concern both the destiny of the nation and the Parliamentary character of its Government. Are the energies of the English people to be henceforth devoted to industry and maritime enterprise or to territorial and military aggrandizement? That is now the question between the aristocracy and the democracy of England. Closely connected with it is the question whether foreign policy, the employment of the army, and the diplomatic and military expenditure shall be under the control of Parliament, or parts of the prerogative of the Crown, to the exercise of which Parliament shall only be called on to register its submission. The immediate result is very doubtful; the ultimate result might be doubtful if it depended on the balance of parties in England alone. England has now, by the growth of international sympathy and intelligence, been made an integral part of Europe, which as a whole is moving

on.

But

The Conservative party will probably gain by the strikes, which alarm the well-to-do and order loving classes, while, from what reason it is difficult to say, the strikers as a rule, do not support the Liberals in politics but rather the reverse. In Blackburn and Sheffield, for instance, the roughest of the trade unions are Tory. At Sheffield, ten years ago, the very union which had committed the notorious outrages perpetually, though unfairly, imputed to all trade unions, voted against the Liberal, Mr. Mundella.

Of course there will also be a strong reaction against trade unions, on which the blame of the commercial depression is cast. If I could only have the free use of my labourer,' says the English capitalist, I could beat all the manufacturers of other countries.' But if the capitalist could have the free use of his labourer, without limit of hours or of severity of toil, without any restriction in regard to age or sex, would the labourer have much use of his life? A development

of commercial wealth unparalleled in history, hundreds of colossal fortunes made within a few years, palaces crowning every English hill, miles upon miles of sumptuous town houses, London parks filled with endless trains of splendid equipages, merchant luxury outvying what was once the luxury of kings, the wantonness of plethoric opulence, squandering thousands of pounds upon a china vase, prove that the British workman with all his faults, has not done badly for his employer. If he strikes against what he believes to be an undue reduction of his wages, it is not easy to draw a line, in point of principle, between his conduct and that of his employers, who combine to lock out the workmen, and sometimes in a pretty peremptory manner. The struggle is infinitely to be deplored, and we must all rejoice to see that the milder and more rational method of arbitration is gradually gaining ground. But in the apportionment of the fruits of labour, the interest of society, econominal as well as moral, requires justice, and if the associations of employers had it in their power to fix the rate of wages, without any counteracting combination on the other side, it is by no means certain that justice would always be the result. It is quite certain that justice was far from being the result when legislatures, entirely under the control of masters, made laws concerning the relations of the masters and the men. The greatest enemy of the Unions will hardly assert that the lot of the agricultural labourer in England, with his three dollars a week for himself, his wife and children, his wretched hovel, his worse than prison fare, and the workhouse for his haven of rest in his old age, was one which, in the interest of society, called for no improvement, or deny that it has been improved since the labourer has learned combination under the leadership of Joseph Arch.

The main causes of the depression

are manifest. They are the infringement of the monopoly which since the Napoleonic war England has enjoyed, by the growth of manufactures in other countries, and the violent impulse given to speculation by ten years of unbounded prosperity which caused the means of production to be multiplied beyond the demand. These are things with which the workman has had nothing to do, any more than he had with the tricks of trade which have brought English goods into disrepute in many foreign mar

kets.

The

go

After all, in this contest, Labour, in spite of its unions, succumbs. In the industrial war, as in other wars, the long purse wins. The men who negotiate fasting give way to those who have had their breakfasts. wages of the British workman will down. And then, as food has been made very plentiful in England by importation from various quarters, as there is an immense accumulation of machinery of all kinds and a superabundance of capital, ready to set it going, production will become very cheap, and the producers of Canada and all other manufacturing countries will find themselves placed under the stress of a competition much severer than before.

In view of this probability, the National Policy, which, before this paper meets the reader's eye, will have been disclosed at Ottawa, becomes a matter more of curiosity than of importance. The new Premier and his able Minister of Finance will no doubt have framed a revised tariff skilfully from their own point of view-from the point of view, that is, of statesmen who believe it possible to cut off Canada economically from the continent of which she is a part, to make her for ever a commercial as well as a political appendage of a country on the other side of the ocean, and to treat the rest of the English-speaking race on this side of it fiscally and in

every other respect as mere foreigners and almost as natural enemies. They will deserve the credit of at least trying to act upon their principles and of not being mere 'flies on the wheel.' But they seem destined speedily to have their attention called to the weak points of their position. Against the United States they may in some measure protect the interests of the Canadian producer; but in the meantime their client will be drowned by a torrent from another quarter against which they cannot consistently with their political principles afford him any protection at all. Difficulties attend the task of devising a national policy for a country which is not a nation. Difficulties attend that task even from the Protectionist point of view; much more from the point of view of those who hold that what Canada really needs is free access to the markets of her own continent, and to those of the other countries which would take her goods and with which, if she were in possession of commercial autonomy, she might make terms for herself.

Whatever may be the result, however, of the present revision of the tariff, commercial questions are apparently coming to the front, while the old political issues are for the time receding into the background. Depression has forced the people to put aside party figments and turn their attention to the solid interests of the country. The last election, which turned on an economical question, is likely to prove a new departure in the politics of this country.

Together with the revelation of the National Policy Parliament will, no doubt, receive an announcement of the vigorous resumption of the Pacific Railway. There are among our leading men of business those who regard the enterprise as commercially des perate, and see in it a signal instance of the sinister influence exercised by the Imperialist sentiment on the economical policy of Canada. But

these prophets may be mistaken, as Lord Palmerston was when he predicted the failure of the Suez Canal. The scheme has been adopted on political grounds with the consent of the country, and it is better in any event that it should be carried into effect in earnest by its authors than that those who are not its authors, and do not really believe in it, though they lack courage to renounce it, should fritter away money in half-hearted and wavering measures. When the railroad is completed we shall learn what Manitoba and British Columbia will be really worth to us. At present British Columbia brings mere irritation, expense and weakness. Manitoba is taking away some of our best farmers, with their enterprise and capital, while her trade must be mainly with the tract of country to the markets of which she has the readiest access, and of which, in fact, nature has made her an integral part.

In the last number of this magazine there was a vigorous plea for an increase of the appropriation to the militia, which will probably find expression in Parliament. Undoubtedly the service at present receives niggard recognition. But will the people consent to do more for it, especially in a time of deficit and retrenchment? To persuade them you must alarm them; and what cause have they for alarm? A naval war, it is true, may any day break out between England and some maritime power; in that case our mercantile marine would suffer; but it is very unlikely that a landing would be effected or even attempted on our coasts. War with the United States, though it may hover before the imagination of some of our military men, is not contemplated as a practical possibility by the people. That Canada will greatly influence the political development and the general destinies of the English-speaking race upon this continent is a reasonable as well as a proud

hope; but it will be by other agencies than those of war; and it is preposterous to dream of military glory and aggrandizement to be won at the expense of a nation ten times exceeding ours in numbers, increasing much more rapidly than we do, and, as many a murderous field has witnessed, inferior in courage to no people in the world. It is as a school of bodily vigour, of patriotism, of comradeship, of discipline, as an antidote to some of the bad tendencies both of democracy and of commercial life, that the Canadian ar.uy is likely to be useful and worthy of a liberal support; but its professional efficiency is of course essential to the production of the moral effect.

It seems that the Letellier question is not to be allowed to drop. An impression is abroad that the majority will revive the motion of censure which was voted down last session. Sir Francis Hincks vigorously sustains the conduct of the Lieut.-Governor. He deprecates the imputation of motives. Unluckily in this case the motive, or to put it in a rather less invidious way, the apparent inducement is the main question for consideration. Nobody can deny that the Lieut.-Governor had a legal right to change his ministers. Nobody can deny even that he acted in accordance with the formal theory of the constitution as set forth by such writers as Blackstone and Delolme. But it is equally undeniable that in the period subsequent to the full development of parliamentary and cabinet government a precedent for his proceeding will be sought in vain. The dismissal of Lord Palmerston is scouted by Sir Francis Hincks as totally foreign to the discussion, though it was brought forward on his own side. An extraordinary use of the dormant prorogative of the Crown by such a functionary as the Lieut.-Governor of a Province 'surely is a subject for re

mark if anything can be. The neglect of a formal observance toward the Lieut.-Governor in bringing in a Government bill, for the policy of which the Cabinet was of course responsible, might be a ground for notice, and perhaps for rebuke, but could hardly be a sufficient occasion for a coup d'état. It does not appear that the Lieut. Governor, having an extraordinary case to deal with, and being placed, as he must have known he was, in an equivocal position, consulted his natural adviser the Governor-General; and it does appear that not long before the occurrence he had a meeting with Mr. Brown. The suspicion of a desire on his part to throw the government with its patronage and influence into the hands of his own friends before the election was so sure to arise, even in the most charitable minds, that he must have felt the necessity of obviating it; and he might have done so by strictly enjoining his new ministers, in the name of his honour and their own scrupulously to abstain from meddling with the Dominion election.

To insist that the connection of the Lieut.-Governor with a political party shall be left out of sight, is surely to ask us to wink very hard indeed. We are told that the Judges are taken from political parties, and that, nevertheless, we give them credit for impartiality on the Bench. But our Judges, with one exception, on entering the judiciary, have finally severed their connection with party; and to assume that they will still be unable to clear their minds of the political associations of the past, is to suppose a rare attachment to the ladder by which we have risen when the desired elevation has been attained. Lieut.-Governors do not sever their connection with their party; we have two of them in active political life at this moment. Officers under such temptations ought, for their own sake, to be held strictly to the rules

of their office; and it is a pity that their functions and powers are not perfectly defined by law, and that anything should be left to mere usage and tacit understanding. Unwritten constitutions may do very well for old countries like England, where the tradition is thoroughly established by centuries of practice, and is, moreover, in the constant safekeeping of an almost hereditary caste of statesmen. But they are not so well suited to new countries, where tradition can hardly be said to exist, where opinion is without authoritative organs, and where there is little to steady or control individual fancy. The private studies of a partisan Lieut.-Governor on the principles of the constitution, will be apt to have as untoward a result as the private studies of Commander Wilkes in international law had in the case of the Trent.

Still, to stir the question again seems inexpedient. It is not desirable that the advent of a new party to power should be marked by reprisals. The act ofthe Lieut.-Governor was legal and cannot be cancelled, nor without positive proof of flagrantly bad motive can it be made the subject of any proceeding in the nature of an impeachment. It was passed upon at the time both by the Dominion Parliament and by the people of Quebec; and though the verdict is not likely, in either case, to command the deference of posterity, it must, like other verdicts delivered by the proper authority, be taken as practically final.

Parliament is opened with the pomp and circumstance befitting so extraordinary an occasion as the inauguration of Etiquette in the new world. Professor Fanning, who, deride him as you will, is the real soul of this great enterprise, has gone down, we are told, express to teach the presentation bow and curtsey. Curious manifestations of human na

ture will be seen, and perhaps some shrewd observer may collect the materials for an amusing chapter in the social history of Canada.

The most robust faith in the final perfection of our Federal arrangements will scarcely survive this session of the Ontario Parliament. Everybody is saying that half a dozen Reeves and men of business would do all the work in a quarter of the time, and without any of the expense. For legislation of the more important kind, and the solution of such questions as that of City government, these local assemblies are not qualified.

Whatever amount of the raw material for statesmanship there may be among us, not enough can be worked up under the circumstances of a new country to supply more than one Parliament fit for the exercise of the highest powers. Neither Sir John į Macdonald, nor anybody who is entitled to speak for him, has said a syllable about legislative union; but there seems to be some reason for believing that he is not unwilling to make improvements in the direction of economy and simplicity if he can see his way to them. At once Mr. Brown, through his organ and his satellites, appeals to provincial selfishness and jealousy against his rival's supposed designs. Sir John Macdonald, if he has been eager and sometimes little scrupulous in the pursuit of power, if in the fury of party battle he has done things which all, excepting extreme partisans, condemn, has at least not been devoid of generous ambition. He has desired to connect his name with the prosperity and greatness of the country; and whatever inany way conduces to them, receives from him a measure of liberal sympathy, though it may not square exactly with his own notions or contribute to his own ascendancy. But the sole aim of Mr. Brown has been to keep the country under his control. The country has shaken him off, but

he still clutches Ontario. A genuine Liberal be never was, for the most essential part of genuine Liberalism is respect for freedom of opinion; but from rampant demagogism he has now, in the course of nature, sunk into servile Toryism, and upon every question that arises, political, fiscal or commercial, he tries at once to commit the party to a reactionary course. The party, however, has probably begun to reflect that the sacrifice of its future to his political decrepitude may be a bad investment, to say nothing of more patriotic considerations; and if Sir John Macdonald has anything to propose for the good of Canada, it is not likely that he will find the Liberals of Ontario disposed to play an anti-national part for the sake of keeping the Province under the exclusive dominion of Mr. Brown.

With regard to the delectable question of the Pay Grab' both parties may be said to have proved themselves worthy of the prize. But the community cannot afford to forego its hold upon the special responsibility of the leader of the House. It surely was his duty when approached upon the subject with a request in the somewhat suspicious guise of a round robbin, to insist that whatever was to be done should be done openly, with ample notice to the public and full opportunity for discussion. If he lends himself to a plan for hurrying through, in secret session, so equivocal a measure, he may still insist on calling himself a Reformer; but it must be on some supralapsarian theory of the character, assuming that its possessor will be saved by indefectible grace, however little consonant to his professions his external acts may be.