Document Information

Date: 1864-07-16
By: The Economist
Citation: “The New Programme of the Canadian Ministry,” The Economist (16 July 1864).
Other formats: Not yet available.

THE NEW PROGRAMME OF THE CANADIAN MINISTRY.

THE latest intelligence from Canada is the most important which has reached us for some years, but it requires some explanation. Ever since the concession of responsible Government, the Parliament of the colony has been hampered by a difficulty which is occasionally felt in Great Britain, though in a very minor degree. The colony consists, for Parliamentary purposes, of two colonies, which stand to each other in the relation which England and Ireland would occupy did they return an equal number of representatives. Each colony sends the same number of members to Parliament; but Upper Canada, full of English and Scotch Protestants, and divided into small properties, returns usually Radicals in the European sense,—that is, persons whose tendency is towards republican institutions. Lower Canada, on the other hand, is full of the descendants of Frenchmen who emigrated before the Revolution, who still maintain a, social system based upon great estates, who are still Catholics, and whose tendency on both grounds is towards a more conservative, or perhaps we should say aristocratic, policy. The conflicting principles would battle out their struggle readily enough, as they do in England, but that the division between them is geographical as well as mental, and the two colonies are apt to vote ” sectionally,” i.e., each in a compact body, as the South and North used to no, and as Scotland and Ireland sometimes do now. The result has been an equality of parties which produces constant changes of Ministry, makes individual votes unpleasantly valuable, and tempts the leaders to sacrifice real progress to a sterile struggle for the party supremacy which always seems so closely within their grasp. Recently, the adhesion of one or two of his opponents has given to Mr Cartier, the representative of the French or Catholic or Lower Canadian interest, the reins of power, but his opponent, Mr Browne, leading the English section, has always been close upon his heels, and at last acquired some sort of a majority. Instead, however, of using it to dismiss his opponent, Mr Browne resolved to join him upon a basis which should put an end to the wearisome interregnum. He proposed that both parties should strive to change the existing constitution in to a Federation to embrace Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward’s Island, Newfoundland, and possibly the settlements on the Pacific, should make this the key-note of a coalition policy, and should if possible suspend internal contests until the object had been attained. The French agreed, and Mr Browne, with thirty followers, passed over into the ranks of the Government, which is thus at last in possession of an overwhelming majority. The project of a Confederation will be immediately pressed upon the colonies, and submitted for the consideration of Her Majesty’s Government, and one of the first tasks of our own Parliament next session will probably be to discuss the new arrangement.

It is not, we think, probable that the new principle which it is sought to introduce will be rejected here. Undoubtedly it tends towards the independence of the North American colonies, but then that independence has ceased for years to be an object of dread. The mother country contemplated it when she granted self-government, and self-government has been so used as to make a severance almost acceptable. England is worse placed with regard to Canada as a colony than 1 she would be if Canada were a foreign country. An independent State could not be more jealous of British interference, or less inclined to raise recruits for British armies, or more disposed to impose hostile tariffs upon British trade, while it would be unable to claim British assistance in war, or to demand the presence of British troops in peace, or to pester the British Treasury with applications for guarantees. The single dread of British statesmen in regard to these colonies has for some time past been this,—not independence, but juncture with the United States, and a Federation is less likely to join the Republic than any single colony within it. Ambition increases with power, and rulers who feel themselves chiefs of a mighty State, stretching from sea to sea, many times as large as Great Britain, with a population of 3,000,000, an army of 100,000 men, and the means of constructing a fleet, will not be willing to merge the individuality either of their country or of themselves in any American Congress. The sense of greatness increases the passion for isolation, and Canadians will very speedily feel themselves a nation. On that ground, therefore, the mother country has no opposition to offer, and as to the intermediate state previous to independence, a Federation will be as easy to deal with as a group of separate colonies. Her politicians will probably be larger-minded men, her finances certainly broader, her necessity for securing the alliance of Great Britain certainly much greater. The belief that England will coerce her colonists if they rebel still lingers in Canadian minds. and is naturally enough very hard to remove. They cannot believe but that their colony is invaluable, or credit that a haughty and ambitious Power will surrender the possessions, the vast fisheries, and lakes, and forests, and soil which seem to them so valuable. The extinction of that idea will greatly increase the amenity of intercourse between the countries, and we may yet find Canadians who are convinced that Englishmen desire nothing better than to be their first and most attached friends. Doubtless the authority of the new Parliament will be still greater than that of the old one, but it will suit this country to send out a really constitutional Viceroy, say one of the Princes, who will always yield to its vote, just as well as to send out an occasional politician who will frequently resist.

The only real interest which will be felt in the matter will be in the terms of the Federation, on which point we trust the Government will use all the influence in its power, or, indeed, on one or two points, insist absolutely, with the distinct affirmation that, unless these points are conceded, the colonies must not expect further aid from Great Britain. One of these points is that a strong militia law shall be made part of the new Constitution; so that, if attacked, the colonial army and the British fleet may together make a most substantial force. The nucleus of that militia should be a very small, very well paid, and very highly-trained regular army, with a training school for officers like that at West Point. The Federation will be perfectly able to keep up such an army, for she will have the population of Scotland, or Denmark as it was, and, if she refuse, the connection ought, by every rule of common fairness, to end. Secondly, the Central Legislature, if the new Ministry contemplate more than one (as they are sure to do), should be an absolute Parliament, with powers restricted only by the forces of nature and the danger of insurrection. The fatal blunder of the first American statesmen, who gave the people all power but left them no constitutional means of expressing their will rapidly in emergencies, ought, if it be possible, to be avoided in the interest both of the colonies and Great Britain. Of the colonies, because any limitation of the power of the Central Legislature fosters “sectional” jealousy, developes States instead of a nation, and draws off too much political ability towards municipal government; of Great Britain, because it is only with a strong Central Power that hearty or permanent alliances can possibly be formed. And thirdly, the advantages of the constitutional over the Republican form of freedom should be strongly impressed upon Canadian leaders. We do not mean by this that the colonies should give their Viceroy regal status, or try that experiment of a double Chamber which so constantly fails, and in a colony makes the House of Commons so much more democratic than it need be, or that England should be copied in any way, but , simply that the Executive should remain, as it is now, responsible to Parliament, and not, as in the United States, superior to it. That mistake, although it has the advantage of giving scope to an original genius should such a man ever become President, tends in its permanent working to deprive the people of their hold over the Executive, and to place the Government and the Legislature out of rapport. Instead of both parties pulling together towards some intelligible policy, they either waste their efforts in thwarting each other, or seek to carry out two lines of action at once, whid1 are nearly certain, sooner or later, to cross one another. That has been the case repeatedly in the United States, and to all appearance cannot now be remedied. This, moreover, makes all alliances uncertain, for. the people may be clamouring for war when the Government is anxious for peace; and Great Britain might stand to Canada as France now does to the North, at perfect amity with its Government, but fiercely threatened by the House of Representatives. For the rest, those terms which the Canadians best like will best suit this country, and the most serious difficulty will probably arise not from the mother country, but from some one or other of the minor colonies, anxious to secure for themselves too great an influence in the new combination. They also will have to be conciliated, and if the Cabinet does not take care they may take alarm at the strong religious element which the French Canadians mix up with their secular politics, and at that tone of arrogance which Canadian statesmen, however moderate personally, are, like all people who have never been defeated, very apt to assume.

We are bound to add that the scheme for Federation which is believed to have oozed out is singularly able and original. It is an extension of the scheme by which Scotland is now governed. Most persons are probably aware that local measures for Scotland are really settled by the Scotch members, who meet in a committee room, lick the proposal into shape, and then sweep it through the Houses. The Canadian Government proposes to give each province a certain number of members who, shall be for federal purposes representatives, and for local purposes a local legislature. No ability, therefore, is diverted from politics to municipal affairs, and no province will be able to send up men all pledged to vote one way. The two local parties, to secure local representation, must elect men of both opinions, who also will be then Imperial representatives. That is really a clever blow at “sectionalism.”