the lines and invested in brick blocks and a palatial mansion in Detroit. The free trader says this is all right; Canada gets cheap whiskey, and that makes up for the loss she sustains in freights and charges in exporting her own grain, and in looking after her drunkards. But why go on? These arguments are not necessary to a Nationalist. To him they are entirely beside the question. He says, "we cannot live by bread alone-we cannot make bricks without straw; I support a reciprocal tariff because it will build up a nation and keep me my country; and if to do this it costs me a few dollars more for a short time I am perfectly willing to pay them." The construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad is almost universally conceded as a national requirement. The only difference is as to the manner of acquiring means to build it. In the glut of capital at present locked up in England, one would imagine there would be no difficulty in obtaining ample means, especially considering Eng land's interest in the project as a highway to India. The necessity of building it will be more apparent in England now than it was before. There is no doubt that Russia, as the result of the present war, will have the free passage of the Straits which join the Black Sea and the Mediterranean; and, as a consequence, a safer route to India will eventually be looked for across Canada. If so, the obtaining of English capital to build the Canadian Pacific must, in a short time, be easily accomplished. The principle adopted in electing the Canadian Senate was a subject of considerable prominence a short time ago. It was alleged that the present system is bad; and the present House of Commons passed resolutions adopting, with very slight difference, the American system of electing the Senate-by the Local Legislatures. In Canada the American system might for a short time work well enough; but in time our local Houses would become what they are in the United States-hot beds of corruption and the vile instruments by which railroad corporations and rings control legislation. Our present system, no doubt, is not adapted to the present wants of the country. Something more flexible and more susceptible to public opinion is required. It is not creditable to the Canadian constitution, that a deadlock between the two Houses of Par liament might take place without a constitutional remedy such as they have in England in the power of appointing Peers, or that old men, barely able to get to the House, should go there once a year for the purpose of drawing their salaries. But these defects might be remedied easily without the radical changes projected by the present House of Commons. The Senate might be remodelled on a system by which a third of its members would be appointed every five years by the Crown-i.e. the Cabinet. In this way, that body could always be kept in accord with public opinion, as every five years one-third of the old members would fall out and new ones be appointed in their room. Moreover, this system would only allow fifteen years for the longest term, so that if a person was appointed Senator at say fifty years of age he would only be sixty-five at the expiration of his term. It might be objected, that this system would take the election of the Senators out of the hands of the people. But it would not do so any more than the election of them by the local Houses. In both cases, the Senators would be indirectly elected by the people. The people elect the members of the House of Commons, the House of Commons practically elect the Cabinet, and the Cabinet elect the Senators. It is one remove more from the people than the election by the Local Legislatures; but this makes the chance of having a pure Senate better, especially when one remembers that the Cabinet would have the assistance of the Governor-General in selecting Senators. Slightly connected with this, is some measure for securing the independence of the Government and Houses of Parliament of Canada. The English school of Manchester politicians are just as selfish as any politicians in the world, as proven by Robert Lowe's paper in the October number of the Fortnightly Review. There must necessarily, in the future, be questions between England and the United States, in which English and Canadian interests will conflict. Now England-which may mean a selfish and patriotic Colonial Minister-in these cases should not have the power of affecting the judg ment of members of the Canadian Government and Parliament, by conferring titles and pensions on them; and consequently a law should be passed that any member of the Government or Parliament of Canada, accepting a title or pension from the Crown or any foreign power, should vacate his seat. The present shipping question between France and Canada is the best illustration of the necessity of such a measure. All the foreign business of Canada must be done through England. The Imperial Government negotiates all our treaties. The English people want to sell their ships to Frenchmen; so do Canadians. The English will not allow our ships to compete with theirs in the French market. Hence, we have to pay double the duty to France which England pays, to get our ships to its market. Why is this? Because Canada allows England to do her foreign business for her; and when English and Canadian interests conflict, as in the Washington Treaty, Canadian interests must go to the wall. The whole shipping legislation between England and Canada must soon be entirely remodelled. The shipping interests of Canada are growing too large, and are diverging too much from those of England, to have the power to legislate respecting them left entirely in the hands of the English Parliament. Where all legislation is for iron bottoms, it must necessarily tend against Canadian wooden ships-not to speak of the special Plimsoll legislation aimed almost entirely at wooden vessels, including Canadian. This legislation, applying as it does to Canadian ships, is taking freight from us and putting it into the wooden ships of Nor way, Sweden, and other powers. Our cap tains and sailors are also harassed by English regulations. It is true, the tyrannical rules which prevented a doctor or officer with a Canadian certificate, from sailing on board Canadian vessels, have been abrogated. Nevertheless, a mate was prosecuted a short time ago in England for sailing on board a strictly British ship with a Canadian certificate. British laws should no more govern Canadian property in ships, than they do Canadian property in horses. No doubt eventually Canada will make laws to govern her own shipping. It is just as well that our requests for further powers in this respect are complied with gradually by the Imperial Government. When we get full powers, we shall have to face the question of Canadian consuls in foreign ports, and a Canadian flag; and it is to be hoped that, when the time comes, our self-reliance will be so developed that these will be no obstacles. The separated colonies in Australia fly a more distinctive flag at this present moment than the united Dominion of Canada with all her shipping. However long Canada can afford to wait to get full powers relative to her shipping, she can afford no time in rectifying the present British copyright law. Any English author can at present sell to an American publisher copyright for the whole Canadian Dominion, which no Canadian publisher dares to violate, and this without paying to the Canadian Government one cent, and without giving to the Canadian author reciprocal rights either in England or in the United States. Not only can this be done, but the Canadian people can be deprived of any English book when the Canadian circulation is purchased with the first sheets-as it usually is-unless His Highness Mr. Harper, or Mr. Jones, of New York, or some other American publisher, sees fit to send the book for sale to Canada. We are reproached by the Americans with being behind the age. It is no wonder, when Imperial laws shut out the intellectual world of books from our people; at all events they have this effect. There is one more practical principle which should be mentioned as being exclusively "national"—that is, abstaining from the vicious practice of personally canvassing for votes. This is the source of nearly all the electoral corruption we have to contend against. Moreover it is practically forbidden by the Ballot Act. That act makes a man subject to fine who tries to ascertain how a man has voted, after the voting has taken place. What is the difference whether it is before or after? If it is wrong to do so after, it cannot be right to do so before. Besides, it is useless to canvass, for whatever a man may say, the ballot gives him the opportunity afterwards of doing as he pleases. It will be admitted by every Nationalist that the isolation of our French-speaking countrymen is to be deplored. It is more than probable that their patriotism is more ardent and disinterested than that of Englishspeaking Canadians, as there is no other country to divide their affection, France having given them up over a century ago. Those English-speaking Canadians who speak their language, and have associated with them as cadets in military camps, say there is nothing to complain of on the score of patriotism. Indeed some of these had reason to feel not a little ashamed of their English-speaking comrades at their stolidity in listening to the patriotic songs of Quebec. It is true, these songs were sung in French, and it is hard to appreciate sentiment in a foreign language. But something must be lacking when a man who understands French can stolidly sit unmoved while listening to the Marseillaise or Mourir pour la Patrie sung as some of our Quebec countrymen sing them. The appreciation of patriotic sentiment in a song may be a poor criterion to judge by, but nevertheless the world will not soon forget Rouget de Lisle. ments are now given in French and English. It is submitted that the advocacy of these principles, that is: Power in Canada to make Canadian subjects, with the rights and protection of British subjects; manhood suffrage for the Dominion on two years' residence therein; a permanent Deputy-Governor for the Dominion-such Deputy-Governor to be Speaker of the House of Commons; a reciprocal tariff with the people of the United States, with the early settlement of the boundary between Alaska and our NorthWest; the construction of theCanadian Pacific Railroad; the appointment of a third of the However, we cannot judge properly the members of the Senate every five years by people of Quebec until we know them; and the Crown; the incapacity of members of the so long as we are separated as we are at Canadian Government or Parliament to represent, we never can become one people. ceive titles or pensions from the Crown or a As Canadians, the people of Ontario cannot foreign government; the right of Canada to afford to have a strange people, over a mil- make laws respecting her own shipping and lion in number, in their own country, be- copyright within her jurisdiction; the aboli tween them and their English-speaking tion of personal canvass for votes; and makcountrymen of the Maritime Provinces; ing French a compulsory branch of common and if the mountain will not come to Ma- school education; must have a tendency to homet, then Mahomet must go to the make Canadians patriotic, and to advance our mountain. The acquirement of the French country as a nation. It is asserted by antilanguage ought to be made compulsory Nationalists that our principles are now too common schools-it forms part nebulous for any practical good; indeed reof the course now in the grammar schools--cently we have been told by an authority and the study of French literature ought to be encouraged. Apart from patriotism this would be a benefit. Nothing can have more effect in training the youthful mind to study and reflection than learning a strange language, and it is especially beneficial in exercising and training the memory. Add to this, that the learning of French will bring us into communication with over a million of our countrymen, enable us to know them, dissipate their and our prejudices, and help to form us into one people, and its use as a study cannot be questioned. in our As the school systems, however, are under the control of the local governments, it may not be so easy to introduce the necessary change; but it is to be hoped that the benefits flowing from its study, added to its patriotic use, may induce the Provincial authorities to insist on the learning of French as a compulsory branch of study in the elementary schools of all the English-speaking Pro vinces. Hereafter French must be a necessity for every man in the Dominion who aspires to the legal profession, as Supreme Court judg which all Nationalists highly respect—the writer of "Current Events" in the CANADIAN MONTHLY-that "aspirations are in themselves good only so far as they lead to practical effort in a right direction, and it is by no means clear that a national movement is sustainable whose foundation is aspiration merely." Such being the opinion of friends and foes, the present writer respectfully submits the foregoing principles as a basis for united action. It is to be regretted that national principles have not been enunciated by one of the gentlemen whom Nationalists regard as their leaders—Sir Alexander Galt, Edward Blake, and W. H. Howland. At a time like the present, however, when the young men of Toronto are talking platitudes about the "reformers " of past ages, while afraid or incapable themselves of throwing off the yoke of the Globe, or to withstand its invitations to take part in the vile politics which at present obtain, some one must speak out. Until such time as the above named gentlemen think proper to teach us, Nationalists should go on advocating-no matter how feebly-those principles which will advance our country towards her manifest destiny, looking, even beyond the accomplishment of all those things, to a time when the chaotic confusion which now reigns supreme in our laws and governments shall be turned into order and regularity, and a common code like that of Napoleon shall bind our country indissolubly together throughout all its vast extent. WILLIAM NORRIS. THREE FRIENDS OF MINE: DE QUINCEY, COLERIDGE, AND POE. IN Queen Mab, where it is told how lanthe, come less warm, N that fair and beauteous passage in can never fail, and their affection never be- the spirit, rises at the bidding of her of the magic car from the earthy encumbrance of "Forever will I love and they be fair." Ianthe, the body, and panting for her heav-Changeless as spirits are, and yet warm and enly and eternal heritage, "Ever-changing, ever-rising still, leaving behind that other Ianthe whose every organ "performs its natural functions," and yet is not Ianthe-we have a picture of the glorious change which takes place when any one whose song has cheered our path, whose beauty has filled our inind, or whose wisdom has helped us on, passes away to the Garden of Death, yet leaves with us the brightest and living part- the soul of him whose mere clay "Fleets through its sad duration rapidly; Then like a useless and worn-out machine, Rots, perishes, and passes. And this is why when talking of those who are not, we may yet use the personal terms as to those who are still amongst us, since the non omnis moriar forbids us to think of them as dead, but, in sweet appeal, points to the still-living portion-which is indeed Ianthe-the spirit, living and panting for its heritage in our hearts, while we, perverse, cannot but mourn that other Ianthe-which is not Ianthe-which has perished and passed away. So these Three Friends of Mine, though I know them not in the flesh, are yet living and real to me, more real indeed than those who are in the flesh, since their friendship flush with human life, as having been of like dust with me, they walk and talk with me, nor ever do their steps falter, or their words lose their wisdom and sweetness. And . yet, sooth to tell, while they dwelt amongst us their weakness was no common weakness, and their fall from the high standard of the world's morality no common fall. By no means is it common to see a man of such a mind as Poe's fall, done to death by joys of the wine-cup which many an ordinary soul has withstood; not ordinary is it for men of such souls of harmony as De Quincey and Coleridge to be broken, subdued, and slain by the potency of that golden drug, whose charms men of far commoner mould have resisted. And yet such men were these my friends. They all perished by the intenperate use of their favourite gratification, and yet they live,-live as not all the temperance lecturers that ever castigated with words of scorn such human weakness, will ever live forever in the hearts of those who have stopped by the way to lend an ear to their singing. And what is the charm? Indeed hard to put into words. It may be, the sweet echoes of their melodies linger, never forgotten in the sense, giving music to what else were harsh and strange the unvarying monotone of daily life. It may be memory refuses to part with, but retains in that rare storehouse of the brain where is treasured. up forever the dear remembrance of happy childhood hours and a dead mother's love, the homelike words that give one the feeling they have been heard before, yet rich with such deep meaning and sounding harmony as tell one, that never were they heard by earthly ear, but that now has been woven into words the music which in purer and more solemn moments is heard murmuring within the being. Whatever it may be-lo! the charm is there. And this one great characteristic distinguishes the three, and this one great feature is common to these three and to none else beside, that, whether due to the wine or to the drug, they sing to us of the great dream-world, and we listen and recognise the voices as of beings of that great, fantastic fairy land-the land of dreams. They are inconsistent and purposeless; what dream was ever otherwise? They are fantastic and unreal; still like a dream. And again, as befits such dreamers, they are grand, far above earth, their music is of the spheres, wild and heavenly are the strains, for they tell of the unknown and the unknowable. lous, fatal drug affected him. Listen to this and say, is it quite earthly? sional amusement, a great reader of Livy, whom I "I had been in youth, and even since, for occaconfess that I prefer, both for style and matter, to any other of the Roman historians; and I had often felt as most solemn and appalling sounds, and most emphatically representative of the majesty of the Roman people, the two words so often occurring in Livy-Consul Romanus; especially when the consul is introduced in his military character. I mean to say that the words king, sultan, regent, &c., or any other titles of those who embody in their own persons the collective majesty of a great people, had less power over my reverential feelings. I had also, though no great reader of history, made myself minutely and critically familiar with one period of English history, viz., the period of the Parliamentary War, having been attracted by the moral grandeur of some who figured in that day, and by the many interesting memoirs which survive those unquiet times. Both these parts of my lighter reading, having furnished me often with matter of reflection, now furnished me with matter for my dreams. Often I used to see, after painting upon the blank darkness a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. said, or said to myself, these are English ladies from wives and daughters of those who met in peace and the unhappy times of Charles I. sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage I do not purpose to analyze or compare or by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August, these Three. Why try to explain the where- 1642, never smiled upon each other again, nor met but on the field of battle, and, at Marston Moor, at fore of our tears here; our glad sense of en- Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all ties of love joyment there; our deep and solemn feeling, by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the as of Wordsworth's child listening to the still memory of ancient friendship.' The ladies danced, murmur from within "the convolutions of a and looked as lovely as the court of George IV., but I knew, even in my dream, that they had been in the smooth-lipped shell," whereby the great and grave for nearly two centuries. This pageant would distant sea breathes its cadences to those suddenly dissolve, and, at a clapping of hands, would who are far away, at another place? Enough be heard the heart-quaking sound of Consul Romathat the gods have given to us such ones; nus, and immediately came sweeping by,' in gorenough that to us their song has been per-geous paludaments, Paulus or Marius, girt round by a mitted; enough that we have what in them was; enough -quite enough that we may bow head and heart in thankful adoration, and enjoy neither too joyfully nor too tearfully the priceless boon. And now, as one in the midst of much treasure, at a loss, amid so much of rare, how to pick and choose, not knowing of so many pearls which to take up or wherefore, let me in all humbleness offer a few as sample and allurement to entice into the king's treasure, to see for themselves, those who have passed by unnoticing. To me it seems that of all fascinating things in literature, none so much rivets the attention by the splendour of its language, by the richness of its picturing, and by the melancholy tone that pervades its beauty, as De Quincey's relation of how that marvel And I heard it These are the company of centurions, with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by the alalagmos of the Roman legions." This has all the weirdness and exaggeration of a dream and it has more-it has all the vividness and terror of reality; and the following passage, in which he relates how in his dreams of lakes and expanses of water, "the human face divine" played so cruel a part, there is something almost maddening in its real, life-like horror :— "Upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to appear; the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens; faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged up by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries;my agitation was infinite, my mind tossed and surged with the ocean.” But terrible as this is there was yet a deeper descent for the opium-eater. After |