THE BRITISH EMPIRE OF TO-DAY

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1180, 16 September 1885, Page 3

THE BRITISH EMPIRE OF TO-DAY

! The "European Mail" contains a notice of an interesting lecture given by Mr Vincent last June at the annual meeting, in London, of the Royal Colonial Institute, from which the following extracts are made : — There is no more popular man in colonial society here to-day than Mr C. E. Howard Vincent, late Director of the Criminal Investigation Department. Having lately travelled to Far aa the breeze can bear, the billows foam, to Survey our Empire, and behold our home, there are many who, having incidentally heard of his sudden conversion to Conservative ideas, were anxious to learn his views regardin^fflfre " British Empire of To-day." As usual there were amongst the audience, who filled the room to overflowing, men of all shades of , opinion, and representing every part of the British Empire. His Grace the Duke of Manchester, who himself has only recently returned from a prolonged tour of Australia, occupied the chair, and was surrounded by a galaxy of notabilities connected with the Colonies and India.

Conscious that there^were many present far better able to describe individual Colonies, and to express more reliable opinions, Mr Howard naturally felt some reluctance in addressing the assemblage. But from beginning to end his lecture was listened to with much interest, and when he resumed his seat the audience, by their deafening applause, testified to the pleasure with which they had listened to his fascinating narrative. Commencing by pointing out that the British Empire covered nearly one-fifth of the surface of the whole world, that it was peopled by more than three hundred million inhabitants of various nationalities, that it had a trade amounting to a thousand millions a year, and an annual revenue of over 260,000 sterling, Mr Vincent went on to express regret at the loss to the British Crown of the three million square miles of country and the fifty millions of people which now form the United States, and after pointing out many of the proofs of Canadian devotion to the Mother Country, referred to the Dominion as a home for hard-working English settlers. Passing by the Sandwich Islands with the remark that " American habits and customs reigned there in full force " Mr Vincent went on to speak of some of, the islands in the Pacific ; and on this point he was very severe on Mr Gladstone's Government. In point of luxuriant vegetation the Samoan Islands, he said, yielded to no spot on earth, and the race which inhabited them was famed throughout the South Seas for its physical qualities.

Mr Vincent's brief description of the Australasian Colonies was at once vivid and picturesque. No nobler sight, he said, greeted the vision of mariners than that of the beautiful harbor of Auckland, and, while the resources of the South Island were undoubtedly very great, it was none the less true that there was in the North Island a comparatively open field for enterprise. Of all Australasian Colonies, Tasmania has ever ranked as Queen of Beauty, and Mr Vincent, while doing ample justice to its natural characteristics, observed that there was in the Colony a remarkable absence of that energy and enterprise which secured success for itself, and though it afforded a grateful haven for the declining days of modest competency, it afforded comparatively small attraction to the vigor of youth. How different was the state of affairs in Victoria! There the greatest enjoyment came from the greatest activity. When one saw the long lines of shipping in Pert Philip, the magnificent streets, the noble public buildings, tasted the luxury and enjoyed the refinement of Melbourne, it was impossible (said Mr Vincent), to realise that this city of 300,000 souls had barely celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. South Australia, "Western Australia, and New South Wales were next passed in review, the lecturer observing that the devotion of the latter Colony to the Mother Country had lately been marked in " letters ofblood with a sword of gold," a remark which drew forth the loudest applause. With regard to Queensland, Mr Vincent said that her prospects were not of the brightest, and he contended that the attractive Monroe doctrine— the plat* form cry of Australia for the whites — would, if unchecked, "bring that Colony so far on the downward course 1 as to make its return long and tedious. It might add to the jriches of a, few for a brief season, but, however captivating in principle, it was ruinons in practice." After having lightly touched on the salient characteristics of each of the seven Colonies of Australasia, Mr Vincent looked at them as a whole, and he urged that no further argument for the mamtainauce and cohesion of the Imperial connection was necessary than the fact that the trade between Great Britain and our Australasian Colonies amounted to no less a sum than £120,000,000 annually, and that the invested British capital exceeded £500,000,000 sterling. Mr Vincent is anxious to see this trade increase, and he is of opinion that favor shown at British ports tp colonial produce over that of foreign States would obtain prompt recognition in most of the Colonies in the diminution of duties on British goods, and the consequent accession of a large portion of the trade now falling to the lot of foreign merchants. While the attachment of Australasia to Great Britain and to the Empire knew no bounds, yet it was no use disguising the fact that every day death diminished the roll of those who knew England, Scotland, and Ireland by personal experience, and added to £he number, already mustering considerably more than one-half of the

population, of the vigorous sons of the Colonies. They might, it is true' observed Mr Vincent, speak of " home " as their fathers did, but the next generation, he contended, would require some stronger and more substantial tie than the feeble recollection of a grandfather's enthusiasm.