The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-06
THE RED RIVER REBELLION

WHILE the CRnadaS are deeply dlScontented
with their present form of government and
with their colonial dependence upon Great
Britain, they are extremely anxious to fasten
an equally odious yoke of their own construc-
tion upon the people of the Red River dis
trict. They can lily brook the insult offered
to the New Dominion, in the heyday of its
youth, by an open defiance of its authority,
and various means to restore British sway
are now under consideration. A cable tele-
gram announces that the Under Secretary for
the Colonial Department announced yester-
day in the House of Commonsj that de-
mand had been received from the Canadian
Government for regular troops for the Red
River expedition. The expenses of the little
army would well-nigh bankrupt the impover-
ished treasury of the New Dominion, and
if regular troops are to be employed against
the Red River rebels, British taxpayers must
foot the bill. They, in turn, have SO often
learned by bitter experience how little benefit
they realize from the enormous outlays in
Cured in distant wars, that they grow more
and more strongly inclined with each new
year to lop off their unproductive colonies
altogether rather than to fight their battles.
The arguments in favor of this policy would
probably possess at least sufficient weight to
prevent the proposed appropriation for
troops for the Red River expedition, if por-
tion of the ambitious statesmen of Great
Britain did not still warmly cherish the dream
of building up rival and antagonistic power
on our Northern frontier. They are especi-
ally anxious to maintain all their North
American possessions until the practical
workings of the new railways across the
continent are fully understood; and if they
see that our gigantic internal improvements
endanger in the slightest degree the COM
mercial dominance of Great Britain, they will
never rest content until a competing ailway
is constructed through the British American
possessions. 1t is therefore probable that the
British Parliament will grant aid, in some
FORM to suppress the rebellion. Meanwhile
it is said that the Canadians, while awaiting
the decision of Parliament in regard to the
regular troops, have under consideration the
offer Of Colonel Johnson, Sioux chief, who
proposes to place eight hundred Sioux In
dians at their service in campaign against
the Red River rebels; and if the British
Government has not made a great
auVauco III humanity since the
days of the Revolution and the war of 1872,
it may countenance this infamous PROPOSE
tion. When pressed by inordinste ambition
on the one hand and lack of disposable
civilized soldiers or of money on the other,
it is a characteristic feature of the British
policy to call in the aid of merciless savages,
and to send them forth on such errands as
the massacre of Wyoming Many of the
Sioux, and especially those who are in the
habit of passing and repassing the boundary
line between the Red River settlements and
the United States, are inveterate enemies OF
the American people. They butchered in
Minnesota, few years ago, hundreds OF
white settlers; they have slaughtered in de-
tail, many of our citizens since; and theil
rude ideas of policy prompt them with al
eager desire to crush out the existing disposi
tion of the Red River insurgents to annex
their territory TO tho United States; so tha
these bloody and relentless murderers are
the natural allies of the courtly British noble
men, and the proposed cooperative move
ment would strictly accord with the antece
dents of the high contracting parties.