The Waipawa Mail WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 6, 2 October 1878, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2.

The visit of the Australian cricketers to England has done more in bringing the colonies prominently under the notice of the people of the mother country than would have been accomplished by any number of “ Handbooks ” and a score of emigration lecturers. We venture to say that at no time since the discoveries of immense auriferous wealth at Ballarat and Bendigo has the Australasian colonies been such a general theme of conversation in the mother country. The cricketers of Victoria and New South Wales have demonstrated that the Briton of the Antipodes has lost nothing of -the national vigor, and of that aptitude which has rendered Englishmen pre-eminent for field sports the world over. To show the importaTice which is attached to the visit of the Australian team to the mother country we have only to refer to the banquet given to the Eleven in London on July 23. The banquet was got up by gentlemen connected with the several colonies, and the chair was occupied by the Duke of Manchester. The Duke is one of the few English noblemen who take an active interest in Australia and New Zealand, and no more fitting gentleman could have been chosen to preside. The mere display of good cricket by the visitors from these portions of her Majesty’s dominions was of course regarded as nothing compared to the effect such visits have in cherishing a friendly feeling between the mother country and the most distant part of the Empire. The Duke of Manchester put this view well when he said : —“ The spirit which I admire in them is precisely the same as that which induced the Canadians to | come every year to shoot at Wimblcj don. They and you come in friendly rivalry in national sports, but the ground of my admiration js that I take it is a proof that our'colonists are ready to share with us in any enterprise which England, or any portion of the Empire, may be called upon to take in more serious rivalry, if unhappily we should have to enter the lists against a foreign enemy. That is the spirit which we all admire in them, and that is the spirit which we welcome them to “ Home, sweet home.” There was present at the banquet a former Victorian colonist who has made a name amongst living statesmen. We allude to Mr. Childers, who at one time was Commissioner of Customs in Victoria, and afterwards First Lord of Admiralty in England. Mr. Childers addressed those who had assembled to do honor to the Australasian colonies through the cricketing representatives. In the his remarks, Mr. Childers/said: — “ \V hatever might be said in regard to maintaining the integrity of the Empire, the knowledge that the prosperity of the Empire was tied up with the prosperity of the colonies was thoroughly appreciated at the present time, and such assemblies as these were likely to cherish and foster the feeling here. There were few things better calculated to bind all together than the knowledge that it was not only in the counting-house and the Senate that Englishmen and colonists had the same feelings, but ! that in their moments of leisure and amusement both naturally turned to the same sports. Whether in the field, on the racecourse, or in the I cricket field, Englishmen were Englishmen all the world over.” Such expressions of opinion from prominent men in the old country cannot fail to strengthen the loyal attachment of the colonies to the parent country. The realisation of the views of the advocates of the disintegration of the Empire is not likely to take place in the present generation