schools in Upper Canada, out of some four thousand, and all Roman Catholic. But if the Roman Catholics are entitled to separate schools and to go on extending their operations, so are the members of the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and all other sects. No candid Roman Catholic will deny this for a moment; and there lay the great danger to our educational fabric, that the separate system might gradually extend itself until the whole country was studded with nurseries of sectarianism, most hurtful to the best interests of the province, and entailing an enormous expense to sustain the hosts of teachers that so prodigal a system of public instruction must inevitably entail. Now it is known to every honourable member of this House that an Act was passed in 1863, as a final settlement of this sectarian controversy. I was not in Quebec at the time, but if I had been here I would have voted against that bill, because it extended the facilities for establishing separate schools. It had, however, this good feature, that it was accepted by the Roman Catholic authorities, and carried through Parliament as a final compromise of the question in Upper Canada. When, therefore, it was proposed that a provision should be inserted in the Confederation scheme to bind that compact of 1863 and declare it a final settlement, so that we should not be compelled, as we have been since 1849, to stand constantly to our arms, awaiting fresh attacks upon our common school system, the proposition seemed to me one that was not rashly to be rejected. I admit that, from my point of view, this is a blot on the scheme before the House; it is, confessedly, one of the concessions from our side that had to be made to secure this great measure of reform. But assuredly, I, for one, have not the slightest hesitation in accepting it as a necessary condition of the scheme of union, and doubly acceptable must it be in the eyes of honourable gentlemen opposite, who were the authors of the bill of 1863. But it was urged that though this arrangement might perhaps be fair as regards Upper Canada, it was not so as regards Lower Canada, for there were matters of which the British population have long complained, and some amendments amendments to the existing School Act were required to secure them equal justice. Well, when this point was raised, gentlemen of all parties in Lower Canada at once expressed themselves prepared

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to treat it in a frank and conciliatory manner, with a view to removing any injustice that might be shown to exist; and on this understanding the educational clause was adopted by the Conference.

Viewed then, Mr. Speaker, from a merely Canadian standpoint 1-viewed solely as a remedial measure—I fearlessly assert that the scheme in your hands is a just and satisfactory remedy for the evils and injustice that have so long distracted the province, and so strongly do I feel this, that were every word of objection urged against our union with the Maritime Provinces just and true to the very letter, I would not hesitate to adopt the union as the price of a measure of constitutional reform in Canada, so just and so complete as now proposed. But, Mr. Speaker, so far from the objections urged against union with the Maritime Provinces being sound, so far from union with them being a drawback to this measure, I regard it as the crowning advantage of the whole scheme. Sir, I make no pretension to having been in past years an advocate of the immediate union of the British American Colonies. I always felt and always said that no statesman could doubt that such was the best and almost the certain future destiny of these colonies; but I doubted greatly whether the right time for the movement had yet arrived. I knew little of the Maritime Provinces or the feelings of their people; the negotiations for a union were likely to be difficult and long protracted, and I was unwilling to accept the hope of a measure so remote and so uncertain in lieu of the practical remedy for practical evils in Canada which we were earnestly seeking to obtain, and which our own Legislature had the power immediately to grant. But of late, sir, all this has been changed. The circumstances are entirely altered. A revolution has occurred in Great Britain on the subject of colonial relations to the parent state-the Government of the United States has become a great warlike power-our commercial relations with the republic are seriously threatened and every man in British America has now placed before him for solution the practical question, What shall be done in view of the changed relations on which we are about to enter? Shall we continue to

1 He had been speaking of the extent to which internal differences had frightened the British and foreign capitalist. Later on he applied the same argument to the question of immigration.

struggle along as isolated communities, or shall we unite cordially together to extend our commerce, to develop the resources of our country and to defend our soil? But more than this-many of us have learned, since we last met here, far more of the Maritime Provinces than we ever did before. We have visited the Maritime Provinces-we have seen the country-we have met the people and marked their intelligence and their industry and their frugality-we have investigated their public affairs and found them satisfactory-we have discussed terms of union with their statesmen and found that no insuperable obstacle to union exists, and no necessity for long delay. We come to the consideration of the question to-day in a totally different position from what we ever did before— and if the House will grant me its indulgence, I think I can present unanswerable arguments to show that this union of all British America should be heartily and promptly accepted by all the provinces. I am in favour of a union of the British American Colonies, first, because it will raise us from the attitude of a number of inconsiderable colonies into a great and powerful people. . . . When recently in England, I was charged to negotiate with the Imperial Government for the opening up of the North-West territories. In a few days the papers will be laid before the House, and it will then be seen whether or not this Government is in earnest in that matter. Sir, the gentlemen who formed the Conference at Quebec did not enter upon their work with the miserable idea of getting the advantage of each other, but with a due sense of the greatness of the work they had on hand, with an earnest desire to do justice to all, and keeping always in mind that what would benefit one section in such a union must necessarily benefit the whole. It has always appeared to me that the opening up of the North-West ought to be one of the most cherished projects of my honourable friends from Lower Canada. During the discussion on the question for some years back I had occasion to dip deep in North-West lore-into those singularly interesting narratives of life and travels in the North-West in the olden time, and into the history of the struggles for commercial domination in the great fur-bearing regions,—and it has always struck me that the French Canadian people have cause to look back with pride to the bold and successful part they played in the

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adventures of those days. Nothing perhaps has tended more to create their present national character than the vigorous habits, the power of endurance, the aptitude for out-door life, acquired in their prosecution of the North-West fur trade. Well may they look forward with anxiety to the realization of this part of our scheme, in confident hope that the great north-western_traffic shall be once more opened up to the hardy French Canadian traders and voyageurs. Last year furs to the value of £280,000 stg. ($1,400,000) were carried from that territory by the Hudson's Bay Company-smuggled off through the ice-bound regions of James's Bay, that the pretence of the barrenness of the country and the difficulty of conveying merchandise by the natural route of the St. Lawrence may be kept up a little longer. Sir, the carrying of merchandise into that country, and bringing down the bales of pelts ought to be ours, and must ere long be ours, as in the days of yore, and when the fertile plains of that great Saskatchewan territory are opened up for settlement and cultivation, I am confident that it will not only add immensely to our annual agricultural products, but bring us sources of mineral and other wealth on which at present we do not reckon. .

Hon. T. D'Arcy McGee: Whatever the private writer in his closet may have conceived, whatever even the individual statesman may have designed, so long as the public mind was uninterested in the adoption, even in the discussion of a change in our position so momentous as this, the union of these separate provinces, the individual laboured in vain-perhaps, sir, not wholly in vain, for although his work may not have borne fruit then, it was kindling a fire that would ultimately light up the whole political horizon, and herald the dawn of a better day for our country and our people. Events stronger than advocacy, events stronger than men, have come in at last like the fire behind the invisible writing to bring out the truth of these writings and to impress them upon the mind of every thoughtful man who has considered the position and probable future of these scattered provinces. Before I go further into the details of my subject, I will take this opportunity of congratulating this House and the public of all the provinces upon the extraordinary activity which has been given to this subject since it has become a leading topic of public dis

cussion in the maritime, and what I may call relatively to them, the inland provinces. It is astonishing how active has been the public mind in all those communities since the subject has been fairly launched. I have watched with great attention the expression of public opinion in the Lower Provinces as well as in our own, and I am rejoiced to find that even in the smallest of the provinces I have been able to read writings and speeches which would do no discredit to older and more cultivated communities-articles and speeches worthy of any press and of any audience. The provincial mind, it would seem, under the inspiration of a great question, leaped at a single bound out of the slough of mere mercenary struggles for office, and took post on the high and honourable ground from which alone this great subject can be taken in in all its dimensions,-had risen at once to the true dignity of this discussion with an elasticity that does honour to the communities that have exhibited it, and gives assurance that we have the metal, the material, out of which to construct a new and vigorous nationality. We find in the journals and in the speeches of public men in the Lower Provinces a discussion of the first principles of government, a discussion of the principles of constitutional law, and an intimate knowledge and close application of the leading facts in constitutional history, which gives to me at least the satisfaction and assurance that, if we never went farther in this matter, we have put an end for the present, and I hope for long, to bitterer and smaller controversies. We have given the people some sound mental food, and to every man who has a capacity for discussion we have given a topic upon which he can fitly exercise his powers, no longer gnawing at a file and wasting his abilities in the poor effort of advancing the ends of some paltry faction or party. I can congratulate this House and province and the provinces below, that such is the case, and I may observe, with some satisfaction, that the various authors and writers seem to be speaking or writing as if in the visible presence of all the colonies. They are no longer hole-and-corner celebrities they seem to think that their words will be scanned and weighed afar off as well as at home. . . .

All, even honourable gentlemen who are opposed to this union, admit that we must do something, and that that something must not be a mere temporary expedient. We