THE FUTURE OF CANADA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR;----May I be allowed the privilege of expressing my con- currence with you in declining to accept " all the opinions " expressed by your correspondent who wrote in the issue of May 16th on " The Future of Canada " ? I cannot believe that there are many persons in that country who desire any other status than that which they now enjoy ; a status of complete autonomy which at the same time is consistent with our indissoluble union with the other members of the great Empire of which their country forms a part. " Indissoluble," I have said, but not because of any mere legal bonds, rather because of the obvious necessity, under present conditions, of its incorporation in one or other of the two great Anglo- Saxon commonwealths on whose co-operation depend the safety and progress of the human race.
As to the first of the three future conditions suggested as
possible, that of complete independence, the late President of Queen's University, Rev. Dr. George M. Grant, one of the most influential publicists of Canada not in active political life, used to describe it as " a costly prelude to annexation." At the time when he used these words I do not think that there could have been found a half-dozen or even half that number of men of any note in Canada to whom the suggestion of annexation would not have been " unthinkable." There never has been a time within my memory, which goes back now for well over sixty years, when a political movement would not have stood instantaneously condemned if it could be shown to savour of annexationism. Therefore, when Dr. Grant thought he had proved Independence to be but another name for annexation he considered that the argument was ended.
Some time about the middle of the last century, it is true,
there was an annexation manifesto signed by quite a number of influential citizens of Montreal. Among these was the late Sir .John Abbot, who thirty or forty years afterwards became Prime Minister of Canada and thus the official leader and head of the Tory Party. Of course, he had long before this abandoned all such heresies as annexationism or he could never have been accepted as leader of the party which has always assumed the position of the Loyalist Party par excellence in Canada. A decade, more or less, previously to his becoming Premier, the Liberal Party had advocated and adopted as its policy the promotion of a treaty of " unrestricted reciprocity " between the United States and Canada. All that was necessary to secure its overwhelming defeat at the polls was to persuade the 'people of • Canada that it was really a disguised annexationist policy. Sir John A. Macdonald, who was the leader of the Government at the time, used, if my memory is trustworthy, the term, " veiled treason " as descriptive of the proposal, and reciprocity was never again presented as a policy for the Dominion until the Laurier Government proposed it in 1911 and was badly defeated because of its adoption.
For fear of a misunderstanding at this point let me explain that what was objected to in the Liberal programme referred to was, not the reciprocity in natural products and raw materials, which had been the professed policy of both parties down to the election of 1911, but the proposal of a " commer- cial union " between the two countries, which had to be called " unrestricted reciprocity " to make it tolerable even to the Liberal Party by which it was adopted.
It is not at all certain to my mind that annexation would be welcomed as a policy by the United States. Your corres- pondent refers to the Pan-American bureau which has its quarters within hail of the capital in Washington. I am well aware of its activities, but I should be surprised to learn that the Dominion of Canada came within the range of its pro- gramme. So far as I have been able to judge the sentiments of the people of Canada with reference to annexation, they are the same to-day as they have been for the past fifty years and more. There was one annexationist in the Parliament of Canada, of which I was a member in 1896. Whether he was in that of 1900 or not I cannot clearly remember. He never expressed his annexationist opinions in the House of Commons, and there was not another there who was known to share his sentiments.
- The third suggestion mentioned by your correspondent of a new dominion between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Coast opens up such immensely difficult questions that I am quite sure it can never have been seriously contemplated by any sane and responsible public man in Canada. If the grain growers of Saskatchewan have used such a threat as that of secession they have been exceedingly unwise, and impolitic as well. While the independence of Canada from Britain, which no considerable number of Canadians in the least desire, could be accomplished without bloodshed, the attempt to create a new dominion such as has been suggested would be the beginning of sorrows for Canada. But I am not surprised to learn from your correspondent that these threats are not regarded seriously by the Administration.
(Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, retired).
Florence, May 19th.
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