AN AMERICAN OPINION

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 452, 8 March 1890, Page 5

AN AMERICAN OPINION

THE UNITED STATES OF AUSTRALIA. The New York “Herald,” discussing Sir 11. Parkes’s federation speech, says : “The present total population of the Australian colonies is about. 4,000,000, that is, a million greater than the population of these United States when they became a nation. The Australian colonies enjoy a large share of self-government, with, as in Canada, the inestimable privilege ot paying for a governor sent fVom England, and of being involved in any disputes which England may fall into. “ We advise our Australian cousins to take a good look at the construction of the United States before they commit themselves to the cumbrous, corrupt, costly and ineflective system imposed upon Canada by the ingenuity of Imperialism represented by Sir John Macdonald, and which will scarcely last out his lifetime. For a growing country our own system is undoubtedly the best. One proof is that Canada every year loses an appreciable part of her population to the United States, and that the shrewdest and most active part. Our form of government draws to us nob only twenty times as many people from the British Islands as Canada gets, but we have amongst us about 1,000,000 of born Canadians who have fled from Sir J. Macdonald s Dominion and have got ‘ better terms ’ in the United States. It will nob be very long before the whole of Canada will be knocking at our doors, not for 4 annexation,’ which is a ridiculous word, bub for 4 union.’ If they will look into the results of the Canadian mistake, our Australian cousins will see that for them there is bub one wise course, to establish themselves as an independent nation under an elastic constitution as near like that of the United States as circumstances and surroundings will permit. The less it differs from our own the better will it be for their future. Sir 11. Parkes suggests ‘something in the form of the Dominion of Canada ;’ the Australians should consider seriously if this ‘something ’ may not, il adopted, be bub a millstone round their neck.”