The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-07-11

i
Sovereign-What is Said by Thought
full British journal of Her Remarkable
Reign-A Close View Through Friendly
Eyes.
{From the Spectator.)
There is something in the position of
Queen Victoria, as she approaches the
confines Of late old age, which deeply
moves the European imagination In
all history there has been no such
reign, 50 long, 50 little marked by COLI
sions between sovereign and subjects,
50 little broken by public calamity or
failure Of any description. George Ill,
when he died, had reigned few
months longer but George Ill, though
at intervals personally popular, was at
war with the majority of his subjects
during the greater part of his reign; the
advisers he chose for himself, from
Butte to Abingdon, We're usually inferior
men, and he lost by sheer mismanage-
Ynent the greatest possession of the
British crown. The queen throughout
her reign has lost nothing which was
hers when she assembled the throne ex-
cept the seven Greek islands, which her
people never valued, and, in part no
doubt from ignorance, do not miss.
Her advisers surrendered the Trans
yaal after shedding much blood for its
protection-Is andlana was fought and
lost in protecting the Beers rather than
ourselves-and that surrender has
turned out disastrous; but the Trans
wall was no part of the queens here1i-
Aos u mir nd a. acl ic1
men have reaped the profit Of the gold
mines, is trifling when compared with
the total acquisitions of the reign.
New Zealand in the South Pacific,
kingdom after kingdom in ASIA prov
inces in Africa, whose vastness Eng
1ishmen even now do not realize, have
been added to the empire, until the
queen. though she calls herself only
Empress of India, is practically also
Empress of Ava and of the Nile. 1t is,
however, when we employ the termi-
nology used by the diplomats at the
congress of Vienna that we realize the
Fill degree in which Providence has
raised her Majesty's position, for under
her gentle and tolerant rule population
has increased even faster than the area
ACQUIRED by conquest or settlement and
she probably reigns to-day over one
hundred and twenty million more
s.souls'' than obeyed her when, as girl
of eighteen, she first assembled the
throne the total number of her sub
iects now amounting to four hundred
million. or nearly one clear fourth OF
mankind.
THE revenue drawn from this vast
,,,ltitude is more than twice the sum
of which her Majesty's advisers all
over the world disposed of in 1887, yet
so lightly does taxation press that there
is M division of the empire which is not
FAR richer. while at home the increase
of wealth has been so vast that the de-
wand of the royal tax gatherers may
he said to be comparatively unfelt, We
say nothing of the increase of trade, for
-re cannot admit that external COM
Yoerce is the best barometer of a ma
TONS greatness, or that America
I7ronoe or Russia are so far below Eng
land in Importance as the returns from
the custom houses would seem 10 l1lol-
rate. We would rather point TO tnat
Increase in loyalty which, put ihat tne
length of the queens reign mas nearly
killed out the generation whlch knew
her predecessors, Wouid seem ~ az
men the most striking OF the poiltlcai
changes that have marked the Nlctorl-
~ ora. The queen has been called
nnon to suppress one insurrection so
widespread and terrible that it threat
ened for a moment to terminate her
mower in Asia. but it was never from
the first a successful instruction; so
little was it universal that during its
course her Majesty never controlled
less than one hundred thousand SOL
diers, all volunteers from among the
peoples iii rebellion; and since its sup
preston the feeling of loyalty to the
crown has widened and deepened
through. the empire, in the white pro-
yinces as well as the brown and black,
until it is difficult to write of it without
!, using words which seem to SAVIOR either
/ Of vain gloriousness or adulation. We