IN PRAISE OF JOHN BULL.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9736, 26 May 1897, Page 5

IN PRAISE OF JOHN BULL.

TO TM EDITOR OF THB PRESS.

Sin, —Dr. Jennings's article in yesterday's Press on the Turkish question is very interesting and very true. The Turks make splendid soldiers when properly trained and led. At the time of the Turco-Russian war it was pitiful to see one opportunity after another let slip, and especially when Sulieroan Pasha could have taken the Russians in flank and have crumpled them up. The idea was, of course, that Russian gold stayed his hand. He was not a Turk, but if I remember rightly an orientalised German.. The one point, it seems to mc, which Dr. Jennings has failed to emphasise is that why the Turks under Baker Pasha fought so well was because he was an Englishman. There is no race that can train and lead men—black or white —like the English can. Read. Knight's letters from the Soudan, and you will see the idea confirmed. Look at Chinese Gordon and his ever victorious army./;• Look at the Indian army—Lord Wolseley may sneer at them in his jealousy of better men, but they have crossed bayonets with the French and beaten them,-and if properly led by a competent man Tire fit to be put in the.afield against any other force.

This, again, leads' us to another question. Is any race etoept t%|^^ffi'ml^- : iß|tti9A of colonising ? The Italians have decided to abandon their one Colony of Erythrea. The French were in both Canada and India, but did nothing, and had to give way to the English. What did they jto whilst they were predominant in Egypt? It is only since the English occupation of that country that any progress has been made. What about Algeria, with its military establishment of 200,000, and its cultivation of one milllion acres. After his visit to Tohqain Prince Henri of Orleans told us that the colony was on the verge of bankruptcy; that the French resident at Cho-Bo was only managing to maintain his position by Ingratiating himself with the neighbouring chiefs and accepting immunity from attack by paying tribute to Doc-Ngu, the notorious pirate leader, who had massacred the resident's predecessor and all his staff the year before. Is Noumea a success and are the people at the New Hebrides happy? Lecky, the historian, may talk of France's "gift of fascinating" and her "unrivalled power of attraction, sympathy and assimilation, in which Englishmen are/ signally deficient," but John Bull, though apparently Burly, is not bad at heart, and in dealing with Eastern races he, honestly believing his own ways to be the best, tries to raise the natives to his own level. This the Frenchman does not do, but on the contrary assimilates himself to the ideas and ways of those amongst whom he is living. The result in each case being that, whereas the Englishman retains his superiority and raises the subject race, the Frenchman becomes one of the people, loses his individuality, and sinks to the lower level.

Next, what is to be said of the Germans. As individual settlers they are excellent. Frugal and industrious, they always get on, but as far as we know, no German colony has dose much. Prussian militarism is not suited to the development of a young country. As small traders or farmers tjtey do well, but the higher qualities for founding a colony are wanting. Since the German element and the German system has been introduced into the Transvaal the Boers have taken to trekking into Rhodesia. Emm Bey, of Equatoria, can scarcely be called a brilliant example. The poor fellow did not waut to be rescued by Stanley, and went back again. Of Spain little need ;be said, for both Cuba and Manilla are in trouble. The Portuguese have everywhere merged into the coloured races, and the only distinction between them and their surroundings is in their dress. America is but an English colony, for she has but perpetuated the institutions, the language, and the love of freedom which she derived from her mother, England. About the Russians I can tell you nothing.; . Their, land is.large, and they don't want to colonise, only to conquer and dominate. So there appears to be no race that can really colonise except the English.—Yours, &c» Q. E, _.