A. COLONIAL VIEW OF BRITAIN.
(TO THE EDITOR or THE "SeECIDTOR."1 SIR,—The letter of Lance-Corporal Richards is specially interest- ing to a Briton -who, like myself, has had the privilege of spending happy years in what iu my time were called "the Colonies"— slight accent on "the." I imagine, Mr. Editor, you have not had this privilege. If any mere Englishman had, after a few weeks' residence in Australia, written to an Australian paper giving his opinions of the country and the people, he would have been de- nounced as a mere new chum, who did not understand. I quake as I think of what might hare happened to me if I had dared to write that I thank God for some things in English life which are not as things are in the Colonies. It will be a good thing for the Empire when the people of different countries within its borders cease to write and speak of the other countries within the same in the way of criticism.
Some of my best friends are Australians, and I yield to no one In my admiration for Australia and Australians—except when they pose as "superior persons." Then they are just as likely to be in the wrong as they say we were when we ventured, greatly daring, to question the perfection of some of the things we found in Colonial life. Miss Winifred James's story, Bachelor Betty, is well worth reading by all who take any interest in this subject, and it is a subject -which should interest every one who cares for the commonwealth of nations called the British Empire.—I am,
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