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Date: 1866-11-01
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “THE LEADER ON THE HERALD.” The Montreal Herald (11 January, 1866)
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THE “LEADER” ON THE “HERALD.”

—We see that the Leader, probably on the old principle of a Roland for an Oliver, devotes a column to objurgation of the Herald, as a contingent annexationist, upon the strength of some statement in a Chicago paper. That is all well enough for the Leader; but unfortunately for the weight of authority and the vraisemblance of the prophecy, our Chicago contemporary classes the Herald and the Globe together in the same category, and of course his opinion respecting the Herald stands upon the same ground as that which he has formed respecting the journal controlled by Mr. Brown who just now, as we all know, is desirous of doing to the President something like that which Prince Hal predicted of his possible successor when he said to Kate that between them they would “compound a boy that should go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard.” We may well afford to be abused on this matter in such worshipful company as the ex-President of the Council, whose resignation according to the Globe, the administrator of the Government long declined to accept. But why should the Leader be troubled on our account? Does he not know that of our present Commissioners to Washington one of them is by birth a Yankee, whom the Leader so long as he was out of power termed a Yankee annexationist and confidant of Mr. Potter, and the other a gentleman who has constantly been called annexationist by the Globe, and we dare say will be again called by that name, now that Mr. Brown once more differs from Mr. Galt—especially, since it is in politics. Does it not remember, moreover, how constantly it described another of our Commissioners as Mr. “Looking to Washington” MacDougal? Besides it is not many months since another violent loyalist of the Leader’s kidney classed the Governor General and Mr. Godley his Secretary, among the most active and dangerous of our annexationists. Under these circumstances we think the Leader has enough to do to take care of the Yankees and Annexationists on the side of the Government, who sit at Her Majesty’s Council Board, without troubling itself about any outside, if such there be. Upon the whole, however, it seems to us that all this puerile calling of names might as well be dispensed with. We certainly do not reproach either Mr. Galt, Mr. Howland, or Mr. MacDougall with any tendencies not in accordance with the duty of loyal subjects, though they are just as liable to that reproach as persons who do not happen to think as they do on local politics, or rather who have not been so ready to change their opinions for the sake of place. If ever there is any annexation feeling in the Province, it will not be because any person or set of person wills it, but because of discontent brought about by evil Government. No one heard anything about annexation when the Leader’s friends assumed office, nor for a long after, and if anything has led anybody to think of so violent a change, it must be the course of Government over which they alone have exercised any control. That course of Government has been directly contrary to our views; but has received the cordial support of the Leader, and it has now brought us to a pass, or at least has not prevented us from reaching a pass where—not we—but the Leader asserts that it will “try men’s souls” to retain their loyalty at the expense of their pockets. There are men who look one way and row another—whose violence like “vaulting ambition overleaps itself and falls on t’other side,”—who, in fact, are always by their follies, more than all its enemies, undoing the cause they pretend to espouse. It is to this class that the conductors of the Leader belong. In their views of the facts, on which our international relations must more or less depend, they have been stupidly wrong and maliciously wrong. Down to a week before the fall of Richmond, they persisted in asserting the military success of the South ; and they still, with the obstinacy which characterizes Canadian wrong heads persist in the abuse and contempt of individuals whom all European writers of reputation, whatever their prepossessions, have agreed to regard with respect, both for talents and character. Making such blunders as to facts, it is hardly to be expected that they will be very successful in drawing conclusions. We were quite content to wait for the event to do justice on the judgment which we, or persons like the writers for the Leader passed upon current history during four past years. The Leader knows which was right. We are perfectly ready to accept the same decision now, as to the wisdom and patriotism of the tendencies and policy which we and they have respectively sought to cultivate.