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Date: 1865-01-21
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The Session”, The Montreal Herald (21 January, 1865)
Other formats: TBA

THE SESSION.

—The present session of Parliament is undoubtedly the most important one which has ever been held in Canada. For the first time in the history of this country, the representatives of the people will be called upon to deal with questions of an international character. In 1812 and 1813, indeed, they had to prepare the means to defend the country against aggression, and well did they do their duty. But the line of policy they were to adopt was then marked out for them by another power over which they had neither control nor influence. With the progress of the Colony, the authority of its Legislature has proportionately increased, and, though the exact measure of it is still undefined; though it is a question how far it can act independently of the Imperial Government; on what subjects its jurisdiction is sole, and on what it is concurrent, it will unquestionably have much to say in the arrangement of those relations of the country with our immediate neighbours, which some years ago would have been really and wholly, as they still are technically, within the province of the Foreign Office in Downing Street. This, we believe, may be immeasurably the most serious part of the business to be transacted during the present session. On the one hand, we have to do what justice demands from all and prudence requires, especially from the weak, to avoid giving cause of offence to the strong power, in whose presence, as Mr. Galt recently said, we now find ourselves. On the other, we have to see what effective measures can be concerted with the Mother Country to defend our honour, at least, in case of attack, made with provocation on our part. These measures require no ordinary degree of patience, wisdom and firmness, not only towards the power which may be some day our enemy, but also towards that other power to which, after doing all that we can for ourselves, we must yet look for a large share of the provision required to make our defence something more than a useless and ruinous sacrifice. While we are bound in honesty to do our share to resist aggressiou, we are equally bound by good sense not to undertake a load which we cannot carry, and the pretension to carry which must result in failure, so far as concerns ourselves, and in delusion so far as concerns the Empire. Our fiscal arrangements are closely bound up with military considerations, since money is the sinew of war; and Parliament will have to consider how to supply the gap in the public funds, created even by our present trifling demonstration of armed force, and, moreover, how to modify our commercial arrangements so as to adapt them to the situation in which we find ourselves. The system which we have painfully built up, and to which all our communications by canal and railway have been adjusted, seems likely to be broken up by the legislative enactments of a foreign power. What is to be done to take its place? There is one measure of a comprehensive and statesmanlike character, wholly within our own power—that is the reduction of duties to a very low point, which would make Canada the depot for the importation of foreign goods for the Northern part of the Continent. But the advantages of this plan do not depend on any steps which have been or may be taken by the United States Government. They are intrinsic and palpable under any circumstances, but the well known influences which have operated to prevent the adoption of this policy, or any part of it, will still exist, entirely unaffected by anything taking place on the other side of the lines, and, so far as we can see, will be powerful enough to prevent the adoption of this form of remedy. With all this comes the question of Confederation. We put this last, as really of the least importance, because the destinies of a country depend primarily upon its geography, its natural resources, and the number and characteristics of its population. All these will be utterly unaffected by Confederation. That measure may make internal legislation more or less convenient, and more or less economical, may make the administration of the executive department of the government more or less simple and cause it to have a greater or smaller degree of efficiency; but it can add nothing to the material elements of strength possessed already by the various Provinces which it is proposed to unite. Their union will by no means necessarily realize the idea of the bundle of sticks in the old fable, since they will be put together not like a faggot but like a fishing rod. Yet the internal results of the scheme, if it shall be carried out, will either for good or evil, be of quite sufficient importance to make the legislation which is to take place upon it by far the most interesting of any which has occurred since the day when the Upper Canadian Parliament debated the Union Act, We may expect from the measure either a great softening of old animosities, or a multiplication and hardening of them, in proportion to the increased number of separate organizations, each pretending to peculiar interests, which will be embraced within the bosom of the State—either a greater diffusion of confidence in the justice of the government under which they live—among all classes of the community, or a feeling on the part of the weaker portions that they are crushed by arrangements which exclude them from any share in the direction of the community of which they make part. It is at present impossible for the keenest observers to forecast the [illegible] [opposition?] to the Ministerial programme since the last session certainly must not be taken as the measure of acquiescence and support which it enjoys. It is quite certain that there are many elements of dissatisfaction which from want of machinery for combination and expression have hitherto been silent. Whether they will find that machinery in the present assemblage of the Legislature, or whether the spirit of opposition will be destroyed from want of organs of development and nourishment has yet to be seen,—a few days will probably enable us to form an opinion as to the success of the new coalition and its plans. In the meantime, judging from the ordinary form of tactics on such occasions, we may expect to see Confederation combatted, if at all, rather by “flank movements,” on form and details than by direct assault; not because its opponents, should there be any, will not wish to resist its principles; but because they will suppose the citadel can best be reached by passing through the weaker outworks.