ANDREW

01

'Y^LIl«¥]MII¥IEI^SIIir¥''

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1921

ESSAYS IN POLITICS

ESSAYS IN POLITICS

ANDREW MACPHAIL

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1909

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

FAQE
I. THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND . 1
II. LOYALTY— TO WHAT .... 20
IIL THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT . 37
IV. WHAT CAN CANADA DO . . ,63
V, NEW LAMPS FOR OLD , , . 90
VI. A PATENT ANOMALY . . . .122
VII. PROTECTION AND POLITICS . 132
VIII. WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED l64
IX. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA . 193
X, BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 24,7

ESSAYS IN POLITICS
I
THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND
British diplomacy has two sides — the one which
it presents to its enemies, and the other which
it presents to its friends. That explains why
the enemies of England think her diplomacy
at one time astute unto perfidy and again com
placent to the point of stupidity.
When Lord Salisbury declared with simple
words and good-natured utterance that England
had no intention of yielding up to a band of ad
venturers what she had sweat for in the Sudan,
that was the infamy of Fashoda. When he
warned Europe against the infection of a de
caying nation, that was English brutality, keep
ing the peace whilst an upstart power severed
a decaying limb from Spain. When he effected
a working arrangement with Japan, England
was guilty of the barbarity of pitting the black

2 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
race against the white. Yet these charges were
not made with entire sincereness. There was
that mental reservation which comes from per
plexity. England to foreign minds is a paradox. They
are never done wondering at her stubborn de
termination not to be forced into action. But
their wonder is increased to amazement, when
the right moment has come, and they see the
promptitude with which she is aroused and the
resolution with which she proceeds, entirely
oblivious of the scruples which restrained her
and the hesitancy with which she began.
It would be of great advantage to foreigners
if they could obtain a formula by which they
might discover the flashing-point of English
passion. They have seen it slumber during
clamour, smoulder when it should have burst
into flame ; and again they have seen it flash
as a reaction against some innocent and unpre
meditated operation on the part of an irre
sponsible rival. With the utmost of placid
amazement, England read Mr. Cleveland's Vene
zuela message of 17th December 1895, and
broke into a fury of flying squadrons because
the Emperor of Germany had sent a simple,
well-meaning telegram to a friend. The English

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND s
mind is not logical; it is sentimental, passion
ate, quixotic. No one can tell — least of all one
of themselves — what kind of insult will arouse
this strange race to action. If Palmerston, in
stead of Salisbury, had been at the head of
afi'airs when Mr. Cleveland took that amazing
hazard, there would surely have been trouble ;
whilst the earlier premier would probably have
put a straw in his mouth when he read the
German Kaiser's telegram and wondered what
it was all about.
More perplexing still to foreigners, the passion
for blood dies down when its object is accom
plished as quickly as it arose. Englishmen who
have been accustomed ever since Majuba to refer
to Gladstone only as " that bad old man," for
got in an instant Colenso, Spion Kop, and
Magersfontein, and welcomed General Botha
to their councils in the month of April 1907.
Truly it is a strange paradox to foreigners — the
whole race hurrying to South Africa over every
sea for the head of Botha, and this same General
Botha, three years later on March 23rd, declar
ing at the banquet given in Johannesburg to
the New Transvaal Ministry of which he was
the head : " We trust Britain, and we desire to
deserve her trust in us."

4 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
The quality above all others which impresses
the foreign mind when it reflects upon England,
is her infinite patience with her own. This
was never better stated than in the London
Standard of 30th March 1907, in commenting
upon an article in The University Magazine:
" We of the Old Country, to put the matter quite
plainly, have not the smallest desire to keep the
distant shires of the Empire in leading strings ;
we do not wish to hinder — we would rather
help — their advance to nationhood. But we
will not attempt to force them to take their
places as fully-grown members of the family
until they demonstrate, of their own free wiU,
their desire to do so. We wish to see an Im
perial Witan created; we wish to see an Im
perial Navy ride the seas ; but, until the Five
Nations offer wilhngly, we will bear cheerfully
the burden of their defence and the exacting
task of endeavouring to adjust foreign relations
with regard at once to the interests of the
Imperial whole and the susceptibilities of its
component parts."
A child does not appreciate the gi-aces of his
parents until he himself becomes a father. Then
he sees a fresh embodiment of his own early
selfishness, his truculency and ingratitude. He

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 5
has a new perception of his parents' perplexities,
of their tolerant forbearance, their indiff'erent
fortitude, and unceasing self-control. Now that
we in Canada have come to man's estate, it is
proper that we should take an accounting for
ourselves of what England has done for us ;
and, if the account be satisfactory, make open
and grateful acknowledgment of it, England
does not demand such a reckoning. We owe
it to ourselves to present it.
We can form no estimate of the conduct of
England in any particular situation or locality
unless we take account of the events which
were happening elsewhere at the same moment.
History must be studied as a whole. A fisher
man must not lay too much stress upon the
complaint of the individual sprat, else his living
would soon be at an end, and the larger fish be
left to prey unchecked upon the whole sprat
race. When we survey the field of England's
dealing with Canada this century past, we must
remember that she has had pre-occupations else
where. The Premier of Canada, speaking before
the British Ambassador, complained that Eng
land had withdrawn her boundary line from the
Ohio River in 1783. As well might he blame
her for withdrawing her boundary from the New

6 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
England coasts ; as most persons, I imagine, are
aware that her withdrawal from that part of the
American continent was not quite voluntary.
The Premier would also do well to remember
that France was at England's throat, and that
she had some considerable employment before
she succeeded in rescuing Europe and chaining
Napoleon to her African rock.
The Premier, in spite of his beneficent nature
and political adroitness, has found his resources
strained in keeping the peace between Colonel
Hughes and Mr. Bourassa, between the Orange
men of Ontario and the Ultramontanes of Quebec.
He had the Manitoba school question to settle
and found it troublesome enough, whilst England
was establishing and preserving correct relations
between Mussulman, Hindoo, and Christian, to
say nothing of Episcopalian and Nonconformist.
Canada is a great country ; but the Premier
must not blame England too severely because
she did not abandon her dealings with the Turk,
with the heathen gods of India, with the spirit
of murder and pestilence which for centuries
had stalked through the Upper Sudan, even
though we admit that, whilst she was engaged
in the dark places of the earth teaching the
helpless to help themselves, the people of the

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 7
United States were stealing our fish from the
waters of Prince Edward Island.
It is not the present intention to write the
history of England — domestic and foreign —
alluring as that enterprise appears, I am merely
calling attention to the fact that all these years
England has had a history elsewhere than in
Canada. The Premier is aware — and, if he is
not fully informed upon the subject, his friend
Mr. Botha will furnish him with particulars —
that England was fighting for her life in South
jifirica, whilst the vultures hovered in the Euro
pean sky. During those years of warfare, gold
was discovered in the Upper Yukon. Small
wonder that England appeared abstracted when
she was asked to define the true borders of
Alaska. The key to this paradox, an England pas
sionate yet self-controlled, obstinate yet good-
natured, implacable yet forgiving, illogical and
sentimental, lies in this — that the English are
not a nation but a mixed race, more mixed
than the Iroquois Indians who, in proportion
to their numbers, held wider dominion than
England now controls.
A pure race has one tendency and its course
may be determined. The English are a mixed

8 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
breed, and retain the confusing characteristics
of the elements by which it has been enriched
and refreshed. The enemy of to-day may be
adopted into the family to-morrow, therefore
an English campaign is a mixture of war and
benevolence. That is why England did so badly
in South Africa. That is also why, in the long
run, she did so well, as the issue has proved.
Words do not forever retain their original
meaning. The term "English" once described
those peoples who dwelt between the two
Channels. It was merely geographical, and
inaccurate even at the time when it was seized
upon, for those peoples were already inter
mingled. An Englishman is only occasionally
and fortuitously English. To set forth this
matter fully would require an expanse of writing
and a display of learning which would be intoler
able, but an observant person who moves about
the English counties may ascertain for himself
the truth of this remark in the varied stocks of
the race. He will find yet persisting the thick
set Saxon, heavy, round-headed, with blue eyes
and drooping moustaches, " a sort of terrestrial
walrus who goes erect," a bull-dog amongst
terriers. The type is reproduced again in the
women, in their round faces, in the pure colour

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 9
and brightness of their eyes, mothers of many
men, the indomitable Saxon peasants who in
the last resort always saved England. Side by
side with this stifi' and stubborn breed, conscious
still of its superiority, may yet be seen men
of other types, small, narrow-headed, brown-
skinned, black-haired and black-eyed, the true
Iberian ; or the black Celt, small and swarthy,
besides innumerable barkings back to Danes,
Brythons, and Goidels. Lastly, there are Romans
walking the streets of London, proud in face
and gesture, as knowing that the legions had
never wholly left Britain.
All these breeds and races are now English,
though they are as dissimilar as are the French-
Canadians of Quebec, the farmers of the western
plains, the stockmen of Australia, or the burghers
of the veldt amongst themselves. Within the
narrow borders of England these peoples dwelt
together fortuitously. Community of interest
developed a patriotism ; community of sentiment
developed afi"ection ; community of language
obliterated all remembrance of old strifes, in the
glorifying in the common tongue of new victories.
We in Canada must take account of this
brooding instinct if we would understand
England's dealing with and on behalf of us.

10 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
One illustration will serve. In 1866 Canada
was invaded by an armed force from the United
States, with all the circumstance of war. Regular
troops marched forth to meet it. The Militia
assembled. Battles were fought. Men were
killed. The country was ravaged. The in
vaders were driven out and took refuge under
the guns of an American man-of-war. Here,
if ever, was a case for satisfaction or reprisal.
Yet England made no demand for indemnity
nor even asked for apology. She herself paid
for the damage done to her colony. In this
her patience and passionless wisdom were
abundantly justified. She knew that the United
States was in a sore temper from the Civil
War ; that it had an army of one million
veterans ready for fresh adventure, however
mad ; that a foreign war would once more unite
North and South by the bond of a common
danger ; and that a war, whether successful or
unsuccessful, would be a disaster to the race.
This was the moment for reticence, for patience.
It would be the business of a great writer to
set forth the course of British diplomacy in so
far as it has affected Canada, and the product
would be a valuable book. In the main, these
measures were far-reaching, just, and wise, and

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 11
were inspired only by the desire to do what was
best not only for the interests of Canada but
for the English race as a whole.
The most important of these diplomatic
arrangements were the Ashburton Treaty in
1842, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 and its
abrogation in 1866, the Oregon Treaty of 1846,
and the Alaskan Award of 190 1 . A full exami
nation of these measures has been made, and
one may hazard the statement that in no single
instance was injustice done, nor were the
interests of Canada jeopardised.
All intelligent persons are now agreed that
no different conclusion could have been arrived
at by Lord Ashburton in regard to the boundaries
between Canada and Maine. The facts are
all set forth in the Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada for 1903 by W. F. Ganong,
and again in a series of articles in The Uni
versity Magazine entitled " British Diplomacy
and Canada." A mischievous legend has grown
up around this treaty, and to this day it is pro
pagated in school-books, histories, and other
romances. The explanation which obtains most
favour in the United States, and arouses most
glee, is that Daniel Webster and his colleagues
falsified the maps and imposed upon the simple-

12 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
minded Englishman. In view of all the facts,
it would appear that this astute people must
renounce the reputation for smartness which
they have cherished for over half a century, and
content themselves with the simple virtue of
honesty. In treaty making the stupidity has been on
the side of the United States, even when their
own peculiar province of trade was under dis
cussion. " Canada is within our lines " was the
declaration of that great strategist. General
Sherman. In a military sense, that is a matter
of surmise. In a commercial sense it was true
at one time, but it is true no longer. The
abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, at
the instance of the United States, marked off"
the dividing line between Canada as a com
mercial dependent upon the L^^nited States and
Canada as a nation in the making. This treaty
was negotiated, or rather " was floated through
on champagne," as the saying was, between Mr.
Marcy and the Earl of Elgin, at that time
Governor-General of Canada, and was signed on
5th June 1854. The arrangement lasted for
twelve years, and was of great advantage to both
countries. The United States, from their own
point of view, did exactly the wrong thing in

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 13
abrogating the treaty in 1866 ; they created a
new nation on their northern border, which in
time became closely knit with England; and
they did no good to themselves, unless it be
good for a country to exploit its own resources
to the point of exhaustion. The port of Boston
alone suffered to the extent of twenty- seven
million dollars a year, whilst the foreign trade
of Canada rose from $139,409,455 in the year
after the abrogation ofthe treaty to $235,301,203
in the seventh year.
The repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866
brought temporary hardship in Canada by the
derangement of trade ; and there was a clamour
that England had forsaken us. Indeed, under
the stress of those "bad times" there was a
small, though bitter, cry for annexation to the
United States. But to the credit of Canada,
her people sought new paths, and in a few years
they were competing with the United States in
the foreign markets of the world. Goods which
had previously been sold in New York and
Boston were now sold in the Maritime Provinces,
in Newfoundland, in the West Indies, in Eng
land. Canada learned the valuable lesson that
she had lakes and seas and rivers of her own,
whereon she might freight her goods in ships

14 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
built from her own forests. A new spirit, a
new people, a new nation was born, independent
of the United States, and free to develop affilia
tions according to natural affinity. "We shall
have no more pilgrimages to Washington. We
are turning our hopes to the old Mother
land " ; this was the Premier's declaration in
the hearing of Mr. Bryce at Ottawa, a fair
warning to all statesmen of pro-American pro
clivities. Under the Treaty of Oregon, England yielded
seven degrees of latitude and obtained six. It
is impossible, for the present, to enter into a
discussion of all the factors in so complicated
a problem, but it is worth noting that all of
Western Canada was saved at a time when
its value was entirely unsuspected. The Oregon
Treaty is also commonly believed to have
favoured the United States unduly, and it has
long been regarded as testimony to the in
eptitude of British diplomacy. The western
boundary between Canada and the United
States, which is now accepted under this treaty
as the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, was long
in dispute. England laid claim to all territory
lying to the north of forty-two degrees. The
United States protested that the true boundary

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 15
was as high as 54° 40': "fifty-four-forty
or fight" was their cry. The territory in
dispute extended north and south 1200 miles,
and included all which lies between the
latitude of Salt Lake and Edmonton, namely,
the present States of Washington, Montana,
the two Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, and Ore
gon, besides the greater part of British
Columbia. Nor should the alien breeds who now form a
part of the race fail to remind themselves occa
sionally of what England did for them in the
hour of their defeat. The French-Canadian,
whilst he glories in his language, his religion,
and his laws, might with propriety abandon
himself to an emotion of gratitude for those
privileges. Again in 1837, when he might have
been called upon to endure the just penalty
for unsuccessful rebellion, it was far-away
England which saved him from the vengeance
of his neighbours.
On one occasion at least England saved us
in Canada from ourselves. We plotted for
" Responsible Government," and broke out into
armed revolt in 1837. At length we got what
we wanted, and real self-government was in
augurated under Lord Elgin upon the plan laid

16 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
down by Lord Durham. In the first Parliament
a Bill was introduced by the "great ministry"
of LaFontaine-Baldwin to "provide for the
indemnification of parties in Lower Canada
whose property was destroyed during the re
beUion in the years 1837 and 1838." In face
of an outburst of passion this RebeUion Losses
Bill was passed by a large majority. The
"Tories" urged Lord Elgin to withhold his
sanction; but he insisted upon maintaining a
strictly constitutional attitude, and his assent
to the Bill in 1849 was a signal for these
" patriots " to break out in wild revolt. A
meeting called on the Champ de Mars ended
in riot. An armed mob invaded the Parliament
buildings and gave them over to the flames.
The Governor- General was mobbed in the streets,
and only military intervention saved the day.
A deputation was sent to England from the
Tory party to urge the disallowance of the BiU
by the interposition of the Royal prerogative.
Lord Grey defended colonial autonomy in the
House of Peers against Lords Stanley, Brougham,
and Lyndhurst, and against Mr. Gladstone in
the Commons. The Imperial Government re
fused to interfere. The rebellion predicted by
the " Tories " did not occur, and the right of the

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 17
Canadian Parliament to legislate upon Canadian
affairs was admitted for all time as the cardinal
principle of colonial policy.
In this summary fashion our rights were thrust
upon us. Lord Elgin wrote to his Home Govern
ment : "I considered that, by reserving the Bill,
I should only have cast on Her Majesty and
Her Majesty's advisers a responsibility which
ought, in the first instance at least, to rest upon
my own shoulders, and that I should awaken in
the minds of the people doubts as to the sincerity
with which it was intended that constitutional
government should be carried on in Canada;
doubts which, in my firm conviction, if they
were to obtain generally, would be fatal to the
connection." Three years afterwards, when all
agitation had subsided. Lord Elgin wrote to a
friend : " I have been possessed with the idea
that it is possible to maintain on this soil of
North America, and in the face of republican
America, British connection and British insti
tutions, if you give the latter freely and unspar
ingly." That is a discovery which we did not
make for ourselves, and we would do well
to recall this incident with shame as weU as
gratitude. The hegemony of the race has always lain in

18 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
London, and England has never rid herself of
the old instinct that she is yet responsible for
the people of the United States. The disagree
ment of 1776 was an affair on the surface. She
still regards them as Englishmen occupying a
congeries of states beyond the sea, just as
Canadians occupy a federation of colonies.
Protest as they like, the people of the United
States possess the same instinct. They cannot
convince themselves that the break in the con
tinuity of the racial life was anything more than
imaginary. When they have daughters ready
to propagate the type, it is at the Court of
St. James's they aspire to present them. There
is no national life for Canada or for the United
States apart or together. They and we and
England can only attain fulfilment as three
persons in one "New England."
When we in the outlying parts of the Empire
arrive at a full apprehension of what England
has done for the world, for the race, and for us,
then will come back the greatness of those
Elizabethan days in which there was an un
bounded passion for the Motherland, when her
children venerated and glorified her, and aU
which was hers. And if we say that England
did aU this— nourished and protected us as

THE PATIENCE OF ENGLAND 19
children, endowed us with freedom and a
kingdom when we were competent for the
charge — for her own pleasure and safety, then
are we, in the portentous words of St. Paul,
" bastards and not sons."

II
LOYALTY— TO WHAT
There are certain matters which are not proper
subject for discussion — the honour of a patriot,
the virtue of a prude, the learning of a professor,
the uprightness of a judge, the fidelity of a
friend, the loyalty of a subject. These would
better be taken for granted. Yet the theme of
every public address to resident and visiting
nobility, and the burden of the reply, is the
loyalty of Canadians.
When the representative of the Sovereign
attends a durbar at Delhi, he may quite properly
remind the natives of their obligations and privi
leges, in view of the somewhat recent events
which happened, when " John Nicholson by
Jalandhar came on his way to Delhi fight."
Lord Milner, also, in a progress through the
Transvaal, might pitch his tune to the note of
loyalty, in view of the still more recent events
which happened in those parts. The Egyptians,
too, are quite properly praised for their loyalty ;

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 21
since Arabi Pacha is not dead these many
years. There is not the same necessity for dwelling
upon the word in Toronto, for example, before
an assemblage of persons whose presence in
that city is established by the loyalty of their
" loyalist " ancestors who suffered exile for their
loyalty. There are men yet living in Toronto
who were out in Sixty-six, to repel the most
flagrant invasion of a friendly state which ever
went unavenged ; and they have heard their
fathers teU of Queenston Heights and Lundy's
Lane. Nor have they forgotten that their city
was burned to the ground within the last hundred
years. Even in the province of Quebec the
habitants have reason to know something of the
meaning of loyalty. Their fathers had to resist
the blandishments of Franklin and his fellow-
emissaries. They saw Montreal in the hands of
the enemy, and their country ravaged up to the
walls of Quebec.
When the Sovereign goes down to Devon
shire to open a cattle-show, he does not think
it necessary to remind the Devonian descendants
of those stout seamen, who on many occasions
saved England, of their loyalty by praising them
for it. Even in Wales and Scotland he assumes

22 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
that it is so. The thing may be taken for
granted in Canada also, even by Englishmen
who cannot fail to remember the divided aUegi-
ance of their own country so recently as the time
of the accession of the House of Hanover, and by
Scotsmen who were loyal at the same moment
to Charles Edward and George the Second.
Having in mind, it may be, these aberrations
of political feeling in their own land, the more
ignorant amongst the writers for the British
press pretend to believe that we are ready to fly
into the arms of the United States upon the
slightest pretext; or, faUing in this treachery,
that by some secret coup d'etat we shaU set up
an independent Government of our own. These
persons would please us more if they would
refrain from imputing to us such evil intentions ;
and they would serve better by not instiUing into
the minds of foreigners these unfounded sus
picions. So long as Britain was far away, we were
under the enchantment which distance lends.
In the long perspective she was the Britain
which always stood against the world for right ;
and our fathers had shared in her making. They
had fought against each other — Highlander and
Lowlander at CuUoden, Cavalier and Puritan at

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 23
Naseby, Orange and Green at the Boyne. In
Canada for generations we lived side by side
more closely than our cousins in Britain, and we
gloried in our old victories and in our defeats.
But England to us was the merrie England of
Chaucer and Shakespeare, the austere England
of Milton and Cromwell, the spacious England
of Elizabeth and her Plymouth men. Scotland
was glorified until her very stones were dear to
us, and the wrongs of Ireland were forgotten.
It was not hard to be loyal to that,
" Keep your dead, inviolate past.
Hold your pale ideal fast.
Well I know, who crave the whole.
Only dreams and memories last,"
But now England is very near to us. A
cable-service is paid to supply us every morning
with the meanest trivialities of English life, to
record the intrigues of politicians, to proclaim
the squalor of the poor and the inanity of the
rich. The newspapers follow — and they come
in increasing volume since the rate of postage
has been lowered — giving in all their hideous
details the filthiest reports of the proceedings
of any divorce court in the world, telling us of
the wickedness of the idle rich and the brutality
of the idle poor.

24 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
We visit England in increasing numbers.
We look upon the factory workers of Notting
ham, and the dweUers in the Black Country,
the impoverished farmers, the voters who live
in Whitechapel, and the daughters of these
voters, those peripatetics of the Circus. We
see the riches and the vices of the world from
Chile to Japan poured into London as into
a sink, corrupting the national life at its very
source. The obUgation of sympathy and com
miseration is engrafted upon the old loyalty.
Also, Englishmen come to us. Those in high
official place have vision to follow their caUing,
interesting us in ourselves, and creating that
sentiment of loyalty to the " person " which is
inseparable from the " idea " of the British Con
stitution. Many of the wise men who come to
write about us wrrite what appears to us to be
merely silly. If they have eyes, they do not see.
Their ears are open to any jester who takes
pleasure in sending them astray. English arti
sans come to Canada, and write letters to the
newspapers that they cannot find emplojmient,
failing to see that an employer wants a thing done
in his own way, and that may not be the way in
which it is done in London, as the new arrival is
so assiduous to explain. The English labourer

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 25
who comes amongst us is perpetually exercising
his inalienable privilege of grumbling, in a
language which appears to us like a foreign
tongue ; but in his grumbling he forgets to
work, and we cannot forgive that. The fact
of the matter is we look upon our fellow-Britons
as fellow-men, not as trees walking.
To the present Sovereign and the present
arrangement the people of Canada are as loyal
as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and perhaps
more so than is Mr. Timothy Healy or Mr.
Lloyd-George. So long as the British Par
liament contains only a due proportion of
archbishops and Mr. Healys, there is nothing
to be said. But we are well aware that the
House of Commons which came into existence
as the result of the last General Election, con
tained, out of 670 members, fifty representatives
who avowed frankly their socialistic opinions,
and ranged themselves behind Mr. Keir Hardie.
There is no cause for alarm in the presence
of members holding socialistic, or any other,
opinions, so long as they are kept in due sub
ordination to the whole. But in the session
which followed, these Labour members were
treated with more consideration than either the
Liberal or Conservative parties received. They

26 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
had only to bring forward a measure to have it
considered favourably. The BiU providing free
meals for all children in the elementary schools
was opposed at its second reading by only one
member, and it was passed without division. A
resolution approving of old age pensions was
carried without a dissenting voice. The Bill
by which the unemployed were subsidised was
criticised by only two speakers, and there was
no division upon it. At the same time, legisla
tion which would benefit the whole nation was
kept back, and private interests were neglected.
One BiU, for example, was read a first time
which had been under formal consideration for
twenty-two years. We are also aware that the
British House of Commons contains a certain
number of members whose function is to ob
struct legislation, a certain number who have
spent a term in prison, and that at least one
member was elected who was afterwards con
victed of high treason. To ask Canadians to
be unceasingly, and unreasoningly, and for ever
loyal to that, is expecting too much.
We are intelligent enough to see that a united
House of Commons is practically supreme ; that
there is none to stay its hand, and none to
question the validity of its decrees. In the

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 27
United States it is not so. Not the House of
Representatives nor the Senate, nor the Execu
tive, not all three together, can enforce legisla
tion which is contrary to the principles of the
Constitution. Any citizen who feels himself
aggrieved has the right to demand that the
Supreme Court shall pass upon the legality of
any enactment, and declare whether the pro
visions contained in the Constitution have been
infringed. The citizens know to what they are
loyal — not to the vagaries of popular assemblies,
but to principles with which they have been
acquainted since 1787. In Canada also we
have the comfort of knowing that our foolish
legislation can be disaUowed by some one. The
people of England are without such safeguard
against the wanton legislation of a House of
Commons resolute to do evil — and we also, in
so far as it concerns us. In that, it appears to
us, the danger lies for us and them.
The weakness of the House of Lords does not
reassure us. Unaltered in its constitution for
six centuries, it is an anachronism, and proof
against neither ridicule nor reason. Lord Salis
bury affected to believe that its languor, its
good-natured and easy-going tolerance, were the
best assurance against conflict. That was only

28 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
his ironical way of saying things. No institu
tion was ever reformed from within, and no
Government will very soon reform the House of
Lords from without. The Conserva;tives know
that, as a rule, it will sanction their legislation ;
for, as Lord Rosebery plaintively observed, the
son of a Liberal peer is always a Conservative.
The Liberals know that it will usuaUy pass their
legislation, because it dare not do otherwise.
To us, however, it appears that the Lords will
reject one measure, because nothing wiU happen
to their House ; and pass another because some
thing may happen to it. In one session they
refused the Education Bill, and accepted the
worst principles of trades-unionism. The House
of Lords, feeble as it was, dealt effectively with
the Franchise Bill in 1884, and with the Irish Bill
in 1893, and nothing happened. Nothing would
so make for the lasting loyalty of Canada as a
House of Lords founded upon reason, and there
fore strong enough to resist predatory legislation,
or legislation inimical to the Empire as a whole.
We do not object to the Lords having con
victions, even if they are based upon prejudice.
Our objection is that they do not act upon the
convictions which they have. No legislation is
the worse for being obstructed. By obstructing

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 29
insane legislation they give the country a chance
to return to its senses. We would wish to see
the House of Lords either reformed enough to
be completely inteUigent, or made strong enough
to be consistently stupid. A body which is
only partially intelligent is apt to exercise at the
wrong time the inteUigence which it has. We
would feel more secure if our interests were not
entirely in the hands of Mr. Healy and of Mr.
Keir Hardie. It would minister to our self-
respect if the House of Lords were no longer a
recruiting ground for theatrical managers and
the wives of American millionaires. Our neigh
bours to the south are a witty people, and they
say things which we cannot contradict.
It is worth remarking that loyalty is like any
other virtue. If pushed beyond the bounds of
reason a virtue becomes a vice. Love may pass
into sentimentality ; religion into theology ;
temperance into asceticism ; zeal into bigotry ;
caution may degenerate into cowardice, and
loyalty become a stupid adherence to nothing.
There are persons in England to-day who pre
tend that they are still loyal to the House of
Stuart, and once a year bedeck with flowers the
statue of Charles the First. Loyalty is not,
then, an abstract virtue like honesty, truth, and

30 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
charity. Its value depends upon the ideals to
which one is loyal, and the motives by which
one is actuated.
This utilitarian view of loyalty is the one which
has always been adopted by the English people.
Ever since the great events which happened at
Runnymede, they have felt at liberty to choose
whom they would serve. On Bosworth field,
again, they had an open mind. They taught
Charles the First the valuable lesson that a
king has a bone in his neck. Eleven years later
they demonstrated to the Puritans, in turn, that
practical loyalty is an affair of common-sense.
Again, after only twenty-eight years, they con
vinced James the Second that loyalty was no bar
to the accession of William and Mary. When
Queen Anne was dead the Stuarts required
another lesson in the practical nature of loyalty ;
and in 1745 a large proportion of the people of
Scotland were convinced of the truthfulness of
that view of the case. The Jacobites have left
upon record their impression that loyalty is not
a virtue of universal validity :
" God bless the King— I mean the faith's defender.
God bless — no harm in blessing — the Pretender,
But -who Pretender is, and who is King —
God bless us all— that's quite another thing."

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 31
Loyalty then, it would appear, has always
been to the people of England a virtue or a
vice, according to the circumstances of the case.
To the people of the United States also, in 1776,
loyalty was a crime, as we know to our cost, and
disloyalty the supreme virtue. To us in these
days it appears that the loyalty of the mass of
Russians to their " Little Father" is the cause
of the unsatisfactory conditions which prevail in
their country. In short, the lesson of history is
that the breaking with a tradition, if it become
outworn, is the price of progress and the safe
guard against decay.
But the glory of the English people is their
loyalty to a principle at cost of disloyalty to
their Government. The Government often be
came disloyal — the people never did. That is
the privilege which Canadians are resolved to
keep secure ; to remain loyal to the ancient
" truth, pity, freedom, and hardiness " of the
race, wherever those qualities may be found.
The English people never committed the un
speakable treachery of disloyalty for material
gain. Neither shall we. Yet that is precisely
the infamy which is aUeged against us by British
writers, who urge that we be given trade privi
leges, so that we may remain loyal, and by

32 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Canadian writers who demand preferences upon
the same ground. We all remember the melan
choly case of that Mr. Smith who ended his life
because he " laboured under the apprehension
that he would come to poverty, and that his
soul was eternally lost." We also remember
that Matthew Arnold likened many of us to this
unfortunate man, in our concern for making
money and saving our souls. We are not now
so much concerned about our souls. We have
substituted for that solicitude the desire to " get
into good society," but we are solicitous as ever
about making money. To the socially ambitious
" loyalty " has become like the burden of Jaques's
song : " ducdame — an invocation to call fools
into a circle," Within the last year a shipload
of patriots journeyed to England, and stood
before kings. They sat at banquets, and met
upon equal terms eminent personages whose
shoe-latchets they would not have been counted
worthy to unloose, had they appeared in the
quality of plain individual farmers, lumbermen,
miners, merchants, and manufacturers, of whom
there are several miUions in Canada.
Loyalty in Canada has in some way become
identified with that class which favours a mono
poly of trade, it may be because they have the

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 33
facilities for making themselves heard. They
have their associations, their paid secretaries,
their publicity bureaus, their cable-service for
disseminating their views. It is they who have
propagated the theory that the loyalty of Canada
depends upon the benefits which they receive.
They have created a tariff as high as the country
wiU stand. They have made it a little higher
against all the world except England, and call
that a preference, reserving to themselves the
right to give an equal preference in any other
quarter. Not content with free entry of their
own goods into England, they demand that the
entry of goods from other countries shall be put
under an imposition. If, they say, this is not
done, Canada will become disloyal, and either
seek refuge with the United States, or set up in
" business " on her own account. Canada wiU
do nothing of the kind. If her loyalty depends
upon commercial gain, the sooner England
bids her go in peace the better. The spirit of
Demetrius, the silversmith who saw his craft
in danger, is not the spirit which actuates the
mass of the people in Canada. The proof of the
loyalty of the most and best Canadians is that
they say nothing about it. A wholesome child
does not think or speak of his affection for his
C

34 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
parents or cousins. Words are unnecessary ; if
they are necessary, the sentiment is wanting.
Loyalty, like affection, is a thing ofthe heart ; it
is not of the mouth or the pocket. Those who
proclaim that it is merit the stern Miltonic re
buke: "Blind mouths; for their bellies' sake,
they scramble at the feast." Canada's loyalty
is her birthright. Small danger that she will
barter it for a mess of money in which only
these will share.
Nor is our loyalty a product of fear. If ever
the time comes that Canada is in danger of
invasion, it will be but part of world-wide com-
phcations in which England wiU have employ
ment for her forces elsewhere. We shall try to
shift for ourselves, and perhaps spare a hand for
her besides. The thing has been tried three times
already without an encouraging result to the
invader. More ignoble still is the plea that we
have paid down part of the price for commercial
favours by our assistance in South Africa.
What now can Canada do ? We can attend
to our own proper business. " They also serve
who only stand and " — work. We can build
our railways, enlarge our canals, and make safe
our harbours. We can grow more wheat, breed
better cattle, take more fish from the sea, mine

LOYALTY— TO WHAT 35
more metals from the earth, and pay the fine for
buying our goods in England. In eight years
we shall be exporting wheat for consumption in
the United States. In the lifetime of some of
the present generation we shaU have a greater
population than England now enjoys. We can
take her surplus population, good and bad. Last
year in London alone there were 123,000 legal
poor. In twenty years there need be none.
We can make men of them, or demonstrate that
there is no stuff in them of which men can be
made. A man who cannot make a living in
Canada for himself and his family is not worth
keeping alive.
A nation which is only a trading and manu
facturing nation — and England is nearly that —
does not survive for ever. HoUand will serve as
an example. The England which stood against
the world was not a bargaining England, wrang
ling over tariffs and preferences. When she
fought for her trade, she was fighting the larger
battle of freedom. Traders do not fight, they
compromise, as Holland compromised. They
only fight weU who fight for their homes.
England has lost touch with the land, and can
rejuvenate herself only by contact with the land
again. It is not too absurd to say that the

36 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
future strength of England lies in the dominions
beyond the sea, from which she will draw a new
freshness. What more can we Canadians do ? We can
be true to the ancient virtue of the race. We
can by example urge England and the other
portions of the Empire to be true to it also;
and by being true to that we shaU be true to one
another. " This above all, to thine own self be
true," is as applicable to a community as to a
man. Canada will be loyal to England so long
as England is loyal to herself. ¦

Ill
THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT
Let us begin with the sufficiently general state
ment that we live in Canada — some of us since
yesterday, some of us for six generations. To
say that we are Canadians might involve us in
controversy ; and one would be simple-minded
indeed, who should attempt to set forth within
the compass of a smaU paper what the term
Canadian does exactly signify.
Yet it is worth correcting the impression
which was prevalent, at least up to a few years
ago, that a Canadian is a kind of Yankee, or an
Indian, or even necessarily a person living in
America who speaks French. There is nothing
very profound in this observation, but it is as
well that the fact should be established.
The world has heard much, and is likely to
hear more, of Canada and its affairs. These
affairs are the growing of wheat, the catching
of fish, the breeding of cattle, the mining of
metals, the conversion of trees into timber, and
37

38 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
all the by-products which accompany or flow
from these operations. I am not insensible to
the splendour of these achievements, though it
is not the present intention to write of them.
That may well be done by persons who are fully
informed and vitaUy concerned about these
operations. The present proposal is to speak of
something different and yet not quite different —
namely, the spirit which should actuate us in
the doing of these things.
It is of some importance that we should make
wheat to grow. The thing which is of more
importance is that we should have a right reason
for undertaking that labour, and a right spirit in
the doing of it. The man who makes two blades
of wheat to grow where only one grew before,
for the mere purpose of providing unnecessary
food, is working with the spirit and motive of
a servant — of a slave even. The slave works
because he is compeUed to; the artist because
he loves to ; the fool does unnecessary work
because he is a fool. Each one of us is part
slave, part artist, and part fool. The wise man
is he who strives to be aU three in due propor
tion, and succeeds in being not too much of any
one. But the tragedy of our life lies in this :
that the man who was designed for an artist is

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 39
by compulsion so often a slave. It is merely
pathetic to see the fool engaged in his useless
task, and comic to see a miUionaire continuing
to work at his queer trade.
Work, then, in itself is neither good nor bad.
A man who works to keep himself out of mis
chief is only a little less vicious than the idler.
This " work for work's sake " is entirely modern ;
and our present civilisation is the only one which
has ever been established upon that principle.
To the Greek mind it was incredible that a free
man should labour, even for his own support.
That was the business of the slave. The citizen
had other occupation, in considering how he
could make the best of his life. His business
was to think how he should govern himself, how
he might attain to a fulness of life.
It is not the modern view that a man should
occupy himself with his life. With aU our talk
about freedom, we have only succeeded in en
slaving ourselves. We have created for our
selves a huge treadmill ; and, if we do not keep
pace, we faU beneath its wheels. Our inventions
have only added to the perplexities of life. We
have created artificial necessities, and consume
our lives in ministering to them.
We work only because we think we must.

40 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
We have all seen the clerk in the office dawdling
over his balances and his biUs, watching the
clock until the hour strikes when he is free — to
do what ? To escape to his little workshop or
garden. The thing which keeps us in heart at
our tasks during the long winter — if one may be
permitted to affirm that the Canadian winter is
long — is the hope that we may at some time
escape to our little farms, our woods, and streams,
forgetful that it is within our reach to spend the
whole year in doing the things which we love to
do. There is but one free man in the world — he
who creates out of the earth. If workers work
for the love of the thing, then is constituted the
class of artists — whether they work in the earth,
in stone, in woOd, with colours, with sounds,
or with words.
There is yet another class ; and of it I propose
to speak at some length, because the voice of it
is the dominant one in Canada and in all parts
of the Empire to which we belong. This is the
class which I caU traders, in contradistinction
to those who work for the love of creating,
whether it be composed of tradesmen exchang
ing their time, merchants trading their wares, or
professors trading their knowledge — for money.
What man engages in this commerce for love

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 41
of the thing itself? Who flies to it as to a
refuge from his care or his sorrow? Of all
human activities, which are not exactly criminal,
this alone has for its ethic the love of money
which is the root of all evil. Yet this is the
ideal which is held up persistently before us, for
our guidance in life and for the adjustment of
our political relations.
If I were to demonstrate that following the
guidance of this pernicious principle has led to
the corruption of public life and to personal
misery, to the political lobby and the social
slum, that would be to relate the history of
modem civUisation. I shaU endeavour instead
to indicate its effect when it is adopted as the
guiding principle of statesmen.
If any man is quahfied to express this modern
view, I think that man is Mr. Chamberlain. In
a speech which he delivered, 10th June 1896,
he made the portentous statement, " Empire is
Commerce." A reading of history does not
convince one that this definition is correct, and
numberless iUustrations leap to the mind in re
futation of such doctrine. The nations which
have left their impress upon humanity had quite
other views.
The Hebrews who inhabited the barren hill-

42 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
sides of Palestine proclaimed that Empire lay
in righteousness ; and her prophets were never
done crying aloud their warnings against the
fate which overtook the commercial cities of
Nineveh and Tyre. The Greeks lived alone for
beauty of conduct, for enrichment of character.
The Romans upbuilded their empire for the sake
of law and order. Holland attained to great
ness through struggle against the invader; and
England through her undying resolution that
she would be free.
In refutation of this faUacy, that Commerce
is Empire, we may cite the case of Holland.
When William IIL, after incredible labour, ac
complished the great Protestant Union against
Louis XIV., and annexed the Royal Crown of
England, her influence was at its height. Then
began her commerce. Riches flowed in upon
her from every sea. Her greatness lasted scarce
twenty years.
But the history of our own country serves
amply for iUustration. Those are traducers of
England who say that her Empire has covered
the earth at the demands of commerce. Trade
has not foUowed the flag, as the saying is. Be
tween 1883 and 1897 the Empire increased in
population 128 miUions, The boundaries were

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 43
enlarged to the extent of four miUion square
miles by the inclusion of Egypt, the coast and
hinterland of Nigeria, Somaliland, East and
Central Africa, and the Sudan, Yet during
that period the exports fell from £6, 17s. per
head of population to £5, 17s, ; and the total
exports feU from 305 miUions to 294 miUion
pounds. More recently, South Africa has been
included ; 500 million pounds would not pay
the cost, and yet in aU these regions the German
bagman moves about as freely as if he had borne
his share. That is sufficient refutation of the
faUacy that Commerce and Empire are synony
mous terms.
But we may find a better illustration of what
commerce wiU do for a nation, because it is
going on under our very eyes. Forty years ago
it was to Germany we went in search of a love
for the ideal, for a reverence of fact, for a high,
and austere, and disinterested view of life. To
inculcate the value of these things was Germany's
work in the world, wrought out by her unworldly
professors, her authors dazzling with the brilli
ancy of their ideas, her scientists consumed with
the pure love of knowledge, and her philosophers
whose thought ranged over the whole of human
life and aspired upward towards a knowledge of

44 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
God. Shorn of her spiritual strength, Germany
sits to-day a blind giant, toiling in the miU for
the benefit of any Philistine who requires mean
ness and cheapness. Prosperity in trade has
wrought this change in character, and it has aU
come about in one generation. Forty years of
the commercial ideal has made of the Germans
the tinkers of Europe, the bagmen of the world,
the supple traders who do not disdain the lan
guage of the Hottentot, if only a bill of goods
may be sold thereby. German science and
learning have surrendered themselves to im
mediate necessity.
And this is the advice, the new remedy, which
every quack has to offer to us and to England.
The charge which they bring against us is that
the education which we give to our children
makes of them merely educated men, and not
men of business. It is the "business man"
who understands education. The boy must be
illiterate, empirical, disdainful of all knowledge
which is not the result of personal experience.
The New Education is the thing, and Germany
is the place where it is made.
We in Canada have the opportunity of making
a new experiment. We have not entirely aban
doned ourselves to the dominion of work and

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 45
the desire for money. There are those who tell
us that this is our destiny — to work and grow
rich. They are not disinterested. They desire,
rather, that we should work that they may grow
rich. For thirty years we have resolutely turned
away our faces from an agricultural and pastoral
life, from the simple joys which go with these
occupations. We have become infected with
the desfre to imitate peoples whose environ
ment is different from ours. We have not been
living our own life. " Crowding the cities in
a blacker incessanter line," we shaU soon be
asking with Matthew Arnold, "Who can see
the green earth any more ? When shall we
drink of the feeling of quiet again." The fac
tory and the slum are twin sisters. If these
continue to be our ideal of achievement, then,
having achieved nothing but slum and factory,
no one wiU ask who or what we have been —
" More than he asks -what 'waves
Of the midmost ocean have s-well'd,
Foam'd for a moment, and gone."
We in Canada have now attained to that con
dition against which woe is proclaimed. " Woe
unto you when all men speak well of you," con
tains a penetrating truth. The vastness of our

46 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
country and the wealth of our resources is our
song in a chorus of wonder. Yet we might
well remember that the bulk of Asia was not
proof against the spirit of Greece. There are
things which we must do for the care of our
soul ; there are things which we must not do,
if we would save our soul alive, if we are to
have any meaning in history.
Here we are outstretched three thousand
mUes between two oceans, squeezed in between
the frozen North and a nation from which we
must differentiate ourselves, unless we are con
tent merely to cast our lives into that welter of
humanity. We are an aggregation of elements
sufficiently diverse, separated from each other
by mountains and wilderness, by language, and
theological dogma. But the difficulties are not
insurmountable if we address ourselves to them
with honesty and sweetness of temper. It will
take a long time — if we measure time by the
life of a man — to compose our differences and
grow together ; a short time if we measure time
by the life of a nation.
England has been at the task a thousand
years, and we have heard that Ireland is not yet
entirely satisfied. Therefore we need not be
discouraged by what we have accomplished in

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 47
thfrty years. England is so far away and — one
may add — so smaU, that we are disposed to
think that her poUtical action arises out of a
unanimity of opinion. Looked at more nearly,
controversy and dissension are as obvious as
amongst ourselves. Struggle and compromise
has always been her portion. By this method
she has attained to political wisdom. Holding
a middle course between extremes, she has gone
safely. That has been the history of England
in her internal affairs, and it must be ours too.
There have always been two Englands, an East
and a West, or rather a South-East and a North-
West. The rivalry between them was at first
military, then poUtical, now commercial. For
a thousand years the rich eastern meadows of
the Thames and Trent attracted invaders —
Romans, Danes, Saxons, Normans. For a like
period the West, with its mountains, bogs,
marshes, forests, and sands, was a refuge for
outlaws and for the conquered Gaels, Picts,
and Welsh. Political power lay in the East,
defended by royalty, lords, commons, church,
court, industry, and wealth. This was " Merrie
England," green England, with its grassy plains,
ancestral homes, cities, viUages and farms,
cathedrals, churches, and universities. Between

48 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the two lay a frontier fortified since the time of
the Romans. It is yet marked with the names
of their camps and with the Norman castles of
Warwick, Kenilworth, and Dudley. This black
England gave birth to the Puritan spirit, to a
reflecting, calculating mind, from which modern
business England has grown.
In the West there has always been a chaos
of revolutionary tendencies. Out of it arose the
demand for reform of the House of Commons,
to ensure adequate representation of all classes,
to exercise due influence over parliamentary
elections, and to alleviate national distress.
The West imposed upon the East the Reform
Bill of 1832, and it was only at that recent
date that a considerable portion of England was
freed from an oppression much worse than any
thing which we in Quebec have had to endure
at the hands of Ontario.
There is much evidence that the process of
organisation will not be so slow in Canada as
it was in England. The gulf between the rich
and the poor is not impassable. To us birth is
not a warrant entitling to position, nor is it a
bar to a career. There is an absence of that
sense of traditional wrong which various sections
of older communities have inherited. We have

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 49
no political grievances. Our public life is
simple, and it is automatically purifying itself.
Our newspapers are not entirely conscienceless.
There are many influences making for organic
unity. Distance is losing its repeUing force.
We see more of each other. We meet together
in the universities. Education is becoming
organised. Even our school-books are begin
ning to be written from a Canadian instead of
from a narrow, provincial, or seditious stand
point. Except in the province of Quebec, our
schools are free from the taint of sectarianism,
either Catholic or Protestant. Theological
dogmas are freeing themselves from the spirit
of hatred, and the churches are learning that
religion is peace — peace within the soul, peace
and goodwill to all men.
No longer do we live in isolated communities.
With larger opportunity, our young men are
not forsaking their own country to lose their
identity amongst people with other aims.
Rather, they are coming back and bringing
men of our own breed with them. These new
comers find our institutions more comfortable
than their own, because our political system has
been created out of our life, not imported and
imposed upon us from without. That is why

50 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the West will be saved to Canada, why Canada
will always be saved to the Empire, and the
Empire to us.
It is only when a nation is dead that dis
cussion ends. They are yet discussing things
in England, and in pretty plain terms too.
After a thousand years of controversy they have
evils which are yet unremedied. In this
country, too, there is discussion, and there are
persons who profess to be dissatisfied about the
relations which exist between this country and
the other parts of the Empire.
In so far as I have been able to inform
myself, their grievances are that a man in
Canada, who loses a lawsuit, has the right of
appeal to a body of the most eminent jurists in
the world ; that a treaty may be made settUng
the frontiers of India for example, without
seeking our advice ; that England may engage
in a war of which she is ready to bear the cost
on her o-wn initiative.
I am not sure that any advice which we
might offer would be very useful, yet I suspect
that there are persons in Canada who could
tell us, if they were free to speak, that such
advice is sought habituaUy. True, we writers
and talkers may not be consulted, but let us

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 51
remember that our premiers, and our cabinets,
and the representatives of our King, may have
better information than we possess. We are
comparatively new to this business of Empire-
management. It is a little different from farm
ing, or trading, or sawing timber; and these
are the occupations with which we are more
familiar, in which we excel. I can quite readily
surmise that in the making of a treaty with
Russia, or an alliance with Japan, or an entente
with France, problems might arise which would
be new to us. I question if even Mr. Lemieux
has more definite information upon the boun
daries of Thibet than Mr. Oswald had upon the
bearing of a line " due west from the Lake of
the Woods," or more specific knowledge of the
hinterland of Nigeria than Lord Ashburton
possessed about the watershed between the St.
Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy. Treaties are
made, alliances are negotiated, and war is de
clared without the knowledge of the British
House of Commons. We are so accustomed to
conducting our public business from the house
tops, and so little comes of our business, that
we have not learned the necessity of caution,
reticence, delicacy.
There are also persons in Canada who, under

52 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the guise of historical research, are resolute to
put England in the wrong. They pitch upon
isolated incidents and assemble them to produce
an effect. Because England made a certain
peace with thirteen revolted colonies, they cry
out that Canada was betrayed, forgetting that
Canada at the time had no existence. As weU
might they blame England for losing the battle
of Hastings, a thousand years ago. It was our
fathers who did it, and we aU — we in Canada
and we in England — are equally sharers in the
results. It ill becomes any one in Canada to
complain, whose family lived in England when
these things were done. All, save the French-
Canadians and those who are caUed Loyalists,
are debarred from entering a protest, and it is
not from them the complaint comes.
Nor should we aUow seditious demagogues
to import into this country their traditional
v^rongs. We in Scotland suffered the last
things at the hand of England in 1745. The
heads of our houses were slain. Our chosen
King was hunted into exile. Our national life
was broken up, and many of our bravest were
transported into virtual slavery. We have
forgotten all these incidents of the national
growth, just as England has forgotten the event

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 53
at Bannockburn ; or, if we remember them, it is
but to yield to each other an increased respect.
We know that a majority of the people
in Ireland are not entirely satisfied with the
relation which exists between them and Eng
land. We have imported that grievance into
Canada. It is a local affair. Let it be settled
upon the other side of the Atlantic. We have
heard that the people of British Columbia, on
the one hand, and the people of Prince Edward
Island, on the other, have some grievance
against the Dominion as a whole. We shall
adjust the matter between ourselves. We shall
not trouble the people of England to take upon
themselves the burden of this difficulty. In
justice to Canada and in decency to England,
let us aUow to Ireland and her neighbours the
same privilege. Any person who lands upon
these shores with the avowed purpose of asking
us to interfere as between New Zealand and
Australia, as between the Transvaal and Cape
Colony, as between Ireland and England, should
be treated as one who stirs up strife.
But the man to be most suspicious of is
he who has a political formula, a doctrine, a
device. There are plenty of these persons in
Canada. They tell us, with aU the assurance of

54 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
a soothsayer, what the destiny of this country is
to be. For forty years they deafened us with
their cry of annexation. But happily our ears
were deaf and their crying has ceased. Now
they are upon a new scent, but I do not think
that many are foUowing them or much con
cerned about where it leads.
The life of a nation is too vast, too complex,
too much a thing of the future to be governed
by a document drawn up in advance of events.
We all know what happened to the Constitu
tion of the United States, or even to the terms
which were drawn up by the Fathers of our
own Confederation. It was far from the mind
of Alexander Hamilton that the United States
should, within a century and a half, be ruled by
an elected king, who has more power for good,
and also for evil, than any sovereign of Europe.
It was far from the mind of the Fathers of
Confederation that the Dominion which they
created should so entirely dominate the Pro
vinces of which it was composed.
The true principle of governing is to govern
according to the genius of the race. Even if
we in Canada would, we cannot depart from
that principle. We can do no otherwise than
as we are doing. The genius of the race to

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 55
which we belong is to do nothing in advance
of necessity. The people of the United States
adopted a different principle. They imposed
upon themselves a set of doctrines from which
they have been striving ever since to free them
selves. For good or bad, the British Empire
exists because it has been established day by
day upon the experience of uncounted yester
days ; and so has been created a Constitution
not on paper but sacrosanct in our hearts.
Even before the English landed in England
that was their practice, to deal with events as
they arose. They never strove for a theory of
government, they were content if they governed
weU. Their philosophers might discuss the
basis of kingship for the enlightenment of other
peoples. They were content if their king
governed weU. If he did not govern well they
cut off his head, or sent to HoUand or Hanover
for another. " Who ha'e ye got for king
now ? " — in that inquiry Ues the whole practice
of English government.
From time to time portions of the race
migrated out of the island. They proceeded at
once to do what they did at home — to govern
themselves. That is what they did in the
United States. The rebellion of the thirteen

56 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
colonies was the most natural thing in the
world. It came about because Lord North was
wrong. It was entirely in the spirit of Eng
lishmen ; for Englishmen always rebel against
injustice, and they decide for themselves when
they have endured enough, when the moment
has come, as John Winthrop, the first governor
of Massachusetts, said when he and his feUow-
Puritans chose to go out into the wUderness in
search of the privilege of governing themselves
as seemed best to them.
It is fixed in the English mind that any given
community has a natural right to govern itself
as it sees fit ; that no community of white men
can long be governed by any other, that self-
government is best. That is why Canada has
been handed over to the Canadians, Australia
to the Australians, South Africa to the South
Africans. That has been the principle which
has always guided England in her relations
with her offspring, not to interfere in the internal
affairs of another community, and Lord Salisbury
was the greatest exponent of this principle.
But there has always been this reservation.
A community, native or foreign, must not deny
to an Englishman the fundamental rights which
he enjoys at home. The Turks may murder

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 57
their Bulgarian fellow-subjects ; the Abyssinians
may harry their hinterland; the Egyptians
may waUow in corruption ; the Boers may
purchase armaments; but they must not de
stroy an Englishman without due process of
law. The Magna Charta is the charter of an
Englishman's liberties, and it runs wherever an
Englishman may be found.
This conduct on the part of England involves
the assumption, an entirely justifiable one as I
think, that her children are sons and not pro
digals; that they will not be eager to spend
their substance living riotously in a far country,
or content to fatten swine in their fields. When
our fathers went out into the wilderness they
made a covenant for themselves and their pos
terity. Under this covenant they relieved them
selves from one set of obligations and incurred
another. They were released from the burden
of Empire as a whole. They assumed the burden
of a part, and at times the part is greater than
the whole. We in Canada have " made good,"
as the saying is. We have proved ourselves
worthy to be called sons. We think that the
time has come for a " show-down," as they used
to say in the West, for the making a new cove
nant in which we shall be enabled to renew our

58 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
VOWS, by which we shall again be adopted into
the number, privileged again to share and bear
the burden of Empire as a whole, and be made
partakers in the heritage, and of aU the responsi
bilities and benefits, spiritual as much as material,
which accompany or flow from such adoption.
If we in Canada were to become afflicted
with a madness, and take it into our heads to
establish an anarchy or other outland form of
government, I do not think that England would
do anything more than recall to our minds the
fable of the siUy beasts who would have a log
or a stork for king ; or that other, of the frog
who would be an ox.
We are governed in our conduct by conven
tions. There is a convention of the home, of
the club, of the dinner, of the church. These
conventions are based upon "the law of kind
ness," as the Proverbialist defines it, upon
affection. They make for good manners and
amenity of life. There should also be a con
vention of kindness in our larger relations,
under which we would refrain from irritating
one another. Under the influence of this spirit
of kindness we shall abstain from giving offence
to Catholic or Protestant, to English or French,
to rich or to poor.

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 59
The leader of those who call themselves
Liberals, and the leader of those who call
themselves Conservatives, possess this spirit;
and when they succeed in instilling it into
their foUowers, it wiU pervade public Ufe to the
ends of the Dominion. Then we shall see the
finish of that hateful spirit, under the influence
of which a minister of the Crown permits him
self to bring a railing accusation against his
opponents, and a member of Parliament to liken
a minister to a " whipped spaniel." These
things are hateful and do not occur in private
Ufe. They are hateful in public life as weU.
Actuated by the spirit of this law of kindness,
we should make of Canada a refuge for all
within the Empire who are in distress, for the
unemployed, for the discouraged. England has
done much for us, nourished us, defended us,
and defends us yet. Let us do this in return,
not in a spirit of bargaining, but with the desire
to bear more than our part of the burden of
Empire. With an organisation easily contrived,
we could, to our mutual benefit, relieve that part
of England which lies beyond the sea of one in
ten of its surplus people. We could give to the
willing ones a little farm, a little house, instruc
tion in self-support. To those who will not

60 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
work we could teach the lesson, that they shall
not eat, and that would be the greatest kindness
of all. So shall we purify and enrich the race.
There is a regulation that a man shall be kept
out of Canada if he has not a certain amount
of money. Let us, on the contrary, make his
poverty a reason for taking him in.
We have wrought hard these two centuries
past. Now we have some leisure for enjoyment.
Rural life is a cheerless thing so long as it is
lived in the shadow of poverty. But, happily,
that shadow has passed away ; and, lest it may
be thought that I have entirely forgotten my
subject, I shall say that this additional grain of
wheat of which I was speaking is only of value
if we get enjoyment out of it. Our life in Canada
wiU always be rural. Wherefore let us aspire
after rural joys. Let those who have the love of
money engage in commerce if they choose, and
create an Empire out of it if they can. Let the
millionaire continue to work at his queer trade.
They cannot hurt us if we keep our spirit right.
Their glamour will not allure us. They will
lose interest in it themselves, when they see
that we are disinterested.
Chief amongst these rural joys to which we
should aspire is the visitation of our friends, as

THE DOMINION AND THE SPIRIT 61
they do in the country. " I was born back East
in Brandon," said a homely farmer on the
western plains ; for Brandon is no longer West.
We have cleared our farms. We have lifted the
mortgage from them. We have built schools
and churches, and made good roads. This is
mere machinery. It is not life. National life
is merely the sum of family life. Wherefore, it
is important to cherish our family life, to pre
serve intact, to strengthen those ties of affection
which bind us together.
Canada is the elder brother of aU who have
emerged from the loins of England. Too long
we have been indifferent to the welfare of each
other. We have aUowed our hearts to be
hardened, and that is the worst evil which can
fall upon a man or a nation. Therefore, we
should go amongst our people and inquire if
it be well with them.
We can tell them much from our experience,
and we can learn of them. EspeciaUy should
we be solicitous for South Africa, the youngest
bom, and even for those alien breeds which we
have incorporated into the family. For the en
richment of our own spirit we should go occa-
sionaUy to our old homes, wherever they may
be and also for the comfort of those ofthe family

62 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
who yet inhabit them. The gain wUl be more
to us by the visitation of our friends ; for we in
America are living in the eighteenth century, an
anachronism in the civilised world, in so far as
ideas are concerned.
The development of this family affection is, I
venture to think, the true solution of the many
problems which face the Empire. This tie wiU
bind us for ever : "for many waters " — the waters
of the Seven Seas — " cannot quench love ;
neither can the floods drown it." So shall we
hand down to our chUdren, not impaired but
enriched, this heritage which has been entrusted
unto us ; and so shaU we fulfil our duty to our
selves and to our posterity.

IV
WHAT CAN CANADA DO
Those of us who are in the habit of writing
have come to the conclusion that, if we do
not write, something will happen. The same
remark is applicable to talkers also. We have
aU seen a beaver in a zoological garden sedu
lously collecting such material as he may com
mand for the building of a dam. The assiduous
beast is firmly convinced that, if he does not
buUd, the Ottawa river wiU overflow its banks
or some other dreadful calamity happen. That
is our predicament. By vpriting and talking
we keep the Empfre together. We prevent an
outburst of the national stream into unaccus
tomed channels. The beaver, who in reality is
effective, spends his time erecting for himself
and his family a comfortable home, protecting
them from danger, and providing them with
suitable food. He is the one who best serves
the cause of beaverdom. This thing is a parable.
We Canadians who are not writers and
63

64 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
talkers did not think that we were doing any
thing unusual, these two centuries past, making
a living as best we might, defending our little
clearings against wild beasts, our homes against
savages, and our little towns against marauders
from the United States. Our forefathers did
as much against Spaniard, French, or Dane ;
indeed, against English, Scotch, or Irish. We
did aU that lay at our hands in the most inno
cent way in the world. We dug harbours, built
lighthouses, laid down railways, excavated
canals. We have policed our waters and pre
vented strangers from stealing our fish. We
have kept good order over a territory as large
as the half of Europe, and made life and property
fourteen hundred miles from Edmonton as safe
as it is in Trafalgar Square, and much safer than
in County Roscommon,
Canada is no new thing, although it has been
discovered anew. Before the battle ofthe Plains
of Abraham, and ever since, we in Quebec have
been diligently cultivating our " few acres of
snow and ice," living a useful, happy life, in
creasing our population of sixty thousand alien
peasants to three millions of citizens, and never
dreaming that we were doing anything of especial
interest. There is nearly a century and a half

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 65
since a body of Englishmen came streaming
across the border, choosing to dwell in the wil
derness rather than be sharers in the rebellion
of their feUow Englishmen who occupied the
thirteen colonies. Ever since CuUoden, Scotland
has been sending out her hardiest sons, men who
found the conditions at home hopeless and
intolerable ; and Ireland also has given of her
best. We have done here precisely what we
used to do in our old homes.
When we reflected upon the matter at aU, we
thought we were doing pretty weU for a part
of the Empire at least, and it was with pained
surprise we learned that we were doing nothing
for the Empire, We were told that we were
pensioners upon the bounty of the English
shires and towns, that the taxpayers of Mid
lothian were overburdened with our defence,
and that we were like members of a club who
did not pay their dues. We in Canada are
honest people. We like to pay our way, as the
saying is, especially as we have the money in
our pockets to pay it with. We are not con
scious that we require charity. We are much
more disposed to give than to receive. We
have no desire to meddle with other people's
internal affairs. We are satisfied that no one

66 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
desires to interfere in ours. That leaves us fi'ee
to speak with our friends in the house and with
our enemies in the gate.
Out of this laudable sentiment has arisen the
desire to set ourselves right, not exactly right,
but more than right ; because one who does
only what is exactly right is essentiaUy a mean
man. We are asking of ourselves, and in every
quarter from which we might get a sensible
reply: What should Canada do? It is quite
true that we have ready at hand a considerable
bulk of advice, at least it has the appearance of
being considerable, as Carlyle said about his
morning porridge. Some say that our obliga
tions will be discharged if we give yearly a
battleship to the British navy : others, that the
debt will be paid if England gives to our goods
a preference in the English markets. The one
implies that we owe England : the other, that
England is our debtor. Both statements cannot
be true. Both may be false. To ascertain the
fact, we must first inquire what Canada has
done, before we can find an answer to the
question: What should Canada do?
Whatever we have has not come easily. Our
mothers have told us of these things. To-day
they are passing the evening of their life in

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 67
comfortable farm-houses, whose little rooms are
embellished with scriptural texts, enlarged photo
graphs of departed faces, and other pictures of
sentiment. We may also hear the story, though
more secretly, in town house, where portraits
replace the earlier adornments. It has taken
five generations to raise the mortgage from the
place, and it is only now that we can send our
sons to the university without sacrificing the
lives of those who remain at home. We have
had our own bitterness and sorrow. It is in
these that values are reckoned, in broken hearts,
in bowed backs, and knotted hands.
In those days England was far away and we
were alone. Twenty weeks it took to make a
journey there and back. News was scanty. Yet,
in some way, we heard of Trafalgar, of Waterloo,
of the Crimea, and of the Indian Mutiny. We
had pictures on our walls of "The Death of
Nelson"; of "Napoleon on board the Bellero-
phon" ; of "The Roll CaU" after the battle;
of the fierce vengeance which was taken upon
Nana Sahib's feUow-mraderers. As works of
art these pictures were not very good, but they
had a meaning. They conveyed the impression
that England ruled, instead of going about the
world asking how she should rule.

68 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
What perplexes us most is the saying in every
body's mouth, that, unless we do something —
give a battleship or a preference, or send Sir
Wilfrid Laurier to a conference in London —
the Empire wiU go to pieces. The Empire has
always been going to pieces, even from a time
which is far beyond the memory of any man now
living. The Venetian ambassador in 1557 heard
the same complaint in London, at a time when,
as he notes, " hammers were beating in one
place, tubs hooping in another, and pots clinking
in a third " ; when the artisans were so rich
that " they made good cheer in a tavern oftener
than every day with rabbits, hares, and all sorts
of viands."
When one Englishman meets another, his
first comment is upon the beastliness of the
weather, even if the place be Surrey and the
day the rarest in June ; his second is upon the
doom which is impending over their country.
This is merely a form of humour, that of over
statement. There is another form of humour,
that of understatement, which is as freely
employed. An Englishman whose ancestors
have served the nation for twenty generations
in her councils and her wars, whose grandfathers
were post-captains at twenty-five, who himself

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 69
is a sharer in the glory of her achievement, will
remark as the utmost of his admission when
put to the question — that is if he says anything
at all—" Oh, England is not half bad." That
is his way of saying, "The best in the world,"
just as a rich Scotsman describes his fortune as
the few shillings which he has saved out of his
poor earnings. All humour is dangerous : this
"not half bad" misleads us as it misled the
late Mr, Kriiger and his friends.
In our simplicity of mind we cannot under
stand that we and our doings have become
proper matter of comment amongst the other
communities of the Empire, We understand
perfectly that an apparently casual remark made
by the Premier in Toronto is intended to be
heard in some constituency in Quebec. But
we forget that there are cables and newspapers
which convey that utterance to Australia, to
South Africa, to India, and Japan, These out
land peoples cannot know that the member who
represents the constituency for which the remark
is intended is clamouring for a place, and that
his successor must be chosen.
The business of the leader of a party is to
keep his party in power. The duty of a states
man may urge him upon the path which leads

70 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
to defeat. When it was a question of sending
men to South Africa, it was quite proper for the
leader of a party to consider the effect which his
decision might have upon the minds of an im
portant section of his constituents. It is also
his duty as a politician to estimate the value
there may be in creating the impression that
Canada could manage her diplomatic affairs
better than they had been managed heretofore.
An outrage upon our allies and our feUow-
subjects can well be turned to political advan
tage by doing something or even by doing
nothing. That was a fine saying of Mr. Kipling's at
Ottawa : " Now there are certain things which
a man cannot, must not, do merely because it
is quite possible for him to do them — there are
certain things which a man must do precisely
because it appears impossible that he should do
them." We in Canada have been doing what
seemed good in our eyes, and in the main it
is good. It is possible now for us to make
mischief in the spirit of an overgrown and un
disciplined child by inconsiderateness of speech
and rashness of conduct. It is possible for us
to be boastful, self-assertive, truculent, wayward,
and I do not know that there is any one suffi-

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 71
ciently interested to undertake the business of
correcting us. For these vices there is, however,
the usual punishment of vice, the deterioration
of national character, and — what is more to the
point — the pained look of surprise on the face
of a community which has been taught by
centuries of experience to value correct opinions
and urbanity of conduct. There are many things
which are lawful, but not all things are expedient.
It is quite natural that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, with
his immense sympathy, should arrive at a full
apprehension of the many exceUences of Mr.
Botha. I cannot but think it unfortunate that
the names of Laurier and Botha should have
become so inseparably linked in the minds of
people too ignorant, too suspicious, to appreciate
to the full the exceUences of either. Yet it will
appear to some minds that a man whom Laurier
trusts deserves to be trusted.
Imaginative persons propose that Canada
should give a battleship every year for the
defence of the Empire. I am not insensible
to the splendour of such an achievement, but
not all Canadians are imaginative : certainly,
the British Admiralty is not. There are cir
cumstances under which a man is entirely justi
fied in looking a gift horse in the mouth. When

72 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
his life is at stake that is no time for complacent
acquiescence ; and it is easy to imagine the
scrutinising face with which Sir John Fisher
would view such a transaction, or even Lord
Charles Beresford, if he could abstract his mind
for sufficient length of time from his journalistic
and financial peregrinations. Our warlike con
trivance, no matter how humble on the day of
its launching, would grow in one year to a
Dreadnought ; and in five it would tower over
the whole British navy. Ontario would prob
ably insist that it should be commanded by an
Orangeman. We in Quebec should certainly
expect that the corporation of pilots, whose
headquarters are at Batiscan, should have the
privilege of putting it on the rocks, according
to the immemorial rights of their tour de rdle.
It would be intolerable to us if a Scotsman
from Glasgow were put in charge of the engines,
or Irish breath should sound the boatswain's
whistle. We should require that her guns
should fire a salute upon the Fete Dieu, and
that the whole fleet should manoeuvre in the
St. Lawrence when there was a by-election in
Bellechasse. No battleship would be tolerable
to us which could not safely navigate the
Lachine Canal on its way to share in the

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 73
festivities attendant upon the opening of the
Toronto Exhibition.
Another method of paying old debts is by
means of a "preference." There are two views
on this subject also. The one view is that
Canada should admit English goods at a lower
rate of duty than that which is levied upon
goods from other countries. Some rudiments
of this principle have already been established ;
but there is no evidence that it has been received
with much enthusiasm in England, or that the
benefits which flow from it are very material to
that country. Clearly it is of benefit to the
English manufacturer, but it is a naive assump
tion that the interests of the manufacturers are
identical with those of the country as a whole.
Indeed, the main benefit is to us in Canada, at
least to those of us who are not manufacturers
but professors with salaries which have been
fixed these twenty years, physicians with estab
lished fees, clerks with immovable incomes, and
farmers depending upon a soil whose fertility
is in no wise affected by political device. We
have tasted of cheaper and better books, cheaper
and better clothing, cheaper and better house
furnishings than those to which we were accus
tomed, and the taste is good. For thirty years

74 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
we have been fairly docile in face of rising prices.
We have imputed to ourselves the richness of
the rich, and deluded ourselves into the belief
that we too were sharing in their prosperity.
This preference has opened our eyes, and we
are beginning to wonder if we could not get
goods cheaper still by a more radical measure.
When we labourers are convinced that we can
have relief by the simple process of seizing
upon it, then England will have all the pre
ference which she desires — that is, freedom of
opportunity. If blight should come upon any
Canadian industry which has grown up under
an artificial protection, we may console ourselves
with the reflection that for thirty years we have
been nourishing it, and if now it only cumbers
the ground, the axe had better be laid to its
roots. It was never intended by the protected in
dustries in Canada that this preference should
give to us any relief, or to England any real
benefit. The following resolution is on the
books of the Canadian Manufacturers' Assopia-
tion: "That, while the Canadian tariff should
be primarily framed for Canadian interests, it
should, nevertheless, give substantial preference
to the mother country, recognising always that

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 75
the minimum tariff must afford adequate pro
tection to all Canadian producers." In an
official document it is written : " The Canadian
Government has been attacked by Canadian
manufacturers, on the ground that the prefer
ence is seriously interfering with their trade.
The woollen manufacturers have been foremost
in this attack, and they have made very bitter
complaints to the effect that their industry is
being threatened with ruin through the severe
competition from Britain, brought about by the
preference." Indeed there is grave evidence that this pre
ference, however valuable to us, is of little value
to England. Mr. Chamberlain, speaking before
the assembled premiers in 1902, said: "While
I cannot but gratefully acknowledge the inten
tion of this proposal and its sentimental value
as a proof of goodwill and affection, yet its
substantial results have been altogether dis
appointing to us. The total increase of the
trade of Canada with foreigners during the
period named was 69 per cent., while the total
increase of British trade was only 48 per cent."
There is another and more curious form of
preference which is put forward as a method by
which England shall be recompensed for her

76 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
labour in our behalf. Not satisfied with free
entry into her markets, it is proposed that she
shall tax all goods but ours. There are certain
forms of humour to which the English mind is
insensible, but it may be trusted to see the
point of this jest.
The fiction that England is growing poorer
and requires help arises from this eccentricity
of mind of which I have spoken. Let us put
it to the test. From 1871 to 1902 the exports
of manufactured articles rose steadily, decade by
decade, from 201 million to 227 miUion pounds
sterling. In 1891 income tax was paid upon a
revenue of 295 million pounds ; in 1901 it rose
to 354 millions. In 1891 the money on deposit
in savings banks was 75 millions; in 1901 it
reached the sum of 140 millions, and the
number of depositors increased from five mil
lions to nearly nine millions. During that
period life insurance premiums increased by 12
miUion pounds, equal to 60 per cent. The
provident societies in 1887 had invested 31
million pounds, and in 1901 the sum of 77
million pounds. Lastly, the heightened stan
dard of comfort in living is indicated by the
increased consumption of corn, meat, tea,
tobacco, and beer. In face of these six proofs.

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 77
we may not dissent from Mr. Balfour's judg
ment that, " by aU avaUable tests, both the total
wealth and the diffused well-being of the
country are greater than they have ever been."
It is weU that these things be known, lest we
fall into the error into which Mr. Kriiger fell.
Let us remember that the fable of the sick lion
is after all only a fable.
We shall now inquire what Canada has
done. We have not been idle in our business
nor penurious with the public service, and — I
imagine the statement wiU cause some surprise
— we are paying more per head of population
for the general good than England pays. This
matter will bear some investigation.
Our contention is that a man who tends his
cattle in Alberta, or farms his land in Saskat
chewan, watches his sheep on the Australian
uplands, or grows apples in Nova Scotia or New
Zealand, is serving the Empire as well as if he
carried on those operations in Kent. He must,
in addition, take upon himself the ordinary
duties of a member of a civilised community.
He must assist in making life and property safe,
in providing good means of communication with
his neighbours. In some communities this is
more difficult than in others. In new countries

78 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the work has to be done ab initio; but we
must not complain of that. The man in Kent
has had these things done for him from time
immemorial. Our fathers helped in the doing
of them, and when they went out into the
wilderness they left all behind them to be
enjoyed by those who remained at home.
A man who lives in London and spends a
yearly income of a thousand pounds pays in
taxes £128, 14s., according to a calculation
which Professor Mavor prepared for me. His
income tax amounts to £50 ; the inhabited
house duty upon a dwelling renting at £120 is
£4, 10s. ; the local taxation upon the same rating
is £45. The duty upon spirits and wines is
estimated at £24, and upon other dutiable goods
£5, 4s. There are certain minor amounts like
those exacted for servants, carriages, and armorial
bearings. The local rate, of course, varies with
the locality. In St. Clement Danes it is 5s. lid.
In Poplar it is 12s., but the average for all
London is 7s. 6d., according to " London
Statistics," vol. xvi. pp. 424-26. The entire
amount which the Londoner pays works out to
something under 13 per cent, of his income. A
man in Montreal, who spends an income which
is the equivalent of a thousand pounds in

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 79
London, pays in local rates on similar housing
£55, or 5^ per cent, of his income, which leaves
o^ly 7^ per cent, for general purposes if the
scale were the same here as in London. Our
taxation is so indirect that it is impossible to
calculate exactly how much we really do pay,
but I appeal to any professor in a university
and ask if he would not be glad to be let off
with double that amount. The average of our
custom imports alone is 15"66 per cent., and we
pay probably as much more for the " protection "
of our industries against ourselves.
Out of twelve hundred miUions of capital in
vested in railways, we have contributed 20 per
cent, from the public funds. Those twenty-five
thousand miles of railway we regard as a sub
stantial asset of the Empire. We have incurred
a debt of 365 million doUars, equal to 65 dollars
per head of population, and the amount has been
expended chiefly upon public works. Yet we
have 500 millions upon deposit in banks, and
our revenue would suffice to pay the debt in four
years. We in Canada must not complain because we
contribute more towards the community life
than the people of England do for theirs. Our
needs are greater. This year we shall tax our-

80 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
selves to the extent of 130 million dollars, and
we shall spend it all. There is much to be
done. We must make ourselves safe. We have
a frontier of 3500 miles to defend. Canada
to-day is all frontier. When the new railway is
constructed north of Abitibi, and our population
extends weU down the Peace River, we shaU not
so readily be cut in twain. Our next business
is to see that no foreign power can obtain a
lodgment on the Pacific coast. That is the
lesson of Port Arthur. We must make secure
against sudden raids Victoria, Vancouver, Esqui-
mault, and Prince Rupert — that place with the
detestable name. The western mountains serve
us well, and on the east the ice and fog are a
help. Also the tides of the Bay of Fundy have
their uses. It might as well be understood that
whatever Canada does will be done because
Canada's interests will be primarily served
thereby : and this because, by serving her own
interests first, she serves the Empire best.
Canada to-day lies like a saw-log, to employ
Mr. E. W. Thomson's phrase. You cannot hurt
it much by driving an axe into the ends. Along
its course lies the United States alone, and has
lain for over a century without doing us much
harm. Their people are like ourselves. They

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 81
are not a wanton people, and their exploit in
the PhiUppines will last them for a century
more. Any cataclysm may occur : Canada may
sink into the sea again, but in the meantime we
may await with some equanimity any signs of
subsidence. If we make our coasts secure — and
that is not an impossible undertakings — we shall
be doing something towards the Empire. By
putting ourselves in a posture of defence we help
to defend the whole. Not less than this may
we do. The statesmen who control England's
affairs to-day need not worry about us. We
shaU not trouble them to take upon themselves
the labour of defending us, because we shall
behave ourselves properly towards om* imme
diate neighbour, and it is only from that quarter
that danger could come.
But there is something further which Canada
can do. We can help ourselves and England at
the same time. We need men, and England
needs to be rid of a large part of her population.
The trouble with the England of to-day is that
the people — at least twelve millions of them —
are half-employed, half-paid, and half-fed. This
does not mean that they are idle, penniless, or
starving. A Canadian who comes across the
Channel up to the Dover pier, will see a com-

82 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
pany of a hundred stalwart men who had re
mained idle all the day waiting for the arrival
of the steamer and the chance of earning a few
pence by carrying luggage ashore. At the hotel
in London he will find a tumult of porters and
door-keepers who are not even half-employed,
because they spend most of their time waiting
for stray bits of silver. If the traveUer have
occasion to get his hair cut, he will have the
service of a large man in a " frock coat," who
would be more usefully employed in the harvest-
field. We could employ these millions profit
ably, but such an exodus would necessitate
some alteration in the habits of the people
who remain at home.
An Englishman loves to believe that he can
do nothing for himself — when he is in England.
No man in the world can do more when he is
abroad. He pretends that he is the most help
less person in the world, that he cannot carry
his bag, open the door of his cab, find an
address in the directory, or use a telephone.
He loves to believe that he is living in the
eighteenth century. When he travels he thinks
he is making the journey in a stage-coach. He
carries a bundle of rugs lest the coach may be
mired and himself compelled to spend the night

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 83
in the open. He imagines that he may be
attacked by foot-pads, so he carries a bludgeon
for protection ; in every city which he visits he
buys a new one, and comes home laden down
with a bundle of faggots. He expects that his
luggage may be stolen, so he places it by his
side or above his head in the railway carriage.
He thinks that rain is universal, so he carries an
umbreUa even to the Sahara or to Los Angeles ;
and, knowing that it may be stolen, he carries
two. The late Dr. Routh of Magdalen, who
died not so very long ago, believed to the end
of his days that students still came up to Oxford
in a stage-coach ; and if a student were a few
days late in entering, he excused him on the
ground that the roads were bad, and that he
had made the stupendous journey from Bath at
an unseasonable time of year. If England got
rid of her half-employed. Englishmen would be
obliged to alter somewhat their domestic and
social arrangements, to do for themselves what
is now done for them by big footmen and other
indolent servants.
One person out of ten in England is partially
or wholly a pauper. They do not work because
they are not obliged to. Neither would we.
It is much more comfortable for a lazy man

84 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
to loaf on the pier, enjoying the cool breezes
which come up the Channel, or watching the
sunshine fall upon the green fields and " the dear
white cliffs of Dover," than to labour in the
hot harvest fields of Saskatchewan. He knows
that in the end there will be a commodious
poor-house wherein he may spend his declining
years, or a pension as a reward for his life
long laziness. These are the people we want.
We wiU make men of them, or demonstrate that
there is nothing in them of which men can be
made. We have no poor-houses here. If a man
will not work, neither shall he eat. January
will attend to the rest. We are a ruthless
people against all but undeserved misery,
A man who will not fight for his food wiU
not fight for his king. That is a wise saying.
The spirit of England is not dead in those big
bodies ; it is only sleeping and starving. The
men who have always saved England were
strong eaters, hard drinkers, and good workers,
fond of tangible comforts, and, resolute that
these should not be filched away. They " fared
commonlie as well as the king." They were a
prosperous and cheerful people: "Even our
condemned persons doe goe cheerfuUie to their
deths, for our nature is free, stout, hautie,

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 85
prodigal of life and bloud." If only these strong
idle men could be compelled to come upon our
plains, their bodies and their spirits would be
rejuvenated. True, they would miss the allure
ments of London, but their reflections on life
would be moire accurate than those which come
to them in the gas-lit streets or the sixpenny
restaurants. Above all, there is one thing more which we
must do : keep our spirit right and our heart
from rotting with luxury or with poverty. In
this we are not without assistance. " Happily,"
says a writer in a great English monthly, " the
British spirit is at war with the American spirit
for the possession of Canada's soul." And this
is the sort of stuff for which we pay eighty thou
sand dollars a year for freighting over the North
Atlantic, along with much other pot-house talk
in which one of our ministers is assailed in the
language of those publications — English-pink
and American-yellow — which should be denied
the privilege of our mails. We will attend to
our ministers who require attention in good
season. I think now that it is clear that we do not
cost England anything at the present moment.
If England " cut the painter," as the saying is.

86 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
she would not save a penny. She would require
the same number of battleships to defend her
shores and convoy her food. We are not in
sensible to the sacrifices which England has
made in the past on our behalf; but those were
inseparable from her career of greatness, and we
were making sacrifices too. The problem before
aU British subjects is a hard one : how shall the
burden of Empire be shared equitably in the
future, not how little can each partner do, but
how much may be assigned to each without a
dangerous disturbance of the status.
We have certain internal affairs which we
propose to manage for ourselves. We will buy
our goods where we like, and pay two prices for
them, as we are now doing, if that foolish pro
cedure pleases us best. We shall determine
the relations which are to exist between the
Provinces and the Dominion. We shaU starve
the Provinces and aUow to the Dominion a life
of extravagance so long as the Provinces ac
quiesce. If England choose to indulge in
similar follies we shall not dissent. But Eng
land in its larger affairs is our England too.
Edward is our King. Is it nothing to us that
the House of Commons at Westminster can at
a stroke determine to its own satisfaction our

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 87
Status in respect of our King? Some of its
members, we think, are open traitors ; and one
member, at least, during the present century,
which is yet comparatively young, was convicted
of high treason. Our political existence is
bound up with the British constitution, and
the theorists who are striving to make it of
none effect .would do weU to remember that
their performance may conceivably be of some
interest to persons who do not enjoy the in
effable privilege of living within the hearing
of their jangling voices. This is not the first
occasion on which persons over seas — in Hol
land, to be specific — have taken an interest in
what was going on in London.
It becomes us in Canada to take thought for
our future, which is indissolubly bound up with
the future of England. At this distance there
is much to perplex us. We do not know what
these new political forces in England mean, or
what their leaders intend to do. We have seen
Mr. Keir Hardie in India doing his best to
stir up strife, and the late Prime Minister in
Scotland casting doubt upon the omniscience of
the House of Lords. We have seen one Govern
ment engage in a war of whose righteousness
we were not entirely convinced ; and a succeed-

88 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
ing Government hand over the prize of war to
an enemy whose youths in their schools yet
boast of the number of our people whom they
have slain. But that may be the mere boastful-
ness of youth, and at times we ourselves are
boastful. We have erected monuments to our
dead, and Englishmen of official position come
over and teU us that we were fools for our pains.
We have heard Mr. Botha say : " We trust
England, and desire to deserve her trust in us."
Yet we remember that this is not the first
occasion upon which England has been trusted
by a one-time enemy and the mutual trust de
served. We remember even that England was
obliged to protect the French Canadians against
the Canadian "patriots" after the events of
1837. It has taken us a hundred years to get
upon good terms with each other : it may take
a shorter time in South Africa.
The existing House of Commons may not be
to our liking ; but it will not endure for ever.
We are not enamoured of some of its members.
Our affection is to the spirit of the Empire.
Our loyalty is to the King who holds headship
over our race, and to its ancient tradition of
"truth, pitie, freedom, and hardiness." The
genius of England in political affairs has been

WHAT CAN CANADA DO 89
little more than the capacity to exercise patience.
The time has come for us all — in England,
South Africa, Australia, and Canada — to learn
the lesson and be patient, to become vitally in
terested in one another, to abstain from giving
offence, to speak the truth in love. So, in time,
we shaU develop a mutual trust and affection,
which must precede any final constructive policy,
either economic or constitutional.

V
NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
There are persons in Canada, if one can believe
what one reads, who are dissatisfied with their
political status. They profess that their spirits
are cribbed, cabined, and confined by their en
vironment. They yearn for the day when they
shall speak with the enemy in the gate without
the voice of England's guns interrupting the
controversy. It irks their souls that England
should bear the burden of their defence; and
rather than endure that indignity, they protest
that their coasts shall go undefended, or that
their inviolability shall be guaranteed in other
fashion. They have not, however, made it clear
to us what that beneficent power is which shall
guard our coasts, whether the President of the
United States or the Mikado of Japan.
Men speak about " cutting the painter " who
have no knowledge of the results which are
involved in that measure of seamanship, who
possibly have never been off the land, and
90

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 91
certainly have never witnessed the catastrophe
which overtakes a dory, to continue to employ
their own figurative language, cast adrift and
caught on a lee shore in the bight of an island.
Or, to make use of another of their phrases
derived from an operation of domestic medicine,
they would " cut the cord," as if a slash of the
knife were sufficient to ensure a thriving in
fancy, a healthy adolescence, a hardy manhood,
and a serene old age. The only security they
have to offer us is that occasionally a boat does
continue to swim upon a summer sea, and that
a certain proportion of infants do survive. But
ships do not always lie becalmed, and many
infants go down to an untimely grave.
We in Canada have lain so long ensconced
up against the North Pole, defended upon the
South by the good-will of the United States,
defended upon the West by the neutrality of
Japan, and upon the East by the fear which
England has inspired in the hearts of all world-
marauders, that our spirits have grown mighty.
We rail and carp at the United States with im
punity. We complain that they have stolen
our territory. They prove before an impartial
tribunal that the accusation is unjust, and then
we protest that we are betrayed. We sack the

92 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
houses of our allies and banish our fellow sub
jects from our coasts. Nothing happens, and
we conclude that nothing could happen under
any possible circumstances. That was the fal
lacy into which Russia fell until she was rudely
corrected that January morning in Port Arthur
nearly five years ago.
No one has informed us exactly what will
happen after we are bidden to go in peace, how
we shall govern ourselves, whether by president
or by king ; and, in the latter event, whether
our king shall be a log or a stork. It will not
do to leave so important a matter to chance ;
and before deciding to forsake the old physicians
for the new " political scientists " we should in
quire further. Political surmise is always siUy,
but happily in the present case we have more
than surmise to go upon. We have immedi
ately at hand for our guidance the experience
of a community which adopted the suggestion
which is commended to us. The thirteen colonies
which afterwards constituted the United States
" cut the painter." It is a matter of observation
what course they have run, whither they are
heading, and what perils they have endured.
In the first place nothing happened to Eng
land ; and the main grievance which the people

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 93
of the United States had against England was
that she continued to exercise the privilege of
existing without their consent or assistance.
Their conduct for the first forty years was un-
filial. It was not even that which is proper to
the friend who has quarrelled with another. It
is always difficult to forgive a person whom one
has wronged. The remedy is to create imaginary
offences, and this condition of mind prevailed
down to our own times. To-day all inteUigent
persons in the United States, especially their
historians, assume an apologetic attitude towards
those events in which their fathers vain-gloried.
The performances upon each successive fourth of
July become more perfunctory, and it would not
be surprising if some day that monument upon
Bunker Hill were to disappear quietly, by way
of delicate admission that it had been erected
under a misapprehension.
These bloodless revolutions amongst us are
no wiser than those old Fathers, and we may
not expect any better guidance from them than
the revolted colonists received. Cut off from
the stream of European civilisation and from
the institutions which the genius of our race
has created, and left to our own devices, we
should certainly commit acts of equal folly.

94 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
We might not destroy public property, since
senseless destruction is no longer considered
sufficient warrant of patriotism ; but our public
life would begin at the beginning. One who
desires to know what that is would do well to
read the dispatches of the Minister of France in
Philadelphia from the year 1777 onwards. For
the first five years of the life of the new Republic
he affirmed that "there was no general Govern
ment, neither congress, not president, nor head
of any one administrative department."
It is not so easy as one might think it would
be to devise a new constitution by which a com
munity can be governed. In the pretty phrase
of Walter Bagehot, you cannot adopt a consti
tution any more than you can adopt a father.
The Abb^ Sieyfes made that discovery in the
agitation preceding the French Revolution. He
had constitutions enough in his pigeon-holes,
but none of them appeared to fit ; and finaUy
he was obliged to be content with the coup
d'etat of the 18th Brumaire, by which the First
Consul was placed at the head of the Govern
ment. Again, when the French people were
asked if they would be governed by Louis
Napoleon or by an assembly, they replied that
they preferred a method which they could com-

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 95
prehend by reason of their feeling and not of
their understanding. A constitution must grow
out of the life of the people, as the British Con
stitution has grown, if it would be sacrosanct in
their hearts. A paper document, no matter how
cunningly devised, is a feeble substitute.
It may well be that, if our political sooth
sayers were put to the question, they could offer
us something more than prophecy and surmise.
They might in the outset inform us where they
propose that the final authority shall lie. That
is not so simple a question as it appears. There
are Jacobites in England to this day, and they
retain a perfectly logical position. They profess
allegiance to some descendant of James I.
They pass over WiUiam IIL, who was elected by
Parliament; Queen Anne, whose father and
brother were living at the time of her accession
to the throne ; Princess Sophia, because there
were before her James II. , his son, the descend
ants of a daughter of Charles I., and elder
children of her own mother. But in human
affairs the logical has small place ; in time the
Act of Settlement came to be regarded as an act
of Providence, and the king who rules in virtue
of an Act of Parliament is now commonly re
garded as ruling by the " Grace of God." Any

96 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
lawyer who tells us that Edward VII. is King
in virtue alone of Anne, c. 7, will not be believed.
It required the space of nearly a hundred years
to convince the people of England that there
was any reality in the action of their own
Parliament. A king who can be made can be
unmade as easily; and during the reigns of
George I. and George IL the sentiment of
loyalty did not exist. The Tories did not like
the king and the Whigs did not like his office.
George III. fared little better until the events
of the French Revolution inspired in the minds
of the people an absurd horror of democracy and
a consequent apprehension of the sanctity of a
king, which was quite as absurd and yet entirely
useful. The people now had by common con
sent a repository of the sovereignty.
The people of the United States have not
yet decided wherein the real sovereignty lies.
Calhoun believed that it lay in the individual
States. Madison also was of the opinion that
the union was an operation of the States and
not of the whole people. The Civil War was
an argument to the contrary ; but nothing is
ever decided by force. For forty years we in
Canada have been discussing our own docu
ment, but we have had a tribunal to which we

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 97
might appeal. Right or wrong, the questions
which arose have been settled, and the Judicial
Committee of the Privy CouncU, with all its
limitations, is probably a saner tribunal than a
camp of armed men.
It is useless for us to pretend that our political
wisdom would be any more profound than that
of our neighbours, or that the Provinces would
be more patient than the States, if an appeal lay
to force and not to law. One of the Canadian
Provinces, at least, has endured with patience
for thirty years economic disabilities which the
Confederation imposed upon it, only because the
people have a blind faith that by some legal pro
cess a way wiU be found. If force were the only
remedy, they would long ago have had resort to it.
We have seen that the Constitution of the
United States has always broken down when
unusual strain was placed upon it. The argu
ment about its meaning, which had been carried
on for nearly a century, ceased to be academic
upon 12th AprU 1861, when South Carolina
asserted its sovereignty, and a decision was not
reached until 9th April 1865. The events of
the Civil War lay between these dates. Again
in 1876, a time which is within the memory of
men now living, the Constitution broke down
G

98 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
once more, when it failed to provide for the
election of a President. Four States sent in two
different sets of votes, and there was no power
to decide which should be counted. The device
of an Electoral Commission was contrived, and
the question was decided according to the
political affiliations of the members who com
posed the Commission.
The fact of the matter is that the United
States continue to exist because their Constitu
tion is unworkable ; or, what amounts to the
same thing, because it works so slowly. A
Cabinet has been evolved which is responsible
to no one but the President ; and he is not re
sponsible to it. The Cabinet may offer advice, but
he is not bound to act upon it, even if it be given
unanimously. He can involve the nation in
war. Upon him depends the kind of justice
which shaU be dispensed in the Federal Courts.
The judicial history of the country has often
been affected by the judges whom he selects.
The appointment of Marshall by President
Adams, Taney by Jackson, and Chase by Lincoln
will serve as iUustrations of this far-reaching
power. The administration of all public busi
ness is in his hands, and he has the direction
of international affairs. He may recommend

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 99
and can veto legislation, and, in addition, he is
leader of his party. The people of the United
States have got precisely the thing which they
did not want.
The Declaration of Independence was adopted
4th July 1776, against King George III., and not
against a king in the abstract. Indeed, officers
of the army suggested that Washington be made
king, and there was a rumour that the Conven
tion of 1787 had decided to offer a crown to an
English prince. Instead of a log they have got
a stork, a ruler with more power for evil, as weU
as for good, than is possessed by any potentate
in Europe, not even excepting Abd-ul-Hamid,
since the events of July. They demanded a
legislature which should be quickly and directly
amenable to public control. A sudden revulsion
of feeling may completely alter the House of
Representatives, but the feeling must endure
for several years before it can affect the Senate ;
and finaUy, any measure which is passed must
receive the approval of the judiciary, which is
appointed for life. The framers of the Con
stitution did not trust the people. The cause
of the unrest to-day is that the people do not
trust their rulers, and yet they are powerless
to change, save by some stroke of violence.

100 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Here are two illustrations of the futility of
political e:xperiment made in advance of events,
which may be commended to our own theorists.
The framers of the Constitution devised an
Electoral College for choosing the President,
to be " composed of the most enlightened and
respectable citizens "; and it was presumed that
" their votes would be directed to those men
only who have become the most distinguished
by their abiUties and virtue." These men were
expected to exercise an independent judgment,
but now for an elector to do so would be con
sidered an act of the basest treachery. The
system broke down as early as 1804, when Burr
for President, and Jefferson for Vice-President,
received an equal number of votes, showing
that party alignment was complete even at that
time. The election of Senators is not done by
the Legislatures nor by men who have places
therein, but by a "boss" who wiU give due
consideration to the " Senator's " past political
career and his contributions to the party funds,
or by a small interested class to whose interests
he undertakes to remain faithful.
Secretary Bonaparte, with an appearance of
gravity at least, advised the legalisation of the
"boss," an individual authorised on behalf of

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 101
one of the parties to choose all candidates of
that party for elective offices within a desig
nated territory, to do the work intelligently,
deliberately, and carefully, which is now done
thoughtlessly, hurriedly, and negligently. This
is nothing more than doing openly what is now
done in secret; and the mere proposal of this
substitute for self-government, however " un-
American" it may appear, does not in reality
mean a surrender of the democratic idea, but
is a recognition of the fact that democracy has
never existed in the United States.
The trend of politics in the United States is
away from democracy, because the people fail to
see that they have never governed themselves,
and they have sense enough to see that the kind
of democracy which they have had for a hundred
years is running riotously. They now propose
to take municipal government out of the hands
of the few citizens who do control it and give it
over to " Commissioners," men who in the Greek
cities were caUed tyrants. This is known as the
" Galveston plan," and it is the only expedient
which good citizens can discern as a relief from
a situation which has grown intolerable. This
practice began in 1874 in Washington, and was
revived in 1878. At present two commissioners

102 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
and an army officer constitute the government,
and the system worked so much better than the
usual form of local control, that it was tried in
Galveston in 1901. Four years later it was
adopted in Houston, and in 1907 by El Paso,
Denison, DaUas, Greenville, and Fort Worth.
During the same year the principle was ac
cepted by the legislatures of Kansas, Iowa,
North Dakota, and South Dakota ; and last
year Mississippi gave power to aU towns and
cities within the State to adopt the commission
form of government. The real remedy is not
less government by the people but more govern
ment by the people, such as is enjoyed only
under British institutions.
There are, of course, cynical persons who
profess the belief that the precise function of a
legislature is to do nothing, or rather to con
sume the time with talk until the necessity for
doing something has passed away. They liken
it to an oracle. By the time it is ready to give
an answer the relevancy of the answer does not
matter. This was the view which prevailed in
Turkey when the Constitution of 1876 was
created ; and it was the intention of those who
framed the Constitution of the United States a
century earlier. The people did not get the

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 103
thing which they desired, and it is only now
that they are beginning to suspect that they
have been striving to make the shadow do the
work of the reality.
Political institutions, when adopted by an
arbitrary rule, as in the United States, have
something to do with the life and conduct of
the people who live under them. The social
life is involved in them. In England the con
trary practice prevails ; the institutions have
arisen out of the life of the nation and expand
with it. It becomes us, then, to consider what
the effect has been of government by precon
ceived notions, conceived, be it remembered,
more than a century ago, when the sum of
political knowledge was less than it is now. A
constitution is like a creed. In both there is
the assumption that the makers of them are
infallible. To hold by them after belief in
their falsity is established, results in spiritual
hypocrisy and political cynicism.
The first business of a civilised community
is to make life and property secure. Here are
two peoples, the same by nature and living side
by side. We in Canada have adhered to the
traditional method of creating our judiciary, and
we have kept the springs of justice undefiled.

104 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
The righteousness of our courts is in accord
ance with the best experience of the race from
which we are both sprung, and life is safer in
a Yukon dance hall than in Madison Square
Garden. The people of the United States, on
the other hand, with utter defiance of that
experience which civilised nations in the process
of time accumulate, have allowed to malefactors
the direct privilege of naming the judges who
shaU adjudicate upon their offences, with the
result that — it is Mr. Taft whom I am quoting
— " the administration of the criminal law in aU
the States in the Union is a disgrace to our
civilisation." The chief of police in New York,
who should know something about the matter,
declared that "if aU the lawyers and judges
were kiUed off we would then have some
justice." This reign of lawlessness is not, however, a
matter of opinion ; it is a spectacle for the
world to witness, — a wealthy murderer seeking
release under cover of the civil law, race riots
in Lincoln's home, a whole State terrorised by
organised bands of marauders, its governor
urging all honest citizens to arm themselves
in self-defence, its leading newspaper declaring
that " civilisation has become a myth, law a

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 105
joke, and the rights of man a delusion," And
here is the sentiment of a former United States
Senator : " I led the mob which lynched Nelse
Patton, and I'm proud of it, I directed every
movement of the mob, and I did everything
I could to see that he was lynched," The
attempted assassination of the prosecuting
attorney in San Francisco, the murder of
Senator Carmack in Alabama, the murder of
Mr, Gonzales by Lieutenant-Governor Tillman
in South Carolina, shows how widespread is the
influence of this spirit of lawlessness. It is
worthy of note that the offence for which
Gonzales and Carmack lost their lives was the
liberty which they took of expressing their
opinion in the newspapers of which they were
editors. Even in Maine, a district which hasbeen
settled for nearly three hundred years, a meeting
of citizens was held, presided over by the Mayor,
to show their " sympathy" with a criminal who
had been sentenced to fifteen years' penal servi
tude. The most sober newspaper in America
was moved to remark that "a set of burglars,
passing resolutions in the interest of a pal, could
not be more indifferent to law and justice than
these eminent citizens of a New England city."
The private vengeance of the Cave-man with his

106 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
stone hatchet is rife in the largest city ; the ven
detta has grown in Kentucky to an organised
defiance of all government.
In one respect at least our problem would be
less involved. We have not impending over us
the fearful Nemesis of the negro. Slavery and
cruelty are twin sisters. The quality of cruelty
is twice accursed ; it curses him who inflicts it
and him who is the victim of it. Under the
influence of this spirit the treatment of the
criminal is more abhorrent in one State at least
than it is in Morocco or Kwang-tung. From
the windows of a PuUman car one may see
white men chained by the legs and working in
the public streets. There were slaves in New
Jersey in 1860 ; but no slavery was ever so
cruel as the slavery which existed in Georgia
down to 1st AprU 1909.
The administration of the civil law is no
better. The rich litigant has his poorer oppon
ent at his mercy. Both Mr. Justice Brewer of
the Supreme Court and Mr. Taft have spoken as
plainly about the law's delay as Mr. Taft has
spoken about the breakdown of criminal pro
cedure. " A step backwards towards barbar
ism" are the words which Judge Brewer
employs to describe the movement, instituted

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 107
by an interested class, towards a restriction of
the power of the Court of Equity. "Every
where," said Mr. Justice Wright as late as
December 1908, " aU over, within the court
and out, utter, rampant, insolent defiance is
heralded and proclaimed; unrefined insult,
coarse affront, vulgar indignity, measure the
litigant's conception of the tribunal wherein his
cause stUl pends." For cases in which the civil
rights of foreigners are concerned there is as
great a necessity for Consular Courts in New
York as there is in Shanghai.
Here is the experience of a juror in his own
words : " On Monday morning I presented
myself in company with a panel of about sixty
other jurors, at the Court's building, ready to
be rejected or sworn, as the case may be. It
developed, however, that counsel wanted an
adjournment, and we were excused untU Wed
nesday afternoon. On reassembling, another
delay occurred. We were instructed to come
a third time, Friday morning. Shortly after we
reached the court-room to-day, the announce
ment was made that the case could not very
weU proceed until a previous calendar was
cleared; therefore we were excused till next
Tuesday morning." In the city of New York

108 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
there are twenty million dollars of taxation in
arrears, and it requires at the least two years'
litigation to compel a delinquent to pay. One
of the most precious possessions of a civilised
community is the experience of those who have
wrought out that civilisation and embodied
it in the "common law." The people of the
United States wantonly cast that experience
aside; and their judges, assigning meanings
to words and construing texts, are reduced to
the level of a Chinese mandarin or a Hebrew
rabbi in the Maccabean age.
This fiction of the power and glory of the
people is fundamental in their art and literature
as well as in their politics ; and from men who
are qualified to offer advice and give criticism
they receive only adulation and flattery. One
example will serve. Mr. Howells, in an inter
view in the New York Times, permits himself
to say: "No nation in the world appreciates
more keenly the artist's sincere appeal to the
beauty and truth of life than do the Americans ; "
and he appears to have said this absurd thing
with relish. A community which lays the axe
to its communal roots may continue to exist
and even to increase in bulk. But it cannot
possess any real vitality until the wound is

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 109
healed or until it send down new roots into
civilisation again. The people of such a com
munity may protest that art, and manners, and
all that makes for amenity of life is a flower
which grows upon a dung-hiU. Yet the pro
cesses which go on at the roots of a plant are
as mysterious and clean as those which yield
the perfume of the flower. The earlier settlers
in New England brought with them the tincture
of Milton. Later it was enriched by the quality
of Addison and Johnson, and the Hellenising
influence of Rousseau. The grimmest of the
Puritan divines employed the language of Europe
just as the mountaineers of Kentucky to this
day express themselves in the phrases of Shake
speare's time. But the tincture faded out in
LongfeUow, and Lowell, and their companions ;
and since that time the people have been left to
themselves, as we also should be if we followed
their example.
The citizens of the United States have no
social organisation, because they have an in
correct theory of society. A man may be an ex-
ceUent politician or president and yet have none
of that agreeableness which makes for amenity
in private life. Lincoln was not celebrated for
his social graces ; Cromwell had his merits, but

110 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
they were not especially those which endeared
him to civilised men ; Napoleon was too out
spoken to be amusing; and Walpole was in
private life coarse and barbarous. The world is
governed by conventions which it creates. The
idea and relation of God and the King is em
bedded in human society. Without it aU faUs
into disorder, and its absence is revealed even
in the conduct of the house physicians in the
hospital, of students in the university, and of
waiters in the club.
The United States began with an act of law
lessness, and thefr conduct ever since has been
marked by that spirit. Now this spirit of law
lessness has seized upon the women. It would
be too large a matter to demonstrate how it has
broken up the family life and disorganised the
social relation, how it has instigated rebeUion
against the marriage tie, and defeated the intent
of aU created beings that they should be fruitful
and multiply. One example of this disorderU-
ness will be sufficiently explanatory : " Some
days ago it was announced that to-day would be
' tag-day ' for the benefit ofthe hospital. Almost
every young girl in town volunteered her
services. An assistant corporation counsel of
New York let it be known that he would

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 111
give 100 dollars to the girl who succeeded in
pinning a 'tag' on him. There were fuUy
one hundred girls ready to 'tag' him this
morning, when he came out of his house.
Instantly there was a rush for him, and he was
soon ' tags ' from head to foot, but not before
he had nearly had his clothes torn off by the
excited young women. Justice Keogh was
hearing a case in the Supreme Court Chambers
when an army of the young women rushed into
the court ; and business had to be suspended
while every lawyer and even the judge himself
was ' tagged.' Then they visited County Judge
Piatt." And how shall we choose our Log or our
Stork ? In precisely the same way as he is
chosen in the United States. This is the fashion
in which it is done: "The picture within the
waUs of the vast amphitheatre, as the presi
dential candidate was named, was truly grand
in its magnitude. In front, to the right and
left, below and above, the billowing sea of
humanity, restless after hours of waiting, and
stirred from one emotion to another, was in a
fever of expectancy for the culminating vote.
Instantly the Ohio delegates were on their
feet, other Taft States following, while the Con-

112 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
vention hosts, in gallery and on floor, broke into
a mad demonstration. 'Taft, Taft W— H— T'
came in a roar from the Ohio delegates.
Megaphones seemed to spring from concealed
places and swell the Taft tumult into thunder.
A huge blue silk banner, bearing the familiar
features of the Secretary, was swung before the
delegates, awakening a fresh whirlwind of en
thusiasm. All semblances of order had been
abandoned, and the delegates' arena was a mael
strom of gesticulating men ; the guerdons [sic]
of the States were snatched up by the Taft en
thusiasts or borne under by the storm of disorder.
The band was inaudible, a mere whisper above
the deafening volume of sound. For ten, fifteen,
twenty minutes this uproar continued. It was
a repetition of the scene of yesterday, when the
name of Roosevelt threw the Convention into
frenzy, repeated in intensity and almost in
duration ; but there is a limit to the physical
resources of throats and lungs. Relays had
not been established, and at last the tired voices
died down to a hoarse shout, and at last subsided.
Amid this pandemonium, and with the gaUeries
in full control, Chairman Lodge decided upon
heroic action again to make the Convention
master of itself. It was late in the afternoon

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD lis
before the Convention, now literally sweltering
from the extreme heat, and weary after nearly
seven hours of continuous session, reached the
end of the flood of eloquence, and the decks
were at last clear for the decisive act — the
balloting. But no, just as the last swell of
oratory, the seconding speech for La FoUette,
had died away, like a cyclone from a clear sky,
burst a La FoUette demonstration which swept
the Convention from its very bearings. The
Secretary was powerless to make his call of the
States above the deafening clamour. Seizing
a megaphone he shouted the roll of States,
Alabama, Arkansas, but his voice was swallowed
up in the mad uproar."
The intent of this assemblage of iUustrations
is to show that a people in much the same
situation as ourselves, though more numerous,
wiser, and richer, have not, after a century and a
half of experiment, evolved a political condition
which is satisfactory to a sane man. There is
no evidence that we should do any better. A
nation must grow from the roots, and in this
process of growth a thousand years are as one
day. A nation crawls on its belly, slow as a
glacier. The optimists who demand only ten
years for the fulfilment of political prophecy,

h

114, ESSAYS IN POLITICS
and the pessimists who require as many as
twenty years, are both wrong. The whole
matter is summed up in the philosophy of Mr.
Dooley: "I have seen great changes in three
years, but very few in fifty."
With a President installed for four years, an
executive chosen arbitrarily, a senate elected,
no one knows how though all suspect how, and
safely ensconced for a term of years, with a
popular assemblage reduced to the level of a
debating society which is powerless to do any
thing but talk, the people are helpless untU
their moment of despotism comes around again.
That is why there is no public opinion in the
United States and no political discussion in
their newspapers, — for the same reason that
there was none in Turkey previous to the
month of July. Argument does no good unless
the conclusion can be enforced. In England
and Turkey a Government can be turned out at
any moment. In the United States the people
are powerless, and have lost interest in public
affairs. It is a Government of chance. The
accession of Johnson, Arthur, and Roosevelt to
the Presidency wiU serve as examples.
There is less government of the people by the
people in the United States than in any com-

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 115
munity of white men with whose history I am
acquainted. In their going out and coming in,
in their rising up and lying down, in all the
operations of their daily life, there is nothing
which affects them so intimately as their tariff ;
and yet the representative from Nebraska, Mr.
Hitchcock, from his place on the floor of the
House, declared, 4th March 1908, that in the
tariff the paper trust wrote the paper schedule,
the lumber trust wrote the lumber schedule, the
steel trust wrote the steel schedule, and the
other trusts -wrote the schedules affecting their
interests. Upon this matter it is well to be a
little more specific. The Dingley tariff was
considered in a special session of Congress
which was caUed to meet on 18 th March 1897.
It was passed by the House after only three
days of general debate under the five-minute
rule. Only one-fifth of the Bill was actuaUy
read in the House, and there was practicaUy no
opportunity for amendment by the members.
At the end of the fourth day General Wheeler,
ol Alabama, declared: "Only 15 pages of this
Bill have been considered. There are 148
pages of the Bill which have not been read."
Mr. Dingley retorted that consideration could
not be had in six months at the rate the House

116 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
was proceeding. On the last day of the debate
the Committee of the Whole finaUy arose to
report, and passed the Bill after having read as
far as paragraph 109, relating to lenses. This
paragraph appears on page 15 of the present
tariff law, sixty-one of which were never read
in the House of Representatives. Among the
schedules not considered in any form were
those of iron and steel ; wood and manufac
tures of; agricultural products and provisions;
spirits ; cotton ; sugar ; vegetable fibres used in
manufacture ; wool ; silks ; pulp and paper ;
sundries ; the free list ; and the reciprocity
paragraph. There was a roll-call on only one
amendment, the others being adopted in gross.
The Bill was passed on schedule time, 31st
March 1897.
The world will scarce contain the books
which have been written by themselves about
the corruption of their municipal life, and it is
not the present intention to add to the burden.
Yet one cannot refrain from the reflection that
the people which endure so complacently this
public wickedness contains as large a propor
tion of good men as any other nation, amiable,
amusing, sweet-tempered, religious, kindly men,
whom one is fond and proud to be friendly

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 117
with. It is their institutions which are at fault,
because they are alien to the race and prevent
the people from managing their own affairs.
We, in Canada, pretend that we are living
under British institutions. In reality we are
not. We are living under the government of
an interested class, who find a party in power
and keep it there until it becomes too corrupt
to be kept any longer ; when it seizes upon the
other party and proceeds to corrupt it. But
there is this in our favour. We have the
weapon in our hands. We can turn, and over
turn, and keep the mass moving so that corrup
tion shaU not breed. A survey of our own
public life does not convince us that we should
do any better than our neighbours, if we were
left to ourselves and to the institutions which
we might devise. As it is, our public life is
purifying itself automatically; the people have
aU power, and they are beginning to be sensible
of the fact. Political salvation is free to us,
and we have only to seize it. In the elections
which are just concluded, men have broken
away as never before from the weight of the
dead hand of party control, and have invoked
the free spirit which has brought us thus far.
The people ofthe United States constitute the

118 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
larger portion of the English-speaking race, and
it is to the interest of the whole that it should
be well with them. The increasing difficulty of
their problems has made them more sensible
of the difficulties in which other nations are
involved, more reasonable in argument, more
sympathetic in conduct, more tolerant of criti
cism, and more grateful for suggestions and
advice. In short, their failure, which has for a
long time been manifest to the world, is now
manifest to themselves, and it is their best
citizens who declare it most openly, who deplore
it most sincerely, and cry aloud for amendment.
This humility of spirit has effectuaUy estopped
the world's derision of their " experiment in
freedom," and its place is taken by commisera
tion and feUow-feeling.
Their adventure in Cuba, in Porto Rico, in
Panama, and the Philippines is a precious
experience, since it is inducing them to consider
how it comes about that they are enabled to do
so well abroad and so ill at home. Also it gives
them a taste of that scepticism which is in the
world, when they perceive that they are not
receiving any more credit for disinterestedness
of conduct in their dealing with those regions
than England has received for self-abnegation

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 119
in holding India and in her permanent occupa
tion of Egypt. Intermingling in world affairs,
they wiU learn the amenities which prevail
between civilised communities, and, let us hope,
refrain from insisting that aU "aliens" who land
in their ports from the first cabins of steamers
shall declare under oath that they have never
been in prison, asylum, or almshouse, and that
they are not anarchists, or guilty of polygamy.
As a nation progresses from the manners and
morals of a mining camp its difficulties become
increasingly great. Indeed, the troubles of the
United States are only beginning ; and the solu
tion wiU not be any the easier by reason of their
lack of an unconscious patriotism, the absence
of any concrete object which inspires the senti
ment of loyalty, and of any considerable class
which elicits respect. They have also to contend
with the utter divorce of government from piety,
the brutality of wealth, and the success of
business cunning, from which we are, for the
present at least, comparatively free. They have
suffered, and we should suffer too, from the fact
that these countries are a fertile field for the
development of the worst features of the various
races which come to exploit it. Diseases are
held in check somehow in communities which

120 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
are accustomed to them ; but when they find a
new soil they burst forth in fresh fury. That
innocent malady of children, the measles, will
decimate a race upon which it is suddenly en
grafted. Similarly the enterprise of the Scotch,
the facility of the Hebrew, the doggedness of
the German, the obstinacy of the English, the
alertness of the Italian, which in their native
environment are moderated and confined by
mutual pressure, when transported to these
virgin fields, lose the character of virtues and
become a menace to the life of the community
as a whole.
Instead of seeking out new devices of govern
ment, we should rather employ those which we
have. These institutions have carried us along
the stream of history for twenty centuries, and
have grown stronger and more suitable for our
needs with each emergency which has arisen.
They are part of our life and grow with it.
They are ourselves, and we who live by them
are the Empire.
In British institutions there is no finality.
Growth and change are their portion. They
are growing and changing to-day as never before.
Our only hope is in the genius of the race, in
that political skill which has enabled it to deal

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 121
with new problems as they arise. This freedom
of mind is in itself a policy, a way of viewing
and dealing with public affairs, a mind for
progress and improvement, with a mind to con
serve a situation so long as it is workable.
Reformers who wish to reform or change for
the sake alone of reform and change are merely
innovators. It is a distinct policy in public
affairs to leave alone those things which do not
require to be changed, to change for the better
when occasion offers, to hold fast to that which
is good until something better can be perceived.
The intent of this waiting is to secure the largest
possible autonomy for the various parts of the
British union, to serve and perpetuate this
union, not as a fetich but as an association for
securing aU the autonomous parts in freedom,
defence, pride, and affection.
The fallacy which lies at the beginning of
all constitution making is that government is
nothing more than an affair of business; and
that dignity, loyalty, homage, and affection have
no part. Accordingly the law of business is
applied, whose ethic is the love of money, and
its method the method of the jungle. Public
service then becomes a slavish or a mercenary
service, and love of country has no place.

VI
A PATENT ANOMALY
Individual ownership in lands or goods is not
a natural right. It is, in civilised communities
at least, based upon a convention which has
been agreed to by a majority of the persons
who constitute the society. This convention is
liable to revision or abrogation at any moment
which seems good to the community.
These principles apply to the ownership of
an author in his book, of an artist in his picture,
of an inventor in his invention. None of these
persons/claim exceptional treatment. They ex
pect merely the same right of enjoyment in their
creation as a citizen has in his house or a
farmer in his land. They are willing, however,
to yield to the citizen and to the farmer a per
petual enjoyment of the fruit of his industry.
They are content to restrict their own enjoyment
of their property to a limited number of years.
In the United States this right is based upon
the constitutional provision which enacts that

A PATENT ANOMALY 123
" the Congress shall have power to promote the
progress of science and useful arts, by securing
for limited times, to authors and inventors, the
exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries." In England the rights of inventors depend
upon an enactment made in the reign of
James I., in which is granted the privilege of
the " sole working or making of any manner
of new manufacture within the realm to the
true and first inventor of such manufacture,
which others, at the time of making such
letters patent and grants should not use, so
they be not contrary to law, nor mischievous
to the state, by raising of the prices of com
modities at home, or hurt of trade or generaUy
inconvenient." In Canada the latest regulations concerning
patents are embodied in the amending Act of
1897, and in the amendments of 1903. There
is no theoretical discussion of the rights of an
inventor. The law reads: "Any person who
has invented . . . may ... on compliance with
the other requirements of this Act, obtain a
patent granting to such person an exclusive
property in such invention."
In the United States ownership is actually

124 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
conferred upon the inventor by the terms
" exclusive right to make, use, and vend the
invention or discovery." In Canada the rights
of the inventor are vitiated by the clause,
"compliance with the other requirements of
this Act." The present intention is to consider
those "requirements," which leave to Canada
the distinction of being the only civUised
country in the world in which the ownership
of an invention is vitiated in the very patent
which assumes to grant the right.
The fatal defect in the title lies in the "re
quirements" as set forth in Section 37, which
provides " that the patent shall be null and
void at the end of two years unless the patentee
within that period, or any authorised extension
thereof, commence, and after such commence
ment, continuously carry on in Canada, the
construction or manufacture of the invention
patented, in such a manner that any person
desiring to use it may obtain it, or cause it to
be made for him at a reasonable price, at some
manufactory or establishment for making or
constructing it in Canada." This clause is not
new in Canadian legislation. It was a feature
in the Act of 1883, which the present one
supersedes.

A PATENT ANOMALY 125
Upon the face of the law it might appear
that this provision served a wise purpose, in
putting at the disposal of the public aU new
aids to industry and convenience. The English
law provides that a patentee can be compelled
to grant licences to persons who are able to
show that the reasonable requirements of the
public, in respect to the invention, are not
being supplied. In the United States, how
ever, no such recourse is thought to be neces
sary, as their legislators seem incapable of the
suspicion that a man could be in possession
of a good thing, and not work it for all it was
worth. It is quite open to the Canadian Government
to take the ground that it is not in the public
interest to confer privileges upon an inventor ;
but if that is the case, it should be stated
openly rather than concealed under cover of
an Act which assumes to establish the contrary
principle. It wiU not be difficult to make it
clear that this obligation to manufacture de
feats the ostensible purpose of the law.
It is understood that we are dealing with
inventions of real value, not with those foolish
vagaries upon which ignorant visionaries waste
their time and substance. But even in such

126 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
case a reservation is necessary. No one could
have guessed that the " unpractical " apparatus
of two metals and a frog's legs was the germ of
galvanism ; or that Faraday's discovery that the
rotation of a simple coil of wire in a magnetic
field would have resulted in the dynamo, which,
in turn, is the central force in all electrical
power development.
Let us now reconstruct the experience of an
inventor in Canada. By years of patient toil,
based upon equally long years of education and
experience, a man perfects a method by which,
as he believes, messages may be transmitted
from place to place without the use of wires,
employing only two sets of mechanism at the
distant points. He patents his invention. Then
his trouble begins. Inventors, as a rule, are
not capitalists. He applies to a company doing
a similar business by telephone or telegraph.
These companies will not, under any circum
stance, assist in the production of an appliance
which, if it is successful, might ruin their busi
ness. The most they might do is to purchase
his rights, and that would be largely upon their
own terms, as we shaU afterwards see.
Then the inventor applies to a manufacturer
of electrical apparatus. But this person may

A PATENT ANOMALY 127
have a hundred reasons for refusing to embark
his capital in a new enterprise. He may have
no capital to invest. He may not be convinced
of the value of the appliance. Probably he has
had bitter experience of inventions which pro
mised weU, and failed, when put to the test of
daUy commercial use. But there is a more
cogent reason stiU why the inventor should be
turned away. Let him select some one else, and
induce him to undertake the cost of putting the
appUance upon the market. If the venture fails
he has lost his money. If it succeeds, he is then
compelled by the Act to seU the appliance, at a
" reasonable price " to his competitors who may
have previously rejected the proposal. And the
courts have determined that " a reasonable price "
is based upon the ordinary cost, with profit
added, of manufacturing, without reference to
the value of the invention or the remuneration
of the inventor.
It is conceivable that one might fail to find in
Canada a manufacturer who would undertake the
appliance. There are but two large companies
in the country with the plant to make the article
which we have selected for illustration, and they
would probably be influenced by the same
motives. Certainly they have disclosed remark-

128 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
able skill in discovering the mind of each other
in respect of rates and terms of contracts. It is
also conceivable that a company might engage in
negotiations until the two years were about to
elapse, and then withdraw, in which case the
rights ofthe patentee would lapse, and his in
vention be open to the world. Companies have
been known to do worse things. It is quite true
that the Commissioner of Patents may, of his
own good pleasure, extend the two year period,
but that is a favour which cannot be counted
upon too securely.
It does not follow that, because a man has
money, he is wiUing to expose it to the risk to
which all business is liable. He may have other
views entirely, as any one can testify who has
engaged in the operation of seUing a gold brick.
It may be gold, but again it may not ; and the
man with money has other occupation than put-
ing the matter to the test. Capitalists are not
so simple-minded as the law-makers appear to
suppose them to be.
The niuch chastened inventor then turns to the
United States. Presumably he has afready pro
tected his creation there. In a wider field, with
manufacturers having abundant capital, and,
it may be, more alert, he has less difficulty.

A PATENT ANOMALY 129
especially since he is not bound down by the
two years' limit, by which time, in Canada, his
invention would be open to all. If his idea
is good, he reaps his reward.
These hardships are not so apparent in the
simpler devices which any mechanic can con
struct, such, for example, as that marvel of in
genuity known as " pigs in clover." The position
of the discoverer of a fundamental principle, or
of a new application of it, is well-nigh hope
less. All the fundamental principles have been
pretty weU exploited, and the field of the inventor
is limited to improvements. There is in Canada
only one company which constructs machines for
making shoes. If an engineer or mechanic has
thought out an improvement, the best he can do
is to offer it to his employer for such sum as he
may be willing to give. If he refuse the price,
the employer finds his retort in the Patent Law :
" Go ahead and make your machine within two
years; and then I will buy it from you at a
reasonable price." In the United States the
inventor can afford to wait ; for, if his principle
is sound, some one will want it before seventeen
years shall have expired.
It was not until 1903 that even the partial
validity of these contentions was recognised.

130 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
On 13 th August an amending Act received
assent, in which two important regulations
were made. If the inventor was unable to
manufacture his invention, he could protect
himself by giving a licence " on reasonable
terms to any person desiring to use it." On
the other hand, a customer who was dissatisfied
might compel the inventor to issue a licence,
" upon such terms as the Commissioner deems
just." Let us now turn to the position of the
Canadian consumer who requires the article.
The owner may supply him for one year from
the United States, without vitiating his Canadian
rights. Then, if he wishes to avoid the penalty,
he makes an arrangement with a Canadian firm
to produce the article as a " by-product." The
consumer is therefore compeUed to purchase
an article, hastily and perhaps carelessly made,
or do without. He would be quite willing to
import the article to which he has become
accustomed, and pay the duty, but the Patent
Law prohibits it. The Canadian manufacturer
knows that the consumer cannot help himself,
and that is not a condition of mind which
makes for suiting a customer.
There is one thing more. Many compara-

A PATENT ANOMALY 131
tively trifling appliances are composed of many
parts, some of which may require for their pro
duction the employment of highly specialised
and expensive machinery. Few articles are
entirely manufactured in any one establishment,
and an inventor with the best wiU to conform
with the law may find himself at the mercy
of the one man who has the facilities for
making any given part. He may require the
services of a roUing-miU to produce one bar
or bolt in his appliance ; and the quantity
which he requfres may be so small that the
machinery cannot be adjusted to his needs
without excessive cost.
The Canadian Patent Law as it stands benefits
no one. The patentee, unless he is a capitalist,
is helpless in face of the requirement that he
shall be a manufacturer also. The Government
is a loser, because importation of articles patented
in Canada is prohibited. The consumer suffers,
because he is compelled to accept the article
as offered to him, or do without. The law is
constructed in favour of the manufacturer ; yet
it does him a wrong also, because it makes him
a monopolist, and therefore robs him of the
incentive to do his best.

.VI£
PROTECTION AND POLITICS
The Germans have a proverb which runs — there
is no sorrow when there is bread in the house.
Applied to a nation, this summary of truth
means, there is no political unrest in a country
which is prosperous. Canada has enjoyed a
long period of unbroken prosperity, and political
problems have been left to solve themselves.
But, in the by no means miraculous event of
a series of lean years, there is bound to be an
examination of the principles upon which our
economic situation is founded, or even a reversal
of those principles without sufficient considera
tion. That has been our experience in the
past. The abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty
with the United States in 1866 wrought much
hardship to this country. For a series of years
before the denunciation of the treaty by the
United States, the traffic between the two
countries had an average yearly value of

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 133
75 million dollars. For a corresponding
period after the abrogation of the treaty the
value of the trade fell to 57 miUion dollars
a year. The aggregate of Canada's foreign
trade for the last year in which the treaty was
in fulUorce amounted to $160,409,455. The
year foUowing it declined to $139,202,615.
The loss fell with grievous force upon the
agricultural community, which had then no
foreign markets but the United States ; and
there are men yet living who can recall the
poverty of those years. The direct result of
those " hard times " was the complete overthrow
of the Liberal Government and the return of
the Conservatives, who proclaimed that they
were in possession of a sovereign remedy —
Protections It is not too early to attempt to forecast the
criticism to which the protection of our in
dustries wUl surely be subjected in the not
improbable event of commercial and financial
distress. Indeed, such criticism is already to
be heard, not in Parliament, it is true ; but
that is because the politicians are the last men
in the world to hear anything. When the
public mind begins to work freely, when ideas
begin to play, when questions are subjected to

134 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
examination by men who are intelligent and
disinterested, a policy must be well founded in
reason, justice, or expediency if it would resist
so relentless a process of thought.
The men in a community who are the most
dangerous to the settled Order of things are
those who have the habit of exercising their
minds, of forming opinions, and arriving at con
clusions. These men are usually to be found in
the professional classes, and it is upon them
the present situation bears most hardly. Their
salaries are fixed and prices are rising. Wages
are stationary or falling, which brings the wage-
earners also into the class of the discontented.
Many farmers in the West lost their wheat
eighteen months ago ; and they were not con
soled by the knowledge that the price of wheat
was enhanced, when they had no wheat to
sell, when indeed they were purchasers of
wheat for seed and for bread.
It is easy, for example, for a professor in a
university to appeal to the facts, and the fact
is, that in the United States the cost of the
necessities of life has not been so high since
the Civil War. According to an investigation
undertaken by the Labour Bureau, covering
2567 families, the average cost for food per

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 135
family in 1906 was $359,53, against $296,76
in 1896, and against an expenditure of $349.27
in 1905, a difference between 1896 and 1906 of
$62.77, or 21'2 per cent. The increase in cost
of living in 1906 over the cost in the previous
year was something under 3 per cent.
In Toronto, Professor Mavor has shown that
the prices of commodities sold in the markets
advanced 50 per cent, between the years 1897
and 1902, and 64 per cent, between 1897 and
1906. In 1907 the increase over 1897 was
67 per cent. He cites specific instances : eggs
advanced 67 per cent., potatoes 62 per cent.,
mutton 57 per cent., lard 50 per cent., butter
24 per cent., clothing 20 per cent., fuel 24 per
cent, and rent 95 per cent, in ten years.
According to a memorial presented to the
Royal Commission by the Civil Servants Asso
ciation in Ottawa, the cost of living is shown
in great detail to have increased by 28 per cent.
in ten years ; and the police force in Montreal
have demonstrated that in Montreal it has in
creased by 36 per cent. It is quite true that
wages have also increased, but the rate has
not been quite so rapid as the rise in the cost
of living, as the following dismal reading will
show.

136 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
An hour's wages in 1906 in the manufac
turing and mechanical industries in the United
States would purchase only 1*4 per cent, more
food than an hour's wages in 1905 ; and a full
week's wages in 1906 would purchase only
1 per cent, more food than a full week's wages
in 1905, whilst the cost of living had increased
by 3 per cent. As compared in each case
with the average for the years from 1890 to
1899, the average wages per hour in 1906 were
24"2 per cent, higher, the number of employees
in the establishments investigated Was 42*9 per
cent, greater, and the average hours of labour
per week 4*6 per cent, lower. The average
earnings per employee per full week in 1906
were only 18' 5 per cent, higher than the
average earnings per fuU week during the ten
years from 1890 to 1899, whilst the increase
in the cost of living was 21*2 per cent, more
than in 1896.
This calculation shows that the increase in
wages has corresponded pretty closely with the
increase in the cost of living. But this was
during a period in which employment was
fairly constant and the payment of wages con
tinuous. During the present year employment
has been difficult to obtain, and the total o^

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 137
wages paid has been correspondingly less. Nor
does the calculation touch the case of persons
with fixed salaries. In Canada the salaries of
chief clerks in the Civil Service are only 5 "55
per cent, higher than they were in 1882, and
in the United States there has been no increase
since 1880. The same comment wiU apply
generally to professors, physicians, ministers,
and clerks.
In former times of depression the price of
necessities always declined, but not immedi
ately after the financial panics by which those
periods were ushered in. The financial markets
in the United States experienced their heavy
stress in 1893, but it was not until three years
later that prices of food had fallen to the low
level. Indeed, it is probable that the rate of
decrease will be slower in the present instance,
since traders have acquired greater skill in sup
porting prices by the now familiar process of
combination. During the year September 1907
to September 1908, the price of 47 commodities
in the New York market fell 14 per cent. ; but
they are those of which the average man buys
little. Iron, tin, and copper decreased in price
22 per cent. ; but flour was 9 per cent.
dearer than it was a year previous ; beef was

138 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
25 per cent, dearer, and corn was 31 per cent.
dearer. Yet the whole list was 15 per cent.
higher than it was in June 1897.
When the established order was near its end
in France before the Revolution, there were
but two alternatives open to the class upon
whom it bore so hardly — to eat grass or starve.
To men in these days there is the safe middle
course of political revolt ; and a searching
examination of our economic policy can only
be postponed by unusually favourable climatic
conditions during the approaching seed-time
and the more remote harvest. Indeed, it is
questionable if another good harvest wiU balk
this inquiry.
Until 23rd October 1907, we were under
the delusion that the old order had passed
away, and that all things were made anew.
Cut off as we are from the stream of history,
and ignorant of its course, we imagined that
we had risen superior to that inexorable law
which is contained in the statement that two
and two make four. We have found, to our
cost, that this epitome of truth is sufficiently
accurate for aU practical purposes, and there
are men in gaol to-day for lack of that con
viction. These problems, which we think are

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 139
new, were all elucidated in the dream of
Pharaoh, The course of events has always been some
thing like this. In times of prosperity loan
able capital and credits based upon capital
are put into new enterprises, some of which for
the time being are profitable. The increase
goes on by arithmetical progression. Expenses
of operation, interest charges, rate of wages
mount upwards, accompanied by waste and
extravagance of living. The assets become less
and less convertible. Suddenly men discover
that there is no more available capital pro
curable, because all the capital is already in
vested in more or less permanent form. Then
comes disaster. There is nothing new in this.
It has always been the finish of every com
mercial community from Nineveh to New
York. When the inevitable has happened men be
gin to explain why it occurred. In the United
States the soothsayers found an explanation of
the recent troubles in the wrong-headedness
of the President. That is the practice of all
primitive peoples, to attribute an eclipse to the
anger of a dragon, an earthquake to the dis
turbed sleep of a great bird, and a pestilence to

140 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the wrath of a god. When the trial comes to
us we shall lay it to the charge of our system of
protective duties, just as a certain section in
England always puts the blame upon Free
Trade, The common argument in favour of Protection
is that it develops natural resources, stimulates
trade, encourages the iiivestment of capital in
new enterprises, and increases the rate of wages,
even if it does somewhat increase the cost of
production ; that it encourages the free spending
of money and prevents the hoarding of capital.
From Australia comes the newest reading of the
formula : " To promote regular employment, to
furnish security for the investment of capital in
new as well as existing industries, to render
stable the conditions of labour, and to prevent
the standard of living from being depressed to
the level of foreign standards."
If all these allegations be true, it means that
the natural causes which lead to disaster are
accelerated in their operation under a system of
protective duties. A more useful argument in
favour of Protection would be that it retards
manufacturing and trade; and there is a con
siderable bulk of evidence in favour of this view
of the case. Those who favour the system

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 141
should develop this new argument against the
day when every device will be required for its
defence. Yet it will probably occur to their
opponents that a less elaborate system than
Protection could be devised for the purpose of
doing nothing.
It would, I think, be the wiser plan to sm'vey
the ground in advance of the contest which
sooner or later is bound to occur, to determine
if a secure footing cannot be discovered. The
truth is that Protection is a political device, and
has not often been adopted consciously as an
economic advantage. At times it is a strong
weapon of defence, quite apart from its effect
upon industrial development. That argument
is unanswerable by its opponents ; and if they
could be persuaded of its political necessity, they
might endure cheerfully the hardships which it
imposes. Once the eel is convinced of his food-
value estimated in calories, he might the more
readily assent to the process of being skinned.
But he must be well convinced.
So definite a statement of fact will bear some
amplification, by tracing the causes for the exist
ence of Protection in certain countries in which
it is accepted as a cardinal principle. The
United States, Germany, France, and Canada

142 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
will serve for purpose of illustration ; and it will
be possible in a few paragraphs to set forth that
Protection was adopted in all these cases for a
sound political reason, and not primarily from
commercial considerations. It has happened,
however, as so often happens, that the effect is
mistaken for the cause, the fish-hook for the
fish, as befeU the poor man of whom Aristo
phanes relates the sad history.
Under the Articles of Confederation of 1777,
the new Government of the American colonies
was declared to be merely " a firm league of
friendship." At the end of seven years the
French minister was able to report, "There is
now in America no general government, neither
Congress, nor President, nor head of any one
administrative department." This state of
affairs continued for five years longer,
A Convention was summoned for 14th May
1787, in Philadelphia, under the presidency
of Washington. The Convention had scarcely
opened before dissension arose between those
who favoured the " large State " plan and those
who favoured the " smaU State " plan. The
large States had proposed two Houses, based
entirely on population. The smaU States, follow
ing the lead of Patterson of New Jersey, con-

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 143
tended for a single House elected by equal State
vote. The division of opinion was so clear
that, in July, the small States were threatening
a concerted withdrawal from the dehberation.
The dead-lock lasted until Connecticut sug
gested a compromise — two Houses, one repre
senting the State in proportion to population,
the other giving an equal vote to each State.
This compromise prevaUed.
It is worth noting that Connecticut alone of
aU the States had a definite Constitution at that
time, which dated from the year 1639, when it
was established by the Fundamental Laws.
This Constitution was drawn up by Thomas
Hooker, who claimed that he drew his plan
from the rules of government laid down in the
first chapter of Deuteronomy. John Cotton,
however, alleged the same authority for the
model of " Moses His Judicials," which he had
made for Massachusetts. A less esoteric exegesis
must refer the Constitution of Connecticut to
the practice of England, inasmuch as it pro
vided for two Houses differently constituted.
This, then, is the genesis of the Constitution of
the United States.
The Convention adjourned 17th September
1787, after having adopted a Constitution, but

144 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
it yet required the ratification of the several
States, and it could not pass into effect untU
at least nine out of the thirteen had signified
assent. It was nearly a year before the Con
stitution passed from theory into fact, when nine
signatories were obtained; yet the contest be
tween the Federalists and the anti-Federalists,
the friends and the opponents of the Con
stitution, continued. By small majorities New
York and Virginia ratified, but North Carolina
and Rhode Island were still recalcitrant. Then
the pressure was applied. The duties imposed
on imports from foreign countries were expressly
directed to apply to imports from those States.
Carolina was brought to terms, but Rhode Island
was obdurate. A Bill was then introduced
directing the President to suspend commercial
intercourse with the little State. Rhode Island
yielded. Thus was Protection born in America.
In the preamble to the first Tariff Act it is
affirmed that its object was the protection of
domestic manufactures. This was a mere sub
terfuge. The various States would never have
ratified voluntarily ; and secession, which actu
ally did occur in 1861, was always a possibility
which every statesman had to keep in mind.
To hold the States together, Alexander Hamilton,

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 145
according to his own showing, appealed to
the self-interest of the individuals composing
them by the assumption of the State debts, the
establishment of a National Bank, and a system
of Protection by which a class of manufacturers
would be created, dependent for prosperity pn
the Federal Government. The system worked
admirably, and yet remains as the bond which
holds together, if not the Government, at least
the Republican party.
In Germany the principle of Protection was
adopted for a precisely similar reason, to secure
the interest of an interested class. Hamilton
appealed to the manufacturers. Bismarck
appealed to feudal and agricultural interests.
Besides, Bismarck needed the money to relieve
the penury of the Imperial treasury. His object
was to keep intact the force which he had
created, and he had no thought of either com
mercial or colonial expansion. "I was not
born a Colonial," he said. In 1879, in pre
senting his case before the Reichstag, the
Chancellor protested that he was not actuated
" through any desire to assist certain branches
of industry by means of tariffs and duties."
In France the retention of the protective
system is due entirely to other considerations.

146 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
which have thefr origin in peculiarities of the
national character and in national necessity.
The French have a way of doing things to suit
themselves. They accept the fact that their
trade is decreasing, yet they are able to procure
such necessities as they requfre for the living of
their own life. The Government thinks it well
that the people shall eat certain food, wear
certain clothing, and live in a certain style.
In the main this way of living is good, and they
do not propose to accommodate it to the changed
situation which would arise from the free flow
of foreign goods into their market. The argu
ment is frank, logical, and intelligible.
Canada was face to face with a curious situa
tion after the abrogation of the Reciprocity
Treaty with the United States in 1866. Com
merce was violently dislocated, and a bitter cry
went up for annexation to the United States.
This contingency was in the minds of those
who denounced the treaty. There was nothing
foreign in the idea. Article II. of the original
Articles of Confederation reads, " Canada, ac
ceding to the Confederation, and joining in the
new measures of the United States, shall be
admitted into, and entitled to, all the advantages
of this Union." The Canadian statesmen, led

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 147
by Macdonald, faced the situation boldly. They
replied by the enactment of the policy of Pro
tection, which had in it a certain justification for
being characterised as National. The scattered
colonies which fringed the northern boirder of
the United States were driven together by a
community of interest which in time developed
into that community of sentiment which now
prevails. The value of Protection as a political measure
is quite apart from its effect upon manufac
ture and trade. The industrial development
of Germany originated quite independently of
Protection. It began in 1870 and has con
tinued to this day, though distinctly protective
duties were not in force until 1879. In 1885
a Parliamentary Commission was created in
England to inquire into all matters pertaining
to commerce. It sat from August 1885 till
December 1886, and took the evidence of every
person who might be supposed to possess any
information upon the subject, and of many who
could not possibly know anything. In the
first Report the Commission declared that the
Germans " gain ground on us by means of their
superior acquaintance with the markets, their
desire to subordinate their own taste to that

148 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
of the customer, their fixed intent to obtain
a footing everywhere, and their tenacity in
keeping what they have once gainedj" (Blue
Book C, 4893, p. xx). No mention whatever
was made in the Report of any advantage which
the protective tariff gave, although the Com
mission was pressed in many ways to make the
admission. The success of Germany is due, the Com
mission reported, not to its system of Protection
but to its system of education, to German
thoroughness, energy, experience, self-reliance,
and attention to the minutest details. I am
not saying that this is a good thing for the
nation. On the contrary, I think it is a bad
thing. In forty years Germany has lost her
pre-eminence in the world of thought and im
agination ; but that is the price a nation" pays
when commercial supremacy alone is sought.
The industrial development of the United
States is due in reality to the richness of their
natural resources. Indeed, that country affords
an example of the internal results of Free Trade
and the external results of Protection, Their
commerce has succeeded within thefr borders,
but their flag has been driven from the high
seas. The reason for this is, that the moment

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 149
commerce ventures beyond the three-mile limit
it is beyond the protection of the tariff and is in
competition with the world's carriers. American
workers are accustomed to high wages ashore and
wiU not accept less afloat. Therefore American
shipping, with its increased first cost, cannot
compete with foreign shipping except in times
of prolonged commercial depression. To com
plete an analogy which would be instructive to
us in Canada, we should imagine a system
which protected Pennsylvania against New
York, each one of which States contains a
population larger than exists in the whole of
Canada, and in a much more concentrated
form. By a confusion of thought, all duties upon
imports, be they high or low, are classed as
protective. In 1902 England exacted a duty of
a shilling the quarter on com and fifteenpence
on flour ; and yet no one assumed that Protec
tion had triumphed. The same remark applies
to the duties upon wines, spirits, tobacco, and
silver-plate. The average of the Customs duties
levied upon goods entering England is 5 per
cent. ; in Germany it is 9 per cent, ; in
Canada 16 per cent, ; in the United States
19 per cent. There would seem to be a point

ISO ESSAYS IN POLITICS
at which duties become protective, though that
point varies in different countries and even on
different articles in the same country. Below
this level — it is 5 per cent, in England — a
revenue may be obtained comfortably. Above
this level, as in the United States, a new
situation is created;
It is therefore not a question between Free
Trade and Protection, but between duties of
one height and of another. What this level
shall be is determined by a variety of considera
tions. In the United States the consideration
is the protection of an interested class. In
Canada the conduct of rival communities is
taken into account, and preferences are given
in exchange for like favours. In Germany, also,
Bismarck's policy of frank Protection, which had
been in operation since 1879, gave way in 1892
to a policy of arrangement. In the latter year
the new Chancellor laid before the Reichstag
the alternative proposal. In presenting the
new order he said : " Now that our industry has
grown, our principal preoccupation must be to
find outlets for it, and obtain on the most
favourable terms possible raw materials in ex
change for our manufactured products. It is
by no means impossible to conclude commercial

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 151
treaties. Such treaties are even the means of
maintaining a fair quantum of Protection, and
so avoiding that deplorable uncertainty which
leaves to all European States, unrestrained
within contractual limits, the too absolute lati
tude of vieing disastrously with one another in
a mad course along the way of Protection."
What von Buelow meant was that Germany
intended to maintain her schedule but would
endeavour to induce other countries not to
increase their duties. In fact, the German tariff
stands to-day substantially where it did in
1892, for once a policy is established it is ex
tremely hard to dislodge it, as those persons in
England who call themselves Tariff Reformers
are finding out. However, if they do not suc
ceed in imposing duties in their own country,
they have by their talk alone put an effective
stop to the further imposition of duties against
thefr goods in other countries. In the United
States to-day the extremest Protectionist is
satisfied if he is allowed to " stand pat," More
talk in England for foreign consumption would
do good.
At the present moment in the United States
— and in Canada also — the " stand patters "
would do well to recite the liturgy of their atgu-

152 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
ments. A protective system makes for stability
of government, or rather, for the stability of a
party. The relations of political affairs have
giown so complicated in all democratic com
munities that they are adjusted by an expedient
known as a "machine," and free men appear
to be unable to conduct those affafrs in any
other way. The first duty of the managers of
the machine is to keep in sympathy with the
protected interests. The first law of business
is to get into relation with the machine. An
increase of 1 per cent, in the duty upon an
article would, in the case of a manufacturer pro
ducing a million dollars' worth a year, amount
to a considerable sum ; and yet it " would not
be felt " by the consumer. The mere suggestion
of a diminution of 5 per cent, in the duty,
which "would be much appreciated by the
consumer," would bring all but the most re
calcitrant manufacturer to a realisation of the
advantages of the system. In England, where
this incentive to stability does not exist, political
parties are changing at the mere whim of the
people. In the United States the Republican
party has been in power for forty out of the last
forty-eight years. In Canada the Liberals have
ruled for thirteen years and the Conservatives for

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 153
eighteen years before that. In England there
have been, since 1867, nine changes of Ministry,
Protection also makes for the organisation of
industry, whereby steady work is secured. These
large combinations of capital, known as " trusts,"
ensure " stability of price," and prevent the
pernicious practice of underselling. The late
Mr, Havemeyer, who was being examined in
connection with a transaction by which fifty
thousand dollars was donated to the managers
of both parties impartially, declared in his
evidence that the tariff was the mother of
all the trusts. By the easy argument that the
part is greater than the whole, self-interest has
been expanded into " patriotism," In this way
the splendid patriotism of the United States has
been created, and its beginnings go back to the
days of Alexander Hamilton.
But there is a justification even more pro
found for a protective system in a democratic
community. We may admit at once that aU
men are born equal, inasmuch as all men are
conceived in iniquity and born in sin. To pre
serve the fiction that all men continue on the
same plane of equality is an essential of demo
cratic government. This is done by the device
of preserving an appearance of equality in

154 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
deportment, dress, manner of living, ideas, and
speech. It is conceivable that, in an Old- World
community which suffers from an aristocratic
government, a poor man might be invited to a
rich house where he would suffer the bitterness
of seeing portraits upon the walls, silver upon
the table, and Turkey rugs upon the floor. By
centuries of oppression he might be sufficiently
poor-spirited to enjoy the contemplation of
these objects with never a glimmering that
his manhood was outraged because he did
not possess such treasures. This diversity of
possession is hostile to the spirit of a free
community. If a man cannot attain to these
marks of greatness, he must have within his
reach something which at least resembles them.
Accordingly a spirit of imitation is created, and
in the end aU men look alike, dress alike, live
in the same kind of houses, and think alike,
which means that they do not think at all. A
protective system keeps in operation the full
machinery for producing these objects of imita
tion, by which aU men are persuaded that, if
they are not in reality equal, they are very
nearly alike.
A nation cannot endure without an aristo
cracy of some kind. In many countries there

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 155
is an aristocracy made so by bfrth. In others
there is an aristocracy of intellect. Failing
these, an aristocracy of wealth will do, and such
select body is created by Protection, composed
of " merchant princes," " copper kings," and
" iron magnates," who withdraw the common
mind from a contemplation of the baser life.
Their conduct in public places stimulates the
imagination. It gives a glamour to the criminal
courts. Their success arouses in the meanest
an emulation to rise to an equal greatness. No
toiler need despair. One day he may sit and
spend with the great ones, and no creature of
the pavement is so low that she may not con
sider herself worthy to become his consort, as
the newspapers wiU say. Thus is established
the eternal truth that all men are free and
equal. Competition is the life of trade but the death
of the trader. Protection restrains competition
and so saves the trader alive. The enemy within
his gates is easily disposed of by combine, trust,
or gentlemen's agreement. The enemy on the
outside is kept in his place by a 35 per cent.
tariff against him. The stranger may have
better and cheaper goods, made so by natural
advantage, by honesty in his nature, intelligence

156 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
in his conduct, and industry in his business.
But this avails nothing to those who would buy
of him, since to admit his goods would be to
put the native and patriotic competitor to the
labour of acquiring the characteristics of honesty,
intelligence, and industry.
This "interested class" had descended into
that profundity of cynicism in which they
believed that this condition of complacency
would endure for ever, and the panic of 23rd
October found them entirely unprepared for the
revelation that the deeper convictions and the
conscience of the people had not been dead but
only asleep. Their present attitude is one of
expectancy until these uneasy stirrings of the
moral nature of the community shall have sub
sided. And yet, it may well be doubted that these
arguments for Protection wiU prevail in face of
the judgment of President Roosevelt upon the
conduct of this interested class. In his situation
he must have some first-hand knowledge of the
thing of which he speaks. In a message to
Congress in February 1908, he affirms that,
"Every measure for honesty in business that
has been passed during the last six years has
been opposed by these men on its passage and

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 157
in its administration with every resource that
bitter and unscrupulous craft could suggest and
the command of almost unlimited money secure.
The methods by which those engaged in com
binations have achieved great fortunes can only
be justified by the advocacy of a system of
morality which would also justify every form
of criminality on the part of a Labour union,
and every form of violence, corruption, and
fraud, from murder to bribery and ballot-box
stuffing in politics. . . . Their wealth has been
accumulated on a giant scale by all forms of
iniquity, ranging from the oppression of wage-
workers to unfair and unwholesome methods
of crushing out competition and to defrauding
the public by stock-jobbing and the manipula
tion of securities."
You may persuade the consumer that he does
not pay the tax ; that internal competition will
regulate prices ; that trusts and combines lead
to efficiency and a consequent cheapening of
production ; that the money which circulates in
the home market is more desirable than money
which comes from the foreigner ; that a tax
which is paid to a manufacturer is as useful
to the community as if it were paid into the
exchequer ; that it is well to buy dear — and yet.

158 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
if his moral sense is outraged ; if he becomes
convinced that the doing of these things leads
to corruption of public life, the degradation of
Parliament, the debasement of the law courts,
the debauching of society, then he will calmly
ignore these excellent arguments, and declare
that industrial excitement may be purchased at
too high a price, and that prosperity has turned
to disaster. This condition of unrest is fatal
to industry, which must have a basis of per
manency. For example, the manufacture of
steel is a precarious business when the system
under which it is protected may be destroyed
by the moral delinquencies of a person who is
engaged in it.
Strong as these arguments are in favour of
Protection, manufacturers in Canada also are
beginning to suspect that the people at large
will not be infiuenced by them for ever. The
world is not governed by argument when moral
issues are involved. They see what is happen
ing in certain communities which enjoy the
ineffable blessings of Protection — legislators
bought as one would buy a drove of swine,
men who have grown rich under Protection
divorcing the wives of their poorer days and
publicly consorting with harlots, their sons

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 159
committing murder in public places with im
punity. Corruption of public life, and the
degradation of society to a condition of savagery,
is — so runs the feeling — too high a price for
the people to pay for the enrichment of an
interested class.
Until Canadian manufacturers are convinced
that Protection of some kind will endure for
ever, or at least for forty years, they can have
no success in any industry which is other than
indigenous to the country. Sfr WiUiam Van
Home, above all others, should understand these
matters. In an interview in the Standard,
25th January 1908, he affirms that industry
cannot develop under a tariff which is liable
to be suddenly changed. He urges that duties
should be decreased at stated periods until a
uniform 10 per cent, limit is reached. "If
then," he said, "the manufacturer, on a 10
per cent, basis, could not ' make good,' it
might be assumed that the particular manufac
ture was not indigenous to the country, and
would have to perish."
We should now be pretty well assured that
Protection is a political device, that at times
it may be a valuable weapon of defence, rarely a
commercial necessity, and not often an advantage

160 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
to the community as a whole. These facts
should be well apprehended, since the adoption
of a protective system is the means by which
it is proposed to bind more closely the various
portions of the Empire to which we belong.
The basis of Protection has always lain in the
establishment of an interested class. In Ger
many, it was the agrarian and feudal interests
which were appealed to. In the United States
and Canada the manufacturers were set apart.
In England also it is the manufacturers whose
self-interest is solicited. If those who live near
the soil were to be benefited that would be a
valid argument, because they are in a bad case,
and it has always been the hardy Saxon peasants
who saved England in her last extremity. But
it would appear that only the manufacturers
and their employees are in reality " Canadians "
and "the people of England." That is the
fallacy into which the nine tailors of Tooley
Street feU.
To professed Free Traders there may come a
time when they are willing to assent to a measure
of Protection. Mr. Cobden did not hesitate to
make a treaty of reciprocity with France, and Mr.
Bright did not hesitate to approve of his action.
Even Adam Smith advocated retaliation under

PROTECTION AND POLITICS l6l
certain conditions, and he gave support to the
Navigation Laws.
At the present moment it may possibly be
that there are poUtical circumstances in England
which might justify the adoption of a protective
tariff and Free Trade within the Empire. Mr.
Chamberlain thinks there are. In a speech
delivered at Newcastle, 20th October 1903, he
said : "I think that without preferential tariffs
we will not keep the Empire together ; " and
again, " You cannot draw closer the bonds that
now unite it, except by some form of commercial
union." And yet, in a speech delivered at West
Bfrmingham, 15th May 1903, he said: "We
have had a war, a war in which the majority
of our children abroad had no apparent direct
interest, and yet at one time during this war, by
their voluntary decision, at least 50,000 Colonial
soldiers were standing shoulder to shoulder with
British troops, displaying a gallantry equal to
their own, and keenest intelligence." Such a
state of affairs must appear to be fairly satis
factory, and it is a matter of common knowledge
that, since those events, the bonds have been
drawn closer by the simple device of knowing
each other better, and developing a mutual
respect and affection. Indeed, it is entirely

162 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
questionable if the most cunningly devised tariff
would induce 50,000 swords " to leap from their
scabbards " as the saying is. A patriotism which
is based on trade does not fight; it pays — in
the same way as a coward hfres a bully, as the
Greek colonies hired Attica after Salamis, and
a century afterwards turned upon her and rent
her in pieces.
The clamour for Protection in England is
based upon that fiction dear to the English
mind that " the country is going to the dogs."
And yet the Board of Trade Returns for the year
1907 show an increase in imports, exports, and re
exports of near a hundred millions sterling over
those ofthe previous year. In Berlin, at the same
moment, where such things should not happen,
the people were demanding in riotous assem
blages that the duties on the necessities of life
be removed. In the United States there were
at the end of the year three million men out of
employment. In Chicago alone, according to
the Association of Commerce, there were eighty
thousand unemployed ; and in New York, during
the month of December, five thousand applicants
for admission to the army were refused at the
nine recruiting stations.
There is a class of mind to which the name

PROTECTION AND POLITICS 163
Retaliation is dear. It has a considerable sound.
If Empire is Commerce, as Mr. Chamberlain
asserted on another occasion, Retaliation may
do very weU. But the British Empire has
attained to a considerable bulk by quite the
contrary method. In the last thirty years its
borders have extended by four million square
miles, including a population of 128 miUion
persons. This progress has been almost entirely
unopposed, because aU the world knew that
trade would be carried on in those regions with
out reference to any real or supposed advantage
which might accrue to England as a nation —
without Retaliation, without Protection.
But the greatest feat of England in Empire-
building since 1759 is that, during the past
twenty years, she has won back her colonies by
the cords of affection alone, not by Preferences
within nor by Retaliation without. Now
England may say, " What I spent, I had : What
I saved, I lost : What I gave, I have." There
is that scattereth and yet increaseth.

VIII
WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED
There is a sound basis in human nature for the
existence of a Conservative and a Liberal party.
There are men who by temperament will hold
fast by that which has been tried, who will
rather endure the ills they have than fly to
others that they know not of. These are the
Conservatives. There are also those who have
less dread of change, who have a clearer per
ception of the evils which they endure than of
the good, and think that the two can be made
more clearly distinct. These are the Liberals.
When the people holding these opposing
opinions band themselves together in the public
interest, as Burke puts it, to make those opinions
to prevail, then two parties are created. A
contest between these parties compels both to
occupy a middle ground, as neither the one nor
the other can prevail extremely. A compromise
between extremes is the essence of political
wisdom, since neither can be exactly right or
164

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED \65
exactly wrong ; the foolishness of two fools is
of more value than the wisdom of one. At any
rate, such is the system which the genius of
British institutions has decreed.
One who offers an opinion upon the one side
or the other is thereby interesting himself in
pubUc affairs, is engaging in politics ; but there
is a tradition sedulously propagated by interested
persons, that public affairs must be left to a
special class known as " politicians." Therein
lies the root of all public evil. It breeds
oUgarchy, whether it be the oligarchy of a royal
or priestly caste ; and tyranny, whether it be the
tyranny of king, caucus, committee, or boss.
The " politicians " would have us believe that
it is they alone who understand politics, that no
one is qualified to express an opinion upon
public affairs unless he has stood for election ;
and, if elected, that his authority is increased
if he has undergone the ordeal of petition or
counter-petition for his unseating. A political
economist is, according to him, a mere theore
tician, a moraUst concerned only about the right
and the wrong of things ; and a University chair
a convenient place from which abstractions may
be uttered to boys. But the impression is not
now so strong as it used to be that a professor

166 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
is necessarily a fool, and that he must look
this way and that when he speaks upon public
affafrs. AU truth is one, and an investigation into
any part of it reduces the proclivity for lying
about the rest. A man whose business it is to
disclose the truth as he sees it in any one
department of knowledge, is more liable to
stumble upon the truth in another department
— even of public affairs — than he who is only
concerned about success in controversy. One
of the most interesting phenomena of human
life is an election, and its results lend them
selves to investigation as readily as any other
operation of the common mind. It is in this
spirit that I shaU endeavour to set forth the
reason why the Conservatives faUed in thefr
appeal to the electors of Canada on 26th October
1908 ; and we shaU begin with the assumption
which few will contradict, that they have failed ;
though, by making this bold assumption, one
may lay one's self open to the charge of being
an enemy, either secret or open. Possibly also,
on the other hand, one may be considered a
friend in virtue of telling the truth, or even an
enemy for the same reason.
It is a sound maxim in poUtics, as weU as in

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED l67
many other departments of life, that words do
occasionally convey a meaning to intelligent
persons, which cannot be entirely taken away
by a further arrangement of words. When Mr.
Borden declared, for example, that the State
should own the telephones and telegraphs he
was so understood ; and no reservations, or
limitations, or restrictions which he made served
entirely to remove the impression from simple
minds that he had meant something when he
announced State ownership as a principle of
the Conservative party.
The more cynicaUy minded laid more stress
upon the qualifications of the statement than
upon the statement itself, and in the end the
question became so involved that both simple
and cynical arrived at one of two conclusions :
that he meant nothing, or did not know himself
what he meant. He pleased neither Socialist
nor Conservative. He confused those electors
whose inteUigence is not very acute, and who
yet demand that they shall be told in plain
terms what they are asked to vote for. It is a
good practice in politics to have a meaning, or
in default of that to say the same thing on each
successive occasion when speech is required.
At Halifax, Mr. Borden declared for public

168 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
ownership: in Parliament he proposed to put
the National Railway under a Commission,
which is an example of different things.
In face of his own demonstration that what
ever a Government does it does badly, it was
assuming too great a degree of simplicity on
the part of the electors to expect that they
would entrust to any Government which he
might provide further opportunities for mis
management. A man may be a Socialist or a
Conservative. Few men are both at the same
time, and it was to this small minority Mr.
Borden appealed with his proclamation of State-
ownership. That is the first reason why he
failed ; not being Conservative, and not being
Radical when he seemed to be so.
On the Monday preceding the election Mr.
Borden issued from Halifax a manifesto which
bears evidence of having been written by his
own hand without the advice which his col
leagues might have given. In it he told the
people what he proposed to do, but he neglected
to tell them how he was going to do it. He
promised them a Cabinet worthy of their highest
ideals, but he neglected to mention the names
of those ideal ministers who he proposed should
sit with him. He did not tell them who was

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED l69
to be Minister of Finance instead of Mr, Field
ing, who was to replace Mr, Fisher as Minister
of Agriculture, who was to be Postmaster-
General instead of Mr, Lemieux, who was to
have Mr. Graham's portfolio of Railways, who
was to be Minister of Customs, of Inland
Revenue, departments, be it noted, against
which no breath of scandal has been uttered.
Every one knows that it is not customary for
a leader of a party to disclose this information
in advance, in case certain interests might be
alienated. But in the present circumstances
the people were of an inquiring mind, and no
longer disposed to open thefr mouth and shut
their eyes. If the leader had given some sign,
it would have been welcome to a perplexed
public. It would have been just as useful to
the Conservatives if Mr, Borden had issued the
Decalogue as a manifesto ; and when he pro
mised restitution " by all constitutional means
of the piUaged public domain," he might well
have made clear that such restitution would be
exacted from his own friends as well as from
his opponents. By being all things to all men
one may gain some : more commonly one loses
all. That is the second reason why Mr, Borden
lost.

170 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
The liberal policy of expending money, which
has been carried out so faithfully for the past
twelve years, appealed to the imagination of the
electors. People like to see things done in a
grand way, — ships going in search of the North
Pole, railways building to frozen seas, and
bridges projected across mighty rivers. They
are not much concerned if the bridges fall down,
if the railways have their terminals in a wilder
ness, or if their Arctic expeditions never get
much beyond Quebec. They would more
willingly build an ice-breaker to force the
North- West Passage than one to make daily
and continuous trips across the Northumberland
Straits upon the homely business of carrying
freight, passengers, and mails, even if the solemn
terms of Confederation are flagrantly broken by
the neglect of these humble services.
The electors have the impression that, some
how, a great deal of money has been spent,
much wasted, and probably a portion of it mis
applied ; but under the present fiscal system
they have no clear apprehension of where that
money came from. Each elector supposes that
his neighbour supplies it, or the local merchant,
or the importer in Montreal, or the producer or
the consumer — anybody but himself — and there

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED l7l
is nothing so delectable as spending money
which one has not earned. Indeed, there is
something amusing in the spectacle of persons
spending money foolishly so long as it is not
one's own. For example, it is intensely comical
to hear that a ship has been despatched into the
North with provisions enough for thirty years,
especially when "pemmican" forms part of
the cargo. An elector will not vote against
a Government which amuses him at the expense
of his neighbour.
The fact of the matter is, that primitive com
munities like our own look with a lenient eye
upon public robbery. It is only when men
have robbed enough from the common store
that they have an apprehension of the heinous-
ness of robbery. That has been the history
of the race. At first men robbed with a club
in their hands, then with a sword, and now
they employ the most efficient means of all, a
vote of Parliament. Until we have country
houses in Canada, inhabited by important
families, represented as such in the councils of
the country, satisfied, and resolute to protect
what they have procured, by creating a senti
ment in favour of vested rights, we shaU prob
ably see the policy of adventure succeed.

172 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
The masterly management by the Liberal
leader of the last session of Parliament pro
duced its effect. He looks upon British in
stitutions with a fresh eye. He admires them
unreservedly and allows to them their perfect
work. With dignity and patience he permitted
the utmost freedom of discussion ; and when
his opponents chose to obstruct the business of
the country, he admitted thefr perfect right to
follow that procedure. The country grew tfred
of the performance and placed the blame where
it obviously appeared to belong, failing to re
member that the Opposition had been striving
to retain the privilege of examining original
documents. He allowed one of his foUowers to
make the amazing assertion — amazing, though
perfectly true — that the minority has no rights
except those which the majority allows to it,
only to have an opponent protest, " You have
had your tmn, it is our turn now ; " in utter
forgetfulness that possibly it might occur to
the people at large that perhaps it was their
turn to govern themselves.
The record in Canada shows that a man of
strong personality can retain the government
so long as he chooses, unless he commit some
flagrant breach of public morality such as

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 173
happened in 1872, The Conservatives en
deavoured to fasten a like charge upon their
opponents, but the people did not believe that
they were telling the truth. When a person
cries " Stop thief! " and the person who is ad
dressed stops and demands that the charge be
proven, the situation is embarrassing for him,
and no great commotion is likely to ensue.
If he does not prove the charge, he is apt to
be regarded as a traducer or a disturber of
the peace. In these days the people are in- f
terested, not in what a man says but in what
he can prove. At any rate, the Conservatives/
did not prove up to the limit of their asser
tions; certainly not in the way in which the
Liberals proved it in 1873, and again in 1891,
though it must be conceded that the Govern
ment did not display any great alacrity to
assist them, as Sir John Thompson did on the
previous occasion. The country was offended
by the aspersions which were cast upon it,
and did not look with toleration upon the
traducers of its public men. Canada occupies
too important a place in the world to permit
indulgence in the political methods of the
mining camp. There is an obligation upon us
to behave with the reserve which is proper

174 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
for self-respecting people, and upon public men
to remember the maxim, that whUst they are
patriots they must not forget to be gentlemen.
An explanation which appears to find favour
in the defeated party is that the country was
bought. To accept that as a reason is either
a mark of political stupidity, or perhaps it would
be more charitable to consider it merely a sign
of temporary irritation. You cannot buy a
million voters any more than you can buy
rain or sunlight. Of course, water and candles
may be procured in the proper markets, and
there are some electors who would seU their
votes as quickly as they would sell a sheep.
Indeed, they fail to see any object in giving
a man a vote if he is prevented from disposing
of it to such advantage as he thinks best.
One must not, however, neglect to estimate
the importance of that most subtle of aU in
fluences, the suggestion that upon certain con
ditions a public expenditure of money will be
made in a constituency for a building, a canal,
a raUway, or a tunnel. People will do in the
mass what they will not do as individuals.
If all the promises which were made before
the elections are fulfilled, one will see such
canals in Canada as were never dreamed of by

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 175
the Martians, and edifices which will rival the
Pyramids of Egypt or the Stonehenge of the
Druids. There is another and a more sinister reason
why the Conservatives failed. In comparison
with it "practical" politicians agree that all
else is mere conjecture and fanciful specula
tion. The party actually in power has the
money, and always will have it so long as the
contributors believe that the party will succeed.
If, from dissension within or from clamour from
without, they judge that there is grave danger
of defeat, they will transfer their fund to the
opposite side, as they did in 1896. This fund,
contributed by beneficiaries of the Government,
is not necessarily used for purposes which are
condemned by the " Election Act." It is em
ployed for the accessories of the campaign,
hiring speakers, sending out "Uterature," pay
ing for bands and processions, purchasing
torches and newspapers, and other engines for
influencing public opinion.
The publication of election expenses by'
candidates is a feeble farce. In one case
which came into the Courts in Montreal, the
candidate had given his expenses as under three
hundred dollars, whereas it was proven that

176 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
seven thousand had been spent. A candidate
may allow a reasonable sum to his agent for
legitimate purposes : there is nothing to pre
vent a well-disposed outsider from coming into
the constituency and operating on his own
account. Under ordinary circumstances these
contributors hold the balance between the two
parties, and will continue to hold it until each
party is compelled to publish the amount of
its campaign fund and the names of the con
tributors to it.
A defeated candidate has written over his own
name (Montreal Gazette, 14th November 1908)
that his opponent, who occupied a high place in
the last Parliament, made use of the foUowing
words at a joint meeting : " Gentlemen, — the
Government engineer is here with me. He
will take contracts after the meeting for the
construction of the new breakwater. See him
and arrange with him for loading the stone and
hauling the timber." This writer continues :
"The purchase of timber needed for the break
water was divided up between nearly all the
electors of the place, so that each sold three
pieces. We used to meet them, even on
poUing day, carrying their three logs and stop
ping at the polls to cast their votes. ... Of

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 177
course, men were working at piers and break
waters in several places on contracts which
had been held back until the campaign."
To put the matter briefly, the Conservatives
failed because their campaign was too picayune.
The issues which they presented were too small.
In reality there are only two questions which
could vitaUy interest the country : whether it
shall be handed over entfrely to manufacturers
for exploitation, and what arrangements shall
be made by which Canada shall take her proper
place in the Empire. Upon the Imperial ques
tion Mr. Borden said nothing and Sir Wilfrid
Laurier did something. He gave to English
goods a preference in our markets, and Mr.
Borden declared that something should have
been exacted in return. Mr. Chamberlain
thought this preference was not of much value
to England. Lord Milner thinks it is. We
think that it is of value to us.
Speaking before the assembled Premiers in
1902, Mr, Chamberlain said: " While I cannot
but gratefuUy acknowledge the intention of
this proposal and its sentimental value as a
proof of good-will and affection, yet its sub
stantial results have been altogether disappoint
ing to us. The total increase of the trade
M

178 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
of Canada with foreigners during the period
named was 69 per cent., and the total in
crease of British trade was only 48 per cent."
Speaking before the Montreal Board of Trade,
20th November 1908, Lord Milner said : " Every
now and then some belated or iU-informed free-
importer still ventures to deny the benefit which
the trade of the United Kingdom has derived
from the existing Canadian preference. But it
is impossible for any fafr-minded man to resist
the conclusion that ' preference has kept Great
Britain fromi losing such trade with Canada
as she still has got.' " He also quotes as an
authority a Canadian Customs officer, who ven
tured "to assert in the strongest way that, if
such preference had not been granted, British
trade with Canada would be on a very small
basis to-day," Possibly Mr. Chamberlain is one
of these belated and ill-informed free-importers,
though one would not suspect it from reading
his speeches.
The Edinburgh Review is not over confident
that a preference wiU be given to Canadian
goods in England. It declares that, in Eng
land, " Preference is of no value as a topic for
speeches : pure Protection must be preached."
This Review affirms further, in the October

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 179
number, that the speeches of Lord St. Aldwyn
and Lord Cromer have "demolished the scheme,"
and that it is improbable that any Unionist
Govemmect wiU attempt to restore it.
However this may be, the electors knew that
the Liberals had done something towards re
ducing the taxation against the Mother Country,
which has been more brutally taxed by the
Colonies than ever the Colonies were taxed by
her, even under the worst of the Georges ; and
they voted accordingly, at the same time signi
fying, in a poor blind way, their allegiance to
the principle of a freer trade, which even in
the moment of casting the ballot they were
aware had been abandoned by those for whom
they were about to vote. There are now in
Canada two pseudo-Conservative parties, both
standing for the same privileges and for the
interests of the same class. It is little wonder,
then, that the voters neglected to exchange the
one for the other.
At any rate, the preference has been of value
to us. It has given us cheaper clothing, and
we have endured with some equanimity the
sufferings of the woollen manufacturers, who
apparently cannot succeed with a tariff of 35
per cent, in their favour. Had they themselves

180 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
borne their sufferings more heroicaUy, and re
frained from traducing their competitors in
Leeds and Bradford, they might have excited
our sympathy. At the moment we are more
likely to offer them open charity than to allow
them the opportunity of benefiting us by charging
us higher prices for the clothing which we wear.
We would be quite willing to entertain them
for the period of their natural lives at the many
exceUent hotels and clubs in which Montreal
or Toronto abound, provided that they release
their employees so that they may engage in more
lucrative employment, and allow to us the poor
privilege of buying our clothing where we can
procure it on the most advantageous terms.
In the manifesto to which reference has
afready been made, Mr. Borden declared for
adequate Protection to all Canadian indusfries,
forgetting that protection to all industries is no
protection at all, since the essence of all pro
tection is that one industry shall be favoured
at the expense of another. As Mr. Crawshay-
Williams has explained so sensibly in the
Toronto Globe, it is obvious that, if any article
on which a duty is levied be the raw material
of any other industry, that raw material is made
more expensive, and the working costs of that

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES lAILED 181
industry increased. Those increased costs must
be recovered by an increase in the price of the
article manufactured, which may very probably
be the raw material of some subsequent industry.
And so through the whole chain of raw materials
and finished products goes the effect of increased
prices, and with it, naturally, a demand for pro
tection or further protection on the part of the
manufacturers, who in turn are hit by the in
creased cost of their raw materials and enlarged
working expenses.
Mr. Borden was extremely solicitous about
the interests of the "labouring men." He
would apply the principle of Protection to
justify the payment of a fair wage; but he
gave no assurance that such wage would be
paid by the employers even if it were justified ;
and he appeared to forget that those of us who
are farmers, physicians, professors, ministers,
teachers, and clerks are also labouring men for
whom no provision was to be made. The
country apparently is wiUing to endure the
burden which it carries; it is in no temper
to allow that burden to be increased. One
at least of Mr. Borden's foUowers was loud in
his protestations that he was "an ardent pro
tectionist," which led men to inquire into the

182 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
causes of his ardency, and they could not be
blamed for concluding that it lay in self-interest.
Tariff reform, if Lord Milner forecasts cor
rectly, is bound to succeed in England, though
Mr. Hirst, of the London Economist, prophesies
differently. It is a safe guess, based upon the
results of the elections, that tariff reform would
succeed in Canada too. The Conservatives
failed, because the oracular utterances of their
leader conveyed the impression that it would
be reformed, if they succeeded, in a direction
contrary to the desire of the electors at large.
The Manufacturers' Association afffrm that
they have taken the tariff out of politics.
The people are very likely to bring it in again
when they get the chance. By refusing to
exact a quid pro quo, Sir Wilfrid Laurier
declared himself to be the true Imperialist,
Men who are not traders are extremely sus
picious of an Imperialism which is based upon
trade and not upon family affection and loyalty
to the ideals of the race. A tariff reform
Imperialist comes to Canada protesting that
the endurance of the Empire depends upon
the adoption of a certain economic theory;
" and straight he turtle eats ; claret crowns
his cup;" but one may ask : "What porridge

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 183
had Mr. Crawshay- WUliams ? " — for example;
and the turtle and claret are supplied by men
who are enthusiastic that a preference be given
to the manufacturers of England upon all articles,
save only those which they themselves produce.
It is not this meagre thing the people of Canada
would give to England if they had their way
at the poUs ; but they did what they could by
voting for a party which has made some small
beginnings in the dfrection of freer trade.
The electors at large cannot be expected to
possess such profound knowledge of the philo
sophical basis of government by party as Mr.
Chipman, for example, displays, but in course
of time they have developed an instinct that
privilege and monopoly are the portion of the
Conservatives — prerogatives of the throne, doc
trines and practices of feudal times, and the
denial of the franchise to men. On the other
hand, they have learned that Liberalism has
always been the voice of popular discontent
and the instrument by which those evils were
to be overcome. They have not learned that
the strife is at an end. The struggle was over
in Canada thirty years ago, and Macdonald
gave the sign when he named the Tories
"Liberal-Conservatives," The present writer

184 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
ventures to suggest to the Liberals that they
designate themselves " Conservative-Liberals " ;
and with the neatness of an algebraic equation
the question is solved, or rather by a process
of cancellation it vanishes into nothing. It
requires many years to remove a notion from
the public mind. There are men in Virginia
who think that they are yet voting for Andrew
Jackson, and at the last election there were
Liberals who voted for Laurier under the im
pression that they were supporting the principles
of Hampden and Pym against those of Went
worth and Laud.
\^. Parties do not change when it is to the
interest of the most of the people that they
should remain as they are. These interests are
often of the slightest, but in the bulk powerful.
In the smallest village there is at least one
person, postmaster, stationmaster, road inspector,
who thinks his position might be influenced
by a reversal. He has friends and relatives,
and though they may suppose that they are
casting a portentous vote for the eternal
principles of Liberalism or Conservatism, in
reality they are voting that their neighbour
shaU not be disturbed in his little place.
It is a principle of which much is heard in

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 185
these days, that a small "preferential" wiU
produce great results. Even terms have their
value. A man will accept a small "honor
arium," a larger " fee," or a still larger " salary,"
for services which could only be procured for
very high " wages." A secretary wiU engage to
do work for a salary of fifteen doUars a week
for which a stenographer will demand eighteen
doUars in wages. Indemnity wiU apply very
weU to fifteen hundred dollars a year, but
the electors are disposed to view twenty-five
hundred doUars in a different light. They
are disposed to think that they were paying
full value for the parliamentary services which
they are receiving, and it must be admitted
that there is ground for that view of the case.
They have been taught most sedulously that
the Liberals might be expected to lay violent
hands upon the public money, but they did
not discover any resolute opposition on the
part of the Conservatives against the " grab,"
as the procedure, by which members of Parlia
ment unanimously voted to themselves an in
creased indemnity, was called with some degree
of correctness.
There are various minor reasons, so insignifi
cant in themselves as to appear almost fanciful,

186 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
and yet they were not without their force.
Many persons were influenced unconsciously
to vote for the Liberals because Sir Wilfrid
Laurier is possessed of a certain strangeness
to them, in his manner of speech, his gesture,
his appearance, and because he makes a fine
display in public places. When he visits
London he is believed to enjoy the unique
privilege of " going in by the King's Door."
This takes no account, of course, of his urbanity,
his sweetness of temper, his vision; since, if
one were to insist upon these, one would feel
obliged to dwell upon the qualities of his
opponent, which if equally admirable are at
least not so aUuring.
Up to this point we have been upon the firm
ground of fact, and saying only those things
which any one might discover for himself if
he were diligent in reading the newspapers.
But there were factors which made for failure
in every Province and in every Riding. They
partake more of the nature of surmise, and
their estimation may well be undertaken by
the professors of " practical politics " when
they meet together in Ottawa during the
winter. Reference may be made, however,
to the local conditions which prevailed in

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 187
Ontario and the West to illustrate the im
portance of a good tactical position.
Sir James Whitney helped Mr. Borden with
his hands tied. He could not go into the
contest unreservedly, because a large portion
of his support in Ontario comes from the
Catholic and French, who, curiously enough, if
left to themselves, are nominally Conservative.
By attacking Sfr Wilfrid Laurier he would
alienate this support from himself. Also the
Irish Catholics were appeased by the admission
of Mr. Murphy to the Cabinet. In the West
the people feared that the Grand Trunk Pacific
would be hampered if Sir Wilfrid Laurier were
beaten. This fear was exaggerated by the action
of certain members of the Manitoba Ministry,
who, in conjunction with an old newspaper
campaigner of British Columbia, delivered an
attack upon the Grand Trunk Pacific. This
pamphlet fell into the hands of an unusuaUy un-
discerning correspondent of the London Times,
who cabled its contents to London, and Mr.
Hearst's American newspapers participated in
the onslaught. The whole incident resembled
that of 1892, when the operations of a Canadian
journalist in the United States proved so dis
astrous to the Liberals. Quite improperly the

188 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Canadian Pacific Railway, which has behaved
with benevolent neutrality throughout, was
blamed for instigating this attack upon its rival.
A counter-attack was made upon the Canadian
Pacific Railway, and the idea was propagated
that its whole power was against Sir Wilfrid.
This led to a strong movement in his favour, as
no railway company is enthusiastically beloved
by the people whom it serves. Until the Grand
Trunk Pacific is finished it wiU have friends
enough in the West to resent any interference
with the project ; but their enthusiasm wiU give
place to lukewarmness when they begin to pay
for using it, and they will sigh for " the good old
days of the C. P. R." But all this is the com
mon wisdom of every corner grocery in Canada,
and may well be left to the phUosophers who
spend their spare time in "talking politics" in
those comfortable resorts.
And yet, no true Conservative need lament
the result. His party is in no condition to
undertake the burden of government. Canada
is in the situation of a man who has mortgaged
his farm up to the limit, and every one knows
what happens to the heir of an encumbered
place. The present good harvest alone averted
disaster, by enabling the West to meet or

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 189
renew its obligations. The last loan of 25
million dollars which was offered on the London
market ended in a fiasco, notwithstanding the
allegations of a political despatch, not sent,
however, by the " Canadian Associated Press,"
that organisation which costs the country 15
thousand doUars a year, and concerns itself
most with recording the manifold activities
of eminent "Anglo-Canadians" who reside in
London. We have seen that the essential of British
institutions is two properly constituted parties.
Canada wUl be best served if both Liberals and
Conservatives get back into those lines which
are prescribed by experience. In the present
disorder fundamental principles are lost sight
of. When there are no principles, mere partyism
takes their place, and that is commonly referred
to as a " curse " which the country will not
endure for ever. Possibly government by party
is a worn out thing, and when members of
Parliament get tired of the present farce they
will begin to exercise their common-sense and
transact the business of the country as if it were
thefr own. It is now nearly twenty years since
the Conservative party abandoned their prin
ciples, or about four years before the Liberals

190 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
abandoned thefrs, especiaUy the one which had
to do with freer trade.
The break-up began about the time of
Macdonald's death. The guiding principle of
that statesman was the maintenance of good
wiU between races and between the holders of
creeds ; but after his death a section of the
party became restive. Led by Dalton M'Carthy
it reverted to the ideas of George Brown, and
refused to foUow Bowell in his campaign in
favour of the minority in Manitoba. In the last
Parliament the Conservatives had 75 members.
In the next it wiU have 87, drawn more generaUy
from the country at large. In a sense it will
be more national and less dominated by the in
fluence of one Province and of the ideas referred
to. The next occasion of magnitude on which
the party showed that it had ceased to be
Conservative was the South African War. Had
they taken the ground that the war was a just,
necessary, and provoked war, that Canadians
wished to send a contingent, but that the sending
should be preceded by a Parliamentary vote in its
favour, they would have conserved the political
status of Canada ; they would have assumed
a position of deliberative dignity ; and when the
contingent went it would go after due formality

WHY THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED 191
and with a more impressive result. Instead
of this they tried to stampede the Liberals into
sending a contingent summarily, which dis
pleased Quebec and the Conservative spirit of
Canada at the same time. The Liberals made
some demur, then yielded. They held Ontario
by sending the contingent, and they held Quebec
by appearing to yield to an overwhelming public
opinion which had been created in its favour.
The Conservative party had always been the
real progressive one in Canada, but by their
opposition to the buUdingof the Transcontinental
Railway they reversed thefr position and gave
fresh colour to the view that they were actuated
by a spfrit of affection towards the railway which
they themselves had created. Again they failed
to act conservatively in the case of the Auto
nomy BiUs. The heart of the situation was
that new provinces were to be created out of a
territory in which Catholics had long enjoyed
separate school privUeges. To deprive any
section of the community of its privileges is
the exact reverse of the Conservative tradition.
But they were under the impression that the
Liberals had won in 1896 in vfrtue of the cry
for "provincial rights," instead of by reason of
the break-up of the Conservative party ; and

192 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
by adopting that policy they lost thefr position
and the election at the same time.
No party can expect to succeed in Canada
which does not recognise frankly and absolutely
that the rights of the French are exactly the
same as the rights of the English. There must
be no suggestion of concession, because there is
nothing to concede. There must be no air of
condescension or superiority, because politically
aU are equal. There will be Catholics in Quebec
as long as there are Protestants in Ontario, and
for every Orangeman there will be at least two
Nationalists. Catholics may have thefr own
prejudices in favour of going to church, of
educating their children in an atmosphere
which is tempered by religious influence, of
electing men of their own language to represent
them in Parliament. They do not compel us
to go to their churches or to our own either ;
they do not ask us to educate our children in
their schools, or even to educate them at all;
they do not demand that we shaU not vote for a
man because he speaks English. The Conser
vatives will continue to fail until they become
Conservative again.

TK
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA
Any person born of white parentage would
probably answer "Yes" to the question — "Are
you a Christian ? " But this affirmative reply
might be given merely to indicate that the
catechumen did not desire that he should be
considered a Mussulman or Buddhist. Indeed,
there are cfrcumstances under which he might
quite properly decline to be put to the question,
on the ground that the matter was one which
was personal to himself.
But even if he did assent, he might consider
himself free to make certain reservations. He
might be quite truthful, and yet entertain his
own views as to what the term " Christian "
does actually signify. He might, for example,
decline assent to the terms of the Athanasian
creed, on the ground that i^^^ion-sentimental
in expression and unsv||PRnetic in teaching.
Or again, he might |^^iis own good pleasure
hold himself immune from the wrath and curse
193 ^

194 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
which are contained in the confession of West
minster. He might possibly regard these
epitomes as embodying the truth as it appeared
to the makers of them, whilst he himself had
an entirely different apprehension of it.
Similarly, a British subject born in Canada
might reply "Yes" to the question — "Are you
an Imperialist ? " without committing himself
to a statement of his understanding of the
term, or disclosing the reservations which he
was disposed to make. If by the term is meant
a man who desires that aU things shall be done
which can be done, even to the losing of his
life, by which British institutions shall be made
to endure, by which all parts of the Empfre
shaU be co-related for mutual defence and
growth, by which the bonds of family affection
shall be shortened and strengthened, then the
question would receive unqualified assent.
But it is permissible to such an one to adopt
a critical attitude towards all proposals which
are put forward in the interests of this desirable
consummation. He may conclude that certain
measures, however aUuring they may appear,
wiU have an effect exactly contrary to that
which was intended, and that the framers of
them, no matter how well meaning, may after

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 195
all have been mistaken. His very loyalty and
veneration wiU induce a degree of caution
which may appear to others who are equally
loyal, but more readily excitable, as amounting
almost to recalcitrancy, and his bewildered
anxiety as suUen indifference.
At the risk of such misunderstanding I
propose, from the standpoint of one whose
forbears were cast away upon these shores three
generations ago with only a copy of Horace as
equipment for beginning life in a new world,
to examine certain of these proposals, and it
may be to offer certain counter suggestions, —
in short, to make some observations upon the
psychology of Canada, to show forth the working
of the Canadian mind upon the great question
of Imperialism.
In the outset we should not fail to take
notice of the fact that not all of us in Canada
are of British descent, that our fathers fought
upon either side at CuUoden, and the Boyne,
on the plains of Abraham, and at Waterloo, —
but happily we of this generation upon one
side alone in South Africa. We cannot too
often remind ourselves that it is nearly as true
to say that this is a French-speaking community
as to say that it is an English-speaking com-

196 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
munity. The deficiency against the French is
only 9 per cent., but it is amply compensated
for by their aptitude for public affairs, which
has enabled them to dominate the politics of
Canada ever since Confederation.
Their habit of mind is conservative, and they
have an intense suspicion of anything which
they cannot understand. Before Lord MUner
came they had heard him described as a pro
consul ; and, being good classical scholars,
they associated him in their minds with Mark
Antony, or Pompey, or Herculaneum, and it
required some evidence to convince them that
he was merely an English gentleman who loved
his country and was spending his life in its
service. In the phrase of one of their own,
they " are happy as they are," They are
thoroughly content with British institutions
which ensure to them their language, thefr
religion, and their laws ; and they cannot
understand this running to-and-fro in the
earth, and the outcry that, unless something
is done, something will happen. They have
learned only too well the tradition of English
Government, which is to leave things as they
are lest worse befall. In political affafrs there
is much to warrant this inquiring habit of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 197
mind, an uncertainty about the result of pre
conceptions, and general scepticism as to the
consequences of any given action. Public
affairs are too vast, too complex, for any man
to say how they are, much less to determine
what the consequences of them will be.
The close apprehension of this truth is the
prime cause of success in the working of the
EngUsh system of government. What appears
to be cynical indifference and superior non
chalance is in reality the sum of political
wisdom. The pursuit of a theory, and the
transformation into action of a conclusion
which has been reached by a logical process,
is the cause of the French failure and the
American impasse. Lord Granville and Mr.
Gambetta illustrate well these antitheses as
they were revealed in the negotiations which
ended in the occupation of Egypt. Both were
agreed that something must be done. But, as
Lord Cromer points out, it is a dangerous thing
in politics for a responsible minister to accept
vaguely the principle that something must be
done, when he has not a clear idea of what
should be done ; and that the acceptation of
the principle will not improbably lead him into
doing things which he wiU subsequently wish

198 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
had been left undone. Lord Granville saw
objections to every possible course, and whilst
he was seeking the one which offered the least
inconvenience, events happened in France which
permitted England to occupy Egypt alone. Even
whilst agreeing with the terms of Mr. Gam-
betta's draft of a joint note. Lord GranviUe
made the characteristic reservation that the
English Government "must not be considered
as committing itself to any particular mode of
action, if action should be found necessary."
That was shrewd advice which Sir Francis
Baring offered to his young relative : " Now
that you are a young man, you should write
down not what has happened but what you
think is going to happen, and you will be
surprised to find how wrong you are."
Again in 1884, at a conference of all the
Powers which was assembled in London for a
discussion of the financial affairs of Egypt,
Lord Granville was resolved that no other
subject should be considered, much less acted
upon. The question was put to the vote, but
the Turkish ambassador was asleep at the
moment. He was awakened and the matter
was explained to him ; but as he had heard
nothing of the discussion he made a foolish

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 199
remark which compeUed Granville's opponents
to yield. He remarked afterwards that no
political prescience was keen enough to enable
a man to foresee that an old gentleman would
go to sleep at the right moment.
This policy of having no policy was well
illustrated by the reply which Lord Granville
sent to Lord Goschen, who had written that,
unless clear instructions were sent to him, he
would resign his post at Constantinople, AU the
information which he vouchsafed was contained
in the words : " Thank you a thousand times for
expressing your views so frankly to your old
colleagues." Again, when Lord Cromer was at
a loss to know what to do in Egypt, he received
the suggestion that perhaps his " presence in
London would be a good excuse for a dawdle."
I am quite well aware that such a practice
leaves the impression that a Government is the
sport of cfrcumstance, and that its policy is
uncertain and vacillating ; but the mistakes of
action must be set over against the mistakes of
inaction. Had the question been put to Lord Granville
which Mr, Lee put to Mr, Asquith, if the
United States was included in any two powers,
whom it was the intention to outbuild in war-

200 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
ships, he would probably have replied that he
had never thought of the matter, but would give
it his immediate attention. Possibly he might
have added that a quarrel between English-
speaking men, et cetera. Of course he would
have gone on building warships without saying
anything about it. It is not what a nation says
it is going to do that produces an effect ; it is
what it has done and is doing. In the present
instance it is worth mentioning that the United
States has a pension list of nearly a hundred
million dollars a year. Unless these veterans
live for ever this huge sum will be available for
other purposes, since the last thing the people
of the United States think of is a reduction in
expenditure. This " affirmative " reply has put
a new idea into their heads by which money
may be spent and the necessity of reducing
their taxation obviated.
I am not saying that the whole duty of a
Government is done when it succeeds in doing
nothing, though aU activity has its perUs, A
Government which devotes its energy to Social
istic propagandism, and incident thereto imposes
a tax of eight millions sterling in times of fall
ing revenue, can only in degree be distinguished
from the legislature of Kansas, which enacted

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 201
the Ten Commandments, or from the legislature
of Nevada, which introduced a Bill to prohibit
the wearing of corsets by women.
An unreserved loyalty does not necessarily
imply an unqualified admiration. The French
in Canada are not as weU able as we are to
dissociate our England from the performance
of the Government which controls her affairs at
any given moment. Even at this distance they
can see the machinery slackening off, and they
can hear the rattle of it. They read extracts
from the London newspapers which are more
outspoken in criticism than we should dare to
be. The spectacle of women breaking up the
deliberations of the House of Commons is
revolting to their sense of decency, and the
situation of a suffragette chained to the grille
does not fail to appeal to their sense of the
ludicrous. The Parliament of Westminster, the
French Canadian, with his old-fashioned ideas,
believes might well be left to its task of being
a worthy mother of parUaments, whilst these
women in turn should endeavour to perform
their function by becoming mothers of men.
To them this Imperialism is a new thing.
The word in French, and in English too, has a
considerable sound, but that does not make the

202 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
meaning of it any clearer to them. To com
plete their confusion. Lord Milner came and
explained that " Imperialism " did not mean
Imperialism at all; indeed, he went so far as
to say that he believed that " Empire " was a
misnomer. Happy as we are, we must con
vince our French-speaking feUow-subjects, and
ourselves too, that the present situation cannot
endure for ever, — that England be left to bear
the whole burden of her defence and of ours
as well. We cannot share in the glory of
Empire unless we share in its danger and, to
put it bluntly, in the expense of it.
An official publication, issued, as we are told,
by direction of the Minister of the Interior,
begins with these words : " Canada ! What
melody rings round the name Canada: the
country of magnificent potentialities and bound
less possibilities, the fringe of which is scarcely
touched. The vowels of her tri-syllable fall on
the ear like the beat of an angelus — awaken
ing, uplifting, exalting. Canada ! The name
inspires. It is a very trinity of alphas, and
eloquently symbolic of the leading part she is
destined to take in the future history of the
world." This is all very well. It is what
Thackeray's Irishman would caU the height of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 203
fine language entirely, but there is another
sound which also conveys a meaning to the
ear of the world, which does not share in the
delusion which is believed in certain quarters,
that King Edward and the Pope both owe
their high positions to their influence with Sir
Wilfrid Laurier. To put that bluntly too, it
is the sound of guns.
Upon a recent occasion we saw fit to make
attack upon our Japanese allies, and sacked
their houses in Vancouver. Japan regarded the
incident with good-natured toleration, but it
is imaginable that cfrcumstances might arise
under which she would not be disposed to
manifest such sweetness of temper ; and, judg
ing from her dealings with Russia, it is possible
that, if she should see fit to make reprisals, she
might not choose the moment or the method
which would be most agreeable to us. An
attack would be most inopportune upon an occa
sion such as the present, when our little fleet
is out of commission on account of the sus
pension of so many captains and engineers
whilst charges are pending over them of having
accepted secret commissions from contractors.
It is some extenuation of the charge that we
do not pay for our defence, to say that we have

204 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
not been penurious with our money, though too
much must not be made of it. We have built
25,000 miles of railway at a cost of 1200
million dollars, and of this sum we have con
tributed 20 per cent, from the public funds.
We have expended upon our public business
365 million dollars, equal to 65 doUars per head
of population. That is our debt, and we could
pay it down, because we have 500 million
doUars upon deposit in the banks. We are
now engaged in building a railway which wiU
cost us 150 million dollars more. Our appro
priations for the current year demand 130 million
dollars, equal to 216 dollars per head of popula
tion. It is only by this expenditure that we
have been able to lift ourselves out of that
condition of semi -barbarism which our fathers
found when ffrst they settled here.
For the sake of encouraging our industries, as
we supposed, we have paid to the manufacturers
of fron and steel in the last thirteen years the
sum of 9^ million dollars. We have paid out
of our savings 2 million doUars to encourage
the makers of lead and the purifiers of petro
leum. Last year we imported 370 miUion
dollars worth of goods, and paid upon them
58 million dollars. This is at the rate of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 205
27 per cent. — excluding duty-free articles — but
when the profits of intermediates are added it
approaches close to 40 per cent. In addition
to this, the manufacturers produced goods
which cost 718 million dollars, and added to
that a sum nearly equal to the duty which
would have been paid had these goods been
imported. We are not insensible to the part which the
English investor played in the development of
our resources. He gave of his money freely,
and in some cases he lost it. But it was given
of his own accord, and always with the ex
pectation that he would receive a higher rate
of interest than he received at home. Whether
the relation was one of partner with partner,
or of debtor with creditor, we have worked
together ; and I am putting these facts forward,
not as a reason why we should do nothing
further, but as an excuse why, up to the present,
we have not done more. It would be a relief
to turn away from these laborious and common
place expenditures to contemplate a battleship
which we had constructed and presented to
the British Navy ; and it would be an inspiring
occupation giving advice to the Admiralty as
to how the vessel should be employed.

206 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Isolated as we are in the backwater of the
world, we are occupied only with our own smaU
affairs. We open our newspapers in the
morning with the dull feeling that nothing
has happened which is of interest to us, unless
it be that a drought is broken in the North
west, or that a new vein of sUver has been
discovered in Cobalt. The meanest labourer
in an English shire may chance to learn, as
he refreshes himself of an evening with a pot
of beer in his favourite public-house, that a
portion of the fleet — his fleet, because he has
paid a few shillings for its maintenance — is on
the way to some port, whose very name and
place is a mystery to him, for the express
purpose of protecting interests which, in very
truth, are his own. He swells his chest with
a pride which is unknown to us ; and it may
be that he orders an extra pot of beer in
honour of the event. Then he sits down to
an elaborate discussion upon the" naval strategy
which his fleet should employ ; but fortunately
he is accustomed to a neglect at the hands of
his admirals, which would be irksome to us.
We are not fully persuaded that a navy is
not for war alone : it is for peace, and there
is no hour in the twenty-four when it is not

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 207
rendering service, just as a guardian of the
peace has for his first function the keeping
of the peace. To suppress a fortuitous riot
is merely an incident in his career, I suspect
that the success of Mr, Lemieux upon the
occasion of his recent visit to Japan was in
some degree at least due to this same navy
concealed in the mists of the North Sea, and
for which we do not so much as see the bills.
Our difficulty is that, with the best will in
the world, we do not know what more to do.
If we made a direct contribution for our de
fence, we should expect to have some voice in
the disposition of it — the same voice, for ex
ample, which an English farm-labourer has ;
and we are afraid that if we did speak we
should say something foolish on account of
our lack of experience. The man who pays
has a prescriptive right to call the tune, and
in exceptional cases to join in the chorus. But
if a man would sing because he must, it is an
obligation upon him to learn how to sing in
unison with his fellows, or at least to sing
the same tune. I fear that if we were entitled
to Uft up our voices, there would be some
uncertainty whether our tune should be pitched
to the note of the " Marseillaise " or the " Battle

208 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
of the Boyne," which would with "Rule
Britannia" make a sad discord. Who shaU
say what the song shall be. TeU us that, and
the question is solved. Are the people of
England prepared to listen to the voice of
mere Colonials in proportion to the number
of us and the amount which we pay?
A half-sovereign apiece would pay the charge.
But the payment of this insignificant amount
might in some way appear to confer upon us
the privilege of offering an opinion upon the
members of one branch of the legislature,
whose main concern in life seems at this dis
tance to be " to do themselves well," and
only occasionally to discharge the high duties
of their order by appearing shepherded in
thefr House to thwart the will of the people,
and advance the interests of their friends. To
put the new colonial wine into old bottles
would make the rent between the social orders
worse than it is now. Any real Imperialism
must begin with a new deal, as they say in
the West, and not by putting fresh cards into
the hand of the social order and the commercial
class with which it has chosen to ally itself.
An Imperialism which is deep founded in
patriotism, in love of country, in community of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 209
sentiment, in fidelity to the ideals and traditions
of the race, appeals to all but the meanest minds
even of Canadians. Material interest will do
for one of the pUlars of Empire, but if it is
supported only upon the interests of an inter
ested class it will collapse like the Quebec
bridge, to employ a simile which we can under
stand. An Imperialist who proclaims that he
is a conqueror going forth to conquer with a
sword in his hand we can comprehend ; but an
Imperialist carrying a bag and proclaiming that
trade is Empire, appeals neither to the reason
nor to the imagination. An Imperialism which
is based upon trade appeals only to traders.
We in Canada are not traders, and our loyalty
is not for sale either to the manufacturers of
England to-day, any more than it was to those
of the United States in 1891. It wiU not do
either to say that trade agreements are only
one of many methods by which the loose bonds
shall be knit close, because they will puU
contrary to the main fabric, since the spirit of
trade is as often a stubborn malignity as it is a
reciprocal benevolence.
If it be true that trade is Empire, and that
preferences will grapple Canada to England
with hooks of steel, it is equally true that the

210 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
same hooks will be just as powerful in the
contrary direction when they are applied to the
United States. The noble lords of England,
who proclaim the sufficiency of trade agreements
for Imperial purposes, have fallen under the
dominion of the spirit of business. It was a
saying of Lord Melbourne that there would be
no more staunch supporter of the Church of
England than he, so long as it did not intrude
religion into the sanctity of private life. One
may make the same concession to business,
provided it leave public affairs alone.
The "business man" is the last in the world
to know anything of business ; he can know
nothing of politics, because he looks at questions
in narrow detail, not abstractly nor in relation
to the well-being of the community. Business
and politics are in direct antithesis, because the
ethic of the one is love of money, the ethic of
the other is love of men: " He that hath little
business shall become wise. How can he get
wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that
glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen and is
occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of
buUocks, He giveth his mind to make furrows ;
and is diligent to give the kine fodder. So
every carpenter and workmaster, that laboureth

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 211
night and day. All these trust to their hands :
and every one is wise in his work. They shall
not be sought for in public counsel nor sit high
in the congregation : they cannot declare justice
and judgment."
I shall now proceed to set forth as plainly
as I can — and it will require some expanse
of writing — the exact nature of that proposal
which is put forward by which all parts of the
Empfre shaU be bound together for co-operation
and defence. It is what is commonly called a
" business proposition," namely, that England
shall adopt a protective tariff against the world,
and shall extend to the British dominions
beyond the seas certain concessions which will
be denied to foreigners, in return for similar
concessions from those dominions in favour of
English goods. This proposal is based upon
certain existing facts, namely, that England is
the only country in the world in which trade is
reasonably free, — as a matter of fact the duty
upon goods entering England is upon an average
something under 5 per cent. ; and that all
other countries, Canada included, exact a heavy
duty upon the import of English goods. This
policy of Protection — it is as well to call it by
the right name, and avoid the use of such terms

212 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
as Tariff Reform, and such euphemisms as
broadening the basis of taxation — is making
remarkable headway. The evidence is that
within two years a General Election will be held
in England with this question in the forefront,
unless events happen elsewhere to alter the
situation entirely.
These events are the abandonment of Protec
tion in Canada and the United States. We are
not now discussing whether a policy of Protec
tion would be beneficial to England or not.
We are only concerned with its effect upon the
union of all parts of the Empire into a coherent
whole. Obviously a remedy directed against
conditions as they exist must fail when those
conditions change or entirely pass away ; and I
shall now proceed to discuss the probability of
such alteration. This movement in England
starts with the assumption that Protection is an
eternal law of the nature of Canada and the
United States, whilst in reality the walls which
these communities have erected around them
selves are already tottering to thefr faU, because
they are based upon the fallacy that what is to
the interests of a class is to the interest of the
community as a whole.
There is in Canada a body of " business

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 213
men," which is known as the " Manufacturers'
Association." It numbers 2200 members, and
includes, according to the late president, nearly
all persons who are especially interested in the
maintenance of a high tariff. This Association
is closely organised with a permanent secretary,
who, it is purposed, shaU reside permanently in
Ottawa for the better supervision of legislation.
The Premier, speaking at the annual meeting
of this Association, 17th September 1908, said:
" Only last year I told you that your Association
was one of the institutions of the land, and had
taken such firm root in the soil of our nation
ality that it had almost become one of its organic
laws." Sir Wilfrid has a pretty wit ; and, apart
from his tone and gesture, it is sometimes a
little difficult to be sure that he is not speaking
fronically. Business men are not notoriously
clever in the uptake, and they appeared to be
lieve that the words which the Premier employed
were commendatory of their efforts to embed their
principles in the organic laws of the country.
For forty years the manufacturers have
claimed that they were the people of Canada.
The utmost of their claim now is that they are
the " East " and that they created the " West."
At their last meeting the manager of a cotton

214 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
mill inquired: "Are we to understand that,
after we have made the ' West,' the ' West ' is
going to cut our throats ? " In somewhat
similar words Lord North addressed the Ameri
can Colonies. The West has been created by
men who have emigrated from the United States
and from the older Provinces of Canada. In
one day in September 1908, 5 per cent, of the
adult male population of one Province migrated
to the West, and this movement of population
was largely directed by the economic conditions
which have been imposed under the " organic
laws" to which the Premier referred.
The manufacturers are now quite complacent
because "the tariff has been taken out of politics."
In these western communities there is nothing
which is dreaded so much as " politics." The
proposal now is to appoint a Tariff Commission.
Addressing the Premier, the president, Mr.
Hohson, said : " Our attitude towards the tariff
is non-political. It is in this spirit that I am
authorised to state to you. Sir WiUrid, that
while we recognise that the responsibility rests
upon the Government of the day of settling the
tariff, this Association will heartily welcome the
establishment of a permanent Tariff Commission,
to whom the multifarious details that enter into

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 215
the tariff question should be referred for in
vestigation and report." The Premier in reply
said : " Your chairman in his address stated
that it was your desire to have a permanent
Tariff Commission. I do not yet realise what
that means ; but I have to say that if it means
you would have a permanent Commission such
as they have in the United States, foUowing the
working of the tariff from day to day, and
watching its effects upon the producer or con
sumer, I do not see why such a Commission
should not be appointed."
It is not improbable that the manufacturers,
reasoning from the fallacy that they are the
people of Canada, have concluded that they will
be the Tariff Commission also. Possibly they
are misled by one of the articles in their con
stitution, which reads: "The Association may,
by by-law or resolution, provide for the appoint
ment of committees of inquiry into any matter
affecttug the manufacturing, import or export
interest of Canada, and such committees may
examine upon oath any party who appears be
fore them, and the evidence so taken may be
used to assist the Association in arriving at a
decision with reference to the matter under
consideration."

216 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
The party which calls itself Conservative ad
hered to this policy and does yet adhere to it.
The Liberal party existed for the sake of con
troverting such doctrine. In their platform, as
laid down at the Ottawa Convention of 1893,
they affirmed: "We denounce the principle of
Protection as radically unsound and unjust to
the masses of the people, and we declare our
conviction that any tariff changes based on that
principle must fail to afford any substantial
relief from the burdens under which the country
labours." Sir Richard Cartwright, the great
exponent of their economics, affirmed in 1894,
"Our policy is death to Protection"; and yet
three years later, in 1897, the year after the
accession of the Liberals to power, was the year
of the great betrayal, when these principles
were entirely abandoned by the Liberals. In
deed, the Conservatives reduced the tariff on
total imports from 20*5 per cent, to 17"13 per
cent, between 1889 and 1896. The Liberals
reduced the rate from 17"13 per cent, to 16'33
per cent, in the ten years from 1896 to 1906;
but they have adopted a system of bounties and
an " anti-dumping " clause which more than
countervails for this reduction.
We in Canada have a problem before us. It

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 217
is precisely the same as that which faced Sinbad
the Sailor. But our " old man " has delivered
himself into our hands when he declared that
he was " out of politics." Henceforth we shall
submit him to the scientific method. He has
now no one party to stand for him ; and by the
subtle treachery of ideas we shall compel him
to relax his hold. The fatal blunder of the
interested class was to get " out of politics."
Freed from a blind allegiance to party, the
public mind will work freely upon this question
also. But not all Canadians are of the mind of
the Manufacturers' Association. A memorial to
the Government in 1906 by the Dominion
Grange, the Farmers' Association of Ontario,
and the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association,
reads : " We ask, in the coming revision of the
tariff, that the protective principle be wholly
eliminated : and as proof of our sincerity we
wiU gladly assent to the entire abolition of the
whole list of duties in agricultural imports."
A resolution of the Trades and Labour Congress
of Canada, which claims to represent 200,000
organised workmen, reads : " That, while free
trade in labour is held by our employers to be
necessary for the protection of their interests,

218 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
we hold that free trade in the products of
labour is equally necessary for our well-
being." The public is not quick to discern the point
at which good turns to evil by excess. But in
time, somehow people do get their eyes open ;
and to-day the people of Canada are pretty wide
awake as a result of the shock which the recent
revelations of the corruption in the United States
produced. Even in that country there are
uneasy stirrings.
There is something ludicrous in the way in
which those arguments are slipping away which
have been regarded as axioms for a century past.
The last to go is the argument that we must
protect ourselves against the pauper labour of
Europe. Mr. Carnegie teUs us that the cost
for labour in the iron trade is less in the
United States than it is in Germany. The
wages paid to male employees in the Canadian
woollen trade is $6.50 per week and $4.28 for
women. The rate paid in England is $5.79 and
$3.31 for women. A duty of 8 '6 per cent, would
offset the difference in the rate of wages, even
if the cost of living in the two countries were
the same, which it is not. In the cotton trade
in Canada the wages of men are $7.00 a week

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 219
and for women $4.81. In England the rate
is $4.79 for men and $3.31 for women.
Of course the people of England do not hear
much of this side ofthe case, — that most sensible
persons in Canada and in the United States
have come to entertain a hatred of Protection,
on the two main grounds that it makes for the
corruption of public life and the increased cost
of living. The reason is, according to Mr.
Edward Porritt, that, " as regards the tariff,
Canada is practically without a free press " ;
and, according to Mr. Sinclair, who speaks for the
United States, " Unfortunately the public takes
its opinions from the newspapers, and the news
papers are owned by men who profit by corrup
tion." As far back as 1891 Mr. Goldwin Smith
declared that a " system of corruption has been
extended to the press." Farmers, labourers,
mechanics, and professional men do not adver
tise, because they are consumers, inarticulate
and incoherent.
In the United States the high tariff binders
finaUy committed the woful blunder of antago
nising the newspapers, and now we are hearing
the truth. To attempt to hold up the publishers
was an excess of stupidity. The Secretary of
their Association appeared before the House

220 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Committee on Ways and Means which is now
sitting in Washington for purposes of tariff
revision, and by names and dates proved that
the American manufacturers of paper had in
creased the price by 12 dollars a ton under
the present tariff, that the average of wages
paid was less than in any other industry, that
the market was starved, and that by threats
one importation of 10,000 tons was forced
out of the country. He made the statement,
incredible as it may seem, that the Conference
at which these arrangements were made was
held in Montreal, and that the Canadian manu
facturers of paper were a party to them. It is
not sufficient palliation for the manufacturers
to allege that they were actuated in making
paper scarce and dear, by the humane desire to
lessen the size and number of the newspapers
for the public good.
In times gone by it was the custom before
each election for politicians in the United States
to promise a revision ofthe tariff, but when they
applied themselves to the task they revised it
in the wrong direction. Previous to the last
election the same promise was made ; and Mr.
Taft's intention to " implement " that promise
is creating unbounded astonishment. The

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 221
American Economist, the blindest and the
greediest of the advocates of Protection, reveals
its amazement in the words : " There is a marked
difference between the vague opinion that some
of the tariff schedules might properly be re
duced, and a promise that the schedules shall
be reduced."
They looked upon the promise as one of the
usual campaign tricks, and now they cry out
that they are betrayed when they see that the
tariff is to have a frank and full debate. They
asked for " practical witnesses " — not professors,
economists, and consumers — and they got Mr.
Carnegie, who may be assumed to know some
thing about the matter ; and he told them that
steel could be produced cheaper in the United
States than anywhere else in the world, and
that the cost per ton for labour was less than
it was in Germany. It is not sufficient answer
to call Mr. Carnegie a " renegade." Mr. Taft's
innocent inquiry before the Committee upon
revision, — "Where are the consumers?" has
found its reply in the words of Mr. J. J. Hill,
who, as President of the Northern Pacific Rail
way Company, knows their mind better than
any man in the United States : " If this Congress
does not revise the tariff, then the next Congress

222 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
will. The people will attend to that part of
the question."
The consensus of the large manufacturers in
the United States is that they do not require
Protection and are not benefited by it. That
being the case, they will no longer pay money
for a thing they do not want. With an in
gratitude which is sharper than a serpent's tooth
to the politicians, they affirm that they have
no further desire that the taxing power of the
Government shall remain in their hands ; and —
subtlest treachery of all — they have had a law
enacted that contributions for campaign pur
poses shall be published. As a result, the
Republican campaign fund at the last election
was not much more than a million and a half
doUars, whereas it was over five miUion doUars
in 1904. Mr. Carnegie spoke for the iron-
makers. Mr. Vogel, President of the National
Association of Tanners, appeared before the
Committee and declared that the duty on hides
was of little advantage to the farmers or cattle
raisers, but was of great advantage to the
meat packers, as it enabled them to exercise
control over an important and much-needed
raw material. He presented resolutions of
his organisation favouring a maximum and

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 223
minimum tariff, so that reciprocal agreements
could be made with other countries in the
matter of manufactured leather. Finally he
declared that if hides were placed upon the free
list the tanners would have no objection to a
reduction upon the duty on leather. A member
of the Committee put the matter plainly when
he said : " I'll tell you how to get free hides.
If you'U agree that leather boots, shoes, harness,
and Uke products shall go on the free list, we
can get together on free hides." " I concur in
that scheme of relief," said another witness
before the Committee. Protection is slipping
away from the manufacturers of the United
States because so many of them are not in
terested in maintaining it. They have dropped
off gorged, or are now sufficiently well nourished
to meet aU comers.
A greater freedom of import into the United
States within the next eighteen months may be
accepted as a fact. Whether it wiU take the
form of an absolute reduction in the tariff, or by
a series of reciprocity agreements, with mini
mum and maximum schedules, no man can say.
Reciprocity is a step toward freer trade, and
Canada will undoubtedly be the first to be
approached, because the truth of what Mr. Hill

224 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
says is so evident: "That the most natural,
the most rational, the most highly profitable
commercial status between Canada and the
United States is absolute freedom of trade.
That commerce must eventually move unre
strained between these two peoples is self-
evident. Why not strike off the shackles now
and let it move more freely, instead of paying
the heavy penalty of delay ? " This new spirit
finds voice in that admirable periodical, The
Nation, which urges that "Mr. Taft during his
presidency could do nothing more useful than
to join Canada and the United States by new
far-reaching reciprocity treaties." All the old
bitterness has passed away, and now we treat
each other with that good-natured banter which
is characteristic of these western communities.
We do not take each other seriously.
It is useless for us to pretend that we have no
interest whatever in proposals which may come
from the United States to reduce the import
duties on Canadian products. The Maritime
Provinces especiaUy are vitally interested. These
provinces contain a population of nearly a million
persons, and they are the most intelligent in
Canada. They form a decaying community.
They are inteUigent enough to be aware that a

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 225
community must at times make sacrifices, but it is
rarely the duty of a community to perish supinely.
For political reasons a community must often
endure economic disadvantages, but it is never
called upon to endure them for ever. The injury
to the part is an injury to the whole, and if the
Maritime Provinces suffer the whole of Canada
suffers. The city of St. John has decreased in
population during the past 30 years by 614
persons. Charlottetown has increased by only
595 in 20 years. Halifax has increased by only
2398 in the last 10 years. Taking the provinces
separately, the decrease of population in Prince
Edward Island during the past 20 years is 5632
persons. The increase in New Brunswick has
only been 9987 in the last 20 years, and in
Nova Scotia the increase has been for the same
period 19,002. This yields an increase of only
2-6 per cent, for the three provinces for the last
20 years. Now the normal rate of increase of
population in a civiUsed community is 1*5 per
cent, yearly. Accordingly the Maritime Provinces
to-day should contain l,lll,8tO persons instead
of 893,953. There is a deficiency of 217,923,
and the census of the United States shows that
most of these persons have migrated across the
line. These provinces have been unaffected by

226 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the stream of immigration of which so much is
heard. Of all the persons living in that locality,
nearly 97 per cent, are native born. The
ultimate case of the stagnation and the loss of
population in the Maritime Provinces is that the
people are denied access to the natural markets
for purposes either of purchase or for sale. I
say natural markets, because these provinces lie
adjacent to the sea-board of the United States.
They are separated from the rest of Canada by
mountain fastnesses and by the State of Maine,
which projects to withia 20 miles of the St.
Lawrence river.
There is a saying attributed to a Scotch
"natural" who was seated upon the rail of a
bridge chewing at a mutton bone. He was
saluted politely by the minister as he passed,
and the foolish lad made the pointed comment,
" Ye kens a body quick eneuch when he's got ae
thing." The people of the United States have
become very polite to Canada since they have
made the discovery that we have something which
they want. Forty years ago they refused to
trade with us. They adopted the principle of
retaliation, which is dear to certain minds. If
ever there was a case in which retaliation was
likely to do good, here was one — a large com-

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 227
munity side by side with a smaller one, two
people speaking somewhat similar languages,
descended from the same stock, living in the same
environment, and separated by a boundary which
was whoUy artificial. From thefr point of view
we had wrought them evil. Our neighbours
had emerged from a war in which they were
successful. They remembered that the senti
ment of the ruling class in England had been
against them, not on grounds of principle but for
the somewhat indeterminate, though peculiarly
exasperating reason that • their enemies were
gentlemen and they were not. They were quite
well aware, too, that Montreal was a centre of
conspiracy against them, and that ships had
gone from that port to force their blockade.
Even in the early nineties, when the demand
in Canada was strong for unrestricted reciprocity
with the United States, this spfrit of retaliation
had not spent its force, and it blinded the states
men of Washington to the possible political
effect of such a measure. It was believed
generally in Canada that this was the first
stage in the progress towards poUtical union,
"the first bite of the cherry," as the saying
was ; and it gave rise to that famous address
to the electors by that stalwart opponent of

228 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
annexation, the late Sir John Macdonald, which
concluded with the somewhat superfluous de
claration, now, I believe, inscribed upon his
tomb : "A British subject I was born; a British
subject I will die." Still later, when the party
which had been clamouring for reciprocity came
into power in Canada, a deputation was sent
with some pomp to the United States to solicit
this boon. Upon its return Sfr Wilfrid Laurier
announced rather sadly, as a result of a new
accession of wisdom, that there would be no
more pilgrimages to Washington. Whereupon
we stiffened our backs and hardened our hearts.
We adapted our products to the needs of each
other. We built railways east and west. We
built larger ships and undersold our neighbours
in the markets of the world. We aUowed them
to exploit and exhaust their forests and lands,
as we are to-day exploiting and exhausting our
own ; and finally, to show our spfrit and good-
wiU, we declared for England and gave a pre
ference to EngUsh goods in our markets.
For fifty years, from 1846 to 1896, Canada
made a continuous effort to gain entrance into
the markets of the United States, The move
ment began in the former year, when Great
Britain abolished the Corn Laws, through which

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 229
the colonies lost a preferential diity for their
products in the mother country. The Governor-
General, Lord Elgin, went to Washington in
the hope of obtaining a treaty, which he suc
ceeded in doing by skilful diplomacy and un
bounded hospitality in the year 1854. For
twelve years the arrangement gave general
satisfaction, but was abrogated by the United
States in 1866. Then began the efforts for
its renewal which were continued for thirty
years. In 1865, when the Canadian Ministers
were promoting Confederation in England, they
urged the policy of renewing the treaty, and
efforts were made through Mr. Adams, American
Minister in London, and the British Minister
at Washington, Sir F. Bruce, but the negotia
tions failed. The same year Messrs. Gait and
Howland went to Washington and secured
permission to send a delegation representing
aU the provinces, but they returned empty
handed. The next negotiations were those of
1869, conducted by the British Minister at
Washington, and John Rose the Canadian
Minister of Finance; but it is difficult to
know precisely what offer Canada made, as the
negotiations were believed to be private, and the
papers referring to the subject are now lost.

230 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Again in 1871 reciprocity made its appear
ance, but the American Commissioners declined
the proposal, on the ground that " the renewal of
the treaty was not in their interests and would
not be in accordance with the sentiments of
their people." In 1873 the National Board of
Trade of the United States memorialised Con
gress to appoint a Commission to frame a treaty,
and the Canadian Government replied that
the subject, if approved of by Congress, would
receive their fuUest consideration. In 1873
George Brown was appointed British plenipo
tentiary for the negotiation of a new treaty,
and a draft was made of a treaty to remain in
force for twenty- one years, but the United States
Senate adjourned without even taking a vote
upon it. Finally, in 1879 a higher tariff was
enacted in Canada, but it retained the previous
offer of reciprocity. The only result was that
Congress passed a retaliatory law. In 1887
the opposition in the Canadian Parliament put
on record their adhesion to the principle of
an unrestricted reciprocity. In 1888, at the
conference over the new fishery treaty between
Secretary Bayard, Sir Julian Pauncefote, Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, and Sir Charles Tupper,
a settlement was offered " in consideration of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 231
a mutual arrangement providing for greater
freedom of commercial intercourse." The
American plenipotentiary, however, declined to
ask the President for authority to consider the
proposal. The Canadian elections were fought
out upon the question of unrestricted recipro
city, which had been adopted by the Liberals,
and they were defeated, largely owing to the
belief that such a measure would lead to
political union with the United States. The
Conservatives, however, upon their return to
power renewed the attempt in 1892 with
Secretary Blain, but the negotiations were
broken off. Finally, upon the accession to
power of the Liberals, Sfr Wilfrid Laurier took
the matter up afresh, but he returned with a
final message to his own people: "There will
be no more pilgrimages to Washington. We
are turning our hopes to the old Motherland."
This desire for reciprocity with the United
States arose from the perception of the simple
geographical fact that the mountains of America,
and consequently the vaUeys, run in a northerly
direction. When hope was finally abandoned,
Canada proceeded with the task of converting
North and South into East and West by means
of railways and canals which cost us 2000

232 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
million dollars. Pride in our achievement has
caused a certain obstinacy of heart; but it is
not for that, nor for any obscure political reason,
that we must decline to enter into any exclusive
reciprocal arrangements with the United States.
It is because we have too much at stake to
risk being dependent upon the good-will even
of an amiable neighbour. No treaty of trade
is sufficiently sacred to warrant a people in
trusting their existence to its terms. The lesson
of 1866 has been too weU learned, and we do
not propose to cast away the labour of fifty
years, with the possibility of having to perform
it over again when the United States shall
choose to change its mind.
It is too late in the history of the world for
one community of white men to attempt to
determine the fiscal arrangements of another.
Canada devised a policy of protection against
the United States, which she thought, rightly
or wrongly, was at the time in her own interest.
Later she offered a preference to England,
because that also was in her own interest. It
served as an expression of gratitude ; it gave
to her people cheaper goods, and is an ingenious
device for pulling the teeth of our own Pro
tection without too much squealing. The pre-

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 233
ference was given to England because England
is England, and it is a sign to the world of the
feeling of Canada for the Empire. We pro
pose to retain this privilege. That is a settled
policy in Canadian affairs.
We are now so secure in our Imperial status
that we have no fear of what trade can do. If
we get cheaper goods from the United States
or elsewhere, we shaU have the more money to
expend upon the development of a country
which is not yet whoUy explored, and eventuaUy
we shaU, each one of us, be enabled to pay his
" ten and six," as the meanest English labourer
does, for the defence of his shores, if only
England is patient a Uttle longer, whilst we,
bewildered, not knowing what to do, and want
ing to do everything, are doing nothing except
talking about spending our last dollar rather
than actuaUy spending the first.
The worst enemy of Canada is the man who
declares that, if we are permitted to trade with
the United States or with Germany, we shall
become Americans or Germans. The worst
enemy ofthe Empire is the "Imperialist" who
declares that unless Englishmen tax themselves
for our benefit, we shaU perform some sudden
stroke of treachery; and yet there is no use

234 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
disguising the value of the United States market
to Canada or the value of our markets to them.
In spite of the recent world-wide depression,
the tables of trade and navigation for the
twelve months ending 31st March 1908, show
that the year yielded the largest foreign trade
in the history of Canada. The exports were
$280,006,606 and the imports $370,786,525; of
these exports agriculture yielded $246,960,968.
And yet, notwithstanding these mutual efforts to
hamper the exchange of commodities between
the two countries, the imports from the United
States last year amounted to $210,652,825 and
the exports to $113,516,600. England took
$134,488,056 and gave back $94,959,471. These
tables show, curiously enough, that taxes and
preferences and sur-taxes, and spite enactments,
are under ordinary circumstances but minor in
fluences on trade movement. Canadians, for
example, bought from the United States last
year, according to the tables, almost twice as
much as they exported to that country; and
they exported to Great Britain 40 per cent.
more than they imported from it. In spite of
a Customs preference of one-third in favour of
British goods, imports from the United States
are greater than those from Great Britain, with

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 235
a tendency to grow even more rapidly. Exports
to the United States have doubled within the
last nine years, while in the same time the
exports to Great Britain have only increased
by about one-third.
Last year we imported from the United States
goods to the value of 210 million dollars, which
is more than England imported from Germany,
in spite of the fact that near 20 miUion dollars
were paid in duties upon those imports. Those
who base their Imperialism upon trade would
do well to reflect upon what would happen if
the United States offered to Canada free entry
of goods and a tax against the rest of the
world, in return for free entry into Canada or
even for a preference. The contest between
Satan and the Archangel would be only a gentle
bickering compared with the results which would
follow. PoliticaUy we have turned our backs upon
the United States for ever, and we hear with
some complacency the continual lamentations
over the " Americanisation " of Canadian life.
The thing is imaginary more than real, and
would occur even if the United States did
not exist. We are reproached even for the
clothes which we wear, that they are much

236 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
the same as those which are seen in Boston
and New York. If we wear the same kind
of clothes, it is due to identity of conditions.
In a hot summer we find the traditional coat
and hat of the English provincial town as in
tolerable as the harness of a cart horse. Our
boys cannot wear cloth caps, for the perfectly
valid reason that the sun shines strong in the
Canadian sky; and since they are not con
tinually riding horses, they find no necessity
for wearing leathern leggings. They cannot
play cricket because the twilight is too short
and the summer sun burns up the crease, to
say nothing of the snow lying on the ground
for so many months of the year.
A Gaelic-speaking highlander was heard to
lament that the English language was making
great progress in the world. And yet his
compatriots in Canada must not be too severely
blamed for speaking English as weU as they
can, or even French, seeing that 41 per cent, of
Canadians find that language easier to their
tongue than Gaelic or English. Nor must
we be blamed for wearing American clothes
and adopting American manners. We live
in America; that is why we are becoming
"Americanised." Young men from the United

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 237
States are coming amongst us in increasing
numbers. We find them in our offices, factories,
universities, churches, and clubs. They are
crowding upon our western lands. They make
our best citizens; and, to be quite frank, we
like them because they are simple people like
ourselves. Thefr children go to schools with
our children. In short, they become Canadians,
which is merely a step backward towards the
race from which they are sprung.
During the past forty years the situation in
the United States is changed. The mills of
the twin cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis,
require our hard Manitoba wheat; the furni
ture makers of Michigan require our lumber;
the purveyors of newspaper print require our
pulp-wood ; the manufacturers of New Eng
land require our coal for their engines and
our food for their workmen. The people of
the United States have suddenly discovered
that the mountains, and consequently the
vaUeys, of North America run north and
south, apparently unaware of a line of posts
which traverse the continent upon the forty-
ninth parallel of latitude. The railways are
following these vaUeys into the wheat-fields
of Canada ; but this line of posts is an in-

238 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
convenient barrier upon thefr right-of-way.
Accordingly the railway interests are clamour
ing that they be removed.
When our neighbours display their tempting
market, we say, like that shrewd Hebrew buyer,
" It is nought ; it is nought ; " and straightway
we boast ourselves that we can have access to
it when we need it. If they persist that they
want our products, we reply that they are for
sale on the usual terms. What arrangements
they shaU make about admission into their
country is for them to decide. If they admit
them free of duty, it will be because that
measure seems best in their own interests. If
it should prove to be in our interests too, we
shaU not object.
Our answer is that we are doing business with
England, and propose to continue. Our hearts
and our treasure lie there. England is treating
us handsomely. A respect and affection has
grown up between us. She sends us the most
charming of her nobility to grace Rideau Hall.
She professes satisfaction over the hand we
gave in South Africa, and makes us feel that
we played the man. When we go to London
she makes much of us; and now they say
that they are going to tax themselves for our

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 239
benefit, and, owing to increasing preferences,
they will send us their goods at a cheaper
rate than we pay at present, and so reduce
the cost of living in Canada. In short, the
springs of loyalty to a noble tradition, of affec
tion for kinsmen who yet occupy the old
homes, of a wider patriotism, of a desire to
be full partakers in the glory of a remem
brance of old achievements, which during
generations of absence had dwindled to a
smaU trickle, have broken forth afresh. This
is the sure source of Empfre, the true Im
perialism. An Empire based upon preference is at the
mercy of every country which chooses to offer
a better rate. If a 5 per cent, preference will
purchase a 5 per cent, loyalty towards England,
how much loyalty will a 10 per cent, prefer
ence with the United States purchase ? That
is a sum in proportion. The intent of this
vrriting is to show that an Imperialism which
is based upon trade appeals only to traders.
We in Canada are not traders. We are farmers ;
at least 62 per cent, of us live on or near the
soil. Protection is not an eternal law of
nature, and when it passes away an Imperialism
which is based upon it will pass away too.

240 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Imperialists would do well not to link their
fortunes with a lost cause. Tariff Reform can
not be distinguished from Protection : broaden
ing the basis of taxation is like " firing a gun,
easy"; and hatred of protection will end in
hatred of any Imperialism which is alUed
with it.
A ring-fence around the Empfre, with free
trade within and retaliation upon all without,
means war, is war. It may weU be imagined
that Germany would not have been so com
placent during those years had she not known
that England was fighting in South Africa for
equal opportunity to aU. England herself was
not very sweet-tempered with Belgium when
a contrary principle was applied to the Congo.
The one thing which in time of stress and
friction has preserved England from European
war was the knowledge that hostile com
munities on the Continent were quite weU
aware that they would immediately deprive
themselves of the greatest free market in the
world. Even talk about war they found was
impafring their trade. The commerce between
Germany and Great Britain amounts to 60
million pounds sterling a year. With that
trade cut off, it is easy to imagine the dis-

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 241
location of business which would result, and
the consequent ruin of the largest houses in
Hamburg and Berlin. This large commercial
class has lent its whole power to the preserva
tion of the peace of the world.
Let us not deceive ourselves. The manu
facturers of England are not altruists any more
than our own. They are not consumed by love
of country or of each other. As an Ulustration
of how these manufacturers love one another,
I shaU cite the case of the Canadian wooUen
makers. Their solicitude for the people of
Canada is piteous. They see them wearing
shoddy instead of their own excellent wares
made in Canada from raw wool. The Premier
told them very pointedly that if the Canadian
people wanted shoddy they were entitled to
have it. They made the accusation that disease
might be carried from the rags from which
shoddy is made. They forgot that these rags
are subject to a chemical process which com
pletely disinfects them, and that they import
rags from the same quarter as do the English
manufacturers. These statements were char
acterised by the chairman of the West Riding
Chambers of Commerce at Leeds as the out
come of ignorance or maUce, and that the
Q

242 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
apology which had been made was neither
fuU or complete. In seconding a resolution
upon the subject, Mr. J. E. Glover touched
the matter on the quick when he said that
the trouble with Canadian manufacturers was
that they were without training, and their
machinery was such as had been discarded
forty years ago by the English manufacturers.
That is one fruit of Protection.
Nor must we forget how this tariff reform
in England is financed. We who have ex
perience of our own "red parlour" can easily
distinguish in the background the sinister
figure of the manufacturer who has put his
sovereigns in the slot, and expects to draw
out from the contrivance a tariff in favour of
the goods which he manufactures. We may
also surmise that the transportation companies
would seize upon the preference as an excuse
for raising their rates against us.
A delightful point could be given to the
whole question by reference to the controversy
which arose after England abolished the Com
Laws in 1846, through which the colonies lost
a preferential duty in the markets of the mother
country. The Parliament of the Province of
Canada passed an address protesting against

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 243
this policy, and declaring that "it is much
to be feared that, should the inhabitants of
Canada, from the withdrawal of all protection
to thefr staple products, find that they cannot
successfully compete with their neighbours of
the United States in the only market open to
them, they will naturally and of necessity
begin to doubt whether remaining a portion of
the British Empire will be of that paramount
advantage which they have hitherto found it
to be." To this the British authorities made
the reply, which is as sensible to-day as it was
sixty years ago, "that it would indeed be a
source of the greatest pain to Her Majesty's
Government if they could share in the im
pression that the connection between this
country and Canada derived its vitality from
no other source than from the exchange of
commercial preferences." And yet the con
nection has endured and shows more vitality
than when those preferences were in force.
Until Imperialism is divorced from Protection
it wiU be a tainted thing. England rules be
cause she rules justly. When England adopts
Protection she will become corrupt. Then she
wiU cease to rule. That is why so many
Canadians who love the Old Land, and are

244 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
willing to die in defence of their old homes, wiU
have nothing to do with an Imperialism aUied
with a Protection which in time wUl leave them
without a country which is worth dying for.
They take Mr. Chamberlain at his word when
he said at Newcastle, 20th October 1903: "I
think that without preferential tariffs we wiU
not keep the Empire together"; and they say
frankly that, if that is the only condition, the
Empire might as well faU apart, and soon as
weU as later.
There is something more important than
thinking imperiaUy, and that is to think sen
sibly even about ImperiaUsm. Imperialism is
in reality a way of looking at things, a frame
of mind, an affair of the spirit, a singleness
of purpose in making of the material at our
command something new and good, by a pro
cess of decentralisation and co-operation. It
is born of affection, and until it free itself from
the vindication of business cunning and brute
force over moral ideas, it wiU not make a near
appeal. This exposition of the mind of Canada might
well be brought to a close with the account of
its working upon matters of business and
politics, without laying the psychologist open

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CANADA 245
to the charge of fragmentariness of treatment.
These subjects do not form the whole of life,
but they are the only ones with which we are
vitally concerned. Literature, art, and the other
amenities of civilisation have little more than
that appearance of movement which is the first
evidence of life. In this respect we do not
differ from the United States. It is character
istic of this continent ; and Professor Leacock
has made the acute observation that Canada is
in America. The reason is not far to seek. If
we do not make books and pictures, it is because
that is not what we set out to do. We came
here to live by bread alone, and we are not yet
dissatisfied with the diet.
Twenty years ago there was an internal move
ment towards what was called, with some degree
of ambiguity, a national literature, but happily
it ended in a blind alley. A literature which is
nothing more than national is no literature at
aU. It is not worthy of existence unless it form
a part of the literature of the world which now
is and has been. That was the burden of Mr,
Kipling's message when last he visited us. We
have come to perceive that literature cannot be
encouraged by that easy device, the subsidy;
that a writer may be recognisable as an in-

246 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
dividual, but impossible without a complete
setting of other writers who are critics as well
as appreciators ; and that the literary organism
cannot be created, but grows continuously from
the parent stem. We have been ploughing the
sand. Two hundred years adapting and imitat
ing the poetry of France and Italy was the price
which England paid for the Elizabethans, and
the envfronment suitable for its productions has
been continuous ever since. In that heritage
we also wiU share when we have a clearer
perception that, in reality, we never abandoned
it by the mere act of crossing the sea.

X
BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA
It requires about thirty-three years to remove
a false impression from the public mind, and
about the same length of time to replace it by
a correct one. This formula may be employed
under ordinary cfrcumstances, and will be found
sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes
in cases which are not complicated by self-
interest, national jealousy, or theological hatred.
No one in Canada has any especial interest
in entertaining or propagating the delusion that
British diplomacy has been inept, or that the
area of Canada was unnecessarily abridged by
any negotiations which had been undertaken
in the ordinary course of Imperial diplomacy.
And yet, up to a few years ago, such opinion
did prevail, and not alone in the minds of
the most foolish or the most ignorant. The
reason probably is that no one had any especial
interest in disseminating the truth.
But comparatively recently there has been a
217

248 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
remarkable recrudescence of feeling for every
thing pertaining to the Empire, and a desire to be
informed upon all the circumstances which led
to its establishment. Scholars have undertaken
investigations, but the results of their researches
lie in Transactions of learned societies, which
but slowly filter down through the magazines
and newspapers into the common mind. Much
labour and love has been bestowed upon the
history of British diplomacy in its relation to
Canada, and the record is now open to aU who
choose to read. The incurably stupid and the
wilfully ignorant may be left to themselves.
This writing is not for them. It is rather for
those who are oppressed with public cares, who
are entangled in the intricacies of practical
politics, and have not that reasonable leisure
which is necessary for forming opinions upon
the results of inqufry made at first hand. It
is an obligation upon those who are in posses
sion of correct opinions to take upon them
selves that labour which is necessary for the
illumination of the public mind.
It is hard for statesmen who are brought up
in the simple, Canadian conditions surrounding
farm, factory, shop, and law-office to under
stand how complicated an affair the world

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 249
reaUy is. They are in the mental situation of
the housemaid from the country, who thinks
of a water supply in terms of springs and wells,
who associates milk with cattle, light with
candles, and heat with glowing logs. Nurtured
in peace, a peaceful life is the normal life to
them : war the ultimate wickedness of which
humanity left to itself is capable. Government
comes to mean an association for purposes of
trade, and public finance a multiplicity of per
plexing regulations. They are entirely in
capable of comprehending that the ultimate
appeal of a nation is to the ordeal of battle,
and that aU negotiations are an attempt to
arrive at a solution by an easier method.
Those alone are competent to conduct the
operations which end in a compromise who
have the fear of war before thefr eyes, who
have dealt in blood, and have seen the tears
of the widow. It is easy to call for battles
which one is not compelled to fight, to be
rash when one's life is not the forfeit, to engage
in the high play of war when there is nothing
at stake. AU negotiations which have for
their object the maintenance of peace must
be regarded, not with the feeble light of the
court-room, but in the lurid glare of war.

250 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
Diplomatists, whose chief concern is with
tariffs, and preferences, and reciprocity, may fail
to arrive at a conclusion, and things will be as
they were. Possibly a farmer may be obliged
to sell his wheat at a diminished price, or a
manufacturer may continue to enjoy an un
natural profit. Failure may lose them an
election ; but the issues of life and death are
not in their hands. The one is the business
of a politician ; the other is the business of an
ambassador with plenary power.
The two sides are well iUustrated by the
incident which occurred between Mr. Bryce, the
British Ambassador to Washington, and Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister, who is in
addition the leader of a party. Speaking at
Ottawa, 2nd April 1907, the Canadian Premier
said : " Mr. Bryce has been on this continent
but a few weeks, and it is nothing but the
literal truth to say that he has turned a new
leaf in the history of the continent of America.
We have to realise that John Bull has not
always done his duty to his Canadian son. If
we take all the treaties from the Treaty of 1783
up to the Treaty of 1903, we Canadians do not
feel particularly cheerful over the way we have
been treated by the British plenipotentiaries."

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 251
To these remarks Mr. Bryce made a very direct
reference in his speech in Toronto on the foUow
ing day: "I wiU ask you to suspend your
judgment upon all those questions in which it
is alleged that British diplomacy has not done
its best for you. In those matters you have
only heard one side of the case : and I feel it is
my duty to my country and to the Government
which I represent to tell you this ; and that I
believe you are entirely mistaken if you think
that British diplomacy has been indifferent to
Canada, or has not done the best it could for
Canada." The Premier returned to the subject again
some months later, when he declared at a
banquet of the Manufacturers' Association,
26th September : " We take the record of
diplomacy of Great Britain in so far as Canada
is concerned, and we find it is a repetition of
sacrifices of Canadian interests. We have
suffered on the Atlantic. We have suffered on
the Pacific. We have suffered on the Lakes.
We have suffered wherever there has been a
question to be discussed between British
diplomats. Well, then, we have come at last
to the conclusion that upon this point also, in
our relations with foreign countries, we would

252 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
do better by attending to the business ourselves
rather than having it trusted to the best men
that can be found in Great Britain."
It is a curious manifestation of the human
mind, that what it desires earnestly it becomes
convinced in time that it really does possess.
Mr. Bagehot gives an amusing iUustration of
this irrational conviction from his own experi
ence. He stood for a borough in the west of
England and was defeated by seven votes.
Almost immediately afterwards there was a
second election at which he was not a candi
date, and a member of his party won. For
years he had the deepest conviction that he
should be the member, and no amount of
reasoning could get it out of his head. The
feeling was ineradicable, and prevented him
from taking interest in another constituency
where his chances of election would have been
at least rational.
With two main exceptions the Atlantic sea
board of Canada is ice-bound for six months in
the year. A glance at the map shows how
desirable it would be to possess the harbours
of New York, Boston, and Portland. Such an
ambition would indicate an excess of national
aspiration, and by an act of self-abnegation

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 253
Canadians are content with the theoretical
occupation of Portland. The imagination is
probably stimulated by the fact that for many
years the principal Canadian railway had its
terminus in that harbour, but it might have
fixed itself upon possessions of New York or
New Orleans, had these been the only ports of
entry available during the winter.
It would be a desfrable thing, truly, that
Canada should be bounded on the south by the
GuK of Mexico. It might have been so had
George III. not been an obstinate fool and
Lord North a faithful servant ; but it is also
worth reminding ourselves that if it had not
been for British diplomacy there might to-day
be no Canada at aU. These speculations are
not for essayists alone ; they should afford
reflection for pubUc men and restrain their
utterance upon subjects about which it is not
in thefr own interests or to the public good that
they should remain ignorant. Politics have to
do mainly with facts, and not with surmises
about how things would be if something differ
ent had happened. It is a fact which Canadian
statesmen would do well to make their point
of departure, that something did happen at
Yorktown on 19th October 1781. AU British

254 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
diplomacy, in so far as it concerns Canada, has
been governed by the inexorable logic of the
surrender of Cornwallis. There is no escape
from the relentlessness of events which have
happened. Canadians cast thefr eyes upon the
timbered slopes of the Columbia River as it
winds its way through Oregon territory to the
Pacific. This land is so desirable, so con
venient, and they remember that at one time
England asserted some kind of claim to its
possessions, that they think it must have been
wantonly cast away. They know nothing of
the circumstances under which the rival claims
were adjusted, or of the opposition to any
compromise whatever. To them Stephen A.
Douglas is nothing more than a name : and
yet at one time he held the first place in public
importance, far in advance of that occupied by
Abraham Lincoln. His countrymen, with that
peculiar lack of humour which has always
characterised them, described him as " the little
giant," and they must have attached some value
to his words when he declared, 13th May 1846 :
" I am as ready and willing to fight for 54° 40'
as for the Rio Del Norte."
These oracular words will bear some ampli
fication. It is found in Douglas's speeches.

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 255
He was pledged to move a declaration of war
if England tried to take Oregon. He declared,
in his impassioned way, that he would ad
minister Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity,
and would not stop till he had blotted out
the national lines on the map and made the
area of liberty as broad as the boundaries of
the continent itself. Translated into English,
this means that rather than surrender Oregon,
the United States would go to war with Eng
land for the possession of Canada. If British
diplomacy did not secure Oregon it prevented
a war and preserved Canada as it exists to-day.
This intensity of feeling is further illustrated
by a speech delivered in the House of Repre
sentatives by a member from Indiana. The
language is anlusing, but the meaning of it
is clear : " The march of your people is onward,
and it is westward; that is their destiny.
They are going onward to the Pacific ; and if
in the path which leads there the British lion
shaU lay him down, shaU we on that account
be craven to our duty and our destiny? No;
never. The American eagle shall stick his
claws into the nose of the lion, and make
his blood spout like a whale. This, too, is
inevitable destiny. The British may make

256 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
pretensions to Oregon, but rights they have
none. Do we not want it? Yes, and we
must have it. We want it to hold our people.
Yes, sir, and I will teU you another thing.
The American multiplication table is at work.
Go into our western cabins and you wiU find
a young man of six feet, and all the rest of
him in proportion, with a companion not much
less than himself, and round their feet you
will find a little company of twenty children.
Ay, sir, that is the American multiplication
table. And now, do you take our present
numbers, and reckon twenty for every two, and
where do you think we shall find hunting
ground for them? I teU you we must have
Oregon. The multitude of the West is de
manding it at our hands, and they must
have it."
It was a moment of great expansion in the
United States. The purchase of Mexican terri
tory was under immediate discussion, and with
it went the whole matter of what was then
caUed their North- West, consisting of territories
which were formed by ordinance of Congress
in 1787, and comprising the present States of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and that part of Minnesota which lies to the

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 257
east of the Mississippi. When a nation is
in the process of swarming, it is in no mood
to be hampered or restrained. But the situa
tion was much more dangerous, since it was
inextricably bound up with the horrid institu
tion of slavery.
When it was proposed to acqufre the Mexican
territory by purchase, the WUmot Proviso was
attached to an appropriation bill for that
purpose, by which slavery should be prohibited
in the new possession. Under the Missouri
Compromise, which was an agreement embodied
in a clause of the Act of Congress admitting
Missouri as one of the United States, 2nd
March 1821, it was enacted that, in aU that
part of the territories ceded by France under
the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 lying above
36° 30' north latitude, slavery should be pro
hibited for ever. It was upon this concession
by the pro-slavery party that Missouri was
admitted as a slave state.
This compromise was abrogated by an Act
of Congress passed in 1854, for the organisation
of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska,
which sanctioned the principle of " squatter
sovereignty," or local option in the matter
of slavery. This measure was the direct cause

258 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
of the disruption between the Whigs, which in
turn led to the formation ofthe Republican party.
New territory was desired, not so much for
its value as for the opportunity of creating new
States in which slavery would be adopted as an
institution, and the States in which it was pro
hibited would accordingly be put in a minority.
The struggle came in Kansas. Three con
stitutions — the Topeka, the Lecompton, and
the Wyandotte — were adopted within four years
from 1855 to 1859, each one alternately for
bidding and permitting slavery. Kansas was
admitted as a free State, 29th January 1861.
Civil war was inevitable, as the issue proved.
When the Bill for the organisation of the
Territory of Oregon was passed, 13th August
1848, it excluded slavery, ostensibly in accord
ance with the " conditions, restrictions, and
prohibitions " of the North-West Ordinance of
1787, but in reahty by a recognition of the
dangerous principle of " squatter sovereignty,"
under which the people of the Territory had
already forbidden slavery within its borders.
If they could forbid it, they could also allow
it, and it was in contravention of that doctrine
that the North appealed to the sword.
All political problems are one problem; and

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 259
not even in China are they confined to the
country in which they appear most perplexing.
The various disputes over the boundary be
tween the two countries had their origin in the
movement of population in the United States.
Northward pressure in Oregon really originated
on the Atlantic sea-board and the coasts of
the Gulf of Mexico ; and it in turn was due
to two main causes, the institution of slavery
and that political um-est in Europe which
manifested itself between 1830 and 1850 in
revolution and coups d' Stats. In colonial
times there was a large migration up the
tributaries of the Atlantic and across the
AUeghanies, accompanying or following such
sectional struggles as Bacon's rebellion in Vir
ginia in 1676, Shay's attempt a century later
in western Massachusetts, Dorr's rebellion in
Rhode Island as late as 1842, and the dis
satisfaction with the patroon system in Western
New York. It was not till 1830 that the tide
of foreign immigration reached the shores of
the Atlantic. It quickly showed itself in the
West, where in ten years the population of
Indiana doubled. In Illinois it rose from
157,445 to 476,183, and in Ohio from some
thing under a miUion to a miUion and a half.

260 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
But the growth of the South was even more
remarkable in those years. The increase was
due to the contrivance of Eli Whitney in 1793,
by which cotton-seeds might be separated from
the fibre. The use of the cotton-gin permitted
the profitable production of the short fibred
variety of cotton on the uplands of the Southern
States. In 1811 Alabama produced no cotton ;
in 1834 the crop was larger than that of Georgia
or South Carolina, and the population had
doubled. Slave holding and cotton growing went to
gether, and as they advanced the free population
was obliged either to buy slaves or move out
into Tennessee, Kentucky, and the valley of
the Ohio. This movement was joined by the
great New England migration along the Erie
Canal and the Lakes, as far west as Oregon
and as far north as the Canadian boundary.
This, then, is the genesis of the North and the
South. How they clashed every one knows.
Their temper was rising with their hunger for
land, and that was the moment when Douglas
declared he was ready for war with England,
not for Oregon alone but for the whole continent.
One might weU surmise that if this war had
occurred the people of the United States would

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 261
have had sufficient occupation to prevent them
from fighting between themselves as they did
twelve years later. But I have complicated the
matter sufficiently without introducing political
speculation. But the Oregon over which the United States
was breathing defiance was not the present
little State which lies below 46° 15' north
latitude. It was that enormous territory which
extends between the parallels of 42° and 54° 40'.
It included all that area between the Rocky
Mountains and the Pacific, between Alaska on
the north and California on the south, an area
of 400,000 square miles, drained by such rivers
as the Columbia, the Eraser, and the Skeena.
No one now contends that the title of Great
Britain to this region was incontestable. Spain
had a claim on the ground of priority of dis
covery, though discovery, unattended by per
manent occupation and settlement, constitutes
the lowest degree of title ; and the only right
which Great Britain secured from Spain was
that which was conceded under the Nootka
Convention of 1790, and confirmed by the Treaty
of Madrid in 1814, that British subjects might
settle and trade in the territory north of Cali
fornia. This arrangement was made in the

262 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
interests of fur-traders who formed the North-
West Company, and its successor the Hudson's
Bay Company ; but such occupation is a pre
carious one upon which to found a title.
On the other hand, the United States was
in possession of certain claims which had to be
considered unless war was to be declared, quite
apart from the right or the wrong of the case.
They were successors in title to Spain, which by
the Treaty of Florida in 1819 had ceded all her
claims to territory north of 42°. They were
successors to France under the Louisiana
Purchase* to any title which she might have
possessed ; and there is no doubt that Gray, the
master of the United States trading vessel, was
the first to sail upon the Columbia River, know
ing it to be a river, and that Lewis and Clark
were the first to explore the lower portion of
the river and its branches.
The title of the United States was good
enough to have warranted them in proceeding
with the settlement of the territory, or rather to
allow the migration of their own citizens, which
had been going on, and say nothing about it.
Douglas had the right of it when he recom
mended that the territories be organised and
settled without attempt to define the boundaries ;

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 263
but his " Americanism " got the better of him,
and his talk of Hannibal's oath, eternal enmity,
liberty, and the blotting out of national lines
made England take notice. If the people of
the United States had consulted the genius of
the British Constitution they would have done
nothing. But they clamoured for a treaty, and
England was quite willing to allow them the
privilege of exchanging the reality for the
shadow. Up to this time there had been a joint
occupancy of the whole territory, and the master
stroke of British diplomacy was in perceiving
that the American settlers were advancing north
and carrying thefr Provisional Government with
them, that they would eventually invade by the
peaceful method of settlement, if allowed to
roam at will, what is now the province of British
Columbia. Indeed, if gold had been discovered
on the Eraser River before the Oregon Award,
as it was discovered ten years later, there would
have been an inrush of Americans into the
disputed territory which would then be lost
for ever to the British Crown. The fact of the
matter is, that at the time of the Oregon Award
all that portion of the western coast of America
between California and Alaska was already lost

264 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
to Great Britain by the inexorable law of
effective occupation. The population had risen
to 7500, of whom not more than 400 were
British subjects. The people were pro- American,
and the virtual governor of all that territory
between Alaska and California lying to the
west of the Rockies, McLoughlin ofthe Hudson's
Bay Company, with the perverted instinct of
the trader, had joined their Provisional Govern
ment. This unfortunate man, McLoughlin, merits a
word. If it had not been for his action I think
it possible that England would have refused
further material concession to the United States,
even at the risk of war. His adhesion to the
Provisional Government was a fatal com
promise ; and yet in the outset his conduct
towards the new-comers appears to have been
actuated by mere motives of humanity. When
the first American immigrants arrived in Oregon
he sheltered and fed them during the winter,
and the following spring supplied them with
seed, so that they were enabled to make an
effective occupation of the country. When he
severed his connection with the Company he
was compelled to pay for his unauthorised gene
rosity. The settlers never repaid the amounts

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 265
which he had advanced to them in the extremity
of their suffering, and he was reduced from
affluence to poverty, though it is only fair to
add that, after he was dead, partial restitution
was made to his family.
The attitude of Great Britain was her habitual
one in the making of treaties, dignified and
firm. She admitted that the United States had
certain rights, and she always stood ready to
agree upon a boundary which was equitable
and even generous. She was willing to con
cede ports in Puget Sound which would afford
free access to the territory which she offered ;
but until overwhelmed by the immigration from
the United States she had stood firmly by the
Columbia River. Rather than lose all she
yielded half. By methods of peace she secured
what would hardly have been won at the cost
of war.
But England had not been idle during that
long period between the rebellion of the thirteen
colonies and the Oregon Award. For no part
of the Empfre, save India, did the people of
the little island work so hard as for Canada.
In 1790, as the turmoil of European politics
was beginning, England was concerning herself
with the fag-end of the world on the Pacific

266 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
coast. That was the year in which the Nootka
Convention was made, providing for the restora
tion of all property seized by the Spaniards at
Nootka, and the payment of indemnity for
wrongs done to those far-away subjects. It
established the right of British subjects to
make settlements on the Pacific coast of North
America, for liberty to trade in all that terri
tory which was afterwards in dispute. By this
convention Spain was forced to abandon her
claim by virtue of the discovery of America.
It was a concession that, even admitting priority
of discovery, this right could not be regarded
as subsisting for ever to the exclusion of other
nations. It was made under threat of war.
The moment was well chosen to break that
pacte de famille between the French and
Spanish Bourbons, under which each guaranteed
the territories of the other. In 1761 Spain
joined France in war against England, but in
1790 France was in no situation to help her
ally. England broke up the compact, and in
doing so laid the foundations of the Canadian
West. It is questionable if Mr. Aylesworth
or Sir Louis Jettd, or even Lord Alverstone,
would have been so far-seeing.
In 1794 England was at work again upon

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 267
the Jay Treaty, under which " the two parties
will proceed by amicable negotiations to regu
late the boundary line according to justice and
mutual convenience." Again in 1803 the
Hawkesbury-King Convention was arranged;
but it was not confirmed by the United States
Senate, on account of the recent dealings with
France over the Louisiana Purchase. Three
years afterwards England was at it once more,
proposing a new boundary which the United
States Commissioners accepted but never sub
mitted to the Senate. In 1814 new negotia
tions were undertaken, which resulted in the
Treaty of Ghent, but again the United States
refused to ratify. In 1818 a Convention was
agreed upon, under which the territory should
be free and open for ten years to the subjects
of both nations, without prejudice to the claims
of either. In 1821 we find England protesting
against the assertion of sovereignty by Russia,
and four years later exacting from Russia a
treaty by which that power renounced all claims
to territories south of latitude 50° 40'. In
1826 negotiations with the United States were
resumed, but all that could be effected was an
extension of the joint occupation.
England did not flinch from her duty in

268 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
protecting her territory. In 1843 the Lynn
Bill was introduced into the United States
Senate providing for the erection of forts, for
free grants of lands to settlers, and for the
extension of the jurisdiction of the United
States to the disputed territory. Lord Palmer
ston, who was then of the Opposition in the
British House of Commons, affirmed that the
passage of the Bill would be a declaration of
war. The Bill passed the Senate, but no action
was taken upon it by the House of Representa
tives. FinaUy, in 1844 and in March 1845,
Great Britain proposed arbitration, but both
offers were declined by the United States ; and
when Polk declared in his inaugural message
for the whole of Oregon to 55° 40', Great
Britain began making extensive preparations
for war. Cathcart, who had learned the busi
ness of war in Russia as aide-de-camp to his
father in all the great battles against Napoleon
in Germany, and to the Duke of Wellington
at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo, was sent out to
Canada as commander of the King's Dragoon
Guards to put the country in a posture of
defence. At that moment intimation was given
by the United States that they "would not
reject an offer to settle " upon the line of 49°.

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 269
In the following April a formal proposal of
this Une as a boundary was made by Great
Britain and accepted. For sixty years England
had wrought upon this problem, persistently
offering peace, and yet holding herself ready
for war, the only means by which peace can
ever be secured.
It is a relief to turn from these complicated
operations of diplomacy in the West to con
sider the simple stages by which the boundary
between the United States and Canada was
established in the East, under the terms of the
Ashburton Treaty. At the outset a word in
defence of Lord Ashburton is due. Few British
servants have been more widely condemned ;
and yet his conduct must be viewed in the light
of the ethics of diplomacy. No question which
is so difficult that it must be submitted to
arbitration has all the right upon one side and
aU the wrong upon the other. When the
negotiations began, neither he nor his opponents
were convinced where the line should fall. It
was not a problem in mensuration or meta
physics, in which there is no middle standing-
ground between what is true and what is false.
It was a case of interpreting documents written
a century before by honest but ignorant men.

270 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
A curious difficulty was introduced into the
negotiations by the pedantic precision of a
draughtsman. In 1621 James I. granted
"Nova Scotia" to Sir William Alexander,
the western boundary of which extended from
the source of the St. Croix River "toward the
north," to the nearest waters draining into
the St. Lawrence. In the light of modern
knowledge this line runs WNW., but in
1763 the clerk who drew the Commission to
Montagu Wilmot, Governor of Nova Scotia,
in defining the limit of the province, described
it as following a " due north " line from the
source of the St. Croix. The subsequent dispute
turned upon the identity of the " north-west
angle of Nova Scotia," which great Britain
claimed was near to the source of the St. Croix ;
the United States claimed that this point lay
about twenty miles from the St. Lawrence.
In a court of law the duty of the advocate
is clear and the duty of the judge is clear.
But the ethics of advocacy are quite distinct
from the ethics of diplomacy. A diplomat is
at once advocate and judge. He must con
tend only to meet contention and thereby
establish an equity. Lord Ashburton acted
upon the best information available. He joined

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 271
in a judgment upon the case as it appeared,
and a judge must not be held to account be
cause he is not informed of what a missing
witness might have disclosed. According to
that sound principle of law and morality, it
must not be laid to the charge of Lord
Ashburton that he secured for England and
for Canada 900 square miles of territory more
than she was entitled to. The United States
accepted the award under a misapprehension
which was not of his making. In further de
fence, it must be put forward that it would
be crediting him with too great a degree of
astuteness to allege that he was aware that
the acquisition by England of this 900 miles
of United States territory would enable the
engineers of the National Transcontinental
Railway to locate their line in that very terri
tory and so avoid the mountainous region west
of Lake Temiscouta. Indeed, it was not untU
forty years after the signing of the treaty that
the idea of a Canadian transcontinental railway
of any kind had formulated itself.
I am quite weU aware that there are ignorant
persons in Canada who profess to hold the
belief — that is, if the word " belief" may be
employed in connection with a matter which

272 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
one has neither the desire nor capacity to
understand — that England did not receive an
award of all the territory to which she was
fairly entitled. The origin of this grotesque
fancy is extremely simple. The Senate of the
United States, which ultimately passes upon
all treaties, was as recalcitrant to reason in
those days as it is now, and could only be
induced to ratify the treaty by being persuaded
that they had received the best of the bargain.
Daniel Webster, by the simple device of show
ing the Senators an old map with a line drawn
upon it, easily convinced these statesmen, who
had the minds and conceptions and characters
of traders, that they were getting a good thing,
and they voted for the treaty.
The astute Webster knew his own country
men, and he took the easiest way. He also
knew that the States of Maine and New Hamp-
shfre, whose territory was at stake, were bitterly
opposed to the treaty, and that the failure of
the negotiations meant the outbreak of hos
tilities. Indeed, hostilities had afready broken
out in the "Restook War" as it was called.
Arrests were made by the authorities of New
Brunswick and of Maine. The President was
authorised to call out the militia, and ten

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 273
miUion doUars were voted for military defence.
Unfortunately the Senators, who were not re
markable for enlargement of mind, could not
refrain from telling how clever they had been,
and some Canadians believed the accounts
which they heard.
The most vulgar form in which the legend
appears is that Ashburton accepted as a basis
for negotiation a map which Webster had
pulled out of his pocket, on which was shown
the St. Croix River issuing into the Atlantic
to the south of Portland. The foolish story
goes that, when Ashburton accepted the St.
Croix as a boundary, he thought he was getting
all the sea-board and hinterland lying north of
a point which would give Portland to Canada
— an excellent bargain truly. Shorn of all
mythical details, the facts are these : — After the
Treaty of Paris the Count de Vergennes, he
who promoted the alliance with the United
States, requested Franklin to send him a
certain map. Franklin sent the copy on
which, as he stated in a covering letter, he
had drawn in red the boundary line between
the United States and Canada as agreed upon.
In 1842 a map was found by Mr. Sparks in the
archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs

274 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
in Paris, containing a line which approximated
to that contended for by Great Britain. It
was one of many maps in the department, but
there was nothing to indicate that it was the
one which Franklin had sent to Vergennes.
This was the famous "red line" map which
Webster produced before the Senate as evidence
that the United States were gaining territory
to which, under the Treaty of Paris, they were
not entitled.
But there was another map. On 27th March
1843 reference was made in the Queen's Speech
to the settlement of the boundary dispute by
the Ashburton Treaty. Within the next four
days a map was exhibited in Parliament as
proof that great Britain had not been imposed
upon. It was referred to by Mr. Everett, then
United States Minister to London, in a dispatch
under date 31st March 1843. The essential
part of this dispatch is contained in a speech
by Senator Benton, from which I quote : " We
aU know that in one of the debates which took
place in the British House of Commons on the
Ashburton Treaty, and after that treaty was
ratified and past recaU, mention was made of
a certain map called the King's Map, which had
belonged to the late King George IIL, and hung

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 275
in his library during his lifetime, and afterwards
in the Foreign Office, from which said office
the said map silently disappeared about the
time of the Ashburton Treaty, and which was
not before our Senate at the time ofthe ratifica
tion of that treaty. WeU, the member who
mentioned it in Parliament said there was a
strong red line upon it, about the tenth of
an inch wide, running all along where the
Americans said the true boundary was, with
these words written along it in four places in
King George's handwriting : ' This is Oswald's
line ' ; meaning it is the line of the treaty
negotiated by Mr. Oswald on the British side,
and therefore called Oswald's line."
It is a curious fact that, although this map
was referred to in at least two speeches made
in the United States Senate, in the Life of
Shelburne and in Moore's Treaties and Arbi
trations there was no record of the place in
which it might be found. In the summer of 1 908
Mr. James White, chief geographer for Canada,
discovered the map in the British Museum, and
noticed at a glance that Mr. Everett was correct
in his statement that the line marked, "As
described by Mr. Oswald," was in accordance
with the contention of the United States. Mr.

276 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
White had a copy of the map made, and pub
lished it in The University Magazine, December
1908. It shows conclusively that the boundary
line, as agreed upon by the plenipotentiaries who
concluded the Treaty of Paris, was essentially the
one which was afterwards claimed by the United
States preliminary to the Ashburton Treaty.
I am afraid there is evidence that British
diplomacy has not always been the naive, guile
less thing its friends would have us believe.
Certainly the moment chosen by this map for
losing itself was peculiarly opportune. Referring
to this question, Mr. Justin Winsor says : " If
this map was not known to the British Govern
ment at the time of the mission of Lord Asburton,
there was a convenient ignorance enjoyed by
the heads of the Administration which was not
shared by the under officers, for it was well
known, as Lord Brougham acknowledged, in
Lord Melbourne's time, when it was removed
from the British Museum to the Foreign Office."
During the discussion in the House of Commons
upon the motion for a formal vote of thanks
to Lord Ashburton, the disappearance of this
map was referred to, and one member intimated
that he thought British honour would have been
better consulted by showing this map to the

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 277
American negotiator. Lord Brougham, who
moved the motion, thought it would be carrying
frankness a little too far for the British negoti
ator to have set out with showing, " that he had
no case, and that he had not a leg to stand
upon." The boundary between the United States and
Canada was settled by the Treaty of Paris.
There was in reality nothing to dispute about.
The line extended " along the highlands which
divided the waters which emptied themselves
into the river St. Lawrence from those which
flowed into the Atlantic Ocean." It would
appear that any man who knew his right hand
from his left, and could follow a ridge without
crossing any water flowing to the right or the
left, would define the boundary in the very
words of the treaty ; but it would bring the
United States frontier within twenty miles of
the City of Quebec, and would cut off communi
cation between it and the provinces of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick. It commanded the
capital of British North America, and flanked
the principal British province for near two
hundred miles. This was the situation which
Ashburton had to face. Lord Ashburton was
well chosen. As Mr. Alexander Baring, the

278 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
head of the great banking house of Baling
Brothers, he had a large business connection
with the people and the Government of the
United States. His wife was an American
woman, and attached to him were Mr. Mildmay,
Mr. Bruce, and Mr. Stepping, who were described
as " gentlemen of mind, tact, and pleasing
deportment." It was a special mission, and was
looked upon as a mark of honour to the United
States. Even Mr. Fox, the resident Minister
at Washington, was not looked upon as suffi
ciently important to share in it.
Lord Ashburton received the formal thanks
of Parliament for his labours, on the ground
that he had accomplished every object that
Great Britain desired, and left undone every
thing which she wished to remain as it was.
The feeling in the United States at the time
over the treaty is weU expressed by Senator
Thomas A. Benton of Missouri in his Thirty
Years' View. The treaty, he protested, retired
the whole line from the heights which flanked
Lower Canada, and cut off as much of Maine
as admitted of a pretty direct communication
between Halifax and Quebec. It made a new
boundary in the North-west, depriving the
United States of the great line of transporta-

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 279
tion between Lake Superior and the Lake of
the Woods. It bound the United States to
pay for Rouse Point, and to keep up a
squadron in conjunction with the British on
the coast of Africa for the suppression of the
slave trade. An extradition clause was also
wanted by Great Britain, and she got it, broad
enough to cover the recapture of her subjects
whether innocent or guilty, and to secure
political offenders whilst professing to take
only common felons. These were the points,
he declared, which Great Britain wished settled,
and she got them all arranged according to
her own wishes. Others which the United
States wished settled were omitted and inde
finitely adjourned.
We have heard much about British diplomacy ;
let us now turn attention to our own, and inquire
what luck we had upon that important occasion
when the boundary of Alaska was defined under
an award dated 20th October 1903. The draft
ofthe Convention was submitted to the Canadian
Government in January and was approved by
it. The Convention was signed in Washington
24th January 1903. The ratifications were ex
changed 3rd March 1903. All these dates are
comparatively recent. Upon this tribunal we

280 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
had three jurors, and two of them were Canadians,
able men, men of truth, hating covetousness,
such as Jethro recommended to his famous son-
in-law. And yet we were not satisfied with
the award. Indeed one ofthe jurors, Mr. A. B.
Aylesworth, referring to the results of the labour
in which he had a share, describes it as a
"travesty of justice," which is a sad confession
of the ineptitude of a tribunal of whose con
stitution Canadians approved. I think, how
ever, that Mr. Aylesworth is too deprecatory of
our first essay in serious diplomacy, and that in
reality we obtained all which we could reason
ably have expected.
The matter in dispute was very simple. As
reported to his Government by Mr. Dall of the
Smithsonian Institute, there was a discrepancy
between the maps and the text of the narrative ;
that if the maps were to govern the possession
of the islands they ought to go to the United
States, and that if the treaty was " tried by the
text " they ought aU to go to Great Britain. The
United States arbitrators consequently treated
the maps as of primary importance, and insisted
that the award should not be based upon the
narrative. Up to this point we have been dealing with

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 281
diplomatic negotiations which were undertaken
for defining boundaries, and in two cases for
the avoidance of war. Let us now turn to the
lighter matters of trade, and deal with the
attempts at agreements for reciprocal relations
with the United States. One attempt succeeded :
all others ended in failure from the year 1865,
when Macdonald, Brown, Cartier, and Gait went
to London, and Gait and Howland went to
Washington; until 1896, when Sir Wilfrid
Laurier returned and announced that the attempt
was hopeless, and that there would be no more
pilgrimages to Washington. Nearly every public
man in Canada for thirty years tried his hand
at this branch of diplomacy — -Rose, Hincks,
Macdonald, Tupper, Cartwright, Thompson,
Bowell, Foster, Laurier — and failed.
The single exception was the Reciprocity
Treaty of 1854, which was negotiated by Lord
Elgin. The year before the operation of this
treaty the trade of Canada with the United
States amounted to 20 miUion dollars ; the first
year the treaty was in force the volume of
trade at once increased to 33 millions. In 1855
it was 42 millions ; in 1857 it was 46 millions ;
in 1859, 48 millions; in 1863, 55 millions; in
1864, 67 millions ; in 1865, 71 millions ; and in

282 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
1866, the year the treaty was abrogated by the
American Government, it had reached the high
figure of 84 miUion dollars. As a result of this
treaty Canada's trade with the United States
had nearly quadrupled in twelve years.
There is nothing so amusing in the history
of diplomacy as the account of the method by
which Lord Elgin extracted this treaty from the
United States. The facts are set forth by
Lawrence Oliphant, who acted as Secretary to
Lord Elgin during the negotiations. When Lord
Elgin arrived in Washington he was informed
by the President and the Secretary of State
that it was quite hopeless to think that any
such treaty as he proposed could be carried
through in the face of the opposition on the
part of the democrats, who held a majority in
the Senate. A few days later the Secretary
remarked to his chief, "I find that all my
most intimate friends are Democratic Senators."
Under his subtle touch the opposition disap
peared, and in fourteen days the treaty was
ratified. One cannot refrain from dwelling upon the
incident, to illustrate the truth that a diplomatist
has a thing to do and must do it in the best
way it can be done. Lord Elgin's skill lay in

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 283
discovering the method. At the end of a week
" the serious business of the visit was not yet
in train." The Secretary was engaged every
morning making arrangements with ministers
who were " 'cute dodgy fellows, with a sinister
motive in the background which it was some
times difficult to discover." " It is necessary to
the success of our mission," he wrote, " that we
conciliate everybody, and to refuse their in
vitations would be considered insulting. Lord
Elgin pretends to drink immensely, but I watched
him, and I don't believe he drank a glass
between two and twelve." After such a feat
of deception in the face of the Senators of those
days, perhaps we shall hear less ofthe simplicity
of the Englishman. " Lord Elgin," his secre
tary continues, "is the most thorough diplomat
possible, — never loses sight for a moment of his
object, and while he is chaffing Yankees, and
slapping them on the back, he is systematically
pursuing that object." " At present," this faith
ful servant adds, " I am as satisfied that it is
my duty to go to balls as to go to Sunday-
school was."
One night they dined with rather a singular
houseful of people : the master of the house
was a senator, Methodist preacher and teetotaler ;

284 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
consequently they had nothing to drink but iced
water. This experience appears to have been
rather exceptional, because the record of the
gaieties shows that everybody drank champagne,
and, in addition, " there was usually a bowl on
the table in which you might have drowned a
baby, a most delicious and insinuating con
coction." The wife of the host was not present,
but her place was taken by her daughter, who
wore a reformed dress which used to be described
forty years ago as a bloomer. The husband of
this young lady is described as an " avowed and
rampant infidel," so that altogether it must
have been a curious assemblage.
Upon another occasion, after a grand dinner
the senators were so enamoured by Elgin's
faculty of brilliant repartee and racy anecdote
that he was persuaded to accompany them to
the house of a popular and influential politician.
In the group was Senator Mason, afterwards of
Mason and Slidell notoriety. It was midnight
when they arrived and their host was in bed.
When he was aroused he appeared at the door
clad only in a very short nightshirt. "All
right, boys," he said, " you go in and I'U go down
and get the drink." Presently he returned with
his arms filled with bottles of champagne, on the

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 285
top of which were two large lumps of ice.
Whilst the bottles were being opened he pro
ceeded to dress himself, and all prepared to
spend a pleasant evening. In the course of the
conversation a member of the party, in a fit of
exuberant enthusiasm, addressed Lord Elgin :
"As for our dear old host the Governor here,
I tell you Lord 'Elgine, he is a perfect king
in his own country. There ain't a man in
Mussoorie dar say a word against him ; if any
of your darned English lords was to go down
there and dar to he'd tell them." . . . Here
foUowed an expression of those terms which the
Governor might be expected to employ in the
circumstances mentioned. "That's a lie," said
the governor. " I can blaspheme, and profane,
and rip, and snort with any man, but I never
make use of a vulgar expression to a guest."
Other senators joined in the apology, and assured
Lord Elgin that if aU English lords were like
him, and would become naturalised Americans,
they would " run the country." They thought
it a thousand pities that he had not been born
an American and so have been eligible for the
Presidency. The festivities preliminary to the
treaty were enlivened by a ball given by Sir
Philip Crampton in honour of the Queen's

286 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
birthday. The following account of the affafr
is taken from a Washington newspaper : —
"As for the ladies present, our pen fairly
falters in the attempt to do justice to thefr
charms. Our artists and modistes had racked
their brains and exhausted their magazines of
dainty and costly fabrics, in order to convince
the world in general, and the English people
in particular, that the sovereign fair ones of
Washington regarded their sister sovereign of
England with feelings not only of ' the most
distinguished consideration' but of downright
love, admiration, and respect — love for the
woman, admiration for the wife of the hand
somest man in Europe, and respect for the
mother of nine babies. More was accomplished
last evening in the way of negotiation than has
been accomplished from the days of Ashburton
to the advent of Elgin. We regard the fishery
question as settled, both parties having partaken
freely of the bait so liberally provided by the
noble host.
"Amid the soft footfalls of fairy feet — the
glittering of jewels — the graceful sweep of five-
hundred-dollar dresses — the sparkling of eyes
which shot forth alternately flashes of lightning
and love — there were two gentlemen who ap-

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 287
peared to be the ' observed of aU observers.'
One was the Earl of Elgin, and the other Sir
Charles Graj. Lord Elgin is a short, stout
gentleman, on the shady side of forty, and is
decidedly John Bullish in walk, talk, appear
ance, and carriage. His face, although round
and fuU, beams with intellect, good feeling, and
good humour. His manners are open, frank,
and winning. Sir Charles Gray is a much
larger man than his noble countryman, being
both taUer and stouter. He is about sixty
years of age, and his manners are particularly
grave and dignified.
" The large and brilliant company broke up
at a late hour, and departed for their respective
homes — pleased with their courtly and courteous
host; pleased with the monarchial form of
government in the United States ; pleased with
each other, themselves, and the rest of man
kind." This was a fair beginning for negotiating a
treaty, and Elgin informed President Pierce and
Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of State, that all was
ready. This Marcy is described as a comical
old gentleman, whose popularity with his
countrymen rested chiefly in the fact that he
had charged the Government 50 cents "for

288 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
repairing his breeches," when he was upon a
mission to inquire into certain transactions in
which great financial irregularities had taken
place. Mr. Oliphant gives a vivid account of
the signing of the only Reciprocity Treaty which
Canada has ever had with the United States : —
"It was in the dead of night, during the
last five minutes of the Sth of June and the
first five minutes of the 6th of the month afore
said, that four individuals might have been
observed seated in a spacious chamber lighted
by six wax candles and an Argand lamp.
Their faces were expressive of deep and earnest
thought not unmixed with suspicion. Their
feelings, however, to the cute observer, mani
fested themselves in different ways ; but this
was natural, as two were in the bloom of youth,
one in the sear and yeUow leaf, and one in the
prime of middle age. This last it is whose
measured tones alone break the silence of mid
night, except when one or other of the younger
auditors, who are both poring intently over
voluminous MSS., interrupts him to interpolate
an ' and ' or erase a ' the.' They are, in fact,
checking him as he reads ; and the aged man
listens, while he picks his teeth with a pair of
scissors^ or cleans out the wick of a candle with

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 289
their points, which he afterwards wipes on his
grey hafr. He may occasionally be observed
to wink, either from conscious cuteness or un
conscious drowsiness. Presently the clock
sfrikes twelve, and there is a doubt whether
the date should be to-day or yesterday. There
is a moment of solemn silence, when the reader,
having finished the document, lays it down,
and takes a pen which had been previously
impressively dipped in the ink by the most
inteUigent-looking of the young men, who
appears to be his " secretary," and who keeps
his eye warily fixed upon the other young man,
who occupied the same relation to the aged
listener with the scissors.
" There is something strangely mysterious
and suggestive in the scratching of that mid
night pen, for it may be scratching fortunes or
ruin to toiling millions. Then the venerable
statesman takes up the pen to append his
signature. His hand does not shake though
he is very old, and knows the abuse that is
in store for him from members of Congress
and an enUghtened press. That hand, it is
said, is not all unused to a revolver ; and it
does not now waver, though the word he traces
may be an involver of a revolver again. He

290 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
is now Secretary of State ; before that he was
a judge of the Supreme Court; before that, a
general in the army; before that, governor of
a State ; before that. Secretary of War ; before
that. Minister to Mexico ; before that, a member
of the House of Representatives ; before that,
a poUtician; before that a cabinetmaker. He
ends as he began, with Cabinet work ; and he
is not, at his time of life and with his varied
experience, afraid either of the wrath of his
countrymen or the wiles of an English lord.
So he gives us his blessing and the treaty duly
signed; and I retfre to dream of its contents,
and to listen in my troubled sleep to the
perpetuaUy recurring refrain of the three im
pressive words with which the pregnant docu
ment concludes — ' Unmanufactured tobacco ;
rags.' "
There is nothing discreditable in aU this to
Lord Elgin or to the Americans either. They
showed themselves to be humane, kindly
men; and any one who would deal with
them, even in these days, must treat them
with at least an appearance of respect,
with genuine good humour, sweetness of
temper, and kindliness.
A British subject cannot approach the Treaty

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 291
of Paris with much glee. This treaty, which
was signed 3rd September 1783, by Hartley on
the part of Great Britain, and by Franklin,
Adams, and Jay on the part of the United States,
is what Mr. White describes as the " date line"
in the territorial history of Canada. The chief
negotiator on behalf of Great Britain was
Richard Oswald, who is described by Franklin
as "a pacifical man," and again as "a plain
and sincere old man, who seems now to have
no desire but that of being useful in doing
good." Fitzmaurice, the biographer of Shel
burne — ^who, as Secretary of State for Home
Affairs, had charge of the negotiations — refers
to Oswald as a man " whose simplicity of
mind and straightforwardness of character
struck all who knew him." It is an easy
guess what luck this simple-minded mer
chant, with these specifically Scotch charac
teristics, would have in such company as
Franklin, Adams, and Jay, who were practising
a method of diplomacy hitherto unknown
amongst civilised men.
The experienced M. de Vergennes instructed
the French Minister at Philadelphia to inform
the American Secretary of State that the Com
missioners had deceived him and had been

292 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
guUty of a gross breach of faith. Mr. Henry
Strachey, who was Under Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, was not so amiable as the Frenchman.
Adams admitted that he "presses every point
as far as it can possibly go. He is a most
eager, earnest, and pointed spirit " ; and Oswald
wrote to Townshend : " He enforced our pre
tensions by every argument that reason, justice,
and humanity could suggest." American his
torians are not so complacent over Mr. Strachey
as they are over Oswald, and he is described
as "an exponent of English arrogance, in
solence, and general offensiveness." But Mr.
Strachey wrote in return: "These Americans
are the greatest quibblers I ever knew." There
is some evidence that even in our own day
this proclivity has not entirely ceased. The
late Sir John Macdonald, who himself was not
precisely a simpleton, writing confidentially to
a colleague in 1871 respecting the protocols
on the Treaty of Washington, said: "The
language put into the mouths of the British
Commissioners is strictly correct ; but I cannot
say as much for that of our American col
leagues. They have inserted statements as
having been made by them, which in fact were
never made, in order that they may have an

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 293
effect on the Senate. My English coUeagues
were a good deal surprised at the proposition;
but as the statements did not prejudice England,
we left them at liberty."
It is some extenuation of the conduct of
Mr. Oswald to say that his information about
Canada was not in excess of that which was
possessed by the men of his time. It was the
common belief that the " back lands of Canada
was a country worth nothing and of no im
portance." The character in " Candide " who
described Canada as nothing more than " quel-
ques arpents de neige," was giving expression
to the geographical knowledge current in the
time of Voltaire ; and Professor Lafleur reminds
me that Burke gave utterance to the opinion
that its value was only that of a few hundred
wild-cat skins. Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, another
negotiator for Great Britain, has left it on
record that " many of the best men in Eng
land were for giving up Canada and Nova
Scotia." Mr. Oswald could not know how desperate
was the financial and military outlook in the
United States, that the treasury was empty
and the army importuning for thefr pay, that
Washington had reported that it was impossible

294 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
to recruit his force by voluntary enlistment,
and that the abolition of paper money, the
length of the war, the arrears of debt, and
the slender thread by which public credit hung,
made it totally out of their power to make any
further great exertions.
It must also be remembered that the
American Commissioners were of the opinion
that " England should make a voluntary offer
of Canada." They asserted that "by the
Treaty of Paris of 1763, Canada was ex
pressly and irrevocably ceded by France to the
King of Great Britain, and that the United
States are in consequence of the revolution
in their Government entitled to the benefits
of that cession." They claimed that England
shoiUd offer reparation for the towns and
viUages which had been burned by her troops
and her Indian aUies, amounting to half a
million pounds sterling. In addition, they
demanded free trade in England and Ireland,
and fuU freedom of fishing in British
waters. I am never done saying that decisions must
be estimated in view of all the cfrcumstances
under which they were arrived at, though it is
no great feat in criticism to protest that, even

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 295
without the intention of being malicious or
unjust, it is possible for writers on political
metaphysics to nourish illusions if they are
ignorant of the evidence, and that they are
entitled to maintain silence about the Treaty of
Paris until they appreciate the condition which
English statesmen faced in the midsummer of
1782. England had been fighting France, Spain,
and HoUand in Europe, and the colonists in
America. In Europe she faced the armed
neutrality of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia,
and the Empfre ; practically the whole civilised
world. In November 1781, Lord Shelburne
stated that the last loan for £21,000,000 had
only reaUsed £12,000,000, that £80,000,000
had afready been added to the national debt,
which would amount to £100,000,000 before the
next campaign was over, and that, in Europe,
England had not a single ally. During the
next few months fresh disasters came. The
fleet of brave Kempenfeldt was too feeble to face
the French squadron. St. Eustatia, Demerara,
Essequibo, St. Christopher, Nevis, Montserrat,
and Minorca were lost; Gibraltar had been
beleaguered since 1779 ; in America, with the
exception of New York and Charlestown,

296 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
practicaUy the whole mainland occupied by the
thirteen colonies was lost ; and above aU, peace
was demanded by the mercantile community.
The continued refusal by England of any
mediation in which the revolted colonies should
be included had finally alienated her from all
the Continental powers.
Shelburne was the last man in the world to
yield to anything short of ultimate necessity.
Although in .1766 he attacked the policy of the
Stamp Act, and assisted in passing its repeal,
and in 1768 opposed coercive measures against
the colonists, in 1778, in the debate on Lord
North's conciliatory bills, he declared that' "he
would never consent that America should be in
dependent," and nine months later he solemnly
declared that "he never would serve with any
man, be his abilities what they might, who
would either maintain it was right, or consent,
to acknowledge the independency of America."
In 1781, in Parliament, he pointed out the
impossibUity of continuing the struggle with
America; three months later he asserted again
that "he never would consent, under any possible
given circumstances, to acknowledge the in
dependency of America"; and in Jidy 1782, he
declared that he had never altered his opinion

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 297
with regard to the independence of America,
and " to nothing short of necessity would he
give way on that head."
There is no evidence of a lack of resolution
in this. In his extremity the genius of England
came to his aid as he wrote to Oswald, 27th
July: "You very well know that I have
never made a secret of the deep concern I feel
in the separation of countries united by blood,
by principles, habits, and every tie short of
territorial proximity. But you very weU know
that I have long since given it up, decidedly
though reluctantly, and the same motives which
made me perhaps the last to give up aU hope of
re-union, make me most anxious, if it is given
up, that it shaU be done decidedly, so as to
avoid all future risk of enmity, and lay the
foundation of a new connection better adapted
to the present temper and interests of both
countries." The bitterest opponents of the Americans
in this treaty-making were their friends, the
French. Vergennes, whilst willing that the
colonies should be independent, desired to hem
them in between the AUeghanies and the
Atlantic, nor did he intend that they should
be granted fishing rights on the banks of New-

298 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
foundland. He intimated that France would
expect very considerable concessions, and his
Spanish accomplices proposed to claim that the
possession by Spain of West Florida included
the territory between the AUeghanies and the
Mississippi extending to the Great Lakes.
The defeat by Rodney of De Grasse's fleet put
an end to these pretensions, and England, freed
from domestic difficulties by the preliminary
treaty of 30th November 1782, which was in
tended " to lay the foundation of future good
wiU, and to leave as few causes of future differ
ence as possible between the two nations," beat
the Spaniards off from Gibraltar, and in less
than two months arranged articles of peace with
France and with Spain, and with HoUand a
truce which passed into an amity which has
endured to this day.
Possibly the reader does not require aU this
information. I feel the need of giving it ; and
I have stated the facts in aU thefr simplicity to
induce a new way of thinking, to dispel that
ignorance in which the eternal wisdom has
chosen to allow us to remain too long, and
which yet infests even laborious writers endowed
with some gift of expression, who are serious
whilst they are absurd, and trusting to human

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 299
credulity instil into their writings a spirit which
is three-fourths false.
From a survey of British diplomacy one is
inclined to refrain from contradicting those who
afffrm that all things are divinely ordered to a
far-off end. In the patience of England in her
dealings with her own there appears to be a
spfrit which is something more than mundane.
If any one would understand what I mean he
must read the " Congressional Globe," wherein
are recorded the transactions of the Senate and
of the House of Representatives of the United
States. No task could be more desolating to
the intelligence, although it is lessened by such
splendid patriotism and humanity as is displayed,
for example, by one of the honoured name of
Winthrop in the debate upon the Oregon
question, who opposed Mr. Simms of Missouri,
when he declared : " Oregon, aU or none ; now
or never. I am for the whole, and in defence
of it I wiU see every river, from its source to
the ocean, reddened with blood." The British
diplomatists must have read the speech of Mr.
Rhett of South Carolina, as we may read it
to-day, in which he puts forward the results
which would foUow, "when we subdue Eng
land, and plant our banner on the palace of

300 ESSAYS IN POLITICS
St. James " ; or the speech of Mr. Giddings, in
which he declared that war " would inevitably
place in our possession the Canadas, Nova
Scotia, and New Brunswick." It must have
been hard to be patient in face of that. Who
could have foretold what the issue and event
of the thing should be ? — England tacitly agree
ing that the two navies are one navy for the
purpose of maintaining the supremacy of the
race, and consequently the order and liberty of
the world.
With beings who are human, and therefore
neither infallible nor omniscient, there must
at times be a choice of duties. When a man
would gird up his loins for the saving of his
life, he must not be chided too bitterly for his
extravagance in casting away all hampering
garments. Nor wiU an Admfralty Court cen
sure too severely the seaman who jettisons his
deck-load to lighten his ship in the face of
an impending storm. The trader who protests,
after the storm has been weathered, that his
goods were damaged will receive scant con
sideration ; and even if the negotiators of the
Treaty of Paris appear to the ignorant to de
serve the scorn which has been heaped upon
them, we must remember that England was

BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND CANADA 301
freeing her hands for that great struggle which
was to decide whether she was to establish
her supremacy as a sea-power, or whether she
was to take her place by the side of Holland
and spend her last days in reflecting upon her
departed glory.

THE END

Printed by Ballanttnb, Hanson 6" Co,
Edinburgh &¦ London

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03747 1274