Arthur Patchett Martin

“ For my own part, I do not think that the mass of the electors in Australia, while undeniably loyal to the English Crown and connection, give a second thought to any scheme of Imperial confederation. And there are many reasons for this. Of all men in the world, colonists find it most profitable to mind their own business. Milton's sensible line might be the motto of every respectable and prosperous colonist—"To do that which before us lies in daily life is the prime wisdom." In a go-ahead colony there are no leisured classes—neither poets, philosophers, nor paupers. ”

“ I hold and believe that the time is not remote when Great Britain will give up the idea of treating the dependencies of the Crown as children to he cast adrift by their parent as soon as they arrive at manhood, and substitute for it the far wiser and nobler policy of knitting herself and her Colonies into one mighty Confederacy, girdling the earth in its whole circumference, and confident against the world in arts and arms. ”

“ I cannot comprehend why Roman Catholic parents cannot send their children to our public schools. I cannot see, when we have of necessity to grow up together, to perform the same duties in society, to drive at the same ends in life—I cannot comprehend how it need interfere with the religious faith of the Roman Catholic child, when he attends school, to read, to sum up figures, to understand a little of the geographical features of the earth, with Protestant children—how that can unfit the child for receiving his religious faith. ”

“ Is it, in a word, unavoidable that the British in Canada, in South Africa, in Australia, and in New Zealand, must inevitably disown the British Crown and connection, and become a set of independent and disunited Republics? He would have been a bold man who would have predicted anything to the contrary ten or twenty years ago, but, strange as it may seem, the unseen forces that are at work in the shaping of peoples and nationalities may now be tending in an opposite direction. ”

“ The undue oratorical development of our Parliamentary system is an obstacle in the way; for all this talk, even when clever, is a mere frittering of human energies. It is also as well for us to bear steadily in mind that if the Celtic races have grave national defects of character, so too have the Teutons. I cannot do better than quote Prince Bismarck's inimitable criticism on the German national character, which is quite equal to his analysis of the French, and which is, word for word, as applicable to the English and the Lowland Scotch as his estimate of the French is to the Irish. ”

“ This will be a solemn Christmas Eve in England. Thousands of artisan families will meet it with the bitter prospect of want and starvation blanching their cheeks, and very many of their employers will hardly be able to turn their gaze from the brink of ruin on which they stand to the objects of grief and apprehension which weigh down the public mind. Breaking through the commercial gloom, every hour and from every quarter, have come of late the discordant notes of warlike preparation, and the heavy tolling of the bell of death. ”

“ Unconsciously we have all come to recognise that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were as great leaders of what Dr. Freeman calls the "English folk movement," as any in the mere insular story from Alfred the Great, to Arthur, Duke of Wellington. It is only by so reading the history of our race that we can ever comprehend the great part we have played, and are still destined to play, in the history of the world. ”