The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1899. THE EMPIRE.

Feilding Star, Volume XXI, Issue 126, 27 November 1899, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1899. THE EMPIRE.

In discussing the question of the Imperial Idea, the Spectator holds that not only is it a sound one, but that those who have encouraged its growth and steadily forced what at first seemed almost a delusion upon their fellow countrymen, have done a real and great service. There are few in England, be their political opinions what they may, who were not at heart proud and grateful when they read of how New Zealand and the other colonies showed their eagerness to come to the assistance of the Mother Country in the present crisis. No doubt, says our contemporary, there are churlish critics who may ask what business New Zealand has to interfere in a quarrel not her own j but that is not the standpoint of the nation as a whole. The vast majority of Englishmen would never think of asking such a question, for they take it for granted that New Zealand has the most perfect and absolute right to take a side and express an opinion in the present quarrel. The notion that our difference with the Boers is no business cf any of the colonies belongs to an antiquated policy — a policy which legarded the colonies as temporary dependencies. The growth of the lmpbrial idea has changed all that, A germ of thought fructifying in the minds of thinkers and writers has produced a veritable revolution, and has afforded yet another example of how the great est of human changes are due far more often to thought than to physical action. It ia the essence of the Imperial idea that the self-governing communities oversea are not dependencies of. the United Kingdom, but parts of an Empire of which the United Kingdom, also, is only a part. Ifc is clear that what makes the colonies so eager to take part in the present struggle is their desire to show that they realise themselves to be sharers in the burdens of the Empire- They feel, also, that the present struggle is in a very special sense an Imperial one. England knows, and the colonies kuow, that if the grievances of the Outlanders remain unredressed, racial hatred will be supplemented by .hatred of the Imperial Power, and th^t the end can only be the loss of i South Africa to the British Empire. { but no one who cares for the Empire, I and no community which forms part j of that Empire will tolerate the pos- : sibility for a moment. That is why j the colonies feel ?.' that they are minding their own business " when they in-

;erest themselves in the Transvaal struggle, and resolve that nothing ;hall be allowed which shall lead to the separation of South Africa from the Empire. The news received by cable to day gives further evidence of the bitterness of the struggle now going on, and the cruelf.y and brutality of the Boers who — after remonstrances and expostulations on the part of the British, continue to fire on flags of truce and hospital ambulances. They exclaimed bitterly against the use of the Dum Dum bullet by the British, yet ample px'oof has been given that the Boers are now using such bullets in battle themselves. It was perfectly well known that tho British were not using this deadly projectile . against the Boers, therefore there action is as treacherous as it is cowardly.