The Globe. SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 248, 27 March 1875, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1875.

In a former article we directed attention to that part of Sir G-eorge Grey's address to the electors of Auckland, in which he dealt with the question of the relation between the mother country and the colonies. That this question is becoming daily more important is evident from the increased attention which is being given to it at home. The Dublin University Magazine for December contains a carefully written article on the Dependencies of the Empire, in which some valuable suggestions are made on this all important question. It points out that the mere protection which binds the colonies to the mother country will not suffice much longer to keep the union up, and that there must be closer and finer bonds of union, sentimental though they may be called, so that every inhabitant of the empire may feel himself as fully and effectually a Briton, not only in regard to rights but also in the enjoyment of privileges, as any inhabitant of the three kingdoms. The writer then goes on to suggest several ways in which this may be done. First of all he would have a Colonial Council created, the members of which would advise and assist the Colonial Secretary in the same manner as the Council for India advise and assist the Secretary for India. Each colony should have the right of nominating a member, and those members should be considered as members of the Imperial Government, paid by the Treasury, and subordinate to the Colonial Secretary, but nominated and provided for by the colonies. In the second place the writer suggests that means should be provided for the colonists entering the Imperial service A Royal Naval College and a Eoyal Military College should be established

in Canada and the Australasian colonies, which should be supported and provided for by the Colonial Governments, and they should have nominations to them in proportion to their contributions. These colleges, he states, should be formed on the same system, be subject to the same rules, and have the same position as home colleges. By this means the army and navy would secure the services of a number of colonial offices, and thus the strongest ties would bind the leading families of the colonies and those of England. Such is a brief outline of the proposals in the Dublin University Magazine. Then simplicity is their strongest recommendation. No violent changes are recommended, and yet were they honestly and heartily carried out we believe the happiest results would follow. By those means an object of noble ambition would be placed before the best youth of the colonies, for they would see before them a chance of rising to the highest services of the empire. Warm friendship too would tend to bind together many families wide apart. Our political life would be purified and enobled also. The hope of one day representing his adopted country, as a member of the Imperial • Government with the opportunity of obtaining a seat in Parliament, would give our leading politicians a loftier aim and an enlarged vision. And, although those prizes would be only open to the few, yet the just pride of the whole community would be gratified. It would be felt that the day was over, when to be a colonist, was in the estimation of many at home a ground for suspicion. Of course it will be said that there is nothing practical in the plan proposed ; that its rests for its efficacy on sentiment only. Perhaps so. The history of the world, however, has shown that individuals and communities are far more powerfully influenced by a sentimental than by a practical view of the question, and therefore it is we think that every expedient which tends to raise the colonies on a level with the mother country, will result in a very remarkable degree, in building the scattered members of the British Empire into a union a thousand times stronger than mere self interest.