PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1917, Page 7

PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.

To the Editor. ■ I am not, nor have I ever been, in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and colored race, and in so much as they could not so live, I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white. —Abraham Lincoln, 1800. With the birth of an Imperial Parliament, India can expect the removal of migratory restrictions against her subjects within the Empire. Viceroy Chelmsford, 1914. '

Sir, —Where two races meet history is clear upon three possible solutions of the problem: (1) The races must amalgamate; (2) the stronger must reduce the weaker to slavery or at least political subjection; (3) the weaker race must cease to exist, Lincoln, the greatest friend the colored man ever had, was also the king of all democrats, but great democrat that he was he knew democracy had its limits, and that carried beyond those limits it became a scourge and menace to all social well-being. The trajl of the Anglo-Saxon down, the centuries is the trail of the man who has made political subjection his God. The illuminism of his race has caused him to think in Empires and stand astride, of continents. He has clashed with more colored and aboriginal races than any rnlan Hying, and has absorbed to his own benefit the best bone and blood of other white migratory races. Ho has held the lamp of, illuminism over lands darkened by centuries of degradation and superstition, and he can justly claim to be the greatest migratory force known to man since the dawn of history. The other invaders of the Roman Empire failed to change the name of the countries which they overrun. Hispania is Spain, Italia is Italy. Certainly tho Franks changed the name Galia to France, but they lost their race identity and language at the ■hands of the subject race>, and the French are the head of the Latin race to-day The Celt held Britain for six hundred years, but the Anglo-Saxon touched the Celt, and in a hundred years there were no Celts except in the mountains of Wales and the mountains of Scotland. He changed the name* of Britain to Angleland, and it has been England ever since. He chased the Frenchman from the mlouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, and the Frenchman's power in that vast region is with last year's snows. He touched the Redman and the Redman has gone to his happy hunting ground. His Christianised descendents, the Anglo-Ameri-can, touched the children of liis premigrating foes, and the Spaniard vanished from this hemisphere. He touched the Boers in South Africa, and those sturdy ex-republics are chasing the Germen off' the map of Africa with great enthusiasm. In India he has succeeded where other empires have- failed, because of his tolerance of the laws, manners and customs of the subject race. Here it alight the remarked that he has done all of these things without an Imperial Parliament or even an Imperial Constitution. If full Imperial franchise does not carry with it full migratory rights within the Empire then that franshise has no meaning, and if it does, then what becomes of the white Australia policy, what becomes of our Immigration Act, what becomes of our minimum wage, upon which our whole social and industrial machinery is built ? It means that the Indian invasion (an invasion that must follow as naturally as night follows day) will put the white worker back a hundred, years. I venture the opinion that India is the pivot of the whole position. Include India and it means the social and political annihilation of the white dominions within the Empire. Exclude her and you bring about a set of conditions disastrous to both races. There is this to be said of the present system: It has got the weight of centuries behind it, and it is part and parcel of the Imperial body,politic. The British consti-i ; tution was not made. It grew, and no! hand made constitutions of any other J race on earth is comparable to it. Democracy is great within certain limits, and j the British Empire is great because she has hitherto recognised that democracy has its limits. .Under the tutelage of some i of our lime-light politicians she' is being led into the corral of democracy unlimited, and the result will be such as to cause the harrassed Anglo-Saxon to admit that sixty years ago Abraham Lincoln delivered himself of a piece* of wis- j dom applicable to all ages.' —I 1 ant, etc., j FRANK BELL.