GERMAN EXPANSION.
[TO TEl EDITOR OF TEl "Srecutoa."] Six,—I must commend you on your very able and sensible article on Professor Caldecott's suggestion that Great Britain should hand over a part of Australia to the German Empire. Nor is it merely because I am the official representative of Western Australia in this country that I wish to endorse most strongly your manly protest against this absurd and unnatural proposal. It is easy for people in this generation and in arm-chair conditions to ignore all the great facts of history as Professor Caldecott does. He is only able to assume his attitude of ultra-generosity as a result of the labours and courage of British people throughout the world. The possession of Australia by the British is due to two facts —the triumph of British arms on sea and land over all competitors, including the fiercest in the French and the Dutch, who opposed us at all quarters of the globe, and the successful colonization undertaken by British people. Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805 was the culminating point of a great series of struggles which assured us of Empire and of a hundred years of peace so far as European nations have been concerned. Germany, great as she is in science, literature, and commerce, has no such history behind her. We have an absolute claim to the countries we possess, which it is easy to prove. The Chinese knew of the existence of Australia as early as the thirteenth century. A great con- tinent, it lay adjacent to Asia throughout many ages, without any attempt on the part of Asiatic nations to possess and develop it. And when European nations came to the know- ledge of Australia they rejected it as a field for colonization until Britain, the laggart, came in last, and by the industry and power of her people showed that it was capable of being developed as a centre for investment and settlement. The Dutch were the original explorers of the western coast of Australia, but though they had an Eastern Empire close to its shores they made no attempt to occupy this great con- tinent. The British have simply entered into an inheritance which their own hands have made. Take the case of Western Australia, whose people Professor Caldecott suggests are not equitably entitled to keep a great European nation (meaning Germany) from taking its place under theSouthern Cross. Two of the qualifications which the learned Professor lays down for the possession of Empire are capacity to govern well where there are native populations to be considered and capacity to bring into use material resources which lie undeveloped. It would take pages to describe the fine work done for the aboriginal natives of Western Australia by the Government of that country. Suffice it to say that they are completely provided for in sickness and in health, and that as regards the former the Government have set aside two islands off the north-western coast and appointed a complete medical staff for the treatment of natives of both sexes who are physically unfit.
With regard to the capacity of the Western Australian people for self-government, it speaks, I may say without boasting, for itself. The price of our stocks in the general market is a convincing evidence of the confidence of financial people in our sobriety and enterprise. As to use of material resources, the fact that the population since 1890, the year when we received the gift of self-government, has risen from 46,000 to 290,000, that over 100 millions' worth of gold has been produced since 1886, and that there is an annual trade valued at over 15 millions sterling, should convince reasonable people of the great progress of the colony.
Professor Caldecott speaks contemptuously of small popula- tions; but I may remind him that in the year when Words- worth was born and Chatham was, with unparalleled states manship, laying deep the foundations of the British Empire, the people of England and Wales only numbered seven-and-a- half millions. These new and remote countries cannot be developed on a great scale in population in a decade. But let the earnest student glance for a moment at the things we have done with our small resources. In 1892 and 1893 the great goldfields of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie were discovered, and during the next few years the great difficulty in their successful development was the want of fresh water. I speak rom experience because I was a surveyor engaged at that period in the Coolgardie district by the Government. What did we do P We carried out a scheme, unparalleled the world over, for the conveyance of fresh water from the coastal districts over 350 miles through pipes to supply the mines and goldfields people. This is an example merely of the great enterprise shown. In the last eighteen months we have sent out 16,000 emigrants from the United Kingdom at £12 a head, and these have been completely absorbed by less than 300,000 people.
Rome was not built in a day, and no nation, German or other, could progress under all the difficulties of the conditions faster than we have done with safety. And I may say this. I have observed the Germans in Australia. They are among our heat settlers. But it is out of no national egotism that I say that no nation resembles the British in conquering great difficulties in the wilderness. One only needs to observe 'heir heroism and cheerfulness under the moat damping and harassing conditions in the remote parts of Australia, and the
calm triumph ultimately of their efforts, to feel assured that Empire is a gift of their nature as much as, and indeed more than, the conditions of their development. But that develops went is a price our ancestors and some of this generation have paid, and it is not lightly to be thrown away. Nothing is so certain to incense the British people of the Antipodes than ill-considered suggestions to sacrifice the prizes won at an
inestimable price.—I am, Sir, &c., N. J. Mooaa,
15 Victoria Street, London, S.W.
Agout•G
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