THE CANADIAN ELECTIONS.
IT is not difficult to understand the Canadian Premier's motive in pressing home his charge of disloyalty against his adversaries. He wants votes, and the French Catholics of the Dominion have many votes to give. They detest the idea of an annexation, which would at once terminate the local ascendency of their Church, and which, in consequence, is furiously resisted by their Bishops ; and if they are once convinced that Free-trade with the Union means annexation, they will vote for the Protectionists in swarms. Sir J. A. Macdonald knows his people of both races thoroughly, and when on an electioneering campaign is as little scrupulous about what he says, or about its future effect, as any American politician in the Presi- dential year. Although, however, Sir J. A. Macdonald.'s policy in the matter is intelligible, we must continue to hold it excessively unwise. Ho is forcing the second party in the Dominion to discuss annexation, to accustom themselves to the idea, and to reopen the question whether they have any reason to care whether the Union absorbs them or not. That is as dangerous as it would be for us to declare all English Home-rulers Republicans at heart. Moreover, he is teaching the politicians of Washington, who have for some time past cast longing eyes upon the Dominion as an infinitely richer estate than they thought it was, to believe that there exists within it a powerful party which is at all events not irreconcilably opposed to the idea of annexation. That is most impru- dent, and such a course is wholly unjustified by the facts. The Liberals have always said, and say now, that they prefer their existing relation to the Empire, to any relation they could hold to the Republic ; and there is no reason whatever to question their sincerity. The true feeling of all Canadians of both parties in this matter is, we believe, exactly expressed in a sentence once addressed to the writer by a leading Canadian : "It is not a matter for fighting to the last ditch about, but we had much rather remain as we are." As to the argument, which we regret to see Mr. Chamberlain endorses, that Free-trade between the Dominion and the Union must end in complete fusion, there is positively nothing in it. Nations can hate .each other comfortably without considering tariffs. North and South were undivided in 1861 by any line of Custom-houses ; but being separated by a radical .difference of civilisation, they shot each other down. England and Ireland have been quarrelling for a -century, and will probably quarrel for centuries more to come, though they enjoy complete Free-trade ; while Victoria and New South Wales are not only friends, but sisters intent on the same great objects, though one separates herself from the other by a wall of Protectionist Customs duties. Men, in truth, in spite of the great recent increase in their corporate selfishness, are nothing like so sordid as the fiscal argument would imply. They are moved both to loyalty and to disloyalty by their imagina- tions, by traditions and aspirations, by religion, by uncon- .scious culture, and above all, by the weighty though silent influence of continued use and wont, not by considerations of trade. If a majority of Canadians are attracted by their relation to the world-wide Empire, with its wonderful history and still more wonderful freedom, they will continue English ; while if they feel that a place in a Republic owning a continent, and with a possible leadership in the whole world, satisfies their aspirations better, they will desire to be "Americans." In neither case will they be governed by arithmetical calculations, or convictions about the price of lumber and the demand for dried cod. If men had a sentimental love for the countries which could give them good profits, we should see some very odd results, Englishmen, for example, being fascinated with Spanish America, and despising the country which only offers them interest in fractions. We do not believe that if all internal Custom-houses in America were thrown down to-morrow, there would be one Canadian who was more of a Yankee, or one Yankee who was more of a Canadian, than he is to-day.- England and France have been fighting and making up for eight hundred years, but nobody ever heard of such battle-cries as "Liberate our clarets !" or "Let our cottons be free !" The matter of tariffs is important, of course, but when it is elevated into a reason why a nation might commit suicide, the human heart is misread. As to the • plots of which the Canadian Premier, always with one eye on those French Canadians, makes so much, they are hardly worth discussing. Suppose Mr. Farrer, of the Globe, who is, we believe, an Irish Catholic, did write a disloyal pamphlet, that will not place the Canadians under the supremacy of Washington, unless they wish to be so placed; nor will it tempt Americans to the ruinous policy of conquering an unwilling Canada, unless they have previously decided on it. Prosecute Mr. Farrer by all means, if he has rendered himself liable to be prosecuted, but do not use him as evidence that the party he favours has made up its mind to change the whole course of national history.
We need not say that we write without the smallest trace of the latent feeling which Sir J. A. Macdonald attributes to the Canadian Liberals. We shall lament the day when Canada, or Australia, breaks off from Great Britain, because we believe the event will help to im- poverish English political imagination, always too thin as it is, and will accelerate the day when our countrymen, confined to two little islands, will either throw themselves furiously, as they used to do, into Continental politics, or will become even more parochial than they are, elevating vestry squabbles into affairs of State. We need com- plexities to breed us statesmen, and though Ireland is always with us, Ireland is not enough. On the other hand, the United States, in absorbing Canada, would acquire, besides material resources which are wholly needless to her, causes of grave moral deterioration. Her defects are arrogance, self-absorption, and devotion to material interests, and seated alone upon a con- tinent, with no boundaries—for Mexico is powerless— no rivals, and no standards of comparison, her people would believe in themselves and their civilisation until they would become as the Chinese. They above all men need proof, proof patent to the eyes, that there are people in the world of their own colour, race, and, creed, who entertain and act on views of life which are different from theirs. It is not good for nations, any more than indi- viduals, to compare themselves only with themselves, and Canada once absorbed, the people of the 'United States could hardly avoid that great temptation. They know, as a body, next to nothing of Europe, which they fancy a continent full of used-up despotisms, and for Spanish America they entertain a contempt which, were its existence not so certain, would be almost incredible. They are the better for an independent nation at their side, which they can neither despise nor fear, and from which they may unconsciously glean instruc- tion. On the other hand, we doubt if, in merging herself in the Union, the Dominion would gain, even in material advantages. She would be crushed with the heavy tariffs of the Union, she would be exploited by the sharpest race in the world, and she would be shaken entirely out of the restful simplicity of life which makes up, wherever it is found, for almost any degree of poverty. Her cities would be filled with dangerousclasses, her population would be attracted to more fertile districts, and her special immi- gration from Scotland and Scandinavia would rapidly decline. Her corporate life would stop, and all that body of recollections, aspirations, and habitudes which we call national feelings would disappear for ever, and with them much of all that develops mental energy. She would be far happier with a, separate life of her own, attracting peasant emigrants from Northern Europe, and building up slowly a great nation, with a vast territory, a splendid carrying-trade—for she faces both Europe and Asia—and a civilisation at once more homo- geneous and more English than that of the American Union, a civilisation with more respect for the past, for experience, and for the individual. We desire the Dominion to have a future ; and whatever the other results of annexation, it must at least kill that.
That future does not now depend upon protection against the commerce of the Unitdd States, and will not be assured because Sir J. A. Macdonald affirms that every Free-trader in Canada is at heart disloyal to Great Britain. No nation was ever made by its revenue laws, or unmade either.
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