The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-04-07 00:00:00

LOSS OF THE COLONIES OF ENGLAND.

[We are requested to insert the following letter to the
Board of Trade at Hamilton, Canada West, from Mr.
Isaac Buchanan, who is, or has up till this time been,
its president.]
Glasgow, 2d April, 1846.
DANIEL MACNAB, ESQ., VICE-PRESIDENT, BOARD OF
TRADE, HAMILTON.
DEAR SlR,—Since I wrote you, indeed, since the end
of January, my brother and 1 have continually been in
London (either the one or the other of us), endeavouring
to bring the Ministers, the Legislators, and the public,
to a sense of the critical position into which free trade will
undoubtedly bring all the colonies, but Canada in parti-
cular.
I think I may say that, in awakening the people in this
country to their °en danger, we have been more success-
ful than we could possibly have expected, considering the
gross ignorance that pervades English society on the sub-
ject of the colonies, and the consequent reluctance with
which any colonist is listened to.
And I may safely say that the CASE OF CANADA was
entirely overlooked by Lord John Russell when he wrote
his ill-judged let'er to the city of London, nor has it been
any more CONS'DERED by Sir Robert Peel, in framing his
present measure.
In fact, the present system of managing, (or managing
to retard, to speck more correctly) the colonies, seems to
me so farcical, that I see ne hope of England retaining
her colonies (even if free trade is not introduced into the
empire) without the introduction of an improved machi-
nery in Downing-street.
You will observe, in my printed correspondence, that I
propose that Government have two private secretaries for
Canada, each to be three years at Montreal and three in
London alternately.
The general opinion in London (as to the way PEEL'S
MEASURE will be shown to have been received in the col-
ony)
is that the Canadian, like the Horne INDUSTRY, will
have its vital interests betrayed by the Judas kiss of its
professing friends.
" Keen were his pangs: but keener far to feel,
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel;
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest .
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast."
But at present 1 am far too serious to have any reference
to Sir Robert Peel's allusion to the trade in feathers;
himself, alas, now only a political feather, and used for
Lord John Russell and O'Connell's purpose.
It seems to have leaked out, or to be guessed at, that
the Colonial Minister has been made to write out so
strongly to the Colonial government to GET UP a demon-
stration in favour of, or at all events, to BEEP BACK any
demonstration against, Free Trade, that the accounts per
Ist April steamer will rather strengthen Sir Robert Peel's
hands than otherwise! for the people of England will go no
further into the matter than just to say—" Why the Parlia-
ment of Canada says so and so." You and I know that no
member will be returned again who betrays" native indus•
try," but his present vote will be viewed as constitutional
public opinion in the meantime, just as the votes of Sir
Robert Peel's hundred and twelve apostates count none
the worse for their not agreeing with the strongly-expressed
wishes, and the most vital interests of their constituents.
If the Canadian legislature, and the Montreal mercan- 1
tile interest, prove true to the body-politic of Canada—the
agriculturists—some protection to the home and colonial
grower and mechanic, could still be got, 1 feel assured, 1
for the public here are beginning to have some idea of the i
value to the empire, directly and indirectly, of the colonies, I
and of the fact, that THEY ARE THE ONLY COUNTRIES IN
THE WORLD WHERE BRITISH MANUFACTURES HAVE
PRGTECTIGN YIELDED TO THEM—a privilege which the
adoption of Free Trade here must withdraw, as a matter
of course, even during the short period of their remaining
colonies.
1 am scarcely believed here when I assure people how '
strait-laced protectionists the Americans are in their
own country, for in England the Americans array them-
selves, AS ONE MAN, for Free Trade, which I should think I
might be viewed as proof that they suppose it will not
prove for the benefit of England, or for the permanency
of her institutions.
In making out the patriotic selfishness of the Ameri-
cans, and in illustrating their notions of Free Trade, I
have been not a little served by the fact, that the other
year, (1812), when timber became scarce on the south
side of our Lakes, and rose in the United States two or
three dollars the thousand feet of plank, the Americans
raised the duty to 30 per cent., thus giving the rise to
THEIR custom-house, and not to the Canadian lumberer.*
Mr. Macgregor, of the Board of Trade, is the arch-
enemy of the British American colonies. Having himself
failed of success in our trade, he seems to grudge pros-
perity in it to every one else; aid the whole object of
his ambition seems to be to strip the timber trade of its
remaining, and far from adequate protection (but for the
present spurt from railways), as if his own bad success
was from too great, and not from too small, profits!
This official, having injured, verifies the adage, and
now hales the Canadas and New Brunswick ; and goes
very little, if any, short of saying that England would be
better without them ! although she, has no other supply
of timber that he or any one else can point out.
There is no doubt that, when Canada is lost to the em-
pire, the price of timber will be double what it is now, but
this will suit the iron-masters; so you see how involved
are the interests of England.
I hope and trust that your Board has done its duty, or
will immediately do so, in standing up for those who are
your real constituents—the farmers and mechanics of
Canada.
Even if homely and sound principles are banished from
England, it can only be FOR A TIME, till the political
quick doctors destroy a few of their more prominent
patients.
Let it never be forgotten, then, that the originating
principle both of the Toronto and of the Hamilton Board
of Trade was, that OUR OWN LAND IS THE BASIS UPON
WHICH COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE CAN ALONE SE-
CURELY AND PERMANENTLY REST.
Even if mere commerce had been open to the province
of Upper Canada, as a source of national wealth, we would
have valued it, as permanent, only to the extent that it
flowed from the cultivation of our own lands.
Before us we had the example of Holland, whose com-
merce has sunk into the comparatively insignificant dimen-
sions
of her own home and colonial territory, ALTHOUGH
SHE WAS, DURING THE LAST CENTURY, THE MOST
COMMERCIAL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
Indeed, had Lord Castlereagh retained Java as an 1
English colony, the commerce of Holland would have
been all but annihilated.
So much for the permanency of foreign trade !
The United Sates Transit Bill allowing Upper Canada
to send her flour to England via New York in bond, is
an immense boon to you.
You will save a dollar per barrel of the immense ex-
pense of transport hitherto incurred via Montreal.
This is a great blow to English shipping ; yet the Go-
vernment here (too much occupied by its own struggles
for existence) gives no indication of throwing the St.
Lawrence Canal open, toll free, the only measure that I
can save our inland and Atlantic shipping.
The canal alluded to will, I presume, be finished in
September next, but unless Government makes some
grand movement SHOWING A DETERMINATION TO RE-
TAIN THE TR,DE OF CANADA WEST to THE ST. LAW-
RENCE, no prudent man will prepare craft for its improved
navigation ; and the trade, once diverted to New York,
will never be regained.
As a house we would be glad to join with the great
shippers and shipowners. and pay ls. per foot outward
freight (like the shippers to New York by the liners)
instead of 7d., as at present, so as to enable the Canada
traders to bring flour as cheap front Montreal as New
York.
However, in the firm conviction that we have, that
FREE TRADE LOSES CANADA. TO THE EMPIRE, there
seems no use inn the merchants making any efforts dic-
tated by any patriotic or British considerations ; and from
the inactivity of Government, it looks very much like as
if they were now of the same mind.
I remain, dear Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.
* This shows that the Yankees are wise in their gene-
ration, and that theirs is the political economy of the
nineteenth and not of the eighteenth century, or, in other
words, theirs is the economy of COMMON SENSE.
Never let us forget that the Americans are a GREAT
PEOPLE. (because individually intelligent and comfortable)
although a WEAK GOVERNMENT. They are too wi,e a
people io believe Sir Robert l'erl, that, by any legislation
of theirs, they can permanently affect the extent of the
imports or experts of foreign countries ; or control the
prices of these, which tine foreign country's own circum-
stances and legislation c in aloe eff.ct.
Their object was, and they attained it (as they always
do their just objects), to retain for their own people the
employment of sawing the timber. Thee admit the logs
or raw material FREE, but they iteAVILY TAX the manu-
factured article.
At the period I allude to, they saw that. IF rusty nAD
THROWN OPEN THEIR PORTS to Canadian lumber, THEIR
OWN MILLING INTEREST WOULD HAVE BEEN EXTIR-
PATED, by inadequate remuneration, on the first occasion
of money becoming scarcer (more valuable) in Canada
than the United States.
They saw, in fact, that their millers, in the first instance,
and their consumers in the second, would have had to
suffer in the flesh, whenever (through bad legislation or
otherwise) Canada becomes distressed on the one hand, or
artificially prosperous on the other, as having, by the ruin
of the American miller, a temporary monopoly of the
United States market for boards, in addition to her usual
permanent or home demand.
The Americans, in fact, know that they cannot regulate
prices by legislation; and the:Kile object of theirlpatriotic
legislation is what ours ought to be, to LeGise ,TE ONLY
FOR THOSE WHO ARE LABOURERS AS WELL AS CONSU-
MERS; securing the consumer the greate.4 amount of
competition, consistent nith the GREATEST AMOUNT OF
EMPLOYMENT TO THEIR OWN MANUFACTURING OR LA-
BOURING POPULATION.
The Americans don't take England for their model, a
country so proud of its masses of gold in the hands of a
few. as not to be ashamed of the proportionate masses of
distress in the homes of the many ; hut, with wisdom and
humanity, prefer to form themselves upon the model of
such countries as Switzerland, which, though small in a
national point of view, are great in the only true wealth,
THE HAPPINESS AND PERFECT INDEPENDENCE OF
EVERY MAN WHO CHOOSES TO BE INDUSTRIOUS.
Ic. B.

Mr. P. Buchanan and Major Fagan had interviews
yesterday with Mr. Secretary Gladstone, at the Colonial-
office.—London papers of Thursday.
The Cork CJustilution denies that Sir Harry Smith is
an Ir shman. and after admitting that he is an English-
man, says, "We are sorry for it." Why?
Sir R. H. Inglis, M.P. for Oxford, attended divine
service on Sunday morning at St. Bride's church. The
hon. beet. was at St. Andrew's church in the evening,
when the Rev. Hugh M'Neile preached for the schools in
connection with that church.