Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (story reading txt) 📖

bear on the politicians, until by 1845 the Democratic party declared 'for 54° 40' or fight,' Mr. Crittenden announced that "war might now be looked upon as almost inevitable." Happily President Polk and congress came to more pacific conclusions after a good deal of warlike talk; and the result was a treaty (1846) by which England accepted the line 49 degrees to the Pacific coast, and obtained the whole of Vancouver Island, which for a while seemed likely to be divided with the United States. But Vancouver Island was by no means a compensation for what England gave up, for, on the continent, she yielded all she had contended for since 1824, when she first proposed the Columbia River as a basis of division.

But even then the question of boundary was not finally settled by this great victory which had been won for the United States by the persistency of her statesmen. The treaty of 1846 continued the line of boundary westward along "the 49th parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's straits to the Pacific Ocean" Anyone reading this clause for the first time, without reference to the contentions that were raised afterwards, would certainly interpret it to mean the whole body of water that separates the continent from Vancouver,--such a channel, in fact, as divides England from France; but it appears there are a number of small channels separating the islands which lie in the great channel in question, and the clever diplomatists at Washington immediately claimed the Canal de Haro, the widest and deepest, as the canal of the treaty. Instead of at once taking the ground that the whole body of water was really in question, the English government claimed another channel, Rosario Strait, inferior in some respects, but the one most generally, and indeed only, used at the time by their vessels. The importance of this difference of opinion lay chiefly in the fact, that the Haro gave San Juan and other small islands, valuable for defensive purposes, to the United States, while the Rosario left them to England. Then, after much correspondence, the British government, as a compromise, offered the middle channel, or Douglas, which would still retain San Juan. If they had always adhered to the Douglas--which appears to answer the conditions of the treaty, since it lies practically in the middle of the great channel--their position would have been much stronger than it was when they came back to the Rosario. The British representatives at the Washington conference of 1871 suggested the reference of the question to arbitration, but the United States' commissioners, aware of their vantage ground, would consent to no other arrangement than to leave to the decision of the Emperor of Germany the question whether the Haro or the Rosario channel best accorded with the treaty; and the Emperor decided in favour of the United States. However, with the possession of Vancouver in its entirety, Canada can still be grateful; and San Juan is now only remembered as an episode of skilful American diplomacy. The same may be said of another acquisition of the republic--insignificant from the point of view of territorial area, but still illustrative of the methods which have won all the great districts we have named --Rouse's Point at the outlet of Lake Champlain, "of which an exact survey would have deprived" the United States, according to Mr. Schouler in his excellent history.

During this period the fishery question again assumed considerable importance. The government at Washington raised the contention that the three miles' limit, to which their fishermen could be confined by the convention of 1818, should follow the sinuosities of the coasts, including the 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 sustained the contention of the provinces--a contention practically supported by American authorities in the case of the Delaware, Chesapeake, and other bays on the coast of the United States--that the three miles' limit should be measured from a line drawn from headlands 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 only shut out 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 by the reciprocity treaty of 1854 (see p. 96), which lasted until 1866, when it was repealed by the action of the United States, in accordance with the provision bringing it to a conclusion after one year's notice from one of the parties interested.

The causes which led in 1866 to the repeal of a treaty so advantageous to the United States have been long well understood. The commercial classes in the eastern and western states were, on the whole, favourable to an enlargement of the treaty; but the real cause of its repeal was the prejudice in the northern states against Canada on account of its supposed sympathy for the confederate states during the Secession war. A large body of men in the north believed that the repeal of the treaty would sooner or later force Canada to join the republic; and a bill was actually introduced in the house of representatives providing for her admission--a mere political straw, it is true, but showing the current of opinion in some quarters in those days. When we review the history of those times, and consider the difficult position in which Canada was placed, it is remarkable how honourably her government discharged its duties of a neutral between the belligerents. In the case of the raid of some confederate refugees in Canada on the St. Alban's bank in Vermont, the Canadian authorities brought the culprits to trial and even paid a large sum of money in acknowledgment of an alleged responsibility when some of the stolen notes were returned to the robbers on their release on technical grounds by a Montreal magistrate. It is well, too, to remember how large a number of Canadians fought in the union armies--twenty against one who served in the south. No doubt the position of Canada was made more difficult at that critical time by the fact that she was a colony of Great Britain, against whom both north and south entertained bitter feelings by the close of the war; the former mainly on account of the escape of confederate cruisers from English ports, and the latter because she did not receive active support from England. The north had also been much excited by the promptness with which Lord Palmerston had sent troops to Canada when Mason and Slidell were seized on an English packet on the high seas, and by the bold tone held by some Canadian papers when it was doubtful if the prisoners would be released.

Before and since the union, the government of Canada has made repeated efforts to renew a commercial treaty with the government at Washington. In 1865 and 1866, Canadian delegates were prepared to make large concessions, but were reluctantly brought to the conclusion that the committee of ways and means in congress "no longer desired trade between the two countries to be carried on upon the principle of reciprocity." In 1866 Sir John Rose, while minister of finance, made an effort in the same direction, but he was met by the obstinate refusal of the republican party, then as always, highly protective.

All this while the fishery question was assuming year by year a form increasingly irritating to the two countries. The headland question was the principal difficulty, and the British government, in order to conciliate the United States at a time when the Alabama question was a subject of anxiety, induced the Canadian government to agree, very reluctantly it must be admitted, to shut out foreign fishing vessels only from bays less than six miles in width at their entrances. In this, however, as in all other matters, the Canadian authorities acknowledged their duty to yield to the considerations of imperial interests, and acceded to the wishes of the imperial government in almost every respect, except actually surrendering their territorial rights in the fisheries. They issued licenses to fish, at low rates, for several years, only to find eventually that American fishermen did not think it worth while to buy these permits when they could evade the regulations with little difficulty. The correspondence went on for several years, and eventually led to the Washington conference or commission of 1871, which was primarily intended to settle the fishery question, but which actually gave the precedence to the Alabama difficulty--then of most concern in the opinion of the London and Washington governments. The representatives of the United States would not consider a proposition for another reciprocity treaty on the basis of that of 1854. The questions arising out of the convention of 1818 were not settled by the commission, but were practically laid aside for ten years by an arrangement providing for the free admission of salt-water fish to the United States, on the condition of allowing the fishing vessels of that country free access to the Canadian fisheries. The free navigation of the St. Lawrence was conceded to the United States in return for the free use of Lake Michigan and of certain rivers in Alaska. The question of giving to the vessels of the Canadian provinces the privilege of trading on the coast of the United States--a privilege persistently demanded for years by Nova Scotia--was not considered; and while the canals of Canada were opened up to the United States on the most liberal terms, the Washington government contented itself with a barren promise in the treaty to use its influence with the authorities of the states to open up their artificial waterways to Canadians. The Fenian claims were abruptly laid aside, although, if the principle of "due diligence," which was laid down in the new rules for the settlement of the Alabama difficulty had been applied to this question, the government of the United States would have been mulcted in heavy damages. In this case it would be difficult to find a more typical instance of responsibility assumed by a state through the permission of open and notorious acts, and by way of complicity after the acts; however, as in many other negotiations with the United States, Canada felt she must make sacrifices for the empire, whose government wished all causes of irritation between England and the United States removed as far as possible by the treaty. One important feature of this commission was the presence, for the first time in the history of treaties, of a Canadian statesman. The astute prime minister of the Dominion, Sir John Macdonald, was chosen as one of the English high commissioners: and though he was necessarily tied down by the instructions of the imperial state, his knowledge of Canadian questions was of great service to Canada during the conference. If the treaty finally proved more favourable to the Dominion than it at first appeared to be, it was owing largely to the clause which provided for a reference to a later commission of the question, whether the United States would not have to pay the Canadians a sum of money, as the value of their fisheries over and above any concessions made them in the treaty. The result of this commission was a payment of five millions and a half of dollars to Canada and Newfoundland, to