The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-11 00:00:00

The British North American Provinces.

(From the Times Special Correspondent).

FREDERICTION, NEW BRUNSWICK, Sept. 21.

The people of New Brunswick are justly proud
of their beautiful river, the broad bosom of which
forms the pleasantest, as well as rapidest, means of
communication between the thriving port of St.
John and the city of Fredericton, the seat of their
Government and Legislature. Beyond Fredericton,
up to its sources in the foreign State of Maine, the
St. John traverses a rich and picturesque, but only
partially settled country. Travellers who make
their way from Rivß3re du Loup, the present ter-
minus of the Grand Trunk Railway, direct throngh
the country to Fredericton, speak favourably of the
beauty of the scenery, the excellence of the road,
the goodness of the post-horses, and the comfort of
the little inns that stand at intervals of 40 or 50
miles apart, and strongly recommend all to whom
neither time nor expense is an object, to take this
route from Canada to St. John, instead of branch-
ing off to Portland by the Grand Trunk. Not hav-
ing made the land journey, I am unable to speak of
its advantages ; but having taken the quicker route
by Portland and the sea, I can conscientiously state
that its comparative speediness is dearly purchased
by a host of discomforts and inconveniences. From
St. John to Fredericton, a distance of 65 miles by
the post road and 85 by the river, the scenery is one
long succession of changeful beauty. The narrow
gorge between bold precipitous rocks, the spreading
lakes, lovely as Windermere, or grand as Loch Awe,
the level stretch of cultivated farms, the numerous
green islands covered to the depth of four or five
feet by the spring time floods, but green in summer
with waving grass, and yielding more luxuriant
crops of hay than are to be gathered anywhere else
on the North American continent, follow in kaleido-
scopic variety, as the steamer ascends the river, and
impress the mind of the traveller not alone with the
ideas naturally
inspired by physical beauty, but
with those derivable from the present or prospective
wealth of a free and industrious people.
The St. John has had many names. By the Mil-
licete Indians, the aborigines of the country, it was
called the Awollostook, or " Big River ;" by the
Micmacs, another Indian tribe, speaking a different
language, it was called the Guangonda, also meaning
the " Big River ;" and by the Abenaquis, a third
tribe, the Loshtook, or " Long River." To the first
French discoverers it was only known as the River
of the Great Bay (the Bay of Fundy), and from
the noted French sea-captain, the Sieur de Monts,
who re-discovered it on the 24th of June, 1604, the
festival of St. John the Baptist, it received its pre-
sent name. It has two series of falls—one 125 k
miles above Fredericton, and the other within two
miles of the mouth of the harbour of St. John. The
latter is one of the most remarkable objects in North
America, presenting at low water a magnificent
torrent, second only in grandeur and turbulence to
the
waters Celnde r
upwards of 300 miles through
a t e
into the sea, and at high
s a
ofp
and a i
drainage e
narrow Ottawa,o f
gorge
water reversing the fall, and receiving from the
tidal flow of the Bay of Fundy—which rises at St.
John to a height of 28 feet—a sea cataract which
sends back the fresh waters, and forms a tidal rapid
of singular beauty, over which for 10 or 15 minutes
at every tide the smaller vessels in the harbour of
St. John are enabled to make their way up the
stream.
Fredericton is a small town of between 5,000 and
6,000 inhabitants. It contains a handsome Cathe-
dral,a rr a
c ands ,
a not
very handsome government house,
kHouse of Assembly. It also contains
barracks,
and
a university, with three professors and an average
of about 30 students. In the absence of the Hon.
Arthur Gordon, who is now in England, the affairs
of the province are administered by Colonel J. A.
Cole, of the 15th
Regiment, who has commanded
h
in the colony since the reinforce-
menttCoe British,
forces
of 1861-2 was rendered necessary by the
threatening aspect of affairs consequent upon the
seizure of Messrs. Slidell and Mason on board of
the Trent by the blundering zeal of Commander
Wilkes. When Fredericton was fixed upon as the
seat of the Anglican Bishop, the name of the
people"Cel of St.
"Celestial City"was given to it ironically by the
John,
and the name is still employed
by all who would ridicule or disparage its preten-
sions, and who think St. John ought to have been
the ecclesiastical as well as political capital of the
province. It appears that the Protestant prelate
had no sooner assumed the comparatively obscure

As observed in my previous letter from St. John,
the actual House of Assembly was elected after an
appeal to the country at the close of last year, on
the question of Confederation, and contains a ma-
jority against that measure. The opinion at Frede-
ricton is that that majority is wholly due to the
Irish vote at St. John, and that public sentiment
in regard to the question has been so greatly
strengthened by the wish of the Imperial Govern-
ment, made known through the Colonial-office, sub-
sequent to that election, that were the present house
to be dissolved and a new appeal made to the coun-
try on the same issue, the former verdict would be
reversed. It is not to be supposed that there is no
opposition to the scheme in the provincial capital.
On the contrary, the opposition is very consider-
able, both in talent and in numbers. Few of the
disputants, however, go to the root of the contro-
versy, or presume to say that Confederation would
not be to the advantage of all the Provinces, pro-
vided more equitable terms could be agreed upon
than those adopted by the Conference at Quebec.
The New Brunswickers, like all, or most, of the
British North American colonists, would like
to enjoy liberty and good government without pay-
ing any other price for them than such as they could
find means to afford out of the produce of the Cus-
toms' duties imposed upon foreign and British manu-
factures. They refuse to put their hands into their
pockets to pay the slightest direct tax, and the
most trifling local rate drives them into simulated
paroxysms of fear or fury lest it should be only the
prelude to further exactions sufficient to crush their
energies and exhaust their resources. In addition
to this the people of New Brunswick are, or affect
to be, smitten with an ineradicable distrust or
jealousy of Canada, and to entertain the idea that
in the scheme of Confederation they are to be made
to play the undignified part of a cat's-paw to rescue
that country from its difficulties. The following
document, which was largely circulated in the dis-
trict of Fredericton at the last election, gives a fuller
and more correct view of the arguments, if such
they may be called, of the anti-Confederate party
than any which I would hope to convey by abstract
or summary. It betrays a vast amount of ignorance
as well as of misstatement and prejudice, but •may
be taken as a fair sample of the reasoning on which
the opponents of a union of the Provinces rely to
defeat the election to the Legislature of the friends
of that measure. The Confederation candidates for
the county of York, in which Fredericton is situated,
were Messrs. Fisher, Dow, and Street, and the Anti-
Confederation candidates were Messrs. Hatheway
and Allen (both members of the present Adminis-
tration), Mr. Needham (the Mayor of Fredericton),
and Mr. J. J. Fraser (an attorney and barrister in
the city). The Anti-Confederates, or " Anti's," as
they are called for shortness, appealed to the elec-
tors in the following terms :

" Fellow Citizens, —You are called upon to-day to
select four men to represent your interests and wishes in
' the General Assembly of this Province. I would now ask
you seriously whether you wish to have a direct tax placed
hoe,on and other
every
r articleshorse,
e oxi
and around
sheep,
r plough,
n yourh fm ? a rraorw's fork,
ric,
Do yo
u
wish rake,ou
wish to pay for a railroad to run by the north shore ? Do
yeu wish to pay 45 millions of money for Canadian canals ?
Do you wish that your young men should be sent to Canada
as soldiers to fight Canada's battles ? Do you wish Canada
oats, beef, pork, butter, &c., to come into this country at
one-half the price you are now receiving ? Do you wish
the whole - revenue of New Brunswick to be handled by
dishonest statesmen in Canada ? If you wish all these
things, then vote for Fisher, Street, and Dow. And, what
will you get in return ? Mr. Fisher as Governor of one of
the Lower Provinces, Mr. Street as a Judge, and Dr. Dow
to some other fat office. This, my friends, is all you can
possibly expect. Are we in New Brunwick not a happy
and contented people ? If so, why run the risk of being
brought to poverty and ruin, merely to gratify the ambition
of some half a dozen politicians ? . . . . Reinember that
Fisher, Dow, and Street have pledged themselves to throw
you into the clutches of dishonest Canada; that they have
pledged themselves to see you taxed, fearfully taxed, with-
out receiving any return Cast your votes this day,
for liatheway, Allen, Needham, and Fraser. They have
pledged themselves to oppose this doubly accursed Confe-
deration ; this lying, swindling, Sabbath-breaking scheme.
They have pledged themselves to maintain our present
rights and freedom, our revenues and our young men. We
aro now happy and united. Let us remain so ; and beware
of those who would drive us into annexation with so cor-
rupt a colony as Canada."
These and other arguments and misstatements
ludicrously like what might have been expected at
Eatanswill or Little Pedlington, but utterly un-
worthy of the importance of the questions involved
or the dignity of a colony like New Brunswick, pre-
vailed with the " free and enlightened " electors.
The " Anti's" were elected, and two of them became
members of the Administration which superseded
that of Mr. Tilley. The dislike to Canada mani-
fested in the document is not, however, peculiar to
the people of York, but prevails largely in the mari-
time provinces. Some who condemn but strive to
explain the feeling allege that it takes its rise in the
idea that the Upper Canadians are at heart Yankees,
not truly loyal to the British Crown, but desirous of
ultimate annexation to the United States ; that a
union with the Lower Canadians would be as great
a source of trouble to the whole Confederation as is
has proved to the English speaking population of
the upper province, and that, independently of those
considerations, Canadian statesmen—corrupt or not,
as events might prove—would monopolise all the
richest offices in the gift of the Confederation, and
oust the placeholders of New Brunswick from the
situations that would be conferred upon them, had
their own Legislature the exclusive power to appoint
them.

Beyond the consideration of this question, and the
passage of a series of resolutions adverse to Confede-
ration, it does not appear that the Legislature of New
Brunswick had much work to do in the session
which commenced on April 27 and closed on June
8 last. The greater portion of the published de-
bates is more suggestive of the discussions of a small
parochial vestry than of a Parliament--though
amusingly illustrative of the state of society in the
provinces, and of the very small matters on which
the legislative intellect delights to display itself.
On the second day of the session a very animated
discussion took place on the heinous extravagance
of the house and the Government in paying a sum
amounting to upwards of £2OO during the session
for coach hire for the use of members in going to
and fro between the House of Assembly and the
Governor's residence. One honourable representa-
tive, in asking for information on tho subject, said
he sometimes saw as many as six or seven coaches
at the door, all paid for by the sweat of the people's
brow, and not by the members using them. The
Speaker having replied that he knew nothing of the
matter, another honourable representative of the
people's brow" declared that the weather was fine,
the streets in good order, and the Treasury low,
and that, all things considered, it would be better
for the members to walk, instead of enjoying the
luxury of a ride at the public expense. Ile had no
objection to the employment of one coach, or two
at the utmost—but as for seven, the thing was an
abomination. A third representative openly accused
honourable members of using the coaches to take
ladies to evening parties, or to church, instead of
going to Government House. A:Mr. Wetmore ex-
pressed his firm conviction that the four dollars a
day paid to members were quite enough to pay their
hotel bills and coach hire. A Mr. Lydsay said that
if the streets of Fredericton were like the roads in
the backwoods, where a horse could hardly "wallow"
through the mud, there might be some excuse for
paying the coach hire of the members ; but this was