CHAPTER XVI THE NEW COLONIAL POLICY METCALFE'S successor, Lord Cathcart, only remained in office until the Oregon boundary dispute was settled. Queen Victoria had suggested Lord Elgin's name to Stanley before the fall of the tory government. The new whig ministry at once returned to the idea of a civil governor, and neglecting party divisions they appointed Elgin to work out with Earl Grey, the colonial secretary, adequate and stable administrative principles in Canada. Elgin had carried out some successful social reforms in Jamaica, but his experience was of little importance compared with the fact that he belonged to the group of liberal-minded conservatives associated in history with the person and policy of Sir Robert Peel. He thus brought with him into the visionless mazes of Canada's storm-tossed political life the traditions of calm and discriminating liberalism, of wise insight, of dispassionate objectivity, and of a freedom from doctrinaire theory which were the most permanent contributions of the Peelites to English history. In addition, he had married Lord Durham's daughter, and his advent linked up Canadian development with a name which symbolized for the vast majority of Canadians a new colonial policy. During the seven years of his régime unparalleled and almost unhoped-for advances were made. The older tantalizing problems in local politics were settled. The race question was placed on a newer footing and foundations were laid upon which a nobler synthesis of empire has been built. Before considering the problems which Elgin faced, it is well to sketch in bold outline the background of British opinion 1 Letters, vol. ii, p. 55. and to seek some justification for it. There is no general and comprehensive formula. Perhaps the best explanation of the toryism of the tories and the whiggism of the whigs in colonial affairs can be found in the still unchallenged Austinian theory of sovereignty. The most judicial and unprejudiced political thinkers could not conceive of a divided authority or of a multiplicity of cabinets giving the crown responsible advice. Other influences were at work. To the tory group, freedom was the father of independence. Had it been possible to see beyond a theory of doubtful validity, self-government meant to them separation. The only lesson which they could derive from the American revolution was that popular control ended in disloyalty, disruption, and rebellion. They aimed in colonial policy to avoid the outbreak of another political epidemic by large doses of preventive medicine, and they uniformly classed ' reformers and liberals' as dangerous germ-carriers. The whig group accepted Austin, but they gradually acquired a greater belief in liberty and a wider mistrust of over government. When it came to a point of reconciling sovereignty with liberalism, they did not find a dilemma. With little conception of empire, they believed that colonial destiny pointed to the creation in a not very remote future of new states. In this belief they did not stand alone. When an apparent logic of facts penetrated the tory mind with the choice of either selfgovernment or independence, not a few were prepared to accept the latter rather than resist the former with force. It was a fortunate coincidence that Elgin should come to Canada at a moment when perhaps liberal-imperialism was best represented by the colonial secretary. Earl Grey had his dark moments. At times the lamp of faith burned dim. It is, however, his unique virtue that he was the only colonial secretary up to this time who had any faith at all. He brought to his work a trained, practical mind. He saw not merely the past outlined in a failure which was almost uniformly mis interpreted, and the present beset with the dangers of a very ugly dilemma. But also he saw the future in terms of neither constitutions nor laws nor theories but in those of higher values. He was a statesman for the simple reason that he was prepared to take risks, and that he refused in the final analysis to make it an article of faith that a liberal colonial policy meant the inevitable tory end or the high whig destiny. His statesmanlike faith is all the more remarkable for two reasons. He was willing to trust the untrained, untamed, uncouth colonials to work out their own future. He found a via media between the non possumus of the tory and the laisser faire of the whig in a conception of empire which is largely that of to-day. To illustrate these two points will require long quotations, but their importance in the history of the world is more than adequate justification. In repudiating the custom of giving directions in all details of colonial policy, Grey began a new era by laying down general principles which conceded the recommendations of Durham and the demands of Howe. In a dispatch to Sir John Harvey, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, he wrote: The object with which I recommend to you this course is that of making it apparent that any transfer which may take place of political power from the hands of one party in the province to those of another is the result not of an act of yours but of the wishes of the people themselves, as shown by the difficulty experienced by the retiring party in carrying on the government of the province according to the forms of the constitution. To this I attach great importance; I have therefore to instruct you to abstain from changing your executive council until it shall become perfectly clear that they are unable, with such fair support from yourself as they have a right to expect, to carry on the government of the province satisfactorily and command the confidence of the legislature. Of whatsoever party your council may be composed it will be your duty to act strictly upon the principle you have yourself laid down... that namely " of not identifying yourself with any one party "; but instead of this, "making yourself both a mediator and moderator between the influential of all parties". In giving therefore all fair and proper support to your council for the time being, you will carefully avoid any acts which can possibly be supposed to imply the slightest personal objection to their opponents, and also refuse to assent to any measures which may be proposed to you by your council which may appear to you to involve an improper exercise of the authority of the crown for party rather than for public objects. In exercising, however, this power of refusing to sanction measures which may be submitted to you by your council, you must recollect that this power of opposing a check upon extreme measures proposed by the party for the time in the government depends entirely for its efficacy upon its being used sparingly and with the greatest possible discretion. A refusal to accept advice tendered to you by your council is a legitimate ground for its members to tender to you their resignation, a course they would doubtless adopt should they feel that the subject on which a difference had arisen between you and themselves was one upon which public opinion would be in their favour. Should it prove to be so, concession to their views must, sooner or later, become inevitable, since it cannot be too distinctly acknowledged that it is neither possible nor desirable to carry on the government of any of the British provinces in North America in opposition to the opinion of the inhabitants.'1 This dispatch became Elgin's talisman in Canada, and Grey never deviated from it. He was willing that the crown in Canada and elsewhere should accept a ministry on that system of parliamentary government which has long prevailed in the mother country '.2 6 The concession followed the broad lines of distinction which Durham and Howe had drawn between local and imperial 1 Grey to Harvey, November 3, 1846, Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 570 ff. concerns. The general power of veto laid down in the Act of Union had been modified, and the governor had been given full power to assent to any laws which properly belonged to the internal government of the province and which did not involve what was dishonourable and unjust '.1 Grey, however, was inclined to believe that even in local affairs there might arise occasions when the imperial cabinet was bound to interfere. His faith wavered, for example, before the idea of a Canadian tariff. The new gospel of free trade was in full tide, and Grey debated whether Canada ought to be allowed to reject the glad tidings. Another temporary ingredient in his imperialism was a trust in the necessity of the moderating influence' of the home government on the excesses of colonial factions.3 Under Elgin's influence and reacting to Elgin's experience, he gradually passed to a stronger belief based on higher conceptions. Economic advantages, the prestige of empire, the glamour of power finally took on another colour. His imperialism found a moral justification, and he saw in free countries under the crown ' a powerful instrument under Providence of maintaining peace and order in many extensive regions of the earth and thereby assisting in diffusing among millions of the human race the blessings of christianity and civilization 2.4 At the close of January 1847 Elgin arrived in Canada. He found a ministry dragging on an anaemic existence, a house of assembly which did not command popular support, the FrenchCanadians in a state of dangerous gloom, and the imperial relationship dubious and insecure. There was plenty of noise in the clash of parties, but he could see nothing either essential or logical in their differences. The most dangerous issue was the actual principle of government, and with it was bound up the imperial 1 Gladstone to Cathcart, February 3, 1846, State Papers, G. 123. 2 Grey to Elgin, October 25, 1847, Elgin-Grey Correspondence. 3 Same to same, March 22, 1848, ibid. 4 Earl Grey, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell, vol. i, pp. 13 ff. (2 vols., London, 1853). |