IS'GREAT BRITAIN DOOMED?

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 105, 2 May 1908, Page 7

IS'GREAT BRITAIN DOOMED?

(To the Editor.* Sir, —I was really pleased) to read " Britisher's " reply t<) Mr. Kelly's article, "Britain Revisited," and thoroughly 'endorse his (" Britisher's") statements re this country and its people. Without being prejudiced against them, they are inclined to be a little insular, and so wrapped up in their country (which of course, is very patriotic), that tney know little or nothing of outside matters, and some of them have a very hazy conception of the United Kingdom, its wealth, power, and government; and do they know that, practically speaking, every acre of their " God's Own Country" is mortgaged to the Old Country! Apropos of the coming visit of the American fleet, when New Zealanders view it they will then be able to gauge Britain's might in a naval direction, by multiplying it forty times, and making allowance for the more up-to-date, powerful and better-equipped type of vessels (of our fleet), and then they can picture the British navy, for which they vote the insignificant' sum of £ 40,000 per annum. 1 myself do not sec why. New Zealand should be so inflated with their own importance as it doe 3 not become a young country to be so—a country that has ho history (as far as Europeans are concerned), no tradition*, and, in a certain sense, no independence; in fact, it seems to mc that they arc running this country as a sort of trial ground for Utopian experiments. Whether these will prove a success or not time alone will prove. I am inclined to think that Maeaulay'3 prophecy about the New Zealander standing on the ruins of St. Paul's is a very, very long way oil" from being fulfilled.—l am, etc., FRANCIS JOSEPH BONNEK.