ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 204, 20 November 1869, Page 5

ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

As might naturally be supposed, other Colonies besides New Zealand have had their attention aroused by the attitude assumed towards them by the Imperial Government. Different to us, the Australian Colonies, possessing the advantage of assured internal peace, and experiencing the benefits of continued prosperity, are quite indifferent as to what may or may not be done by England. The Sydney Herald, commenting on the article in the London Times, which speaks of discarding the Colonies as a thing agreed on, and to which we have already referred, says : —“We have nothing to complain of, and at present make no complaints. We want nothing from England, and we desire no share in her Government. The course of our commerce will follow the old channels if they are let alone. * * * People have talked of a colonial empire won for England at a trifling cost, planted by adventurous colonists, and which wafts on every tide the abounding affluence of the new to the old world, as if it were only a burden and a bore, and to be vilely cast away! Never was a country so richly paid for outlay —never did any nation possess such a priceless boon. The English nation, however, knows very little of what makes her the wonder and envy of the world. * * * We infer, chiefly from the newspapers, that England has been a good deal embarassed with her Colonies. Perhaps some money may be made out of them, if England sink as low as Spain. A younger speculator may give her a trifle for her territory. We see how great noblemen have lately got rid of their paternal estates, and how the Jews have bought them up ; and some nations may have a bargain. England can then, like John Wesley, sing, when not too far gone, ‘ No foot of land do I possess’—a blessed state of exemption from care—no border wars, no insurgent natives, no saucy Assemblies. England may then be happy, and, like her illustrious prototype, go into the tulip line. After all, it is a sorrowful thing to see that which has adorned a diadem, in the snout of swine—to see the grandest Empire ever created descend to the schedule of a peddling merchant by whom everything is valued according not to what it is worth, but what it will bring. Napoleon the First said idealist philosophy would destroy an empire of granite ; he himself performed a similar exploit with gunpowder. He must have said the same of the political economy of other men. But there is a destiny in human affairs; and one of the most striking causes of decline is that its first stages are a relief, and that it is only afterwards there is a conciousness of yawning destruction.” —Evening Post.