ARE TIIE CANADAS A GAIN OR A LOSS?

le the Canadas are a gain to us, they can only be so in the matter of trade, of military strength, of finance, or as necessary vents for emigration. We shall show—what all who understand such questions know full well already—that they are a heavy and a dead loss to us from year to year, under every one of these heads. 1. We begin with the trade. Great Britain 11.1s a monopoly in the Canadian market, and the Canadians have a monopoly in Ours- The total value of the exports• from the two Canada., • Taken twat the Itetwes laid Wore Parliament. in 1833, was 965,0001., and that of the imports was 1,665,0001. If the accounts were correctly kept and the trade of a natural and

wholesome character, the two ought of course to be neatly the

same; and the enormous discrepancy of 700,0001. is only to be accounted for by the fact that it is made up chiefly by Treasury bills for•

the maintenance of our expensive establishments civil and military.

The smaller sum, or less than a million, represents consequently the actual bona fide value of the trade of the two Comities. The greater

part of the imports are consumed in theUpper Province ; for the people of the Lower are clothed in their own furs, and their own domestic fabrics of woollen, flannel, and linen ; for the fabrication of which there were, in the year above stated, no fewer than 13,400 looms, manufacturing no less than 3,750,000 yards a year. The only means of distinguishing the trade of the two Provinces is to be found in the apportionment of the Custom-duties between them. Out of Customs, amounting in 1834 to about 84,0(101., the sum of 56,0001. was paid into the Treasury of the Upper Province as its just share. Sup- posing, then, the whole value of the trade to be a million, the value of that of the Lower Province will be about 330,000/. So much for the mere numerical amount of the trade. A mercantile profit of 10 per cent. on the whole capital invested, would be just 100,0001. a year; and

on the share of the Lower Province, 33,0001. This is all that we can discover that is gained by Lower Canada; and we agree entirely with Sir HENRY PARNE1.0, that " no ease can be put to show that we should not have every commercial advantage we are supposed now to have, if it (Canada) were made an independent state."

But now for the master grievance to this country—the timber mono- poly. According to the official returns, the total value of all the timber exported from the St. Lawrence, in 1833, was in round numbers, 700,0001. ; and most probably full one half of this price arising out of the monopoly which the timber of Canada enjoys in the markets of England. To give North American timber a monopoly of the British market, there is imposed on almost all other timber, but particularly on the timber of the Baltic, duties which on the average may be reckoned at sevenfold the Canadian. By a return made to the Ilease of Commons in 1830, it appears that if the same duty had been levied on the Canadian, for that year, which was levied on Baltic timber, the revenue accruing on the first would have been above 1,580.0001. ; whereas it was little more than 232,0001.,— making a loss to the treasury equal to 1,348,0001. If, then, for the further difference which must have arisen on the increased consumption of timber for the last eight years, we add even so small a sum as about 1.50,0001., we may estimate the clear annual loss to the exchequer, and hence to the nation, at a million and a half sterling. Would Baltic timber, however, be consumed to the extent of yielding to the treasury the revenue which appears to be sacrificed by the present system ? Not the least doubt of it. It is now consumed to a considerable extent, in spite of a discriminating duty against it of 600 per cent.; and except for a limited quantity of a particular kind of' pine, which would still be brought from Canada, would wholly supersede the Canadian wood. The direct pecuniary loss to the nation may, therefore, be estimated very moderately at a million and a half. The immediate effects to the consumer are, a high price for a bad article, when a good article might be bad instead, —dry rot, un- safe ships, and perishable houses, with an unnecessary tax on every branch of national industry. In short, if we had taxed our ingenuity to discover the worst market to go to for timber, Canada is the very country w•e should have hit upon. But this is not all : while we have been diligently cultivating a distant gravel-pit, we have neglected the rich alluvial lands and fat meadows in our neighhoutl►ood—while we have been laboriously harpooning a sprat, we have let the whale escape. In 1837, before the present system came into full operation, the value of our exports of British produce and manufactures to the timber countries of the North of Europe was four millions a year : it is now diminished to less than one half of this amount. With Den- mark, Sweden, and Norway, our trade has been pretty nearly annihi- lated ; just in the same mariner as the trade of England in cottons, woollens, and iron would be • 'Whited, with any nation that chose to put a prohibitory duty on it in order to favour some obscure local interest of its own. It is reckoned that about 800 ships of the bur- den of 216,000 tons, and manned by 2,200 melt, are engaged in the North American timber-trade : we have the authority of the present Presi- dent of the Board of Trade for the opinion, that it would be a better bargain for the nation to throw the timber-trade open and pay the ship- owners a liberal sum, that would allow their ships, as so many pleasure- yachts, to cruise in the Channel. The million and a half now lost to the treasury, if bestowed yearly on the owners of the Canadian timber- ships, would yield them, at the rate of near 71. a ton, a sum for which tonnage may at present be obtained for a voyage to the East Indies and back again. It would amount to a bounty of 1,850/. to every ship. But would not the Canadians be losers by the change? The whole value of the ti her exported from the Canadas, as we have seen, is but 700,0001. ; and the natural value is not probably one half of that amount. If it bad been the whole, however, the trade is not one that would be- nefit the Canadas. On the contrary, it is highly detrimental to their interests. The lumberer', as the woodcutters and others concerned arc ominously called, are the very pests of society. " They are," says an eye- witness, "made and kept vicious by the very trade by with h they live." When the inhabitants of Canada give up lumbering, says another, "agriculture will begin to raise its head." The cessation from it, adds the same party, would be "a decided gain to the colony." The Canadian House of Assembly was clearly of this opinion, for lately it gave authority to its agent in England to denounce it as a nut- sahce instead of a benefit to their constituents. In short, while the British nation is a heavy loser by the timber monopoly, that mono.- poly is at the seine time a heavy tax on the industry and morality of the Canadians. But a section of the clamorous shipowners of England benefit by the general calamity, and their partners and cor. respondents in Quebec and Montreal are partakers. The that are naturally the loudest, on this side of the Atlantic, for a war against Canadian liberty ; and it is the latter who, with a crowd of dependent book-keepers, shop-keepers, lumberers, functionaries, and sinecurists,

t Fissadal Rama. p.887,11330.

modestly assume to themselves the designation of the " British party.' although they constitute but a moderate portion even of the English

population. Is,then, such a monopoly as we have described "a noble object," as was said of the American Colonies in 1775, " to fight for?" Is such a " British party " as we have described one for which our blood, our treasure, or our character ought to be wasted ? If they are, we ought, in consistency, to have cut each other's throats to main- tain the tea monopoly of the East India Company; and we ought to levy war in perpetuity on the Catholic Irish for the maintenance of Orange ascendancy.

2. Does the possession of the Canada. add to our military strength ? The possession of the Old Colonies, now constituting the United States, unquestionably did, in so fur as we were aggressors on our

neighbours ; for it was by their miens we conquered Canada, Louisiana,

and Florida. Moreover, they coestitated, before their quarrel with us, probably not less than a tenth part of the population of the empire. It was neither pleasant nor profitable to have our population as it were decimated—a population, too, that took off four millions of our produce and manufactures, at that time one-fourth part of the total exports of the kingdom. Since the establishment of the invincible republic in their neighbourhood, the Canadas, instead of contributing to our national strength, have always added to our weakness. They have at once produced a dispersion of our force, wasted our treasure, and diminished our trade. Now that they are disaffected, these evils are aggravated ; but, if ever so loyal, in what possible way could a million or half a million of people—one fiftieth or one twenty-fifth part of our whole population—in a corner of the world three or four thousand miles off, contribute to the military strength of the British Islands ? If to maintain costly garrisons at our own sole expense in remote regions, among a people whether affected or disaffected to us, can perform such a miracle, then may the Canadas contribute to our na- tional strength—hut not otherwise.

3. The matter of finance is easily settled. The colonies of Spain often not only paid their own establishments civil and military, but even contributed to the exchequer of the mother country. The British territories in India pay all their own expenses. No British colony in America has ever paid its own military charges, or contributed a far- thing to the Imperial treasury. The Canadas are by far the most expensive colonies we ever possessed. Profit, then, being out of the question, let us estimate the less fur w hid) we are going to fight. Acr.' rl- ing to the very incomplete statements laid before Parliament in 1835,e the total annual expenditure on the North American Colonies, by the people of this country, was 425.5621. In this statement, the sums voted for the improvement of the water communications of the Canadas, almost purely for purposes of military defence, and the sums laid out in the ridiculous attempt to fortify against American aggression an open frontier thousands of miles in extent, are biker, no notice of. From fifty to sixty millions, Sir HENRY PARNELL says, were already laid out on the Canada. down to 1830; and he finds from the Second Report of the Finance Committee, that the plan of forti- fication, which had been in progress at the above date, was " to cost 3,000.000/." We shall take the whole expenditure, down to the present period. at the highest of his sums. Sir HENRY, instead of the animal expenditure of 400,000/. and upwards, above given, states it more rem.

sonably at "full 600,0001;" which we shall therefore assume for our calculation. The public money expended on the Rideau Canal, the

fortifications, and other follies, has been absolutely sunk or destroyed. We shall reckon the annual charge upon it, however, only at the Culo- nial interest of 6 per cent. The items recapitulated will then be—

Annual national lose through the timber monopoly £1,500,000 Rideau Canal; capital expended down to 11533, namely,

8:4000/ e1,480 The sixty millions previously expended, including

0,000,0001. for fortifications 3,600,000 Annual Civil, Military, and Naval Expenditure of Great Britain 600,000 X5,751,4tl0

We have here an enormous sum, nearly six millions a year, spent on our six North American Colonies. Now the total value of our exports to these Colonies, whether in British and Irish produce and

manufactures, or in Foreign and Colonial merchandise,—and it includes civil and military stores, with the consumption of civil and mili- tary establishments,—is 3,000,000/. a year, enhanced even to that value by monopoly price. The owners of this capital may count themselves lucky if on the average of years they clear a profit of 10 per cent. This will make a gain of 300,000/. So then, to enable a few merchants to gain 300,000/. a year, which they would equally gain in any other trade, or in the same trade without a farthing's loss to the nation, the people must disburse nearly six millions a year ; that is, the whole nation must sustain an annual loss of nearly twentyfold the profit which the mer- chants gain ! It is clear, from the nature of the expenditure, that the heaviest part of the loss comes from the Canadas. 4. A word will suffice for emigration. In spite of the bonus given to land companies in the shape of jobs in cheap lands, and to the ship- ping interest through the timber monopoly, to carry out emigrants to Canada,—in spite of the encouragement given by Government in pro- tection and patronage and public money,—there are as many emigrants yearly to the United States as to the whole of the British North Ame- rican Colonies. Many who go first to Canada, find their way to the United States eventually. Moreover, there is far more emigration now ;, e territory of the American Union than there was when it 1,elonged to ourselves. Canada, in like manner, would have its due share, if it were an independent state to-morrow; and the only difference would he a difference in our favour—that we should not have a monopoly price to pay for the transports that conveyed them. The pretext, therefore, for Canada being a necessary vent for British emigration, is both absurd and fabulous.

Canada, then, it is clear to demonstration, contributes nothing to our national resources, in trade, finance, or military strength, nor is it necessary for emigration. The reverse is the truth in each particular. Yet a civil war, to be urged with vigour, in order to maintain this mill- } " Cu1awiat Expenditure. Statement untie Expenditure by Great Britain on ac. count of the iieseral Colon*, for tho year 1$33-33."

stone about our necks, has commenced ; respecting which we shall say nothing further at present, than to remind our readers that a similar MI01(.41111 contest cost us one hundred and thirty millions, and a sound drubbing to the bargain.