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.
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