Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1908. TRUE IMPERIALISM.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43328, 21 May 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1908. TRUE IMPERIALISM.

This above all—to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day Thou eanst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

While the subject of loyalty or otherwise of the various British colonies has been up for discussion it is encouraging to note the flat refutation of Cardinal Logue’s wild misrepresentation given by Cardinal Moran. CardinaLLogue has been at pains to say that Australia is practically independent, and is tending more and more in the direction of absolute rebellion. Cardinal Moran, however, with the sound knowledge of the insider, plainly avers that just because Australia enjoys such per- i feet freedom she is entirely loyal. I As for our little Dominion, which it ’ has been stated is “ indifferent,” we need only remind those who asperse

us of the South African War. It may be, that like the schoolboys in Stalkey and Co. we are not fond of flaunting our loyalty in each others faces, perhaps we have all the sound British hatred of the hysterical, which made those boys uncomfortable in the presence of the stump orator who cariae to give them a mock heroic lecture on the flag ! Nevertheless we are not in the least shy about accepting and discharging the obligations of thorough - going Imperialists when the occasion arises, for the most inarticulate of. men are often the most convincing when the vocabulary of deeds is in requisition. One thing, however, we would like to point out, and that is there is

room for a more ardent study of that grand sequence of events by which we have been carried, as a people to the most perfect form of government extant among the great modem Empires. One sometimes wearies a little of the persistent cry that in this strenuous age we are always too tired at the end of the day to read anything solid. We are tired, if we have done our days work we shall be, but yet one is fain to ask is there no refreshment in the records of a history such as ours ? Can the magnificent character of a Pym, or the soldierly nobility of a Sydney, or the large humanity of a Moore, can these I do nothing by way of knitting us as I a younger race to the ancestry to I which under God we owe our all ? I There is nothing human, save the I personal discharge of our daily duty I so encouraging, so ennobling, so re- | freshing as the study of our grand (history. After all we want our ■loyalty to be thoroughly intelligent, las well as ardent. A noble passion, ■ even if a blind one is in its degree ■admirable, if it be enlightened, that ■is if it be the passion of the mind as ■ well as of the heart it is sublime, and ■ what is far more, it is enduring. 1 We venture to propose a very proI Stable recreation, we nse the word jrecreatton advisedly, for we do not I speak of a mere pastime, a very proI Stable re-creation for the winter I evenings would be the reading of ■ Green’s Shorter History of the Eng- ■ lish People. We mention this hisI tory because it is a history of the I people, and of the growth of British ■ freedom, and seems, as far as’ any- ■ thing human can be, impartial. ■ Thank God, the day has not yet ■arrived when it is necessary to reply ■to any wild charge of “ indifference,” I but at the same time there is room ■ for the cultivation of a more intelliI gent grasp of the facts of our evoluI tion as an Empire.