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Date: 1865-10-06
By: True Witness
Citation: “The ‘Times’ on Canada”, True Witness (6 October, 1865)
Other formats: TBA

THE “TIMES” ON CANADA.

— The correspondent of the London Times represents the people of Canada of all races, and of all creeds, as profoundly indifferent to Confederation; and the Times, editorially, proceeds to take us to task, and would almost seem to insinuate that indifference to Confederation indicates Annexation tendencies, and a deficiency of loyalty to the British Crown. We may admit the fact of indifference; but the inference which the Times seeks therefrom to draw is silly and unjust.

The Times seems to labor under the singular delusion that, in so far as Canada is concerned, the Confederation policy took its origin in view of the external circumstances of the Province, and was adopted chiefly with a view of warding off the dangers to which Canada was exposed from the aggressive designs of her powerful neighbor. Were this the true state of the case the apathy or indifference of the people of Canada to the success or failure of such a policy would be extraordinary, disgraceful, and worthy of the censure of the Times.

But it is not the true state of the case. The Confederation policy had not in its inception any connection, however remote, with our foreign relations; neither was it in any degree adopted with a view to strengthening the Province against the risk of an attack from the armies of the United States. It is a policy which originated in the struggle for power and place betwixt two parties in Canada, so nearly balanced that victory never long remained faithful either to the one or to the other. It was adopted originally, not as a means of military defence, but as a panacea for what were called “sectional differences,” as a sop to the Clear Grit Cerberus of Upper Canada, as a substitute, in short, for “Representation by Population.” The idea of connecting it with our foreign or external, instead of our peculiar domestic or internal conditions, was an afterthought, skilfully adopted by way of making the scheme popular in Great Britain, and amongst French Canadians, by making the latter believe that they had no alternative but to accept a measure, which would indeed subject them to the Protestant demagogues of Upper Canada, or Annexation.—Of course under such circumstances the loyal Catholic Canadian would accept Confederation as the less of two evils; but it is not to be expected that he should be very enthusiastic in its favor.

The genesis of the measure is recorded in our Parliamentary annals in language the most clear. In the month of May, 1864, a committee of the Legislative Assembly was named at the instigation of Mr. George Brown, not to enquire into the best means of protecting the country from invasion from without, but of allaying its sectional differences within, and of investigating the causes of the unsatisfactory relations actually existing betwixt Upper and Lower Canada. The Committee met and reported, in somewhat vague terms indeed, but still in favor of what it called Federation as a substitute for “Representation by Population,” clamored for by Upper, but refused by Lower Canada.

In the meantime another Ministerial crisis occurred—(for a crisis used to occur once a quarter or so). The actual “Ins” had been defeated by the actual “Outs” by a majority of two; and it was morally certain that if, upon this vote, the “Ins” had gone out, and the “Outs” had come in, another Ministerial crisis would have again occurred in a few days, so keen was the struggle for place and power betwixt the two parties. Now this was a dreadful state of things. Legislation was at a dead-lock; a stable Government had become an impossibility; there was no security of tenure for office-holders of any grade; in to-day, they were liable to be in the streets, to-morrow. Honorable members of Parliament knew not how to vote; it was simply impossible for them to guess which would be the winning side; and a man after having made the most complete, generous and public sacrifice of all his old stock of principles, and with the best of prospects, might in a moment, by an adverse decision of the House with its closely balanced parties, find himself done, as it were, out of all the casual advantages which he had been led to expect. Public or political life had in short become a dangerous lottery; and for the sake of all parties, of the country, of the “Ins” and of the “Outs” even, that they might know how to cast their votes, it had become absolutely necessary to put a stop to the recurrence of these incessant crises, and to secure a strong stable Ministry.

This generally felt necessity led to the Coalition betwixt the leaders of the “Outs” or Clear-Grit demagogues of Upper Canada, and the “Ins” or Conservative and Catholic party. But as the conditions of this Coalition it was stipulated, on the one hand, that the Clear Grits should give up Rep by Pop; and on the other hand, that a substitute for Rep by Pop, and a remedy for the “sectional differences” should be conceded by the Conservatives in the shape of a so-called Federal Union of the two Canadas, and that then the Lower or Maritime Provinces should also be invited to strike in and unite with the Federated Canadas. This is the history of the origin of the Coalition, and of the consequent adoption of the Confederation policy as the necessary condition of that Coalition. It was in this sense too that the policy of the Coalition Ministry was expounded by that much-lamented gentleman Sir. E. Tache, himself the head of the Ministry, and a man whose honor and integrity of purpose no one, not even his political opponents can call in question; and thus from the “sectional differences” of Upper and Lower Canana, with the object of removing their cause, and of furnishing a substitute for “Rep by Pop,” did the Federation, and subsequently the Confederation policy originate. The “military defence” of the country was an ingenious afterthought; but it had originally nothing whatever to do with the appointment of Mr. George Brown’s Committee on “sectional differences” in May 1864—or with the Report in favor of the adoption of the Federal principle which that Committee drew up—or with the formation of the Coalition Ministry which subsequently made Confederation the plank par excellence of its platform.

And as no one as yet has condescended to explain, or attempted even to explain, how the political union of Provinces whose relative geographical conditions are as are those of Canada and the Maritime Provinces—which are separated from one another by an alien country, and betwixt which, in case of war with the U. States, military communication would be cut off—could in any manner or degree increase their powers of resistance to the said United States; so with the great majority of the people of Canada the project of Confederation is still looked upon simply as a scheme for allaying the “sectional differences” betwixt Upper and Lower Canada; by giving to the former, if not all that it had previously demanded in “Rep. by Pop.” at all events ninety-five cents in the dollar on its claims, with the prospect of the balance of five cents at no very remote period. To such a scheme the Canadian Catholic can perhaps reconcile himself, as to the inevitable; he may put up with at lest a worse thing should befall him; but it cannot be expected of him that he should be very triumphant. The Times seems to expect that we should be enthusiastic for a measure which has found favor in the eyes of our Clear Grit enemies, only because it seems to assure to them a present, if only a partial, triumph over Popery and the “inferior race.” This is to exact too much, more than flesh and blood can endure. We can accept our defeat with a good grace, and endeavor to make the best of it; but as the children of Israel refused to sing the songs of Sion in a strange country, or to grace their captors’ triumph with the melodies of their native land, so also do we refuse to celebrate our discomfiture and the success of democracy, by servile demonstrations of an unfelt joy.

Nor is there in this any grounds for impeaching our loyalty and attachment to the British Crown, and above all for calling in question the genuineness of that aversion which we profess for annexation to the neighboring democracy.—If indeed we could perceive in Confederation anything to give us additional strength against the enemy in case of war, any pledge for the maintenance of British connection and the preservation of the monarchical element in our political constitution, we might indeed be enthusiastic in its favor, for we can conceive of no greater misfortune that could befall Canada than Annexation. But common places about “Union is Strength”—seeing that for all military purposes Canada and the Maritime Provinces, in that they are Provinces of one and the self same Empire, are already as closely and as effectively united as they possibly can be under their actual geographical conditions—fall vainly in our ears; and indeed in us they excite lively suspicions either of the good sense or of the good faith of him who has resource to them, since having closely followed the Confederation movement from the beginning, we know that it originated, not from any spirit of patriotism or loyalty, but wholly and solely in the legitimate design of allaying the sectional difficulties or jealousies betwixt Upper and Lower Canada, of securing to the country the blessings of a stable Government, and to the members of that Government the advantages of security of tenure of office.—Every body in Canada knows well that this is the real state of the case, and that there is no test of either loyalty or disloyalty in the favor or disfavor with which the Confederation scheme is accepted by the people of Lower Canada.—These are loyal from habit, from interest, and above all because their Church inculcates the duty of loyalty on her children; but because they are loyal there is no reason why they should go into raptures at the prospects of the destruction of French Canadian autonomy, and the triumph of democracy and centralisation.

That we have not misrepresented the object with which the Coalition Ministry was formed, and the policy of Confederation adopted — will, we think, be apparent from the following extract from Mr. George Brown’s own organ and mouth-piece, the Toronto Globe of the 2nd instant. The Globe then, that is to say Mr. George Brown himself, tells us that “he entered the Government”—not with any idea of carrying out a policy which should increase our means of resistance to the aggressive designs of the U. States—not with the idea of consolidating and perpetuating British rule on this Continent, but—we quote his own words :—

“For the One Sole purpose of obtaining such a change in the Constitutional Government of the country as would secure their just influence in public affairs to the people of Upper Canada.”—Globe, 2nd October, 1865.

This then is the “One Sole purpose” of the policy of the Coalition Ministry, i.e. of the Confederation scheme, in so-far as Mr. George Brown supports it. Why should we of Catholic Lower Canada be enthusiastic about the success of a measure of which the One Sole purpose is to give additional influence in public affairs to the people of Protestant Upper Canada?

And again,—that we have not misrepresented the character of the measure itself which under the name of Confederation has been adopted by our Canadian legislature, and its probable results on Catholic Lower Canada, is very clear from the terms in which the Globe of the date above mentioned, that is to say Mr. George Brown himself, speaks of it :—

“In pursuit of this end” (constitutional change to give to Upper Canada increased influence in public affairs) “he (Mr. Brown) and his Reform Colleagues have been well content to set aside, for the time being, every minor issue—they have been well content to accept for the hour the [status?] quo—but they can fearlessly defy their opponents to point out one single step they have made in a retrograde direction. And abundantly have they had their reward in in the measure placed on record beyond recall, by an overwhelming majority of both Houses and both sections of the Province.”—Globe, 2nd Oct., 1865.

Mr. G. Brown and his friends would not be so well pleased if they did not believe that Confederation gave them all that they looked for from Representation by Population.