The Portland daily press., 1882-03-28
The Dominion Capital.

The Dominion Government and the people
OF Canada generally understand well the rela-
tion Of education and intelligence to the gener-
al prosperity and welfare, and accordingly most
liberal expenditures ara made In that direction.
This public school buildings that l have seen
are models Of excellence and architectural fit
ness They are all substantial and very we'll
built The Normal School and the Model
School here have accommodations of the very
first order, which would do honor to the Oldest
and richest of our States. The. material is a
light gray limestone, like that SO generally en-
ployed for building in Montreal, and is as hand
some and as good as the Hallowell or Concord
granite. bde
Under the present able financial manage
ment Of the government, the credi. Of the Do
minion is firmly established on a solid founda-
ton. The securities of Canada do not stand SO
high in Wall street and in Lombard street as
those of England and the United States, but
they are intrnsioally rs valuable; there cannot
be doubt about that. The financial policy of
the government may now be regarded as defin-
itely settled, which will assure for the govern
ment in the future, as at present, an abundant
revenue with handsome surplus over all de-
mands upon the treasury.
There is no drsin on the finances of Canada
for military or naval purposes. She has no
call whatever In that direction, except to main
tain an efficient police upon her extensive west
ern and northwestern frontiers Like the
United States she hes no fear whatever that
her friendly relations with other nations will
in any way be disturbed. She feels herself, as
We do, perfectly secure from any unfriendly at
tituds towards her of any other country, so
that none of her resources are devoted to prep
arations for attack or for defense. She is secure
therefore from those exhausting expenditures
for military and naval establishments, which
weigh SO heavily upon the people of all Europe
an nations.
The only embarrassment she feels in her en-
deavors to develop her unbounded resources
rapidly and extensively is her position OF isola-
ton in Winter, when her great water courses
are closed by ice.. But this will trouble her
less By and by than it does now, as she is rapid
ly pushing railways through her territory,
which can be run in Winter nearly as well as
In Summer, and will practically bring her great
interior doSn to the sea. At present the feel
ing fingers in Canada that che must seek the
Ocean through her own territory as matter
Of State pride, but she will soon see that the
shortest and cheapest route to the salt water is
most for the interest of tho whole country
The present Governor Gene raj is Scotch
man by birth and education, but Canadian by
position and conviction, and has commended
himself to the kind regards Of the people here.
BY his downright hard, Scotch good sense and
by his genial manners. He takes in the situa-
ton thoroughly, that Canada has outgrown
her leading strings and pinafores. and has per-
sonaI and local interests Of her own to be con-
suited and provided for. and that it is her un-
doubted right to arrange her own policies ON
W hatever subject according to her own views
OF other countries, as independent governments
always do. I
I There was for time in Canada feeling
that an independent governm entail policy on
questions of trade and the industries would be
inconsistent with the relations OF the Dominion
with the mother country. Somehow many
people thought the kind mother at the old
home should be consulted upon all domestic
arrangements in the new little household
across the great sea in the new world think
that feeling is now confined to very few. Ca
nadians now understand. as they did not thirty
or forty yearssago, that this is the permanent
some for themselves and their children, and
they are addressing themselves earnestly to the
work Of building up here, as they Will do,
great, rich powerful nation, an offshoot, to be
sure, like the United States, Of the dear old
father land across the water, but nevertheless
o nation by itself and for itself, with proper re-
gard to tho amenities that are due to all other
peoples. -
Some Of the truest and ablest men Of the
Dominion are looking earnestly for the means
- c0pnpligbinp this
work They have inaugurated here policy
of protection to Canadian industries that has
already indicated clearly that the results will
be most salutary to all home interests. We OF
the United States would prefer, perhaps, that
they would continue to dig and delve and send
ali their money to us in payment for our man
ufSctures, remaining diggers and delivers all
their lives, while swe should grow rich on the
products OF their hard work. But l am sure l
express the thought of my countrymen when l
bid God speed to our northern DeighborS and
friends in their new departure. We have and
can have no jealousies towards them. 1t is
clearly for our interest that Canada should be-
come great, rich country, governed by an In
telligent people of our language and OF our
blood.
The conviction is rapidly making its way
among the best OF the people of the Dominion,
that the liquor traffic is greater hindrance
to the country in tho endeavor for national
prosperity than all other evils combined They
affirm that the wages of labor spent in the
grog shops are absolutely lost to the country,
at the same time that the return made to the
people for money spent in that way makes the
transaction great deal worse for society than
il would be II the money were absolutely de-
stroyed. The customers Of the grog shops not
only lose in inclination to work. but by and by
the ability to work is gone, SO that instead OF
being good, useful citizens, they become waits,
castaways, beggars, vagrants, tramps, living
upon the wages and earnings OF the sober and
industrious part of the people.
The Canadians are therefore working vigor-
ously and efficiently for the suppression of the
liquor traffic In Nova Scotia no one can have a
his application of two-thirds of all the voters of
his town, and two-thirds of the grand jury,
and then two-thirds of the judges must concur
in granting the license!
This is, practically, prohibition, with sharp
and severe penalties for selling liquor against
the law. In more than half of Now Brunswick
and in the whole Of Prince Edward Island,
there is prohibition by local option. The same
is true with many counties in Upper Canada,
and In Manitoba there is absolute prohibition
BY special statute. Those who are working for
the complete extirpation Of the liquor traffic
are embarrassed by the border line, not yet ex-
actly marked between the power over this mat
ter by the provincial and general governments.
At first, there was prohibition by the local
legislatures. Then those learned in the law said
the devil Of drink can only be exercised by tbs
powers at Ottawa. Then the Dominion parlia-
ment passed the "Scott Act'-prohibition by
local option and the rum-trade Of st. John has
appealed to Her Gracious Majesty to say that
the trade cannot be put down in that way. If
Her Majesty says that, there is grave doubt that
"the trade can be driven out, except by the
Leg Tdsionis of J1dge Lynch. The decision of
the Queen is looked for in the next season, and
il she sustains the law, and the Supreme Court
of Canada, which has decided it to be Constitu-
tional, as she probably will, "the trade must
set its house in order. II she should decide
otherwise, the Canadians-the temperance
men especially--will begin to inquire why the
full-grown men of the Dominion should go
three thousand miles across the Ocean to find
out what their own laws mean, which they
have drawn and enacted for their own local
purposes, and there will be cut one more strand
Of the slender cord that stretches from shore to
shore across the Atlantic, which metaphorical-
ly holds the two peoples together.
In any event, the liquor trade must CO., as
the Irish in California say Of the Chinese. The
sons of the Emerald Isles want that beautiful
country for themselves. And so the Canadians
are resolved to have this great country ior
themselves and for their children, and they
will not consent that that the liquor trade shall
inject 1t with poverty, pauperism, wretched-
ness, insanity and crime, SO that it cannot be.
come the home OF great, free, prosperous and
haupy neople as thew intend it to be