The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-22 00:00:00

CANADA.

There is no particular news of importance from Canada.
The health of the Governor-General continues comparatively
good, and he regularly attends to his official duties.

(From the New York Tribune).
The OREGON QuEsTioN.—The first Monday in December
will witness the assembling in Washington of a new Con-
gress, for a session which will doubtless be a long one, and
probably make its mark on our country's annals. Mr. Polk, if
we can judge from the indications given by his organ, has de-
cided not to compromise the Oregon difference, nor to sub-
mit it to arbitration, nor yet to allow the stipulated joint
occupancy to continue. I His message will insist on our
right to the whole region bounded by Mexico (Upper Cali-
fornia) on the south and Russian America on the north—
that is, all the American continent west of the Rocky Moun-
tains between 42 deg. and 54 deg. 40 min. North latitude.
To this extensive but ragged and mainly sterile region we
have given the name of Oregon, and lay claim to it
as our rightful, indisputable territory. Great Bri-
tain virtually says,—" You think your right to this re-
gien better than ours, but we think ours better than your
—how shall we settle it ? We consider the country of
little value, and don't want to quarrel with you about it.
We will compromise, or arbitrate, or leave the matter as it
is. Make your choice, or propose something better." " No,"
answers Mr. Polk, per order of the Empire Club, "we
won't compromise, nor arbitrate, nor leave it as it is.
We will take the whole at once, and take it by force
if necessary. Get out of the way, or the locomo-
tive will run over you !" Now England, though she
cannot consider Oregon worth a war, will not be
bullied or driven out of it. She will say, " Messieurs
Empires you cannot settle an honest difference with us in
this unceremonious way. If you choose to go ahead in the
rough-and-tumble fashion, we have a word to say. We
will just send a fleet to the mouth of the Columbia, put a
good fort there and garrison it with a couple of regiments,
and if you choose to take it, we'll sec." This is the
point to which we are now tending, and the mis-
chief-making portion of the press in each nation is in-
dulging in bullying, irritating remarks against the
other nation, the English journals saying, " the United States
dare not go to war with us—where will they sell their cotton p"
and our total-depravity press responding, "England dare not
resist our taking possession of Oregon—she can't possibly do
without our cotton," and so on. They seem to forget on both
sides that, if nations never went to war until a wise self-interest
dictated such a course, peace would be unbroken and universal.
But if each is left to calculate so confidently on the pru-
dence of the other, the Governments will yet be pushed into !
an attitude which will render inevitable a war or a loss of
what duellists and cut-throats in general term honour. It is
our national misfortune to have at this crisis a President too
weak to recede from a false position, however horrible the
consequences of persisting in it. We look, therefore, for in-
ternational trouble and difficulty, for deep-seated irritation
and expensive armaments, for a paralysis of industry and
revulsion in business, as not far distant if Mr. Polk in 1