see their way to carry ou a three mouths’ campaign in the centres of the United Kingdom they would speedily remove many of the prejudices and misimpressions that now exist, and would exert such an influence in favor of preference as would imperil the standing of any Government that refused to meet the wishes of the people. ” Can the Herald bo unaware that Mr Chamberlain and the Conservative party spent not throe mouths but several years in endeavouring to convert the country to protection, with the result that a Liberal Ministry was returned to power with a majority of 854 in a house of 070 members? Mr Chamberlain has, in fact, killed the Conservative party, for the time at least, and our opinion of Mr Deakiu and Sir Joseph Ward is not so high as to believe that they could shake the convictions which led to the Liberal victory.. The Herald 'continues: “Does it not stand to reason that unless Britain is prepared to meet her colonies half way by placing their trade in the Home market on a favoured footing as compared with the trade of the foreigner, the colonies will develop their protect) on isr policies, and oven abandon such preferences as we now give, and which are maintained as it is with considerable difficulty in the face of the local opponents of the colonial Governments, who point out that ‘some thing is being given for nothing. ’ So surely as light follows the darkness, if the United Kingdom persists in refusing to consider preference to her colonies, the latter will enter into reciprocal arrangements with foreign Powers, with discrimination against the Mother Country.” ..Those are really terrible threats, and British Ministers, wo fear, hardly realise what they are risking. The people of Britain, however, like the eulogies, prefer to manage their own affairs, and when the colonies press John Bull to take their favourite nostrums to cure his illness he replies first that he never was healthier in -his life, and second he has no liking for quack remedies, hut ho has no objection to other people taking them if they think right.