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Date: 1866-07-13
By: True Witness
Citation: “No Title” True Witness (13 July, 1866)
Other formats: TBA

The elections in New Brunswick seem to have determined the fate of the long-talked-of Union of the British North American Provinces, by giving to the supporters of the scheme a decided majority in the Legislature. To what this change in public sentiment is owing we know not, for but a short time ago there seemed to be in all the Lower Provinces—as in Prince Edward Island there is still, a decided aversion to the measure.

A Union, if not precisely such a Union as that which was first agreed upon at Quebec, may now be looked upon as an accomplished fact. The details will, it seems, be left open for discussion by delegates from the several Provinces—Lower and Upper Canada to be considered as two distinct Provinces—who will deliberate in concert with the Imperial Government. The terms thus mutually agreed to, will be embodied in an Act of the Imperial Legislature, and then the Union will be consummated. It may turn out to be a very excellent measure, but it is one to which it will be absurd to apply the term “Confederation;” for that word implies, essentially, not a Union imposed by a force ab extra, but a Union adopted solely by the authority of the contracting and confederating parties. This may seem a trivial distinction to some; but to those who remember that in history everything tends upwards, and that by words the world is governed, it will appear no slight matter.— It is destructive, to all time coming, of the doctrine of “State Rights,” without which, in a Union of Catholic and Protestant Provinces, there can be no guarantee for the rights and liberties of the weaker States, members of that Confederation. Whatever name may hereafter be given to it, the Union of the British Provinces in North America will, and must, be in substance a legislative or incorporating Union; and in a very few years, the superfluous machinery which has been introduced, in order to give to it in the eyes of the unreflecting the semblance of a Federal Union, will be found so useless, so cumbrous, so expensive, and so productive of friction, that by the consent of all parties it will be thrown overboard.

Some may look upon this as a catastrophe to be deprecated ; others will treat it as a blessing to be invoked; but no matter in what light it may be viewed, the result is inevitable ; is one that must be patent to all who have watched the workings of political systems, and is most probably designed, if not avowed, by the Upper Canadian and Clear-Grit concocters of the scheme. The tendency of the age is to centralisation and consolidation, because it is essentially a democratic age, or age in which the principles of ultra-democracy are in the ascendent. That tendency is plainly visible in the revolution now taking place before our eyes in the neighboring Republic, which from a Federation of sovereign and independent States has, within the last few years, collapsed into a Jacobin Republic ” one and indivisible,” through the triumph of the democratic party. The same tendencies are at work in the British North American Provinces, and will bring about the same result ; the more easily because in their case there will be no ” State Rights ” to trample under foot, no theoretical ” sovereignty and independence ” to overthrow; and because, in theory, as well as in fact, the several Provinces or component parts of the Union will be subject to, and dependent upon, the central government.

By a singular anomaly a measure which should, one would think, so materially approve itself to the democratic conscience, has been violently opposed in Lower Canada by the Rouge or democratic party, which has thereby done more to forward it, and to secure its adoption, than have all the arguments adduced in its favor by its supporters, the so-called Conservatives. Confederation assures the ultimate triumph of Rouge or extreme democratic and anti-Catholic principles in Lower Canada, and for this reason one would have thought it would have enforced the support of the Rouge party. But it was a Ministerial measure, the success of which threatened for a time to keep them and their friends out of office, and therefore they opposed it : though substantially the same measure as that which some years ago, the Brown-Dorion Ministry were prepared to bring forward as the panacea for what were called ” sectional differences. ” Now the very fact that the measure was warmly opposed by the Rouges compelled numbers who hate Rouge principles, and who did not like Confederation for its own sake, to give a qualified support to the measure ; the vicious arguments of the Rouge press, in like manner—a press whose anti-Catholic and Annexationist proclivities are unmistakable—tended to bring about the same result ; and thus both parties went on playing the game of cross-purposes—the Conservatives supporting, the Rouges opposing, an essentially democratic measure ; whilst the great mass of the Lower Canadians, Catholic, Conservative and anti-Yankee at heart, looked on bewildered, and manifested, as a body, what the London Times complained of as an almost stolid indifference to a measure so important to themselves, their language and their religion. They felt that they were in a false position, though they did not see how to work their way out of it.

Of the consequences of the measure itself upon the existing relations betwixt the Imperial Government and its American Provinces the most contradictory opinions are expressed. By some we are assured that it will have the effect of maintaining the Imperial connection and of staving off the danger of Annexation, by increasing the military resources of the Provinces, and their means of defence ; though how—the climate of British North America remaining the same, and the relative geographical positions of the several component parts thereof remaining the same—a political Union of any kind can bring about a closer material Union, which is the one thing needful, we do not understand. No one, we suppose, who has looked at his map, can suppose that the projected Intercolonial Railroad, whatever may be its merits as a commercial speculation, could, in time of war with the United States, be of any use in a military point of view, seeing that, according to the Official Report of the Engineers, in case of such a war, all the right bank of the St. Lawrence, that is to say the country through which the Railroad would have to pass, would have, at the commencement of hostilities, to be abandoned to the enemy as untenable. Except by means of a Railroad on the left bank of the great river, with a tunnel under the gulf of St. Lawrence and below Anticosti, it would be physically impossible for Canada to keep open military communication with Nova Scotia, in time of war with the U. States.

Others again contend that, so far from fostering our political connection with Great Britain, Confederation, by aiming at creating a new nationality on this Continent, will precipitate the inevitable rupture of the Imperial tie ; and as a necessary consequence will lead to Annexation. Both views have their supporters; and it is certain that in England, Confederation is well looked upon by an influential political party that objects to Colonies and outlying dependencies, because it promises at no very remote date, to release Great Britain from all her obligations towards her North American Provinces, by establishing the political independence of the latter.

In the meantime, it is not for us to pass sentence ; rather is it for the Catholics of L. Canada to make the best bargain for themselves that is still open to them, if indeed the discussion of the details of the Union is to be re-opened. What should be their aim, so it seems to us, is, to limit as much as possible, the sphere of action of the proposed Central Government, and to extend that of the local or municipal council as far as possible. At best these will be but paltry affairs ; but as half a loaf is better than no bread, so should we try to approximate as closely as possible to the principle of ” State Rights,” as the only political bulwark against the encroachments of the ever-surging sea of democracy.