I ought not to use the term foreboding, for really to judge by the comments of the press on this declaration of Lord John's, I should be led to imagine that the prospect of these sucking democracies, after they have drained their old mother's life-blood, leaving her in the lurch, and setting up as rivals, just at the time when their increasing strength might render them a support instead of a burden, is one of the most cheering which has of late presented itself to the English imagination. But wherefore then this anticipation-if foreboding be not the correct term? Because Lord John and the people of England persist in assuming that the Colonial relation is incompatible with maturity and full development. And is this really so incontestable a truth that it is a duty not only to hold but to proclaim it? Consider for a moment what is the effect of proclaiming it in our case. We have on this continent two great empires in presence, or rather, I should say, two great Imperial systems. In many respects there is much similarity between them. In so far as powers of selfgovernment are concerned it is certain that our colonists in America have no reason to envy the citizens of any state in the Union. The forms differ, but it may be shown that practically the inhabitants of Canada have a greater power in controlling their own destiny that those of Michigan or New York, who must tolerate a tariff imposed by twenty other states, and pay the expenses of war undertaken for objects which they profess to abhor. And yet there is a difference between the two cases; a difference, in my humble judgment, of sentiment rather than substance, which renders the one a system of life and strength, and the other a system of death and decay. No matter how raw and rude a territory may be when it is admitted as a state into the Union of the United States, it is at once, by the popular belief, invested with all the dignity of manhood, and introduced into a system which, despite the combativeness of certain ardent spirits from the South, every American believes and maintains to be immortal. But how does the case stand with us? matter how great the advance of a British colony in wealth and civilisation; no matter how absolute the powers of self-government conceded to it, it is still taught to believe that it is in a condition of pupilage from which it must pass before it can attain maturity. For one, I have never been able to comprehend why, elastic as our constitutional

No

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system is, we should not be able, now more especially when we have ceased to control the trade of our colonies, to render the links which bind them to the British Crown at least as lasting as those which unite the component parts of the Union. . . One thing is, however, indispensable to the success of this or any other system of Colonial Government. You must renounce the habit of telling the Colonies that the Colonial is a provisional existence. You must allow them to believe that, without severing the bonds which unite them to Great Britain, they may attain the degree of perfection, and of social and political development, to which organised communities of free men have a right to aspire.

Since I began this letter I have, I regret to say, confirmatory evidence of the justice of the anticipations I had formed of the probable effect of Lord John's declaration. I enclose extracts from two newspapers, an annexationist, the Herald of Montreal, and a quasi annexationist, the Mirror of Toronto. You will note the use they make of it. I was more annoyed, however, I confess, by what occurred yesterday in Council. We had to determine whether or not to dismiss from his offices a gentleman who is both M.P.P., Q.C., and J.P., and who has issued a flaming manifesto in favour, not of annexation, but of an immediate declaration of independence as a step to it. I will not say anything of my own opinion on the case, but it was generally contended by the members of the Board, that it would be impossible to maintain that persons who had declared their intention to throw off their allegiance to the Queen, with a view to annexation,1 were unfit to retain offices granted during pleasure, if persons who made a similar declaration with a view to independence were to be differently dealt with. Baldwin 2 had Lord John's speech in his hand. He is a man of singularly placid demeanour, but he has been seriously ill, so possibly his nerves are shaken-at any rate I never saw him so much moved. "Have you read the latter part of "Lord J. Russell's speech ?" he said to me. I nodded assent. "For myself," he added, "if the anticipations "therein expressed prove to be well founded, my interest "in public affairs is gone for ever. But is it not hard "upon us while we are labouring, through good and evil 1 See p. 335.

2 At this time joint premier with Sir L. H. Lafontaine.

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report, to thwart the designs of those who would dismember the Empire, that our adversaries should be "informed that the difference between them and the "Prime Minister of England is only one of time? If the "British Government has really come to the conclusion 66 that we are a burden to be cast off whenever a "favourable opportunity offers, surely we ought to be "warned."

I replied that while I regretted as much as he could do the paragraph to which he referred, I thought he somewhat mistook its import: that I believed no man living was more opposed to the dismemberment of the Empire than Lord J. Russell: that I did not conceive that he had any intention of deserting the Colonies, or of inviting them to separate from England; but that he had in the sentence in question given utterance to a purely speculative, and in my judgment most fallacious, opinion, which was shared, I feared, by very many persons both in England and the Colonies: that I held it to be a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British Colonies could not attain maturity without separation, and that my interest in labouring with them to bring into full play the principles of Constitutional Government in Canada would entirely cease if I could be persuaded to adopt it. I said all this, I must confess however, not without misgiving, for I could not but be sensible that, in spite of all my allegations to the contrary, my audience was disposed to regard a prediction of this nature, proceeding from a Prime Minister, less as a speculative abstraction than as one of that class of prophecies which work their own fulfilment. I left the Council Chamber disheartened, with the feeling that Lord J. Russell's reference to the manhood of Colonies was more likely to be followed by practical consequences than Lamartine's famous "quand "l'heure aura sonné " invocation to oppressed nationalities. It is possible, indeed, that I exaggerate to myself the probable effects of this declaration. Politicians of the Baldwin stamp, with distinct views and aims, who having struggled to obtain a Government on British principles, desire to preserve it, are not, I fear, very numerous in Canada; the great mass move on with very indefinite purposes, and not much inquiring whither they are going. Of one thing, however, I am confident: there cannot be any peace, contentment, progress, or credit in this colony

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while the idea obtains that the connection with England is a millstone about its neck which should be cast off, as soon as it can be conveniently managed. What man in his senses would invest his money in the public securities of a country where questions affecting the very foundations on which public credit rests are in perpetual agitation; or would settle in it at all if he could find for his foot a more stable resting-place elsewhere? I may, perhaps, be expressing myself too unreservedly with reference to opinions emanating from a source which I am no less disposed than bound to respect. As I have the means, however, of feeling the pulse of the colonists in this most feverish region, I consider it to be always my duty to furnish you with as faithful a record as possible of our diagnostics. And, after all, may I not with all submission ask, Is not the question at issue a most momentous one? What is it indeed but this: Is the Queen of England to be the Sovereign of an Empire, growing, expanding, strengthening itself from age to age, striking its roots deep into fresh earth and drawing new supplies of vitality from virgin soils? Or is she to be for all essential purposes of might and power, Monarch of Great Britain and Ireland merely-her place and that of her line in the world's history determined by the productiveness of 12,000 square miles of a coal formation, which is being rapidly exhausted, and the duration of the social and political organization over which she presides dependent on the annual expatriation, with a view to its eventual alienization, of the surplus swarms of her born subjects? If Lord J. Russell, instead of concluding his excellent speech with a declaration of opinion which, as I read it, and as I fear others will read it, seems to make it a point of honour with the Colonists to prepare for separation, had contented himself with resuming the statements already made in its course, with showing that neither the Government nor Parliament could have any object in view in their Colonial policy but the good of the Colonies, and the establishment of the relation between them and the mother-country on the basis of mutual affection; that, as the idea of maintaining a Colonial Empire for the purpose of exercising dominion or dispensing patronage had been for some time abandoned, and that of regarding it as a hot-bed for forcing commerce and manufactures more recently renounced, a greater amount

of free action and self-government might be conceded to British Colonies without any breach of Imperial Unity, or the violation of any principle of Imperial Policy, than had under any scheme yet devised fallen to the lot of the component parts of any Federal or Imperial system; if he had left these great truths to work their effect without hazarding a conjecture which will, I fear, be received as a suggestion, with respect to the course which certain wayward members of the Imperial family may be expected to take in a contingency still confessedly remote, it would, I venture with great deference to submit, in so far at least as public feeling in the Colonies is concerned, have been safer and better.

You draw, I know, a distinction between separation with a view to annexation and separation with a view to independence. You say the former is an act of treason, the latter a natural and legitimate step in progress. There is much plausibility doubtless in this position, but, independently of the fact that no one advocates independence in these Colonies except as a means to the end, annexation, is it really tenable? If you take your stand on the hypothesis that the Colonial existence is one with which the Colonists ought to rest satisfied, then, I think, you are entitled to denounce, without reserve or measure, those who propose, for some secondary object, to substitute the Stars and Stripes for the Union Jack. But if, on the contrary, you assume that it is a provisional state, which admits of but a stunted and partial growth, and out of which all communities ought in the course of nature to strive to pass, how can you refuse to permit your colonies here, when they have arrived at the proper stage in their existence, to place themselves in a condition which is at once most favourable to their security and to their perfect national development? What reasons can you assign for the refusal, except such as are founded on selfishness, and are, therefore, morally worthless? If you say that your great lubberly boy is too big for the nursery, and that you have no other room for him in your house, how can you decline to allow him to lodge with his elder brethren over the way, when the attempt to keep up an establishment for himself would seriously embarrass him?