AMERICA AND BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12833, 5 April 1905, Page 3

AMERICA AND BRITAIN.

BRITISH EXPANSION MAGNIFICENT. i .Mb. roi:[.TNi:r BtuFUW, who recently i visited Australia, nave the first of a course of 25 Ice I lire* on "National Expansion" in I tin- lecture hull of the Huston University I Law School -hi February J, and we quote | i.ln- (otuhifii'.iK paragraphs of the report in ; tin Boston Morning Herald of the folkwi.»i! day: — ■ i liuii'i i.-li to flatter 11 «*■ British un--1 ditlv. but as we go on wo will find ilia a ■ great part of our success will he dee- to v.< rUing hunt! in Inin-i with L.iy!aud as it ! great expansion tru.-t. The thing time holds 1 ii- <<-•.'.• 111. . aside horn common pecuniary interest, is. 'a tier all, the language. We are tin- only people who understand each Oilier when wo call etch othc. names. It is refreshing also to find in London just as vigorous slang as yon find here. 11 show:. that there is an undercurrent of understanding which tor our colonial purpo>e la id g-a :.! importance. '• For our purposes. Napo'iron L the start-in-j; point of national <-.\p.ii!-i .-:i in_ the colonial sense. Alter he was sent to St. Helena tour kings formed the fir.-i great trust, winch had for its. object the securing of absolute peace, ami a reaction set in against tile brutal run- of knee. And from that time dates the quiet movement of population to Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape of Good Hope. Then bewail also the agitation for the abolition ol tin slave trade. "The period of expansion in England that followed the Napoleonic war- is one of the most magnificent records of what human knowledge, enterprise, and liberty can do. And what makes history interesting is nut the great butties which are fought; tin-re are but symptom- - -, indicating what is going on underneath. '1 'he. !<;*i to Bussia in the present conflict of l,yj,ooC' ni"P is nothin" compared to the. fait that behind that a, my stand a people wh = are thoroughly di.-eontented aim" praying night and day for the ducoinfiiure of their own arm?." Mr. Bigchnv cuinlwi'ol the. popular idea that England i?, and always has been, a "land grabber," contending that she was solicited to go to South Africa end Australia and establish Governments, and that British sentiment was against it. This, he s:iid, was aiio the case. hi this country whenever Ihe Government reached out after new territory. "In the early days," ho said, "English and Americans went out for trade. They didn't care who owned the colonies. In those, days free trade was the cry of American politics--'free trade and sailors' rights-' That wa.; Ilm American ■'octrino. _ To-day we. talk abou 1- 'American protection,' as though it wa not the .hame of China and Spain, as though we had invented that barbarous institution," (Laughter.) Mr. Bigelow closed by calling attention to the fact that the Knglisr language is being carried to every part of the globe. In the German colonics, he said, it is spoken by the servant'- and coolies', who cannot be induced to learn Gorman. And in other parts of the world a similar condition is found. This he believed to be a significant fact in connection with national expansion. "Of all the bonds which hold people together," he said, "of all the bonds that assist in national expansion, there is none to-day which is so important to u« as the bond of language. Ami thai bond is to-day spreading throi ■■.dioiii the world in a mysterious way, owing In fha' silent little expansion Bin I took place in the years following ilie Napoleonic wars."