rouges were mistrusted throughout the country. Party government, then, degenerated in a recurrence of dissolutions and elections which settled nothing. There were, too, fundamental difficulties in the constitution, which loomed up with the disappearance of the more important issues. French Canada had been recognized by the Quebec Act and by the Constitutional Act as a distinct race group. The hoped-for blending of the two peoples had never taken place. The events of 1837-8, the Durham Report, the Sydenham experiment, the reaction against Bagot's system, the recognition of a dual ministry under La Fontaine and Baldwin, all combined to emphasize the fact that two distinct races were living together in one province and that each was prepared to guard its privileges. Bagot and Elgin tried to divert the race consciousness of the French-Canadians into political channels, but both were forced to recognize political groupings based on nationality, and every ministry from 1849 on was constructed on the foundations of representation from Canada East and from Canada West, with practically a prime minister from each division. As a consequence there grew up a kind of unwritten convention that a government should have a majority in east and west. At times the cabinet resigned if defeated in one division, at times it clung to office. In addition, Canada West was becoming a difficult bed-fellow. The older race hatred was dying out and Brown's extreme religious propaganda only harmed himself; but he voiced a perfectly valid constitutional objection to the Act of Union when he pointed out that the identical representation of each division of the province was unjust to Canada West, which had now passed Canada East in population. His statement of the case was often fierce and tactless, but 'representation by population' was bound to gain supporters from its obvious logic and justice. On the other hand, Canada East now looked on the once hated Act of Union in the light of a treaty, a charter, a fundamental document. The fact that the attack on the Act

came from Brown only served to consolidate the FrenchCanadians and to bring once more to the front those irritating features of racialism which are so disintegrating when challenged. Political parties practically became divided on sectional lines. A fortuitous combination of irreconcilable groups could defeat a ministry, which often returned to power, leaving the matter on which it was originally defeated an open question.

The situation might be summed up as fundamentally and incidentally impossible. First, an attempt was made to govern by a unitary system two distinct communities. A common legislature was called on not merely to act in matters where some general public opinion might be expected, but in details suitable to different races. Secondly, this attempt was made under a constitution which was politically unjust to the increasing economic development and population of Canada West. Thirdly, the stability which race, religion, language, traditions, and customs gave to Canada East irritated its neighbour; and, fourthly, any attempts to change the constitution were incidental forces which intensified the fundamental difficulties. In other words, when the inherent defects in the machinery were pointed out, such opposition was raised as made the hope of change far off and problematical. It is not surprising, then, that with fundamental weaknesses, grave incidental differences, and no great political party issues, government was reduced to an absurdity. Within ten years ten ministries held office. In three years four ministries were defeated and two general elections had provided no working majorities. The issue reduced itself to the very simple question of how it would be possible to carry on the government of the country. To follow in detail the history of these years would throw little light on the deadlock and the break-down of party government, but it is necessary to consider the various expedients brought forward, for out of them the solution finally came.

At times hopes were turned to an irresponsible executive and

a written constitution such as those of the United States. The civil war served to kill ideas round which there had been much political grouping. Representation by population' appeared as early as 1850, and it was originally part of the tory programme. The liberal-conservative combination naturally succeeded in handing over the plank to the radicals, who divided the legislature on it year after year with increasing support from Canada West. John A. Macdonald opposed it on conservative and party principles, but the final decision lay with French Canada, and Cartier never deviated an iota from the letter of the Act. Brown's position, roughly stated, was that Canada West was ruled by French-Canadian votes, and that that was unjust, The weakness of his solution lay in the fact that, had representation by population been conceded, Canada East would have been ruled by Canada West. The vicious principle recurred-two peoples in a unitary system. John Sandfield Macdonald attempted to solve the problem by a definite adherence to the double majority' principle, which aimed at a working plan that no legislation should be passed affecting one division of the province which was not supported by a majority of members from that division. The idea was to develop further the bastard federal union, to which the ministries since 1841 bore actual witness. With different representation in the cabinet, hyphenated premiership, separate legal systems, and annual legislation applying only to one division, it seemed reasonable to J. S. Macdonald that the double majority' should be recognized and tried. Once in his career John A. Macdonald proposed that formal but extra-constitutional recognition should be given to the principle; but there was enough common sense left to prevent this motion being carried. The impossibility of dividing local issues and of the attempt to apply a federal method under a unitary system saved Canada from another ghastly experiment. J. S. Macdonald, however, formed a ministry ostensibly to make the attempt, and there is a certain grim humour in the

circumstances which convinced this rather dour politician of his folly. His ministry only carried its separate school bill for Canada West by the votes of Canada East.

Tinkering with the constitution produced no results. When the steadier heads began to look objectively at the political situation, they saw that there were two sets of problems—those of a local and those of a general nature; that there were two races, French and British. No conceivable adjustment of the existing machinery would satisfy the conditions. Across the international line, a constitution was being tested which at any rate professed to be based on a formula suitable to Canadian conditions. The idea of federation came once more to the front. The growth and fruition of that idea at last brought political healing.

6

[AUTHORITIES.-The standard biographies are practically sources-Joseph Pope, Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John A. Macdonald (2 vols., Ottawa, 1894); John Boyd, Sir George Étienne Cartier (Toronto, 1914); Alexander Mackenzie, The Life and Speeches of the Hon. George Brown (Toronto, 1882); O. D. Skelton, The Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt (Oxford, 1920). The pamphlet literature is full of contemporary criticism: Dunbar Ross, The Seat of Government of Canada... also the Composition and Functions of the Legislative Council and the Double Majority' Question (Quebec, 1856); Joseph Cauchon (?), Étude sur l'Union projetée des Provinces Britanniques de l'Amérique du Nord (Quebec, 1858); Isaac Buchanan, Letters illustrative of the Present Position of Politics in Canada (Hamilton, 1859); A. T. Galt, Canada 1849 to 1859 (Quebec, 2nd ed., 1860), are four of the most important. The Mirror of Parliament, the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of Canada, and the files of the Toronto Globe are essentials. J. C. Dent, The Last Forty Years, Canada since the Union of 1841, vol. ii (Toronto, n. d.), contains a good outline.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GROWTH OF THE FEDERATION IDEA

THE history of Canada contains many well-known suggestions for some form of union among the British North American. colonies, but the co-operating circumstances which would have given them reality never took place, and they passed into the realms of unrealized and premature hopes. Deadlock and the failure of party government brought once more to the front the possibility of federation. It would be a mistake, however, to assign the final accomplishment to them alone, as Goldwin Smith has done. We have already seen forces working and conditions existing which made it impossible for the Canadas to live together under a legislative union. These made cabinet government exceedingly difficult, but they would inevitably have nullified any kind of free government. In a single state such as the Canadas it would have remained impossible so to balance the fundamental centripetal and centrifugal forces as to produce a reasonably effective administration. The breakdown of the machinery was merely the occasion which turned men's minds to the basic problems and made them realize the inherent sources of failure. In groping after stability and expansion many obstacles loomed up. Communications were primitive. The people of the Canadas knew little of one another and much less of the Maritime Provinces. There were social backgrounds peculiar to the different colonies round which local sentiment had gathered. There were institutions and laws, customs and traditions, to which each province had become attached. In addition, neither Great Britain nor British North America had decided what path colonial empire was to travel. A few statesmen had glimpses of a greater empire more solidly