The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-01

led by statesman whom not even his enc
mics would call small, and who, when he gives
his mind to the colonial question, may be
trusted TO deal with it generously and nobly.
But Mr.. Gladstone is where he is and what he
is by the strength of the rank and file of the
party, and more in spite Of than by the favor
of the class of prominent Liberal politicians,
of whom a large section of his Cabinet Is
formed. The clever men of this school pride
themselves on their scientific statesmanship,
and their highest effort is to take theory
confessedly based on assumptions which are
only approximately true, to shut their eyes to
the existence of every force but that OF self
interest, to work out the consequences of
their assumption with dilgent and unfailing
logic, and then to make themselves mere pas
sive instruments of a necessity of their own
creating. Wanting in sympathy and devoid
of imagination, they can see in the world no.
thing but theatre on which to demonstrate
the experiments of o crude and tentative,
though servicable, science. This is the tenn
per in which the relations of England and her
colonies have been approached by many of
our leading politicians, and by none more
conspicuously than by Earl Granville, of
whom better things might have been hoped.
The most fatal aspect of the case is the fana-
tical lsincerity with which the Colonial Minister
evidently believes that his narrow view of a
great crisis comprises the whole range of
possible truth. His predecessors in Office have
unequivocally protested against the tone even
more than against the substance of his des-
pathes. Impatient colonists have chafed at
his polished indifference, and the sober OPT
nion of all rejecting men, with the exception
of those who are political economists and no
thing more, has condemned the levity with
which he has trifed with question which in
q very few years must become the gravest
which English Ministers could be called upon
to consider.
The very terms in which Lord Granville re-
pudiates the charge of seeking the dismem-
berment of the Empire show how incapable
he has made himself of even seeing what it
is that renders his policy and his language so
mischievous. He tells the colonies that he
really does not wish to sever their relations
with what they will persist in calling the
Home country, but blandly assures them in
the same breath that, If they should happen
to be discontented at any time with Eng
lish policy, it will always be open for them
| to terminate the connection without fear of
any compulsory interference on our part.
| This kind of taunt would, under any circum-
stances, be impolitic and indefensible in
Colonial Minister, BUTT is doubly mischievous
now, when it is recognized as the symbol
| of party-the party that avowedly aims at
severing the bonds that unite this country
and her colonies. In spite of all disclaimers,
it points to nothing but separation Why is
| it that we hear this same phrase repeated day
| after day? No desire for inde ependence has
been manifested for many years by more than
| the most insignificant section of any of our
colonies. No one anticipates a request to be
relieved from their allegiance from any real
colonists, whatever mock petitions may be
| got up by American interlopers. Foolish
Irishmen have yelled for independence, and
rightly enough the cry is not listened to. The
colonists have never asked for it, and yet they
are daily insulted by the assurance that when
| ever they think fit to do so we shall be most
happy to let them go. 1t may be that if
ever the emergency arose, it would be
right and wise to abstain from coer-
cion, as many people in the United
States thought it would be right and wise to
acquiesce in the secession of the South. But
how does this excuse a statesman for persist
emily throwing in the teeth of the colonies his
| declaration of indifference to their alliance?
1t is generally perhaps wiser to let a runaway
wife 90 than to reclaim her by force, but hus-
band who daily assured his spouse that if she
desired to leave him he would put no obstacle
in her way would be credited by men of the
world with q very decided anxiety to get rid of
her. The official tone has not even the con-
sistency which belong to the extreme school
of Mr.. Goldwin Smiths disciples, who
avowedly desire to bring about the
dismemberment of the Empire, and use pre-
cisely the same language which Lord Gran
vile employs to prove the absence of such q
wish from his mind Unfortunately the mis-
chief done by the authoritative adoption of
the language of the separatists is not easily to
be undone, and there is little prospect of
modifying the future policy of a statesman
who is, or processes himself to be, incapable
of comprehending the tendency of his own
words.
And yet even those whose only wisdom is
the worship of political expediency might be
expected to see the plain interests of Eng
land, however unable they may be to sympa
thize with the aspirations of the colonies II
should not be altogether beyond the power OF
statesmen to look forward twenty or thirty OF
fifty years Mr.. Gladstone has thought it i'm
portant to take stock of our probable suppl,
of Goals a couple of centuries hence Is it Of
less moment to count the numbers anC
reckon the wealth which our colonies ar,
certain to attain within few decades? NJ
! one doubts what the result must be. In
period very, very short in the life of natiol
one or two generations, at the most-Eng
land, instead of a great dominant State, SUI
rounded by comparatively. insignificant pro
vinces, will, if she does not throw away he
opportunity, be the centre of a system of col
federated nations each II ore populous an
/ richer than herself.
, THE NEGRO SENATOR FROM DIISSIs
I SIPPI.
D From the n. Y. World.
, Some of the Republican journals in til
S West are discussing the question whetht
t Hiram r.. Revels, the colored Senator elet
S from Mississippi, is entitled to a seat in tn