The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-10-25

Z
in rather dramatic way.
The cable dispatch which intimates
luctant OF grant this Independent ma
val privilege to Australia tells us just
land knows that a like request will
be soon made by Canada, just as
England long ago foresaw that the
formation of the Dominion government
| would ultimately necessitate a like
| union among the British dependencies
on the farther side of the Pacific.
Australians growth in population and
in business development has been
slow, and this postponed the demand
| for autonomy for many years after
come of the more astutc British states
men expected it to appear. This came
in 1901, when the commonwealth was
founded. Now that country makes a
step toward the development of a ma
tional policy which may be relied on
to shape itself with a rapIdity which
will be far from pleasing to England.
A navy for Canada will probably be a
development of the next three of four
years. AS the western provinces Of
Canada are as hostile to Japanese i'm
migration as Australia is, and much
more so than the United States, the
yellow problem is likely to come up
In rather practical shape in the near
future.
| To paraphrase the words of the old
Farmers Almanac regarding snow in
January, about this time look out
for editorials in some or the London
newspapers on the subject of the de-
cline and fall Of the British empire"
London will lsee in this concession to
Australia a weakening or tho imperial
tie. And very likely London will be
correct. A national consciousness is
beginning to take form among the big
British colonies of tho Pacific, and
these developments usually increase
inimpetus with time. Australia has
an area almost as large as the United
States but has population smaller
than Illinois or Ohio. It's remoteness
from the rest of the world has given it
a sort of social independence which
has made it an experiment station for
trying out Utopias of several sorts.
In this way it has accumulated an ex-
perience, and also public debt,
which are larger than those of many
countries which have been on the
map several times as long. More
over as she is some thousands of
miles nearer to Japan and most of the
rest of Asia than is the United States,
and as she is far weaker than us, the
yellow peril takes a more portentous
shape for her than it does in Cali
fornia or in any other of our commun-
tiles on the Pacific coast. Her lack
of opportunities for laborers, either
from the inside of the outside, gives
her far less attractions for the Chin
csc and Japanese than the United
States offered, but on the other hand
her facilities for resistance are far
less potent than ours. England has
a larger interest in the doings in the
big western ocean than she looked
for few months ago, and so has the
United States. London, Washington
and Toxic, and likewise Pekin, are
Watching with a good deal of inter
est, the drama which is shaping it.
self over the sea of Balboa and Ma
gellan. BY the time that Admiral
Sperry's squadron, ten or twelve days
hence, anchors off Yokohama the Pa
cific problem will have begun to take
shape which none of those capitals
dreamed of when President Roose
welt was bidding it au revoir as it was
swinging out from Hampton. Roads