Let Us Remember This, That When The Three Cries Among Our Next Neighbours Are Shoddy, Taxation, Blood, It Is Tune For Us To Provide For Our Own Security.

I said, in this House, during the session of the year 1861, that the first gun fired at Fort

Sumter had a 'message for us;' I was unheeded then; I repeat now that every one of the 2,700 great guns in the field, and every one of the 4,600 guns afloat, whenever it opens its mouth, repeats the solemn warning of England - -Prepare! prepare! prepare! I think, Sir, I am justified in regarding the American conflict, as one of the warnings we have received; and the third warning, that things cannot go on in this country as they are, is a warning voice from within - a warning voice from our own experience in the government of these Provinces. On these internal constitutional difficulties existing among ourselves, which were so fully exposed last evening by my hon. friend, the President of the Council, I need say little; they are admitted to have been real, not imaginary, on all hands. An illustration was used in another place in explaining this part of the subject by the venerable and gallant knight, our Premier, than which nothing could be more clear. He observed that when we had had five administrations within four years, it was full time to look out for some permanent remedy for such a state of things. True - most true - Constitutional Government among us had touched its lowest point when it existed only by the successful search of a messenger or a page after a member willingly or unwillingly absent from his seat. Any one might in those days have been the saviour of his country. All he had to do was, when one of the five successive Governments which arose in four years was in danger, to rise in his place, say 'Yea!' and presto the country was saved. This House was fast losing, under such a state of things, its hold on the country; the administrative departments were becoming disorganized under such frequent changes of chiefs and policies; we were nearly as bad as the army of the Potomac before its 'permanent remedy' was found in General Grant. Well, we have had our three warnings: one warning from within and two from without. Some honorable gentlemen, while admitting that we have entered, within the present decade, on a period of political transition, have contended that we might have bridged the abyss with that Prussian pontoon called a Zollverein. But if any one for a moment will remember that the trade of the whole front of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia gravitates at present along-shore to Portland and Boston, while the trade of Upper Canada, west of Kingston, has long gravitated across the lakes to New York, he will see, I think, that a mere Zollverein treaty without a strong political end to serve, and some political power at its back, would be, in our new circumstances, merely waste paper.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 143 of 259
Words from 75131 to 75643 of 136421