Mr. Mackenzie said
that the first thing
required of a man when he changed from the
Liberal side of the Government side was, to
abuse the Globe newspaper, (laughter). It was
satisfactory to find so old a member, so willing
to come into the traces of the first Minister of
the Crown, and abuse the
Globe. It was a well
known fact that thirty-two or thirty-three Liberal members had been brought to the
House,
and, in defiance of this gross accusation, he
could say that they had not given factious
opposition, but had at all times preferred to
meet the Government in an open, manly way.
He would now ask the reason why the Union
cause had not in the slightest degree advanced.
It was simply because this combination, this
coalition was formed, not to advance the Union
cause, but to advance a political party to a
position which they might occupy, we were
told, for years to come by the influence of the
expenditure for the construction of the Inter-
colonial Railway. He would venture to say that
if the Liberal party had been in power from
that time to the present, there would have been
at this moment a completed Confederation of
all the Provinces of British North America. But
after this Parliament had provided the most
liberal terms for Newfoundland and Prince
Edward Island they had been rejected, and
other Provinces would not join the Confederation; and he held that it was because
the Government of Canada was distrusted, that the
people of the East and West, and North and
South declined to have any political association with them (hear, hear). He would
now
proceed to discuss the measures which the
Government saw fit to take, in order, apparently, to secure the results they promised
long ago.
He recollected that during the elections he had
been told that if the Government secured a
majority in Parliament there could not be a
doubt the union of the Provinces—union with
the Maritime Provinces, would be a certainty,
and union with Newfoundland and Prince
Edward Island would be a matter not of years
or months, but of weeks. He had moved for
correspondence that he expected would show
the state of advancement of this union, but to
his extreme surprise he was told that no correspondence had taken place (hear, hear).
Referring to the negotiations for admitting Newfoundland, he (Mr. Mackenzie) contended
that
the Government had taken entirely wrong
ground in offering to assume control of the
public lands of that island. These public lands
were claimed by the Anti-Confederates at the
late election to be of immense value, and the
mineral lands to be perhaps the most valuable
upon this Continent, and that the Canadian
Government would get the entire benefit of
these riches. He maintained that the Federal
Government should have nothing to do with
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