BOOK II THE UNION CHAPTER I THE PASSING OF THE UNION ACT Govern LORD DURHAM'S report had sketched in bold outlines the Measures measures necessary for the future of the Canadas, but there of British remained the difficult question of filling in the outlines of ment. the picture. The Imperial Government decided at once upon the reunion of the two provinces, and a bill to this effect was introduced in the Session of 1839. In view, however, of the strong protest of the Legislature of Upper Canada, it was decided to postpone its passage through Parliament till the details of the subject had been reported upon by the new Governor-General. Mr. Charles Poulett Thomson was appointed to the post, and landed in Quebec in October, 1839. A better choice could hardly have been made to meet the difficulties incident to a period of transition. Poulett Thomson was a strong Liberal, anxious to govern according to the wishes of the people; and he was also an indefatigable worker, capable of every exertion to bring the people to accept his own point of view. Lord Althorp had described the appointment as the finest field for doing good which a statesman could desire; and it was in this high spirit that Poulett Thomson entered upon his work. He had further the inestimable benefit of receiving the loyal support of the Secretary of State, Lord John Russell: in his last message to him the dying Durham contrasted the differences of their two cases. Glenelg, who had been Durham's chief, had been forced by his colleagues to resign early in 1839, and, after Lord Normanby had held the Colonial office for a few weeks, Lord John succeeded him. Poulett Upper Canada. The new Governor-General had been a business man concerned with the trade to Russia, so that he was well fitted to deal with the financial questions which awaited settlement, and his appointment was a cause for congratulation to the mercantile community of Canada. On his arrival at Montreal, on October 22, the Governor-General summoned the Special Council, which had acted during the time of Colborne's dictatorship. It was a curious beginning to popular government that the opinion of the French Canadians was to be given by a Council which in no way represented them; but in the circumstances of the case there was no alternative course. Moreover, it was assuredly true that men of all shades of opinion were dissatisfied with things as they were. The great body of the French population remained sullen and aloof; and, though they were certainly not converted to the union, their state appeared too desperate for them to resist its coming into force. On the other hand the British felt deeply the indignity of being deprived of representative government. It was naturally a foregone conclusion that the Council should be in favour of the Governor-General's proposals; though Mr. Neilson, who was one of its members, made a valiant losing fight. It was agreed that the united province should take over the public debt of Upper Canada, and that the details of the Union bill should be settled by the Imperial Legislature. A permanent Civil List was also promised to the Crown. The Governor, in forwarding these resolutions, laid great stress on the need of a speedy settlement. But Upper Canada had first to be converted, and here Poulett Thomson's task was by no means so easy. In this province imperial interests, and their own, were jealously watched by certain bulwarks of law and order, known by their opponents as the 'family compact'; though Lord Durham, a most hostile critic, had to confess that there was very little of family connexion in their undoubted cohesion. Like other associations of men, their component parts differed in character. Some were good and some perhaps were bad. The Chief Justice, John Beverley Robinson, was a man of whom any country might be proud, and Strachan, now a bishop, with all his faults, was not guided by low motives. Considering the special circumstances of Upper Canada, where a British remnant was in constant danger of being swamped by American invasion, it was not unnatural that the peculiar guardians of British interests should have grown tetchy and suspicious. Certain it is that the sway of the family compact' was no government of fools. In its nervous vigour the reply of the Upper Canada Council to Lord Durham's report provides, even at the present day, admirable reading. It was, then, this powerful and interested junto, which found itself asked by Great Britain to pronounce its own doom. Moreover, great numbers of the loyalist majority of the people had been embittered by Lord Durham's refusal to allow Sir George Arthur, the Lieutenant-Governor, to gratify their desire for vengeance upon the partakers of the rebellion. In this state of things, as late as March, 1839, the Upper Canadian Assembly declared themselves opposed to union, unless certain impossible conditions were fulfilled. Thus it was declared indispensable that Lower Canada should have only fifty representatives in the united Legislature, against sixty-two to be returned by the Upper Province. In the same spirit it was claimed that after 1845 the elective franchise should be confined to those holding land in free and common socage; the effect of which would have been wholly to disfranchise the French habitants. The English language was to hold the field in the Legislature, the law courts, and all public proceedings. Governor Poulett Thomson assumed the government at Toronto on The November 22, and was at once made aware, by an address from General the Corporation of Toronto, of the prevailing temper. The on the ascendancy of the loyal portion of the inhabitants was declared situation. to be essential to any legislative union. It seemed intolerable that those who, from education, habits, and prejudices, were aliens to British institutions, many of whom, moreover, had been engaged in open rebellion, should receive the same rights and privileges as the loyal inhabitants. Poulett Thomson was not a little disturbed at the state of things he found prevailing. It was far worse than he had expected. The country was split into factions animated with the most deadly hatred to each other. The people had got so much into the habit of talking of separation that they had got to believe in it. Poulett Thomson found the constitutional party as bad as or worse than the other, in spite of its professions of loyalty. The Upper Canada Legislature was opened on December 3, and a few days later the question of the union was brought before it by message. Within this province,' the Governor wrote, the finances are deranged; public improvements are suspended; private enterprise is checked; the tide of immigration, so essential to the prosperity of the country and to the British connexion, has ceased to flow; while by many the general system of government is declared to be unsatisfactory.' For these evils union seemed the only remedy; but it must Conditions be union under just conditions. The Assembly was invited of union. to agree to the principle of the equal representation of each province in the united Legislature. Such a principle was at the time undoubtedly unfavourable to Lower Canada, but it was expected, as afterwards happened, that with the increasing population which would result from immigration, the inequality would soon right itself. Moreover, the agricultural and commercial enterprise of the people demanded that they should not be placed on a footing of inferiority. In passing, we may note that the union, as proposed and carried, was no thorough fusion of the rival interests and races of Canada such as that shadowed forth by Lord Durham. The two streams met indeed but to run side by side in parallel channels, until the one threatened to overleap its neighbour's banks, and they both found an outlet in the waters of federation. The experience of the past made the provision of a Civil Service list a necessary condition of the settlement; while the provision that so much of the public debt of Upper Canada as had been contracted for public works of a general character should, after the union, be charged to the joint revenue of the united province, was all in favour of Upper Canada; though, considering that such public works were to the general advantage, it was clearly right that obligations with regard to them should be a public charge. It was this last provision which doubtless brought many converts to the proposals. The financial position was serious. The deficit amounted to some £75,000 a year, and equalled the revenue; so that, although the province possessed vast undeveloped resources, the immediate outlook was gloomy enough. With this lever in his hands, Poulett Thomson Conditions succeeded in carrying the resolutions through the Assembly accepted. in spite of the opposition of the 'family compact' party. Russell's A dispatch from Lord John Russell, which warned officials Lord J. that they had no life tenure of their offices, but that in future dispatch their continuance in office would depend upon other circum- on tenure of offices. stances than mere good behaviour, may have served to draw into line the members of the Legislative Council. The Governor was able to write, on December 31: 'The union is carried triumphantly through the Legislatures of both provinces. It has not been without trouble and a pro ... digious deal of management, in which my House of Commons tactics stood me in good stead, for I wanted above all things to avoid a dissolution. My ministers vote against me, so I govern through the Opposition, who are truly "Her Majesty's". ment. It has been seen that Lord Durham's Report contained Responsible two main recommendations, the union of the Canadas and governthe granting of responsible government. The union of the Canadas was in the way of settlement; but what was to be the future of responsible government? Lord John Russell, |