THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 15

THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE.

(See Illustrated Pages for Sketch of Tower.) A circular letter that has been addressed by the Canadian Club of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the Governments and people of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, draws attention to a movement Avhich has been inaugurated to establish a national memorial at what may with some reason be termed the constitutional birthplace of the Empire. The birth of British parliamentary government within the limits of Greater Britain is a subject regarding which the Empire at large may be somewhat in need of enlightenment. It was more than 150 years ago that William Pitt, "the Great Commoner," sanctioned the initiation of parliamentary government in territory now within the Dominion of Canada, with the result that on October 2, 1758, a small Parliament of the elected representatives of the people met for the first time at Halifax, where the Provincial Assembly of Nova Scotia has actually met annually ever since. Historians seem to be agreed that the date mentioned denotes the Empire's constitutional birthday, and that Halifax may be regarded as the Empire's biithplace. Since the day .when the germ of representative government was thus planted in Nova Scotia there have-been developed nine provincial legislatures and one federal legislature in Canada alone, and some thirty-three throughout the British Dominions, while most foreign nations throughout the world have followed in the wake of England and Canada. Tt is not very surprising that patriotic Canadians, looking backward, should be disposed to view the humble gathering, a century and a-half ago, of the nineteen representatives of the early settlers in Nova Scotia as a remarkable epoch in the development of civilisation. As a result of the great geographical discoveries of the past a family of Empires arose—the Spanish, the French, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British. Of these the last alone can really be said to survive, and it is a significant fact that it has differed from other Empires in the matter of its political organisation and in the adoption of the principle of granting to each colony representative institutions as soon as the people were ready for them. The proposed memorial is to take the form of a tower, the foundation of which was laid on a fine site in Halifax, in a park of 100 acres presented to the city on the occasion, on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the'day upon which the first Parliamentary Assembly in Nova Sootia was opened. The edifice will be of noble and enduring proportions, for it is the earnest purpose of the Canadian Club to raise & worthy memorial. The spirit which lies behind the project is well indicated in the following passage from the circular letter: " This building will commemorate one of the most significant events in history: it will tend tenvards a sympathetic union of the far-flung members of the British Empire, and thus enhance a thousandfold the value of the memorial. In the Halifax tower will centre memories, hopes, and ambitions that will gain significance and importance as the years roll on. It will take its place, not as a merely local or provincial monument or one whose appeal reaches only to the utmost boundaries of the Canadian Dominion, but as an embodiment of the spirit which animates the people of the Empire in both hemispheres, an attestation of the partnership of the sisterhood of nations, all under one Crown." It will be recognised that there is a distinct loftiness in the conception which is materialising in the native granite of the country in the commemorative tower at Halifax. It will, we think, be equally conceded that there is nothing provincial or narrow in the desire that is expressed for the sympathy and co-opera-tion of the sister States of the Empire respecting a project the execution of which is the patriotic undertaking of the Canadian Club of Halifax. In honouring thus the distinction of Nova Scotia as the pioneer of parliamentary government in the outer Empire, Canadians evinceagain the admirable national spirit exemplified recently in the nationalisation of the battlefields of Quebec. And assuredly loyal British subjects the Empire over •will promptly realise that no inheritance is better worthy of honour than that ■which has been described as " the most noble code of political wisdom that ever Was devised by man for the government of iman." In our own day this inheritance is regarded very much as a matter of course, but to appreciate the full significance of the Halifax memorial it is well to remember that the germs of • parliamentary government were planted in Nova Scotia at a date when no Englishman had

apparently yet seen any portion of Australia or New Zoaland and no possession existed in South Africa.