IGNORANCE of the future can hardly be good for any man or nation; nor can forecast of the future in the case of any man or nation well interfere with the business of the present, though the language of colonial politicians seems often to imply that it may. No Canadian farmer would take his hand from the plough, no Canadian artisan would desert the foundry or the loom, no Canadian politician would become less busy in his quest of votes, no industry of any kind would slacken, no source of wealth would cease to flow, if the rulers of Canada and the powers of Downing Street, by whom the rulers of Canada are supposed to be guided, instead of drifting on in darkness, knew for what port they were steering.

For those who are actually engaged in moulding the institutions of a young country not to have formed a conception of her destiny-not to have made up NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXVI., No. I

their minds whether she is to remain for ever a dependency, to blend again in a vast confederation with the monarchy of the mother country, or to be united to a neighboring republic-would be to renounce statesmanship. The very expenditure into which Canada is led by her position as a dependency in military and political railways, in armaments and defences, and other things which assume the permanence of the present system, is enough to convict Canadian rulers of Ĥagrant improvidence if the permanency of the present system is not distinctly established in their minds.

To tax forecast with revolutionary designs or tendencies is absurd. No one can be in a less revolutionary frame of mind than he who foresees a political event without having the slightest interest in hastening its arrival. On the other hand, mere party politicians cannot afford to see beyond the hour. Under the sys

I