Newfoundland and the Jingoes Part 4

"Two facts are placed beyond dispute by the above-quoted correspondence: (1) that the consent of the 'community' of Newfoundland to the _modus vivendi_ was not obtained by laying it before the legislature, which the 'Labouchere' despatch declared to be the proper action to be taken in such cases; (2) and that even the government of Newfoundland was not consulted as to the adoption of the _modus vivendi_ as settled."

The Labouchere despatch alluded to above, and called by the Newfoundlanders their "Magna Charta," had been sent by the Right Hon.

Henry Labouchere on March 26, 1857. But Mr. Labouchere was not a Tory; and there is the whole difference. So Newfoundland still has to suffer for the criminal negligence which British Tories have displayed from 1743 until to-day.

There was one Englishman, and that the Governor of Newfoundland itself, who had a clear and honorable notion of the imperial government's duty to its unfortunate colony. Sir G. William des Voeux, writing from the government House, St. John's, Jan. 14, 1887, to the Colonial Office in London, after reciting the circ.u.mstances, says: "If this be so, as indeed there are other reasons for believing, I would respectfully urge that in fairness the heavy resulting loss should not, or, at all events, not exclusively, fall upon this colony, and that if in the national interest a right is to be withheld from Newfoundland which naturally belongs to it, and the possession of which makes to it all the difference between wealth and penury, there is involved on the part of the nation a corresponding obligation to grant compensation of a value equal or nearly equal to that of the right withheld."

Nothing can be fairer than that, and it is written by the trusted official of the British government.

Sir G. William des Voeux continues, "In conclusion, I would respectfully express on behalf of this suffering colony the earnest hope that the vital interests of 200,000 British subjects will not be disregarded out of deference to the susceptibilities of any foreign power," etc.

The best interests of those 200,000 inhabitants can be served without touching the French sh.o.r.e at all. Even if France concedes all that Newfoundland demands, the bounty question is in the way; and Newfoundland cannot compete with that.

France gives this bounty--and quite rightly--as a protection to her sailors. A similar protection to England's fishermen would not be permitted by the Manchester men.

The other way is to build a railroad connecting the mining and agricultural districts along the French sh.o.r.e with Port aux Basques.

Of course I do not mean such railroads as are built in England. They have been taxed to the extent of more than seventy millions of pounds sterling over and above the real value of the land sold to them by the rapacious land monopolists. They have been taxed to the extent of many millions more for legal expenses, which, if the House of Commons were equal to its duties, could have been saved. They have been taxed in many cases to find sinecure berths for the dependants of rich men; and so, in order to pay a fair dividend to their stockholders, they must reduce wages to the lowest point, and screw the utmost penny out of their customers.

It is, then, the American way which I recommend as a model, and which the Newfoundland government have tried to imitate in their contract with Mr. Reid, of Montreal. They could have made a far more advantageous contract with him if England had done her duty; but neither Mr. Reid nor Newfoundland is to be blamed for England's fault.

The contract signed on May 16, 1893, by Mr. R.G. Reid binds him to construct a line about five hundred miles in length, connecting Placentia Junction and the chief eastern ports of Newfoundland with Port aux Basques, and to operate this line as well as the Placentia Branch Railway for a period of ten years, commencing Sept. 1, 1893.

After that the line is to become the property of the Newfoundland government, and will be an interesting experiment in the State ownership of railroads. For every mile of single 42-inch gauge built by Mr. Reid he is to receive the sum of $15,600 in Newfoundland government bonds, bearing interest at 3-1/2 per cent., and eight square miles of land. The increase in rental value of this land will give a large revenue, even if the line should not pay its working expenses.

The land grant for 500 miles of railroad would amount to 2,500,000 acres. If Newfoundland were one of the United States, capital enough would be subscribed to enable Mr. Reid to finish his contract in the allotted time; but, as it is under England, and must therefore suffer from the awful burden of England's diplomatic incapacity, capital holds aloof from it.

Where does British money go? The Tory of 1878 sang,--

"We don't want to fight; But, by jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money, too."

It is interesting to see how that money, which is withheld from Britain's oldest colony, has been spent.

We will begin with Mr. Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress." On page 479 he quotes Lord Campbell as saying in Parliament on March 23, 1863, "Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama." (That fatal word, "Alabama"!

Will it ever cease to trouble the British conscience?) And he spoke of the administration as "ready to let loose 4,000,000 negroes on their compulsory owners, and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and crimes of San Domingo." Mr. Blaine says, further, that Lord Campbell argued earnestly in favor of the British government joining the government of France in acknowledging Southern independence. He boasted that within the last few days a Southern loan of 3,000,000 sterling had been offered in London, and of that 9,000,000, or three times the amount, had been subscribed.

Here, then, we have a means of accounting for $15,000,000. Another $15,000,000 is accounted for by the money which America forced England to pay for the "Alabama" depredations. On that point Mr. Laird, the builder of the "Alabama," deserves to be immortalized. According to Mr. Blaine, on March 27, 1863, Mr. Laird was loudly cheered in the House of Commons when he declared that "the inst.i.tutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the name of liberty to an utter absurdity."

Another large lump of Jingo money has gone into the Russian loan; and, of this loan, $4,000,000 is coming to Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. O shade of John Roebuck, look back to the earth you have left, and see what your words have done for the armor plate manufacturers of your Sheffield const.i.tuency. While still among us in the flesh, you said on April 23, 1863, on some trouble: "It may lead to war; and I, speaking for the English people, am prepared for war. I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will also strike the heart of the insolent people who govern America."

And on June 30, 1863, you said: "The South will never come into the Union; and, what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. Eighty years made the republic such a power that, if she had continued as she was a few years longer, she would have been the great bully of the world.

"As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union.... I say, then, that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition. They hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before. I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union _should not take place_."

The United States have given England the war you hoped for,--not a war against soldiers and sailors, who, unlike those who followed Colonel Pepperell and Washington and Isaac Hull and Grant and De Gra.s.se to victory, require the protection of a contagious diseases act, but a war of protective tariffs.

The State which gave its name to the pirate ship "Alabama" now votes for tariffs to exclude the iron, steel, and coal of England. Sheffield is in sackcloth and ashes because Pennsylvania has taken away from her the Russian order for armor plates, and countless millions of British dollars are invested in American factories, giving high wages to tariff-protected American workmen instead of sweaters' wages to the beer-sodden lunatics who sing to your honor the Tory strain,--

"By jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money, too."

In almost every case in which a British investor has lost his money in the United States it can be proved that some British expert or financial agent earned a large sum by inducing him to invest.

At any rate, these immense investments in American railroads, loans, and lands, have one great advantage for the United States. They bind over England to keep the peace toward us. There is no more unpatriotic, no more unmoral, no more cowardly man than the British financial agent and money-lender. If only the security is good, he will rather lend money at 4-1/8 per cent. for the most devilish than at 4 per cent. for the most divine purpose. It is due to the influence of the money-lending cla.s.s that England has so completely lost the grip of heart and brain on her imperial duties.

It is said that John Bull pays a tax of $700,000,000 a year to the liquor interest, to say nothing of the indirect damages resulting from the fact that the liquor interest is the chief supporter of the brothel, the baccarat table, and the Tory Democracy. The beerage has proved of late years also a highway to the peerage; and it has also served to deplete the pockets of a good many British fools, who were misled into the insane delusion that they could earn as much from the profits of American guzzling as from those of British beer-drinking.

America has been infested for some time by a crowd of Englishmen, who came here hunting options on American breweries, which they sold at a high price to their English dupes. In one case some breweries, which cost the owners less than $2,000,000, were sold in England for $6,000,000, the Englishmen and Americans who managed the transaction making enormous profits at the expense of their dupes.

On investigating the published accounts of some twelve American brewery companies in which Englishmen have been induced to invest more than $41,808,000, I find that the depreciation in selling price of shares, taking the highest rates of November, 1894, was no less than $21,917,280, or 52.42 per cent. on the paid-up capital; and, taking the common stock alone, the loss exceeds over seventy per cent. on the paid-up capital.

I am glad of it. The Englishman who, knowing the influence of this infernal traffic on his own countrymen, would make money by extending its curse to the United States, deserves to lose his money quite as much as the Tory investors in the Confederate Loan deserved their loss. Now suppose this $70,000,000 thus invested in "Alabama damages,"

Confederate Loan, and American breweries had been put into Newfoundland roads and railways, what would have been the result? An immense amount of traffic which now must pay toll to American railroads would have gone over purely British lines, all the way through British America to China and j.a.pan. All the mining and agricultural lands of Newfoundland might have been developed. The French sh.o.r.e question would have ceased to occupy the diplomatic wiseacres, because the people would have found so much profit in other employments as to care nothing about French compet.i.tion in the cod and lobster fishery. Newfoundland itself would have become an impregnable a.r.s.enal for the British navy, commanding the entrances to the St.

Lawrence, and, in case of war with the United States, giving that navy the power of practically blockading all the Atlantic coast.

All this has been thrown away, because the British Jingo supports a Tory cabinet, which, while making theatrical demonstrations of imperialism, neglects imperial duties and betrays imperial interests.

And look even at sober free trade Manchester, the community which is supposed to understand the worth of money better than any other in the world. Has it really gained by its Jingo policy? Professing to be the stronghold of free trade, it rejected the great free-trader, John Bright, when in Sir John Bowring's war he asked for justice to China.

It rejected Mr. Gladstone when he sought the suffrages of South-east Lancashire that he might relieve Ireland from the insolent domination of an alien church.

And now the great makers of cotton machinery are coming from Lancashire to establish factories in New England, and her spinning and weaving mill corporations are losing their markets and their profits.

Of eighteen such corporations whose shares are quoted in the _Economist_, the highest November prices of common stock show a loss of $2,553,294 on the paid-up capital. Supposing that, instead of supporting the Jingoes, Manchester had sent men to Parliament who would support a wise and conservative policy in the colonies, Newfoundland included, would it not have been better for her interests, to say nothing of principle?

The Newfoundlanders in Boston, Ma.s.s., held a public meeting there on the 16th of February, at which the Rev. Frederick Woods, their chairman, said: "If we could only take our old island, and lay her at the feet of Uncle Sam! I wish we could." And every suggestion of annexation to the United States was applauded by the Newfoundlanders present.

The Newfoundlanders on the island desire annexation just as much, but they dare not say so, for they are starving; and those who venture to suggest separation from England would be punished by the withdrawal of charity, if not by even sterner means.

They are justified in their desire; for England has been disloyal to them, and holds the island by no better right than that by which Turkey holds Armenia.

Let that England, who expects every man to do his duty, do her own.

Let her, first of all, relieve the suffering.

Second. Let her press on the completion of the railroad at English expense to Port aux Basques as quickly as possible, and subsidize a mail line between England and the American Continent by way of a Newfoundland port, holding the railroad property as security for money expended.

Third. Let her modify her fiscal system so as to give a real _free trade_, not only to the Newfoundland fisherman, but also to those of Great Britain and Ireland, so that the foreigner shall not be able to deprive British subjects either of their home or foreign markets. A small import duty on all fish imported into the British Isles, except from Newfoundland, and a bounty on the exports equal to that given by France, will suffice.

Fourth. Let her aid the unfortunate victims of her Lord Clan-Rackrents to find comfortable farms and holdings in those parts of the French sh.o.r.e and along the railroad which are suitable for settlement.

If she does this, she may derive some comfort from at least one pa.s.sage in her Prayer Book,--"When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he has committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."

APPENDIX.

NEWFOUNDLAND'S RESOURCES.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., U.S.A., Feb. 18, 1895.

Since I wrote the foregoing pages, some papers have come into my hands referring to Major-general Dashwood's attacks upon the credibility of those who are trying to make the resources of Newfoundland known in Great Britain.

Much depends on the point of view from which a man writes; and I can only say that, if the distinguished Major-general is right, _from a purely British point of view_, in depreciating the island and its resources, he thereby furnishes a _very strong argument why Great Britain should, for a reasonable compensation, cede this island to the United States_. I am perfectly sure that the majority of the 200,000 inhabitants would not have the slightest objection to exchange the Union Jack for the stars and stripes. But I do not think that, in making this exchange myself, I have abandoned my old English habits of thought; and so I would mention some reasons why, even if I were still a fellow-citizen (or should I say subject?) of Major-general Dashwood, and were as much bound as he is to place the interests of the British crown above every other interest of my life, I should for that very reason differ with him in opinion, first of all, from a strategic point of view. We must not, because my distinguished fellow-citizen, Captain Mahan, has so brilliantly painted the sea-power of England, forget also her _man-power_. Most certainly, Viscount Wolseley would not do so; and I think Major-general Dashwood, from whose interesting little book, "Chipplequorgan," I have learned that he came with his regiment to Halifax after the "Trent" affair, will agree with me that it would then, in case of a war with the United States of America, have been very convenient if Newfoundland had been peopled by half a million hardy farmers, woodmen, and miners, in addition to its few fisher-folk. England has to take undergrown and underfed boys into her army now; but, if the st.u.r.dy Irishmen who have been driven to the United States by famine and eviction had been provided each with the "three acres and a cow" of Joseph Chamberlain's speeches in the valleys of the Humber or Codroy Rivers, surely the experience of Louisbourg and a hundred well-fought battles since then may tell us how much more they would have contributed to Britain's honor and interest than they do now as American voters. The south-western part of Newfoundland reminds one very much of old Ireland in its climate and its physical features, and certainly is quite as well fitted to sustain a st.u.r.dy peasantry of small land-owners.