Lord Elgin - Sir John George Bourinot (distant reading .txt) 📗

ingenious intellect to bear on the politicians at Washington, but even he with all his commercial acuteness and financial knowledge was unable to accomplish anything. It was not until Lord Elgin himself went to the national capital and made use of his diplomatic tact and amenity of demeanour that a successful result was reached. No governor-general who ever visited the United States made so deep an impression on its statesmen and people as was made by Lord Elgin during this mission to Washington, and also in the course of the visits he paid to Boston and Portland where he spoke with great effect on several occasions. He won the confidence and esteem of statesmen and politicians by his urbanity, dignity, and capacity for business. He carried away his audiences by his exhibition of a high order of eloquence, which evoked the admiration of those who had been accustomed to hear Webster, Everett, Wendell, Philipps, Choate, and other noted masters of oratory in America.

He spoke at Portland after his success in negotiating the treaty, and was able to congratulate both Canada and the United States on the settlement of many questions which had too long alienated peoples who ought to be on the most friendly terms with each other. He was now near the close of his Canadian administration and was able to sum up the results of his labours. The discontent with which the people of the United States so often sympathized had been brought to an end "by granting to Canadians what they desired--the great principle of self-government" "The inhabitants of Canada at this moment," he went on to say, "exercise as much influence over their own destinies and government as do the people of the United States. This is the only cause of misunderstanding that ever existed; and this cannot arise when the circumstances which made them at variance have ceased to exist."

The treaty was signed on June 5th, 1854, by Lord Elgin on the part of Great Britain, and by the Honourable W.L. Marcy, secretary of state, on behalf of the United States, but it did not legally come into force until it had been formally ratified by the parliament of Great Britain, the congress of the United States, and the several legislatures of the British provinces. It exempted from customs duties on both sides of the line certain articles which were the growth and produce of the British colonies and of the United States--the principal being grain, flour, breadstuffs, animals, fresh, smoked, and salted meats, fish, lumber of all kinds, poultry, cotton, wool, hides, ores of metal, pitch, tar, ashes, flax, hemp, rice, and unmanufactured tobacco. The people of the United States and of the British provinces were given an equal right to navigate the St. Lawrence river, the Canadian canals and Lake Michigan. No export duty could be levied on lumber cut in Maine and passing down the St. John or other streams in New Brunswick. The most important question temporarily settled by the treaty was the fishery dispute which had been assuming a troublesome aspect for some years previously. The government at Washington then began to raise the issue that the three mile limit to which their fishermen could be confined should follow the sinuosities of the coasts, including bays; the object being to obtain access to the valuable mackerel fisheries of the Bay of Chaleurs and other waters claimed to be exclusively within the territorial jurisdiction of the maritime provinces. The imperial government generally sustained the contention of the provinces--a contention practically supported by the American authorities in the case of Delaware, Chesapeake, and other bays on the coasts of the United States--that the three mile limit should be measured from a line drawn from headland to headland of all bays, harbours, and creeks. In the case of the Bay of Fundy, however, the imperial government allowed a departure from this general principle when it was urged by the Washington government that one of its headlands was in the territory of the United States, and that it was an arm of the sea rather than a bay. The result was that foreign fishing vessels were shut out only from the bays on the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick within the Bay of Fundy. All these questions were, however, placed in abeyance, for twelve years, by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, which provided that the inhabitants of the United States could take fish of any kind, except shell fish, on the sea coasts, and shores, in the bays, harbours, and creeks of any British province, without any restriction as to distance, and had also permission to land on these coasts and shores for the purpose of drying their nets and curing their fish. The same privileges were extended to British citizens on the eastern sea coasts and shores of the United States, north of the 36th parallel of north latitude--privileges of no practical value to the people of British North America compared with those they gave up in their own prolific waters. The farmers of the agricultural west accepted with great satisfaction a treaty which gave their products free access to their natural market, but the fishermen and seamen of the maritime provinces, especially of Nova Scotia, were for some time dissatisfied with provisions which gave away their most valuable fisheries without adequate compensation, and at the same time refused them the privilege--a great advantage to a ship-building, ship-owning province--of the coasting trade of the United States on the same terms which were allowed to American and British vessels on the coasts of British North America. On the whole, however, the treaty eventually proved of benefit to all the provinces at a time when trade required just such a stimulus as it gave in the markets of the United States. The aggregate interchange of commodities between the two countries rose from an annual average of $14,230,763 in the years previous to 1854 to $33,492,754 gold currency, in the first year of its existence; to $42,944,754 gold currency, in the second year; to $50,339,770 gold currency in the third year; and to no less a sum than $84,070,955 at war prices, in the thirteenth year when it was terminated by the United States in accordance with the provision, which allowed either party to bring it to an end after a due notice of twelve months at the expiration of ten years or of any longer time it might remain in force. Not only was a large and remunerative trade secured between the United States and the provinces, but the social and friendly intercourse of the two countries necessarily increased with the expansion of commercial relations and the creation of common interests between them. Old antipathies and misunderstandings disappeared under the influence of conditions which brought these communities together and made each of them place a higher estimate on the other's good qualities. In short, the treaty in all respects fully realized the expectations of Lord Elgin in working so earnestly to bring it to a successful conclusion.

However, it pleased the politicians of the United States, in a moment of temper, to repeal a treaty which, during its existence, gave a balance in favour of the commercial and industrial interests of the republic, to the value of over $95,000,000 without taking into account the value of the provincial fisheries from which the fishermen of New England annually derived so large a profit. Temper, no doubt, had much to do with the action of the United States government at a time when it was irritated by the sympathy extended to the Confederate States by many persons in the provinces as well as in Great Britain--notably by Mr. Gladstone himself. No doubt it was thought that the repeal of the treaty would be a sort of punishment to the people of British North America. It was even felt--as much was actually said in congress--that the result of the sudden repeal of the treaty would be the growth of discontent among those classes in Canada who had begun to depend upon its continuance, and that sooner or later there would arise a cry for annexation with a country from which they could derive such large commercial advantages. Canadians now know that the results have been very different from those anticipated by statesmen and journalists on the other side of the border. Instead of starving Canada and forcing her into annexation, they have, by the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty, and by their commercial policy ever since, materially helped to stimulate her self-reliance, increase her commerce with other countries, and make her largely a self-sustaining, independent country. Canadians depend on themselves--on a self-reliant, enterprising policy of trade--not on the favour or caprice of any particular nation. They are always quite prepared to have the most liberal commercial relations with the United States, but at the same time feel that a reciprocity treaty is no longer absolutely essential to their prosperity, and cannot under any circumstances have any particular effect on the political destiny of the Canadian confederation whose strength and unity are at length so well assured.


CHAPTER X



FAREWELL TO CANADA

Lord Elgin assumed the governor-generalship of Canada on January 30th, 1847, and gave place to Sir Edmund Head on December 19th, 1854. The address which he received from the Canadian legislature on the eve of his departure gave full expression to the golden opinions which he had succeeded in winning from the Canadian people during his able administration of nearly eight years. The passionate feeling which had been evoked during the crisis caused by the Rebellion Losses Bill had gradually given way to a true appreciation of the wisdom of the course that he had followed under such exceptionally trying circumstances, and to the general conviction that his strict observance of the true forms and methods of constitutional government had added strength and dignity to the political institutions of the country and placed Canada at last in the position of a semi-independent nation. The charm of his manner could never fail to captivate those who met him often in social life, while public men of all parties recognized his capacity for business, the sincerity of his convictions, and the absence of a spirit of intrigue in connection with the administration of public affairs and his relations with political parties. He received evidences on every side that he had won the confidence and respect and even affection of all nationalities, classes, and creeds in Canada. In the very city where he had been maltreated and his life itself endangered, he received manifestations of approval which were full compensation for the mental sufferings to which he was subject in that unhappy period of his life, when he proved so firm, courageous and far-sighted. In well chosen language--always characteristic of his public addresses--he spoke of the cordial reception he had met with, when he arrived a stranger in Montreal, of the beauty of its surroundings, of the kind attention with which its citizens had on more than one occasion listened to the advice he gave to their various associations, of the undaunted courage with which the merchants had promoted the construction of that great road which was so necessary to the industrial development of the province, of the patriotic energy which first gathered together such noble specimens of Canadian industry from all parts of the country, and had been the means of making the great World's Fair so serviceable to Canada; and then as he recalled the pleasing incidents of the past, there came to his mind a thought of the scenes of 1849, but the sole reference he allowed himself was this: "And I shall forget--but no, what I might have to forget is forgotten already, and therefore I cannot tell you what I shall forget."

The last speech which he delivered in the picturesque city of Quebec gave such eloquent expression to the