"It Must Always Be Observed That A Decision As To The Fate Of This
Territory Must Be Immediately Made.
It cannot wait political
necessities elsewhere, or be postponed to suit individual wishes.
The
fertile country between Lake Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains will be
now settled, since that is now a fixed policy, and its plan of
government must be in advance of, and not lag behind, that settlement.
The electric wire, the letter post, and the steamboat, which two years
more will see at work, will totally change the face of things; and as
Minnesota has now 250,000 inhabitants, where, in 1850 there was hardly
a white man, so this vast district may, when once it can be
communicated with from without, with reasonable facility, be flooded
with emigrants, not forgetting a very probable rush of English, Irish,
and Scotch farmers, and settlers from the United States, who here will
find a refuge from conscription and civil war.
"The discoveries of gold, and the disturbed state of the border Indians
in Minnesota, are both unanswerable reasons of necessity for the
immediate establishment of a permanent form of Government, and fixed
laws and arrangements for the settlement and development of the
country.
"1. The government of the North-west, as an 'annexe' to Canada,
possesses advantages of contiguity and similarity of ideas on the part
of Canadians and the probable settlers. Canada, it will be said, has a
good and responsible Government, and why not now extend its machinery
to the 1,300 miles between the height of land and the Rocky Mountains?
"But will Canada accept the expense and responsibility, and, more
especially, is it just now politically possible? Were Canada
politically and practically one united country, the answer would be
perhaps not difficult. But Canada, for the present, is really two
countries, or two halves of one country, united under the same form of
government, each half jealous of the mutual balance, and neither half
disposed to aggrandize the power or exaggerate the size of the other.
"Would Lower Canada, then, submit to see Upper Canada become, at one
bound, so immensely her superior? And would Upper Canadian statesmen,
however personally anxious to absorb the North-west, risk the
consequences of such a discussion as would arise? Would it be possible,
in fact, to found a Government based upon the platform of accepting the
responsibility of settling, defending, and governing the North-west? If
not, then, however desirable, the next best alternative must be chosen.
"Assuming that at some period, near or distant, the British North
American Provinces, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, unite in a
federal or legislative union, and thus become too great and too strong
for attack, that next best alternative would point to such
arrangements, as respects the North-west, as would lead on to and
promote this union, and not stand in its way. Thus, disputes about race
and customs should, if possible, be avoided by anticipation, and the
constitution and power of the new Colony should foreshadow its
connection with the countries to the east and to the west.
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