Mr. McGee (Montreal West) [...]lar declaratory
clauses are found in the Quebec Act, and the Union Act of 1840, they were
both statutes framed in England exclusively, while the clauses, and
all the remainder, were drafted and proposed by Colonists only.
It is remarkable that a hundred years after the Stamp Act and Tea Tax; ninety
years after the Declaration of Independence; nearly half a century after
the promulgation of "the Monroe Doctrine"; the representatives of these
Provinces should have taken upon themselves, so solemnly to re-assert as fundamental
constitutional propositions, the sovereignty of the
English Crown, over all our territory. (Applause.) What was done in this
way in 1840, and in 1799, was done by others; but these declaratory clauses are
our own work. I do not say that we are free to take any other course; I
do not pretend that we could have raised, even if we would, the question
of Sovereignty, in 1864 or in 1867; I only speak of the cardinal fact as I find
it, that we have here, by our own act, selected the monarchical form of
Government for ourselves and for our children; that for them
and for ourselves, we have entered into this solemn compart to uphold the
constitutional monarchy in this country; and that the Queen, and her
Imperial Parliament and Government, have, on their part, by the passage of this
Bill with these provisions, with equal solemnity,
constituted themselves parties to this compact and agreement. (Hear,
hear.) I do not desire, sir, to dwell at present, on all the corrollaries
and consequences likely to flow from this formal and solemn establishment of monarchy
on this Continent, by the voluntary act of four millions
of its inhabitants, but this is the path which by this Act, we have
voluntarily chosen to enter—by this path, if we are not to abandon it, we are
to journey on into the future, and whither it leads there we must follow.
Sir, for one, I can truly say, that I saw and felt all along the
solemnity of the selection we were called upon to make, but I never doubted, no
not for one instant, that we had decided well in choosing to affirm so
unmistakably as we have done the principles of Constitutional and
responsible monarchy, for these Provinces. I am fully aware of the
intense propagandist force which resides in the democratic
idea. I know there are democratic fanatics who damn all other sects in
politics, but their own; but looking back to the venerable centuries of Christian
civilization which have preceded us, I am not taught,
that it is best for the people, that the headship of the State should be
frequently elective. Our Republican
neighbours may prefer their own institutions as much as pleases them; but
at all events, they must allow us to have a preference also, even though
it should not quite coincide with their own. (Hear, hear.) We can honour and
reverence their illustrious Martyr President, who fell a victim to his
duties; but they must permit us also, to reserve some of our admiration and sympathy,
for the Martyr of Queretaro, as well as the Martyr of
Mexico: for that gallant gentleman, a true Prince, the worthiest to rule
that Mexico had ever seen, but of whom Mexico was not worthy: that
cruelly murdered Prince, whose effigy the House of Hapsburg may be proud to
raise in long procession of the Illustrious Princes, his ancestors! Sir,
I certainly cannot agree with the honourable member (Mr. Howe) that the
time or the means chosen, ought to subject us to the displeasure of our
Republican neighbours. This Union project is a very old one—as
old as the country, and though hastened by recent events among them
and among ourselves, it certainly dates long beyond the firing by
Beauregard on Fort Sumter. No question of Sovereignty was raised by us;
we merely embodied and reaffirmed a power that already existed, and
which the Republic always recognized as existing in North
America. If we had sought to plant a despotism by their side—without representative
institutions—without securing the common rights of
free men, sprung from the same source as their own; then, indeed, they
might have cause for suspicion and displeasure. As it is I deny that we have
given them any such cause, and I submit that such an argument, or
assertion ought not to be advanced on the floor of a Canadian Parliament. (Hear,
hear.) The honourable member opposite (Mr. Howe)
also bestowed a good deal of his ready ridicule on the expression so
often used in His Excellency's Speech—of "a new nationality." He was not
precise in stating his objections to the use of that expression; but I inferred that
he thought it premature as
to time, and inconsistent with the continuance of the Imperial connection. He
talked of walking upon stilts, and having "the stilts knocked from under
us," as if our increased stature as a people in 1867, was a forced and
artificial increase. I need not surely remind the honourable member, that in the
year 1800 including Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, with the
British mainland we were less than 400,000 souls altogether; and when the
Sydenham Union was carried, about two millions, While we are now, including the
same Provinces, fully 4,000,000. (Hear,
November 14, 1867
COMMONS DEBATES
75 hear.) These living millions are stilts, and we are vain
enough to think we can stand on them. In 1790, the United States commenced
with a total population of 3,900,000 souls, but they had, it is true, no
gigantic native neighbours on their flanks; still they had the
power of England on this side, of Spain in the Floridas, and of France in
Louisiana. They began modestly and moderately, and they have advanced by
degrees, in their "new nationality". I ask the honourable gentleman this
question—if he does not look forward to a new nationality here, in these
Provinces, to what does he look forward? Surely he must see that a
population which increased in sixty years, a hundred fold, cannot be reckoned
upon as a stationary quantity? With some nations the best ambition is to
keep what they have got; but these are nations of fixed population and
full boundaries. Extending as we are in space—increasing in number—improving in
intercourse—we cannot stand still politically, even if we
tried. (Hear, hear.) But the honourable member and his followers seem to
have some confused notion in their heads, that a new nation cannot exist
within the Empire, consistently with the Imperial connection. Sir, I don't know
where they got such a notion, but it is a very childish one, and contrary
to all experience. The Federal principle is precisely adopted to meet a
difficulty of that kind, and has for many centuries met it successfully. In the
German Empire there never was any difficulty as to the simple
existence of separate nationalities and kingdoms; in the Spanish Empire,
so long as its sovereigns respected the rights and liberties of the component
parts, there was no difficulty of holding together the kingdoms of the
Netherlands, of Aragon, and Naples; in the Austrian Empire, when the
rights of the ancient kingdom of Hungary were respected the kingdom was in
fact, the mainstay of the Empire. In our own day, we have in Hindostan an
Empire within an Empire, so constituted expressly on the ground of
strengthening the Imperial connection by the wisest statesmen, our
contemporaries. So far, therefore, as to that childish and
foolish notion of incompatibility. But the honourable member will not allow,
that even With our four millions, we have men enough to start in the
onerous career of a new nationality. What amount of population does he
suppose then to be necessary to such a start? For colonies, as colonies, to get
together and keep together, four millions of inhabitants is no small achievement,
and if we have not increased more largely by
immigration of
late years than we have—if our present population is 80 per cent native
born to 20 per cent born abroad—I will tell the honourable
member why we have not attracted and retained more people, from the other side
of the Atlantic. We have not attracted more people, because we have not
made our country attractive; because we are not known as a
nation abroad; because these isolated Provinces did not impress the
imagination of the emigrating classes. Who in the byeways of Germany, or
even of Britain, knew anything of Canada, up to the other day? In those
hives of human labour, they knew only one country—America—and One seaport—New
York. But once give your Provinces united the aspect of Empire, make them
a power and a name, and the reputation and credit of the Dominion will be
our best immigration agents abroad. (Hear, hear.) As to our inability to stand alone,
with the numbers we have, I beg to observe,
sir, that in my opinion, it depends very much on our unanimity or
division. No power on earth can take forcible possession of this
country, if we are united as one man, in its defence. (Applause.) No
population that can be stirred up against us, can put a hostile four millions,
face to face with us on our own soil. If every man, woman and child in
Canada, is imbued with the spirit which enabled Switzerland to hold her
own against the Austrian Empire, and Spain in her decline to cast out Napoleon
in his vigour, we will be safe enough, within our rivers and rapids in
summer, and our snowed up roads and freezing skies in winter. (Hear,
hear.) We complain sometimes of our rigorous winters, but there is this
compensation at least, that no invading force that bivouacked out for one
genuine Canadian night, would ever answer to the call of the long roll again.
(Hear, hear.) My own views on the subject of defence are pretty well
known, and when my honourable friend (Mr. Cartier) brings down his
measure, if the House desires to hear them, I shall be happy to meet its
wishes: but I will now only say this, that I hope to see the military
spirit of our population encouraged in every way; that I hope to see
rifle matches and tournaments become as familiar municipal institutions as
town meetings, of county agricultural fairs. (Applause.) I
cannot, for one, agree that the best way to make ourselves respected abroad, to
secure impunity from attack, is to depreciate the sources of our
strength; but rather to rely upon and make the most of what Lord Bacon,
in his "true greatness of Britain," considers a main element of a nation's
strength, "its [...]
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