[BURPEE] HOWE AND THE ANTI-CONFEDERATION LEAGUE 441 
trol and dispense a surplus revenue, drawn from Nova Scotia alone, of £234,000 
or nearly twenty times the highest amount that the Colonial Secretary ever dispensed. 
And besides Downing Street never took a pound out of the Country. If sometimes 
lavishly expended, the Casual revenue was all spent in the Country which raised it, 
but the Finance Minister of Canada may, annually, draw out of Nova Scotia an 
enormous sum and spend it where he likes. That our nineteen members will afford 
us any protection it is in vain to hope.” 
The modern history of Canada warns us what is coming when our revenues are 
transferred to those who have earned so unenviable a reputation in the distribution 
of their own. 
3. Just now, my plan for the Organization of the Empire may seem visionary 
and impracticable, because there is nobody who will grapple with the question of how 
it is to be kept together and defended. But I can afford to wait. All I hope now is 
to set people thinking in the right direction. We should all go for the Empire, one 
and indivisible, as opposed to the policy of dismemberment. If my plan is not the 
best let us have a better, but let us all work and think in the right direction. 
I say I can afford to wait. Responsible Government was denounced as visionary 
in the House of Commons, and voted down by resolutions, long after we had recom- 
mended it, in North America, as the key to a sound Colonial policy. 
In 1838, Crane of New Brunswick and myself memorialized Her Majesty’s 
Government to subsidize and Establish lines of ocean Steamers. The policy was 
adopted and our great lines now connecting these Islands with all the world are the 
result. 
In 1851 I advised Systematic and regulated plantation of the poor, in our own 
provinces, in connection with the construction of Public Works.” This was not done. 
In fifteen years, nearly two millions of British Subjects have been allowed to drift 
into the United States, to become Fenians and Enemies, and one fourth of them 
have been killed or wounded in the American Civil War. The poor rates consume 
about 7,000,000 per annum, and the questions of poverty and crime still press upon 
every body’s thoughts; and, besides, Ten Millions of British Capital, which need 
not have been risked at all, have been hopelessly thrown away on Canadian Rail- 
roads. My policy was thrown aside and this is what came of Canadian schemes and 
contrivances. 
In 1855 I sent to the Secretary of War a breech loading Rifle, out of which I 
could fire nine shots per minute, while an expert could fire 12. My letter was never 
answered. Breech Loaders were considered “Visionary.” I then implored Sir 
Gaspard Le Marchant’ to use his influence to have these guns adopted. The answer 
was unfavourable. We went through the Indian Mutiny and several Small wars 
without them, and it was only when the Austrian Empire went down before the 
Breech loaders that any body here would think out of the old departmental grooves. 
So it will be with this Imperial policy. Having thought for ten years upon 
it I know Iam right. My interests are all the other way. There is no position in 
this Confederacy, if it is formed, that I cannot win. There is none that would not 


73 A rather remarkable argument, coming from the champion of responsible government. Compare 
his letter to Francis Hincks on the Organization of the Empire. Speeches, II, 311-27. It seems in- 
credible that Howe could have expected a well-informed English statesman to swallow such an obvious 
fallacy. 
m4 Speeches, I, 188-91. William Crane, was a member of the New Brunswick Government 
in 1840. 
75 Speeches, II, 132, et seq. 
78 Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant (1803-1874). He was Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia in 
1855. 
