The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.--We may reasonably hope that the debate
to-night on the fortification of Quebec will be con-
ducted in a spirit worthy of the occasion. The ques-
tion is, without doubt, the most important that will
be submitted to the determination of Parliament
during the present Session, and it should be ap-
proached with an entire absence of party, feeling.
It is the last Session of the present House of Com-
mons, but upon its members rests the responsibility
of determining the policy of the country for a
generation. Other Parliaments must come into
existence, Ministries may change, but the line of
action of the nation cannot be so easily altered ;
least of all can it be when we have induced inde-
pendent colonies to incur onerous obligations in
reliance upon our steadfastness. At such a crisis
anything like haste or carelessness is, above all, to
be deprecated. It is incumbent upon every one to
receive without heat and without prejudice the
reasons which may be urged for or against the
proposals brought forward byher Majesty's advisers,
to weigh them with deliberation and impartiality,
and to remember that their first duty is to their
country, and not to party. Every one must regret
that it should be deemed necessary to discuss the
fortification of Canada. That a war with America is
probable we do not believe. We repudiate all sym-
pathy with Mr. H. Berkeley's anticipations, and we
put aside "still more decisively the wilder prophecies
of Mr. Peacocke. Our Ministers announce the con-
tinuance of perfectly friendly relations with the United
States, and the conduct of Mr. Lincoln has consis-
tently shown a desire to preserve perfect amity be-
tween the two Governments. Unfortunately, there
are timeswhen the temper of a people is too impulsive
to be restrained by its rulers, and the territorial de-
mocracy of America has not always been free from
a passionate resentment liable to be kindled into
active animosity. We are forced to contemplate
possibilities as well as probabilities. Whatever may
happen, England does not desire to evade the
obli-
gations which may be cast upon her. There will be
no disposition this evening to reject the scheme for
fortifying Canada on account of its costliness. Every
sentiment of honour and justice binds us to protect
the colony. It is not merely because the North
American provinces are parts of the Empire, but
because an attack on them can only happen by way
of retaliation for some alleged misconduct of the
mother country. The worst enemy of the present
Parliament cannot accuse it of niggardliness, and if
the plans prepared are worthy of adoption, the money
will be readily forthcoming. But the question remains
whether the plans themselves can ever prove to be
anything but a delusion and a snare. If, when
adopted and carried out in perfect faith, the only
possibleresult is that a part of our force must be em-
ployed at every disadvantage in fighting a losing
battle, instead of being used where they can be really
serviceable, the conclusion then arrived at must be
that the plans had better never have been adopted
at all. We can now avoid the pain of making such a
discovery too late. Before entering upon a fatal
course, and inducing Canada to commit a similar
error, we can soberly estimate the chances of suc-
cess. The frontier of Canada is, as every one
knows, very long, and along the greater part of the
line the colony is very thinly peopled. Immediately
on its south are the most flourishing States of the
Union, which communicate easily with one another
by large lakes, canals, and railways. A part of
Canada—the peninsula of Toronto--is thrust in be-
tween the lakes, and is accessible on every side.
The St. Lawrence, pouring out of Lake Ontario and'
flowing to the north-east by Montreal and Quebec,
has been canalised for such parts of its course as
were naturally unfit for navigation. Everywhere
we see a frontier easily passed, and in easy commu-
nication with the most populous States of the Union.
The first deduction, therefore, from a mere glance at
a map and a comparison between the populations of
the States and Canada, is that the latter is liable to
be overrun at any moment. The Northern States
contain more than twenty millions, and the popula-
tion of the North American provinces is less than
four millions. But against all these disadvantages
on the part of Canada, it is said, there must be
reckoned the advantage derived from the rigours of
its climate. The St. Lawrence is frozen over for
haif the year, and Lake Ontario is free from ice
only about seven months in the year. It is not de-
nied that during the winter months Canada would
be isolated from all help, but it is alleged that no
enemy could successfully invade it at such a season.
In fact, however, this statement was never accurate.
Canada was taken from the French simply because
our North American provinces were then more
thickly peopled than the opposite shores, just as the

same provinces now named the United States are
more thickly peopled now. The preponderance of
numbers outweighed the advantages of climate.
In the War of Independence Canada was invaded
more than once in the winter. Montgomery ad-
vanced upon and captured Montreal in November.
Arnold advanced through pathless woods and
over untrodden snows to Quebec, and the attack
by Montgomery and Arnold was made on the
last day of the year; Quebec, the only place
over which the British flag still flew, was saved by a
chance explosion. But whatever may have been
the military advantage of the climate of Canada at
one time it has now greatly diminished. Modern
science has almost conquered winter, and one of
the most remarkable facts connected with the
last American campaigns is that the armies never
go into winter quarters. Canada is now open to
invasion in force at any time of the year. This is
pretty nearly the basis upon which Colonel Jervois
proceeds in his report. He looks upon the country
as always accessible to the enemy, though he be-
lieves, withont sufficient warrant, that great opera-
tions would not be carried on in winter, and he pro-
poses that certain points should be fortified to which
troops may retreat before invaders. It is, in his
own words, impossible to protect the frontier
throughout its extent, and Quebec, Montreal, Kings-
ton, and Toronto are selected as the points of re-
sistance. The whole of Western Canada is thus ex-
posed to the enemy, and Colonel Jervois even
reckons upon draining it of its local force for the
pose of maintaining the Eastern garrisons. Whether
the Western Colonists would be eager to furnish men
and money to defend a corner of the province may
admit of doubt. England would not grudge the ex-
pense were such a scheme of defence otherwise worth
adoption ; and, in fact, in :such a case the expense
to be borne by England would be too small a pro-
portion of the whole. The mother country is to for-
tify Quebec at a cost of £200,000, while the fortifi-
cations of Montreal, costing £443,000, and of King-
ston, Toronto, and Hamilton, costing £500,000,
would be borne by the colony. The fatal objection,
however, to the plan of Col. Jervois is that under
the most favourable circumstances it could beget no-
thing but mischief. If we suppose that garrisons
cooped up in Montreal and Quebec could success-
fully withstand sieges protracted through the long
winter season when help is impossible, and the be-
leagured troops were conscious their friends did not
even know of their hard case, the necessary conse-
quence would be that we should have to pour in an
army in the spring to raise the sieges. If the de-
fences were unsuccessful, and those who know Mon-
treal and Quebec best cannot doubt what the result
would be—the enemy would get all the credit of vic-
tory over British arms ; and if successful, we should
be committed to a campaign under the worst possible
conditions. It is doubtful which would be the
greater calamity. N o English General would ever
propose to mike Canada the seat of war between
this country and the United States, and yet this
would be the necessary consequence of a successful
issue to the scheme of defence proposed by Col. Jer-
vois. If it be good strategy to choose for the theatre
of war a place where the enemy is within easy reach
of ample supplies of men, of food, and of ammuni-
tion, while your own base is distant three thousand
miles, and for six months of the year is altogether
cut off from communication, nothing could be better
than the plan of fortifying Canada which will to-
night be submitted to the House of Commons. Such
a plan does, however, confound all our conceptions
of military science, and we are at a loss to under-
stand the grounds on which it can be recommended.
It is not, indeed, necessary to have received a mili-
tary education to be able to estimate its value. Com-
mon sense tells us that the best way to defend our
colonies from attack is to be ready to attack the
enemy where he is most vulnerable. A retaliation on
the seaports of the Atlantic would be the most effec-
tual weapon to compel him to desist from pursuing
his aggression. No harm can come to Montreal or
Quebec if we are ready to strike a blow at the heart
of the Power which would touch them. We are per-
suaded that deliberation can only serve to confirm
these first impressions but our fear is that delibera-
tion is the quality which will be most wanting on
the part of our counsellors.. At present we have the
faculty of choice ; one false step taken to-night, and
the privilege may for ever be gone from us.
HERALD.—We regret to hear that the Federal
Government is alreadybeating up for soldiers among
the ironworkers of Staffordshire. We may say gene-
rally that we fail to prize the compliment the United
States pays-us in making this country the recruiting
ground of their armies. We might have borne that
Ireland, from the mere love of the thing, should
steadily contribute her contingent, not exactly on
the principle that dogs should agree to bark and
bite, because God has made them so, but that where
there is no other remedy for an undue amount of
natural irritability, it will be ill practice to stand
between the patient and his instinct of cure. But
the case is different in England. It was not pleasant
to find our irascible kinsmen asking the Lancashire
spinners some time ago to fight for the cause that
had just put them out of bread ; and the insult is in
one degree higher as we now find them inviting the
ironworkers to go over and win the bubble reputa-
tion at the mouths of the cannon they once helped
to forge. The honest men might be so much more
usefully employed! If worth a thousand pounds
a-piece for using a sword in slitting Transatlantic
wisands in the swamps of Virginia, how much more
would they be worth left at the productive labours
which might be supplying swords for as good ser-
vices by the thousand ? If we might suggest it
with bated breath we think both the philanthropists
of Washington and ourselves might be better em-
ployed than we in giving up such valuable " indus-
trials" to slaughter or they in taking them. Besides,
we really want our ironworks, whatever their lock-
ing-out masters may say to the contrary. Here is
the trumpet of the Prussian War Minister giving
his countrymen no uncertain sound to prepare them
for battle with the French; and it would be in the
last degree vexing not to have men enough to forge
all the iron wanted in so large a game of destruction
because we have sent them to be destroyed them-
selves somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic.
We should have liked the coming war a great deal
better if it had not been announced to the Prussian
Chambers with almost as much levity as that which
Bell's Life announces some " coming fight" to, the
~ Fancy." We are told that it is a settled point that
the Emperor of the French shall declare war as soon
as it is his interest, and that at the decisive moment
Prussia will be found all right. "It may not be
to-morrow, or the next day, or even at an early
period"—thank Heaven it may not l—but then the
" emergency" and the " necessity" are out of ques-
tion ; and if it were not possible that a Prussian
War Minister might be a mere Bombastes, a Rhine
war would be looming for Europe at no very remote
period. The American war that thus asks our true
men—the producers of our wealth—and this
Franco-Prussian war that is soon to demand our
good iron, the chief instrument of our useful arts,
offer a pleasant spectacle for those who for so many
years were crying " Peace, peace," at the top of
their voices, and had not even common charity for
any one who doubted that the era of goodwill and
general brotherhood was permanently established
amongst us. Unhappily, too, while asked to give
our men and iron for the squabbles of others, it is
not impossible that we may not have a " little
affair" of our own. Each mail brings new proofs
that a combination of Federal irascibility and state
policy threatens every day more to involve us in a
campaign for the protection of the Canadas. In an
age when human reason has a play in government
it was supposed never to have had before, we are
surrounded with all the incentives and instrumen-
-1 talities of war in precisely the same proportion that
every interest has been centupling which seemed
irrevocably to bind the nations to peace. The ter-
rible school of carnage opened to the world on the
great Western continent, though itself but the effect
of a wider cause, counts in its turn, no doubt, for a
large part in this revival of one of the worst in-
fluences that can afflict an age or devastate a
country. It shows us that we have been mistaking
men and their instincts, and that our race is not the
thing of reason which all our calculations had been
supposing it. The image of organised demoralisa-
tion which has been suddenly presented to us in the
bosom of the most flourishing of civil communities
shows us that, however near to the Deity as the
paragon of animals by our reason, we may--and
under very favourable circumstances too—be still
nearer to the demon by our passions ; and that
though there may be much national enthusiasm, great
individual energy, and even wonderful commercial
enterprise, yet that, wherever the simple joys of
family life have lost- their charm and the moral ties
have broken under the fever of ambition, the lust of
conquest, or the frenzies of an unprincipled selfish-
ness, we may bid adieu to the remotest chance of
individual security or public well-being, save at the
terrible price of falling under the iron hands and
stern resolves of a military tyranny. Yet it is the
necessary effect of the polity of our times to make
us all neighbours and brothers, whatever our nation.
No country can now suffer alone. Even the injuries
we do an enemy in war are only not our own so far
as ours is not the largest quota paid in their repara-
tion. Bad as an influence, terrible as a portent,
menacing as an international fact, the American war
therefore is really a war against us all, and, in refer-
ence toEngland especially, is almost as much ours as
if its contest took place under the factories of Lanca-
shire or within view of the exchanges of our chief
towns. After the swallowing up of the wealth of so
much of the world, after the disappearance from the
earth's surface and from all the uses that can benefit
society of more than a million of men and hundreds
of millions of treasure, the time seems come when
freemen of all countries should interpose the weight
of their counsels and give the people of the Northern

States the advantage of that cool estimate of the
situation they are unlikely to reach themselves. They
must be more distempered by the experience they
have been going through than we are inclined to
suppose if they receive in a bad spirit the assurance
that, while other nations must share their calamities
from a prolonged war, they are unable to share their
conviction that any good can come out of it. So far
is the game of conquest from being the sure and pro-
fitable one that Washington statesmen have sup-
posed it, that it is quite possible the greatest of all
the misfortunes that could happen to the people of
the North would be the constrained submission of
their brethern in the South. The least price they
would have to pay for an enforced domination
over one-half of the commonwealth would be the
sacrifice of their own freedom and good government
in the rest ; for it is easy to see that in the struggle
between anarchy and power that would arise from
the clash of principles, the strife of ambitions, and
the necessities of government, we should soon have
little else there but the long experience of Mexico
under repetition, on a larger scale, and with still
more calamitous results. An oft-recurring resort te
arms about the choice of a leader or the enforcement
of a cause would be inevitable among so many in"
dependent states so long used to the bloody arbitra-
ment of arms and alienated from the Administration
by being obliged to pay heavily for the expense of a
central Government, supported but by a fraction,
and with which, practically, they had few relations
but that of their taxation. The truth is, that the
people of the South have not so profited by the re-
publican institutions which they have been sharing
in common, that they are likely to submit as Com-
pelled slaves to a rule which they have in the most
solemn of all manners rejected as freemen. If our
premises do not mislead us you can make anything
of such a people but subjects useful through com-
pulsion to their masters, and anything of their ter"
ritories but sources of wealth to their conquerors.
Give these gallant States the independence they ask,
and it is possible that with the condition of being
free to re-annex at pleasure they might be glad to
seek a re-union. Give them but the alternative of
submission, and it is more than possible that they
will prefer destruction.