LOYALTY TO ENGLAND

For years he contended for a legislative council elected by the people: and it is curious to note that none of the men who were at the head of the popular party in Lower Canada ever recognized the fact, as did their contemporaries in Upper Canada, that the difficulty would be best solved, not by electing an upper house, but by obtaining an executive which would only hold office while supported by a majority of the representatives in the people's house. In Upper Canada the radical section of the Liberal party was led by Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, who fought vigorously against what was generally known as the "Family Compact," which occupied all the public offices and controlled the government.

In the two provinces these two men at last precipitated a rebellion, in which blood was shed and much property destroyed, but which never reached any very extensive proportions. In the maritime provinces, however, where the public grievances were of less magnitude, the people showed no sympathy whatever with the rebellious elements of the upper provinces.

Amid the gloom that overhung Canada in those times there was one gleam of sunshine for England. Although discontent and dissatisfaction prevailed among the people on account of the manner in which the government was administered, and of the attempts of the minority to engross all power and influence, there was still a sentiment in favour

of British connection, and the annexationists were relatively few in number. Even Sir Francis Bond Head-in no respect a man of sagacity-understood this well when he depended on the militia to crush the outbreak in the upper province; and Joseph Howe, the eminent leader of the popular party, uniformly asserted that the people of Nova Scotia were determined to preserve the integrity of the empire at all hazards. As a matter of fact, the majority of leading men, outside of the minority led by Papineau, Nelson and Mackenzie, had a conviction that England was animated by a desire to act considerately with the provinces and that little good would come from precipitating a conflict which could only add to the public misfortunes, and that the true remedy was to be found in constitutional methods of redress for the political grievances which undoubtedly existed throughout British North America.

The most important clauses of the Union Act, which was passed by the imperial parliament, in 1840 but did not come into effect until February of the following year, made provision for a legislative assembly in which each section of the united provinces was represented by an equal number of members-forty-two for each and eighty-four for both; for the use of the English language alone in the written or printed proceedings of the legislature; for the placing of the public indebtedness of the two provinces at the union as a first

LOWER CANADA DISSATISFIED

charge on the revenues of the united provinces; for a two-thirds vote of the members of each House before any change could be made in the representation. These enactments, excepting the last which proved eventually to be in their interest, were resented by the French Canadians as clearly intended to place them in a position of inferiority to the English Canadians. Indeed it was with natural indignation they read that portion of Lord Durham's report which expressed the opinion that it was necessary to unite the two races on terms which would give the domination to the English. "Without effecting the change so rapidly or so roughly," he wrote, "as to shock the feelings or to trample on the welfare of the existing generation, it must henceforth be the first and steady purpose of the British government to establish an English population, with English laws and language, in this province, and to trust its government to none but a decidedly English legislature."

French Canadians dwelt with emphasis on the fact that their province had a population of 630,000 souls, or 160,000 more than Upper Canada, and nevertheless received only the same number of representatives. French Canada had been quite free from the financial embarrassment which had brought Upper Canada to the verge of bankruptcy before the union; in fact the former had actually a considerable surplus when its old constitution was revoked on the outbreak of the rebellion. It was,

consequently, with some reason, considered an act of injustice to make the people of French Canada pay the debts of a province whose revenue had not for years met its liabilities. Then, to add to these decided grievances, there was a proscription of the French language, which was naturally resented as a flagrant insult to the race which first settled the valley of the St. Lawrence, and as the first blow levelled against the special institutions so dear to French Canadians and guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act. Mr. LaFontaine, whose name will frequently occur in the following chapters of this book, declared, when he presented himself at the first election under the Union Act, that "it was an act of injustice and despotism"; but, as we shall soon see, he became a prime minister under the very act he first condemned. Like the majority of his compatriots, he eventually found in its provisions protection for the rights of the people, and became perfectly satisfied with a system of government which enabled them to obtain their proper position in the public councils and restore their language to its legitimate place in the legislature.

But without the complete grant of responsible government it would never have been possible to give to French Canadians their legitimate influence in the administration and legislation of the country, or to reconcile the differences which had grown up between the two nationalities before the union and

LORD DURHAM'S OPINION

seemed likely to be perpetuated by the conditions of the Union Act just stated. Lord Durham touched the weakest spot in the old constitutional system of the Canadian provinces when he said that it was not "possible to secure harmony in any other way than by administering the government on those principles which have been found perfectly efficacious in Great Britain." He would not "impair a single prerogative of the crown"; on the contrary he believed "that the interests of the people of these provinces require the protection of prerogatives which have not hitherto been exercised." But he recognized the fact as a constitutional statesman that "the crown must, on the other hand, submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions; and if it has to carry on the government in unison with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence." He found it impossible "to understand how any English statesman could have ever imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined." To suppose that such a system would work well there "implied a belief that French Canadians have enjoyed representative institutions for half a century without acquiring any of the characteristics of a free people; that Englishmen renounce every political opinion and feeling when they enter a colony, or that the spirit of Anglo-Saxon freedom is utterly changed