GREAT SPEECH BY LORD ROSBBERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11684, 17 March 1900, Page 5

GREAT SPEECH BY LORD ROSBBERY.

"THE EMPIRE A REALITY."

"MODEL STATE ANT) MODEL RACE."

(FkOM'OuB OVTX CoEUESrONDENT.)

LONDON, January 26.

Once more has the ex-Premier of England come forward at the supreme moment and delivered a speech which hr.a stirred the heart of England to its core.

Just at the moment when the country was depressed by combined non-success and rosultless loss of life, and when the timid and wavering were beginning to make themselves heard in suggestions as to "conciliation" and

" peace ' and " war-stopping," the stirring oration by Lord Rosebery, at -Chatham, on Tuesday last came like a trumpet blast summoning the weak and faint-hearted to take courage and. realise the greatness of their Empire and its destiny, to support.the Government in a stern determinationI'to "see the thing through," and to recognise how much already the war had done in the way of good to compensate for its horrors ajid miseries.

In the first place. Lord 'Rosebery deprecated any .tendency to underrate the gravity of the situation. He said:""l say that this is one of .the, most, formidable war?, and in some respects the most formidable in which we have ever-been engaged. II is the most formidable in-respect of the'number of British troop? which are now arrayed in the field. No such British Army Las ever been sent from our shores before, and in that respept alone this war taken a primary place among the wits in which we have been engaged. It is formidable because I find arrayed against us on false, insufficient, and in some respects corrupt information, the almost unanimous opinion of Em-ope. That in itself is a formidable fact.''

"There is a conviction," continued Lord Rosebery, "which, of course, is not unnatural—that this is a great Empire ;.waging war against two small Republics, and that, therefore, the natural sympathy of those who love freedom must be with them. It is not necessary to point out to such an assembly as this the inherent falsity of that conviction. We are fighting, not against freedom, but against privilege and against a corrupt and despotic oligarchy. We are fighting men possessed of the best weapons science can produce, purchased largely out of the earnings of our own fellow-countrymen; led, not by Boer generals alone, but by the stray condottieri, the loose talent of Europe, called forth' from the bosoms of our friends and neighbours who take part with our enemies in the field. . .

.Though Tread with great interest the criticisms'of the military experts on tho Continent, and read with a considerably greater interest the deductions they draw-that the sun of 'England is setting, and setting for ever, I am not aware that any other country in the world, lias ever sent an army of 120,000 men to fight 7000 miles away from its base. If that be a fact, as it is a fact, we need not think the impotence of England is so great as it is supposed to be on the Continent.." "There has been a great loss of prestige," Lord Rosebery went on to say. " The word 'prestige' lias not always been in good colour in this country. Yet every thoughtful person must feel that it is a token of Empire and a very useful asset in the possessions of Empire. I suppose that^at the end of IS9B the prestige of England stood higher than it has stood since Waterloo. lam afraid that this war has dispersed a good deal of that sentiment; but I ask you to remember that, if it was illfounded, it is infinitely better, that it should bo dispelled now than that, resting on a rotten foundation, it should lure us by its dream of power into enterprises which might be much more disastrous. That prestige, I venture to predict, will be recovered without much difficulty. What we have to do is to set ourselves, with as little loss as may be, to recover all that prestige. When the war is finished, if we'set ourselves earnestly to do the work of recovering the reputation which undoubtedly we have lost by our military operations in South Africa, we shall bo infinitely more powerful, infinitely stronger, infinitely more formidable than at any previous time of our history."

After observing that against whatever might stand to our debit we had two " supreme assets," in a degrea whicli no other country in the world possessed—" our navy and our capital, weapons of enormous importance in time of war and instruments of uncommon weight in "time of peace," and another no less solid and visible and tangible, "the character of our people,"—Lord Rosebery said: "I think that many of us of late years, in watching the march of prosperity, the march of luxury, the imrfch of ease in this country, the heedlessness 'with which we were assuming enormous responsibilities abroad, without really thinking sufficiently of how we were to sustain tho3e responsibilities, must havo begun to'fear that the nation might be'suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart; that the nation might prove itself unworthy of its high destiny; that it had had too easy a time; and that it required to be braced up and tested by adversity. We have been braced and tested by adversity. I venture to think that if that week which ended with the battle of Tugela had been passed in some countries and among some peoples, it would have ended, perhaps not in revolution, though not impossibly in that, yet in such disquiet, such mortification, such accusations of betrayal and treachery against their chiefs, that the end of the nation might have been visible. I, for my part, was never so proud of my-country as at the end of that week. There Wtis no tendency to, accuse anyone. Politics disappeared absolutely. There was little or no criticism; none certainly of a party character. There was, on the other hand, a passionate resolve to pour out the last shilling and the last man to assist the country in her hour of need. We saw the ready offers to serve in the ranks as private soldiers. Wo saw all classes of the community thinking in what way they could best serve the country. There has been almost too great a competition of various schemes.. At any rate, the spirit was there, and the spirit is there, and if more reverses should come, which, God forbid, there will be more money and more men still forthcoming. "Aye, whatever foreign nations may think, they have not got to the bottom of old England yet."

You may imagine with what tremendous cheering this declaration was greeted. But Lord Rosebery had not done yet. While maintaining that " the character of our people will.alone counterbalance the losses we have 'undergone," ho proceeded: "We have a greater gain than that still to reckon upon. -JTive-and-twenty years ago we had an Empire in name. It was the fashion to consider it as something loosely compacted together, .which at any moment might break up, and as to which it was only a matter of calculating the time when the principal members of it might depart and set up for themselves. I remember those days well. I daresay some of you may remember them, too. What, at any rate, this war has done, if it has done nothing else, is to prove that the Empire is a fact; thai it is based on a rook; that it is as compact arf that, and is not merely a small congeries oj countries in the world. Australia, Canada, aye, and great parts of India, have shown a spirit not inferior to that of the mother country herself. There has been —- I can vouch for it, at any rate, in Australia, from which country I heard only yesterday— 'that has been not so much the work of Governments as die spontaneous impulse of the peoples themselves. I say then that if, with all our reverses, we had purchased only the *act that our Empire is a united Empire, and therefore hen iefortli a supreme factor in the balance of the world, we should have made a profitable transaction out of the war."

And Lord Rosebery had some words of valuable counsel to add at the end. He remarked :" In this country we live a great deal too much from hand to mouth. AYe do not proceed by scientific methods. "We go. on the principle that things have carried on so well so far, and that we are a noble nation, that we are.very rich, that we are pretty numerous, arid, that we have so muddled out right in the end; and, indeed, with our love of liberty and with bur free institutions, it is not a very easy matter to get things plaoed on a scientific or methodical basis. .. If we-want to keep our place we shall have to consider the lessons we have been taught in this respect. Depend upon it, however brilliant you may be, the tortoise of investigation, method, and preparation will always catch up and overtake the hare which leaves everything to the inspiration and effort of the moment. Great as the task before us in the field is at this moment, the task that remajns for us after this war is completed ■is .the greatest task that ever lay before a nation. You will have, when this, war is over, to put your Empire on a business footing! "Wo must.have no more discussions as to the way in which one thing has" happened to ro wrong, or has happened to go right. We must, consider, deliberately, patiently, and scientifically the methods by which we have been accustomed to proceed, and see in what way they have fallen short, and determine to reconsider and revise them. 1 believe that is o, task which will occupy this Government, and perhaps manj' Governments, before you will Bee.yom- Empire as it should be." " That task," said Lord Rosebery, " will have to be faced, but, of course, before that comes wo have another task before us which is great indeed. We have not finished the war. "We have first to take in hand the bringing of it to a' triumphant conclusion. We have, secondly, when that war is completed, to brace ourselves for the settlement of the dominions and territories which it has ravaged and to take care that .that' settlement shall make it safe from any similar experience; and when that is done you will, as I'honestly and conscientiously believe, have to set yourselves to the third function, and t!ie most impbrtantof ali—that of setting your Empire OH a "business footing." In conclusion, the

ex-Premier made an earnest appeal to. his hearers to strive jointly and severally " that the Empire in the future shall realise our^ ideal of an Empire without menace'and without oppression, the model State, ruled by model institutions, and inhabited by the model race."

■ A masterly and memorable speech! It is not surprising that all parties in politics-save only the Little Englamler faction, are uniting in acclaiming Lord Rosebery " The Orator of the Empire."