The New Orleans crescent., 1868-08-25
THREATENED DIss LUTON OF The NEW
DOMINION.

of their junction with Canada under the
common government of the " New Do
minion" In this case it can hardly be said
that, according to the proverb about over
swift marriages, they united in haste torepent
ut leisure. They were extremely relucta At to
charge their former condition by enter.ny 2
into the proposed alliance, which they feared
would result in absorption, and something
| still worse than absorption. The advantages
of their position were many, and palpable,
| and invaluable. Those held out by the
| Canad an wooer were, however great they
might seem, altogether problemstical, and
inseparable from serious sacrifices and
heavy burdens. The relations of Nova
! Scotia to. the British crown had
come to be, through the efforts of
such statesmen as Howe and Halliburton, in
| the highest degree felcitous. Subjection to
the mother country was little more than nom
inal, while protection from the mother coun-
| try was ample and benefcent linton he'd
by the hand of exterior repression and sxtor-
ton, Nova Scotia enjoyed a measure Of peace,
| prosperity and contentment such as has fallen
to the lot of few colonies, provinces, or States.
! theoretically dependent, she exercised nearly
! al the essential functions of self government;
enjoying the right of suffrage subject to her
own regulation, and choosing her own Legis-
lature and, with the exception of governor, all
officers charged with the administration Of her
laws. She was blessed with low tariff and,
as a consequence, a hourishing foreign COM
merce. Astounding in material resources,
her revenue was ample, her debt insignificant,
her taxes a trife. Her situation, in short,
almost realized the ideal of local autonomy, of
individual liberty, of material prosperity and
national safety presented in the Constitution
of the United States as designed by lis
trainers and as construed by Jefferson, Madi-
son, Monroe and Jackson.
But Canadian persistence prevailed. Nova
Scotia was told that her maritime position rem
dered her indispensable to the proposed con-
federation, and that this confederation was in
dispensable to her own security. She was told
that all the British American provinces would
fall, piecemeal, prey to the territorial vo-
racity of the United States, unless they should
all unite for mutual preservation. Uncon-
vinced and fearful of the issue, and constrain-
ed by mingled sense of fraternal sympathy
and moral eompulsion, the Nova Scotians en-
tered the confederate union. Scarcely more
than year has elapsed and their eagerness to
retrace the step is still greater than their re-
luctance TO take It. Under the government of
the New Dominion they find that Nova Scotia
is reduced to political insignifcance by Cana
dian prepondersnce and, still worse, that
while taxation and public expenses have in
creased, the revenues proper of Nova Scotia
have diminished, and that her business and in
dustry of all kinds have fallen off in a cores
ponding degree The effect of this experience
is to be seen, says an American correspond
ent writing from the scene, in the prevalence
of one idea-"release from union forcibly
imposed. This, he adds is to be attained by
the employment of every means, as the late
resolution of the Nova Scotian Parliament
reads. Wequote the following from the same
cCrTespUIIuvIIV.
Nova ScoiisBs have appealed in vain to The
Canadian sense Of honor and Justice: in vain
they have invoked the home government; aud
now the alternative is openly debated, and the
question eagerly asked OF every visiting citizen
OF the United States: viii your government
sihbu bJ Us II We appeal TO 10 Tor aid, at the
rick OF inevitable war with England? ?" The case
bas reached this extremity, and we of the United
States may well regard il with interest. Here is
Nova scotis, the richest and most abundant in
resources of any known territory Of equal area.
Can We refuse so magnificent benefce IL pressed
~ on us, or go back upon our agowed principles
and traditions? Can we afford war with England
even 10 gain this province, go brmful Of wealth
whose Inhabitants are not a whit behind in
intelligence, whose sympathes are with our insti-
tu,ions and whose commercial interests are con.
stanty asserting their power to influence political
attraction?
The writer Of the above hardly need
trouble himself about the way in which the
United States may receive a proposal from
the Nova Scotians for annexation. They are
a shrewd people, and are by no means likely
to forget that, if in the New Dominion, they
are, with other provinces, responsible for the
Canadian debt of eighty millions of dollars,
annexation to the United States would de- |
volve upon them like responsibility for a
national debt of about three thousand millions |
of dollars. Nor is it probable that they will |
fail to consider that, by the same act, they |
would subject themselves to a terrible aggra-
vation of the high tariff and the vexatious |
revenue stamps of which they now complain,
and of all those depressing causes under
which their mining enterprise, their manu-
factures, their foreign commerce, their ship |
building are now languishing. 1t is to be
however, that this forbidding
aspect of annexation would almost wholly
disappear, If public affairs in the United
States should be wrested from the ruinous
domination of the Radicals. Radical policy
is as hostile to the acquisition Of such
people and, such position as Nova Scotia
pretents, as it is to augmenting the strength
and riches of the county in every other respsc /.
The question of the correspondent whom
we have quoted, "Can we go back upon our
avowed principles and traditions, by refusing
- so magnificent benefce, if pressed upon
as, looks like bitter satire on the late history
Of the government of the United States, in
orcibly denying the right of one of the par
les to federal union to withdraw from it for
my cause or upon any pretext. The principle
tta N-a4 = L |