The Portland daily press., 1876-10-04
A Common Fallacy.

Vague or hastily formed cancellations
from insufficient data are eagerly accepted by
the majority if they are couched in striking
language or in curt phrase easy to be remem-
bered. Thus untruths and errors in estimate
brilliantly stated pass current for years and it
is with great difficulty that they can be dis
lodged from the minds of people. The old
story of the Chinaman who visited London,
was taken down the Thames by boatman
with wooden leg, and who thereupon wrote
home that wooden-legged men are always
selected for boatmen in England, ingeniously
explaining that they are so selected because
they do not catch cold while standing with
one foot in the water TO push off their boats.
is fair burlcsque on these hasty but in
genious generalizations. Indeed it is scarcely
more absurd than the belief long entertained
in England that all Frenchmen are meagre in
form and hungry-looking, live on frogs and
teach dancing, a belief brought about by the
appearance of French emigrants during the
Revolution.
Numberess instances of these hasty but
closely. .clung-to judgments can be cited. A
common one is that the Germans are colo
nizing race and that the French are not. Ap-
parently this is based upon the fact that the
Germans emgrate in great numbers and that
the French do not. The fact is indisputable,
but the deduction is not justifable. The
French have been driven from many colonies
which they had settled, but it does not follow
that they are incapable of colonization any
more than it follows that the Phencians
were not colonlzing people because they
were supplanted il dominion by the Romans.
By successful colonization we understand the
ability to found settlements which shall pre-
serve the characteristics of the parent state,
the ability 10 resist entire absorption in the
older people among whom the settlement is
made. If these be the tests, France is one OF
the most successful of colonizing nations, for
on these shores she has founded great colo
ny which is to-day as thoroughly French as
it was two hundred years ago. Lower Cana
da, despite its change Of rulers, its govern
ment by Englishmen for century, and the
constant immigration from Great Britain. is
as French in the characteristics of its people
as is any province of old France. The boast.
full Anelo-Saxon ---l-:-h--'fns 'iN' -
nIorus All peoples with whom it comes in con-
tact to Its models, and transforms them into
Englishmen in generation, has failed to i'm
press itself upon the Canadian habitaas.
Montreal and Quebec are as French as Orle-
ans to day.
Germany can point 10 no colony which has,
under the same adverse circumstances, re-
tanned the national characteristics. Thou
sands of Germans come to this country year
ly, but the impress of their nationality soon
disappears, and they become absorbed in the
majority. They emigrate in large numbers,
but they do not colonize. They exhibit none
of the traits of great colonizing nation.
They become for this reason excellent citi-
zens. They easily accommodate themselves
to the habits and manner of thought Of the
people among whom they come. In few
years they are almost indistinguishabe from
Americans. But the Frenchman who comes
to us rarely if ever so completely sinks bis ma
tionality, so entirely becomes one OF us.
The generally accepted view in regard to
the colonizing capacity of races needs revi-
sion. Indeed it may be questioned if the An
glo Saxons are great race of colonists in the
Roman meaning of the term. In place OF
molding the peoples among whom they settle
they exterminate them.