St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-07-21
WHAT NIGHT HAPPEN.

Had Southern statesmen, fifty
years ago, not been so bent on Sc
curing an extension of slave terri
tory, and the administration of Polk
not been in sympathy with them,
there would not now be any Mani
toba question to disturb the cabinet
of Premier Bowell and make the
outcome one of suggestive specula-
ton from our side of the line. Had
the Democratic cry of 'Fifty-four
forty or fight been carried into our
foreign policy, what is now Manitoba
and the provinces to her west would
have been either states or territories
Of the United States. Thus it is
that with nations as with men ac-
lions lead to,remote and unforeseen
events.
The Manitoban question, as it has
now come to be, is full Of suggestive
possibilities that verge on prObabili-
les. The situation has reached the
lcute stage. Manitoba insists on the
naturalization of the schools. and
that taxation or public funds shall
not be used for the support Of paro-
chial schools. The Dominion insists
that the status prior to the union
shall be maintained, holding the law
of 1890, abolishing the separate de-
nominational school system, void as
in contravention of the fundamental
law, and commanding the province
to restore the status quo. This Man.
itoba refuses to do, and recent pub
lie meetings there show that the
Greenway government is sustained
by a firm, deep-seated public sem
timent. This feeling is not local.
Sympathizers with it are numerous
in all the provinces, especially in the
most powerful of all, Ontario. 1t
thus becomes a national question;
the government committed to sus-
tanning its decree by the use of force
if necessary, and the Manitobans
willing to try the issue by force of
arms if that is unavoidable.
This creates a situation that makes
speculation as to the future a mat
ter of interest to us on this side of
the line. Will the history of our
Southwestern border be repeated fif-
ty years later on our central north
ern? VIII Manitoba follow the course
Of
Of the states of our Union? Suppose
that the present or the next Do
minion administration should insist
on the obedience of the province to
the final decree of the governor-in-
council, and that the province should
refuse to submit. The Dominion
holds the purse, the sword and the
judicial scale. The province is but
dependency. Reversing the forma-
ton of our Union and following the
true monarchial idea, the Dominion
is supreme and the provinces have
only such powers as are delegated
to them by the Dominion. Insistence
by the latter then means the armed
occupancy Of the province, and the
substitution of military for civic
rule. With the government in op-
position there is no other way open
to an enforcement of the school
laws, as interpreted by the Domin-
ion. 1t must take and administer
the local government by a military
government.
This means either war or servile
submission that the present temper
of the Manitobans makes improb-
able. This was the Texan situation.
The Mexican government put Texas
under military rule The Texans re-
VOTED, and the war began that ended
In our recognition of their indepen-
dence, the establishment of the re-
public and, later, it's Incorporation
In the nation. While the sympathies
Of the people of this nation are not
as warmly enlisted with the Mani
tobans as they were with their fell
low countrymen who occupied Texas,
still something of the old "Fifty-four
forty or fight" fingers, and the con-
vlctlon is deep that events are rap
idly ripening for the absorption of
Canada by the United States. In spite
of the denials of interested officials