Were The Proposed Notice To Terminate The Treaty
Any Matter Of Suddenness Or By Way Of Surprise, He Might Comprehend It;
But For Above Three Years The Subject Had Been Agitated And Discussed
In Congress, In Canada, And In All The Chambers Of Commerce In The
North-West.
It had been notorious to everybody that one party desired
isolation from the British Provinces and another desired the operations
of the treaty to be extended.
It was, therefore, a question to be
discussed in advance of the present entanglement; and, as Canada had no
treaty-making power, the responsibility rested with the Government at
home. This was a question so serious from every point of view that the
House would have to take it up as soon as the noble lord at the head of
the Government laid upon the table the notice which he had told them
would be given on the 15th March next. Then would be the time to
discuss it fully and in all its bearings. His object now was to prepare
for that discussion by obtaining all the facts. The papers laid before
the House last week did not go back far enough. It appeared that in the
autumn of 1861 the New York Chamber of Commerce memorialized Congress
for a revision of the treaty, and a committee reported upon it in
February, 1862. That report he had here. It did not advocate notice;
no, it advocated adherence to the principles of free exchange, and it
proposed that commissioners should negociate an extension of the
treaty. In March, 1864, Mr. Ward reported resolutions appointing
commissioners for that purpose, and ultimately the discussion was
postponed to December, 1864. During all this time surely communications
of some kind passed to or from this country; and it was self-apparent
that the treaty might have been revised and extended before recent
causes of irritation had appeared. Those causes had led to much bitter
feeling, and it might now be too late to restore the principle of the
treaty and of the Bonding Acts in all their integrity. He now moved for
all papers subsequent to December, 1861, with a view to further
discussion hereafter. He would call attention to a very singular
letter, given at pages 70 and 77 in the papers printed last week. That
letter had been intercepted by General Augur, and was stated by Mr.
Seward to be undoubtedly genuine. He would ask whether any explanation
of that letter had been offered by his Excellency the American
Minister, Mr. Adams? And, if so, why that explanation had not been
printed? The letter was from a Confederate agent residing in Canada,
apparently to Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary for War. It must
have been written at the end of October last year. It stated that the
writer had made an arrangement with parties 'powerful and influential
with the Government of the United States' to deliver supplies of meat
in exchange for cotton, 'at any port Mr. Secretary Seddon may designate
on the east side of the Mississippi,' or on 'the west side,' and after
this delivery it was said that 'the way was perfectly clear to deliver
anywhere within General Butler's department.' He adds, that he has made
another contract with another Federal American citizen, 'by which
supplies of meat will be furnished at Mobile by written permission of
the President of the United States to the free passage of the
blockading fleet at that port.' His contract, he says, is for 5,000,000
lbs.
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