Canada Must Wait

The people of Canada are finding to their cost what an anomalous position I they occupy among the nations of the earth when it comes o looking to Great j Britain to press their claims upon foreign powers with which she dare not or prefers not to quarrel, says a Quebe? special. In the dominion parliament last week the circumstances under which Canadian ships were seized by Russian war vessels in 1892 were brought again up by one of the opposition leaders, Mr. Davies, to the attention of the government. The vessels were the Carmelite and Willie McGowan, which were seized on the high seas and conflscated, the crews being taken to the nearest Russian ports, treated with greut inhumanity, and left to shift for themselves. The value of the two vessels and their cargoes wa3 f50,000. He quoted from the report of the Russian commlssioners appointed to investígate the seizures, which found that the seizure of the Carmelite was legal, though in his (Mr. Davies') opinión there was no evidence of illegal sealing- only surmises and suspicions. Canada'8 claim in regard to that vessel was, he contended, a perfectly good one. The finding of the commissioners in the case of the Willie McGowan was that the seizure was illegal. The seizure of the Aerial was also pronounced irregular, and the Russian government declared it not indisposed to make reparation for both vessels. The Canadian minister of justice, Sir Charles H. Tupper, in reply, admitted that tha Canadian government's power was liiuited. It was keeping the case and all its material points fully befcre tho British government, and he made the further humiliating admission that there the power of his government ended. The Rosebery government, before going out of office, had assured him that they were pushing Canada's claims as far as possible, but the minister of justice frankly assured the house that he was at his wits' end to appreciate any grounds of delay either in this case or in the settlement of Canada's claims against the United States by the Ameri:an government. He did not know any further powers the Canadian government possessed for promoting greater expedition.