COLONIAL MAGNATES AT HOME

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2967, 28 September 1882, Page 2

COLONIAL MAGNATES AT HOME

. The London “ Times ” thus refers to the average colonial magnate who visits,, England say Sir Henry Parkes : “ Colonial personages come over here from’time to time, to disport themselves in London Society. They usually appear more or less oppressed with the wholly unfounded notion that every, body is looking at them, and when they get a chance to talk at a public dinner they deiscant with an amusing air of importance, upon the burning questions of some little community which has no foreign relations at all and ,no domestic problems except of the simplest character. With charming simplicity they will describe how well they manage things, and they will let it be understood that a moderate amount of wisdom would, in their opinion, suffice to organise English affairs on their more perfect models. The truth is that a colonial training is'the very ; worst conceivable, so far as qualifying a man to meddle with Imperial. politics is concerned. The intelligent English ''.schoolboy—not of Lord Macaulay, but of every-day life—has a better comprehension of the complexity of life in an old country like this,than is easily attained'by the Prime Minister of a country of sheep runs or railway lots. When our Canadian friends offer suggestions about the Irish difficulty they meddle with a problem which puzzled English statesmen before a lumber raft floated on a Canadian river. Their utter want of cognate experience ought alone to teach them modesty. Were they even competent to judge, their relations to the Mother Country ought to teach them a somewhat more reverent form of ‘ loyalty and devotion.’”