From: grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray)
Newsgroups: can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: History of North America Re: REpublicanisn vs. Monarchists (Was Re: Beauregard vs. Yadallee)
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:36:43 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

In article <SMITH.92Sep3113952@minerva.harvard.edu> smith@minerva.harvard.edu (Steven Smith) writes:
|grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) writes:
|
|> I know of no Crown colonoies which were established in the 
|> Canadian west (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta).
|
|Perhaps my friends in British Columbia have a point when they posit
|that they are ignored by eastern Canada.

This little discussion seems to be going nowhere but it was my impression
that you were discussing the purchase of the Hudson Bay Company lands
when you segued into a discussion of Crown Colonies. The settlement of 
these lands was the policy of the Canadian government.

Perhaps you will make your point again about the establishment of
colonies in the west and the relationship of these to Canada.

|
|> The enormous economic investment which occurred in the Canadian
|> west came from the Canadian economy. The building of the Pacific
|> railway almost bankrupted and destroyed Canada.  It was a Canadian
|> achievement in which the British played NO PART.

Are you not going to support your point that the UK opened up the
Canadian west? Are you conceding that this enormous enterprise was
conducted by Canadians to create their own country.

|> 
|> Canadian soldiers did not fight in any British colonial war.  This
|> was a major point of contention in Canada. Volunteers were allowed
|> to participate but there was no official Canadian participation in
|> any British colonial war.
|> 
|> |foreign affairs exclusively until just after the turn of the century.
|> 
|> This is just not so. Canadians won the right to represent themsleves
|> internationally at the time of Confederation. There was an
|> embassy in Washington and even London. Canadians did not see 
|> themselves as the arms of any empire.
|
|These fallacious statements are corrected by Tom Box
|(CZ94@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA) in his recent post.
|

I agree that I phrased this badly. The commision to the UK represented
Canada in commercial relations with the governments of Europe not just 
the UK.

Canadians won 4 of 5 memberships on the International Joint Commision
which arbitrated disputes with the US. The reaction in Canada to the
decision on the Alaskan Boundary Question which was anger at a
percieved UK betrayal, revealed that Canadians had a sense of their
own interest which was beyond that of the British Empire.

|> |Canada's early political phrases ``A British subject I will die,''
|> |``Canada first within the Empire,'' and ``Daughter in my mother's
|> |house, but mistress in my own'' (from Kipling), uttered in response to
|> |such ideas as American annexation and Imperial federation, indicate
|> |the direction she chose to follow in the last century: a
|> |self-governing nation loyal to the British Empire.
|> | 
|> |> MacDonald, Mackenzie and Laurier who followed them were all committed
|> |> to the creation of a new nation state. A nation state with ties to the
|> |> UK but an independent nation state nonetheless.
|> |
|> |This was the essential desire of Imperial Britain: to be ``the mother
|> |of free nations.''  If frankness were a Victorian quality, they might
|> 
|> I said an independent state with a separate national identity. You
|> keep bringing up the rehetoric of the "little England" crowd of
|> British politicians and expect it to apply to Canada. Give some
|> exaamples of policies of Canadian governments which showed a
|> desire for an imperial alliance. I cannot even conceive of
|> W.L. Mackenzie or H. Mercier supporting such a concept.
|> It was against the policies of both governing parties.
|> Just where do you find evidence in Canadian history of any
|> desire to to form a united empire?
|> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

However You began this thread by insisting that Canada was created to
further UK imperial interests in North America. I responded by showing
that Canadians had a sense of separate identity and distinctive
interests even from the earliest days. I showed that Canadians demonstrated
this by insisting on governing themselves in their own interests and
won this right in rejecting the Durham report (which you said was used
as a model).

Now your point has seemed to shift in the debate and now (as I interpret it)
that although Canadians saw themselves as separate it was still the UK
interest which drove Canada. You even make quote's about "mistress in my
own house" or Macdonald's rejection of reciprocity with the US which
seem to contradict this point.

Now you seem to agree that Canadians had an interest in their own
country. You seem to be saying that they wished this country to be
part of some imperial federation. This was not the policy of any
government in Canada which followed Confederation. The policies of`these
governments was to continually assert their own autonomy. 
Will you please show some evidence that it was the policy of the
government of Canada to participate in an imperial federation?
I keep asking you this question but I cannot find that you ever
answer it. It seems to be the central point of this discussion.
Canadians saw themselves as Canadians (or Nova Scotians, or Metis
or French Canadians), they did not see themselves as members of a
united British Empire. I know the UK government attempted to create
such a system but it was never accepted.


Perhaps a British quote will assist:

We are laying the foundations of a great state perhaps one which at
some future day may even overshawdow this country. But, come what may,
we shall that we have shown neither indifference to to their wishes
nor jealousy of their aspirations, but that we honestly and sincerely,
to the utmost of our power and knowledge, fostered their growth,
recognizing in it the condition of our own greatness.

                      Lord Carnovan - Colonial Scretary

It seems that Carnavan recognized the desire of Canadians to form
a new independent nationality.

Now I ask you once again. Canadians may have had ties of affection to the
UK but they did not wish to be members of a united empire. They did
not participate (officially) in colonial wars, they struck their
own commercial policies. What government of Canada had as its policy
the creation of an Imperial Federation to the exclusion of Canadian
national interest?


-- 
i.sinature