THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1897.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10417, 15 April 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1897.

All the Premiers of the Australasian colonies, and the military contingents to accompany them, are now either on their way to England or finishing up their arraugements with that object in view. The response evoked throughout the colonies by Mr. Chamberlain's invitation lias already amply justified the course taken, and the happy conception of having the official representatives of all the infant nations that are anting under British rule, to grace the august ceremonial of the Diamond Jubilee, will prove the most brilliant inspiration of statesmanship recorded in our times, if indeed so happy a thought has had birth in any other portion of the history of England, Some minds are indisposed to value the power which the sentimenal bag In governing the ciurse Slii

of practical interests, and in view of the steru realities of life, feel the necessity of proceeding on. obvious practical lines as the only feasible way for obtaining the object sought. For many year* past there has been nn earnest striving on the part of farseeing men to bring "bout some form of organic un,ion that would bring the scattered segments of the British Empire into something of the nature of a visible unity. It was tried by the Imperial federation League, which made persistent and varied attempts to indoctrinate the pubho mind with the idea of some form of representative Council of the Empire that would draw the colonies iind dependencies into unity. All these tentative schemes of union fell flat on the publio mind, and the Imperial Fed,oratipn League itself died of general debility, The Empire Trade League after a time toolf up the running, and by appealing to the self-interest of the colonists and also of the mother country, lias been seeking to show the great advantages to trade and industry that would come both to the colonies and the Uqited Kingdom from closer trading relations based on fiscal uniformity, That League is still pursuing its patient plodding course, but without eliciting u scintilla of responsive sympathy frqm the public in the colonies. Mr. Chamberlain has directed his attention to a wholly different sort of qualities in the human mind—qualities that have hitherto been either unknown or unvalued by practical statesmen, and it is not overstating the case to say that he is in the process of welding the colonies and dependencies of the Empire at a white heat, into a union incomparably more firm and binding than organic bonds, and one that will clear the way in the direction of a possibly formal and visible union, as nothing hitherto has ever done.

Mr. Chamberlain has not created the sentiment of devotion to the Queen, and of loyalty to the empire which is now so conspicuous throughout the colonies. Hβ bad the sagacity to see that it existed, and he has simply chosen a wtiy in whioh that sentiment could find expression as well as development. It has been frequently the remark of observant travellers that colonists appeared to be more loyal than the people of the mother country itself. Paradoxical though it may seem, that attraction should inorease instead of lessen by distance, there is a reason intelligible enough why a feeling of loyalty may be warmer and more effusive in the colonies than in che United Kingdom. To a large section of us at least one part or another of the British Islands is our native land, the scene of our earliest and dearest recollections ; and the heart must be exceptionally constituted that does not turn with tenderness to the associations of childhood and youth. This is nothing of a reflection on the possibly robuster love we may bear to the land of our adoption, but there is a tenderness associated with our memories of our early homes and their associations and surroundings, that is akin to , the feeling of the Jews by the waters of Babylon, when they hanged their harps on the willows, and wept when they remembered Zion. It is true that we are unlike them in our being voluntary exiles, and to thousands of us it may be that our existing circumstances may have far more of the elements of comfort and of happiness than were found amid the trials and the struggles of earlier years. That does not affect the position, for even the ruggedness of life is softened, if not blotted out, by the blue haze of distance hanging over the long long ago, and the sound wafted to us from the home of our childhood awakens tender echoes in our hearts. And even though we are remaining voluntarily severed from those scenes, anything that would seem even in thought to rupture the tie that binds us to our childhood's home grates on our feelings as seeming to tend towards making that severance complete and eternal. Those who have remained in their native land no doubt ove their country, but they have not had that twitching at the heartstrings that come to those who are separated from what they love, nor do they realise the experience of how absence makes the heart grow fonder. That colonists far from their native land, should be warmer and more effusive in their sense of attachment to the mother country than residents in that mother country themselves is in the nature of things and the subtle feeling that pervades their minds is detected in the seemingly natural way in which nearly all colonists drop into the colloquial way of speaking of Englaud as "home." This is not a mere fashion of speech, but it is the unconscious expression of the governing sentiment of the mind. Now all this has had reference to the sentiment of colonists, to whom the British Islands are still their native country; but it is the'dominant sentiment in colonial life, and as sucli has been imbibed by our children, and it has given the tone to public thought; and so long as the mother country continues the considerate and generous treatment now received by the colonies —treatment unprecedented in the relation of any other country and its dependencies since history began-that sentiment will grow and will be strengthened not only ' Dy the prestige of the past, but by participation in the magnificent progtess, in strength and glory and influence, in which the fates and fortunes of the mother country and the colonies will be bleuded.

It may be said that attachment to a mother country k not loyalty. But in our case it is, and it is that subtle feeling of personal attachment that constitutes all the principle strands that bind us to the Empire. It is true that within recent years colonists are realising the enormous advantages accruing to their interests from their connection with the wealth and the power, and the protection of the empire, and the utilitarian supervening on the sentimental will by and by make the bond impregnable to any influence that might be brought against it. But these considerations have not entered largely into the production of the sentiment of attachment to the Mother Country, her history, her institutions, and her destiny, that is iuch a dominant feature in our loyalty to the Imperial connection, and to the Crown; and selfish considerations of this kind have had less still to do with that strong personal attachment which exisUinall the colonies towards Her

Majesty herself. This latter sentiment is probably largely a reflection "tfZ love of country. Her Majesty £ the embodiment, the symbol, th expression of the idea of' Our native land, and her own endearing character has given intensity to the feeling. Jf, under the impulse of that strength of sentiment which colonists experience, she has been idealised to a degree, there has not been an act or an incident in her domestic or public life to lower that ideal; while our coucep. tion of her perfect character as trqm&n wife, and mother, has no doubt been intensified in its colouring by the same sentiment dominating the colonial mind. These are the class of feelings to which Mr. Chamberlain's invitation to a participation in the Imperial pageant has given the opportunity t< the colonies for expression. Through, put the colpnies there has been hulj feeling, and that was to thrust asjd) every claim and every difficulty seeming to stand in the way; and it wjll \£ gratifying to every colonist to noto that all these colonies, without an exception, are now to take part in this siguiiioanj apd imposing demonstration.