Mt. Ida Chronicle. NASEBY, FRIDAY, JAN. 17, 1896. OUR EMPIRE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 26, Issue 1369, 17 January 1896, Page 2

Mt. Ida Chronicle. NASEBY, FRIDAY, JAN. 17, 1896. OUR EMPIRE.

The outbursts of angry international passion which have been the characteristic feature of the last month or two have their own advantages as well as their clangers and disasters. The love ot country and the pride of race, which in olden times—when everyone wore a sword and war was the chronic condition of the wor.d—were the constant ruling pnssions of Englishmen, require stimulation in these degenerate days, when our enemies are almost exclusively the savage, or htilf-civilised races which surround the limits of our vast empire. A British expedition to the Soudan, to Afghanistan, to Chitrai,

to Ashnntwe, to Zuiulund, and the like, brings out still as such work has ever done, the splendid qualities and dogged persistence of the British soldier, and never does such an undertaking come to be carried nut but it hring* with it some sto r y of magnificent heroism to compel the gratitude of England and the ndmiration of the world. But though this unquestionably is so, still

the enemies against whom we have been pibte-din all 6ur recent, wars were our interiors from every point of view ; and thut fast alone was sufficient to prevent any real national awakening of Englishmen, any stern warning : from the nation itself, as distinguished | from its mere.:dipiomatists- : to give pause to.the foes of, England,'The events of the past.-two or three weeks have given occasion for'such a national awakening, and." the awakening has ccme. The inflated and featherheaded young braggart-whom a ludicrous Fate has placed m : the position of a despot over the German nation has taken it into his head to offer an unmannerly insult to England by personally advising one of her vassals to renounce his allegiance to; Her Majesty the Queen. Claiming/as we do that the manners of Brings and Kaisers shall be judged by the standard demanded of , less exalted beings by civilised society,, we pronounce this conduct to be unmannerly —the act of an imperial snob, and a petty kind of snob at that. We have not as yet been honoured witbi an annual subscription from EriedriehHsruhe to Thr Mount Ida Ghkonic:le b and must confess that.we have no re a?ion to believe that this journal is largetty read in Court circles in-Berlin—which we modestly suggest is more the Kaiser's loss than ! ours. But if "the fact "were otherwise, we should still leavß the above words as they stand, in th'B hope that good might be dbne by thei plain statement of a plain fact—namely, that when an Emperbr behaves like a snob, he does not make snobbishness imperial, but degrades ii nprjrialness (we dare say there is a Ge:ririan word which means that, but as there is no English one we have had to coin one) to snobbery. Unfortunately- the German Emperor, when he descends to this kind of thing, drags, down with him the great German -nation whom he represents before the -world, and as the German Government is practically a military despotism, -within whose rule neither individual freedom, nor the right of free speech, nor a free press exists, we have ha/d presented to us the spectacle of the Gte rman people, with whom for so many years Ave have lived in the closest amity,", and multitudes of whose citizens live among us in these colonies to-day iind are welcomed and respected .-as friends, offering to England a boorisih insult and taunting her with her impotence to resent it.

England is not impotent to resent it, and the answer of Eiagknd to theGerman Emperor's counsel to President Kruger to repudiate British suzerainty is that that, suzerainty will be absolutely maintain ed, and that no German interference will be tolerated for an instant. It to be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to Englishmen everywhere bo watch the manner in which this /w 'hole Transvaal incident has been treated by the Government of the Queeii, with, we may be sure, the hearty and enthusiastic support of Mr Gladstone, Lord Roseberry, and the LibeTal Party generally. Towards President Kruger —the weaker party, whom everyone knows we could crush in six months if we chose there . has ibeen the frankest acknowledgment <of wrong and the most sincere .oJTers of conciliation and future friendship. His territory was unjustifiably entered by a British force, -though not by the Queen's orders, he has suffered wrong, he has conquered and avenged it, and England finds no fault. But to the most powerful military nation in the world!, seeking rashly and rudely to interfere in this matter to the detriment of .England, there has been given the in.st.ant stern command "Stand off, this ib no concern of yours." That attitude towards the weaker and stronger powers respectively is the fact in the present situation which ought to command the proud support of Englishmen, and will certainly extort the perhaps unwilling respect of England's enemies. Moreover, the whole incident will arouse the national spirit and cement, the brotherhood of the widely spread sections of the British race, in a way which, when present passions are calmed, will result in a lasting addition of strength to the defensive resources of our Empire. If England had cowered before the recent storm and in a weak spirit of compromise shown that the policy was peace at any price, the act would have been equivalent to in avowal to the world that it is no longer in the power of Great Britain to defend the British Eoipire, and the appearance of a hostile squadron off our coasts, with all the horrid concomitants of war, might well have resulted before the end of the present summer.