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against identifying himself with either party; was to choose his Executive Council from the party which had a majority in the Assembly; was never to refuse to act upon the advice of that Council except upon matters of "very grave concern"; and was to regard himself as a moderator and mediator between all parties. His determination to carry into effect Lord Durham's policy was soon put to the test. At the end of 1847, a General Election resulted in the victory of the Reformers. The Conservative Ministry resigned, and a Ministry including the French-Canadian leaders took its place. Early in 1849 this Ministry introduced a Bill to compensate those in the Lower Province who had suffered losses during the rebellion. The Bill met with ferocious opposition; again the cry of "no pay to rebels was raised, in spite of the fact that careful provisions were made that no compensation should be granted to anyone who had taken part in the rebellion. The "British" party went so far as to talk of annexation to the United States. When the Bill passed Parliament, the most strenuous efforts were made to induce Lord Elgin to veto it, or at least to reserve it for the Queen's special consideration. But the Governor-General stood firm. His assent caused an outbreak of rioting in Montreal, which was then the seat of Parliament. Lord Elgin's carriage was stoned by the mob; Parliament House was burnt; petitions were sent to England praying for the recall of the Governor-General and the disallowance of the Bill. But Lord Elgin's firmness had established once for all the reality of responsible government in Canada; and the support given him by the Imperial Government, which ensured the passage of the Bill through the British Parliament, did more to convince the French-Canadians of the essential justice of British rule than would have been done by years of quiet government. Lord Elgin thus early in his term of office proved the truth of his own belief in the success of a Governor-General of Canada who would fairly work out Lord Durham's ideas of government.

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The second political question of importance in Canada proper "Clergy during this period was that of "Clergy Reserves." It will be Reserves." remembered that under the Act of 1791 large tracts of land had been set aside for the benefit of the Protestant Clergy." This had been interpreted by the members of the "Family Compact" in the Upper Province as applying only to the Church of England; and, though this interpretation was afterwards extended to the Church of Scotland, it still did not apply to dissenters from either Church. In 1840 the Imperial Parliament passed an Act "recognising the claims of the Clergy of all Protestant Denominations, and empowering the Governor to sell the lands and apply one-half the proceeds, subject to the life-interests of the existing Clergy, to the Colonial Churches of England and Scotland, in proportion to their respective numbers, and to distribute the remaining half among the clergy of other Denominations." But this Act did not satisfy the inhabitants of the Province, and in 1850 the Canadian Legislature addressed the Imperial Parliament praying for the repeal of the Act of 1840 and the grant of power to the Province to deal

The Maritime
Provinces.

The Sentiment of Union.

with the lands and their proceeds, subject to the interests of existing stipend-holders. In 1853, upon Lord Elgin's recommendation, this power was granted: the separation of Church and State was formally declared, and the balance of the Reserves, both funds. and lands, was distributed among the different townships in proportion to population, for purposes of education and local improvement. Similarly in 1854 the Imperial Parliament passed a Bill allowing the Canadian Parliament to reform itself in two waysby an increase in the number of Representatives, and by a provision for the gradual substitution of an elective for a nominated Upper House. The latter reform had not had time to come into full operation when the British North American Act of 1867 restored the principle of nomination for the Senate of the Canadian Dominion.

In the short sketch that it has been possible to give of the events leading up to, and following, Lord Durham's report, prominence has necessarily been given to Upper and Lower Canada in particular. It should not, however, be forgotten that in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island the same problems had demanded solution; and, though in these Colonies the solution of rebellion had won no adherents, they had not escaped their share of that political strife which is the inevitable outcome of the clash of rival theories of government. In order to pick up the thread, it is perhaps sufficient to go back to Lord John Russell's despatch on the Tenure of Office in 1839. In New Brunswick this despatch was read to the Legislature by the Governor; but a motion to adopt responsible government was defeated by one vote. In Nova Scotia the Governor suppressed the despatchthus converting it into a Charter of the rights of the Reformers. The Assembly passed a vote of no confidence in the Executive, which nevertheless refused to resign, and it was only after a protracted struggle between the Reformers and two successive Governors that responsible government was finally secured in 1848. In the same year New Brunswick accepted responsible government, on the initiative of a Conservative Ministry, which, however, never acted on the principles of responsibility; so that it was not till 1854, when a Reform Government came into power, that those principles were put into actual practice. Meanwhile, Prince Edward Island had been granted responsible government in 1851.

Beneath the struggles of the five Provinces of Canada towards their full enjoyment of responsible government, and underlying the use to which they put the power that they gained, there must always have been an instinctive consciousness of the disadvantages of disunion. The threat of the armed unity of the American States never receded from their borders. In the ceaseless boundary disputes that figure in the history of the period, the victory seems always to have gone to the American side. And in the British commercial legislation of the first half of the Nineteenth Century there is a startling disregard of the duty of protecting Canada against her formidable neighbour. To say that the British Navi

gation Laws-with all those cumbrous restrictions which are popularly (though probably erroneously) supposed to have driven the American States into rebellion-applied to Canadian commerce up to the year 1849 is to give one striking illustration of the truth of that statement. A still more striking instance of this disregard of Canadian interests by British Statesmen is afforded by the history of Corn Law Repeal. Up till 1843 the English Corn Laws applied equally to Canada and the United States. In that year Lord Stanley's Bill admitted Canadian wheat and flour into England at a nominal duty. This meant that it paid to send American wheat to Canada to be ground for export into England as flour, whereupon a large amount of Canadian capital was invested in flour-mills. But in 1846 the abolition of the Corn Laws admitted both American and Canadian wheat into England free of duty. The result was described by Lord Elgin in memorable words :

"I do not think "-(he wrote to the Secretary of State)-" that you are blind to the hardships which Canada is now enduring, but, I must own, I doubt whether you fully appreciate their magnitude, or are aware how directly they are chargeable on Imperial legislation Stanley's Bill of 1843 attracted all the produce of the West to the St. Lawrence, and fixed all the disposable capital of the Province in grinding-mills. warehouses and forwarding establishments. Peel's Bill of 1846 drives the whole of the produce down the New York channels of communications, destroying the revenue which Canada expected to derive from canal dues and ruining at once millowners, forwarders and merchants. The consequence is that private property is unsaleable in Canada, and not a shilling can be raised on the credit of the Province."

Under such an accumulation of bases for an unfavourable comparison between their own condition and that of the United States, the people of Canada were compelled to consider two alternative means of an adjustment of the balance. One was annexation by the United States; the other was union of their own peoples under the British Crown. There can be no wonder that, for a time, sore feeling at what must have seemed callous disregard of their interests by the Imperial Government drove a certain current of public feeling towards the cataract of annexation. Canada has had no monopoly of such open sores.

"So general is the belief "-(wrote Lord Elgin in 1849)—" that under the present circumstances of our commercial condition, the Colonists pay a heavy pecuniary fine for their fidelity to Great Britain, that nothing but the existence of an unwonted degree of political contentment of the masses has prevented the cry for annexation from spreading like wild-fire through the Province.. [The Canadians] are invited to form part of a community which is neither suffering nor free-trading, which never makes a bargain without getting at least twice as much as it gives; a community the members of which have been within the last few weeks pouring into their multifarious places of worship to thank God that they are exempt from the ills which afflict other men, from those more especially which afflict their despised neighbours, the inhabitants of North America, who have remained faithful to the country which planted them."

But, though obscured by commercial discontent, the national spirit of Canada-founded on a long tradition of proud loyalty and on the consciousness of the blessing of the gift of complete political freedom-was coming (to use the metaphor of Clough's

Coalition

Ministry in
Canada.

famous verse)* "silent, flooding-in." In Canada proper the Union Act of 1841 had not resulted in any real success for responsible government. The balance of population between the Upper and Lower Province, which Lord Durham had relied on to secure the proper working of his scheme, had soon been upset by the preponderant growth of population in the Upper Province. Under the Union Act each Province had equality of representation, and as the Lower Province fell further and further behind the Upper in the numbers of its people, the complaints of the Upper Province at its under-representation in the Assembly grew always louder. In 1858 this bitterness was intensified by the abandonment of what was known as the "double-majority" principle. It had been an unwritten law of politics in the Province since the Union Act of 1841 that any measure affecting either Province in particular must be supported by a majority of the members representing that Province. This unwritten law immensely complicated the business of parliamentary government. The Baldwin Ministry, for instance, resigned office in 1851 because it was supported only by a minority of representatives of the Upper Province on a question of the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court of that Province, though it had at its back a majority of the whole House. In 1858 however, the Macdonald Ministry refused to act upon the unwritten law of the double majority. For the next six years the political history of Canada proper is a kaleidoscope of changing Ministries. Each succeeding Ministry had only a small and untrustworthy majority and did not dare to propose any measure of real public importance.

In 1864, however, after the defeat of two Governments in quick succession, a coalition between John H. Macdonald and George Brown took place. The two had been bitter opponents, and the justification for their coalition is contained in a statement read by Mr. Macdonald to Parliament :—†

"Mr. Brown stated that nothing but the extreme urgency of the present crisis, and the hope of settling the sectional troubles of the Province for ever, could in his opinion, justify their meeting together with a view to common political action. Both political parties had tried in turn to govern the country, but without success, and repeated elections only arrayed sectional majorities against each other more strongly than before. Another general election at this moment presented little hope of a much altered result; and he believed that both parties were far better prepared than they had ever been before, to look the true cause of all the difficulties firmly in the face, and endeavour to settle the representation question on an equitable and permanent basis."

The agreement between Mr. Macdonald (as representing the Government) and Mr. Brown was finally couched in two clauses :

"The Government are prepared to pledge themselves to bring in a measure next session, for the purpose of removing existing difficulties by introducing

*"But though the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far out, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes, silent, flooding-in, the main."

† Quoted in

Confederation of Canada," J. H. Gray, 1872.

the Federal principle into Canada, coupled with such provision as will permit the Maritime Provinces and the North-West Territory to be incorporated into the same system of government.

"And the Government will seek, by sending representatives to the Lower Provinces, and to England, to secure the assent of those interests which are beyond the control of our own Legislature to such a measure as may enable all British North America to be united under a general Legislature based upon the Federal principle.”

The terms of this coalition are interesting because they show that Canada proper had in 1864 an alternative policy to that of the complete union of all the Canadian Provinces; that is to say, the application of the Federal principle to the two Provinces alone. This gave her a great advantage when she came to confer with the other Colonies on the Federal question. The possession of such an alternative saved her from the reproach-which the opponents of Union in the other Colonies were only too ready to bring up against her-that she desired the Union of Canada only as the remedy for her internal difficulties.

As fortune would have it, the very moment of the coalition First steps between Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Brown in Canada saw the three towards Union. maritime Colonies about to come to a conference on the question of a joint agreement as to the building of an inter-Colonial railway and a combined customs tariff. With these projects Canada had till then refused to have anything to do. The Coalition Government in Canada took office in June, 1864. Early in that year the Legislatures of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had agreed to send representatives to a conference on railways and customs which was to take place at Charlotte Town, the capital of Prince Edward Island, during September, 1864. Thus both in Canada proper and in the Maritime Provinces the idea of at least partial union had won to the position of being looked to as a way out of existing difficulties by the end of 1864. In noticing the sudden advance made by the idea of union throughout the Canadian Colonies from 1861 to 1864, the effect of the American Civil War cannot be ignored.

"Very speedily "-(says a Canadian historian*)-" did the progress of events develop the necessity of a strong Government. Hitherto the long frontier of Canada had been wrapt in the most profound quiet; and while this country afforded a ready and safe asylum to Southern refugees, no obstacles were thrown in the way of the North in the purchase of remounts for its cavalry, and of other supplies. Nor, unless in very glaring cases, which could not possibly be overlooked, were any active steps taken to prevent recruits for its armies from passing out of Canada in no inconsiderable numbers. But this condition of affairs was now about to be very materially altered. Sorely pressed on all their coasts, without the remotest prospect of European intervention in their behalf, the Confederate authorities essayed, in the month of September, to effect a diversion in their favour from the Canadian frontier-to menace the defenceless borders of the Northern States, and thus, if possible, to cause a war between them and Great Britain. In pursuance of this policy, two American steamboats . . . . were seized on Lake Erie by Confederate desperadoes, some of whom had been refugees in this country, with the immediate design of releasing a number of Southern prisoners confined on Johnson's Island and of destroying the Lake shipping. But beyond the seizure of these steamboats, their partial plunder and the great alarm occasioned for the moment, no other injury was inflicted.

* Mr. J. M. McMullen : "The History of Canada" Vol. II., p. 277.

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