The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1914. GREATER BRITAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 1, 19 August 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1914. GREATER BRITAIN.

In 1866 and 1867, Charles Wentworth Dilke—afterwards a prominent figure in British politics as Sir Charles Dilke —“followed England round the world” as he himself expresses it in an interesting description of his travels which appeared in 1869. In the light of what has since happened and is now happening, some of the conclusions arrived at are remarkable. Even in those early days, after nearly two years spent in the British Colonies and possessions, this ardent young traveller decided that whenever he was on English soil or in English-governed lands that oven if the climate, soil, and manners of life were vastly different, ho also saw that in essentials the race was always one. Dilke was not always right in his conclusions and his outlook as regards the Colonics generally is in some respects .peculiar, hut he was undoubtedly a man who thought deeply on Imperial questions. Ho found much to surprise him in what he terms “the one-sided nature of the partnership which exists between the Mother and her daughter lands,” and he saw no reason why British artisans and merchants should pay tax in aid of population far more wealthy than Britain’s own, and who in addition had not, as England always had, millions of paupers to support. Amongst otiiet things he remarked that there was something ludicrous in the idea of taxing St. Giles’ for the support of Melbourne, and making the Dorsetshire agricultural laborers pay the cost of defending Now Zealand colonists in Maori wars. To an extent he was perfectly right, but the result has hardly been what ho professed to believe it would he. Contrasting the position of the British colonies towards the Mother Country at that lime with the position before breaking away which had obtained between Britain and the American colonists, ho recalled the fact that Massachusetts, while declaring that the English Parliament had no right to tax colonists, went on to say that the King could inform them of the exigencies of the Public Service and that they were ready “to provide for them if required.” It is not sur-

prising to laid that Duke summed the matter np as follows“It is not likely, however, nowadays, that our colonists would for any long stretch of time, engage to aid ns in our purely European wars. Australia would scarcely feel herself deeply interested in the. guarantee of Luxemburg, nor Canada in the affairs of Servia. The fact that we in Britain paid our share _or'rather nearly the whole cost of the Maori wars, would he no argument to an Australian, hut only an additional proof to him of our extraordinary folly. We have been educated into a habit of paying with complacency other people’s bills—not so the Australian settler.” Curiously enough the very two places mentioned as outside the hounds of possible colonial interest by this politician of forty odd years ago, are the very identical places through the recent happenings in which the overseas Dominions have put aside for ever all possible doubts of loyalty to the Empire. But times have changed since the young Englishman made his sweeping comment, and Britain’s overseas colonies and dependencies, grown np and filled with strength and vigor, have recognised their duty, and today as loyal and sturdy daughters of a generous Motherland Britain’s colonies, which men of Dilke’s school could only conceive as a source of military weakness, are her mainstays and (Treat support in time of need.