I cannot conceive it possible, as some do, that political and ecclesiastical separation could fail to promote isolation of ideas, to diminish the flow of intercourse and sympathy, and to breed jealousies and heartburnings between the new country and the old. The Mails might go as often, ships and steamers be as numerous, and commerce carried on as before. But if commercial intercourse unites countries in the bonds of peace and mutual interests, it also, when pushed too eagerly and too exclusively, may rouse the spirit of covetousness, selfishness, jealousy, and division. Those who have leaned upon commerce as a sufficient means of bringing peace and good-will upon earth have, sooner or later, found that they have been leaning on a broken reed. A glance at Australia will show how little ‘well-established and enlightened commercial principles’ are carried out by those who fancy they can gain a temporary pecuniary advantage by repudiating them. That the attachment to the Old Country and to the Crown is strong, is abundantly evident everywhere. It is stronger of course with the English-born than the native-born, and hence it is particularly observable in Victoria. It is seldom that even the most contemptible demagogues venture to trifle with it. Amongst other small items of English news, the Mail once brought word that a leading Oxford Professor was going to leave England and settle in America. Such a thing would scarcely be noticed in an English newspaper, but it was thought worthy of being announced amongst the items of intelligence telegraphed from Adelaide in advance of the mail-steamer, and was alluded to by the leading Melbourne paper with a shout of satisfaction. Yet the paper had no complaint to make of him except one. He had made himself conspicuous amongst those who have declared themselves in favour of turning the colonies adrift. It is in the nature of things almost inevitable that the second generation of a colony should be inferior to the first. The struggles and hardships which pioneer settlers have to encounter constitute a discipline and confer an experience such as scarcely any other life can afford, and are a great contrast to the routine life and physical comforts to which the next generation succeeds. These old colonists, too, have had an old-world training in addition to the experience of the new. They know well how much they owe to having been born and bred amongst the historic monuments and associations of the old country of their forefathers, and that it is not mere foolish sentiment that binds them to it. None feel so keenly how real and not sentimental is the loss which their children suffer by being removed from and in part deprived of them. None regret so bitterly the relaxing and severing of bond after bond, or (if it were in danger) would cling so closely to the last but strongest bond of all—allegiance to the English Throne. XIV. HOME AGAIN.