THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2216, 24 April 1880, Page 2

THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

A speech, which, because of its manly eloquence, deserves a place alongside of (he masterly efforts of Walpole, Pitt, Burke, and Grattan, was delivered by Mr Joseph Cowen, M.P. for Newcastle, to a crowded meeting of his constituents on January Jl. The following extract will give a faint idea of the brilliant elocutionary treat which the electors of ( -Teat Britain received at the bands of a sturdy sou of the masses, —one who has risen from the ranks—a self-made politician : We arc not philosophers speculating upon what might he, nor philanthropists dilating upon what ought to be, nor poets chanting the dirge of a brilliant hut buried past. We arc matter-of-fact politicians talking of the prosaic present, and polities, 1 fear, are too often controlled more by self-interest than by sentiment. We are not dealing with an ideal State. If we were, the fragmentary and composite Empire of Pritain would not realise my L'topia. Greece, whose name has been a watchword upon earth, whose fame will never fade, from whoso history mankind has received inspiration and guidance, and which still rises upon our intellectual sight like tiic mountaintop gilded with sunshine amid the devastations of a. Hood—Greece, I say rather thanlawgivingand conquering, imperial, splendid but savage Pome, would be my model. I would lan e a {Stale in which every man is free and whore every man is fortified against superstition by education and against oppression by arms ; where the arts ami graces of Alliens, the martial independence of Sparta, would commingle with (he mercantile and industrial enterprise and the naval prowess of Britain ; where intiuence and authority would be won by intellectual strength and moral worth, and a proud defiance could be bid to despotism’s banded myriads But these are (he dreams of the idealist. We belong to the real and the active and not the imaginary world. We arc the inheritors of a colonial empire the most widespread, scattered, and extensive ever known. It reaches to every region, and has its feelers in every part of die globe. Some of these possessions came to us in a questionable shape, and and by means that no one can justify, and which I at least, have no desire either to palliate or, excuse. But the present generation of Englishmen are guiltless of the crime attending their acquisition. Our colonics cover an urea of J,000,000 square miles, with a population of IJ-,Udt),ooo persons following diverse pursuits, but all having one mind, aim, and tradition. In India, we have a frontier of 12,000 miles, an area of I,soo,(loosquare miles,and 210,000,000 of people owning our sway. Our insular position frees us from many of ike dangers which surround many Continental States, but our external empire makes us at the same time one of the most sensitive and assailable of nations, No serious movement can be made in any part of the earth without our feeling its influence. No country ever occupied suck a peculiar position as

Britain and her daughter empires now hold. It| is not egotism to say that, notwithstanding all car shortcomings power so vast was never wielded with so sincere a desire to use it beneficially, to secure the existence, to rivet the cohesion of this vast dominion, blo-sod, with one of the highest forms of freedom that the world lias ever seen. To carry to distant countries and succeeding ages the loftiest form of civilisation is our mission. To abandon the opportunity of usefulness thus conferred, to throw aside the hope of securing equal rights and impartial freedom, to destroy the means of establishing a feeling of fraternity and consciousness of common material interests among so many millions of our fellow beings, would be a narrow, a niggardly, a short-sighted, and a selfish policy for a great nation to pursue. If wc left South Africa without some protection from the home Government, the homesteads erected by years of patient toil, the centres of civilisation and of commerce created, would be endangered. If wc abandoned India, a like but more disastrous result would ensue. The scores of different races and nations into which the population of the country is divided would ily at each other’s throats. In the earliest encounters probably the tierce, courageous, unteaehablc, and impracticable Mahomedans, who are forty millions strong, would assert their supremacy, but after years of internecine war amt social disorder the country would fall a prey to the foreign invader, possibly Russia. This country would suffer equally with the Indian people; the L 125,000,000 of Indian debt would have to be provided for; civil servants and officers whoso careers would be destroyed would require their pensions, and compensation would possibly be demanded by traders who would be ruined by our change of policy. India, England, and the world would all bo injured. ISTo Englishman could containplatcsuch a contingency withj approval or acquiesce in it with satisfaction. fs r ow that we possess it we arc bound to protect and defend India, and to hold it against any enemy as stoutly as wc would hold Cornwall or Caithness. England is not so many square roods of land, but a nation whose people arc united in love of soil and race by mutual sympathy and tradition, by character and institutions. It is not a fortuitous concourse of individuals merely bound over to keep the peace towards each other, and for the rest following their own selfish objects and declaring outside (heir own cottage, countinghouse, or country, everything should be allowed to take its course. Our country is something more than the workshop of the world, a manufactory for flashy clothing, and a market for cheap goods. We are pledged to each other as citizens of a great nationality and by solidarity of life. We owe a duty to ourselves, to our families and to our country, and also to onr generation and to the future. We have grown great not merely by the extent of our possessions and the fertility of our soil, but by the preservation of our liberties ami the enterprise of onr people. The present generation is the outcome of centuries of elfort ; the history of England is woven and interwoven, laecd and interlaced with the history of Europe and the world. For a thousand years wherever liberty has struggled successfully or wherever it has suffered in vain, there our sympathies have gone. There is nothing in this world that can be foreign to us. Wealth almost beyond the dreams of avarice, and territorial possessions and education, bring with them heavy responsibilities; power to the very last particle of it is a duty. “ Unto him to whom much is given, much will bo required and a.s we have inherited so much, so wc have much to transmit, and no one can look slightingly upon the results which rest upon our resolves in Asia. But if ever a nation drunk with the fumes of power and wealth makes an apotheosis of gold and material pleasure, prefers riches to duty, comfort to courage, selfish enjoyment to heroic effort and sacrifice, itsinks in the respect of others and loses the first and strongest incentive to human elfort. Great work demands great effort, and great elfort is the life, the soul, both of individuals and of nations. I contend, therefore, for these two principles—the integrity of the Empire, and the interest, the right, and the duty of England to play her part in the great battle of the world, as did our illustrious ancestors' the forerunners of European freedom.