Canada and the States | Page 2

of Canada. The problem of a "North-west Passage" has been
solved in a new and better way. It is no longer a question of threading
dark and dismal seas within the limits of Arctic ice and snow, doubtful

to find, and impossible, if found, to navigate. Now, the two oceans are
reached by land, and a fortnight suffices for the conveyance of our
people from London or Liverpool to or from the great Pacific, on the
way to the great East.
Anyone who reads what follows will learn that I am an Imperialist--that
I hate little-Englandism. That, so far as my puny forces would go, I
struggled for the union of the Canadian Provinces, in order that they
might be retained under the sway of the best form of government--a
limited monarchy, and under the best government of that form--the
beneficent rule of our Queen Victoria. I like to say our Queen: for no
sovereign ever identified herself in heart and feeling, in anxiety and
personal sacrifice, with a free and grateful people more thoroughly than
she has done, all along.
In this period of thirty-six years the British American Provinces have
been, more than once, on the slide. The abolition of the old Colonial
policy of trade was a great wrench. The cold, neglectful, contemptuous
treatment of Colonies in general, and of Canada in particular, by the
doctrinaire Whigs and Benthamite-Radicals, and by Tories of the
Adderley school, had, up to recent periods, become a painful strain.
Denuding Canada of the Imperial red-coat disgusted very many. And
the constant whispering, at the door of Canada, by United States
influences, combined with the expenditure of United States money on
Nova Scotian and other Canadian elections, must be looked to, and
stopped, to prevent a slide in the direction of Washington.
On the other hand, the statesmanlike action of Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, Colonial Minister in 1859, in erecting British Columbia into a
Crown Colony, was a break-water against the fell waves of annexation.
The decided language of Her Majesty's speech in proroguing
Parliament at the end of 1859 was a manifesto of decided
encouragement to all loyal people on the American Continent: and,
followed as it was by the visit--I might say the triumphal progress--of
the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Colonial Minister, the great
Duke of Newcastle, through Canada, in 1860, the loyal idea began to
germinate once more. Loyal subjects began to think that no spot of
earth over which the British flag had once floated would ever, again, be
given up--without a fight for it. Canada for England, and England for
Canada!

But, what will our Government at home do with the new "North-west
Passage" through Canada? The future of Canada depends upon the
decision. What will the decision be? How soon will it be given?
Is this great work, the Canadian Pacific Railway, to be left as a
monument, at once, of Canada's loyalty and foresight, and of Canada's
betrayal: or is it to be made the new land-route to our Eastern and
Australian Empire? If it is to be shunted, then the explorations of the
last three hundred years have been in vain. The dreams of some of the
greatest statesmen of past times are reduced to dreams, and nothing
more. The strength given by this glorious self-contained route, from the
old country to all the new countries, is wasted. On the other hand, if
those who now govern inherit the great traditions of the past; if they
believe in Empire; if they are statesmen--then, a line of Military Posts,
of strength and magnitude, beginning at Halifax on the Atlantic, and
ending at the Pacific, will give power to the Dominion, and, wherever
the red-coat appears, confidence in the old brave country will be
restored.
Then the soldier, his arms and our armaments, will have their
periodical passages backwards and forwards through the Dominion.
Mails for the East, for Australia, and beyond, will pass that way; and
the subject of every part of the Empire will, as he passes, feel that he is
treading the sacred soil of real liberty and progress.
Which is it to be?
Some years ago, Sir John A. Macdonald said, "I hope to live to see the
day--and if I do not, that my son may be spared, to see Canada the right
arm of England. To see Canada a powerful auxiliary of the Empire, not,
as now, a source of anxiety, and a source of danger."
Does Her Majesty's Government echo this aspiration?
Thinking people will recognize that the United States become, year by
year, less English and more Cosmopolitan; less conservative and more
socialist; less peaceful and more aggressive. Twice within ten years the
Presidential elections have pushed the Republic to the very brink of
civil war. But for