The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-17

"I,pp,ncott,s.,,


AS might have been expected under these
circumstances, our political position has been
fully considered by every thinking man IN the
province; and am prepared to prove TO any
one having knowledge of this province That
the most intelligent minds in 1t have long ago
decided in favor of annexation TO the Ohlted
States. Bv the 'most intelligent minds, L
do not mean merely the author and his pri-
vate friends; 1 mean the professional men,
tbe merchants the members of the Dominion
and local legislatures, and the large class of
men who have had dealings of some
sort with the United States during the past
ten years The medical profession, most of
it's members having studied in the American
colleges, is very deeply tinged with annexa-
ton sentiment The legal profession con-
tains many annexatonsts in its front ranks.
The merchants of Halifax-all of them who
have a thought above sugar and rum-are
almost unanimous in their wish for annexa-
ton. The members of the local Legislature
are in many cases very outspoken in their
wish to annex the province to the United
States; and if a motion, such as that made
lately in the New Brunswick Legislature,
were made in our local House, it would not
call up even the censure of the Speaker, if it
was not received with favor. The counties of
Pictou and Richmond in the east, and Digby
and Yarmouth i'll the west, are notorious in
their desire for annexation: the counties bor-
ing in some degree: in fine, all the counties
which have ever had any dealings with the
United States are fast becoming converts to
the new doctrine. The county of Halifax
even, in whose chief city the pride, pomp,
and circumstance of military parade are always
before our eyes, with the Legislative halls and
the residence of the Governor in our midst,
with frowning battlements on all sides
and, most important of all, with about three
hundred thousand pounds year spent on the
.troops-is fast becoming as passively disloyal
as the county of Pictou or Yarmouth. When
Halifax looks towards the United States, the
province will soon follow. At present we are
of no country, of no allegiance. We are often
told that if we were an Independent province
we would be isolated. But as an unwilling
part of this heterogeneous Dominion we are
isolated indeed Disguised with her expert
ence of the working of the new administra-
ton in i'll temper with Great Britain, and
desirous of changing heralegi giance-restrained
on the one side by England and Canada, and
in some measure repulsed on the other by the
United States-Nova Scotia looks vainly
around her for a ruler to reverence consti-
tuition to live by, a flag to fight under, as a
child who is born at sea might gaze around
upon the wide waste of waters, seeking in
vain for land to call his own-for the green
fields and shady trees of that haven of rest
his home.
1t may be said, When the desire for annexa-
ton in Nova Scotia is so strong and 50 gene
raj, why is it not more loudly and generally
expressed? The answer is an easy one to
give: Many years experience of the working
of British institutions, of British ways and
customs, the continual presence in our midst
of the relocated soldiery of Britain, and the
continual occurrence of loyal celebrations in
Queens fetes, ETC., have given to that word
loyalty dim, mysterious sacredness which
of, 10, ,rr1,ic a rI11 hat
might endanger its prestige. 1t is not easy
to change the thought of people. But even
the reverence for that dim, mysterious thing,
loyalty, is fast dying out. Before the time of
our trouble we were content to go on in the
old English fashion, thinking the thought and
speaking the speech of our grandfathers, and
conducting our business in the slow old way
of the shopkeeper of the last century, whom
Mr. Golden has so well described in one of
his pamphlets But with trouble came
thought. Welookedbefore and after, and if we
sighed for what was not, am convinced 1t
was not for the fast-dying spirit of loyalty,
but for the coming of the quickening spirit
which is to be born when the flag of Britain
is furled for ever in Nova Scotia, and one star
more glitters in the banner of the Union.
Webegan seriously to consider concerning that
same loyalty, and began to see that the
gorgeous thing we had reverenced was, after
all, but an enchanted wiggery." We began
to see that, as Mr.. Carlyle says, ''our Jugger-
naut was no Juggernaut, but a dead mechani-
cal idol" We bethought ourselves of the rise
and fall of Kingdoms and kings, of the dis
memberment of an empire of Charles V, of
the beheading of Charles l. of the be-
heading of a Louis XVI, of the revo-
luton and riot, the grasping and slipping
of territory that had taken place at no remote
date; and saw that Loyalty, as we had reve-
renced it, and as we had been called upon to
practise it, had no abiding place among the
people. We saw gigantic nation alongside
of us that had begun its life historically as a
rebel colony, and which was now the most
important customer and source of revenue TO
the mother country which had lost it. We
saw the many colonies of old Spain and of
France doing for themselyes-some of them
indeed doing badly enough, but still doing
for HemS6lCeS-w working out their own destiny
IN their own manner, unoppressed by the sense
of dependence on any other country. We had
thus sacred sanctions of historical precedents
to encourage us. We had more too. We had
our own necessities, and we had the implied
consent of Great Britain Our own necessi-
ties press us sorely. Our production of coal
has almost ceased, and mines that could feed
all the furnaces of the world have stopped
working for want of capital, and for want of a
good market to sell what is produched. Our
agricultural laborers are leaving the country;
our fishermen are fishing in American
bottoms; our mechanics go forth from
as weekly in squads, finding no sufficient
wages in their own country They 90
forth from Nova Scotia like the dove,
out of the ark, and do not return-the surest
sign that they have found a safe and drv