CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.
THE news from Canada is the most important that has been despatched across the Atlantic for many years. Sir John Macdonald has dissolved the Dominion Parliament and appealed to the electors on a trade policy, which has hitherto been regarded as outside the region of practical polities. In the English newspapers, this policy has been described as one of Reciprocity, but, as a matter of fact, it is a great deal wider than such a description indicates. The proposals which the Dominion has before it include not only tariff matters, but the settlement of the Fisheries question, and the arrangement on a fresh basis of the whole system of intercourse between the English and American portions of the continent. If they are accepted, the Dominion, New- foundland, and the United States will, in certain aspects, stand to each other in a relation considerably closer than that occupied by friendly nations. They will be coupled together by a, bond far stronger than that which ordinarily links one independent nation with another. In the first place, there will be a far-reaching measure of commercial reciprocity. Next, if Sir John Macdonald's: despatch to Lord Iinutsford is acted on, the fishermen, alike of the States and of Canada, will be able to use the waters of either country indiscriminately, and regulations may be agreed on for protecting and improving their common industry. Thirdly, the coasting laws, both for the ocean and the great lakes, may berelaxed in such a way as to make the transactions of shipowners far more easy and profitable than they are at present, both as regards ordinary trade and in respect of the salvage of wrecked vessels. Finally, the last of theboundary questions, that between Alaska and Canada, will be removed, and so the risk of serious diplomatic trouble in the future be rendered. infinitesimal.
Though most Englishmen would be unwilling to con- demn the acceptance of these proposals per se, and would in the last resort declare that the matter must be left to the judgment of the people of the Dominion, not a few, we suspect, will view them with dissatisfaction and uneasiness, believing that in the end they must result in the absorption of Canada in the United States. Those. who dread such a result do not do so out of jealousy or dislike of the United States, nor, again, because they are influenced by a selfish feeling that Canada, if she remains attached to i England, may prove useful. Their feeling is influenced by a very different set of motives. They see that Canada is developing a worthy type of nationhood. and they believe that the destruction of the Dominion as a separate political entity might deprive the English- speaking world of a community which in the future may prove capable of affording valuable political lessons. The Canadian Constitution is probably the best instru- ment ever framed for governing a territory as huge as a continent. Except for the fact that the Governor- General, because he is nominated, not elected, has hardly a position of sufficient independence, it is not too much to say that " The British North America Act, 1868," has all the virtues and none of the faults of the American Constitution. It takes the appointment of the Judges, and legislation in regard to crimes and the marriage law, out of the hands of the Provinces, and reserves those functions for the central Parliament, and in this way pre- vents what is the great difficulty of the 'United States, the power of a single State to disgrace the whole Union by the appointment of corrupt Judges, or by some scandalous weakening of the marriage tie. For Canada to be absorbed in the Union and to leave no trace behind her, would be indeed a calamity. The addition of a dozen new States would not alter the political complexion of the Union, and therefore the only result would be that the New World would lose its Scotland,—its preserve for the cultivation of strength, hard work, and independence. If, then, reciprocity in trade and the enlargement of friendly relations along the coast and on the fishing-banks mean the destruction of the Dominion, we should be inclined to look upon them with disfavour, and to wish for a majority at the polls hostile to Sir John Mac- d.onald's latest policy. Is it, however, necessary to assume that Reciprocity means absorption ? We see no reason to suppose it is. Indeed, all the examples seem to point the other way. Nations may trade freely with each other and enjoy the closest intimacy of intercourse, and yet maintain with even more than their old vigour the desire for independence. England does not enjoy Re- ciprocity with the world, it is true, but she does enjoy Free-trade. Yet who can say that our people are less anxious to keep their independence than they were in the days before Mr. Cobden converted the country to his theories ? As far as we are concerned, there are no more restrictions in regard to intercourse with France, than there will be between the Dominion and the United States if the new proposals are carried ; yet our people show no sort of tendency to move in a direction which, if the French spoke the same language and held the same religion, would lead to amalgamation. Take, again, the case of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. This State was within the Zollverein, and is now within the Customs boundary of the German Empire, and yet she shows the strongest desire to remain independent. German railways run through her territory, and she is in every physical sense part of the Empire ; yet her people ha've not been converted to the idea of a political union with Germany. In the same way, the Zollverein did not tend to make the people of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wirtemberg desire absorption in Prussia. It is true that at last, and under pressure from foreign arms, the Zollverein turned out to have been a half-way house to federation ; but this does not alter the fact that, but for the war, Bavaria and Saxony would have retained their independence. It is, indeed, by no means impossible that Reciprocity, if carried to its full length, may result in making Canada give up all idea of entering the Union. Her people till now have been tempted by the thought, "If we join the Union, we shall get Free-trade with the whole continent." This temptation might, at some moment of trade depression, have induced them to barter their political independence for commercial privileges. If, however, they obtain what they desire by Reciprocity, they may be trusted to retain a constitutional system of which they are proud, and which has worked singularly welt. Reciprocity and free inter- course, it is quite conceivable, may put.an.end to all desire • on the part of Canada to share with her mighty neighbour the terrible problem of facing and laying the black spectre -which is beginning to raise its head in the South.
But oven if Reciprocity need cause no alarm in England as to the future of Canada, it is impossible not to wish that the Dominion, instead of attempting to improve her com- merce with the United States, had turned her attention to the subject of trade with the Mother-country. The impo- sition of the McKinley Tariff gives British North America an opportunity such as occurs but once in the commercial history of a nation. If at this moment she were to adopt a policy of Free-trade with England and the whole world, she would soon place herself in a position of extra- ordinary strength and prosperity. In the first place, Free- trade--that is, the imposition of no duties except on alcohol, tea, and tobacco for revenue purposes—would make her the cheapest place to live on in the face of the earth. But cheap and good living means good wages, and would soon attract immigrants in thousands, not only from Europe, but from the States. With this influx of labour manufacturers would follow, and Canada, unchecked by Protection, would be able to beat America and rival England in all the neutral markets of the world. Trade never forgets that its basis is exchange, and Europe, in sending Canada her products without restraint, would take back the products of the northern strip of the new world. There would be nothing needed in Europe and grown both in the States and in the Dominion, in which Canada would not get the trade preference. Under Free-trade, too, the Canadian Pacific Railway would become the " portage " of the East and West. Transcontinental freights need not be pro- hibitive, and for the non-bulky products of China, Japan, and Australia, the merchants would find that Canada offered the best possible means of transport. To preach this to a race of farmers, fishermen, and wood-cutters is, however, utterly useless. Those callings, though they produce excellent moral qualities, benumb the intelligence. Though the trades we have named benefit first by low prices, they are always the last to give up the errors of Protection.
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