MR HOWARD VINCENT AND COLONIAL POLITICS. (Lyttelton Times.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2034, 21 July 1885, Page 4

MR HOWARD VINCENT AND COLONIAL POLITICS. (Lyttelton Times.)

Wliks Mr Howard Vincent, of Scotland Yard eelebiity, formilly announced his intention of jounug tlie Conservative party, he ga*e icaaona foi his action of tome inteiest to Colonists. He had been travelling -r.ither at post haste— through England's Colonies ; li 3 had come to the conclusion that the gieatest question of the day for Englishmen was thu mamte nance of their Empiie , finally, he had made up his mind that the Conservatives weie the paity most likely to do this. 9r> Mr Vincent, who, though nevei an active politician, had hitheito been looked upon as a soit of Lihciiil, or a Liberal of a soit, found himself compelled, 01 impelled, to join the paity which claims as its watihwoul " I nipt i imn rf Libnins" His scccs sioii, if secession it can be called, took place in Apul last, and as he \s a gentleman tolerably well known in London, it became a nine horns' t ilk. Needless to say he was, like e\ eryone else nowadays, from Mr Knakin down to Tawhiao and O'Donovan Rossa, and from Stanley to a circus propiu-tor, at once interviewed by a reporter fioin the Pall Mall Ga/ette. To this enterprising gentleman Mr Vincent unbosomed himself, aud a somewhat amusing chat was the result. Mr Vincent waxed warm, and the interviewer, by a few judicious contradiction*, had no difhculty in inducing him to wax warmer and become voluble. He had come back to England " literally over whelmed," and " absolutely aghast " at the neglect by the Gladstone Cabinet of the Colonies, and at the hatred with which loyal Colonists returned this neglect. When he was in Melbourne there was not a single public building in the whole city which would consent to receive a portrait of the Piime Minister. We should like to ask, by the way, who made the offer in question to the buildings, and how they expiesscd their dissent. Mr Vincent again was assnred that, had Australasia been federated when the news of the German annexations in the Pacific came to be known in Melbourne, Australasia would most certainly, in her indignation and wrath, have " cut the painter," and left the Empire. All we have to say on this point is that we trust Australians are not such pettish children as Mr Vincent appears to have beeu led to believe. For Australasia to be federated implies, no doubt, a considerable change in colonial public opinion as it now exists. But we cannot conceive even a Federated Australasia sacrificing its birthright not e.-cn for a mess of pottage, but in momentary disgust at foiing it. We may wish the Germans out of New Guinea ; we may be irritated at Lord Deiby's stolidity, or Lord Granville's timidity ; but wo are not such born fools as to throw away our heritage in the British Empire because the Ger mans have forestalled us in certain unhealthy Pacific islands under the equator. Finally, Mr Vincent is convinced that if within a few joais measures aie not taken to federate England's vast Colonial empiie, and said empue will dissolve like the baseless fabno ot a \ision, leaving not a wiiick behind. For the sake of the dwelleis tlieitin-oui fellow colonists — we cm only hope th.it Mr Vincent' Visional)' sketch wdl be falsified, even in the probable contingency of our hay ing to wait foi fcdciation another decade or npiore. For more than a geneiation have the self-ruling, self reliant Australian Colonies ltmained loyal and content with their ousting iclations with their Mother Country. The shoe would have to pinch tight indeed somewhere to biing about suthciuit initabihty to cause a quarrel. But piactically the shoe docs not pinch at all. So far fiom England's meddling with us, our complaint has rather been that she has left us too severely alone. She allows us to tax her imports and to manufacture what we please. So far from our haviug wanted to cut the parental connection, our anger has been timed especially agiinst that Manchester school of English politicians whose great crime was that they talked more or less vaguely of tu-ning us adnft. There are thinking people heic who consider that if we have -v fault it is not disloyalty or disaffection so much as a tendency to cling too tightly to the maternal apronstrings. We show too little piomisc of daring to be original. So far ftom feeling ouiselves neglected, injured or oppressed, the chief difficulty the Fedeiationists have always had in arousing us is that they cannot put their fingers on tangible evils resulting fiom our present unfcdciatcd state, We thrive so well unbound that we requiie a good deal of persuasion to make us see the advantages of being bound together. The healthy, moderate di inker, being promised perfect health at the price of total abstinence, often replies that he is very well as he is, and does not want to be any better. At any rate, arguments for federation are not in the Colonies usually based on the injustice and wrong being caused by us our present state. Very few people indeed, in this part of the world, dream of an impending disruption of the Empiie, to be averted only by Federation. Mr Vincent mis repiesents us, and has evidently been mis led himself No doubt he did his best to study the Colonies during his Hying tour But, associating only with a class, he naturally picked up the opinions of that class only. He might as well have attempted to gauge English political feeling by a ten days' tour through the smoking rooms of the London Clubs. These Colonies are Radical to the core ; an Radical in the view they take of English politics ns of their home affairs. A prolonged tenure of office by Lord Salisbury would bo looked on as a misfortune here by just the *amc classes which would dicad it at Home. Mr Vincent does not associate with those classes in Fnglind, nor did lie do no hero Heincrclyrepcatswliathc heird. But, just an even little Cantcrbuiy ni'iiot be got by lie irt in two days, nor New Zealand in a fortnight, paitly spent at sea, «> Australia cannot l>e mastered in two months. The Colonial Empiie, in this respect is biggfr th. m even Mr Vincent fancies.

An American cngineci has succeeded in cvohing a piocrss by which gold silver, and copp r om bi> instantly smelted fiom coiict ntuitioii Ijy eleetiie surrunts of high tension. J'iik Aichbishop of ('iintcibiiiy recently preached at CantLibuiy t'attirdml, when he ulhuUd to \aiious Nocial pioblcms. As to the prevalence of licentiousness, lie remmked that even at tliN moment we had a thoughtful (!o\ eminent .usuiing us that it was in vain to attempt the piotcction of git Is above fifteen years of age, because public opinion was not ready to support such a measure. Then, again, thtre were the miserable, unclean, in decent abodes which were all that civil tied towns offered to toiling myiiads. Again, last week a Commission asmied us that the law had made very groat provision to remedy such monstious evils as made one's flesh creep, but public opinion had never cared to tct the law in motion. Think of that ! flood laws made for the protection of the helpless never obeyed, no\er enforced ! Then, again, there was our submissiveness to numbers, our fear of multitude. Thcie was the extreme difficulty in the way of simplicity of living. There were fashions no imperions that people that would not live up to them were apt to diop behind, and bi* left out of the social scale. There were, too, not a few homes and offices and groups of society in which the confession ol Christ i e(juircd courage fiom a young i>)M to-day. The circumstances of sonic (A these things wero full of honor as anything was in the heathen world. " Yov Don'i Kvou 'Jmi'ir Vaii i."—" Ihcy cured me of billioninc-. 1 ; and kidney compl unt, as rfromnnMid. I had a hilt-bottlo left, wlncli I mod fnr mjf two little dirU, who the doctors and ncighhottn I«U could not he cured. I tm confident I <;bMld havr lost both ol them onr nijjht if I bad not had thf American Co's Hop r,itt«»rs in my housr to use That is \\hy I *aj yon do not know half the valoc of American Hop Hitter*, ami do not recommend them highly enough." Jsoc.