Читать книгу The Struggle for Imperial Unity - Colonel George T. Denison - Страница 13
ОглавлениеTHE INDEPENDENCE FLURRY
The National Club soon ceased to be a political club and the National Association gradually disappeared from public view. I joined it about a year after its foundation, and was President of it in the years 1883 and 1884, and during the existence of the Club it has been the centre of the sentiment “Canada First within the Empire,” which has been the dominant sentiment of the Canadian people for the last twenty years.
Mr. Goldwin Smith in the early years of the Club inaugurated a series of dinners among the members where fifteen or twenty of us would dine together and then discuss some public question of interest. These dinners were popular, and Foster and I were generally present. On one occasion Mr. Goldwin Smith gave out as the subject for discussion the question as to whether “Annexation or Independence would be the best future for Canada.”
Mr. Smith was in the chair at one end of the long table, at which about twenty or perhaps more were seated, and he opened the discussion by pointing out some arguments for and against each alternative, leaving it for the members to discuss as to which would be the best. I was in the vice-chair at the other end of the table, and the speaking began on one side of Mr. Smith, and came down that side of the table one after the other to me. I was struck with the bad effect such a discussion would have, in encouraging Canadians to argue in favour of either Independence or Annexation, and when it came to my turn I simply said that I could not argue in favour of either Independence or Annexation, that I was vehemently opposed to both, and that if ever the time came that either should have to be seriously discussed, I would only argue it in one way, and that was on horseback with my sword. As I then commanded the cavalry in Toronto and had sworn to bear true allegiance to her Majesty, it was the natural way for me to put it. I sat down the moment I had made this statement and the discussion went on. My remarks were received as if I had spoken jocularly, but I think many of those present sympathised with my way of looking at it. Mr. Goldwin Smith saw that I had punctured the scheme, and referred to my remarks in the next issue of his Bystander for October, 1880, in the following terms, which are in his best style:
In Canada we have some curious remnants of the idea, dominant everywhere in days gone by, and still dominant in Islam, that intolerance on certain questions is a duty and virtue. The good St. Louis of France used to say that he would never argue with a heretic who doubted Papal doctrine, but give him six inches of cold steel; and we have lately been told that among ourselves there are questions which are to be debated only sword in hand. There are some special factors in our political composition, such as United Empire Loyalism, Orangeism, and the surviving sentiment of Anglican Establishmentarianism, which may explain the phenomenon without disparagement to our intellectual civilisation.
In a speech at a dinner of my regiment not long after, I spoke clearly to them on the subject—and on the same lines. My views were received with great enthusiasm.
For several years matters progressed slowly, a few young men advocating Independence, among whom were E. E. Sheppard and Charles G. D. Roberts. Mr. Norris and others were writing on the same line. Sheppard, who then edited the Evening News in Toronto, was the ablest of these advocates, and carried on his campaign with great vigour and ability. He designed a new flag and hoisted it over the News office. In 1884 the Independence agitation was probably more in evidence than at any period before or since. That year was the centennial of the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists in Upper Canada, and it was decided to hold a series of celebrations at Adolphustown, Toronto, and Niagara in commemoration of the foundation of the Province. 1884 was also the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Toronto as a city, and the celebration of the two events was combined in meetings and festivities which lasted several days. On Dominion Day there was a great review of the Active Militia with regiments from various parts of the Province, and one from Montreal. This large force paraded through the principal streets to the Queen’s Park, where they were reviewed, and then they marched to the Exhibition Buildings, where the officers and men were entertained at dinner. At the officers’ dinner, Mayor Boswell, Lieut.-Governor John B. Robinson, and I made the principal speeches. The Toronto Mail of the 3rd July, 1884, contained the following article:
Nuts for the Independence Monkey.
We offer the Cartwright party and their organ the following nuts to crack, taken from the report of the military banquet on Tuesday, to which we referred in our last issue.
Mayor Boswell was next honoured. In responding, his Worship referred to the attempt which was being made in some quarters to introduce the question of independence or annexation into Canadian politics. He regretted this very much, but he was certain that no member of the Militia force would ever entertain such a proposal.
Lieut.-Colonel G. T. Denison, in proposing the toast of the visiting corps, also referred to the same matter. He said that the Militia of Canada would remain true to its Queen and country. Before independence or annexation could be brought about, he said, “Many of us will have to be placed under the sod.” His remarks were received with enthusiastic cheers, again and again renewed.
The Lieutenant-Governor, in proposing the toast of Lieut.-Colonel Robert B. Denison, Deputy-Adjutant-General, also touched on the absurdity of the independence or annexation question. He felt satisfied that if it became a political issue, there would not be a constituency in Canada that would return a man in favour of it.
The United Empire Loyalist Centennial celebration took place in the Pavilion, Toronto, on the 3rd July—the same day that the above article appeared. It was a very successful meeting, there being representative loyalists from all over Ontario. “Dr. Wm. Canniff was in the chair. The speakers were the Hon. Senator G. W. Allan, Chief Green (a Mohawk Indian, of Tyendinaga), Lieut.-Colonel George T. Denison, and Bishop Fuller, of Niagara.”
My speech was mainly directed against the Independence movement. I showed how Canadians had always stood by British connection, and went on to say:
From whom comes this cry for independence? Not from the real Canadians, but from a few hangers-on of the newspaper Press—a few wanderers and Bohemians—men who have lived indifferently in Canada and the States, and have never been satisfied anywhere—men without an atom of stake in the country. And do you think that the people of Canada are going to submit themselves to the guidance of such men? Never. The Independence party in Canada can almost be counted on one’s fingers and toes. The movement did not amount to anything, and the moment it did the real feeling of the country would manifest itself.
I was attacked very bitterly by the few Independence papers on account of this speech, and the attacks continued for nearly six weeks. I was invited to address the United Empire Loyalist Centennial celebration at Niagara, which took place on the 14th August, 1884, and then replied to some of the arguments used by them. On the question of national sentiment I said:
Sometimes it is said by strangers and aliens amongst us that we Canadians have no national sentiment, that if we were independent we would have more of it, and it is the fashion to speak loudly of the national spirit of the citizens of the United States. I take issue on this point, and on behalf of our people I say that the pride of the native Canadian in his country is quite equal to the pride of the Yankee in his, while the willingness to defend it in case of need is far greater in the Canadian.
The strongest national sentiment that has yet been exhibited in the States was shown by the Southern people in their gallant struggle to destroy the Union. The national spirit shown by the Northerners where the bounties rose to about $1,800 a man, where patriotism consisted in hiring a man to go and fight while the citizen took a contract to supply the soldiers, as has been well said by their celebrated divine, Dr. Talmage, “With rice that was worm-eaten, with biscuits that were mouldy, with garments that were shoddy, with meat that was rank, with horses that stumbled in the charge, and with tents that sifted the rain into the faces of the exhausted.” The patriotism shown by three thousand Yankee Militia almost in sight of this spot in 1812, when they refused to cross at Queenston to aid their comrades, whom our volunteers shortly afterwards cut to pieces under their eyes, was very different from the patriotism of the Canadians who crossed the river and captured Detroit, or those who fought at Chrysler’s Farm, or those who drove back Hampton at Chateauguay.
Can we call to mind the Canadians who came back to Canada from every State in the Union to aid in defending her from the Fenians without feeling that we have in our people a strong national sentiment?
Wanderers and Bohemians, strangers and tramps may, because we are not traitors to our Government and our country, say that we have no national sentiment; they may not see or feel or appreciate the patriotic feeling of the Canadians, but we Canadians know that it is there. The Militia force is one proof of it, a finger-post to point out to all, that we intend to be a free people on this continent, and that, our liberties can only be taken from us after a desperate struggle.
These wanderers and Bohemians, with the charming impudence of the three tailors of Tooley Street, speak of themselves as the people of Canada. It is the fashion of men of their type always to talk loudly of the people, as if they were the people. But who are the people? The people of this country are the farmers who own the soil, who have cleared the fields, who till them, and who produce the food that feeds us. The people of Canada are the workers who work in her factories, who carry on her trade, who sail her ships and spread her commerce, the citizens who build her cities and work in them. These are the people of Canada, not the few agitators who serve no good purpose, and whose absence would be a relief if they went back to the neighbouring Republic from which many of them have drifted in to us.
The result of these demonstrations so directly appealing to the sentiments and feelings of the loyal element, which formed the vast majority of the people, discouraged the disloyal element, and for a year matters were rather quiet.
In March, 1885, the whole country was aroused over the outbreak of the North-West Rebellion, and troops from all over Canada were sent to aid in putting down the rebellion and re-establishing the Queen’s authority. One regiment came from Nova Scotia. The result of the affair was to consolidate the Provinces into a Dominion, in a way that was never felt before. This put the Independence movement quite out of sight, and during 1886, and until May, 1887, matters remained dormant. Particulars of the causes of this outbreak and some of the details of the operations will be found in my “Soldiering in Canada,” chapters xx. to xxv.
