Lord Bury is to call the attention of Parliament on
Thursday next to the affairs of New Zealand. Let us exhort honourable members not to regard the debate (on the De minimis non curat lex principle) as if it were one on the grievances of some irritated but obscure worm, which is turning because accidentally trodden upon in the necessary hurry of human existence. It will be no- thing of the kind. If members of Parliament knew what they were about, it would be a debate likely to affect beneficially the whole colonial policy of the greatest colonial empire in the world for generations to come. It may have equally great, though purely disastrous, effects, if they don't know what they are about. The real issue is this,—whether we are to compel our colonies to seek first independence, and then assistance from other powers, directly the duties of empire become in the least degree burdensome to us, or not. The New Zealand Blue-Book is out, and members who do not regard a ring of Anglo-Saxon alliances or animosities all round the earth for centuries to come as a question too dull and insigni- ficant for a few hours' reading and thought, will find not a little exciting as well as instructive reading in it. We are not very far from repeating, through a policy of insolent indifference, the same tremendous blunder which we committed a century ago, when we alienated the United States for generations to come through a policy of insolent aggression.
