[1] Robinson,Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Bart., pp. 75-6.
[2]Report of the Agent for Emigration, Toronto, January, 1841. "The passage extended to seven complete weeks," writes a Scottish settler, Robert Campbell, in 1840, "and to tell the truth we were weary enough of it." MS. letter,penes me.
[3]Conditions and Prospects of Canada in 1854, London, 1855.
[4] Poulett Scrope,Life of Lord Sydenham, pp. 141-2.
[5] Richardson,Eight Years in Canada, p. 117.
[6] See an interesting letter of January, 1838 in Christie,History of Lower Canada, v. 109.
[7]Lord Durham's Report, Appendix B. (ed. by Lucas), iii. p. 84.
[8] Kaye,Papers and Correspondence of Lord Metcalfe, p. 453. Metcalfe undoubtedly overestimates the influence of these men, as compared with the church, over the habitant class.
[9]Lord Durham's Report(ed. by Lucas), Appendix D, iii. p. 284.
[10]Ibid. p. 267.
[11] M'Taggart,Three Years in Canada, i. p. 249.
[12] Kaye,op. cit.p. 407.
[13] Mrs. Jameson,States and Rambles in Canada, vol. ii. p. 189.
[14] Strickland,Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West, vol. i. p. 135.
[15]Lord Durham's Report, ii. pp. 242-59.
[16] M'Taggart, ii. pp. 242-5.
[17] See a despatch of Lord Metcalfe on the effect of Irish agitation on the tranquillity of Canada, Kaye,op. cit.pp. 432-4.
[18] Censuses of Canada (1665-1871), vol. iv.;Appendix to the First Report of the Board of Registration and Statistics(1849);A Statement of the Population of Canada(1848).
[19] M'Taggart,op. cit.i. p. 35.
[20]Lord Durham's Report, Appendix A. Sir Charles Lucas has not included this appendix in his edition.
[21]Ibid.(ed. Lucas), iii. p. 220.
[22] Mrs. Jameson,Studies and Rambles in Canada, i. p. 98.
[23]A Long-treasured Letter, fromMatthew Fowlds and Other Fenwick Worthies, Kilmarnock, 1910, pp. 205-11.
[24] Strickland,Twenty Seven Years in Canada West, i. p. 35.
[25] M'Taggart,op. cit.i. p. 201.
[26] This statement I modify below in dealing with the violence which disfigured political life in Canada at this time.
[27]Passimin descriptions of the Canadian Indians, and the North-West.
[28]Lord Durham's Report, ii. p. 125 n.
[29] See local news in the early volumes ofThe Montreal Witness.
[30] I have accepted Durham's, rather than Metcalfe's estimate of the influence of the Roman Catholic church in Canada. The latter may be found in a despatch to Stanley, entitled by Kaye, "State of Parties in 1845" (Kaye,op. cit.p. 449).
[31] Hodgins,Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, iii. p. 298.
[32] MS. letter, 5 December, 1842.
[33] Bell,Hints to Emigrants, p. 125.
[34] Hodgins,Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, iii. p. 266.
[35]Ibid.p. 249.
[36]Memorials of the Rev. John Machar, D.D., p. 62.
[37] Bagot Correspondence, in the Canadian Archives,passim.
[38]Montreal Gazette, 8 October, 1839.
[39]Memorials of the Rev. John Machar, p. 77.
[40] A strong, probably exaggerated, opinion exists among the older members of the Canadian community that, while information and specialization have grown, culture has retreated from the standards set for it by the former school of English and Scottish college instructors.
[41] "The amount of postage paid by newspapers would be a fair indication of their circulation.... The postage on theChristian Guardianwas £228, which exceeded by £6 the aggregate postage on the following newspapers:Colonial Advocate, £57;The Courier, £45;Watchman, £24;Brockville Recorder, £16;Brockville Gazette, £6;Niagara Gleaner, £17;Hamilton Free Press, £11;Kingston Herald, £11;Kingston Chronicle, £10;Perth Examiner, £10;Patriot, £6;St. Catherine's Journal, £6;York Observer, £3."—Egerton Ryerson,Story of My Life, p. 144.
[42]The Montreal Witness, December, 1845. "We do not mean to criticize those prohibitory regulations, but, however good their motives, the effect has been to girdle the tree of knowledge in Canada, by shutting out the people from the only available supplies of books."
[43]Lord Durham's Report, ii. p. 138.
[44] Strachan,A Journal of Visitation to the Western Portion of his Diocese(1842). Third edition, London, 1846.
[45]Memorial of the Rev. E. Black, D.D., to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
[46]Memorials of the Rev. J. Machar, D.D., p. 38.
[47] Bell,Hints to Emigrants, p. 86.
[48] Robinson,Life of Sir J. B. Robinson, p. 179.
[49] Dent,The Last Forty Years, i. p. 109.
[50] Sir G. Grey to the Rev. E. Black, 25 March, 1837, inCorrespondence relating to the Churches of England and Scotland in Canada(15 April, 1840).
[51] Bell,Hints to Emigrants, p. 101.
[52] Lord Sydenham to Lord John Russell, 22 January, 1840.
[53] Quoted from Dent,The Last Forty Years, ii. p. 192.
[54] That is, his bill for dividing the Reserves in certain proportions among the churches.
[55] Poulett Scrope,Life of Lord Sydenham, pp. 160-1.
[56] See the Elgin-Grey Correspondence (Canadian Archives) for the year 1850.
[57] Christie,History of Lower Canada, v. pp. 113-14.
[58]Faithful unto Death, a Memorial of John Anderson, late Janitor of Queen's College, p. 26.
[59] Sir Charles Bagot to Lord Stanley, 26 September, 1842.
[60] Bagot Correspondence: Cartwright to Bagot, 16 May, 1842.
[61] Arthur to Normanby, 2 July, 1839.
[62] Lord Sydenham to Lord John Russell, 23 February, 1841.
[63] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: W. L. Mackenzie to Major Campbell, 14 February, 1848.
[64] Hincks,Reminiscences, p. 15.
[65] Poulett Scrope,Life of Lord Sydenham, p. 165.
[66] See, for example, a despatch—Metcalfe to Stanley, 24 June, 1843—descriptive of troubles on the Beauharnois Canal.
[67] A bill of 1833,penes me.
[68] Metcalfe to Stanley, 23 December, 1843.
Between 1839 and 1854, four governors-general exercised authority over Canada, the Right Honourable Charles Poulett Thomson, later Lord Sydenham, Sir Charles Bagot, Charles, Lord Metcalfe, and the Earl of Elgin.[1] Their statesmanship, their errors, the accidents which modified their policies, and the influence of their decisions and despatches on British cabinets, constitute on the whole the most important factor in the creation of the modern Canadian theory of government. In consequence, their conduct with reference to colonial autonomy and all the questions therewith connected, demands the most careful and detailed treatment.
When Lord John Russell, then leader of the House of Commons, and Secretary of State for theColonies, selected a new governor-general of Canada to complete the work begun by Durham, he entrusted to him an elaborate system of government, most of it experimental and as yet untried. He was to superintend the completion of that Union between Upper and Lower Canada, which Durham had so strenuously advocated; and the Union was to be the centre of a general administrative reconstruction. The programme outlined in Russell's instructions proposed "a legislative union of the two provinces, a just regard to the claims of either province in adjusting the terms of that union, the maintenance of the three Estates of the Provincial Legislature, the settlement of a permanent Civil List for securing the independence of the judges, and, to the executive government, that freedom of action which is necessary for the public good, and the establishment of a system of local government by representative bodies, freely elected in the various cities and rural districts."[2] In attaining these ends, all of them obviously to the advantage of the colony, the Colonial Secretary desired to consult, and, as far as possible, to defer to Canadian public opinion.[3]
Nevertheless, Lord John Russell had no sooner entered upon his administrative reforms, than he found himself face to face with a fundamental constitutional difficulty. He proposed to play the part of a reformer in Canada; but the majority of reformers in that province added to his programme the demand for executive councils, not merely sympathetic to popular claims, but responsible to the representatives of the people in a Canadian Parliament. Now according to all the traditions of imperial government a demand so far-reaching involved the disruption of the empire, and ended the connection between Canada and England. To this general objection the British minister added a subtler point in constitutional law. To yield to colonial reforming ideas would be to contradict the existing conventions of the constitution. "The power for which a minister is responsible in England," he wrote to his new governor, "is not his own power, but the power of the crown, of which he is for the time the organ. It is obvious that the executive councillor of a colony is in a situation totally different.... Can the colonial council be the advisers of the crown of England? Evidently not, for the crown has other advisers for the same functions, and withsuperior authority. It may happen, therefore, that the governor receives, at one and the same time, instructions from the Queen and advice from his executive council totally at variance with each other. If he is to obey his instructions from England, the parallel of constitutional responsibility entirely fails; if, on the other hand, he is to follow the advice of his council, he is no longer a subordinate officer, but an independent sovereign."[4] The governor-general, then, was in no way to concede to the Canadian assembly a responsibility and power which resided only in the British ministry.
At the same time large concessions, in spirit if not in letter, helped to modify the rigour of this constitutional doctrine. "I have not drawn any specific line," Russell wrote at the end of the despatch already quoted, "beyond which the power of the governor on the one hand, and the privileges of the assembly on the other, ought not to extend.... The governor must only oppose the wishes of the assembly when the honour of the crown, or the interests of the empire, are deeply concerned; and the assembly must be ready to modifysome of its measures for the sake of harmony, and from a reverent attachment to the authority of Great Britain."
Two days later, an even more important modification than was contained in this exhortation to charity and opportunism was proposed. It had been the chief grievance in both provinces that the executive positions in Canada had been filled with men who held them as permanencies, and in spite of the clamour of public opinion against them. Popular representative rights had been more than counterbalanced by entire executive irresponsibility. A despatch, nominally of general application to British colonies, but, under the circumstances, of special importance to the United Provinces of Canada, changed the status of colonial executive offices: "You will understand, and will cause it to be generally known, that hereafter the tenure of colonial offices held during her Majesty's pleasure, will not be regarded as equivalent to a tenure during good behaviour, but that not only such officers will be called upon to retire from the public service as often as any sufficient motives of public policy may suggest the expediency of that measure, but that a change in the person of the governor will be considered as a sufficient reason for anyalterations which his successor may deem it expedient to make in the list of public functionaries, subject of course to the future confirmation of the Sovereign. These remarks do not apply to judicial offices, nor are they meant to apply to places which are altogether ministerial and which do not devolve upon the holders of them duties in the right discharge of which the character and policy of the government are directly involved. They are intended to apply rather to the heads of departments, than to persons serving as clerks or in similar capacities under them; neither do they extend to officers in the service of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. The functionaries who will be chiefly, though not exclusively, affected by them are the Colonial Secretary, the Treasurer or Receiver-General, the Surveyor-General, the Attorney and Solicitor-General, the Sheriff or Provost Marshal, and other officers who, under different designations from these, are entrusted with the same or similar duties. To this list must also be added the Members of the Council, especially in those colonies in which the Executive and Legislative Councils are distinct bodies."[5]
The importance of this general circular of October 16th is that, at a time when the Colonial Secretary was exhorting the new governor-general to part with none of his prerogatives, and in a colony where public opinion was importuning with some persistence for a more popular executive, one of the best excuses for withholding from the people their desires was removed. The representative of the crown in consequence found himself with a new and not altogether comfortable opportunity for exercising his freedom of choice.
It fell to Charles Poulett Thomson, President of the Board of Trade in the Whig ministry, to carry out the Union of the two Canadian provinces, and to administer them in accordance with this doctrine of modified autonomy. The choice of the government seemed both wise and foolish. Poulett Thomson had had an admirable training for the work. In a colony where trade and commerce were almost everything, he brought not Durham's aristocratic detachment but a real knowledge of commerce, since his was a great mercantile family. In Parliament, he had become a specialist in the financial and economic issues, which had already displaced the diplomatic or purely political questions of the last generation.His speeches on the revision of taxes, the corn laws, and British foreign trade, proved that, in a utilitarian age, he knew the science of utilities and had freed himself from bureaucratic red tape. His parliamentary career too had taught him the secret of the management of assemblies, and Canada would under him be spared the friction which the rigid attitude of soldiers, trained in the school of Wellington, had been causing throughout the British colonies for many years.
There were, however, many who doubted whether the man had a character and will powerful enough to dominate the turbulent forces of Canadian politics. Physically he was far from strong, and almost the first comment made by Canadians on him was that their new governor-general came to them a valetudinarian. There seemed to be other and more serious elements of weakness. Charles Greville spoke of him with just a tinge of good-natured contempt as "very good humoured, pleasing and intelligent, but the greatest coxcomb I ever saw, and the vainest dog, though his vanity is not offensive or arrogant";[6] and a writer in theColonial Gazette, whose words reached Canadaalmost on the day when the new governor arrived, warned Canadians of the imbecility of character which the world attributed to him. "While therefore," the article continues, "we repeat our full conviction that Mr. Thomson is gone to Canada with the opinions and objects which we have here enumerated, let it be distinctly understood that we have little hope of seeing them realised, except through the united and steadfast determination of the Colonists to make use of him as an instrument for accomplishing their own ends."[7] With such an introduction one of the most strongly marked personalities ever concerned with government in Canada entered on his work.
Strange as it may seem in face of these disparaging comments, the new governor-general had already determined to make the assertion of his authority the fundamental thing in his policy, although with him authority always wore the velvet glove over the iron hand. In Lower Canada the suspension of the constitution had already placed dictatorial powers in his hand; but, even in the Upper Province, he seemed to have expected that diplomacy would have to be supported by authority to compel it to come intothe Union; and he had no intention of leaving the supremacy over all British North America, which had been conferred on him by his title, to lie unused. The two strenuous years in which he remade Canada fall into natural divisions—the brief episode in Lower Canada of the first month after his arrival; his negotiations with Upper Canada, from November, 1839, to February, 1840; the interregnum of 1840 which preceded the actual proclamation of Union, during which he returned to Montreal, visited the Maritime Provinces, and toured through the Upper Province; and the decisive months, from February till September 19th, 1841, from which in some sort modern Canada took its beginnings.
The first month of his governorship, in which he settled the fate of French Canada, is of greater importance than appears on the surface. The problem of governing Canada was difficult, not simply because Britons in Canada demanded self-government, but because self-government must be shared with French-Canadians. That section of the community, distinct as it was in traditions and political methods, might bring ruin on the Colony either by asserting a supremacy odious to the Anglo-Saxon elements of the population, or byresenting the efforts of the British to assimilate or dominate them. When Poulett Thomson landed, on October 19th, 1839, at Quebec, he was brought at once face to face with the relation between French nationalism and the constitutional resettlement of Canada.
Durham had had no doubt about the true solution. It was to confer free institutions on the colony, and to trust to the natural energy and increase of the Anglo-Saxon element to swamp Frenchnationalité. "I have little doubt," he said, "that the French, when once placed, by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes, in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality."[8] It was in this spirit that his successor endeavoured to govern the French section in Canada. Being both rationalist and utilitarian, like others of his school he minimized the strength of an irrational fact like racial pride, and, almost from the first he discounted the force of French opposition, while he let it, consciously or unconsciously, influence his behaviour towards his French subjects. "If it were possible," he wrote in November, 1839, "the best thing for Lower Canada would be a despotism for ten yearsmore; for, in truth, the people are not yet fit for the higher class of self-government, scarcely indeed, at present, for any description of it."[9] A few months later, his language had become even stronger:—"I have been back three weeks, and have set to work in earnest in this province. It is a bad prospect, however, and presents a lamentable contrast to Upper Canada. There great excitement existed; the people were quarrelling for realities, for political opinions and with a view to ulterior measures. Here there is no such thing as a political opinion. No man looks to a practical measure of improvement. Talk to any one upon education, or public works, or better laws, let him be English or French, you might as well talk Greek to him. Not a man cares for a single practical measure—the only end, one would suppose, of a better form of government. They have only one feeling—a hatred of race."[10]
But at the outset his task was simple. His powers in Lower Canada, as he confessed on his first arrival, were of an extraordinary nature; and indeed it lay with him, and his Special Council, to settle the fate of the province. Pushing onfrom Quebec to Montreal, he lost no time in calling a meeting of the Special Council, whose members, eighteen in number, he purposely left unchanged from the regime of his predecessor On November 13th and 14th, after discussions in which the minority never exceeded three, that body accepted Union with the Upper Province in six propositions, affirming the principle of union, agreeing to the assimilation of the two provincial debts, and declaring it to be their opinion "that the present temporary legislature should, as soon as practicable, be succeeded by a permanent legislature, in which the people of these two provinces may be adequately represented, and their constitutional rights exercised and maintained."[11] Before he left Montreal, he assured the British ministry that the large majority of those with whom he had spoken, English and French, in the Lower Province were warm advocates of Union.[12]
Yet here lay his first mis judgment, and one of the most serious he made. It was true and obvious that the British inhabitants of Eastern Canada earnestly desired a union which would promotetheir racial interests; true also that a group of Frenchmen took the same point of view. But the governor was guilty of a grave political error, when he ignored the feeling generally prevalent among the French that Union must be fought. Colborne's judgment in 1839, that French aversion to Union was growing less, seems to have been mistaken.[13] The British government, more especially in the person of Durham, had not disguised their intention—the destruction of French nationalism as it had hitherto existed. They had taken, and were taking, the risk of conducting the experiment in the face of a grant of self-government to the doomed community; and the first governor-general of union and constitutionalism was now to find that French racial unity, combined with self-government, was too strong even for his masterful will, although he had all the weight of Imperial authority behind him. But, for the time, Lower Canada had to be left to its council, and the centre of interest changed to Toronto and Upper Canada.
There, although no racial troubles awaited him, the governor had to persuade a popular assembly before he could have his way; and there for thefirst time he was made aware of the perplexing cross-currents and side eddies, and confusion of public opinion, which existed everywhere in Canadian politics. So doubtful was the main issue that he debated with himself whether he should venture to meet the Assembly without a dissolution and election on the definite issue of the Union; but the need for haste, and his natural inclination to take risks, and to trust to his powers of management, decided him to face the existing local parliament. By the end of November he had arrived at Toronto, and the Assembly met on December 3rd. Two plain but difficult tasks lay before him: to persuade both houses of Parliament to accept his scheme of Union, and to arrange, on some moderate basis, the whole Clergy Reserve question. To complicate these practical duties, the speculative problem of responsible government, long keenly canvassed in Toronto, and the peculiar conditions and methods of local politics, lay as dangerous obstacles in his path. The manners and methods of the politicians of Upper Canada drew him even in his despatches into vivid criticism. After a month's observation, he sent Russell a long and very able description of the prevailing disorders. In spite of a general loyalty the peoplehad been fretted into vexations and petty divisions, and for the most part felt deep-rooted animosity towards the executive authorities. Indeed, apart from the party bias of the government, its inefficiency and uncertainty had destroyed all public confidence in it. Under the executive government, the authority of the legislative council had been exercised by a very few individuals, representing a mere clique in the capital, frequently opposed both to the government and to the Assembly, and considered by the people hostile to their interests. In the lower chamber, the loss of public influence by the ministry had introduced absolute legislative chaos, and even the control over expenditure, and the examination of accounts, were of the loosest and most irregular character.[14] In a private letter he allowed himself a freedom of expression which renders his description thelocus classicusfor political conditions before the Union:—"The state of things here is far worse than I had expected. The country is split into factions animated with the most deadly hatred to each other. The people have got into the way of talking so much ofseparation,that they begin to believe in it. The Constitutional party is as bad or worse than the other, in spite of all their professions of loyalty. The finances are more deranged than we believed even in England. The deficit, £75,000 a year, more than equal to the income. All public works suspended. Emigration going on fastfromthe province. Every man's property worth only half what it was. When I look to the state of government, and to the departmental administration of the province, instead of being surprised at the condition in which I find it, I am only astonished it has been endured so long. I know that, much as I dislike Yankee institutions and rule, I would not have fought against them, which thousands of these poor fellows, whom the Compact call rebels, did, if it were only to keep up such a Government as they got.... Then the Assembly is such a House! Split into half a dozen parties. The Government havingnone—and no one manto depend on! Think of a house in which half the members hold places, yet in which the Government does not command a single vote; in which the place-men generally vote against the Executive; and where there is no one to defend the Government when attacked, orto state the opinion and views of the Governor."[15]
With the eye of a political strategist, Poulett Thomson prepared his alternative system, a curious kind of despotism, based, however, simply on his own powers of influencing opinion in the House. It was plain to him that the previous governments had wantonly neglected public opinion.[16] It was also plain that the populace had regarded these governments as consisting not of the governor with his ministers under him, but of the Family Compact clique in place of the governor.[17] The system which he proposed to substitute expressed very fully his working theory. Responsible government in the sweeping sense of that term employed by the reforming party he resisted, holding that, whether against his ministers, or the electors, he must be personally responsible for all his administrative acts. At the same time he assured parliament that "he had received her Majesty's commands to administer the government of these provinces in accordance with the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, and to pay to their feelings,as expressed through their representatives, the deference that is justly due to them."[18] To secure this end, he called public attention to the despatch from Russell, definitely announcing the change of tenure of all save judicial and purely ministerial places, thereby making it clear that no man would be retained in office longer than he seemed acceptable to the governor and the community. Then he set to work to build up, out of moderate men drawn from all groups, a party of compromise and good sense to support him and his ministry; and finally, he claimed for himself the central authority without any modifying conditions. Concerning the ultimate seat of that authority he never hesitated. Whatever power he had came from the Home Ministry as representing the Crown, and to them alone he acknowledged responsibility. For the rest, he had to carry on the Queen's government; that is, to govern Canada so that peace and prosperity might remain unshaken; and as a first condition he had to defer to the wishes of the people. But it cannot be too strongly re-asserted that he refused to surrender one iota of his responsibility, and that the ideal which he set for himself was a combination of governor and prime-minister. The efficiencyof his system was to depend on the honestly benevolent intentions which the governor-general cherished towards the people, and on the fidelity of both the ministry and the parliamentary majority established and secured through belief in those intentions.
The new system met with an astounding success. The scheme of Union was laid before both Houses. On the thirteenth of December the Council, which had hitherto been the chief obstacle, approved of the scheme by fourteen votes to eight, the minority consisting of Toronto 'die-hards' with the Bishop, recalcitrant as usual, at their head. Ten days later, the governor-general was able to assure Russell that the Lower House had, after some strenuous debates and divisions, assented also; the only change from his own outline being an amendment that "such part of the civil list as did not relate to the salaries of the judges, and the governor, and the administration of justice, which are made permanent, should be granted for the lifetime of the Queen, or for a period of not less than ten years."[19] On one point, not without its influence in embittering opinion among the French,Parliament and Governor were agreed, that while the debates in the Union parliament might be conducted in either English or French, in the publication of all records of the Legislature the English language only should be adopted.[20]
Swept on by this great initial success, Poulett Thomson determined if possible to settle the Clergy Reserve trouble out of hand. As has been shown above, this ecclesiastical difficulty affected the whole life of the community; and its settlement would mean peace, such as Upper Canada had not known for a generation. The pacificator, however, had to face two groups of irreconcilables, the Bishop of Toronto with his extremist following, and the secularizing party resolute to have done with any form of subsidy to religion. As he himself confessed, he had little hope of succeeding in the Assembly, but he trusted to his new popularity, then at its spring tide, and he won. Before the end of January the question had been settled on a compromise, by a majority of 28 to 20 in the Assembly, and of 14 to 4 in the Council. It was even more satisfactory to know that out of 22 members of Assembly who were communicants of the Church of England, only 8voted in favour of thestatus quo. There was but one set-back. Legal opinion in England decided that the local assembly had not powers to change the original act of 1791; and in the Imperial legislation which this check made necessary, other influences crept in, and the governor-general bitterly complained that the monstrous proportion allotted to the Church of England, and the miserable proportion set apart for other churches, rendered the Act only less an evil than if the question had been left unsettled.[21] Still, the settlement retained existing reserves for religious purposes, ended the creation of fresh reserves, divided past sales of land between the Churches of England and of Scotland, and arranged for the distribution of the proceeds of future sales roughly in proportion to the numbers and importance of all the churches in Canada. It was not an ideal arrangement, but quiet men were anxious to clear the obstacle from the way, and through such men Poulett Thomson worked his will. It is the most striking testimony to the governor's power of management that, as a politician stated in 1846, three-quarters of the people believed the arrangement unjust and partial, and acquiesced only because their political head desired it. Butthe end was not yet, and the uneasy ambition of the Bishop of Toronto was in a few years to bring on his head just retribution for the strife his policy continued to create. Nothing now remained but to close this, the last parliament of Upper Canada under the old regime, and the governor, who never suffered from lack of self-appreciative optimism, wrote home in triumph: "Never was such unanimity. When the speaker read my speech in the Commons, after the prorogation, they gave me three cheers, in which even the ultras joined."[22] It was perhaps the last remnant of this pardonable exultation which swept him over the 360 miles between Toronto and Montreal in thirty-six hours, breaking all records for long-distance sleighing in the province.
The primary duty of the governor had now been accomplished, for he had persuaded both local governments to accept an Imperial Act of Union, and it might seem natural to pass over the intervening months, until Union had been officially proclaimed, and the first Union parliament had been elected and had met. But theinterregnumfrom February, 1840, to February, 1841, must not be ignored. In these twelve short months he turnedonce again to the problem of Lower Canada, hurried on a short visit to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to settle constitutional difficulties there, returned in a kind of triumphal procession through the English-speaking district of Lower Canada known as the Eastern Townships,[23] and spent the autumn in a tour through the Western part of the newly united colony. It was only fitting that a grateful Queen and Ministry should bestow on him a peerage; henceforward he must appear as Baron Sydenham of Sydenham and Toronto.
But apart from these mere physical activities, he was preparing for the culmination of his work in the new parliament. It must be remembered not only that he distrusted the intelligence and initiative of colonial ministers too much to dream of giving place to them, but that his theory of his own position—the benevolent despot, secured in his supremacy through popular management—forced on him an elaborate programme of useful administration. He must face the new Parliament with a good record, and definite promises. The failure of the home ministry to include the local government clauses, which formed a fundamentalpart of the Union Bill, made such efforts even more necessary than before. It had been plain to Durham and Charles Buller, as well as to Sydenham, that, if an Act of Union were to pass, it could only be made operative by joining to it an entirely new system of local government. Accordingly, when opposition forced Russell to omit the essential clauses from his Act of Union, Sydenham penned one of his most vigorous despatches in reply. "Owing to this (rejection), duties the most unfit to be discharged by the general legislature are thrown upon it; powers equally dangerous to the subject and to the Crown are assumed by the Assembly. The people receive no training in those habits of self-government which are indispensable to enable them rightly to exercise the power of choosing representatives in parliament. No field is open for the gratification of ambition in a narrow circle, and no opportunity given for testing the talents or integrity of those who are candidates for popular favour. The people acquire no habits of self-dependence for the attainment of their own local objects. Whatever uneasiness they may feel—whatever little improvement in their respective neighbourhoods may appear to be neglected, afford grounds for complaint against the executive. Allis charged upon the Government, and a host of discontented spirits are ever ready to excite these feelings. On the other hand, whilst the Government is thus brought directly in contact with the people, it has neither any officer in its own confidence, in the different parts of these extended provinces, from whom it can seek information, nor is there any recognized body, enjoying the public confidence, with whom it can communicate, either to determine what are the real wants and wishes of the locality, or through whom it may afford explanation."[24]
Nothing could be done to remedy the evil in Upper Canada, until the new parliament had met, but the temporary dictatorship still remained in French Canada, and at once Sydenham set to work to create all that he wanted there, recognizing shrewdly that what had been granted in the Lower Province to the French must prove a powerful argument for a similar grant to Upper Canada, when the time should come for action. About the same time, he established by ordinance a popular system of registry offices, to simplify the difficulties introduced into land transfers by the French law—"allthe old French law of before the Revolution,Hypothèques tacites et occultes, Dowers' and Minors' rights,Actes par devant notaires, and all the horrible processes by which the unsuspecting are sure to be deluded, and the most wary are often taken in."[25]
Curiously enough, although his love of good government drove him to amend conditions among the French, Sydenham's relations with that people seem to have grown steadily worse. He had made advances to the foremost French politician, La Fontaine, offering him the solicitor-generalship of Lower Canada; but La Fontaine, who never had any enthusiasm for British Whig statesmanship,[26] regarded the offer as a bribe to draw him away from his countrymen and their national ideal, and declined it, thereby increasing the tension. Thus, as the time for the election drew near, the French were still further hardening their hearts against the governor-general of United Canada, and Sydenham, his patience now exhausted, could but exclaim in baffled anger, "As for the French, nothing but time will do anything with them. They hate British rule—British connection—improvements ofall kinds, whether in their laws or their roads; so they will sulk, and will try, that is, their leaders, to do all the mischief they can."[27]
Meantime he had prepared two other politic strokes before he called Parliament: the regulation of immigration, and a project for raising a British loan in aid of Canadian public works. Immigration, more especially now that the current had set once more towards Canada, was one of the essential facts in the life of the colony; and yet the evils attendant on it were still as obvious as the gains. Most of the defects so vividly portrayed by Durham and his commissioners still persisted—unsuitable immigrants, over-crowded ships, disease which spread from ship to land and overcrowded the local hospitals, wretched and poverty-stricken masses lingering impotently at Quebec, and a straggling line of westbound settlers, who obtained work and land with difficulty and after many sorrows.[28] Sydenham had none of Gibbon Wakefield's doctrinaire enthusiasm on the subject; and, as he said, the inducements, to parishes and landlords to send out their surplus population were alreadysufficiently strong. But much could and must be done by way of remedy. It was his plan to regulate more strictly the conditions on board emigrant ships, and to humanize the process of travelling. Government agents must safeguard the rights of ignorant settlers; relief, medical and otherwise, should be in readiness for the destitute and afflicted when they arrived; sales of land were to be simplified and made easier; and a system of public works might enable the local authorities to solve two problems at one time, by giving the poorer settler steady employment, and by completing the great tasks, only half performed in days when money and labour alike were wanting.[29] The final achievement of these objects Sydenham reserved until he should meet parliament, but he had laid his plans, and had primed the home authorities with facts long before that date.
In the same way he had foreseen the need of Canada for Imperial assistance, both in her public works, and in her finance. Assistance in the former of these matters was peculiarly important. Colonists, more especially in the Upper Province, had undertaken the development of Canadian natural resources, but poverty had called a haltbefore the development was complete, or, by preventing necessary additions and improvements, had rendered useless what had already been done. Conspicuous among such imperfect works were the canals; and Sydenham realized the strange dilemma into which provincial enterprise seemed doomed to run. The province, he told Russell, was sinking under the weight of engagements which it could only meet by fresh outlay, whilst that outlay the condition of its credit preventing it from making.[30] He was therefore prepared to come before the United Parliament with a proposal, backed by the British Ministry, for a great loan of £1,500,000 to be negotiated by the home government, and to be utilized, partly in redeeming the credit of the province, and partly in completing its public works. "It will therefore be absolutely necessary that Her Majesty's government should enable the governor of the province of Canada to afford this relief when the Union is completed, and the financial statement takes place; and I know of no better means than those originally proposed—of guaranteeing a loan which would remove a considerable charge arising from the high rate of interest payable by the province on the debt already contracted, orwhich it would have to pay for raising fresh loans which may be required hereafter for great local improvements."[31]
There remained now the last and greatest of Sydenham's labours before his stewardship could be honourably accounted for and surrendered, the summoning, meeting, and managing, of a parliament representative of that Canada, English and French, which he had restored and irritated. His reputation must depend the more on this political adventure, because he had already determined that 1841 should be his last year in Canada—he would not stay, he said, though they made him Duke of Canada and Prince of Regiopolis. And indeed the Parliament of 1841, in all its circumstances, still remains one of the salient points in modern Canadian history.
The Union came into force on the tenth of February, but long before that time all the diverse political interests in Canada had organized themselves for the fray. Sydenham himself naturally occupied the foremost place. He was acting now, not merely as governor-general, but as the prime minister of a new cabinet, and as a party manager,whose main duty it was to secure parliamentary support for his men and his measures by the maintenance of a sound central group. By the beginning of the year he thought he had evidence for believing that, in Upper Canada, a great majority of the members would be men who had at heart the welfare of the province, and the British connection, and who desired to make the Act of Union operate to the advantage of the country.[32] But even in Upper Canada there were doubtful elements. The Family Compact men, few as they might be in number, were unlikely to leave their enemy, the governor-general, in peace; nor were all the Reformers prepared to acquiesce in Sydenham's very restrained and limited interpretation of responsible government. Late in 1840, and early in 1841, the Upper Canadian progressives had organized their strength; and additional significance was given to their action by their communications with Lower Canada.[33] There, indeed, was the crux of the experiment. The French Canadians, already organized in sullen opposition, had just received what they counted a fresh insult. But Sydenham may be allowed toexplain his own action. "There were," he wrote to Russell in March, 1841, "attached to the cities, both of Montreal and Quebec, very extensive suburbs, inhabited generally by a poor population, unconnected with the mercantile interests to which these cities owe their importance. Had these cities been brought within the electoral limits, the number of their population would have enabled them to return one, if not both, of the members for each city. But such a result would have been directly at variance with the grounds on which increased representation was given by Parliament to these cities. On referring to the discussions which took place in both houses when the Union Bill was before them, I find that members on all sides laid great stress on the necessity of securing ample representation to the mercantile interests of Canada.... Feeling myself, therefore, bound in duty to carry out the views of the British parliament in this matter,I was compelled in fixing the limits of Quebec and Montreal to transfer to the county a large portion of the suburbs of each."[34] Whatever Sydenham's intentions may have been, the actual result of his action was to secure for his party four seats in the very heart of the enemy's country;and the French Canadians, naturally embittered, resented the governor's action as a piece of gerrymandering, which had practically disfranchised many French voters. Already, in 1840, under the active leadership of Neilson of Quebec, a British supporter of French claims, an anti-union movement had been started.[35] In July of the same year La Fontaine visited Toronto, to canvass, said scandal, for the speaker's chair in the united assembly; and in any case he was able to assure his compatriots that they had sympathizers among the British in the West. The Tory paper in Sydenham's new capital, Kingston, in a review and forecast of the situation, settled on this Anglo-French co-operation as one of the serious possibilities of the future;[36] and Sydenham as he watched developments in the Lower Province, found himself growing unwontedly pessimistic. "In Lower Canada," he wrote, "the elections will be bad. The French Canadians have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing by the Rebellion, and the suspension of the constitution, and are more unfit for representative governmentthan they were in 1791. In most of the French counties, members, actuated by the old spirit of the Assembly, and without any principle except that of inveterate hostility to British rule and British connection, will be returned without a possibility of opposition."[37]
The elections began on the 8th of March, and the date on which parliament was to meet was postponed, first from April 8th to May 26th, and then, in consequence of the continued lateness of the season,[38] from May 26th to June 14th. The result of the elections, known early in April, gave matter for serious thought to many, Sydenham himself not excluded. Absolute precision is difficult, but Sydenham's biographer has tabulated the groups as follows: