Canada and the StatesWatkin, E. W. (Edward William), Sir
History
Canada and the States
Watkin, E. W. (Edward William), Sir
Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- History; United States -- Description and travel
lately appeared in a published letter of the Archbishop of Halifax, Dr.
Connolly. Who is the Archbishop of Halifax? In either of the coast
colonies, where he has laboured in his high vocation for nearly a third
of a century, it would be absurd to ask the question; but in Canada he
may not be equally well known. Some of my honorable friends in this and
the other House, who were his guests last year, must have felt the
impress of his character as well as the warmth of his hospitality.
Well, he is known as one of the first men in sagacity, as he is in
position, in any of these colonies; that he was for many years the
intimate associate of his late distinguished _confrere_,
Archbishop Hughes of New York; that he knows the United States as
thoroughly as he does the Provinces,--and these are his views on this
particular point; the extract is somewhat long, but so excellently put
that I am sure the House will be obliged to me for the whole of it:--
"Instead of cursing, like the boy in the upturned boat, and holding on
until we are fairly on the brink of the cataract, we must at once begin
to pray and strike out for the shore by all means, before we get too
far down on the current. We must at this most critical moment invoke
the Arbiter of nations for wisdom, and abandoning in time our perilous
position, we must strike out boldly, and at some risks, for some rock
on the nearest shore--some resting-place of greater security. A cavalry
raid, or a visit from our Fenian friends on horseback, through the
plains of Canada and the fertile valleys of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, may cost more in a single week than Confederation for the next
fifty years; and if we are to believe you, where is the security even
at the present moment against such a disaster? Without the whole power
of the Mother Country by land and sea, and the concentration in a
single hand of all the strength of British America, our condition is
seen at a glance. Whenever the present difficulties will terminate--and
who can tell the moment?--we will be at the mercy of our neighbours;
and, victorious or otherwise, they will be eminently a military people,
and with all their apparent indifference about annexing this country,
and all the friendly feelings that may be talked, they will have the
power to strike when they please; and this is precisely the kernel and
the only touch-point of the whole question. No nation ever had the
power of conquest that did not use it, or abuse it, at the very first
favourable opportunity. All that is said of the magnanimity and
forbearance of mighty nations can be explained on the principle of
sheer inexpediency, as the world knows. The whole face of Europe has
been changed, and the dynasties of many hundred years have been swept
away within our own time, on the principle of might alone--the oldest,
the strongest, and, as some would have it, the most sacred of all
titles. The thirteen original States of America, with all their
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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