(1) For Confederation: (a) J. A. Macdonald.

Source.—Debates in the Parliament of Canada on the Confederation of British North America, 1865.

The colonies are now in a transition state. Gradually a different colonial system is being developed—and it will become year by year less a case of dependence on our part, and of overruling protection on the part of the Mother-country, and more a case of a healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation—a subordinate but still a powerful people—to stand by her in North America in peace or in war. The people of Australia will be such another subordinate nation. And England will have this advantage, if her colonies progress under the new colonial system, as I believe they will, that, though at war with all the rest of the world, she will be able to look to the subordinate nations in alliance with her, and owning allegiance to the same sovereign, who will assist in enabling her again to meet the whole world in arms, as she has done before. And if, in the great Napoleonic war, with every port in Europe closed against her commerce, she was yet able to hold her own, how much more will that be the case when she has a colonial empire rapidly increasing in power, in wealth, in influence, and in position? It is true that we stand in danger, as we have stood in danger again and again in Canada, of being plunged into war and suffering all its dreadful consequences, as the result of causes over which we have no control, by reason of this connection. This, however, did not intimidate us. At the very mention of the prospect of a war some time ago, how were the feelings of the people aroused from one extremity of British America to the other, and preparations made for meeting its worst consequences! Although the people of this country are fully aware of the horrors of war—should a war arise, unfortunately, between the United States and England, and we all pray it never may—they are still ready to encounter all perils of that kind, for the sake of the connection with England. There is not one adverse voice, not one adverse opinion on that point. We all feel the advantages we derive from our connection with England. So long as that alliance is maintained, we enjoy, under her protection, the privileges of constitutional liberty according to the British system. We will enjoy here that which is the great test of constitutional freedom—we will have the rights of the minority respected. In all countries the rights of the majority take care of themselves, but it is only in countries like England, enjoying constitutional liberty, and safe from the tyranny of a single despot or of an unbridled democracy, that the rights of minorities are regarded. So long, too, as we form a portion of the British Empire, we shall have the example of her free institutions, of the high standard of the character of her statesmen and public men, of the purity of her legislation, and the upright administration of her laws. In this younger country one great advantage of our connection with Great Britain will be, that, under her auspices, inspired by her example, a portion of her empire, our public men will be actuated by principles similar to those which actuate the statesmen at home. These, although not material, physical benefits, of which you can make an arithmetical calculation, are of such overwhelming advantage to our future interests and standing as a nation, that to obtain them is well worthy of any sacrifices we may be called upon to make, and the people of this country are ready to make them.

44. For Confederation: (b) George Brown.

And well, Mr. Speaker, may the work we have unitedly proposed rouse the ambition and energy of every true man in British America. Look, sir, at the map of the Continent of America, and mark that island (Newfoundland) commanding the mouth of the noble river that almost cuts our Continent in twain. Well, sir, that island is equal in extent to the kingdom of Portugal. Cross the straits of the mainland, and you touch the hospitable shores of Nova Scotia, a country as large as the kingdom of Greece. Then mark the sister province of New Brunswick—equal in extent to Denmark and Switzerland combined. Pass up the river St. Lawrence to Lower Canada—a country as large as France. Pass on to Upper Canada—twenty thousand square miles larger than Great Britain and Ireland put together. Cross over the Continent to the shores of the Pacific, and you are in British Columbia, the land of golden promise,—equal in extent to the Austrian Empire. I speak not now of the vast Indian Territories that lie between—greater in extent than the whole soil of Russia—and that will ere long, I trust, be opened up to civilisation under the auspices of the British American Confederation. Well, sir, the bold scheme in your hands is nothing less than to gather all these countries into one—to organise them all under one government, with the protection of the British flag, and in heartiest sympathy and affection with our fellow-subjects in the land that gave us birth. Our scheme is to establish a government that will seek to turn the tide of European emigration into this northern half of the American Continent—that will strive to develop its great natural resources—and that will endeavour to maintain liberty, and justice, and Christianity throughout the land.

45. (2) Against Confederation: Christopher Dunkin.

We are going to be called upon to spend money for yet another kindred purpose, and a large amount too—and this, as a part of this scheme. Our star of empire is to wing its way westward; and we are to confederate everything in its track, from Newfoundland to Vancouver's Island, this last included. But, between us and it, there lies the Hudson Bay territory. So, of course, we must acquire that for confederation purposes; and the plan is, that before we get it we shall have to pay for the elephant—though, after we get him, we may find him costly and hard to keep....

Disguise it how you may, the idea that underlies this plan is this, and nothing else—that we are to create here a something—kingdom, viceroyalty or principality—something that will soon stand in the same position towards the British Crown that Scotland and Ireland stood in before they were legislatively united with England; a something having no other tie to the Empire than the one tie of fealty to the British Crown—a tie which in the cases, first, of Scotland, and then of Ireland, was found, when the pinch came, to be no tie at all; which did not restrain either Scotland or Ireland from courses so inconsistent with that of England as to have made it necessary that their relations should be radically changed, and a legislative union formed in place of a merely nominal union. Suppose you do create here a kingdom or a principality, bound to the Empire by this shadow of a tie, the day of trial cannot be far distant, when this common fealty will be found of as little use in our case as it was in theirs, when, in consequence, the question will force itself on the Empire and on us, between entire separation on the one hand, and a legislative union on the other. But a legislative union of British America with the United Kingdom must be, in the opinion of, one may say, everybody at home and here, a sheer utter impossibility; and when the question shall come to be whether we are so to be merged in the United Kingdom or are to separate entirely from it, the answer can only be—"At whatever cost, we separate." Sir, I believe in my conscience that this step now proposed is one directly and inevitably tending to that other step; and for that reason—even if I believed, as I do not, that it bid fair to answer ever so well in the other respects—because I am an Englishman and hold to the connection with England, I must be against this scheme....

The real danger is not of war with the United States. It is from what I may call their pacific hostility—from trouble to be wrought by them within this country—trouble to arise out of refusal of reciprocity—repeal of the bonding system—custom-house annoyances—passport annoyances; from their fomenting difficulties here, and taking advantage of our local jealousies; from the multiplied worries they may cause us by a judicious alternation of bullying and coaxing, the thousand incidents which may easily be made to happen if things are not going on quite well in this country, and the people and government of the States are minded to make us feel the consequences of our not getting on quite so well as we might. Whether the union of the States is restored or not, this kind of thing can go on. The danger is, that either the United States, or those portions of the United States which are near us, and which are really stronger than we are, and enterprising enough and ambitious enough, and not very fond of us, and not at all fond of the Mother-country, not at all unwilling to strike a blow at her and to make us subservient to their own interest and ambition—the danger is, I say, that the United States, or those portions of the United States near us, may avail themselves of every opportunity to perplex us, to embroil us in trouble, to make us come within the disturbing influences of their strong local attraction. Now, to pretend to tell me that the United States or the Northern States, whichever you please, are going to be frightened from a policy of that kind by our taking upon ourselves great airs, and forming ourselves into a grand Confederation, is to tell me that their people are, like the Chinese, a people to be frightened by loud noises and ugly grimaces. I do not believe they are.