COLONISATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

COLONISATION

BY KOTARB

BRITAIN, FRANCE, SPAIN

The nomadic urge seems to have been characteristic of man from the earliest stages of his development. It was- a carry-over from his animal inheritance. It was emphasised by the conditions of his primitive life and the necessities of his food-supply. Europe was populated bj' successive waves of migration from the East, though the changes in the land-surface and the submergence of vast areas in the Atlantic Ocean make it at least possible that in its beginnings Europe may have been occupied by races from the lost lands in the West. It is curious that the modern euphemism for death, "going west," has its equivalent in the literature and traditions of most of the races of the world. The soul returned to its original home, and that was somewhere out toward the setting sun. Perhaps this universal idea was man's response to the daily mystery of the sun's death and burial in the west. Or it may bo that man really came from the west, and has never lost this vaguo homing sense of its origins. However that may be, man's settlement in fixed social groups did not kill the initial impulse that drove him continually to seek fresh woods and pastures new. It would rise again under the pressure of economic necessity. Where intolerance did not give him the liberty or the opportunity he had come to look upon as his birthright, he would pull up his stakes and seek a new home in a new land. Or a vague unrest would send him forth upon the trail in search of nothing more than change and adventure. All of these factors have contributed. to the establishment of that great commonwealth of nations which we used to call proudly the British Empire, and which meant so much to our late King that he came back for a moment from the shadow of death to ask one last question about its welfare. The Briton We have come to regard our own race as the supreme colonists of the modern world. In one sense that is true. But the instinct of colonisation is a human rather than a national quality. The history of the last four hundred years proves that beyond question. We have been so occupied with our own achievements in the colonising field that tve have not done justice to the record of other countries in the' founding of overseas dominions. We can grant that the men and women of British blood have by heredity a capacity of adaptation broader in its range and more widely disseminated through the whole population than perhaps any other people of modern times. The Briton can fit into a new environment, can both accommodato himself to it and dominate it to his own purposes. Ho can build his home there and find everything necessary for the full development and enjoyment of life. He soon loses his sense of exile, and becomes the complete citizen of his newland. But a very cursory examination of our own population will reveal that men and women of other nations have fitted just as well into the r\cw fabric. Our German and French and Scandinavian colonists are not -one whit behind the : r fellow citizens of British stock in their adaptability and usefulness in the community life. They are as good New Zealanders as the best of us. Where the Briton has the advantage seems to be in the successful initiation of new enterprises. Consequently we hold to-day all the areas in the temperate zone that have been available and fit for colonisation since vye rose to self-conscious nationhood. Even the United States of America owe their beginning and successful early development chiefly -to tho special qualities of the British blood. The French Way

Canada began as a new France with the complete French social and political organisation of the homeland. A large French population bad acclimatised itself in the new environment long before the wars of the eighteenth century gave the land to the English crown. And a considerable section of the Canadian population to-day is of pure French blood and speaks the French language. The Dutch founded New York and still the blcod of the original settlers from Holland is a sort of American patent of nobility. The Dutch also inaugurated European colonisation in South Africa and held the Cape till the Napoleonic wars. As in Canada, we have still two nations and two European languages under the British flag. ? There have been certain factors that have helped us in the struggle for overseas territory. Holland was a small country and the overflow of her population from the homeland was never sufficient to occupy and hold effectively a large territory. Britain had the people and had a navy strong enough to defend her nationals in the remotest parts of the earth. After the loss of Canada France did not favour the occupation of outside territory by a large population of permanent French residents. The Frenchman more than any other European is attached to the very soil of the Fatherland. It is always sacred to him. He will serve in the colonies but his heart is always at home. He is. an exile looking eagerly for the day when he will return to his own land. But France has succeeded better than any other modern nation in the development of a type of colony that suits perfectly the French genius. She has a vast and most .-efficiently controlled colonial empire. Why she has succeeded you will understand if you read Maurois' life of Marshal Lyautey, the creator of modern Morocco and the greatest French colonial administrator of our times. Spanish America France is not afflicted by any colour question. She is true to the conception of the brotherhood of man fundamental in her idea of the republican state. That enables her to control without friction vast numbers of native peoples. She accepts as far ns possible the native system of government, however primitive and inadequato it might bo by European standards. She reinforces it, of course, with her own"" ideas and institutions, but there is a minimum of interference, and the native is not deprived of his old landmarks. He lives his life practically on the old lines, but actually the French control is complete and admirably efficient. But perhaps the greatest achievement in colonisation is the record of Spain during the first hundred years' of her effective occupation of Central and South America. By 1600 the Spaniards had sent across the Atlantic hundreds of thousands of settlers who were given small areas of farm lands. They had explored and opened up most of the continent suitable for cultivation. They had introduced and established the food plants and animals of the Old World. They had built 2/50 towns, each with its plaza and parks and splendid churches. That the colonies were exploited in the interests of Spain and contributed immense revenues that went into a few pockets in Madrid was natural and inevitable. But if wo consider the times and the difficulties of transport, the Spanish achievement in its first century as a colonising power can proudly stand alongside the British achievement of the nineteenth century*