The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-22 00:00:00

pointreent at the failure of Grant's expedition, and growing
financial embarrassment, may perhaps at last produce a re-
action in favour of peace. It is impossible to foresee the
course of popular feeling, nor does it follow that urgent
sons will operate as cogent motives of action. Perhaps, how •
ever, the collapse of Grant's military reputation may render
a change of policy more feasible. The Democratic party sonic
time since postponed its convention at Chicago to the end of
July, with the obvious purpose of waiting for the result of
the pending campaign. If Richmond had been taken, it
would have been necessary either to acquiesce in the re•
election of Mr Lincoln, or to persuade the victorious com •
mender to accept a Dernecratic nomination. As both can-
didates are now discredited by a succession of defeats, there
is at last an opening for No rival has, on the
whole, displayed less invpacity, and the unwise enmity of
Mr Lincoln has converted his former General into an irre-
concilable opponent. The Democrats have for some time
discovered that it was useless to affect, in their contest with
the Republicans, superior enthusiasm for the prosecution of
the war. Even now their success is hopeless unless they
undertake to advocate a policy of their own, and there can
be no doubt that the majority of their leaders are sincerely
desirous of peace. For the present, it will be necessary to
possess a determination to preserve the Union, but the real
terms of compromise will consist in the recognition of
Southern sovereignty, to which it would be the policy of the
North to add a Customs Union, and, if possible, a common
fsreign policy. There are some indications that the Confe-
derate Government would not be unwilling to listen to such
proposals, and it might not be impossible to reconcile
Northern feeling to an alliance which would partake of the
nature of a federation. Whenever the negotiations com-
mence, the scheme which may be adopted will be recom-
mended to popular favour by its Northern promoters on the
ground that it will facilitate the humiliation of England by
the conquest of Canada. There are, in fact, dangers of the
kind to bo apprehended, whenever the present contest is
terminated; but, for some time to come, neither the North
nor the South will be inclined to engage in a wholly gra-
tuitous war of aggression.
THE SPECTATOR.—MR BROWN ON THE CANADIAN
FUTURE.-It is a pity that the speeches of colonial notables
are so seldom reported at home. They are frequently as
much superior to colonial articles as the Parliamentary de-
bates are to our own provincial leaders. The Hon. George
Brown, for example, member for " South Oxford, Canada,"
and author of the plan for the federation of the North
American Colonies, has recently explained his policy to his
constituents in a speech which is incomparably the best
essay yet published en the political history, position, and
prospects of Upper and Lower Canada. It does not add
very much except upon one grand point to the information
previously received, but itjustifies the new policy suggested
by arguments which will weigh heavily with.her Majesty's
Government. Mr Brown talks like an English statesman,
without a trace of bombast or dreamy oratory, states facts
simply, quotes figures which do not weary, bases a great
proposition upon intelligible grounds of national interest,
looks steadily at the future, and above all refers throughout
his discourse to ideas higher than those of mere political
expediency. The coalition which he has helped to frame is
in itself, he declares, a thing to be condemned. A combina-
tion of politicians who have always opposed each other
to take office ought, he argues , prima facie to shock the
public mind, can be justified only by the presence of some
overpowering national need, but in this instance the need,
he contends, exists. The state of things is, it appears, even
worse than was at first reported in this country. We all
knew that the political equality of the provinces had ren-
dered Government impossible, that three administrations
had been overset in three years, that the country was in a
perpetual agony of elections, and that the finance of the
combined colonies was wasteful beyond all precedent. But
we did not all recognise that the equality was based on a
radical injustice so great that unless another remedy could
befound one mast be sought in a dissolution of partnership.
Not only has Upper Canada outstripped her rival in popu-
lation by 400,000 souls, say 30 per cent., so that in one in-
stance a county member represents more electors than eight
other county members elected by the same class, but there
is still a greater inequality in taxation. Upper Canada,
possessing only half the political power of the united colony,
pays four-fifths of its taxation, contributing, for example,
578,000 dole from excise duties, while Lower Canada yields
only 193,000 dols. The productions of the two provinces,
the best means of testing their comparative wealth, show a
still greater disproportion, the mostiinportant items being—
Upper Canada. Lower Canada.
Wheat (bushels) ~.. 24,620,000 2,654,000
Indian corn (bushel) 2,256,000 334,000
Value of farms end wick

for taxation (dole) 306,442,000 178,870,000
Whatever, therefore, is taken as the basis of calculation,
population, or property, or taxation, or all three, the more
numerous and wealthy and highly taxed province is still
always the sufferer. Add to these fac,s that the equality is
in reality only nominal, that the lesser and poorer and lees
taxed French Catholic province permanently governs the
larger and richer and higher taxed English Protestant pro-
vince, and we have a state of affairs which in the nature of
things could not hope to endure. It is as if England were
subject to Ireland under the semblance of strict political
equality, and compelled to provide from her own resources
a tribute to fatten her less energetic associate. This really
happened in the Canadas. The representatives of the
Lower Province always voting together always retained
the substance of power in their own hands, and they used
It to spend on the province contributing one-fifth as much
as on the province contributing four-fifths of the common
fund. "If an extra sum at any time has to be voted to
Upper Canada for any special purpose, a corresponding
sum must be invariably appropriated to Lower Canada to
maintain the equilibrium I Three or four to one is the
principle of taxation—equality is the principle of expendi-
tUre 1" It does not need much to prove that an English
and Protestant majority is not likely to endure long so
preposterous an arrangement, kept up for the exclu-
sive benefit of a French and Catholic minority.
peeres of a
,h verye
details extensive
are kind.
not
yet
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b ut
it Mr
is
So evident did this appear that even the French Canadians
admitted the propriety of re-arrangement, and only pleaded
Brown, are to be conceded, and this is the most important
hfoirntloicl
nahpisowsch. The
obvious that the clauses in the American Constitution which
prescribe a monotonous uniformity of form to the different
State Govern:nents will not be repeated in the Canadian
federal compact. The desires and interests of the colonies
are too widely opposed. No clause prohibiting hereditary
power will be or can be sanctioned by the British Govern-
ment, the French Canadians are determined to uphold the
"right" of their Church, to place it beyond the power of a
Protestant majority; they are resolved that their language
shall not be superseded; they intend to keep the civil law as
the basis of their legislation ; and they will not give up their
own ideas, which are English ideas, upon the descent of
landed property. All these questions must therefore be
declared local questions, and it will be difficult to a
degree to retain for the central Parliament sufficient
authority to make unity any longer desirable. The
scheme, it is true, will admit of internal experiments, of
diverse or hostile forms of society highly favourable to
development, but then so would separate colonial life,
and the Coalition may go so far as to destroy the national
sentiment they obviously wish to foster, to create an
antagonism of civilisation in place of an antagonism of geo-
graphical position./This is the rock upon which the Ameri-
can Union has split, and if the new Ministry does not deal
very tenderly with the matter it will find that it has created
a powerless end therefore usually mischievous central as-
sembly. It is the enormous power of Parliament, its sense
of responsibility, which steadies its action, and to bind it in
paper bonds, to deprive it of the power of acting in emer-
gency with autocratic energy and decision, is to deprive it
of its greatest means of utility. Italy exists as Rome
existed, because her Parliament could at need create a Dic-
tator. Finally Mr Brown approaches the greatest subject
of all, the political future to which these colonies are to look,
and upon that point he is distinct and emphatic. Re does
not want annexation either to the North or the -Union. On
the other hand, he does not believe that Great Britain will
for ever lend her fleet and soldiers to colonies from which
she gains nothing that independent states would not yield.
Ile accepts the third alternative, and remembering British
America is larger than the United States, that her popula-
tion is incessantly increasing, her vast mineral wealth unde-
veloped, her forests unexhausted, her commercial fleet the
fourth in the world, he looks forward to the day " when the
whole of British America shall stand together, and in close
alliance and heartiest sympathy with Great Britain, be pre-
pared to assume the duties and responsibilities of a great and
powerful nation." That also is the dream of the statesmen
now coming forward to the front of English politics, the
form into which as they hope the Colonial Empire will bo
transmuted. The " mother country" is to be changed
from an Empire owing dependencies she does not rule into
a kingdom ringed round with independent but cordial and
faithful allies. If these aro the views of many among the
leading politicians of Canada,
we can congratulate her Par-
liament on its success in the very highest functions of Par-
liament—that of breeding and training statesmen. One
only hint we would add on a point apparently trifling, but
really of vital importance—lf the new coalition succeeds, as
it may, in conciliating all the colonies of the Atlantic coast,
and, as it will, in convincing the British Parliament, let it
invent for the nation it will have created some common
national name, some sound implying unity which a great
population can use. The colonists of Victoria and New
South Wales. Tasmania and Queensland, are all alike
Australians, but the citizens of the United States, like those
of the United Kingdom, have to this hour no name, ex-
' cept one used in reproach and another begotten of arrogance,
They are not Yankees, nor the only Americans, and when
the Canadians join themselves with the people of New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, they will
find it wise to adopt a title a little less unwieldy than that
of 13ritieb, Xotth Americans,