The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-12 00:00:00

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

A resolution has been adopted by the Senate of
California " asking the United States honourably to
acquire or annex British Columbia." It may ap-
pear visionary or wild on this side the Atlantic to
assert that Britain's best policy would be to encou-
rage the annexation to the United States of all her
North American dominions. The cherished idea
of the American is the oneness of his Continent ; he
desires the writ of the Supreme Court of the United
States to run from Panama to the North Pole ; the
law of Congress to operate from Heart's Content to
Vancouver's Island—the Washington mandate to
be alike in force in the Halls of Montezuma and in
the citadel of Quebec. The grandeur of one na-
tion occupying a continent captivates the imagina-
tion, but the motive is based on far more solid
grounds than mere magnitude and ambition. Be-
fore any great section of the North American people
diverges in language, customs, and laws, it is de-
sirable that this unity should be consummated.
There will then be no insurmountable prejudices to
overcome, and throughout America the races being
fused, separate nationalities—that barrier to human
progress:—will have no existence. It requires little
effort of the imagination to conceive the advantages
which must accrue to the Continent if the idea can be
carried into effect. There will be but One Central
Government, One Executive, One Army and Navy,
and One Treasury. There will be but one language,
one code of laws,one system of taxation, one literature,
one press, and one flag. The monetary medium will be
the same, as well as communication, postal, tele-
graph, and railway. If Europe, with its warring
nationalities—with its jealous Governments, nume-
rous languages—wholly dissimilar laws, manners,
and customs—with its fettered commerce, its forti-
fied sectional frontiers, guarded by arm:es and
barred by Custom-house officials —its restricted
travel, shackled by passports, by the changed cir-
culating medium, as well as by other tongues and
other habits—can so rapidly progress, what must
be the speed of a far larger and rider continent,
freed from such restraints and inhabited by a single
race, the most intellectual and energetic ? There is
no denying the grandeur of the idea, however it
may be sneered at as " spread- eagleistn, high
faluten," and " manifest destiny." The American
may be told to reconcile his own Northern and
Southern feuds, to amalgamate the black man, and
to civilize off the face of the earth the red man,
before he aspires to this unity. He may be advised
to establish a Government that can work its pre-
sent field before it undertakes to make laws for a
peopled continent ; but Americans admit their
shortcomings, nor do they look for the realization
of their dreams except through many trials and
great mistakes ; while they truly say it is the one
grand chance of the human race, impossible of ac-
complishment elsewhere. Whatever aids in for-
warding this design appeals to the heart of the
American, and no help could be more effectual
than the entrance of England's North American
possessions into the Union of States, with the hearty
good wishes of the Empire. It is said that a Re-
public cannot be grateful ; but the history of the
United States belies this assertion. Since the
day of its independence generations have gone, yet
the gratitude in the United States towards France
for her aid in the War of Independence is almost
as lively now as ever, though all know that France
threw her sword into the scale not from love of
them, but from hatred of England. Still that great
service has had its influence for little short of a cen-
tury on the diplomatic relations between the na-
tions. We maintain that the surrender of England
of all sovereignty on the North American Continent,
and the influence of England in inducing the Do-
minion and British Columbia to apply for annexa-
tion to the United States, would create a revulsion
of feeling, the effects of which would be felt cen-
turies hence. This course would at once tend to
cement a friendship between the two sections of
the English-speaking race; and it is difficult to
imagine how the question could arise which could
hereafter bring the nations into collision. What
would Great Britain be called upon- to surrender in
this act, grand as would be the concession to the United.
States ?—a sovereignty without prerogative, but
with liability ; a rule granting rights to the go-
verned, but none to the rulers ; a connection in-
volving jealousy and ceaseless danger, yet detract-
ing from, instead of adding to, the strength of the
Empire. Canada is a possession which may any
day involve England in humiliation. It is a
prize, worthless to the owner, within the grasp of
one who desires it, who can at any time take it, and
who holds this power in terrorem over his rival. Of
what benefit has Canada ever been to the British
Empire ? England's emigrants do not go there ; no
greater field is open for England's commerce wheal
ther Canada be independent, a State of the Union,
or a province of the Empire. We maintain that
the concession, even in severing the connection,
would be a gain to Great Britain. But more might be
accomplished by such a policy than merely securing
the good-will of the United States, though that would
be by far the greatest gain. With it would go the
Alabama claims; and, what is vastly more important,
it might be made a means of pacifying Ireland.
The American Minister, Mr. ADA3IS, observed, when
writing on Ireland, that a chief portion of the dis-
content arose from the inability of the poorer people
to attain the great object of their lives—the trans-
port across the ocean to the Republic on which all
their hopes of regeneration were built. If this be
so, and the United States undertook to transport
free of cost to the British taxpayer a million of
the Irish people, and to bestow on each family a
grant of land, the most effectual remedy would
be brought into operation to root out discontent
in Ireland. By this course England would be
shaken free from her connection with North
America, her most dangerous and vulnerable point,
a huge measure of relief would be extended to
Ireland without expense to the English Exchequer,
such questions as those of the Alabama claims and
Fenianism in the United States would at once be
settled, and all this without loss to England ; the
United States would obtain the darling object of
its citizens, and with but a paltry and distracted
country to the South, would be monarch of the
mighty Continent. What for such an end would
be the surrender of the Alabama claims, and the
cost of transporting even a million of people from
Ireland ? In every new citizen the United States
would make a gain, and they might well incur the
present outlay in view of the prospective advan-
tage. The real difficulty would lie with the colo-
nies. Of course it is pleasant to them to have their
forts built with English money and garrisoned with
English soldiers, to have English capital em-
ployed in constructing their railways, and to enjoy
the dignity of independence when it suits them to
be independent, and dependence when they require
aid. Yet in spite of the heavy taxes which now
press on American citizens, they would find no
small gain in entering the Union. In the first place,
all chance of a devastating war would cease, and
they would be relieved from the night-mare of
Fenianism. In completing the United States, and
thus forming it into the most gigantic and com-
pact nationality ever known, they would become
part and parcel of a power such as the proudest
race has never yet created. Contrast this with their
straggling, weak Dominion, living that most mean
and detestable life, at the breath of another ; squab-
bling with the mother country over their fortifica-
tions and defence, making fitful and ineffectual,
though harassing efforts to organize their whole
population to repel the great invader their imagi-
nation incessantly depicts—an organization which
would break in pieces before the first strain of the
trial against which it is intended to provide. Those
who oppose our programme will base their argu-
nthleenfteeoiniotgheofsutphpeousitniiotnedthsattateits wagoauilndstnoEt
ncghlaanngde,
and that if the United States, as the United States,re-
mained hostile—the United States,as in truth, Ame-
rica—would be but built up by England's aid into au
overwhelming power for the destruction of England.
All sound reasons are, however, opposed to this. In
the first place, the United States would nowhere be
brought into disagreeable coutactwith her MAJESTY'S
dominions. There is a generosity in the people
which even their bitterest enemies are constrained
to admit, and this feeling would be deeply touched
by the open-handed confidence towards them dis-
played by England's act. New States would be