Brown was at this time, 1863-1864, not a member of the Liberal Administration of the United Provinces. But he was supporting it as a member of the House of Assembly, and also in his newspaper, the Globe, of Toronto; and there is unmistakable evidence in the Brown-Macdonald correspondence concerning Seward's suggestion of a representative of the Government of the United Provinces at Washington, that Brown was well acquainted with the attitude of Lyons toward the presence of Canadians in any such capacity.

Lyons, on January 28, 1864, had enjoined Monck, the GovernorGeneral, not to approve of sending to Washington a Canadian, supposed to be peculiarly in his confidence, with regard to the reciprocity treaty. If such a representative were sent, Lyons told Monck that he should feel bound to take decisive steps to show that the appearance of being in his confidence was false ; and his final injunction to Monck was that, if, despite his warning a representative of the Canadian Government were sent to Washington, any one who came for this purpose should not be furnished with letters of introduction to me, and should not be advised to call upon me.' 1

Although Lyons had been within a twenty-four hours' railway journey from Quebec, one of the seats from 1850 to 1866 of the Government of the United Provinces, and although he had been in Washington for about five years when he wrote this remarkable letter to Monck, he could obviously have had no knowledge of how far the development of responsible government had really progressed in all the British North American provinces between the end of Metcalfe's ill-starred régime in November 1845 and Monck's arrival in Canada, in October 1861. Lyons's letter of January 1864 was one that might appropriately have been written to Bond Head, Colborne, or to any of the governors general or governors of Upper Canada-all, with the exception of Bond Head, military men-of the era from 1791 to the rebellion of 1837.

It was the letter of a man of the junker mind, oblivious or indifferent to what had happened in all the North American provinces since the Papineau-Mackenzie rebellions, a man who was indifferent as to what trouble his actions might raise in the then always much-worried Colonial Office; or else it was the

1 Newton, Lord Lyons, i, p. 124.

letter of a man who was ignorant of great constitutional developments in the British North American provinces from 1840 to 1864, and quite unaware of the radical change in the position of the Governor-General between the time of Colborne and Bond Head and that of Elgin and Monck. Monck, in January 1864, was powerless to act as Lyons suggested, almost commanded.

Except for the reservation of bills passed by the legislature -bills in two or three well-defined categories specified in his instructions which were part of the unwritten constitution of the provinces-1 Monck could not take a step in any direction otherwise than on the advice of the Executive Council or Cabinet; and the Cabinet in its turn was responsible for all its actions to the legislature, and could not remain in office for a day longer than it had the support of a majority in the House of Assembly.

Even the receipt by the Governor-General of a communication like that from Lyons of January 28, 1864, must have been an embarrassment to him at a time when his Cabinet was intent on preventing any break in the trade relations of Canada as they had existed from 1854. But Lyons, in his way, as the correspondence of Brown and as the speech of Galt on the urgency of the need for diplomatic freedom in the House of Commons of the Dominion in 1870 2 make evident, helped to the diplomatic freedom enjoyed by the dominions to-day.

The British minister at Washington in 1858-1864 helped indirectly to this end, much as Metcalfe indirectly helped to forward the movement for responsible government by bringing about an impasse that made it obvious to the Russell Administration of 1846-1852, and to Elgin, who succeeded to the governorgeneralship, that only with responsible government, as it was

1 Cf. instructions to 'our right trusty and well beloved cousin, Charles Stanley, Viscount Monck, our captain general and governor in chief in and over our province of Canada.' November 2, 1861, pp. 131-132, Instructions to Governors, Sessional Papers (Canada), 1906, No. 18.

2 March 21, 1870. Galt then moved for an address to the Governor-General representing that great advantages would accrue from placing the government of the Dominion in direct communication with all the British possessions and foreign states which might be willing to negotiate for reciprocal commercial arrangements; that it was expedient to obtain from the Imperial Government necessary powers to enable the government of the Dominion to enter into direct communication for such purpose with each British possession and foreign state, and that in all such cases such proposed commercial arrangements should be subject to the approval of her Majesty. The motion for the address was opposed by the Government; and on a division it was defeated by 100 votes to 58. House of Commons Debates (Ottawa), 1870, 558-579.

understood and defined by Baldwin, La Fontaine, and the Liberals of Upper and Lower Canada, could the connexion between the Canadas and Great Britain be maintained.

For Lyons it was not impossible to take the attitude toward the claim of the British North American provinces that was characteristic of him during the later years of his service at Washington, an attitude which was manifest in his letter to Monck and also in a dispatch, three days later, to Russell who was then at the Foreign Office.1 As the experience of the Colonial Office in the struggle in the colonies for responsible government had made clear to the Melbourne Administration of 1835-1841, to the Peel Administration of 1841-1846 and to the Russell Administration of 1846-1852, especially to the Peel Administration, which was responsible for Metcalfe and his policy, which was endorsed both by Queen Victoria and the Cabinet, it was

1 'The Canadian ministers are very anxious to be doing something in the matter [reciprocity] in order to cover their responsibility as regards their constituents hereafter. They had a desire to send an agent here to advise with me, and to speak to the American Cabinet and to members of Congress. This I have told Lord Monck privately I will not hear of. I could not undertake to keep the peace for a month if I had a man here by my side, over whom I could have no practical control, and who would be really guided only by Canadian party politics, but who would yet be supposed to be more or less in my confidence, and therefore to be entitled to speak for me and her Majesty's Government. My troubles are great enough without adding Canadian electioneering views to the difficulties I have to contend with.'-Lyons to Russell, February 9, 1864. Newton, Lord Lyons, i, p. 125.

'The views expressed in these two letters [the first to Monck, the second to Russell] may appear unsympathetic as regards Canada. But, apart from his rooted and well-founded distrust of amateur diplomatists, Lord Lyons's main task was to keep the peace, if possible, between England and the United States. He was, therefore, justified in refusing to be associated with any persons who might conceivably add to the difficulty of a very critical situation. In addition to this, he was always inclined to resent the tendency of Canadian ministers to do a little diplomacy of their own, and held strongly that it would be time enough for them to think of diplomacy when they had provided themselves with an army and a navy.' Ibid., (1913), i, pp. 125-127.

2 From private information she had been led to expect that Lord Metcalfe would not be able to continue at his irksome post. He will be an immense loss, and the selection of a successor will be most difficult. It strikes the Queen to be of the greatest importance that the judicious system pursued by Lord Metcalfe (and which after a long continuation of toil and adversities only now just begins to show its effect) should be followed up by his successor.'-Queen Victoria to Lord Stanley, November 1845. Benson and Esher, Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837-1861, ii, pp. 54-55.

Bagot, Metcalfe's predecessor, had followed the policy of Sydenham (1840-1841) in regard to responsible government. He had (1841-1843) conceded the claims of the Liberals, and formed his Government on the principle that there must not be an Executive Council that did not have the support of a majority in the House of Assembly. 'I yet see such formidable obstacles to the disavowal of his policy,' wrote Stanley to Peel, on October 21, 1842,' that I lean to the opinion

not possible to end an agitation in the Canadas by a dispatch written in the spirit of Lyons's communications to Monck and Russell of January and February 1864.

Newcastle in 1859 had answered Galt in terms that had astonished Washington; and Galt, in his reply, had thrown down the gauntlet, and frankly told Newcastle that if he dared counsel the Cabinet to withhold assent from the Tariff Bill with its protection for Canadian manufacturers, the next step in Downing Street must be to place the Canadas under military rule. The Colonial Office at no time after 1859 could have risked another contest with any of the British North American provinces like that which makes this year stand out with so much prominence in the history of the Empire.

CHAPTER IV

THE INTERPROVINCIAL COUNCIL ON COMMERCIAL TREATIES OF 1865-THE VARIED INTERESTS OF THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES

ACTING on the mandate of a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives that had passed all its congressional stages by January 13, 1865, the Government at Washington on March 17 denounced the Elgin-Marcy treaty. From that time it was known in London, and in the British North American provinces, that on March 17, 1866, these provinces would cease to enjoy the much-valued advantages that had accrued to them under the reciprocity treaty of 1854.

A period of dislocation and depression in trade confronted the whole of British North America from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, similar to the dislocation and depression of 1847-1850 due to the ending of the preferences in the protectionist tariffs of the United Kingdom. It was this disturbing outlook that soon brought to an issue the claims of 1848-1852 of the that we must avow and adopt it.' Charles Stuart Parker, Sir Robert Peel, iii, pp. 383-384. Metcalfe (1843-1845) reversed the policy of Bagot. He ruled for months without a Cabinet, and interfered in elections to secure a majority in the House of Assembly that would support his restricted conception of responsible government. It was this policy that the Queen commended in her letter to Stanley, when news was received at the Colonial Office that illness-fatal illnesshad compelled Metcalfe to resign.

provinces of Upper and Lower Canada and New Brunswick for a recognized place in the diplomacy of commercial treaties.

Out of the threatening crisis in trade of 1865-1866 there developed (1) a renewal, under greatly altered conditions, of the claim of 1848 by the United Provinces for representation in treaty making; (2) the interprovincial council on commercial treaties, and (3) a prompt movement on the part of the Foreign Office in London to secure for the British North American provinces a renewal of the treaty of 1854, or a new treaty in which the provinces were to concede better terms-larger opportunities for an import trade from the United States-than were afforded by the treaty that Washington had denounced.

The organization of the interprovincial or confederate council of trade was suggested to the Governor-General in a dispatch from the Colonial Office, dated July 22, 1865, that was written in response to the claim of the United Provinces for direct representation in the pending negotiations at Washington. What the Colonial Office desired were the views of the governments of the five provinces, the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, on the negotiation of commercial treaties.1

Monck, the Governor-General, who at this time was at Quebec, issued the call for the council on August 14. The council assembled in the City of Quebec on September 18, 1865. All five provinces were represented,2 the members being chosen from the executive councils or cabinets. The representatives from the four Maritime Provinces 3 achieved no pre-eminence afterwards in the fiscal or diplomatic history of the Dominion. But Galt and Brown were the official representatives of Upper and Lower Canada, colloquially known as the Canadas, and John A. Macdonald and Cartier from 1868 Sir Georges Etienne Cartier-were admitted to the council at Quebec by courtesy, and took part in the discussions. The United Provinces had most at stake at the time when the end of the reciprocity treaty was in sight. These provinces, known in political geography since Confederation as Ontario and Quebec, are separated by the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes from New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin,

1 Cf. Gray, Confederation, i, p. 315.

2 Ibid., p. 296.

3 Ritchie, Nova Scotia; Wilmot, New Brunswick; Pope, Prince Edward Island; and Shea, Newfoundland.