Mr. Bright. This tone is founded upon the argument, 'The
Colonies are of no use to us; therefore the sooner they take themselves
off the better.' If some leaders and members of the Liberal party had
their way, we should be without a colony in the world, without India,
and with Ireland close to our own doors a hostile and an independent
Foreign Power.

With regard to India it is to Baron Huebner's records of a very
remarkable journey, that we must turn for the notes of the most recent
traveller. The work is not so exhaustive, especially as regards the
Native States, as M. Rousselet's 'L'Inde des Rajahs,' but it is
eminently readable and lively, and the author gives abundant evidence,
that he took with him everywhere an earnest desire to arrive at the
truth, and a determination to form his conclusions with strict
impartiality. It is evident that in India he soon began to feel the
influence of that peculiar spell which the country exercises over most
persons of a susceptible or imaginative temperament. 'India,' he says,
'has always fascinated me, 'and few who have travelled there will not be
ready to make the same confession. It is much to be hoped that the
Radicals will be induced to listen to Baron Huebner's testimony
concerning the way in which we carry on government in our great Eastern
dependency. Nowhere, strange as it may appear, but in our own country is
English rule misunderstood or misrepresented. Injustice is
systematically done to the purest, most conscientious, and most
industrious Civil Service in the whole world; and our countrymen who are
spending the best part of their lives in the effort to promote the
welfare and prosperity of India, are too often held up to opprobrium as
examples of merciless tyrants, whose only object is to grind down the
natives into the dust. We seem to be losing many of the characteristics
which formerly distinguished us in the world, but there is one which
marks us out very plainly from all other nations--the habit of
disparaging our own achievements and vilifying our own reputation. We do
not find the Germans pertinaciously seeking to bring into disrepute the
efforts now being made to extend their colonial possessions; the
Americans have a motto, upon which they invariably act: 'our
country--right or wrong.' This may be carrying a good principle a little
too far; but it is better than the course we pursue, of striving with
might and main to dishonour our past, and to place our cou