6 NOVEMBER 1841, Page 13

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

TIME AND OPPORTUNITY FOR THE PEACE- MAKERS.*

THE intense anxiety with which the British public awaited the results of M`Laon's trial and GROGAN'S arrest has been succeeded by a state of feeling most favourable to the preservation of peace. But it would be a great mistake to imagine that peace has been secured by the release of these individuals. Two symptoms have disappeared, but the malady remains. Two accidents of a dis- turbed state of frontier relations have passed over without pro- ducing war, but the disturbed state of frontier relations exists as before. All that the friends of peace have gained is time and op- portunity. During the reaction of sentiment on both sides occa- sioned by the release of these men, there will be time for negotia- tion; and that reaction of sentiment affords the opportunity of ne- gotiating in a friendly spirit. If both parties will now set about the work in earnest, they may finally put away the occasions of difference between them.

Two of these are proper subjects of negotiation.

The first is the Boundary question ; involving both the national point of honour and certain private interests which have grown up during the dispute. It seems impossible to dispose of the point of honour except by the arbitration of a third power. The private interests consist of property in the disputed lands, long ago acquired by citizens of Maine while this question was utterly ne- glected by the British Government, and of which the value has greatly increased of late years in consequence of the general destruction of large timber in other parts of America. But even now, the two Governments might buy out these private interests at the cost of about a week's war. The cost of a day's war would have sufficed three years ago. In three years more, the timber- lands of the disputed territory claimed by citizens of Maine will be worth the cost of a month's war. Except by a war, or a pecuniary arrangement with the actual holders of these lands, the Boundary question will never be settled.

The second point for negotiation, but for negotiation to be con- ducted on our part with sedulous respect and delicacy towards the United States, is a provision for the means of international relations with some really sovereign power on the American frontier of Canada. The State of New York, for instance, is neither a sove- reign nor a subordinate power as respects its relations with the British Government in Canada. In the affair of the Caroline the British Government had to deal with the United States ; but the United States had no control over the State of New York, which took its own course with a British subject for whose alleged acts the British Government had made itself responsible to the United States. The case is the same as if the county of Kent had the right to quarrel with France on its own account, but not the right to negotiate for the prevention of quarrels—as if the British Government were responsible to France for the acts of the county of Kent, but had no control over those acts. Here, then, is a defect in the constitution of the United States' which they must be desirous to remove for their own sake. So long as it shall continue, the risk of war on the Canada frontier will always be imminent.

So long, that is, as the present political state of Canada shall also continue. For be it observed, that this curious defect in the constitution of the United States has only become manifest since the government of Canada has been a state of war. We at present rule Canada—we retain possession of it—solely by means of a great military force. The three rebellious—one in the Upper and two in the Lower Province—have resulted in placing a swarm of British refugees on the American side of the line. These people, being ruined, and debarred from returning to their homes, are necessarily in a state of desperation. They as necessarily long to revenge the execution and transportation of their friends. By keeping the people on the British side of the line in a state of per- petual fear and anger, they expose the frontier States to frequent infractions of their territory, as in the cases of the Caroline and GROGAN, and to virulent abuse from the British press in Canada, which is still more provoking. What can the United States do with them ? They are too many to be banged or imprisoned; often hardly to be distinguished from Americans, or at least from other British settlers who are not political refugees ; and univer- sally entitled by the constitution of the United States to the pri- vilege of refuge. That the Government should find it difficult to control them, is a consequence of the inevitable weakness of police on a frontier of many hundred miles. If the Government of Canada were generally popular—if we could withdraw our sixteen thousand regulars without danger from disaffection in Canada— then, indeed, these refugees would be harmless : but they know that full half the population of Canada would rebel if it dared, and though desperate they do not despair. The state of helotage in which the Canadians of French origin have been kept ever since the second rebellion, adds continually to the number of refugees on the frontier ; and to all these must be added, as an important ele- * This paper is transferred from the Colonial Gazette of last Wednesday. It supplies an important element which English and even American writers commonly omit in stating the case of disputed boundary—the consideration of private interests affected by the question; while it puts in a distinct light the injury which we do to the United States by misgovernment in Canada—an in- pry not the less real because it is not technically cognizable in diplomacy. The defect in the American constitution comes more within the scope of ordi- nary negotiation, and should receive instant attention.

ment of frontier disturbance, vast numbers of emigrants from the United Kingdom, who wish, because they pass for Ameri- cans, that all Canada may likewise forfeit its allegiance, and hope that this will happen sooner or later from causes within the pro- vince. In one word, mismanagement of Canada tends even more than the Boundary question, or the want of a really sovereign power in the United States, towards war between England and America. .

This last evil is by no means incurable. By the Union of the Provinces, and but a partial adoption of those principles of respon- sible government which formed the subject of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S recent speech on the "want of confidence" motion much progress has been made in rendering the colony tranquil and its rulers po- pular. But much yet remains to be done. When will Sir CHARLES BAGOT be able to write to Lord STANLEY—" I have unspeakable pleasure in assuring your Lordship, that the attachment of the people of this colony to their Government and the Mother-country has recently become so obvious, that I feel justified in declaring that at least half of the regular force stationed here may be safely withdrawn " ? When ? When Lord SYTYENHAM'S promise to use the executive powers in accordance with the wishes of the people, as expressed by their representatives freely chosen, shall be carried into full effect ; when, besides the technically equal laws which exist, social justice shall be extended to the majority of the peo- ple, who happen to be of French origin ; and when the British Government, strong in its justice and confident of its own strength, shall have proclaimed a general amnesty of political offences, and. SO dispersed the swarm of miserable refugees who infest the fron- tier—but not before.

If the United States submit the Boundary question to arbitra- tion for their own sake as well as ours, and alter their constitution to accommodate us, they may at least ask that we should govern Canada well in order to remove the principal source of warlike tendencies in the frontier relations of England and America. At this moment Canada is positively without a government, while the time and the opportunity are passing away. Considering Sir CHARLES Ricca's supposed intentions as regards Canada, his ex- perience as a negotiator, his knowledge of the United States, and his respect for the American people, the storms which have stopped his passage of the Atlantic may almost be deemed a national mis- fortune.