The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-23 00:00:00

MIL FROUDE ON THE COLONIES.

Mr. J. A. Fronde delivered the first of two lectures
on Monday evening, at .the Birmingham and Midland
Institute, on "The Colonies."_ He said that though
many of our ablest statesmen thought that a separa-
tion of the English colonial possessions must eventually
take place, yet many of the colonists themselves, as
well as the people of this country were equally in
earnest in the desire that the empire might be kept
together. The English nation were occupied in build-
ing up America, the Indian empire, and colonial
commerce at a time when the ruling people of the
country were occupying themselves exclusively with
continental affairs. English politicians for the most
part had little to do with the matter, and even up to
the present day the col2nieB had attracted compara-
tively little interest on the part of the ruling people of
England. We had European alliances, obligations,
and responsibilities. Nothing happened in Europe
but what we had a voice in it; while as to the colonies,
he would relate a story which would show how they
had been regarded. Lord Palmerston, being at a loss
for a Colonial Minister, and having talked to one
and another without finding one who would suit,
said to Sir Arthur Helps, I think I nmst take
this office myself. Just come upstairs, and we
will look at the maps, and you shall tell me
where these places are." The incident was very
easily explained. The English official mind was',
governed by traditions. Those Continental tendencies
on the part of English statesmen were the legacies
of the old days. He did not say that they had no
interest on the Continent—they could not shake off all
their inherited traditions; but he held that their Con-
tinental interests were merely secondary: their first
interests were in their own empire, and their first
duties were to themselves. He considered, of all the
problems which theirstatesmen had before them the one
of real practical importance was the problem of how the
colonies, which were so anxious to be attached to us,
should be attached. As to foreign alliances, for his own
part, the .only alliance he really cared about would be
an alliance with America. Whatever once might
have been the importance of their connections with
the Continent, they were cut off from the Continent
by the Channel. Science had enabled them to make
their own shores impregnable, and they had as little
to fear from Europe as America had, and as little to
gain in mixing themselves up in continental affairs.
They were no longer a European Power' but an Asiatic
and an ocean Power. English enterprise had given them
an empire on which the sun never set. They had the
colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and
South Africa—were they to lose them? They would
never lose them if they recognised their own true posi-
tion) but they would most certainly lose them if they
persisted in occupying themselves with matters in
which the colonists at least could never pretend to
have any interest, but which could bring them only a
possibility of harm without any possible good. From
the first, the misfortune had been that the ruling
people of England had regarded the colonists as a sort
of "poor relations." They were made to feel that we
had no real care or concern for them, and that their
interests and wishes were nothing to us when weighed
against the imagined exigencies of European politics.