THE ENGLISHMAN IN THE COLONIES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1799, 29 August 1906, Page 65

THE ENGLISHMAN IN THE COLONIES

The blunders perpetrated in conversation by the English visitor to the “colonies" are often mentioned in Canadian and Australian novels. The use of the term “colonials" is the most common of those betises and among the most irritating. Perhaps the worst of all wae committed*by a young Balliol man who, being asked to address a meeting of ranchers on the subject of Preference, began his speech with the words: “Gentlemen, —and you who do not profess to be gentlemen. . . .’’ B*ut he was allowed to finish his speech. Ainotlier young Englishman, a Free Trader, made a speech on the same subject, in the course of which he quoted the utterances of certain dukes whom ho professed to know intimately. Next day a small boy stopped him and asked “How’s the Duke?" “What Duke?” was the Englishman’s reply. “Any Duke," said the hoy, and then departed swiftly and silently. Canadians—and also Americans —often prefer “No, sir,” to a plain “No"; so that the negative may bo less abrupt and more emphatic. “Please don’t ‘sir’ me,” said a wellmeaning English tourist to a Canadian statesman, “social distinctions ought to bo forgotten over here.” It. is seldom that these blunders are resented; generally they are forgiven at once, though never forgotten. In an Australian crowd on some patriotic occasion the name of England wae loudly cheered by a dark-visaged person, and an English visitor next to him said in surprise, “Surely you’ve no English blood in your veins!” “No English blood in my veins,” shouted the other, “why, my great-great-grandfather helped to eat Captain Cook !”—“Morning Post."