"CONTINENTALISM." AND CANADA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 8, 10 January 1912, Page 4

"CONTINENTALISM." AND CANADA.

WAS THERE ANYTHING IN TALK OF ANNEXATION? On this side of the line, the reciprocity proposal was viowed almost wholly as a question of economics, remarked the New York Post of recent date. When Mr. Taft, opening his campaign of education in the notable speech he made at the press dinner in this city, spoke of Canada being at "the parting of the ways," the idea of firing the hearts of the people of the United States with the prospect of the absorption of their neighbour to the north was as far as possible from his thoughts. But with that want of sensitive imagination which has on so many occasidns involved him in almost iatal* cjnbarraasments, lie made use of a phrase cmi- i nently fitted to alarm patriotic Canadians, while all that he* wished to impress upo-n .the people of this country was ihait the opportunity for tariff reciprocity, if not seized at this timo, might not. again appear, owing to the possible or probable growth of Ihe 6ystem of Imperial preference. But the speech was one that he had deliberately written and read; and littera scripta. mauet. When the time came for an appeal to Canadians to rally round their flag and reject the overtures of Yankeedom, Mr. Taft's unlucky phrase did yeoman service for the anti-veciprocity men. Fortunately for them, what the President's innocent words merely per mitted them to infer by construction had been grossly bellowed out by the Speaker-designate of the House of Representatives ; and the Canadian alarmists would have been either more or leeg than human if they had not utilised to the utmost these real or supposed evidences j of tho annexation spirit. Nor can there I be any doubt that the appeal to the i sentiment of Canadian individuality, as j well a* of 'Canadian loyalty to the Mother Country, was a decisive influence in bringing auout the anti-reciprocity victory. DIFFICULT TO -SAY. Whether annexation was really regarded ,by any considerable number of Canadians afc a -practical danger^ as in any sense imminent in case reciprocity was adopted* it would be difficult to say. Probably many of those who made the greatest outcry about it would answer, if closely questioned, as one distinguished Canadian did who visited this country after the election. "I)o you think "there was really anything in the annexation cry?" he was aeked. "There- was nothing in it,y was the reply, " but it was very useful." And yet the matter cannot be disposed of m an epigram.' The case, is not very different- from that of the Channel tunnel question, which has been coming up in England, at intervals, for something like half a century. It would be a great convenience, it would be a considerable economy, and a great many people have demonstrated to their own entire satisfaction that ' it would not constitute any danger fo England, as •' compassed by the inviolate sea " ; but ecT long as there i& any standing ground for the belief — and in the opinion of some very able judges there is — that the tunnel would, under conceivable circumstances, make invasion poeoible, l Englishmen will have none of it. What the reciprocity campaign has really brought out is the unsuspected presence of this earne kind of intensity in Cana dian sentiment. Probably comparatively few Canadians really feared that recipfotity would bung annexation in its train ; but hundreds of thousands showed their intense attachment to Canadian independence , and individuality by rejecting a proposal which, rightly or wrongly, they felt Vould weaken its defences. DISTRUST AND DISLIKE. In an article in The Nineteenth Century and After, under the title "The Defeat of 'Continentalism* in. Canada, from a Canadian standpoint," this sentiment of Canadian patriotism is represented largely in the light of an extreme distrust and dislike of the United Slates, or rather of certain traits which are regarded as peculiarly characteristic of this country According to the writer of this article, it was Rudyard Kipling's message to the people of Canada that was the real keynote of the campaign. "It is her own soul that Canada risks to-day," Mr. Kipling declared. And he went on to speak of our enormous number of murders, of our "haste and waste" in diseipatuig oiir- resources, of the inevitable result which mint follow if Canada pawned her soul to us, in the shape of conformity to "the commercial, legal, financial socistl, and ethical stand-ards-which will be imposed upon her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States." This message, cays the Nineteenth Century writer i "was pVinted 1 not as a paragraph, not as a column, but filled an entire page in many of the leading Canadian newspapers," and he ranks it as one of the most notable public utterances of recent years. What tho writer himself thinks of Yankeeland, he makes no effort to conceal ; it is quite plain that he regards ue as eateil up with corruption, as wholly devoid of sentiment or idealism^ and aa given to lawlessness in a degree almost inconceivable in a 'civilised people. This state of mind diminishes, of course, the trastworfchkifcss of his testimony as to what actually took place in Canada; but, after all allowance is made for this, one finds in the article only an extreme jnanj ifestation, of what, in iriore reasonable fashion, must have been operative in | the minds of a great .number of Canadians. HOW SENSIBLE AMERICANS SHOULD FEEL. How sensible Americans should foel about all this, and how they do feel about it, is an interesting question. For our own part, we strongly suspect that, take the whole population^ — even though it includes some few who are dot sensible — tho result of a campaign in which annexation of Canada was ' the ksuo would be very different from what tho Bapieat Champ, in a recent utterance, confidently declared. He unhesitatingly asserted that in such a- campaign, the armexaticmist would beat tho anti-an-nexationist ten to one. Our confidence in the sober sense of the American people forbids such a conclusion. We believe that every day of discussion would btrengthen the hands of those who hold to letting well enough alone; who feel that wo have enough to do to work out the problems of our present vast and dis-ersified population and territory ; who are -conscious that, ulong with the qualities of which tho .nation is justly proud, there aro others in regard to which it has ample reason for serious misgivings; who see no reason, why a free, prosperous, contented, and progressive naKon alongside our border should bo afked to merge its individuality with ours, adapt its institutions and customs to our system, and throw overboard its own traditions and preferences. It is not .necessary to subscribe to tho indictment made' by a prejudiced Britisher in order to recognise that we aro not the mode! of perfection ; and even if we were vastly nearer perfection than we are, the idea of recasting into our mould another people, having their owji excellences, their own distinctive qualities, good, badj and indifferent, would offer no attraction to a well-balanced mind. On the contrary, we have reason to rejoice that some variety of political and bocial development, some difference la the tone- and temper- of individual

life, has been supplied by the accidents of history in this vast continental area covertd by Englieh-speaking people. An all-absorbing (Jontinentaliim ?s us little to bo desired by the United States vis by its kss mighty neighbour.