We find administrators like Mr Lyttleton, former Tory
Secretary for the Colonies, engaged to-day not in suppressing but in
celebrating the "varied individuality" of the overseas possessions. As
for the political effects of the change, every English writer repeats of
the Colonies what Grattan, in other circumstances, said of the Irish:
Loyalty is their foible. There is indeed one notable flaw in the
colonial parallel. I have spoken as if the claim of the Colonies on foot
of the principle of nationality was comparable to that of Ireland. That
of course was not the case. They were at most nations in the making; she
was a nation made. Home Rule helped on their growth; in its benign
warmth Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa have developed
not only a political complexion characteristic of each but a literature,
an art and even a slang equally characteristic. Ireland, on the other
hand, has manifested throughout her whole history an amazing faculty of
assimilating and nationalising everything that came to her from without.
The will to preserve her nationality motived her whole life, especially
in the modern period.
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