A FRENCHMAN'S VIEW OF ANGLOSAXON PROGRESS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 77, 3 April 1869, Page 2

A FRENCHMAN'S VIEW OF ANGLOSAXON PROGRESS.

(Translated from tke French of M. Prevost Paradol.) Two rival powers, but only one as to the race, language, customs, and laws — England and the United States of America — are, with the exception of Europe, dominating the world. How is it possible not to recollect we could once have hoped that our race and language would be chosen by European civilisation to invade the remainder of the world ? We had every chance on our side. It was France which, through Canada and Louisana, began to embrace North America; India seemed to belong to us ; and were it not for the mistakes political liberty could have spared to our forefathers, the language and blood of France would, in all likelihood, occupy in the world the place, the language and blood that England have irrevocably conquered ; for destiny has spoken, and at at leaßt two portions of the globe, America and Oceanica, henceforth and for ever belong to the Anglo-Saxon race. Moreover now-a-days, a book written in Engiisli is much more widely read than if it had been written in French ; and it is with English words the navigator is hailed on almost all the accessible coasts of the earth. However, that actual predominance of the Anglo Saxon race everywhere out of Europe is but a feeble image of what an approaching future has in store for us. According to the most moderate calculation, founded on the increase of the population during the last decennial period the United States will number more than a hundred millions of inhabitants at the end of the present century — without speaking of the probable annexation of Mexico, and of the extension of the American Republic to the Panama Isthmus, It is not the less certain that Oceana belongs for ever to the Anglo-Saxons of Australia and New Zealand, and in that part of the world the march of events will also be very rapid. No doubt the discovery of gold greatly contributed to the rapid increase of the English population in Australia, but immigration has not diminished since the production of wool has become more important than the production of gold. Agriculture will soon predominate, and the plough will soon convert the soil. Whatever Power (the United States or Australia) may dominate in China, India, and Japan — it may be that England maintains her empire in those regions for a long time, or that she abandons it to the young competitors to whom she ;■:•-."** life— our children are not the less assurc-a of seeing the Anglo-Saxon race mistress of Oceanica *<s well as of America, and of all the countries of the farthest east that may be dominated, worked, or influenced by the possession of the sea. When affairs shall have reached that climax— and it is not too much to say that two' centuries will suffice for it— will it he possible to deny, from one end of the globe to the other, that the world is Anglo-Saxon ?j Neither Russia nor United Germany, supposing they should attain the highest fortune, can pretend to impede that current of things^nor prevent j that solution— relatively near at hand — of the long rivalry of European .races for the ultimate

icolonisation and domination of the universe. The world will not be Russian, nor German, nor French, alas ! nor Spanish. For it can be asserted that, since the great .navigation has given the whole world to the enterprise of the European races, three nations were tried one after the other by fate to : play the first part in the fortune of * mankind, by everywhere propagating their tongue and blood by means of durable colonies, and by . transforming, so to say, the whole world to their own likeness. During the sixteenth century it was rational to believe that Spanish, civilsation •would spread over all the world ; but irremediable vices soon dispersed that colonial power, the vestiges of which, still covering a vast space, tell of its ephemeral grandeur. Then came the turn of France ; and Louisiana and Canada have preserved the last remembrance of it. Lastly England came forward ; she definitely accomplished the great work ; and England can disappear from the world without taking her work with her — without the Anglo-Saxon future of the world being sensibly changed. Thus we can foretel through the imagination the future situation of the world, and glance at that picture, the main lines of which are, so to say, already sketched by the hand of fate. And if we are seriously to ask ourselves in what time the earth shall have taken that new form, we shaU easily perceive that two centuries are .scarcely necessary to bring to its apogee the Anglo-Saxon grandeur in the Oceanian region as well as on the American continent. That once established, no one shall be able to menace from without, like Rome, which was surrounded on every side by a barbarous world. There are no more barbarous nations, 'and the race which will be invested with the guidance of mankind will have to fear neither competition - nor the appearance of a new race. If a great political and moral, change does not take place in France ; if our population, obstinately attached to the rural soil, continues to -increase with painful slowness, so long as we remain stationary or decrease, we shall weigh relatively in the same proportion in the AngloSaxon world as much as Athens did formerly in - the Roman, Literature, wit, grace, and pleasure * will reside with us ; life, power, and solid glory .elsewhere.

Don't be __ight_ne:d, Ladies. — It is re•marked that a Royal Prince leaves the young ladies he honors by dancing with in the middle of the room when the set is finished. One young lady the daughter of a distinguished officer, was recently in a vast fright, fancying she had < offended his Royal Highness. The explanation is that it is royal etiquette. — Court Journal. The Prince of Wales, when he comes to the throne, will merit the title of " the travelled ' king." Probably no monarch who has preceded him in the world's history will have seen so much of the surface of the globe. His Royal Highness was invested with the order of the Black "Eagle, at Berlin, in January. Patmbnt of Members. — A South Australian journal, discussing the payment of members question, remarks : — Payment of members is not a favourite principle in England, and we - think it would be altogether out of place there. We do not think it has yet many champions in , South Australia. But necessity is a hard master, and if the public find that they cannot be represented without its aid, we suppose their prejudices will give way to their necessities. Talent and wealth are not synonymous. A heavy purse and political honesty do not always go hand in hand, and .it would be well if constituents were in the position to choose the best man without regard to the stamp that Dame Fortune has put upon him. Till then the oiit- " lying portions of these colonies at all events will not be fairly and equally represented ; nor will - they till talent and political honesty take precedence of mere wealth and ambition. "Man is a microcosm— a world in himself" — I have heard lum exclaim, " Only to think," he . continued, one day, " what impostors we are 1 Here am I, Will Morton, deluding myself, and - other people into < the belief that I have Uved in the world five-and-thirty years. No such thing. ' Where was I last year this time*? My dear friend, - don't let us deceive ourselves. Your chum, WUI Morton, as he now exists, was scattered all over the world twelve months ago. That part of his body which he owes to wheat was growing ripe for the sickle in America or Russia ; that part of ' him which is due to tea was .flourishing in a vegetable state upon the slopes of the Himalayas or in China. The beef packed upon his bones was munching grass in Lincolnshire, the mutton wandering over the South Downs, the pork -wallowing in a sty after its kind ; and who shall say whence came the fish that he has eaten, or what he owes in personal appearance to the ..Indies and to Africa in the matter oi sugar and . Christmas puddings ! I tell you, sir, the Wili Morton of to-day was at that time non-existant, and only lives, moves, and has his being now in . virtue of having been gathered together, from the four winds of heaven. He has been pieced up ■ out of an oyster here, a codfish there, a bullock .yonder ; and who knows how much of him lay hidden in old clothes, ground bones, and whatever else is thrown upon the earth to make it productive?" — Thoughts in the Twilight, in Cassell's Magazine.

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