Document Information

Date: 1866-11-01
By: Montreal Herald
Citation: “Reasons in Favour of Confederation Promises Connected Therewith” Montreal Herald (1 November 1866).
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).

REASONS IN FAVOUR OF CONFEDERATION—PROMISES CONNECTED THEREWITH.—Perhaps dinners are not precisely the places where people go to acquire knowledge. Nevertheless at a dinner given as a political demonstration, and where the leading politicians of a country profess to be about to consummate a great constitutional change in the position of the country they represent, we may fairly expect to hear the best that can be said in favour of their project. Now we suppose that a warm friend to Confederation on perusing the verbal manifestos which have just taken place here and at Hamilton, will rise with some degree of astonishment—especially if a conservative, desirous of adhering to established facts rather than of rushing into untried novelties—at finding on how slight grounds he has consented to the burden of a union with several poorer countries, and to the subversion of that British constitution of which we boast, in favour of the essentially foreign basis of society found in a written fundamental law;—our adaptation, however, lacking all the symmetry and fitness of parts which are conspicuous in the model from which it is derived. We see indeed little more than a repetition of the assertion that some how this wonderful plan is to make us all stronger, richer, and better, than we are now—especially let us say that it is to put an end to our petty politics. How it is to accomplish all these desireable ends is what the orators fail to describe. They believe, of course, all that they say—that whereas there is not a single one of the colonies which has the population necessary to defend its own border, a law can nevertheless be passed which shall enable each of them in some mysterious manner to have a much greater force than it requires for itself, and a surplus available for the defence of all the rest; and so on of the other elements of national greatness. But, as in politics, at all events, we are supposed to exercise freedom of judgement, instead of being bound by authority, we should like to have an arithmetician who could furnish us the key to this extraordinary mode of multiplication—or some physiologist who could explain the method, by which millions of human beings are to be generated by an act of Parliament, which will leave all the natural conditions of the country just where it found them. Such little reasoning as we find in the orations of the gentlemen who have just been entertained by their friends, proceeds by the notoriously unsound process of comparison between their now favoured form of government, and those of some other countries. In one respect they are exceedingly happy in this course of ratiocination; for no matter whether these other countries have governments like or unlike the one proposed for us—no matter whether any form of government is an acknowledged success, or an admitted failure—no matter whether it has led to uniform peace and prosperity, or has proved that the bottling up of hostile elements causes the outbreak of civil war—in every case alike they furnish proofs of the excellence of our Confederation. That is an agreeable, self-complacent, inside picture of the subject, by which we mean a fancy sketch drawn from within the ring; and we acknowledge the skill with which the dissolving views are worked, so that whatever was the preceding piece, it discovers to the spectator, on its fading away, the gorgeous, symmetrical and highly-illuminated landscape which is recognised as the representation of the new Canadia. Still, if criticism be not absolutely forbidden, we should like to ask whether the fact that Scotland and England, whose separate legislatures often clashed, became more prosperous after the abolition of one of these legislatures and a union of the two countries under a single government, furnishes any ground for expecting that Upper and Lower Canada, which have now but one Parliament, will be rendered more prosperous by being divided, and placed under three separate legislatures. Yet, admitting that the augmentation of happiness by a more intimate union of two countries, proves that the felicity of another country depends upon its separation, and thus that, because England and Scotland united are better off than before, Upper and Lower Canada will be better when separated than united—we find here an argument drawn from the success of union. But the eloquent speaker who placed before us this example of how good and pleasant it is for brethern to dwell together, immediately produced another case of union between England and Ireland, which he proclaimed a decided failure. This might seem to balance the account, and afford room for saying that unions may turn out well or badly according to circumstances, and that, therefore, whether ours will turn out in one way or the other depends, not upon anything which has occurred on the other side of the Atlantic, but upon the conditions of the countries now in question. Not at all. Mr. McGee’s logic is more subtle and, perhaps, his patriotism will excuse us if we say, more Irish. The union between Great Britain and Ireland, he asserts, is a failure because of certain defects; and as ours is not to have those defects, it is sure to succeed. This, we submit, is just as if a physician should inform a patient that a mutual friend had just died of consumption, but that as the patient had not got consumption he would not die at all. The fact, however, is, that the Irish union furnishes no term of comparison with that which the Quebec project seeks to impose upon us. The old relations between Ireland and the Empire were much more like the loose bond of a Confederation than those which now exist between the two islands, and the British government consented to the disagreeable business of buying up all the rascals among the public men of the sister country, and then using these corrupt instruments to bully the residuum of honest men, because they felt it to be at that time of danger an absolute necessity to get rid of a second legislature within the same sovereignty, by which the policy of the more important legislature was constantly checked. This is a very different affair from the creating of three new legislatures in a country now governed by a single Parliament; and if it be said that it resembles the process of bringing in the Lower Provinces, we reply that these Provinces in no way interfere with the policy of Canada, and that even if they did, Confederation would not do away with the instrument by which this interference may be exercised, since the local legislatures are to continue instead of being abolished. It may be answered, that their legislation is to be subject to the veto of the general government;—but so was the legislation of the Irish Parliament; and, coming to another part of the World to which Mr. McGee went for his comparisons, so for purposes of a general and national character were—not the legislatures, but the people—of each State in the Union. Yet that did not prevent civil war, and indeed it would be hard to imagine any contrivance better suited to the preparation of civil war than the establishment of that proverbial anarchy, a government within a government. Mr. McGee, however, was quite equal to the occasion—paratus utraque fortuna—should be his motto as a public speaker. He had shown that the evils of the Irish Union were as much an argument for joining together separate States as the good success of the Union between Scotland and England; and he was now able to demonstrate the advantage of a Confederate form of constitution, out of the war which to most persons seems to have arisen directly from that form, and pro tanto to have been its condemnation, whatever other excellencies it may possess. The millions of money and thousands of men lost in the late contest, proved, he assured his hearers, the high value that the people of the United States placed upon the Union; but which people, oh prophet? There were at least two opinions on that head; and for those who may hereafter occupy the position of the side which turned out to be wrong, it may be just as well not to take too entirely on trust the proposition that in these unions people live happy ever afterwards. We do not think that the speakers at the Montreal dinner investigated very deeply the subject of the glorification of our politics which is to arise after Confederation. That branch of the matter was handled more fully at Hamilton, and we are glad to see that the Attorney General West has not deserted the animal world in seeking for appropriate illustrations of his thought. At present he and the rest of the politicians are rats in a very small pit, passing the intervals between the banquets in fights, whose intensity is in direct proportion to the narrowness of the field. Hereafter they are to have a much wider pit, and the internecine war is to relax; but we never heard yet that a rat became less rat for getting out of the pit, and the proprietors of that kind of vermin are, we believe, generally satisfied that fighting is the most innocent diversion to which they can give themselves. But leaving these illustrations, let us say seriously that an essentially small, vulgar politician cannot be elevated to a statesman by enlarging the sphere within which he is to operate. China is rather extensive and so is Russia; but we never heard that either of these countries possessed statesmen either wise or honest in proportion to their bigness of territory. To say nothing of the British islands, and of Switzerland, we look for the brightest examples of noble statesmanship and patriotic devotion among the people of the confined territory of ancient Greece. If our public men are as paltry, as for present purposes they declare themselves to be, it is because of their own narrow nature, not on account of any want of territory, and having this narrow nature they are as certain to go on after Confederation working by intrigues and deception for personal ends, as Plutus was to retain his greed even in Heaven, where, according to Milton, he could not keep his eyes off the gold of the pavement. We have left ourselves only small space to say one word about the confidence which Mr. Cartier set himself especially to inspire in the Protestant part of the population of Lower Canada. His motto, it appears, is : tiens ta parole jusqu’a la mort,—an exceedingly good motto, but valuable to those who read it, like a Bank note, only in proportion to the faith which may reasonably be reposed in its genuineness. Now we all know that Mr. Galt is out of the Ministry simply because the parole of Mr. Cartier was not kept, in relation to a law which he had pledged himself to carry; and if he shall now get any guarantees inserted in the general constitution in England, he will most certainly once more break the word which he has repeatedly pledged to the French Canadian majority.