The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1875-11-20 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES. The Times, criticising Mr. Forster's Edinburgh address, says: "It im a further indication of something too vague in these distant speculations that, unless we misunderstand him, Mr. Forster himself ends by a conception of the future by no means alien from those which he rejects. He criticises a statement of our own, in which we had said we could not deny that the time must come when the colonies will no longer require our aid, and when it will be better for both to set op for themselves. But, as he points out towards the close of his speech, independence ill so far from being incompatible with federation that the bitterest opponent of our colonial empire looked forward to such an union as the result of reparation. The writers he combats approach his own ideal in describing the England of the future as the head of a great confederacy of States belonging to Our own race, bound together not only by sympathy but by alliance, and not only by alliance, but also to some extent by civil rights.' But what is the vision which he himself depicts at the close of his speech? 'May not,' he says, 'we and our colonists together, by the exercise of some mutual forbearance, by willingness to incur some mutual sacrifice, hope to transform our colonial empire into a federation of peaceful, industrious, law-abiding commonwealths?' What Is the practical difference between the two results? The truth is that in thim dim vista of eightyfour years the most prophetic visions melt of necessity into confused outlines, and present scarcely distinguishable forma. It is well, doubtless, to cultivate lofty ideals and to keep great possibilities and hopes before our minds, and Mr. Forster frequently renders the country a service by elevating our view of some troublesome problem of the hour. But whether, as he suggests in the outset of his speech, our policy is to be determined by the view we take of these posibilitiee Ic a different matter. If we can preserve our Colonial Empire with justice to our colonies and ourselves, it will be a result in which both the mother country and the colonies may rejoice, and the hope of which may be admitted as an encouragement In many momenta of disappointment. But we are working out far too difficult and too new a problem to be guided by anything sloe than the slams of justice and necessity as they are pressed upon us by the constant duties of administration. The position, for instance, of the Cape colonies at this moment points clearly to the wisdom of encouraging a federation of those colonies. Such a federation may or may not tend to bind those colonies more closely to ourselves. That result, however, lies in a future with which we cannot practically concern ourselves. The future will be larger and grander than we can imagine, and possibly altogether different from what we expect. Our work is to abjure in actual statesmanship mere speculations of all kinds, whether antagonistie to a future Colonial Empire or not, and to solve patiently by the added experience of every day the momentous problems proposed to us."  MURDER ID OortrrriLLYo.—A tabourer named Duffy has murdered a labourer named Brett in County Kayo. The men quarrelled, and Duffy threw a large stem which struck and instantly killed Brett,  Ma. Mundane, M.P., presiding at a soir6e of the Batley Mechanics' Institute, in his address said it would be an evil omen for the country if people ceased talking on the education question till it assumed a different position. He spoke at some length on the excellence of the education system of Switzerland, where education was coupled with limitation of the hours of labour.  Tax returns in connection with the volunteer force, so far as they have been received by the War Office up to the present time show a gratifying increase to the total number of effidents in the leading corps. Scvsasz. hundreds of Dundee masons struck work on Monday in consequence of a reduction of one half-penny per hour in wages, but an arrangement has been affected, and they will resume work.