Читать книгу The Fathers of Confederation, A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion - A. H. U. Colquhoun - Страница 8

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A day of loftier ideas and greater issues in all the provinces was about to dawn. The ablest politicians had been prone to wrangle like washerwomen over a tub, colouring the parliamentary debates by personal rivalry and narrow aims, while measures of first-rate importance went unheeded. The change did not occur in the twinkling of an eye, for the cherished habits of two generations were not to be discarded so quickly. Goldwin Smith asserted^[5] that, whoever laid claim to the parentage of Confederation, the real parent was Deadlock. But this was the critic, not the historian, who spoke. The causes lay far deeper than in the breakdown of party government in Canada. Events of profound significance were about to change an atmosphere overladen with partisanship and to strike the imaginations of men.

The first factor in the national awakening was the call of the great western domain. British Americans began to realize that they were the heirs of a rich and noble possession. The idea was not entirely new. The fur traders had indeed long tried to keep secret the truth as to the fertility of the plains; but men who had been born or had lived in the West were now settled in the East. They had stories to tell, and their testimony was emphatic. In 1856 the Imperial authorities had intimated to Canada that, as the licence of the Hudson's Bay Company to an exclusive trade in certain regions would expire in 1859, it was intended to appoint a select committee of the British House of Commons to investigate the existing situation in those territories and to report upon their future status; and Canada had sent Chief Justice Draper to London as her commissioner to watch the proceedings, to give evidence, and to submit to his government any proposals that might be made. Simultaneously a select committee of the Canadian Assembly sat to hear evidence and to report a basis for legislation. Canada boldly claimed that her western boundary was the Pacific ocean, and this prospect had long encouraged men like George Brown to look forward to extension westward, and to advocate it, as one solution of Upper Canada's political grievances. It was a vision calculated to rouse the adventurous spirit of the British race in colonizing and in developing vast and unknown lands. Another wonderful page was about to open in the history of British expansion. And, hand in hand with romance, went the desire for dominion and commerce.

But if the call of the West drew men partly by its material attractions, another event, of a wholly different sort, appealed vividly to their sentiment. In 1860 the young Prince of Wales visited the provinces as the representative of his mother, the beloved Queen Victoria. His tour resembled a triumphal progress. It evoked feelings and revived memories which the young prince himself, pleasing though his personality was, could not have done. It was the first clear revelation of the intensity of that attachment to the traditions and institutions of the Empire which in our own day has so vitally affected the relations of the self-governing states to the mother country. In a letter from Ottawa^[6] to Lord Palmerston, the Duke of Newcastle, the prince's official adviser, wrote:

I never saw in any part of England such extensive or beautiful outward demonstrations of respect and affection, either to the Queen or to any private object of local interest, as I have seen in every one of these colonies, and, what is more important, there have been circumstances attending all these displays which have marked their sincerity and proved that neither curiosity nor self-interest were the only or the ruling influences.

Of all the events, however, that startled the British provinces out of the self-absorbed contemplation of their own little affairs, the Civil War in the United States exerted the most immediate influence. It not only brought close the menace of a war between Great Britain and the Republic, with Canada as the battle-ground, but it forced a complete readjustment of our commercial relations. Not less important, the attitude of the Imperial government toward Confederation underwent a change. It was D'Arcy M^cGee who perceived, at the very outset, the probable bearing of the Civil War upon the future of Canada. 'I said in the House during the session of 1861,' he subsequently declared, 'that the first gun fired at Fort Sumter had a message for us.' The situation became plainer when the Trent Affair embroiled Great Britain directly with the North, and the safety of Canada appeared to be threatened. While Lincoln was anxiously pondering the British demand that the Confederate agents, Mason and Slidell, removed by an American warship from the British steamer the Trent, should be given up, and Lord Lyons was labouring to preserve peace, the fate of Canada hung in the balance. The agents were released, but there followed ten years of unfriendly relations between Great Britain and the United States. There were murmurs that when the South was subdued the trained armies of the North would be turned against the British provinces. The termination of the Reciprocity Treaty, which provided for a large measure of free trade between the two countries, was seen to be reasonably sure. The treaty had existed through a period which favoured a large increase in the exports of the provinces. The Crimean War at first and the Civil War later had created an unparalleled demand for the food products which Canada could supply; and although the records showed the enhanced trade to be mutually profitable, with a balance rather in favour of the United States, the anti-British feeling in the Republic was directed against the treaty. Thus military defence and the necessity of finding new markets became two pressing problems for Canada.

From the Imperial authorities there came now at last distinct encouragement. Hitherto they had hung back. The era of economic dogma in regard to free trade, to some minds more authoritative than Holy Writ, was at its height. Even Cobden was censured because, in the French treaty of 1861, he had departed from the free trade theory. The doctrine of laissez-faire, carried to extremes, meant that the colonies should be allowed to cut adrift. But the practical English mind saw the sense and statesmanship of a British American union, and the tone of the colonial secretary changed. In July 1862 the Duke of Newcastle, who then held that office and who did not share the indifference of so many of his predecessors^[7] to the colonial connection, wrote sympathetically to Lord Mulgrave, the governor of Nova Scotia:

If a union, either partial or complete, should hereafter be proposed with the concurrence of all the Provinces to be united, I am sure that the matter would be weighed in this country both by the public, by Parliament, and by Her Majesty's Government, with no other feeling than an anxiety to discern and promote any course which might be the most conducive to the prosperity, the strength and the harmony of all the British communities in North America.

Nova Scotia, always to the front on the question, had declared for either a general union or a union of the Maritime Provinces, and this had drawn the dispatch of the Duke of Newcastle. A copy of this dispatch was sent to Lord Monck, the governor-general of Canada, for his information and guidance, so that the attitude of the Imperial authorities was generally known. It remained for the various provincial Cabinets to confer and to arrange a course of action. The omens pointed to union in the near future. But, as it happened, a new Canadian ministry, that of Sandfield Macdonald, had shortly before assumed office, and its members were in no wise pledged to the union project. In fact, as was proved later, several of them, notably the prime minister himself, with Dorion, Holton, and Huntington, regarded federation with suspicion and were its consistent opponents until the final accomplishment.

The negotiations for the joint construction of an intercolonial railway had been proceeding for some time. These the ministry continued, but without enthusiasm. The building of this line had been ardently promoted for years. It was the necessary link to bind the provinces together. To secure Imperial financial aid in one form or another delegates had more than once gone to London. The Duke of Newcastle had announced in April 1862 that the nature and extent of the guarantee which Her Majesty's government would recommend to parliament depended upon the arrangements which the provinces themselves had to propose.^[8] There was a conference in Quebec. From Nova Scotia came Howe and Annand, who two years later fought Confederation; from New Brunswick came Tilley and Peter Mitchell, who carried the cause to victory in their province. Delegates from the Quebec meeting went to London, but the railway plan broke down, and the failure was due to Canada. The episode left a bad impression in the minds of the maritime statesmen, and during the whole of 1863 it seemed as if union were indefinitely postponed. Yet this was the very eve of Confederation, and forces already in motion made it inevitable.