n the stress of
their imperial necessities, it was not strange that they should discern
all the signs of disruption, rather than the gleams of hope; and men
like Disraeli who claimed at a later date that they had never despaired
of the Empire, did so at the expense of their sincerity, and could do
so only because the false remedies they prescribed were happily
incapable of application. Little Englandism, if that unfortunate term
may be used to describe an essential and inevitable phase of imperial
expansion, was the creed of all but one or two of the most capable and
daring statesmen of the mid-Victorian age.

Strangely enough, while they had exhausted the materials for their
argument so far as these lay in Britain, they had all failed to regard
the one really important factor in the situation--the inclinations of
the Canadian people. For the connection of Britain with Canada
depended less on what the ministers of the Crown thought of Canada than
on what the Canadians thought of their mother country.

[1] In Fenwick (Scotland), the Improvement of Knowledge Society
discussed Canadian affairs on 1 January, 1839, when James Taylor
proposed the sentiment, "The speedy success of the Canadian struggle
for emancipation from British thraldom." The toast, according to the
minute book, was enthusiastically honoured.

[2] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 1 November, 1851.

[3] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Grey to Elgin, 11 May, 1849.

[4] Allin and Jones, _Annexation, Preferential Trade, and Reciprocity_,
Chap. IX.

[5] _Responsible Government for the Colonies, London_, 1840. See the
extract made by Wakefield in his _View of the Art of Colonization_, p.
279.

[6] _The Autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor, passim._

[7] _Ibid._ ii. pp. 302-3.

[8] Leslie Stephen, _Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen_, p. 49. "On
the appointment of a Governor-general of Canada, shortly before his
resignation of office, he observes in a diary, that it is not unlikely
to be the last that will ever be made."

[9] Wakefield, _Art of Colonization_, p. 317.

[10] _Ibid._ pp. 312-3.

[11] Froude, _Early Life of Carlyle_, ii. p. 446.

[12] _Responsible Government for the Colonies_, p. 65.

[13] _Responsible Government for the Colonies_, p. 37.

[14] _Responsible Government for the Colonies_, p. 98.

[15] I am inclined to accept John Stuart Mill's account of the
authorship--"written by Charles Buller, partly under the influen