Document Information

Date: 1867-01-19
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The Proposed British North-American Confederation”, The Montreal Herald (19 January, 1867)
Other formats: TBA

THE PROPOSED BRITISH NORTH-AMERICAN CONFEDERATION– WHY IT SHOULD NOT BE IMPOSED UPON THE COLONIES BY IMPERIAL LEGISLATION.

The following is the contents of a Pamphlet, written by the Editor of this paper, for distribution in England.

Concluded.

The foregoing objections will have little weight with those who think of constitutional rules as the mere stage machinery by which clever performers occupy the attention of the people while they accomplish objects which they esteem for public or personal reasons to be good. Such persons know that in book-keeping a correct balance can come only out of correct entries; but they can never understand that political science has its laws like other sciences, and that these cannot be violated without mischief. Such persons will contemptuously regard as mere theory all that has been said of popular rights, and of the inconsistencies in the rules by which it is proposed to work the government of the new Confederation. Let us, therefore, look at what may surely be regarded as practical effects. Incidentally it has been shown that one of these is to create in the new State conflicting authorities, and almost necessarily quarrels, of more or less virulence, possibly rising to the height of civil war, as we have seen in an adjoining country, where, nevertheless, the powers of the State and Federal Governments have been carefully distinguished. That is a practical consideration of a grave nature. But again—the breaking up of the present Government of Canada, involves the expense as well as the embarrassment of three Governments, one, it is true, to be enjoyed in common with the other Provinces, in place of that which has been hitherto found quite adequate to all the legislative and administrative functions which we have, or which we can have when united, so long as our international relations and their consequences are under the control of trans-Atlantic authority. It was for international purposes that the Federal Constitution was adopted in the United States. We have no international relations, and, therefore, we are not creating a Federal Government because that is found requisite for the fulfilment of duties now neglected, but are, on the contrary, setting out a show of functions as an excuse for that worst of extravagancies—two supernumerary Governments. The pecuniary burden of this multiplication of useless functionaries, is not to be measured by the salaries and endowments which those actually in office will receive. The great canker of Society on this continent—the, perhaps, necessary drawback on the institutions we enjoy—is the struggle of a multitude of candidates for political and official positions, by which, in the absence of property or other industry, they may live, as other men do, by their professions. Of course there are politicians to whom this remark does not apply; and there are more who, though they end by regarding the possession of place and salary, or a position which facilitates jobbing, as the one thing to be obtained, no matter at what expense of character, began life with genuine zeal, perhaps enthusiasm, for what they esteemed to be the right. However, that may be, we see in the Colonies and in the United States alike, because the structure of Society is nearly the same in both, that every Legislative body becomes the natural birth place of a crowd of adventurers, who, in some way or other get their living from the public—many of them by means far more mischievous than the drawing of salaries without rendering corresponding service.

But even this source of increased and useless expenditure is trifling compared to the burdens which we are to assume in the shape of the two enterprizes to which allusion has already been made. The people of Canada, at the cost of sacrifices which have weighed heavily upon their financial position, have constructed two lines of communication from one end of their country to the other. One of these is formed by a series of Canals, and by the deepening of Lake St. Peter, a vast work of under water dredging; by which access to Montreal is obtained for ships of 20 feet draft, instead of the small vessels to which her trade was formerly confined. The other is by the Grand Trunk Railway, which, though nominally built by a Joint Stock Company, required and obtained enormous grants of money from the public. No mention is made of other Railways, because, though all received certain assistance from the public, some of them, especially the Great Western, are able to meet all liabilities. Now, having effected all these improvements at their own expense, and at the cost of incurring great permanent burdens and heavy taxation, the Quebec Constitution pledges the people of Canada to begin over again, to build a railroad through a country in which they have no direct, and as it will hereafter be shown only the faintest contingent interest, and to pay certainly four fifths, probably, as the movement of population proceeds, eight or nine tenths, of the entire cost. In addition to that it pledges the Confederation to the acquisition of the North West Territory, which, when bought can be reached directly from Canada only by a difficult and circuitous route through northern latitudes, round the head of Lake Superior. This, in order to utilize the country, will involve the construction of more railways, having to compete with those running into the same region over the easier routes, and through the milder climates, which are to be found between the head waters of the Mississippi and the Red River country.* This property, moreover, which we are to purchase at the cost of some $1,000,000 sterling, can only be rendered available by immigration, and every session of our Provincial Parliament sees committees appointed and motions made to contrive ways by which we may get immigrants diverted from the United States, which is now the favourite place of settlement, in order to clear the lands which we at present possess. These immigrants in the United States obtain eighty acres of land at their own option, with larger grants for wife and children, for a settlement fee of $5 per eighty acres, and in Canada we have partially adopted the policy of gratuitous grants, so that it seems to the ordinary mind anything but a wise policy to purchase territory for a large sum—which will after all be only a small part of the cost compared with that of building roads and organizing a Government—only to compete for settlers of which we cannot even now procure enough, with a country which gives away its wild lands for nothing.

Another very serious objection for Canadians, and one which should weigh heavily with British legislators who expect us to bear our fair part in the defence of our own territory, is the unfair and overwhelming military burden, which this Confederation; if it really meant anything, will impose upon us. All that we can be asked to do is to defend our own territory, and even that only in part, because nations, no more than individuals, can be held to the impossible, and three millions cannot fight thirty across an open frontier. What then is to be expected if, in addition to our own weakness, we charge ourselves with the infinitely greater weakness of New Brunswick, with a population to man its frontier, not much exceeding twice the population of Montreal—if also we pretend to hold the long line of wilderness between Lake Superior and the Pacific? Suppose we blindly or presumptuously offer things so preposterous, is it wise for the mother country to delude herself with the belief that we shall ever fulfill our engagements, or that an attempt could be made by any Provincial Government to enforce their fulfilment without giving rise to the most profound discontent? In the opinion of the writer the acceptance of these responsibilities is the undertaking of a pecuniary load which can result in nothing but Provincial bankruptcy, possibly after years of discontent, which will be directed naturally against the Imperial Government, if it legislates for us, instead of leaving us to legislate for ourselves.

• It is just now announced in the Chicago papers that a Company of English capitalists has undertaken to build a railway from St. Paul to Lake Superior.

CHAPTER IV.

USELESSNESS OF THE PLAN FOR ITS PROPOSED OBJECTS.

If these are good grounds of objection to the proposed arrangement, it seems to be not less true that the supposed advantages turn out to be illusory when they are examined. Passing by vapouring about the pleasure and pride of living in a great country, and creating vast careers for those gentlemen who from time to time turn up, as Colonial politicians, the advantages are mainly described under two heads. It is said that Confederacy will enlarge the trade between the Colonies; and will increase their strength to resist an enemy—in other words the United States. The writer does not affect to decry the advantages of the removal of fiscal restrictions between neighbouring communities, and is quite ready to avow that usually the destruction of these barriers augments commercial intercourse to an extent much greater than would appear likely from any reasonable calculation made before hand. But he believes that any such reasonable calculation would give promise of a very trifling result in the case of the Colonies which it is proposed to confederate, first of all because there are already no duties between them upon unmanufactured articles of natural produce, such as are the leading objects of their surplus production and export; next because from the identity in the characters of their people, and of the latitudes in which they reside, it is unlikely that there will ever be that great diversity of product which is the foundation of a very large interchange of commodities. It is true that Nova Scotia produces coal which Canada does not and which she consumes, and that Canada produces flour which the Lower Provinces do not on an extended scale, but of which they of course require large quantities. Yet though these articles are eminently proper for transport by water, though we have an admirable summer navigation, and though there are no inter-colonial duties upon these articles, no considerable trade has grown up in them. Fiscal restraints being removed, as they have been entirely for many years quoad these articles between the Colonies and the United States, the course of trade has been determined by perfectly natural circumstances to lie between the Lower Provinces and the American seaboard on the one hand; and between Canada and the United States on the other.* This is not the place for a disquisition on a subject so wide as the cause of this effect; but the facts are plain and the reasons for them not difficult to state. The writer has never heard any definite method pointed out by which this condition of things can be greatly changed—he does not speak of vague assertions—except by an artificial system of duties encouraging the trade between the parts of the Confederacy, by shutting out the trade with other parts of the world. The Intercolonial Railway, if built, will of course do something, because railways will make traffic for themselves; but this one goes through a country so thinly settled, and so little inviting to settlers that it cannot be expected to do much in the direction of way traffic, while as to through traffic it is impossible to believe that it will go that way unless a war shall absolutely close the other route. Very natural misapprehension exists on this subject among persons not intimately acquainted with the country, who conclude that because the Colonies adjoin each other, a road through them must be direct, and that by the United States a roundabout road. This is not so; a glance at the map will show that for a shipping port in the winter in connection with Montreal, Portland is far more eligibly situated than St. John or Halifax, and that if it be regarded as an object with passengers to shorten the sea voyage by embarking at either of the latter ports, they will have from Montreal or the Richmond station of the Grand Trunk a shorter route by the present Grand Trunk Road via Portland than by the Intercolonial line, while they will travel in a lower latitude, a thing of the utmost importance in our climate in the winter time. It may be said that we want a railway terminus that cannot be closed by the Americans; but it seems to the writer that commercial undertaking must, to be successful, proceed on economical not political grounds. Besides there is no analogy, as some suppose, between the Reciprocity Treaty and the American bonding system and right of way to Canadians through American territory. We sought the first earnestly and long as a concession; the Americans established the bonding system for the purpose of attracting our trade to their ports; and as a matter of history they solicited us, not we them, to build the railroad which connects Montreal and Quebec with Portland, for the obvious purpose of making that city a seaport for our territory. They are never likely to abolish a system in the continuance of which they not only have, but know that they have, a vast interest. In time of war we courses could not use their roads; but it is extremely doubtful whether we should be better able to use our own. The Intercolonial Road would be itself so near the frontier on a long stretch of country as to make it necessary to suppose the enemy very unenterprising in order that we should believe it quite secure; and farther west the railroad and Canal, without which the Eastern part of the line would lie useless for purposes of commerce, are actually on the bank of the St. Lawrence, and under the guns of the enemy on the opposite side, in his own territory. It ought to be added here that though Customs laws, could be doubtless most easily passed for all the colonies in a United Legislature, there is no reason why the same thing should not be effected, for all objects, by mutual arrangement, as has been already done, for raw materials. This slight convenience would be dearly bought at the cost of an arrangement subject to so many grave objections. Strength, as against an enemy, is also preached as one—perhaps the crowning advantage to be derived from this so-called Union of the Provinces. But military strength consists in one of four things—geographical situation; unity of command, and consequent action; the number of men; the amount of money. It is plain that Confederation will not mass geographically the Colonies, whose real weakness—whatever that may be—consists in their being stretched along the frontier of a State ten times more populous than they. It is equally plain that Great Britain, being the Suzerain, the arbiter of peace and war, and the power which, disguise it as we will, must supplement in case of war all the deficiencies of the Colonies, she will, as she ought, appoint the superior officers in all or any of the armies which may be set on foot, and dictate the military policy to be adopted. Confederation can not alter that; and lastly, how can it make either more men or more money than will be produced by the development of the Colonies under the simpler and less expensive system which now prevails, with which the people have expressed no more discontent than exists in all free States where there is a movement party which does not once gain its object, and unlike which a large and steady share of prosperity has been experienced. Here again the writer has heard much declamation; but he never yet found any one who could give a definite account of the process by which the anticipated benefit was to accrue, or of the figures in which the probable benefit could be represented; and lest it should be supposed that he is one of those eccentric persons who differ from all the World, and that he alleges objections which occur to no one but himself, it may be well to add here, not only that he asks no acceptance of his conclusions but such as fairly flow from his reasons, but that down to the very moment before the concoctors of

• In 1864 all the Maritime Provinces, according to official figures published in the Report of the Board of Trade of Montreal announced,—exports and imports—to a value of $44,129,601. Of this amount only $1,306,540 represents the trade with Canada, while $13,019,536 represents the trade with the United States. As to Canada, while her trade with the other Provinces is thus shown to have amounted to a value of only $1,304,546, her trade with the United States in that year was $35,501,443, out of a grand total of $74,908,529.

the scheme determined to become unanimous, they had disagreed upon every public topic but this one, and on that had agreed that Confederation and its concomitants were either absolutely mischievous, or at all events not opportune. From this statement, perhaps, I ought to except Mr. Galt. That gentleman had some years previously found reason suddenly to leave the so-called liberal party and to accept the post of Finance Minister under the Conservatives. He made a speech on the occasion, setting forth that his object in this great sacrifice of personal feeling was to carry the Confederation of the Provinces, which no one had previously heard of in Parliament, and no one heard of again. His new colleagues by no means consented to adopt the idea for which he had consented to leave old friends and accept the burden of office, and no one voted with him on the great object of his ambition. Possibly he may still have secretly cherished its worship. But officially he must be held to have given up the hope of accomplishing it. A few days before everybody coalesced a report had come down from a Committee appointed to inquire what could be done to cure the constitutional grievance of the Upper Canada representation being too small for its proportion of population. On that Committee the Government was represented by Mr. Jno. A. MacDonald, and this question of Confederation being one among the remedies spoken of as possible, Mr. MacDonald voted steadily against even considering it as a possible remedy. That must be taken as the latest authority on Ministerial views before they were changed by an adverse vote. The Opposition, though of course there were shades of difference which could not exist between the men actually composing the Ministry, were yet fairly enough represented by Mr. Geo. Brown. He did not treat the subject quite so cavalierly as Mr. MacDonald, but all that the Committee under his leadership did was to agree to consider it on some subsequent occasion. By way of showing what he had previously thought of it, various expressions of his opinion, from his writings in the Globe and elsewhere, are thrown into a foot-note below. Most of his objections have been already elaborated in the foregoing pages;* but it will be remarked, among other things, that he especially shows the futility of believing that Confederation would give to Upper Canada more political power than she formerly possessed, or would relieve her from the disproportionate weight of taxation which he alleged was imposed upon her, without a fair share in either the disposition or the expenditure of the revenue. In support of the justice of his opinions then—opinions which he has given no reason for changing, except that he has changed them—the writer directs attention to two points only. First, the position which will be occupied by the Legislative Council nominated by a Ministry hostile to the party which Mr. Brown represents in Canada W., and which has for some years enjoyed a majority of the representatives from its own section in Parliament. It is quite plain that such a Council, appointed, moreover, on the same footing of equality hitherto complained of, will render perfectly nugatory the increased representation which Upper Canada is to have in the Assembly, based upon its superior population. Second, the facts that while Mr. Brown represented it as an injustice that Upper Canada, which, he said, paid much more than half the revenue of United Canada, had only an equal voice in its disposal, and only a half share of its expenditure, he has, by way of remedying that evil, undertaken to make a railway, in which Canada, especially Upper Canada, has slight concern, at an expense of four or five million sterling; that of this road Canada will pay four fifths of the cost, Upper Canada, of course, according to his statements, much more than the half of that sum; and that the Canadian share of that outlay will add above 25 per cent. to a public debt which we have already found it difficult to carry. If there are constitutional difficulties between Upper and Lower Canada now, what will there be when Mr. Brown himself, or some other agitator, shall point out hereafter, and the people shall feel the real bearing of a plan in which they are said to have acquiesced, though they have never expressed an opinion upon it?

CONCLUSION.

It may be asked, then, what is the response which the Imperial Government and Parliament ought to give to the application which has been made to them. The reply is, let them adhere to that wise policy which for twenty-five years has secured perfect contentment in the Colonies, and has prevented the slightest approach to a conflict between them and the Mother Country. Let them remember that whenever they legislate upon a request from this side of the Atlantic, they necessarily, under our system of party Government, legislate for the convenience and support of a party. Let them, therefore, follow the precedent set in the case of the change effected in the Constitution of the Legislative Council, which has been already quoted, and which was the mere practice of the avowed principle that the Colonies are to enjoy self-government. No one here will object to an enabling Act, to permit the Colonies to ratify by their own legislation any agreement come to by negotiators, properly commissioned, provided the ratification shall take place after delays and discussions for eliciting public opinion, and with those forms which are usual in British Legislatures. Those of us who think Confederation unwise will of course continue to think so; but they will be perfectly ready to accept the consequences of the form of Government under which they live. But if the Imperial Parliament shall determine to falsify all its past professions, and to revert to a state of things which was formerly found pernicious, it has a plain duty to perform, and that is to make itself thoroughly acquainted with the subject matter with which it has to deal. Surely the creation of a frame of Government for the vast territory of British North America and the millions who are to people it, is a thing which is worthy of some inquiry and deliberation-inquiry and deliberation of an original kind, not that which merely demands and accepts the opinion of others. Let Parliament, which will not legislate on the Cattle Plague, or a Water supply bill for a small town, without first inquiring into the circumstances by Committee, at least show that it considers its fellow-subjects throughout British North America worthy of an equal degree of labour and forethought.

• The foot-note in the Pamphlet, consisting chiefly of extracts from the Globe, well-known in the country, it is not thought necessary to reproduce.