Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister of the Canadian Dominion,
has made an appeal to the country to give him a majority in the new Parliament which does not seem to us particularly prudent. He declares that while his policy of promoting reciprocity with the United States as regards all "natural products" is sufficient for the purposes of Canadian commerce, the policy of the Opposition, which declares for complete reciprocity with the United States, must end in the annexation of Canada to the United States, and is therefore disloyal. We do not see that this is at all a necessary result even of complete reciprocity, and we are quite sure that it is not wise to try to persuade the Opposi- tion, who do not at all admit the force of Sir John Macdonald's logic, that they are regarded by the Ministry as rebels in disguise, and will get no credit for patriotism, whatever professions of patriotism they make. Statesmen should never try to drive their opponents to bay. That may end in making them assume an attitude of defiance which they have no wish to assume, and would not otherwise have assumed. We are far from wishing, of course, to see Canada eager for Free-trade with the United States, even at the cost of putting differential duties on British goods ; but it is pure exaggeration to say that that course, even if it were adopted, must mean, and could only mean, annexation. We cannot minember a ease in which Free-trade has led to a.nnexation. War, on the contrary, has often led to it.
