Document Information

Date: 1864-09-02
By: True Witness
Citation: “No title”, True Witness (2 September, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

As we promised in our last, we lay before our readers a translation of the more important passages of an article on the Canadian Coalition, and the projected Confederation of the B. N. A. Provinces, that appeared in a Paris paper, the Economist Francais, over the signature of M. Rameau, and which has been reproduced by most of our French Canadian contemporaries.

In the first place M. Rameau discusses the Coalition. On this point he thus expresses himself:—

“We are in the receipt of very serious news from Canada. Mr. Brown—the fanatical chief of the franco-phobe (or French abominating) party in Canada, having on several occasions seen his plots-wenesses—miscarry—literally smitten with impotence—appears to have corrected himself by accomplishing a perfect revolution. Renouncing, in appearance at least, his hostile designs and his daily denunciations against the French population—he has attached himself to the idea of a general Confederation of all the English colonies of North America. This idea was that of the Ministry. As a consequence of this shift of front he has then allied himself to MM. Taché, Cartier, etc. of whom he was one of the most violent antagonist, and he thus brings to the Ministry an addition of strength which may assure to it a stability long unknown to Canadian administrations.

“That stability no one can desire more than ourselves; it must not, nevertheless, be blindly pursued, and we confess that a recruit such as Mr. Brown cannot but awaken in our minds legitimate fears.”

‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.’

“Therefore would we still advise our French Canadian friends only to accept this alliance—concours—with the greatest caution, and to watch with a distrust as scrupulous as it will be well founded every step and move of this artful journalist, skilled in putting on every aspect, and in seizing every road to arrive at his ends.”

This coincides exactly with what the TRUE WITNESS has said on the same subject. The Coalition of French Canadians with one of such questionable antecedents as George Brown must be watched with a keen and jealous eye. The leopard does not in a day change his spots: the fanatical leader of the anti-Catholic and French abominating party, who for long years has been stirring up the passions of his followers and goading them on to the assault of all that Catholics and French Canadians most love and honor—cannot be believed to have purged in one moment his heart of all its perilous stuff, at all the accumulated gall and bitterness of years. The man’s conversion is certainly sudden, and of its sincerity, we have yet to see the first proof: Therefore with M. Rameau, the TRUE WITNESS contends that the Coalition, in spite of all that may be said of the honorable antecedents of some of the parties thereunto, must be watched with keen and suspicious eyes. Let us now pass from the consideration of the Coalition, to that of its announced policy—”Federation.”

On this subject M. Rameau says:—

“The new project of Confederation may, we know, be of great advantage to French Canadians—but it may also offer considerable danger; everything depends upon the manner in which the project is carried into execution. If it assure to each Province a truly independent administration, Lower Canada will find herself freed from her fatal and hybrid alliance with Upper Canada—a union in which the Provinces mutually paralyze one another in reciprocal and but too natural distrust of one another. Lower Canada might thenceforward watch in all freedom the progress of colonisation so as to attract to herself a kindred immigration, and develop her institutions according to her character, her origin, and her needs, without any alien interference.”

“But if, on the contrary, the project of confederation in joining to Canada the other English Provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, assign to the Central Assembly a sovereign preeminence, or even a virtual right of interference—ingererè reelle—in the affairs of the country, the new situation will be worse than the first, because thereby the English element will find itself increased one third.

“The idea which ought to preside over this organisation seems to us then to be thus. To wit: That in principle, the government, the elections, the collection and distribution of taxes all the essential machinery of administration should belong to each Province in particular; whilst the Federal Assembly, and the central government should be merely secondary and in some sort, subordinate powers, whose sphere of action should be limited to a fixed number of common and general interests, determined beforehand by the Constitution; and whose members should receive imperative and limited instructions—mandates—from the Provincial Assemblies; and whose decisions, if transgressing the constitutional sphere should be liable to be set aside and declared of no effect by the aforesaid Provincial Assemblies. “Such to our eyes are the guarantees necessary to secure the French minority in the midst of this Brittanic agglomeration.”

M. Rameau’s views on the subject of Confederation may be thus summed up:—

If the present political fermentation result in giving us a form of Federation, which the Ministry through their official organs, and notably through the Globe the organ of Mr. George Brown, assure us that it will not give, and which it is said the Ministry have beforehand determined not to give us—then it will be well with us.

But if, on the contrary, the Ministerial project of so-called Federation be what the Clear-Grit section of the Ministry through the Globe, assures us it is intended to be; if the central or Federal Government is to be sovereign, and the local or Provincial Governments subordinate, and exercising only delegated functions; if—as we are officially assured by the Globe is to be the case—the functions of the Provincial Governments are to be the strictly defined and limited functions, and that to the central Government, all functions not expressly delegated to the local governments, are by implication to be ascribed—then, according to M. Rameau, it will not be well with us; then according to the same competent and impartial authority, the last state of the French in British North America will be worse than their first.

Without however expressing any opinions of our own as to the intentions of the Ministry; being frankly desirous to put the best construction possible on their actions, and willing to credit them with the best intentions—so long as it is in our power to do so—we will take the liberty of saying that the uncontradicted assertions of Mr. Brown through the Globe, have done much to create uneasiness, and have given a great shock to public confidence. The Journal de Quebec (Ministerial) alluding to these revelations made through the Globe as to the main features of the Ministerial policy, implies its ignorance as to their truth or falsity; inclines however to the opinion that they are false; but is certain that, if true, it was very indiscreet on the part of the Globe “une indiscretion extreme dans la circonstance”—to publish the truth, as thereby the French Canadians are put upon their guard, and will be the better able to resist the meditated designs upon their nationality and autonomy. All this would be amusing were it not that so many important interests are therein implicated. Meantime we leave it to Mr. George Brown to explain matters to the satisfaction of his Lower Canadian colleagues; and to show to them that he has been guilty, neither of misrepresenting them through the Globe, nor of indiscretion, “indiscretion extreme” in betraying their secrets. At all events the French Canadian press (Ministerial) owe it to themselves to call upon Mr. George Brown for explanations.