LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs arc * en more read, and therefore more effective, than those which Pltreble the space.]
THE COLONIAL VIEW OF TILE BRITISH. ITo rue EDITOR CT ran " SPECTATOR.") EIR,-011 August llth I began to write the following:— " The Spectator, which sets so high a standard for sound English, writes, in a hook review, of the black Wall as the emblem of rarity. Surely the Spectator should know that this I.tentry figure is no longer correct since Australia has, possibly, more black swans than Europe has white swans; and, possibly; the block swan is the original saan."
Then I steppes' to think, mid what I thought took this shape:— " It is natural that an Australian should have it always in Isis mind that the black swan is not a rare bird. It is not so 'lateral that an Englishman should know that an old favourite at a literary figure is obsolete. We Australians are a wonderful oft-shoot of British stock, and we are certainly a very well- informed people (one of our many virtues!). But are we not Fist a little inclined to be bumptious and cocksure? " I venture to send you the first thought and the corrected thought as having some bearing on the Colonial View- of the British (and the cognate subject, the British Vies- of the Colonial). No Imperial work is more important than getting those views well adjusted, getting our respective minds, British and Colonial, into the " right focus."
A Canadian officer complained to me in hospital some months
ago: " We Can do not scent to take on with the English." "Well," I said, "you Canadians have a very taking way with you nt the front, at any rate." Ile was mollified at that, and alloyed me to net as an interpreter between him and the English. I pointed out that the English were n people with a very great tore of personal liberty, very shy, liking " to keep themselves to themselves," and crediting other people with the same feelings. They would be kept hy this from showing openly bow much they were touched by the Colonial devotion to the Mother Country. They did not come to pat him on the back because they feared lie would not like it. After a few weeks—I had followed up this talk with some notes of introduction—he admitted that be had {wen quite mistaken in his view of the English.
An Englishman of some authority told rue that he had tried
very bard to "get on with" Australians, with whom be had to have a great deal to do. Ile had found them " frightfully cock- sure," and had always made a point of ignoring this as far as he could, bat on the whole he was disappointed in them. I venture to suggest that if a man has a friend with an inclination to be "cocksure," lie does not ignore the inclination, but in a friendly way' strafes" it, and thus mutual good understanding comes, because the cocksureness usually yields to treatment. The Colonial mind has sometimes the faults of youth, and those faults are not to be cured by "spoiling." Patience, yes: subservience, no. I have known graceless Colonials, amused at the show of meekness of the English mind, to experiment to see how far they could go in rode criticism, which was really jocular, though advanced quite seriously.
Let us have a good family talk on all possible occasions to get to know one another better and exchange printed views as much as we can. But the average Engliehman should seek to avoid the suspicion of the pose of being a perfect fool and a detaches], temperless creature; the average Colonial should seek to avoid the suspicion that be is "young enough to know everything."—
I am, Sir, ke., PRANK Fox.
10 Priaccs Street, Hanover Square.
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