The newspapers in the States were filled with articles on the subject, and maps were published showing our country divided up into states, and its very name obliterated. As an instance of the newspaper articles I quote the following from the New York Commercial Bulletin, published in November, 1888, commenting on the speeches of Senator Sherman and Mr. Whitney. The Bulletin says:
“Both are inimical to commercial union unless it also be complemented by political union, or, to phrase it more plainly, they insist that annexation of Canada to the United States can afford the only effective guarantee of satisfactory relations between the two countries, if these are to be permanent. These prominent men, representing each of the great parties that have alternately the administration of this Government in their hands, we are persuaded did not put forth these views at random, but that they voiced the views of other political leaders, their associates, who are aiming at making Canadian annexation the leading issue at the next Presidential election. As if speaking for the Republicans, Senator Sherman, as has already been shown, thinks the country now ready for the question, while Secretary Whitney, as if speaking for the other political party, is not less eager to bring the country face to face with it, even at the risk of war with England.”
The North American Review, one of the most respectable of their magazines, actually published an article by General Benjamin F. Butler, in which, speaking of annexation, he said: “Is not this the fate of Canada? Peacefully we hope, forcefully if we must,” and in the truculent spirit of a freebooter, he suggested that the invading army should be paid by dividing up our land among them. This was followed by the McKinley Bill, aimed of course at all countries, but especially bearing upon the articles where Canada’s trade could be seriously injured. This portion of the bill is generally believed to have been prepared with the assistance and advice of traitors in our own country.
In face of all this a lecturer in this city a few weeks ago made the following statement:
“Let me say once more, that I have been going among the Americans now for more than twenty years. I have held intercourse with people of all classes, parties, professions, characters, and ages, including the youth of a university who are sure to speak as they feel. I never heard the slightest expression of a wish to aggress on Canada, or to force her into the union.”
Among the people of antiquity there was a race that inhabited Mysia, a portion of Asia Minor, lying next to the Hellespont. This race was said to have been once warlike, but they soon degenerated, and acquired the reputation of being the meanest of all people, Mysorum ultimus or last of the Mysians being used as a most contemptuous epithet. The ancients generally hired them to attend their funerals as mourners because they were naturally melancholy and inclined to shed tears. I think that the last lingering remnant of that bygone race must have wandered into this country, and, unable to obtain employment in their natural vocation, mourn and wail over the fate of Canada, urge our people to commit national suicide, and use every effort to destroy that hope and confidence which a young country like our own should always possess. This small clique is working in collusion with our enemies in the States, the design being to entrap us into annexation by force or fraud. This threat upon our country’s life, and the intrigues of these conspirators have had the effect that similar attempts have had upon all nations that have possessed the slightest elements of manliness. The patriotic feeling at once became aroused, the clergy in their pulpits preached loyalty and patriotism, the people burst out into song, and patriotic poems of greater or less merit appeared in the local press everywhere. The Stars and Stripes, often before draped in friendly folds with the Union Jack, disappeared from sight, while our own flag was hoisted all over the land. Battle anniversaries were celebrated, military monuments decorated, and in all public gatherings the loyal sentiment of the people showed itself, not in hostility to the people of the United States, but in bitter contempt for the disloyal among ourselves, who were intriguing to betray the country. This manifestation of the popular feeling killed the commercial union movement. No party in Canadian politics would touch it, and the Commercial Union Club in this city is, I believe, defunct. Its chairman, however, has not given up his designs against Canada. Coming to Canada about twenty years ago, his first mission was to teach the Canadians those high principles of honour of which he wished them to believe he was the living embodiment. His writings and his influence have never been on the side of the continued connection between Canada and the Empire, but it is only within the last year or two that he has thrown off the mask, and taking advantage of the movements in the States to coerce us into annexation has come out openly in favour of the idea under the name of Continental Unity. In his last lecture on “Jingoism,” given a few weeks ago, he made his political farewell. If I placed the slightest confidence in his statement that he had concluded his attacks on Canada, I would not have troubled to answer this, his latest vindictive effusion. But he has already made so many farewells that he calls to mind the numerous farewell performances of antiquated ballet dancers, who usually continue repeating them till they are hissed off the stage. Before three weeks had elapsed he once more appeared before the public, with a letter announcing once more his departure from the stage, and arguing at length in favour of annexation for the purpose of influencing Mr. Solomon White’s Woodstock meeting. Mr. White’s speech and his letter were the only words heard in favour of that view, in a meeting which by an overwhelming majority of both parties in politics, voted against the idea. He will write again and lecture again if he sees any opportunity of doing Canada any injury.
This Oxford Professor has been most systematic in his efforts to carry out his treasonable ideas. He sees several obstacles in his way. The prosperity of the people, their loyalty to their sovereign, their love for the motherland, the idea of imperial unity, the memory of what we owe to the dead who have died for Canada’s freedom, and the martial instinct of our young men which would lead them to fight to maintain the independence of their country. He sees all these influences in his way, while the only inducement he can hold out to us in support of his view is the delusive hope that annexation would make us more prosperous and wealthy. How getting a market among our competitors, who produce everything we sell and are our rivals everywhere, would enrich us is a difficult point to maintain, and as his forte is destruction and not construction, his main efforts are devoted to attacking all that stands in his way. Without the same ability, he seems desirous of playing the part of a second Tom Paine in a new revolution, hoping to stab the mother country, and rob her empire of half a continent, as did that other renegade whose example he tries to imitate. He never loses an opportunity to make Canadians dissatisfied with their lot, trying to make us believe that we are in a hopeless state, while in reality we are exceedingly prosperous. In England he poses as a Liberal Unionist, which gives him a standpoint in that country from which he can attack Canada to the greatest advantage. His book on the Canadian question was evidently written for the purpose of damaging this country in England. One of his very few sympathisers said to me with a chuckle, “It will stop emigration to Canada for five years.” I need not devote time to this, however. Principal Grant has exposed its inaccuracies and unfairness, and proved that this prophet of honour has been guilty of misrepresentations that would shame a fourth-rate Yankee politician.
In the London Anti-Jacobin this summer he tells the English people to turn their attention to Africa, to India, and to Egypt, that there they have fields for achievement, and that other fields may be opened when the Turkish empire passes away, and asks the English people why they should cling to a merely nominal dominion. He evidently longs to see Englishmen, and English treasure and English enterprise given to assist and develop India, Africa, Egypt, or Turkey, anywhere except Canada, which has given him a home and treated him with a forbearance and courtesy unparalleled. The vindictive malignancy of this suggestion to the Anti-Jacobin is manifest. He sees that emigration to the magnificent wheat fields of our North-West will help and strengthen Canada, and so he decries Canada in his book and writes to English journals endeavouring to divert English enterprise and capital to countries inhabited by alien races about whose affairs and possibilities he knows nothing. These are instances of his systematic intrigues against the prosperity of Canada. In February last, to attack the innate loyalty of the people, he delivered to an organisation of young men in this city a lecture on “Loyalty.” The whole aim of the lecture was to throw ridicule upon the very idea. A few men of bad character, who had claimed to be loyal, were quoted to insinuate that loyalty was synonymous with vice. As I have in my lecture on the “United Empire Loyalists” sufficiently answered him on this point, I will pass on to the next which was on “Aristocracy.” The object of this lecture was to discredit aristocracy, to show that the aristocracy belong to England and to the Empire, and to try to arouse the democratic instincts of a democratic country like ours against British connection. To weaken, if possible, the natural feeling of the people towards the land of their ancestors. His last lecture, on “Jingoism,” is the one I principally wish to deal with, as it is aimed at the other influences, which this Mysian desires to weaken in furtherance of his traitorous plans. The main object is to strike at our national spirit, at the evidences of it, and at the causes which increase and nourish this sentiment. He combines in a few words what he objects to: “Hoisting of flags, chanting martial songs, celebration of battle anniversaries, erection of military monuments, decoration of patriotic graves, arming and reviewing the very children in our public schools.” In his elegant way he says: “If Jingoism finds itself in need of all these stimulants, we shall begin to think it must be sick.” As a matter of fact, it is these manifestations of a Canadian national spirit that make him sick, to use his own elegant phrase. He says, “Jingoism” originated in the music halls of London. No feeling could have originated in that way in Canada. We have neither the music halls nor the class of population he refers to. With his usual inaccuracy and want of appreciation of historical teaching he fails to see that the national spirit in Canada has shown itself in exactly the same way as the same feeling has been exhibited in all great nations in all ages, and has been evoked by the same cause, viz. national danger. He speaks of protectionism coming back to us from the tomb of mediæval ignorance, forgetting that he helped to resurrect it in 1878 and gave the influence of his pen and voice to put that principle in power. The volunteer movement, that embodiment of the martial instinct of our race, the outcome of the manly feeling of our youth to be willing to fight for the freedom and autonomy of their native land is another great element that stands in the way of the little gang of conspirators, and so our lecturer attacks the whole force. As we have no standing army, he praises the regular soldiers, so as by innuendo the more forcibly to insult our volunteers; insinuates that it is something feminine in the character of our people that induces them to flirt with the scarlet and coquette with the steel. This historian says the volunteer movement in England was no pastime, it was a serious effort to meet a threatened danger; but, unfortunately for his argument, the danger never came to anything. And yet he ought to know that volunteers in England have never seen a shot fired in anger for over two hundred years, and that he was speaking to the citizens of a city, that have seen in every generation since it was founded dead comrades brought home for burial who had died in action for their country. The loss of life and the hardships of the North-west campaign, the exposure to the bitter cold of winter storms, and the other sufferings of our Toronto lads on the north shore trip, of course, were only pastime, while the parading in the parks and commons of England, in the long summer evenings, has been a serious effort. The erection of a monument at Lundy’s Lane, unless it included honouring the aggressors who fought against us and tried to wrest from us our country, is described as “the meanness of unslaked hatred.” Are the monuments all over England, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Rome, Greece and the United States all evidences of “the meanness of unslaked hatred”? They have never hitherto been looked at in that light. The professor, however, considering how he is always treating a country that has used him far better than he ever deserved, should be a first-class authority on the meanness of unslaked and unfounded hatred. After twenty-five years the people of Toronto decorated the monument in honour of their dead volunteers, who died in defence of Canada in 1866. There was not one word of swagger or fanfaronade, simply an honouring of the memory of the dead, and pointing out the lesson it taught to the living to be true to their country. This is the cause of a sneer from this man, who seems to forget that those who fell in 1866 died for Canada. What more could man do than give up his life in defence of his country? And yet we, the people of Toronto, have to submit to these insults to the memory of our dead fellow-citizens. An earnest protest is also made against teaching patriotism to our children in the public schools, making them nurseries, as he says, of party passion. Of all the many instances of the false arguments and barefaced impertinence of this stranger, this is the worst. What party in this country is disloyal? What party is not interested in Canadian patriotism? A few strangers, some like the Athenian Eschines, believed to be in the pay of the enemy, some actuated only by natural malignity, are trying to destroy Canada, and find the patriotic spirit of our people in the way. These men have tried to hang on to the outskirts of a great and loyal party, and by the ill odour which attaches to them have injured the party, which longs to be quit of them. When Goldwin Smith’s letter was read at the Woodstock meeting another letter from the foremost Liberal leader in Canada was there advising the Liberal party to be true to its fidelity to the old flag, to vote down the resolutions of the conspirators, and to show that we were prepared to sacrifice something to retain the allegiance of this great Dominion to the sovereign we love. I have never referred to this question without vouching for the loyalty of the great body of the Liberal party, and especially for the loyalty of my old leaders, the Hon. George Brown, Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Blake and Mr. Mowat. And Mr. Mowat voiced the feeling of all true Canadians, for, thank God, this has not yet become a party question. As is done in Switzerland, and as is universally done in the United States—and all honour to them for it—all parties will unite to teach our children to honour our own flag, to sing our own songs, to celebrate the anniversaries of our own battles, to learn our own history, and will endeavour to inspire them with a national spirit and a confidence in our future. In all this, remember that we do not want war. It is the last thing anyone wants. These intrigues between traitors here and enemies in the States may betray us into war, but if it comes, it will not be the fault of the Canadian people, or the great mass of the right-thinking people of the United States. We only want to be let alone. We have everything a nation requires, we have an immense territory and resources, we are as free as air, with as good institutions as any country in the world. We do not wish to lose our nationality or to join a country for mere mercenary considerations where, in addition to a thousand other disadvantages, we would have to pay more as our share of the pension fund alone than the whole interest on our present national debt. We have nothing whatever to fight for; we don’t even require their market unless we can get it on equal and honourable terms. We do not intend, as some advise, to kneel down in the gutter in front of our neighbour’s place of business, and put up our hands and blubber and beg him to trade with us. Such a course would be humiliating to the self-respect of a professional tramp. A war could do us no good—could give us no advantage we do not now possess, save that it would rid us of our traitors. It would be a fearful struggle, and, no matter how successful we might be, would bring untold loss and suffering upon our people. This professor of history, who asks if we want war, ought to know that every attempt in the past to carry out his views has resulted in bloodshed. In 1775 our people fought against the idea. In 1812 they fought again in the same cause. In 1837, in spite of real grievances, all was forgotten in the loyalty of the Canadians, and once more by bloodshed the feeling of the people was manifested. On the 27th October, 1874, the Globe editorially told him that what he was advocating simply meant revolution, and yet this man who is taking a course that he knows leads in the direction of war and bloodshed has the impudence to charge loyal men who are working in the opposite direction with wanting war.
The Swiss have for 500 years celebrated their battle anniversaries and honoured their flag and taught patriotism and military drill to their children. Their whole male population is drilled, and yet no one charges them with being an aggressive or “jingo” race; no one ever dreams that they desire war. It is a fallacious and childish argument to say that this kind of national spirit in itself indicates an aggressive feeling. If so, the United States must be a most aggressive race, for no country waves her flag more persistently with cause or without; no country more generally decorates the graves of her dead soldiers, and no country is erecting so many military monuments, and I respect them for it. By all means let us live on friendly terms with our neighbours, but certainly no people would despise us as much as they would were all Canadians so cowardly and contemptible as some sojourners here wish us to be.
The census returns seem to cause great satisfaction to our enemies. The progress has not been as fast as some could wish, and the exodus of our people is much talked of. The only trouble I find is that the exodus is not as extensive as it should be. The man who cannot get on here, or who is dissatisfied with Canada or her institutions, is right to go to the country he likes best. It does not cost much to go, and, if he wishes, by all means let him go. The man to be despised is he who, dissatisfied here, remains here, and, using the vantage ground of residence in the country, exerts every effort to injure and destroy it. If a few of this class would join the exodus, instead of doing all they can to increase it, it would be a blessing, and in the end increase materially both our population and our prosperity. Strength does not consist so much in numbers as in quality. When Hannibal was crossing into Italy he called for volunteers to stay behind to garrison some posts; not that he required them, but because he desired to rid himself of the half-hearted. Some thousands volunteered to remain. He then considered his army much stronger than when it was more numerous, because the weak element was gone. Shakespeare, that great master of human nature, puts the same idea in Henry V.’s mouth on the eve of Agincourt, when in the face of fearful danger: