British and Spanish Rule.

Hastings Standard, Issue 105, 27 August 1896, Page 4

British and Spanish Rule.

In the North American Review Captain Cronninshieid, of the United States Navy, pays a high compliment to British as compared with Spanish rule. He says : —" In 1892, while in command of the U.S.S. Kearsarge, I ascended the identical river, the Orinoco, which Mr Wells would see thrown open to navigation, going as far as Ciudad-Boiivar (formerly Angostura) two hundred and forty miles above its mouth, and I do not hesitate to state that, if that great waterway were located in a British possession, its shores, instead of being, as they now are, for the greater part of the way a howling wilderness, would be lined with prosperous settlements, and the waters of that mighty stream would be carrying one hundred tons of shipping where they now carry one ; that those great civihsers, trade and commerce and agriculture, backed by law and order, would bring about in the adjacent territory a state of affars "that has never vet entered the head of the average Latin-American politician. If England has grabbed territory, she has grabbed it to some purpose, and no people or race, be they civilised or savage, th it bas come under her rule but been raisid in the social scale, benefited and made free, where formerly they were degraded, if not in an actual state of savagery or slavery." And, adds, the Captain in conclusion of his article, " though the British Government has the name of monarchy, Americans should understand that it is to-day—and has been for the past sixtrr years —as much of a democracy as our own, and that it has done more to elevate and improve the condition of buman beings in this benighted world than any other Government on ibe face of the earth, or, I might say, i&Ktt rilotbui wmWiwfli"