THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. TUESDAY, JAN. 23, 1900.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 99, 23 January 1900, Page 2

THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER. TUESDAY, JAN. 23, 1900.

The ultimate outcome of the activity of the Australian Colonies in the Transvaal War will be to direct the attention of the British authorities to these distant lands as a splendid recruiting ground for the English army, and it will raise the question of the relation of Britain and her colonies. Public opinion oscillates in a remarkable manner. It is not many years ago since leading colonists viewed with much complacency the idea of separating entirely from Britain and appointing a Governor elected by the people. Then sprang up the notion of a Federation of the Australian Colonies among themselves. This Federation might have proved sufficiently sustaining, and been anti-imperialistic in its results, but a fortuitous set of circtimstances bas broadened the ideas of those who have advanced the cause, and if Sir Henry Parkes were alive to-day he would rejoice to see the " " crimson thread of kinship " condensing from an invisible cloud into a self-evident bond of union that is drawing closer within its grip Great Britain and her colonial dependencies. The loj'alty of these colonies to the Mother Country is in striking contrast to the independence of the United States, another British offshoot. Already New Zealand has shed her blood in the battles of the Empire; and has turned over a new page in her history. Not merely has she turned over a new page, but from a country which has always abstained from interference' in jthe quarrels of others, she may be said to have shunted like a railway train and gone off on a new track. The story of' New Zealand contingents sent to the Boer war may not have remarkable immediate results, but far away among the years yet fro come, we will look back and see that in 1899 a link in a new connecting chain had been securely welded ; that as a' country we will be bound to bear our share in the struggles of the nation, the enemies of England will be our enemies, and the success of old Britain will be assisted by and rejoiced in by the Greater Britain of the South. Till the present time it would doI have been easy to foretell the "result of a popular vote whether a United Australasia as independent as America should be formed, or whether we should federate with. Britain. But a time for action arose, not for, talk, and it is admitted that the close affection

for the Mother Country, brought so prominently to the surface by j this war, is genuine and spontaneous. We hava travelled along , the road, ye have now reached j th 9 dividing ways, and have ; deliberately chosen the one. To this track this dependency must stick. The day of Imperial federation looms in view, the sign post pointing one finger in that direction, the other to separation, has been passed, and the latter as a serious problem may be said to have been left behind. The result is partly accci dental and unin- j tentional, for had we suffered as the Americans did, these colonies would not have remained attached ! to the throne of Britain. The House of Commons and the nation have been exceedingly lakadaisigal as regards the south- i crn colonies. Borne of the statesmen, such as Lord Granville, Lord Kimberley and even Mr Gladstone looked on the colonies as sources of weakness to the Empire ! In 1770 Lord North, in sympathy with his King, George 111., attempted to impose . a duty on tea in the American colonies. The American colonies, particularly the New - England ' States, comprising Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and ! Rhode Island, whose inhabitants were descendants of the Puritan founders in the seventeenth century, refused to pay, and the struggle for independence commenced. The fortunes of war varied considerably, and on each side there arose many occasions when overtures for peace would have been gladly welcomed. England, unable to subdue her rebel subjects, had to seek the assistance of friends, and 17,000 Germans were hired to support English supremacy, while France and Spain openly sided with and helped the Americans. With the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, brought about by the French fleet and the American land forces the independence of America was virtually obtained. It was the work of a small' active minority, many of the states having small sympathy with the war and" supplying their soldiers -with poor food and little raiment. The States entered on a period of freedom, compelled to work out their own destiny, according to the people's will, a principle thoroughly acted on in this land, namely, that it is better for a people to blunder along and find out their mistakes rather than for a superior external wisdom to coerce them for their own good. The path of America is not the one we required to tread. We have self -governing colonies, we have independence, and our patriotism to the land of our birth is enthusiastic. It would be interesting now to learn what destiny may have in store for us, as compared with our compatriots in America. The wealthy confederation has grown into a nation with warlike abilities, and her friendship is eagerly sought after by the nation from whose loins she sprung. The Australian colonies are now practically tied to the chariot wheels of Great Britain, and will be expected to live up to the reputation they are now making for ■ themselves. There is an underlying element in this patriotic fervour that, so far, we have not seen referred to. There are reasons why we are patriotic, that are sentimentally rather than logically correct.' The 'late Professor of History in the University of Oxford writes— " The attachment of a people to their country depends upon the sense in which it is really arid truly their home. Men will fight for their homes, because without a home, they and their families are

turned shelterless adrift ; and as the world has been hitherto constituted, they havo "hud no means of finding a new home for them* selves elsewhere. And the id«^ of home is inseparably connected with the possession or permanent occupation of land." There is a deep seated truth in this, but it has two edges and it cuts two ways. New Zealanders are and will be patriotic because in this of all the British dependencies, the land is being parcelled out among the people. Homo to them is more than a mere name. It w more to us than the poveitystricken agricultural labourer of England, or the miserable sweated inhabitant of the slums of a sweltering competitive manufacturing city, or the evicted tenants of Ireland, whose inhabitants have had to flee to America or Australasia to be permitted to earn an existence at all. In France, Germany, and Russia subdivision of the land\ among the people has been accomplished more or less, indeed in Russia each &lave was granted with his freedom a portion of his former master's land, while even the English villein was allowed to drift into the present agricultural labourer with no permanent compensation. In France the people are rooted to the soil, and as a nation they are patriotic, even passionately fond of their home and country. The invincible conservatisnr of the system of English land tenure has driven the people of its overpopulated islands to distant lands, for they had no interest in the soil. Imperial governments that allowed its Irish populauon to drift over to America to get breathing space, and there allow them to live and foster a feeling of animosity to the kingdom whose management led to their compulsory withdrawal that they might live afc all. was weak in the extreme, little less than shortsighted folly. In this country the past can well' be buried, but the Irish-American believing as he does that he received 'scant courtesy and little fairplay at the hands of English authorities can hardly be expected to fall into line with those whose pride swells at the narration of deeds that won the Empire. In the colonies indeed Bi'itish freedom is seen at her best, better than in J the Mother land, and that attachment to the soil which is so customai'y in Australasia, is the potent factor in the great colonial wave of patriotism, in this time of Britain's trouble. That half heartedness should be shown by some is J only the other side of the shield, butin the self-governing colonies it may well be dropped. If the freedom so desired did not exist in the old country, ifc is still under the British flag ihe haven of rest and comfort has ultimately been found.