The Romance of a Pro-Consul Part 11

It was a stirring British tune that the kilted pipers of the 93rd at Lucknow played.

XV AYE DREAMING AND DOING

Carlyle and Sir George Grey, forgathered at Chelsea, walked up and down in the open, as they often did, discussing some religious question.

Carlyle stopped, laid his hand on Sir George's shoulder, and, looking him in the face, exclaimed, 'Oh, that I could believe like you!'

Well, no plank in the faith of Sir George was more firm than the one marked: 'Mission and destiny of the Anglo-Saxon people.' He had been planting the outposts of empire, and he saw these grow out towards each other. Then, he beheld the old Motherland and them, twining ever closer into a mighty garland, which should sweeten the globe with fragrance.

Nay, he even saw again, in the garland, a very radiant bloom that a king's tempest had sundered.

'In effect,' said Sir George, 'I was recalled from South Africa, on account of proposals I had made, towards federation in that part of the realm. I planned to federate, for common action, Cape Colony, Natal, our other territories, and also the Orange Free State. Farther, I had virtually asked the co-operation of the Transvaal Republic, with the Government and people of which, I was on very friendly terms. There was to be no change anywhere; simply, a federal Parliament would manage affairs that were of concern to all parties. I have little doubt that I could have brought about federation, only I was not permitted to go on.

Much as my proposals were supported in South Africa, I could get no hearing for them from my superiors at home.'

It had been the same when, in New Zealand, he took steps to paint all the Pacific Isles, British. He wanted the Pacific, then largely an unstaked claim, to have our flag flying in solitary peace. Thus the smaller sections of the New World, like the larger areas, should be led onward, undisturbed by the rivalries of the Old World. Fill the lap of England with distant lands, but exact from her the most sublime service to them- that of a mother. If Sir George had been supported, New Caledonia would have entered the British nursery.

'I had,' that lost part of our history ran; 'regarded the New Caledonian group as pertaining to New Zealand. Making a tour of the Pacific Islands, with Bishop Selwyn, I visited New Caledonia. We had no representative there, and three days before our arrival, a French frigate had put in and hoisted the French flag.

'I protested against that, in an official letter to the French captain.

He declared his orders from the French Government to be specific; he was to annex New Caledonia. I had an old brig, while he had a good man-of- war. No doubt I could have spoken with more authority, if my vessel had also been a man-of-war. However, as a result of my representations, it was arranged that the French should do nothing, incur no expenditure, which would interfere with the island being declared British, until we had referred the matter to our Governments.

'This was about the time of the agreement, between ourselves and Louis Napoleon, in reference to the invasion of the Crimea. It is conceivable, that the French Emperor took advantage of the opportunity to lay hands on New Caledonia. Anyhow, I feared that the alliance might counteract my despatch to London. Most likely it did, for I was instructed that the French were to be left in possession.'

While sailing the Pacific, Sir George also called at Norfolk Island, then a prison house. The worst characters of the Australian penal settlements, those to whom perdition beaconed, were drafted to Norfolk Island. The whole scene shocked Sir George, as it rankled in his memory, a sombre nightmare. It saddened him, to think that so fair a place should be one of the black spots of the earth.

'Here,' he said, 'were nature and man meeting together, she at her best, he at his worst. How beautiful we found Norfolk Island; how well graced, with its pine and other trees! I suppose there is no tree, growing anywhere, which for beauty could be given preference over the Norfolk Island pine. It was an evidence of the bounteous garden, set by nature amid a fresh, crystal sea, and wooed by a loving climate.

'By contrast, the convict settlement! The stricken creatures worked in irons, and when evening came, they were turned into a great court where they slept. The irons being, in most instances, removed, the quarrelling and fighting began. I heard of a convict who had been tried for killing a fellow, during some fall-out. He appealed to those judging him: "I came here, having the heart of a man, and your convict system, with its brutal a.s.sociations, has given me the heart of a beast."'

England built in tribulations--nations! At first we had no better use for Australia than to moor hulks to it. That was an eddy in the n.o.bler stream of tribulation which, like the Nile, bore all fertility in its waters.

Sir George Grey sat upon a Mount Pisgah that commanded the past and the future. He saw the stream, beginning in far-away mist-crowned sources, roll down the ages. It was a flood of destiny.

'I suppose,' he submitted, 'we all recognise that there are certain driving forces behind the march of humanity. We may not see them, or we may merely get a glimpse of them now and then, but they are there, and always in operation. Providence; that is my word. The chief of these forces we have, as I hold, in the evolution of the Anglo-Saxon race.'

Go back to the England of Elizabeth, and what did we find? A race of hardy men, who took delight in sailing virgin seas, in becoming familiar with new countries; who were opening up fresh tracks across the globe.

Following upon that, consider the drift of legislation in the British Isles, from the period of Elizabeth. It was to appropriate the land into the hands of a few, to create great landlords, to make individual men the owners, nay the tyrants, of vast areas. This meant depriving the common people of their natural means of subsistence. It forced them to maintain themselves where there was actually no room, with the outcrop of want, suffering, discontent.

The great eating up of the Irish land, the throttling of the natural wealth of that country, began with the ill work done in the Elizabethan age. Yet, the full mischief did not appear until Sir George's own early days, when the Irish people were leaving their native land in ship-loads.

In England the result came sooner, and ran on continuously, rather than burst the wave which was to engulf Ireland.

'Has it ever occurred to you,' Sir George asked, 'how beautiful a contribution the Irish girl, driven to another land by starvation, has made to the development of the English-speaking race? What a stretch of Anglo-Saxondom has been peopled by her wages, hardly earned in service, and sent home to Ireland for the emigration of her father and mother, her sisters and brothers! She is a winning ill.u.s.tration of how the hard task- master necessity, has been our architect for building up new nations.

Ireland has been tortured and beaten, and her daughters and sons, in that torture, those blows, have done wondrous work for us.

Coupled with divorce between the people and the land, there arose in the British Isles, religious persecutions and tyrannies. These were the twin forces which, with just exception enough to prove the rule, planted the Anglo-Saxon in every corner of the earth. Two great evils working out in good; a sowing in wrong and wickedness, the garnering righteousness.

Cradling like that made men and nations. When Spain founded colonies, she sent delegates designedly to do so. When France colonised Canada, that was her model; and the like with other nations. They planted all the Old World inst.i.tutions, with their imperfections, on new soil, which, as time had shown, was like building on sand.

Taught by bitter experience at home, Anglo-Saxons struck out fresh lines, in the fresh lands where, thanks to the discoveries of adventurous rovers, they could find asylum. The humanities in them got scope; they carried tolerance and liberty ever with them. Take the Puritans who founded New England! Was there ever such a n.o.ble band? Again, take the Quakers or the English and Irish Roman Catholics! In some cases, when there was persecution on the Continent of Europe, these British emigrants attracted to them what was persecuted. South Africa was founded in oppression, independently of us as it happened, since the forefathers of the Boers were largely French Huguenots.

It was not enough, that the Anglo-Saxon should rush from starvation and persecution, to a freer home across the seas. No sooner had he found it, than the old oppression might again be clanking its chains at his heels.

The stern Mother more than once stretched out her hand to coerce her freer children, forcing them ever to take new ground, and be, so to speak, clear of her clutches. The instance of America occurred during this second stage in the weft and woof of tribulation which was at the root of our growth. The same with the Boers of South Africa, who, by harsh regulations, were forced inland, thus opening up new territory. It had all worked with the precision and force of a Nasmyth hammer.

Naturally, a time would arrive when the liberty and freedom of the Saxon, gone over sea, should react upon the Old World. Sir George held it proven that the inspiration of the New World had, in real measure, been the emanc.i.p.ation of the Old. Very many of the inventions of the nineteenth century, which were the threads of modern progress, were to have their origin in the New World. She would heap coals of fire on the head of the Old.

How, to help this girdling of the whole world with beneficent influences, through the medium of the Anglo-Saxon? Sir George turned him on his Mount Pisgah, first in New Zealand, later in South Africa. He had been looking at the scored, furrowed, violent past. It had worked out its meaning, nor was there doubt as to the bearing of that message upon the future.

At Pisgah's highest peak the sun shone, only there were mists, which it did not pierce, in the valleys below. Just, it caught one wisp of the vapour, and twirled it about in the wind. The errant thing flung into a sign--Federation of the English-speaking People; and was gone.

Sir George Grey dipped for a Grand Pacific Isles Protectorate, and a red noose from Downing Street strangled it. He dipped for a Federated South Africa, and the red noose caught himself. That is, he was recalled from his Cape Governor-ship on account of his projects. Ah, that he had been permitted to go on with them! All the gold of the Randt would not have weighed in the scales like that.

True, he was returned to South Africa, which clamoured angrily at his recall, but, as he said, 'It was with strict injunctions to stop my federation schemes, for these would not be tolerated.'

They were a generation too soon. Yet, their author had already drawn on posterity in order to develop English colonies. Was it right to tax posterity? High talk turned on this at a dinner in London, where Sir George met Gladstone, Macaulay, and other celebrities. 'Certainly,' Sir George argued, 'if some large expense is undertaken which will benefit those to come after us, as well as those already here, it is more equity that the former should be charged with their share.' The principle had been put into practice in the Colonies, and he imagined that this dinner helped its advance in the Old Country. Especially, he applied that opinion to the taking over, by Government, of the English telegraph lines.

'I recall very well,' Sir George stated, 'the picturesque way in which Macaulay expressed our common trait of being interested in trifles that affect us closely, to the neglect of large happenings which are distant.

"Here," he said, about some item of news, "is a mandarin in China who has beheaded a thousand people in a batch. I was quite shocked when I read of it this morning. During the day I contrived to cut one of my fingers. I'm ashamed to confess that I thought so much about the finger, that I quite forgot the ma.s.sacred Chinamen! That was Macaulay's ill.u.s.tration."

'As the dinner party was breaking up, I stood for a minute with him. He had not been enjoying very good health. When I congratulated him on his seeming revival in strength, he showed me his hand, which was puffy and blown, and answered: "Oh, I'm not so well as you might think." Poor fellow, the remark was too true, for he died within a fortnight from that evening.'

To South Africa, soon after Sir George Grey had resumed duty there, came a member of the Royal family. This was Prince Alfred, later the Duke of Edinburgh, now the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Sir George suggested the visit, and he believed it had excellent results. It delighted the colonists to have a son of the Queen among them. Seeing him the natives could exclaim, 'Again, the Queen loves us or she would not send us her son!' The visit drew out the regard of South Africa towards England and its Sovereign. Certainly the federal idea!

'Prince Alfred,' Sir George made an appreciation of him, 'was a nice, frank, handsome boy; an excessively taking little boy. In his honour, we had perhaps the largest hunt that ever took place in South Africa. It was calculated that he shot more deer in fifteen minutes, than his father would have shot in the Scottish Highlands in a season.

'The Prince had to face a different sort of experience at a town, Port Elizabeth I think, which we reached on his birthday. He had to walk between lines of girls, laden with bouquets, which they flung down before him, to the words: "Many happy returns of the day." It was rather trying for a midshipman.

'Everybody was delighted with Prince Alfred, and even the President of the Transvaal Republic called him "Our Prince." For his progress through the country, I had a beautiful wagon made. At the close of the tour Prince Alfred gave it, a friendly gift, to the Transvaal President. You can understand how it would be regarded by him, even be useful. Moreover it was calculated, while only a wagon, to impress the burghers of the Transvaal with the greatness of England. A simple pastoral people, they could not themselves have begot such a vehicle and team.'

Prince Alfred confided to Sir George Grey, with boyish certainty, that he never wanted to succeed to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg. He wouldn't have it.

'I have been all over the place,' exclaimed the dashing young sailor, 'and, believe me, it hasn't a pond on which you could sail a punt.'

XVI THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE-LINE

A captain of the sea most proves himself that when it storms, and so a captain of empire.

The danger signal was flying again in New Zealand, and Sir George Grey must needs be asked to get it down. Hardly had he been keel-hauled for his doings in one colony, when another required him. He must have been uncertain whether to despair or smile. It was like love-making.

During his first rule in New Zealand, Sir George held a conference of Maori chiefs, Te-Whero-Whero being present. He had come along, in the train of the Governor, without any of his own people, who lived farther north. It grieved him to be thus situate, at a crisis when the ability to tender a.s.sistance in men, might be of the utmost worth.

'Those other chiefs,' he addressed Sir George, 'are all inferior to me, but they have their retainers with them. They are promising you to bring so much strength into the field, while, for myself, I have no one here. I seem not to aid you at all, but as long as I am separated from my own people I'll fight in the ranks of some other chief. You have treated me badly, in that I am here without support to give you. You force me to put myself in quite a humble position.'

The speech was esteemed by Sir George at more than warriors, and the memory of it made him exclaim: 'Ah, they were fine fellows, those old Maori chieftains! You required to understand them, but they were worth every study; n.o.bles of a n.o.ble race!'