The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, May 20, 1890. QUAKERISM.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 456, 20 May 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, May 20, 1890. QUAKERISM.

Be Just and fear not; Let all the ends thou alm’st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth’s.

A CABLEGRAM states that Mr H. M. Stanley has denounced “ the Quakerism and namby-pamby journalism that are thwarting enterprise in Africa,” and he hoped German rivalry would stimulate England to further exertions. Of course since Stanley’s wonderful power of organisation, assisted by a protection from danger, which seems little short of miraculous, have made him the hero of the hour, he may feel justified in assuming the dictatorial tone and denouncing as Quakerism and namby-pambyism that Christian spirit which finds nothing congenial in the knowledge that England may be the first in overriding weak and savage races who are unable to protect themselves against superior forces. But Mr Stanley has yet to convince Britishers of the wisdom of joining in an unholy scramble for territory.

The other day General Caprivi made the statement that Africa must be civilised by bullets and Bibles. Perhaps that is better than the policy that has been adopted in some places of “civilising ” with the aid of rum and Bibles—it would be a greater mercy, or lesser evil, to the miserable wretches of . savages to shoot them down by the hundreds, instead of placing them in possession of that most horrible of all poisons—bad rum and other devil-distilled abominations—drinks the quality of which (if “ quality ” they can be said to have) might turn from their downward course the most rum-besotted animal that exists in what is called civilisation : the very deadliness of the poison, as is often so in the case of an overdose of other poison, might prevent the suicidal tendency.

If such is the class of “ civilisation ” which Britishers hesitate to adopt) and are therefore to be called Quakers and namby-pambies, then we applaud those Home journals who elect to be with th« tetter—to be so dubbed in »Udb a

cause would be one of the highest compliments that a decent journalist could wish to be paid. The curses of such would fall as blessings the most profound. There is no cause whatever for haste in the civilisation of Africa —that is bound to be accomplished in time, and even though it may not be in our day, it were better that it should be done slowly and in the natural course of things, than that the term of Britisher should be sullied by a criminal haste to appease the hunger for territory. England’s experience has already been such that she can afford to content herself with gradual work, and if Germany will persist in rushing on with its Bibles and bullets—or bullets and Bibles, the telegraphic message read—she may yet have to bitterly repent it. As to Mr Stanley himself, he should seek to keep the fame he has so well won, or John Burns’ epithet of “buccaneer” may become an indelible record of history.