The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1914. CANADA AND BRITISH STATESMEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 43, 20 February 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1914. CANADA AND BRITISH STATESMEN.

Professor Adam Shortt, one of the leading historians and economists in Canada, has stimulated interest by an address on •'Britain's treatment of Canada," in which he insisted that Canadian opinion lias been in the past unduly critical of the sincerity ■, in behalf of and the achievements for l Canada of British statesmen. His argument was applied both to the diplomatic negotiations concerning boundary matters and other disputes with the United States, about whi'l. there lias been'so much heartburning [in Canada, and also to the larger questions of the granting of self-gov-Jernment to the Dominion. In this (Professor Shortt represents a modern school of Canadian historians. The I /"Manchester Guardian" points out •there is by no means unanimity, how(ovor, and goes on to say that when Professor Shortt savs that responsible government was practically forced on Canada seventy years ago by Lord Sydenham and bis successors as Go-vernor-General, and that Canadians previous to that time bad made no demand for responsible government, lor that those who had did not know what they were asking for, be arouses controversy. It is pointed out in opposition that the views expressed by Lord Ihirham in bis report, which is the great foundation of Canadian responsibility 7, were familiar to many I Canadians, and were by Lord Dur-i 'ham largely derived from Canadian sources, and that while the report j was adopted by the British Government, Lord Durham himself, after bis return from Canada, secured no further advancement and died a disappointed man. There are still CanaI i;i.a's who believe that responsible go-

vcrnment in Canada \\n~ wrung from an unwilling British Government. Tins is not to say that tboy necessarily cherish any grudge against England ,„• Britain. If mistakes were made they were the mistakes of individuals—not of a nation. Bir th» lesson which even Professor Slum draws from these episodes m Cana-dian-English history and Horn any ill-feeling they aroused is Ihe advisability of allowing Canajiius to manage their own aif a'vs. When »osponsible Canadian Ministers do npht Canadians are ,ati;fied; if they <}c wrung they get the blame and an likely punished, but in any case Brit isli .Ministers are left out of the controversy, and the natural affectior existing between Canada and the Motherland is not irritated.