The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, September 22, 1887. A FAILURE IN FEDERATION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 44, 22 September 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, September 22, 1887. A FAILURE IN FEDERATION.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,’ Thy God’s, and truth’s.

THOSE who so strongly favour the formation oi a vast Australasian Federation should not fail to take notice of the present state of affairs in the Dominion of Canada. Canada has long furnished a text for the Federationists to preach eulogistic sermons upon. According to them the fiscal union between the various states which compose the Dominion is a gigantic success and likely to continue so. But that the reverse is actually the case cannx be denied if we come to study the Canadian newspapers and the recent utterances of Canadian statesmen.

Only a fortnight ago, we had a mysterious telegram referring to the intention of the Canadian Premier, Sir John McDonald, to prevent by force of arms any connection being made between the Canadian Pacific Line and the new Northern Pacific road which, starting from St. Paul in Minnesota, taps the vast grain-growing region of Dakota and Minnesota, states which border on the southern frontier of Canada’s latest and richest provinces of Manitoba and the North West Valley. Files of English and American papers to hand explain Sir John McDonald’s extraordinary action and shew what an utter failure federation has proved to be as regards British North America.

The eastern and older Canadian States of Ontario and Quebec are the manufacturing provinces of the Dominion and it is they who supply the enterprising settlers in Manitoba and the Saskatchevan Valley with machinery, clothing, and all the necessaries of a farming and manufacturing population. But the Manitobans are only divided from the United States by an imaginary line, they could buy cheaper in Chicago and St. Paul than they do in Toronto and Montreal, and had they railway communication with the States, their produce would more expeditiously reach a market. The older States, however, taboo all communication with the States and force the Manitobans to buy their goods in a dear market. Protection rules the roast in Canada and under Protection the Toronto or Montreal manufactures are dearer by 15 per cent than the goods which the Manitobans could buy just over their frontier line, were the duties lowered. The position is this, therefore, because Ontario’s manufactures require to be coddled up by a protective tariff Manitoba has to pay an increased price for all her wants. It may be said that she shares in the general benefit of having an increased market by the reason of the larger population brought into the older states by protection, but this is not the case. Manitoba’s almost sole export is grain, and only a ridiculously small moiety of the grain is kept in the country. She

therefore does not benefit a jot by the tariff, but loses heavily, and it is at this loss she is now so sturdily kicking: As to the question of railway communication, this is even a worse feature of the trouble. The Canadian-Pacific line, recently Opened with a gigantic blow of trumpets, cost the whole Dominion some 150,000,000 dollars, and according to good authorities must be run for many years to come at h dead loss, Ontario and Quebec, brought into communication with the Vast new territories of the North West, schemed and fought for this line, but the efiest on the Manitobans is by no means satisfactory, In order to keep up the protected manufactures of the Eastern cities the Manitobans are refused permission to connect with the American Northern Pacific previously alluded to. This refusal has a two fold result, vjz, first that they must send their produce 1800 miles to Montreal, their only outlet port, instead of being able to avail themselves of the Chicago market, and second that they are obliged to buy their timber and canned provisions in the Canadian dear market, instead of in the American and cheaper one. These are the reasons why Manitoba has threatened to secede from the Federation of the Canadian States, namely, the Dominion, and on purely economic grounds, she is perfectly justified. The same argument applies both to Nova Scotia and British Columbia, both of which are eager to secede, The whole question shows the utter futility of attempting to divide what nature has united and to unite what nature has divided, Writing on this question Professor Goldwin Smith, of Toronto, puts the issues very clearly, In the course of a lengthy letter to a London paper he says To make my point clear, I cannot help repeating what 1 have said elsewhere. The four blocks of territory of which the Dominion is made up—that is to say, the maritime provinces. Old Canada, comprising Ontario and Quebec; the North-West and British Columbia—are connected, as a glance at the map will show, by no natural bond of union, geographical or commercial. The maritime provinces are separated from Old Canada by an irreclaimable wilderness. Old Canada is separated from the North-West by another irreclaimable wilderness, and by the freshwater sea called Lake Superior; the North. West is separated from British Columbia by a triple range of mountains. Each block on the other hand, is closely connected, economically as well as geographically, with the portion of the United States immediately to the south of it; the maritime provinces with the New England States; Old Canada with Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the two last named States being the source of our coal supply ; the North-West with Minnesota, Dakota, and Montana from which it is divided only by an imaginary line ; and British Columbia with the Pacific States. Of the four divisions of Canada no two would naturally trade with each other, while each would naturally trade with the adjacent part of the United States. The four great industries of Canada need the American market for their goods. The farmer needs it for his farm produce, especially his barley ; the lumberman for his timber, the miner for his ore, the fisherlnan for his fish, The Americana want to buy what the Canadians have to sell. They also want to share the fisheries : while a share in the American coasting trade is a vital object to the shipbuilders and mariners of Novia Scotia and Brunswick, Nova Scotia also desires the American market for her bituminous coal; the Canadian farmer wants American machines and implements, the Canadian miner wants American machinery for crushing ore. There are articles, such as first-class printing presses which only the richer and more scientific country can produce, and the lack of which interferes with progress in the poorer country. It is hardly possible to maintain a first-class bookshop in Canada, because we are cut off from our natural centres ot distribution.

This manifestly approaching break up of the false bond of protection with which it has been attempted to bind the discordant atoms together only seems to show what a hollow mockery protection is when brought to face with nature’s laws. The very idea of the old Canadians having to threaten the Manitobans with a military force in order to prevent them from buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest will do more to stamp Canadian fiscal federation as an utter failure than thousands of articles and speeches could possibly have done. It was a well meant experiment, but its only result is a failure,