dinary demands of her own defence. Grey and Elgin had
corresponded largely on the point; and the result had been a very
general reduction of British troops {288} in Canada, the assumption
being that Canada would look to her own protection. To discover the
character of the change thus introduced, and its bearing on imperial
politics, it again becomes necessary to travel beyond the limit set,
and to examine its results between 1860 and 1867. In these years the
military situation developed new and alarming possibilities for Canada.
The re-organization of the Canadian tariff excited much ill-feeling in
the United States, for it seemed an infringement of the arrangements
made by Elgin in 1854.[61] Then followed the _Trent_ episode, the
destruction created by the _Alabama_, the questionable policy both of
England and of Canada in taking sides, no matter how informally, in the
war. In addition, the Irish-American section of the population, which
had furnished its share, both of rank and file, and of leaders, to the
war, was in those years bitterly hostile to the British Empire, and
plotted incessantly some secret stroke which should wound Britain
through Canada. The gravest danger threatening British peace and
supremacy at that time lay, not in Europe, but along the Canadian {289}
frontier, nor would it be fair to say that Britain alone, not Canada,
had helped to provoke the threatened American attack. Under these
circumstances, partly because of the expense, but partly also through
factiousness and provincial shortsightedness, the Canadian assembly
rejected a scheme for providing an adequate militia, and left a
situation quite impossible from the military point of view. Instantly
a storm of criticism broke over the heads of the colonies, so bitter
and unqualified that there are those who believe that to this day the
mutual relations of Britain and Canada have never quite recovered their
old sincerity.[62] A member of the Canadian parliament, who was
travelling at the time in England, found the country in arms against
his province: "You have no idea of the feeling that exists here about
the Militia Bill, and the defences of Canada generally. No one will
believe that there is not a want of loyalty among the Canadians, and
whenever I try to defend Canada, the answer is always the same, that
'the English look for actions not assertions'; many hard and unjust
things are now said about the country, all of which add strength