The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1885.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5207, 24 September 1885, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1885.

Time was when men hung on the words of John Bright, the great Liberal orator* as golden drops from a fountain which had matured thought as its well. Bat few years have elapsed since the Birmingham member was looked upon almost as the head of what is now termed the Radical party —the leader of the advanced Liberals —but of late we fear the halo which has surrounded the name has dimmed, and but little of its brilliancy remains beyond the noun which was once used as an adjective. In one of last month's issues of the London Daily Telegraph, an article appears which goes to prove that with all his vaunted progressiveness, the hon. John Bright has, lurking beneath bis onward declamations, a desire for the dismemberment of the Empire, and quotations are freely given from speeches made by him from 1862 to the present year tending in that direction. It is stated that the great orator has said in effect that " the British Empire is an unnatoral.hydra, of which the three heads are India, Canada, and Australia," aod in Mftrnn^ioJndiai Sir aright is reported by^^meßfin April? 1879, to have stated :—" You -^Ifave-.Gibraltar, Malta, the Suez Canal, Perim, and Aden. You have all the stepping-stones to India, and you have India; but excepting the thirty young gentlemen who find places there every year, and a profit of £10.000,000, there is not a single result which is benefioial to the 34,000,000 of population of the United Kingdom^" and, in relation to the ooloni'es, in that -year th>*&Bf c paper reports him as follows:—** All these territories in Canada, in Australia, in India, and in South Africa are neither in men, nor in money in the way of revenue, any strength to the people in the United Kingdom. On the contrary, they are continually drawing from our resources." The hon. gentleman has displayed a wonderful shortsightedness, and his pre« science is entirely unworthy of one who has borne the name as a statesman that he has. It would indeed be a curious study to observe and appreciate the ■ man, if he were placed in the contemplation of the lastly quoted words, alongside of which might be placed a chronicle of the events connected with the recent Soudan war and the action taken by the I colonies theresnent; completely -; compiled statistics of the commercial benefits derived by Great Britain from her colonial connections; the enormous advantages—as a field for emigration—derived by the Kingdom owing to possessing those colonies; toe ground—small though this item may be—opened up to the parent country for planting worn-out politicians or governmental bangers on, who seemingly must have some reward for services rendered, as Imperial officers of one kind or another, and a variety of other benefits large and small. In January of this year the liberal statesman is reported to hare delivered himself thus;~" What do th.c

Imperial Federation League propose P That the British Empire—that is the United Kingdom—with all its colonies, ■hould foritt one country, on© interest, one undivided interest, for the purposes of defence. The idea, in my opinion, is ladieron*. . . . The whole thing ii childV ish, and will not bear discussion for a moment." So far from being the Liberal

which he has always borne the character of, i being we fear that the hon. John Bright is a rentable Tory, and anxious to keep his j eye for good open only for the island in J which he Hres. It can hardly be said that the man of advanced Liberal thdught in past years, i« following up the^ lines which his past political life hare promised, or that he still continues to promulgate those progressive ideas {which he at one time disseminated,; and which formed the basis of his fame. Doubtless the colonies care little what any particular member of the House of Commons may give utterance to, but much stress has been for years laid ; upon the deliverances of the hon. John Bright, and it now seems rather apparent that a somewhat thin veil has been removed from the erstwhile migbtU ness of the man of Liberal ideas, and an exposure of the narrowness of some of his principles made.