The Portland daily press., 1872-11-25

The best thing that the advocates OF the an
nexation of Canada to|the United States or even
of the independence of the former country can
do, is to distribute very widely among its peo-
ME the London Times of November 9th. Ii
John Bull Jr. can still profess and feel IL
tense loyalty after reading that, he is not the
spirited ytu fellow that he has been
thought. A grown-up son may well endure
in silence hasty word or so uttered by a
choleric old parent in moment of exaspera-
ton. He may even console himself when
the old gentleman, in periodical fit of econo-
my or severity, refuses to honor his demand
for another hundred dollars. But when the
big boy is seized by the collar, and ostenta-
tiously led to the door and assisted down the
steps in the sight of all the world, he is quite
likely to have his pride so much wounded as
to prevent the immediate establishment of
cordial relations between him and his sire.
What the Times says, as the representative
of British opinion, is in substance this: You
complain, Messrs. Canadians, that your in
tereSts have been sacrificed by
the treaty of Washington and the
arbitrations Hereunder. You say
shat the San Juan boundary question has
been settled immensely to your disadvantage,
depriving you of all hope Of ever obtaining
supremacy on the Pacific coast, that the
claims for damages on account of the Fenian
raids were given up at the start without a
struggle, and worst of all, that your fisheries
have been sold to foreign power for trife,
and tritie that may not be forthcoming,
since its payment is dependent on the action
of a foreign legislature. We have had great
trouble with you from the beginning about
this treaty, and before we could obtain your
assent to it at all it was found necessary to
bride you by voting you subsidy of over
twelve million dollars for the Intercolnnial
Railway. Now you are more clamorous than
ever, and we have but one word to say to you.
That word is-begone! If you don't like the
way in which we manage your affairs, man
age them yourself You are now fine, large,
well-grown fellow-go your way! "Your
days of apprenticeship are over.''
Thus the Thunderer. The response Of the
Canadian press will be looked for with great
interest. The response from the Canadian
people will be looked for with still greater in
terest. viii they still put up with England's
unconcealed disdain and contemptuous Ian
guage for the poor satisfaction of forming
sort of despised fag end of the British EN-
pire? Will they still prefer their present con-
dtion of dependency to the position of SOW
ereign States? Four commonwealth with
about the population OF. Mass achusetts, with
eight United States Senators and over forty
Representatives in Congress and about fifty
votes in the electoral college, could be carved
out of the Dominion of Canada. In the
British American possessions, which are
turned out of doors together with the Domn-
ion, are the germs ofnumerous great States
that would develop with almost unex-
ampled rapidity under the influence
of free institutions and close political and
commercial relations with the rest of the
American continent. The Canadians want
above all things free access to the American
markets. Annexation would do them, the
United States and the cause of civilization
the inestimable service of demolshing every
custom house, from Puget Sound to Passa-
maquoddy Bay. As an Offset to the stimula-
ton of business, the rapid increase of pop
ulation and of general intelligence and the
enjoyment of political independence, the
Canadians would lose the English leading
strings; it would lose Lord Duffern and all
its ''Sir Johns and 'sSir Alexanders - the
beautiful but expensive exotic of simulated
royalty would fade. But half the advantages
have not been enumerated. There would no
longer be any fear of Fenian raids; the
shadow of trouble from American inroads in
Manitoba would pass away; the unhappy
fate of Canada in case of war between
England and America would be avoided, and
the natural seaport of the Canadas'' would
at length belong to Canada Why longer de-
fly natures laws and fight against the ire
sistible tendency of events?