THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1912. THE DANGERS OF INSULARITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14947, 21 March 1912, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1912. THE DANGERS OF INSULARITY

There is no better illustration of the greater stereotyped existence of those who live on an island, as against those who have land communications with their neighbours, than in the fact, to which all travellers will testify, that there is a much greater difference between the life, say, at Dover, in England, and Calais, in France (though only distant one hour by sea) than there is between tho life of any two European towns howsoever distant they may bo from each other: and the \ observation of those who move much ! about the world goes to prove how ! very important an influence geographical position has upon the desire or the facility which various peoples have for travelling. That the English peoples are a great travelling race nobody will deny, and it may, be that there is a good deal of truth in tho oft-made statement that this cultivation of a nomadic instinct is largely due to the fact that it is a necessity of their isolated position, and is partly accounted for by the consideration that their customers and friends will not come to them for the simple reason that England is not "on the way" to anywhere else, and consequently has to bo tho subject of a special trip whenever exceptional calls demand the personal presence of a foreigner on the Saxon side of the Channel. There is no doubt that those who are denied tho great opportunity which, travel gives of mixing extensively with other men, miss ono of the greatest educative influences in life: and every traveller knows how the enforced companionship of otherwise incompatible people on long sea journeys tends to make them tactful, and to guard against tho unnecessary rubbing up against the angles of those with whom they disagree. People who live on islands, however large and densely populated, almost invariably become self-centred and arrogant in their conceptions of what is duo to their own country. In these modern days of the enormously improved press and cable services, they gather, it is true, a kind of superficial knowledge as to all the important events which go on in other lands : but without a personal acquaintance, however limited, with the places and tho peoples whose affairs for the moment may become of world-wide interest, they cannot be expected to bo able to form any valuable opinion on outside events, and in point of fact they do not do so. To them, what happens in tho most remote village of their own country is vastly more important than an oversea revolution which may shake a Continent, because their unconscious insularity only enables their minds to become receptive to small and local events.

Tho saying, "What should they know of England, who only England know'' may bo held true of every country in the world, and perhaps doubly so when applied to the new settlements which in the aggregate form the British Oversea Empire. In Australasia, for instance, most of those who aro colonial-born have never had at school or college a fraction of tho opportunity of acquiring a broadened outlook on lifo which is vouchsafed to their English relatives; and here we are so far remote from the real centres of the world's activities that even such news as we do get conveys little that is understandable to the untravelled, and less that is of permanent value to him in maturing his mind in the greater events which influence the destinies of tho older nations, even though they may, through them, some day influence his own. It is among the dreams of colonial statesmen to establish an Imperial Council, whose mission it will be to offer advice to England on matters of foreign policy. lias it occurred to anyone how few delegates wo could send to such a Council, if wo excluded all of English birth, who could, from any personal knowledge of world politics, either appreciate the delicate questions which might come before them .or offer any useful advice upon them? If we wish to see our nation taking a leading part in Imperial and Foreign Affairs we should cultivate, the desire and the taste for travel among our people, that the next generation may grow up strong and self-reliant and imbued with the final coating of experience which alone crystallises knowledge, and which travel alone can give.