TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD DCIThRIN ON THE DOMINION AND THE EMPIRE.
T ORD DUFFERIN delivered at Toronto, on the 2nd JL,1 September, after his return from an excursion into Western Canada, a speech on the state of the Dominion and its attachment to the British Empire which recalls the best days of Irish eloquence and statesmanship. The perfect rhythm of the sentences, the happy vivacity of the humour, the picturesque review of Canadian scenery, the glow of Im- perial pride which runs through the whole address, the strong constitutional sense, the cordially good-humoured satire at the expense of our sober-minded, but not very sober-voiced, neighbour on the great Continent, the depth of sym- pathy with the humblest forms of Canadian life, and the elastic hope in relation to the future both of the Dominion and the Empire which breathes in every sentence, give to the speech a character as inspiriting as, in modern times at least, such a character is rare. For, from whatever reason, English statesmanship of late years has lost its buoyancy, and we have been far too much accustomed to hear the accents of a dispirited depreciation of English power, which, because it is unwelcome to us, passes the more readily for good-sense. Lord Dufferin himself, while still at home, breathed forth no such notes of triumphant confidence in our future as this. The heavy atmosphere of the Conservative party's surprise and displeasure at our diminished importance in Europe, and of the progressive party's cynical prognostic of the growth of the United States at our expense, has now for many years blighted the old spirit of our exultation in British power and destiny. We have been accustomed to hear that, on the one side, we could not hope to count for much beside Military States which could put their million of men into the field ; and on the other, that our great possessions on the Western Continent were simply untenable against a Power which has eight times the population of the Dominion, and which is divided from us by a long and straggling boundary offering no exceptional facili- ties for defence. But Lord Dufferin has been living in a bracing atmosphere in which these misgivings cannot live. As Governor-General of the Dominion, he has had now, for up- wards of two years, the opportunity of watching the hardy political as well as physical life of the British settlements, and their rapid growth in resources, unity, loyalty, and hope. He has seized the occasion of his recent journey Westward to con- nect together his experience and his impressions into a picture glowing with life, beauty, and promise, though evidently based on a sagacious review of solid facts. There is the fibre of a strong root of prosperity, and the sap of a teeming and vivid life, in the story on which Lord Dufferin dwells ; and the knowledge of this sends a spirit through his review and his anticipations which seems to freshen the whole face of the political future for us, and even to "shed," as Matthew Arnold says, "on spirits that had long been dead,—spirits dried up and closely furled,—the freshness of the early world." How eloquent, and at the same time how touching, is Lord Dufferin's picture of the earnest loyalty of the widely-scattered people amongst whom he had travelled 1—" Again, nothing in my recent journey has been more striking, nothing, indeed, has been more affecting, than the passionate loyalty every- where evinced towards the person and throne of Queen Vic- toria. Wherever I have gone, in the crowded cities, in the remote hamlet, the affection of the people for their Sovereign has been blazoned forth against the summer sky by every device which art could fashion or ingenuity invent. Even in the wilds and deserts of the land, the most secluded and untutored settler would hoist some rag of cloth above his shanty, and startle the solitudes of the forest with a shot from his rusty firelock and a lusty cheer from himself and his children in glad allegiance to his country's Queen. Even the Indian in his forest or on his reserve would marshal forth his picturesque symbols of fidelity, in grateful recognition of a Government that never broke a treaty or falsified its plighted word to the Red Man, or failed to evince for the ancient children of the soil a wise and conscientious solicitude." And how happy in its playful banter is Lord Dufferin's account of his reply to the American impatience to see Canada fall into the arms of the United States,—namely, that the Canadians are above all a democratic people, who could not bear to lose the sense of real and immediate control over the Executive which it was their duty to obey "As you know, on my way across the Lakes I called in at the city of Chicago—a city which has again risen more splendid than ever from her ashes—and at Detroit, the home of one of the most prosperous and intelligent communities on this continent. At both these places I was received with the utmost kindness and courtesy by the civic authorities- and by the citizens themselves, who vied with each other in making me feel with how friendly an interest that great and generous people who have advanced the United States to so splendid a position in the family of nations regard their Canadian neighbours; but though disposed to- watch with genuine admiration and sympathy the development of our Dominion into a great power, our friends across the line are wont, as you. know, to amuse their lighter moments with those 'large utterances that pleased the early gods.' More than once I was addressed with the playful suggestion that Canada should unite her fortunes with those of the great Republic (laughter). To those invitations I invariably replied by acquainting them that in Canada we were essentially a democratic- people (great laughter)—that nothing would content us unless the popular will could exercise an immediate and complete control over the Executive of the country (renewed laughter), that the Ministers whe conducted the Government were but a Committee of Parliament, which. was itself an emanation from the constituencies, and that no Canadian would be able to breathe freely if he thought that the persons adminis- tering the affairs of his country were removed beyond the supervisioa and control of our Legislative Assemblies."
Nor is the political philosophy with which Lord Dufferin con- cludes this happy raillery wanting in very solid substance. He remarks that the connection between the Mother,country and the Dominion adds very materially to the elasticity of the political system of the Colony, instead of merely cumbering it, —inasmuch as it provides a more efficient and certain escape- from any political dead-lock between the Legislative and Exe- cutive powers,—such as has more than once threatened serious consequences in the United States,—than any other extant constitutional arrangement. England would at once remove an erring and impracticable Viceroy (for, as Lord Dufferin re- marked, "such things can be "), and replace him by one who could act in harmony with the popular feeling of the Dominion ; but there is no such provision for escape from a collision between the American President and his Legislature, except the clumsy and generally quite inapplicable device of a solemn impeachment. Lord Dufferin might even have reminded his hearers,—though we admit it to be doubtful whether it would have greatly added to the favour with which they received his encomium on the status of a Colonial power,—that acute critics have deemed it to be this very advantage of a distant centre of authority, which has given to the Church of Rome its extraordinary tenacity of life and elasticity of power. The conflicts at the circumference of the wide area of dominion have exhibited all their phases and exhausted all their aspects of strength and weakness, before their merits are re- ferred to the central authority, which is accordingly in a position to decide with far more wisdom and impartiality than any authority whatever could have been in the earlier stages of the dispute,—certainly with far more impartiality than one in close proximity to the passions excited by the dispute.
But it is not in any sagacity of incidental remark that the importance of Lord Dufferin's noble speech consists, though such remarks lend it, of course, additional interest and weight.. It is in the fact that a familiar knowledge of Canada and the working of its new federal institutions has kindled only confidence in a mind so cultivated and so little given to sanguine estimates as Lord Dufferin's • and again in the assurance which we draw from the speech that the Imperial spirit is not gone out of our younger statesmen, and that the future of the Empire ex- cites hopes far more buoyant in those who know best the most youthful portions of the Empire, than in those who are subjected to the influence of the cynical sobrieties of English political expectation. It is for want of men like Lord Dufferin, men hopeful themselves and what is more, able to • inspire in others the contagion of their confidence and hope, that many opportunities of the highest kind have been re- cently lost at home. Our late Liberal Government was, above everything, conscientious and large-minded in its conceptions. But somehow it did its great work rather too much in the pallid spirit of earnest humility, than in that of buoyant and generous hope. And that, we believe, was one of the principal reasons why the great task accomplished in Ireland exercised so inadequate an immediate effect on the mind of the Irish people. Lord Spencer was an admirable Viceroy in everything but this,— he either had not the gift, or else he had not the impulse, requisite to turn to good account the great 'materials ready to his hand. Could we but have had a Viceroy such as Lora Dufferin has shown himself in Canada, ready, as each great measure of justice passed, to kindle the Irish imagination into a true conception of the motives and aims of the Minister
the majority which passed it,—could we have had a few such speeches as made the walls of the Toronto Club ring with enthusiasm on the 2nd September, the vast and picturesque transformation which Mr. Gladstone's measures brought about in Ireland could not have remained as barren as they did of immediate popularity and fruitful gratitude. The truth is, that our statesmen of late years have forgotten far too much the necessity of interpreting their aims to the feelings as well as to the intellects of their countrymen. We have fallen upon a stratum of dry political conscientiousness, where there is a real break of continuity between the aims of the states- men and the understanding of the people. Politics have lost their glow and spring, while they have gained in purity and disinterestedness. It is to powers such as Lord Dufferin has shown in his brilliant Toronto speech that we look for the restoration of that glow. It is to that mixture of Irish genius and English sagacity, of Irish playfulness and English humour, of Irish buoyancy and English phlegm, of Irish pathos and English pride, and to that confidence in the life of British institutions and the steadfastness of the British race to which these qualities help to give so brilliant an expression, that we hope to owe a restoration of what we may call the imaginative school of politics, without any loss of that practical conscien- tiousness and painstaking industry, in the absence of which even the most imaginative statesmen can give us nothing but brilliant and dazzling displays of rhetorical fire.
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