Those Who Thus Spoke - Humanitarians By
Profession - Could Support The Continuance Of A War Which, In His Humble
Opinion, Disgraced
The civilization of our time; and, while professing
to be Liberals, they were ready to thrust out from our Imperial
Home of
liberty the populations of some of our most important possessions to
satisfy some imaginary economical theory of saving. They spoke of the
Empire as if it were this mere island, and they seemed enchanted with
the idea of narrowing our boundaries everywhere. That was not a
question of simple arithmetic, it was a question of empire; not a
question of a single budget, but a question of the future destiny of
our race. These gentlemen seemed to prefer to live in a small country.
For his part, he hoped he should all his life live in a great one. No
country could be stationary without becoming stagnant, or restrict its
natural progress without inviting its decay. It was so in all human
affairs; it was so even in ordinary business. Every man of business
knew that if his enterprise ceased to grow bigger, it soon began to
dwindle down; and so a country must grow greater or else must slide
away to weakness, until at last it would be despised. Now the
Government proposed to spend 50,000l. at Quebec;
50,000l., he repeated, was really nothing if it were necessary
to carry out the fortification policy at all. He had two objections to
make. One was, that Quebec was not the vulnerable point; that point was
Montreal. Montreal was the key to Canada. Once holding that key, the
enemy would cut Canada in two - would separate Upper and Lower Canada
from each other. Yet the Government proposed to leave all that to the
unaided resources of Canada - to do nothing, in fact, where, if action
were necessary at all, that action was pressing and imperative. He
should deplore to see this country commencing and carrying on a
competition of expenditure on fortifications with the United States.
The results must be, as he warned the House, excessive votes of money,
of which this one was only the small beginning, and an entire change in
the nature of those relations which had so happily subsisted between
the United States and the British North American possessions. Let the
House remember the case of France. England and France had for years
been running a race of competition of this kind. If France raised a new
regiment, or added a new ship of war, or built an ironclad, or erected
a fortress, we must do the same. And thus it had been that the forces
still remained on a measure of some sort of equality, notwithstanding a
vast outlay, which had crippled the resources of both countries, and
here at home had delayed fiscal reform and retarded, nay even
prevented, the most obvious measures for the elevation and education of
our people. Were we to play the same game over again with the States?
Now, as regards the great lakes and water ways of America, possessing a
coast line of above 3,000 miles, we had since 1817 neutralized these
waters as regards armaments.
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