The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—The absorbing affairs of Europe, the
embarrassments of the present, and the uncertain-
ties of the future have left us but little time of late
to consider events that are passing in other quarters
of the world. The civil war in America is now,
however, no longer the topic of absorbing interest
that it was before the war in Denmark. The Polish
insurrection has been finally trampled out, yet little
is said and less thought about the wrongs of a coun-
try which a few months ago almost monopolised the
sympathies of Europe. Under these circumstances
we need no apology to our readers for recalling their
attention to the local affairs of a dependency of the
British Crown which as yet at any rate is enjoying
the blessings of profound and uninterrupted peace.
The time is rapidly approaching when the complex
tion of the public buildings erected at Ottawa for
the reception of the Governor-General and the two
Houses of the Canadian Parliament will permit the
session to be opened in that remote locality. The
place was, as our readers will remember, fixed upon
by an award made in the name of tie Queen for the
site of the future capital. Many were the murmur-
ings, bitter was the discontent with which this de-
cision was received. Quebec, Toronto, and Montreal
each had their advocates and supporters, Toronto
might plead that she was the capital of the wealthier
the more fertile, and more progressive part of the
colony ; Montreal that she was situated on the con-
fluence of two mighty rivers, accessible to steam
navigation, and on the boundaries of the Upper and
Lower Provinces ; Quebec could boast of her anti-
quity, of the unrivalled beauties of her picturesque
and commanding situation, of her historical renown,
and her long possession of the rank of capital. It
was not likly that persons actuated by these vio-
lent local jealousies should readily acquiesce in any
decision, but there was a large portion of the Cana•
dian public who, without any decided sympathy for
the three competitors for the rank of capital, were
nevertheless as much displeased at the selection of
Ottawa as those whose patriotism was more local or
municipal. They objected to a transfer of the
Canadian Parliament from civilised and thickly
peopled districts, from places busy with the hum of
commerce and presenting the attractions of settled
and civilised society, to a small town, placed, indeed,
in the neighbourhood of resounding waterfalls and
splendid woods, but recently founded, inhabited by
a rude and turbulent population, and remote from
the habitation of almost every member of the Legis-
lature which it was to receive. Placed high up on
a river the navigation of which is impeded by rapids,
and the mighty tributaries of which have not even
yet been all named and explored—with nothing be-
yond it, with no commerce but the lumber trade, and
few inhabitants besides those whom that rude and
primitive labour supports, there was at Ottawa
something wild and repulsive which those authori-
ties who merely contented themselves with unroll•
ing the map and fixing upon the most central
position they could find between East and West
could scarcely conceive. Probably, also, there was
another feeling, less openly avowed, and perhaps
less consciously entertained, which made the
selection of Ottawa unpopular. There was a
time when Canada thought seriously of annexa-
tion to the United States, when, fretting over
imaginary grievances, she believed she would find
a remedy for them all in the bosom of the great
Republic. But long before the breaking out of the
present civil war this feeling had cooled, if it had
not entirely passed away. The United States and
their institutions had lost their charms in the
sight of a Canadian placed c n tie spot, and there•
fore not to be deluded by those soanding phrases
which so long had passed current among English
Radicals. There was no wish to copy the American
plan of selecting the capital of a State the most
insignificant and out of the way town that could
be found, provided its situation was only central.
They saw in the selection of Ottawa for the capital
of Canada a servile imitation of the strange policy
which forbids Baltimore to be the capital of
Maryland, Philadelphia of Pennsylvania, New
York of New York, Cincinnati of Ohio, Chicago
_ _ _

of Illinois, or St. Louis of Missouri. They thougnt,
not unreasonably, that the presence of good so.
ciety, the sessions of Courts of Justice, the assem-
bling of a military force,—that wealth, commerce,
and industry, with all their adjuncts, were more
fitting accompaniments to a Legislative capital
than logs, rapids, and Red Indians. This was, we

believe, the almost unanimous feeling of Canada ;
yet, to the honour of Canada be it spoken, this
unanimous feeling did not prevail. The word of
the Colony had been given, and that word, though,
it must be confessed, not without many demurs and
much repining, has hitherto been honourably ob-
served. Not withstanding the embarrassment of the
Colonial finances, money has been found for the
erection of suitable buildings for the Legislature,
though others existed elsewhere, and the time is
rapidly approaching when the Canadian Parliament
will take possession of its new residence. A diffi-
culty has, however, been started, which, so far as
we know, nobody had mentioned during the long
and acrimonious controversy to which the decision
of the Queen gave rise. It is asserted with con-
siderable snow of reason that the true basis of ope-
rations for the defence of Canada in case of invasion
from the United States must necessarily be the sea.
The frontier of the colony is long and low, running
in the Lower Province from north to south, and in
the Upper Province from east to west, along the
shore of the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes. It
is said, then, that it would be impossible to defend
the Upper Province, a long and narrow strip of
land, against the invasion of armies so numerous
as those which the American Government could
bring against it, now that the Northern States
have become a great military Power. As we
recede from the shores of the St. Lawrence there
is little to tempt an invading or to shelter
and support a retreating army. From this
point of view all those parts of Canada
which a British man-of-war cannot protect are
virtually at the mercy of the United States.
Among these must be reckoned the city of Ottawa,
which though situated on a mighty river is in-
accessible from the sea to ships of any burden on
accoant of the rapids which obstruct the naviga-
tion. It is therefore argued that to place the Par-
liament at Ottawa would be to place the Governor
and the Legislature absolutely at the mercy of the
Americans, and it is earnestly pressed upon us that,
at any rate till the present danger is over, we should
retain the Legislature at Quebec. There is but
one objection to this argument—that it proves too
much. If no place is fit for the capital of Canada
which is not accessible at all times to nn English
man-ofewar, we fear that Canada must go without
a Legislative capital altogether. Certainly, Quebec
is no such capital, for its port is closed by the ice
every year from the end of November to the end
of April ; and the same consideration, of course,
applies with still greater force to the towns of
Montreal and Toronto, which lie higher up the
stream of the St. Lawrence. We have never aps
proved the policy of forcing a capital into existence
in defiance of man and of nature, and even though
this argument against Ottawa be not Conclusive, it
may be allowed some weight in support of a view
against which, as it seems to us, there is really so
little to be said. At the same time, we hardly see
how in the present state of affairs the English
Government can very well take the initiative in
inviting the colony to break that promise to which
they have hitherto insisted on holding it so fast.
POST.—Macaulay's New Zealander is quite as
likely to find himself occupied, when the time for
the fulfilment of the prophecy arrives, with an his-
torical inquiry at some university at thel Antipodes
into the number of Lord Palmerstons who governed
England during the nineteenth century, as to be en-
gaged in sketching ecclesiastical ruins from the
broken arches of the Thames. He will
perhaps be
in much the same doubt as to the plurality of Lord
Palmerston that Nye are in as to the plural existence
of many a mythical hero the diversity of whose
deeds we cannot attribute to any one man. The
New Zealander will probably record that he finds
this Lord Palmerston in office during the first de-
cade of the century, that he finds him Prime
Minister also in the seventh ; he finds him a young
roan is 1804, he finds him still a younger man in
1864; he finds him a friend of Fox and Pitt; he
finds him again the energetic chief of a Cabinet
containing men of the generation of Argyll, and De

Grey and Ripon, and Hartington. Nor is this a
The New Zealander will not only conclude that
there were two or three Lord Palmerstons in the
course of the century, but that there must have beer!
more than one at the same time, and that they rou',
all have been very young men too. The proof of
this he will adduce from the fact that this Lord.
Palmerston, even so late as 1864. appears to be 11.
various places simultaneously. One day he is stated
to be in Northamptonshire, the next day be is in
London ; again he is the sutject of a public ovation
at Bradford, the next instant he is at half-a-dozen
other places, and before the distances could well be
traversed he is again Prime Minister in London.
'Then there are 20 speeches, all purporting to be de:
livered within a fortnight of each other by a ",Lora
Palmerston ;" and it is quite clear that, even if one
man could have made them all, they are in as many
varieties of style, and that they are therefore the
speeches of different persons. No man could be at
once an incipient Statesman in 1804 and a young
Prime Minister in 1864 ; nor can any man be
twenty places and make as many speeches, in es.
many styles in half the number of days. he de_
duction of the historical essayist in New Ze!larld.
will therefore be clear that there were not only,se.v :
re,
ral Lord Palmerstons in England during the !line
.
teenth century, but that the were several slrou'
taneously.. It will be construed to be
official title taken by many, and not dissimilar
that which a French journal less pardonably termed!
some. time ago, " Lord Chiltern Hundreds, an office
in her Majesty's household." We are very
.sorryn
to reflect that there is a limit to political activity
producing public reputation, and that the hoz° of
antiquity tends to lend a doubt whether a great;
variety of actions extending over a corresponds
.e
merely an
.variety of time can reasonably be ascribed to a gagal.
individual. For ourselves, we have a good old Cone
servative belief that there was one Hengist, en.
Hercules, one Zoroaster—and only one; and so °
But, nevertheless, we cannot wholly dispel.our BP
prehension that it may at some distant period be
da
favourite subject for college essays in New e-
-" many Palmerstons were there in the ol- n
teenth century ? and could there have been less than
three Palmerstons at any one time ?" It is the
verse of Whately's " Historic Doubts;" and the tam'
guments
ce
for the übiquity or plurality of Palmers • -
will beat all those that have been raised for. tr
vagueness of Napoleon. At Bradford, r.talobluit'
Lord Palmerston has come forward in anything but
the character of a Minister to whom business
wearisome or fatiguing. " The more the merrier''
is, t
in fact, the drift of his speech from first to lfht;
The first care of the hardest working premier -
u.
has ever governed England was to expose a. P.°P of
lar fallacy concerning " the labours and anxieties _
office." He tells at once that he believes the::
labours and anxieties to be a sheer chimera. If any
sub.leF
man's testimony is to be taken on such
the verdict of a Minister who has had aneffieitias
experience of fifty years, and whose activity has
absorbed all the duties of every office that be do
held, certainly ought to be conclusive. If Yo,,,tibat
your duty, Lord Palmerston says in effect, - and
business have you to complain of labours say
anxieties? If you don't, then, no doubt, You ma.
very well be harassed. All this work and reap
n.
sibility. seems mere child's play to Lord
It. is only to be compared to roiling a stone d°"l.o
hill. One thing, however, Lord Palmerston allowd
to harass even him. It is, whatever " time soh
opportunity. prevent him from doing." That sy"..a„
of eat
faction do, he tells us, is to them a source
; they are of the nature of anvils; nothing
wearies. them ; nothing puts their administratird
machinery out of gear. Can, again, this be the ever,
Palmerston. of sixty years ago ? Perhaps, bow
his lordship's cnaracter is best to be described in t
words he has himself used to shadow out the peed'
s
Pehnersto
liarities of the English people ; and these word,p of
seems to have caught the fancy of the peoPL`
Bradford. " The English character," says Loru
Palmerston, " is marked by perseverance, inclustri:
enterprise, judgment, and courage in pursuing that
which has been undertaken." This, he tells the
people of Bradford, represents especially their own
character, for they have done wonders throngh
perseverance and hard labour; they have converted
a great and barren moor into a great and thriving
commercial town, though in fact their progress has
but begun, and Bradford is destined to see greater
days. All this must be very pleasant to the Brad.,
fordites ; but, whatever may be the fulfilment of the
prediction, there can be no doubt that, as far as
things have gone at present, Bradford deserves the
encomium passed upon it. With the same felicity
Lord Palmerston passes on to other subjects ; BO'
ewers the Knight of Northamptonshire, who told
him at Towcester that he had got all the halfpence
while his colleagues got nothing but kicks, by saying
that the merits of the Administration were in a
marked degree the collective merits of all, and that
no other Cabinet ever possessed a greater proportion
of men of first-class intellect. Possibly this is true;
but at the same time popular instincts are not often
very wide o f the mark ; and when everybody com-
bines to
.think that all these first-class men would
do but little without Lord Palmerston, it becomes
hard to gainsay the universality of the opinion.
'The
country is generally inclined to think that it
owes more to Lord Palmerston than it has owed t°
.anyman since the Duke of Wellington ; and we arein
inclined
..to think that, however partial its dispose'
tion, its judgment is not altogether inaccurate.