THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1900.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11541, 28 November 1900, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1900.

■■ . » ■ .. The detailed accounts of the British electoral campaign, contained in Home papers now to hand, show how tremendously the Imperialist sentiment affected the result. This was demonstrated not so much by the increased majority with which the Salisbury Administration returned to power as by the remarkable leavening of the Constitutional Opposition with loyal supporters of the triumphant colonial policy. This we pointed out, at the time, as indicated by the cabled information, but it is not the less cheering to us to know that the question in which all loyal colonists are so vitally interested has been settled so uatisfactorily and 30 certainly. As the London Times remarked, after three days' polling had clearly shown the temper of the electors: "Wherever the Opposition have won seats, or have made a good fight, it has generally been where th<? Eadical candidate has avowed strong Imperialist opinions." A week later, when the fight was altogether over, the same authority stated: "In the Liberal camp itself the Imperialists are the most powerful section, and they alone have saved the Opposition from utter ruin. . . . What is

wanted is to evolve a new Liberalism, which will satisfy the Imperialist instincts of the British people." How well founded this criticism is may be gathered from the fact that the present Cabinet has not merely a party majority of 133, but can rely upon the crushing majority of fully 300 to sustain it against any Little Englander attacks. Says the London Daily Telegraph: "The Radical debacle which the Boer war has completed, after twenty years, is precisely what the Majuba surrender began. Any real process of Liberal reconstruction and recovery must start from a clear comprehension of that instructive lesson. It is not enough to see Liberal Imperialism lying down in the same fold with Radical anti-Imperialism. The former must convert the latter before either can have any prospect of converting the country." The two great journals from which we quote have ever been the champions of intelligent and patriotic Liberalism, but have ever placed principle above expediency and country above party. Their outspoken condemnation of any further truckling with "the school qi. philosophic scuttle" is being echoed and re-echoed from one end of Britain to the other, and unquestionably voices the overwhelming conviction of the great bulk of the electors of every class. The recent elections have finally ratified the Imperial movement, by sounding the deathknell of Little Englandism on both sides of the House.

As was foreseen, the emphatic declaration of the British electors that the Empire must be maintained was received throughout South Africa with almost frantic exultation by the loyalists and the deepest dejection by the Afrikanders. For up till the last moment the latter had forced themselves to believe what they hopedthat the British electors would endorse the pro-Boer champions and repeat in 1900 the policy of 1881. They had sent delegates to influence the British constituencies on behalf of the independence of the defunct Republics and. the granting of complete amnesty to all rebels. So hopeful were they that they had even shaken the confidence of the loyalists in the staunchness of their kinsmen, and it had been thought necessary to hurry a loyal deputation Homewards to plead that the colonists who had staked so much might not be abandoned. From our own joy at the verdict, we may surmise the jubilation of our South African fellow colonists, to whom it was not merely a matter of sentiment, but of political life or death, of established and permanent peace or ever-recurrent war. When it was known that the future of South Africa had been settled without possibility of a reopening, the Afrikanders for the first time realised the inevitable, the loyalists that their sacrifices had not been in vain. The result of the British elections had a more soothing effect upon the war-stricken colonies than would a score of battles and a volume of proclamations.

! One of the lamentable features of the electoral campaign, and one which will be regretted by all colonials, was the bitter and rancourous ! attack made upon Mr. Chamberlain personally. It is not to be wondered at that the Colonial Secretary stood in the forefront of the political battle, for the great question at is§ue was essentially a colonial one, as distinct from that other phase of Imperial politics which deals with the great alien dependencies. What we may justly wonder at is that even pro-Boer bitterness should have descended to indecent methods and assailed the personal honour and official integrity of the untiring and consistent advocate of Imperial unity. Mr. Chamberlain is possibly not gifted with the exceptional sagacity and rars personality which have won for Lord Salisbury the affection of his countrymen, and the esteem of the civilised world. But the colonies have gradually learned of Mr. Chamberlam— none are more fitting judges—that he understands them and sympathises with them and works for them, as none of his predecessors ever did, however worthy. His world is wider than Downing-street; he is British enough to be at one with that Greater Britain, whose existence he proclaimed when others ignored it, whose right to recognition he always insisted upon, whose cause he never hesitated to maintain. The colonial participation in the great Jubilee rejoicings, which preceded and heralded the colonial participation in the great Imperial uprising, was largely the work of Mr. Chamberlain. His shrewd insight into feelings and

prejudices little understood at Home has been shown in repeated ways, not least when his influence made the South African struggle " a white man's war," nor when his generous confidence won for the Australian Commonwealth the widest and broadest Constitution ever yet granted to a subordinate State. This unflinching and whole-hearted guardianship of the Greater Britain, which is his peculiar Ministerial care, has naturally brought him into conflict with that strange. pro-Boer element" of which we have reluctantly been compelled to speak as championing every cause but ours and loving every country but their own. It appears that his sons hold shares in a company which did odd business with the Government amounting to Borne £30 or so yearly as it turns outand this has been the text for a series of hysterical electoral indictments which exceed in vindictiveness and gross slander anything recently known in British politics. As the staid and cautious 1 Spectator shrewdly observes, "Ministers and members of Ministers' families cannot be too careful, and cannot show too much delicacy in avoiding even an appearanoe of getting a profit out of public works." But there was such a thing as deliberately making political capital out of "the merest mare's nest." The assailants of our Colonial Secretary carried the matter to such an extreme that in many places it almost seemed as though the character of Mr. Chamberlain was the question at issue. It is satisfactory to the colonies, who owe him such a debt of gratitude, that the decision of the British electors has overwhelmed his assailants with confusion and only increased the political power which he has ever exerted for the welfare of the Empire and its colonies.