TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ENGLAND IN THE WEST.
FORTUNE favours the Manchester school. As the potato-rot helped them to a repeal of the Corn-laws, so another triumph seems coming to them by means of events in which they have no part. Mr. Cobden no sooner proposes to get rid of our Colonies, than the Colonies set about leaving us of their own accord. The com- parison holds good especially with regard to the operation of a cause totally unforeseen by those most affected by it. As neither Cobden nor Peel nor Russell nor Stanley expected the potato-rot, or, when it first came, imagined its effects on themselves and the country, so not one of our leading statesmen appears to have an idea about circumstances in America, which may prove of yet greater moment to themselves, to England, and to the world. England's empire in the West is beginning to dissolve ; our Colonial system is falling to pieces ; and the British public has not a thought about the matter. Canada is the first to move in this Colonial revo- lution. Whilst the frost is breaking up, and the ice, heaving and cracking with the noise of artillery, is on the point of being swept away by the swollen and impetuous waters, Lord John Rus- sell has ordered his sleigh, and is inviting Mrs. Grove to take a pleasant drive with him on the lake.* The official unconscious- ness is even systematic. When somebody in Opposition languidly asks the Government whether they have any intelligence from Canada about the immediate cause of what is now taking place on both sides of the St. Lawrence, he is told that they have none for Parliament ; that though some private letters on the subject have passed between the Governor-General and the Colonial Minister, there has been no official correspondence, because there ought to be none ; that the whole matter is left, as it ought to be, to Lord Elgin's " unfettered discretion "; that the subject is one of no moment out of Canada, being a purely local question, and that any discussion of it in the Imperial Parliament would be an improper meddling with " local self-government." Thus our Ministers actually boast of their own ignorance, and take credit for keeping Parliament in ignorance. Out of doors the indiffer- ence is perfect : nobody knows, nobody cares. And so it was in England with respect to other colonies not long before the battle of Bunker's Hill I Lord John Russell condescends, however, to give the House of Commons one piece of information : by the last accounts " the ex- citement in Canada was abating." So says probably Lord Elgin's private letter to Lord Grey by the last mail : for when the last mail quitted Montreal, " the excitement" had not merely -dimi- nished, but ceased. The excitement, that is to say, about the particular matter with respect to which Lord Stanley, Mr. Her- ries, and Mr. Gladstone have asked questions, and of which Mr. Hawes declared that he had " not even a personal knowledge." But this excitement has ceased because another has taken its place. The most recent letters and newspapers from Canada say little, almost nothing, about the Rebellion Indemnity Bill : they are full of other topics,—repeal of the Canadian union, " Anglitioa- tion " of Canada, federal union of the British Provinces in North America, a " convention " at Kingston, the independence of Ca- nada, annexation to the United States. The last appears to be the favourite ; and it is a prominent topic in the countless newspapers of the American Union. The handling of this topic on both sides of the frontier is eminently practical. That Canada, either as one state, or two, or perhaps three, will ere long be annexed to the United States, seems to be taken for granted : the only questions discussed as being unsettled, relate to the time, and manner, and benefits of annexation. The different processes by which an- nexation may take place, the intermediate steps, and the various ways and degrees in which it may prove advantageous to British colonists and American citizens, are very fully considered ; but there is hardly a word of argument against the measure, nor a breath of doubt as to the facility with which it may be accom- plished. Neither is annexation mentioned in the way of threat to England or triumph over her : the subject is calmly and mi- nutely examined in the form of anticipation with respect to the mode, and with respect to beneficial consequences to Canada and America : England is scarcely named any more than the Indem- nity Bill. So the Prime Minister of England is quite right in saying that the excitement has abated. But the suddenness, the completeness, and the universality of this change in the state of the Colonial mind, and still more the substitution of calmness and gravity for a violent agitation, show, what all our own accounts declare, that the Rebellion-Indemnity measure was only the spark which made previous disaffection to- wards England explode. The most disaffected are the English of Canada as distinguished from the French. If the Rebellion-Indem- nity bill should be rejected by Lord Elgin, some other ground will be instantly taken on which the English may contend against French ascendancy. If Lord Elgin should assent to the bill, and the Queen not disallow it, that measure will be the ostensible rea- son of Upper Canada and the English of Lower Canada for pro- moting annexation to 'the United States. In the supposed case, for a while, the French-of Lower Canada, having carried their point, may be ostentatiously loyal to the empire : but this will only render the English more actively disloyal; and everybody in America knows that what the English in Canada resolutely determine, must be accomplished by the aid of American sympa- • The Calendar of Nature ; or the Seasons of England. By the Honourable Mrs. E. Grove. Edited, with a Preface, by the Right Honourable Lord John Russell."—See Book Advertisement. by with a kindred race. If, on the other band, Lord Elgin should reject, or the Queen disallow the bill, there must be a change of Ministry and a general election in Canada ; the French in that case becoming actively disloyal, while the English will go for securities against French domination in future. Both races, excepting the English of Lower Canada, bate the present union of the Provinces. In the general election, therefore, " re- peal of the union" will be the cry of Upper Canada certainly, and probably of the French also. If an Assembly should be returned with the mission of repealing the union, the union must needs be repealed. At first, there may be sub- stituted for the present union of the Canadas a federation of all the British Provinces ; an arrangement under which Upper and Lower Canada would have distinct local governments. This would please Upper Canada for a time, and be delightful to the French, whom it would place in a great majority over the English of Lower Canada ; but it would make these Lower- Canada English wild for annexation to the United States, as the only means left of swamping a French nationality with Anglo- Saxon blood. Nor would Upper Canada be satisfied. The move- ment towards independence or annexation has gone too far to be stopped. Lord Stanley is right—free trade and Colonial de- pendence are incompatible : in other words, unless we bribe the Colonies with monopolies, they will, whenever they have the power, escape from the evils and mortifications which our system of Colonial government inflicts upon them. No Colonial mono- polies, no Mr. Motbercountry ! Upper Canada would like to be a separate dependency, but only in order that, when independ- ence or annexation comes, she may be a nation or an American state separate from the French of Lower Canada. She thinks far less of complete independence than of annexation. She wishes to annex, but as a distinct state—the State of Upper Canada. We observe indeed, that all the suggestions and discussions about federation and independence lead up to annexation. This is na- tural. Annexation, being certain and easy of accomplishment by means of American sympathy, is the simplest and surest course : it solves all problems; it cuts all knots ; and it is espe- cially inviting as it harmonizes with the very democratic tenden- cies of English Canada, as it promises to add soon-st and most to the value of land in a country where five-sixths of the people are landowners, and as the whole power of the British empire would be exerted in vain to prevent or even to retard it. We purposely abstain on this occasion from dwelling on the re- mote causes of the present disposition of Canada to join the United States. They have been numerous and various, but would all be described under the general head of wrongs and affronts suffered by the colonists at the hands of Imperial England. Two or three examples will suffice for illustration. England, or rather her Colonial Office acting in her name, prepared and cultivated the antagonism of races in Lower Canada: see Lord Durham's Report, and especially his reference to the government of mixed races in Louisiana. The government of Upper Canada by Eng- land produced the rebellion there, as rebellions in general are oc- casioned by the governments against which they are directed. England united the two Provinces against the will of a vast ma- jority of the inhabitants ; and she did this (or rather Mr. Poulett Thomson did it, under Lord John Russell as Colonial Minister) by means, with regard to a pretended assent by the colonists, which added insult to oppression. The government of Canada by England during the first year of the provincial union closely resembled, in its very worst features, the last year of the govern- ment of France by Louis Philippe. England, Lord Stanley pre- siding at the Colonial Office and Sir Robert Peel being Prime Minister, proposed to Canada a great revolution in the commercial policy of the colony : as soon as the suggestion was adopted, and a revolution made which deeply affected every interest in the colony, England suddenly, without a word of no- tice or apology, overturned the whole proceeding, and half ruined the colony by another revolution of her own sole mak- ing. The repeal of the English Corn-laws coming immediately after Lord Stanley's Canada Corn Act, reduced the public revenue of Canada from 506,8261. in 1847, to 379,6481. in 1848, and threw every farmer and miller and corn-dealer on his back, seven-eighths of the colonists being composed of these classes. England put an end to the Canadian monopolies of timber and corn, but main- tained her Navigation-laws afteu withdrawing the bribe that made those laws tolerable for the colonists. Upon Canada and her other dependencies in North America, as upon her dependencies in the West Indies, England plays fantastic tricks, such as she would do battle with the world in arms rather than allow to be played upon herself. Columns might be filled with a bare catalogue of the pro- vocations to revolt which England has addressed to Canada in the last twenty years. And all this while, but especially during the last ten years, thinkers and writers in England and the Colo- nies have been hard at work exposing the inherent defects and abuses of our Colonial system. Colonial reform was never a po- pular subject at home; but in the Colonies a profound impression has been made by the labours of such persons as M r. Roebuck, Lord Durham, Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Wakefield, Mr. Charles Buller, and Lord Howick, and such journals as the Spectator since 1830 and the Times and Morning Chronicle during the last year or two. The Colonial Reformers have been unable to construct : even Lord Durham's suggestions with regard to Canada were grievously marred in the execution ; and in other respects the combined omnipotence and indifference of the British Parliament forbade construction—made the pursuit of reform conducive to
destruction only. The old house has been undermined and loosened in all its fastenings; and nothing has been got ready for putting another in its place. There is a time for all things. As respects British North America, and probably the British West Indies, the time for reform has, we believe, passed away for ever. Mr. Roebuck and Sir William Molesworth may promote "in- quiry " in Parliament ; Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Roebuck may frame plans of colonial government and publish them in volumes : as the Paris revolutionist said of Louis Philippe's abdication in favour of his grandson, "it is too late."
We have no space for duly considering the probable influence of Canadian events on the British West Indies, and on England herself as a great European power ; but a few words on the sub- ject will not be misplaced. The principle of annexation, as car- ried into effect by the United States, is of more comprehensive grasp than the dominion of a Napoleon or of Imperial Rome. It resembles, as a principle, the old English system of colonial mu- nicipalities, under which many separate colonies enjoyed, each one for itself, independent sovereign authority within its own bounds. As English constitutional lawyers held of old, that Parliament itself had no right to legislate for English colonies which possessed municipal charters of local self-government, so the federal system of the United States contains no supreme au- thority like that which in modern times the Parliament of Eng- land has exercised over all colonies. The constitution of a State forming part of the Ameriean Union is immutable by Congress. Annexation to the United States, therefore, secures for the coun- try which annexes, independent sovereignty within that country ; and the ties by which that country is bound to the United States relate and are confined to a few specified matters, such as foreign relations, general duties of export and import, and post-office ma- nagement. Out of the narrow range of these few subjects, an annexed State is a separate and independent nation, but a nation whose independence the confederation defends. Can it be doubted that such a lot would be eagerly embraced by the prin- cipal dependencies of England in the West Indies? A writer in the Times of the 30th ultimo concludes a thoughtful and masterly article on the causes of disaffection in the West Indies, by saying—" This is the prospect which Guiana and Jamaica both reveal. But it is far worse to know that England has sown the harvest which they reap. Let the Government or Par- liament see to it. Else—with angry planters, discarded judges, mulcted and discharged clergy, and a race of Blacks new to the enjoyments and unschooled by the discipline of freedom— it may yet be our fate to see the hopes of benevolent arid the en- thusiasm of religious men destroyed by the hideous spectacle of a new and more barbarous St. Domingo rising on the ruins of the British Antilles ! " The British West Indies have no motive for wishing to remain British, many and most urgent motives for wishing to be annexed American. The motives of the Americans for wishing to annex them are also very powerful. To say no- thing of the glory of snatching them from England, and ex- tending the great Republican confederation over the whole North- Western World, (for Rupert's Land and Vancouver's Island would follow Canada, and the least of the Bahamas go in the wake of Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana ; the West India pos- sessions of Denmark, France, and Spain, surely not remaining be- hind,) the West Indies seem to be there on purpose for enabling the Americans, by means of annexation, to find a happy so- lution of their desperate Slavery question. To every plan for abolishing slavery in the United States there has been the ob- jection, hitherto insuperable, of the impossibility of letting the Blacks remain free where they are, and the difficulty of providing a suitable home for them. Such a home, the West Indies, as States of the American Union, would abundantly furnish. The immigration of several million American Blacks into the West Indies would restore those countries to prosperity, by means of causing labour for hire to be plentiful and continuous. The continent would be for the White man ; the islands, with Guiana, for the Black, with White supervision and control until the Blacks should be qualified for taking part in their own government in proportion to their num- bers. Altogether, whether we regard the interests of the West Indies or those of the United States—economical, social, and political—the annexation of the West Indies to the United States would be a most remarkable fit. The successful example of Ca- nada would spread like wildfire: for England has made her Colo- nies a mass of material for the operation of political combustion. The annexation of the West Indies is not, indeed, like that of Canada, inevitable whenever the colonists choose : but surely it is not worth England's while to fight merely for the possession of those now wretched countries. As well might France double her national debt by a successful struggle to recover the further bur- den of such a dependency as the present St. Domingo would be. Nevertheless, England may choose to fight everywhere rather than yield her possessions in the West to American annexation. If she did not fight in America, she might have to defend her- self in Europe, in Asia, and at home, against France or Russia, or both combined, tempted by her apparent weakness and decline to revenge Waterloo, seize Constantinople, and invade India. The annexation of Canada to the United States is full of awful consequences for England. One of the most probable of them, though not the worst, is a war with the United States: and a war, that would be, of infinite fierceness. So, although Fortune appears to favour the Manchester school, she would be fickle as ever before the end. "Financial reform " with an American war
on our hands, and perhaps a French one into the bargain ! Cob- den for ever!—seeing that Russell, and Peel, and Stanley, and John Bull himself, are asleep to the concerns of England in the West.
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