We are going to be called upon to spend money for yet another
kindred purpose, and a large amount too--and this, as a part of
this scheme. Our star of empire is to wing its way westward; and
we are to confederate everything in its track, from Newfoundland
to Vancouver's Island, this last included. But, between us and it,
there lies the Hudson Bay territory. So, of course, we must acquire
that for confederation purposes; and the plan is, that before we
get it we shall have to pay for the elephant--though, after we get
him, we may find him costly and hard to keep....
Disguise it how you may, the idea that underlies this plan is this,
and nothing else--that we are to create here a something--kingdom,
viceroyalty or principality--something that will soon stand in the
same position towards the British Crown that Scotland and Ireland
stood in before they were legislatively united with England; a
something having no other tie to the Empire than the one tie of
fealty to the British Crown--a tie which in the cases, first, of
Scotland, and then of Ireland, was found, when the pinch came, to
be no tie at all; which did not restrain either Scotland or Ireland
from courses so inconsistent with that of England as to have made
it necessary that their relations should be radically changed, and
a legislative union formed in place of a merely nominal union.
Suppose you do create here a kingdom or a principality, bound to
the Empire by this shadow of a tie, the day of trial cannot be
far distant, when this common fealty will be found of as little
use in our case as it was in theirs, when, in consequence, the
question will force itself on the Empire and on us, between entire
separation on the one hand, and a legislative union on the other.
But a legislative union of British America with the United Kingdom
must be, in the opinion of, one may say, everybody at home and
here, a sheer utter impossibility; and when the question shall come
to be whether we are so to be merged in the United Kingdom or are
to separate entirely from it, the answer can only be--"At whatever
cost, we separate." Sir, I believe in my conscience that this step
now proposed is one directly and inevitably tending to that other
step; and for that reason--even if I believed, as I do not, that it
bid fair to answer ever so well in the other respects--because I am
an Englishman and hold to the connection with England, I must be
against this scheme....
The real danger is not of war with the United States. It is
from what I may call their pacific hostility--from trouble to
be wrought by them within this country--trouble to arise out of
refusal of reciprocity--repeal of the bonding system--custom-house
annoyances--passport annoyances; from their fomenting difficulties
here, and taking advantage of our local jealousies; from the
multiplied worries they may cause us by a judicious alternation
of bullying and coaxing, the thousand incidents which may easily
be made to happen if things are not going on quite well in this
country, and the people and government of the States are minded to
make us feel the consequences of our not getting on quite so well
as we might. Whether the union of the States is restored or not,
this kind of thing can go on. The danger is, that either the United
States, or those portions of the United States which are near us,
and which are really stronger than we are, and enterprising enough
and ambitious enough, and not very fond of us, and not at all fond
of the Mother-country, not at all unwilling to strike a blow at her
and to make us subservient to their own interest and ambition--the
danger is, I say, that the United States, or those portions of the
United States near us, may avail themselves of every opportunity to
perplex us, to embroil us in trouble, to make us come within the
disturbing influences of their strong local attraction. Now, to
pretend to tell me that the United States or the Northern States,
whichever you please, are going to be frightened from a policy of
that kind by our taking upon ourselves great airs, and forming
ourselves into a grand Confederation, is to tell me that their
people are, like the Chinese, a people to be frightened by loud
noises and ugly grimaces. I do not believe they are.