A people of more than four millions will owe something over £13,000,000, as compared with a people of thirty millions owing £900,000,000 sterling; and with a trade of £27,000,000 a-year there is no compensating power in any commercial superiority the United States may possess to establish an equation. If the expenses of the local and of the Federal Governments be properly kept in hand, the condition of the British Confederation, in a pecuniary point of view at all events, must be infinitely better than that of the Federal Union either by itself or with the Southern States.

The Confederation which has just been proposed by delegates at Quebec, and which will come before Parliament soon after this volume escapes from the printers, vests the Executive in the Sovereign of Great Britain; a superfluous investiture, unless the delegates meant rebellion; and it provides for its administration according to the British constitution, by the Sovereign or authorised representative. It does not appear very plain how the Sovereign of a mixed monarchy with a limited franchise for the people can administer his quasi-republican and unaristocratic viceroyalty according to the principles of the British constitution; particularly, as the Sovereign or his representative is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces of the Confederation, which are thus expressly removed from the control of the War-Office at home. Difficulties of a merely technical character will no doubt be overcome. But the King of Great Britain and Ireland, in whom the Executive is vested, will have to deal with a Transatlantic House of Commons founded on abstract returns of population, and elected by the provinces according to their local laws; so that some members will represent universal suffrage, and others limited constituencies, which is very different indeed from the House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland.

In the Upper House a Wensleydale peerage is reproduced. It is to consist of seventy-six members nominated by the Sovereign for life, of whom twenty-four are assigned to Upper Canada, and twenty-four to Lower Canada, ten for Nova Scotia, ten for New Brunswick, four for Newfoundland, and four for Prince Edward Island. The Lower House, far less aristocratic in its relations to Lower and Upper Canada, has eighty-two members from the latter, and sixty-five from the former, nineteen from Nova Scotia, fifteen for New Brunswick, eight for Newfoundland, and five for Prince Edward Island. “Saving the Sovereignty of England,” the powers of the Federal Parliament, as enumerated under thirty-seven different heads, are very large, and on such heads as currency and coinage seem to trench on dangerous ground, and in the last head of all are dangerously vague. The appointment of the Lieutenant-Governor by the Federal Government itself is obviously open to exception, because it is anomalous; but as all the principles as well as the details of the measure will receive the most careful consideration, it is not necessary to treat the proposal as an accomplished fact, although it certainly is most desirable to treat every article with respectful attention, and to give every weight to the expressed opinion of the delegates. Among the objects specially indicated for the future action of the Confederate or Federal Government are the completion of the Intercolonial Railway from Rivière du Loup to Truro, in Nova Scotia, through the Province of New Brunswick, and the completion of communication with the North-Western territories, so as to open the trade to the Atlantic seacoast; both to be effected as soon as the Federal finances permit. Here there is the most tangible proposal for the opening up of the great regions to which I have called attention; and the Valley of the Saskatchewan is promised the facility which is alone wanting to make it the seat of a flourishing colony. When the Red River Settlement is once connected with Lake Superior, the way to the sea is open, but the advantages of access to the world will be increased enormously as soon as the railway is pushed on to the shores of Lake Huron from Nova Scotia.

So eager is one to grasp at the benefits which some such Confederation promises to confer, that the perils to the prerogative of the Crown, and to the body so formed, are apt to lie hid from view. But they must be well guarded against; and I for one am persuaded that it would be far better for us to see the Provinces of British America independent than to behold them incorporated with the Northern Republic. The greatest of all these internal perils is in the maintenance of the Local Parliaments, which may come into collision with the Federal Government on local questions impossible to foresee, or define, or adjust; but as the delegates considered the plan of a complete Legislative Union quite incompatible with the reserved rights of a portion of the Confederation, the only way left to escape the mischiefs which threaten the future life of the new body is to bind those Local Parliaments within the most narrow limits, consistent with local utility and existence.

It is not for the sake of our future connection, but for their own integrity and happiness that such a course is recommended. They have “an awful example” at their doors. The torrents of blood which have deluged the soil of the North American Republics all welled out of the little chink in the corner-stone of the Constitution, on one side of which lay States’ Rights, and on the other Federal Authority. Without some justification in law and in argument, such men as Calhoun, and Stephens, and Davis, would never have reasoned, and planned, and fought, and worked a whole people up to make war against the Union. Sad as the spectacle is of a community of freemen waging war against the principles of self-government, it must be admitted that their instinct may be sounder than their reasoning, and that they are engaged in a struggle for self-preservation, in which they have swelled their proportions into that of a gigantic despotism, but have after all attained a giant’s port and strength. It is impossible to say whether the corruption which Montesquieu has declared to be the destruction of a democracy, has yet seized upon the tremendous impersonation of brute force, of unconquerable will, of passion, of lust of empire, which now rules in the Capitol, and occupies the throne whereon feebly sat heretofore the mild impuissance of the old Federal Executive; but if the pictures which have been presented to us be true, there is a prophetic meaning in the words of the philosophic Frenchman:—“Les politiques grecs, qui vivaient dans le gouvernement populaire, ne reconnaissaient d’autre force qui pût le soutenir que celle de la vertu. Ceux d’aujourd’hui ne nous parlent que des manufactures, de commerce, de finances, de richesse, et de luxe même.” The giant’s feet may be of clay, and his body may be of that artificial stiffening which gives to worthless stuffs a temporary substantiality, but behind the giant stand the great American people, with hands dyed in their brothers’ gore, and who, having sacrificed friendship, traditions, constitution, and liberty at home, will think but little of adding to the pyre of their angry passions the peace and happiness of others.

THE END.

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

[ Map of Canada; click here for larger image.]