The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-09

From a material point of view the great region to the north of us beyond the St. Lawrence and the lakes, extend- ing from ocean to ocean and penetrating into the regions of enduring ice, Is to Americans one of the three or four most interesting countries in the world. The number perhaps, could be reduced and still be within the bounds of strict truth. Considering the long length of time we have lived territorially side by side, our common racial descent, inheritance of language, religion, literature, manners, customs, laws and, to a certain extent
 government, 1t is astonishing how far apart we are in everything beyond the lines of cold and calculating commercial intercourse. The arrangement, if that be the exact word to employ in descrlb- ing the feeling between our neighbors and ourselves, is not the result of any particular animosty on either side It does not arise from lack of knowledge of each other There is no country In the world with which we are in closer com munication. Along one of the longest frontier lines in existence we cross and recross at every point of natural con tact on land and water, and where na- ture had issued her fiat of separation we have set 1t aside in works of gigantic construction that are amongst the most marvellous achievements of an age, pre- eminent in all the centuries for the won ders 1t has wrought and the obstacles 1t has surmounted in the march of pro- gressive utilitariansm. Our railroad sys- tems are operated as if they were prac- tically one. In fact they are for all the purposes of travel and trade. In the passage from one sovereignty to the other, governmental fiction has been re- duced to the minimum. No offensive dis- play of force Is seen on either side. There is almost nothing to distinguish one country from the other, except an occasional flag fluttering from some soli- tary pole above a government building. Unlike the nations of the European con- tinent there are no sharp and stern re- minders of changed national conditions when lines of demarcation are trans cended.
 But notwithstanding all this facility of intercourse, this governmental harmony which cannot be duplicated in any other part of the world, and which has been in operation during period beyond the memory of most living men, there is frigidity of feeling and sentiment be- tween ourselves and our Canadian neigh
 bors which no contact, no community of
 
 dissolve. Upon what theory can the ex-
 istence of this sentiment be explained? Seemingly there Is none It Is unac- countabe from any rational point of
 view, but there it Is, deep, strong. and
 so far as we can now see, ineradicable. 1 1t Is easy to understand the antagonlsm | between F'renchmen and Germans, be- l tween Englishmen and Frenchmen, be-
 tween Austrians and Italians, between
 the Turk and the Russian, between the l Pole and the Muscovite. In the case of all of them 1t has it's roots in dynastic | struggles, absurd as we look at them | in the light of experience from broader
 viewpoint; truculent wars of aggression,
 in which the many have been made the | victims of the selfish ambitions of the | few; religious conflicts brought about l for the most part, by imperial impostors | who had not the faintest spark of relig- l ion in their hearts; and a thousand other | causes fashioned in the worship of a | fendlsh statecraft the only purpose of which was the enslavement of humanity. | But between ourselves and the Canadi- ans there are no legacies of hatred and national bitterness, at least so far as we are concerned. We have long ago for gotten that Canada was not with the colonies in the revolution, that she de- clined to join the confederation. In fact her failure to do so did not cause the least III 1eeilnB dt tne tiihe, nor naB IL done so since. In those far away days there was a strong array of tories and sympathizers with them on both sides of the St. Lawrence. Nor has the second war with the mother country left be- hind it any ranking wounds. In Lon don a statue is going up in memory of Washington. Possibly 1t will be dupii- cated one of these days in Toronto. Mon treal. Quebec. or under the shadow of the vfce-reeaI palace at Ottawa While on