In this 150th anniversary of the creation of Canada, we are looking back at editorials published in our predecessor newspaper in 1867.
This week, the editors worried again the Great Britain might sell the colony of British Columbia to the
Americans. The editorial used the term Jonathan as an alternative for Uncle Sam.
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The telegraph yesterday renewed the report of the 鈥渨illingness鈥� of the British government to sell this colony to the Americans. As this last dispatch comes through the cable, and bears the respectable endorsement of the New York Herald or one of its voracious contemporaries, we need hardly say that its authority cannot be doubted for a moment.
The fact is, England is 鈥済oing to smash鈥� and we should not be surprised to learn soon that she had decided to sell or give away all her colonies, and perhaps relinquish her hold upon Ireland and Gibraltar at the same time.
Money is so scarce in London at present writing that the bank charges 21脷2 per cent per annum on every dollar it loans.
The British government is so 鈥渉ard-up鈥� that it has paid off only $140 million of its national indebtedness in the past 10 years; its people only pay an import duty on seven different articles, instead of on twice as many thousand under the old tariff system.
Unhappy, poverty-stricken, bankrupt old mother! The million or two dollars your good cousin Jonathan would pay for this miserable strip would go a long way toward helping you over your mountain of difficulties, and assisting you to start afresh with a clean balance sheet!
The fact is, England can鈥檛 afford to support her colonies any longer. Just look at the shameful manner in which she has thrown off Canada! She created that country into a dominion, and has since dispatched an army of 30,000 soldiers and three fleets of war vessels to assist the Fenians in their next raid upon that doomed territory.
And then glance at Ireland! What is Great Britain doing there? Why, to show her anxiety to let the 鈥淕reen Isle鈥� slide, great ironclads patrol the Irish coast, garrisons of soldiers occupy all the towns 鈥� sent there, we have not the slightest doubt, to await the arrival of the proper moment to proclaim a republic.
To be sure, a few blathering 鈥淔innegans鈥� are 鈥済obbled up鈥� occasionally; but that is only a blind to deceive the English people, who require to be gradually brought to understand the economical policy of the present ministry.
To let the knowledge burst too suddenly upon them might 鈥渞aise their dander.鈥�
Gibraltar, another source of expense, will have to go, too. Perhaps Jonathan would like to buy that rocky promontory and convert the Mediterranean into an American lake. As England is 鈥渉ard up鈥� and 鈥渙n the sell,鈥� why shouldn鈥檛 Jonathan make an offer for it?
And then there鈥檚 Australia; that continent might be had for a small consideration. Indeed, we are not sure but if a sufficiently large sum were tendered for the 鈥渢ight little isle鈥� itself, that the offer would not be accepted.
鈥淓very man has his price,鈥� Walpole said; and why not every nation?
To come nearer to home, again, cannot our readers see that the policy of the government toward this colony is a get-rid-of-it one? And in order that Jonathan may not have the shadow of a pretext at a future period for 鈥渨alloping鈥� his poor old mother, on the pretence that he has not had his money鈥檚 worth, a splendid iron-clad, called the Zealous, is anchored at Esquimalt, and an order has gone forth to spend a couple million of dollars in the construction of a dry dock, with the evident design of throwing the ship and the dock over to the States as 鈥渂oot鈥� if the American government consents to take us?
That Great Britain is trying to get rid of us is quite clear. With money at 21脷2 per cent, per annum, she must sell to meet her liabilities or go into liquidation.
The question, therefore, is not so much what England will take, as what Uncle Sam is willing to give for us? And after the transfer shall have been made, and we shall have become an integral part of the 鈥淯niversal Yankee Nation,鈥� every mother鈥檚 son of us holding a full share in the great national stock (vulgarly termed debt), nobody can loll of how many billions of dollars, and when we shall have exchanged our hard gold for greenbacks, worth 74 cents on the dollar, and shall have secured protection and prohibition, and paid taxes on everything but the air we breathe, what a lucky, jolly set of dogs we will be, to be sure!
The Daily British 91原创 and Victoria Chronicle
Aug. 14, 1867
