Document Information
Date: 1864-09-16
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “New Books.—The Northern Kingdom.—By a Colonist.”, The Montreal Herald (16 September, 1864)
Other formats: TBA
NEW BOOKS. — THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.—BY A COLONIST.—Dawson Bros., Montreal :
This pamphlet is, we suppose, to be fairly taken as one of the signs of the times—one of the indications of the direction which the thoughts of thinking men are taking, and of the problems which sooner or later will be forced for practical solution on the population, of whom unfortunately a large part think very little. The writer takes for his motto the ancient one which propounds the statement that the crossing of oceans while it operates a change of climate for the traveller, does not alter his ideas. Yet he accepts, if he does not desire, complete separation from Great Britain, and the erection by ourselves of an independent Northern Kingdom, under a dynasty whose founder should, of course, be a scion of the House of Brunswick, a son of our present Sovereign lady the Queen. We have said that the writer accepts the situation of independence of Great Britain if he does not desire it, because it is evident he thinks that with or without any voluntary action of our own, that independence will shortly be forced upon us. It is, therefore, in his view, the part of wise men to prepare for the inevitable. There is very much in the opinions thus put forward well deserving of consideration, especially as to the form which any Confederation of the Provinces must take in order to be stable or useful. The writer abjures the American experiment as a failure, and wishes our projected consolidation of the British Provinces of the North to be a Legislative, instead of a Federal Union in spirit, even though the exigencies of the times should compel us to yield on some matters of form. In this respect we hold that he is perfectly right; but we acknowledge we think he is in error in the great willingness which he appears to feel to cast off, or rather to be cast off by, the mother country. We know something of our present position, and though we believe in no doctrines of finality; but desire always to try, as the practical Scotchman said, to help the Almighty in mending the World, we cannot say that that position is so bad as to make us very cheerfully undertake experiments. Looking at our capacity for independence politically, a Colonist compares our population with that of the secondary Kingdoms of Europe, and shows that as far as the element of population is concerned, B. N. America would unitedly stand about as high as the best of them. Hence he argues our ability for standing alone; but the military strength of a nation is determined by the same rules as that of an army—not merely by the number of men, but by the number compared with the extent of the position they have to hold and the enemy to be encountered. The exposed frontier of a nation is, looking at it from this point, that which the line of battle is to an army. If too much extended it is weak, even though it may contain more men than that of its opponent—there being, however, this difference that a line of battle may be shortened while a frontier must be held on pain of disgrace and partial loss of territory. In this respect we are in a much less advantageous position than that of the secondary European Kingdoms whose geographical outlines have usually been formed and modified by a series of historical events taking place simultaneously with the social changes which have formed or modified the populations which inhabit them. They are moreover usually divided either by natural boundaries affording more or less means of defence, or they have their political boundaries strengthened by walled towns or fortresses such as those which so often caused our and other armies to swear so terribly in Flanders such as the famous Italian Quadrilateral and the Scandinavian Dannewarke. An invader there moreover has usually to reckon not only wtih the secondary Kingdom which he attacks; but with one or more of the great powers who fear the increase of strength of any one among themselves, and who are immediately on the spot. Our natural ally is England. At present she is bound by every tie to our defence; but if “as in the hypothesis of a colonist, she shall withdraw from us, she will do so for the express purpose of escaping from that responsibility and we shall therefore stand alone or have to seek other European allies, to become perhaps masters. Socially again, “A Colonist” justly ridicules the absurdity of attempting to create among us any thing like an aristocracy worthy of the name, or capable of fulfilling its functions. But the reasons against the establishment of an aristocracy, seem equally strong against the creation of a court, and may well cause us to doubt whether the efforts which would be made among us to exhibit the splendour with which monarchs must surround themselves, would be conducive to the happiness of a people such as ours, with fortunes, when made, usually made late in life, and at best, of a somewhat precarious tenure. We throw out these considerations not in a spirit of controversy or opposition to the author of the pamphlet. On the contrary, in respect to the work which lies immediately before the people of this country, we imagine that our views and his are in accord. But we confess that we are conservative enough to wish to depart as little as possible from our present political position, and then not by way of adopting theories of government, but from time to time, as we may see each change indicated by the circumstances of the moment, and may be able to estimate its effect with more or less accuracy. Agreeing with the writer in the opinion that we ought not feebly to repine after British protection, if Great Britain shall ever cast us off, we yet would endeavour to look in the face all the gravity and danger of the new position which would be thus forced upon us, and seeing how grave and how dangerous it must be, we would postpone our lapse into it untill the very last moment.