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Date: 1864-10-28
By: True Witness
Citation: “What is Federation?”, True Witness (28 October, 1864)
Other formats: TBA
WHAT IS FEDERATION?
—Wherein consists the essential difference between a Federal and a Legislative or Incorporating Union? Every body now-a-days has the words “Federation” and “Federal Principles” on his lips; how few they are who care to define their words, or who even attach any definite meaning to the terms they employ. And yet above all things, in political, as in religious controversy, a clear sharp definition of all terms employed is the one thing needful, without which there can be no end of controversy.
That there is a difference between a Federal and a Legislative Union is universally admitted, but wherein this difference consists, no one of our public men will condescend to explain. And yet it was, it is, incumbent on them to do so, since it is evident that in the great questions presented to our consideration, details are of secondary, very secondary importance; and that the principle, the formative or essential principle, upon which the proposed “constitutional changes” are to be based is of paramount importance. The political and social future of British North America depends, in so far as anything can be said to depend upon man, on the principles by which their relations to one another are regulated, and on which their Union is based. The mere details are, we repeat, of very secondary importance.
For upon the principles, not upon the details, will it depend whether the Union be essentially a Federal, or a Legislative and Incorporating Union. In this matter there can be no question of more or less, of the one principle or of the other; for a Federal Union differs from a Legislative Union, not in degree, but in kind.—They differ essentially and formally, not merely accidentally: in their case therefore any eclectic treatment is impossible, for the one is not only contrary to, but contradictory of the other; and he who prates about a possible combination of the two—the Federal and the Incorporating principles—betrays either his own ignorance, or his contempt for the intelligence of those whom he addresses.
There are of course accidental resemblances between a Federal, and a Legislative or Incorporating, Union. In both, there will be a “central government” and some kind of “local” or municipal bodies charged with the exercise of local or municipal functions. But the formal or essential difference between one kind of Union and the other is not thereby affected. That difference consists, not in the existence of “central” and “local” or municipal governments; neither does it at all consist in the extent of the functions by those governments severally exercised—for we can conceive a Legislative or Incorporating Union, with very important and extensive functions delegated to the local or municipal governments; and we can conceive also a Federal Union with very extended functions delegated to the central government, and with only very restricted functions reserved to the several local governments. We must look elsewhere, therefore, for the essential or formal difference between a Federal and a Legislative Union.
In the last analysis that difference will be found to consist essentially in the relative positions of the said central and local governments; not at all in the extent, but in the origin, of the functions by them severally exercised.—Wherever the local governments hold from, and exercise functions defined, and delegated by a central government, the Union betwixt the said central and local governments—no matter what, or how extensive may be the functions of the latter—is essentially or formally, a Legislative or Incorporating Union. Wherever, on the contrary, the “local” governments form the delegating power, and where by them the functions of the central government are defined and limited, there but there only, no matter what the nature or the extent of the functions delegated to the said central government, does there exist a Federation or Federal Union. Between the latter and a Legislative Union there is the same essential difference as there is between the binding together of a number of metal bars, each bar retaining its distinctive form and structure—and the fusing together of these same bars into one homogeneous mass and new metallic compound. Thus the fusion or Incorporating Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland produced, not the “United Kingdoms of England and Scotland,” but a new political compound known in history as Great Britain. The binding together, or Federation of the several component parts of the North American Republic, gave us simply the “United States.”
Simple as these things may appear—indeed they are truisms self-evident to the dullest intellect—we are induced to insist upon them by the reckless dishonesty, or gross ignorance, of some of our contemporaries, who write and argue as if in the delegation by a central government, of certain defined and limited functions, to dependent local or municipal governments, was to be found the essential principle of Federation —instead of the very destruction or denial of that principle. Thus the Toronto Globe, the organ of the President of the Council, in its issue of the 15th instant, hesitates not to betray either its profound ignorance of what constitutes the very essence of Federal Government, or its profound contempt for the intelligence of those whom it addresses:—
“Federation is, in a large degree, but an extension of our political system, and is sustained by precisely the same reasoning as are municipal institutions. It would be very absurd for Parliament to take upon itself the management of the municipal affairs of the various cities, towns and townships of the country. In one city, one kind of by-laws and regulations is preferred; in another something else suits better. There can be no harm but much advantage in allowing each municipality to choose for itself, and in place of attempting to regulate the municipal affairs of the country, Parliament deputes that task to the municipalities. There is surely nobody to object to that—nobody to pretend that the municipalities of the country would be better off if they got their by-laws ready-made from Quebec. Why should we fear to extend a sound principle? Why should we fear to do for Upper Canada what we have done for every municipal corporation in it? If Parliament can safely depute the local affairs of the towns and cities to local care, surely a whole Province can be similarly trusted. Surely we can safely put into our constitution provisions which will, as regards the separate Provinces, correspond to the Municipal Act upon our statute book.”
Certainly you can do this, but the result of your political cookery will be, not “Federation,” or a Federal Union, but simply a Legislative or Incorporating Union. So no doubt you can boil oatmeal in water, stirring with a stick or spoon, and adding thereunto salt ad libitum, but the result will be, not turtle-soup, but simply oatmeal porridge; and we see not why you should call it by the former name, unless you have a preconceived design to impose upon us. We have indeed heard of a poor lunatic kept on low diet in an asylum, who labored under the delusion that he was a great potentate faring sumptuously every day. One thing only troubled him, which in confidence he imparted to his visitors, that all his viands, no matter how rich or costly, had some how or other a taste, or soupçon of oatmeal, about them. We think the people of Canada will be better fitted for a lunatic asylum than was this poor idiot, should they accept as Federation, or as containing the Federal principle, the mess which Mr. George Brown sets before them.
Against that mess itself we are not at present arguing, but only against the folly or dishonesty of serving it up as Federation. It may be good wholesome political diet enough in its way, even as is the poor creature oatmeal porridge; but were the latter offered to us as turtle-soup, or as plum-pudding our palates would revolt—as happened with the lunatic—at the attempted imposture. All we insist upon is, that Mr. George Brown call things by their right names, and that he attempt not to foist upon us his political wares under false pretences. In the words of the Canadien by us quoted last week, we would beg of Mr. George Brown and all others who dream of imposing on us a Legislative Union under the name of Federation, “to spare us their hypocrisies.”