LORD ROSEBERY ON IMPERIALISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11057, 8 May 1899, Page 5

LORD ROSEBERY ON IMPERIALISM.

ADVICE TO THE LIBERALS. By Telegraph.—Press Association.— London, May 6. Speaking nt the City Liberal Club, Lord Rosebery said the old Liberal party must combine with the new Imperialism party. It would never achieve predominance until it was reconstituted on lines embodying the elements existing before I?S6. Imperialism meant larger patriotism. It whs impossible to imagine a more impolitic and melancholy method of practising Imperialism than that of taxing colonial wines.

In the course of a recent speech dealing I with the attitude of the Liberal party on the question of Imperialism, Mr. John Morley said:—"One thing I will not do; I will not go about the country saying fine things or listening to fine things about Mr. Gladstone, and at the, same moment sponging off the slato aU the lessons that Mr. Gladstone taught us and all the lessons that be set. You may call it jingoism; you may call it Imperialism; rail it what you like— know the thing, and whether it comes from Liberal teachers ot from Tory teachers, I would beg of all my countrymen, and those who are more than my countrymen—my constituents— remember what Imperialism is in the sense in which it is now used. Imperialism brings with it militarism, and must bring with it militarism. Militarism means a gigantic expenditure, daily growing. It means an increase, in Government of tho power of aristocratio and privileged classes. Militarism means tho profusion of Iho taxpayer's money everywhere except in the taxpayer's own home. And militarism must mean war, and you must be much less well road in history than I tako the Liberals of Scotland to be if they do not know that it is not the hateful demon of war, but white-winged peace, that has been the nurse and guardian of freedom and justico and well-being over that great army of toilers upon whose labours, upon whose privations, upon whose hardships, after all the greatness and tho strength of empires and of Slates are, founded and are built up. I freely recognise that it would be most stupid not to recognise that there is a sense in which the word Imperialism is used in the sense of national duty, not of national vainglory, in which it is used as meaning not aggression, hut tho service of mankind. Tho guardianship and the guidance of a great Slato is a weighty sad noble task— of the weightiest and noblest tasks that can fall to man. Wo cannot make light of our engagements and obligations, neither can we allow other States to make light of the engagements and obligations into which they have entered with us, but let us measure our national strength, let us cast our eyes forward, let us comprehend as many as we can of tho consequences. You cannot comprehend them all in a word. Imperialism in tins higher and better sense must be tested and measured and limited by common sense and the Liberal party will only be useful as an instrument of human progress so long as they walk persistently and steadfastly in tho path of .these watchwords—peace, economy, and reform. If the Liberal party abandon that path, what will they be but a body without a soul?