COLONIAL INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43118, 25 July 1907, Page 4

COLONIAL INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND.

It is the object of Ah- C. de Thierry, who writes an article thus entitled in the Fortnightly Review, to show that “the social influence of oversea Britons in England is due to the circumstances of our Imperial life, and that, as such, it is sound, natural, and desirable.” Nor is it, as lie goes on, to prove, any new thing in this history of the Mother Country, but • dates from the seventeenth century, when “the plantations of the New World literally paved her with gold.” Next to the West. Ind'es. England, we are reminded, owes most to Canada, folds colonists “are the only people who have stood up to the Americans in fair fight and proved themselves the better men” ; whi'e, by means of the bard training wlibh her people received. the Dominion acquired dignity, restraint and perspective; and “of all the offshoots of the British race she resembles the great original most closely.” Of Australia,, “the spoiled child of the E’mpire,” who “has walked on rose leaves” and 'lias never known a national sorrow which Ims called forth the national spirit, selfsacrifice and endurance,” M. de Thierry writes in- genial and sympathetic terms, remarking that it is “just because Australia, is not vetgrown up, as it were, that her.children are so delightful. Their cheery frankness is like a tonic. Their irresponsibility is boyish enough to bo amusing even to a- jaded political world. They bubble- over with good nature, and their uinoonventionality is too unconscious even: to give offence. In short! they have all the charms of youth and vigor everywhere, with the exhilaration, of their own intoxicating air.” Add if Australia exercises acertain influence on English society it may be explained! by the fact- that “there are more Australians married to Englishmen of title, than Canadians and South Africans put together. Of r the fifteen colonials married to peers’ 'daughters, eleven are Australians.” Finally the writer' claims that colonial influence in England is as virile as American influence is. frivolous, because “in the King’s dominions society is (Closely allied to, politics and the Services, literature and art. In the United States if is not so.” It, is not generally known, we are, further reminded, that colonial women with titles largely outnumbered Americans with titles, in England, and that very few of them are rich.