ENGLAND, CANADA, AND THE UNITED STATES.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 543, 10 July 1869, Page 4

ENGLAND, CANADA, AND THE UNITED STATES.

(From the New York Tribune, April 7-) Supposing England ready to assent to the annexation of the Canadas, would such a step be agreeable to the colonists I Upon this point we find some information in a late number of the Albion (March 27),---which contains a letter from a Nova Scotian on American . institutions. He declares that a large Annexation party exists in Canada, and that in New Brunswick and- Nova Scotia such a party not only exists, but is increasing in numbers. After referring to the various objections which have been urged to annexation (and some of them are ingeniously taken), the writer says : — "lt is not going beyond the truth to say that in all that contributes to the material prosperity, the wealth, the strength, and the real greatness of any nation, the United States have made a progress which has no parallel ; in the Christian era. I hold that all this is due in a great measure to the excellence of American institutions." He goes on to refer to '-the- governmental' reforms now making in Great Britain, by which more honor and greater responsibility are being delegated to the people, and asks whether in this we do hot see a high tribute to the American people. He compares the late Pa a jidental elec ion with universal suffrage, when on the 3rd November the great American "mob" deposited their votes " without the loss of a life or the shattering of a pane of glass," with the English elections, and the extraordinary precaution to quell riots and disturbances in Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Bristol, and other places. The writer concludes with a tribute to the resources of Nova Scotia, the enterprise, thrift, and intelligence of its people, its unrivalled geographical position, its superior mineral resources; and yet, with all these natural advantages, there is, he says, no single State in. the American Union which has not far outstripped Nova Scotia in material progress, increase of wealth, of population, and all that contributes to national greatness. He adds, emphatically, that if Nova Scotia had been for fifty years a State in the Union, she would have occupied a leading and controlling position in the Union, and that it is these facts that are inclining Nova Scotians to promote annexation by all legitimate means in their power. The tone and arguments -of this article show that the subject is engaging the serinis thoughtsof the Canadian provinces, and that the new era of prosperity which, with the election of General Grant is opening upon the American people, now freed from the curse of slavery, and assured of the stability of their institutions, has awakened a new and intense desire among our northern - neighbors to escape from the anomalies, disadvantages, and clangers of their colonial dependence, and link their destinies with those of the great Republic. It may be that increased strength and unanimity will be given to that desire, should they learn that their consent to immediate annexation will repay in a large measure their debts of gratitude to the mother country by solving the problem which has thus far defied the efforts of diplomacy, and assuring an honorable and permanent peace between Great Britain and America. Should England and the Canadas thus assent to annexation, the only remaining question, beyond the arrangement of details, would be whether the American Government, and the American people whom it represents, would cordially accept it as a full and final settlement of their existing claims. Some of our citizens, native and adopted, might prefer war to any settlement, and might .argue that in case of war we should not only humiliate Englnnd by seizing the Canadas, but snatch from her merchants their commerce by privateers that should rival the Georgia and the Alabama ; but we believe that a very large majority of the American people would meet such an advance to reconciliation on the part of England with the same magnanimity that luis marked their conduct towards the South, and accept the cession of the British sovereignty on this continent as an ample reparation to their national honor. In such an event, the clouds that threaten to obscure the future would fade before the dawning of a new and real friendship between England and America, based upon common interest, and mutual honor, and where a voluntary and magnanimous reparation had obliterated the memory of a mighty wrong, and buried the ravages of the ironclads in .the igrave of slavery and the rehellion. What nobler pride could swell the bosom of an Englishman than that which should be arouse! by so happy a conclusion to her colonial policy in the New World ? It would bethe full realisation of the picture drawn by Bright, in contrast to that presented by the crooked and immoral policy of men by whom. 'he -was .surrounded, which aimed at the division of our Republic and the perpetuation of the blight of slavery in a territory forty times as large as England. " I have," said the, great commoner, with courageous faith, "another and a brighter vision before my gaze. It maybe a vision, but I will cherish it. J see one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North in unbroken line to the glowing. South, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the cahners waters of the Pacific main ; and I see one people, and one language, and one law, and one faith, and over all that wide continent the home of freedom for the oppressed of every race and of every clime."