Page:The New England Magazine 1891, 5.1.djvu/113
good will. Annexation, many believe, would raise the country from an unprosperous, dispirited condition, to one of great prosperity and importance. In truth, Canada needs and must have free trade with her nearest, wealthy and powerful neighbor, whether under the form of Annexation or a Reciprocity Treaty. The striking success of great numbers of their fellow countrymen in the United States causes Canadians to realize the great importance of more extensive industrial and social relations with it, and further they recall the rapid increase of Canadian prosperity under the old Reciprocity Treaty, although it only admitted a few Canadian products to the American market. A liberal policy on the part of the Republic might promptly bring about such results as the true patriots on both sides must desire.
Political as well as other experiments are in this generation judged by their fruits. Many, French and British, believe that the last experiment in constitution moulding has not evinced signs of great wisdom. The rapid, the startling growth of the debt of Canada, which has increased from $78,209,742 in 1870, to $238,000,000 in 1890, with a population almost at a standstill and a stagnant trade, has struck calm, impartial observers with the idea that there has been something wrong in the government of a peaceful young state of enormous extent and great natural resources. Of course, a large portion of this debt was incurred for the construction of railways, improvements of canals, and similar political and commercial works; but the results or returns do not compensate for the vastness of the new debt with its oppressive load of interest. They freely comment upon the fact that while the United States have reduced their debt from $59 to $16.50 per head in twenty years, Canada has run up her's from $21 to $47.
Other sources of discouragement are the local troubles, the large and steady emigration of Canadians of all origins to the United States. Actually twenty-eight thousand left the country last year. Another of the influences quietly yet vigorously promoting, among French and other Canadians, annexation feelings is the already huge debt of the Province of Quebec, with its heavy burdens and discouraging prospects of early and yet further considerable augmentation, fora new loan of nine or ten millions is contemplated at an early day.
No secular subjects elicit such remarkable differences between men of similar intelligence and abilities, even in the same community, as those connected with politics. However well informed or honest, neighbors and fellow citizens and even friends will often see public transactions in the most different lights, forming opposite conclusions. Thus, I am sorry to dissent from some of the opinions of a well-known Canadian writer for the press. I sincerely wish I could see the condition of my native land in that rose-colored light present to Dr. George Stewart, Jr., at the banquet to the Comte de Paris at Quebec City in October, 1890. A judicious critic, charming essayist, and reliable historian, his remarks on the state of the country, on that occasion, naturally elicited considerable applause. The subjoined extract will give an idea of the learned doctor's views:
"We are here a happy, a loyal, an industrious, and a religious people. We enjoy the freest system of Government in the world. Our Parliamentary methods have been borrowed from the splendid experiences of England and the United States. We think we have embodied the better features of both. We make our own laws. We regulate our own tariff. We afford our people perfect liberty of action as regards their politics, their religion, and their way of life and movement. Our press is independent and free. The door to our highest offices is never shut. We have unbounded confidence in the ballot box, and our appointed officers rarely afford grounds for criticism. Two great oceans wash our shores, and the land is rich, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the choicest products of the field, the farm, the forest, and the prairie. Our soil from end to end, is abundantly watered by thousands of rivers and lakes, and population only is the demand of Canada. In time population will come. Our people are self-reliant. The best blood of France, of England, of Scotland,