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 THE 
 
 POLITICAL DESTINY 
 
 OF 
 
 CANADA, 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 By GOLDWm SMITH, 
 
 WITH 
 
 A EEPLY, 
 
 By sie feajncis hincks 
 
 I 
 
 (Toronto: 
 BELFORD BROS., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1877. 
 
I 
 
 
 
I 
 
 TUE 
 
 POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 BY GOLDWIN SBVIITH. 
 
 (From The FwtniyhUy Review.) 
 
 Ignokance of the future can hardly be good for any man or nation ; nor can forecast of 
 the future :a the case of any man or nation well interfere 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 artisan would desert the foundry 
 or the loom, no Canadian politician would become less busy in his quest of votes, no indus- 
 try of any kind would slacken, no source of wealth would cease to flov/, if the rulers of 
 Canada and the powers of Downing Street, by whom the rulers of Canada are supposed to 
 be guided, instead of drifting on in darkness, knew for what port they were steering. 
 
 For those who are actually engaged in moulding 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 remain forever t, dependency, to blend again in a vast confederation with the 
 monarchy of the mother-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 dejiendenvy, in military and political railways, in armaments and defences, and other 
 things which assurae the permanence of the present system, is enough to convict Canadian 
 rulers of flagrant improvidence if the permanency of the present system is not distinctly 
 established in their minds. 
 
 To tai- forecast with revolutionary designs or tendencies is absurd. No one can be in 
 a less revolutionary frame of nlind than he who foresees a political event without having 
 the slightest interest in hastening its arrival. On the other hand, mere party politicians 
 cannot afford to see beyond 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 considered by itself, apart from that of any 
 other portion of the motley and widely-scattered "empire." This surely is the rational 
 course. Not to speak of India and the military dependencies, such as Malta and Gibral- 
 tar, which have absolutely nothing in common with the North American colonies (India 
 not even the titular form of government, since its sovereign has been made an empress), 
 who can believe that the future of Canada, 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 population of Jamaica, the French and Indian population of Mauritius, the English 
 auu Chinese population of Australia, are going to run forever the same political course 'i 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Who can believe that the moulding inflnenceH will be the Hame in arctic continenta or in 
 tropical islanilH aw in ommtrieH lyiny within the temperate zone? Anionjj; the colonieSv 
 those, jierhaps, which :ii(>nt nearly reKenibli' each other in politii^al character anrl circiim- 
 Btances, an Canada and Auntralia ; yet the elements of tht population are very different 
 —and Htill more different are the external relations of Aiistralia, with no other power near 
 her, from those of C?anada, not only conterndnouH with the Ignited States, but interlaced 
 with them, ho that at present the lond of the Govfrnor General of Canada, when he visits 
 his Pacific in-ovince, lies through the territory of the American Republic. Is it jiowsible to 
 suppose that tho slender filament which connects each of these colonies with Downing 
 Street is the thread of a common destiny? 
 
 In stuilying Canadian politics, and in attemi)ting to cast the political horoscope of 
 Canada, the first thing to be remembered, though official optimism is apt to overlook it, is 
 that (^anada was a colony not of England but of France, and that between the British of 
 Ontario and the British of Nova Scotia and New BnmswicJc are interposed, in solid and 
 unyielding mass, above a million of iniassimilated and jMilitically antagonistic Frenchmen. 
 French Canada is a relic of the historical past ])reserved by iHolati<m, as Siberian mam- 
 moths are preserved in ice. It is a fragnnnt of the France before the Revolution, less the 
 monarchy and the aristocracy ; for the feeble parody of French feudalism in America ended 
 with the abolition of the seigniories, which nuiy be regarded as the final renunciation of 
 feudal ideas and institutions by society in the New World. The French-Canadiai»s are an 
 lmprogre^sive, religious, submissive, courteous, and, tlxnigh poor, not imhappy people. 
 They would make excellent factory -hands if Canada had a market for her manufactures ; 
 and, perhaps, it is as nnich due to the climate as to their lack of intelligent industry, 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 ('hurch may be said to 
 be ptill established in the province, every Roman Catholic being liound to pay tithes and 
 other ecclesiastical imposts, though the Protestant minority 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-Canadians, as we have said, retain their exclusive national 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 Canada the Frenchman of Quebec has something of a patriotic feeling ; for France 
 he has filial affection enough to make his heart beat violently for her during a Franco- 
 Gei-man war; for England, it may be safely said, he has no feeling whatever. It is tri'e 
 that he fought against the American invaders in the Revolut ouary War, and again in 
 1812 ; but then he was animated by his ancient hostility to the Puritans of Is ew England , 
 in the factories of whose descendants he now freely seeks employment. Whether he would 
 enthusiastically take uj) arms for P^ngland against the Americans at present, the British 
 War-Office, after the experience of the two Fenian raids, can no doubt tell. With Uj)per 
 Canada, the land of Scotch Presbyterians, Irish Orangemen, and ultra-British sentiment, 
 French Canada, during the union of the two provinces, led an uneasy life ; and she accepted 
 confederation, on terms which leave her nationality imtouched, 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 im- 
 migrants in Manitoba, which iiresented a faint parallel to the conflict between the ad- 
 vanwd posts of slavery and anti-slavery in Kansas on the eve of the civil war ; Quebea 
 
THE POLITICAL UESTINV OF CANADA. 
 
 
 openly MympathiHiiit, with Rlel and his fellow-inMUiKentH, while Ontario wuh on fire to 
 avenge the deatli of Scott. Sir George Cartier might i;all hiniHelf an Kiiglinhuian Hi)eaking 
 French ; but hiH calling hin.Helf ho diil not make him ho ; much lesn did it extend the 
 character from a political manager, treading thf path of ainliition with British coUeagucH, 
 to tne masH of his unHophisticated compatriots. The prients hitherto have puc their 
 interests into the hands of a political leader, mich as Sir (Jeorge hinmelf, in the same way 
 in which the Irish i)riestH used to put their interests into the hands of 0'( "onnell ; and this 
 leader has made tlie best terms he coidd for tliem ami for himself at Ottawa. Xor has it 
 been difficult to make good terms, since both the political parties bid emulously for the 
 Catholic vote, and, by their interested sidwerviency to those who wield it, render it im- 
 possible for a Lioeral Catholic party, or a Liberal party of any kind, to make head against 
 priestly influence in (Quebec. IJy preference the priests, as reactionists, have allied them- 
 selves with the Tory party in the Britibh provinces, and C'anada has long witnessed the 
 singular spectacle, witnessed for the first time in England at the last general election, of 
 Roman Catholics and Orangemen marching together to the poll. Fear of contact with an 
 active-minded democracy, and of possible peril to their overweeiung wea].,h, has also led 
 the priesthood to shrink from annexation, though they have not been able to prevent their 
 l)eople from going over the line for better wages, and bringing back with them a certain 
 republican leaven of jmlitical and ecclesiastical unrest, which in the end niay, perhaps, 
 lead to the verification of Lord Elgin's remai'k, that it W(juld be easier to make the French- 
 Canadians Americans than to make them English. Hitherto, however, French Canada 
 has retained, among other heirlooms of the Anrieii Riijimc, the old <iallican Church, the 
 Church of Louis XIV. and of Bossuet, national, ([uiet, unaggressive, capable 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 i)ene- 
 trated, with the Jesuit in its van. There is a struggle for ascendancy between the Jesuits 
 and the Galileans, the citadel of the Gallicans being the Sulpician Seminary, vast and 
 enormously wealthy, which Vises over Montreal. The Jesuit has the forces of the hour on 
 his side ; he gains th.; day ; the bishops fall under his influence, and take his part against 
 the Suli)icians ; the Guibord case marks, distinctly though farcically, the triumph of his 
 I)rinciples ; 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 (juestions calculated to 
 excite the Protestants of the British provinces, which the politicians, with all their arts, 
 will hardly bo 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 thone 
 of the Irish in the mother-country, as any reader of their favcjurite journals will perceive. 
 Thus, without reckoning a considerable German settlement in Ontario, which by its luum- 
 paired nationality in the heart of the British population attests the weakness of the assimi- 
 lating forces in Canada compared with those in the L^nited 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 4,00(J,000 in order to reduce to reality the pic- 
 tures of universal devotion to England and English interests which are jjresented by the 
 speeches of official persons, or of persons professing 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 un'.te 
 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, form 
 those of Ontario, New Brunswick especially being drawn by her commercial interests to- 
 wards New England. The representatives of each of the smaller provinces from a separate 
 group at Ottawa, giving or withholding their support to a great extent from provincial 
 

 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 con«l(U'rationR. Each of the twi> political partiew haw itH base in Ontario, which is the field 
 of the (iecisive )>attleH ; ivntl they can hardly Ix) Haid to extend to the maritime j)rovinceH, 
 much leHH to Manitoba or tn IJritish Columbia. When the Ontarian parties are evenly 
 bftlaiict'd the Hinaller provinces turn the scale, and Ontarian Leaders are always buying 
 them witli " better terms," that is, alterations of the pecuniary arrp.ngements of confedera- 
 tion in their favour, and other inducementa, at the sacrifice, of coursd, of the generiA inter- 
 ests of the Confederation. From the composition of a cabinet to the composition of a 
 rifie-team, sectionalism is the rule. Confederation has secured free-trade between the pro- 
 vinces ; what other ^'ood it has done it would not be easy to say. Whether it has increased 
 the military strength of Canada is a (luestio.i f(ir the answer to which we must appeal once 
 more to the liritish War-Otfice. CJanadians have shown, on more than one memorable occa- 
 sion, that in military spirit they were not wanting ; but they cannot be goaded into wast- 
 ing their hardly-earned money on preiiarations for a defence which would be hopeles.s 
 ag.ainst an invader who will never come. Politically, the proper jirovince of a federal 
 tjovenmient is the management of external relations, while domestic legislation is the 
 province of the several states. But a deiiendency has no external relations ; Canada has 
 not even, like South Africa, a native (juestion, her Indians being perfectly harmless ; and 
 consequently 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 dischi'.rges with a vengeance. English 
 statesmen bent on extending to all the colonies what they assume to be the benefits of 
 Confederation, should study the Cauadi.'in specimen, if possible, on the spot. They vn\l 
 learu, first, that while a spontaneous confe leration, such as groups of states have formed 
 under the pressure of a common danger, develops mainly the principles of union, a confe- 
 deration brought about by external influence is apt to develop tho principles of antagonism 
 in at least an equal degree ; and, secondly, that parliamentary government in a dependency 
 is, to a lamentable extent, government by facti<m and corruption, and that by superadding 
 federal to i)rovincial government the extent and virulence of those maladies are seriously 
 increased. If an appeal is made to the success of confederation in Switzerland, the answer 
 is, that Switzerland is not a dependency but a nation. 
 
 It is of Canada alone 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 portion of the Canadian people to England, are not dependent on the poli- 
 tical 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 1812, and of the conduct of the British aristocracy towards the United States during the 
 rebellion of the South — conduct which it is difficult to forgive, and which it would be folly 
 to forget. Yet to those who have lived among the Americans it will not seem extravagant 
 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 dependencies, 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 rtf credi- 
 bility. 
 
 The gi-eat forces prevail. They prevail at last, however numerous and apparently 
 strong the secondary forces opposed t(j 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 secon 
 dary forces were so heavily massed against the event that men renowned for practical wis- 
 dpm believed the event would never come. It came, irresistible and irrevocable, and wc 
 now see that Bismark and Cavour were only the ministers of Fate. 
 
 Suspended of oourse, 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 remarkable instance is the long postponement of the union of Scotland with England 
 by the" antipathies resulting from the abortive attempt of Edward I., and by a subsequent 
 train historical accidents, such as the absorption of the energies of England in Continen- 
 tal 01 V ivil war. But the union came at last, and, having the great forces on its side, i* 
 came forever. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 
 In the case before us, it appears that thn jpreat forces are those which make for the 
 political sejjaration of the New from the Old World. They are : 
 
 1. The distance, which may be Hhorteiied by Hteam and telograi>h for the transmission 
 of a dertpot'H commands, but can hardly bo mnch Hhortoueil for the pun>'*es of ruprHsen- 
 tative ({overnment. Steam increases the transatlantic interco)irse of the wealthier class, 
 but not that of the people, wlo havo neither nn.'uey nor time for the passage. Iv.t-rythino' 
 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 imprt)bable that the cost of ship-buildin(jor the .vayes 
 of seamen will Iro reduced ; an<l the growth of manufactures in the New World, which we 
 may exi)ect henceforth to be rapitl, can havdly fail to diminish the iiitercourse deiwadent 
 on transatlitntic trade. A commonwealth spanniuLf the Atlantic may bo a grand conception, 
 but i)olitical institutions must after all bear some relation to Nature and to practical con- 
 venience. Few have fought against geograithy and prevailed. 
 
 2. Divergence of interest, which seems in this case to ho as wide as possible. What 
 has Canada to do with the European and Oriental concorni of England, .vith her European 
 and Oriental diplomacy, with her European and Orient.il wars ? Can it l>e conceived that 
 C'anadian traders would allow her commerce to be cut up by Russian cruisers, or that 
 Canadian fanners would take arms and pay war-taxes in order to prevent Russia from 
 obtaining a free passage through the Dardanelles? An Englist) ijamphlot called "The 
 Great Game " was reprinted the other day in Canada ; but tlie chapter on India was 
 omitted, as having no interest foi Canadians, For English readers that chapter had pro- 
 bably more interest than all the other chapters put together. On the other hand, whenever 
 a question about boundaries or mutual rights arises with the United States, the English 
 people and the English Government betray, by the languor of their diplomacy and the ease 
 with which they yield, their comparative indifference to the objects in wliich t 'aiiada ib 
 most concerned. A f 'anadian 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 Britain wanted either force or spirit to fight for her own rights and interests, 
 but that she fell hat Canadian rights and interests were not her own. Her rulei-s could 
 not have induced her people to go to war for an object fi>r which they cared so little, and 
 had 80 little reason to care, as o frontier line in North America. Another illustration of 
 the difference between the British and the C^miadian point of view was afforded by the 
 recent dispute about the Extradition Treaty. England was disposed to be stiff and pr. Ai- 
 CUB, having comparatively little to fear from thesuspeniUi.n of the treaty; while to Canada, 
 bordering on the United States, the danger was great, and the renewal of the treaty was a 
 vital necessity 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 thu 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 aristocracy an^ lose of Canadian democracy nc it only are 
 not identical, but point directly opposite ways. With regard to economical questions, the 
 divergence is, if possible, still clearer than with regard to diplomatic (luestions. The econo- 
 mic interests oi Canada must evidently be those of her own continent, and to that contin- 
 ent, by all the economic forces, she must be and visibly is drawn. Her currency, what- 
 ever may be the name and superscription on the coin, is American, and it is the sure 
 symbol of her real eonuection. In the British manufacturer the Canadian manufacturer 
 sees a rival; and Canada at this moment is the scene of a protectionist movement led, 
 curiously enough, by those " Conservative " politicians who are loudest in their professions 
 of loyalty to Great Britain. 
 
 3. More momentous than even the divergence of interest is the divergence of political 
 character between the citizen of the Old and the citizen of the New World. Wespaak, 
 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 communities in North America. 
 The colonization of the New World, at least that English portion of it which was destined 
 
THE POLITICAJ DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 to give birth to the ruling and moulding power, was noc merely a migration, but an exodus : 
 it was no*-, merely a local extension of humanity, but a development ; it not only peopled 
 another continent, but opened a new era. The curtain rose not for the old draaia with 
 fresh actors, but for a fresh drama on a fre.sh sceHe. A long farewell was said to feudali.!!n 
 when the New England c ili my landed, with the rough draft of a written constitution, which 
 embodied asocial compact and founded government not on sacred tradition or diviud riidit, 
 but on reason and the public good. The more one sees of society in the 'N'ew World, the 
 more convinced one is that its stnicture essentially differs from that of society in the Old 
 World, and tb">.t the feudal element has been eliminated completely and forever. English 
 aristocracy, fancying itself, as t«,il established systems fancy themselves, the normal a!id 
 final state of humanity, maj cling to the belief that the new development r:j a mere 
 aberration, and that dire exiierience will in time bring it back to the ancient path. There 
 are people, it seems, who persuade themselves that America is retrograding towa; d monar- 
 chy and church establishments. No one »vho knows the Americans can possibly share 
 this dre"-m. Monarchy has found its way to the New World only in the exceptional 
 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 conven the shadow into a subsiauce, 
 by introducing a dynasty with a court and civil list, or by reinventing the viceroy with 
 l^rsoual power, would speedily revjal the real nature of the situation. Pitt proposed to 
 extend to Canada what as a Tory minister he necessarily regarded as the Messiiigs of aris- 
 tocracy ; but the plant refused to take root in the alien soil. No peerage ever saw the light 
 in Canada ; the baronetage saw the light and no more ; of nobility there is nothing now 
 but J- knighthood ve' ^ small in nunrber, and upon which the Pacific 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 custo: a of primogeniture, indis- 
 pensable supports of an aristocracy, are totally wanting in a purelv industrial country, 
 where, let the law be what it might, natural justice has always protested against the feudal 
 claims of I'le first-born. To establish in Canada the state Church, which is the grand but- 
 tress of aristocracy in England, has proved as hopeless as to estalilish aristocracy itself. 
 The Church lands have been soculari7.ed ; the university, once confined to Aj)glicanism, has 
 been thrown open ; the Anglican Church has been reduced to the level of other denomina- 
 tions, 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 Eii:.,iand, and sustained to a certain extent by a social feel- 
 ing in its favour among the wealthier class. Mere democratic churches far exceed it in 
 popularity and propagandist force : Methodism especially, wliich, in contrast to Episco- 
 pacy, sedulously assigns an acti'-e part in ohurch-v/ork to every member, decidedly gains 
 ground, and bids fair to become the popular religion of Canada. Nor is the militarism 
 of Europer.n aristocracies less alien to industrial Canada tLun their monr chism and thp'r 
 affinity for State churches. The Canadians, as we have already said, can figho well when 
 real occasion calls ; so can theii> 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 apparatus has lieen tried in vain. Distinctions of rank, again, .are want- 
 ing : everything bespeaks a land dedicated to equality; and fustian, instead of bowing to 
 broa-^cloth, le rather too apt, by aruuo self-assertion, to revenge itself on broadcloth for 
 enioiced sub^nissiven^ss in the old co\mtry. Where the relations of classes, the social 
 forces, and the whole spirit of society, are different, the real prim-iplea and objects of 
 govenunent will differ also, notwithstanding the formal identity of institutions. It proved 
 impossible, as all careful observers had foreseen, to keep the same political roof over the 
 heads of slavery and anti-slfvvery. To keep the same pt^litical roof over the heads of 
 British aristocracy and t'anadian democracy would be an undertaking only one degree 
 less hopeless. A rupture would come, perhaps, on some question between the ambiticm 
 of a money-spending nobility and the parsimony of a money-making people. Let aristo- 
 
THE POLITICAL DKSTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Q 
 
 I 
 
 vjriicy, hiunvrchy, and militarism, he content with the Old World ; it was oonqufred by 
 the feudal sword ; the New Work! was conquered only by the a-xe and l>lougli. 
 
 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 ("atholic Church of the States ; the 
 whole by economic influences, against which artificial arrangements and sentiments con- 
 tend in vain, and which are gathering strength and manifesting their ascendancy from 
 hour to hour. 
 
 An enumeration of the forces which make in favour of the present connectit/U \vill 
 show their secondary, and, for the most part, transient character, 'i'he chief of them 
 appear to be tliese : 
 
 a. The reacti(mary tendencies- of the priesthood which rules French Ca'iada, and 
 which fears that any change might disturl) its solitarj' reign. Strong tliis force has hith- 
 erto been, but its strength dei)end8on isol.ition, and isolation cannot be permanent. Even 
 the " palfeocrystallic" 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 toward this result— the leaven of American sentiment brought back by French- 
 Canadians who have sojourned as artisans in the States, an(i the ecclesiastical aggressive- 
 ness of the Jesuits. 
 
 b. " United Empire Loyalism," which has it-i chief seat in Ontario. Every revolution 
 has its reaction, and ii. the case of the American Itevwlution the reaction took tue form of 
 a migration of the royalists to < Canada, where lands were assigned them, and where they 
 became the political i)rogenitors of the Canadian Tory party , while the " Reformers" are 
 the offspring of a subsequent immigration of Scotch Presbyterians, mingled with wander- 
 ers from the United States. The two immigrations were arrayed against each other in 
 18.37, when, though the United Kmpire Loyalists were victorious in the field, the political 
 victory uitimalely rested with the Reformers. United Enqjire Loyalism is still strong in 
 some districts, while in others the descendants of royalist exiles are found in the rai:ks of 
 the opposite party. But the whole party is now in the position of the Jacobites after 
 the extinction of the house of Stuart. England has formally recognized the American 
 Revolution, taken part in the celebration of its centenary, and throtigh her ambassadoi' 
 saluted its flag. Anti-revolutionary sentiment ceases to have any meaning, and 'ts death 
 cannot be far off. 
 
 c. Th-? influence of English immigrants, especially in the uj^per ranks of the jjrofessious, 
 in the high places of commerce, and in the press. These men have retained a certain social 
 ascendancy ; they have valued themselves on their birth in the imperial country and tlie su- 
 perior traditions which they si q)i)osed it to imply ; they have personally cheiished the [)oli- 
 tical connection, and ha.e inculcated fidelity to it with all their might. But their I'.umber 
 is rapidly decreasing; as they ilie off natives take their places, and Canada will s' n be 
 in Canadian hands. Immigration generally is falling off; upper-class immigration ia 
 almost at an end, there being no longer a deiuiind for anything but manual labour, an<l the 
 influence of personal c( nnection 'vith England will cease to rule, t'he press is passing into 
 the hands of nativee, who are fast learning to hold their own against imported writing i". 
 literary skill, while they have an advantage in their knowledge of the country. 
 
 d. Whilu the British croops remained in Canada, their officers formed a social aristo 
 cracy of the most powerful kind, and c.vercised a somewhat tyrannical influence over 
 Opinion. The traces of tiiis influence still remain, but, with the exception of the reduced 
 garrison jf Halifax, the military occiq)ation has ceased, and is not likely to ])e renewed. 
 
 c. Tl)e Anglican Church in Canada clings to its position as a branch of the great state 
 Church cf England, and, perhaps, a faint hope of re-establishment 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 ai)pear to 1 3 strong, and its chief source o' 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 
 
10 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 Canada, there being no large endowments or legal .system to clamp the hostile elements to- 
 gether, discord has already taken the form of disruption. As to the other churcLes, they 
 ha,vc a connection with England, but not with England more than with the United 
 States. The connection of Canadian Methodism with the United States ib very close. 
 
 /. Orangeism is strong iu British Canada, as indeed is every kind of association except 
 tie country. It retains its filial connection ^vith its Irish parent, and is ultra-British on 
 condition that Great Britain continues anti-papal. Old Irish quarrols are wonderfully 
 tenacious of life, yet they must one day die, and Orangeism must follow them to the grave. 
 
 <j. The social influence of English aristocracy, and of the little court of Ottawa over 
 colonists of the v/ealthicr class. With this (to dismiss at one- a theme more congenial to 
 tie social huinorist than to the political observer) we may couple the influence of those 
 ci'umbs of titular honor which English aristocracy sometimes allows to fall from its table 
 i.ito colonial mouths. If such forces cannot be said to be transient, the tendencies of 
 hiuxian nature being jjerpetual, they may at least be said to be secondary ; they do not 
 affect the masses, and they do not affect the strung. 
 
 h. Antii)athy to the Americans, bred by t'.ie old wars, and nursed by Briiish influ- 
 ences, military and aristocratic, not without the assistance of Ae Americans themselves, 
 who, in the case of the Fenian raids, and in other cases, have vented on Canada their feel- 
 i igs against England. This, antiiiathy, so far as it prevails, leads those who entertain it to 
 cling to an anti-American connection. But, generally speaking, it is very hollow. It 
 does not hinder young Canadians from going )>y 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 ne^er, 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 aristocrac}', vvhohtve learned to exhibit something more 
 than courtesy toward the victorious republic , while the Americans, it may be reasonably 
 presumed, now that the cause of irritation is removed, will not think it wise to make 
 enemies of a people v/hose destinies are inextricably blended with their own. 
 
 L The special attachment naturally felt by the politicians, as a body, to the system 
 with reference to which their parties have been foruied, and with which the personal am- 
 bition of most of them is bound up. Perhaps, of all the 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 to a faction always breeds, 
 to prevent any Canadian politician from playing a resolute part in such efiforts as there 
 have been to make Canada a nation. In some cases it is intensified by commercial connec- 
 tions with England, or by social aspirations, 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, tlie real interest of the communitv at large. So, in the case of Scot- 
 land, it was the special interest of the politicians to resist the union, as, without special 
 pressure and inducements, they would probably have persisted in doing. It was the in- 
 terest t)f the people to accept the union, as the flood of prosperity which followed its ac- 
 ceptance clearly showed. In the case of Scotland, the interest of the people triumphed at 
 last, and u will probably triumph at last in Canada. 
 
 Such, we say, are the chief forces tliat make for the existing connection ; and we re- 
 p( it that they appear to be secondary, and, for the most part, transient. United, all these 
 strands may make a stroig cable ; but, one l)y one ihey will give way, and the cable will 
 cease to hold. This conviction is quite consistent with the admission that the connection- 
 ist 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 existence i/f any other 
 opinions can only be inferred fi-om reticei.'ce, or discovered by private intercourse. A 
 vi.-itor may thus be led to believe and to report that the a+tachment of the whole popula- 
 tion to the present system is unalterable, and that the coni»ection must endure forever. 
 Those who have opportunities of looking beneath the surface may, at the same time, have 
 gi-cunds for thinking th'' % on economical subjects at least, the people have already sntered 
 on a train of thought wni'-ti will lead them uo a different goal. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 11 
 
 What has been the uniform course of events down to the present time ? Where are the 
 AmeMcan dependencies of Spain, Portugal, France, and Holland ? Those on the continent, 
 with unimportant exceptions, are gono, and those in the islands are going ; for few sup- 
 pose 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 ; and every one 
 now sees, what clear-sighted men saw at the time, that the separation was inevitable, and 
 must soon have been brought about by natural forces, apart from the accidental (luarrel. 
 If Canada has been retained it is by the reduction of imperial supremacy to a form. Self- 
 government is independence ; perfect self-government is perfect indepentlence ; and all the 
 questions that arise between Ottawa and Downing 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 responsibility for each oth^ir's quairels, and liability to be involved in each 
 other's wars — these incidents 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 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 mav be merely the receding wave ; and he for- 
 gets what the last wave swept away. It swept away tha military occupation, with all its 
 influences, political and social. Even siace that time the commercial unity of the empire 
 has been formally abandoned in the case i>f the Au»tralian tariff.s ; and now the marriage- 
 law of the colonies is clashing wth that of the mother-country in the British H'>use 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 confedera- 
 tion. Certainly, if .'uch a plan is ever to be carried into effect, this is the propitious hour. 
 The spirit of aggrandizement is in the ascendant, and the colonies are all on good te,ms 
 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 fultilinent. 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 impressive 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 tho last century, would now stand still, and 
 imi^racticable aspirations 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 de- 
 pendencies the confederation is to 'nclude. 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 ciiuntries scattered over the whole 
 globe, bound together by no real tie of comnum interest, and ignorant of each other's con- 
 cerns. The first meeting of such a conclave would, we may be sure, develop forces of dis- 
 union far stronger than the vague sentiment of union arising from a very partial community 
 of descent, and a very impejfect 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 government would 
 be no easy task. The two Pailiaments, the one National, the other Federal, which it is 
 proposed to establish in order to keep the national affairs of EngLnd separate from those 
 of tlie Imperial Federation, would be liable to be brought into fatal conflict, and thrown 
 into utter confusion by the j,scendancy of different jvartie.-!, say a v/ar party and a peace 
 party, in the National aud the Federal House. The veriest Chinese puzzleii politics would 
 bu a practicable constitu^on, if you coulil only get tlie real forces to conduct themselves 
 according to thj pr.J;iran»' o. It was not in the programme of Caniwlian confederation mat 
 
12 
 
 THK POLITICAL DFSTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 the provinces should form separate interests in uhe Federal Parliament, and force the party 
 leaders to Ijid against each other for their support ; though any one who had atudiecnictual 
 tendencies in connection with the system of party government might have i>retty confidently 
 predicted that such would be the result. That England v/ould allow questions of foioign 
 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 difficulties would probably 
 arise out of the peri atual vicissitudes of the party struggle in each colony, the consequent 
 inability of the delegates to answer for the real action of their own governments, and the 
 estrangement oi the di^iegates themselves from colonial interest and connections by their 
 necessary residence in England. An essential conditiim of federation appears to be, toler- 
 able equality among the members, or freedom from the ascendency of any overweening 
 power ; but, for a century to come, at least, the pov/er of England in the Federal council 
 would be overweening ; and, to obviate this difficulty, some ad'i'ocates of the scheme actually 
 propose to repeal the union of England with Scotland and Ireland, so that she may be re- 
 duced to a manageable element of a Pan-Britannio confederation. They have sm-ely little 
 right to call other people disunionists, if any opprobrious meaning attaches to that term. 
 
 Suj)i)oBing such a confederation to be practical)le, 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 jiolitical centre, which must also be, to some ex- 
 tent, its social and intellectual centre, and of accumulating them in the already over- 
 g^o^^^l capital of England? Does experience tell us that unlimit«d extension of terri- 
 tory is favourable to intensity of political life, or to anything which is a real element 
 of happiness or of greatness? Does it net 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 have 
 some distinct idea of the object to be attained before commencing this unparalleled 
 stn;ggle against geography and Nature. It can hardly be military strength. Military 
 strength is not gained by dispersion of forces, by pi-esenting vulnerable points in every 
 quarter of the globe, or by embracing and undertaking to defend communities which, 
 whatever may be their fighting qualities, in their policy are thoroughly unmilitary, and 
 unmilitary will remain. Mr. Forster, in fact, gives us to understand that the Pan-Brit- 
 annic Empire is to i)refient a beneficent contrast to the military empires ; that it i.-< to be 
 an empire of peace. 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 Ijoundless 
 mtdtii)lication of the Anglo-Saxon race. What are the grounds for this assumption? 
 Hitherto it has appeared that races, as they grow richer, more luxurious, more fearful 
 of poverty, more amenable to the restraints of social pride, have become less prolific. 
 There is reason tf> stip'iose that in the United States the Anglo-Saxon race is far les«t 
 prolific than the Irish, who are even supplanting the Anglo-Saxons in some districts of 
 England, as the honie-nde com^/liances of canilidates 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 Ai.glo-Saxon 
 race to inherit Australia, where it 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 her- 
 self, presenting, from her connection v, ith the United States, difficulties from which in 
 the case of the Australian colonies the problem is free. Of this some of the advocates of 
 the policy of aggrandizement si ow themselves aware by frankly proposing to let Cana- 
 da go. 
 
 It is taken for granted that political dependence is the natural state of all cohuiies, 
 and that there is something unfilial and revolutionary in proposing that a colony should 
 become a nation. But what is a colony ? We happen to have derived the term from 
 very peculiar set of institntious, those Roman c )lonie8 which had no lift of their own 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 13 
 
 ut were merely the military and political outposts of the imperial republic. With the 
 Roman colonies may be clas.Bed the Athenian clerachies and, substituting the commer- 
 cial for the political object, the factories of Carthage. But colonies, generally speak- 
 ing, £tre migrations, and, as a rule, they have been independent from the beginning. 
 Independent from the beginning, so far as we know, were the Ph'enician colonies, 
 f -arthage herself among the number. Independent from the beginning were those Greek 
 colonies in Italy which rapidly outran their mother cicies in the race of material greatntss. 
 Indej'endent from the beginning were the Saxon and Scandinavian cokmies, and all those 
 settkments of the Northern tribes which founded England herself with tne other nations 
 of modern Euroi>e. So far as we can see, the original independence in each case was an 
 essential conilition of vigour and success. No Roman colony, Athenian cleruchy, or Car- 
 thaginian factory, ever attained real greatness. New England, the germ and organizer 
 of the American communities, was practically independent for a long time after her foun- 
 dation, the attention of the English Government being engrossed by troubles at home ; 
 but she retaiiied a slender thread of theoretic dependence by which she was aftenvard 
 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 formally abolished ; yet probably the main cause of 
 the continued subjection of the transatlantic colonies, and of the calamiti'rt which flowed 
 both to them and to the mother-country from that source. 
 
 It is Uiatural 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 bur- 
 den and possible odium of such a measure upon themselves. But no one, we believe, ven- 
 tures to say that the present system will be jjerjietual ; certainly not the advocates of imjjerial 
 confederation, who warn us that, imless England bj' a total change of system draws her 
 colonies nearer to her, they will soon drift farther away. 
 
 Apart from lingering sentiment, it seems not ea.sy to give reasons, so far as Canada is 
 concerned, for struggling to prolong the present system. The motives for acquiring and 
 holding dependencies in former days were substantial if they were not good. Spain drew 
 tribute directlj' 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 relinquished, 
 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 sup- 
 plied their place with the notion of political tutelage, feigning— though, as we have seen, 
 against all the evidence of history— that the colony, during the early stages of its exist- 
 ence, needed the political" gtiidance of the mother-country in order to fit it to become a 
 nation. Such was the language of colonial statesmen generally till the i)resent conservative 
 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 sub- 
 stituted "prestige." That the political connection between England and Canada is a 
 source of military security to either, nob(.dy, we apprehend, maintains. The only vulner- 
 able point which England presents to the L^'nited States is the defenceless frontier of Cana- 
 da ; the only danger to which Canada is exposed is that of being involved in a quarrel be- 
 tween the aristocracy of England and the democracy of the United States. Defencelsss, 
 it is believed, the frontier of Upper Canada hiw been "Ittcially 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 Cana- 
 da were in the hands of the enemy, the bombardment of New York would hardly alleviate 
 her condition. But the bAnbardment 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, Englan i might no 
 doubt find in Canada ; but she would have to i>ay f )r them more than she pays for soldiers 
 and sailors recruited at home. Whether morality is embodied in Bismarck or not. modern 
 
i ! ! 
 
 14 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 policy is ; and Bismarck seems not to covet distant dependencies ; he prefers solid and 
 concentrated power. 
 
 " C'liinmerce follows the flag," is a saying which it ae'^mn can still oe repeated by a 
 statesman ; but, like the notion that dependencies are a source of military strength, it 
 in a mere survival from a departed system. CommercL- 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 legislation, colonial 
 purchasers inquire whether goods were produced under the British flag. "The best cus- 
 tomer," says Sir George Lewis, ' which a nation can have, is a thriving and industrious 
 community, whether it be dependent or independent. The trade between England and 
 the United States is probably more profitable to the mother-country than it would have 
 been if they had remained in a state of dependence upon her." As to Canada, what 
 she needs, and needs most urgently, is free access to the market of her own continent, 
 from which, as a dependency of England, she is excluded by the customs line. With 
 free access to the market of her own continent, she might become a great manufactur- 
 ing 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 manufactures ; the farm- 
 products of Canada are depreciated by exclusion from their natural market, and the lum- 
 ber-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 id 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 
 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 discovery 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 condder credit 
 as well as cash, the gain must be 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 Rail- 
 way, and the indemnity which Canada is forced to pay to British Columbia for the non- 
 performance of an impracticable treaty, are too likely, in the opinion of many, to furnish 
 e.nother illustration of the expensiveness of the imperial connection. 
 
 That emigration is favourably influenced by political dependency is another lingering be- 
 lief which seems now to have no foundation in fact, though it had in the days when emi- 
 gration 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 emi- 
 grants who land in Canada a large proportion afterwards pass the line, while there is a 
 constanc exodus of French-Canadians from their own poor and overpeopled country (over- 
 peopled so long as it is merely agricultural) to the thriving industries and high wages of 
 the States. Emigrants, whose object is to improve their material condition, are probably 
 little influenced by political considerations; they go to the country which offers the 
 best openings and the highest wages ; but English peasants an<J artiz:.as 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 Irishman, 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 actual need of military protection, is a question to 
 which the language of the adherents of the colonial systom themselves, when reviewing 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CA> , ")A 
 
 15 
 
 the history of colonial government, Hcems to suggest a negative i ?ply. " Hitherto," says 
 Mr, Roebuck, "those of our possessions termed colonies have not been governed accord- 
 ing 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 Eng- 
 lish people to establish colonies, that success has been obtained in spite of the mischiev- 
 ous intermeddling of the English Government, not in consequence of its wise and i)ro- 
 vident assistance." Such ii the refrain of almost all the works on the colonies, whether 
 they treat of the general a4kniaistration or of some special (iue8ti')n, 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, mis- 
 chief of all kinds, and at last a violent rupture, 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 abundant room for it, and whither, the pioneer 
 work having then been done, it would have been most profitably 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 convict-blood. To what good this scattering of English emi'Tation 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 Feejee, should 
 aik 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 ex- 
 ercised, led to every sort of evil. Government was jobbed by an oligarchy called the 
 Family Compact, 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 sinc3 real tutelage has departed, and left nothing but an image of 
 royalty which reigns with gracious speeches and hospitality , buu 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 statesmen would nave done so well ; but the task imposed on them was hopeless. 
 One tree might as well be set to regulate the grov. ifi of another tree, as one nation to regu- 
 late the growth of another nation ; and in this ra.so the two trees are of different sorts and 
 planted under diflferent 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 England is not a single mind. England is the vast and motley mass of voter-, 
 including, since the Conservative Reform Bill, the most uneducated 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 yellow, and are led by 
 senselasa 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 they are here. How 
 much does the average Englishman, or even the educated Englishman, know about Cana- 
 dian politics ? As much as Canadians know about the jiolitics of Tasmania or the Cape. 
 In " Phineas Finn," the hero of the tale, being under-secretary for the colonies, goes on a 
 message to Marylebone "to find what the people there think about the Candidas." His 
 report is : " Not one man in a thousand cares whether the Canadians 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 Ameri'.ii ■. 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 andj Tipperary are better informed than 
 
10 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 London. When did a (Canadian question influence an En(,'IiMh election ? How often is Canada, 
 nii'iititmed in an election-riddre»n ? Canadian journalu are never tired of exposinj,' what they 
 dueiii the scanihilonx ignorance of the leading journaln ©f Knglaud on Canadian Huhjects, 
 but they fai>todraw the obvjouH moral. If the Times Ijlunders, are the leaders i-f English 
 oiiitiion generally, and the'. conatituentH, likely to be better instructed and to decide aright? 
 'Burke, writing of ♦^'"^ ^imerican Kexolution, said that he could trace all the mischief 
 "to the "ingle source of not having had steadily before our eyes a general, comprehen- 
 sive, and well-proportioned view of the whole of our doniinit'ns, and a just sense of their 
 true bearings and relations." To say nothing of the ordinary holders of political power, in 
 how many English statesmen, occupied as English Ht^tesnlen are with home questions and 
 party struggles, would Burke have foimd this comjjrehenaive view, or the knowledge 
 necessary for the formation of it ? The colonial secretary himself is as often as not a man 
 personally unacquainted with the colonies, not called to his post by special aptitude, but 
 placed in it by party convenience. He miist often depend for his information on such colo- 
 nists 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 I'rovidence. The annexation of Manitoba and of 
 British Columbia to Canada — with which the latter, at all events, has no geographical con- 
 nexion — 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 pro- 
 lific novelist, brought into the government to make set speeches. 
 
 Tf any one supposes that the retention in ( 'anada of the forms of monarchy excludes 
 or mitigates any of the political evils, or even the coarseness to which democracy is liable 
 Ml its crude condition, a year's residence in the country, a month's jjerusal of the party 
 newspapers, or an hour's conversation with any Canadian man of business who 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 colony has of late years had deci.dve proof. If the inquirer wishes to enlarge the basis 
 of his induction, let him go through a file of Australian journals ; he will there find a 
 \y t,ure of public life, public character, and senatorial manners, decidedly below the level 
 of the better States of the LTuion. Canada has escaped the elective judiciary, 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 ahd 
 its fiscal consequences, Canada owes merely to her sepai'ation from the States ; it would 
 have been the same had she been an indei)endent 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 faineant. He decided that he was absolutely bound to follow 
 the advice of his mini&ters, 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 r and his conduct was approved by the home Government. He has, there- 
 fore, no authority, and of nothing, nothing comes. 
 
 Most readers of the Fortiwjhtlii are jirobably prepared to regard with tolerance the 
 proposition that figments and h5r|)ocri8ies do no more good in politics than they do in 
 general life. In Canadian politics they do much evil by blinding public men and the 
 people generally to the real requirements of *-he situation. The hereditary principle was 
 dead at its root ; its work was done, and its age had passed away in the more advanced 
 portion of humanity when the commtmities of the New World were founded. It lingers 
 on, as things do linger on, in it native soil ; but it can furnish no sound basis for govern- 
 ment in the soil of rt\as(ui and e(iuality. The only conceivable basis for government in the 
 New World is the national will ; and the political problem of the New World is how to 
 build a strong, stable, enlightened, and impartial government on that foundation. That 
 t is a very difficult problem, daily experience in Canada, as well as in the neighbouring 
 
 
 
THE POLITICAL DKSTINY OF CANADA, 
 
 17 
 
 republic, Hhowii, and to be BticcessfxiUy resolved it munt be seen in its tme bearingo, wliicli 
 the ostenHible r».'tentIon of the hereditary principle aa the security for good and stable 
 goveranient obscures. Canada, though adorned with the paraphernalia of eight constitu 
 tional monarchies (one central and seven provincial), is a democracy of the most pio- 
 nounced kind ; the Governor-General was not uTong in saying that she is more democratic 
 than the United States, where the President is an elective king, ami where the Senate, 
 which, though elective, is conservative, possesses great iwwer, whereas the nominated 
 Senate of Canada is a cipher. Demagogism and the other pests of democratic institutions 
 are not to be conjured away by forms and phrases ; they can be repressed and prevente<l 
 from ruining the state only by developing remedial forces of a really effective kind, and 
 by adjusting 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 ti her 
 while «he is left without any legal means of repressjni; he real cancer, political corruption. 
 Loyalty to the faineant depui of a !tant 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 political 
 action, and it certainly never restrains from a bad one. Among Cana^lians, 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 flunkeyism to 
 demagogism without making the demagogue less profligate, less dangerous, or less vile. It 
 does not even make him less coarse. No refiuing influence can really be exercised by a few 
 uinners and rec .^tions even over the small circle which attends them ; while the social 
 expenditure and display which are iniposed on the Governor-General as the condition of 
 his popularity in the colony, and of the maintenance of his reputation at home, are any- 
 thing but a wl'olesome example for colonial society, which, on the contrary, needs an 
 example of hospitality and social enjojanent cultivated in an easy and inexpensive way. 
 
 At iiresent the bane of Canada is p'arty government without any ([uestion on whicli 
 parties can be rationally or morally based. The last question of sufficient importance to 
 form a rational and moral basis for a i)arty 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 assignable ground for their existence, and they have become mere 
 factions, striving to engross the prizes of office by the means which faction everywhere 
 emjjloys. The consequences are the increasing ascendancy of the worst men, and the 
 political demoralization of a community, which, if a fair chance were given it, would fur- 
 nish 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 Canatla ; but she does 
 fling over it the glamour of British association, and beguile a counti-y reaily abandoned to 
 all the instability an>l all the degrading influences of government by faction with the 
 ostensible stability and dignity of the hereditary crown. Indeeil, the proTision in the 
 draught of confederation that both the parties 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, 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 whatever 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 patriotism is a good thing, they are told to keep 
 their \\isdom for the copy-books ; and the rebuke would be just if those who administer it 
 would recognize the equally obvious truth that there can be no patriotism without nation 
 ality. 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 of an English- 
 man responds when an appeal is made to the name of England. In a dependency every 
 bond is stronger than that of country, every interest prevails over that of the country. 
 The province, the sect, Orangeism, Fenianism, Freemasonry, Odd-Fellowship, are more to 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 I' <: 
 
 the ordinary Canadian than Canada. So it must be while the only antiilote to sectionalism 
 in a population with Htroiiglymarlted differences of race and creed is the sentiment of 
 allegiance to a distant throne. The young C'anadian leaving his native country to seek 
 his fortune in the States feels no greater wrench than a ., oung Englishman would feel in 
 leaving his comity to seek his fortune in London. Want of nationality is attended, too, 
 with a certain want of self-respect, not only political hut social, as writers on colonial 
 society and character have observed. Wealthy men in a dependency are inclined to look 
 to the imperial country as their social centre and the goal of their social ambition, if not 
 as their ultimate abode, and not only their patriotic munificence but their political and 
 social services are withdrawn from the coimtry of their birth. 
 
 Mr. Trollope finds himself compelled to confess that in [)as8ing from the United States 
 into Canada you pais " 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 countrj- 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, if they took a patriotic view of the 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 emulation, mutual warring 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 dominant sentiment which spreads over that vast democ- 
 racy like the tide running in over a flat, might have been usefully restricted in its sweep by 
 the dividing line. Nor was there any insurmountable obstacle in the way. Canada is 
 wanting in unity of racn ; but not more so than Switzerland, whose tliree races have been 
 thoroughly wedded together t>y the force of nationality. She is wanting in compactness 
 of territory, but not more su, 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 British Columbia, which in their present raw condition have 
 no influence beyond that of distant possessions, but which, when peopled and awakened to 
 commercial life, will be almost irresistibly attracted by the econoinifial forces to the States 
 which adjoin them on the south, and will thus endanger the coliesion of the whole con- 
 federacy. 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, insteail 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 (juestion of military security has reference solely to the danger to be appre- 
 hended on the side of the United States ; and danger on the side of the United States, 
 supposing Canada disentangled from English quarrels, we believe that there is none. 
 The Americans, as has been repeatedly observed, have since the fall of slavery given 
 every proof of an unambitious disposition. They disbanded their vast armaments im- 
 mediately on the close of the civil war, without waiting 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 pight have made their own 
 v.ath the greatest ease ; they have declined to take advantage of the pr«texts furnished 
 them • in abundance, by border outrages, of conquering Mexico ; it is very doubtful 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 19 
 
 whether thoy would even have purchased Alaska, if Mr. Seward had not drawn theiu 
 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 ap]iears to have ilied. Welcome Canada into the Union, if she came of her 
 own accord, the Americans no doubt would. They would be stransjely wanting in 
 wisdom if they did not ; for she would bring them as her dower not only complete 
 immunity from attack, and great economical advantages, but a political accession of 
 the moHt valuable kind in the shapt' of a population, not like that of St. Domingo, 
 Cuba, or Mexico, but trained to self-government, and capable of lending fresh strength 
 and vitality to rei)ublican institutions. It is true that, slavery having been abolished, 
 the urgent need of adding to the numljer of the free States in order to counterbalance 
 the extension of slavery in the coimcils of the Union no longer exists ; but there are 
 still in the population of the United States large elements essentially non-republican — 
 the Irish,- the emigrants from Southern Grermany, 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 continues to be composed of a superior 
 and inferior race. Against these non-re})ublican elements, the really republican element 
 still needs to be fortified by all the retinforcements 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 ham's upon her, that such a thought ever enters 
 their minds, no one w)io has lived among them, and heard the daily utterances of a 
 by no means reticent jieople, can believe. Apart from moral principle, they know that, 
 though a despotic Government may simply ."• lex, a republic must incorporate, and 
 that to incorporate four millions of unwilling citizens would be to introduce into the 
 republic a most dangerous mass of disaffection and dinunion. That the Americans have 
 been litigious in their dealings with Canada is true ; but litigiousness is n<it piracy ; 
 and, as we have already said, the real object of their irritation 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 
 here would probably give as much umbrage to England aa the intrusion of the Enji.iah 
 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 dollar, 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 removal oi the custvims-line between herself and the United States, and 
 for admission to all the commercial advantages of her own continent. At present not 
 only is she trammelled by iini)erial considerations, but it can hardly be expected that 
 the American Government will place itself on a lower international level than that of 
 England by treating with a dependency as a nation, especially as there are constant 
 intimations that the dependency is retaineil and is being nursed up with the view of 
 making it a rival power to the Uniterl 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 rhetorical fpncy. The 
 barrier of slavery being removed, the set of population is likely to be, not towards the 
 frozen north, where the winter, besides suspending labour and business, eats up the 
 produce of the summer in the cost of fuel, but toward those countries in which warmth 
 is ijrovided 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 foun- 
 dation. It is apparently a loose generalization from the success of the northern tribes 
 which conquered the Roman Empire. It is forgotten that those northern warriors had 
 not only been hardened by exposure to the full severity of the northern climate, but 
 picked by the most rigoious pi-ocess of natural selection. Stove-heat is not less ener- 
 
20 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 ▼itting th&n the heat of the sun. But a nation Cunada, so far as we can Hue, might 
 have been, had the attempt been vi^jorously made at the iJrojiitioue moment, when, 
 owing to the efTectii of the civil war in the United Statex, the balance of proHi>erity 
 was decidedly in her favour, when her financial condition apinjared immenHely Huperior 
 to that of her neighbour, and when the Hpirit oi her i>eople hod been Mtirred by con- 
 federation. That oi)portunity woh allowed t<) ]«»«, and, in all probability, it will never 
 
 return. 
 
 A movement in favour of nationality there was— one which had a twofold claim to 
 Mympathy, becauHe it wan also a movement agaimtt faction and coiruption, and which, 
 though it ha« failed, hait left honourable traceu on public life. But it was nf)t strong 
 enough to make head againtst the influences which have their centre in the little court 
 of Ottawa, and the attacks of the lower closti of politicians, who assailed it with the 
 utmost ferocity, seeing clearly that the success of the higher imi)ulse would not suit 
 their game. Moreover, the French province interjiosed between the British provinces 
 of the east and west, is a complete nou-conductor, and jirevents any pulsation from 
 running through the whole body. It must further be owned that, in industrial com- 
 munities, the economical motives are stronger than the political, and that the move- 
 ment in favour of Caniulian nationality had only political motives on its side. Perhaps 
 the appearance of a great man might after all have turned the scale ; but dependencies 
 seldom produce great men. 
 
 Had the movement in fa\our of nationality succeeded, the first step would have been 
 a legislative union, which would in time have (juelled sectionalism, and made up for the 
 deficiency of material size and force by moral solidity and unity cf spirit. ( 'anada, as 
 was said before, is hardly a proper subject for federal government, which refiuircs 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 fo(.t for a legislative union between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and 
 Prince Edward's Island ; but this will only mnke matters worse by reducing the number 
 of important states to three (Manitoba and British Columbia being in the merest infancy), 
 two of which will be always 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 nothing is left for Canadian patriotism 
 but to provide that it shall be a union indeed, and not an annexation ; an equal and honour 
 able alliance like that of Scotland and England, not a submission of the weaker to the 
 stronger ; and at the same time that the political change shall involve no chiingft 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 Canada at 
 intervals than to that of a constant resident. Intercourse is being increased by the exten- 
 sion of railways ; the ownership and management of the railways themselves are forming an 
 American interest in Canada ; New York is becoming the pleasure, and, to some extent, even 
 the business, capital of Canadians ; American watering-places are becoming their summer 
 resort ; the periodical literature of the States, which is conducted with extraordinary spirit 
 and ability, is extending its circulation on the northern side of the line ; and the Canadians 
 who settle in the States are multiplying the links of family connection between the two 
 countries. To specify the time at which a political event will take place is hardly ever . 
 {jossible, however assured the event itself may be ; and in the present instance the occur- 
 rence 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 depression which at present prevails in Canada, continues or recurs ; if 
 Canadian manufacturers are seen to be dying under the pressure of the customs-line ; if, 
 owing to the'[deprebsi(jn or to over-costly undertakings, such as to the Pacific Railway, 
 financial difEcultite arise ; if, mtantinLe, the balance of prosperity, which is now turnings 
 
THK FOLITICAL DKSTINV OF CANADA. 
 
 21 
 
 ■hall have turned decisively in favmir of the United State*, and the re<luction of their debt 
 ■hall have continued at the preneut rate the critical moment may arrive, and the poH- 
 ticianB, recognizing the voice of Destiny, may pa8H ir a body to the tiide of continental 
 union. It will be fortunate if a miHundemtanding bet en the Cana<lian Govurntnent and 
 Downing,' Street, about Home nuestion f<uch as that rOHpecting the pecuniary claims of Bri- 
 tinh Columlda, which Ih now assuming nuch exaggerated proportions, does not su|>ervene to 
 make the final diMoolution of the politicid tie a quarrel iuntead of an amicable separation. 
 
 To Canivda the economical advantagoH of continental union will l)e immense ; to the 
 United States its general odvantagea will be not less so. To Eugiand it will be no menace, 
 but the reverse: it will be the introduction into the cruncils of the United Stato., on all 
 questions, commercial as well as diplomatic, of an olemeut friendly to England, the influence 
 of which will he worth far more to her than the faint and invidious chance of building up 
 C!an.«la as a rival to the United .States. In case of war, her greatest danger will be re- 
 mived. She will lose neither wealth nor strength ; probably she will gain a good deal of 
 b th. As to glory, we cannot do better than ipiote in cimcliision the word-.! of Pulnierston's 
 favourit*^ colleague, and the man t(t whom he, as was generally supjHJsed, wished to be- 
 queath his jtower : 
 
 *' There are 8Ui)posed advantages flowing from the possession of dependencies, which 
 are expressed in terms so general and vague that they cannot be referred to any determinate 
 hea<l. Such, for example, is the glory which a country is supposed to derive from an ex- 
 tensive colonial empire. We will merely remark, upon this imagined a<lvautage, that a 
 nation derives no true glory from any possession which produces no assignable ailvanta'.,'e 
 to itself or to other communities. If a country jjossesses dependency from which it de- 
 rives no puljlic reveime, no military or naval strength, and no commercial advantages or 
 facilities for emigration, which it would not equally enjoy thou,'h the dependency were in- 
 dependent, and if, moreover, the dependency suffers the evils which (I'.s we shall show herd- 
 after) are the almost inevitable consequences of its p )litical c indition, such a possession 
 cannot justly be called glorious." 
 
ma 
 
 KEPLY. 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA.* 
 
 BY SIR FRANCIS HINCKS. 
 
 (From the Canadian Monthly.) 
 
 f 
 
 It happened quite ?\ccidentally that the Fortnightly Review of Ist April, containing an 
 essay on " The Political Destinj' of Canada," was placed in my hs.uds for iierusal 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 stmck with the widely different views of 
 the authors of the essay and the sermon, both of whom are Englishmen, both graduates of 
 the University of Oxford, and both i ■ idents in Canada during a comparatively short 
 period. It at once occurred to mo, 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 thrt I might, without presumption,become the' 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 rnvfe than forty years since I 
 began to take an active part in public life ; it hsis been my lot to have been connected 
 with both of the political parties, those styled Conservatives and Reformers, but I am now, 
 and have been for the last three years, unconnected with party, having altogether with- 
 drawn from politics. I think thut, under the foregoing circumstances, I may claim to be 
 as well acquainted with the sentimer.t.o oi the people of Canada as the author of the essay 
 in the Fortnightly, for whom I entertain 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 countiy. The essayist 
 haa specially devoted himself to foster Canadian nationality, but I must own that, although 
 I have read a great deal that he has written for the Canadian press for some years, his 
 essay in the Fortnightly surpasses anj'thing I have seen from his pen in hostility to British 
 connexior, and in abuse of Canadian politicians of all bhades of party. I am bound to 
 admit that the essayist is indiscrimJT'ate 11 his censure, and that he would be able to prove 
 his case against either of the political parties from what ' hey habitually say of each other ; 
 while, on the other hand, each would protest against the truth of the charges as applicable 
 tc hia <>wn party. It seems to me rather inconsistent that one vho admits that he has 
 laboured unsuccessfully in Canada to create a Canadian nationality and to destroy the 
 politicpl parties which he found in existence on his arrival in the country, should endea- 
 vour to influence English public opinion on a subject in which Canada is chiefly interested, 
 and which the essayist admits, ought to be considersd with reference to the interests of 
 Canada. 
 
 • The foUowh g article was sent by ma to a friend In England for insertion eithrer_ln the Fort- 
 nightly tievicw, uc in gome other periodical of staiu ic^.— F, H. 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 23 
 
 As, however, the essayist has selected his »»reua, it seems but fair that those who 
 entirely dissent f/om his views should have a fan hearing. I may call attention to the 
 language employed by the essayist in referring to Canadian politicians. The " truly loyal," 
 he says, " are often the most unscrupulous and corrupt ; " they are often " disloyal to every- 
 thing that represents iiublic 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 euough " to make head against the 
 influences 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 condemnatory of Canadian politicians of both parti»'rf, but I think that I am 
 not unwarranted in assuming that the bitterness which pervades ihe essay must have been 
 intensified by the feeling that the writer had completely failed in his attempt to creuie a 
 public opinion in Canada favourable to his peculiar views. The attacks to which I hr^ve 
 referred have chiefly influence;l me in refeiring to the sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. 
 Xorman. Thai, gentleman is in no sense a party politician, and yet living, as he does, in 
 tlie principal city of Canada, and in daily intercourse with gentlemen of incelligence and 
 jiroperty, he is as tree from those influences so much deprecatea by the essajrist, as any one 
 c in be. I propose to submit a few extracts from M;'. Norman's sermon as an introduction 
 t) the criticism which I shall venture to offer on Mr. (Joldwin Smith's paper. 
 
 " We all know what power a simple strain possesses to recal, wth vivid and startling 
 force, places, persons, conversations. 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 supplies us wit'u the note cf patriotism, 
 while its tender charm must touch every heart, is, in one important respect, haply inap- 
 plicable to us. This is not a strange lan<?. Wo are not here as captives taunted by cynical 
 oppressors. Though in iinr)thcr hemisphere, wo see our tokens, and feel that we are among 
 friends. 
 
 "It is the love to the dear Mother Country, andthrouL'h her, the love for her children, 
 that is the source of this Society's existence. That is the bond which unites us all i>ne to 
 the other. It is the strong affection we bea'- our (-iueen and Country, the admiration we 
 all entertain for her institutions, that make us recognise 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 free- 
 dom of that land upon whose sacred soil tlie 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, 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 praspects. But its 
 g'-eatness is enhanced by its connection with the Mother Land, and it snares, tln-ough com- 
 mon 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 a\;p garlands for 
 the head of (I'anada. It is no proof of uational vigour ro ignore the parft, and live only in 
 the present. While, therefore, we love Canada ; while we are re.'idy to serve her interests 
 and promote her advancement, let us still turn a loving glance across the broad sea to the 
 mother o." us all. Happily, loyalty is a master princijjle in the lieart of a Canadian. Like 
 justice, of which the l{onian poet wrote, which, quitting the world, yet lingered in rural 
 abodes and pastoral pursuits ; so loyalty, even if about to (juit this earth, which I tinist is 
 not to be, yet tarries here, and there is no fear of its extinction. And the lovalty of Ca- 
 nadians is of the true, old-fashioned type — unselfish, faithful ; the loyalty of tlie free." 
 
 Although Mr. Norman addressed the language that I have ipioted, eipecially to Eng- 
 lishmen, I believe that it contains a faithful exposition of the sentiments entertaineil by 
 the Canadian people of all nationalities towards the mother-comitry. I believe, moreover, 
 that there has been no period in the history of Canada when its inhabitants were ho loyal, 
 as at the very time when the writer in the FortniijMlii has consiilered it his duty " to cast 
 its ijolitical horoscope," and to assure the people of England that its destination is absorp- 
 tion in the adjoining Republic. When I first entered public life I am firmly convinced that 
 the majority of Canadians were thoroughly alienated in their feelings from the British 
 Crown. T' ose who engaged in the rebellion of i837 constituted but a fraction of those 
 
24 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 I 
 
 who were diecontented with the old colonial system of governinent, to n'hich Lord Dur- 
 ham's report gave a death-blow. The revolution, as the eatablirthment of parliamentary 
 government may properly he termed, wa? followed by feelings of intense bitterness on the 
 part of the old Tory, or, as they styled themselves, the loyalist iiarty. 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 pLrlia- 
 mentary government was established, the Reformer-- obtained political power, and the ex- 
 asperation of the loyalists was manifested by the burning of 'he Parliament House, by 
 insults to Governor-General the Earl of Elgiu, and, finally, oy the annexation manif»;sto, 
 which, though repudiated by the political chiefs, was signed chiefly by persons belonginjr to 
 the Tory party. This was in 1849. In 1854 there was a complete disruption of parties. 
 During the 13 years which had elapsed from the union of the Canadas, the old Reform 
 party of Ontario bad been in strict alliance with the French Canadians, but in 1854 a dia 
 agreement among members of the Reform party, which had existed two or three years, 
 culminjited 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 On- 
 tario who adhered to the old Government, the Opposition being those Ontario Refoiners 
 who had been dissatisfied with the Reform Gc'"»Tunent, and a French Canadian Liberal 
 /artj', which included many English, although the Lower Canada British party adhered to 
 the new Government. The practical effect of these changes was to allay to a great extent 
 the old animosities between the British and the French. Since that period the e has been 
 no serious agitation for political change, and although I rejrret 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 with Great Bri- 
 tain. It must surely strike with amazement English readers of the essay in the Fortnightly^ 
 that in a House of Commons consisting of upwai'ds of 200 members, not one member hae 
 ventured, either in the House or at the hustings, 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 
 1 )e8tiny 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 sliould bt correctly informed. The principal of these is Canadian nationality, of 
 which the essayist was, as be admits, once an advocate, and for '.vhich he still evinces a de- 
 sire. He admits, however, "^bat it is " a lost cause," and as he is determined not to believe 
 in the continuaiion of the pi ,^sent connexion, he is bound to maintain that union with the 
 Uniteil States is "morally certain." I am not presumptuous enough to declare that the 
 f ubsistiug connexion must be perpetual, but I am decidedly of opinion, in common, as I 
 have reason to know, with the leaders of both political parties, that if at any future period, 
 owing to causes which it is impossible to foresee at present, a disruption of our connexion 
 with Great Britain were to become necessary, there would inevitably be union with the 
 United States and not an Independent Republic. It is desirable that those English poli- 
 ticians wlio sometimes look with complacency on the severance of the connexion, should 
 he aware that its result would be very different from what they imagine. I likewise con- 
 cur with the essayist that all the projects of a Pan-Britannic Empire are visionary in the 
 greatest Jegree. T refer to the subject merely becau.se the essayist has done so, and because 
 some St neme of the kind has foimd favour in England, though as justly observed — " of the 
 atates.uen who dally with the project and smile upon its advocates, not one ven'",ures to 
 take a practical step towards its fulfilment." No such scheme has ever found favour in 
 Canada. 
 
 Having noticed the poinis 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 
 mv objections under the following heads : Ist. Errors ii. matters of fact ; 2nd. Inconsis- 
 tencies ; 3rd, Erroneous reasoning. Under the first head the most importiut errors are 
 chose whicl; attach undeaerved \ ame to the Imperial Government. Reference is made to 
 the " Interc /Iciial Railway, into which Ca'^ada has been led by Imperial influence, and 
 
 \ 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OV CANADA. 
 
 23 
 
 which, after costing more than four millions steiling, will, as some leadinj^ Canadian men 
 of bnsiness think, hardly pay for the grease upon the wheels." A more unjust charge 
 never was made. It has certainly not beer the jiractice of the Imperial Government either 
 to suggest the constriction of public works in Canada, or to interfere with them in any 
 way. The scheme for the construction of an Intercolonial Railway originated in Nova 
 Scotia, and it was on the joint application of the separate Provinces that the Imperial Gov- 
 ernment authorized Royal Engineer oflRcers to conduct a survey. The princii)al of these. 
 Major Robinson, located a line, after which the th.-ee Provinces conferred as to the con- 
 struction and as to the proj)ortion8 of expense to be incurred by each. New Brunswick 
 positively refused co-operation unless a different line froni that recommended was adopted, 
 and the other Provinces— Nova Scotia most reluctantly, Canada willingly —concurred wth 
 New Brunswick. Thereupon the Imperial Government, in 1852, stated that the Imperial 
 guarantee asked as a favour, could only be given to the line recommended by Major Robin- 
 son. The negotiations were thereupon broken off. When the delegates, several year.s 
 afterwards, met to consider confederation, the construction of the Intercolonial Railway 
 was made one of the conditions of the union, ai ' i.^-ain the Imperial guarantee was sought. 
 To what extent Imperial influence may have bteu 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 the Canadian ministers were in favour of the lin j adojited, 
 and secondly, that the utmost extent of interference on the part of the Imperial Govern- 
 ment was to make the adoption of the line favoured by them a condition of their gup.an- 
 tee, whidi every reasonable per.son 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 Imperial Government which I shall notice, is the 
 allegation that the annexation of British CJolunibia " was taken under the auspices of ihe , 
 late Lord x^ytton, a brilliant and prolific novelist, brought into the Government to make 
 set spaeches." I may consider with this another allegation :—" The Pacific Railway, and 
 the indemnity which (.anada is forced to i)ay to British Columbia for the non-performance 
 of an impracticable treaty, are too likely, in the opinion of many, to furnish another illus- 
 tration of the expensiveness of the Imperial connexion. The sole foundation for these 
 charges is the fact that liord lytton, when Secretary of State, prior to the year 185!>, 
 expressed some opinions as to a different mode of governing Vancouver's Island and British 
 Columbia. I have not thought it worth while to ascertain precisely what occun-ed at that 
 time, simply because I^ord Lytton had no more resprnsibility for the arfmission of British 
 Columbia into the Canadian Confederation, than the writer of the essay himself. Delegates 
 were sent from British Ci>lumbia to Canafla, and the terms of confederaticjii were arrangetl 
 at conferences between the Canadian Ministers and those Delegates, and were subsequently 
 ratified by the Canadian Parliament. The construction of the Pacific Railway was provided 
 for Ly the terms of union, and has been a bete noir of the essayist, as well as of the political 
 party opjiosed to the government which undertook it. It has been a subject of unceasing 
 reproach by each political party against its antagonists ; but no party poli; 'cian in Canada 
 has ever ventured to throw blame on the Imperial Government as the essayi.st has done. 
 In connexion with Britisn Columbia, the annexation of Manitoba " is by some thought to 
 have been a disastrous, by all aUowed to have been a most critical step." The Inperial 
 Government did not in any way promote the annexation of Manitoba, which was sought 
 for during many years by Canadian emigrants to the North-west, and by their countrymen; 
 but when negotiations for the acquisition of the territory were set on foot, it lent its good 
 offices 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 Secre- 
 taries of State, who are said to be often " personally unacquainted with *-he Colonies— not 
 called to their jwst by special aptitude, but placed in it by party convenience," Canada had 
 sufifered 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 sinci^ (Con- 
 federation, there has not been the slightest comjilaint of improper interference on the part 
 
26 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 of the Imperial Government wth the Government of Canada. During that period there 
 has been a Liberal Government in England, with a Conservative Government in Canada, 
 and now there is a Conservative Government in England and a Liberal one in Canada, but 
 8o good an understanding exists that no one is ever apprehensive of difficulty. I proceed 
 to consider — 
 
 2ndly. The inconsistencies of the essayist. In order to establish his case he was bound 
 to prove that dependencies could not be satisfactorily governed. " The very name ' colony ' 
 is obnoxious, derived from a very peculiar set of institutions, those Roman Colonies which 
 had no life of their owij, but were merely the military and political outposts of the Imperial 
 Republic. " All the successf ulcolonies were those "independent from the beginning. " " Even 
 New England, the germ and organizer of the American communities, was practically 
 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 according to any settled rule or plan," that 
 " caprice and chance ha^e decided generally every thing connected with them," and that if 
 there has been success it has been obtained " in spite of the mischievous intermeddling of 
 the English Government, not in consequence of its wise and provident assistance." This, 
 it is said, is " the refrain of almost all the works on the Colonies." England cannot have 
 colonies or dependencies because England is the vast and motley mass of votei-s including, 
 since " the Conservative Reform Bill, the most uneducated populace of the towns, people 
 who in politics do not know their right hand from their left." Even " Phineas Finr» " 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 Canadians; prosper or fail to prosper. They care that Canada should not go to 
 the States, because though ta«y don't love the Canadians they do hate the Americans." 
 Thi-'., ttie 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 Londoner, in his Iiome on the banks of the Canadian Thames, 
 cares not whether the inhabitants of Marylebone prosper or fail to prosper. The Canadians 
 have just as much influence over English questions, as the English over theirs ; and when 
 it is triumphantly asked, " Wlien did a Canadian question influence an English election," 
 I simjily ieply, " When did an English question influence a Canadian election." But I have 
 dwelt, I trist, sufficiently on the essayist's argument against the Colonial connexion, 
 founded on the incompetency of English electors to govern remote dependencies. I pur- 
 pose now to show, from anoth?r part of the same essay, that the argument has not the 
 slightest application. Referring to the "course of events" in regard to the colonies of 
 Spain, Portugal, France, anekHoUand, the essayist proceeds : " If Canada has been retained, 
 it is by the reduction of Imperial 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 successively 
 settled in favour of self-government." What then becomes of the argument based on the 
 " uneducated populace "of the English towns, and on the opinion of Phineas Finn's Mary- 
 leboner? The truth is, that "the refrain of almost all the works en the Colonies " had 
 reference to that old system when, to use the language of the essayist, " Government was 
 jobbed bj an oligarchy; whereas the statement that " self-governi"ent is independence, and 
 that all the questions that arise between Ottawa and Downing Street are successively 
 settled in favour of self-government," is a faithful description of the present Canadian 
 system. 
 
 In his bitte censure of Parliamentary Government the essayist has fallen into a glaring 
 inconsistency. That Government is said to be the bane of C^Lnada, because " there is no 
 question on which parties can be rationally or morally based," consequently 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 a'Jmissions which would 
 indicate to any experienced politician that there are important questions on which parties 
 may properly be divided. | \ 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 2r 
 
 I could enumerate several, but as my present object is merely to establish my charge oV 
 inconsistency, I shall content myself by referring to two questions noticed in the essay. 
 Surely the (juestion c£ Protection is one on which politicai 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 loudest in their profes-- 
 sions of loyalty to Great Britain." The divisions in the Canadian House of Commons were, 
 with tv/o or three exceptions, strictly party, and the English newspapers have expressed 
 their satisfaction with the result. It does not strike me as at all curious that Conservative 
 politicians should have a predilection for protection, but on the other liand it does appear 
 to me rather extraordinary that so advanced a liberal as the essayist should be an extreme 
 protectionist. I am persuaded that the members of the Conservative opposition are not of 
 opinion that their views on this question are inccnsistent with their loyalty to the crown, 
 but I only refer to them here to prove that there is an important question on which politi- 
 cal parties are divided. There is yet another, viz., British Columbia and the Pacific Rail- 
 way. On these questions Canadian parties are in avowed antagonism. The essayist ■ 
 admits fully their importance, for he thinks that it will be fortunate if some question 
 " such as that respecting the pecuniary claims of British Ci:>lumbia, which is now assuming 
 such exaggerated proportions, does not supervene to make the final dissolution of the poli- 
 tical tie a quarrel instead of an amicable separation. " Surely a question from which such 
 serious consequences are apprehended, is one important enough for the consideration of 
 political parties in Canada, by whom alone it must be solved. I need hardly observe that 
 there is n jt the slightest danger of any misimderstanding between the Imperial and Cana- 
 dian 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 succcbsively settled 
 in favour of self-government," he need be under no apprehension on the subjict. I think 
 it must be admitted that I have proved by his own language that the essayicit is most 
 inconsistent in alleging that there are no questions in Canada on which parties can be 
 honestly formed. Another inconsistency will be found in those passages in 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 matttr of fact. It is assumed that the French 
 Canadian and Irish Catholics, constituting 1,40(),000 of the poi)ulation, are anything but 
 friends to British connexion. These, it is said, musi be deducted " in order to reduce to 
 reality the pictures of universal devotion to England nnd En;^lish interests." The politi- 
 cal sentime'-.ts of the Irish " are generally identical with those of the Irish in the mother 
 country." The French Canadians have "no feeling vhatever for England." They are 
 " governed by the priest with the occasiona. assistance of the notary." The priests " put 
 their interests into the hands of a political leader, who makes terms for them and fur him- 
 self at Ottawa,, and as the priests are reactionists, Canada has long witnessed the singular 
 si^ectacle of Roman Catholics and Orangemen marching together to tho poll." While, in 
 the passages to which I have adverted, the writer deducts the French and Irish elements 
 from the loyal portion of the population, he in his, " enumeration of the forces which make 
 in favour of the present connexion," leads off with the " reactionary tendencies of the 
 ijriesthood which lewis French Canada, and which fears that any change ndght disturb its 
 solitary reign." It is true that the essayist makes a " forecast " that " the ice will melt at 
 last ; " but I am much '"■"taken if the Roman Catholic Clergy will not smile with deri- 
 sion 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 artizans 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 Gallicans," but shall Uierely 
 observe that if any such struggle is going on, the contending parties contrive not to trouble 
 their neighbours of other denominations with their c<jntroversie->. The jwint of interest is 
 whether the French Canadians and the Irish are satisfied with their present government, 
 and the essajnst, 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 
 
"P 
 
 28 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 11 
 
 not true that the Irish Catholic vote has of late been with the Conservatives. On the 
 contrary, it is notorii^'s that many elections in Ontario were carried for the Reformers by 
 the Catholic vote, i am not awate how many Irish Catholics are in the House of Com- 
 mons at present, but most assuredly Mr. Speaker Anglin and Mr. Devlin, M.P. for Mon- 
 treal Centre, are representative Irish Catholics, and both are decided liberals. Mr. 
 Devlin contested Montreal Centre with an Iri.^h Roman Catholic who ran in the Conserva- 
 tive interest, and he succeeded in obtaining a majority in a constituency in which, beyond 
 all others, Irish Catholic influence prevails. And I may here observe that with reference 
 to the remark " that the political sentiments of the Irish are identical with those of 
 the Irish in the mother country," that it evinces a very superficial knowled;?e of the state 
 of Irish feeling. I have shewn 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 ex- 
 Ijressing 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-i ountrymen in Ireland is manifested by pecuniary con- 
 tributions ; but with regard to Canadian politics they vote, not as a religious body, but 
 according 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 dissatisfied with the existing relations between Great Britain and Ireland, and yet 
 being jwrfectly satisfied with those between the United ICingdom and Canada. The 
 French Canadian Roman Catholics are likewise very far from imanimous in their political 
 sentiments. There are two distinct parties. Conservative and Liberal, and although the 
 former is in the majority in the Pro\'ince of Quebec, there is a, minority, respectable both 
 in numbers and talent ; while in the Dominion Liberal government there are three cabinet 
 ministers all Roman Catholics. 
 
 I shall now proceed to tne third division of my criticism, viz., " erroneous reasoning." 
 I entirely 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 misundei-stood. A wise statesman ought to endeavour to make the political insti- 
 tutions of his country as perfect as })ossible. If our statesmen in 1830 believed, as there is 
 no doubt they did, that there was danger of revolution unless the representative system 
 were 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 politicians cannot afford to see 
 beyond the hour." He requires a " forecast of the future," which is precisely what neither 
 he nor any other man is capable of making. It is said by ne essayist that " to tax fore- 
 cast 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 theu, on the pretence of providing for what is certain to occur, to strain 
 every effort to bring about the desired result. I am opjiosed to revolution, and if I could 
 forecast anything in the future likely to bring it about, I v ould spare no effort to prevent 
 it. The truth is that with the essayist " the wish is father .o the thought." He evidently 
 prefers the Republican sj'stem of government to the Monarchical, at which he sneers inces- 
 santly throughout his essay. He seems, however, togi\e it a preference as being less 
 democratic. He pronounces Canada " a democracy of the most pronounced kind ; " con- 
 siders the Governor-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 c}i)her threw out a ministerial bill of con- 
 siderable importance passed by the Commons, having 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 CommoLs. To return from this digression : " Demagogism 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 2^ 
 
 and the other pests of democratic instituticmu are not to be conjured away by forms and 
 phrases.' " The Governor-General has formally avowed himself a faineant," which simply 
 means that he has acted as the representative of a,C()nstitutional Sovereign, instead of, as 
 the essayist -/ould 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 (lovemment party who 
 were dissatisfied with Lord Dufferin's course during the political crisis of 1873, are now 
 satisfied that it was the wisest that 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 re.sign, 
 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 entirely as 1 
 do from the essayist as to the merits of the Eni,'lish system of Parliamentary Govenmient 
 and the Republican system ui the United States, I cannot look with indifference on the 
 attempt which he has made to influence English public opinion to force Canada into the 
 American Uni.m 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 no 
 other object, in advocating, first Canadian nationality or independence, and, on the utter 
 rejection of hia proposals, then annexation to the United States, than to substitute for the 
 British system of party government, the Republican Elective King, with Ministers not hold- 
 ing seats in the Legislature, and responsible only co their chief. Nothing is more easy than 
 to point out th( -"vils in party government, but it is wholly irreconcileable with fact to 
 maintain that corruption is more prevalent imder the Monarchical than under the Repub 
 lican system. It is now some sixty years since a venerable living statesman. Earl Russell, 
 treated the subject of party govermnent 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 pror.e to attribute to their i>i)p(inents intention.-' and motives of which 
 they are as incapable a-, themselves. Moreover, there is a tendency in j">liticians, even 
 when convinced of ar. en-or, to adhere ti, wrong views rather than afford a triumph to their 
 opjtouents. With regard to the corrujition. Earl Russell maintains strongly that party 
 connexion iti a great safeguard against it. I hope to be excused giving a sht)rt extract from 
 the French edition of Lord Russell's work, which is the only one within my reach : — " En 
 reconnaissant les mauvais effets des i)artis, je n'ai rien dit des animosites et des ijuerellt s 
 violentes q'ils suscitent. D'hypocrites philosophes, des femmes sentimentales, des honnnes 
 eft^mines, ne cessent de se livTcr k des lamentations sur les divis-ions politiiiues et les electi- 
 ons contcsteea. Les hcmimes d'un esprit cleve savent (['elles sont les signes de la liberty et 
 de la prosperity de la nation. C'est dans la chaleur et sous le maiteau de I'enclume que la 
 libert<5 acquiert ses formes, sa tremiie, 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 Par- 
 liamentary Government over the Republican system which Canadians have ample oi)por- 
 tunity of contrasting with their own. I have never been able to sati.sfy myself that we can 
 enjoy that system of government except as a dependency of the crown of England, and I 
 therefore unhesitatingly avow that I am in favour of perpetual connexion, although I am 
 ready to admit that circumstances, at present wholly unforeseen, may lead to its severance, , 
 just as circumstances may lead to a revolution in any other State or Kingdom or Empire. 
 
 The essayist, in order to establish the correctness of his forecast of tlie future insists 
 that what he calls " the gwat forces '' must prevail over " the secondary f#rces "' which he 
 admits may suspend the action of the great forces. In my judgment he has wholly omitted 
 from his calculations the greatest force of all, viz. , the reluctance of the people of any 
 country to engage in revolutionarj' proceedings, which reluctance can only be overcoae 
 when some intolerable grievance exists, for which no other remedy but revolution can be 
 
 • The following is the passage in the orljriiial En^'Iish edition : " In reckoning up the bad effects of 
 party, I have not spoken of the animosities and violent cuntentions it produces. Mock philosophers, 
 sentimental women, and effeminate men, are always niakinjr lamentations over political divisions and 
 contei^ted elections. Men of noble minds know that they are the workshop of national liberty and nati- 
 onal prosperity. It is from the heat and haiumtrinif of the stithy that freedom receives its shape, its , 
 temper, and its strength. 
 
30 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 ffouTul. I am unaware of any case in which a political revolution involving a change of 
 alleijiance has taken jilace witho\it civil war, and I am firmly perauaded that such a revo- 
 lution would not take i)lace in Canada without the occurrence of that fearful calamity. I 
 am well aware that wlien the subject is discussed by English politicianB, they invariably 
 assume that any controversy which may arise in the future will be between England and 
 Canada, the Canadian peoidebeintf supposed to be a unit. This is a most serious mistake. 
 
 • Judgiut,' from the state of ]>ublic opinion in Canada, and I am unaware of any other mode 
 'of forming a judgment on the point, these is no probability whatever that Canadians will 
 
 be united in favour of any revoluticnaiy change. They are united at present in favour of 
 the connexion with Great Britain, and so long as the advocates of revolution content them- 
 selves with writing essays in the Fortni<jhthj, and avoid obtruding their opinions in Parlia- 
 ment or at tlie hustings, the loyalists will probably treat them with silent contempt. 
 Should, however, any berioiis revolutionary movement be attempted, what are termed 
 "the secondary forces " would most assuredly display the same vigour that they have dune 
 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, divergence of interest ; 3rd, divergence 
 of political character ; 4th, the attractive force of the great American community which 
 inhabits the adjoining 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 questicm of dis- 
 tance the essayist argues that " political institutions must after all bear some relation to 
 Nature 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 repre- 
 sentative 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 
 rea.son why it should be in the future. 2nd. Divergence of interest. It is contended that 
 Englishmen control the foreign policy of the Empire, and having no intereet in those ques- 
 tions in which « 'inada is chiefly interested, "betray by the langour of their diplomacy, and 
 the ease with which they j'ield, their comparative indifference." No doubt there have been 
 three or four occasions on which Canada has been dissatisfied vrith British diplomacy. I 
 am not aware of any treaty made by England since the treaty of Utrecht, in the reigu of 
 ■Queen Anne, that has not been vigorously attacked by the Opposition of the day. ^Vhen 
 the representatives of contending powers come to treat, they each find it absolutely neces- 
 sary to make couces.sions, and such concessions always cause dissatisfaction. It may, how- 
 ever, be assumed tliat, as a rule, the British Government has endeavoured to select diplo- 
 matists 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 always settled unsatisfactorily according to our judgment, no feeling of 
 
 • disloyalty to England has been manifested in consequence. I think therefore that, not- 
 withstanding the fact that there may be some divergence of 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 Canadians are neglected owing to the apathy 
 evinced by English statesmen in questions of controversy between Canada and the United 
 States, but likewise that Canadians run the risk of being involved in war without having 
 any voice in the preceding deliberations. It 's now upwards of twenty years since I pub- 
 lished a pamphlet in London, in reply to a very similar complaint. I shall venture to make 
 
 - a quotation from it : 
 
THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 81 
 
 " The next complaint in that the intereHtH of thu culoine.s nia, • be seriously afferted by 
 the deciHiim of the mother-country to enj,'age in war, and yet they are n^t consulted on the 
 subject. It may be admitted as a nonsible contingency that the mother-country might 
 engage in war on grounds which wcjuid be deemed inHunicient in the colonien, and that if 
 the projierty of the latter were exposed to loss or injury in eonser|uence, disaffection 
 mi^ht ensue. lam, however, of opinion that nothing can be more unprofitable than specu- 
 latiiig on contingencies which may never arise. It is a far more probable contingency that 
 the mother-country might be comi)elled to engage in war to protect one of her colonies, as 
 ■she has been lately to protect an ally from a iiowerful ■>ppressor. The colonies cannot be 
 •consulted about the question of war, bec.iiise tney contribute nothing to the exjtense 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 I'nited States arose from a dispute on a riuestion in which the North American 
 Provinces had little or no interest. It was clear that the Cana<lians would be the principal 
 sufferers, and it was imagined that they would be too glad to purchase tran<|uillity at the 
 price of their allegiance. But the result proved that the British and French Canadians 
 rallied with equal promi)titude round the natiimal standard, and the militia of the i)ro- 
 vinces, with very little assistance from the regular army, was strong enough to expel the 
 invaders. With such a precedent I have no apprehensi<in that the relations now subsisting 
 between the mother-country and the colonies woulil be disturbed by the engagement of the 
 former in a just war, and I do not believe in the probability of its engagement in an unjust 
 one. " 
 
 The 3rd great force, said to be " more momentous at'U," is the " divergence of political 
 character." Under this the essayist descants on aristocracy, the Anglican Church, custom 
 of primogeniture, militarism, &c., &c. The simple answer is, that England makes no 
 attempt whatever to introduce into Canada any of her peculiar institutions or cust<ims, 
 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 argumt ..t is adduced to support the assertion except a vague 
 reference to "commercial influences," already discussed under the second head of " diver- 
 gence of interest." This is the single difficulty, for it must be admitted that, if it were 
 practicable, the abolition of the fiontier custom-houses would be beneficial to both C()un- 
 tries. The question is not one that could be conveniently discussed dii such an occasion as 
 this, but hitherto the effect of discussing measures of commercial policy with the United 
 States has not been either to induce Canadians to admire the institutions of their neigh- 
 bours, or to be attracted towards them in any way. 
 
 While the "great forces" are so little likely ttj lead the Canadian people to engage in 
 revolutionary projects, theessajast has enumerated a number of secondary forces, all suffi- 
 ciently powerful at present to account for the loyalty of the people, but, in his opinion, " of 
 a transient character." 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 v.ill melt under the in- 
 fluence 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 " i- the celebration of the Centenary." 3rd. English emigrants 
 are •'.pidly decreasing, and " as tliey die off natives take their jilaces, so that Canada will 
 soon be in Canadian hands." 4th. The social influence of the British officers has ceaserl with 
 the military occupation. I learn for ths 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." 5th. The Anglican Church still fosters loyalty, but 
 its roots " do not appear to be 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 8ho^vn that either the Protestants, 
 as they are called, or the Ritualists, or the members of the Reformed Church, were dis- 
 loyal ; but inasmuch aa they are all equally loyal to the crown, I can conceive no reason 
 for referring in this connexion to their differences aa to ritualism. The coiinexion of Cana- 
 dian Methodism with the States is said to be " very close," but it has never to my know- 
 ledge had the effect of making the members of that influential body disloyal to. the crown. 
 ■ 6th. Jt is admitted that Orangeism ia " strtmg in British Canada," but it is hoped that 
 
ip 
 
 32 
 
 THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 
 
 "one ilay" OrangeiRin inimt <He. Of one thing the eHsayiHt may be aaaured, anil that if, 
 tliat hIiohM any attempt l)e nuule to pionuptf a revolution the (Jrangenien will Ix' rt-iuly to 
 fight to the lant in support of the connexion with the (Jrown of fJreat Britain. 7th. The 
 social influence of Ensflish ariHtocracy, and of the little court at (Jttawa. I prei«unie this 
 has reference to the Representative uf the crown, for the Englidh ariBtocracy most assur- 
 edly do imt seek to exert influence in Canada. 8th. Antipathy to the Americans. 'Jth. 
 The specLal attachment felt by the j)olitician« to the present syBtem. Some of these secon- 
 dary forces are wholly unworthy of ni>tice, while others are infinitely more powerful than 
 the greater forces, and others again are wh(jlly omitted. Surely, in a country where the 
 Scotch exercise so large an influence, where the First Minister is of that nation, as well as 
 many meiubers of both Houses of Parliament, their force is worthy of notice. I have no 
 doiiVjt thiit 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 institutions under which they live. 
 The policy c)f a true f.'anadian statesman is tn endeavour, in the probable event of any 
 cause 'if iliHicidty arising between the Imperial and ('iinadian Governments. I>y every 
 means in his power to remove it. 
 
 The essayist displays most bitter hostility to Confederation, and, as usual with him, the 
 responsil)ility for that measure is thrown on Hlngland. He argues that, while "' .i sponta- 
 neous confederation" develo|is mainly the princijiles of union, " a confederati'ni brought 
 about by external influence is apt to develoji the princii)les of antagonism in n,t least an 
 eijual degree." He proceeds to state that if an npi ;al be made to the success of confede- 
 ration in SwitziTland, the answer is tluit Switzerland is not a dependency luit a nation. 
 Now, as the writer has himself assured us that " self-governmeniis independence, '" and as 
 the Canadian Confederation has jiractically the same power as the Swiss, I am unable to 
 discover how the control of its external relations tends to [iroduce success. Those relations 
 lead to complications and ilitliculties, but cannot in any way ensure the Buccess of the do- 
 mestic government. But surely the essayist must be well aware that no confederation 
 could be more spontaneous than the Canadian one. It was most aBsure-'ly not brought 
 about by external influence, unless in so far as Nova Scotia was concerned. It appears, 
 however, that " the projjcr province of a Federal government is the management of exter- 
 nal relations," and as " a de])endency has no external relations," it is implied that the chief 
 duty of a Federal " government in Canada is to keep itself in existence by the ordinary 
 agencie-i of j)arty, a duty which it discharges with a vengeance." There is a simple answer 
 to all this. The powers of the Dominion Parliament and of the Local Legislatures 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 informs us that, " had the movement in favour 
 of nationality succeeded, the first stej) would have been a legislative union." He admits 
 that theit 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 determina- 
 tion, would most likely have given way." It is consolatory to find that, although our poli- 
 tical 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 comi)lication of secondary forces," in other words, the secondary forces are all at pre- 
 sent loyal to the core : but then there may be a continuance of commercial dei)ression in 
 Canada, accomjjanied by prosperity in the United States ; then there may be financial diffi- 
 culties 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 in the probability of a complete change of alle- 
 giance 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 be- 
 tween the two governments, and I cannot conceive that any such contingency is at all pro- 
 bable. 
 
t 
 
 PUBUISHED MOHtHLY. 
 
 Jf 
 
 EniTEU sv 
 
 JOHN MQHISY 
 
 " **«^ g m< " ^ ■-■■* 
 
 BOtlTENtS OF M JUI1F NUMB£8, 
 
 ^ .1. The. Defeat of the UbCTa(p*5iy. ;By Ckik^wiM Swith 
 II. Britbh Interests in the Pr^fttCmiC ' % Emile ns 
 
 1 ■ - , I^Av'eLKVE - .• - - , - ^ . i^> ■ 
 
 II Jv The Ethics of Religkxn. By Professor CiAfvoioi,^ 
 ' ' ^. -F.R.S. * \ . '"-. - .- - ,, . ■.- . 
 ■ IV; 'jp^.Dut; dc Bro^Kc,: By FraSuc W..HiijL 
 , ^ . V.-Af theRflJ'al Aeadefaiy. ;By H. H^ St^THAM - - - 
 'Vl/Vtfgil lo English Hexameter*. By O. Osborne M6h-> 
 
 Vlt, fiyolutiotf js^jl'^ positivism . /cUhctut^jni. By J. H. ■ 
 
 ' ' . " BWUOKS . -v__, ,, 
 
 vni, lire fDdiao: 0vlt S&ntt. By tke Righj Hon. tvo>f 
 
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