THE SHIP AND CIVILISATION

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8090, 7 January 1903, Page 4

THE SHIP AND CIVILISATION

To that structure which, we commonly term the ship the world owes its present advanced state of civilisation (writes Thomas Fleming.. Day in the. JRudder) :-v. •'No instrument of man's devising has Accomplished for him what the ship has; Be-" side its labors for his betterment .the other devices, of his brain, and hand hold but an insignificant place. It lias lifted him bodily, and mentally; to it he owes those comforts' and luxuries the possession of which mark" the difference between savagery and civilisa- . tion, and are; tokens, of Myib ;state of enlightened existence .which it is ever the ambition. ;pf nations to Require. To realise, this it is only necessary to imagine the 1 world without ships or any means of communicating across those vast stretches of water that intervene ■. between .the great bodies of land; to picture man chained to one continent, a traveller halted at the tide mark, stunted in knowledge and wealth by a restricted environment, denied the inspiration that accompanies the power of overcoming distance, and deprived of the investigation of communing with strange people and singular conditions.

"Turn to the annals of that great expounder and teacher—history—for examples of the inutility of the efforts of shipless races to advance in civilisation. No race has ever risen above barbarism excepting such as have employed vessels. .The Aztecs of Mexico nndthe primitive people of Peru are examples; Russia lay dormant in a state of semi-savagery until the genius of Peter the Great- unlocked her ports to water-home commerce, and gave to her seas a fleet of war aud trade. Japan is a nearer and more remarkable example. But bevond the animal pleasures, the necessities and luxuries of food and raiment, the wealth and splendour that the ship has

brought him, she lias bestowed upon man those gifts, so priceless, that no merchant may quote their value, and no buyer possess means wherewith to purchase. Freedom and knowledge—the two inestimable jewels, the twin-souls of civilised existence. Not once but many thousand times has the ship returned laden with a new knowledge, the acquisition of which has broadened and intensified man's mental conception, opened to his startled sight a fresh range of speculation, and inspired a nobler view of nature and a better understanding of his own powers and purposes. Not once but a thousand times has the ship, a pliant and forceful instrument in tile hands of the skilful and fearless, checked the .attempts to curtail the freedom and invade the rights of man; again and again have her guns changed the course of nations, destroyed tyrants, closed epochs of darkness and wrong and opened broader and fairer eras of human happiness and national prosperity. "It is to exhibit her as the instrument of these beneficial achievements that I have chosen these five flagships ; but, sad to say, only one of them has wrought high and lasting good without the employment of force. The Santa Maria—she alone ni'idt history, changed the course of nations and uplifted humanity, by a forceless showing and a bloodless victory. But the story oi these five ships is the epitome of all human history. "I offer you, first, the ship that gave Spain her Empire, and, last, one that helped to sweep from her grasp the last vestige of that amazing domain, the possession of which brought to her people power and wealth such as had never before been concentrated under one flag or lavished upon the most forward and fortunate of nations. From the position of='a petty State she leapt in a day to the imperial dignity of owning and controlling nearly half of the known world.. . Just emerging from the last j struggle with a' host of invaders, who for | seven centuries had held her soil in bondage, she found herself the. mistress of a j continent, ;the arbitrator of the destinies of j a hundred isles, the guardian and ruler of a score of strange races. How she acquitted herself of those duties, how she answered to God and man for the bounties and blessings thus lavished upon her, is written "iri : the history of : her rise and fall. That her sudden prosperity excited the envy and inflamed the greed of her contemporaries is too true; but the machinations of all her rivals would ha.ve.been powerless to strip Spain of her wide and wealth-bringing domain if her rulers and people had not been victims to the most fatal of human delusions; '.a delusion born of racial jealousies, reared and battened upon national prejudice and'individual greed; a delusion, sad to say, in which our < people along.with the mass of the earth's dwellers, share. A fatal belief, that .whatever injured and' impoverished a rival nation benefited and enriched Spain was the keynote of the Spanish policy of government. Every barrier that perverted wisdom and distorted knowledge could raise was interposed in the'path of_ foreign commerce. : . AH intercourse between .her .colonies and mother nations was either forbidden or so restricted and hampered as to make the carrying on of barter a task that offered insufficient inducements to accept the toil and. risk which always attends upon commercial exchange. "Those immensely beautiful and harmonious laws of nature that shape the fountain from. whence spring all streams of trade permit no violation or meddling with their source of abundance, or with the tide and direction of their flowing. Springing as it does from the most universal and laudable of human instincts, and sharing with the elements that promote and favor its career, that liberty of action and freedom of change that is in ..all natural expression the life' and soul of existence, woe to the nation that attempts to restrict or divert the course of/trade- Her colonies found these prohibitive laws importable with their desires for advancement, and turned from her, who .in her folly .and greed stunted their enterprise and retarded their pros : perity. "N;o : great empire that ever existed has been murdered; everyone* of, the huge and magnificent commonwealths that have risen, flourished and fallen, have dealt, like the suicide,.. death .by their own.hands. Un-. , shackled commerce, open..ports; equable aiid prescient laws of trade, are the foundation ; and stay .of .all true national greatness. To her whose streets are trod by the merchants of every land, free to come and go, in whose roadsteads ride the. wave-traders of every clime, whose children', salute with respect every flag, and whose highest aim is to encourage and enhance: the prosperity of all nations, has been given, and will always be given, the proud and nourishing gift of commercial supremacy." ,