Читать книгу The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections & Experiences - George T. Denison - Страница 5

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The idea of a great United British Empire seems to have originated on the North American Continent. When Canada was conquered and the power of France disappeared from North America, Great Britain then possessed the thirteen States or Colonies, as well as the Provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia.

The thirteen colonies had increased in population and wealth, and the British statesmen burdened with the heavy expenses of the French wars, which had been waged mainly for the protection of the American States, felt it only just that these Colonies should contribute something towards defraying the cost incurred in defending them. This raised the whole question of taxation without representation, and for ten years the discussion was waged vigorously between the Mother Country and the Colonists.

A large number of the Colonists felt the justice of the claim of the Mother Country for some assistance, but foresaw the danger of violent and arbitrary action in enforcing taxation without the taxed having any voice in the matter. These men, the Loyalists, were afterwards known by the name United Empire Loyalists, because they advocated and struggled for the organisation of a consolidated Empire banded together for the common interest. Thomas Hutchinson, the last loyalist Governor of Massachusetts, and one of the ablest of the loyalist leaders, believed in the magnificent dream of a great Empire, to be realised by the process of natural and legal development, in full peace and amity with the Motherland, in short, by evolution.

Joseph Galloway, who shared with Thomas Hutchinson the supreme place among the American statesmen opposed to the Revolution, worked incessantly in the cause of a United Empire, and has been characterised as “The giant corypheus of the pamphleteers.” He was a member of the first continental Congress and introduced into that body, on the 28th September, 1774, his famous “Plan of a proposed union between Great Britain and the Colonies.”

In introducing this plan Galloway made some most interesting remarks, which bear their lesson through all the years to the present day. He said:

I am as much a friend of liberty as exists. We want the aid and assistance and protection of the arm of our Mother Country. Protection and allegiance are reciprocal duties. Can we lay claim to the money and protection of Great Britain upon any principles of honour and conscience? Can we wish to become aliens to the Mother State? We must come upon terms with Great Britain. Is it not necessary that the trade of the Empire should be regulated by some power or other? Can the Empire hold together without it? No. Who shall regulate it?

Galloway’s scheme was very nearly adopted. In the final trial it was lost by a vote of only six colonies to five. This rejection led Galloway to decline an election to the second Congress, and to appeal to the higher tribunal of public opinion. The Loyalists followed this lead, and the struggle went on for seven years, between those who fought for separation and independence and those who fought for the unity of the Empire.

The Revolution succeeded through the mismanagement of the British forces by the general in command, followed by the intervention of three great European nations, who were able to secure temporary command of the sea.

The United Empire Loyalists were driven out of the old colonies, and many found new homes in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada; some also went to England and the West Indies, carrying with them the cherished ideas of maintaining their allegiance to their Sovereign, of preserving their heritage as British subjects, and still endeavouring to realise the dream of a United British Empire.

For this cause they had made great sacrifices, and, despoiled of all their possessions, had been driven into exile, in what was then a wilderness. Men do not make such extraordinary sacrifices except under the influence of some overpowering sentiment, and in their case the moving sentiment was the Unity of the Empire. The greater the hardships they encountered, the greater the privations and sufferings they endured for the cause, the dearer it grew to their hearts, for men value those things most that have been obtained at the highest cost.

In the war of 1812-’14 the intense spirit of loyalty in the old exiles and their sons caused the Canadian Provinces to be retained under the British flag, and when afterwards, in 1837, rebellion broke out, fomented by strangers and new settlers, the United Empire Loyalist element put it down with a promptitude and vigour that forms one of the brightest pages in our history. In Nova Scotia the agitation for responsible government was headed by Joseph Howe, a son of one of the exiled Loyalists. Suggestions of rebellion to him were impossible of consideration, and he held his province true to the Empire, and succeeded by peaceful and loyal measures in securing all he wanted.

Then Great Britain repealed her corn laws instead of amending them, and introduced free trade instead of rearranging and reducing her tariff. She deprived Canada of a small advantage which her products up to that time enjoyed in the British markets, and which was rapidly assisting in the development of what was then a poor and weak colony. This act was a severe blow to Canada, because it meant that Great Britain had embarked on the unwise and dangerous policy of treating foreign and even hostile countries as favourably as her own peoples and her own possessions.

This caused a great deal of dissatisfaction in some quarters, and in the year 1849 some hundreds of the leading business men in Montreal signed a manifesto advocating annexation to the United States. This aroused strong opposition among the United Empire Loyalist element in Upper Canada; the feeling soon manifested itself in a way which proved that no pecuniary losses could shake the deep-seated loyalty of the Canadian people. The annexation movement withered at once.

Seeing how severely the action of the Mother Country had borne upon Canada, Lord Elgin, then Governor-General of Canada, was instructed to endeavour to arrange for a reciprocity treaty with the United States, or in other words to ask a foreign country to give Canada trade advantages which would recompense her for what Great Britain had taken away from her. The United States Government, either influenced by the blandishments of Lord Elgin, or by a politic desire of turning Canada’s trade in their own direction, and making her dependent for her business and the prosperity of her people upon a treaty which the United States would have the power of terminating in twelve years, consented to make the treaty.

It was concluded in 1854, and for twelve years during a most critical period, when railways and railway systems were beginning to be established, the great bulk of the trade of Canada was diverted to the United States, the lines of transportation naturally developed mainly from north to south, and the foreign handling of our products was left very much to the United States. The Crimean war broke out in 1854 and lasted till 1856, raising the price of farm produce two-fold, and adding largely to the prosperity of the Canadian people. The large railway expenditure during the same period also aided to produce an era of inflation, while during the last five years of the existence of the treaty the Civil War in the United States created an extraordinary demand, at war prices, for almost everything the Canadian people had to sell. The result was that, from reasons quite disconnected from the reciprocity treaty, during a great part of its existence the Canadian people enjoyed a most remarkable development and prosperity.

The United States Government, although the treaty is said to have been of more real value to them than to Canada, at the earliest possible moment gave the two years’ notice to abrogate it, and they did so evidently in the hope that the financial distress and loss that its discontinuance would bring upon the people of Canada would create at once a demand for annexation. In a sense they were right; talk in favour of annexation was soon heard from a few, but the old sentiment of loyalty to the Empire was too strong, and the people turned to the idea of the confederation of the Provinces and the opening up of trade with the West Indies and other countries. The Confederation of Canada was the result, and the Dominion was established on the 1st of July, 1867.

My object in writing the following pages is to describe more particularly from my own recollection, and my own knowledge of the facts, the movement in favour of the Unity of the Empire which has been going on during the last forty years.