In This Period, The American Continent Has Been Spanned By Three Main
Routes Of Iron-Road, Uniting The Atlantic And Pacific Oceans:
And one
of these main routes passes exclusively through British territory - the
Dominion of Canada.
The problem of a "North-west Passage" has been
solved in a new and better way. It is no longer a question of threading
dark and dismal seas within the limits of Arctic ice and snow, doubtful
to find, and impossible, if found, to navigate. Now, the two oceans are
reached by land, and a fortnight suffices for the conveyance of our
people from London or Liverpool to or from the great Pacific, on the
way to the great East.
Anyone who reads what follows will learn that I am an Imperialist - that
I hate little-Englandism. That, so far as my puny forces would go, I
struggled for the union of the Canadian Provinces, in order that they
might be retained under the sway of the best form of government - a
limited monarchy, and under the best government of that form - the
beneficent rule of our Queen Victoria. I like to say our Queen: for no
sovereign ever identified herself in heart and feeling, in anxiety and
personal sacrifice, with a free and grateful people more thoroughly
than she has done, all along.
In this period of thirty-six years the British American Provinces have
been, more than once, on the slide. The abolition of the old Colonial
policy of trade was a great wrench. The cold, neglectful, contemptuous
treatment of Colonies in general, and of Canada in particular, by the
doctrinaire Whigs and Benthamite-Radicals, and by Tories of the
Adderley school, had, up to recent periods, become a painful strain.
Denuding Canada of the Imperial red-coat disgusted very many. And the
constant whispering, at the door of Canada, by United States
influences, combined with the expenditure of United States money on
Nova Scotian and other Canadian elections, must be looked to, and
stopped, to prevent a slide in the direction of Washington.
On the other hand, the statesmanlike action of Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, Colonial Minister in 1859, in erecting British Columbia into a
Crown Colony, was a break-water against the fell waves of annexation.
The decided language of Her Majesty's speech in proroguing Parliament
at the end of 1859 was a manifesto of decided encouragement to all
loyal people on the American Continent: and, followed as it was by the
visit - I might say the triumphal progress - of the Prince of Wales,
accompanied by the Colonial Minister, the great Duke of Newcastle,
through Canada, in 1860, the loyal idea began to germinate once more.
Loyal subjects began to think that no spot of earth over which the
British flag had once floated would ever, again, be given up - without a
fight for it. Canada for England, and England for Canada!
But, what will our Government at home do with the new "North-west
Passage" through Canada? The future of Canada depends upon the
decision.
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