"If you want to go from us,go;we by means want you to stay:you cost us money yearly,which is scarce;desperate quantities of trouble too:why go,if you wish it?"Such is the humor of the British Statesman,at this time.--Men clear for rebellion,"annexation"as they call it,walk openly abroad in our American Colonies;found newspapers,hold platform palaverings.From Canada there comes duly by each mail a regular statistic of Annexationism:increasing fast in this quarter,diminishing in that;--Majesty's Chief Gover seeming to take it as a perfectly open question;Majesty's Chief Gover in fact seldom appearing on the scene at all,except to receive the impact of a few rotten eggs on occasion,and then duck in again to his private contemplations.And yet one would think the Majesty's Chief Gover ought to have a kind of interest in the thing?Public liberty is carried to a great length in some portions of her Majesty's dominions.But the question,"Are we to continue subjects of her Majesty,or start rebelling against her?So many as are for rebelling,hold up your hands!"Here is a public discussion of a very extraordinary nature to be going on under the e of a Gover of Canada.How the Gover of Canada,being a British piece of flesh and blood,and a Canadian lumber-log of mere pine and rosin,can stand it,is very conceivable at first view.He does it,seemingly,with the stoicism of a ZeIt is a constitutional sight like few.
And yet an instinct deeper than the Gospel of M'Croudy teaches all men that Colonies are worth something to a country!That if,under the present Colonial Office,they are a vexation to us and themselves,some other Colonial Office can and must be contrived which shall render them a blessing;and that the remedy will be to contrive such a Colonial Office or method of administration,and by means to cut the Colonies loose.Colonies are to be picked off the street every day;a Colony of them but has been bought dear,well purchased by the toil and blood of those we have the ho to be sons of;and we can just afford to cut them away because M'Croudy finds the present management of them cost money.The present management will indeed require to be cut away;--but as for the Colonies,we purpose through Heaven's blessing to retain them a while yet!Shame on us for unworthy sons of brave fathers if we do .Brave fathers,by valiant blood and sweat,purchased for us,from the bounty of Heaven,rich possessions in all zones;and we,wretched imbeciles,can do the function of administering them?And because the accounts do stand well in the ledger,our remedy is,to take shame to ourselves,and repent in sackcloth and ashes,and amend our beggarly imbecilities and insincerities in that as in other departments of our business,but to fling the business overboard,and declare the business itself to be bad?We are a hopeful set of heirs to a big fortune!It does suit our Manton gunneries,grouseshootings,mousings in the City;and like spirited young gentlemen we will give it up,and let the attorneys take it?
Is there value,then,in human things,but what can write itself down in the cash-ledger?All men k,and even M'Croudy in his inarticulate heart ks,that to men and Nations there are invaluable values which can be sold for money at all.
George Robins is great;but he is onmipotent.George Robins can quite sell Heaven and Earth by auction,excellent though he be at the business.Nay,if M'Croudy offered his own life for sale in Threadneedle Street,would anybody buy it?I,for one."ody bids:pass on to the next lot,"answers Robins.
And yet to M'Croudy this unsalable lot is worth all the Universe:--nay,I believe,to us also it is worth something;good monitions,as to several things,do lie in this Professor of the dismal science;and considerable sums even of money,to speak of other benefit,will yet come out of his life and him,for which ody bids!Robins has his own field where he reigns triumphant;but to that we will restrict him with iron limits;and neither Colonies the lives of Professors,other such invaluable objects shall come under his hammer.
Bad state of the ledger will demonstrate that your way of dealing with your Colonies is absurd,and urgently in want of reform;but to demonstrate that the Empire itself must be dismembered to bring the ledger straight?Oh never.Something else than the ledger must intervene to do that.Why does England repudiate Ireland,and insist on the "Repeal,"instead of prohibiting it under death-penalties?Ireland has never been a paying speculation yet,is it like soon to be!Why does Middlesex repudiate Surrey,and Chelsea Kensington,and each county and each parish,and in the end each individual set up for himself and his cash-box,repudiating the other and his,because their mutual interests have got into an irritating course?They must change the course,seek till they discover a soothing one;that is the remedy,when limbs of the same body come to irritate one aher.Because the paltry tatter of a garment,reticulated for you out of thrums and listings in Downing Street,ties foot and hand together in an intolerable manner,will you relieve yourself by cutting off the hand or the foot?You will cut off the paltry tatter of a pretended body-coat,I think,and fling that to the nettles;and imperatively require one that fits your size better.
