HOW TO ENCOURAGE THE COLONIES.
IT has been sometimes said that Downing Street and Whitehall Place are not England ; and that foreign nations and even our own Colonies must not judge us as a nation by the acts of our great officials. There is, unhappily, too much truth in this re- mark ; the Government, if it feels with the public, is not careful to make its feelings known ; in many cases it simply does not feel with the nation at all; has nothing to conceal, nothing to make manifest ; it is indiffrent. Until quite recently the nation was far ahead of the Colonial Office, not only in its views of colonial policy, but in its feelings towards the colonies. Hence it was that the rebels of Canada. had so large a hold upon the sym- pathies of England, that the anti-convict hmeute at the Cape of Good Hope, and the anti-convict agitation in Australia, found backers at home powerful enough to make the Government give -way. It was wittily said that the colonies had only to rebel enough and they would be sure to get what they wanted. We must put down their rebellions, but we must grant the demands of the rebels. Had the Government gauged to a greater nicety the feeling of England, they would assuredly have been able to anticipate the Canadian rebellion and the emente at the Cape. Happily we have amended our colonial policy, and better rela- tions now prevail between the mother-country and her numerous .family. The fruits of a course, more just as well as more gene- rous, are apparent all over the world. Our colonies are every- where as loyal and contented as any British county, and as ready as any British county to take part in national enterprises and bear their share of the burdens of the Empire. Witness the sympathy of the colonists with Great Britain during the Crimean war, and again in this Indian mutiny, a sympathy shown not only in speeches and " tall talk," but in large contributions of hard cash -to the- Patriotic and Indian Relief funds. Nay, have not the burghers of Cape Town recently done garrison duty in order that the British Regiments in the colony might go to India? When the Russian war broke out, Canada:offered to raise two regiments for Imperial service, but the offer was declined ; why, we could -never tell. Instead of encouraging Canadian loyalty, and accep- ting the generous proffer of assistance, Downing Street -welcomed the colonists with the cold shoulder. It showed that a leaven of the old spirit still mingled with the new and better policy, and that there was still a gulf between the Government and the Bri- tish people, who would have gladly received the aid of their Korth American brethren. And we fear the old spirit still re- mains.
A Government -should never do.things by halves, and should. e as careful in small as in great things. Goaded by want of std_ wart men of Anglo-Saxon mould to fight our battles in India, the late Government so far receded from its old position as to author- ize the raising of a Canadian regiment for imperial service, to be called the 100th Regiment, and to be officered partly by British and partly by Canadian subjects of the Queen. What befell? The regiment, 1000 strong, was raised in a very short space of time. The Canadians were justly gratified with the recognition of their imperial importance, and were proud of the corps they had furnished. They were no longer regarded as a mere colony, a community whose destiny it seemed to be to worry the Colonial Office with grievances, a burden to the state. They felt they were an arm and a powerful arm of the empire, supporters of the throne, and direct sharers in British renown. One half this regi- ment, so nobly and promptly placed at the service of the Queen, has arrived in England. One would have thought that the land- ing of this first contingent of men ever supplied by a colony to the British army, would have been a red letter day at the port where it took place ; that some public recognition of the presence of these gallant fellows would have been made. Far from it. The authorities at the Horse Guards seem not to have given it a thought; perhaps we should say at the War Department, for Gene- ral Peel tells us that he is the master of the Commauder-in-chief. The regiment landed at Liverpool a few days ago, and passed on to Shorncliffe ; but "one who was present with the 100th" avers that " from the moment of the regiment's arrival at Liverpool to its reaching Shorncliffe there was not one solitary cheer given by the people of any locality through which the regiment passed, nor the slightest recognition made of the loyalty of the people of Ca- nada, whose sons and residents have furnished the only corps ever raised and sent to England from one of her Colonies." This is a painful fact. Now we say that this gross negligence must be laid to the account of the War Department. We might have anticipated that Liverpool, so profuse of courtesies to citizens of the United States, and so intimately connected with all North America, would have welcomed the Canadians by some public demonstra- tion. Yet we feel that Liverpool was not bound to do so. But that the War Minister should have so far forgot what was fitting on the occasion is inexcusable. He ought to have made it impossible that so fair an opportunity of expressing what we all think and feel respectin,e; the gallantry and loyalty of our Canadian brethren should have been thrown away.
If this is a specimen of the way in which Whitehall Place in- tends to encourage the colonies, Whitehall Place must be induced to feel that the day for that kind of conduct has gone by. It is, unfortunately, another proof that Downing Street is not England. Let us hope that the colonists will take it in that light ; and let us trust that General Peel will repair his error by advising her Majesty to confer some special mark of recognition on the 100th Regiment in the name of the grateful British people.
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