LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
EDMUND BURKE ON ENGLAND'S SUCCRSR. ITO THE EDITOE, 07 THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sni,—August 4th will ever be a memorable day in the history of the English people, not so much, perhaps, because of the declaration of war between England and Germany as because of the declaration of our Colonies to support England in her calm decision to fight for ethical right against immoral might. Amid all the glorious stress of battle and the noble anxiety we are all experiencing, the spontaneous rising to help of all our overseas sons and daughters should hearten us on this anniversary day, and inspire us to carry on to the very end. Impas- sioned liberty is more efficient than mechanical organization, and it might, at this juncture of current events, be a soul-solace and mind- quieting to many were they to re-read the speech of Edmund Burke on moving his resolutions for conciliation with the Colonies, March 22nd, 1775, in the peroration of which speech he speaks grandly on the nature of our hold on the Colonies :— " My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights assooiated with your government ; they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. . . . As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia (!). But until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly. . . . It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Aot which raises your revenue ; that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your Army, or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline ? No, surely no I It is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their Government from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your Army and your Navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your Army would be a base rabble and your Navy nothing but rotten timber. All this I know well enough will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of Empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great Empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our station and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situa- tion and ourselves, we ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious Empire ; and have made the most extensive and the only honourable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race.
Granted that Burke's lofty-minded utterance did not immediately find acceptance with the politicians in power at that time, yet his inherently right sentiments did take root later. Succeeding politicians, who had the grace to profit by past ethical errors, showed this in their bearing towards our other Colonies, with blessed results which have proved that, in the ultimate, " the knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom," but that Right is Might.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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