divergence of opinion between the governor and his executive, and the people; what then? If the king or his representative has all the power, he has the power to do wrong; and constitutional government is erected on the maxim that he cannot. Sydenham saw the point and accepted the risk. It says much for his logic that when the Nova Scotians did differ from their governor, and actually petitioned that he might be removed, the governor-general approved of their line of action as contrasted with the claim of the people to control the executive council. However unusual, it was 'the legitimate mode for the legislature to adopt when it was dissatisfied with the executive government'; and he proceeded in luminous words to speak of the mischief which must inevitably arise from intrusting the delicate and difficult task of governing with a popular assembly, to persons whose previous pursuits have left them practically unacquainted with the management and working of such bodies.' What he dreamed of was a popular government, but one where the truest popularist was the autocrat at the top; and I suppose he justified himself, as against critics of all such 'patriot princes,' by pointing out that, in the case of Canada, the governor was chosen, not born, and that it was easy to get the right man. At least, he cherished no doubts as to his own appropriateness.

At the same time, Sydenham was fortunate in the period set to his work by death. He seems to have been conscious that he had played his part, for the fatal accident of September merely precipitated the termination of an administration which would have ended with 1841. While the political and social life of Canada was crude, it was only for lack of opportunity; and when once a proper start had been made and a fit example set, Canadians learned so rapidly that the viceregal pedagogue-prime-minister was certain to find his position untenable. Even before the end of the first parliament symptoms of trouble had appeared. The faculty for accepting tuition, more particularly in politics, is one of the least permanent elements in ordinary humanity; and not all Sydenham's tact could disguise the fact that Canada was being consciously and firmly educated by her governor

general. Besides, the united legislature was no ideal group of men, but a turbulent and divided mass, with racial hate at the centre lying in wait for its opportunity. Sydenham's success, as has been shown, was less than he himself thought, thanks chiefly to the French. He tried to conciliate those restless spirits, but 'members of that party who accepted office were invariably rejected from their seats, when they sought to be re-elected, and an overture made to the party through Mr La Fontaine was abruptly broken off. As the session advanced, the supporters of the government, thus weakened, were so reduced in numbers that, with all their exertions, some of the most important ministerial measures were passed by a bare majority, and in one or two cases by the casting vote of the speaker.'

It may seem a lame conclusion to a great man's workthe lamer because his political practice has been chosen as the most eminent contribution made by Sydenham to Canadian progress. But there are things, doomed to failure, which yet are necessary before the next step in progress can be made, and in his two short years Sydenham taught Canada the meaning of true authority, the importance of public honour and spirit, the methods by which honourable politicians combine in cabinet and party, and the possibility of being popular without pandering to the low inclinations of the political mob. I doubt if he ever could have comprehended the real danger of his system, but then he was perhaps the one man living who might have made it work. And, if the opposition to him grew, it is well to remember that, coincident with that opposition, he was carrying through a mass of legislation such as no ordinary legislature would accomplish in ten years; and that in addition he had taken from discontent all its real sting and danger. To recur once more to Greville's estimate of the man:

He was always known to be a man of extraordinary industry, but nobody knew that he had such a knowledge of human nature, and such a power of acquiring influence over others. . . . Though of a weak and slender frame, and his constitution wretched, he made journeys which would have appeared hard work to the

most robust men. . . . These are the materials out of which greatness is made-indefatigable industry, great penetration, powers of persuasion, confidence in himself, decision, boldness, firmness.

Few groups of men have so disguised the higher things of life-its heroics-in utilities, as that to which Sydenham belonged. Yet free trade, and the relief of the poor, and the quest for peace, and the bringing of innumerable humanities into our average lives are no despicable achievements, and if the establishment of decency and order in Canada, and the origination of a great experiment in colonial democracy, have little in them to win popular cheers, wise men appreciate in silence, and remember.

II

BAGOT, METCALFE, AND THE POLITICAL CRISIS

TH

A TROUBLED PERIOD

HE second stage in the political development of United Canada extends from the death of Sydenham to the departure of Lord Metcalfe, his second successor, in 1845. In these years, as in those which preceded them, the centre of political interest is still rather the governor-general than the assembly, or rather is the relation of the governor to the spirit of independence which made such rapid strides in parliament after the first' non-political session '—if Gibbon Wakefield's phrase may be accepted. By his virtues and his defects Sydenham had scattered the seeds of tempest, and his successors reaped the whirlwind.

The causes of trouble were many and obvious. First and foremost came the need for readjustment of the British theory of colonial autonomy. The timid days of paternalism were past, but neither whigs nor tories understood the system for which the colonial leaders were calling-responsible government-nor the actual constitution of the bonds which were to hold Canada to Britain. A colony in their eyes was something tentative, its population British, no doubt, but rudely British, and its government a compromise between

a crown colony and the British parliament, but with the emphasis on the crown colony features. Sydenham's logic, as has been shown, had fixed on the governor-generalship as the key of the situation. As his own prime minister he had determined to create, if necessary, a party. This party was to support an administration of the recognized liberalconservative type, and his ministers were to represent not a predominant factor, but all shades of Canadian opinion.

The fundamental error in this logical device was that Canadians, being Britons living abroad, naturally claimed the privileges of self-government enjoyed in the mother country; that they were divided into parties; and that they expected party opinion to be as dominant in Canadian government as it was in England. Burke's eloquent refutation of non-party rule was as valid for nineteenth-century Canada as it had been for Rockingham against the scheme of George III. To a modern critic nothing seems more obvious than that parliamentary government, exactly as it was practised in Britain, in all its details and with all its liberties, was the only possible method of satisfying Canadian claims.

It was nevertheless difficult for any British government to consent to what seemed simple and logical. The fate of the American colonies hung still over the councils of the Colonial Office, like the clouds of some storm, spent for the present, but with possibilities of recurrence. Catastrophes were still possible in the colonial world. Nor did the colonial reformers make matters simpler. 'Politics,' said the Hon. Isaac Buchanan to Ryerson, 'in a new country are either the essential principles of society, or parish business'; and, unfortunately, not only were parochial details discussed with all the seriousness of essential principles, but the principles, wedded to obscure local matters, and darkened with the violence and personality of village disputes, led Canadian reformers into action neither mannerly, nor useful, nor wise. The work of Somers, Walpole and Pitt, in England, had sometimes to be done in Canada by eccentric reformers and party intriguers. Members of the administration were not always faithful to their cabinets; responsible officials had to be reminded even of so elementary a duty as attendance

in the cabinet or assembly; and the air of compromise and consideration for the other side, which is the most valid explanation of British efficiency, was usually absent in Canadian political crises. Friction in practically every serious political resettlement delayed and weakened the work of administration. In spite of Sydenham's work as political tutor to the colony, the conventions of the game were not yet understood.

The racial question complicated the merely political situation. Durham's scheme of self-government for Canada had presupposed the swamping of French national spirit as the condition of future peace. Sydenham had systematically ignored French-Canadian claims, and he had not restrained himself from the use of most improper influence to secure predominance for the British party in Lower Canada. The national consequence, more especially of Sydenham's action, was 'something very like a private quarrel on his part, with the whole mass of the French inhabitants of Lower Canada.' Sydenham's successors, then, had to count, not merely on the normal party divisions, but on this rampant nationalism, dividing existing divisions, and running deep into the social as well as the political fabric of the colony. So tense had the state of French-Canadian feeling become, that the acceptance of government office by one of their number automatically set him apart and ensured his impotence in all matters of active political influence.

Add to the various troubles the youth and crudity of the community, the lack of political education in the new masses of immigrants, the difficulties attached to mere existence in a new land, the slow operation of any but material motives and appeals, the naturalness of what more advanced communities would call corruption, and all the elements of an acute political difficulty are present.

SIR CHARLES BAGOT'S ADMINISTRATION

The selection of a successor to Lord Sydenham fell to the great Peel cabinet of 1841, and Stanley, who was Peel's