COLONIES AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY. 145 



World and India. If so, it was marked by striking acts of generosity. 

 Conquests made in Canada by England, Avith the efficient aid of the 

 American colonies, were more than once given back to France. When 

 all but. two of the West India colonies were surrendered in 1814 the 

 Foreign Minister explained that it was desired to open to France the 

 means of peaceful expansion, and it was not the interest of England 

 to make her a military and conquering power. The rivalry did not 

 end with the Napoleonic wars. According to one historian, Australia 

 was saved to the English in 1788 by six days, and for long afterward 

 there was a constant jealousy of French occupation. Ships were sent 

 by Australian governors to take possession of Van Diemen's Land, of 

 southern, western and northern Australia when it was believed that 

 the French had designs on them. An English war ship, sent by the 

 governor of the North Island of New Zealand to annex the rich and 

 fertile South Island, anticipated by only a few hours a French ship 

 dispatched for the same purpose. The rising of the French Canadians 

 in 1838 has been described as "the last convulsion of despair of a 

 sinking nationality." The English, French, and now the Germans 

 are still rivals in present and future colonizing grounds in Africa, 

 China, and the South Seas. But no British colonist doubts that further 

 pacific defeats (if only by being bought out of their possessions) 

 await the French in different quarters of the globe, for it is the colonies 

 that press forward. The North American colonies were at all times 

 more aggressive than the mother state, as the Australasian are now. 

 They are unconsciously on the way to become the suns of new systems. 

 Conquests may be made on various pretexts. The Cape was twice 

 seized by the English to prevent it from falling into the hands of the 

 French, and a few years later the Dutch were constrained to cede the 

 colony to its temporary possessors. Gambetta schemed to annex and 

 colonize the whole North African coast from Egypt to Morocco, and 

 thus to create a France nouvelle along the northern shores of the 

 Mediterranean in place of the New France lost in Canada more than a 

 century before, or of that still older New France on the shores of the 

 Bosporus. In pursuance of this policy, the powers at the Berlin Con- 

 ference in 1878 permitted France to occupy (not to annex) Tunis, 

 prohibiting her, however, from fortifying its chief port. But no one 

 doubts that the 'regency' there, as in Madagascar, will speedily give 

 way to undisputed sovereignty, and Bizerta is already fortified. Writers 

 are said to be dreamers, and Locke's constitution for Carolina, Eous- 

 seau's for Corsica, Bentham's for Eussia, with many another quixotic 

 proposal, furnish proof of their simplicity or their wrong-headedness. 

 It is nevertheless a fact that most of the new ideas that are being 

 carried into effect are the suggestions of publicists — journalists who 

 stand midway between men of thought and men of action. Sometimes 



