The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-08

sistible, that we shall have our due and realize
our destinies without war by sheer political
weight.
A journal is not under the same duty of
reserve and reticence as the President, and
we hold it to be our business to sgnalize in
this action of the authorities of the Dominion
the conception, so hostile to the United
States, which actuated the statesmen of Eng
land in bringing about the new North Ameri-
can confederation. When our civil war broke
out European statesmen, short-sighted, jeal-
Gus, and ill-informed, conceived that the
moment was come to arrest forever the de-
velopment of the United States into a single
great power ruling the whole North Ameri-
can continent. There may have been no
exact concert to that end; but the measures
taken were skilful and might have prevailed
if they had not been in utter contradiction to
the inevitable maj estic march of events, and
an attempt - Machiavellian in its want of
principle--to make the whole future history
of North America the same scenes of inevita-
BILE division and hostility which have always
prevailed in Europe. The design had two
great features. One was the creation of the
Mexican empire under Maximilian; the other
was the establishment of the new federation
of all the British American provinces north
of our own boundary line
The confederation was founded expressly
as check upon the United States, and much
exultation was expressed at the time by Bri-
tish statesmen and journalists at the dis
covery Of so exquisite device for placing on
the flank of the republic a power which, to-
gether with the Independent Southern con-
federation, would forever insure the disrup-
ton of North Amer lea. This foolish and uu-
righteous idea still prevails in the British
mind Even so late as last year Mr.. Goodwin
Smith, resident among us, and a sympa-
thizer, according to his feeble professional
capacity, with our institutions and ourselves,
wrote letter to an English journal in which
he expounded with approval this precious
piece of philosophical craftsmanship. 1t is
not necessary to quote the letter, but its drift
was that the hardy northernmost Americans,
with their simpler lives and more monarchi-
Cal tendency, would qualify and balance the
more effervescent and progressive republican
Union; with more rubbish of that sort; all
showing that the question of inevitable su-
premacy on this continant was as sealed
book, at that late date even, to Mr.. Goldwin
Smith as to the driest English Tory at home,
whom he so heartily despises.
Founded on ideas like these, and stimu-
lated to assert themselves ridiculously in such
a direction as this, even by the teachings of
a Goodwin Smith, we cannot wonder at the
unfriendly conduct of the authorities of the
New Dominion. We have it on the authority
of the President that they are harassing
American fishing vessels with severity not
practised heretofore, and sub citing our ships
to exceptional legislation which must not be
allowed to stand for moment. They are
advancing pretensions and making laws to
enforce them which the British Government
itself has not hitherto ventured upon-pre-
tensions which are little short of impudent.
statute of the Dominion prohibits the fish
ing vessels of the United States from having
on board any merchandise whatever except
what is necessary for such fishery, and sub
jects them to seizure and condemnation if
they have, enforcing this by police visitation
and lntolerable inquistorial proceedings.
Such policy must be resisted at once. 1t is
simply intolerable. II combines insult and
I'M jury, and seems more calculated to bring
about trouble than to satisfy any Legitimate
interests.
But even more fragrant is the attempt of
the New Dominion to exclude American citi-
zens from the navigation of the st. Lawrence.
The President shows clearly that this is coun-
ter to the whole tendency of international
action for seventy years all over the world in
respect of rivers whose course runs through
out separate sovereignties. 1t is difficult to
understand the drift of such legislation and
policy, unless it aims at providing British
statesmen with spurious equivalent in the
settlement of the Alabama claims. "As sat
isfaction for those" they may say, 1--WE will
open the st. Lawrence" We can hardly sup
pose them capable of such pettifogging; but
why, then, do they permit the New Dominion,
which the President rightly describes as ire
sponsible, to play such pranks as this The
legislation of the Dominion is subject to i'm
perial veto, and its policy is controllable by
Governor-General,a appointed by the crown.
1t is their business to keep this over-lively
young power in order; for they must be per-
| fectly aware themselves, and they ought to
teach their subjects and prOtegeS in the Do
minion, that the theory of checking and
balancing and qualifying and harassing the
| United States by new North American
| Dominion is blown to pieces forever.
This attempt to close the ST. Lawrence to
American vessels is a plain recurrence to
ancient bagbarism in the matter of river
navigation. The principle was solemnly
adopted at the Vienna Congress in 1915 that
river navigation should be free. And no
more offensive and unrighteous application
of the opposite principle can be imagined
than that which pretends to bar the great
American West and Northwest from access to
| the sea through the basin of the st. Law
renee. The idea and the attempt to do SC
are so laughable and contemplate that they
expose the Dominion and England to
the derision of all civilized mankind
England cannot afford to irritate civilized
sentiment in this way. Upon this subject
at least, we ought to be peremptory. The
Union ought to brook no action which de-
prives its citizens of the free navigation oi
the st. Lawrence basin. The interests and
the dignity alike of the United States require
that this should be set right without delay
and we are satisfied that American opinion
will back the President in requiring of Grea
Britain that these questions with the Do
minion should be settled forthwi in con