THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1910. CANADIAN INDEPENDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9692, 17 January 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1910. CANADIAN INDEPENDENCE.

That Canada is beginning to feel the new sensations of nationhood, and to realise that with her rapid increase of population and the enormous development" of her almost illimitable resources she is growing in strength and power,is not a matter for surprise or apprehension. According to recent cablegrams, one of her statesmen, the Hon. G. E. Foster, seems, indeed, to view this new awakening as foreboding a change in her relations with the Mother Country, and to detect in some recent speeches delivered by the Prime Minister a revolutionary note. But his views are probably inspired by party feeling mnre than by historical accuracy. At all events, so far as national senjiment is reflected by the Canadian press, and by the speeches of public men, there is absolutely no title of evidence to show that the attitude of ! the Dominion towards the Mother Country is becoming less loyal or affectionate. There was a time, not so very remote, when a school of British statesmen held the opinion that every measure for widening the limits of colonial self-government was but one step more in the direction of ultimate and inevitable sepa- ; ration, and that the colonial relation was incompatible with maturity and full development. But time and ' experience have proved that colonial expansion, carrying with it all the social and political rights and privileges which organised communities of free men are entitled to exercise, is not inconsistent with the continuance of those ties which unite the scattered portions of the Empire with the parent stem. So long as the i colonial connection is broad based i

up<jn v the unfettered.will of the peo-! pies inhabiting the overseas domiD-) ions, there can be no grounds tor fearing that the colonial Empire will ever be broken up into dfetached and in dependent units. The relations which now exist between the colonies and the Mother Country may, in course of time, be profoundly modified as each one attains the strength and vigour of lusty nationhood, but there is no reason why the silken cord of Imperial unity should be severed. The people of Canada are proud, and justly proud, of beint; Canadians, but they are still prouder of being British subjects, and, to use the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, of belonging to an Empire which for power, majesty, and prestige, rivals the Empire of Rome in its palmiest days.