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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



those who profess it; but it probably does not 

 often prompt to a good political action, and it 

 certainly never restrains from a bad one. Among 

 Canadians, as among American politicians, the 

 most " truly loyal " are often the most unscrupu- 

 lous and corrupt. They are often, through the 

 whole course of their public lives, disloyal to 

 everything that represents public honor and the 

 public good. A provincial court adds flunkeyism 

 to demagogism without making the demagogue 

 less profligate, less dangerous, or less vile. It 

 does not even make him less coarse. No refining 

 influence can really be exercised by a few dinners 

 and receptions even over the small circle which 

 attends them; while the social expenditure and 

 display which are imposed on the Governor-Gen- 

 eral as the condition of his popularity in the 

 colony, and of the maintenance of his reputation 

 at home, are anything but a wholesome example 

 for colonial society, which on the contrary needs 

 an example of hospitality and social enjoyment 

 cultivated in an easy and inexpensive way. 



At present the bane of Canada is party gov- 

 ernment without any question on which parties 

 can be rationally or morally based. The last 

 question of sufficient importance to form a ra- 

 tional and moral basis for a party was that of the 

 Clergy Reserves and the Church Establishment, 

 since the settlement of which there has been ab- 

 solutely no dividing line between the parties or 

 assignable ground for their existence, and they 

 have become mere factions, striving to engross 

 the prizes of office by the means which faction 

 everywhere employs. The consequences are the 

 increasing ascendency of the worst men, and the 

 political demoralization of a community, which, 

 if a fair chance were given it, would furnish as 

 sound a basis for good government as any com- 

 munity in the world. Of course, England cannot 

 be charged with introducing the party system into 

 Canada ; but she does fling over it the glamour 

 of British association, and beguile a country really 

 abandoned to all the instability and all the de- 

 grading influences of government by faction with 

 the ostensible stability and dignity of the he- 

 reditary crown. Indeed, the provision in the 

 draught of confederation that both the parties 

 should be considered in the first nomination of 

 senators is, perhaps, the only authoritative recog- 

 nition which the party system has ever received. 

 In common with the other colonies, Canada is 

 deemed happy in being endowed with a counter- 

 part of the British Constitution. The British 

 Constitution, putting aside the legal forms and 

 phrases, is government by party ; and whatever 



government by party may be in England, where 

 there are some party questions left, in Canada it 

 is a most noxious absurdity, and is ruining the 

 political character of the people. 



When Canadian Nationalists say that patri- 

 otism is a good thing, they are told to keep their 

 wisdom for the copy-books ; and the rebuke 

 would be just if those who administer it would 

 recognize the equally obvious truth that there 

 can be no patriotism without nationality. In a de- 

 pendency there is no love of the country, no pride 

 in the country ; if an appeal is made to the name 

 of the country, no heart responds as the heart of 

 an Englishman responds when an appeal is made 

 to the name of England. In a dependency every 

 bond is stronger than that of country, every inter- 

 est prevails over that of the country. The prov- 

 ince, the sect, Orangism, Fenianism, Freemasonry, 

 Odd-Fellowship, are more to the ordinary Cana- 

 dian than Canada. So it must be while the only 

 antidote to sectionalism in a population with 

 strongly-marked differences of race and creed is 

 the sentiment of allegiance to a distant throne. 

 The young Canadian leaving his native country to 

 seek his fortune in the States feels no greater 

 wrench than a young Englishman would feel in 

 leaving his county to seek his fortune in London. 

 Want of nationality is attended, too, with a cer- 

 tain want of self-respect, not only political but 

 social, as writers on colonial society and character 

 have observed. Wealthy men in a dependency 

 are inclined to look to the imperial country as 

 their social centre and the goal of their social 

 ambition, if not as their ultimate abode, and not 

 only their patriotic munificence but their political 

 and social services are withdrawn from the coun- 

 try of their birth. 



Mr. Trollope finds himself compelled to con- 

 fess that in passing from the United States into 

 Canada you pass " from a richer country into one 

 that is poorer, from a greater country into one 

 that is less." You pass from a country embrac- 

 ing in itself the resources of a continent, into one 

 which is a narrow section of that continent cut 

 off commercially from the rest ; you pass from a 

 country which is a nation into a country which is 

 not a nation. 



On the other hand, there were reasons which, 

 not only to patriotic Canadians, but to patriotic 

 Americans, if they took a comprehensive view of 

 the interests of their country, seemed strong for 

 wishing that Canada should remain politically 

 separate from the United States. Democracy is 

 a great experiment, which might be more safely 

 carried on by two nations than by one. By emu- 



