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 Political destiny of Canada. By Goldwin 
 
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 3 1924 028 895 899 
 
F 
 
 PI 
 
 
THE 
 
 POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028895899 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY 
 
 CANADA. 
 
 BY ' 
 
 GOLDWI]^ _SMITH. 
 
 (Reprinted from the " Fortnightly Review.") 
 
 WITH A 
 
 REPLY BY SIR FRANCIS HINCKS, K. C. W- G., 
 
 SOME REMARKS ON THAT REPLY. 
 
 . c. 
 
 TORONTO: ^ .>" ^ i / 
 
 WILLING & WILLIAMSON.' 
 
 LONDON: _J, /I 
 
 CHAPMAN & HALL. :^x>\' \\ *'!:; 
 
 1878. '''m^Jj^', 
 
-^d^Gig. 
 
 I "1 
 
 '"'/A 
 
 FKIHTED ANIl BOUND 
 BT 
 
 HUNTER, ROSE & CO., 
 
 ^i, TORONTO. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE reason to believe that some persons would 
 like to have the Essay on the Political Destiny 
 of Canada, which forms the principal part of 
 this volume, and which is reprinted from the 
 Fortnightly Review, in a more convenient form 
 than a back number of the periodical in which it 
 appeared. I take the opportunity of replying to 
 some criticisms of Sir Francis Hincks. Sir Francis 
 allows me to insert his paper, so that, if there is 
 any poison in my opinions, the antidote will be 
 .found beside the bane. 
 
 In the Appendix, are extracts from papers by 
 Mr. Kobert Lowe and Lord Blachford, bearing 
 on the subject of my Essay, which I think will 
 repay attention. 
 
 At a moment when the mind of the nation is 
 occupied with questions respecting our commer- 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 cial relations, and our fiscal autonomy, it is surely 
 needless to accumulate arguments for the pur- 
 pose of proving tjiat wisdom does not prescribe 
 indifference to fundamental problems or blind- 
 ness to the future. 
 
 I write, as I hope and believe, in the interest of 
 the people, English, as well as Canadian. As to 
 the British aristocracy, it has political views of 
 its own in relation to this Continent, which seem 
 to me not consistent with the welfare of those 
 whose lot is cast in the New World. 
 
 G. S. 
 Toronto, Nov. 1878. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY 
 
 CANADA. 
 
 Ignorance of the future can hardly be good for 
 any man or nation ; nor can forecast of the fu- 
 ture in the case of any man or nation well inter- 
 fere with the business of the present, though the 
 language of colonial politicians seems often to 
 imply that it may. No Canadian farmer would 
 take his hand from the plough, no Canadian ar- 
 tisan would desert the foundry or the loom, no 
 Canadian politician would become less busy in 
 his quest of votes, no industry of any kind would 
 slacken, no source of wealth would cease to flow, 
 if the rulers of Canada and the powers of Down- 
 ing Street, by whom the rulers of Canada are 
 supposed to be guided, instead of drifting on in 
 darkness, knew for what port they were steer- 
 ing. 
 
8 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 For those -who are actually engaged in mould- 
 ing the institutions of a young country not to 
 have formed a conception of her destiny — not to 
 have made up their minds whether she is to re- 
 main forever a dependency, to blend again in a 
 vast confederation with the monarchy of the mo- 
 ther-country, or to be united to a neighbouring 
 republic — would be to renounce statesmanship. 
 The very expenditure into which Canada is led 
 by her position as a dependency, in military and 
 political railways, in armaments and defences, and 
 other things which/ assume the permanence of 
 the present system, is enough to convict Cana- 
 dian rulers of flagrant improvidence if the per- 
 manency of the prefsent system is not distinctly 
 established in their minds. 
 
 To tax forecast with revolutionary designs or 
 tendencies is absurd. No one can be in a less 
 revolutionary frame of mind than he who foresees 
 a political event without having the slightest in- 
 terest in hastening its arrival. On the other hand 
 mere party politicians cannot afford to see be- 
 yond the hour. Under the system of party 
 government, forecast and freedom of speech alike 
 belong generally to those who are not engaged 
 in public life. 
 
 The political destiny of Canada is here consi- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 9 
 
 dered by itself, apart from that of any other por- 
 tion of the motley and widely-scattered "em- 
 pire." This surely is the rational course. Not 
 to speak of India and the military dependencies, 
 such as Malta and Gibraltar, which have abso- 
 lutely nothing in common with the North Ameii- 
 can colonies (India not even the titular form of 
 government, since its sovereign has been made an 
 empress), who can believe that the future of Ca- 
 nada, of South Africa, of Australia, of the West 
 Indies, and of Mauritius, will be the same ? Who 
 can believe that the mixed French and English 
 population of Canada, the mixed Dutch and 
 English population of the Cape, the negro popu- 
 lation of Jamaica, the French and Indian popu- 
 lation of Mauritius, the English and Chinese popu- 
 lation of Australia, are going to run forever the 
 same political course 1 Who can believe that the 
 moulding influences will be the same in arctic 
 continents or in tropical islands as in countries 
 Ijdng within the temperate zone ? Among the 
 colonies, those, perhaps which most nearly 
 resemble each other in political character and 
 circumstances, are Canada and Australia ; yet the 
 elements of the population are very different — 
 and still more different are the external relations 
 of Australia, with no other power near her, from 
 
10 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 those of Canada, not only conterminous with the 
 United States, but interlaced with them, so that 
 at present the road of the Governor-General of 
 Canada, when he visits his Pacific province, lies 
 through the territory of the American Eepublic. 
 Is it possible to suppose that the slender filament 
 which connects each of these colonies with Down- 
 ing Street is the thread of a common destiny ? 
 
 In studying Canadian politics, and in attempt- 
 ing to cast the political horoscope of Canada, the 
 first thing to be remembered, though official op- 
 timism is apt to overlook it, is that Canada was 
 a colony not of England but of France, and that 
 between the British of Ontario and the British of 
 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are interposed, 
 in solid and unyielding mass, above a million of 
 unassimilated and politically antagonistic French- 
 men. French Canada is a relic of the historical 
 past preserved by isolation, as Siberian mam- 
 moths are preserved in ice. It is a fragment of 
 the France before the Revolution, less the mon- 
 ai'chy and the aristocracy ; for the feeble parody 
 of French feudalism in America ended with the 
 abolition of the seigniories, which may be re- 
 garded as the final renunciation of feudal ideas 
 and institutions by society in the New World. 
 The French-Canadians are an unprogressive, reli- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 11 
 
 gious, subipissive, courteous, and, though poor, 
 not unhappy people. They would make excellent 
 factory-hands if Canada had a market for her 
 manufactures ; and, perhaps, it is as much due to 
 the climate as to their lack of intelligent indus- 
 try, that they have a very indifferent reputation 
 as farmers. They are governed by the priest, 
 with the occasional assistance of the notary ; and 
 the Roman Catholic Church may be said to be 
 still established in the province, every Roman 
 Catholic being bound to pay tithes and other 
 ecclesiastical imposts, though the Protestant mi- 
 nority are exempt. The Church is immensely 
 rich, and her wealth is always growing, so that 
 the economical element which mingled with the 
 religious causes of the Reformation may one day 
 have its counterpart in Quebec. The French-Cana- 
 diaris, as we have 'said, retain their exclusive na- 
 tional character. So far from being absorbed by 
 the British population, or Anglicized by contact 
 with it, they have absorbed and Gallicized the 
 fragments of British population which chance 
 has thrown amongst them ; and the children of 
 Highland regiments disbanded in Quebec have 
 become thorough Frenchmen, and prefixed Jean 
 Baptiste to their Highland names. For his own 
 Canadar the Frenchman of Quebec has something 
 
12 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 of a patriotic feeling ; for France he has filial 
 aifection enough to make his heart beat violently 
 for her during a Franco-German war ; for Eng- 
 land, it may be safely said, he has no feeling 
 whatever. It is true that he fought against the 
 American invaders in the Revolutionary War, 
 and again in 1812 ; but then he was animated by 
 his ancient hostility to the Puritans of New Eng 
 land, in the factories of whose descendants he 
 now freely seeks employment. Whether he 
 would enthusiastically take up arms for Eng- 
 land against the Americans at present, the Brit- 
 ish War-Office, after the experience of the two 
 Fenian raids, can no doubt tell. With Upper 
 Canada, the land of Scotch Presbyterians, Irish 
 Orangemen, and ultra-British sentiment, French 
 Canada, during the union of the two pro- 
 vinces, led an uneasy life ; and, she accepted 
 confederation, on terms which leave her na- 
 tionality untouched, rather as a severance of 
 her special wedlock with her unloved consort 
 than as a measure of North American union 
 The unabated antagonism between the two 
 races and the two religions was plainly mani- 
 fested on the occasion of the conflict between 
 the French half-breeds and the British immi- 
 grants in Manitoba, which presented a faint paral- 
 
THE POLITICAL DEKTIKY OF CANADA. 13 
 
 lei to the conflict between the advanced posts of 
 slavery and anti-slavery in Kansas on the eve of 
 the civil war ; Quebec openly sympathising with 
 Eiel and his fellow-insurgents, while Ontario was 
 on fire to avenge the death of . Scott. Sir George 
 Cartiei might call himself an Englishman speak- 
 ing French ; but his calling himself so did not 
 make him so; much less did it extend the cha- 
 racter from a political manager, treading the path 
 of ambition with British colleagues, to the mass 
 of his unsophisticated compatriots. The priests 
 hitherto have put their interests into the hands of 
 a political leader, such as Sir George himself,''in 
 the same way in which the Irish priests used 
 to put their interests into the hands of O'Connell ; 
 and this leader has made the best terms he could 
 for them and for himself at Ottawa. Nor has it 
 been difficult to make good terms, since both the 
 political parties bid emulously for the Catholic 
 vote, and by their interested subserviency to 
 those who wield it, render it impossible for a Li- 
 beral Catholic party, or a Liberal party of any 
 kind, to make head against priestly influence in 
 Quebec. By preference the priests, as reac- 
 tionists, have allied themselves with the Tory 
 party in the British provinces, and Canada 
 has long witnessed the singular spectacle, wit- 
 
14 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 nessed for the first time in England at the 
 last general election, of Eoinan Catholics and 
 Orangemen marching together to the poll. Fear 
 of contact with an active-minded democracy, 
 and of possible peril to their over-weening wealth, 
 has also led the priesthood to shrink from an- 
 nexation, though they have not been able to 
 prevent their people from going over the line 
 for better wages, and bringing back with them a 
 certain republican leaven of political and ecclesi- 
 astical unrest, which in the end may, perhaps, 
 lead to the verification of Lord Elgin's remark, 
 that it would ^e easier to make the French Ca- 
 nadians Americans than to make them English. 
 Hitherto, however, French Canada has retained 
 among other heirlooms of the Ancien Regime, the 
 old Galilean Church, the Church of Louis XIV. 
 and of Bossuet, national, quiet, unaggressive, capa- 
 ble of living always on sufficiently good terms 
 with the state. But now the scene is changed. Even 
 to French Canada, the most secluded nook of the 
 Catholic world, Ultramontanism has penetrated 
 with the Jesuit in its van. There is a struggle 
 for ascendancy between the Jesuits and the Gal- 
 ileans, the citadel of thte Gallicans being the Sul- 
 pician Seminary, vast and enormously wealthy, 
 which rises over Montreal. The Jesuit has the 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 15 
 
 forces of the hour on his side ; he gains the day ;. 
 the bishops fall under his influence, and take his 
 part against the Sulpicians; the Guibord case 
 marks, distinctly though farcically, the triumph 
 of his principles ; and it is by no means certain 
 that he, a cosmopolitan power playing a great 
 game, will cling to Canadian isolation, and that 
 he will not prefer a junction with his main army 
 in the United States. Assuredly his choice will 
 not be determined by loyalty to England. At' all 
 events, his aggressive policy has begun to raise 
 questions calculated to excite the Protestants of 
 the British provinces, which the politicians, with 
 all their arts, will hardly be able to smother, and 
 which will probably put an end to the long torpor 
 of Quebec. The New Brunswick school case: 
 points to education as a subject which can 
 scarcely fail soon to give birth to a cause of 
 war. 
 
 Besides the French, there are in Canada, as 
 we believe we have good authority for saying,, 
 about 400,000 Irish, whose political sentiments 
 are generally identical with those of the Irish in 
 the mother-country, as any reader of their favour- 
 ite journals will perceive. Thus, without reckon- 
 ing a considerable German settlement in Ontario,, 
 which by its unimpaired nationality, in the heart. 
 
16 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 of the British population attests the weakness of 
 the assimilating forces in Canada, compared with 
 those in the United States, or the Americans, 
 who, though not numerous, are influential in the 
 commercial centres, we have at once to deduct 
 1,400,000 from a total population of less than 
 4,000,000 in order to reduce to reality the 
 pictures of universal devotion to England and 
 English interests which are presented by the 
 speeches of official persons, or of persons profess- 
 ing to know Canada, but deriving their idea of 
 her from the same source. 
 
 Confederation, so far, has done nothing to 
 fuse the races, and very little even to unite the 
 provinces. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 
 besides being cut off from Ontario by French 
 Canada, have interests of their own, separate, and 
 in some degree divergent, from those of Ontario, 
 New Brunswick especially being drawn by her 
 commercial interests towards New England. 
 The representatives of each of the smaller pro- 
 vinces form a separate group at Ottawa, giving 
 or withholding their support to a great extent 
 from provincial considerations. Each of the two 
 political parties has its base in Ontario, which is 
 the field of the decisive battles ; and they can hardly 
 be said to extend to the maritime provinces. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. IT 
 
 much less to Manitoba or to British Columbia. 
 When the Ontarian parties are evenly balanced 
 the smaller provinces turn the scale, and Ontarian 
 Leaders are always buying them with "better 
 terms," that is, alterations of the pecuniary ar- 
 rangements of confederation in their favour, 
 and other inducements, at the sacrifice, of course, 
 of the general interests of the Confederation. 
 From the composition of a cabinet to the compo- 
 sition of a rifle-team, sectionalism is the rule. Con- 
 federation has secured free-trade between the 
 provinces ; what other good it has done it would 
 not be easy to say. Whether it has increased 
 the military strength of Canada is a question for 
 the answer to which we must appeal once more 
 to the British War-Oflice. Canadians have 
 shown, on more than one memorable occasion, 
 that in military spirit they were not wanting ; 
 but they cannot be goaded into wasting their 
 hardly-earned money on preparations for a defence 
 which would be hopeless against an invader who 
 will never come. Politically, the proper province 
 of a federal government is the management 
 of external relations, while domestic legis- 
 lation is the province of the several states. But 
 a dependency has no external relations ; Canada 
 has not even, like South Africa, a native question, 
 
 B 
 
18 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 her Indians being perfectly harmless ; and con- 
 sequently the chief duty of a federal Government 
 in Canada is to keep itself in existence by the 
 ordinary agencies of party, a duty which it dis- 
 charges with a vengeance. English statesmen 
 bent on extending to all the colonies what 'they 
 assume to be the benefits of Confederation, 
 should study the Canadian specimen, if possible, 
 on the spot. They will learn, first, that while a 
 spontaneous confederation, such as groups of 
 states have formed under the pressure of a com- 
 mon danger, develops mainly the principles of 
 union, a confederation brought about by external 
 influence is apt to develop the principles of antag- 
 onism in at least an equal degree ; and secondly, 
 that parliamentary government in a dependency 
 is, to a lamentable extent, government by faction 
 and corruption, and that by superadding federal 
 to provincial government the extent and vir- 
 ulence of those maladies are seriously increased. 
 If an appeal is made to the success of confedera- 
 tion in Switzerland, the answer is, that Switzer- 
 land is not a dependency but a nation. 
 
 It is of Canada alqne that we here speak, and 
 we speak only of her political destiny. The ties 
 of blood, of language, of historical association, 
 and of general sympathy, which bind the British 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 19 
 
 portion of the Canadian people to England, are 
 not dependent on the political connection, nor is 
 it likely that they would be at all weakened by 
 its severance. In the United States there are 
 millions of Irish exiles, with the wrongs of 
 Ireland in their hearts, and the whole nation 
 retains the memories of the Revolutionary War, 
 of the War of 181 2, and of the conduct of the 
 British aristocracy towards the United State.^ 
 during the rebellion of the South — conduct which 
 it is difficult to forgive, and which it would be 
 foUy to forget. Yet to those who have lived 
 among the Americans it will not' seem extrava- 
 gant to say that the feelings of an Anglo- 
 American towards his mother-country are really 
 at least as warm as those of the natives of de- 
 pendencies, and at least as likely to be manifested 
 by practical assistance in the hour of need. A 
 reference to the history of the opposition made 
 to the War of 1812, will suffice at least to bring 
 this opinion within the pale of credibility. 
 
 The great forces prevail. They prevail at last 
 however numerous and apparently strong the 
 secondary forces opposed to them may be. They 
 prevailed at last in the case of German unity and 
 in the case of Italian independence. In each of 
 those cases the secondary forces were so heavily 
 
20 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 massed against the event that men renowned for 
 practical wisdom beheved the event would never 
 come. It came, irresistible and irreversible, and 
 we now see that Bismarck and Cavour were only 
 the ministers of Fate. 
 
 Suspended of course, and long suspended, by 
 the action of the secondary forces, the action of 
 the great forces may be. It was so in both the 
 instances just mentioned. A still more remark- 
 able instance is the long postponement of the 
 union of Scotland with England by the antipa- 
 thies resulting from the abortive attempt of Ed- 
 ward I,, and by a subsequent train of historical 
 accidents, such as the absorption of the energies 
 of England in Continental or civil war. But the 
 union came at last, and, having thie great forces 
 on its side, it came forever. 
 
 In the case before us, it appears that the great 
 forces are those which make for the political 
 separation of the New from the Old World. 
 They are : — 
 
 1. The distance, which may be shortened by 
 steam and telegraph for the transmission of a 
 despot's commands, but can hardly be much 
 shortened for the purposes of representative gov- 
 ernment. Steam increases the transatlantic in- 
 tercourse of the wealthier class, but not that of 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 21 
 
 the people, who have neither money nor time for 
 the passage. Everything is possible in the way 
 of nautical invention ; fuel may be still further 
 economized, though its price is not likely to fall; 
 but it is improbable that the cost of ship-building 
 or the wages of seamen will be reduced ; and the 
 growth of manufactures in the New World, which 
 we may expect henceforth to be rapid, can hard- * ^ 
 ly fail to diminish the intercourse dependant on 
 transatlantic trade. A commonwealth spanning 
 the Atlantic may be a grand conception, but po- 
 litical institutions must after all bear some rela- ' 
 tion to Nature and to practical convenience. 
 Few have fought against geography and pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 2. Divergence of interest, which seems in this 
 case to be as wide as possible. What has Cana- 
 da to do with the European and Oriental con- 
 cerns of England, with h(;r Euro])ean and Oriental 
 diplomacy, with her European and Oriental wars ? 
 Can it be conceived that Canadian traders would 
 allow their commerce to be cut up by Russian 
 cruisers, or that Canadian farmers would take 
 arms and pay war-taxes in order to prevent 
 Russia from obtaining a free passage through the 
 Dardanelles ? An English pamphlet called "The 
 Great Game" was reprinted the other day in Can- 
 
22 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 ada ; but the chapter on India was omitted, as 
 having no interest for Canadians. For English 
 readers that chapter had probably more interest 
 than all the other chapters put together. On the 
 other hand, whenever a question about bound- 
 aries or mutual rights arises with the United 
 States, the English people and the English gov- 
 ernment betray, by the languor of their diploma- 
 cy and the ease with which they yield, their com- 
 parative indifference to the objects in which Can- 
 ada is most concerned. A Canadian periodical 
 some time ago had a remarkable paper by a native 
 writer, showing that the whole series of treaties 
 made by Great Britain with the United States 
 had been a continuous sacrifice of the claims of 
 Canada. It was not, assuredly, that Great Bri- 
 tain wanted either force or spirit to fight for her 
 own rights or interests, but that she felt that 
 Canadian rights and interests were not her own. 
 Her rulers could not have induced her people to 
 go to war for an object for which they cared so 
 little, and had so little reason to care, as a fron- 
 tier line in North America. Another illustration 
 of the difierence between the British and the 
 Canadian point of view was afforded by the re- 
 cent dispute about the Extradition Treaty. Eng- 
 land was disposed to be stiff' and punctilious. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 23 
 
 having comparatively little to fear from the sus- 
 pension of the treaty ; while to Canada, border- 
 ing on the United States, the danger was great, 
 and the renewal of the treaty was a vital neces- 
 sity before which punctiliousness gave way. 
 One object there is connected with the American 
 Continent for which the British aristocracy, if we 
 may judge by the temper it showed and the line 
 it took toward the American Republic at the 
 time of the rebellion, would be not unwilling to 
 run the risk of war. But that object is one with 
 regard to which the interests of British aristocra- 
 cy and those of Canadian democracy not only are 
 not identical, but point directly opposite ways. 
 With regard to economical questions, the diver- 
 gence is, if possible, still clearer than with regard, 
 to diplomatic questions. The economic interests 
 of Canada must evidently be those of her own 
 contineni, and to that continent, by all the econ- 
 omic forces, she must be and "visibly is drawn. 
 Her currency, whatever may be the name and 
 superscription on the coin, is American, and it is 
 the sure symbol of her real connection. In the 
 British manufacturer the Canadian manufacturer 
 sees a rival; and Canada at this moment 
 is the scene of a protectionist movement led, curi- 
 ously enough, by those Conservative politicians 
 
24 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 who are loudest in their professions of loyalty 
 to Great Britain. 
 
 3. More momentous than even the divergence of 
 interest is the divergence of politicar character, 
 between the citizens of the Old and the citizens 
 of the New World. We speak, of course, not of 
 the French-Canadians, between whom and the 
 people of Great Britain the absence of political 
 affinity is obvious, but of the British communi- 
 ties in North America. The colonization of the 
 New World, at least that English portion of it, 
 which was destined to give birth to the ruling 
 and moulding power, was not merely a migration, 
 but an exodus : it was not merely a local exten- 
 sion of humanity, but a development ; it not only 
 peopled another continent, but opened a new era. 
 The curtain rose not for the old drama with fresh 
 actors, but for a fresh drama on a fresh scene. A 
 long farewell was said to feudalism when the 
 New England Colony landed, with the rough 
 draft of a written constitution, which embodied 
 a social compact and founded government not on 
 sacred tradition or divine right, but on reason 
 and the public good. The more one sees of society 
 in the New World, the more convinced one is that 
 its structure essentially differs from that of soci- 
 ety in the Old World, and that the feudal element 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 25 
 
 has been eliminated completely and forever, 
 English aristocracy, fancying itself, as all estab- 
 lished systems fancy themselves, the normal and 
 final state of humanity, may cling to the belief 
 that the new development is a mere aberration, 
 and that dire experience will in time bring it 
 back to the ancient path. There are people, it 
 seems, who persuade themselves that America is 
 retrograding towards monarchy and church es- 
 tablishments. No one who knows the Americans 
 can poi?sibly share this dream. Monarchy has 
 found its way to the New World only in the ex- 
 ceptional case of Brazil, to which the royal family 
 of the mother-country itself migrated, and where, 
 after all, the emperor is rather an hereditary 
 president than a monarch of the European type.. 
 In Canada, government being parliamentary and 
 " constitutional," monarchy is the delegation of a 
 shadow ; and any attempt to convert the shadow 
 into aJ substance, by introducing a dynasty with 
 a court and civil list, or by reinvesting the vice- 
 roy with personal power, would speedily reveal 
 the real nature of the situation. Pitt proposed 
 to extend to Canada what as a Tory minister he 
 necessarily regarded as the blessings of aristocra- 
 cy ; but the plant refused to take root in the alien 
 soil. No peerage ever saw the light in Canada ; 
 
26 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 the baronetage saw the light and no more ; of 
 nobility there is nothing now but a knighthood 
 very small in number, and upon which the Pa- 
 cific Railway scandal has cast so deep a shadow 
 that the Home Government, though inclined that 
 way, seems shy of venturing on more creations. 
 Hereditary wealth and the custom of primogeni- 
 ture, indispensable supports of an aristocracy, are 
 totally wanting in, a purely industrial country, 
 where, let the law be what it might, natural 
 justice has always protested against the feudal 
 claims of the first-bom. To establish in Canada 
 the state Church, which is the grand buttress of 
 aristocracy in England, has proved as hopeless as 
 to establish aristocracy itself. The Church lands 
 have been secularized ; the university, once con- 
 fined to Anglicanism, has been thrown open ; the 
 Anglican Church has been reduced to the level of 
 other denominations, though its rulers still cling 
 to the memories and to some relics of their 
 privileged condition. As a religion, Anglicanism 
 has little hold upon the mass of the people ; it is 
 recruited by emigration from England, and sus- 
 tained to a certain .extent by a social feeling in 
 its favour among the wealthier class. More demo- 
 cratic churches far exceed it in popularity and 
 propagandist force : Methodism especially, which. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 27 
 
 in contrast to Episcopacy, sedulously assigns an 
 active part in church-work to every member, de- 
 cidedly gains ground, and bids fair to become the 
 popular religion of Canada. Nor is the militar- 
 ism of European aristocracies less alien to indus- 
 trial Canada than their monarchism and their 
 affinity for state Churches. The Canadians, as 
 we have already said, can fight well when real 
 occasion calls ; so can their kinsmen across the 
 line; but among the Canadians, as among the 
 people of the Northern States, it is impossible to 
 awaken militarism — every sort of galvanic ap- 
 paratus has been tried in vain. Distinctions of 
 rank, again, are wanting : everything bespeaks a 
 land dedicated to equality ; and fustian, instead 
 of bowing to broadcloth, is rather too apt, by a 
 rude self-assertion, to revenge itself on broadcloth 
 for enforced submissiveness in the old country. 
 Where the relations of classes, the social forces, 
 and the whole spirit of society, are different, the 
 real principles and objects of government will 
 differ also, notwithstanding the formal identity 
 of institutions. It proved impossible, as all care- 
 ful observers had foreseen, to keep the same po- 
 litical roof over the heads of slavery and anti- 
 slavery. To keep the same political roof over 
 the heads of British aristocracy and Canadian 
 
28 THE POLITICAL DEdTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 democracy would be an undertaking only one de- 
 gree less hopeless, A rupture would come, per- 
 haps, on some question between the ambition of 
 a money -spending nobility and the parsimony of 
 a money-making people. Let aristocracy, hier- 
 archy, and militarism, be content with the Old 
 World ; it was conquered by the feudal sword ; 
 the New World was conquered only by the axe 
 and plough. 
 
 4. The force, sure in the end to be attractive, 
 not repulsive, of the great American community 
 along the edge of which Canada lies, and, to 
 which the British portion of her population is 
 drawn by identity of race, language, religion, and 
 general institutions, the French portion by its 
 connection with the Roman Catholic Church of 
 the States ; the whole by economic influences, 
 against which artificial arrangements and sen- 
 timents contend in vain, and which are gather- 
 ing strength and manifesting their ascendancy 
 from hour to hour. 
 
 An enumeration of the forces which make in 
 favour of the present connection will show their 
 secondary, and for the most part transient char- 
 acter. The chief of them appear to be tliese : 
 
 a. The reactionary tendencies of the priest- 
 hood which rules French Canada, and which 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 29 
 
 fears that any change might disturb its solitary 
 reign. Strong this force has hitherto been, but 
 its strength depends on isolation, and isolation 
 cannot be permanent. Even the " palseocrystal- 
 lic " ice which envelops French Canada will melt 
 at last, and when it does, French reaction will be 
 at an end. We have already noted two agencies 
 which are working towards this result — the 
 leaven of American sentiment brought back by 
 French Canadians who have sojourned as arti- 
 sans in the States, and the ecclesiastical aggres- 
 siveness of the Jesuits. 
 
 h. " United Empire Loyalism," which has its 
 chief seat in Ontario. Every revolution has its 
 reaction, and in the case of the American Revolu- 
 tion the reaction took the form of a migration of 
 the royalists to Canada, where lands were assigned 
 them, and where they became the political pro- 
 genitors of the Canadian Tory party, while the 
 " Reformers " are the offspring of a subsequent 
 immigration of Scotch Presbyterians, mingled 
 with wanderers from the _ United States. The 
 two immigrations were arrayed against each 
 other in 1837, when, though the United Empire 
 Loyalists were victorious in the field, the politi- 
 cal victory ultimately ]-ested with the Reformers. 
 United Empire LoyaHsm is still strong in some 
 
30 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 districts, while in others the descendants of 
 royalist exiles are found in the ranks of the op- 
 posite party. But the whole party is now in the 
 position of the Jacobites after the extinction of 
 the house of Stuart. England has formally recog- 
 nized the American Revolution, taken part in the 
 celebration of its centenary, and through her 
 ambassador saluted its flag. Anti-revolutionary 
 sentiment ceases to have any meaning, and its 
 death cannot be far off. 
 
 c. The influence of English immigrants, esper 
 cially in the upper ranks of, the professions, in 
 the high places of commerce, and in the press. 
 These men have retained a certain social ascen- 
 dancy; they have valued themselves on their 
 birth in the imperial country and the superior 
 traditions which they supposed it to imply ; 
 they have personally cherished the political con- 
 nection, and have inculcated fidelity to it with all 
 their might. But their number is rapidly de- 
 creasing ; as they die off natives take their places, 
 and Canada will soon be in Canadian hands. Im- 
 migration generally is falling off; upper-class 
 immigration is almost at an end, there being no 
 longer a demand for anything but manual labour ; 
 and the influence of personal connection with 
 England will cease to rule. The press is passing 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 31 
 
 into the hands of natives, who are fast learnino- 
 to hold their own against imported writing in 
 literary skill, while they have an advantage in 
 their knowledge of the country. 
 
 d. While the British troops remained in Can- 
 ada, their officers formed a social aristocracy 
 of the most powerful kind, and exercised a 
 somewhat tyrannical influence over opinion. The 
 traces of this influence still remain, but, with the 
 exception of the reduced garrison of Halifax, the 
 military occupation has ceased and is not likely 
 to be renewed. 
 
 e. The Anglican Church in Canada dings to 
 its position as a branch of the great state Church 
 of England, and perhaps a faint hope of re-estab- 
 lishment may linger in the breasts of the bishops, 
 who still retain the title of " lords." We have 
 already said that the roots of Anglicanism in 
 Canada do not appear to be strong, and its chief 
 source of re-enforcement will be cut off" by the 
 discontinuance of upper-class emigration. It is 
 rent in Canada, as in England, by the conflict 
 between the Protestants and the Ritualists; 
 and in Canada, there being no large endow- 
 iKHents or legal system to clamp the hostile 
 elements together, discord has already taken the 
 form of disruption. As to the other churches, 
 
.32 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 they have a connection with England, but not 
 with England more than with the United States. 
 The connection of Canadian Methodism with the 
 United States is very close. 
 
 /. Orangeism is strong in British Canada, as 
 indeed is every kind of a.ssociation except the 
 country. It retains its filial connection with its 
 Irish parent, and is ultra- British on condition 
 that Great Britain continues anti-papal, Old 
 Irish quarrels are wonderfully tenacious of life, 
 yet they mu.st one day die, and Orangeism must 
 follow them to the grave. 
 
 g. The social influence of English aristocracy, 
 .and of the little court of Ottawa over colonists 
 ■of the wealthier class. With this, (to dismiss at 
 once a theme more congenial to the social hu- 
 morist than to the political observer) we may 
 couple the influence of those crumbs of titular 
 honour which English aristocracy sometimes 
 allows to fall from its table into colonial mouths. 
 If such forces cannot be said to be transient, the 
 tendencies of human nature being perpetual, they 
 may at least be said to be secondary ; they do 
 not aiFect the masses, and they do not affect the 
 •strong. 
 
 h. Antipathy to the Americans, bred by the 
 <old wars, and nursed by British influences, mill- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 33 
 
 tary and aristocratic, not without the assistance 
 of the Americans themselves, who, in the case of 
 the Fenian raids, and in other cases, have Vented 
 on Canada their feelings against England. This 
 antipathy, so far as it prevails, leads those who 
 entertain it to cling to an anti- American connec- 
 tion. But, generally speaking, it is very hollow. 
 It does not hinder young Canadians from going 
 by hundreds to seek their fortunes in the United 
 States. It does not hinder wealthy Americans 
 who have settled in Canada from finding seats at 
 once in the Canadian Parliament. It never, in 
 fact, goes beyond talk. So far as it partakes of 
 the nature of contempt, it can hardly fail to be 
 modified by the changed attitude of the British 
 aristocracy, who have learned to exhibit some- 
 thing more than courtesy towards the victorious 
 republic, while the Americans, it may be reason- 
 ably presumed, now that the cause of irritation is 
 removed, will not think it wise to make enemies 
 of a people whose destinies are inextricably 
 blended with their own. 
 
 i. The special attachment naturally felt by 
 the politicians, as a body, to the system with 
 reference to which their parties have been 
 formed, and with which the personal ambition of 
 most of them is bound up. Perhaps, of all the 
 c 
 
34 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 forces which make for the present connection, 
 this is the strongest ; it has proved strong enough, 
 when combined with the timidity and the want 
 of independence which life-long slavery toa f-ac- 
 tion, always breeds, to prevent any Canadian 
 politician from playing a resolute part in such 
 efforts as there have been to make Canada a na- 
 tion. In some cases it is intensified by commer- 
 cial connections with England, or by social aspira- 
 tions, more or less definite, which have England 
 for their goal. In this respect the interest of the 
 politicians, as a class, is distinct from, and is 
 liable to clash with, the real interest of the com- 
 munity at large. So, in the' case of Scotland, it 
 was the special interest of the politicians to resist 
 the union, as, without special pressure and in- 
 ducements, they would probably have persisted in 
 doing. It was the interest of the people to 
 accept the union, as the flood of prosperity which 
 followed its acceptance clearly showed. In the 
 case of Scotland, the interest of the people tri- 
 umphed at last, and it will probably triumph 
 at last in Canada. 
 
 Such, we say, are the chief forces that make 
 for the existing connection ; and we repeat that 
 they appear to be secondary, and for the most 
 part, transient. United, all these strands may 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 35 
 
 make a strong cable ; but, one by one they 
 will give way, and the cable will cease to 
 hold. This conviction is quite consistent with 
 the admission that the connectionist sentiment 
 is now dominant, especially in Ontario ; that in 
 Ontario it almost exclusively finds expression on 
 the platform and in the press; and that the exist- 
 ence of any other opinions can only be inferred 
 from reticence, or discovered by private inter- 
 course. A visitor may thus be led to believe and 
 to report that the attachment, of the whole popu- 
 lation to the present system is unalterable, and 
 that the connection must endure forever. Those 
 who have opportunities of looking beneath the 
 surface may, at the same time, have grounds for 
 thinking that, on economical subjects at least, the 
 people have already entered on a train of thought 
 which will lead them to a different goal. 
 
 What has been the unifomi course of events 
 down to the present time 1 Where are the Ame- 
 rican dependencies of Spain, Portugal, ^ France, \ 
 and Holland ? Those on the continent, with un- 
 important exceptions, are gone, and those in the 
 islands are going ; for few suppose that Spain can 
 keep Cuba very long. Of the English colonies 
 on the continent, the mass, and those that have 
 been long founded, have become independent ; 
 
36 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 and every one now sees, what clear-sighted men 
 saw at the time, that the separation was inevit- 
 able, and must soon have been brought about by 
 natural forces, apart from the accidental quarrel. 
 If Canada has been retained it is by the reduc- 
 tion of imperial supremacy to a form. Self- 
 government is independence ; perfect self-govern- 
 ment is perfect independence ; and all the ques- 
 tions that arise between Ottawa and Down- 
 ing Street, including the recent question about 
 appeals, are successively settled in favour of self- 
 government. Diplomatic union between two 
 countries in different hemispheres, with totally 
 different sets of external relations, common re- 
 sponsibility for each other's quarrels, and liability 
 to be involved in each other's wars — these inci- 
 dents of dependence remain, and these alone. Is 
 it probable that this last leaf can continue to 
 flutter on the bough forever ? Lord Derby some 
 years ago said that everybody knew that Canada 
 must soon be an independent nation. Now he 
 thinks that the tide of opinion has turned in 
 favour of imperialism, and he turns with the 
 tide. But what he takes for the turn of the tide 
 may be merely the receding wave ; and he for- 
 gets what the last wave swept away. It swept 
 away the military occupation, with all its in- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 37 
 
 fluences, political and social. Even since thaA 
 time the commercial unity of the empire has 
 been formally abandoned in the case of the Aus- 
 tralian tariffs ; and now the marriage-law of the 
 colonies is clashing with that of the mother- 
 country in the British House of Commons. 
 
 It is, perhaps, partly the recoil of feeling from 
 a severance felt to be imminent, as well as the 
 temporary influence of Conservative reaction in 
 England, that has led to the revival in certain 
 quarters, with almost convulsive vehemence, of 
 the plan of imperial confederation. Certainly, 
 if such a plan is ever to be carried into effect, 
 this is the propitious hour. The spirit of aggran- 
 dizement is in the ascendant, and the colonies are 
 all on good terms with the mother-country. Yet, 
 of the statesmen who dally with the project, and 
 smile upon its advocates, not one ventures to take 
 a practical step toward its fulfilment. On the 
 contrary, they are accessory to fresh inroads upon 
 imperial unity, both in the judicial and in the 
 fiscal sphere. Colonial governors talk with im- 
 pressive vagueness of some possible birth of the 
 imperial future, as though the course of events, 
 which has been hurrying the world through a 
 series of rapid changes for the last century, 
 would now stand still, and impracticable aspira- 
 
38 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 tions would become practicable by the mere 
 operation of time ; but no colonial governor or 
 imperial statesman has ventured to tell us, even 
 in the most general way, to what it is that he 
 looks forward, how it is to be brought about, or 
 even what dependencies the confederation is to 
 include. It is, therefore, needless to rehearse all 
 the arguments against the feasibility of such a 
 scheme. The difficulties which beset the union 
 under the same parliamentary government of two 
 countries in different parts of the world, with 
 different foreign relations, and differing internally 
 in political spirit, would, of course, be multiplied 
 in the case of a union of twenty or thirty coun- 
 tries scattered over the whole globe, bound to- 
 gether by no real tie of common interest, and 
 ignorant of each other's concerns. The first 
 meeting of such a conclave would, we may be 
 sure, develop forces of disunion far stronger 
 than the vague sentiment of union arising from 
 a very partial community of descent, and a very 
 imperfect community of language, which would 
 be the sole ground of the federation. Even to 
 frame the agreement as to the terms of union 
 ■with the shifting parties and ephemeral cabinets 
 of a score of colonies under constitutional gov- 
 ernment would be no easy task. The two Parlia- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 39 
 
 ments, the one National, the other Federal, which 
 it is proposed to establish in order to keep the na- 
 tional affairs of England separate from those of 
 the Imperial Federation, would be liable to be 
 brought into fatal conflict, and thrown into utter 
 confusion by the ascendancy of different parties, 
 say a war party and a peace party, in the Na- 
 tional and Federal House. The veriest Chinese 
 puzzle in politics would be a practicable con- 
 stitution, if you could only get the real forces to 
 conduct themselves according to the programme. 
 It was not in the programme of Canadian con- 
 federation that the provinces should form sepa- 
 rate interests in the Federal Parliament, and force 
 the party leaders to bid against each other for 
 their support ; though any one who had studied 
 - actual tendencies in connection with the system 
 of party government might have pretty confi- 
 dently predicted that such would be the result. 
 That England would allow questions of foreign 
 policy, of armaments, and of peace and war, to 
 be settled for her by any councils but her own, 
 it is surely most chimerical to suppose. A swarm 
 of other diificulties would probably arise out of 
 the perpetual vicissitudes of the party struggle 
 in each colony, the consequent inability of the 
 delegates to answer for the real action of their 
 
40 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 own governments, and the estrangement of the 
 delegates themselves from colonial interests and 
 connections by their necessary residence in Eng- 
 land. An essential condition of federation ap- 
 pears to be, tolerable equality among the members, 
 or freedom from the ascendency of any overween- 
 ing power ; but, for a century to come, at least, 
 the power of England in the Federal council 
 would be overweening ; and, to obviate this diflS.- 
 culty, some advocates of the scheme actually pro- 
 pose to repeal the union of England with Scot- 
 land and Ireland, so that she may be reduced to 
 a manageable element of a Pan-Britannic confe- 
 deration. They have surely little right to call 
 other people disunionists, if any opprobrious 
 meaning attaches to that term. 
 
 Supposing such a confederation to be practic- 
 able, of what use, apart from the vague feeling 
 of aggrandizement, would it be ? Where would 
 be the advantage of taking from each of these 
 young communities its political centre, which 
 must also be, to some extent, its social and in- 
 tellectual centre, and of accumulating them in 
 the already overgrown capital of England ? Does 
 experience tell us that unlimited extension of 
 territory is favourable to intensity of political 
 life, or to anything which is a real element of 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 41 
 
 happiness or of greatness ? Does it not tell us 
 that the reverse is the fact, and that the interest 
 of history centres not in megalosaurian empires, 
 but in states the body of which has not been out 
 of proportion to the brain ? Surely it would be 
 well to l^ave some distinct idea of the object to 
 be attained before commencing this unparalleled 
 struggle against geography and Nature. It can 
 hardly be military strength. Military ' strength 
 is not gained by dispersion of forces, by present- 
 ing vulnerable points in every quarter of the 
 globe, or by embracing and undertaking to defend 
 communities which, whatever. may be their fight- 
 ing qualities, in their policy are thoroughly un- 
 military, and unmilitary will remain. Mr. Forster, 
 in fact, gives us to uniderstand that the Pan- Bri- 
 tannic Empire is to present a beneficent contrast 
 to the military empires ; that it is. to be an empire 
 of pea,ce. But in that case it must, like other 
 Quaker institutions, depend for its safety on the 
 morality and forbearance of the holders of real 
 and compact power, which is very far from being 
 the dream of the advocates of " a great game." 
 
 In all these projects of Pan-Britannic Empire 
 there lurks the assumption of a boundless multi- 
 plication of the Anglo-Saxon race. What are 
 the grounds for this assumption ? Hitherto it 
 
42 THE POLIT[CAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 has appeared that races, as they grow richer, 
 more luxurious, more fearful of poverty, more 
 -ameaable to the restraints of social pride, have 
 become less prolific. There is reason to suppose 
 that in the United States the Anglo-Saxon race 
 is far less prolific than the Irish, which is even 
 supplanting the Aaglo-Saxon in some districts 
 of England, as the home-rule compliances of can- 
 didates for northern boroughs show. But the 
 Irish element is small compared with the vast 
 reservoir of industrial population in China, 
 which is now beginning to overflow, and seems 
 as likely as the Anglo-Saxon race to inherit Aus- 
 tralia, where China has already a strong foothold, 
 as well as the coast of the Pacific. 
 
 Canada, however, with regard to the problem 
 of imperial confederation stands by herself, pre- 
 senting, from her connection with the United 
 States, difiiculties from which in the case of the 
 Australian colonies the problem is free. Of this 
 some of the advocates of the policy of aggran- 
 dizement show themselves aware by frankly pro- 
 posing to let Canada go. 
 
 It is taken for granted that political depen- 
 dence is the natural state of all colonies, and that 
 there is something unfihal and revolutionary in 
 proposing that a colony should become a nation. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 43 
 
 But what is a colony 1 We happen to have de- 
 rived the term from a very peculiar set of insti- 
 t jtions, those Roman colonies which had no life 
 of their own but were merely the military and 
 political outposts of the imperial republic. With 
 the Roman colonies may be classed the Athenian 
 deruchies and, substituting the commercial for 
 the political object, the factories of Carthage. 
 But colonies, generally speaking, are migrations, 
 and, as a rule, they have been independent from 
 the beginning. Independent from the beginning, 
 so far as we know, were the Phoenician colonies, 
 Carthage herself among the number. Indepen- 
 dent from the beginning were those Greek colo- 
 nies in Italy which rapidly outran their mother 
 cities in the race of material greatness. Inde- 
 pendent from the beginning were the Saxon and 
 Scandinavian colonies, and all those settlements 
 of the Northern tribes which founded England 
 herself with the other nations of modern Europe. 
 So far as we can see, the original independence 
 in each case was an essential condition of vigour 
 and success. N o Roman colony, Athenian cleruchy, 
 or Carthaginian factory, ever attained real great- 
 ness. New England, the germ and organizer of 
 the American commjinities, was practically inde- 
 pendent for a long time after her foundation, the 
 
44 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 attention of the English Government being en- 
 grossed by troubles at home ; but she retained a 
 slender thread of theoretic dependence by which 
 she was afterward drawn back into a noxious 
 and disastrous subordination. That thread was 
 the feudal tie of personal allegiance, a tie utterly 
 irrational when carried beyond the feudal pale, 
 and by the recent naturalization treaties now for- 
 mally abolished ; yet probably the main cause of 
 the continued subjection of the transatlantic 
 colonies, and of the calamities which flowed both 
 to them and to the mother-country from that 
 source. 
 
 It is natural that British statesmen should 
 shrink from a formal act of separation, and that 
 in their brief and precarious tenure of power they 
 should be unwilling to take the burden and pos- 
 sible odium of such a measure upon them- 
 selves. But no one, we believe, ventures 
 to say that the present system will be per- 
 petual ; certainly not the advocates of imperial 
 confederation, who warn us that, unless England 
 by a total change of system draws her colonies 
 nearer to her, they will soon drift farther away. 
 
 Apart from lingering sentiment, it seems not 
 easy to give reasons, so far as Canada is concern- 
 ed, for struggling to prolong the present system. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 45 
 
 The motives for acquiring and holding dependen- 
 cies in former days were substantial if they Ayere 
 not good. Spain drew tribute directly from her 
 dependencies. England thought she drew it 
 indirectly through her commercial system. It 
 was also felt that the military resources of the 
 colonies were at the command of the mother- 
 country. When the commercial system was re- 
 linquished, and when self-government transferred, 
 to the colonies the control of their own resources, 
 the financial and military motives ceased to exist. 
 But the conservative imagination supplied their 
 place with the notion of political tutelage, feign- 
 ing — though, as we have seen, against all the 
 evidence of history — that the colony, during the 
 early stages of its existence, needed the political 
 guidance of the mother-country in order to fit it 
 to become a nation. Such was the language of 
 colonial statesmen generally till the present con- 
 servative reaction again brought into fashion 
 something like the old notion of aggrandizement, 
 though for tribute and military contingents, the 
 solid objects of the old policy, is now substituted 
 " prestige." That the political connection between 
 England and Canada is a source of military 
 security to either, nobody, we apprehend, main- 
 tains. The only vulnerable point which England 
 
46 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 presents to the United States is the defenceless 
 frontier of Canada ; the only danger to which 
 Canada is exposed is that of being involved in a 
 quarrel between the aristocracy of England and 
 the democracy of the United States. Defenceless, 
 it is believed, the frontier of Upper Canada has 
 been officially pronounced to be, and the chances 
 of a desperate resistance to the invader in the 
 French province can scarcely be rated very high. 
 It is said that the British fleet would bombard 
 New York. If Canada were in the hands of the 
 enemy, the bombardment of New York would 
 hardly alleviate her condition. But the bombard- 
 ment of New York might not be an easy matter. 
 The force of floating coast-defences seems now to 
 be growing superior to that of ocean-going navies. 
 Besides, America would choose the moment when 
 England was at war with some other naval 
 power. Soldiers and sailors, and of the best 
 quality, England might no doubt find in Caaada > 
 but she would have to pay for them more than 
 she pays for soldiers and sailors recruited at 
 home. Whether morality is embodied in Bismarck 
 or not, modem policy is ; and Bismarck seems not 
 to covet distant dependencies ; he prefers solid 
 and concentrated power. 
 
 " Commerce follows the flag," is a saying which 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 4T 
 
 it seems can still he repeated by a statesman ; but, 
 like the notion that dependencies are a source of 
 military strength, it is a mere survival from a 
 departed system. Commerce followed the flag 
 when the flag was that of a power which enforced 
 exclusive trading. But exclusive trading has 
 given way, as an imperial principle, to free-trade, 
 and the colonies, in the exercise of their fiscal 
 power of self-government, have dissolved the 
 commercial unity of the empire. They frame 
 their independent tariffs, laying, in some cases, 
 heavy duties on English goods. It will hardly 
 be contended that, apart from commercial legisla- 
 tion, colonial purchasers inquire whether goods 
 were produced under the British flag. "The 
 best customer," says Sir Ueorge Lewis, " which a 
 nation can have, is a thriving and industrious 
 community, whether it be dependent or independ- 
 ent. The trade between England and the United 
 States is probably more profitable to the mother- 
 country than it would have been if they had re- 
 mained in a state of dependence upon her." As 
 to Canada, what she needs, and needs most ur- 
 gently, is free access to the market of her own 
 Continent, from which, as a dependency of Eng- 
 land she is excluded by the customs line. With 
 free access to the market of her own continent 
 
48 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 she might become a great manufacturing country, 
 but manufactures are now highly specialized, and 
 to produce with advantage you must produce on 
 a large scale. Nor is the evil confined to manu- 
 factures ; the farm-products of Canada are depre- 
 ciated by exclusion from their natural market, 
 and the lumber-trade, which is her great industry, 
 will be in serious jeopardy, since, by the fall of 
 wages in the States, the production of lumber 
 there has been rendered nearly as cheap as it is in 
 Canada, while Canadian lumber is subject to a 
 heavy duty. The projects for opening markets 
 in Australia merely serve to show how severely 
 Canada feels the want of a market close at hand. 
 Cut off any belt of territory commercially from 
 the continent to which it belongs, industry will 
 be stunted, the inflow of capital will be checked, 
 and impoverishment will follow isolation. The 
 Canadians will find this out in time, and the dis- 
 covery will be the first step toward a change of 
 system. 
 
 It is true that Canada has drawn a good deal 
 of British capital into works little remunerative 
 to the investors, though, perhaps, not more than 
 the United States and other countries with which 
 there was no political connection. But, if we 
 consider credit as well as cash, the gain must be 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 49 
 
 pronounced doubtful, and it is balanced by such a 
 work as the Intercolonial Railway, into which 
 Canada has been led by imperial influence, and 
 which, after costing more than four millions 
 sterling, will, as some leading Canadian men of 
 business think, hardly " pay for the grease upon 
 the wheels." The Pacific Railway, and the in- 
 demnity which Canada is forced to pay to British 
 Columbia for the non-performance of an imprac- 
 ticable treaty, are too likely, in the opinion of 
 many, to furnish another illustration of the ex- 
 pensiveness of the imperial connection. 
 
 That emigration is favourably influenced by 
 political dependency is another lingering belief 
 which seems now to have no foundation in fact, 
 though it had in the days when emigration was a 
 Government affair. The stream of emigration, 
 in ordinary times, sets, as has often been proved, 
 not toward Canada, but toward the United 
 States ; and of the emigran^who land in Canada 
 a large proportion afterwaroS^ass the line, while 
 there is a constant exodus of French- Canadians 
 from their own poor and overpeopled country 
 (overpeopled so long as it is merely agricultural) 
 to the thriving industries and the high wages of 
 the States. Emigrants, whose object is to im- 
 prove their material condition, are probably little 
 
50 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 influenced by political considerations ; they go to 
 the country which offers the best openings and 
 the highest wages; but English peasants and 
 artizans would be likely, if anything, to prefer 
 the social elevation promised them in a land of 
 equality to anything like a repetition of the 
 social subjection in which they have lived at 
 home, while by the Irishmen, escape from the 
 British rule is deemed escape from oppression. 
 Whether the tutelage of the mother-country has 
 ever been useful to a colony, even in its infancy, 
 except where there was ah actual need of military 
 protection, is a question to which the language of 
 the adherents of the colonial system themselves, 
 when reviewing the history of colonial govern- 
 ment, seems to suggest a negative reply. " Hither- 
 to," says Mr. Roebuck, " those of our possessions 
 termed colonies have not been governed according 
 to any settled rule or plan. Caprice and chance 
 have decided generally everything connected with 
 them ; and if success has in any case attended the 
 attempts of the English people to establish colon- 
 ies, that success has been obtained in spite of the 
 mischievous intermeddling of the English Govern- 
 ment, not in consequence of its wise and provi- 
 dent assistance." Such is the refrain of almost 
 all the works on the colonies, whether they treat 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 51 
 
 of the general administration or of some special 
 question, such as that of the crown-lands, which 
 appears to have been solved by Downing Street 
 in various ways, but always wrong. Not by 
 government, but by fugitives from the tyranny 
 of government, the great American colony was 
 founded ; unaided and unregulated it grew, and 
 laid the deep foundations of society in the New 
 World. With tutelage came blundering, jobbery, 
 mischief of all kinds, and at last a violent rup- 
 ture, which injurious as it was to the mother- 
 country, inflicted a still greater injury on the 
 colony by launching it on the career of democracy 
 with a violent revolutionary bias, whereas it 
 needed a bias in favour of respect for authority. 
 The presence of the British ambassador at the 
 Centenary, was not only the ratification of the 
 revolt, but the condemnation of the colonial 
 system. After the American Revolution, the 
 next step of the British Government was to 
 divert the stream of English emigration from 
 America — where there was an abundant room, 
 for it, and whither, the pioneer work having then 
 been done, it would have been most pro- 
 fitably directed — to Australia, where the work 
 had to be done over again, measures being at the 
 same time taken to taint the new society with 
 
52 THE POLITICAL DESTISY OF CAJSTADA. 
 
 convict blood. To what good this scattering of 
 English emigration has led, beyond the poetic 
 conception of a boundless empire, it would seem 
 difficult to say ; and Canada, before she expresses 
 conventional joy at the annexation of Fiji, should 
 ask herself whether a new colony is anything 
 more to her than a new competitor for the 
 labour which is her prime need. In Canada 
 herself, tutelage, while it was really exercised, 
 led to every sort of evil. Government was 
 jobbed by an oligarchy called the Family Com- 
 pact, which Downing Street supported, not from 
 bad motives, but from sheer ignorance of facts, 
 till the misrule ended in the insurrection of 1837. 
 Things have gone on smoothly only since real 
 tutelage has departed, and left nothing but an 
 image of royalty which reigns with gracious 
 speeches and hospitality, but does not govern. 
 There has been no want of good intentions on 
 the part of English statesmen, nor would it be 
 reasonable to suppose that there has been any 
 special want of wisdom ; probably no other states- 
 men would have done so well ; but the task im- 
 posed on them was hopeless. One tree might as 
 well be set to regulate the growth of another 
 tree, as one nation to regulate the growth of 
 another nation ; and in this case the two trees 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 53 
 
 are of different sorts and planted under different 
 skies. 
 
 We can imagine the single mind of a despot 
 moulding the political character of a colony, if 
 not well, at least with adequate knowledge, with 
 intelligence, and upon a definite plan. But Eng- 
 land is not a single mind. England is the vast 
 arid motley mass of voters, including, since the 
 Conservative Reform Bill, the most uneduce^ted 
 populace of the towns — people who, in politics, do 
 not know their right hand from their left, who 
 cannot tell the name of the leader of their own 
 party, who vote for blue or yelloY^, and are led 
 by senseless local cries, by bribery, or by beer. 
 These are the political tutors of Canada, a country 
 in which both wealth and education are more 
 diffused than in England. How much does the 
 average Englishman, or even the educated Eng- 
 lishman, know about Canadian politics ? As 
 much as Canadians know about the politics of 
 Tasmania or the Cape. In " Phineas Finn," the 
 hero of the tale, being under-secretary for th^ 
 colonies, goes on a message to Marylebone " to 
 find what the people there think about the 
 Canadas." His report is : " Not one man in a 
 thousand cares whether the Canadians prosper or 
 fail to prosper. They, care that Canada should 
 
54 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 npt go to the States, because, though they don't 
 love the Canadians, they do hate the Americans. 
 That's about the feeling in Marylebone, and it's 
 astonishing how like the Maryleboners are to the 
 rest of the world." It will hardly be said that 
 this is an unfair picture of a Londoner's normal 
 frame of mind with regard to Canadian questions, 
 or that Dorsetshire and Tipperary are better in- 
 formed than London. When did a Canadian 
 question influence an English election ? How 
 \ often is Canada, mentioned in an election address ? 
 Canadian journals are never tired of exposing 
 what they deem the scandalous ignorance of the 
 leading journals of England on Canadian subjects, 
 but they fail to draw the obvious moral. If the 
 Times blunders, are the leaders of English opin- 
 ion generally, and their constituents, likely to be 
 better instructed and to decide aright ? Burke, 
 writing of the American Revolution, said that he 
 could trace all the mischief " to the single source 
 of not having had steadily before our eyes a gen- 
 eral, comprehensive, and well-proportioned view 
 of the whole of our dominions, and a just sense of 
 their true bearings and relations.'' To say noth- 
 ing of the ordinary holders of political power, in 
 how many English statesmen, occupied as Eng- 
 lish^statesmen are with home questions and party 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CAN VDA. 55 
 
 struggles, would Burke have found this compre- 
 hensive view, or the knowledge necessary for the 
 formation of it ? The colonial secretary himself is 
 as often a§ not a man personally unacquainted 
 with the colonies, not called to his post by special 
 aptitude, but placed in it by party convenience. 
 He must often depend for his information on such 
 colonists as may find special access to Downing 
 Street, or on the reports of governors, who, being 
 images of royalty, are apt, like royalty, to be 
 screened from truth. A peer he may be, but his 
 peerage will not make him a providence. The 
 annexation of Manitoba and of British Columbia to 
 Cafiada — with which the latter, at all events, has 
 no geographical conection — is by some thought to 
 have been a disastrous, by all allowed to have 
 been a most critical step : it was taken under the 
 auspices of the late Lord Lytton, a brilliant and 
 prolific novelist, brought into the government to 
 make set speeches. 
 
 If any one supposes that the retention in Can- 
 ada of the forms of monarchy excludes or miti- 
 gates any of the political evils, or even the coarse- 
 ness to which democracy is liable in its crude con- 
 dition, a year's residence in the country, a month's 
 perusal of the party newspapers, or an hour's con- 
 versation with any Canadian man of business who 
 
56 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 has watched politics without taking part in them, 
 will probably settle his opinion on that subject. 
 That monarchical forms are no safeguard against 
 corruption is a fact of which, unhappily, the col- 
 ony has of late years had decisive proof. If the 
 inquirer wishes to enlarge the basis of his induc- 
 tion, let him go through a file of Australian jour- 
 nals ; he will there find a picture of public life, 
 public character, and senatorial manners, decided- 
 ly below the level of the better States of the 
 Union. Canada has escaped the elective judici- 
 ary, but so has Massachusetts ; and both that and 
 the removable civil service were the work not of 
 real Republicans, but of the Democratic party — 
 that is, of the slave-owning oligarchy of the 
 South using as its instruments the Northern mob. 
 Her exemption from the civil war and its fiscal 
 consequences Canada owes merely to her separa- 
 tion from the States ; it would have been the 
 same had she been an independent nation. Had 
 the political connection with Great Britain never 
 existed, and had the weight of Canada been early 
 thrown into the scale of freedom, there might 
 have been no civil war. 
 
 In the case of the Pacific Railway scandal, the 
 Governor-General may be said to have formally 
 avowed himself a fainSant. He decided that he 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 57 
 
 was absolutely bound to follow the advice of his 
 ministers, even when those ministers lay under 
 the heaviest charges of corruption, and even as 
 to the mode in which the investigation into those 
 charges should be conducted; and his conduct 
 was approved by the home government. He has,, 
 therefore, no authority ; and of nothing, nothing- 
 comes. 
 
 Most readers of the Fortnightl'i) are probably 
 prepared to regard with tolerance the proposition 
 that figments and hypocrisies do no more good in 
 politics than they do in general life. In Cana- 
 dian politics they do much evil hy blinding public 
 men and the people generally to the real require- 
 ments of the situation. The hereditary principle 
 was dead at its root ; its work was done, and its 
 age had passed away in the more advanced por- 
 tion of humanitj'^ when the communities of the 
 New World were founded. It lingers on, as 
 things do linger on, in its native soil ; but it can 
 furnish no sound basis for government in the soil 
 of reason and equality. The only conceivable 
 basis for government in the New World is the 
 national wiU ; and the political problem of the 
 New World is how to build a strong, stable, en- 
 lightened, and impartial government on that 
 foundation. That it is a very difficult problem. 
 
S8 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 daily experience in Canada, as well as in the 
 neighbouring republic, shows, and to be succes- 
 fully solved it must be seen in its true bear- 
 ings, which the ostensible retention of the here- 
 ditary principle as the security for good and stable 
 government obscures. Canada, though adorned 
 with the paraphernalia of eight constitutional 
 monarchies (one central and seven provincial), is 
 a democracy of the most pronounced kind ; the 
 Governor-General was not wrong in saying that 
 she is more democratic than the United States, 
 where the President is an elective king, and 
 where the Senate, which, though elective, is 
 conservative, possesses great power, whereas the 
 nominated Senate of Canada is a cipher. Dema- 
 gogism and the other pests of democratic institu- 
 tions are not to be conjured away by forms and 
 phrases; thej' can be repressed and prevented 
 from ruining the state only by developing reme- 
 dial forces of a really effective kind, and by ad- 
 justing the actual machinery of the constitution 
 so as to meet the dangers which experience may 
 reveal. The treason-law of the Plantagenets with 
 which, as well as with the Lord Chamberlain's 
 code of precedence, Canada is endowed, is not of 
 much use to her while she is left without any 
 legal means of repressing her real cancer, political 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 59 
 
 corruption. Loyalty to the faineant deputy of 
 a distant crown may be in a certain sense real ; 
 it may be felt by those who profess it ; but it 
 probably does not often prompt to a good politic- 
 al action, and it certainly never restrains from a 
 bad one. Among Canadians, as among American 
 politicians, the most " truly loyal " are often the 
 most unscrupulous and corrupt. They are often, 
 through the whole course of their public lives 
 disloyal to everything that represents public 
 honour and the public good. A provincial 
 court adds flunkyism to demagogism with- 
 out making the demagogue less profligate, less 
 dangerous, or less vile. It does not even 
 make him less coarse. No refining influence 
 can really be exercised by a few dinners 
 and receptions even over the small circle which 
 attends them ; while the social expenditure and 
 display which are imposed on the Governor-Gen- 
 eral as the condition of his popularity in the col- 
 ony, and of the maintenance of his reputation at 
 home, are anything but a wholesome example for 
 colonial society, which, on the contrary, needs an 
 example of hospitality and social enjoyment cul- 
 tivated in an easy and inexpensive way. 
 
 At present the bane of Canada is party govern- 
 ment without any question on wLich parties can 
 
j60 the political destiny of CANADA. 
 
 be rationally or morally based. The last question 
 of sufficient importance to form a rational and 
 moral basis for a party was that of the Clergy 
 Reserves and the Church Establishment, since 
 the settlement of which there has been absolutely 
 no dividing line between the parties or assigna- 
 ble ground for their existence, and they have 
 become mere factions, striving to engross the 
 prizes of office by the means which faction every- 
 where employs. The consequences are, the increas- 
 ing ascendancy of the worst men, and the poli- 
 tical demoralization of a community, which, if a 
 fair chance were given it, would furnish as sound 
 a basis for good government as any community 
 in the world. Of course, England cannot be 
 charged with introducing the party system into 
 Canada ; but she does fling over it the glamour 
 of British association, and beguile a country 
 really abandoned to all the instability and all the 
 degrading influences of government by fac- 
 tion with the ostensible stability and dignity of 
 the hereditary crown. Indeed, the provision in 
 the draft of confederation that both the par- 
 ties should be considered in the first nomination 
 of senators is, perhaps, the only authoritative 
 recognition which the party system has ever 
 received. In common with the other colonies, 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 61 
 
 Canada is deemed happy in being endowed with 
 a counterpart of the British Constitution. The 
 British Constitution putting aside the legal forms 
 and phrases, is government by party ; and what- 
 ever government by party may be in England, 
 where there are some party questions left, in 
 Canada it is a most noxious absurdity, and is 
 ruining the political character of the people. 
 
 When Canadian Nationalists say that patriot- 
 ism is a good thing, they are told to keep their 
 wisdom for the copy-books ; and the rebuke 
 would be just if those who administer it would 
 recognise the equally obvious truth that there 
 can be no patriotism without nationality. In a 
 dependency there is no love of the country, no 
 pride in the country ; if an appeal is made to the 
 name of the country, no heart responds as the 
 heart t5f an Enghshman responds when an appeal 
 is made in the name of England. In a depen- 
 dency every bond is stronger than that of coun- 
 try, every interest prevails over that of the coun- 
 try. The province, the sect, Orangeism, Fenian- 
 ism, Freemasonry, Oddfellowship, are more to 
 the ordinary Canadian than Canada. So it must 
 be while the only antidote to sectionalism in a 
 population with strongly-marked differences of 
 race and creed is the sentiment of allegiance to a 
 
62 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 distant throne. The young Canadian leaving 
 his native country to seek his fortune in the 
 States feels no greater wrench than a young Eng- 
 lishman would feel in leaving his county to seek 
 his fortune in London. Want of nationality is 
 attended, too, with a certain want of self-respect, 
 not on^y political but social, as Writers on colo- 
 nial society and character have observed. Wealthy 
 men in a dependency are inclined to look to the Im- 
 perial country as the social centre and the mark 
 of their social ambition, if not as their ultimate 
 abode, and not only their patriotic munificence 
 but their political and social services are with- 
 drawn from the country of their birth. 
 
 Mr. Trollope finds himself compelled to confess 
 that in passing from the United States into Can- 
 ada you pass " from a richer country into one 
 that is poorer, from a greater country into one 
 that is less.'' You pass from a country embracing 
 in itself the resources of a continent, into one 
 which is a narrow section of that continent cut 
 off commercially from the rest : you pass from 
 a country which is a nation into a country 
 which is not a nation. 
 
 On the other hand, there were reasons which,, 
 not only to patriotic Canadians, but to patriotic 
 Americans who took a comprehensive view of the 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 63 
 
 interests of their country, seemed strong, for 
 wishing that Canada should remain politically 
 separate from the United States. Democracy is 
 a great experiment, which might be more safely 
 carried on by two nations than by one. By emu- 
 lation, mutual warning and correction, mutual 
 supplementation of defects, they might have 
 helped each other in the race, and steadied each 
 other's steps ; a balance of opinion might have 
 been established on the continent, though a 
 balance of power cannot ; and the wave of domi- 
 nant sentiment which spreads over that vast 
 democracy like the tide running in over a flat, 
 might have been usefully restricted in its sweep 
 by the dividing line. Nor was there any insur- 
 mountable obstacle in the waj'. Canada is want- 
 ing in unity of race ; but not more so than Swit- 
 zerland, whose three races have been thoroughly 
 welded together by the force of nationality. 
 She is wanting in compactness of territory, but 
 not more so, perhaps than some other nations — 
 Prussia, for instance — ^have been. In this latter 
 respect, however the situation has been seriously 
 altered by the annexation of Manitoba and Brit- 
 ish Columbia, which in their present raw condition 
 have no influence beyond that of distant posses- 
 sions, but which, when peopled and awakened to 
 
64 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 commercial life, will be almost irresistibly at- 
 tracted by the economical forces to the States 
 which adjoin them on the south, and will thus 
 endanger the cohesion of the whole confederacy. 
 The very form of the Dominion indeed, drawn 
 out and attenuated as it is by these unnatural 
 additions, apart from the attractive influence of 
 Minnesota and California, would seriously imperil 
 its political unity, as will be seen, if, instead of 
 taking Canada as it is presented by the political 
 map, the boundary-line is drawn between the 
 habitable portion and that which belongs only to 
 arctic frosts. In the debate on confederation it 
 was urged by the advocates of the measure that 
 seven sticks, though separately weak, when 
 bound together in a fagot would be strong. " Yes," 
 was the reply, but not so seven fishing rods 
 tied together by the ends." 
 
 As to the expense of a national government, it 
 would probably not be greater than that of the 
 governor-generalship and the seven lieutenant- 
 governorships is at present. Diplomacy in these 
 days of rapid communication may be cheaply 
 done, and Canada would not need much of it : 
 she has no Eastern question. 
 
 The queston of military security has reference 
 solely to the danger to be apprehended 9n the side 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 65 
 
 of the United States ; and danger on the side of 
 the United States, supposing Canada disen- 
 tangled from English quarrels, we believe that 
 there is none. The Americans, as has been re- 
 peatedly observed, have since the fall of slavery 
 given every proof of an unambitious disposition. 
 They disbanded their vast armaments imine- 
 diately on the close of the civil war, without wait; 
 ing even for the Alabama question to be settled ; 
 they have refused to annex St. Domingo ; they 
 have observed a policy of strict non-intervention 
 in the case of Cuba, which they might have made 
 their own with the greatest ease ; they have de- 
 clined to take advantage of the pretexts furnished 
 them in abundance, by border outrages, of con- 
 quering Mexico ; it is very doubtful whether they 
 would even have purchased Alaska, if Mr. Seward 
 ' had not drawn them by secret negotiations into a 
 position from which they could not well retreat. 
 Slavery wanted conquest for the creation of new 
 slave States, but with slavery the spirit of 
 aggression appears to, have died. Welcome 
 Canada into the Union if she came of her own 
 accord, the Americans no doubt would. They 
 would be strangely wanting in wisdom if they did 
 not ; for she would bring them as her dower not 
 only complete immunity from attack, and great 
 
66 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 economical advantages, but a political accession 
 of the most valuable kind in the shape of a popu- 
 lation, not like that of St. Domingo, Cuba or 
 Mexico, but trained to self-government, and 
 capable of lending fresh strength and vitality to 
 republican institutions. It is true that slavery- 
 having been abolished, the urgent need of add- 
 ing to the number of the free States in order 
 to counterbalance the extension of slavery in 
 the councils of the Union no longer exists ; but 
 there are still in the population of the United 
 States large elements essentially non-republi- 
 can — the Irish, the emigrants from Southern 
 Germany, the negroes — to which, perhaps, may 
 be added a considerable portion of Southern 
 society itself, which can hardly fail to retain 
 something of its old character while it con- 
 tinues to be composed of a superior and an in- 
 ferior race. Against these non-republican ele- 
 ments, the really republican element still needs 
 to be fortified by all the reinforcements which it 
 can obtain. Welcome Canada, therefore, into the 
 Union the Americans no doubt would. But 
 that they have the slightest inclination to lay 
 violent hands upon her, that such a thought ever 
 enters their minds, no one who has lived among 
 them, and heard the daily utterances of a by no 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 67 
 
 means reticent people, can believe. Apart from "'" 
 moral principle, they know that, though a des- 
 potic Government may simply annex, a republic 
 must incorporate, and that to incorporate four 
 millions of unwilling citizens would be to intro- 
 duce into the republic a most dangerous mass of 
 disaffection and disunion. That the Americans 
 have been litigious in their dealings with Canada 
 is true ; but litigiousness is not piracy ; and, as 
 we have already said, the real object of their ir- 
 ritation has not been Canada, but England. The 
 Monroe doctrine was held by Canning as well as 
 by Monroe ; and, irrespectively of any desire of 
 aggrandizement, the intrusion of an American 
 power in Europe would, give as much umbrage 
 to England as the intrusion of the English 
 power in their own continent gives to the people ' 
 of the United States. That the Americans would 
 feel pride in behaving generously towards a 
 weaker state, will appear credible only to those 
 who have seen enough of them to know that, 
 though supposed to care for nothing but the dol- 
 lar, they have in reality a good deal of pride. 
 
 As an independent nation, Canada would, of 
 course, be at liberty to negotiate freely for the re- 
 moval of the customs-line between herself and 
 the United States, and for admission to all the 
 
68 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 commercial advantages of her own continent. 
 At present not only is she trammelled by im- 
 perial considerations, but it can hardly be ex- 
 pected that the American Government will place 
 itself on a lower international level than that of 
 England by treating with a dependency as a na- 
 tion, especially as there are constant intimations 
 that the dependency is retained and is being 
 nursed up with the view of making it a rival 
 power to the United States, and thus introducing 
 into the continent the germs of future jealousy 
 and possibly of war. 
 
 That Canada can ever be made a rival power 
 to the United States — that, if she is only kept 
 long enough in a state of dependence, there will, 
 be an indefinite increase of her population and 
 her strength — seems to be little better than rhe- 
 torical fancy. The barrier of slavery being re- 
 moved, the set of population is likely to be, not 
 .toward the frozen north, where the winter, be- 
 sides suspending labour and business, eats up the 
 produce of the summer in the cost of fuel, but 
 toward those countries in which warmth is pro- 
 vided by the sun, and work may be carried on 
 during the whole year. The notion that the north 
 is the natural, seat of empire seems to have no 
 more solid foundation. It is apparently a loose 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 69 
 
 generalization from the success of the northern 
 tribes which conquered the Roman Empire. It is 
 forgotten that those northern warriors hadnotonly 
 been hardened by exposure to the full severity 
 of the northern climate, but picked by the most 
 rigorous process of natural selection. Stove-heat 
 is not less enervating than the heat of the sun. 
 But a nation Canada, so far as we can see, might 
 have been, had the attempt been vigorously made 
 at the propitious moment, when owing to the 
 effects of the civil war in the United States, the 
 balance of prosperity was decidedly in her 
 favour, when her financial condition appeared 
 immensely superior to that of her neighbour, and 
 when the spirit of her people had been stirred 
 by confederation. That opportunity was allowed 
 to pass, and, in all probability, it will never re- 
 turn. 
 
 A movement in favour of nationality there was 
 — one which had a twofold claim to sympathy, 
 because it was also a movement against faction 
 and corruption, and which, though it has failed,has 
 left honourable traces on public life. But it was 
 not strong enough to make head against the in- 
 fluences which have their centre in the little court 
 of Ottawa, and the attacks of the lower class of 
 politicians, who assailed it with the utmost fero- 
 
70 THE POLITICAL EESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 city, seeing clearly that the success of the higher 
 impulse would not suit their game. Moreover, 
 the French province interposed between the Brit- 
 ish provinces of the east and west, is a complete 
 non-conductor, and prevents any pulsation from 
 running through the whole body. It must fur- 
 ther be owned that, in industrial communities, 
 the economical motives are stronger than the po- 
 litical, and that the movement in favour of Ca- 
 nadian nationality had only political motives on 
 its side. Perhaps the appearance of a great man 
 might after all have turned the scale ; but de- 
 pendencies seldom produce great men. 
 
 Had the movement in favour of nationality 
 succeeded, the first step would have been a legis- 
 lative union, which would in time have quelled 
 sectionalism, and made up for the deficiency of 
 material size and force by moral solidity and uni- 
 ty of spirit. Canada, as was said before, is hardly 
 a proper subject for federal government, which 
 requires a more numerous group of states and 
 greater equality between them. Confederation 
 as it exists, we repeat, has done little more than 
 develop the bad side of democratic government. 
 A project is now on foot for a legislative union 
 between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince 
 Edward Island ; but this ..will only make matters 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 71 
 
 worse by reducing the number of important states 
 to three (Manitoba and British Columbia being 
 in the merest infancy), two of which will be al- 
 ways combining against the third. That there 
 would have been opposition to a legislative union 
 of the whole of Canada on the part of Quebec 
 is more than probable ; but Quebec, if she had 
 been handled with determination would most 
 likely have given way. 
 
 Canadian nationality being a lost cause, the 
 ultimate union of Canada with the United States 
 appears now to be morally certain ; so that noth- 
 ing is left for Canadian patriotism but to pro- 
 vide that it shall be a union indeed, and not an 
 annexation ; an equal and honourable alliance 
 like that of Scotland and England, not a submis- j 
 sion of the weaker to the stronger ; and at the / 
 same time that the political change shall involve 
 no change of any other kind in the relations of 
 Canada with her mother-country. The filaments 
 of union are spreading daily, though they may 
 be more visible to the eye of one who sees Ca- 
 nada at intervals than to that of a constant resi- 
 dent. Intercourse is being increased by the ex- 
 tension of railways ; the ownership and manage- 
 ment of the railways themselves are forming an 
 American interest in Canada ; New York is be- 
 
72 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 coming the pleasure, and, to some extent, even 
 the business, capital of Canadians ; American 
 watering-places are becoming their summer re- 
 sort ; the periodical literature of the States, 
 which is conducted with extraordinary spirit and 
 ability, is extending its circulation on the north- 
 ern side of the line ; and the Calnadians who set- 
 tle in the States are multiplying the links of fa- 
 mily connection between the two countries. To 
 specify the time at which a political event 
 will take place is hardly ever possible, how- 
 ever assured the event itself may be ; and in 
 the present instance the occurrence depends 
 not only on the circumstances of Canada, where, 
 as we have seen, there is a great complication 
 of secondary forces, but on the circumstances 
 of the United States. If the commercial de- 
 pression which at present prevails in Canada 
 continues or recurs ; if Canadian manufacturers 
 are seen to be dying under the action of the 
 customs-line ; if owing to the depression or to 
 over-costly undertakings, such as the Pacific 
 Kailway, financial difficulties arise ; if, meantime 
 the balance of prosperity, which is now turning, 
 shall have turned decisively in favour of the 
 United States, and the reduction of their debt 
 shall have continued at the present rate — the 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 75 
 
 eritical moment may arrive, and the politicians, 
 Recognizing the voice of Destiny, may pass in a 
 obdy to the side of continental union. It will 
 be fortunate if a misunderstanding between the 
 Canadian Government and Downing Street,, 
 about some question such as that respecting the 
 pecuniary claims of British Columbia, which is 
 now assuming such exaggerated proportions, does- 
 not supervene to make the final dissolution of 
 the political tie a quarrel instead of an amicable 
 separation. 
 
 To Canada the economical advantages of con- 
 tinental union will be immense ; to the United. 
 States its general advantages will not be less so.. 
 To England it will be no menace, but the reverse ;, 
 it will be the introduction into the Councils of 
 the United States, on all questions, commercial, 
 as well as diplomatic, of an element friendly to- 
 England, the influence of which will be worth 
 far more to her than the faint and invidious. | 
 chance of building up Canada as a rival to the ! 
 United States. In case of war, her greatest s 
 danger will be removed. She will lose neither ■ 
 wealth nor strength ; probably she will gain a 
 good deal of both. As to glorj', we cannot do ; 
 better than quote in conclusion the words of 
 Palmerston's favourite colleague, and the man to« 
 
74 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 whom he, as was generally supposed, wished to 
 bequeath his power : 
 
 " There are supposed advantages flowing from 
 the possession of dependencies, which are ex- 
 pressed in terms so general and vague that they 
 cannot be referred to any determinate head. Such, 
 for example, is the glory which a country is sup- 
 posed to derive from an extensive colonial em- 
 pire. We will merely remark, upon this imagined 
 advantage, that a nation derives no true glory 
 from any possession which produces no assignable 
 advantage to itself or to other communities. If 
 a country possesses a dependency from which it 
 derives no public revenue, no military or naval 
 strength, and no commercial advantages or faci- 
 lities for emigration, which it would not equally 
 enjoy though the dependency were independent, 
 and if, moreover, the dependency suffers the evils 
 which (as we shall show hereafter) are the almost 
 inevitable consequences of its political condition, 
 such a possession cannot justly be called glorious." 
 
REPLY. 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA.^ 
 
 BY SIB FRANCIS HINCKS. 
 
 It happened quite accidentally that the FoH- 
 nightly Review of 1st April, containing an essay 
 on " The Political Destiny of Canada," was placed 
 in my hands for perusal on the 23rd of that 
 month (St. George's Day), soon after I had read 
 a report of a sermon preached on the preceding 
 afternoon to the St. George's Society of Montreal 
 by its Chaplain, the Rev. R. W. Norman. I was 
 of course, much struck with the widely different 
 views of the authors of the essay and the ser- 
 mon, both of whom are Englishmen, both gradu- 
 ates of the University of Oxford, and both resi- 
 dents in Canada during a comparatively short 
 
 * This article was sent by me to a friend in England for inser- 
 tion either in the Fortnighily Review, or in some other periodical 
 of standing. — F. II. 
 
76 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 period. It at once occurred to me, that it might 
 be interesting to the readers of the Fortnightly 
 to be put in possession of the views of those 
 who share Mr. Norman's sentiments, and I further 
 thought that I might, without presumption, be- 
 come their exponent. I, like the two gentlemen 
 whom I have named, am a native of the United 
 Kingdom, but I adopted Canada as my home 
 forty-five years ago. It is more than forty years 
 since I began to take an active part in public life ; 
 it has been my lot to have been connected with 
 both of the political parties, those styled Con- 
 serva;tives and Reformers, but I am now, and have 
 been for the last three years, unconnected with 
 party, having altogether withdrawn from politics. 
 I think that, under the foregoing circumstances, 
 I may claim to be as well acquainted with the 
 sentiments of the people of Canada as the author 
 of the essay in the Fortnightly, for whom I en- 
 tain all the respect to which his great abilities 
 entitle him. I presume that I may treat the 
 essayist as a Canadian, in the same sense as I 
 look on all natives of the United Kingdom who 
 adopt Canada as their country. The essayist has 
 specially devoted himself to foster Canadian na- 
 tionality, but I must own that, although I have 
 read a great deal that he has written for the Ca- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 77 
 
 nadian press for some years, his essay in the Fort- 
 nightly surpasses anything I have seen from his 
 pen in hostility to British connexion, and in abuse 
 of Canadian politicians of all shades of party. I 
 am bound to admit that the essayist is indiscri- 
 minate in his censure, and that he would be able 
 to prove his case against either of the political 
 parties from what they habitually say of each 
 other ; while, on the other hand, each would pro- 
 test against the truth of the charges as applicable 
 to his own party. It seems to me rather incon- 
 sistent that one who admits that he has laboured 
 unsuccessfully in Canada to create a Canadian 
 nationality and to destroy the political parties 
 which he found in existence on his arrival in the 
 country, should endeavour to influence English 
 public opinion on a subject in which Canada is 
 chiefly interested, and which the essayist admits, 
 ought to be considered with reference to the in- 
 terests of Canada. 
 
 As, however, the essayist has selected his 
 arena, it seems but fair that those who entirely 
 dissent from his views should have a fair hearing. 
 I may call attention to the language employed 
 by the essayist in referring to Canadian politi- 
 cians. The " truly loyal," he says, " are often the 
 most unscrupulous and corrupt ," they are often 
 
78 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 " disloyal to everything that represents public 
 honour and the public good." The parties have 
 become "mere factions;" the consequences are 
 the increasing ascendency of the worst men, and 
 the political demoralization of a community." 
 The movement in favour of nationality was 
 ■' against faction and corruption," but was not 
 strong enough " to make head against the in- 
 fluences which have their centre in the little court 
 at Ottawa, and the attacks of the lower class of 
 politicians, who assailed it with the utmost 
 ferocity." I need not multiply extracts condem- 
 natory of Canadian politicians of both parties, 
 but I think that I am not unwarranted in assum- 
 ing that the bitterness which pervades the essay 
 must have been intensified by the feeling that 
 the writer had completely failed in his attempt 
 to create a public opinion in Canada favourable 
 to his peculiar views. The attacks to which I 
 have referred have chiefly influenced me in re- 
 ferring to the sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. 
 Norman. That gentleman is in no sense a party 
 politician, and yetliving, as he does,in the principal 
 city of Canada, and in daily intercourse with 
 gentlemen of intelligence and property, he is as 
 free from those influences so much deprecated 
 by the essayist, as any one can be. I propose to 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 79 
 
 submit a few extracts from Mr. Norman's sermon 
 as an introduction to the criticism which I shall 
 venture to offer on Mr. Gold win Smith's paper. 
 
 " We all know what power a simple strain possesses to 
 recall, with vivid and startling force, places, persons, ccn- 
 versations. The music of our own National Anthem has 
 that magic power. It makes the heart beat, the blood to 
 flow, the pulse to throb. May it never lose that magnetic 
 tenacity upon the hearts of British subjects, especially 
 those who are British born. But the text, though it sup- 
 plies us with the note of patriotism, while its tender 
 charm must touch every heart, is, in one important 
 respect, haply inapplicable to us. This is not a strange 
 land. We are not here as captives taunted by cynical op- 
 pressors. Though in another hemisphere, we see oiir 
 tokens, and feel that we are among friends. 
 
 "It is the love to the dear Mother Country, and 
 through her, the love of her children, that is the source of 
 this Society's existence. That is the bond which unites 
 us all one to the other. It is the strong aflfection we bear 
 our Queen and Country, the admiration we all entertain 
 for her institutions, that make us recognize and desire to 
 help as brethren those who claim old England as the 
 country of their birth. 
 
 " The St. George's Society reminds us that we share the 
 greatness, the glory, the freedom of that land upon whose 
 sacred soil the exile can tread in safety ; the land which 
 offers an asylum to the unfortunate, the unhappy, no 
 matter who they be ; the land that brooks not slavery, 
 
80 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 and whereon for centuries no foreign invader has been able 
 to plant his foot. This Dominion is great in itself ; 
 greater still in its future prospects. But its greatness is 
 enhanced by its connection with the Mother Land, and it 
 shares, through common origin, in the illustrious past of 
 the great British nation. Surely of this country it may 
 to a certain extent be said that the honours on the crest 
 of England are garlands for the head of Canada. It is no 
 proof of national vigour to ignore the past, and live only 
 in the present. While, therefore, we love Canada ; while 
 we are ready to serve her interests and promote her ad- 
 vancement, let us still turn a loving glance across the 
 broad sea to the mother of us all. Happily, loyalty is a 
 master principle in the heart of a Canadian. Like justice, 
 of which the Roman poet wrote, which quitting the world, 
 yet lingered in rural abodes and pastoral pursuits ; so 
 loyalty, even if about to quit this earth, which I trust is 
 not to be, yet tarries here, and there is no fear of its ex- 
 tinction. And the loyalty of Canadians is of the true, 
 old-fashioned type — unselfish, faithful ; the loyalty of the 
 free." 
 
 Although Mr. Norman addressed the language 
 that I have quoted, especially to Englishmen, I be- 
 lieve that it contains a faithful exposition of the 
 sentiments entertained by the Canadian people 
 of all nationalities towards the mother-country. 
 I believe, moreover, that there has been no period 
 in the history of Canada when its inhabitants 
 were so loyal, as at the very time when the 
 
THE POLITtCAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 81 
 
 wi-iter in. the Fortnightly has considered it his 
 duty " to cast its political horoscope," and to 
 assure the people of England that its destination 
 is absoi-ption in the adjoining Republic. When I 
 first entered public life I am firmly convinced 
 that the majority of Canadiaps were thoroughly 
 alienated in their feelings, from the British Crown. 
 Those who engaged in the rebellion of 1837 con- 
 stituted but a fraction of those who were discon- 
 tented with the old colonial system of govern- 
 ment, to which Lord Durham's report gave a 
 death-blow. The revolution, as the establishment 
 of parliamentary government may properly be 
 termed, was followed by feelings of intense bitter- 
 ness on the part of the old Tory, or, as they 
 styled themselves, the loyalist party. Great 
 allowance must be made for their feelings under 
 the circumstances. A portion of the popular 
 party had engaged in rebellion, and the Tory 
 party had aided in its suppression. When par- 
 liamentary government was established, the 
 Reformers obtained political power, and the 
 exasperation of the loyialists was manifested by 
 the burning of the Parliament House, by insults 
 to Governor-General the Earl of Elgin, and, 
 finally, by the annexation manifesto, which, 
 though repudiated by the political chiefs, was 
 
82 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 signed chiefly by persons belonging to the Tory- 
 party. This was in 1849. In 18.54! there was a 
 pomplete disruption of parties. During the 13 
 years which had elapsed from the union of the 
 Canadas, the old Reform party of Ontario had 
 been in strict alliance with the French Canadians, 
 but in 1854 a disagreement among members of 
 the Reform party, which had existed two or 
 three years, culminated in a complete split, and 
 the result was the formation of a Government 
 party consisting of the old Conservatives, the 
 French Canadians, and those Reformers from 
 Ontario who adhered to the old Government, 
 the Opposition being those Ontario Reformers 
 who had been dissatisfied with the Reform 
 Government, and a French Canadian Liberal 
 party, which included many English, although 
 the Lower Canada British party adhered to the 
 new Government. The practical eifect of these 
 changes was to allay to a great extent the old 
 animosities between the British and the French. 
 Since that period there has been no serious agita- 
 tion for political change, and although I regret to 
 have to acknowledge that there is deplorable 
 party bitterness at present, yet the leaders of 
 both political parties are unquestionably sincerely 
 loyal, and friendly to the subsisting connection 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 83 
 
 with Great Britain. It must surely strike with 
 amazement English readers of the essay in the 
 Fortnightly, that in a House of Commons consist- 
 ing of upwards of 200 members, not one member 
 has ventured, either in the House or at the hus- 
 tings, to propose the severance, of the subsisting 
 connexion with Great Britain. 
 
 Widely as I differ from the views of the writer 
 in the Fortnightly as to the " Political Destiny of 
 Canada," there are portions of his essay in which 
 he has given expression to Canadian opinion, on 
 points on which it is highly desirable that our 
 fellow-countrymen in England should be correctly 
 informed. The pi-incipal of these is Canadian 
 nationality, of which the essayist was, as he 
 admits, once an advocate, and for which he still 
 evinces a desire. He admits, however, that it is 
 " a lost cause," and as he is determined not to 
 believe in the continuation of the present con- 
 nexion, he is bound to maintain that union with 
 the United States is "morally certain." I am 
 not presumptuous enough to declare that the 
 subsisting connexion must be perpetual, but I am 
 decidedly of opinion, in common, as I have 
 reason to know, with the leaders of both politi- 
 cal parties, that if at any future period, owing to 
 causes which it is impossible to foresee at present, 
 
84 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 a disruption of our connexion with Great Britain 
 were to become necessary, there would inevitably 
 be union with the United States and not an In- 
 dependent Republic. It is desirable that those 
 English politicians who sometimes look with 
 complacency on the severance of the con- 
 nexion, should, be aware that its result would 
 be very different from what they imagine. I 
 likewise concur with the essayist that all the 
 projects of Pan-Britannic Empire are visionary in 
 the greatest degree. I refer to the subject merely 
 because the essayist has done so, and because some 
 scheme of the kind has found favour in England, 
 though as justly observed — " of the statesmen 
 who dally with the project and smile upon its 
 advocates, not one ventures to take a practical 
 step towards its fulfilment." No such scheme 
 has ever found favour in Canada. 
 
 Having noticed the pojnts on which I concur 
 with the writer in the Fortnightly, I shall proceed 
 to state those on which I entirely differ with - 
 him. It may be convenient to state my objec- 
 tions under the following heads : 1st. Errors in 
 matters of fact ; 2nd. Inconsistencies ; 3rd. 
 Erroneous reasoning. Under the first head 
 the most important errors are those which 
 attach undeserved blame to the Imperial 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 85 
 
 Government. Reference is made to the " Inter- 
 colonial Railway, into which Canada has been 
 led by Imperial influence, and which after, costing 
 more than four millions sterling, will, as some 
 leading Canadian men of business think, hardly 
 pay for the grease upon the wheels." A more 
 unjust charge never was ma'de. It has certainly 
 not been the practice of the Imperial Government 
 either to suggest the construction of public works 
 in Canada, or to inteifere with them in any way. 
 The scheme for the construction of an Intercolo- 
 nial Railway originated in Nova Scotia, and it 
 was on the joint application of the separate Pro- 
 vinces that the Imperial Government authorized 
 Royal Engineer officers to conduct a survey. 
 The principal of these. Major Robinson, located a 
 line, after which the three Provinces conferred as 
 to the construction and as to the proportions of 
 expense to be incurred by each. New Bruns- 
 wick positively refused co-operation unless a dif- 
 ferent line from that recommended was adopted, 
 and the other Provinces — Nova Scotia most re- 
 luctantly, Canada willingly — concurred with New 
 Brunswick. Thereupon the Imperial Government, 
 in 1852, stated that the Imperial guarantee asked 
 as a favour, could only be given to the line re 
 commended by Major Robinson. The negotiations 
 
86 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 were thereupon broken ofi. When the delegates, 
 several years afterwards, met to consider confed- 
 eration, the construction of the Intercolonial Rail- 
 way was made one of the conditions of the union, 
 and again the Imperial guarantee was sought. 
 To what extent Imperial influence may have been 
 used in favour of the original line I am hardly 
 in a position to state, not having been in the 
 country at the time ; but what I do know is, first, 
 that a majority of Canadian ministers were in 
 favour of the line adopted, and secondly, that the 
 utmost extent of interference on the part of the 
 -Imperial Government was to make the adoption 
 of the line favoured by them a condition of their 
 guarantee, jjwhicb every reasonable person will 
 admit they had a perfect right to do. I submit 
 that the charge in the essay is not justified by 
 the facts which I have stated. 
 
 The next imputation against the Inperial Gov- 
 ernment which I shall notice, is the allegation 
 that the annexion of British Columbia "was taken 
 under the auspices of the late Lord Lytton, a 
 brilliant and prolific novelist, brought into the 
 Government to make set speeches." I may con- 
 sider with this another allegation : — "The Pacific 
 Railway, and the indemnity which Canada is 
 forced to pay to British Columbia for the non- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 87 
 
 performance of an impracticable treaty, are too 
 likely in the opinion of many, to furnish another 
 illustration of the expensiveness of the Imperial 
 connexion. The sole foundation for these charges 
 is the fact that Lord Lytton, when Secretary of 
 State, prior to the year 1859, expressed some 
 opinions as to the different modes of governing 
 Vancouver's Island and British Columbia. I 
 have not thought it worth while to ascertain pre- 
 cisely what occurred at that time, simply because 
 Lord Lytton had no more responsibility for the 
 admission of British Columbia into the Canadian 
 Confederation, than the writer of the essay him- 
 self. Delegates were sent from British Columbia 
 to Canada, and the terms of confederation were 
 arranged at conferences between the Canadian 
 Ministers and those Delegates, and were subse- 
 quently ratified by the Canadian Parliament. 
 The construction of the Pacific Railwaj^ was pro- 
 vided for by the terms of union, and has been a 
 hete nmr of the essayist, as well as of the political 
 party opposed to the government which under- 
 took it. It has been a subject of unceasing re- 
 proach by each political party against its antag- 
 onist ; but no party politician in Canada has ever 
 ventured to throw blame on the Imperial Govern- 
 ment as th e essayist h as done. In connection with 
 
88 THE POLITICAL DESTIUY OF CANADA. 
 
 British Columbia, the annexation of Manitoba "is 
 by some thought to have been a disastrous; 
 by all allowed to have been a most critical step." 
 The Imperial Government did not in any way 
 promote the annexation of Manitoba, which was 
 sought for during many years by Canadian emi- 
 grants to the North-west, and by their country- 
 men; but when negotiations for the acquisition of 
 the territory were set on foot, it lent its good 
 oiEces to the contracting parties, Canada and the 
 Hudson Bay Company. 
 
 I have specified what I consider grave errors in 
 matters of fact. The transparent object of the 
 writer was to convince his English readers that, 
 owing to the errors of Secretaries of State, who 
 are said to be often "personally unacquainted with 
 the Colonies — not called to their post by special 
 aptitude, but placed in it by party convenience," 
 Canada had suffered grievous injuries ; and yet I 
 affirm, without fear of contradiction from the 
 leaders of the opposing parties in Canada, that, 
 during the ten years that have elapsed since Con- 
 federation, there has not been the slightest com- 
 plaint of improper interference on the part of the 
 Imperial Government with the Government of 
 Canada. During that period there has been a 
 Libera] Government in England, with a Conserva- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 89 
 
 tive Government in Canada, and now there is a 
 Conservative Government in England and a Lib- 
 eral one in Canada, but so good an understanding 
 exists that no one is ever apprehensive of difBculty. 
 I proceed to consider — 
 
 2ndly. The inconsisteincies of the essayist. In 
 order to establish his case he was bound to prove 
 that dependencies could not be satisfactorily gov- 
 erned. "The very name 'colony' is obnoxious, 
 derived from a very peculiar set of institutions, 
 those Roman Colonies which had no life of their 
 own, but were merely the military and political 
 outposts of the Imperial Republic." All the suc- 
 cessful colonies were those " independent from the 
 beginning. Even New England, the germ and 
 organizer of the American communities, was prac- 
 tically independent for a long time after her 
 foundation." The writer proceeds to descant on 
 the sufferings endured by dependencies, citing 
 from an old speech pamphlet of Mr. Roebuck's 
 that " our colonies have not been governed accord- 
 ing to any settled rule or plan," that "caprice and 
 chance have decided generally, everything con- 
 nected with them," and th.at if there has been 
 success it has been obtained " in spite of the mis- 
 chievous intermeddling of the English Govern- 
 ment, not in consequence of its wise and provi- 
 
90 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 dent assistance." This, it is said, is " the refrain 
 of almost all the works on the Colonies." Eng- 
 land cannot have colonies or dependencies because 
 England is the vast and motley mass of voters 
 including, sinc^ "the Conservative Eeform Bill, 
 the most uneducated populace of the towns, 
 people who in politics do not know their right 
 hand from their left." .Even "Phineas i'inn " is 
 cited as an authority to prove how little England 
 is competent to maintain a Colonial system. 
 Phineas reports of the people of Marylebone, "not 
 one man in a thousand cares whether the Can- 
 adians prosper or fail to prosper, They care that 
 Canada should not go to the States, because 
 "though they don't love the Canadians they do 
 hate the Americans." This, the essayist' asserts, 
 is not "an unfair picture of a Londoner's normal 
 frame of mind." And very similar is that of the 
 inhabitants of Dorsetshire and Tipperary. I 
 grant it all, just as I grant that a Canadian Lon- 
 doner, in his home on the banks of the Canadian 
 Thames, cares not whether the inhabitants of 
 Marylebone prosper or fail to prosper. The Cana- 
 dians have just as much' influence over English 
 questions, as the English over theirs; and when it 
 is triumphantly asked, " When did a Canadian 
 ■question influence an English election." I simply 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 91 
 
 reply, "When did an English question influence 
 a Canadian election." But I have dwelt, I trust, 
 sufficiently on the essayist's argument against the 
 Colonial connexion, founded on the incompetency 
 of English electors to govern remote dependencies. 
 I purpose now to show, from another part of the 
 same essay, that the argument has not the slight- 
 est application. Referring to the " course of events" 
 in regard to the colonies of Spain, Portugal, France, 
 and Holland, the essayist proceeds : " If Canada , 
 has been retained, it is by the reduction of Im- 
 perial supremacy to a form. Self-government is 
 independence — perfect self-government is perfect 
 independence ; and all the questions that arise 
 between Ottawa and Downing Street, including 
 the recent questions about appeals, are succes- 
 sively settled in favour of self-government." What 
 then becomes of the argument based on the '' un- 
 educated populace " of the English towns, and on 
 the opinion of Phineas Finn's Maryleboner ? The 
 'truth is, that " the refrain of almost all the works 
 on the Colonies " had reference to that old system 
 when, to use the language of the essayist, " Gov- 
 ernment was jobbed by an oligarchy ; whereas the 
 statement that " self-government is independence, 
 and that all the questions that arise between Ot- 
 tawa and Downing Street are successively settled 
 
92 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 in favour of self-government," is a faithful de- 
 scription of the present Canadian system. 
 
 In his bitter censure of Parliamentary Govern- 
 ment the essayist has fallen into a glaring incon-^ 
 sistency. The Government is said to be the bane 
 of Canada, because " there is no question on which 
 parties can be rationally or morally based," con- 
 sequently the parties have become " mere factions, 
 striving to engross the prizes of office." Such 
 allegations abound through the essay, but, on the 
 other hand, there are some admissions which 
 would indicate to any experienced politician that 
 there are important questions on which parties 
 may properly be divided. 
 
 I could enumerate several, but as my present 
 object is merely to establish my charge of incon- 
 sistency, I shall content myself by referring to 
 two questions noticed in the essay. Surely the 
 question of Protection is one on which political 
 parties might properly join issue. The essayist 
 states that " Canada at this moment is the scene 
 of a protectionist movement, led curiously enough 
 by those ' Conservative politicians ' who are loud- 
 est in their professions of loyalty to Great Bri- 
 tain." The divisions in the Canadian House of 
 Commons were, with two or three exceptions, 
 strictly party, and the English newspapers have 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 93 
 
 expressed their satisfaction with the result. It 
 does not strike me as at all curious that Conser- 
 vative politicians should have a, predilection for 
 protection, but on the other hand it does appear 
 to me rather extraordinary that so advanced a 
 liberal as the essayist should be an extreme pro- 
 tectionist. I am persuaded that the members of 
 the Conservative opposition are not of opinion 
 that their views on this question are inconsis- 
 tent with their loyalty to the crown, but I only 
 refer to them here to prove that there is an im- 
 portant question on which political parties are 
 divided. There is yet another, viz., British Co- 
 lumbia and the Pacific Railway. On these ques- 
 tions Canadian parties are in avowed antagonism. 
 The essayist admits fully their importance, for 
 he thinks that it will be fortunate if some ques- 
 tion " such as that respecting the pecuniary 
 claims of British Columbia, which is now assum- 
 ing such exaggerated proportions, does not 
 supervene to make the final dissolution of 
 the political tie a quarrel instead of an amica- 
 ble separation." Surely a question from which 
 such serious consequences are apprehended, is one 
 important enough for the consideration of politi- 
 cal parties in Canada, by whom alone it must be 
 .solved. I need hardly observe that there is not the 
 
94 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 slightest danger of any misunderstanding between 
 the Imperial and Canadian Governments on any 
 such question, nor so far as I can foresee, on any 
 other; and if the essayist really believes what he has 
 stated, that " all questions are successively settled 
 in favour of self-government," he need be under 
 no apprehension on the subject. I think it must be 
 admitted that I have proved by his own language 
 that the essayist is most inconsistent in alleging 
 that there are no questions in Canada on which 
 parties can be honestly formed. Another incon- 
 sistency will be found in those passages of the 
 essay in which the author treats of the Roman 
 Catholic element in our population. There is, 
 indeed, not only inconsistency ; there is error 
 in a matter of fact. It is assumed that the 
 French Canadian and Irish Catholics, consti- 
 tuting 1,400,000 of the population, are anything 
 but friends to British connection. These it is 
 said, must be deducted in order to reduce to 
 reality the pictures of universal devotion to Eng- 
 land and English interests." The political senti- 
 ments of the Irish " are generally identical with 
 those of the Irish in the mother country." The 
 French Canadians have " no feeling whatever for 
 England." They are "governed by the priest 
 with the occasional assistance of the notary." 
 
THE POLITLCAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 95 
 
 The priests " put their interests into the hands 
 of a political leader, who makes terms for them 
 and for himself at Ottawa, and as the priests 
 are reactionists, Canada has long witnessed the 
 singular spectacle of Roman Catholics and 
 Orangemen marching together to the poll." 
 While, in the passages to which I have adverted, 
 the writer deducts the French and Irish elements 
 from the loyal portion of th.e population, he in 
 his " enumeration of the forces which make in 
 favour of the present connexion, leads off with 
 the "reactionary tendencies of the priesthood 
 which leads French Canada, and which fearsthat 
 any change might disturb its solitary reign." It 
 is true that the essayist makes a " forecast " that 
 "the ice will melt at last;" but I am much mis- 
 taken if the Roman Catholic clergy will not smile 
 with derision at the idea that one of the agencies 
 is to be " the leaven of American sentiment 
 brought back by French Canadians who have 
 sojourned as artisans in the States," the other 
 being "the ecclesiastical aggressiveness of the 
 Jesuits." I shall not discuss the alleged " struggle 
 .for ascendancy between the Jesuits and the Gal- 
 ileans," but shtiU merely observe that if any .such 
 struggle is going on, the contending parties con- 
 trive not to trouble their neighbours of other 
 
96 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 denominations with their controversies. The 
 point of interest is, whether the French Canadians 
 and the Irish are satisfied with their present 
 government, and the essayist, although classing 
 them as disloyal, is compelled to admit that at 
 present they are adverse to change, and he can 
 only rest his hopes on his own " forecast of the 
 future." I have said that there was an error as 
 to fact in this portion of the essay. It is not 
 true that the Irish Catholic vote has of late been 
 with the Conservatives. On the contrary, it is 
 notorious that many elections in Ontario were 
 carried for the Reformers by the Catholic vote. 
 I am not aware how many Irish Catholics are in 
 the House of Commons at present, but most as- 
 suredly Mr. Speaker Anglin and Mr. Devlin, 
 M.P. for Montreal Centre, are representative 
 Irish Catholics, and both are decided Liberals. 
 Mr.Devlincontested Montreal Centre with an Irish 
 Eoman Catholic who ran intheConsei-vative inter- 
 est, and he succeeded in obtaining a majority in a 
 constituency in which, beyond aU others, Irish 
 Catholic influence prevails. And I may here 
 observe that^with reference to the remark " that 
 the political sentiments of the Irish are identi- 
 cal with those of the Irish in the mother coun- 
 try," that it evinces a very superficial knowledge 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 97 
 
 of the state of Irish feeling. I have shown how 
 widely the Irish Catholics of Montreal differ as 
 to Canadian politics ; but it is nevertheless a fact 
 that those same parties can unite in expressing 
 opinions favourable to Home rule. The truth is 
 that they are so attached to Home rule in Canada, 
 that they would like, if possible, to see it extended 
 to Ireland. Their sympathy with their fellow- 
 countrymen in Ireland is manifested by pecuniary 
 coutributions ; but with regard to Canadian poli- 
 tics they vote, not as a religious body, but ac- 
 cording to the bias of their feelings and the 
 various influences brought to bear on them. A 
 sagacious statesman will at once perceive, what 
 has completely escaped the observation of the 
 essayist, that there is no inconsistency whatever 
 in the Irish Catholics in Canada being dissatis- 
 fied with the existing relations between Great 
 Britain and Ireland, and yet being perfectly 
 satisfied with those between the UnitedJKing- 
 dom and Canada. The French Canadian Roman 
 Catholics are likewise very far from unanimous 
 in their political sentiments. There are two dis- 
 tinct parties, Conservative and Liberal,^"and 
 although the former is in the majority in the 
 Province of Quebec, there is a minority, respec- 
 table both in numbers and talent ; while in the 
 G 
 
98 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Dominion Liberal government there are three 
 Cabinet Ministers, all Roman Catholics. 
 
 I shall now proceed to the third division of 
 my criticism, viz : '" erroneous reasoning." I en- 
 tirely dissent from the position laid down at the 
 opening of the essay, that it is wise or profitable 
 for a statesman to regulate his policy by any 
 "forecast of the future." Let me not be misun- 
 derstood. A wise statesman ought to endeavour 
 to make the political institutions of his country 
 as perfect as possible. If our statesmen in 1830 
 believed, as no doubt they did, that there was 
 danger of revolution unless the representative 
 system was reformed, it was their duty to apply 
 a remedy. The same remark would apply to those 
 statesmen who proposed and carried Catholic 
 emancipation. But that is just what the essayist 
 objects to, when he remarks that " party politi- 
 cians cannot afford to see beyond the hour." He 
 requires a " forecast of the future," which is pre- 
 cisely whatneither he norany other manis capable 
 of making. It is said by the essayist that " to tax 
 forecast with revolutionary designs or tendencies 
 is absurd." To this I demur. Nothing is easier 
 than for one who desires revolution, " to cast a 
 political horoscope." to make a " forecast," and 
 then, on the pretence of providing for what is 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CATSTADA. 99 
 
 certain to occur, to strain every effort to bring 
 about the desired result. I am opposed to revo- 
 lution, and if I could forecast anything in the 
 future likely to bring it about, I would spare no 
 ■effort to prevent it. The truth is that with the 
 essayist " the wish is father to the thought." He 
 evidently prefers the Republican system of Gov- 
 ernment to the Monarchical, at which he sneers 
 incessantly throughout his essay. He seems, how- 
 •ever, to give it a preference as being less demo- 
 cratic. He pronounces Canada " a democracy of 
 the most pronounced kind ; " considers the Gov- 
 ernor-General " not wrong in saying that she is 
 more democratic than the United States, where 
 the President is an Elective King, and where the 
 Senate, which though elective is Conservative, 
 possesses great power, whereas the nominated 
 Senate of Canada is a cypher." I may remark 
 en passant that this same cypher threw out a 
 ministerial bill of considerable importance 
 passed by the Commons with reference to 
 British Columbia, and that the Prime Minister 
 made a distinct proposition to have that body 
 increased in order to bring it more into harmony 
 with the Commons. To return from this digres- 
 sion : " Demagogism and the other pests of demo- 
 cratic institutions are not to be conjured away by 
 
100 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 forms and phrases." " The Governor-General 
 has formally avowed himself a faineant" which 
 simply means that he has acted as the represen- 
 tative of a Constitutional Sovereign, instead of,, 
 as the essayist would have wished him to do, 
 like " an Elective King." People are generally 
 wise after an event. I have no doubt that many 
 of the present Government party who were dis- 
 satisfied with Lord Dufferin's course during the 
 political crisis of 1873, are now satisfied that it 
 was the wisest he could have adopted. Had he 
 refused to follow the advice of his Ministers, as 
 to the prorogation of Parliament, and thus forced 
 them to resign, he would no doubt have been 
 more popular with their opponents, but he would 
 not have enjoyed that universal respect which 
 is felt towards him at present. Differing en- 
 tirely as I do from the essayist as to the 
 merits of the English system of Parliamen- 
 tary Government and the Eepublican system 
 of the United States, I cannot look with in- 
 difference on the attempt which he has made 
 to influence English public opinion to force 
 (janada into the American Union on the plea 
 that it is her manifest destiny. One who admits 
 that self-government is independence, and that 
 such self-government Canada enjoys, can have 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 101 
 
 no other object, in advocating, first Canadian 
 nationality or independence, and, on the utter 
 rejection of his proposals, then annexation to the 
 United States, than to substitute for the British 
 system of party government, the Republican 
 Elective King, with Ministers not holding seats 
 in the Legislature, and responsible only to their 
 chief. Nothing is more easy than to point out 
 the evils in party government, but it is wholly 
 irreconcileable with fact to maintain that cor- 
 ruption is more prevalent under the Monarchical 
 than under the Republican system. It is now 
 some sixty years since a venerable living states- 
 man. Earl Russell, treated the subject of party 
 government with great ability. Among its bad 
 effects he admitted the want of candour which it 
 necessarily produces, party politicians, in the 
 heat of controversy, being prone to attribute 
 to their opponents intentions and motives of 
 which they are as incapable as themselves. 
 Moreover, there is a tendency in politicians, even 
 when convinced of an error, to adhere to wroDg 
 views rather than afford a triumph to their op- 
 ponents. With regard to the corruption, Earl 
 Russell maintains strongly that party connection 
 is a great safeguard against it. I hope to be 
 excused giving a short extract from the French 
 
102 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 edition of Lord Kussell's work, which is the only- 
 one within my reach : — " En reconnaissant les- 
 mauvais eifets des partis, je n'ai rien dit des ani- 
 mosit^s et des querelles violentes qu'Us suscitent. 
 D'hypocrites philosophes, des femmes sentimen- 
 tales, des hommes eS6xam6s, ne cessent de se 
 livrer ^ des lamentations sur les divisions poli- 
 tiques et les Elections contest^es. Les hommes 
 d'un esprit ^levd savent qu'elles sont les signes de 
 la liberty et de la prosperity de la nation. C'est 
 dans la chaleur et sous le marteau de I'enclume 
 que la liberty acquiert ses formes, sa trempe, et 
 sa vigueur."* I believe that I express the views 
 of Canadians of all parties in affirming the great 
 superiority of the British system of Parliamen- 
 tary Government over the Republican system 
 which the Canadians have ample opportunity of 
 contrasting with their own. I have never been 
 able to satisfy myself that we can enjoy that 
 system of government except as a dependency of 
 
 * The following is the passage in the original English edition : 
 " In reckoning up the bad effects of party, I have not spoken of 
 the animosities and violent contentions it produces. Mock 
 philosophers, sentimental women, and effeminate men are 
 always making lamentations over political divisions and con- 
 tested elections. Men of noble minds know that they are the 
 workshop of national liberty and national prosperity. It is from 
 the heat and hammering of the smithy that freedom receiver its 
 shape, its temper, and its sti ength. v 
 
THE POLITICAL DE6TfNY OF CANADA. 103 
 
 the crown of England, and I therefore unhesitat- 
 ingly avow that I am in favour of perpetual con- 
 nection, although I am ready to admit that cir- 
 cumstances may lead to a revolution in any State 
 or Kingdom or Enipire. 
 
 The essayist, in order to establish the correct- 
 ness of his forecast of the future insists that 
 what he calls "the great forces" must prevail 
 over " the secondary forces " which he admits may 
 suspend the action of the great forces. In my 
 judgment he has wholly omitted from his calcula- 
 tions the greatest force of all, viz., the reluctance 
 of the people of any country to engage in revolu- 
 tionary proceedings, which reluctance can only be 
 overcome when some intolerable grievance exists, 
 for which no other remedy but revolution can be 
 found. I am unaware of any case in which a po- 
 litical revolution involving a change of allegiance 
 has taken place without civil war, and I am firm- 
 ly persuaded that such a revolution would not 
 take place in Canada without the occurrence of 
 that fearful calamity. I am well aware that 
 when the subject is discussed by English politi- 
 cians, they invariably assume that any contro- 
 versy which may arise in the future will be be- 
 tween England and Canada, the Canadian people 
 being supposed to be a unit. This is a most seri- 
 
104 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 ous mistake. Judging from the state of public 
 opinion in Canada, and I am unaware of any other 
 mode of forming a judgment on the point, there 
 is no probability whatever that Canadians will 
 be united in favour of any revolutionary change. 
 They are united at present in favour of the con- 
 nexion with Great Britain, and so long as the ad- 
 vocates of revolution content themselves with 
 writing essays in the Fortnightly, and avoid ob- 
 truding their opinions in Parliament or at the 
 hustings, the loyalists will probably treat them 
 with silent contempt. Should, however, any 
 serious revolutionairy movement be attempted, 
 what are termed " the secondary forces " would 
 most assuredly display the same vigour that they 
 have done on previous occasions. 
 
 I must, however, ask attention to what the 
 essayist terms the great forces which must in his 
 opinion prevail. They are, 1st, distance ; 2nd, di- 
 vergence of interest ; 3rd, divergence of political 
 character; 4th, the attractive force of the great 
 American community which inhabits the adjoin- 
 ing territory. Now, after a calm consideration 
 of all that the essayist has said to prove that 
 these are " great forces," I must confess that I 
 have failed to find more than a single obstacle to 
 the permanency of the connexion. On the question 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 105 
 
 of distance the essayist argues that " political in- 
 stitutions must after all bear some relation to Na- 
 ture and to practical convenience. Few have 
 fought against geography and prevailed." Again, 
 he says that the distance " can hardly be much 
 shortened for the purposes of representative 
 government." I confess that unless the foregoing 
 language has some reference to the Pan- Britannic 
 system, I fail to comprehend it. In the first ten 
 years of Confederation the distance has not been 
 found in the slightest degree inconvenient, and 
 I can conceive no reason why it should be in the 
 future. 2nd. Divergence of interest. It is con- 
 tended that Englishmen control the foreign policy 
 of the Empire, and having no interest in those 
 questions in which Canada is chiefly interested, 
 "betray by the languor of their diplomacy, and 
 the ease with which they yield, their comparative 
 indifference." No doubt there have been three 
 or four occasions on which Canada has been dis- 
 satisfied with British diplomacy. I am not aware 
 of any treaty made by England since the Treaty 
 of Utrecht, in the reign of Queen Anne, that has 
 not been vigorously attacked by the Opposition 
 •of the day. When the representatives of contend- 
 ing powers come to treat, they each find it abso- 
 lutely necessary to make concessions, and such 
 
106 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 concessions always cause dissatisfaction. It may, 
 however, be assumed that, as a rule, the British 
 Government has endeavoured to select diploma- 
 tists of experience and ability to conduct their 
 negotiations, and that their representatives are 
 better informed as to what it is expedient to press 
 than those who criticize their acts. It is, however, 
 unfortunate for the argument of the essayist that 
 although our boundary questions have been al- 
 ways settled unsatisfactorily according to our 
 judgment, no feeling of disloyalty^ to England, has 
 been manifested in consequence. I think there- 
 fore that, notwithstanding the fact that there may 
 be some divergence o'f interest, if it has led to no 
 feeling of disloyalty in the past, it is still less 
 likely to do so in the future. It is alleged by the 
 essayist, not only that the interests of the Cana- 
 dians are neglected owing to the apathy evinced 
 by English statesmen in questions of controversy 
 between Canada and the United States, but like- 
 wise that Canadians run the risk of being involv- 
 ed in war without having any voice in the pre- 
 ceding deliberations. It is now upwards of twen- 
 ty years since I published a pamphlet in London, 
 in reply to a very similar complaint. I shall ven- 
 ture to make a quotation from it : 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 107 
 
 " The next complaint is that the interest of the colonies 
 may be seriously affected by the decision of the mother- 
 conntry to engage in war, and yet they are not consulted 
 on the subject. It may be admitted as a possible contin- 
 gency that the mother-country might engage in war on 
 grounds which would be deemed insufficient in the colo- 
 nies, and that if the property of the latter were exposed 
 to loss or injury in consequence, disaflfeotion might ensue. 
 I am, however, of opinion that nothing can be more un- 
 profitable than speculating on contingencies which may 
 never arise. It is a far more probable contingency that 
 the mother-country might be compelled to engage in war 
 to protect one of her colonies, as she has been lately to 
 protect an ally from a powerful oppressor. The colonies 
 cannot be consulted about the question of war, because 
 they contribute nothing to the expense of it, and would,, 
 in my opinion, be very sorry to purchase the privilege of 
 being consulted at the price of bearing a just share of the 
 burden. It is worthy of remark here, that the last war- 
 with the United States arose from a dispute on a question 
 in which the North American Provinces had little or no. 
 interest. It was clear that the Canadians would be the- 
 principal sufferers, and it was imagined that they would 
 be too glad to purchase tranquillity at the price of their 
 allegiance. But the result proved that the British and 
 French Canadians rallied with equal promptitude round 
 the national standard, and the militia of the provinces, 
 with very little assistance from the regular army, was. 
 strong enough to expel the invaders. With such a pre- 
 cedent I have no apprehension that the relations now sub- 
 sisting between the mother-country and the colonies (vould 
 be disturbed by the engagement of the former in a just 
 
108 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 war, and T do not believe in the probability of its engage- 
 ment in an unjust one.'' 
 
 The 3rd great force, said to be " more momen- 
 tous still," is the " divergence of political charac- 
 ter." Under this the essayist descants on aristoc- 
 racy, the Anglican Church, custom of primogeni- 
 tui-e, militarism, &c., &c. The simple answer is, that 
 England makes no attempt whatever to introduce 
 into Canada any of her peculiar institutions or 
 ■customs, and there has never been the slightest 
 difficulty between the two governments growing 
 out of divergence of political character. The 
 fourth great force is " sure in the end " to be attrac- 
 tive, but not a shadow of an argument is adduced 
 to support the assertion except a vague reference 
 to " commercial influences," already discussed 
 under the second head of " divergence of interest." 
 This is the single difficulty, for it must be admit- 
 ted that, if it were practicable, the abolition of 
 the frontier custom-houses would be beneficial to 
 both countries. The question is not one that 
 could be conveniently discussed on such an occa- 
 sion as this, but hitherto the effect of discuss- 
 ing measures of commercial policy with the 
 'United States has not been either to induce 
 ■Canadians to admire the institutions of their 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 109 
 
 neighbours, or to be attracted towards them in 
 any way. 
 
 While the " great forces " are so little likely to 
 lead the Canadian people to engage in revolution- 
 ary projects, the essayist has enumerated a num- 
 ber of secondary forces, all sufficiently powerful 
 at present to account for the loyalty of the peo- 
 ple, but, in his opinion, " of a transient charac- 
 ter." These are as follows — 1st. The French 
 Canadians are led by their priests, who are at 
 present satisfied, but then in the future the ice 
 will melt under the influence of the Jesuits and 
 " the leaven of American sentiment brought back 
 by artizans." 2nd. United Empire Loyalists are in 
 the position of the Jacobites after the extinction 
 of the House of Stuart, but all their loyalty has 
 evaporated since the English Ambassador saluted 
 the American flag " in the celebration of the Cen- 
 tenary." 3rd. English emigrants are rapidly de- 
 creasing, and " as they die off natives take their 
 places, so that Canada will soon be in Canadian 
 hands." 4th. The social influence of the British 
 officers has ceased with the military occupation. 
 I learn for the first time, to my great surprise, 
 though I was not without opportunity of forming 
 a correct judgment, that these officers " exercised 
 a somewhat tyrannical influence over opinion." 
 
nOi THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 3th. The Anglican Church still fosters loyalty, 
 hut its roots " do not appear to he strong;" it is 
 rent by the conflict between the Protestants and 
 ■the Ritualists, and " discord has already taken 
 the form of disruption." Now I should admit 
 the appositeness of this argument, if it could be 
 shown that either the Protestants, as they are 
 called, or the Ritualists, or the members of the 
 Reformed Church, were disloyal ; but inasmuch 
 as they are all equally loyal to the crown, I can 
 conceive no reason for referring in this connexion 
 to the differences as to rituahsm. The connexion 
 of Canadian Methodism with the States is said to 
 be " very close," but it has never to my knowledge 
 had the effect of making the members of that' in- 
 fluential body disloyal to the crown. 6th. It is 
 admitted that Orangeism is " strong in British 
 Canada," but it is hoped that "one day" Orange- 
 ism must die. Of one thing the essayist may be 
 •assured, and that is^ that should any attempt be 
 made to promote a revolution the Orangemen 
 will be ready to fight to the last in support of the 
 connexion with the Crown of Great Britain. 7th. 
 The social influence of English aristocracy, and 
 of the little court of Ottawa. I presume this 
 has reference to the Representative of the Crown, 
 for the English aristocracy most assuredly do not - 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. Ill 
 
 seek to exert influence in Canada. 8th. Antipa- 
 thy to the Americans. 9th. The special attach- 
 ment felt by the politicians to the present system. 
 Some of these secondary forces are wholly un- 
 worthy of notice, while others are infinitely more 
 powerful than the greater forces, and others agaia 
 are wholly omitted. Surely, in a country where 
 the Sco|;ch exercise so large an influence, where 
 the First Minister is of that nation, as well as 
 many members of both Houses of Parliament, 
 their force is worthy of notice. I have no doubt 
 that it would be, as it has ever been, with the 
 loyalists. It does not appear, indeed, that there 
 is any discontented class, for I have already 
 shown that the French Canadians and the Irish 
 Catholics are perfectly satisfied with the institu- 
 tions under which they live. The policy of a 
 true Canadian statesman is to endeavour, in the 
 improbable event of any cause of difiiculty arising 
 between the Imperial and Canadian Governments, 
 by every means in his power to remove it. 
 
 The essayist displays most bitter hostility to 
 Confederation, and, as usual with him, the respon- 
 sibility for that measure is thrown on England. 
 He argues that, while a " spontaneous confede- 
 ration" develops mainly the principles of union, 
 " a confederation brought about by external in- 
 
112 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 fluence is apt to develop the principles of antagon- 
 ism in at least an equal degree." He proceeds to 
 state that if an appeal be made to the success of 
 confederation in Switzerland, the answer is, that 
 Switzerland is not a dependency but a nation. 
 Now, as the writer has himself assured us that 
 "self-government is independence," and as the 
 Canadian Confederation has practically the same 
 power as the Swiss, I am unable to discover how 
 the control of its external relations tends to pro- 
 duce success. Those relations lead to complica- 
 tions and difficulties, but cannot in any way en- 
 sure the success of the domestic government. But 
 surely the essayist must be well aware that no con- 
 federation could be more spontaneous than the Ca- 
 nadian one. It was most assuredly not brought 
 about by external influence, unless in so far as 
 Nova Scotia was concerned. It appears, however, 
 that " the proper province of a Federal govern- 
 ment is the management of external relations," 
 and as '" a dependency has no external relations," 
 it is implied that " the chief duty of a Federal 
 government in Canada is to keep itself in exist- 
 ence by the ordinary agencies of party, a duty 
 which it discharges with a vetigeance." There is 
 a simple answer to all this. The powers of the 
 Dominion Parliament and of the Local Legisla- 
 
THE POLITICAL DSSTINY OF CANADA. 113 
 
 tures are clearly defined in the Imperial Statute, 
 and during the ten years that it has been in force, 
 no serious difficulty has arisen. The essayist in- 
 forms us that, " had the movement in favour of 
 nationality succeeded, the first step would have 
 been a legislative union." He admits that there 
 would have been opposition to such a step 
 on the part of Quebec, but this is no difficulty 
 with an advanced liberal, for " Quebec, if she had 
 been handled with determination, would most 
 likely have given way." It is consolatory to find 
 that, although our political horoscope has been 
 cast, it is admitted that " to specify the time at 
 which a political event will take place is hardly 
 ever possible," and it is further admitted that 
 there is " a real complication of secondary forces," 
 in other words, the secondary forces are all at 
 present loyal to the core : but then there may be 
 a continuance of commercial depression in Canada 
 accompanied by prosperity in the United States ; 
 then there may be financial difficulties in Canada 
 owing to the Pacific railway, in short something 
 may occur. " A critical moment may arrive, and 
 the politicians, recognising the voice of Destiny, 
 may pass in a moment to the side of continental 
 union." I will close these remarks by repeating 
 what I have already stated, that I do not believe 
 H 
 
114 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 in the probability of a complete change of allegi- 
 ance being brought about in any other way than 
 as the result of a civil war, a calamity so fearful 
 that it will not be hazarded unless some serious 
 misunderstanding should arise between the two 
 governments, and I cannot conceive that any such 
 " contingency is at all probable. 
 
EEMAEKS 
 
 CRITICISMS OF SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. 
 
 The position, experience and ability of Sir Francis 
 Hincks aflford a sufficient assurance that the case 
 on his side will have been fully and well set forth. 
 I think I may venture to add, that he has shown 
 no unwillingness to expose any error or false rea- 
 soning of mine. The critical tendency has been 
 displayed with still less reserve in other articles 
 ascribed to his pen ; and he seems even inclined 
 to applaud and by applauding to adopt, abuse 
 which I should have thought a lover of honour- 
 able controversy would disdain. He not seldom 
 appeals to prejudice against me as a Liberal ; but 
 before taunts on that subject can come with pro- 
 priety from his pen, the sponge must be passed 
 over a gi-eat part of his own career. If I have 
 yet seen no reason for deserting my principles, 
 that surely is no disgrace. 
 
 My critic begins by quoting largely from a ser- 
 
116 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 mon preached by a clergyman of the Anglican 
 Church before the St. George's Society of Mon- 
 treal, in which he appears to himself to find a 
 trustworthy index to the political sentiment of 
 the future. The preacher is personally entitled 
 to the highest respect ; but when I am told that 
 he is in no sense a party politician, I must answer 
 that the Church which he represents ' is itself a 
 political party. It has been throughout its 
 history as much of a political party as of a 
 church.. In the doubtful region where it has hov- 
 ered between Catholicism and Protestantism, be- 
 tween private judgment and priestly authority, 
 while it has not been very steadfast in its adherence 
 to any distinctive system of doctrinej it has been 
 very steadfast in its adherence to the cause of 
 political reaction. It has taken an active part 
 in all the great attempts to overthrow English 
 liberty. It has been the oracle of Divine Right 
 and passive obedience. In English elections, at 
 the present day it is of all the allies of Toryism 
 the staunchest as well as the most powerful. 
 The organic principles, the tendencies, the hopes, 
 of society on this continent are utterly alien to 
 it. A land without a connection between church 
 and state, "without a privileged religion, without 
 bishops in the House of Lords, without a Defend- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 117 
 
 er of the Faith, without a congenial aristocracy 
 to support clerical influence, must seem to it, 
 spiritually and politically, out of the way of 
 grace. It longs to bring back the New World 
 under salutary bondage to the Old World, as the 
 most energetic and probably the most numerous 
 section of its clergy longs and strives to bring 
 back society altogether to the salutary supersti- 
 tions of the Middle Ages. I gave it what seemed 
 its proper place among the secondary forces which 
 work for the continuance of the present connec- 
 tion, observing at the same time that it seemed 
 likely to be broken up by internal differences 
 of opinion on fundamental questions, which are 
 every day becoming more pronounced and more 
 violent in their manifestations. Sir Francis 
 Hincks says that disruption would not signify, 
 because all the fragments would be -loyal. It 
 may perhaps be doubted whether the Protestant 
 or Eationalist is exactly on a level with the Rit- 
 ualist in the mental tendencies which Sir Francis 
 Hincks would call loyal. But I spoke of the in- 
 fluence of Anglicanism as an organized body ; and 
 the influence of an organized body would surely 
 be impaired by its dissolution. 
 
 In private, perhaps, one who may justly claim 
 a place among " sagacious politicians," would be 
 
118 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 ready to admit that as a key to the future state 
 of sentiment and the probable course of future 
 events in a community of the New World, a ser- 
 mon preached by an Anglican clergyman before 
 a congregation of English immigrants was little 
 more significant than a saying of King George III. 
 
 Sir Francis Hincks undertakes to convict me (1) 
 of errors of fact, (2) of inconsistencies, (3) of er- 
 roneous reasoning. 
 
 The errors of fact, ushered in as though they 
 were many and grave, turn out to be in number 
 two, both relating to secondary points and to 
 matters less of positive fact than of impression. 
 In the first of the two cases, however, Sir 
 Francis Hincks has misconstrued me. I did not 
 cite the Intercolonial and Pacific Railways as in- 
 stances of the interference, much less of the un- 
 warrantable interference, of the Colonial office . 
 with our public works. I cited them as instances 
 of the influence of the Imperial connection in 
 prompting us to undertakings from which, if we 
 were guided only by our own interests and our 
 own councils, wisdom might teach us to abstain. 
 The Imperial character of the two works will 
 scarcely be disputed when each has received an 
 Imperial guarantee. It will scarcely be disputed 
 either that both of them are rathei' political and 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 119 
 
 military than commercial. As a merely commer- 
 cial enterprise the Intercolonial would not do 
 much credit to the sagacity of the projectors, 
 since in addition to the sum spent in its construc- 
 tion it is run and seems likely to be run at an 
 annual loss.~ Of the Pacific, as everybody seems 
 to admit, the main object is to link together pro- 
 vinces at opposite sides of the Continent, because 
 they fall within a line traced by the hand of em- 
 pire, not by the hand of nature nor by any hand 
 which had nature for its guide. " My Mte noire " 
 the Pacific Railnray is. not, and in calling it so, 
 Sir Francis Hincks shows a tendency which is 
 displayed throughout his paper, to exaggerate the 
 position of his opponent for the purpose of giving 
 effect to his reply ; but it seems to be something 
 like the Mte noire of a good many Canadian poli- 
 ticians, for Sir Francis himself tells us that it has 
 been " a subject of unceasing reproach by each 
 political party against its antagonists ;" so that 
 either half the public men of Canada are very 
 factious, or I have said nothing very absurd. 
 
 The second error of fact with which I am 
 charged is in tracing the policy of annexing Mani- 
 toba and British Columbia to the Colonial Secre- 
 taryship of Sir Bulwer Lytton. My expression 
 was, perhaps, not so precise as it ought to have 
 
120 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 been ; but I meant to refer to the origin, not to the 
 legislative consummation of the scheme. That 
 the legislative consummation came later, no- 
 body "who has witnessed the controversies of the 
 last six years about the treaty with British Co- 
 lumbia and the Pacific Railway questions could 
 possibly fail to be aware. If Sir Bulwer Lytton 
 was not the father of the scheme he got the credit 
 of being so, and it was one likely to spring from 
 his lively and ambitious fancy. But Sir Francis 
 Hincks knows best. I can well afford to dispense 
 with the illustration, for an illustration it was 
 and nothing more. Examples are not wanting of 
 British statesmen made Colonial Secretaries on 
 grounds of party convenience rather than of per- 
 sonal aptitude, and called upon without know- 
 ledge or with only the knowledge picked up from 
 Under-Secretaries or Colonial frequeuters of the 
 Office to decide upon measures vital to the wel- 
 fare of young nations. With the Pacific Railway 
 I have in no way connected Sir Bulwer Lytton's 
 name. 
 
 2. The inconsistencies with which T am charged 
 so far as I can see (and I must own the medium is 
 not very pellucid) are three. The first is in some 
 of my statements respecting the government of 
 dependencies. But I must confess that after 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 121 
 
 carefully perusing and reperusinga long paragraph 
 I fail to perceive the point of the indictment. I 
 have said that political tutelage while it was 
 really exercised was an evil. I have said that to 
 exercise it now would be absurd, seeing that of the 
 holders of political power in the imperial country 
 the great mass, all indeed with very few excep- 
 tions, are too much occupied with their own con- 
 cerns and too ill instructed about the colonies to 
 form any opinion upon colonial questions. I have 
 said that through successive concessions to the 
 principle of self-government political tutela,ge has 
 been tending to extinction. That these are three 
 distinct statements is clear ; it is clear also that 
 each of them is unpalatable to Sir Francis Hincks ; 
 but how they contradict each other I entirely fail 
 to apprehend. 
 
 That the same language is not applicable to the 
 colonial system in the different stages of its exis- 
 tence, is a fact of which I could hardly be ignor- 
 ant, since I took part in the discussion which led 
 to the last great change. 
 
 The same language is not applicable to the col- 
 onial system in the different stages of its existence, 
 nor is the same language applicable to the differ- 
 ent portions of it now. Of political self-govern- 
 ment almost a full measure has been conceded, and 
 
122 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 unless the English Tories, emboldened by the ap- 
 pearance of reaction, should attempt to resume 
 any of the prerogatives granted away by their 
 Liberal predecessors, it is difficult to imagine the 
 occurrence of a serious disagreement on that 
 ground. But our commercial autonomy is doubt"- 
 ful ; by some it is denied ; and at any rate we 
 still bear the commercial burden of the connec- 
 tion in being partly excluded, as a dependency of 
 England, from the markets of other nations, above 
 all from those of the United States, whereby we 
 pay a heavy tribute, not in money, but in sacrifice 
 of prosperity, to the Imperial nation. And so 
 with regard to foreign relations generally, the posi- 
 tion of the dependency remains unchanged ; we 
 are as liable as ever to be drawn by the Mother 
 Country into war ; she is as liable as ever to be 
 drawn into w;<ar by us ; and we are in principle 
 as liable as ever to be called upon to contribute 
 to Imperial armaments, though our payments 
 would be levied and our contingents raised 
 through a Parliament of our own. 
 
 My second inconsistency is in saying that there 
 are no questions great enough to divide parties in 
 Canada, and that consequently party government 
 here is out of place ; whereas, says my critic, I 
 mention in the c6urse of my essay some questions 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 123 
 
 which an "experienced politician" would deem im- 
 portant enough to form dividing lines. I am in- 
 consistent in short, not with myself, but with Sir 
 Francis Hincks ; a new version of inconsistency. 
 The questions upon which Sir Francis Hincks fixes 
 are Protection and the Pacific Railway. Protec- 
 tion can hardly be called a political question at 
 all : here as in the United States the line of divi- 
 sion between Protectionists and Free Traders 
 crosses the line of division between political par- 
 ties ; in this country it crosses the party division 
 in the case of Sir Francis Hincks, who, it seems, 
 is a Conservative but a Free Trader. As to the 
 question of the Pacific Railway, the idea of divid- 
 ing our people into parties upon it, and making 
 it the test of fitness to govern the country, so far 
 from being mine, or available for the purposes of 
 an indictment against my consistency, seems to 
 me when propounded to be as untenable as any- 
 thing can be. 
 
 What I said was that " party government was 
 the bane of Canada." Sir Francis Hincks, in re- 
 ferring to my words, substitutes "Parliamentary" 
 for " party." Is this fair ? Is it fair to affect 
 surprise " that so advanced a Liberal as the essay- 
 ist should be an extreme Protectionist," when 
 the fact is that I have simply referred to the ex- 
 
124 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 istence of a protectionist movement without my- 
 self expressing any opinion on the subject. I am 
 as far as my critic is from being a Protectionist, 
 though I deem it frivolous to talk of upholding 
 the principle of Free Trade, while we submit, for 
 the sake of a political object (whether sufficient 
 or insufficient is anothei question), to exclusion 
 from the markets of the continent of which we are 
 and cannot help being economically a part. Free 
 Trade is the course of nature. The political connec- 
 tion which identifies Canada with a countrj'' in the 
 other hemisphere and cuts her off from her own 
 is as contrary to the course of nature as any 
 thing that the most extreme Protectionist could 
 devise . 
 
 It does not follow from my denying the ex- 
 cellence of party governmen t in a country wheie 
 there are no rational grounds for the existence 
 of parties, that I must wish to introduce an elective 
 Presidency and a Cabinet without seats in Parli- 
 ament. 1 have more than once ventured to 
 suggest that the elective presidency of the 
 United States is a questionable reproduction of 
 the monarchy of the Old World ; that the peri- 
 odical elections tend, among other evils, to bring 
 public questions to a dangerous head, as they did 
 in the fatal case of slavery ; and that an Executive 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 125 
 
 Council elected, with a proper system of rotation, 
 by the legislature would probably be the better 
 plan. The machinery of democratic government 
 was framed under misleading influences ; it is 
 still very imperfect, and there is room for hope 
 that some of the evils of democracy may be di- 
 minished by removing these mechanical defects. 
 But the English system can have no place in 
 Canada. A balance of power between Estates 
 is impossible where there is no Estate but the 
 Commons ; and Party, to which in England reason 
 enough for existence is supplied by the conflict, 
 still undecided, between aristocracy and demo- 
 cracy, is without a reason for its existence here. 
 Sir Francis Hincks admits as much when he sets 
 to work to provide the Canadian parties with a 
 new principle of division, and after boxing the 
 compass hesitates at last between Protection and 
 the Pacific Railway. Party, without great ques- 
 tions, is faction ; and faction, if it is not checked, 
 will before long bring calamities on the country. 
 Sir Francis Hincks knows the meaning of the 
 scene before him, though he speaks of it with 
 faltering lips. He calls my remarks indiscrimin- 
 ate because they apply equally to both parties ; as 
 though one' party could have a dividing line when 
 the other had none. The character of all factions. 
 
126 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 in the same country, is pretty sure to be the same. 
 Lord Russell's defence of party, to M'hich Sir 
 Francis Hincks appeals, applied to a country in 
 which the parties have a meaning. And why 
 does Sir Francis Hincks pride himself upon being 
 unconnected with either party, after having tried 
 both, if party in this country is a good thing ? 
 
 The third charge of inconsistency has reference 
 to the account I have given of the different 
 sentiments prevailing in the different sections, 
 national and religious, of our people. And here 
 again I have to confess that the subtlety of the 
 accusation eludes the grasp of my simple under- 
 standing. Where is the inconsistency of saying 
 that the priesthood of Quebec is opposed to union 
 with the S tates from motives of sacerdotal conserva- 
 tism,and at the same time that the French popula- 
 tion of the Province "is not devoted to England and 
 English interests " ? This, I beg leave to observe, 
 was my expression, though Sir Francis Hincks 
 finds it convenient for his argument and for the 
 impression which he wishes to create to insert 
 the term " disloyal." It is interesting to find that 
 in the remote seclusion of Montreal, Sir Francis 
 Hincks has heard nothing of any struggle for 
 ascendancy between the Jesuits and their Galilean 
 opponents. " If," he says, " any such struggle is 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 127 
 
 going on, the contending parties contrive not tO' 
 trouble their neighbours of other denominations 
 with their controversies." From his paper we 
 should almost gather that he was unaware of any 
 disturbance of the harmony which reigns around 
 him by quarrels between Roman Catholics and 
 Orangemen^ though thefact has since been brought 
 under his notice. Of the Irish sentiment, his ex- 
 planation is one which he justly observes, has 
 escaped the observation of a poor essayist, and 
 could be discerned only by " a sagacious states- 
 man." " The truth is," he says, " that the Irish 
 are so attached to Home Rule in Canada that they 
 would like, if possible, to see it extended to Ire- 
 land." This their loyal and affectionate aspiration 
 finds singular expression in the columns of their 
 favourite journals. That the Irish Catholics are 
 not exclusively and inflexibly attached to either 
 of the Canadian parties, is a fact of which we 
 have abundant proof in the political flirtations 
 which are going on around us ; but it tells us 
 nothing as to their feelings with regard to British 
 connection. A Corservative politician would not 
 reject a vote, or refrain from trying to secure it, 
 because the voter was a Fenian, any more than a 
 Presbyterian politician rejects a vote or refrains 
 from soliciting it because the voter is a Papist. I 
 
128 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 trust I shall not go beyond the mark in saying 
 that the picture of Canadian sentiment drawn 
 by Sir Francis Hincks is soniewhat official, and 
 that an English statesman who should accept it 
 without misgiving, as an English statesman is 
 ■warranted in accepting anything from Sir Francis 
 Hincks, would not be entirely in possession of the 
 actual facts. 
 
 3. Erroneous Reasoning. Under this head 
 we expect to find instances of a want of proper 
 connection between premises and conclusion. 
 But in the vocabulary of Sir Francis Hincks er- 
 roneous reasoning seems to mean the expression 
 of opinions in which he does not concur. I have 
 submitted, as a justification for the subject of my 
 «ssa}', that statesmen engaged in building up the 
 institutions and forming the character of a young 
 nation will be aided, not embarrassed, by a true 
 forecast of its political destiny. From this pro- 
 position. Sir Francis Hincks " entirely dissents," ; 
 though not without showing himself conscious 
 that an explanation of his dissent may be re- 
 quired. But his dissent is no proof of any want 
 of connection between my premises and the not 
 very paradoxical conclusion at which I arrived. 
 A want of logical connection there might have 
 been if instead of statesman I had said politician. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINF OF CANADA. 129 
 
 rEven a politician, however, must be rather an ex- 
 treme specimen of the class, if he can go on drain- 
 ing the resources of a not very wealthy country to 
 construct a separate system of political and mili- 
 tary railroads, without caring to inquire what the 
 political and military relations of the country in 
 -the future are to be. He must be rather an ex- 
 treme specimen of his class if he can go on legis- 
 lating for Canadian industry and commerce, 
 without caring to inquire in what channels they 
 are destined to run. The reflection extends in a 
 ■certain measure to all military expenditure, to 
 money given out of Canadian resources in aid of 
 emigration to the far West, and to the annual 
 •outlay of a large sum on public works in British . 
 Columbia. 
 
 To a string of miscellaneous contradictions, un- 
 supported by argument, I hardly know what 
 answer to make. I can only say that I have given, 
 to the best of my ability, my reasons for my opi- 
 nions, and that when new arguments are brought 
 before me, my opinions shall be reconsidered. To 
 one or two of the questions here cursorily mooted 
 by Sir Francis Hincks, I may advert before I have 
 done. 
 
 We find ourselves approaching the end of Sir 
 Francis Hincks' paper before we come to the real 
 I 
 
130 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 point. My essay is an attempt to forecast the' 
 political destiny of Canada by a method the 
 soundness of which experience has proved. I 
 endeavour to distinguish the great and permanent 
 forces from those which are secondary in strength 
 or transient, assuming that, however numerous,, 
 and however complex the secondary forces may 
 be, the great forces will in the end prevail. I 
 have enumerated four forces which seem to me to 
 be great, all of them tending to the ultimate sever- 
 ance of the political connection (it is of the political 
 connection alone thatlspeak), between Canada and 
 the Old World. The four are distance, divergence 
 of interest, divergence of political character, and 
 the attraction of the great mass of English-speak- 
 ing people which adjoins us on this continent. 
 The first three are passed over by Sir Francis 
 Hincks, with a few curt and somewhat superci- 
 lious remarks, the upshot of which is that as these 
 forces have never caused disloyalty in the past, 
 they are not likely to cause it in the future. Some 
 of them, being neglected by unwise politicians, 
 did cause the American Revolution, and what may 
 almost be called a revolution in Canada. But who 
 talks of disloyalty? Not I, but Sir Francis Hincks. 
 I should as soon think of taxing the natural succes- 
 sion of the seasons with disloyalty, as the natural 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 131 
 
 course of political progress, tending towards an 
 end, which, so far as we can see, is good. If Sir 
 Francis Hincks chooses to hold the greater force 
 guilty of disloyalty for preponderating over the 
 lesser, he must be allowed to do so ; but for my 
 part I wish to adhere to the rules of common 
 sense and calmly to consider the probabilities of 
 the future, as they result from past experience and 
 present facts. Distance, divergence of political 
 character and divergence of interest, operating in 
 the past, have led in the case of the United States, 
 to a complete political separation from the Mother 
 Country ; in the case of Canada to that large 
 measure of political separation which is called self- 
 government, as well as to the practical rejection up 
 to this time of hereditary aristocracy, the aboli- 
 tion of the Church Establishment, and the adoption 
 of a tariflf, which takes us out of the commercial 
 unity of the Empire, though it may not imply that 
 we are in possession of complete commercial auto- 
 nomy. It may be that these forces in the case of 
 Canada are exhausted, and that so far as our poli- 
 tical relations with the Mother Country are con- 
 cerned, we have arrived at our final state. Let Sir 
 Francis Hincks prove this or show that it is pro- 
 bable and I am answered. But at present he is 
 
132 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 merely rending his garments and throwing dust 
 into the air. 
 
 T pointed to the feebleness of England's diplo- 
 macy on this Continent as proving the faintness 
 of her interest. Sir Francis Hincks replies that 
 all treaties made by governments, from the Treaty 
 of Utrecht downwards have been attacked by the 
 Opposition-. But the strongest objections to the 
 treaties by which Canadian interests were sacri- 
 ficed did not come from the English Opposition ; 
 they came from Canada. Does Sir Francis 
 Hincks mean to say that the objections to the 
 Oregon Treaty were mere party objections ? I 
 know the Oregon treaty did not make us "disloyal" 
 any more than it made us lame or bald, but it did 
 show that England felt her interests to be any- 
 thing but identical with those of Canada; and , 
 where interests are not identical political union 
 is apt not to be lasting. 
 
 War made by England for an object in which 
 Canada had no concern would place the divergence 
 of interest in a strong light. Of this Sir Francis 
 Hincks is aware ; but he thinks to conjure away 
 the difficulty by repeating from a pamphlet of his 
 own the formula that England will never make 
 an unjust war, and that in a just war Canada will 
 not object to suffer. The war against the French 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 133 
 
 Republic, the war with the United States in 1812, 
 the Crimean war are not regarded by all English- 
 men as just, and the Lorcha war with China was 
 voted unjust by the House of Commons. But 
 a word on this point hereafter. 
 
 The fourth force is the attraction of our own 
 Continent. In this, Sir Francis Hincks allows 
 that there is something deserving his considera- 
 tion, at least from the economical point of view. 
 " This," he says, " is the single difficulty, for it 
 must be admitted that if it were practicable, the 
 abolition of the Custom houses would be beneficial 
 to both countries." At last then he has come to 
 an important point, one on which he is eminently 
 qualified to give an opinion, and on which he would 
 be heard with the greatest interest, especially at a 
 moment when fiscal and commercial questions 
 are pressing with no ordinary force upon the 
 public mind. How does he deal with this 
 point ? He evades it altogether, and passes it by 
 without a word, on tlie pretence that " it could 
 not be conveniently discussed on such an occasion 
 as this ; " covering his retreat by an irrelevant 
 appeal to the prejudice against American charac- 
 ter and institutions ! We should admire the cour- 
 age of the stage manager, who when the expectant 
 audience were looking for the entrance of Hamlet, 
 
134 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 could come before the scene and tell them that 
 the part of Hamlet was omitted as it could not be 
 conveniently introduced on such an occasion as 
 the performance of the play. 
 
 But my critic tells me that I have omitted from 
 my list the greatest force of all, which, in his 
 opinion, is the reluctance of the people of any 
 country to engage in revolutionary proceedings. 
 " I am unaware," he says, " of any case in which 
 a political revolution involving a change of alleg- 
 iance has taken place without civil war, and I 
 am firmly persuaded that such a revolution would 
 not take place in Canada without the occurrence 
 of that frightful calamity." If in his idea of po- 
 litical revolution the writer mentally includes 
 civil war, as there seems reason to suspect, his 
 statement is indisputable but at the same time 
 unfruitful. He can hardly mean that a change of 
 allegiance has never taken place without civil 
 war. The history of Europe is full of 
 changes of allegiance without civil war by 
 cession, exchange, purchase, marriage of heir- 
 esses, division of inheritance. In our own 
 time Neufchatel, the Ionian Islands, Savoy, 
 Nice, Alaska, the Transvaal and Cyprus have 
 changed their allegiance without civil war. There 
 is apparently no law of nature any more than 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 135 
 
 ■there is =a principle of morality, which when two 
 ■civilized and intelligent communiti-es find that 
 political independence would be for their mutual 
 benefit, forbids them to separate without first mak- 
 ing war upon each other. Nor are we bound alto- 
 gether to overlook the teachings of experience. 
 Sir Francis Hincks has in his mind the American 
 Revolution. But England has plainly and repeat- 
 edly declared that she will not again be guilty 
 of the folly which when the American Colonies 
 were ripe for independence, compelled them to 
 .achieve it with revolutionary arms. Even at 
 the time of the quarrel with America, the most 
 clear-sighted Englishmen perceived, what all per- 
 ceive now, that the struggle to keep a full-grown 
 community in the leading strings of dependence, 
 was a struggle against nature. " The power," 
 said the Times, " which we desire to exercise is 
 entirely a moral one, and strong or weak, the de- 
 pendency which wishes to quit us has only solemn- 
 ly to make up its mind to this efiect." Such, it 
 may safely be said is the settled policy of Eng- 
 land, when England is in her normal mood. Even 
 in the midst of a Conservative reaction, it would 
 hardly be possible to drag the English people in- 
 to a war for the purpose of preventing a British 
 Colony from becoming a nation. If there is to be 
 
136 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP' e:ANADA.. 
 
 a civil war it must be one got up by Sir Francis 
 Hincks and those who consider that it is con- 
 trary to principle to allow a British Colony to 
 take out its freedom as a nation without blood- 
 shed. He seems to gloat over the idea that any 
 attempt to change the existing system, would be 
 resisted by the Orangemen with arms. I will 
 not say that it surprises me that a public man 
 once liberal should wish to see the political des- 
 tiuies of Canada and of this continent, violently 
 controlled by a power which is the oifspring and 
 perpetuation of an old Irish feud. But I have 
 already said that under the influence of a humane 
 and tolerant legislation, Oraugeism is declining 
 in Ireland ; and that the Canadian branch is not 
 likely to survive the tree out of which it grows. 
 If the account which Sir Francis,, since the pub- 
 lication of his paper, has given of Orangeism be 
 true, if Orangeism aims at forcing the Canadian 
 people to submit to the yoke of Protestant ascend- 
 ancy, it is not unlikely to come to its end in a 
 more sudden and violent way.. 
 
 To my enumeration of the secondary forces, Sir 
 Francis Hincks takes no serious exception ; but he 
 complains that I have left out the Scotch who, he 
 says, have great political influence in Canada,, 
 and " would be as they have ever been, with the 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 137 
 
 loyalists." I do not doubt that Scotchmen would,. 
 like all good citizens, be on the side of the law. 
 But looking to the part they have played in 
 Canadian history, we should hardly rank them, 
 with the United-Empire Loyalists. Certain it is 
 that in the political revolution by which the 
 Crown was practically stripped of its powers, 
 Scotchmen played a part which to strong royalists 
 and to the representatives of Royalty seemed 
 anything but loyal. That Scotch Presbyterians 
 as a class are less inclined to independence than 
 English Episcopalians, it would surely be a 
 historical paradox to assert. 
 
 Whichever may be the side of good sense, the 
 Scotch, unless they belie their history, will be 
 found ultimately on that side. 
 
 By reference to Sir Francis Hincks' paper, my 
 readers will be able to judge whether I have 
 given a fair account of his reply. They will see,, 
 at the same time, what points and arguments he 
 has passed over in silence, and thus measure the 
 strength of his resolution to deal fully and fairly 
 with the whole question. 
 
 The truth is, that if he attempted to deal fully 
 and fairly with the whole question, he would find 
 himself compelled to come over to my side. He 
 says he " is not presumptuous enough to declare 
 
138 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 that the subsisting connexion must be perpetual." 
 He is not presumptuous enough to declare that he 
 thinks it likely to be perpetual. He is not pre- 
 sumptuous enough to declare that it is not sure to 
 come to an end. 
 
 The real force of his reply lies, I fear, not in its 
 reasonings, but in the suggestion, which runs 
 through the whole of it, that those who differ 
 from him on these questions are disloyal, revolu- 
 tionists and conspirators. He is constantly ap- 
 pealing to the political cowardice created by a 
 terrorism of opinion. And with all who have 
 anything to hope or fear from politicians or their 
 organs, with all who, careless of the future, merely 
 wish to be on th6 side of what is at present do- 
 minant and orthodox, the appeal is sure to be 
 effective. 
 
 We see now how difficult it is to get at the 
 real sentiment of the people of this country, and 
 how fallacious after all, the official estimate of 
 it derived from its public manifestations, may 
 be. Who will speak his mind when, if he fails 
 to agree with Sir Francis Hincks he is to be 
 branded as a traitor and threatened with Orange 
 revolvers ? In a recent debate in the English 
 House of Commons, a member said he had been 
 in Canada six years before, and had then found a 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 139 
 
 good deal of what he misnamed disloyal feeling 
 in the background. In the background, if any- 
 where it was sure to be. I have myself reason 
 to believe that a man may be publicly assailed 
 with the utmost virulence for his opinions, by 
 writers who in private do not differ from him. 
 I know also that a public man may think it ne- 
 cessary, for political purposes, to fall in with the 
 prevailing sentiment, while in his own mind, he 
 regards Annexation as the inevitable end. The 
 English member of Parliament, if he kept his ear 
 and his mind open, was at least as likely to get at 
 the truth as Governors General holding their court 
 or making their state tours. His report is, to say 
 the least, not more incredible than reports which 
 include the French and Irish in their flattering pic- 
 tures of universal and enthusiastic devotion to the 
 interests of Great Britain. Is it rash to infer from 
 this sudden lavishness, after a period of parsimony, 
 in the distribution of titles, and from other measures 
 indicative of the same policy, that there may be a 
 misgiving on the part of the Tory Government 
 in England, as to the perfect agreement between 
 the official representations and the real state of 
 things 1 
 
 For my own part I have formed the general 
 impression that except when some special stimu- 
 
140 THE POLITICAL DESTIMY OF CANADA. 
 
 lant is applied,the feeling of attachment to the 
 present system, if not weak, is for the most part 
 not so strong but that a powerful pressure of 
 interest niight give opinion a new turn ; and 
 moreover, that there is a considerable difference 
 between the feelings of the immigrants and those 
 of the native Canadians, the immigrants being 
 often proud individually of their British birth, 
 which they feel gives them a sort of superiority 
 over the natives. I suspect that among the 
 more active-minded of the natives the fire of na- 
 tionality kindled by confederation still smoulders 
 in spite of all the efforts of loyal politicians to ex- 
 tinguish it, and that upon the appearance of a 
 leader (an event certainly not very probable) it 
 might again burst into a flame. 
 
 In another critique we were bravely chal- 
 lenged to try the question at the polls. That we 
 should try at the polls a speculative question re- 
 specting the future destiny of the country, seems 
 a somewhat grotesque proposal. It would be 
 something like asking a constituency to decide 
 by ballot the probable recurrence of a comet. 
 But in whose hands really are the polls ? In those 
 of the people or in those of the party organiza- 
 tions ? Would the managers allow a self -no- 
 minated candidate to go with an issue of his own 
 
. THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 141 
 
 choosing before the people, and freely to take 
 their votes upon it ? Sir Francis Hi'neks as an 
 experienced politician must know that such a 
 challenge is a mockery. 
 
 It seems time to ask ourselves in what loyalty 
 really consists 1 Is there any sound principle of 
 public morality which renders it criminal to con- 
 template, to propose, or to promote by legal 
 means the political severance of a colony from 
 its mother country, supposing separation to be 
 good for both. It seems time, I say, that we 
 should look this question in the face. It is folly, 
 in any case, to let a shadow bar the path, or to 
 allow bad citizens to clothe themselves with a 
 fictitious virtue, and taint good citizens with a 
 fictitious crime. The loudness with which loyalty 
 is professed by certain lips is enough to suggest 
 the necessity of investigating its claims to our 
 veneration. We know that the name is capable 
 of abuse. We know that it was abused . by the 
 political sharpers who the other day were oppres- 
 sing and plundering the Southern States. We 
 know that it has been abused by tyrants, who 
 have always called slaves loyal and branded 
 patriots with disloyalty. In its etymological sense 
 loyalty might be predicated of every law-abiding 
 citizen. But under the Feudal System it denoted 
 
142 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 the sentiment connected with personal allegiance. 
 V It was then no irrational emotion, but the ce- 
 ment, rational because necessary, of the peculiar 
 institutions of the time. It had nothing in it 
 servile, reactionary or savouring of later super- 
 stitions about Legitimacy and the Divine Right 
 of Kings. It was hardly even djoiastic. It did 
 not hinder the framers of the Great Charter or 
 the founders of the House of Commons from 
 adopting bold measures of innovation when inno- 
 vation seemed improvement. It did not hinder 
 them even from changing their allegiance when 
 they saw good reason for the change. But we 
 are not living in the Middle Ages. The feudal 
 doctrine of personal allegiance is not the basis of 
 modern institutions. Naturalization laws and 
 treaties have distinctly set it aside. It can no 
 longer form the rule or the warrant of our politi- 
 cal actions. It can no longer forbid us to do, or 
 absolve us if we neglect to do, anything that is 
 required by the common weal. It is superseded 
 by the sentiments of duty to the State and devo- 
 tion to the common good. He in whom those 
 sentiments manifest their presence, who keeps all 
 laws, obeys all constituted authorities, and seeks 
 no change except by peaceful and legal means 
 cannot, among freemen, be called disloyal. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 143 
 
 If mere change of allegiance, or the contempla- 
 tion of it, without any disposition to rebellion, is 
 disloyalty, all the emigrants from Europe to the 
 United States must be disloyal. All the persons 
 of Canadian birth who have settled on the other 
 side of the line must be disloyal. The present 
 proprietors of the Olohe, now Sir Francis Hincks' 
 best allies, must have gone fearfuUy near the 
 verge of disloyalty when they took up their 
 residence as journalists in New York. The 
 case of the mass of people collectively forming a 
 colony does not appear, in this respect, to differ 
 in principle from that of the individual emigrant. 
 The conservative Lord Derby said in a speech, 
 already cited, to the electors of King's Lynn, 
 that Canada and Australia must, as everybody 
 knew, soon become separate nations. Was Lord 
 Derby disloyal himself, and a preacher of dis- 
 loyalty to others ? 
 
 In a more general sense loyalty means devotion 
 to a public principle, whether it be the principle 
 of legitimacy embodied in a particular dynasty, 
 as in the case of the Jacobites, or one of a more 
 modern and rational kind. A man may be said, 
 in this sense to be loyal if, being a citizen of the 
 New World, he is faithful to its social principles, 
 to its hopes, to the apparent designs of Providence 
 
144 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 in thus leading up mankind out of the realms of 
 feudalism and placing them on a Continent ad- 
 mirably fitted to be the scene of an ampler and 
 happier development of humanity, to the people 
 whose labour has won for themselves and for all 
 of us here a land beyond the influence and tradi- 
 tions of Norman conquest. Loyalty of this kind 
 may perhaps be soon put to the proof ; for there 
 is every appearance of a renewed effort on the 
 part of aristocracy to propagate its influence and 
 restore its ascendancy here. Sir Francis Hincks 
 says that England " makes no attempt whatever 
 to introduce into Canada any of her pecuHar in- 
 stitutions or customs." Historically this is 
 scarcely correct, since an hereditary peerage was 
 projected, hereditary baronetcies were conferred, 
 and the State Church of England was established 
 and endowed, while orders of knighthood, though 
 not hereditary, are more congenial, to say the 
 least, to aristocratic than to democratic institu- 
 tions. But the hope of fostering aristocratic 
 sentiment and antagonism to American democracy 
 has never been quite relinquished, and it has 
 evidently been revived by the Conservative re- 
 action in ■ England, consequent on the influx of 
 wealth, and by the reawakening of that spirit of 
 mihtary and territorial aggrandizement which is 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 145 
 
 .-a part of the same movement. An imperialist 
 and aristocratic policy (the two are, in the case 
 of England, practically identical) is in the ascen- 
 dant, and its operations are evidently about to be 
 extended to th^ Colonies. Confederates, it is ex- 
 pected, will be found in Colonial wealth and in 
 Colonial love of titles and social distinction. We 
 are to be made instrumental, in common with the 
 Empire of India, to the suppression of Liberalism 
 in the Mother Country. But what the Tory aris- 
 tocracy of England specially want of Canada is 
 that she shall serve it as a poHtical outpost, and 
 interfere as much as possible with the consolida- 
 tion of democratic institutions on this Continent. 
 If Canada lends herself to that game she lends 
 herself to her own ruin. She lends herself to 
 her own ruin for the benefit, not of the Mother 
 Country, but merely of the aristocratic party in 
 it ; for what the England of the people desires of 
 the Colonies is only that they should make her 
 the mother of free nations. 
 
 Aristocracy, not monarchy, is now the real 
 power and the power against the designs of which 
 those who are true to New World principles have 
 to be on their guard. Constitutional monarchy 
 is a mask prudently retained by aristocracy to 
 hide features which, when actually displayed, 
 J 
 
146 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 have seldom excited love. If the Royal pre- 
 rogative were to be in any measure restored, it 
 would be wielded by aristocratic hands in the 
 interest of the order. 
 
 I am not so irrational as to be an enemy to mon- 
 archy in the abstract, nor have I " incessantly 
 sneered at monarchical institutions throughout 
 my essay," as Sir Francis Hincks in his usual 
 style of invidious exaggeration asserts. I only 
 say that hereditary government belongs to the 
 Old World, and that if we rely on the hereditary 
 principle as our safeguard against the dangers, 
 of democracy here, >ye shall be leaning on a 
 bruised reed, and building on a frail foundation.. 
 Nay, even in the Old World, at least in the- 
 more civilized part of it, the hereditary prin- 
 ciple appears to have arrived at its last stage of 
 existence. In the East it still prevails in com- 
 bination with other primitive customs and be- 
 liefs. It still prevails in half Asiatic Russia,, 
 where it is the necessity at once of a vastly ex- 
 tended empire and a race untrained in self-govern- 
 ment. But in civilized Europe, one great nation 
 has discarded it, while in the rest it lingers with 
 greatly reduced prerogatives, and in several cases 
 with a revolutionary title. Legitimacy is depart- 
 ing from the scene with the melancholy forms of 
 
THE POLITIC A.L DESTINY OF CANADA. 147 
 
 the last Bourbons. To turn the eyes of the people 
 here to the hereditary principle as the permanent 
 basis of government and the security for social 
 order, would be to disregard all the signs of the 
 times. The only possible basis of government 
 here is the national will ; the only security for 
 social order is the recognised justice and expedi- 
 ency of institutions. To purify the Republic of 
 faction, demagogism, wirepulling, corruption and 
 all iiha other evils by which thoughtful men see 
 that it is fearfully beset, is no doubt a difficult 
 task; but it is a noble task; it is a task in 
 which public characters at least as high as any 
 that present themselves in the history of mon- 
 archies may be formed ; and it is the task allotted 
 to us here. Here, apart from any republican 
 cant we must be loyal to the. people, to whom by 
 right of labour this continent belongs; and 
 we must show our loyalty to thetn not by pander- 
 ing to their vanity and their passions, but by 
 trying to make their reason and their morality 
 prevail. Native Canadians will more readily 
 admit this than Englishmen in whom the 
 hereditary sentiment is ingrained, and who can- 
 not fancy a government built securely on any 
 other foundation. Yet we may all learn a lesson 
 and take some comfort from the devotion with 
 
148- THE POLITICAL DESTINY. OF CANADA. 
 
 which the American people supported a govern- 
 ment based on the national will durinsr their 
 great civil war. 
 
 Social influence the Crown still retains, though 
 some of us have been carried by their loyalty to 
 the verge of servility in tracing the morality of 
 English men and English women to the beneficent 
 example of a Court. Whether the social influence 
 of the representative of the Crown in a colony is 
 good depends not only on his personal qualities, 
 but on the suitableness of the aristocratic model 
 for our imitation, and the effect which an attempt 
 to imitate it may have on the genuineness of our 
 social character and the' simplicity of our social life 
 That the violence of political war is tempered 
 and its coarseness refined by the presence of a 
 British nobleman, is but a pleasing illusion as the 
 records of the last session show. Neither at Ottawa 
 nor at Westminster will the passion, which is gene- 
 rated by the fierce struggle for power and by the 
 presence of hated antagonists, allow itself to be 
 bridled by any silken thread. It would be wrong 
 to say that- the presence of a discreet and well- 
 bred man of the world, with the prestige of rank, 
 has not sometimes moderated the factious ex- 
 cesses of party leaders ; but if we can find no 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 149 
 
 surer antidote to faction than an influence of 
 this sort, our political prospect is not fair. 
 
 Political inconsistency is, always a venial fault; 
 not seldom it is a virtue; but to warrant us in 
 recognising it as a virtue some terms must be 
 kept with the past. It is trying to patience to see 
 men who have^spent half their public lives in re- 
 ducing the power of the Crown in a Colony to a 
 shadow, turn round and denounce us as traitors 
 because we cannot take the shadow for a sub- 
 stance and adopt it not only as the palladium of 
 out political confidence, but as the object of a 
 political religion. I did not arraign the decision 
 of the Governor-General in the case of the Pacific 
 Railway investigation, so that Sir Francis Hineks 
 need not introduce that issue ; but I said that his 
 decision amounted to a total abnegation of real 
 power, in other words to a declaration of faineancy. 
 And this faineancy is the work of Reformers who 
 are filled with loyal horror at the thought of any 
 further change. 
 
 I perfectly understand the position of those who 
 seeing, as every man of sense must see, the perils 
 of democracy, wished to retain the reality of 
 monarchical rule, especially as the power of the 
 Crown in the case of a dependency was practi- 
 cally vested in a representative who could never be 
 
150 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 a George IV. It is not so easy to understand 
 the position of those who having destroyed the 
 reality make a desperate stand in defence of the 
 name. 
 
 Attachment to England, to the England of the 
 people, may surely be strong in a breast in which 
 confidence in the hereditary principle of govern- 
 ment is weak, and the love of aristocratic privilege 
 till weaker. We, or at least the English portion 
 of us, are bound to our mother country by ties of 
 blood, history, language and literature, which 
 would not snap with the attenuated thread of 
 political connection. But we do not show our- 
 selves the worthy offspring of England by want 
 of self-reliance and self-respect. An English writer 
 of note, the otherday, taking pity on the low estate 
 of colonists, proposed to elevate them by the dis- 
 tribution among them of a few more pieces of rib- 
 bon or by the admission of a few of them to the 
 professions of the mother country. It is always 
 assumed that a Colony can have no honours or 
 worthy objects of ambition in itself; and the as- 
 sumption is too well justified by the bearing of 
 many colonists and the language of many organs 
 of colonial sentiment. Yet the people of the New 
 World, those of English blood especially, have 
 been picked out of the people of the Old World 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 151 
 
 ■by a process of selection far higher and more 
 ^searching than those which had determined the 
 elements of amy previous migration ; by a process 
 which combined religious and political aspiration 
 with commercial enterprise, and which could 
 hardly fail to bring to these shores the flower of 
 the race. The qualities of self-government surely 
 reside in the freeholders of Canada in as full a 
 measure as in the tenant farmers of England or 
 the masses of the English towns. In the products 
 of industry our kinsmen in the United States are 
 fast taking the first place among all nations. The 
 historic glories of England belong alike to both 
 branches of the race ; and the American branch 
 hasin addition the history of an heroic colonization. 
 Writers of Canadian history fill their pages with 
 minute details of political strife or of border war. 
 They leave untold, and soon they will have lost 
 the traditional materials for telling, the most 
 moving and instructive tale of all, that of the 
 struggle with the wilderness. If no escutcheon 
 can be bright without blood, surely blood and 
 brave blood enough was shed in the war of 1812 
 and in the American Civil War. Culture and 
 art of course come later,, but in time they come ; 
 and manners are formed in the school of equal- 
 
152 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA'. 
 
 ity better in all essential respects than any that a^ 
 representative of European privilege can teach.* 
 Sir Francis Hineks crows over the admission 
 that the crisis of our destiny may yet be a long- 
 way off. It may be a very long way off, for 
 aught I can tell. Its arrival depends on the 
 course of events not only in Canada, England, 
 and the United States, but in the world at large, 
 for the partnership of nations and the sympa- 
 thetic interaction of their politics become more 
 manifest every day. But if Sir Francis Hineks 
 will examine the cases of the unification of Ger- 
 many, the liberation of Italy, the union between 
 England and Scotland, to which I have referred,, 
 he will see that the event, long delayed, some- 
 times comes at last like a thief in the night. 
 There is at present a Conservative and Imperial- 
 ist reaction in England, which extends in some 
 measure to the Colonies. But history is full of 
 these backstreams. If the plethora of wealth 
 and the other special causes to which the reac- 
 tion is traceable, should cease to operate, the re- 
 action itself would subside; England would return' 
 
 * The Bocial consequences of colonial self -prostration are what 
 they might be expected to be. The author of the Abode of Snow ■ 
 has noticed the amusing way in which the social superiority of ' 
 the Indian Service to colonists is asserted on board mail 8team» 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 153 
 
 to her normal mood ; moderation and sobriety of 
 njind would resume their sway over her coun- 
 sels ; her people would again become conscious of 
 the fact, which seemed to be dawning on them 
 twenty years ago, that enormous and unnatural 
 agglomerations of territory are not really and per- 
 manently conducive to wealth, strength or hap- 
 piness. As it is, "Jingoism" is by no means uni- 
 versal in the mother country ; it is compara- 
 tively weak in the north of England, and has 
 been almost entirely repelled by the good sense 
 of Scotland. To the more clear-sighted it is al- 
 ready evident, that Imperialism is likely to bring 
 as its penalty a loss or diminution of English 
 liberty, and a corruption of the political character 
 of the English people. But suppose Jingoism 
 should prevail, and England should remain in 
 her present frame of mind. Engrossed by East- 
 em aggrandizement, she may become less anxious 
 to retain Western Colonies which contribute " 
 much to her military liabilities, and little to her 
 military strength. There is yet a third con- 
 tingency, not to hd left altogether out of sight. 
 Jingoism, like Chauvinism, arousing the natural 
 jealousy and the just resentment of nations may, 
 like Chauvinism, find its Sedan. In one way or 
 other, the world, menaced by the ambition of 
 
164 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 aspirants to universal Empire, has always con- 
 trived to deliver itself in the end. Sir Francis 
 Hincks trusts in sentiment, which, it is true» 
 often lingers and rules the conduct of nations 
 after the solid grounds for it have been removed- 
 Still sentiment is not adamant, as even Canadian 
 history will prove. 
 
 It is not likely that any political question will 
 arise between the Colony and the Mother Coun- 
 try. This has been already admitted. But with 
 regard to war, military expenditure and commer- 
 cial autonomy it is not unlikely that serious 
 questions may arise. 
 
 Sir Francis Hincks says that England will 
 never get us into an unjust war. The England 
 of the people will never get us into any war at 
 all ; for it is the England of industry, coloniza- 
 tion and peace ; nor is the England of the people 
 in any way tempted to crusade against the politi- 
 cal progress of other nations. It would not 
 have made war upon the French Republic, and 
 consequently it would not have involved Canada 
 in the war of 1812. But the England with which 
 we are likely to have to deal for the present is 
 the England of the aristocracy, and the England 
 of the aristocracy has twice within a few years 
 brought Canada, to the verge of war. It brought 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 155 
 
 her to the verge of war for slavery, to which 
 aristocracy was bound, both by the sympathy 
 which unites privileged classes and by common 
 enmity to the Eepublic, but which, had it tri- 
 umphed by our aid, would have filled the veins 
 of society on this continent with moral, politi- 
 cal and industrial poison ; and, again, the other' 
 day, for the maintenance within the borders of 
 Christendom of Turkish despotism, with fatal- 
 ism, slavery, polyg amy and concubinage in its 
 train. In both these cases the dependency would 
 have been dragged, not only into suicidal folly, 
 but into crime. The Anglo-Turkish convention 
 may be described as a provision for a war, at 
 no distant date, between England and Russia in 
 Asia Minor; and the object of that war, even 
 supposing justice to be on the side of England, 
 would be so utterly remote from Canadian inter- 
 ests and obligations that to shed Canadian blood 
 for them would be almos't criminal. 
 
 War has been called the game of kings. It is 
 equally the game of aristocracies, and not only 
 their game but their natural policy. Apart from 
 special objects of political propagandism or of 
 territorial ambition, interest leads them to stimu- 
 late the military and imperial spirit as an anti- 
 dote to thoughts which lead to political change. 
 
156 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Mr. Forster's fair vision of a Pacific British 
 Empire has faded away. The British Empire 
 stands revealed as an Empire, like other Empires, 
 of military force. To that force all its members 
 will probably be called upon to contribute, espe- 
 cially if, by their martial enthusiasm, they invite 
 the demand. Even the peace party in England 
 has an interest in enforcing the principle, because 
 members who do not contribute, not feeling the 
 burden, will be apt, in gaiety of heart, to applaud 
 a spirited foreign policy, and to strengthen by 
 their sympathy the hands of the war party in the 
 Mother Country. But, when the call comes, the 
 divergence of character between a military nation 
 of the Old World and a commercial nation of the 
 New World can hardly fail to appear. Canadians 
 have shown that they are warlike enough in their 
 own defence, but taxation for the maintenance of 
 great standing armaments is one of the things to 
 escape which many people have come here. 
 
 We of this generation do not know what war 
 is. We might know if England were to provoke 
 a hostile combination of maritime powers , as she 
 one day will, if she is bent on making the Medi- 
 terranean a British Lake. 
 
 Commercial autonomy again is a question which 
 can hardly fail soon to become practical, which in 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 157 
 
 fact has become practical already. It is impos- 
 sible that Canada should long remain content 
 ■with the situation in which her industries are 
 placed by the existing state of things. She can- 
 not bear to have them at once excluded from their 
 natural markets on this Continent and exposed to 
 the crushing force of European and American 
 competition. In the case of America indeed com- 
 petition is not all ; I am credibly informed at 
 least that a sort of commercial war is waged by 
 sending in American goods at a loss to prevent 
 the development of certain manufactures in this 
 country. This, it has already been said, is not 
 free trade, nor is it a system which any English 
 free trader can reasonably ask us to maintain. 
 Our producers, placed under these artificial dis- 
 advantages by a political connection, naturally 
 seek relief in some countervailing revision of 
 the tariflf. But when everything in the way of 
 tariff revision has been tried, it will probably be 
 found that the one thing needed, and the only 
 effective remedy, is free access to the markets of 
 our own continent. The abolition of the frontier 
 custom houses between Canada and the United 
 States is the policy to which, as Sir Francis 
 Hincks allows, the common interest of both coun- 
 tries points. Nature beckons us to it with both 
 
158 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 hands. A special reciprocity treaty, supposing it 
 could be negotiated, would be hardly worth hav- 
 ing in comparison with a complete measure of 
 continental free trade. It would not rid us of the 
 expense and annoyance of the customs line ; it 
 would probably be unfair to some interests on both 
 sides ; it would be difficult of execution in regard 
 to manufactures, because Canada could hardly 
 be prevented from becoming an entrepot for Eu- 
 ropean contraband ; it would be precarious and 
 liable to be overturned, with the industries built 
 on it, by the first gust of anger between the 
 nations : whereas a customs union would be in it- 
 self a strong cement of friendly relations, though 
 it would not, any more than the postal union into 
 which we have already entered, interfere in prin- 
 ciple with political independence. But a customs 
 union with the United States presupposes com- 
 mercial autonomy; as indeed does any alteration of 
 thetariif involving a large increase of the duties 
 on European goods ; and the commercial autonomy 
 of the dependencies is not yet fully established, 
 though large concessions to fiscal self-government 
 have been made, and in the case of the Australian 
 Colonies, there was some years ago almost a 
 direct admission of the principle ; an admission 
 qualified in its practical bearing by the fact that 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 159 
 
 at that time England was disposed to believe that 
 the colonies injured only themselves by protection, 
 whereas she is now more disposed to believe that 
 they also injure her. 
 
 While these lines are passing through the press 
 the London Times points out, that the dependen- 
 cies being included in the commercial treaties 
 made by the Imperial country, it is not in the 
 power of England to permit any exercise of com- 
 mercial autonomy by which the " most favoured 
 nation " clauses or other stipulations of those trea- 
 ties would be infringed. We are thus brought 
 face to face with the fact that while the existing 
 relations between the dependency and the Im- 
 perial country continue, the people of the depen- 
 dency will be liable to having their commercial 
 interests seriously affected by treaties in the nego- 
 tiation of which they have no voice and which 
 are probably framed almost exclusively Avith re- 
 ference to the wishes of the people of the Imper- 
 ial country. We are made sensible, in the most 
 forcible manner, of the limited nature of the self- 
 government which under the most liberal of colo- 
 nial systems, a dependency can attain. 
 , It is not to manufacturers alone that economi- 
 cal separation from our own continent is injurious. 
 AU Canadian property must be depreciated by 
 
160 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 that which arrests the natural flow of capital and 
 commercial life. Out off the most smiling section 
 of England from the rest, and its aspect would 
 soon be changed. Even property of little value 
 in itself often acquires a high value by economi- 
 cal union with a wealthy country, as the moors 
 and lochs of Scotland have acquired a high value 
 by union with the wealth of England. Gifts 
 however gracious, will not restore the life of the 
 past to the City of Quebec; but, economically 
 united to the wealth of the continent, she might, 
 with her beauty and her historic interests become 
 the Edinburgh of America. 
 
 I am as fully persuaded as Sir Francis Hincks 
 that the Conservative Protectionists of Canada 
 deem their views consistent with their loyalty to 
 the Crowu ; and I would at once recall any Words 
 of mine which I thought capable of conveying a 
 contrary impression. No doubt it is against the 
 United States immediately and mainly, not 
 against British competition, that the Protection- 
 ism of our Conservatives is pointed. Still England 
 is concerned, and the defeat of the Canadian Con- 
 servatives on the tariff resolution was a matter 
 of rejoicing^ as Sir Francis Hincks is aware, to all 
 parties alike in the Imperial country. The com- 
 mercial question must be pressing when it can 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 161 
 
 force the Conservative party in this country to 
 place itself in a position at aU equivocal towards 
 its political allies in Great Britain. 
 
 No one can look forward with complacency 
 to a separation of the colony from the Mother 
 Country brought about by a misunderstanding 
 between them ; apart even from sentiment, such 
 an event would be an immense disaster. But if 
 the yoke of political subjection galled till it was 
 practically removed, we must expect that the 
 yoke of diplomatic and commercial subjection, 
 which . has notbeen removed, will sometimes gall. 
 
 Nor, in regard to the internal constitution of 
 our Dominion, is it likely that matters will long 
 remain as they are. Sir Francis Hincks sets me 
 down as bitterly hostile to Confederation because 
 I hold that the measure did not go far enough 
 and has consequently failed of its effect. The 
 Provinces have not been blended into a united 
 community; they remain separate interests, ex- 
 ternal in a great measure even to the Old Cana- 
 dian parties, and make their separate terms with 
 the party chiefs. Sectionalism, both of race and 
 religion, is as strong and as noxious as ever ; the 
 conflict between Orangemen and Catholics has 
 attained the character of a petty civil war, and 
 Sir Francis Hincks himself speaks of the Scotch 
 
162 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 as a separate nationality, with special sentiments 
 and exercising a special influence in our political 
 affairs. I do not cast the blame on England. 
 Some at least of the English statesmen who were 
 engaged, and perhaps the English people generally 
 believed, that Confederation was destined, at no 
 distant period, to be crowned by nationality. 
 Lord Derby, from his very want of originality, 
 is always a good index of the prevailing tone 
 of the time. That the functions of the Dominion 
 Government are clearly defined by statute I have 
 never denied; but what is in federations, the 
 proper work of the federal government — the 
 conduct of foreign affairs and the determination 
 of all questions between the members of the fed- 
 eration — is, in the case of dependencies, reserved 
 to the government of the Imperial country. The 
 consequence is that the Dominion Government is 
 without adequate objects, and the cost of a session 
 at Ottawa, computed at $600,000, is ridiculously 
 disproportioned to the amount of useful work done. 
 To legislative union, at all events, we must come, 
 if we are to be a united community independent 
 of the American Republic. The mere expense of 
 this galaxy of little constitutional monarchies with 
 their separate parliaments and trappings, in the 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 163 
 
 ■present state of our finances, will soon enforce a 
 reconsideration of the existing arrangement. 
 
 Since the publication of his reply to me, Sir 
 Francis Hincks has been engaged in a controversy 
 with Sir Julius Vogel, lately Premier of New 
 Zealand, on the subject of Imperial Federation. 
 Sir Julius Vogel urgently recommends that mea- 
 sure, on the ground that for want of it the Col- 
 onial Empire is tending to dissolution, so that the 
 ■confidence of this very competent judge in con- 
 nexionist sentiment and the influences which tell 
 in favour of the existing system is not so great 
 as that of Sir Francis Hincks. Sir Julius seems 
 to have caught the tone of British loyalty more 
 successfully than that of British liberty. He 
 appears to think the coercion of Cuba by Spain 
 an example not unfit for England to foUow 
 towards British Colonies. Unwarned by the em- 
 blematic teaching of King Canute he proposes to 
 arrest the tide of progress by an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, declaring that no British Colony shall ever 
 become an independent nation. It is curious to 
 ■consider what would have been the effect of such 
 an Act had it been operative in the case of the 
 United States. We should have had fifty mil-, 
 lions, and in time a hundred millions, of English- 
 speaking people without entire self-government. 
 
164 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 and perhaps with their capacity for it fatally im- 
 paired bj' the long habit of dependence ; a giant 
 in leading strings ; a colossal baby among the 
 nations; a frame of prodigious magnitude, but^ 
 without a centre^of thought or action in itself, and 
 borrowing a languid animation from the heart 
 and brain of a distant body. In place of Ameri- 
 can patriotism we should have had the worship of 
 some British nobleman sent out as Governor- 
 General ; in place of national pride, restless and 
 self-abasing eflforts to attract the notice of the 
 superior country ; in place of the elevating ambi- 
 tion which looks to national gratitude for its re- 
 ward, the ambition not so elevating which looks 
 elsewhere. The United States in perpetual tute- 
 lage is the logical consequence of the principles 
 held in common by Sir Julius Vogel and Sir 
 Francis Hincks ; but are they ready to embrace 
 it ? If not, they must admit that their loyalty, 
 like mine, has rational bounds. 
 
 One word before I close, upon a subject which 
 is partly" personal but concerns others more than 
 myself. In the paper on which I have been com- 
 menting, it is suggested, and in another paper it 
 has been plainly stated that I have had some 
 political object of my own in view ; that I have 
 attempted to form an Independence party with 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 165 
 
 myself at the head of it, and that I have solicited 
 the co-operation of members of the House of 
 Commons, though in vain. This is the stuff of 
 which a politician's dreams are made. I have 
 never attempted to form a party of any kind, or 
 solicited the co-operation of any member of the 
 House of Commons in any plan or for any ob- 
 ject whatever. 
 
 . The National movement was the offspring, the 
 inevitable offspring, of Confederation. It was 
 fostered by the appeals of men who have 
 since found it convenient not only to turn 
 .against it, but to brand it as sedition, and to 
 hound down those who sympathized with it as 
 itraitors. In the essay of Professor Cairnes on 
 Colonial Government, a speech of Mr. Brown is 
 ■quoted as a proof that the piiblic men of Canada 
 were making no secret of their aspirations. Be- 
 fore I settled in Canada, the movement had been 
 fully developed ; it had put forth its manifesto in 
 the form of the remarkable pamphlet entitled- 
 ■" Canada First ; " it had given birth to a National 
 Association, which I believe was originally com- 
 posed of native Canadians, and of which I never 
 was a member. 
 
 The stirrings of national life were felt as usual 
 .not only in the political but in the intellectual 
 
166 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 sphere. There was a desire for a national maga- 
 zine, and as I had leisure and literary experience, , 
 the publishers enlisted me in the enterprise. It 
 was at first determined, at my instance, that the 
 magazine should be purely literary, and that 
 politics should be excluded. From this determi- 
 nation it was found necessary to depart, in defer- 
 ence to the taste of the general public, and an 
 article, non-party in its character, on Current 
 Events was introduced. The measure of success 
 achieved by the Canadian Monthly,* in face of 
 the tremendous competition not only of the Eng- 
 lish magazines, but of the splendid periodical lit- 
 erature of the United States, shows the strength 
 of the sentiment which gave it birth. That he 
 has an organ in Canada for the discussion of a 
 Canadian question. Sir Francis Hincks owes to 
 the movement of which he speaks with contemp- 
 tuous hatred, and which he and th^ politicians as 
 a class have, not unnaturally, done their utmost 
 to put down. 
 
 Of the founders of the weekly Nation I was. 
 not one ; I was not in the country at the time.. 
 Looking to the circumstances of our country, and 
 
 * Let me take the opportunity as one of the founders of the 
 Magazine of offering my best wishes to the spirited and patriotic 
 publishers into whose hands it has lately passed. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 167 
 
 the numbers of our reading public, I should hardly 
 have been inclined to attempt the publication of 
 a journal in so expensive and aristocratic a form 
 The programme, instead of embodying my special 
 opinions on the Colonial question, contained a 
 clause in favour of Imperial Federation. At a 
 later peiiod, I accepted an invitation to join the 
 paper, because it was in the hands of my friends, 
 and because I felt sure that it would be con- 
 ducted honourably and with perfect independence. 
 It sought, consistently I believe, to aid in raising 
 the national spirit above mere colonialism, in 
 giving national interests the ascendency over those 
 of party, in maintaining decency of discussion, 
 and in protecting the character of public men. 
 Its success was great considering its form and the 
 limited area of its circulation. I think I may say 
 with truth that it was regarded by men even of 
 opposite opinions as creditable to the Canadian 
 press, and that it thus performed the proper duties 
 of journalism, and fulfilled the legitimate objects 
 of a journalist's ambition. It lent, if I mistake not, 
 an impulse to the growing independence of our 
 press, and when the loss of the principal writers, 
 who were called away by other work, compelled 
 us to suspend the publication, another indepen- 
 dent journal sprang from the same root. 
 
168 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Sympathize with the national movement of 
 course I did : in what should a political student 
 and inquirer feel an interest, if not in a move- 
 
 ' ment which promised to give birth to a nation ? 
 Sympathize with it I did, and heartily, but I left its 
 political conduct to Canadians. I had turned 
 from the gate of political life when it was opened 
 to me in England, and I have never sought or 
 desired to enter it here.* I have taken no active 
 part in Canadian politics. A few days ago I at- 
 
 ■ tended for the first time a political meeting. My 
 name would hardly have been heard in connection 
 with public affairs if the rules and privileges of 
 journalism had not been systematically violated 
 in my person, with the design of driving from the 
 Canadian press an independent journalist whose 
 pen might infringe the monopoly of opinion 
 wliich it was the object of the assailants, for 
 
 "their commercial as well as for their political 
 purposes, to maintain. It was the independence 
 of the Canadian press, not a political theory or 
 
 * Perhaps I ought to say that I was at one time inclined to 
 entertain a proposal of bringing me forvsjard for the Local House. 
 It appeared to me that the Local House ought to be regarded as 
 municipal rather than political, and there were some educational 
 questions of importance which I might have taken up, there 
 being then no Minister of Education ; but I found party politics 
 in my way, and at once gave up the idea. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 169 
 
 scheme, that was attacked in my person. Err 
 I very likely may from ignorance or misconcep- 
 tion ; but there is not a man in the Dominion to 
 whom, individually, it matters less what course 
 political events may' take, than it does to me. 
 In seconding, as far as I was able with propriety 
 to second, the movement in favour of Canadian 
 nationality, I was not actuated, so far as I am 
 aware, by any selfish or sinister motive, but 
 merely by a natural sympathy with an aspiratix)n 
 generous in itself, and in accordance with the 
 views as to the general destinies of free British 
 colonies which I had previously expressed ; and I 
 feel some satisfaction in thinking that 1 have not 
 to bear even that small portion of blame which 
 attaches to a private citizen, if nothing is now 
 left as an ultimate mark for Canadian statesman- 
 ship but to prepare the terms of continental 
 union. 
 
opmioi^ 
 
 OF 
 
 LORD BLACHFORD, 
 
 Formerly Permanent Under-Secretmry for the Colonies, 
 
 ON IMPEEIAL FEDERATION 
 
 As the colonies develop they must either become 
 separate nations, or they must have a share — 
 eventually the greater share — in the government 
 of the British Confederacy. Questions might 
 arise on the working of the Federal Constitution. 
 It does not appear whether the Imperial Ministry 
 (which would include at least the foreign, coloni- 
 al, and war ministers) is to be controlled and 
 practically appointed by the Imperial Legislature 
 or by the English Parliament ; nor whether India 
 and the Crown colonies are to be considered as 
 Imperial or English property ; nor whether the 
 stimulus given to the establishment of responsible 
 govemnjent in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales 
 would be advantageous or otherwise ; nor whether 
 recent experience recommends a composite Legis- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 171 
 
 ature ; nor whether it would be possible, with 
 the requisite promptitude, to eradicate the senti- 
 mental objection which most Englishmen would 
 feel to reducing the old historical House of Com- 
 mons to the dimensions of a local legislature ; nor 
 whether it would be worth while for the colonies 
 to send away for the greater part of every year 
 so large a proportion of their leading men as 
 would be necessary to secure a proper voting 
 power in the Imperial Councils. But, all these 
 queries notwithstanding, I am quite prepared to 
 admit that the integrity of the British Empire 
 could not be perpetuated by any rearrangement 
 less objectionable than that which Sir Julius Vogel 
 proposes. Indeed, I would add the observation 
 that if, in thq course of fifty years, such a meta- 
 morphosis became necessary, it might be found 
 convenient, before the century was out, to con- 
 sider whether the seat of government ought not 
 to be at Melbourne rather than London. The 
 relative position of Australia and India, added to 
 the acquisitions of Oceania and New Guinea, 
 certain to be efiected under Australasian influence, 
 appears to point to such a transfer, which by that 
 time might be justified by the relative wealth and 
 population of the different States of the Union. 
 The question would be a very real one, and would 
 
172 THE POLITICAL DESTENY OP CANADA. 
 
 have arisen before now with regard to New York, 
 if it had been possible for us to retain our North 
 American provinces till now. 
 
 I do not raise any quarrel upon these details, 
 or pursue the thoughts which they suggest: I 
 object to the conception out of which they arise. 
 With "Empire" that conception has nothing to do. 
 The Imperial relation only subsists in substance 
 between the United Kingdom on the one hand 
 and India and the Crown colonies on the other. 
 It subsists in form and in form only between the 
 United Kingdom and the constitutional colonies. 
 For that formal and delusive relation of empire it 
 is proposed, by steps, which, if they are taken at 
 all, must be taken in no long time — say in the 
 course of the next half century — to substitute a 
 real working confederacy. The conception is that 
 of a close and permanent association between self- 
 governed States, not arising out of geographical 
 neighbourhood'. To this conception I object as 
 hollow and impracticable. 
 
 Every association of human beings must have 
 a purpose, and the object of every association 
 must be to Qombine in employing means for the 
 attainment of that purpose, according to some un- 
 derstood rules. Men associate for comfort or 
 pleasure, and become a club ; for gain, and be- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 173 
 
 come a company ; to return a member- of Parlia- 
 ment, and become a committee ; for the advance- 
 ment of art or science, and become a society ; for 
 the all-embracing purpose of securing order, pros- 
 perity, and safety in the territory which they oc- 
 cupy, and become a State. 
 
 The proposed Confederation will be an associa- 
 tion. What is its common purpose ? Evidently 
 to secure and further the order, prosperity, and 
 safety of the Confederation, so far as these are to 
 be secured and furthered by the action of a com 
 mon and supreme authority. But in what sense 
 is this a common purpose ? A common aspiration 
 it no doubt is. But a common purpose, capable 
 of being made the principle of a confederacy,, 
 must be something which can be pursued by com- 
 mon eiforts and a common policy. Of what com- 
 mon efforts and common policy will the proposed 
 confederacy be capable ? What is that sphere of 
 combined action which is a condition of its real 
 existence ? 
 
 I understand alliances and treaties between in- 
 dependent powers, for specific purposes. I even 
 understand what is in form a general defensive 
 and offensive alliance, if it is, at bottom, based on 
 some such specific and terminable purpose. ■ But 
 a confederacy affects a much closer solidarity ; it 
 
174 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 aims at securing that, within certain limits, but 
 under all sorts of unforeseen circumstances, the 
 interests, and quarrels, and responsibilities of 
 each part shall be the interests, and quarrels, and 
 responsibilities of the whole. What are these 
 limits ? What are to be the functions of the con- 
 federacy as such with respect to these interests 
 and responsibilities ? 
 
 The supreme power of a confederacy may deal 
 either with the purely internal affairs of its com- 
 ponent members, or with their relations to each 
 other, or with their foreign policy. 
 
 With the first of these it is fully admitted that' 
 the intended confederacy will have nothing what- 
 ever to do. This immense department of law 
 and government must be exclusively and jealously 
 and properly reserved to the State authorities. 
 The effect of this reservation in confining the 
 functions of the central power will at once be 
 felt if we remember how small a proportion of 
 the legislative and administrative action of our 
 own country relates to anything but the internal 
 affairs of the IJnited Kingdom. 
 
 Next come what may be called inter-provincial 
 questions. Such, it may be said, are customs du- 
 ties, ocean postage, immigration, the treatment of 
 offences committed at sea, extradition, alienage, 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 175 
 
 slavery, the treatment of natives, the machinery 
 of common defence, and others, possibly which do 
 not occur to me. Each of these has called for 
 consideration in its day, and some have presented 
 great difficulty. But much has settled itself 
 Events have determined that, in respect to self- 
 governed colonies, some of these, like customs 
 duties and immigration, must be treated as inter- 
 nal. About others, like alienage, extradition, and 
 the treatment of offences committed on the high 
 seas, arrangements may be necessary, as with fo- 
 reign countries, but no serious difficulty need be 
 anticipated. Others are definitively settled by an 
 accepted Imperial law, like slavery ; others nar- 
 rowed geographically by the course of events, 
 like the treatment of natives. Some will remain 
 the subject of what may be called administrative 
 negotiation, like ocean postage and (I should say) 
 the machinery of common defence. Great ques- 
 tions in this department can at present scarcely be 
 said to exist, while small ones are generally mat- 
 ters of discussion between the home Government 
 and one or moire of the colonies. It is perhaps 
 worth while to explain the mode in which such 
 discussions are now conducted. They are con- 
 ducted through the governor, through whom all 
 authoritative communications pass, and whose 
 
176 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 advice the hoine_Government expects in all mat- 
 ters to receive ; but whose reports are supple- 
 raented by concurrent explanations received less 
 authoritatively from the accredited agents of the 
 different colonial Governments, who have full 
 cognisance of the views of their respective Go- 
 vernments, free access to the Colonial Office, and 
 full opportunities for acting in concert on any 
 question in which any number of colonies have a 
 common interest. This method is probably not 
 without some inconvenience. No method is 
 likely to be otherwise which involves negotia- 
 tions of detail — sometimes in the nature of bar- 
 gains — between authorities at opposite ends of 
 the earth. But it is, after all, not very inappro- 
 priate to the work which has to be done ; it is 
 capable of adjustment to meet discovered incon- 
 veniences or altering circumstances ; and I am 
 not aware of any reason for supposing that colo- 
 nial Governments would prefer to it either Sir 
 Julius Vogel's immediate proposal of a represen- 
 tative Council of Advice, which, if it is to have 
 the power of controlling the Government of Eng- 
 land, should also have that of binding those of 
 the colonies, or the prospect of a Confederate 
 Legislature, which would settle questions over 
 their heads, and whose conclusions, if they hap- 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 177 
 
 pened to be carried by English votes, would not 
 be always well received. Assuming, however, 
 that some two or three questions of this class 
 would be more satisfactorily settled by a repre- 
 sentative central authority than hammered out 
 by piecemeal negotiation, I contend that their 
 aggregate and decreasing bulk is plainly insuffi- 
 ■cient to strengthen materially the raison d'etre 
 for a Confederate Legislature. 
 
 It remains that this raison d'itre must be found, 
 if anywhere, in foreign politics. And here it 
 appears to me, the coqception completely breaks 
 down. To such a confederacy as we are imagin- 
 ing foreign politics may be supposed to supply a 
 sphere of action, only till we remember that it 
 ■does not supply a common purpose. For, in re- 
 lation to foreign politics, what purposes are com- 
 mon to England and her colonies as a mass ? In 
 the course of the last thirty years we have had 
 wars in China, India, and Abyssinia, some or 
 •other of us have talked of war with the United 
 States in aid of the Secessionists, of war with 
 Austria and Prussia on behalf of Denmark, of 
 war with Germany in aid of France, and now of 
 war with Russia on behalf of British interests in 
 or about Turkey. In which of these questions 
 have the colonies any interest ? If any such 
 L 
 
178 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 question involves us in a maritime war, they will 
 no doubt suffer, but their interest in that case 
 will not be in the object of the war, but in the 
 war itself. It will be a simple interest of suffer- 
 ing. We may fairly enough say to them as the 
 whole Empire may at any moment be called 
 on to put itself into peril for their protection, so 
 theymust be content to suffer inconvenience when 
 the Empire goes to war for its own objects. But- 
 we cannot allege that they will be suffering for 
 any object of their own or in support of a policy 
 from which they will derive any benefit. What 
 have they to do with the command of the Medi- 
 terranean, or the road to India, or the balance of 
 power, or the invasion of Belgium ? One of 
 them is interested in the cod fisheries of the At- 
 lantic, another in the development of Oceania or 
 the annexation of New Guinea, another in the 
 pacification of Central Africa — objects all which 
 have to be considered between Great Britain and 
 the particular colony concerned, because in each 
 case we are responsible for asserting the rights of 
 those who depend upon us. But in the external 
 war policy of the Empire as such no colony has- 
 any tangible share, except in so far as they may 
 suffer from a state of war. No doubt their in- 
 fluence in our councils would, exceptis exci^nendiSy 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANA.UA. 179 
 
 be pacific, and this is so far good. But is it yet 
 right that the, councils of any great nation 
 should be weighted with an element which is 
 steadily against war, without having an interest 
 in those objects for which war may become im- 
 peratively necessary ? I admit that in some com- 
 mercial matters confederation might facilitate the 
 conduct of negotiations with foreign Powers, who 
 cannot understand colonial independence. But 
 this would be at the cost of enabling the colonies 
 to obstruct, in its application to foreign countries, 
 the principle of free trade, or any other on which 
 England may consider her commercial prosperity 
 to depend. 
 
 Is it possible to expect that any great Power 
 will consent to be so weighted ? Rather is it 
 not certain that, in the absence of any prevailing 
 purpose and consolidating bias, each member of 
 the confederacy, finding itself uuable to carry its 
 peculiar objects, will, sooner or later, think itself 
 ill-treated, and claim the right of taking care of 
 itself? Can this tendency he resisted? It can 
 only be resisted, as Sir Julius "Vogel plainly pro- 
 poses to resist it — by force. If force is not to be 
 applied, the result must be that so long as the 
 advantages of following in the train of a great 
 nation appear to outweigh the damage and peril 
 
180 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 — or rather, for sentiment's sake, somewhat longer 
 — these communities wiU remain willingly at- 
 tached to Great Britain. When the connection 
 becomes a grievance, they will disengage them- 
 selves. If I were compelled to hazard a prophecy, 
 I should guess that our great colonies would en- 
 dure manfully the inconveniences of one great 
 war, but would shrink from the prospect of a 
 second. But, whatever the vitality of our pre- 
 sent relations, there is between us, I contend, no 
 such common purpose or group of purposes as 
 will give us a common de.sire to pursue a common 
 policy. And without this I see no basis for a 
 union between practically independent powers. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole seems to me one 
 which it is easier to dislike than to disprove. Our 
 present relations with our grown-up colonies are 
 exceedingly satisfactory, and the longer they con- 
 tinue the better. But there is a period in the life 
 of distant nations, however close their original 
 connection, at which each must pursue its own 
 course, whether in domestic or foreign politics, 
 unembarrassed by the other's leading. And the 
 ari'ival of that period depends upon growth. 
 Every increase of colonial wealth, or numbers, or 
 intelligence, or organisation, is in one sense a step 
 towards disintegration. The Confederation of 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 181 
 
 Canada was therefore such a step. The Confed- 
 eration of South Africa will be. in the same sense, 
 another. All these are steps of a wholesome 
 kind, which only facilitate separation by provid- 
 ing againts its evils ; and it is hardly a paradox 
 to say that they may delay it by preparing for it. 
 An agreeable but transitory relation is often pro- 
 longed by the sense that when it becomes irk- 
 some it can be terminated without difficulty. On 
 the other hand if it is seriously believed possible 
 that nations internally independent, and exter- 
 nally divided by oceans, like England, Canada, 
 South Africa, and Australasia, can remain for ever 
 united in one political system, foi' the sole purpose 
 of determining a foreign policy in which no three 
 of them have a common object ; and if English 
 statesmen seriously undertake to render a union 
 under such conditions perpetual, it is to be appre- 
 hended that, in their struggles against dismem- 
 berment, they may either attempt, by a sacrifice 
 of " British interests,'' to bribe the colonies into 
 a cohesion which cannot really be secured, or may 
 alienate them by showing a suspicious disinclina- 
 tion to recognise that national manhood into 
 which they are rapidly rising — a grudging desire 
 to withhold what may enable them to stand by 
 themselves. I only add, by way of illustration, 
 
182 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 
 
 that Sir Julius's reference to the value of colonial 
 loans on the Stock Exchange, and to the effect of 
 a closer connection in increasing that value, sug- 
 gests a passing apprehension lest, 'among other 
 things, of the phrase •' confederation " may be be- 
 gotten the substance " guarantee." 
 
 For these reasons I ask those who are most 
 keenly set on maintaining the integrity of the 
 Empire to examine accurately what is the mean- 
 ing of these words, not, of course, with regard to 
 India and the Crown colonies, in respect to which 
 England really [possesses Imperial powers and 
 duties, but as to the constitutional colonies which 
 govern themselves. 
 
 — FroTn the Ninetf-enth Century. 
 
OPlIillON 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHT HON. ROBERT LOWE, M.P., 
 
 ON THE 
 
 VALXTE TO THE UNITED KINGDOM 
 
 OP THE 
 
 COLONIAL DOMINIONS OF THE CROWN. 
 
 In ancient times the value of a territorial acqui- 
 sition to the country that obtained it was a very 
 simple affair. The colonies of Greece were con- 
 sidered by the parent state mainly in the light of 
 outlets for the redundant population of a poor and 
 mountainous country. Thecolonies of Rome were 
 planted almost entirely for military purposes, and, 
 if they answered these, nothing else was demanded 
 from them. But as regards territories acquired 
 Ijy conquest or by cession the case was very dif- 
 ferent. After undergoing a spoliation more or less 
 complete! they settled down into a miserable and 
 abject dependence, a tribute was wrung from them 
 
184 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 regulated rathei' by the greed of the exactors than 
 by the ability of the tributaries, and the choicest- 
 of their youth were enrolled in the armies of their 
 cruel and rapacious conquerors. The measure of 
 the value of such an acquisition was just what- 
 could be wrung from it in men and money with- 
 out destroying its power of further contribution. 
 The Spaniards did not even observe this rule. In 
 their greed for gold they exterminated the natives 
 of Hispaniola in working the mines, and were 
 thus driven to the humane suggesti(m of Las Casas,, 
 the importation of Africans to supply the race 
 which they had murdered. The value of these 
 acquisitions was therefore the realised property^ 
 and the labour of the race, whether extorted from 
 them in the character of slaves or tributaries. 
 From this sum there was very little deduction for- 
 the expense of government. A few magistrates- 
 exercising indiscriminately executive and judicial 
 functions without diligence and without appeal or 
 revision, sufficed for the government of such a 
 society, which may be best described as a state of 
 collective slavery. Whatever may be thought of 
 the morality of such a proceeding, we cannot- 
 wonder that the acquisition of a state to be held 
 on such terms was regaided as a source of wealth 
 to the conquerors. What we seek to discover is. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 185- 
 
 what in the absence of all these cruel and unjust 
 means of acquisition, and after allowing for the 
 expense of a thoroughly efficient and good govern- 
 ment, is the value to the paramount state of a 
 foreign dependency. We are not aware that such 
 an inquiry has ever been attempted, nor can we 
 regard it as a mere matter of curiosity. Occasions 
 are continually arising when it is of the utmost 
 importance to know accurately the worth of the 
 interests with which we have to deal, and the 
 statesman can no more dispense with this know- 
 ledge than the trader can deal with wares of which 
 he has not ascertained the value. 
 
 The foreign dominions of the Crown may be 
 divided for the purposes of this inquiry into three 
 parts. 1. Places which are held for purely naval 
 and military purposes, such as Gibraltar and 
 Malta. 2. Those which are more or less fitted to 
 be the residence of English labour, such as Can- 
 ada, the southern parts of Australia, the Cape,. 
 Tasmania, and New Zealand. 3. Those whose 
 chmate renders it impo.ssible that they should 
 ever become the residence of a labouring popula- 
 tion composed of persons of European descent, 
 such as India, the West Indian Islands and the 
 northern parts of Australia. The value of the 
 first division is a matter purely for soldiers and 
 
186 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 sailors — our concern is with, the two last alone. 
 If this inquiry had been made a hundred years 
 ago, there can be no doubt as to the answer that 
 would have been given. In the absence of any 
 actual experience on the subject, it was then uni- 
 versally believed that the loss of the American 
 colonies was a fatal blow from which the nation 
 could never recover. Of course this was in some 
 degree owing to the mistaken views which were 
 then entertained as to the value of the monopoly 
 of the colonial trade. But even when allowance 
 has been made for this exploded error, there still 
 remains a great amount of terror and despondency 
 which we now know to have been utterly groundr 
 less, and which can only be accounted for by a 
 gross mistake of words for things. The English- 
 man of a hundred years ago believed, as we 
 believe at the present day, that the elements 
 which constitute the indispensable conditions of 
 the greatness of a State are inhabitants, territory, 
 and capital. He saw that the American Revolu- 
 tion deprived us, as far as America was concerned, 
 of all three, and he looked no farther. Had he 
 dived a little deeper into the matter, he would 
 ', have seen that the value of all these things 
 / depends entirelj'' on the degree in which they can 
 be made useful to the State which is the nominal 
 owner of them. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 187 
 
 Now, as to the territorj', it is quite clear that 
 its loss is a very inconsiderable evil so long as it 
 is (as is the case with all civilized nations) just as 
 accessible to us as if it was our own. The United 
 States, since their separation from us, have re- 
 ceived far more British emigrants from us than 
 our remaining colonies. Our people have settled 
 and thriven on the land that they are said to 
 have lost in North America. 
 
 Then as to the inhabitants. The English 
 Crown lost three millions of thriving and indus- 
 trious subjects; but then the question arises, 
 Did the English Crown ever possess them in the 
 sense which could make their loss a serious mis- 
 fortune ? Why are the subjects a support to the 
 State 1 Because the wealth which they possess 
 is a fund from which the State can draw, and on 
 which it can borrow for the supply of its neces- 
 sities. Subjects are also a support to a State, 
 because they are the natural defenders to whom 
 it looks in war for protection. We venture to 
 suggest that the reason why the loss of the 
 American colonies was so little felt by those who 
 expected to feel it so deeply was, that the colon- 
 ists of North America had never, or only in a very 
 slight degree, felt or discharged either of these 
 duties. They never assisted us in our wars in 
 
188 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Europe or anywhere except where they them- 
 selves were cioncerne(i, and so little idea had they 
 of aiding us with money, that they separated 
 from us rather than contribute to our revenue. 
 They never performed towards us the duties of 
 full citizenship, and reason as well as experience 
 shows that we could not be injured by the with- 
 drawal of services which we never enjoyed. But 
 this is not all. A country may incur very heavy 
 liabilities on account of subjects who make her no 
 return. Our Consuls in the East could tell us of 
 the great relief which they -would experience, if 
 the Maltese, for instance, were not as much enti- 
 tled to the protection of the British power as the 
 inhabitants of London. Subjects are not always 
 a support, but they very often become a burden. 
 We spent ten millions in order to rescue from 
 captivity three or four British subjects detained 
 in Abyssinia, and we did this mainly to keep up 
 our influence in India, which did not give a man 
 or a rupee for the service. We do not put for- 
 ward these considerations as showing that there 
 are not many advantages in a colonial empire 
 such as we now hold, and may, we trust, long 
 continue to hold. The close union that still 
 exists between us and our present colonial domin- 
 ions is highly honourable to both parties, and 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 189 
 
 has an obvious tendency to promote trade and 
 cement friendship. But it is idle to attempt to 
 conceal from ourselves that this union is in its 
 very nature temporary and precaiious, and may, 
 and probably will, be put an end to without any 
 misconduct on either side. 
 
 f y 
 
 In the first place the union is one-sided. In 
 case of war we are bound to defend Canada and 
 Australia just as much as we are bound to defend 
 Great Britain and Ireland. But there is no reci- 
 procal obligation. The colonies do all that we 
 require, and more than we expect, if they defend 
 themselves. The cause of war is almost sure to 
 be one in which all, or at any rate many, of the 
 colonies have no interest. They will naturally 
 feel regret that they are exposed to loss and 
 injury in a cause which is not theirs, and we 
 ought not to blame them if they prefer their own 
 interests to ours. The present is essentially a 
 fair-weather plan. Like Don Quixote's Helmet, 
 it has broken down once, and we shall do wisely 
 not to be too confident in it for the future. 
 
 It is besides not likely that the Colonies will 
 ultimately be content without having a voice in 
 those deliberations by which their welfare may be 
 so seriously affected. To gratify this reasonable 
 desire would amount to a remodelling of Parlia- 
 
190 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 ment on a federal principle. To this there are 
 two insuperable objections : one the impossibility 
 of persuading England and Scotland, and perhaps 
 even Ireland, to consent to such a change ; the 
 other the difSculty which is sure to arise among 
 the colonies themselves. * # * * 
 
 On the second point, which has hitherto escaped 
 observation, we will offer a few remarks. 
 
 Every colony is, by the ties of Government, 
 trade, and a certain degree of common interest, 
 connected with the Imperial Government. The 
 colony looks back to her origin and her history, 
 inseparably intertwined with our own. 
 
 I " And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself ia 
 ' proud." 
 
 Much may and doubtless would be conceded to 
 the mother-country which would be conceded to 
 no one else ; with her there is no spirit of rivalry. 
 But of an assembly composed partly of represen- 
 tatives of the mother-country and partly of the 
 representatives of other colonies, each colony 
 would be utterly intolerant. They would say, and 
 with some justice, that they recognize the right 
 of England to a voice in matters affecting their 
 welfare, but thatthey utterly deny the right of any 
 one colony to exercise any influence over the 
 affairs of another. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 191 
 
 Every one whose lot it has been to be practic- 
 ally acquainted with the sentiments and aspira- 
 tions of a colonial community, is well aware that 
 one colony seldom errs on the side of over-estima- 
 ting the advantages or good qualities of its neigh- 
 bour. They are apt to regard each other more as 
 rivals than as co-operators. The products of 
 those that lie near each other are mostly similar 
 and they are competitors for custom in the Lon- 
 don market. Many reasons may be given why it 
 would be very much for the interest of the Aus- 
 tralian colonies to form a confederacy somewhat 
 on the pattern of the United States, or at least to 
 join in a ZoUverein, and thus save the expense 
 and delay of inter-colonial custom-houses. But 
 though no one can deny this in the abstract, 
 these reasons have hitherto been urged in vain. 
 There is but one really efficacious motive to draw 
 them into a confederacy," and that motive is fear. 
 Where that is present the thing may be forced 
 upon the colonies, as in North America and South 
 Africa ; where this is wanting, as in Australia, 
 minor inducements are tried in vain. 
 
 But if this repulsion exists so strongly between 
 neighbouring colonies, what will it be, between 
 colonies separated from each other by the dia- 
 meter of the earth ? Will Canada accept laws 
 
192 THE POLITIOAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 from New Zealand ? or Australia submit to the 
 legislation of Jamaica ? And yet the only con- 
 ceivable scheme by which the colonies can pos- 
 sibly be admitted to share in imperial councils is 
 an assembly in which the Crown and the colonies 
 shall be alike represented. 
 
 Whenever, therefore, the time shall arrive for 
 the colonies to claim a voice in the general policy 
 of the empire, there is nothing for it but separa- 
 tion, since the only alternative that can be sug- 
 gested is utterly unworkable. The result is, that 
 we shall act most wisely by looking the question 
 fairly in the face, whenever the inevitable day 
 shall arrive when our larger colonies shall make 
 the claim to have a voice in imperial affairs, and 
 solve the question by submitting patiently and 
 graciously to the inevitable alternative of separa 
 tion, instead of exaggera,ting the mischief by 
 futile efforts to avert it. It is not natural that 
 nations which are destined, probably in the life- 
 time of some persons now in existence, to become 
 more numerous than our own, should submit to 
 be for ever in a state of tutelage. Our wisdom 
 is to defer the change as long as possible, and 
 when it does come, to throw no captious obstacles 
 in the way, but to console ourselves by the reflec- 
 tion that the experience of a hundred years ago 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OP CANADA. 193- . 
 
 shows us that it is very easy to exaggerate- the 
 mischiefs that arise from such a separation ; 
 above all, we should be on our guard against such 
 phrases as " the decline of the empire," the " set- 
 ting of the sun of England," and other poetical 
 anid rhetorical expressions, which have really no 
 application to a change that only marks- an in- 
 evitable period in a singularly wise and bene- 
 ficent policy of which we have every reason to be 
 proud. 
 
 To those who view the probable separation of 
 the colonies from the mother-country at some 
 period more or less remote as a proof of our de- 
 generacy as compared with those who founded 
 them, it may be some consolation to observe that 
 hardly any of these settlements at the present day 
 are answering the purposes with which they were 
 founded. The great object in founding a colony 
 was undoubtedly to secure the monopoly of its 
 trade, and so long as we confined ourselves to that 
 the American Colonies were among the most 
 loyal of our fellow-subjects. Australia was origin- 
 ally occupied as apenal settlement. The West India 
 Islands were desired as fields for the employment 
 of slave-labour ; and India, as we shall see pre- 
 sently, was acquired for objects very different 
 
 M 
 
194 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA, 
 
 from those which are now assigned for its re- 
 tention. 
 
 There remains for consideration the third and 
 by far the^ most important part of our inquiry, 
 the question, namely, of the amount of injury 
 which we should sustain by the loss of those do- 
 minions of the Crown, which, being situated 
 within the tropics or in their vicinity, can never 
 become the home of a laborious and quickly 
 multiplying European population. Our sugar 
 islands were acquired as labour-fields for slaves, 
 and with emancipation they lost the greater part 
 of their value. Nature is so bountiful and life so 
 easy in these lovely isles, and indolence so irresist- 
 ible, that we lose greatly instead of gaining by 
 the change from slave labour to free. To add to 
 the depression in these once flourishing posses- 
 sions, it pleases the Government of France, in ad- 
 dition to one hundred and nine millions which 
 the nation has to pay for Government and the in- 
 terest of debt, to raise another million, which is 
 employed in bounties to enable the beetroot sugar 
 of France to undersell the sugar of the tropics. 
 No one, we think, will say that any considerable 
 loss would be sustained if these islands were sep- 
 arated from the British dominions. There can, 
 in fact, be no reason for retaining them except 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 196 
 
 the honourable feeling that it would be disgrace- 
 ful to England to allow "some of tlie fairest spots 
 of the earth to relapse into utter sloth, ignorance, 
 and barbarism, after she has once taken them 
 into her hands. 
 
 We now believe ourselves to be in a condi- 
 tion to answer the question which we proposed 
 as to the value to the United Kingdom of the 
 foreign dominions of the Crown other than 
 military posts. The answer seems to be that to 
 over-estimate it is extremely easy, and to under- 
 estimate it extremely difficult. Having consider- 
 able faith in the soundness of opinions which are 
 very generally entertained, we have done our best 
 to find some ground for the belief that the 
 colonies are the mainstay of the empire, and that 
 we have in India the secret of our greatness, our 
 wealth and our power. As will be seen, in this 
 attempt we have utterly failed. The matter was 
 extremely simple while we confined ourselves to 
 vague generalities. As long as we limited our 
 view to tables of imports and exports, to returns 
 of population and numbers of square miles, the 
 case seemed plain enough ; but when we came to 
 examine the relations in which the owners of 
 these things stood to England, the scales fell from 
 our eyes, and we saw that all these good things 
 
196 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 which we are instructed to regard as elements 
 of our strength, were really ours in words alone ; 
 and what we were instructed to rely on as our 
 own property turned out to be nothing better 
 than a mere rhetorical flourish, in fact the pro- 
 perty of others. 
 
 The question is not whether aU these magnifi- 
 cent territories and swarming millions exist ; nor 
 yet whether they are set down in books of geo- 
 graphy and gazetteers as forming part of the 
 dominions of the British Crown ; nor yet whether 
 they are the objects of admiration to the nations 
 of the earth. The question with which we, as 
 practical people, are concerned is much simpler,, 
 and may be thus expressed. What. is the relation 
 in which the inhabitant of the British Isles stands 
 to these possessions ? Are they his in the same- 
 sense in which the wealth, the population, and 
 the strength of the United Kingdom are his ? 
 The answer must be, that they are not. And if 
 the question be further pressed, in what respect 
 do they differ ? The answer must be : The differ- 
 ence is simply this, that while we are bound to 
 defend these vast possessions beyond the United 
 Kingdom to our last shilling and our last man, 
 the persons to whom we are so boimd recognise 
 no corresponding obligation, and after enjoying 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 197 
 
 the fruits of our power and prosperity are at 
 liberty to part from us, if they so think fit, in the • 
 moment of danger and distress. And, further, 
 the answer must be that these dominions, which 
 we call ours, give us no strength in war, and no 
 funds at any time towards the support of our 
 Government, and have been in the past the fruit- 
 ful causes of wars. 
 
 We look for a solid repast, and can find no- 
 thing but a banquet of the Barmecide. 
 
 — Fortnightly Beview, 
 

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