Document Information

Date: 1867-02-22
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “Canada in England”, The Montreal Herald (22 February, 1867)
Other formats: TBA

CANADA IN ENGLAND,

—We copy a somewhat suggestive letter from the Leader, a source so Ministerial as to exclude the idea of any statement more unfavorable than is just being made in reference to the delegates now in England from this country. It will be seen that a rumour prevails here that these very loyal gentlemen are actually threatening to annex the Province to the United States, in case their peculiar crotchet cannot get itself complied with. The writer intimates that Mr. Cartier’s speech at Portsmouth, which is hardly reported at all in some of the London papers, conveyed a quiet hint of something the same kind. We do not, for our own parts, believe that there has been any secret offers, such as the London rumour speaks of, from the United States Government. The story probably is only a version of General Banks foolish resolutions; and we are not disposed to retort the injustice done to the opponents of Confederation by affecting to believe or to represent that its friends are desirous of bringing about a change of allegiance. If they wished to do so they would be powerless. But it may very probably be that they are using the annexation dodge in England as unscrupulously as they have used it here; and as they have here represented all who were not favorable to their scheme, as persons desirous of carrying the country over to a foreign government, so they may in England be representing that change of our nationality as the consequence of any exercise by the Imperial Parliament of its discretion, in a sense not approved by themselves. It is rather curious, at any rate, to find on such authority as that of the Leader that Ministers of the Crown in Canada are believed to be bullying the public opinion in England, by holding up bugbears which every sensible man here knows to have no possible foundation. There is no desire here for any change of nationality—not even, we honestly believe, among the people who applauded the Governor General’s declaration, that we were about to change our old for a new one—and if there shall be hereafter, it can only be because the system with which every one is contented has been changed for one, found to be disappointing and injurious to the interests of the country. In the meantime, it is amusing enough to see the slanders about negotiations between people in Washington and political parties here, set afloat in this country for the most evident partizan reasons, reproduced as against the sworn advisers of Her Majesty, who affect to enhance their own loyalty by preaching the disloyalty of every one else,—and this story not raised by the hands of opponents, but by persons thoroughly disinterested, or if partial, partial to the men whose supposed misdeeds they are bringing to light.