The Portland daily press., 1869-05-04

BB F0urus Pdge-I Cannot Bear the Old
Songs; Serious Troubles; How to Hang a
Man.
The NoFthwesteru Frontier and the Eu-
fopean and North American Rail-
road.
George NJ. Weston can do better than to
write to Sprague on politics and finance. His
efforts to secure the payment OF the war claims
due Maine and Massachusetts from the general
government, which have been assigned to the
European and North American Railroad, have
been well directed, though not yet successful
Despite the endeavors of our Maine Senators
and Representatives, actively seconded by Mr.
Sumner, Congress has adjourned without max
ing provision for the payment of the claims.
Mr. Weston does cot on that account let the
matter rest but uses the vacation for the pur-
pose of educating the public mind on the sub
iect of the national Importance of the road in
military point of view. The moment is hap
PLY chosen. The English lion is roaring more
ominously than he has before since the Trent
affair, rritated thereto by the rejection Of Rev
erdy Johnson's capitulation by the Senate and
Mr.. Summers speech. The English public
very plainly says if "pay or fight is the al
Tentative presented to us by our cousins, we
can .fght dearly as we love .them. Even Mr..
Mr.. Bright, as thorough a democrat at heart as
there is on the globe, has his judgment serious
ly impaired in this single case by his national
prejudices. On this side of the water hardly
anybody, except one tKentucky Democrat,
whom a mysterious providence has placed in
the Senate, is disposed to dissent from Mr..
Summers statement of the nature, the grounds
,f
Great Britain. Unless, therefore, the public
feeling OF England in 1869 undergoes as sudden
a revulsion as that of the United States did il
1861, in the matter of the surrender of Mason
and Sldell, and unless our demands are met
in more dispassionate spirit than is now ex-
hibited, the quarrel between the two countries
will become as nearly serious one as it can
be when neither can by any means afford it.
But whatever the result of the present misun-
derstanding may be,-whether it ever passes
beyond mere diplomatic controversy, or gets
somehow complicated with the Fenian cause
and the illegal imprisonment of Americans in
English bastiles, or perhaps even with the
Cuban question and conflict with Spain
Mr.. Weston does we'll to avail himself of the
present semi-hostie attitude of the United
States toward Great Britain for the purpose of
calling attention to public work that will
certainly be of the greatest possible use in
embarrassing the military. operations of that
country. This he does .in letter to the New
York Times.
By way of preface Mr. Weston alludes at
some length to the strong conviction enter
tained by the early French possessors of Cam
ada and Acadia OF the necessity of acquiring
Maine, this State being geographically an in
tegral part of their country, and in the hands
OF foreign power, most serious barrier in
terposed between the Canadas and the mari
time provinces. Of late years the CONNER
cial bearings of the questions have been para
mount, and the dissection of the Dominion by
Maine has been as vexatious a circumstance as
it used to be when viewed from a military
standpoint. Old George Third after the Rev
olution desired greatly to have Massachusetts
submit to the curta;lment of her boundaries
by parting with Maine. But finally the treaty
of 1888 fixed the Northeastern boundary of
the United States at the highlands that sep
arate the waters that flow into the st. Law |
renee from those that flow into the Atlantic, |
but the line was never practically established |
till after the war Of 1872. During that war
valley of the st. John for military transporta- |
ton during that half of the year when the st.
Lawrence is closed, and thus conceived the |
purpose of holding it, the provisions of the
treaty of 1888 to the contrary notwithstanding
Unfortunately they were enabled to carry their
plans into execution. By some blunder the
treaty of peace following the war of 1912 pro-
vided for submis sion of all disputes arising |
from boundaries to arbitration. When there |
fore the British commissioners refused to run |
the line SO as to embrace within the limits of |
Maine any territory North of the St. John, the |
King of the Netherlands, who was the umpire,
decided substantially in favor of England, |
though some concessions Of territory else
where were made to this country in the Ash |
burton treaty of 1872 But by the terms of /
that treaty we surrendered all of Maine North /
of the St. John and st. Francis, five thousand
and twelve square miles. From this point we
quote from Mr.. Weston's letter with little
abridgement:
We received in exchange some sections of |
territory in New Hampshire, Vermont, New |
York and west of Lake Superior, but we sur
rendered that key of the valley of the st. Law
renee for which the price of kingdom would |
have been no equivalent.
The past is irretrieyable, and we are now |
brought face to face with the results of the /
treaty of 1872 Happily for us, they have been,
to some extent, modified by the progress of
of population and other events of the past
twenty-seven years. That treaty lost us our |
territory north of the st. John, but Great
Britain did not obtain all she desired, which |
was nothing less than the whole upper valley |
of that river, Maine although curtailed, still
extends north, up to the st. John, and nearly
a degree above the latitude of Quebec. Brit |
ish inter-provncial communication by the up
can interruption in 1842, has now become inse-
cure by the advance of settlements in North
eastern Maine, and especially by the concep- |
ton and the recent actual commencement of L,
the European and North American Railway
running up the Penobscot river from the city
of Bangor, and to be completed by branching
into two lines-one to the eastern frontier, and
the other to the northern frontier of Maine
The progress of that great public work, al
though as yet slow and faltering, has changed
the whole face OF affairs The statesmen of
Great Britain, as is manifest from their con-
duct regard its. completion as inevitable
They know that It has received the munihcent |
patronage of Maine and Mass ichusets aud it
is not doubtful that they assume that its vital
Importance to the whole of the United States
must assure to it every necessary national aid.
1t is certainly true that they have abandoned
their old idea of communication between |
Halifax and Quebec by the way of the upper
St. John, and are now at the enormous cost OF
an imperial guaran'ee of $4,000, 900, building
a circultOus railroad around the northern
shore of New Brunswick and the head of the |
Bay of Chaleur to the ST. Lawrence involving
the construction of two hundred more miles OF
new road than is required by the route of the
Upper St John; road useless for trade or
travel, because the longest possible route be-
tween the points opposed to be connected,
and without any hope of compensation in To-
cal traffic; road, in fine, built for the sole OBJ
iect Of bringing Can ida, during the five months
of winter locking up the st. Lawrence, within |
reach OF the military resources of Great Brit
ain. If Quebec and Halifax, holding vast ar
senals and frowning with impregnable batter |
les, are a standing menace to America, this |
enormous expenditure to connect them by a |
military road will not fail to attract the pro-
touudest attention of the statesmen of this
country.
1t cannot be necessary, however to dwell
upon a theme so trite as the necessity of roads
for military operations, nor need the question
of roads in this particular be now argued
as a new one. Our military authorities un-
derstood it forty years ago, when they con-
structed a wagon road of seventy miles in
len ,th from the confluence of the Mattanaw- |
cook and the Penobscot to the eastern frontier
of Maine at Houlton. They cannot be indif
ferent to it now, when railroads have super
seeded wagon roads, and when it has become
apparent that as the line of communication be-
tween Quebec and HALIFAX has been changed
from the valley of the ST. John to the shore of
the St. Lawrence, we can menace it IN no
other way than by ia railroad to the EXTREMIST
northern boundary of Maine and tins n