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n'ed and wit'u othm- povvi -s nitervening betw ;en its members. Who are to be included in Imperial Federation ? Is the negro of the West Indies to vote on Imperial policy? What is to bo done with India? Its people are five-sixths of the population of the Empire. If they are taken in, they will swamp the Federation ; if they are left out who is to govern them? Are we to have one State of the Federation holding an Empire of its own five times as populous as all the rest of the Federation, with a policy, a budget, and armaments apart ? What is the British Crown to do with two sets of advisers, one Federal the other British, perhaps advising different ways ? How is representation to be apportioned ? If according to population, and Great Britain is to have members in proportion to St. Helena, what hall will hold the Federal Parliament ? How is the fiscal policy of the Empire to be haimonized with the dif- ferent fiscal policies which the several colonies have adopted and are determined to keep ? There are t:> be sub-Federa- tions of the North A. ^erican Colonies, the Australian Colonies, the South African Colonies. Of which body will each man feel himself a citizen, and how can any statesmanship manage wm 10 COLONIAL DEPEKDENCY A MISTAKE. such a complication of relations and a?' 3giances? Those who undertake to carry out such a scheme have not only to put back the shadow on the dial of colonial history, which has so lonj^ been moving- towards complete emancipation, but to combat the inherent tendency of the race, w^hich is not towards centralization but towards self-government. Instead of a grander unity and sublimer sentiment there w^ould probably come a rupture. The Mother Country would forfeit the aliection ol another set of colonies An- other set of colonies would break with its past, renounce the heritage of memories which sobers while it exalts the spirit of a nation, and perhaps make a miserable religion of enmity to the central hearth of its race and the source of its civilization. f Colonial dependency was a mistake from ^the beginning. The relation was always fraught with the danger of angry rupture. The founders of the Grreek Colonies showed us the right way when they took the sacred fire from the temple hearth of the Mother Country and set forth to establish a new Commonwealth bound to its mother only by the filial tie. "VVe have, however, to bear in mind that while the French Monarchy was powerful and aggressive we needed here the protection of British arms. France saved you in a war against England : therefore you hate England and love France : but remember that had it not been for the protecting arm of England France might have reigned here. What is the relation of Canada to the United States ? I speak of British Canada : a word about French Canada here- after. Formally the two communities are foreign nations to each other, and everything said about the possibiUty of any other relation must be said without prejudice to allegiance. But Mr. Chamberlain speaking as the representative of the Queen and speaking in Canada said that he could not regard the Americans as a foreign nation. INTERNATIONAL FUSION. 11 The separation was an historical accident, the result of a civil war and would never have taken place at all had your ancestors shown after your first civil war anything Uke the wisdom and magnanimity which you showed after your second. Not only is there no natural boundary between the people of the United States and those of the Dominion, but the territories are so interlocked, the four separate masses composing the Dominion being unconnected with each other, while each of them is closely connected with the States to the South of it, that unless Nature can be beaten as she has never been beaten before, a glance at the map is almost enough to settle these questions. The populations are identical in every respect, in race, language, religion, character and organic in- stitutions. They are rapidly fusing, for there is a large and constant exodus not only of the French biit of the farmers of British Canada ; half of those who remain have relatives south of the Line ; and if a Canadian Loyalist levels a blow at the detested Yankees, the odds are that his fist lights on the fjice of his own brother or cousin. Americans settle as freely though not in so large numbers in Canada, and if they go into politics are apt to turn high Tories. Dakota and others of your new Western States are full of Cana- dians : so are New York and Chicago. Canadian youths go to the American centres to push their fortunes as readily as Scotch youths go to London or Liverpool. Those Ameri- can fishermen for whom you are fighting so hard in the Fish- eries question are three-fourths of them Canadians. New York is becoming more and more the commercial centre of Canada. American bank bills go through the Dominion at par, while those of our own remoter Provinces do not, or do so only by virtue of a special arrangement. The connection of the railway systems is complete, and with their extension the interflow of population and the general intercourse in- crease. The Churches on the two sides of the Line are the same and are in perfect communion, clergymen accepting calls freely from one country to the other. The American Science Association meets at Toronto. The periodical litera- 12 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC R. R. ture of Canada is mainly American. There is a free circu- lation of Professors and students between Canadian and Ame- rican Universities. The benevolent societies, such as those of the Freemasons, Odd Fellows, and Knights Templars, extend across the Line ; so do even national societies, snch as the St. George's Society, and political societies such as that of the Orangemen. Philanthropic and social movements, such as Prohibitionism and Woman's Rights are common to the two countries. Labour organizations, such as the Knights of Labour, are common also. The same problems are before both secti^/iis, the same conflicts are going on in both. The mind of o\v people as well as the mind of your people is exercised by t e problem of marriage and divorce. Our people like your people feel themselves on the eve of a struggle between modern civilization and the Church of the Past. There is a Lodge of your Grand Army at Ottawa, and there were thou- sands of Canadian enlistments in your army during the war ; a pretty good set-ott" by the way against the one seaman of the British Naval Reserve who sailed in the Alabama. Your social and pleasure capitals are largely ours ; the Canadian who thunders eternal separation in the Canadian Parliament brings out his daughters at Washington. Canadians resort to Ame- rican watering-i)laces and there is a continual interchange of bridal parties. Last bat not least, there is a connection be- tween the base-ball organizations, and the Toronto " nine " is recruited in the United States. The history of the Canadian Pacific Railway is instructive. To make up for the lack of geographical or commercial unity between the Provinces of the Dominion they were to be bound together by political railways. The first of these poli- tical railways was the Litercolonial, which was to bind the Maritime Provinces to Ontario and Quebec, wliile it afforded a military highway for Imperial troops. The si^cond was the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was to link the newly- opened North- West and British Columbia to the ]*]astern Pro- vinces, and at the same time to separate them from the United States. The undertaking was to be strictly national and Imperial- STRUCTURE OF SOCIKTY. 18 I ist. Its chief constructors have been made baronets or knights on that account. In this character it received from the Domin- ion subsidies exceeding a hundred millions. No American was to have anything to do with it. What was the result ? An American firm was in the Syndicate, an American, now Vice- President of the United States, was Vice-President, an Ame- rican was Manager and is now President. The road has become almost as much an American as a Canadian road ; its trunk line runs throu when the old feud is once buried, and it is not less practical than grand ; for the capacity ol' the federal system, provided it retains its character, is unlimited, aild if four hundreu millions of Chinese can live under a centralized government surely a hundred millions or even two hundred millions of our race can live under a government not central- ized but locally free and elastic. On the other hand, there is the strong tendency of communities to run on in the groove in which they have once begun to run. There is the natural attachment of the Ottawa Grovernment and all its officials to their own existence. There is a Parliament at Ottawa in which also the love of life is strong. There is the old flag, not the least important item in the account. There are the United Empire Loyalists w^ho cherish the ancient feud not only as a family tradition but as a patent of gentility. There is Orangeism, though Orangeism is likely to become less separatist now that it is itself astride the Line. "We must try in these cases to see which are the great and permanent forces, which forces are secondary and transitory. However CANADIAN INDEPENDENCE. 19 immeroiis and seemingly powerful the secondary and tran- sitory forces may be, however long they may suspend the action of the great forces, in the end the great forces prevail. Italy is unified, Germany is unified, though sagacious states- men, seeing the repeated failures, thought that the event would never come. One day the stars are propitious, a shock of some kind lifts the nation out of its groove, the man, the Cavour or Bismarck, arises and the will of destiny is done. Immediately after Canadian Confederation there came, chiefly among our young men, a pulse of patriotic feeling and of national aspiration, which gave birth to a short-lived move- ment in favour of independence. The old politicians and the Governor-General of that day, used all their inlluence to stifle this movement and stilled it was. Efforts are now being- made, still chiefly among the young men, to revive it. It was from the beginning and is now a generous movement, deserving t»f all sympathy and respect. But since its first en- trance on the stage the difficulty, al ,v ays great, of making one nation of British and French Canada has grown an apparent impossibility, while the extension of the Dominion westward to a territory severed from us by Lake Superior and four hun- dred miles of wilderness has destroyed the last vestige of geographical unity in the territorial seat of the projected nation. It seems almost certain that before these obstacles the movement in favour of independence will succumb. Were political union between the United States and Canada now proposed the negotiation would have its difficulties. The Union of Scotland with England was as clearly as possible designed by nature. Somers, Godolphin, and their colleagues w^ere great statesmen and had been trained in diplomacy on the grandest scale ; what is more, they had real powder in their hands : yet their skill was tasked to the utmost. As soon as you touch the point all the opposing forces are called into active life. It was so in the case of England and Scot- land. In the Scotch Parliament Lord Belhaven asked the leave of the House, in the midst of his great speech against the 20 OUSTACM.ES TO UXION. Union, to pause ior a lew moments that he might shed a tear over the approaching- ruin of his country — a ruin which came in the shape oC an unparalleled burst oi' prosperity. States- men olthe highest class are needed, and this great game of party is apt to produce skili'ul players at that game, rather than states- men. It is apt to produce men adept in the art of collecting votes, but without a broad policy, without grandeur or steadi- ness of aim, always on the stump, unable even to keep their own council, and always vmbosoming themselves on plat- forms. The vision ol these men is too often narrowed to the table on which their game is played. Whatever they see they see only in its bearing on elections. A United States ♦Senator once told me that he was against the admission of Canada into the Union because he thought she would vote Democratic. How long it took you to get Dakota admitted as a State ! Party would prevail, as it always does, over national interests. Whichever party had the negotiation in hand the other party would try to make it miscarry, and the party press, from the interference of which the negotiations of the union between England and Scotland were compar- atively free, would do all the mischief in its power. Local interests too might revolt against national interests and pre- vail as they already have in connection with this very matter. Difficulties of this kind have perhaps hardly been enough taken into account. What is the feeling of the Canadian people? It is impossible to answer that question with confidence because there is no test. Nothing could test the feeling but a thoroughly secret ballot. The real sentiment of the people is greatly hidden beneath the conventional sentiment which the official class labours with every engine of moral coercion to maintain. The assiduity with which those engines are plied, however, in itself betrays misgiving on the part of those who ply them. While we arc all in the dark everybody says that which he wishes to be true. One day a leading journal asserts that there are not seven Annexationists in Canada ; the next day a correspondent replies that there are seven times seven in the •I rANADTAN FEKI.INO. 21 circle of his own acquaintauce. If tho daily utterances of the Tory organ at Toronto were to be believed, its opponents, that is a full half of the people of Canada, must be Annexa- tionists openly or in disguise. Sentiment dith'rs with locali- ties and class. Official Ottawa is staunchly separatist of course. A friend of mine was betraying Unionist sentiments in company there when an official told him that were it not for the restraint of social confidence he would denounce him. Come into the street, replied my Irieiid, collect the l)ig. gest crowd you can, and I will soon relieve you of the re- straint of social confidence. It has been said that you could not speak of political union before a meeting of Canadians without being stoned. I feel sure that this is not true. You have your Tail-Twisters and we have our Jingoes and Paper Tigers, But a meeting of ordinary Canadians would hear you discuss in proper terms the possible reunion of the Eng- lish-speaking race on this continent without showing any in- clination to take up stones. How should it be otherwise, seeing that half those men have sons or brothers in the United States ? A man could not run for Parliament as a political unionist because political unionism is not a plank in the plat- form of either party. Bat if he got a nomination on the party platform I do not believe that in an ordinary constituency his political unionism would do him harm. A political unionist of the most pronounced type was the other day elected mayor of his city by acclamation. The Provincial Prime Minister of Quebec, says that there are political unionists in his parts, and though he has been abused for saying this he has not been contradicted. My impression is that all along the Line, in the North- West and in the Maritime Provinces, the people generally are inclined to closer relations with their own continent. I use a vague expression which best accords with the vagueness of the sentiment. The ill-feeling which ' was stirred up by the Trent affair and the Fenian raids has died out, though the threat of retaliation the other day pro- duced another slight access of resentment. On the other hand, there is no anti-British feeling M'hatever except among 22 FEELINO IN QUEBEC. a certain portion of the Irish, but, on the contrary, strong attachment to the Old Country. You talk about the phim ripening. Remember that plums to ripen them, though they do not need fingering, need sun, and that Anglophobia is not sunshine to Canadians, still less to England, whose consent is indispensable to any change. British Canadians, settled in the United States, you will find are generally opposed to the annexation of Canada. The reason of this is that their British and Anti-American feeling is being always kept alive by the insults which your Press daily fiings on everything British. You estrange the hearts and chili the allegiance of perhaps the very best part of your new citizens, and at the same time you drive and have always been driving the Anglo-Saxon, in whom self- government resides, to Australian shores instead of allowing him to come and reinforce the self-governing element here. Surely if half of what your papers say about British character and history is true, Americans must have some very bad blood in their veins. Inured to these mani- festations, as I am, and well as I know their source and meaning, I cannot help myself being galled by them, and I sometimes turn for relief to the Grerman Press of the United States in which no Anglophobia is to be found. The feeling of Quebec it is specially difficult to divine at a moment when, owing to the development of a strong French nationalism there everything is in a state of fermentation and transition. I have mentioned what is said by the Prime Min- ister of the Province. The natural tendency of a priesthood is to cling to seclusion and twilight. Quebec is the only part of this Northern Continent in which tithe is collected by law. It is the only part in which miracles are performed, though perhaps it is the part in which they are least needed. Well, some people say, let the question as to the two Federal &overnmonts be settled now or hereafter as it may : there can be no doubt that the Customs Line drawn across the continent is a commercial nuisance and ought if possible THE TARIFF WALL. 88 by fOSS ible to be removed.* A glance at the economical map is enough to show that the continent is destined by nature to be treated as an economical whole. In the mines, the forests, the sea and lakes of the North are vast natural stores of which the South wants to avail itself and to which its capital is the key, while the North wants in exchange the manufactures of the weal- thier and more scientitic South. To build a tariff" wall be- tween North and South is, as clearly as anything can be, to fight against nature and reject the benefits which she proffers with open hand. That the natural trade of Canada is not with her own continent but with Great Britain is a political ligment belied by facts. Wherever an opening has been made by the remission of duty in the tariff" wall, trade has rushed through ; it climbs over the wall even where there is no such openi.g; climbs over it furtively by smuggling as well as openly by the payment of customs ; so that Canada's trade with the United States already nearly equals her trade with England though the ports of England are free. Canada as a country with a limited range of production suffers more from the separation than the United States with their much larger range. But when a witness before your Senate Com- mittee says that you would be giving aw^ay a market of sixty millions for a market of live millions we must ask whether he really thinks that a market is given away by enlarging it. Would the market of the United States be better without the live millions of the State of New York ? Canada suffers greatly by being out of the commercial pale of her continent, but the continent also suffers by the exclusion of Canada from its commercial pale. A Zollverein would ofcour.se inv^olve an assimilation of the -.eaboard tariffs, because otherwise there would be smuggling through one country into the other. *lt should be mentioned, with leferetce to what follows that the Address wai delivered before the lecturer had received the news of the adoption in the Canadian House of Commons of Mr. Mulock's " loyalty " Resolution. This anti- Oontinental demonstration, in which it was ([uite natural that Sir John Macdonald should concur, has materially changed the scene. mmmm 24 COMMERCIAL UNION That ought not to be impossible, siiicu the principle ot the tariffs and the articles dealt with are much the same. When the object to be gained is g-reat, difficulties of detail subside, and those Custom houses once down would never be built up ag-ain. Canada as the smaller interest of the two and at the same time the greater gainer might well afford to yield a point. The principle of Protection need not be surrendered ; at least if Protection is to be kept within the bonds of sanity ; for there are people whose theories imply that if a tariff wall were built round each state of the Union every State would be the richer for its seclusion. What the effect of Commercial Union on political relations would bo must be matter of conjecture. If the United States were ever to embrace Free Trade it is not unlikely that Canada would slide into the Union because it would be- come impossible to maintain the existing fiscal system in Canada or the political system which is bound up with it. But Free Trade, your politicians say, is a long way off. Commercial Union need produce no more effect on political relations than the railway union and the partial monetary union which have already taken place. All would depend on the direction in which the great forces were tending. The Zollverein would not have united Grermany politically if the other grounds of union had not already been there. Assimilation of tariffs would involve, it is said, discrim- ination by Canada against the Imperial country, and Cana- dian manufacturers who seek by Protective duties to exclude British goods altogether hold up their hands in horror at the thought of discriminating against them. Let Great Bri- tain speak for herself when she has the case fairly before her. Her interest in Canada as an investor fully countervails her in- terest as an importer. Canada already discriminates, though not against special British articles, against the bulk of British trade, and Grreat Britain knows that the commercial unity of the Empire is at an end. Let Great Britain, I repeat, with POLICY TO BE PURSUED. 25 the case iairly before her, speak for herself. Her policy siv what you will, is that of moderation. Her one real interest on this continent is the friendship of its whole Eno-lish-sneak- mg race Leaving then politics and politicians to take their cours. leaving questions of Annexation or Imperial Federation o,' Canadian Independence to be gradually settled by the pro- gress of opinion, why should we not enter at once into thn enjoyment of a great commercial benefit and of the social and moral benehts which it brings in its train V There are certain interests on both sides of the line which would forbid and are striving to prevent Commercial Union but these interests are narrow as well as selfish. Unhappily under this system of party government a very narrow ancl very selfish interest being able to turn the balance of party too often has the casting vote. if Commercial Union embraced the Fisheries and the Coasting Trade there would be an end of these wretched bickerings which otherwise will never have an end It is not for one unconnected with politics to dictate a policy to states- men, ieast of all to the statesmen of another country. But this may be safely said, that of all poHtics the worst, except per- haps for some mere party purpose, is that of fitful and impotent irritation. Your relations with the people of Canada must be intimate and increasingly intimate as the power of the unifying forces grows. Adopt towards them that policy which you deem best, provided it is deliberate and is steadily pursued; but do not poison and estrange their hearts.