Canada and the States Part 1

Canada and the States.

by Edward William Watkin.

PREFACE.

The following pages have been written at the request of many old friends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British rule over the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America.

In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, in search of health. In 1861 I went there on an anxious mission of business; and for some years afterwards I frequently crossed the Atlantic, not only during the great Civil War between the North and South, but, also, subsequent to its close. In 1875 I had to undertake another mission of responsibility to the United States. And, last year, I traversed the Dominion of Canada from Belle Isle to the Pacific. I returned home by San Francisco and the Union Pacific Railways to Chicago; and by Montreal to New York. Thence to Liverpool, in that unsurpa.s.sed steamer, the "Etruria," of the grand old Cunard line. I ended my visits to America, as I began them, as a tourist. This pa.s.sage was my thirtieth crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Within the period from 1851 to 1886, history on the North American Continent has been a wonderful romance. Never in the older stories of the world's growth, have momentous changes been effected, and, apparently, consolidated, in so short a time, or in such rapid succession.

Regarding the United States, the slavery of four millions of the negro race is abolished for ever, and the black men vote for Presidents. A great struggle for empire--fought on gigantic measure--has been won for liberty and union. Turning to Canada, the British half of the Continent has been moulded into one great unity, and f.a.ggotted together, without the shedding of one drop of brothers' blood--and in so tame and quiet a way, that the great silent forces of Nature have to be cited, to find a parallel.

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 pa.s.ses exclusively through British territory--the Dominion of Canada. The problem of a "North-west Pa.s.sage" 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 Pa.s.sage" through Canada? The future of Canada depends upon the decision. What will the decision be? How soon will it be given?

Is this great work, the Canadian Pacific Railway, to be left as a monument, at once, of Canada's loyalty and foresight, and of Canada's betrayal: or is it to be made the new land-route to our Eastern and Australian Empire? If it is to be shunted, then the explorations of the last three hundred years have been in vain. The dreams of some of the greatest statesmen of past times are reduced to dreams, and nothing more. The strength given by this glorious self-contained route, from the old country to all the new countries, is wasted. On the other hand, if those who now govern inherit the great traditions of the past; if they believe in Empire; if they are statesmen--then, a line of Military Posts, of strength and magnitude, beginning at Halifax on the Atlantic, and ending at the Pacific, will give power to the Dominion, and, wherever the red-coat appears, confidence in the old brave country will be restored.

Then the soldier, his arms and our armaments, will have their periodical pa.s.sages backwards and forwards through the Dominion. Mails for the East, for Australia, and beyond, will pa.s.s that way; and the subject of every part of the Empire will, as he pa.s.ses, feel that he is treading the sacred soil of real liberty and progress.

Which is it to be?

Some years ago, Sir John A. Macdonald said, "I hope to live to see the day--and if I do not, that my son may be spared, to see Canada the right arm of England. To see Canada a powerful auxiliary of the Empire, not, as now, a source of anxiety, and a source of danger."

Does Her Majesty's Government echo this aspiration?

Thinking people will recognize that the United States become, year by year, less English and more Cosmopolitan; less conservative and more socialist; less peaceful and more aggressive. Twice within ten years the Presidential elections have pushed the Republic to the very brink of civil war. But for the forbearance of Mr. Tilden and the Democrats, on one occasion; and the caution of leading Republicans when President Cleveland was chosen, disturbance must have happened.

We have yet to see whether Provincial Government may not, in the Dominion, lead towards Separation, rather than towards Union. While one Custom-house and one general Government is aiding Union, the Province of Quebec accentuates all that is French; the Province of Ontario accentuates all that is British: the problem, here, is how, gradually, to weaken sectional, and how gradually to strengthen Union, ideas.

State rights led to a civil war in the United States: Provincial Government fifty years hence may lead to conflicts in Canada.

In the United States there was no solution but war. Surely in Canada we can apply the safety valve of augmenting British aid and influence. Why not try the re-introduction of the red-coat of the Queen's soldier --that soldier to be enlisted and officered, let us hope in the early future, from every portion of the Queen's Dominions--as of the one Imperial army;--an Imperial army paid for by the whole Empire.

CHAPTER I.

_Preliminary--One Reason why I went to the Pacific._

A quarter of a century ago, charged with the temporary oversight of the then great Railway of Canada, I first made the acquaintance of Mr.

Tilley, Prime Minister of the Province of New Brunswick, whom I met in a plain little room, more plainly furnished, at Frederickton, in New Brunswick. My business was to ask his co-operation in carrying out the physical union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and through them Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, with Canada by means of what has since been called the "Intercolonial" Railway. That Railway, projected half a century ago, was part of the great scheme of 1851,--of which the Grand Trunk system from Portland, on the Atlantic, to Richmond; and from Riviere du Loup, by Quebec and Richmond, to Montreal, and then on to Kingston, Toronto, Sarnia, and Detroit--had been completed and opened when I, thus, visited Canada, as Commissioner, in the autumn of 1861. I found Mr. Tilley fully alive to the initial importance of the construction of this arterial Railway--initial, in the sense that, without it, discussions in reference to the fiscal, or the political, federation, or the absolute union, under one Parliament, of all the Provinces was vain. I found, also, that Mr. Tilley had, ardently, embraced the great idea--to be realized some day, distant though that day might be--of a great British nation, planted, for ever, under the Crown, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Certainly, in 1861, this great idea seemed like a mere dream of the uncertain future. Blocked by wide stretches of half-explored country: dependent upon approaches through United States' territory: each Province enforcing its separate, and differing, tariffs, the one against the other, and others, through its separate Custom House; it was not matter of surprise to find a growing gravitation towards the United States, based, alike, on augmenting trade and augmenting prejudices.

Amongst party politicians at home, there was, at this time, of 1861, little adhesion to the idea of a Colonial Empire; and the reader has only to read the reference, made later on, to a published letter of Sir Charles Adderley to Mr. Disraeli in 1862, to see how the pulse of some of the Conservative party was then beating.

There was, however, one bright gleam of hope. That was to be found in the, still remembered, effects of the visit of the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Duke of Newcastle, to Canada, and the United States, in 1860.

Entertaining, with no small enthusiasm, and in common, these views of an Anglo-American Empire, Mr. Tilley and I were of the same opinion as to practical modes. We must go "step by step," and the Intercolonial Railway was the first step in the march before us.

In the following pages will be found some record of what followed.

Suffice it here to say, that the Railway is made, not on the route I advocated: but it is in course of improvement, so that the shortest iron road from the great harbour of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the Pacific may be secured. The vast western country, bigger than Russia in Europe, more or less possessed and ruled over, since the days of Prince Rupert, the first governor, by the "Merchant Adventurers of England trading to Hudson's Bay," has been annexed to Canada, and one country, under one Parliament, is bounded by the two great oceans; and, as a consequence, the "Canadian Pacific Railway" has been made and opened for the commerce of the world.

Mr. Tilley, now Sir Leonard Tilley, is, at the moment, Lieutenant- Governor of New Brunswick, having previously filled the highest offices in the Government of the "Dominion of Canada;" and he has not forgotten the vow he and I exchanged some while after our first acquaintance.

That vow was, that we neither of us would die, if we could help it, "until we had looked upon the waters of the Pacific from the windows of a British railway carriage." The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, completed by the indomitable perseverance of Sir George Stephen, Mr.

Van Horne, and their colleagues--sustained as they have been, throughout, by the far-sighted policy and liberal subsidies, granted ungrudgingly, by the Dominion Parliament, under the advice of Sir John A. Macdonald, the Premier. I have, in the past year, fulfilled my vow, by traversing the Canadian Continent from Quebec to Port Moody, Vancouver City, and Victoria, Vancouver's Island, over the 3,100 miles of Railway possessed by the Canadian Pacific Company, and have "looked upon the waters of the Pacific from the windows of a British railway carriage."

My impressions of this grand work will be found in future chapters.

"The Dominion of Canada" now includes the various Provinces of North America, formerly known as Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Vancouver's Island, and the extensive regions of The Hudson's Bay Company, including the new Province of Manitoba, and the North West Territories; in fact, the whole of British North America, except Newfoundland.

This territory stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and (including Newfoundland) is estimated to contain a total area of some four million square miles.

As matter of mere surface, and probably of cultivable area, also, more than half the Northern Continent of America owes allegiance to the Crown and to Queen Victoria. So may it remain. So it will remain if we retain the Imperial instinct. These n.o.ble provinces are confederated into a vast dominion, with one common Law, one Custom House, and one "House of Commons"--by a simple Act of the Imperial Parliament, the Confederation Act of 1867, pa.s.sed while Lord Beaconsfield was Prime Minister and the Duke of Buckingham Colonial Minister. This union was effected quietly, unostentatiously, and in peace; and (circ.u.mstances well favouring) by the exertions, influence, and faithfulness to Imperial traditions, of Cartier, John A. Macdonald, John Ross, Howe, Tilley, Galt, Tupper, Van Koughnet, and other provincial statesmen, who forced the Home Government to action and fired their brother colonists with their own enthusiasm.

At home, all honour is due to a great Colonial Minister--the Duke of Newcastle.

Taking up, some years ago, a tuft of gra.s.s growing at the foot of one of the grand marble columns of the Parthenon at the Acropolis at Athens, I found a compa.s.s mark in the footing, or foundation--a mere scratch in the stone--made, probably, by some architect's a.s.sistant, before the Christian era. I make no claim to more than having made a scratch of some sort on the foundation stone of some pillar, or other, of Confederation. And I throw together these pages with no idea of gaining credit for services, gratuitously rendered, over a period of years and under many difficulties, to a cause which I have always had at heart; but with the desire to record some facts of interest which, hereafter, may, probably, be held worthy of being interleaved in some future history of the union of the great American provinces of the British Empire. I have another motive also: I should wish to contribute some information bearing upon any future account of the life of the late Duke of Newcastle. He is dead: and, so far, no one has attempted to write his biography. That may be reserved for another generation. He was the Colonial Minister under whose rule and guidance the foundations of the great measure of Confederation were, undoubtedly, laid; and to him, more than to any minister since Lord Durham, the credit of preserving, as I hope for ever, the rule of her Majesty, and her successors, over the Western Continent ought to attach. For, while the idea of an union, of more or less extent, was suggested in Lord Durham's time--probably by Charles Buller,--and was now and then fondled by other Governors-General, in Canada, and by Colonial Ministers at home--the real, practical measures which led to the creation of one country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific were due to the far-sighted policy and persuasive influence of the Duke. The Duke was a statesman singularly averse to claiming credit for his own special public services, while ever ready to attribute credit and bestow praise on those around him.

My first interview with the Duke was in January, 1847. He was then Lord Lincoln, and the Conservative candidate for Manchester; in disgrace with his father. His father was the old fashioned n.o.bleman who desired "to do what he liked with his own," and never would rebuild Nottingham Castle, burnt in 1832 by the Radicals. The son had cast in his lot with Sir Robert Peel and free trade. The father was still one of the narrow- minded cla.s.s to whom reform of any kind was the spectre of "ruin to the country." They were quite honest in the conviction that the people were "born to be governed, and not to govern." They probably saw in the free importation of foreign food the abrogation of rent.

In 1847 Mr. Bright was the candidate for Manchester, whom we of the old Anti-Corn Law League supported. The interview I refer to was actuated by our desire to avoid an undeserved opposition; Lord Lincoln retired, however, owing mainly to other reasons, including that of the intolerance of a body of Churchmen regarding popular education.

A long period of wretched health compelled me for several years to consume what strength I had left in the ordinary routine of daily business. And it was not until 1852 that any further intercourse of any kind took place between us. In that year I published a little book about the United States and Canada, the record of my first visit to North America, in 1851. And, if I recollect rightly, I travelled with the Duke in the spring of 1852, probably between Rugby and Derby, and found him in possession of a copy of this little book, on which he had, faute de mieux, spent half-a-crown at the book stall at Euston. He recognised me; and it was my fault, and not his, that I saw no more of him till 1857, by which time, no doubt, he had forgotten me. Still our conversation in 1852 about America, and especially as to slavery, and the probability of a separation of North and South, will always dwell in my memory. Lord Lincoln had studied De Tocqueville; but he had not, yet, seen America. He had, therefore, at that time many erroneous views, which could only be corrected by the actual and personal opportunity of seeing and measuring, on the spot, the country, which always really means the people. This opportunity was given to him by the visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States, in 1860. He accompanied the Prince in his capacity of Colonial Minister.

These casual glimpses of Lord Lincoln were followed by an interview between us in 1857. In the meantime, it is true, he had had my name brought before him during his term of office pending the Crimean War Some one had suggested to the Government to send me out to the Crimea to take charge of the Stores Department, at a time when all was confusion and mess, out there, and I was asked to call on the Minister about it. It seemed to me, however, a duty impossible of execution by a civilian, unless the condition of "full powers" were conceded,--and the matter came to nothing.

In 1856 I was the Manager of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. In that year a reckless engine, travelling between Shireoaks and Worksop, threw out some sparks, which set fire to the underwood of one of the Duke's plantations--for he was then Duke--and he wrote to the Chairman of the Railway, the then Earl of Yarborough, in what appeared to me a very haughty manner. I therefore felt bound to defend my chief, and I took up the quarrel. In a note addressed from the Library of the House of Commons, I asked for an interview, which was somewhat stiffly granted. This was the note which led to our interview:--

"CLUMBER, "1 Decr. 1856.

"MY DEAR YARBOROUGH,

"Instead of placing the enclosed extraordinary production in the hands of my Solicitor, I think it best, in the first instance, to send it to you as Chairman of the M. S. & L. Railway, because I cannot believe that either its tone or its substance can have been authorized by the Directors.