THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1898. “BORN A BRITON.”

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 3442, 25 May 1898, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

WEDNESDAY , MAY 25 , 1898 . “BORN A BRITON.”

With which are incorporated the Wellington Independent established 1845 1 and the New Zealander,

In these colonies the Queen's natal anniversary is celebrated with, an enthusiasm which is said to be quite unknown so far as that occasion is concerned in England. In a way, this is doubtless ascribable to distance lending enchantment to the view. People in the colonies attach an exceptionally large importance to this anniversary. It represents to them, through the Sovereign's personality, a continuance of the reign under which they have prospered a reign which has proved incomparably the most beneficent and universally profitable known in the history of humanity. We use the word " reign," because it is the most explicable one. The Queen reigns but does not rule. She is in reality a .civil servant. Her power is limited to suit the proper requirements of a free and self-go-verningpeople, who, being such, cannot delegate absolute rule to any one person. But she represents to us and all the British, and that very nobly, headship of a character that is uniquely acceptable. Por there is no better system of rule than that of the monarchy in Great Britain. Of Republicanism, which is so often set up as a proper alternative to Monarchism, there are but two cases in which good results can be shown: those of Switzerland and Andorra. But Switzerland is a country whose neutrality is assured because of her situation, whose people are peculiarly fitted and placed for a republican form of government, and Andorra, morally the Acadia of the age, is a tiny republic measuring 175 square miles, and safely located between Prance and Spain, where every one’s business is no one’s. As to the others, who wouli wish to exchange our Monarchy for such giant Bepublioanism as that of the United States, where corruption stalks unchecked, and a mass of conflicting constitutional safeguards balk the enforcement of representative government; or of France, where a disunited people rapidly changes its Ministry and remains unsettled for want of a more stable form of government ? And if monarchies are to be taken into account, what comparison can be made from the popular point of view between that of Britain and the “ benevolent despotisms” of Russia and Germany ? But apart from constitutional questions of this kind, the Queen whose birthday we honoured yesterday in many ceremonies, is, as a sovereign and as a woman, one of whom the race may well be greatly proud; who realises "Wordsworth’s picture—

The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength and skill; A perfect V\ Oman, nobly planned To warn, to comfort and command. Her parents, it is recorded, hastened home to England from abroad just before her birth so that she might be "born a Briton" ; and we doubt whether a better Briton was ever born than this noble woman who, by filling her glorious but terrible position with splendid sagacity and unerring wisdom, has eclipsed the great reign of another memorable Englishwoman, Queen Elizabeth. On the inevitable day when the nation will have to say “The Queen is dead, long live the King!" it will also mourn the death of a sovereign wise in administration and perfect in spotless womanly nobility i whose shrewd perception and fine judgment have made her an ideal monarch for the free people she nominally holds sway over ; and in whose behalf “ God Save the Queen ” has ever been a heartfelt petition from an appreciative people. The reign which the limits of human possibility threaten now to soon bring to a close finds the Empire greater and stronger than it ever was before. Fine illustrations of this are given by the gallant behaviour of the Egyptian troops against the Soudanese, of the Gourkhas against the Afridis and of the Haussas against the Ashantis, These are only quoted as recent examples. A much greater one could be found, of course, in the Jubilee demonstrations, when all parts of the world sent loyal subjects to testify to Britain’s strength and oosmopolitanness. But we cite the coloured soldiers because they prove in a special way the enduring strength of British colonisation and discipline. They exemplify how under British training men who had hitherto been considered of small account can be made first-class soldiers. That is one of the greatest results of our nation’s many fat-reaching ventures. No other people—even the Homans, who colonised wherever they conquered—ever did a tithe as much. And the secret of it is in the tolerant system over the administration of which Victoria has presided with such dignity but yet with such acquiescent wisdom. It has kept Canada, India, South Africa and Australia under the British flag, because that was unmistakably the best place for them as countries which desired liberty in selfgovernment, but also required the protection of a great Power. More, it has, by its tolerance and fairness, fostered among all offshoots of the British nation an undying love for the Mother Country, and even moved the Americans to admiration. What wonder, then, that remotely-placed Britishers should excel Englishmen in honouring the natal day of the illustrious person who is incomparably the first of the Britons. “