IV LIBERAL-CONSERVATISM AND CONFEDERATION 1 A NEW POLITICAL DAY DAWNS THE 'HE departure of Lord Elgin from Canada was something more than a personal event; it marked the end of one epoch in Canadian parliamentary history, and the beginning of another. Up to 1854 fundamental constitutional questions were still being settled, and parties divided on these questions, in accordance with old prejudices and opinions inherited from Britain. At the same time the governors-general were, even when opposed by public opinion, in every case the foremost figures in politics, and not all the suavity and diplomacy of Elgin could disguise the fact that his influence over his ministers was deeper than even they realized. Canada had been claiming her own, but the men who put the case, for her and against, were Englishmen, not Canadians. After 1854 a very great change occurs; in which the colony furnishes her own governors, and the questions come to be less those of principle than of political expediency. Macdonald, Cartier and Brown take the place of Sydenham and Elgin, and a policy of ways and means-the adjustment of political machinery to suit local needs-takes the place of the struggle, in prin 1 As I have chosen in this section to depart from strict chronological crder, I have thought it advisable to add the following list of the administrations which held office between September 1854 and July 1867: MacNab-Morin, September 1854. MacNab-Taché, January 1855. Macdonald-Cartier, November 1857 Brown-Dorion, August 1858. Macdonald-Cartier, August 1858. J. S. Macdonald-Sicotte, May 1862. J. S. Macdonald-Dorion, August 1862 Taché-Macdonald, March 1864. Taché-Macdonald-Brown, June 1864. In June 1866 the Hon. George Brown retired from the administration, without, however, causing any real change of government. ciple, for responsible government and for free churches in a free state. The most obvious fact in the years before Confederation is the diminution in importance of the governor-general. Two men, Sir Edmund Head and Lord Monck, held office between 1854 and 1867, their tenure of office extending over a period equivalent to that occupied by their four predecessors combined. Yet they hardly enter parliamentary history except as accessories. It may indeed be a result of their comparative unimportance as individuals. It is strange to find Sydenham's successor addressed, as Monck was by Newcastle (July 10, 1863), in a remonstrance concerning inadequate dispatches: 'If, in the present case, a motion were made in this country for papers relative to events, upon which the Imperial Parliament might justly expect Her Majesty's government to be fully informed, the production of your Lordship's despatches would throw no light upon the subject.' Monck at least was more concerned with questions of diplomacy and defence than with the subtleties of Canadian politics, and was satisfied, as his great predecessors never had been, with leaving ministries to work out their own salvation. But the explanation lies somewhere beyond the mere personal equation. The office itself had become less important with the substantial grant of responsible government. By far the most notorious example of viceregal interference was Head's treatment of the Brown-Dorion episode in August 1858. In that crisis, in which Head absolutely refused to grant his new first minister, Brown, the privilege of a dissolution, and so wrecked the new-made administration, the governor-general displayed no feebleness of judgment, and the columns of the Toronto Globe resounded with charges of dictatorial conduct, and suggested that a second Metcalfe had come to judgment. But, at best, Head was able merely to minimize the disturbance caused by malcontents to the Macdonald-Cartier government, and, after August 6, power passed once more incontrovertibly into the hands of the colonial leaders. Perhaps with injustice, but not without some appearance of justification, Head was accused of playing the game of the liberal-conservatives. The heroic days of the governor-generalship were over, and new Sydenhams must, like the king's ministers in Britain, accept quietly a diminished glory. Explanatory of this shrinking in power, the great increase in national spirit, and in the claims made by that spirit for freer play, demands attention. With reciprocity had come prosperity; with prosperity had come independence, and a great increase in the numbers of the colonists. The population of Upper Canada, which had been 486,055 in 1842, was 1,393,710 in 1861, and the lower province had 1,100,731 in place of 690,496. Education, in the energetic hands of Egerton Ryerson, was playing its part; every addition to the travelling conveniences of the provinces meant additional political cohesion; and the central government, now really representative, was quick to feel the change, and to add to its momentum. The strong imperial note in John A. Macdonald's speeches bears witness to the popular movement by its underlying nationalism-it is Canada, no mean national unit, which begins to offer a filial assistance to the mother country. At times the new spirit seemed about to cause friction with Britain. The refusal to accept the militia improvements of 1862 caused a storm of discontent in Britain, and responsible organs like the Times sneered at the pretensions of Canadians, who, in spite of their assertiveness, consented to do nothing when the time came. Developments in tariff policy are dealt with elsewhere, but it is worth notice that the spirit of Canadian nationalism appeared nowhere so conspicuously as in the development of a national economic policy, and nowhere caused stronger feelings of dissent than in the mother country. Indeed, Galt's memorandum of October 25, 1859, is perhaps the firmest statement of independence made by any responsible provincial ministry : The government of Canada cannot through those feelings of deference, which they owe to the Imperial authorities, in any measure waive, or diminish the right of the people of Canada to decide for themselves both 1 See 'Economic History, 1840-1867' in this volume. as to the mode and extent to which taxation shall be imposed. . . . The Imperial government are not responsible for the debts and engagements of Canada. They do not maintain its judicial, educational, or civil service. They contribute nothing to the internal government of the country; and the Provincial Legislature, acting through a ministry directly responsible to it, has to make provision for all these wants. They must necessarily claim and exercise the widest latitude, as to the nature, and the extent of the burdens to be placed upon the industry of the people. The British people were learning the most difficult of imperial lessons-the price they had to pay for conceding home rule to a colony. Canada, then, in politics had come to one of the definite crises which all nations who earn legislative independence have to face. In England it had come, after the storm and clamour of the great Rebellion, when a few English statesmen, Shaftesbury foremost among them, realized that battles had passed from the plain to the assembly hall; that parliamentary tactics were the mode chosen by the new age for political advance; and that, in future, the evolution of a great party, which might take the place of the declining kingship, meant more for liberty than scores of charters or statutes of liberties. In Canada there had been the Rebellion and the struggle with Metcalfe; the home rule declarations and democratic practice of Elgin had been their Revolution Settlement. It now remained for the populace to prove that their new independence was something more than mere permission to misgovern themselves. GREAT NATIONAL ISSUES In the thirteen years between Elgin's departure and Confederation, Canadian statesmen had three great political issues to face. First and foremost there was the settlement of party government, on lines which would make it stable and efficient. Up to 1854, even the great Baldwin-La Fontaine ministry had been substantially the stronger for Elgin's secret counsels and support. Now, party administrations must stand alone-but did parties coherent enough to assume responsibility exist? And to which of them, if they existed, should the destinies of the country be entrusted? But the party question carried implicit in it a second difficulty-that of race; for the Union settlement was already showing signs of possible disruption, and the ministry in power, whatever its denomination, must face the religious and racial irritations which were fast increasing between Upper and Lower Canada. And as party politicians looked for solution of the racial question, they were certain to find, immovably fixed in front of them, the need for some resettlement of the whole constitution. On what lines, and with what scope, the future alone could teach them. It may be well to know what groups and personalities existed at the beginning of this great transition period, to undertake the work of construction and criticism. Hincks, in a manuscript, has left on record the state of parliament when he fell. He wrote: When Parliament met in 1854 I had a large majority of Reformers. The combined Clear Grit and Tory votes were a mere trifle, two or three in excess. We certainly were beaten by a combined party; first of all the Tories; second the French Rouges; third the Brown Grits; fourth the Sandfield Macdonald tail, three in number; fifth Cauchon and two or three Liberal-Conservatives. The Ministerialist party was the strongest in the House, and strong enough, when beaten, to dictate terms. . . . Out of ten ministers, we had seven, and all our measures were accepted. Without acquiescing in all these details one may take the summary as generally correct. The minor parties need not cause much delay. Malcontents, who signed their own resignation from influence, by severing themselves from the recognized parties, there always were; and they were always negligible. Even personalities once so potent in influence as William Lyon Mackenzie and Papineau had already found their power gone through irresponsible political action. A fate, almost equally decisive, awaited the rouges. As Elgin VOL. V F |