PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 51

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

■■'■ ■ ' <p • History Making and Empire Expansion. This is rather a long heading ; perhaps it isn't the best that can be got for my purpose, but it is the best I can think of at present. What lam going to write is suggested by what I have just read in three or four journals. One refers to a little book published at Home, and entitled " The Lost Possessions of England." Bat it doesn't take in all tbe territories once possessed by England— should I write Britain? The Moluccas, Java, and Manilla were British, but only for a short time ; and in the " triangular " duel between Franca, Britain, and Holland, Holland got the East Indies from the East India Company and Britain got India, France and Holland being both beaten there. The balance in the East is therefore very much in Britain's favour in spite of lost possessions. But in Europe it is otherwise. In the Mediterranean Britain once possessed the lonian Islands, Sicily, Sardinia^ Corsica, and Minorca, but has now to content herrelf with the midway islanda of Malta and Gozo and Cyprus in the East. But we must remembor that most of these lost islands were only taken temporarily, so must not be spoken of seriously as lost possessions. If, however, Britain* had retained them the Mediterranean would now be a British lake, and just as it might have been a British lake, so now it is the dream of the French to make it a French one. On the Continent itself Britain's losses are more noticeable. If any of you have Longman's Historical School Atlas, you will then see how much of France was'once British, or English — whioh 1 Hanover and perhaps Holland must aleo be included ; so Britain's possessions on the Continent, had she lost nothing, would have been of quite respectable dimensions. Now she has only Gibraltar, and off the mainland the Channel Islands. So looking at the map of Europe and seeing the wee British Island*, and then looking across and comparing them in size wit.h tho United States, one does not wonder at tbe Yankee who when in England was afraid of going out at night for fear of stepping over the side.

Taking Afrioa and her lost and gained possessions there, even omitticg what has been acquired by the general land grab lately, Britain conies out pretty well. By some carelessness rather than anything else Tangier, which became British on the marriage of Charles 11, has been allowed to drift away, and sorry Britain must now be for her remissness ; but Cape Colony taken from the Dutch in the Napoleonic wars is more than a compensation, . while both Lower and Upper Egypt bid fair to become British by. force of arms. In America we suffered a big loss by the severance of the United States. Imagine for a moment what would have been the reault with the United States a British colony. The Monroe doctrine that no European State should interfere in Amerioa — I use the word in its wide sense of " Now World" — would be Britain's doctrine with the addition of " other," and it is very probable that the greater part of South Amerioa would now be marked red. On the other hand, Australasia— again in a wide sense— is a good set-off against American losses.

Bat what is the future to be? In the Seven Years' War Britain won ; in the American War of Independence she lost ; in the Napoleonic wars she again won, and decidedly. But what about the future ? Enssia has no colonies to lose ; France has, and so has Germany — and these are the three that Britain has to watch. But though Rassia has no colonies, she will likely assist Britain to get Egypt and the colonial possessions of France. Autocratic Russia and Republican France have nothiog in commpn except that their combination may work in favour of tbe former getting nearer Constantinople, and the latter mii creased territories for her colonies. But they don't love each other. Why hasn't Britain fulfilled her mission in Armenia ? Is it that in allowing the slaughter of, say, 50,000 | she will ultimately save 100,000, and gain Egypt without any efftc'ive opposition 1 How 1 Bj Russia casting France aside and acquiescing in Britain annexing Egypt, I Britain in return allowing Russia to have 1 Armenia, and possibly allowing her a step nearer Constantinople. I don't like justice I being governed by expediency, bat the im- ! pression at Home seems to be growing that that is what the future will unfold. Then if France, not Britain, becomes the example of " splendid isolation," will she be so blind as to wage war ? Judging by the past it is as likely as not. If so, what will become of her colonies 1 Will the war be an equivalent of the Seven Years' War of the last century, combined with a second series of St. Vincent, Nile, and Trafalgar ? Who knows ? One can only read the past, and from it conjecture tbe iuture. LAST GENEBATION ATLASES. Does it ever occur to my younger readers to spend a quarter of an hour over the atlases used by their fathers and mothers, not to go back any further 1 I have an atlas by me used about 30 years ago. Even Europe, known to history for so long a time, has undergone considerable change in that, or little more than that, time. The German Empire did not exist, and well I remember when news came once a month with the details of the- terrific struggles which resulted in a United Germany, but which altered the boundaries of Austria, France, Denmark, and Germany, to the gain of the last acd the loss of the three first. Then Italy, a mass of corrupt States, became united, and wrested Venetia from Austria. Russia, too, has moved on like Germany 'and Italy. Between the Black and Caspian Seas the Russian. Empire fell short of the Caucasus, and the Eastern boundary was thousands of miles— l think I can say "thousands" — from the north or north-west frontier of British India. Swiizsrlaud, the Netherlands, and Spain and Portugal are, I think, the only countries not showing a changing frontier in that time. In Asia the expansion of British and French territories, the former especially; has been particularly rapid. America shows, too, a great change territorially. But Africa — what shall we say of it 2 It is not possible in a few words to *<giv« Mjthing like an a.(les*ate i&«a oi the

immense amount of exploration and annexation that has gone on thore. The sources of the Nile, Zambesi, and Congo were a complete mystery. In the map in front of me, excepting Dambes, in Abyssinia, there isn't a lake marked in the whole of Afrioa. The Kong Mountains have tamed out to be a series of gentle undulations, and the Mountains of the Moon, extending east and west from Guinea to Abyssinia, are in reality a shorter range extending irregularly north and south about the three Nyanzas. In the south we talk now glibly enough of Kimberley, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Buluwayo. Fort Salisbury, the Shire Highlands, places that did not exist as European settlements and wero not even known 30 years ago. From Upper Guinea to Manioa in the map in front of me, in a curved line, is placed, " Territory unexplored." Now it is within the truth to nay that we can travel from Capetown to Cairo and cot go outside of European — I was almost writing British — territory.

In Australia New South Wales extended from Torres Strait to Banks Strait, bounded on the west by the 140 th degree of longitude. New Zealand is execrably drawn, with Stewart Island as a peninsula, and Banks Peninsula as an island — the drawing evidently being a bad copy of Cook's maps. You will now oee what I mean by my heading " History Making and Empire Expansion." A comparison of mnps will show bow great the change a hundred of years or so at most will make in the face o£ a map. Then, remember, this change is a neverending one. Nations rise, reach the pinnacle of fame and position, and then fall away to allow othern to take their place. Is Britain's time come to go the way of the empires of the past ? Heaven forbid 1