Year: 1879

done with charity,


Canadian Independence.


When wife has come to comprehend the
nice distinction between loving and being
in love, and let's her mind dwell upon it,
there is lurking danger to the marital tie.
According to an important letter from Nom
treal. which will be found elsewhere in our
columns, this is an increasing peril in the
relations of the people of Canada to Great
Britain. A great and growing part of the
Canadian population, it says, is learning to
discriminate very nicely between loyalty
to the Empire and loyalty to the Dominion.
1t loves the one but is in love with the
other. The sequence. which in marital
matters is styled divorce, the influential
Canadian whose conversation our corre-
spondent reports styles independence. The
Toronto Globe, in q significant article which
we append to this letter from Montreal,
confesses the existence of the dangerous
discomfort, but imputes annexation to the
United States as it's aim instead of mere in
dependence of British authority. This is
pure assertion. Not breath of any such
purpose is blown by our frank Canadian
informant, who, we venture to believe, is
better acquainted with the subject than the
usually we'll informed Globe itself; and
even if it were true, there is not the slight
boundary line to admit Canada to the priv
ileges of our Union, were she and Great
Britain both humble suitors for that bless
ing. Barkis chalked .'willing" a great
many times on the tailboard of his cart be-
fore Peggotty consented. The Globe, there
fore, might have spared it's impolite dis
course concerning the alleged corruptionS
of our government It is out of keeping
with Christmas article about "peace and
good will" which appears in an adjoining
column of the same number of the paper.
Whatever are our national meannesses, we
never took FIVE and half million dollars
from neighbor in compensation for fish
ing license and afterward set q mob to
worry his fishermen for dropping a line
over the taffrail on Sunday morning.


The reasons why Canadians are getting
SO ardently in love with their own country,
while they merely love the British Empire,
are plain enough to understand. They are
victims of an imperial policy which they
are denied any representation In shaping.
They suffer discomforts from dependence
on British administration. Some of them
our Canadian informant enumerates--the
restriction of markets for their manufac-
lures and produce, SO that their protective
tariff reacts against their interests; the con-
troll of their public works by fancisd inn
perial necessities, bending railway routes
hundreds of miles out of the proper lines
of traffic; the limitation of the fields of am
bition, enterprise and honor accessible to
clever young men, both in official and in
private life; the perils Of their vast oom-
mercial marine in case Of war between Eng
land and the most insignificant maritime
Power, and the certainty of the conquest Of
the whole land If England's adversary were
the United States-these, and many more,
We omit the social and sentimental griev-
ances of court regulations about long trains
and low necks, on which he dwells,
we think, with undue emphasis. Perhaps
the people of the United States are inca
paDle Ol COmpIcucAuAuB sho ScNSIAty Va bubt
affection, for Thomas Jefferson neglected
to put it into the catalogue of wrongs in
our own Declaration of Independence, and
we fancy TINT any Canadian Jefferson will
find equally insuperable difficulty in
making literary use of it.


Both our Montreal letter and the Globe
article intimate that the agitation is grow
ing 80 fast that it is likely to become
prominent feature In Canadian politics.
business and society this winter; and we are
glad to hear it, for news from that quarter
of the world has been uncommonly dull of
late, and this is lively and entertaining.
Possibly the creation of dozen or two
baronets and knights and the free distribu-
ton of three or four times as many button
hole decorations from the Queen through
the Marquis of Lorne may be attempted
as soothing measure; or, since the Cana
dian people have no representation in the
British House of Commons, how would it
do for Earl Beaconsfeld to import half
dozen of them into the House of Lords
with high sounding Indian titles?


The Heliograph.


The effective use recently made of the
u 4