HL Deb 04 May 1874 vol 218 cc1569-70
EARL RUSSELL

said, he had also given Notice to move for— Any further Instructions given to Her Majesty's Envoy to the United. Stales of America, explanatory of the Treaty of 1846, relating to the Oregon Boundary; and also an account of all compensations received for the injuries to person and properly inflicted by Fenians from the United States upon Her Majesty's subjects in Canada. The noble Earl said, he could not but observe that, in the negotiations for the Treaty of Washington, wherever we demanded, and had a right to demand, redress, we did not obtain it. It was so with regard to the Fenian incursions which took place into Canada, in the course of which farms were pillaged and great injury done to property, and the lives and families of many of the colonists were sacrificed, and yet when redress was asked for, the only answer was that the United States' Government had given their representatives no instructions to answer that demand. So, again, with regard to the passage through the Straits by San Juan, there were two channels suggested, both of which were quite against the words and spirit of the Treaty. He believed that what Baron Hübner said was really the fact, and that in these proceedings our Government had tarnished the national honour, lowered the national character, and sacrificed the national interest. He found that the opinion of the people of England entirely agreed with what he had on repeated occasions urged upon the House, and at the last-General Election the decision of the nation in the ultimate court of appeal, the constituent bodies of this country, had condemned the Treaty of Washington. It was the opinion of Lord Lyons that this question ought to have been left undisturbed; and he (Earl Russell) thought so too. The people of England at the late Election having really decided the question, he felt it unnecessary to move for any further Papers; and he hoped that what had been done in the making of that Treaty would never be repeated. It was said, indeed, that redress was afforded to Canada by the guaranteed loan for the Canadian Railway; but he confessed that he was ashamed of that proposal, for he thought that a money compensation should have been given to those who were injured and who had their property destroyed. He hoped that there would be no repetition of such a sacrifice of the interests of the people of this country. We ought to risk everything in future negotiations rather than that England should not stand on equal terms with any other country in the world, and the Government of England ought, at all risks, to uphold her honour.