CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.
It would be foreign to the purpose of this work, besides being a
useless reviving of animosities and prejudices, now happily
forgotten, were I to discuss the _merits_ of the controversy between
Canada and the United States; which from trifling and unimportant
beginnings, gradually increased in bitterness and intensity, until it
finally embroiled the two countries, and England as well, in war.
The contest was long ago waged to its legitimate and final
arbitrament; and its results have been acquiesced in by all the
interested parties, and are a part of the history of the nineteenth
century.
Nevertheless a brief sketch of the origin and progress of this
controversy, seems essential to this narrative, as showing the
motives which actuated Canada and England in their final action.
This sketch I will endeavor to make as brief as is consistent with a
clear presentation of the subject-matter.
Long previous to the Revolutionary War, in which the American
Colonies secured their independence from British domination, and
founded the United States of America, the vast value of the fisheries
on the George's and Grand Banks, and along the North American and
Newfoundland coasts, had been fully demonstrated; and even as early
as the sixteenth century, nearly all of the maritime nations of
Europe sent fleets to catch the fish which were known to abound there.
The French and English, however, at length succeeded in obtaining
exclusive possession of the privilege; although as late as 1783,
Spain put forward a claim of the right to participate in it.
This claim was, however, not pressed. Previous to the successful
revolt of the American Colonists in 1770, several wars had occurred
between England and France, the final result of which had been to
expel the French from Canada, and to secure to England a practical
monopoly of these valuable fisheries. The fishing industry had by
this time vastly increased in value and importance, and was very
largely engaged in by the people of the New England Colonies.
Indeed the importance of the industry was such, that the long point
of Massachusetts was christened Cape Cod; gilded codfish were largely
used as weather vanes on church spires, and on the public buildings;
a painted codfish hung in the State House in Boston, as a constant
reminder to the law-makers of the importance of the fishing interest;
and the fortunate and enterprising fishermen, who accumulated wealth
sufficient to enable them to pass the autumn of their lives amid
quiet and luxurious surroundings, came to be known as the "Codfish
Aristocracy."
In the year 1783 a treaty of peace was finally concluded between the
United States and Great Britain, which defined the rights of the
citizens of the United States to these privileges, as follows:
ARTICLE III.
It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to
enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand
Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of
both countries used at any time heretofore to fish; and also that the
inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of
every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British
fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that island),
and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His British
Majesty's dominions in America, and that American fishermen shall
have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays,
harbors and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands and Labrador, so
long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same or
either of them shall be settled it shall not be lawful for the said
fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement without a previous
agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors or
possessors of the ground.
This article clearly defined the rights of the American fishermen,
and if it could have remained in force, and its provisions been
honorably carried into effect, no further trouble would probably ever
have arisen over the subject of the fisheries.
In 1812, however, the United States engaged in a second war with
Great Britain, and in the treaty of peace which was negotiated at
Ghent, in the year 1814, no mention whatever was made of the right of
the American people to take fish in Canadian waters. The reason for
this omission, seems to have been that the American representatives,
among whom were Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, maintained that the
rights guaranteed by article three of the treaty of 1783, were not
created by that treaty, but were merely recognized by it, as
permanent rights already existing, and of such a character that they
were not to be affected or superseded by any rupture of friendly
relations, or even by war.
The same treaty, (1783) had conceded to the British the right to free
navigation of the Mississippi River, but since that treaty had been
signed, the United States had purchased the Louisiana Territory from
France, and had thus metamorphosed that great river into an
exclusively American waterway. The American commissioners therefore,
being unauthorized to concede navigation rights on the Mississippi,
in consequence of this change of ownership, the British commissioners
claimed some concession as an offset to this refusal; and a
compromise was agreed upon, by which no mention was made either of
the British claim to navigate this river, or of the American claim to
fish in Canadian waters.
The situation, however, was not satisfactory, and after a long
diplomatic correspondence between the two governments, a new treaty
was negotiated in London in the year 1818, which among other things,
contained the following provision:
"That the inhabitants of the United States shall have forever in
common with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, the liberty of
taking fish of any kind, on that part of the southern coast of
Newfoundland which extends from Cape Race to the Ramean Islands; on
the western and northwestern coasts of Newfoundland, from the said
Cape Race to the Quispen Islands; on the shores of the Magdalen
Islands; and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks, from
Mount Joly to the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the
Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly, indefinitely along the
coast. And that the American fishermen shall have liberty forever,
to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors and
creeks, in the southern part of Newfoundland hereinbefore described,
and of the coasts of Labrador; but as soon as the same or any portion
thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for said fishermen
to dry or cure fish at such portion so settled, without previous
agreement for such purpose, with the inhabitants, proprietors or
possessors of the ground.
"And the United States hereby renounces forever, any liberty
heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take,
dry, or cure fish, on or within three marine miles of any of the
coast, bays, creeks, or harbors of His Britannic Majesty's dominions
in America not included in the above mentioned limits. Provided,
however, that the American fishermen shall be permitted to enter such
bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter, of repairing damages
therein, of purchasing wood and obtaining water, and for no other
purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as shall
be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein,
or in any other manner whatever, abusing the privileges hereby
secured to them."
This treaty, which may fairly be said to have been the cause of all
the trouble which afterwards arose on the fishery question, was
negotiated on the part of the United States, by Mr. Rush, then
American Minister at the Court of St. James, and Mr. Gallatin, his
associate commissioner; but as it was subsequently ratified by the
Senate of the United States, it would be scarcely fair to hold those
two gentlemen wholly responsible for the disgraceful and humiliating
surrender of rights and privileges which had hitherto been freely
conceded to American fishermen.
The treaty, by its very terms, invited disturbances and
misunderstandings, which were not slow in manifesting themselves.
In the very next year, (1819) the English Parliament passed an Act,
which provided that American vessels found within the three-mile
limit might be seized and condemned; and imposed fines on such as
refused to depart from such bays or limits, after being warned. The
Canadian Parliaments, taking the cue from this legislation of the
mother country, passed numerous and stringent laws and regulations,
which they claimed were necessary to carry out the provisions of the
treaty; but which the Americans claimed were needlessly annoying,
oppressive, and unneighborly.
Among other claims, what was known as the "Headland theory" was
advanced, under which the three-mile limit was claimed not to follow
the sinuosities of the coast, but to be a line three miles outside of
a straight line drawn from point to point, or headland to headland of
the coast; no matter how far apart these points or headlands might
be, or how extensive the bay or gulf might be which lay between them.
Under this construction of the treaty, Nova Scotia claimed the right
to close the Straits of Canso to our fishermen; and to make her claim
to exclusive jurisdiction over that body of water more plausible,
annexed Prince Edward's Island.
Numerous seizures of American vessels were made and a strained
condition of affairs ensued, which lasted a number of years, and
which temporarily culminated in 1843, in the seizure of an American
fishing vessel, called the "Washington," in the Bay of Fundy, at a
point more than ten miles from the nearest shore. This induced a
protest from the United States, in response to which the English
Government agreed to waive the Headland theory as far as it related
to the Bay of Fundy, but not as to any other bay or gulf.
The contention continued, and in 1851 the English Government
announced its intention of sending a fleet to the fishing grounds for
the purpose of enforcing its rights.
More diplomatic correspondence ensued, and at length, in 1853, a
board of arbitration was empowered to decide this phase of the
controversy; and decided that bays ten miles or more in width, were
to be considered as part of the open sea. This was followed in 1854,
by what has been called the reciprocity treaty; which, in
consideration of the abolition of the three-mile restriction, and of
the restoration of the rights to take fish, and to cure and dry the
same on the Canadian Coasts, which had been conceded without any
equivalent in the treaty of 1783, the United States agreed to admit
nearly all Canadian products free of duty.
This treaty by its terms was to remain in force for ten years, and to
continue in force thereafter until after twelve months' notice of the
desire of either party to terminate it.
During the continuance of this treaty, the War of the Rebellion
occurred; our national debt assumed enormous proportions; our tariff
and internal taxes were vastly increased to meet the expenses of the
war and the interest on the debt; and what in 1854 bad seemed a mere
bagatelle--viz., the duty on Canadian imports--assumed an importance,
as an item of revenue, entirely disproportionate to the value of any
additional fishing privileges which the treaty gave us.
Consequently, in 1865, the United States gave the requisite twelve
months' notice, and in 1866 the treaty came to an end. Canada,
having for twelve years experienced the advantages of an unrestricted
market in the United States (the direct pecuniary value of which in
duties remitted, alone amounted to 14,200,000, or $350,000 a year)
was naturally reluctant to give them up, so she returned to her
former methods, construed the former treaty in a narrow and illiberal
spirit, and let no opportunity slip to annoy and outrage our
fishermen.
Meanwhile the United States Government was engaged in a controversy
with the English Government over the claim for damages to American
shipping, committed by the so-called Confederate cruiser "Alabama"
during the "War of the Rebellion," and a joint commission
representing the two countries assembled in Washington in 1871 to
negotiate a treaty, which should, if possible, arrange all matters in
dispute--including, of course, the fisheries question.
Their deliberations resulted in the treaty of Washington, by which
our fishermen, in addition to the rights conferred by the treaty in
1818, received permission to fish in the bays, harbors and creeks of
Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island, and
the islands adjacent thereto; and by which, also, fish oil and fish
of all kinds (except fish of inland lakes and fish preserved in oil)
were to be admitted into each country free of duty. A question arose
as to whether the admission of Canadian fish free of duty was a
sufficient equivalent for the increased fishing privileges granted to
the American fishermen. The British Commissioners insisted that it
was not; and the American Commissioners insisted that it was; but
finally offered to pay Great Britain one million dollars as full
consideration for the right to use forever the inshore fisheries in
common with the English and Canadian fishermen. The parties could
not agree, and the question was referred to a commission of three,
consisting of one American, one Canadian, and the Belgian Minister to
the United States. Six years later, in 1877, this commission--or
rather the Belgian minister (for the Canadian and American
Commissioners disagreed)--decided that the United States should pay
Great Britain $5,500,000 for this privilege; which, added to the
$4,200,000 of duties remitted under the reciprocity treaty of 1854,
made the snug sum of $9,700,000 paid by the United States for a
privilege which was conceded by the treaty of 1783 to be a vested and
permanent right.
This was bad enough in all conscience, but to make it if possible
worse, and more galling to Americans, the charge was openly made by
Professor Hind, who had been the British scientific witness before
the commission, and had acted as the official compiler of the index
to the documents used in the investigation, that the statistics in
these documents had been manufactured and forged for the purpose of
misleading the commission, and defrauding the United States.
The Professor, after trying in vain to induce the Canadian and
British governments to remedy this flagrant injustice, laid the
matter before Senators and Representatives in Washington.
Some little attention was attracted to these disclosures at the time,
but presumably from a fear that a public discussion of them would
reflect upon the party in power at the time of the negotiation of the
treaty, no official action was taken, and the matter was permitted to
drop out of sight.
The treaty of Washington also provided, that either Canada or the
United States might export or import goods, wares and merchandise
through the other's territory free of duty, and also permitted such
goods, wares and merchandise as might be carried through Canada by
rail from any point in the United States to another point in the
United States, to pass through the Dominion of Canada and re-enter
the United States free of duty. It also abandoned the right, which
the United States had always claimed--and which England had always
dreaded--to send out privateers in case of war.
Indeed, taken as a whole, the treaty of Washington may be fairly
ranked as one of the greatest triumphs of British diplomacy. Having
by their own privateers (for the "Alabama" and her consorts, although
ostensibly "Confederate Cruisers," were in reality nothing more nor
less than British privateers, built and equipped for the express
purpose of preying on American commerce) effectually driven our flag
from the ocean, they hoodwinked our diplomatists into a
relinquishment of the right to fit out similar cruisers, as a sort of
a "sop," to make the payment by Great Britain of the $13,000,000
damage award, a little more palatable. Verily, it would seem that
for the first century of its national existence, the diplomacy as
well as the financial policy of the United States was a creature of
chance and circumstance. In diplomatic matters, our representatives
seemed to be guided by no permanent policy; and to be able to see
nothing beyond the immediate question at issue; and our whole
financial policy was utterly devoid of anything like consistency or
system.
The treaty of Washington was to remain in force for ten years; and
was then subject to abrogation, as to certain of its parts, on two
years' notice by either party.
Its gross unfairness to the United States was so apparent, that on
the 3rd of March, 1883, (almost as soon as the treaty permitted)
Congress directed the President to give the requisite notice to
terminate certain articles of it, and thus, in 1885, the subject was
again a matter of dispute between the two countries. The avowed
policy of Canadian statesmen seems to have been to force the United
States into a reciprocity treaty, which would practically secure
commercial union between that country and Canada, and with that idea
in view, Canada immediately commenced to annoy and harass American
fishermen, claiming that the setting aside of the Washington Treaty
revived that of 1818, and under the provisions of the latter, the
right of our fishermen to enter Canadian harbors or bays, or to come
within the three-mile limit for any other purpose than shelter,
repairing damages, or to purchase wood and water, was absolutely
denied; and several American fishing vessels were seized and
condemned by the Canadian authorities, who were evidently determined
to enforce their own harsh construction of the treaty of 1818, in the
most offensive and unneighborly manner. Meanwhile, during the
pendency of the treaty of Washington, Canada had been investing
largely in railroad enterprises, and had subsidized one
trans-continental line (the Canadian Pacific) to the extent of about
$130,000,000. These railways, taking advantage of the clause in the
treaty of Washington which permitted the transit of goods in bond
through Canadian Territory into American, and vice versa, without the
payment of duty, had obtained control by building, purchasing or
leasing, of numerous connecting lines, which gave them outlets and
inlets to all of the principal American cities; and had thus become
open competitors with the American trans-continental lines for
American business. The following extracts from an address made by
General James H. Wilson before the Committee on Commerce of the House
of Representatives on March 15, 1888, will show to what an extent
this traffic had grown; and also that a feeling of impatience had
begun to develop among Americans at the unneighborly and piggish
attitude of Canada, in refusing ordinary hospitality to American
fishermen, while robbing the American railways of millions of dollars
worth of business each year.
"The simple fact is that while the arrangements under consideration
are reciprocal in theory they are one-sided in practice, and inure
tenfold more to the advantage of the Canadian people than to that of
the American railroads or the American people. Nevertheless, as I
have stated before, the amendments which I have had the honor to
offer to the Inter-State Commerce Act do not cover, nor are they
intended to interfere in any way with the particular transit trade
carried on under the provisions of Article XXIX of the treaty of
1871. I make this statement clear and distinct, for the special
information of the Chicago Board of Trade, and of those who have
shared its apprehensions.
"Second. Under the provisions of paragraphs 3000 to 3006 inclusive,
of the Revised Statutes, together with certain regulations
thereunder, issued by the Secretary of the Treasury, a transit trade
of great extent and value is carried on between the Eastern, Western,
and Pacific States and Territories through the agency of the Canadian
railroads, and certain American railroads owned and controlled by
them. And it is to this variety of the transit trade to which I
invite your most careful attention.
"It seems to have grown up _pari passu_ with the Dominion system of
railroads. It is now carried on principally by three Canadian
railroads and railroad systems:
"1. The Canada Southern Railroad, opened for business in 1873. It
was built, it is understood, entirely under American auspices, if not
with American capital, and is now controlled by the Michigan Central
Railroad Company in the interest of the New York Central system. Its
main line runs from Windsor, Ontario, to Suspension Bridge, and, with
its branches, is 302.44 miles long.
"2. The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, with a main line extending
from Portland, Me., to Detroit, Mich., a distance of 861 miles;
another from Niagara Falls to Windsor, Ontario, 229 miles, branches
and extensions sufficient to give it a total length of 2,924.5 miles.
The road was opened from Portland to Montreal, mostly through
American Territory it will be observed, in 1853; from Montreal to
Quebec in 1854, from Montreal to Toronto in 1856; and from Montreal
to Port Sarnia and Port Huron, on the St. Clair River, in 1858. It
acquired by purchase and construction a line now known as the Chicago
and Grand Trunk, extending from Port Huron to Chicago in 1879, and
the whole line was opened for through business in 1880. A part of
this system, known as the Great Western Railway, was completed in
1854, but was not consolidated with the Grand Trunk till 1882.
"This system first began to do a transit business in imported
merchandise, in a small way, from Toronto to Collingwood on Georgian
Bay, Lake Huron, in 1854; but it never became a great competitor of
the American Trunk lines till 1880, nor became a great disturber of
rates till 1882.
"It was built for political and military as well as for commercial
purposes, has received frequent subsidies from the Canadian
Governments, and has always had more or less of their fostering care.
Ever since its through lines were opened, it has enjoyed the
privilege of unrestricted competition with the American roads between
the West and all points in the Atlantic States that it could reach.
It has enjoyed all the privileges of an American railroad; it has
been active, aggressive, and unscrupulous, and has inflicted great
injury upon its competitors.
"3. The Canadian Pacific Railway extends from Montreal to Port Moody
and Vancouver, on the Pacific Ocean, a distance of 2,905.3 miles. At
Montreal it connects with the Intercolonial Railway, running from
that place to Halifax, Nova Scotia, 678 miles. The latter road and
its branches are owned and operated by the Government of Canada. The
total distance from Halifax to Vancouver is therefore 3,583 miles;
and the total length of main line and branches of the two systems is
5,522 miles. Their aggregate cost and capitalization are
$206,942,852, besides a subsidy of 25,000,000 acres of public lands,
all of which, both money and land, has come directly or indirectly
from the Dominion of Canada, which guarantees the interest on the
funded debt, and also dividends upon the capital stock till August,
1893. Notwithstanding the princely subsidies which this corporation
has received, the length of line which it has constructed, the
monopoly which it has secured, and the high political mission it has
filled in binding together the widely separated provinces of the
Dominion, its managers are not yet satisfied. Spurning all
restraint, it has finally overleaped the boundary line and boldly
invaded the territory of the United States. With true English
effrontery it ignores the authority of Congress, and under the thin
disguise of a charter procured by trickery and deception, if not by
fraud, from the Legislature of Maine, it is now building a cut off
through the northern part of that State to St. Andrews, New
Brunswick, with all the rapidity that the unlimited control of men
and money can command.
"Just what the volume and value of the transit traffic is, it is
impossible for me to state, but the statistics are doubtless in the
possession of the Bureau of Statistics, or can be more readily
obtained by it than by any private individual, and I venture to
suggest that, whatever other action may be taken by your committee in
respect to this important matter, it should not fail to call for the
statistics in question. Some idea may be had of its enormous volume
from the statement made by the Chicago Board of Trade that the Grand
Trunk alone 'received from its rail connections at the Detroit River,
and at its lake ports on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, during the year
1888, 1,629,283 tons of United States products,' which it transported
eastbound through the Dominion of Canada in bond and reëntered the
United States free of duty. This, as near as I can make out, was
something like 15 per cent. of the entire volume of east-bound
business from that region. The entire business by the various
Canadian routes east and west bound cannot be less than 5,000,000
tons dead weight, and has been estimated by an expert at 7,000,000.
"It is well known that the Grand Trunk Railway, by means of its
Chicago and Michigan connections and branch lines, and by those which
connect it with Portland, Me., under the privilege allowed it by the
laws and Treasury regulations heretofore cited, is the great
beneficiary of the transit trade. It has been shown that the
Canadian Pacific, under the same laws and regulations, has been free
almost from the day it was opened, by means of the bonded Pacific
Coast Steamship Company, and by its connections with the roads
running north and east from St. Paul to the Canadian border, and by
its connections at Niagara Falls, Kingston, St. Albans, and Montreal,
to carry any business it can secure between San Francisco on the
west, to New York and Boston on the east.
"It should be remembered that these roads constitute more than
one-half of the entire railroad mileage of the British possessions in
North America, that one of them was built for military and political
purposes by the Government of the Dominion and under the special
encouragement and sanction of the British Government, for the purpose
of carrying out its scheme for federating its North American
colonies; that both of them have been heavily subsidized by the
Dominion Government for purposes antagonistic, if not absolutely
hostile, to our national interests, and that they are not only
absolutely free from any control by us, or from the Dominion
Government to make whatever local or through rates they please, but,
as matter of fact, are frequently engaged in cutting the rates of the
American trunk lines, paying rebates, granting passes, charging more
for a short haul than for a long one, and entering into all kinds of
private arrangements with their American connections and their
American shippers, to the prejudice and injury of the American Trunk
lines, whose hands are bound in respect to all those and many other
matters by the Inter-State Commerce Act.
"It is also the fact that, while the Canadian railways are enjoying
these extraordinary privileges, unheard of in any other country, the
Dominion Government has protected its Pacific line by a practical
monopoly of all the business on or tributary to it, and positively
refuses to allow American railways to take wheat out of Manitoba,
haul it through the United States, and redeliver it in Canada free of
duty; and this is a fact which cannot be successfully denied. Not
only is it true, but it is also true that the Dominion Government has
refused, and still refuses, to permit the people of Manitoba to build
an independent railway to connect with the American system of
railroads, and this refusal is made for the avowed purpose of
continuing and protecting the monopoly which the Canadian Pacific
Railway has of the business of that region. The unjust and
oppressive conduct of the Dominion Government, controlled as it is by
the Canadian Pacific Ring, is matter of public notoriety, and has
been the subject of earnest and repeated remonstrances at Ottawa on
the part of the people of Manitoba within the last thirty days, but
so far without effect.
"But this is not all. While they or their connections at Chicago,
Detroit, Buffalo, New York, St. Albans, Boston, Portland, and San
Francisco are compelled by the Inter-State Commerce Act to make their
through rates to all American points public, the roads lying wholly
in Canada, forming parts of their through lines, existing wholly
under Canadian law, and managed by officers and directors entirely
beyond our jurisdiction, are under no restrictions whatever as to
rebates, drawbacks, passes, constructive mileage, car mileage
allowances, or any other of the numberless devices by which one line
gains advantage over another, or by which a long through line gives
advantage to a short connection.
"The trouble with Canada and the Canadian Railroads is that we have
become accustomed to treat them as though they were not foreign and
did not belong to a foreign empire. They expect to have all the
benefits of unrestricted trade without any of the limitations and
burdens which are imposed so freely upon our own railroads and
citizens.
"They and their attorneys claim that in carrying freights between
American points 'the Canadian Railroads have conformed to the letter
and spirit of the Inter-State Act as rigidly as have their American
competitors.' But inasmuch as that act requires no duty whatever
from the roads wholly in Canada, and no duty from their American
connections, except to publish their through rates, the absurdity of
this claim is at once apparent. No one in his right mind can
successfully contend for a moment that the Great Trunk or the
Canadian Pacific pays any more attention to the Inter-State Commerce
Act in Canada, than if it were so much waste paper. They are
perfectly free to violate every one of its provisions, from the first
paragraph to the last, and, as a matter of fact, its only effect, so
far as they are concerned, is to make it all the easier for them to
cheat and deceive, if not to actually pick the pockets of their
American rivals, who are bound by the law and subject to the
surveillance of the Commissioners and the punishment of the courts.
"It the Canadian railways were not subsidized and supported by the
Dominion Government, if they were not an essential part of the
machinery used for binding the British empire together, and in case
of need to transport armies and military munitions against our
frontier; if they were not free from our local and general laws, and
also free to do all the things which have been pointed out, and, in
short, were not daily doing them to our detriment and injury, we
should have no cause of complaint against them. But so long as the
facts remain as they are, so long as those railroads run through a
foreign country and are controlled by aliens, under foreign laws, and
for purposes which, to say the least, are foreign to us and hostile
to our permanent national interests, it can be regarded as no more
than prudent if we shut them out of our transit traffic along our
northern border, just as we shut foreign ships out of our coasting
trade.
"The great republic, in the words of Prince Bismarck, 'fears nothing
but God.' It has no apprehension for its safety, and but little for
its peace from its neighbors of the Dominion; but it should not
forget that the Dominion has an area of 3,500,000 square miles and a
population of about 5,000,000 souls, and is backed up by the whole
British empire, upon whose possessions it is the Englishman's boast
that 'the sun never sets,' that 'her drum beat encircles the world,'
that 'her ships fill every sea,' and that her population is not less
than 300,000,000 souls. It should not forget that it has had
difficulties before with that universal bully, and will probably have
them again; it should not forget that it has, out of its abundance
and good-nature, nurtured and fostered the British bantling on our
borders, enriched its railroads, patronized its canals, granted it
the right of free transit through our territories, enriched its
shopkeepers, and generally treated it with amiable liberality and
indifference. Now that the subject has become of enough importance
to be considered, Congress should not forget to act in accordance
with its own ideas of interest and duty, even if Canada should
'retaliate.' We have had reciprocity enough, such as it has been;
now let us try what virtue there is in insisting upon our right to
manage our own affairs in our own way, while leaving the Dominion and
the other dependencies of the British crown (if there are any others)
in North America to manage their own in a similar way. We have
played second fiddle long enough. Let the British Government spend
just as much money as it pleases for fortifications; let it subsidize
and support as many railroads as it thinks necessary to tie the
British empire together; let it open and improve one or more of its
(Canadian) seaports, and let it retaliate just as and when it
pleases. But let it do all these things without our help or
connivance; and then, if in God's Providence the Canadian Dominions
do not come otherwise under the sway and the uses of the Union, when
a great emergency arises which seems to demand it, we shall go and
take them."