The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kapongra, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton. Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1913. A POPULAR ILLUSION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 16 January 1913, Page 4

The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kapongra, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton. Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1913. A POPULAR ILLUSION.

There have been people who have entertained the notion that some day Australasia and the South Sea Islands might, without prejudice to themselves, become politically united to the United States of America. There may still be people, though we do not think there can be many if any, who let their thoughts play with the same supposition. So far as we are aware, those who did so in the past did so on the assumption that the people of the States were merely a branch or offshoot of the Anglo-Saxon race, and that therefore in that connection there would be no bar between them and the Australasian colonies. It was not then known so well as it is now that new types are bound to develop in Australasia, and especially in Australia, bo that in a few generations the racial Anglo-Saxon elements are likely to be somewhat faint. Even yet it is realised by comparatively few that this great chance has already taken place in the United States of America. Mr Nelson Fraser —not Mr Foster Fraser, the journalist—who has travelled extensively in Europe and Australasia, and has lived for many years in India, ha6 lately made an analytical study of the American people and their institutions, and has embodied his conclusions in a book entitled: "America, Old and New." In this work he finds that the ceaseless immigration of Germans, Italians, Irish and other European races has long since spoiled the pleasing fiction so zealously fostered by the English press, that America is English in origin, institutions arid sympathies. The fiction lingers, he states, in the columns of British papers, and people still hear of "American cousins" in England; but no one hears of "English cousins" in America. Mr Fraser thinks that American institutions are largely the result of the early Dutch influence, whilst the abuse of them is (he says) in no small measure do to the influence of energetic but inexperienced Irishmen, without knowledge of free, representative institutions. Anyway, he is convinced that the eighteen millions of American citizens of German origin have had as much to do with the religious convictions of the average American as the Puritanism of the seventeenth century immigrants, whilst "German love of music has passed over to America." In fact, the American people, as viewed by Mr Fraser, whatever else they may be, are not English. They are a people in the making, whose destinies are controlled by influences drawn from the four corners of Europe and not from England alone. A little reflection, with a fair knowledge of the way in which America has been settled, will show any thoughtful mind that this reasoning is just, and it would be well for colonists to realise the fact, even though their own descendants may in time develop a type alien to the present distinctive British stock. The ideal should, however, be the preservation of that stock, and the continuity of the political association of all its sections in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.