Year: 1872

yesterday


The Future or Canada-A Movement
for Independence.


If the London Times. by uttering an un-
pleasant truth about the connection Of Canada
with England, has awakened the former to o
sense of it's humiliated position, so much the
better. The English organ did not mince mat
ters. 1t said bluntly to the Canadians, If you
are tired Of England, set up for yourselves and
see how you'll like it. This was not very
courteous speaking, and when the Canadian
journals call it ''brutal," ''atrocious" and
''insulting," they prove nothing beyond their
sensitive mental weakness When Oliver
Cromwell cried, "Take away that bauble!"
there is no doubt feeling Of wounded pride
and insulted respect for authority ran through
every beadle in England. But tho uncouth
Protector was man who spoke his mind in
direct phrasing, and when he made war upon
| monarchy, with its ruf1es, frills and baubles
he cared very little about the wincing Of those
whom it CALLED. Cromwell's rudeness was
merely that of the representative Englshman
Of to-day. When he works himself into Q
passion the circumlocution of courtesy is
quickly flung away and he blurts forth
his meaning, rudely, mayhaps, but with
point. Thus it is that the spoon-fed
Canadians who have looked up and listened
to their nurse of Printing House square, Lon
don, are shocked at the apparent inhumanity
of being told to provide for themselves. How
wide this spirit of reliance on what is prac-
tically foreign government to them was is
proved in the fact that the leading journals of
the Dominion, without exception, are still
between wailing ard wonder at tho strong
new light which has broken upon them.


The gradual manner in which England, for
selfish ends, has accomplished the process of
alternating Canada from herself has deceived
the Canadians. The consolidation Of the
provinces into the Dominion, the withdrawal
of the English garrison, the Treaty of Wash
ington, with its fishery and San Juan clauses,
and without the reciprocity which Canada
hoped for were oil acts paving the way for
the declaration Of the Times. Canada how
ever in its spirit of dependence never drew
the moral from them which England wished.





and helplessness where honest pride and self
reliance should be their answer.


In another portion Of the HERALD will be
found highly interesting letter from one of
our correspondents, dated at Toronto, which
will give fair idea Of the ferment of opinion
over the border. They are hurt, but for the
most part are inclined to pocket the Times



English newspaper, after oil. They must have
something to shake their hands at, and hence
they find it safer to bristle up because the
HERALD in the kindest spirit has pointed out
to them the course for young people to fol-
low whose leading strings are being cut As
our correspondent humorously intimates,
there exists in this torpid community splen-
did human material for progress if it only had
the benefit Of On intimate connection with the
great industrial heart of the United States to
vivify it. AT present Canada is cut off from
enterprise as much as China. England has so
far Withdrawn from it as to leave it almost q
separate nation, treating with it after barter
ing away what Canadians called its rights, by
putting down some twelve and half million





by restrictions on it's commerce which arise
almost solely out of the fact that its nominal
government is an English dependency, and
treated therefore, as England herself


The question, then, for Canada to consider,
having first taken the utterances of the NEW
YORK HERALD and the London Times seriously
to heart, and without any puerile ill-feelings of
wounded sentimentality, is, how best to rid
itself of the meanness and poverty of its
position and to grasp the opportunity of
building up power whose independence and
material prosperity may be q matter of pride
to its citizens. Standing in the way Of this is,
firstly, an irrational conservatism among the
ultra loyal, who manufacture American
''bogies' out Of their own ungrounded fears
secondly, the ofice-holders with money of the
present power in their pockets, and thirdly,
subsidized press. Against this, though not
strongly operative just now, is the popular
dissatisfaction with the barrenness of the
Dominion idea, which, with all its fanfaronade
at the start, has brought forth nothing for
anybody but the ofice-holders and their
''rings'' on the new Pacific Railroad


The dangers which surround the Macdonald
Ministry in consequence of its recent defeats
and the personal attacks upon Sir John him
self, growing out of the Washington Treaty, of
which he was the Canadian Commissioner, all
tend to show the incipiency of the movement
which will end in the assertion of the manhood
of Canada. When they thus condemn the effect
it should not take long for a thinking people
to overthrow the cause. The tories in Canada
will repeat the role Of the tories in the Revo-
luton, with this difference that they will have
no opportunities to take up arms for the Brit
ish, since the latter will not, as the Times indi-
Gates, place any barrier of steel between Canada
and its desire for independence, or, if it so