But, what will our Government at home do with the new "North-west Passage" through Canada? The future of Canada depends upon the decision. What will the decision be? How soon will it be given?
Is this great work, the Canadian Pacific Railway, to be left as a monument, at once, of Canada's loyalty and foresight, and of Canada's betrayal: or is it to be made the new land-route to our Eastern and Australian Empire? If it is to be shunted, then the explorations of the last three hundred years have been in vain. The dreams of some of the greatest statesmen of past times are reduced to dreams, and nothing more. The strength given by this glorious self-contained route, from the old country to all the new countries, is wasted. On the other hand, if those who now govern inherit the great traditions of the past; if they believe in Empire; if they are statesmen—then, a line of Military Posts, of strength and magnitude, beginning at Halifax on the Atlantic, and ending at the Pacific, will give power to the Dominion, and, wherever the red-coat appears, confidence in the old brave country will be restored.
Then the soldier, his arms and our armaments, will have their periodical passages backwards and forwards through the Dominion. Mails for the East, for Australia, and beyond, will pass that way; and the subject of every part of the Empire will, as he passes, feel that he is treading the sacred soil of real liberty and progress.
Which is it to be?
Some years ago, Sir John A. Macdonald said, "I hope to live to see the day—and if I do not, that my son may be spared, to see Canada the right arm of England. To see Canada a powerful auxiliary of the Empire, not, as now, a source of anxiety, and a source of danger."
Does Her Majesty's Government echo this aspiration?
Thinking people will recognize that the United States become, year by year, less English and more Cosmopolitan; less conservative and more socialist; less peaceful and more aggressive. Twice within ten years the Presidential elections have pushed the Republic to the very brink of civil war. But for the forbearance of Mr. Tilden and the Democrats, on one occasion; and the caution of leading Republicans when President Cleveland was chosen, disturbance must have happened.
We have yet to see whether Provincial Government may not, in the Dominion, lead towards Separation, rather than towards Union. While one Custom-house and one general Government is aiding Union, the Province of Quebec accentuates all that is French; the Province of Ontario accentuates all that is British: the problem, here, is how, gradually, to weaken sectional, and how gradually to strengthen Union, ideas. State rights led to a civil war in the United States: Provincial Government fifty years hence may lead to conflicts in Canada.
In the United States there was no solution but war. Surely in Canada we can apply the safety valve of augmenting British aid and influence. Why not try the re-introduction of the red-coat of the Queen's soldier —that soldier to be enlisted and officered, let us hope in the early future, from every portion of the Queen's Dominions—as of the one Imperial army;—an Imperial army paid for by the whole Empire.