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Again, while it would be absurd to undervalue material prosperity, we must constantly remember that its highest value consists as much in the discipline of the powers required for its acquisition as in the acquisition or possession itself. This must be as true of nations as daily experience shows it to be in the case of individuals. When Canadians are told that they must look to political union with the United States for any increase of commercial prosperity, and that such a connection will at once draw them into a tide of greater business energy, I cannot but think that a prosperity purchased by such means is obtained by the sacrifice of that which gives prosperity its greatest worth. Speaking as a Canadian to Canadian audiences, I have sometimes put the argument in this way: 'We have a country with enormous capacity for development. The field is large enough and varied enough to satisfy the greatest energy and every form of it. The consolidation of a national strength, the linking together of our widespread provinces by railway systems, the opening up of our great North-West, seem to have removed the chief obstacles which have hitherto stood in our way. Under such circumstances, or under any circumstances, would it not be infinitely more worthy of us, would it not be a far better national training and discipline, to set ourselves resolutely to work to supply that in which we are deficient, rather than to seek it ignominiously at the hands of our neighbours? Can it be true that we have not the strength of brain or hand to wrest from nature the {141} success and prosperity which others have won? If we have not, then let us not add to our weakness a spirit of mean dependence.'
Looking at the question under aspects such as these, I find it impossible to conceive that Canadians, who have for more than a century received their national impulse and development from a political system which they believe the best in the world, for which they have continued to profess the most devoted regard, and to which they are tied by a thousand bonds of affectionate sympathy, will deliberately, in cold blood, and for commercial reasons only, dissolve that connection, and join themselves to a state with the history and traditions of which they have little sympathy, and to whose form of government they object. To take such a course would indicate an extraordinary degradation of public sentiment.
When, therefore, I am told that geography and commercial tendencies are strong, I can only reply that the bias of national life and loyalty to the spiritual forces which give a people birth are stronger still. A sensitive regard for public honour is infinitely stronger.
But even the question of commercial advantage has two aspects.
Comparing the relative advantages of the United States and the British Empire we find that with the former lies that of continental isolation—a position so secure, peopled as the country now is, that no external power could hope to shake it. Attack might be annoying and detrimental, but by no means fatal, {142} for the chief dependence of the country is not upon external trade. Even a blockade of all its ports would stimulate internal activity, for the United States are almost self-sufficing in the matter of production, and manufacturing industry would have the whole union entirely to itself. A very remarkable and advantageous position we must admit this to be, freeing the country from external dangers to which other nations are subject, and so leaving it in a better position to grapple with those vast internal problems of race and colour which confront it.
Very different indeed is the advantage which Britain enjoys. She has, however, no reason to envy the great Republic. Instead of continental compactness she has world-wide diffusion—precisely that kind of diffusion which satisfies the necessities of countries which depend, and must always to a considerable degree depend, upon external trade. It would be too much perhaps to say that at the present moment the British Empire possesses the same security on the ocean that the United States have on their continent, but it is not too much to affirm that with her command of the strongest maritime positions of the world, her backing of vigorous and growing populations, and her resources in money and trained men for naval equipment, she could soon become so. This is the kind of security which Britain requires with her vast outflow of merchandise—her inflow of food and raw material. It is the kind of security needed by countries like Australia, New Zealand, or South {143} Africa, which have an enormous export of special products for which the character of the country is specially adapted. If no question of national honour were involved, and if Canada had to make a choice purely upon grounds of national security between what is offered to her from connection with the United States and with the Empire, the decision would depend upon whether she aspired to great commercial connections or would be content with merely continental relations. It is certain that if the United States ever regain control of their own carrying trade, or if by the development of manufacturing energy they are led to look largely to outside markets, they will feel more and more the limitations imposed by a purely continental position. Canada has at the present time large maritime interests. Her great length of sea coast, the productive fisheries east and, west, the facility for ship-building given by her forests, have stimulated her maritime activity to such an extent that in tonnage of shipping she now ranks fourth among the nations of the world, counting the United Kingdom as one. Her sailing ships are found in every quarter of the world, taking part in the carrying trade. Several great steam-ship lines cross the Atlantic, another connects the Pacific coast with Japan and China—a line is projected to Australasia—others carry on trade with the eastern and western coasts of America and with the West Indies. The instincts and conditions which have made British people a maritime and trading race are renewed in {144} the Dominion. Canada's interest is to retain the national connection which gives her commerce the best opportunities, her fleets the surest protection in all parts of the world.
The Canadian shipmaster or trader knows that at ports all over the world, at Hong Kong and Calcutta, at Malta or Melbourne, at the Cape or Auckland, in a word, at all the great centres of the world's ocean commerce, he can claim the protection of the national flag, he has a right to apply to the British consul, he can rely on the prestige of the British name. These are rights of which the Canadian knows the value. They are rights which he is not likely to relinquish, for they have been honestly won, first by retaining his allegiance at the price of much sacrifice in the revolution of 1776, and then by steady persistence in that allegiance at all costs through more than a century. He knows they are rights that no other nation can give him in equal degree.
It is in trade relations, however, that Canada's interest is supposed to look away from Great Britain or the rest of the Empire, and towards the United States. Twenty years ago the American Republic entered upon its policy of excluding as far as possible the products of other countries, and among them those of Canada, by a high protective tariff. That policy has been steadily maintained until it has reached a climax in the McKinley tariff. It had previously forced a protective policy upon Canada itself. It seems clear that the Dominion has suffered {145} to some extent commercially by this exclusion from the markets of her own continent, by the resolute determination of their neighbours that Canadians shall not, as Canadians, have any share in the prosperity of the United States. That she has gained in energy, self-reliance, and national purpose is equally clear to anyone who attempts to measure the splendid and successful efforts which she has since confederation and under this exclusion made at self-development. That the moral gain infinitely outweighs the commercial loss, I, for one, firmly believe. But there are those who argue that for the commercial advantage which it is anticipated would flow from union with the United States, the continental independence of the country, its historical traditions, its political institutions, its nationality, should be abandoned. In Great Britain itself there are found many who assume as a matter of course that commercial attraction will inevitably lead to the political absorption of the Dominion into the United States. I believe that the opinion is a mistaken one. The grounds upon which it is based deserve examination. Let it be remembered that no one now ventures to bring forward in support of this proposition any argument based on the superior freedom or excellence of American institutions, social or political. The day for that is past. We can assert, without fear of contradiction, that the condition of the self-governing colonies of Britain finds no parallel in the world in making government an immediate reflection of the {146} popular will, and so in giving the utmost possible freedom and weight of influence to the individual citizen. When Lord Dufferin told an American audience at Chicago that Canadians would not breathe freely in a country where the Executive was placed for years together beyond the reach of the popular will, and was not under the constant supervision of the Legislative bodies, he indicated a vital difference which distinguishes the form of popular government in British countries from the American system, a difference which colonists think is all in favour of the former. If the government of any self-ruling dependency of England is bad, the fault lies in the character of the constituency, not in the form of government.
The question, then, is purely one of commercial advantage, a certain supposed and possibly temporary per-centage of trade gain which Canadians would secure by abjuring their national allegiance.