442 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
be given to me tomorrow if I would degrade myself by abandoning the path of 
duty,”’ but I believe that the honor of the Crown and diffusion of British Civilization 
can only be secured, for any long period, by preserving the Unity of the Empire. 
When we begin to break it up where are we to stop? And what will the fragments 
be? Republics and nothing else. 
Does it never occur to you, My Lord, that now by our Colonial System, as it 
stands, we are diffusing all over the world respect for Monarchical principles of Gov- 
ernment, for British Order, usages, and laws. But, whenever the Colonies are formed 
into new Nations, the old ties will be severed,’8 the old respect for mixed classes and 
orders will die out, and that having within themselves neither kings nor Peers the 
respect for both will give place to the contempt and opposition to their existence any 
where, so prevalent in the United States.’ To me it is apparent that all the fragments 
broken off the Empire must be Republics. How will it stand with England when all 
the English Speaking people, outside these two Small Islands, are Republicans, in 
close Sympathy with the millions of Democrats who are rising pretty near the Surface 
here, just now. Pray think of all this, My Lord, before it is too late, and let us get 
upon some more solid ground than this Catamaran of a Confederacy, which even if 
successful as a British American measure, gives us no policy for the Empire. : 
I admit that our Colonial Legislatures might be improved, and they will improve 
as Population and wealth increase. Your Lordship may remember what the Parlia- 
ment of England was, in Walpoles time, when ‘‘every man had his price,” and that 
a good many Vulgar and ignorant people get into the House of Commons now, and 
that all the corruption and fraud, ever brought to the surface in all our small Parlia- 
ments, since their origin, are as nothing when compared to the huge delinquencies 
charged, at this moment, on a single Railway Contractor in the Imperial Parliament. 
We have had Scenes not creditable in our House, but have we ever had any so dis- 
graceful as those, described in late Canadian papers, where Ministers of the Crown 
were day after day rolling drunk in their seats, and another in which a Mr. Chambers?’ 
was assailed by pamphlets and other Missiles flung in his face, while trying to address 
the Speaker, during the last session of the Ottawa Parliament. Depend upon it 
our manners will not be much improved by association with Canadian politicians. 
As to British America being able to stand alone, while the United States hold 
together, that idea may as well be dismissed from all our minds. I have bet four 
77 A little over two years later Howe accepted a seat in the Government of Sir John Macdonald. 
78 In this and other similar statements, Howe, as elsewhere noted, seems to have been possessed 
of the idea that Confederation implied separation from the Empire. It is true that this idea was more 
or less openly expressed by many English politicians and writers of the period. Even such a far-seeing 
Colonial as Haliburton wrote of the Federal Union proposed by Lord Durham: ‘Most people think, 
and all reflecting men know, it would ripen the colonies into premature independence in less than ten 
years.’’ Bubbles of Canada (1839) 253. And yet Howe himself had been able to see on previous occa- 
sions that Confederation was a logical step toward that Imperial Federation which he had so much at 
heart. Had he lived half a century later he would probably have accepted unreservedly these words 
of a later Imperialist, Viscount Milner: ‘‘In answer to those who hold that the growth of that Canadian 
spirit of Canadian patriotism in which I rejoice is incompatible with the Imperial idea, I try to point 
out how decisively the history of this country (Canada) itself belies such fears. There are no greater 
contrasts within the British Empire to-day, or at any rate within the self-governing states, than existed 
in Canada before Confederation and indeed still exist. You had physical distances and inaccessibility. 
Nova Scotia is farther from British Columbia than from Great Britain, and the then unbridged prairies 
and Rocky Mountains were out and away a greater obstacle to intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean. 
You had likewise differences of race. Butin spite of all this United Canada is a great accomplished fact 
to-day. And it has become so without loss of individuality in the several and very diverse states which 
compose it, and without violence being done to their distinctive character and traditions.”” Speeches 
in Canada, 15-16. : 
79. H. Chambers, Member for Brockville. He took part in the Debate on Confederation in 
1865. Confederation Debates, 770-75. 
