The fruits of it were a little bitter in the
eating. The colonies in which under the Home Rule regime "loyalty" has
blossomed like the rose, were in those days most distressingly disloyal.
Cattle-driving and all manner of iniquities of that order in Canada; the
boycott adopted not as a class, but as a national, weapon in Cape
Colony; the Eureka stockade in Australia; Christian De Wet and the crack
of Mausers in the Transvaal--such were the propaedeutics to the
establishment of freedom and the dawn of loyalty in the overseas
possessions. But in this field of government the gods gave England not
only a great pioneer, Lord Durham, but also the grace to listen to him.
His Canadian policy set a headline which has been faithfully and
fruitfully copied. Its success was irresistible. Let the "Cambridge
Modern History" tell the tale of before and after Home Rule in the
Dominion:
"Provincial jealousies have dwindled to vanishing point; racial
antipathies no longer imperil the prosperity of the Dominion;
religious animosities have lost their mischievous power in a new
atmosphere of common justice and toleration.
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