provision made for alleged claims on account of the acts of the Fenians. But the United States would not listen to either of these propositions: so that the Dominion had opportunity to allege that she was sacrificed to the Metropolis, and thus to obtain, by way of compensation, the guaranty on the part of the Imperial Government of a large loan for the construc tion of the proposed trans-continental railway from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean.

In some respects, the arrangements we have been considering resemble those of the Reciprocity Treaty; but they are much more comprehensive, and they are better in other respects.

We have placed the question of the fisheries on an independent footing. If the American fisheries are of inferior value to the British,-which we do not con cede, then we are to pay the difference. But the fishery question is no more to be employed by the Dominion of Canada, as it has been heretofore, either as a menace or as a lure, in the hope of thus inducing the United States to revive the Reciprocity Treaty.

Apart from other new provisions in the Treaty of Washington of less moment, there is the all-important one, stipulating for reciprocal right of commercial transit for subjects of Great Britain through the United States, and for citizens of the United States through the Dominion: in view of which Sir John Macdonald has no cause to regret his participation in the negotiation of the Treaty.

Sir Stafford Northcote, in the late debate on the Queen's speech, repels with force and truth the

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gestion of Lord Bury that the Treaty of Washington is unjust to Canada. He shows, on the contrary, that the Treaty is beneficial and acceptable to the Dominion, specifying particulars, and citing the approbatory votes of the legislative assemblies of the Canadian and maritime Provinces.

But the United States will never make another treaty of reciprocal free importation, without including manufactures and various other objects of the production of the United States not comprehended in the schedule of the Elgin-Marcy Treaty. In fine, Canada must expect nothing of this nature short of a true zollverein involving serious modifications of the commercial relations of Canada to Great Britain.

RELATION OF THE BRITISH PROVINCES TO THE UNITED ·

STATES.

The Dominion of Canada is one of those "Possessions," as they are entitled, of Great Britain in Amer ica, which, like Jamaica and other West India Islands, have ceased to be of any economic value to her save as markets,--which in that respect would be of almost as much value to her in a state of independence, -which she has invited and encouraged to assume the forms of semi-independent parliamentary govern ment,-which, on the whole, are at all times a charge to her rather than a profit, even in time of peace,— which would be a burden and a source of embarrassment rather than a force in time of war,-and which, therefore, she has come to regard, not with complete carelessness perhaps, but with sentiments of kindli

ness and good-will, rather than of the jealous tena. ciousness of sovereign power. When the Dominion shall express desire to put on the dignity of a sover. eign State, she will not encounter any obstacles on the part of the Metropolis.

In regard to the Dominion of Canada, as to the Colonies of Australasia, the power of the Metropolis appears there chiefly in the person of the Governor, and in the occasional annulment of laws of the local legislatures deemed incompatible with those of the Empire. On the other hand, the Colonies, which have necessary relations of their own with neighboring Governments, as in the case of Canada relatively to the United States, can not treat thereon them. selves, as their interests require they should, but must act through the intervention of the Metropolis, which, in this respect, may have other interests of its own superior and perhaps injurious to those of the Colonies.

Meanwhile the Dominion has now to provide for the cost of her own military defense, and that, not against any enemies of her own, but against possible enemies of the Mother Country. The complications of European or of Asiatic politics may thus envelop the Dominion in disaster, for causes wholly foreign to her, as much so as if she were a sovereign State. In such an emergency, the Dominion would be tempted to assume an attitude of neutrality, if not of indepen dence.

All these considerations show how slender is the tie which attaches the Dominion to Great Britain.

The entire history of all European Colonies in America proves that the sentiment of nationality, that is, of attachment to the Mother Country, is very weak, and readily yields place to other sentiments of ambi tion, interest, or passion, so as to produce feelings of hostility between the inhabitants of the Metropolis and those of the Colonies more intense than such as exist between either of them and the inhabitants of other countries. This fact is particularly remarkable in the incidents of revolution in Spanish America, example of which we have now before the eyes in the insurrection which rages in Cuba. But the same fact appears distinctly in the past history of British America. And there is no reason to suppose that the sentiment of mere loyalty, that is, political attachment to the Mother Country, is any more strong at present in the Dominion of Canada than it formerly was in the British Colonies now constituting the United States.

M. II. Blerzy, in a very instructive essay on the Colonies of the British Empire, discussing the question whether the English beyond sea are likely to remain attached to England by recollections of family or of country, observes with great truth that "the very aptitude for colonization of which the English are so proud could not exist without implying a certain insouciance of family on their part and disdain of their native country."

How true is this remark! It is illustrated by contrasting the devoted attachment of the French to France, who in our day send so few colonists to

America, and those chiefly Basques, while hundreds of thousands annually emigrate from Great Britain.

Loyal Canadians, that is, loyal to Great Britain, must of necessity take into account this fact, which is of the very essence of British colonization in Amer ica. They are also compelled to regard another serious fact of the same order of ideas, namely, the con tinual emigration from Canada to the United States, not only on the part of recent immigrants from Great Britain, but, which is more noticeable as a sign of the times, the emigration of old Canadians, natives of the soil, in spite of all the efforts of the Govern ment to check and discourage it.

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On the other hand, the history of all European col onization shows that a time comes when the Mother Country grows more or less indifferent to the fate of her Colonies, which time appears to have arrived in Great Britain as respects the Dominion.

When Canada complains [without cause] that her wishes have been disregarded and her interests prejudiced by the stipulations of the Treaty of Washington, the great organ of opinion in England replies:

"From this day forth look after your own business yourselves: you are big enough, you are strong enough, you are intelligent enough, and, if there were any deficiency in either of these points, it would be supplied by the education of self-reliance. We are both now in a false position, and the time has ar rived when we should be relieved from it. Take up your freedom: your days of apprenticeship are over.”