10 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



dizement show themselves aware by frankly pro- 

 posing to let Canada go. 



It is taken for granted that political depend- 

 ence is the natural state of all colonies, and that 

 there is something unfilial and revolutionary in 

 proposing that a colony should become a nation. 

 But what is a colony ? We happen to have de- 

 rived the term from a very peculiar set of institu- 

 tions, those Roman colonies which had no life of 

 their own, but were merely the military and po- 

 litical outposts of the imperial republic. With 

 the Roman colonies may be classed the Athenian 

 cleruchies and, substituting the commercial for 

 the political object, the factories of Carthage. 

 But colonies, generally speaking, are migrations, 

 and, as a rule, they have been independent from 

 the beginning. Independent from the beginning, 

 so far as we know, were the Phoenician colonies, 

 Carthage herself among the number. Indepen- 

 dent from the beginning were those Greek colo- 

 nies in Italy which rapidly outran their mother- 

 cities in the race of material greatness. Inde- 

 pendent from the beginning were the Saxon and 

 Scandinavian colonies, and all those settlements 

 of the Northern tribes which founded England 

 herself with the other nations of modern Europe. 

 Go far as we can see, the original independence 

 in each case was an essential condition of vigor 

 and success. No Roman colony, Athenian cle- 

 )-uchi/, or Carthaginian factory, ever attained real 

 greatness. New England, the germ and organizer 

 of the American communities, was practically 

 independent for a long time after her foundation, 

 the attention of the English Government being 

 engrossed by troubles at home ; but she retained 

 a slender thread of theoretic dependence by which 

 she was afterward drawn back into a noxious and 

 disastrous subordination. That thread was the 

 feudal tie of personal allegiance, a tie utterly irra- 

 tional when carried beyond the feudal pale, and 

 by the recent naturalization treaties now formally 

 abolished; yet probably the main cause of the 

 continued subjection of the transatlantic colo- 

 nies, and of the calamities which flowed both to 

 them and to the mother - country from that 

 source. 



It is natural that British statesmen should 

 shrink from a formal act of separation, and that 

 in their brief and precarious tenure of power 

 they should be unwilling to take the burden and 

 possible odium of such a measure upon them- 

 selves. But no one, we believe, ventures to say 

 that the present system will be perpetual ; cer- 

 tainly not the advocates of imperial confedera- 

 tion, who warn us that, unless England by a total 



change of system draws her colonies nearer to 

 her, they will soon drift farther away. 



Apart from lingering sentiment, it seems not 

 easy to give reasons, so far as Canada is con- 

 cerned, for struggling to prolong the present sys- 

 tem. The motives for acquiring and holding de- 

 pendencies in former days were substantial if 

 they were not good. Spain drew tribute directly 

 from her dependencies. England thought she 

 drew it indirectly through her commercial system. 

 It was also felt that the military resources of the 

 colonies were at the command of the mother- 

 country. When the commercial system was re- 

 linquished, and when self-government transferred 

 to the colonies the control of their own resources, 

 the financial and military motives ceased to exist. 

 But the conservative imagination supplied their 

 place with the notion of political tutelage, feign- 

 ing — though, as we have seen, against all the evi- 

 dence of history — that the colony, during the 

 early stages of its existence, needed the political 

 guidance of the mother-country in order to fit it 

 to become a nation. Such was the language of 

 colonial statesmen generally till the present con- 

 servative reaction again brought into fashion 

 something like the old notion of aggrandizement, 

 though for tribute and military contingents, the 

 solid objects of the old policy, is now substi- 

 tuted " prestige." That the political connection 

 between England and Canada is a source of 

 military security to either, nobody, we appre- 

 hend, maintains. The only vulnerable point 

 which England presents to the United States is 

 the defenseless frontier of Canada ; the only 

 danger to which Canada is exposed is that of 

 being involved in a quarrel between the aris- 

 tocracy of England and the democracy of the 

 United States. Defenseless, it is believed, the 

 frontier of Upper Canada has been officially 

 pronounced to be, and the chances of a des- 

 perate resistance to the invader in the French 

 province can scarcely be rated very high. It is 

 said that the British fleet would bombard New 

 York. If Canada were in the hands of the ene- 

 my, the bombardment of New York would hard- 

 ly alleviate her condition. But the bombard- 

 ment of New York might not be an easy matter. 

 The force of floating coast-defenses seems now 

 to be growing superior to that of ocean-going 

 navies. Besides, America would choose the mo- 

 ment when England was at war with some other 

 naval power. Soldiers and sailors, and of the 

 best quality, England might no doubt find in 

 Canada ; but she would have to pay for them 

 more than she pays for soldiers and sailors re- 



