boats, and the improvement of communications, the militia and volunteer forces of the country, if properly organized, and aided by British troops, would be enabled to hold them during the period, only about six months in the year, when military operations on a large scale could be carried on against them, and thus those forces could resist an attack with the best possible chance of success.' These views the Government have adopted after consultation with the most experienced and able men in the service. Their proposal to expend one-fifth of a million in four years for purposes so important, while we have laid out ten millions in five years on our own coast, Parliament might well sanction without a murmur. At the close of the debate Lord Palmerston urged upon the House that as the tone and line of argument were so much in favour of the motion, it would be very undesirable that there should appear to be a difference of opinion. It is a question,' he said, 'which affects the position and character, the honour, the interests, and the duties of this great country. It has been said that you can't defend Canada. Now I utterly deny that proposition.' Equally explicit was the Secretary of the Colonies in stating the opinions of the Government. 'My right hon.

* By Mr. Lowe.

friend (Mr. Lowe) has said that in this debate no one has ventured to assert the contrary of the proposition which he has laid down, and to maintain that Canada can be defended. I should rather have said, after listening attentively to every word in this debate, that until my right hon. friend himself rose almost the whole discussion had been upon one side, and there was nothing for those who support the vote to reply to except the argument of my right hon. friend.' * So also Mr. Disraeli on behalf of the Opposition. Those provinces, and the lands contiguous to them, have the means of sustaining not only millions but tens of millions of population. Canada has, I believe, its own future before it. It has all the elements which make a nation.' North American provinces,' says the Under-Secretary of War, are a great nation, and are on the high road to be a still greater nation.'

'Our

Those who in the House and in the press have so earnestly urged that Canada cannot be defended in Canada, that our only means of defending her is by our fleet, in attacking the United States at their most vulnerable parts, assume that we shall certainly have command of the sea, and that American privateers could inflict little injury on our commerce in com

* Speech of the Right Hon. Mr. Cardwell, March 23, 1865.

parison with the damage we could do them. Surely, too, if we cannot defend Canadian soil with the assistance of 100,000 or 200,000 militia, we can have little hope of success in any attack upon the American seaboard where we shall have no such assistance. The conquest of Canada, admitting that to be possible, would require the entire military force of the United States. It would then be good policy to make that task as difficult of execution as possible, for upon it the enemy must employ a vast army, which would disperse his forces and exhaust his strength. Supposing Britain should have such supremacy of the seas as to be able to inflict without receiving blows, the Americans would probably allow the few towns that could be reached to be destroyed, consoling themselves with the reflection that we were destroying as much English as American property, while their privateers would retaliate upon our commerce. If the States attack Canada, they must be prepared to defend their own frontiers of some 2,000 miles; they must have sufficient force for defence as well as for attack; and the war of 1812-15 shows that Canada, then comparatively much weaker than now, could inflict more damage than she received.

Canada has now been British for more than a century, but has never involved the parent State in

hostilities. War and the dangers of war have come not from the land but from the sea, and those overprovident statesmen who would surrender English provinces lest offence might be given to other nations by holding them, would be more consistent were they to advise the surrender of the sea, for thence have sprung the casus belli. The war of 1812-15 grew out of the conflict of English and American interests at sea and not in Canada; the Trent affair of 1861, for which England would have gone to war, was one of the sea and not of the land; and the now pending claims for the destruction of American commerce by privateers built in English dockyards— claims which, if pressed, as threatened, must end in war, originated in acts committed on the seas and not on land. In Indian and Chinese, in Japanese and Australian waters, in every sea and on every coast, English and American commerce and opposing interests are much more likely to endanger the peaceful relations of the two countries than any questions of provinces. Those amiable people, in their desire to conciliate the goodwill of powerful nations, would therefore get the credit of reason in their pusillanimity by giving up the sea, instead of attempting to propitiate by the sacrifice of provinces, which could not avert the apprehended danger.

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CHAPTER IX.

OPINIONS, IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL.

I. Is it interest that binds Colonies to the Parent State?Position of Canada and England reversed-II. Does England draw the Colonies, or the Colonies England, into war?— English and French Policy as a Peace Policy-United States towards England and France-Mr. Adderley-Earl GreyThe Cape-New Zealand-III. Institutions Ecclesiastical and Civil of Old Countries and New-IV. Canada during the Civil War in America-Mr. Adderley-Harsh and Hasty Opinions-Foreign Policy-Influence on Canada of a Confederation on its Border free from Slavery-England's Relations to Slave-holding Countries-Duke of NewcastleV. Colonial Systems-Past and Present-Mr. Adderley's Reviewer-English Writers on 'High Spirit' and International Duties-Gladstone-VI. Cost of Colonies-Trade in Comparison with Cost-Troops-Newcastle-Grey-New Zealand-Cape-Archdeacons and Clergy Reserves of Canada -VII. Old Colonies-Policy of English Statesmen—VIII. Imperial Interests, how Represented in Colonies; and Colonial in Mother Country-IX. Policy Recommended by Committee of 1861-Godley-Merivale-Policy Suggested by Circumstances No Rigid Rule-Newcastle-Grey-X. Mr. Adderley's Contrast between Old and New ColoniesVirginia-Canada-Attributes Acts of Old Colonies to wrong Motives-Old Colonies feared Parliament and Crown; and England the too rapid Growth of Colonies. Pp. 129-165.

1. Is it interest that binds the colonies to the parent State? Earl Grey gives it as his opinion that

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