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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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together. They chose the latter. The Parliament met, a vote was carried against the Administration, and a new one was formed from their opponents, the members of both parties concurring in expres- sing their sense of the perfect fairness and impar- tiality with which Lord Elgin had throughout these transactions uniformly conducted himself.
A year has now elapsed since this change was accomplished, and with his present as with his former Council Lord Elgin has been on terms of the most frank and cordial communication. He has given them in preparing their measures for the benefit of the province, the assistance of his judg- ment and experience, and without attempting by direct authority to prescribe to them the course which they should follow, he has practically exer- cised a great and most useful influence on the conduct of affairs. The result has been most satisfactory.
When the news of the French Revolution of February last reached the province it occasioned comparatively little disturbance, though in the state of public opinion and of feeling which prevailed a few months earlier, there can be no doubt that the intelligence of this startling event would have pro- duced most formidable excitement, and would in all probability have led to the overthrow of the British power in Canada, too probably preceded by a war with the United States.
Instead of this all Mr. Papineau's efforts to create a formidable opposition amongst the French Cana- dians have utterly failed; they have heartily and steadily supported the Government, and taken every opportunity to manifest by addresses and resolutions the strongest spirit of loyalty to the British Crown. The Liberal party in Upper Canada, which has been so often accused of a Republican tendency, has manifested a similar spirit; and during the Irish movement last summer the attempts of the American Irish sympathisers to obtain support in Canada met
with nothing but discouragement.
In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the same system of government has been brought into prac tical operation more completely than it had pre- viously been, and though in the former party spirit
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has run very high, and Sir John Harvey has not, like Lord Elgin, succeeded in preserving the position of impartiality which befits a Governor, and has been too much mixed up in these party contests, still in bot?. these provinces the practical exercise of the power of self-government so far as regards their internal affairs seems to have had a most happy effect in rendering British connection more generally valued by the population.
To me this result appears to be one of extreme importance, because though it is the fashion of the day with a certain class of politicians to represent the British colonies in North America as only an in- cumbrance and a charge to us, I cannot (for one regard them in that light.
It seems to me that it would be no ordinary calamity if the British Empire were to lose and the United States were to gain this extensive territory, having already a population of two millions, which
is increasing with unexampled rapidity, and to the future amount of which it would be difficult to as- sign a limit. Looking to the natural resources of these provinces, to the wealth they are so fast ac- cumulating, and especially to the harbours they possess, and their commanding position in case of a naval war, I should regard it as most seriously endangering our security as a nation, if this great accession of power were to be obtained by the United States at our expense; and I presume no one doubts that if at the present time these pro- vinces were to be separated from the British Em- pire, they would be necessarily swallowed up in the Union. Hence I think some credit may fairly be claimed by the present Administration for our im- proved position in British America and for the in- creased strength which has been given to the con- nexion between these provinces and the Empire.
Turning from the Continent of America to the great Island of Newfoundland, here also, under great difficulties, much has been accomplished. Notwithstanding the calamities of a conflagration which destroyed great part of the capital, of a hurricane attended with a great destruction of pro- perty, and of partial failures of the fisheries and of the potato crop, the large and poor population C