The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-08-20
Dominion Of Canada.

The heat of political excitement in Canada
continues to increase. The bitterness and vi
olence with which the public speakers and
the newspaTe er press are carrying on the can.
vass, quite leave our own political campaign
ers in the shade. 1t is not encouraging to
the friends of the new nationality that at this
time, when its foundations are being laid
and when unity, harmony and a spirit
of self forgetful patriotism are so Aitally
necessary, the whole country should be
given up to be torn by factions. The inter-
ests of the country are being sacrificed in the
fierce struggle for power. The new Union,
always unpopular with considerable portion
of the people, is in danger of becoming gen.
orally odious before it has had chance to be
fairly tried. Before anything is known of the
policy of the government formed provision
ally TO give effect to the scheme of Confedera-
tion, all the old quarrels are renewed, all the
old set of .agitators are at work again. No as
sault is made upon the principles of the Con-
federate government, for there has yet been
no opportunity to learn what those are; the
war is wholly against the men who have been
placed in Office. The election which now
draws near is not contest of principles but
struggle for power, a wrestling match between
the outs and ins, between those who have got
the fat jobs and those who want them. In
the present canvass we hear nothing of plat
forms and principles; the contest is conduct
ed upon no broad ground Of public policy,
upon no careful survey OF the new response
bilities, obligations and demands which the
altered status implies. The newspapers de-
vote column after column to the question of
cutting up the ontract for some government
building, railway or canal, but the great in
terests of the country and the people get little
attention.
Can ii be wondered at if the people get
tired of such state of things? Nothing
could more surely disgust them with the new
system, or more favorably prepare the way for
those who desire its overthrow. The old op-
ponents and present foes of Union under
stand this well, and the actual if not the
ayowed tendency of their agitation Is to
hasten annexation to tine United States. The
Halifax Citizen, an earnest advocate of the
Anti-Union policy, in a recent issue express
ed the conviction that the Provinces "would
be wrested from the grasp of the mother
country, and the stars and stripes wave over
the forts now manned by gallant British
troops, if we suffer long from this ill-starred
Union" 1t is in Nova Scotia Scotia and New
Brunswick that this Anti-Union feeling is
strongest. A recent letter from Halifax de-
clares that "f nineteen trustworthy, reliable
members of the Nova Scotia party are chosen
by the people for the Dominion Parliament.
they will be able, together with the members
of the Local Assembly. to send to the British
government such protest against the Act of
Union as cannot fail to carry a weight;
protest which it will be very hard, almost i'm
possible, for the House OF Commons to disre-
gard"
This is certainly net promising state of
affairs, and it is not surprising that the ques-
ton begins to be agitated whether alter all
the Canadians have not undertaken an impos-
sible task Was it not too much to expect
that under the act of confederation spirit of
nationality would be created when national
privileges and responsibilities were wanting;
that an ardent unionism should grow up where
there is no unity of aims, OF interests, of orr
gin or of Institutions, and where two-thirds
of the government is appointed by an ire
sponsible power three thousand miles away?
The government of the Dominion undertook
to be monarchical without crown, aristo-
cratical without an hereditary nobility, and
popular without really affording scope Tor the
exercise of the popular will. The system is
too incongruous to work easily and harnoni-
ously. We foresee troubles innumerable in
the not remote future.