The Canadian Dominion [38]
after the "Herald" had ceased its campaign of bluster and after Lincoln's proclamation had brought the moral issue again to the fore. The fact that a large number of Canadians, popularly set at forty thousand, enlisted in the Northern armies, is to be explained in part by the call of adventure and the lure of high bounties, but it must also be taken to reflect the sympathy of the mass of the people.
* See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson (in "The Chronicles of America").
In the United States resentment was slower in passing. While the war was on, prudence forbade any overt act. When it was over, the bill for the Alabama raids and the taunts of the "Times" came in. Great Britain paid in the settlement of the Alabama claims.* Canada suffered by the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty at the first possible date, and by the connivance of the American authorities in the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870. Yet for Canada the outcome was by no means ill. If the Civil War did not bring forth a new nation in the South, it helped to make one in the far North. A common danger drew the scattered British Provinces together and made ready the way for the coming Dominion of Canada.
*See "The Day of the Confederacy", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson; and "The Path of Empire" (in "The Chronicles of America").
It was not from the United States alone that an impetus came for the closer union of the British Provinces. The same period and the same events ripened opinion in the United Kingdom in favor of some practical means of altering a colonial relationship which bad ceased to bring profit but which had not ceased to be a burden of responsibility and risk.
The British Empire had its beginning in the initiative of private business men, not in any conscious policy of state. Yet as the Empire grew the teaching of doctrinaires and the example of other colonial powers had developed a definite policy whereby the plantations overseas were to be made to serve the needs of the nation at home. The end of empire was commercial profit; the means, the political subordination of the colonies; the debit entry, the cost of the military and naval and diplomatic services borne by the mother country. But the course of events had now broken down this theory. Britain, for her own good, had abandoned protection, and with it fell the system of preference and monopoly in colonial markets. Not only preference had gone but even equality. The colonies, notably Canada, which was most influenced by the United States, were perversely using their new found freedom to protect their own manufacturers against all outsiders, Britain included. When Sheffield cutlers, hard hit by Canada's tariff, protested to the Colonial Secretary and he echoed their remonstrance, the Canadian Minister of Finance, A. T. Galt, stoutly refused to heed. "Self-government would be utterly annihilated," Galt replied in 1860, "if the views of the Imperial Government were to be preferred to those of the people of Canada. It is therefore the duty of the present government distinctly to affirm the right of the Canadian legislature to adjust the taxation of the people in the way they deem best - even if it should unfortunately happen to meet the disapproval of the Imperial Ministry." Clearly, if trade advantage were the chief purpose of empire, the Empire had lost its reason for being.
With the credit entry fading, the debit entry loomed up bigger. Hardly had the Corn Laws been abolished when Radical critics called on the British Government to withdraw the redcoat garrisons from the colonies: no profit, no defense. Slowly but steadily this reduction was effected. To fill the gaps, the colonies began to strengthen their militia forces. In Canada only a beginning had been made in the way of defense when the Trent episode brought matters to a crisis. If war broke out between the United States and Great Britain, Canada would be the battlefield. Every Canadian knew it; nothing could be clearer. When the danger of immediate war had passed, the Parliament of Canada turned
* See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson (in "The Chronicles of America").
In the United States resentment was slower in passing. While the war was on, prudence forbade any overt act. When it was over, the bill for the Alabama raids and the taunts of the "Times" came in. Great Britain paid in the settlement of the Alabama claims.* Canada suffered by the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty at the first possible date, and by the connivance of the American authorities in the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870. Yet for Canada the outcome was by no means ill. If the Civil War did not bring forth a new nation in the South, it helped to make one in the far North. A common danger drew the scattered British Provinces together and made ready the way for the coming Dominion of Canada.
*See "The Day of the Confederacy", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson; and "The Path of Empire" (in "The Chronicles of America").
It was not from the United States alone that an impetus came for the closer union of the British Provinces. The same period and the same events ripened opinion in the United Kingdom in favor of some practical means of altering a colonial relationship which bad ceased to bring profit but which had not ceased to be a burden of responsibility and risk.
The British Empire had its beginning in the initiative of private business men, not in any conscious policy of state. Yet as the Empire grew the teaching of doctrinaires and the example of other colonial powers had developed a definite policy whereby the plantations overseas were to be made to serve the needs of the nation at home. The end of empire was commercial profit; the means, the political subordination of the colonies; the debit entry, the cost of the military and naval and diplomatic services borne by the mother country. But the course of events had now broken down this theory. Britain, for her own good, had abandoned protection, and with it fell the system of preference and monopoly in colonial markets. Not only preference had gone but even equality. The colonies, notably Canada, which was most influenced by the United States, were perversely using their new found freedom to protect their own manufacturers against all outsiders, Britain included. When Sheffield cutlers, hard hit by Canada's tariff, protested to the Colonial Secretary and he echoed their remonstrance, the Canadian Minister of Finance, A. T. Galt, stoutly refused to heed. "Self-government would be utterly annihilated," Galt replied in 1860, "if the views of the Imperial Government were to be preferred to those of the people of Canada. It is therefore the duty of the present government distinctly to affirm the right of the Canadian legislature to adjust the taxation of the people in the way they deem best - even if it should unfortunately happen to meet the disapproval of the Imperial Ministry." Clearly, if trade advantage were the chief purpose of empire, the Empire had lost its reason for being.
With the credit entry fading, the debit entry loomed up bigger. Hardly had the Corn Laws been abolished when Radical critics called on the British Government to withdraw the redcoat garrisons from the colonies: no profit, no defense. Slowly but steadily this reduction was effected. To fill the gaps, the colonies began to strengthen their militia forces. In Canada only a beginning had been made in the way of defense when the Trent episode brought matters to a crisis. If war broke out between the United States and Great Britain, Canada would be the battlefield. Every Canadian knew it; nothing could be clearer. When the danger of immediate war had passed, the Parliament of Canada turned