Canada and the States

by Sir E. W. Watkin

"I think it is to their honour, that the Highlanders in all the Lower Provinces preserve faithfully the religion, as well as the language and traditions of their fathers. The Catholic Bishop of Charlottetown is a McIntyre; his Right Rev. Brother of Arichat (Cape Breton) is a McKinnon; and in the list of the clergy, I find a. constant succession of such names as McDonald, McGillis, McGillvary, McLeod, McKenzie, and Cameron—all 'Anglo-Saxons' of course, and mixed up with them Fourniers, Gauvreaus, Paquets, and Martells, whose origin is easy to discover. Another of the original elements of that population remains to be noticed—the U. E. Loyalists, who founded New Brunswick (as they founded Upper Canada), for whom New Brunswick was made a separate Province in 1784, as Upper Canada was for their relatives in 1791. Their descendants still flourish in the land, holding many positions of honour; and as a representative of the class, I shall only mention Judge Wilmot, who the other day declared, in charging one of his grand juries, that if it were necessary to carry Confederation in New Brunswick, so impressed was he with the necessity of the measure, to the very existence of British laws and British institutions on this continent, he was prepared to quit the Bench and return to politics. There are other elements also not to be overlooked. The thrifty Germans of Lunenberg, whose homes are the neatest upon the land, as their fleet is the tightest on the sea; and other small sub-divisions; but I shall not prolong this analysis. I may observe, however, that this population is almost universally a native population of three or four or more generations. In New Brunswick, at the most there is about twelve per cent. of an immigrant people; in Nova Scotia, about eight; in the two Islands, even less. In the eye of the law, we admit no disparity between natives and immigrants in this country; but it is to be considered that where men are born in the presence of the graves of their fathers, for even a few generations, the influence of the fact is great in enhancing their attachment to that soil. I admit, for my part, as an immigrant, of no divided allegiance to Canada and her interest; but it would be untrue and paltry to deny a divided affection between the old country and the new. Kept within just bounds, such an affection is reasonable, is right and creditable to those who cherish it. Why I refer to this broad fact, which distinguishes the populations of all the four seaward Provinces, as much as it does Lower Canada herself, is, to show the fixity and stability of that population; to show that they are by birth British-Americans; that they can nearly all, of every origin, use that proud phrase when they look daily from their doors, 'This is my own, my native land.' Let but that population and ours come together for a generation or two—such are the elements that compose, such the conditions that surround it—and their mutual descendants will hear with wonder, when the history of these present transactions is written, that this plan of union could ever have been seriously opposed by statesmen in Canada or elsewhere. I am told, however, by one or two members of this House, and by exclusive-minded Canadians out of it, that they cannot get up any patriotic feeling about this union with New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and that they cannot look with any interest at those Colonies, with which we have had hitherto so little association. 'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba!' Well, I answer to that, Know them, and my word for it, you will like them. I have made several journeys there, and I have seen much of the people, and the more I have seen of them, the more I respected and esteemed them. I say, then, to these gentlemen, that if you desire any patriotism on the subject; if you want to stir up a common sentiment of affection between these people and ourselves, bring us all into closer relation together, and, having the elements of a vigorous nationality within us, each will find something to like and respect in the other; mutual confidence and respect will follow, and the feeling of being engaged in a common cause for the good of a common nationality will grow up of itself without being forced by any man's advocacy. The thing who shuts up his heart against his kindred, his neighbours, and his fellow-subjects, may be a very pretty fellow at a parish vestry, but do you call such a forked- radish as that, a man? Don't so abuse the noblest word in the language.

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"But there is one special source of wealth to be found in the Maritime Provinces, which was not in any detail exhibited by my hon. friends—I allude to the important article of coal. I think there can be no doubt that, in some parts of Canada, we are fast passing out of the era of wood as fuel, and entering on that of coal. In my own city every year, there is great suffering among the poor from the enormous price of fuel, and large sums are paid away by national societies and benevolent individuals, to prevent whole families perishing for want of fuel. I believe we must all concur with Sir William Logan, that we have no coal in Canada, and I may venture to state, on my own authority, another fact, that we have—a five months' winter, generally very cold.

"Sir W. E. Logan demonstrated by a laborious survey the thickness or depth of the whole group in Northern Nova Scotia to be over 2 3/4 miles, an amount which far exceeds anything seen in the coal formation in other parts of North America; in this group there are seventy-six coal beds one above the other.

"These exhaustless coal fields will, under our plan—which is in fact our Reciprocity Treaty with the Lower Provinces—become, hereafter, the great resource of our towns for fuel. I see the cry is raised below by the anti-Unionists, that to proceed with Confederation would be to entail the loss of the New England market for their coals. I do not quite see how they make this out, but even an anti-Unionist might see that the population of Canada is within a fraction of that of all New England put together, that we consume in this country as much fuel per annum as they do in New England; and, therefore, that we offer them a market under the Union equal to that which these theorizers want to persuade their followers they would lose. Sir, another cry raised by the anti-Unionists below is, that they would have to fight for the defence of Canada—a very specious argument. What, Sir, three millions and one million unite, and the one million do the fighting for all! In proportion to their numbers no doubt these valiant gentlemen will have to fight, if fighting is to be done, but not one man or one shilling more than Canada, pro rata, will they have to risk or spend. On the contrary, the greater community, if she should not happen to be first attacked, would be obliged to fight for them, and in doing so, I do not hesitate to say, on far better authority than my own, that the man who fights for the valley and harbour of St. John, or even for Halifax, fights for Canada. I will suppose another not impossible case. I will suppose a hostile American army, on a fishery or any other war, finding it easier and cheaper to seize the Lower Colonies by land than by sea, by a march from a convenient rendezvous on Lake Champlain, through Lower Canada, into the upper part of New Brunswick, and so downward to the sea—a march like Sherman's march from Knoxville to Savannah. While we obstructed such a march by every means in our power, from the Richelieu to Riviere du Loup, whose battles would we be fighting then? Why, the seaports aimed at, for our common subjugation. But the truth is, all these selfish views and arguments are remarkably short-sighted, unworthy of the subject, and unworthy even of those who use them. In a commercial, in a military, in every point of view, we are all, rightly considered, dependent on each other. Newfoundland dominates the Gulf, and none of us can afford to be separated from her. Lord Chatham said he would as soon abandon Plymouth as Newfoundland to a foreign power, and he is thought to have understood how to govern men. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are Siamese twins, held together by that ligature of land between Baie Verte and Cumberland Basin, and the fate of the one must follow the fate of the other. Prince Edward Island is only a little bit broken off by the Northumberland Strait from those two bigger brethren, and Upper and Lower Canada are essential to each other's prosperity.

"If the honest and misguided would but reflect for a moment the risks they run by defeating, or even delaying this measure, I am sure they would, even yet, retract. If we reject it now, is there any human probability that we shall ever see again so propitious a set of circumstances to bring about the same results? How they came about we all know. The strange and fortunate events that have occurred in Canada; the extraordinary concessions made by the leaders of the Governments below—Dr. Tupper, the Nova Scotian Premier, for instance, admitting to his confidence, and bringing with him here as his co- representatives, the Hon. Messrs. Archibald and McCully, two of his most determined political opponent—can we ever expect, if we reject this scheme, that the same or similar things will occur again to favour it? Can we expect to see the leader of the Upper Canadian Conservative party and the leader of the Upper Canadian Liberals sitting side by side again, if this project fails to work out, in a spirit of mutual compromise and concession, the problem of our constitutional difficulties? No, Sir, it is too much to expect. Miracles would cease to be miracles if they were events of every-day occurrence; the very nature of wonders requires that they should be rare; and this is a miraculous and wonderful circumstance, that men at the head of the Governments in five separate Provinces, and men at the head of the parties opposing them, all agreed at the same time to sink party differences for the good of all, and did not shrink, at the risk of having their motives misunderstood, from associating together for the purpose of bringing about this result. I have asked, Sir, what risks do we run if we reject this measure? We run the risk of being swallowed up by the spirit of universal democracy that prevails in the United States. Their usual and favourite motto is—

"'No pent-up Utica contracts our powers,
But the whole boundless continent is ours.

That is the popular paraphrase of the Monroe doctrine. And the popular voice has favoured—aye, and the greatest statesmen among them have looked upon it as inevitable—an extension of the principles of democracy over this continent. Now, I suppose a universal democracy is no more acceptable to us than a universal monarchy in Europe would have been to our ancestors; yet for three centuries—from Charles V. to Napoleon—our fathers combated to the death against the subjugation of all Europe to a single system or a single master, and heaped up a debt which has since burdened the producing classes of the Empire with an enormous load of taxation, which, perhaps, none other except the hardy and ever-growing industry of those little islands could have borne up under. The idea of a universal democracy in America is no more welcome to the minds of thoughtful men among us than was that of a universal monarchy to the minds of the thoughtful men who followed the standard of the third William, or who afterwards, under the great Marlborough, opposed the armies of the particular dynasty that sought to place Europe under a single dominion.

"But if we are to have a universal democracy on this continent, the Lower Provinces—the smaller fragments—will be 'gobbled up' first, and we will come in afterwards by way of dessert. The proposed Confederation will enable us to bear up shoulder to shoulder; to resist the spread of this universal democracy doctrine; it will make it more desirable to maintain on both sides the connection that binds us to the parent State; it will raise us from the position of mere dependent colonies to a new and more important position; it will give us a new lease of existence under other and more favourable conditions; and resistance to this project, which is pregnant with so many advantages to us and to our children, means simply this, ultimate union with the United States. But these are small matters, wholly unworthy of the attention of the Smiths, and Annands, and Palmers, who have come forward to forbid the banns of British-American Union. Mr. Speaker, before I draw to a close the little remainder of what I have to say— and I am sorry to have detained the House so long—

I beg to offer a few observations apropos of my own position as an English-speaking member for Lower Canada. I venture, in the first place, to observe that there seems to be a good deal of exaggeration on the subject of race, occasionally introduced, both on the one side and the other, in this section of the country. I congratulate my honorable friend, the Attorney-General for this section, on his freedom from such prejudices in general, though I still think in matters of patronage and the like he always looks first to his own compatriots for which neither do I blame him. But this theory of race is sometimes carried to an anti-christian and unphilosophical excess. Whose words are these—'God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth'? Is not that the true theory of race? For my part, I am not afraid of the French Canadian majority in the future local government doing injustice, except accidentally; not because I am of the same religion as themselves; for origin and language are barriers stronger to divide men in this world than is religion to unite them. Neither do I believe that my Protestant compatriots need have any such fear. The French Canadians have never been an intolerant people; it is not in their temper, unless they had been persecuted, perhaps, and then it might have been as it has been with other races of all religions.