THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1889.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9255, 8 January 1889, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1889.

It may provoke a smile to observe "with what circumstantiality of detail some in the United States have been arranging for the annexation of the Dominion of Canada. "When Canada is admitted into the United States," as we are told by our San Francisco correspondent, whose interesting letter on the subject , appears in another column, " There will probably be fourteen new senators, and forty-two new representatives, and Canada would probably obtain a place in the Cabinet." Though we may not 3 follow the lightning rapidity with which the whole business is to be arranged, we are far from regarding this movement i as mere subject for ridicule. We observe that Sir J. McDonald, the Premier of the Dominion of Canada, speaking in Toronto, "ridiculed" the idea of annexation to the United States) and ridicule not uncommonly seems to be the measure meted out to every proposal, whether Imperial Federation or federation of the Anglo-Saxon race, or indeed anything that seems to be raised a little higher than the rut in which the affairs of the colonies, of the Empire, of the race,are trundling ' along. It is of course a long reach from the present to the developments of say, a hundred years from now, and the stages are many and varied between this and then. Step by step nations have advanced in the past of history, and step by step they will advance in the future, and one of such steps to- " wards the ultimate stage is this ° annexation movement in the States and the reciprocal action that appears to be proceeding in Canada. C. It will be observed that there is not even a soupQon of unfriendliness towards England in the idea, either as proposed in the bill submitted to Congress on the subject, or in the arguE ments used in support of it. The conviction is forced on the minds of those moving in this matter, that evils and inconveniences arise commercially as well as politically from a long line of E coterminous territory, and while neither political rule nor pecuniary benefit is either sought or expected, it is seen - that many and great advantages would $ arise from a political union between the Dominion and the States, both being possessed of kindred institutions, a common tongue, and an identical race. As told us by our San Francisco correspondent, Senator Sherman says, "My belief in the future common destiny of the two English-speak-ing nations of America has never wavered," and the same belief or sentiment may be cherished by others who have not the expectation that that B destiny will be worked out by the severance of the Dominion from the j Empire and its absorption by the States. Indeed it seems in the highest * degree likely that this movement, amic- ' able as it is in its inception, is naturally the first step in a far larger movement, which thousands of people also regard as "ridiculous," the drawing together into union of the States with the British Empire itself. But it is exactly such a movement as, if precipitately or unwisely pressed, may retard instead of expediting the great end. That Canada should be simply ■ absorbed in the United States is simply ' a dream of the impossible. The entirely preponderating loyalty of the people . of the Dominion to England is utterly ) opposed to it, the lucubrations of our ! correspondent, and of the American t people to the contrary notwithstanding; - while neither Great Britain nor her colonies would ever consent to such - dismemberment of the Empire. That ) incontestible fact in no way derogates from the importance and the interest of the present movement, which has its force not in a centrifugal force separating from England, but in a centripetal tendency which is drawing the Ani glo-Saxon race nearer and nearer every day. Indeed there is but 3 one single question that infuses a drop of bitterness into the growj ing friendly relations of America and England. That is the question of . Ireland. Let that question be once . settled —and it surely cannot vex for- ; ever —and the hearts of the Anglo- * Saxon race on both sides of the St. Lawrence and on both sides of the Atlantic will draw to one another with an irrepressible yearning; and no interest can possibly arise on which they can have 5 reason for variance. Neither now is aggressive ; neither now is actuated by that national irritability and susceptibility to offence which used to be taken , for national honour. Both will be actuated by a desire for peace, for liberty, for justice, for the welfare of (■ humanity, while the supposition that England desires ascendancy over America will be as utterly unknown .and unimagined as that America would , i 'desire to dominate England. ; If this annexation movement in the United States is treated respectfully, considerately, and wisely, it will lead to statesmen and people on both sides coming to consider why the advantages | likely to arise from Union of Canada 1 and the States, could not be extended by union of England and the States, not by the absorption of either by the other, but by the formation of a political bond consistent alike with the ; dignity and independence of both, but which would give an outward and visible form to that union of sentiment, , of policy, of aspiration, and of objects 1 which every day is increasing and confirming. In these Southern colonies we have unquestionably a very strong feeling of brotherhood with the American people. That does not in the smallest degree diminish the fervour of our loyalty to England, but on the contrary it seems to us like one and the same feelinga feeling, as it were, of family affection; and it seems to us that one of the noblest purposes to which we could turn the cordiality of our relations with the mother country, and the kindliness with which that feeling is reciprocated, would be if by some overt action or demonstration of popular will or otherwise, we could assist in bringing about a cordial reconciliation, and some form of political reunion with the mother Empire, of this estranged and separated member of our common family.