THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA. 



9 



of union arising from a very partial community 

 of descent, and a very imperfect community of 

 language, which would be the sole ground of the 

 federation. Even to frame the agreement as to 

 the terms of union with the shifting parties and 

 ephemeral cabinets of a score of colonies under 

 constitutional government would be no easy task. 

 The two Parliaments, the one National, the other 

 Federal, which it is proposed to establish in order 

 to keep the national affairs of England separate 

 from those of the Imperial Federation, would be 

 liable to be brought into fatal conflict, and thrown 

 into utter confusion by the ascendency of differ- 

 ent parties, say a war party and a peace party, 

 in the National and the Federal House. The 

 veriest Chinese puzzle in politics would be a 

 practicable constitution, if you could only get 

 the real forces to conduct themselves according 

 to the programme. It was not in the programme 

 of Canadian confederation that the provinces 

 should form separate interests in the Federal 

 Parliament, and force the party leaders to bid 

 against each other for their support ; though any 

 one who had studied actual' tendencies in connec- 

 tion with the system of party government might 

 have pretty confidently predicted that such would 

 be the result. That England would allow ques- 

 tions of foreign policy, of armaments, and of 

 peace and war, to be settled for her by any coun- 

 cils but her own, it is surely most chimerical to 

 suppose. A swarm of other difficulties would 

 probably arise out of the perpetual vicissitudes 

 of the party struggle in each colony, the conse- 

 quent inability of the delegates to answer for the 

 real action of their own governments, and the 

 estrangement of the delegates themselves from 

 colonial interest and connections by their neces- 

 sary residence in England. An essential condi- 

 tion of federation appears to be tolerable equality 

 among the members, or freedom from the ascen- 

 dency of any overweening power ; but, for a cen- 

 tury to come, at least, the power of England in 

 the Federal council would be overweening ; and, 

 to obviate this difficulty, some advocates of the 

 scheme actually propose to repeal the union of 

 England with Scotland and Ireland, so that she 

 may be reduced to a manageable element of a 

 Pan-Britannic confederation. They have surely 

 little right to call other people disunionists, if 

 any opprobrious meaning attaches to that term. 



Supposing such a confederation to be practi- 

 cable, of what use, apart from the vague feeling 

 of aggrandizement, would it be ? Where would 

 be the advantage of taking from each of these 

 young communities its political centre (which 



must also be, to some extent, its social and in- 

 tellectual centre), aud of accumulating them in 

 the already overgrown capital of England? 

 Does experience tell us that unlimited extension 

 of territory is favorable to intensity of political 

 life, or to anything which is a real element of 

 happiness or of greatness ? Does it not tell us 

 that the reverse is the fact, and that the interest 

 of history centres not in megalosaurian empires, 

 but in states the body of which has not been out 

 of proportion to the brain ? Surely it would be 

 well to have some distinct idea of the object to 

 be attained before commencing this unparalleled 

 struggle against geography and Nature. It can 

 hardly be military strength. Military strength is 

 not gained by dispersion of forces, by presenting 

 vulnerable points in every quarter of the globe, 

 or by embracing and undertaking to defend com- 

 munities which, whatever may be their fighting 

 qualities, in their policy are thoroughly unmili- 

 tary, and unmilitary will remain. Mr. Forster, in 

 fact, gives us to understand that the Pan-Britannic 

 Empire is to present a beneficent contrast to the 

 military empires ; that it is to be an empire of 

 peace. But in that case it must, like other 

 Quaker institutions, depend for its safety on the 

 morality and forbearance of the holders of real 

 and compact power, which is very far from be- 

 ing the dream of the advocates of " a great 

 game." 



In all these projects of Pan-Britannic empire 

 there lurks the assumption of a boundless mul- 

 tiplication of the Anglo-Saxon race. What are 

 the grounds for this assumption? Hitherto it 

 has appeared that races, as they grow richer, 

 more luxurious, more fearful of poverty, more 

 amenable to the restraints of social pride, have 

 become less prolific. There is reason to suppose 

 that in the United States the Anglo-Saxon race 

 is far less prolific than the Irish, who are even 

 supplanting the Anglo-Saxons in some districts 

 of England, as the home-rule compliances of 

 candidates for northern boroughs show. But the 

 Irish element is small compared with the vast 

 reservoir of industrial population in China, which 

 is now beginning to overflow, and seems as like- 

 ly as the Anglo-Saxon race to inherit Australia, 

 where it has already a strong foothold, as well as 

 the coast of the Pacific. 



Canada, however, with regard to the problem 

 of imperial confederation stands by herself, pre- 

 senting, from her connection with the United 

 States, difficulties from which in the case of the 

 Australian colonies the problem is free. Of this 

 some of the advocates of the policy of aggran- 



