But These Are Small Matters, Wholly Unworthy Of The Attention Of The Smiths, And Annands, And Palmers, Who Have Come Forward To Forbid The Banns Of British-American Union.

Mr. Speaker, before I draw to a close the little remainder of what I have to say - and I am sorry to have detained the House so long -

I beg to offer a few observations apropos of my own position as an English-speaking member for Lower Canada. I venture, in the first place, to observe that there seems to be a good deal of exaggeration on the subject of race, occasionally introduced, both on the one side and the other, in this section of the country. I congratulate my honorable friend, the Attorney-General for this section, on his freedom from such prejudices in general, though I still think in matters of patronage and the like he always looks first to his own compatriots for which neither do I blame him. But this theory of race is sometimes carried to an anti-christian and unphilosophical excess. Whose words are these - 'God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth'? Is not that the true theory of race? For my part, I am not afraid of the French Canadian majority in the future local government doing injustice, except accidentally; not because I am of the same religion as themselves; for origin and language are barriers stronger to divide men in this world than is religion to unite them. Neither do I believe that my Protestant compatriots need have any such fear. The French Canadians have never been an intolerant people; it is not in their temper, unless they had been persecuted, perhaps, and then it might have been as it has been with other races of all religions.

"All who have spoken on this subject have said a good deal, as was natural, of the interests at stake in the success or failure of this plan of Confederation. I trust the House will permit me to add a few words as to the principle of Confederation considered in itself. In the application of this principle to former constitutions there certainly always was one fatal defect, the weakness of the central authority. Of all the Federal constitutions I have ever heard or read of, this was the fatal malady: they were short-lived, they died of consumption. But I am not prepared to say that because the Tuscan League elected its chief magistrates but for two months and lasted a century, that therefore the Federal principle failed. On the contrary, there is something in the frequent, fond recurrence of mankind to this principle, among the freest people, in their best times and in their worst dangers, which leads me to believe, that it has a very deep hold in human nature itself - an excellent basis for a government to have. But, indeed, Sir, the main question is the due distribution of powers in a Federal Union - a question I dare not touch to-night, but which I may be prepared to say something on before the vote is taken.

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