Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/234

 Autobiography of the late Sir Henry Taylor—a work which every thoughtful colonist with literary proclivities should peruse—there will be found the text of an official minute to Mr. Fortescue, afterwards Lord Carlingford, and then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, which gives expression to the views at that time held inside the Colonial Office, in very plain and unmistakable terms. So far as the opinions are concerned, much of this document might have been the production of a member of the Australian Natives Association. I will quote a sentence or two:—

"The North American, like the Australian colonies, and like the Cape, have very naturally renounced all consideration of English interests, and renounced and resented every exercise of English power, so often as they conflicted, in the slightest degree, with colonial interests or sentiments. If (notwithstanding the Irish element in their populations) they have any sentiment of attachment to England (which I doubt), it is one which is ready to be converted into actual animosity on the slightest conflict of interests, or interference with inde-