Canada and the Canadian Question

MR. GOLDWIN SMITH is an earnest man, and he writes with an earnest pen; he has strong convictions, and he is frank in expressing them. Enthusiastic and confident, his diction is forcible, and everything he produces is readable. His latest work ¹ is readable, and all the more so, perhaps, because it is one-sided. It is characteristic, too, of the later Smith. There was an early Raphael and a later Raphael. There was an early Smith, whose orderly and decorous bearing reflected the calmness and self-control of the cloister, and there is a post-professorial Smith, flitting hither and yon, with a style in literature which betrays one long steeped in controversy. We tire of inversion, and grow impatient at turning sentences upside down in order to get at their meaning. There is a plentiful lack of tact: it grates upon our Yankee touchiness to have the Father of the Constitution stigmatized as unconscientious, and to have Henry Clay styled an aggressive demagogue ; and we cannot resist the suspicion that the devils of Canadian Tories, bad as we know them to be, are not as black as their detractor has painted them. Mr. Smith’s wealth of words, indeed, is as great as ever, in spite of the deterioration of style, and he is still master of apt expression. Raciness, innuendo, banter, irony, and sarcasm, now as of yore, heighten the effect of paragraphs, though they sometimes detract from the force of pages which Bryce would have treated with gravity and Tacitus with severity. Nevertheless, with contemporary history itself to sustain him, —nay, with the living-scene before us, — his statements carry conviction. We may wish that it had not been possible, from the nature of things, for any one to write the chapter on The Fruits of Confederation; but we know, from what is before our very eyes, that, sooner or later, it would have to be written. Is it true that in Canada the race from which we sprang has been slipping backward ? If so, all the physical energy and all the material advance of the British in Canada go for nothing, since it is revealed that the race has little to show in government but failure, and in public morals but corruption. It is the most deplorable revelation made in America since the days of Bigot; but Bigot did not speak English.

This work bears out the character given it by the writer: it is neither elaborate description nor detailed history, but the presentation of a case and of a problem which, some day or other, solved or unsolved, will take its place as a chapter, and an exceedingly impressive chapter, in American history.

It must be said against this book that it has no index. The first chapter stands in the place of a preface, but the second is given to a survey of the social condition of the French Province of Quebec as it exists to-day, and the third to that of the British Provinces. Of Quebec we learn that it is imperum in imperio; that the bitterness following the conquest may have passed away, but that estrangement remains; that the French obstinately refuse to become anglicized; that assimilation is hopeless; that as the French population increases the British population decreases; and that there is an irrepressible conflict of races, tongues, customs, and religions.

We turn from this repellent picture to the British Provinces, and there the aspect brightens. There is no necessity of reproducing a view of society which in everything essential is a counterpart of our own. The social structure of Ontario, for example, is the same as that of New York. The possession of the soil is in the hands of a yeoman proprietorship; public opinion is mgister morum, and exhibits the same development, the same varieties of expression. There are not two public opinions, one for the United States and another for the British Provinces; the same wave passes over both territories, leaving behind it the same changes. A striking illustration of this is to be found in the modification of public opinion now going on in the United States in respect to immigration. One would suppose that the day was far distant when the scanty population of British America would eye askance accession to its numbers; but what says our author? 舠Till lately the portals were opened wide, and all the destitute of the earth were bidden to come in. . . . Now the door is half shut, and there are a good many who, if they could, would shut it altogether. Malthus has his day again.” The objection to the quality of immigration which affects public opinion in the United States affects it in Manitoba. It is not that the Canadians grudge their acres to the Sicilian, but that they decline to admit to their society one who has failed to prove his right to membership. Malthus has nothing to do with the matter.

The author advises the general reader to skip the chapter on federal polity, entitled The Federal Constitution, because, 舠to impart anything like liveliness to a discussion of the British North America Act, one must have the touch of Voltaire.” We cannot agree with him, for, whether or no he has the Voltairean touch, he has made a chapter which the most general of readers is certain to find interesting. It is indeed more than interesting; it will prove extremely useful, for, in language perspicuously expressed, and in as brief a compass as is possible, the very facts indispensable to a clear conception of what the political structure of the Dominion is will here be found. Its advantages are set forth, its deficiencies are exposed, and, best of all, there is a parallel showing the difference between the constitutional structure of the Dominion and that of the United States. Here, in brief, is answered the ever-recurring question, How does the Canadian government differ from ours? The division of power is the same ; the checks and balances, the legislatures, the administration of justice, the subordination of the military to the civil power, the political division of territory, the freedom of the citizen, — everything to all appearance is the same, and yet there is a difference. Wherein does this difference lie, in what does it consist? It is in this chapter on The Federal Constitution that this and questions like it are answered, and we must pay the author the compliment, of rejecting his advice to skip this topic, and urge the reader to peruse carefully, as we know he will do with pleasure, one of the most entertaining and profitable portions of the work. The popularity and freedom of style make one of the best recommendations possible to “ the general reader.”

It is, however, when we come to his observations upon The Fruits of Confederation that we arrive at the marrow of the author’s work. We wish it were a less painful subject: there is a revelation in store for those unacquainted with Canada and its politics. The reputation of the Canadian politicians is not the most savory in the world; and from time to time rumors have been wafted across the border which have led us to think that, in the little capitals of the Provinces and in the general capital of the Dominion, there may be concentrated more political iniquity than that existing in the Augean stables which sporadically defile our own land. “In Canada, has it been said, “there is more politics to the square foot than there is in any other country under the sun.舡 If the fruits of confederation are not overdrawn, it must be said that in Canada there is more political rascality to the square foot than anywhere else this side of St. Petersburg or Constantinople ! Senators — and such a Senate ! — are tempted with offices and titles; members of the Lower House are bribed with the hope of becoming Senators, with offices, fat contracts, privileges and money or pelf in some shape or another, for themselves, their relatives and henchmen. When they are not bribed, they are whipped in. Is there no Brutus in that servile pack, no Lot in the Sodom on the Ottawa? One reads on in bewilderment from one squandering of the public moneys to another. Here is a railway built ostensibly to connect the Maritime Provinces with the St. Lawrence: there never was and never can be anything or anybody to carry, and there is an annual deficit of half a million. There is another railway connecting the Atlantic tide water with the Pacific. It was to be purely Canadian; it was to develop Canada and to make a power of the Dominion. It is in the hands of the Americans; its eastern terminal is to run through Maine; a part of its business has been carrying Canadians disgusted with its exactions out of Canada into the United States; but, worse than all, it is the main reliance of the harpies that flock at Ottawa to debauch the people at the polls.

The Dominion is too much constitutioned, too much governed. The population of British America is about equal to that of Pennsylvania. Think of Pennsylvania split up into seven provinces, with seven governors, seven legislatures (five of them with two houses), and seven constitutions, and over these a governor-general, with a little court, and a general constitution which is local, and all under another constitution which is not local, but which exists three thousand miles away and across the north Atlantic, — a constitution at which the Pennsylvanians might pooh-pooh to their heart’s content, but one which they would have to recognize when they came to inquire where their court of hist resort was! Think of the “Premiers,” the “Parliaments,” the “ushers of the Black Bod;” think of the “Honorables,” the “ Right Honorables;” but, above all, think of the Sir Sam Slicks! Is there not a palpable absurdity on the face of this Lilliputian business ? How is it supported? “There is a perfect scramble among the whole body to get as much as possible out of this fund for their respective constituents: cabals are formed by which the different members mutually play into each other’s hands; general politics are made to bear on private business, and private business on general politics; and at the close of the Parliament the member who has succeeded in securing the largest portion of the prize for his constituents renders an easy account of his stewardship with confident assurance of reëlection.” Such is the description of the Canadian politicians given by one of the Governors-general. No wonder the Canadians never liked Lord Durham. He came in a Pique, and went off in a Huff, say they. He did something more: he told the truth about them. The breed still swarms: see the circular of his Grace of Antigonish; see the address of that typical Canadian statesman. Couture. “Sir Hector me disait toujours: ‘Mon cher Couture, ne crains rien; les subsides ne sont pas encore votés, mais nous n’oublierons pas ton conté.’ ” Like master like man: did Sir Hector echo Sir John ?

Mr. Smith takes comfort in the reflection that Canadian society in general is sound. How can he do so in the face of Lord Durham’s assertion that the plunder was for the “respective constituents ” ? The respective constituents form the body of the people. These wretched politicians could not exist a day if public sentiment did not sustain them. We appeal to himself. West Montreal wants something. “Get it for us at Quebec, ” say the mendicants to their member, “or your head rolls in the basket! ” The member importunes at Quebec. In vain; there is nothing there, but there is sure to be something at Ottawa. To Ottawa forthwith, and once there this is what happens : “My dear P., I want you, before we take any step about T. Y. ’s appointment, to see about the selection of our candidate for West Montreal. From all I can learn, W. W. will run the best. . . . You can easily hint to him that if he runs for West Montreal and carries it, we will consider that he has a claim to an early seat in the Senate. This is the great object of his ambition.” The circle is complete; corruption lias run its round, and doubles on itself; and this is government, and the people are sound ! It is an echo, rather, from the East Side in the palmy days of Boss Tweed; but then we hounded the Boss to the Iberian peninsula, and his henchmen to — West Montreal.

Thomas Jefferson narrates that at a dinner at his house, where a discussion as to the best form of government came in with the apples, John Adams declared in favor of “the British model, but without its corruption.” “No,” cried Hamilton, “ the British model, and with its corruption!” Upon this vital subject it would have been interesting to have had the opinion of that master mind in the government of one of the dominions of this world, Sir John A. Macdonald, the late Premier of Canada.

We lay this chapter down with a cold chill creeping over us. Is this a true picture of the British in Canada? They had a fair field before them in those wilds, and they should be doing great things; yet is this their natural outcome, failure in the art of government, and corruption, rank corruption, in public morals ? But the people are sound! So they were in Florence nearly six hundred years ago; nevertheless, this was the cry which broke in bitterness of heart from “the man who had been through hell: ” —

What is the Canadian question? In view of the political and social conditions set forth by the writer, we should have no hesitation in saying that the pressing need of the Canadians is a diligent perusal of the catechism, and next the performance of their duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them. Not so our author: with him the Canadian question is not a spiritual, but an economical one. It is, Shall Canada have Unrestricted Reciprocity with the United States, or no? The final chapter of his volume is given to an argument in favor of the affirmative, and doubtless, in his eyes, it is the most important part of his work; but we fancy that to the American the value of this book will lie not so much in what it urges as in what it reveals. What it tells of Canadian life and manners is worth more to us than any argument of a purely economical nature can pos sibly be. It is a question which cannot affect us as it does the Canadians. Moreover, it is ominous that, after a trial of Reciprocity, the United States display no eagerness to renew it. With what can Canada reciprocate? Not with any good example of its own. Suffice it to say that just now Unrestricted Reciprocity is held up as the panacea for Canada’s woes. We are, nevertheless, old-fashioned enough to doubt that mere material development will ever prove efficacious to eradicate the poison which is in the blood of the Dominion, or that of itselt it will make the Canadians a prosperous and happy people.