The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1897. LOOKING BACKWARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6065, 31 December 1897, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1897. LOOKING BACKWARD.

[From the Lyttelton Times.] The fate of "Lot's wife" notwithstanding, there is in the human family an irresiatible tendency to look backward at scenes and occurrences that have been left; behind. Nor is this habit pernicious, or everi valueless. All written history is a recognition of the importance of past events for present instruction and admonition. There is also a sound philosophical basis for the habit of retrospection, in the fact that events are really as indestructible as matter. Those things " which, having been, must ever be," do not pass out or' our experience when they go into the region of the paßt; being dead, they yet speak ; their influence is still potent lo charm, to warn or to instruct. Carried to excess, retrospection would of course, become a vice ; but omitted altogether, life would become to us an ephemeral thing, and all progress or improvement would be impossible. The healthy must, in the words of Dean Farrar, " live each day tlie truelife of a man: not yesterday's life only, lest you should become a murmurer; not to-morrow's life only, lest you should become a visionary ; j but the life of happy yesterdays arid confident to-morrows ; the life of today unwounded by the Parthian arrows of yesterday, and undarkened by the possible cloudland of to morrow." In this spirit we would take a brief review of the year that is now closing, in so far as its events bear upon human progress and happiness, confident that the task will not be a vain cue, nor the retrospectdevoid of interest for the present and of instruction for the future.

In looking backward over 1897, the outstanding feature of the year, for !

the world at large vo less than for the British people, is neeii to be the QueenV Becord Reign celebrations, with their striking demonstration of the power and extent of the British Empire, and the unity, vigour, prosperity and loyalty o£ its people. The year will be ever me morable as that in which the leading branch of the Caucasian race, while ostensibly celebrating the sixty years' reign of the greatest monarch on earth, were really exhibiting to mankind the beneficent fruits of a peaceful policy, based upon justice and humanity, and at the same time taking practical ntepn towards the better consolidation o£ the Empire and the complete recognition of the common aims and interests of its component parts. The military contingents that were sent to London from every self-governing colony and dependency of the Empire were the outward and visible signs of the greatness and unity of the British people ; but though these naturally created a deep impression, thoy, like the rest of the pomp and pageantry of the rejoicings, must prove but an evanescent show. That which is real and abiding lay, to a large extent, beneath the surface, and only partly emerged in the published accounts' of the conference between the colonial Premiers and the representatives of her Majesty's Government, in the tariff and treaty changes which were announced as the result, and in the offer by the Governmentof Cape Colony of a warship to the Mother Country, an offer since commuted into an annual contribution towards the naval defence of the Empire. The full significance of the Record Keign enthusiasm will not be fully appreciated, perhaps, for a generation to come. To attempt to penetrate the future in not our present purpose, and we shall, therefore, leave the subject with a reminder that, in this country, the national rejoicings were entered into with hearty thoroughness ; that the parliamentary business was postponed in order to allow the Premier to accept the invitation to London ; and that, on his return, he received a warm welcome and sincere congratulations upon the creditable way in which he had represented . Tsew Zealand at the most important Imperial gathering yet held. Other celebrations of the year included the "Silver Jubilee " of King Oscar of Norway and Sweden, and the thirteen hundredth anniversary of the landing of St Augustine in England.