A COLONY OF NATIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7014, 1 February 1901, Page 2

A COLONY OF NATIONS.

\TOere Seotoh, Irish, Frenoh Mid '■•; Germaa Colonies Exist Side Tjjr Slde,| There are mot many subjects wHfthar»; more interesting to the enteo-prising Briton than emigrationi and 1 it& natural sequence, ' (colonisation (writes George : -Griffith iai "Pearson's Weekly"). Tnebld •MoodyOfi the 'Scandinavians, the Jutes, and j>anes, j and Normans who made ;tne sea their hair-.: ■yest-field^ still beads strongly in our ar-> teriea. We are still inspired -with that! "desire of many marvels oner aeaß," which,) according to Kipling, still leads "our young! Ulysses- from the quay till the, ianchor mm-' bles.down on stranger stores." ' • . . We ore wanderers, but we are also' stayers. We cannot mix physically with the dark races, of the earth, as. the Latin peoples of Europe do, but we can conques^ them and then conciliate them, and after: that we can govern ttiem. Then' we score the greatest triumph jot. aIL We convince: them by the unanswerable logic of events' that, they are better /off tinder -our role: than they could foe 'under .their -own or j ; any other. For which reason oil other na-: tions who aspire to colonising dislike us' exceedingly. : ' " i Still, the fact .xemains t&at we have sac-; ceeded where otihere have failed, more or' l«ss disastrously. But not only ihave; we! done that. We ihave made most excellent' colonists out of other peoples whose' own; Governments .could -do nothing with iiheia 1 as colonists. . , . •}- : - I have visited colonies founded by nearly every European Government, except tie! Russian; but I Ihave never seen one that; would not starve within twelve months if; the Home Government, buttoned 1 up its' - pockets and -withdrew its protecting, hand." The one apparent exception is, perhaps, furnished by the Dutch East.lndiee, which are a paying concern. Still, even their] commercial success is heavily "discounted by/ ■ .•.■:• ••--.•■ ' : •■■;■■.■-:.•■/ THE COST OF INCESSANT WARFARE : , with irreconcilable natives. '^; : - But go to French, German, or ItaKaK' colonies, and you will find practically the same thing, plus commercial failure. At the same time you will find the reason of ' the failure. The bulk of the white popu-: lation consists of Government officials, civil' and military, soldiers and policemen. .Thoie colonists who are not connected with- th« ; Government are dependent on it. -• ■ ' • . - In a British colony it is just the reverse.' The colonist goes. first. If he doesn't die he hacks something like a colony out of the wilderness, and! when he lias roughhewn it into shape lie sends' for the Government to come along and do its shore of the work, which the Government does '. — being very careful not to interfera" with.' the rights and the activities of the Man who was There First. That is why we make colonies arid nations, . while other people only make official trading stations. ,' ; A few months ago,; during a run across Australia, I had the privilege of visiting a portion of the New Commonwealth ia which I found a very, striking and instructive example of the working of this extraordinary colonising genius, for it certainly cannot be called anything else, of which the Anglo-Saxon race appears, at present, to possess an absolute monopoly. . . < . i had called at Adelaide^ on -my. way to Albany, in Western Australia, where I was 1 • to get my steamer for -England^- and there I met some delightful acquaintances I had 1 made in Sydney a few months before. They, had some friends a little .way "up-country . . — a colonial expression which has a: very. : different meaning now to the one it had; in the days when I ; . : " "HTOfPED MY . BLDEY." j '■■■■■• through ths busk same twenty years ago. An hour or so in the train ironx Adelaide; to Freeling, then, a> drive of eight miles on the top of an Australian edition of the. Deadwood Coach, a halt for the night in: a township, where I and an American billiard expert played bagatelle (to the great; marvel of the junior cornstalks, who kindly; began by coaching us in the game). And; then, in a crisp, early morning, a drive o£ a few, (miles more brought us to Seppelt-: . field, the centre of the great wine-growing; district, in which I found tie Cosmopolitan l Colony. ■. .5 There' may 'be another like it somewhere] in the world, but if there is I have notj heard of it! x To begin with, J that: the Seppelts— the aristocrats, ] if" one. cam use the term in" suet, an entirely "colonial connection, - and territorial, magnates of tile, land— -were Germans by Wood and Austra-; liana by birth. ' r There are nine sons in the family— and* x nine better citizens of the new Commonwealth, and nine worthier subjects of the Queen, never were born anywhere. At K any rate,' you might search, the German! colonies from end to end and. find no Ger-i ■ man colonists like them born on the soil. ' Between them, their grandfather and father have put up a million or so. I only : know one other German colonial million-^ aire, and he made. his money on British, soil. It is a rather curious fact that colo*' nista of French, German, Italian, or any, other Continental blood, only become nmlionaires in other colonies than their own. '. This, however, was only an incident. A* least, I thought so until I had been drivejl over; the surrounding country of w.hioh Sep-1 . r pelifcfieia is the centre/ One daywe'drova; out to a neat spick-and-span little towa'ehip, the approach to whicK renunSed aoi strongly of "some of the Dutch towns I Suul -visited in Cape Colony. But «* 'we «6tf nearer! said: " '■'-' "■ "'." ; "Why, this is a bit of Germany." t ? : "Yes," said my host, who was driving, "it is like it, is it not? You see all th» names are German. You can speak ol much German as you like here. Every bodjf will understand you. So they will, too, a you speal: English, for that matter, bait they are all Germans, arid; you wall get af good a glass of Geianan beer her© ss yott would in Munich or Leipzig." " ' 'This proved to be literally true. I haute 4 out some rusty fragments of what had once been my German, and I was answered to as good Teuton as* ever was spoken batween the Rhine and the Vistula, Tirt conversation ia the streets and the shopl was German, though (perfect EngUsb ccttldl be had for the asking.. ': „ We had real, German sausage and ■Butterbrod with our beer, and then we went to a real Getman skittle-ailey, wjhere.l and my Ajnerican ffiehd played a 4or the championship of Anglo-Soxoridom, which, by the favour of the gods, I won after •> contest which was warm in more ntmam than on*, ia tina ipraMttOß of aa iTiJtaaii

;of prospereas Teuton Australians who had •"'bew-J&erjiuwas, and were now . ..^ . , : "■'BIIITIsriEiIS""OF" < f«te"»*STSORT;- - ■- Now, within five miles on either side of .this German township on British soil there are to be found others equally instructive in the great lesson of British colonisation. Tbsre is a village iato which you may go aiidfind nothing but French people living a French life, speaking French dialects, carrying on French industries, of wnicn, of course, the chief was grape-growing— for here some of the' finest of the more delicate Australian wines are produced- ' Here, too, you may go into a little wayeide tavern with broad creeper-grown verandahs—iiisf such as you will find in tne ; loveliest wine districts of- France—and drink just feuch wines as you might in Champagne, or Burgundy, or Auvergne; rtid here', too, if you; wili, you may .eat. as you would do in a walking tour through i^ToTmandy or Brittany, or the fair country s of Aquita-iae. .. ' , •, ■- -. ■■• „ f From iere a drive of four .or five miles Vill take you to a- township which js as lentirely Italian as ihe other two were Ger--fen^.orJPrench,'._-'' A v •' „i V. ..>: .•■- ft ... ;..WH3BbV.TOU .MAT I>BINK „-.,; tinti '-and Asttirom -vines whose parent is were crown on the far-off slopes ot Apennines.' Here, too. you will find woni, oKves, and garlic as common ars of diet as the Wurst. the Sauerkraut, fwtd the veal were .in the German town, lor tto> soup, the poi-aux-croutes, ihe cut[JLrand the competes were in the. French In another day's journey through this ' ksosmopoUtan country you may visit villages which, area lmost as exclusively Scotch and tosh -as the others are German, French, or Italian, and with exactly the same definitions of language and liquor— save that the mild and wholesome native wine is .malrine good headway against the whisky, algte of affairs which, in the South Australian climate, Js .not .altogether bad. Three or four miles over the broad vineboxdered roads wilj take you from a village where vbu may hear Scotch of the broadest from Aberdeen to Dumfries, and yet;a few Jmiles further' i>n" as rich and luscious a, tbebgue as eyer. you: heard^Jbetweeiu Cork., toi. Londonderry, and as. healthy an appe-, i«te for mountain dew and poteen as you-: ;"!waifind.; : _;"';' ;" ■'. /;'.;: .'. ;j v ;... . ' ■. •^' ./r^i-WATEOTORD ; TO . WICSK- : ' ..Yet here were.aH ißuaffes— more, indeed, than I have- lad ipace to talk about here— living their own lives, talking in their own .tongues, doong ' thfeir own work on a soil that was alien to liheir fathers, and in latitudes that their ' ■erandfathers had only known by hearsay. • -They are "all good friends, and on occasion will work together as though there [was never a difference of blood between Wiem. The German, is still German, the : Frenchman French, the. Italian Italian, and so on. Those who might have been enemies at home are friends and fellow-citizens bete, and each one is jusbas loyal as the otker to the Flag under which all havo Sound equal rights, equal prosperity, and (the even-handsd justice which is at once Ithe glory and the consequence of the Tax ißritannica. , > No matter what their nationality, they tre British subjects, and,, though of alien food, they are still sons and daughters of the Mother of Nations, and their peace md prosperity, their good-feUoAvSbip, and their commDn allegiance makes that little Etch of Australian soil which they mbit the scene of one of the finest tninnphs that the British genius for government and colonisation has ever achieved.