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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



of the English Government, not in consequence 

 of its wise and provident assistance." Such is 

 the refrain of almost all the works on the colonies, 

 whether they treat of the general administration 

 or of some special question, such as that of the 

 crown-lands, which appears to have been solved 

 by Downing Street in various ways, but always 

 wrong. Not by government, but by fugitives 

 from the tyranny of government, the great Ameri- 

 can colony was founded ; unaided and unregulated 

 it grew, and laid the deep foundations of society 

 in the New World. With tutelage came blunder- 

 ing, jobbery, mischief of all kinds, and at last a 

 violent rupture, which, injurious as it was to the 

 mother-country, inflicted a still greater injury on 

 the colony by launching it on the career of de- 

 mocracy with a violent revolutionary bias, where- 

 as it needed a bias in favor of respect for author- 

 ity. The presence of the British embassador at 

 the Centenary was not only the ratification of 

 the revolt, but the condemnation of the colonial 

 system. After the American Revolution, the 

 next step of the British Government was to 'divert 

 the stream of English emigration from America — 

 where there was abundant room for it, and whither, 

 the pioneer work having then been done, it would 

 have been most profitably directed — to Australia, 

 where the pioneer work had to be done over 

 again, measures being at the same time taken to 

 taint the new society with convict-blood. To 

 what good this scattering of English emigration 

 has led, beyond the poetic conception of a bound- 

 less empire, it would seem difficult to say ; and Can- 

 ada, before she expresses conventional joy at the 

 annexation of Feejee, should ask herself whether 

 a new colony is anything more to her than a new 

 competitor for the labor which is her prime need. 

 In Canada herself, tutelage, while it was really 

 exercised, led to every sort of evil. Government 

 was jobbed by an oligarchy called the Family 

 Compact, which Downing Street supported, not 

 from bad motives, but from sheer ignorance of 

 facts, till the misrule ended in the insurrection 

 of 183V. Things have gone smoothly only since 

 real tutelage has departed, and left nothing but 

 an image of royalty which reigns with gracious 

 speeches and hospitality, but does not govern. 

 There has been no want of good intentions on the 

 part of English statesmen, nor would it be reason- 

 able to suppose that there has been any special 

 want of wisdom ; probably no other statesmen 

 would have done so well ; but the task imposed 

 on them was hopeless. One tree might as well 

 be set to regulate the growth of another tree, as 

 one nation to regulate the growth of another na- 



tion ; and in this case the two trees are of differ- 

 ent sorts and planted under different skies. 



We can imagine the single mind of a despot 

 moulding the political character of a colony, if 

 not well, at least with adequate knowledge, with 

 intelligence, and upon a definite plan. But Eng- 

 land is not a single mind. England is the vast 

 and motley mass of voters, including, since the 

 Conservative Reform Bill, the most uneducated 

 populace of the towns — people who, in politics, 

 do not know their right hand from their left, who 

 cannot tell the name of the leader of their own 

 party, who vote for blue or yellow, and are led 

 by senseless local cries, by bribery, or by beer. 

 These are the political tutors of Canada, a coun- 

 try in which both wealth and education are more 

 diffused than they are here. How much does the 

 average Englishman, or even the educated Eng- 

 lishman, know about Canadian politics ? As 

 much as Canadians know about the politics of 

 Tasmania or the Cape. In " Phineas Finn," the 

 hero of the tale, being under-secretary for the 

 colonies, goes on a message to Marylebone "to 

 find what the people there think about the Can- 

 adas." His report is : " Not one man in a thou- 

 sand cares whether the Canadians prosper or fail 

 to prosper. They care that Canada should not 

 go to the States, because, though they don't love 

 the Canadians, they do hate the Americans. 

 That's about the feeling in Marylebone, and it's 

 astonishing how like the Maryleboners are to the 

 rest of the world." It will hardly be said that 

 this is an unfair picture of a Londoner's normal 

 frame of mind with regard to Canadian ques- 

 tions, or that Dorsetshire and Tipperary are bet- 

 ter informed than London. When did a Canadian 

 question influence an English election ? How 

 often is Canada mentioned in an election-address ? 

 Canadian journals are never tired of exposing 

 what they deem the scandalous ignorance of the 

 leading journals of England on Canadian subjects, 

 but they fail to draw the obvious moral. If the 

 Times blunders, are the leaders of English opin- 

 ion generally, and their constituents, likely to be 

 better instructed and to decide aright ? Burke, 

 writing of the American Revolution, said that he 

 could trace all the mischief " to the single source 

 of not having had steadily before our eyes a gen- 

 eral, comprehensive, and well-proportioned view 

 of the whole of our dominions, and a just sense 

 of their true bearings and relations." To say 

 nothing of the ordinary holders of political pow- 

 er, in how many English statesmen, occupied as 

 English statesmen are with home questions and 

 party struggles, would Burke have found this 



