Nelson Eveening Mail. THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1895.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 156, 4 July 1895, Page 2

Nelson Eveening Mail. THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1895.

So far as can be gathered from brief telegraphic messages ihe office of Secretary of State for the Colonies seems to have been Mr Chamberlain's own cheice. In fact he is a person of so much influence that it would have been impossible to thrust him into any office which was not to his taste, If he had chosen he might have been included in the Administration formed by Lord Salisbury in 1886, but at that time he and the other leaders of the Liberal Unionists thonght it better to content themselves by giving an independent support to a Government witn which they agreed on Irish politics. Now that Mr Chamberlain and the Duke of Devonshire have consented fully to throw in their lot with the Conservatives it may be taken for granted that every possible consideration was shown to them, and that they were not asked to place themselves in positions not to their liking. There have been many Secretaries of State for the Colonies, and takiDg them all round they have been men of unusual ability, whose heart has been in their work, but the jnost eminent of them have won their, distinction in that particular position chiefly as the framers of constirutions and as the directors from afar of infant settlements. The Duko of Newcastle, Lord John Russell, Lord Carnarvon, and other men of note took a deep interest in the colonies, and their names are inseparably connected with colonial constitutional government, but there is little of the work which they did remaining undone in the possessions of the Crown whioh are mainly peopled by the English race, and now the chief duty of a Secretary of State for the Colonies is to keep the relations between the self-governing dependencies and the mother country smooth. Almost all the former Oolonial Secretaries have been men of aristocratic birth, unaccustomed to ; mercantile or civic business. For < the first time the Minister for the Colonies is a manufacturer and a man of great experience in muni- ( oijpal a£airs, Before Uewj?nt ioto ii

Parliament Mr Chamberlain had hot only, made his fortune, but he had made a great reputation as an administrator in the position of Mayor of Birmingham. Mainly owing to his efforts that great town was fairly transformed, and his friends and foes allow that the changes made by him were almost entirely for the better. It could be easily understood that a man of his active mind aud reforming ' spirit might be willing to accept the position which he now holds if the work remained which fell to the lot of some of his predecessors, but self-government prevails everywhere throughout the Empire, where it isilikely-to prevail for some generations. The one great task that remains is the federation of Australia, and it is possible that Mr Chamberlain is ambitions to Bolve a {difficulty which han hitherto been too great for the Australians themselves. It was mainly due to Lord Carnarvon that the Canadian Dominion was formed by the federation of many provinces, and if Mr Chamberlain desires to follow the example in the case of the southern colonies no one can deny that the ambition ie a high and worthy one.