N the November number of this Magazine a distinguished writer, eminently qualified for the task both by the nature of his studies and by his peculiar opportunities for observation, undertook to discuss the question whether Canadian loyalty was 'a Sentiment, or a Principle.' The

discussion, as it seemed to me, opened somewhat abruptly, no attempt being made to define what was meant by 'Canadian Loyalty.' Yet, that such a definition was highly necessary is obvious enough, and has moreover been illustrated in a somewhat singular way. In glancing over the index to the Magazine for the half year just closed, I find the article to which reference is made quoted under the title of 'Is Loyalty to Canada a Sentiment or a Principle?' Here is a transformation of the most significant kind. Loyalty to Canada' is a much more definite thing than 'Canadian

Loyalty,' which, if capable of being interpreted in the same sense is also capable of being interpreted in one widely different, namely, the Loyalty of Canada to the Parent State. This in fact is the sense in which the term is used throughout the article, nothing whatever being said about the duty of loyalty to Canada. loyalty to Canada. Understanding then Canadian loyalty in this sense, and not in the sense so oddly suggested by the index, Mr. Todd proceeds to enquire whether it is a Sentiment or a Principle,' and concludes that it is the latter, not the former. The aim of the following pages will be to show that Canadian loyalty, if understood in the sense of loyalty to Canada, is-whether sentiment or principle or both the one thing which it is of the greatest importance to the future of this country to strengthen and promote; but that, if understood in the sense adopted by Mr. Todd, it repre

sents a virtue which the march of events has, for years past, been more and more rendering obsolete.

A word, however, before we proceed on this question of sentiment or principle. We may be sure of one thing, and that is that whatever Canadian loyalty in either of its forms is not, it is a sentiment. Loyalty, the world over, is a sentiment; any virtue that it possesses arises from that fact; for loyalty which is simply a perception upon which side one's bread is buttered is not deserving of the name. Mr. Todd himself speaks of Canadian loyalty as a feeling,' and maintains that, as such, it possesses both depth and reality.' Yet the object of the article seems to be to show that it is not a sentiment or feeling but a 'principle.' The truth is that it is both a sentiment and a principle, and that there is no contradiction between the two. It is a sentiment in its essential nature, and a principle as being a source and rule of action.

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The important question, however, is whether Mr. Todd has placed before the readers of the CANADIAN MONTHLY a true idea of Canadian loyalty. According to him it consists in a strong desire and determination to preserve the present colonial status of Canada. To be loyal as a Canadian is to wish to maintain Canada's present relation to Great Britain and to the British Empire as a whole. To be disloyal, therefore, would be to wish to disturb that relation, either by making Canada entirely independent or by attaching her to some other political system. Loyalty is a duty and a virtue; it is something which no one can reputably disown; therefore it is the duty of every Canadian to strive to maintain the existing connection between Canada and the Mother Country. Only those who either are indifferent to duty, or who have very mistaken ideas of duty, can countenance any effort or scheme to disturb the status quo.

Now these, I respectfully submit, are not self-evident propositions; and

yet, strange to say, the able writer whose name has been mentioned makes no effort to prove them. He thinks it sufficient to try and give an historical explanation of what he takes to be the dominant, and all but universal, feeling of Canadians towards the political system under which they are living. He assumes an abounding loyalty of the type above describeda loyalty to Great Britain-and then sets to work to show how the feeling was developed. His illustrations unhappily hardly serve even the purpose for which they are intended, far as that falls short of the proper scope of any general discussion of Canadian loyalty. The chief point made is that Canada was settled in part by U. E. Loyalists, men who failed to sympathize with the resistance made by their fellow-colonists of America to the tyranny of King George the Third, and who, either voluntarily or upon compulsion, forsook their homes and sought refuge under the British flag. The force, however, of this argument is greatly weakened when we are expressly told that the great majority of these would willingly have remained in the United States, sacrificing their allegiance to Great Britain, if the odium into which they had fallen with their neighbours had not made life there unendurable. A thousand citizens of Boston, we are assured, though opposed to the Revolution, declared that they would never have stirred if they thought the most abject submission would procure them peace.' One can read this over several times without being profoundly impressed by the 'loyalty' of these thousand citizens. That being compelled, in spite of their readiness for abject submission, to seek homes in another country they should have carried thither a strong aversion to the land that had cast them out, is quite conceivable; the difficult thing is to suppose that they should furnish to their adopted country any very admirable type of loyalty, unless by

loyalty we mean the mere habit of submission to arbitrary authority. If these were conspicuous loyalists' then perhaps their successors of to-day would be equally prepared for the most abject submission,' if a majority of the people of Canada were to decide in favour of independence. I do not say that they would; it is Mr. Todd who somewhat infelicitously forces upon us the suggestion that they might.

When, therefore, Mr. Todd speaks of our forefathers' having 'deliberately preferred the loss of property and the perils incident to their flight into the wilderness rather than forego the blessings of British supremacy and of monarchical rule,' we are compelled to remind him that, according to his own express statement, this was not the case. They were prepared to let British supremacy and monarchical rule go by the board, if only their fellow-citizens would have pardoned them their lukewarmness in the great struggle. Their only safety,' we are told, was in flight.' 'They sought refuge in Canada and Nova Scotia from the hardships to which they were exposed in the old colonies because of their fidelity to the British Crown.' We may therefore infer that had the colonists in general been a little more magnanimous or forbearing to the non-sympathizing minority, the latter would never have trodden the wilds of Canada, or furnished an argument for Canadian loyalty as understood by Mr. Todd.

Church and State. In the Province of Ontario, which perhaps owes most to their influence, the tendency for a long time past has been steadily away from every form of church establishment. The secularization of the Clergy Reserves-not referred to by Mr. Todd

was one signal example of this; and the withdrawal of government grants from all denominational colleges was another. The general feeling throughout the Province of Ontario is that religion needs no kind of state patronage, and that it is quite as safe -not to say safer-under the American system which Mr. Todd so much deplores as under the British or any other which gives it official recognition. As a political indication, the fact that Ontario took the lead in dispensing with a second chamber in her local legislature is not without significance.

We

The word loyalty calls up many ideas, but the more we examine it the more clearly we see that the largest element in it is the element of fidelity upon the part of an inferior to a superior, or of a lesser to a greater power. We do not talk of the loyalty of Great Britain to Canada. If in any relations between the two we were to speak of Great Britain having followed a loyal' course of conduct, the loyalty in that case would be towards some high standard of national duty conceived as equally binding upon great states and small. speak of the loyal' observance of a treaty, and there again the loyalty is towards an abstract conception of right and equity, that conception ranking in our moral estimation far above the mere expediencies of the hour. Canada or any other country could thus loyally fulfil an obligation, whether contracted towards an equal, a superior or an inferior power. when loyalty to England is spoken of the idea that comes to our mind is not the loyal fulfilling of engagements, but fidelity as of a person to a person, and, it must be added, of a dependent

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to a patron or protector. And, just as in personal relations, this feeling is only justified where services are rendered by the stronger to the weaker which the latter is unable to render to himself; so, between countries, an occasion for loyalty only arises when the stronger community does that for the weaker which the weaker is unable to do for itself. In such a case the stronger country has a right to expect that the weaker will show a due appreciation of the benefits it derives from the connection, and will brave perils rather than forsake its protector in an hour of trial. We must, however, assume that the services rendered by the stronger power are rendered disinterestedly. If a state plants a colony in some distant land, and there seeks to control its commerce in its own interest, without regard to the interests of the new settlement, I fail to see that it can justly claim the loyalty of the latter. I do not think that any loyalty was due from Ireland to England in the days when England was oppressing, in every possible way, Irish trade and industry. The loyalty of the American colonies survived, as it seems to me, by many years any equitable claim of the Mother Country to such a feeling on their part. There are those, no doubt, who admire a loyalty that no injustice can quench; but there are others again who see in loyalty carried to such a length only a servile lack of self-respect, and who would rather have in their veins the blood of 'some village Hampden' than that of a 'loyalist' who offered in vain the most abject submission' as the price of remaining in a country that, without his aid, had vindicated its liberty.

If, therefore, Canada is now loyal' to England what are the circumstances, what are the facts, that give significance, that give raison d'être, to its loyalty? Is it that Canada is dependent upon England, and being dependent ought to be at once humble and faithful? This cannot be admitted,

for not only is the idea of Canada's dependence upon England disowned by very many here in Canada, but it has been distinctly disowned by representative Englishmen, and by none more distinctly or emphatically than by the present Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone. In proof of this I would refer to the discussion that took place in the British House of Commens on the 28th March, 1867, upon the application of the Canadian Government for a guarantee of a loan of £3,000,000 stg. for the building of the Intercolonial Railway. Upon that occasion we find the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. (now Sir Charles) Adderley, who moved the resolution proposing the guarantee, making an almost abject apology for doing so. Here I must be permitted

He

to quote (Hansard, Vol. 186, page 736):—' Mr. Adderley said that, in moving the Resolution of which he had given notice, not one word would fall from him approving in the abstract of guarantees of Colonial Loans. had always thought that they were a feature of the worst possible relations between this country and the Colonies, bad enough for this country, but still worse for the Colonies. He sincerely hoped that this Colonial guarantee would be the last proposed to Parliament, or, if proposed the last that Parliament would be disposed to grant. The only way (page 739) of making the new Confederation independent of the United States was to construct this important railway (the Intercolonial) which would enable Canada to develop itself, and rely entirely upon her own resources. ***The Confederation (page 743) would take away the languor of dependence. upon England which had hitherto paralysed the divided governments.

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Mr. Adderley spoke as member of a Conservative Government; but he was followed by Mr. Aytoun, the Liberal member for a Scotch borough,, who moved the rejection of the guarantee as unsound in principle and.