The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1905. A SEVERE INDICTMENT.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 38, 7 September 1905, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1905. A SEVERE INDICTMENT.

9 — — A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette under the hoading " A Warning to Great Britain," says when one spreads out the map of the world it is difficult to realise that so small a dot as Great Britain should have given birth to such tremendous forces. There are at the present day, including the population of the United States, between ninety and a hundred millions of people who owe their origin to tho British Igles, who speak the English language as their mother tongue, and possess in a more or lees degree the national characteristics of tho raco ; who exercise an influence over a greater area of the earth's surface than any other race upon it ; who directly control over three hundred millions of alien people, and indirectly many millions more ; whose wealth and commercial relations exceed those of all other nations of the world put together ; whose political institutions have hither served as the model, as they have been the envy, of less favoured people ; and who may be said, without fear of contradiction, to lead the van of the world's civili sation. It is a splendid position in the world's history which have bean achieved by a group of small islands, but it is a position which, as far as Great Britain is concerned, seems about to be destroyed by what appears to an outsider to be a combination of national decrepitude and administrative impotence acting and reacting upon i one another. In former days, when England's vigorous and adventurous , sons went forth into wild and distant j regions to occupy, develop, and I create, they could always feel they had behind them a motherland whose boast it was to rule the waves, a ' nation and a Government animated , with an equally daring and adventur ous spirit, whom they could trust to watch over and protect them, however humble or insignificant they might be. But all this is changed. An equal spirit of vigorous adventure in the nation is no longer called tor, ' and the protective energy of the Government has exhibited a cor re- J sponding decline. Within the last few years I have visited British possessions in all parts of the world, as well as those seaboards where British merchants and settlers are numerous. Everywhere I found a spirit of bitterness and discontent, which, even among our grumbling race, was a new feature. Many talked of abandoning the commerce in which they were engaged, and you j know how whole steamship lines have recently fallen into German hands. Others — British subjects of foreign race —were taking steps to change their nationality, like rats leaving a ship. In some places I beard language which sounded in my ears but little short of high treason, and I have beard Englishmen in China declare in the society of foreigners that they were ashamed of being Englishmen, when even the Chinese regarded them as a neghgiblequantity. I mention these as illustrative of the fact which forcibly impressed me during my travels— that the influence of England, is waning, not so much in Europe, where it is dependent : upon political cbance9 and change?, but in the outer world, where it is ' founded on her commercial position and on her wealth. Loss of influence in Europe would mean com- , paratively little, but the decline of t that influence in the other three 1 continents means national decay < Surely nothing can be clearer to a ' people not in its dotage than this, ' that if they do not protect their j merchants the latter will not be able to compete with those who are protected. In proof of this, look at < the increasing substitution of Ger man for English houses of commerce all over the world. Are you not alarmed or do you not know of it ? In time of war, also, Great Britain is the only neutral whose ships can be sunk with impunity. It is all very well to talk of magnanimity. This sort of magnanimity in constantly repeated doses is the very surest means of demoralising and debasing the spirit of a nation. Do you want to know why your trade languishes ? Well, apart from the fact that under a worn-out fiscal policy you are becoming the world's warehouse, instead of, as once, the world's workshop, there is a general want of confidence on the part of your merchants and traders abroad. This cramps their enterprise, and knocks all the manliness out of them. ... If the people of England continue to shrink from the fulfilment of personal responsibility in the defence of the nation, the veil which is now before their eyes will one day be suddenly torn aside, and they will find themselves called upon to abandon the parochial details over which they have been wrangling and to face sterner work. But it will be too late for regrets then."