The Canadas At
Present Are Not Independent, And Have Not Political Power Of Their
Own Apart From The Political Power Of Great Britain.
England has
declared herself neutral as regards the Northern and Southern
States, and by that neutrality the Canadas are bound; and yet the
Canadas were not consulted in the matter.
Should England go to war
with France, Canada must close her ports against French vessels.
If England chooses to send her troops to Canadian barracks, Canada
cannot refuse to accept them. If England should send to Canada an
unpopular governor, Canada has no power to reject his services. As
long as Canada is a colony so called, she cannot be independent,
and should not be expected to walk alone. It is exactly the same
with the colonies of Australia, with New Zealand, with the Cape of
Good Hope, and with Jamaica. While England enjoys the prestige of
her colonies, while she boasts that such large and now populous
territories are her dependencies, she must and should be content to
pay some portion of the bill. Surely it is absurd on our part to
quarrel with Caffre warfare, with New Zealand fighting, and the
rest of it. Such complaints remind one of an ancient pater
familias who insists on having his children and his grandchildren
under the old paternal roof, and then grumbles because the
butcher's bill is high. Those who will keep large households and
bountiful tables should not be afraid of facing the butcher's bill
or unhappy at the tonnage of the coal. It is a grand thing, that
power of keeping a large table; but it ceases to be grand when the
items heaped upon it cause inward groans and outward moodiness.
Why should the colonies remain true to us as children are true to
their parents, if we grudge them the assistance which is due to a
child? They raise their own taxes, it is said, and administer
them. True; and it is well that the growing son should do
something for himself. While the father does all for him, the
son's labor belongs to the father. Then comes a middle state in
which the son does much for himself, but not all. In that middle
state now stand our prosperous colonies. Then comes the time when
the son shall stand alone by his own strength; and to that period
of manly, self-respected strength let us all hope that those
colonies are advancing. It is very hard for a mother country to
know when such a time has come; and hard also for the child-colony
to recognize justly the period of its own maturity. Whether or no
such severance may ever take place without a quarrel, without
weakness on one side and pride on the other, is a problem in the
world's history yet to be solved. The most successful child that
ever yet has gone off from a successful parent, and taken its own
path into the world, is without doubt the nation of the United
States. Their present troubles are the result and the proofs of
their success. The people that were too great to be dependent on
any nation have now spread till they are themselves too great for a
single nationality. No one now thinks that that daughter should
have remained longer subject to her mother. But the severance was
not made in amity, and the shrill notes of the old family quarrel
are still sometimes heard across the waters.
From all this the question arises whether that problem may ever be
solved with reference to the Canadas. That it will never be their
destiny to join themselves to the States of the Union, I feel fully
convinced. In the first place it is becoming evident from the
present circumstances of the Union, if it had never been made
evident by history before, that different people with different
habits, living at long distances from each other, cannot well be
brought together on equal terms under one government. That noble
ambition of the Americans that all the continent north of the
isthmus should be united under one flag, has already been thrown
from its saddle. The North and South are virtually separated, and
the day will come in which the West also will secede. As
population increases and trades arise peculiar to those different
climates, the interests of the people will differ, and a new
secession will take place beneficial alike to both parties. If
this be so, if even there be any tendency this way, it affords the
strongest argument against the probability of any future annexation
of the Canadas. And then, in the second place, the feeling of
Canada is not American, but British. If ever she be separated from
Great Britain, she will be separated as the States were separated.
She will desire to stand alone, and to enter herself as one among
the nations of the earth.
She will desire to stand alone; alone, that is without dependence
either on England or on the States. But she is so circumstanced
geographically that she can never stand alone without amalgamation
with our other North American provinces. She has an outlet to the
sea at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but it is only a summer outlet.
Her winter outlet is by railway through the States, and no other
winter outlet is possible for her except through the sister
provinces. Before Canada can be nationally great, the line of
railway which now runs for some hundred miles below Quebec to
Riviere du Loup must be continued on through New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia to the port of Halifax.
When I was in Canada I heard the question discussed of a federal
government between the provinces of the two Canadas, New Brunswick,
and Nova Scotia. To these were added, or not added, according to
the opinion of those who spoke, the smaller outlying colonies of
Newfoundland and Prince Edward's Island. If a scheme for such a
government were projected in Downing Street, all would no doubt be
included, and a clean sweep would be made without difficulty.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 38 of 141
Words from 37641 to 38659
of 143277
