THE EMPIRE.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 3, 1 December 1902, Page 254

THE EMPIRE.

The year which is now fast slipping to its close will be long remembered as one in which the loving bonds of Empire have been still more firmly ri vetted. The Proclamation of Peace, which all the distant colonies assisted so materially to bring about ; the dangerous illness of our most gracious monarch, his subsequent recovery and coronation, at which we were in turn, one and all, deeply grieved and unfeignedly thankful ; the coronation festivities in which many of us took part ; the conference of the respective Premiers of our colonies — these have all tended in a marked manner to add to the strength and glory of our Empire, and make us more and more thankful that we have the inestimable privilege of claiming it as our own. What the new year may have in store for us we know not. There are some ominous signs in the political sky. There are not wanting those who declare that a war with Eussia will shortly be inevitable. But this is an old story, and, while recognizing that God helps those who help themselves, and taking all due care that we be not unprepared, there is certainly no need whatever to begin the. new year in fear and trembling that we may soon be plunged again into war's alarms ; but rather let us commence it with the hope and the assurance gained by the

occurrences and the fair promise of the dying year. There is much to be hoped for in the tour of our Imperial Colonial Secretary to South Africa, if there is any truth in anything it is in the old adage, "If you want anything done, do it yourself." In private business, when there are any specially complicated negotiations to be carried on, one of the members of the firm goes himself to carry them out. There- have been few situations of late years which require more careful and diplomatic handling than the settlement of South Africa. It is a question of an harmonious mingling of races undeir sound government, or of fostering and exaggerating a bitter racial enmity between the vanquished and the victor. If any action would be calculated to make for the most desirable state of things, it is the visit of a man like Mr Chamberlain, one who not only knows how to give way in points of minor importance, and to assert himself and stand firm when necessary, but to do the latter in a manner which in a great measure smooths over the disappointment felt at the refusal. The very fact that England has thought it politic to send the great statesman to confer with the Boer leaders will have a good influence. In this as in the humane conduct of the Boer War, England has set an example worth following in her treatment of the conquered.