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Men of Glengarry—My heart warms within me when I listen to your manly and patriotic address.
I recognise in it evidence of that vigorous understanding which enables men of the stock to which you belong to prize, as they ought to be prized, the blessings of well-ordered freedom, and of that keen sense of principle which prompts them to recoil from no sacrifice which duty enjoins.
The men of Glengarry need not recapitulate their services. He must be ignorant indeed of the history of Canada who does not know how much they have done and suffered for their Sovereign and their country.
You inhabit here a goodly land. A land full of promise, where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. But I am confident that no spell less potent than the gentle and benignant control of those liberal institutions which it is Britain's pride and privilege to bestow on her children, will insure the peaceful development of its unrivalled resources, or knit together into one happy and united family the various races of which this community is composed.
On this conviction I have acted, in labouring to secure for you, during the whole course of my administration the full benefit of constitutional government. It is truly gratifying to me to learn that you appreciate my exertions. Depend upon it, they will not be relaxed. I claim to have something of your own spirit: devotion to a cause which I believe to be a just one—courage to confront, if need be, danger and even obloquy in its pursuit—and an undying faith that God protects the right.
[Sidenote: Debates in the British Parliament.]
In the meantime the unhappy Bill, which had caused such an explosion in the colony, was running the gantlet of the British Parliament. On June 14 it was vehemently attacked in the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone, as being a measure for the rewarding of Rebels.[9] He, indeed, contented himself with 'calling the attention of the House to certain parts' of the Bill in question; but Mr. Herries, following out the same views to their legitimate conclusion, moved an Address to Her Majesty to disallow the Act of the Colonial Legislature. The debate was sustained with great Vigour for two nights; in the course of which the Act was defended not only by Lord John Russell as leader of the Government, but also, with even more force, by his great opponent Sir Robert Peel. Speaking with all the weight of an impartial observer, he showed that it was not the intention of the measure, and would not be its effect, to give compensation to anyone who could be proved to have been a rebel; that it was only an inevitable sequel to other measures which had been passed without opposition; and, further, that its rejection at this stage would be resisted by all parties in the colony alike, as an arbitrary interference with their right of self-government. On a division the amendment of Mr. Herries was thrown out by a majority of 141. And though, a few nights later, a resolution somewhat in the same sense, moved by Lord Brougham in the Upper House, was only negatived, with the aid of proxies, by three votes, the large majority in the House of Commons, and the firm attitude of the Government on the subject, did much to quiet the excitement in the colony.
The news from England (wrote Lord Elgin) has produced a marked, and, so far as it goes, a satisfactory change in the tone of the Press; in proof of which I send you the leading articles of the Tory papers of Saturday. ... The party, it would appear, is now split into three; but on one point all are agreed. We must have done, they say, with this habit of abusing the French; we must live with them on terms of amity and affection. Such is the first fruit of the policy which was to bring about, we were assured, a war of races.
This satisfactory result was also due in part to the wise measures adopted by the Ministry, under direction of the Governor-General, for giving effect to the provisions of the much-disputed Bill.
We are taking steps (he wrote on June 17) to carry out the Rebellion Losses Bill. Having adopted the measure of the late Conservative Government, we are proceeding to reappoint their own Commissioners; and, not content with that, we are furnishing them with instructions which place upon the Act the most restricted and loyalist construction of which the terms are susceptible. Truly, if ever rebellion stood upon a rickety pretence, it is the Canadian Tory Rebellion of 1849.
[Sidenote: Fresh riots.]
Unhappily the flames, which at this time had nearly died out, were re- kindled two months later on occasion of the arrest of certain persons concerned in the former riots; and though this fresh outbreak lasted but a few days, it was attended in one case with fatal consequences.[10] Writing on August 20, Lord Elgin says:—
We are again in some excitement here. M. Lafontaine's house was attacked by a mob (for the second time) two nights ago. Some persons within fired, and one of the assailants was killed. The violent Clubbists are trying to excite the passions of the multitude, alleging that this is Anglo-Saxon blood shed by a Frenchman.
The immediate cause of this excitement is the arrest of certain persons who were implicated in the destruction of the Parliament buildings in April last. I was desirous, for the sake of peace, that these parties should not be arrested until indictments had been laid before the grand jury, and true bills found against them. Unfortunately, in consequence of the cholera, the requisite number of jurors to form a court was not forthcoming for the August term. The Government thought that they could not, without impropriety, put off taking any steps against these persons till November. They were, therefore, arrested last week; all except one, who was committed for arson, were at once bailed by the magistrates; and he too was bailed the day after his committal by one of the judges of the Supreme Court.
All this is simple enough, and augurs no very vindictive spirit in the authorities. Nevertheless it affords the occasion for a fresh exhibition of the recklessness of the Montreal mob, and the demoralisation of other classes in the community.
Again on the 27th he writes:—
We have had a fortnight of crisis consequent on the arrests which I reported to you last week; which may perhaps be the prelude (though I do not like to be too sanguine) to better times. A most violent excitement was got up by the Press against M. Lafontaine more especially, as the instigator of the arrests and the cause of the death of the young man who was shot in the attack on his house. A vast number of men, wearing red scarfs and ribands, attended the funeral of the youth. The shops were shut on the line of the procession; fires occurred during several successive nights in different parts of the town, under circumstances warranting the suspicion of incendiarism.
Upon this the stipendiary magistrates, charged by the Government with the preservation of the peace of the city, represented officially to the Governor that nothing could save it but the proclamation of Martial Law. But he told his Council that he 'would neither consent to Martial Law, nor to any measures of increased vigour whatsoever, until a further appeal had been made to the Mayor and Corporation of the city.'
[Sidenote: Quiet restored.]
This appeal was successful. A proclamation, issued by the Mayor, was responded to by the respectable citizens of all parties; and a large number of special constables turned out to patrol the streets and keep the peace. Meanwhile the coroner's jury, after a very rigorous investigation, agreed unanimously to a verdict acquitting M. Lafontaine of all blame, and finding fault with the civic authorities for their remissness. This verdict was important, for two of the jury were Orangemen, who had marched in the procession at the funeral of the young man who was shot. The public acknowledged its importance, and two of the most violent Tory newspapers had articles apologising to Lafontaine for having so unfairly judged him beforehand. 'From, these and other indications (wrote Lord Elgin) I begin to hope that there may be some return to common sense in Montreal.'
[Removal of Government from Montreal.]
My advisers, however (he proceeds), now protest that it will be impossible to maintain the seat of Government here. We had a long discussion on this point yesterday. All seem to be agreed, that if a removal from this town takes place, it must be on the condition prescribed in the address of the Assembly presented to me last Session, viz. that there shall henceforward be Parliaments held alternately in the Upper and Lower Provinces. A removal from this to any other fixed point would be the certain ruin of the party making it. Therefore removal from Montreal implies the adoption of the system (which, although it has a good deal to recommend it, is certainly open to great objections) of alternating Parliaments. But this is not the only difficulty. The French members of the Administration ... are willing to go to Toronto for four years at the close of the present Parliament, but they give many reasons, which appear to have in a great measure satisfied their Upper Canada colleagues, for insisting on Quebec as the first point to be made. Now I have great objection to going to Quebec at present. I fear it would be considered, both here and in England, as an admission that the Government is under French- Canadian influence, and that it cannot maintain itself in Upper Canada. I, therefore, concluded in favour of a few days more being given in order to see whether or not the movement now in progress in Montreal may be so directed as to render it possible to retain the seat of Government there.
This hope was disappointed, and he was obliged to admit the necessity of removal. On September 3 he wrote again:—
We have had, since I last wrote, a week of unusual tranquillity.... but I regret to say that I discover as yet nothing to warrant the belief that the seat of Government can properly remain at Montreal.
The existence of a perfect understanding between the more outrageous and the more respectable fractions of the Tory party in the town, is rendered even more manifest by the readiness with which the former, through their organs, have yielded to the latter when they preached moderation in good earnest. Additional proof is thus furnished of the extent to which the blame of the disgraceful transactions of the past four months falls on all. All attempts, and several have been made, to induce the Conservatives to unite in an address, inviting me to return to the town, have failed; which is the more significant, because it is well known that the removal of the seat of Government is under consideration, and that I have deprecated the abandonment of Montreal.
The existence of a party, animated by such sentiments, powerful in numbers and organisation, and in the station of some who more or less openly join it—owning a qualified allegiance to the constitution of the province—professing to regard the Parliament and the Government as nuisances to be tolerated within certain limits only—raising itself whenever the fancy seizes it, or the crisis in its judgment demands it, into an 'imperium in imperio,'—renders it, I fear, extremely doubtful whether the functions of Legislation or of Government can be carried on to advantage in this city. 'Show vigour and put it down,' say some. You may and must put down those who resist the law when overt acts are committed. But the party is unfortunately a national as well as a political one; after each defeat it resumes its attitude of defiance; and, whenever it comes into collision with the authorities, there is the risk of a frightful race feud being provoked. All these dangers are vastly increased by Montreal's being the seat of Government.
There were other arguments also of no little force. He was assured that some Members had declared that nothing would induce them to come again to Montreal; and he himself felt that it must do great mischief to the members from other parts of the Province, to pass some months of each year in that 'hot-bed of prejudice and disaffection.' Moreover, so long as Montreal retained the prestige of being the Metropolis, it was impossible to prevent its press from enjoying a factitious importance, not only within the province, but also in England and in the States, where it would be looked upon as the exponent of the sentiments of the community at large.
Ultimately, on November 18, Lord Elgin reported to the Home Government, that after full and anxious deliberation he had resolved, on the advice of his Council, to act on the recommendation of the Assembly that the Legislature should sit alternately at Toronto and Quebec, and with that view to summon the Provincial Parliament for the next session at Toronto. This step, 'decided upon in this deliberate and unimpassioned manner,' gave a useful lesson, which was not lost either upon Montreal or the rest of the Province. Nor was this its only good effect. 'The arrangement,' wrote Lord Grey in 1852, 'by which the seat of Government and the sittings of the Legislature were fixed alternately at Toronto and Quebec, has contributed not a little towards removing the feelings of alienation from each other of the inhabitants of French and of British descent. The French Canadians have thus been brought into closer communication than formerly with the inhabitants of the Western division of the province, and an increase of mutual esteem and respect, with the removal of many prejudices by which they were formerly divided, have been the result of the two classes becoming better acquainted with each other.'[11]
[Sidenote: Visit to Upper Canada.]
While these arrangements were under discussion, in the autumn following the stormy events above described, in spite of the threats thrown out by the extreme party, Lord Elgin, after a progress in Upper Canada in which he was accompanied by his family, made a short tour in the Western districts, the stronghold of British feeling, attended only by one aide-de-camp and a servant, 'so as to contradict the allegation that he required protection.' Everywhere he was received with the utmost cordiality; the few indications of a different feeling, on the part of Orangemen and others, having only the effect of heightening the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the majority of the population.
[Sidenote: Continued animosities.]
From this time we hear no more of such disgraceful scenes as it has been necessary to record; but it was long before the old 'Family-Compact' party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity; detractions probably repeated in all sincerity by many who were honestly incapable of understanding his real motives for forbearance. And as the members of this party, though they had lost their monopoly of political power, still remained the dominant class in society, the disparaging tone which they set was taken up not only in the colony itself, but also by travellers who visited it, and by them carried back to infect opinion in England. The result was that persons at home, who had the highest appreciation of Lord Elgin's capacity as a statesman, sincerely believed him to be deficient in nerve and vigour; and as the misapprehension was one which he could not have corrected, even if he had been aware how widely it was spread, it continued to exist in many quarters until dispelled by the singular energy and boldness, amounting almost to rashness, which he displayed in China.
[Sidenote: Forbearance of Lord Elgin.]
The more we remember the vehemence with which these injurious reports were circulated, the more remarkable appears the resolution not to yield to the provocation they involved, and the determination to accept the whole responsibility of the situation at whatever personal cost.
The following letters are among those which disclose the motives of his resolute forbearance. The last of them, written to an intimate friend nearly two years later, and summing up the feelings with which he looked back on the struggles of 1849, may close the personal records of this troubled year.
[Sidenote: Its motives.]
I do not at all wonder that you should be disposed to question the wisdom of my course in respect to Montreal; I think it was the best I could have taken under the circumstances; but I do not presume to say that it may not be criticised—justly criticised. My choice was not between a clearly right and a clearly wrong course: how easy is it to deal with such cases, and how rare are they in life! But between several difficulties, I think I chose the least. I think, too, that I am beginning to reap the reward of my policy. I do not believe that such enthusiasm was ever manifested towards anyone in my situation in Canada, as has been exhibited during my recent tour. But more than this. I do not believe that the function of the Governor-General under constitutional government as the moderator between parties, the representative of interests which are common to all the inhabitants of the country, as distinct from those which divide them into parties, was ever so fully and so frankly recognised. Now, I do not believe that I could have achieved this if I had had blood upon my hands. I might have been quite as popular, perhaps more so; for there are many, especially in Lower Canada, who would gladly have seen the severities of the law practised upon those from whom they believe that they have often suffered much, unjustly. But my business is to humanize—not to harden. At that task I must labour, through obloquy and misrepresentation if needs be. At the same time I admit that I must, not for the miserable purpose of self-glorification, but with a view to the maintenance and establishment of my moral influence, recover the prestige of personal courage of which some here sought to deprive me. Before I have travelled unattended through the towns and villages of Upper Canada, and met 'the bhoys' as they are called, in all of them on their own ground, I think I shall have effected this object, in so far as the province is concerned. To right myself in England will be more difficult; but doubtless, if I live, the opportunity of so doing, even there, will sooner or later present itself. Hitherto any impertinences which have reached me from the other side have been anonymous.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Afterthoughts.]
I believe that the sentiments expressed in the newspaper extract of which you acknowledge the receipt in your last, with respect to the merits of the policy of forbearance adopted by me at the great crisis, are beginning to obtain very generally among the few who trace results to their causes. But none can know what that crisis was, and what that decision cost. At the time I took it, I stood literally alone. I alienated from me the adherents of the Government, who felt, or imagined (having been generally, in times past, on the anti-Government side), that if the tables had been turned—if they and not their adversaries had been resisting the law of the land, and threatening the life of the Queen's representative—a very different course of repressive policy would have been adopted. At the same time I gained nothing on the other side, who only advanced in audacity; and added the charge of personal cowardice to their other outrages. At home, too, I forfeited much moral support; for although the Government sustained me with that honourable confidence which entitles a Government to be well served, they were puzzled. The logic of the case was against me. Lord Grey and Lord J. Russell both felt that either I was right or I was wrong. If the latter, I ought to be recalled; if the former, I ought to make the law respected. And, lastly, I lost any chance of moral support from the opinion of our neighbours in the States; for, like all primitive constitutionalists, the ideas of government they hold in that quarter are very simple. I have been told by Americans, 'We thought you were quite right; but we could not understand why you did not shoot them down!'
I do not, as you may suppose, often speak of these matters; but the subject was alluded to the other day by a person (now out of politics, but who knew what was going on at the time, one of our ablest men), and he said to me, 'Yes; I see it all now. You were right—a thousand times right—though I thought otherwise then. I own that I would have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured half what you did; and,' he added, 'I should have been justified, too.' 'Yes,' I answered, 'you would have been justified, because your course would have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the best course. Mine was a better one.' And shall I tell you what was the deep conviction on my mind, which, apart from the reluctance which I naturally felt to shed blood (particularly in a cause in which many who opposed the Government were actuated by motives which, though much alloyed with baser metal, had claims on my sympathy), confirmed me in that course? I perceived that the mind of the British population of the province, in Upper Canada especially, was at that time the prey of opposing impulses. On the one hand, as a question of blood and sensibility, they were inclined to go with the anti-French party of Lower Canada; on the other, as a question of constitutional principle, they felt that I was right, and that I deserved support. Depend upon it, if we had looked to bayonets instead of to reason for a triumph, the sensibilities of the great body of which I speak would soon have carried the day against their judgment.
And what is the result? 700,000 French reconciled to England—not because they are getting rebel money—I believe, indeed, that no rebels will get a farthing; but because they believe that the British Governor is just. 'Yes;' but you may say 'this is purchased by the alienation of the British.' Far from it; I took the whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that the Canadian British never were so loyal as they are at this hour; and, what is more remarkable still, and more directly traceable to this policy of forbearance, never, since Canada existed, has party-spirit been more moderate, and the British and French races on better terms than they are now; and this, in spite of the withdrawal of protection, and of the proposal to throw on the colony many charges which the Imperial Government has hitherto borne.
Pardon me for saying so much on this point; but 'magna est veritas.'
[1] I.e. one of the rebels of 1837, who had been banished to Bermuda by Lord Durham.
[2] One of the Conservative papers of the day wrote:—'Bad as the payment of the rebellion losses is, we do not know that it would not be better to submit to pay twenty rebellion losses than have what is nominally a free Constitution fettered and restrained each time a measure distasteful to the minority is passed.'
[3] 'I confess,' he wrote in a private letter of the same date, 'I did not before know how thin is the crust of order which covers the anarchical elements that boil and toss beneath our feet.'
[4] 'When he entered the Government House he took a two-pound stone with him which he had picked up in his carriage, as evidence of the most unusual and sorrowful treatment Her Majesty's representative had received.'—Mac Mullen, p. 511.
[5] 'Cabs, caleches, and everything that would run were at once launched in pursuit, and crossing his route, the Governor-General's carriage was bitterly assailed in the main street of the St. Lawrence suburbs. The good and rapid driving of his postilions enabled him to clear the desperate mob, but not till the head of his brother, Colonel Bruce, had been cut, injuries inflicted on the chief of police. Colonel Ermatanger, and on Captain Jones, commanding the escort, and every panel of the carriage driven in.'—Mac Mullen, p. 511.
[6] In the midst of this time of anxiety and even of danger to himself and his family, his eldest son was born at Monklands, on May 16. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to become godmother to the child, who was christened Victor Alexander.
[7] The motives, he afterwards said, which induced him to abstain from forcing his way into Montreal, might be correctly stated in the words of the Duke of Wellington, who, when asked why he did not go to the city in 1830, is reported to have answered, 'I would have gone if the law had been equal to protect me, but that was not the case. Fifty dragoons would have done it, but that was a military force. If firing had begun, who could tell when it would end? one guilty person would fall and ten innocent be destroyed. Would this have been wise or humane for a little bravado, or that the country might not be alarmed for a day or two?'
[8] His valued Secretary, to whose personal recollections most of these details are due.
[9] Some years afterwards, in the 'Address' already quoted, Mr. Gladstone made something of an amende for this attack; but he does not appear to have been fully informed, even then, either as to the intention with which the Act was framed, or as to the manner in which it had been carried out.
[10] 'This,' observes Lord Grey, 'owing to the extreme forbearance of Lord Elgin and his advisers, was the only life lost throughout these unhappy disturbances.'
[11] Lord Grey's Colonial Policy, &c. i. 234. In 1858, however, this 'perambulating system' having proved expensive and inconvenient, the Queen was asked to designate a permanent abode for the Legislature. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to name Ottawa, the present capital of the Dominion; and the selection of this central spot, with, its singular facilities of communication, has greatly aided in the consolidation of the province.
CHAPTER V.
ANNEXATION MOVEMENT—REMEDIAL MEASURES—REPEAL OF THE NAVIGATION LAWS— RECIPROCITY WITH THE UNITED STATES—HISTORY OF THE TWO MEASURES—DUTY OF SUPPORTING AUTHORITY—VIEWS ON COLONIAL GOVERNMENT—COLONIAL INTERESTS THE SPORT OF HOME PARTIES—NO SEPARATION!—SELF-GOVERNMENT NOT NECESSARILY REPUBLICAN—VALUE OF THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE—DEFENCES OF THE COLONY.
[Sidenote: Annexation movement]
The disturbances which followed the passing of the 'Rebellion Losses Bill' have been described in the preceding chapter chiefly as they affected the person of the Governor. But it may be truly said that this was the aspect of them that gave him least concern. He felt, indeed, deeply the indignities offered to the Crown of England through its representative. But there was some satisfaction in the reflection that, by taking on himself the whole responsibility of sanctioning the obnoxious Bill, he had drawn down upon his own head the chief violence of a storm which might otherwise have exploded in a manner very dangerous to the Empire. 'I think I might say,' he writes, 'with less poetry but with more truth, what Lamartine said when they accused him of coquetting with the Rouges under the Provisional Government: "Oui, j'ai conspire! J'ai conspire comme le paratonnerre conspire avec le nuage pour desarmer la foudre."' But the thunder-cloud was not entirely disarmed; and it burst in a direction which popular passion in Canada has always been too apt to take, threats of throwing off England and joining the American States. As far back as March 14, 1849, we find Lord Elgin drawing Lord Grey's attention to this subject.
There has been (he writes) a vast deal of talk about 'annexation,' as is unfortunately always the case here when there is anything to agitate the public mind. If half the talk on this subject were sincere, I should consider an attempt to keep up the connection with Great Britain as Utopian in the extreme. For, no matter what the subject of complaint, or what the party complaining; whether it be alleged that the French are oppressing the British, or the British the French—that Upper Canada debt presses on Lower Canada, or Lower Canada claims on Upper; whether merchants be bankrupt, stocks depreciated, roads bad, or seasons unfavourable, annexation is invoked as the remedy for all ills, imaginary or real. A great deal of this talk is, however, bravado, and a great deal the mere product of thoughtlessness. Undoubtedly it is in some quarters the utterance of very sincere convictions; and if England will not make the sacrifices which are absolutely necessary to put the colonists here in as good a position commercially as the citizens of the States—in order to which free navigation and reciprocal trade with the States are indispensable—if not only the organs of the league but those of the Government and of the Peel party are always writing as if it were an admitted fact that colonies, and more especially Canada, are a burden, to be endured only because they cannot be got rid of, the end may be nearer at hand than we wot of.
In these sentences we have the germs of views and feelings which time only made clearer and stronger;—indignation at that tendency, so common in all minorities, to look abroad for aid against the power of the majority; faith in the idea of Colonial Government, if based on principles of justice and freedom; and, as regards the particular case of Canada, the conviction that nothing was wanted to secure her loyalty but a removal of the commercial restrictions which placed her at a disadvantage in competing with her neighbours of the Union. To understand the scope of his policy during the next few years, it will be necessary to dwell at some length on each of these points; but for the present we must return to the circumstances which gave occasion to the letter which we have quoted.
[Sidenote: Manifesto.]
While ready, as that letter shows, to make every allowance for the utterances of thoughtless folly, or of well-founded discontent on the part of the people, Lord Elgin felt the necessity of checking at once such demonstrations on the part of paid servants of the Crown. Accordingly, when an elaborate manifesto appeared in favour of 'annexation,' bearing the signatures of several persons—magistrates, Queen's counsel, militia officers, and others—holding commissions at the pleasure of the Crown, he caused a circular to be addressed to all such persons with the view of ascertaining whether their names had been attached with their own consent. Some of these letters were answered in the negative, some in the affirmative, and others by denying the right of the Government to put the question, and declining to reply to it. Lord Elgin resolved, with the advice of his executive council, to remove from such offices as are held during the pleasure of the Crown, the gentlemen who admitted the genuineness of their signatures, and those who refused to disavow them.
[Sidenote: Remedial measures.]
'In this course, says Lord Grey,[1] 'we thought it right to support him; and a despatch was addressed to him signifying the Queen's approval of his having dismissed from Her service those who had signed the address, and Her Majesty's commands to resist to the utmost any attempt that might be made to bring about a separation of Canada from the British dominions,' But the necessity for such acts of severity only increased Lord Elgin's desire to remove every reasonable ground of complaint and discontent; to shut out, as he said, the advocates of annexation from every plea which could grace or dignify rebellion. He felt, indeed, an assured confidence that, by carrying out fearlessly the principle of self-government, he had 'cast an acorn into time,' which could not fail to bring forth the fruit of political contentment. But, in the meantime, for the immediate security of the connection between the colony and the mother-country he thought, as we have already seen, that two measures were indispensable, viz. the removal of the existing restrictions on navigation, and the establishment of reciprocal free trade with the United States.
Judging after the event we may, perhaps, be inclined to think that the importance which he attached to the latter of these measures was exaggerated; especially as the annexation movement had died away, and content, commercial as well as political, had returned to the Province long before it was carried. But we cannot form a correct view of his policy without giving some prominence to a subject which occupied, for many years, so large a share of his thoughts and of his energies.
Writing to Lord Grey on November 8, 1849, he says:—
[Sidenote: 'Reciprocity.']
The fact is, that although both the States and Canada export to the same neutral market, prices on the Canada side of the line are lower than on the American, by the amount of the duty which the Americans levy. So long as this state of things continues there will be discontent in this country; deep, growing discontent You will not, I trust, accuse me of having deceived you on this point. I have always said that I am prepared to assume the responsibility of keeping Canada quiet, with a much smaller garrison than we have now, and without any tax on the British consumer in the shape of protection to Canadian products, if you put our trade on as good a footing as that of our American neighbours; but if things remain on their present footing in this respect, there is nothing before us but violent agitation, ending in convulsion or annexation. It is better that I should worry you with my importunity, than that I should be chargeable with having neglected to give you due warning. You have a great opportunity before you— obtain reciprocity for us, and I venture to predict that you will be able shortly to point to this hitherto turbulent colony with satisfaction, in illustration of the tendency of self-government and freedom of trade, to beget contentment and material progress. Canada will remain attached to England, though tied to her neither by the golden links of protection, nor by the meshes of old-fashioned colonial office jobbing and chicane. But if you allow the Americans to withhold the boon which you have the means of extorting if you will, I much fear that the closing period of the connection between Great Britain and Canada will be marked by incidents which will damp the ardour of those who desire to promote human happiness by striking shackles either off commerce or off men.
Even when tendering to the Premier, Lord John Russell, his formal thanks on being raised to the British peerage—an honour which, coming at that moment, he prized most highly as a proof to the world that the Queen's Government approved his policy—he could not forego the opportunity of insisting on a topic which seemed to him so momentous.
It is (he writes) of such vital importance that your Lordship should rightly apprehend the nature of these difficulties, and the state of public opinion in Canada at this conjuncture, that I venture, at the hazard of committing an indiscretion, to add a single observation on this head. Let me then assure your Lordship, and I speak advisedly in offering this assurance, that the disaffection now existing in Canada, whatever be the forms with which it may clothe itself, is due mainly to commercial causes. I do not say that there is no discontent on political grounds. Powerful individuals and even classes of men are, I am well aware, dissatisfied with the conduct of affairs. But I make bold to affirm that so general is the belief that, under the present circumstances of our commercial condition, the colonists pay a heavy pecuniary fine for their fidelity to Great Britain, that nothing but the existence to an unwonted degree of political contentment among the masses has prevented the cry for annexation from spreading, like wildfire, through the Province. This, as your Lordship will perceive, is a new feature in Canadian politics. The plea of self-interest, the most powerful weapon, perhaps, which the friends of British connection have wielded in times past, has not only been wrested from my hands, but transferred since 1846 to those of the adversary. I take the liberty of mentioning a fact, which seems better to illustrate the actual condition of affairs in these respects than many arguments. I have lately spent several weeks in the district of Niagara. Canadian Niagara is separated from the state of New York by a narrow stream, spanned by a bridge, which it takes a foot passenger about three minutes to cross. The inhabitants are for the most part U.E. loyalists,[2] and differ little in habits or modes of thought and expression from their neighbours. Wheat is their staple product—the article which they exchange for foreign comforts and luxuries. Now it is the fact that a bushel of wheat, grown on the Canadian side of the line, has fetched this year in the market, on an average, from 9d. to 1s. less than the same quantity and quality of the same article grown on the other. Through their district council, a body elected under a system of very extended suffrage, these same inhabitants of Niagara have protested against the Montreal annexation movement. They have done so (and many other district councils in Upper Canada have done the same) under the impression that it would be base to declare against England at a moment when England has given a signal proof of her determination to concede constitutional Government in all its plenitude to Canada. I am confident, however, that the large majority of the persons who have thus protested, firmly believe that their annexation to the United States would add one-fourth to the value of the produce of their farms.
I need say no more than this to convince your Lordship, that while this state of things subsists (and I much fear that no measure but the establishment of reciprocal trade between Canada and the States, or the imposition of a duty on the produce of the States when imported into England, will remove it), arguments will not be wanting to those who seek to seduce Canadians from their allegiance.
Shortly afterwards he writes to Lord Grey:—
It is not for me to dispute the point with free-traders, when they allege that all parts of the Empire are suffering from the effects of free-trade, and that Canadians must take their chance with others. But I must be permitted to remark, that the Canadian case differs from others, both as respects the immediate cause of the suffering, and still more as respects the means which the sufferers possess of finding for themselves a way of escape. As to the former point I have only to say that, however severe the pressure in other cases attendant on the transition from protection to free-trade, there is none which presents so peculiar a specimen of legislative legerdemain as the Canadian, where an interest was created in 1843 by a Parliament in which the parties affected had no voice, only to be knocked down by the same Parliament in 1846. But it is the latter consideration which constitutes the specialty of the Canadian case. What in point of fact can the other suffering interests, of which the Times writes, do? There may be a great deal of grumbling, and a gradual move towards republicanism, or even communism; but this is an operose and empirical process, the parties engaged in it are full of misgivings, and their ranks at every step in advance are thinned by desertion. Not so with the Canadians. The remedy offered to them, such as it is, is perfectly definite and intelligible. They are invited to form a part of a community, which is neither suffering nor free- trading, which never makes a bargain without getting at least twice as much as it gives; a community, the members of which have been within the last few weeks pouring into their multifarious places of worship, to thank God that they are exempt from the ills which afflict other men, from those more especially which afflict their despised neighbours, the inhabitants of North America, who have remained faithful to the country which planted them.
Now, I believe, that if these facts be ignored, it is quite impossible to understand rightly the present state of opinion in Canada, or to determine wisely the course which the British Government and Parliament ought to pursue. It may suit the policy of the English free-trade press to represent the difficulties of Canada as the consequence of having a fool for a Governor-General; but, if it be permitted me to express an opinion on a matter of so much delicacy, I venture to doubt whether it would be safe to act on this hypothesis. My conviction on the contrary is, that motives of self-interest of a very gross and palpable description are suggesting treasonable courses to the Canadian mind at present, and that it is a political sentiment, a feeling of gratitude for what has been done and suffered this year in the cause of Canadian self-government, which is neutralising these suggestions.
Again, on December 29,1849, he writes as follows:—
[Sidenote: Free navigation.]
I believe that the operation of the free navigation system will be what you anticipate, to a great extent at least, and that it will tend materially to equalise prices on the two sides of the line. At the same time I do think, that there are circumstances in this country which falsify, in some degree, the deductions at which one arrives from reasoning founded on the abstract principles of political economy. One of these circumstances is the power which the farmers in the Western States, having no rents to pay, have of holding back their grain when prices do not suit them. You must have observed what hoards they poured forth when they were tempted by the famine prices of 1847; and I cannot but think that this power of hoarding, coupled with an indifferent harvest, must account for the great disparity of price, which has obtained during the course of the present year in the New York market for bonded grain, and grain for the home consumption. I fully expect, however, to see the price of Canadian grain, bonded at New York, rise, now that it can be exported to Liverpool in the New York liners, which will carry it for ballast. Nevertheless, I think that Sir Robert Peel's dictum with respect to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, on the day on which he retired last from office, when he observed that thenceforward, even when the poor suffered from the high price of bread, they would not ascribe that suffering to the fact of their bread being taxed, applies with at least equal force to the reciprocity question as affecting the Canadian farmers. For sure am I that, so long as there is a duty on their produce when it enters the States, and none on the introduction of United States produce into England, they will ascribe to this cause alone the differences of price that may occasionally rule to their disadvantage.
The history of the two measures which Lord Elgin so ardently desired, and which in the foregoing and many similar letters he so urgently pressed, was eminently characteristic of the two Legislatures, through which they had respectively to be carried.
[Sidenote: Repeal of Navigation Laws.]
In England, the repeal of restrictive Navigation Laws was contended for by thoughtful statesmen on grounds of public policy. The protective and conservative instincts of the old country, fortified by the never-absent spirit of party, resisted the change. When fairly beaten by force of argument in the House of Commons, they entrenched themselves ha the House of Lords; and it was only after a hot struggle that the Act was passed in June 1849, of which one effect was, by lowering freights, to increase the profits of the Canadian trade in wheat and timber, and thus to advance, in a very important degree, the commercial prosperity of the colony.
[Sidenote: Reciprocity Treaty.]
The delays which retarded the settlement of the Reciprocity Treaty were due to causes of another kind. The difficulty was to induce the American Congress to pay any attention at all to the subject. In the vast multiplicity of matters with which that Assembly has to deal, it is said that no cause which does not appeal strongly to a national sentiment, or at least to some party feeling, has a chance of obtaining a hearing, unless it is taken up systematically by 'organizers' outside the House. The Reciprocity Bill was not a measure about which any national or even party feeling could be aroused. It was one which required much study to understand its bearings, and which would affect different interests in the country in different ways. It stood, therefore, especially in need of the aid of professional organizers; a kind of aid of which it was of course impossible that either the British or the Canadian Government should avail itself. Session after session the Bill was proposed, scarcely debated, and set aside. At last, in 1854, after the negotiations had dragged on wearily for more than six years, Lord Elgin himself was sent to Washington in the hope—'a forlorn hope,' as it seemed to those who sent him—of bringing the matter to a successful issue. It was his first essay in diplomacy, but made under circumstances unusually favourable. He was personally popular with the Americans, towards whom he had always entertained and shown a most friendly feeling. They appreciated, moreover, better perhaps than it was appreciated at home, the consummate ability, as well as the rare strength of character, which he had displayed in the government of Canada; and the prestige thus attaching to his name, joined to the influence of his presence, and his courtesy and bonhomie, enabled him in a few days to smooth all difficulties, and change apathy into enthusiasm. Within a few weeks from the time of his landing he had agreed with Mr. Marcy upon the terms of a Treaty of Reciprocity, which soon afterwards received the sanction of all the Governments concerned.
The main concessions made by the Provinces to the United States in this treaty were, (1) the removal of duties on the introduction, for consumption in the Provinces, of certain products of the States; (2) the admission of citizens of that country to the enjoyment of the in-shore sea-fishery; (3) the opening-up to their vessels of the St. Lawrence and canals pertaining thereto.
A good deal of misconception prevailed at the time as to the amount of the concession made under the second head. The popular impression on this point was, that a gigantic monopoly was about to be surrendered; but this was far from being the case. The citizens of the United States had already, under the Convention of 1818, access to the most important cod-fisheries on the British coasts. The new treaty maintained in favour of British subjects the monopoly of the river and freshwater fisheries; and the concession which it made to the citizens of the United States amounted in substance to this, that it admitted them to a legal participation in the mackerel and herring fisheries, from illegal encroachments on which it had been found, after the experience of many years, practically impossible to exclude them.[3]
The duration of the Treaty was limited to ten years, and has not been extended; but it is not too much to hope that it has had some effect in engendering feelings of friendliness, and of community of interest, which may long outlast itself.
[Sidenote: Views of Government.]
It has been already noticed that the 'annexation movement' of 1849 died away without serious consequences; and extracts which have been given above sufficiently show to what cause Lord Elgin attributed its extinction. The powerful attraction of the great neighbouring republic had been counteracted and overcome by the more powerful attraction of self- government at home. The centrifugal force was no longer equal to the centripetal. To create this state of feeling had been his most cherished desire; to feel that he had succeeded in creating it was, throughout much obloquy and misunderstanding, his greatest support.
[Sidenote: Duty of supporting authority,]
From the earliest period of his entrance into political life he had always had the strongest sense of the duty incumbent on every public man of supporting, even in opposition, the authority of Government. The bitterest reproach which he cast upon the Whigs, in his first Tory 'Letter to the Electors of Great Britain' in 1835, was that when they found they could not carry on the government themselves, they tried to make it impossible for any other party to do so. Nor was he less severe, on another occasion, in his reprehension of 'a certain high Tory clique who are always cavilling at royalty when it is constitutional; circulating the most miserable gossip about royal persons and royal entertainments,' &c.; busily 'engaged in undermining the foundations on which respect for human institutions rests.' Writing, in May 1850, to Mr. Gumming Bruce, a Tory and Protectionist, he said—
I shall not despair for England whether Free-traders or Protectionists be in the ascendant, unless I see that the faction out of power abet the endeavours of those who would make the Government of the country contemptible. Read Montalembert's speeches. They are very eloquent and instructive. He had as full a faith in his religion, and what he considered due to his religion, as you can have in your Corn Laws. Yet observe how bitterly he now repents having aided those who have undermined in the French public all respect for authority and the powers that be.
If all that your Protectionist friends want to do is to put themselves, or persons in whom they have greater confidence than the present Ministry, in office, their object is, I confess, a perfectly legitimate one. What I complain of is the system of what is termed damaging the Government, when resorted to by those who have no such purpose in view; or at least no honest intention of assuming responsibilities which they are endeavouring to render intolerable to those who are charged with them.
[Sidenote: especially in Colonies.]
But if this 'political profligacy' was, in his judgment, the bane of party government at home, a still stronger but, perhaps, more excusable tendency to it threatened to defeat the object of responsible government in Canada. Accustomed to look abroad for the source and centre of power, a beaten minority in the Colonial Parliament, instead of loyally accepting its position, was never without a hope of wresting the victory from its opponents, either by an appeal to opinion in the mother-country, always ill-informed, and therefore credulous, in matters of colonial politics, or else by raising a cry of 'separation' or 'annexation.'
The evil effects of this state of things need hardly be pointed out. On the one hand the constant reference to opinion in England, not in the shape of constitutional appeal but by ex-parte statements, produced a state of chronic irritation against the mother-country. 'There is nothing,' wrote Lord Elgin, 'which makes the colonial statesman so jealous as rescripts from the Colonial Office, suggested by the representations of provincial cliques or interests, who ought, as he contends, to bow before the authorities of Government House, Montreal, rather than those of Downing Street.' On the other hand it was not easy to know how to deal with politicians who did not profess to own more than a qualified and provisional allegiance to the constitution of the Province and the Crown of England. The one hope in both cases was to foster a 'national and manly tone' of political morals; to lead all parties alike to look to their own Parliament, and neither to the London press nor the American hustings, for the solution of all problems of Provincial government.
But while thus zealously defending, the fortress of British connection committed to his care, Lord Elgin was dismayed to find that its walls were crumbling round him? undermined by the operations of his own Mends; that there had arisen at home a school of philosophic statesmen, strong in their own ability, and strengthened by the support of the Radical economists, according to whom it was to be expected and desired that every colony enjoying constitutional government should aim at emancipating itself entirely from allegiance to the mother-country, and forming itself into an independent Republic. With such views he had no sympathy. The 'Sparta' which had fallen to his lot was the position of a colonial governor, and that position he felt it his duty to 'adorn' and to maintain. Moreover, believing firmly in the vitality of the monarchical principle, as well as in its value, he contended that it is an error to suppose that a constitutional monarchy, in proportion as it becomes more liberal, tends towards republicanism; and further, that if such tendency existed it would be retrograde rather than progressive.
The views of Colonial Government, its objects and its difficulties, which have been here briefly epitomised, are displayed in full in the following letters, together with a variety of opinions on kindred topics. They are given as characteristic of Lord Elgin; but they may, perhaps, have an interest of their own, as bearing on important questions which still await solution.
To the Earl Grey.
November 16,1849.
[Sidenote: Maintenance of British connection.]
Very much, as respects the result of this annexation movement, depends upon what you do at home. I cannot say what the effect may be if the British Government and press are lukewarm on the subject. The annexationists will take heart, but in a tenfold greater degree the friends of the connection will be discouraged. If it be admitted that separation must take place, sooner or later, the argument in favour of a present move seems to be almost irresistible. I am prepared to contend that with responsible government, fairly worked out with free-trade, there is no reason why the colonial relation should not be indefinitely maintained. But look at my present difficulty, which may be increased beyond calculation, if indiscreet expressions be made use of during the present crisis. The English Government thought it necessary, in order to give moral support to their representative in Ireland, to assert in the most solemn manner that the Crown never would consent to the severance of the Union; although, according to the O'Connell doctrine, the allegiance to the Crown of the Irish was to be unimpaired notwithstanding such severance. But when I protest against Canadian projects for dismembering the empire, I am always told 'the most eminent statesmen in England have over and over again told us, that whenever we chose we might separate. Why, then, blame us for discussing the subject?'
* * * * *
To the Earl Grey.
January 14,1850.
[Sidenote: Colonial interests the sport of home parties.]
I am certainly less sanguine than I was as to the probability of retaining the colonies under free-trade. I speak not now of the cost of their retention, for I have no doubt but that, if all parties concerned were honest, expenses might be gradually reduced. I am sure also that when free-trade is fairly in operation it will be found that more has been gained by removing the causes of irritation which were furnished by the constant tinkering incident to a protective system, than has been lost by severing the bonds by which it tied the mother-country and the colonies together. What I fear is, that when the mystification in which certain questions of self-interest were involved by protection is removed, factions both at home and in the colonies will be more reckless than ever in hazarding for party objects the loss of the colonies.[4] Our system depends a great deal more on the discretion with which it is worked than the American, where each power in the state goes habitually the full length of its tether: Congress, the State legislatures, Presidents, Governors, all legislating and vetoing, without stint or limit, till pulled up short by a judgment of the Supreme Court. With us factions in the colonies are clamorous and violent, with the hope of producing effect on the Imperial Parliament and Government, just in proportion to their powerlessness at home. The history of Canada during the past year furnishes ample evidence of this truth. Why was there so much violence on the part of the opposition here last summer, particularly against the Governor-General? Because it felt itself to be weak in the province, and looked for success to the effect it could produce in England alone.
And how is this tendency to bring the Imperial and Local Parliaments into antagonism, a tendency so dangerous to the permanence of our system, to be counteracted? By one expedient as it appears to me only; namely, by the Governor's acting with some assumption of responsibility, so that the shafts of the enemy, which are intended for the Imperial Government, may fall on him. If a line of demarcation between the questions with which the Local Parliaments can deal and those which are reserved for the Imperial authority could be drawn, (as was recommended last session by the Radicals), it might be different; but, as it is, I see nothing for it but that the Governors should be responsible for the share which the Imperial Government may have in the policy carried out in the responsible-government colonies, with the liability to be recalled and disavowed whenever the Imperial authorities think it expedient to repudiate such policy.
* * * * *
To the Duke of Newcastle.
Quebec: February 18, 1853.
[Sidenote: Distribution of honours.]
Now that the bonds formed by commercial protection and the disposal of local offices are severed, it is very desirable that the prerogative of the Crown, as the fountain of honour, should be employed, in so far as this can properly be done, as a means of attaching the outlying parts of the empire to the throne. Of the soundness of this proposition as a general principle no doubt can, I presume, be entertained. It is not, indeed, always easy to apply it in these communities, where fortunes are precarious, the social system so much based on equality, and public services so generally mixed up with party conflicts. But it should never, in my opinion, be lost sight of, and advantage should be taken of all favourable opportunities to act upon it.
There are two principles which ought, I think, as a general rule to be attended to in the distribution of Imperial honours among colonists. Firstly, they should appear to emanate directly from the Crown, on the advice, if you will, of the Governors and Imperial Ministers, but not on the recommendation of the local executives. And, secondly, they should be conferred, as much as possible, on the eminent persons who are no longer actively engaged in political life. If these principles be neglected, such distinctions will, I fear, soon lose their value.
* * * * *
To the Earl Grey.
Toronto: March 23,1850.
[Sidenote: Speech of Lord J. Russell.] [Sidenote: Colonial existence not provisional.]
Lord John's speech on the colonies seems to have been eminently successful at home. It is calculated too, I think, to do good in the colonies; but for one sentence, the introduction of which I deeply deplore—the sting in the tail. Alas for that sting in the tail! I much fear that when the liberal and enlightened sentiments, the enunciation of which by one so high in authority is so well calculated to make the colonists sensible of the advantages which they derive from their connection with Great Britain, shall have passed away from their memories, there will not be wanting those who will remind them that, on this solemn occasion, the Prime Minister of England, amid the plaudits of a full senate, declared that he looked forward to the day when the ties which he was endeavouring to render so easy and mutually advantageous would be severed. And wherefore this foreboding? or, perhaps, I ought not to use the term foreboding, for really to judge by the comments of the press on this declaration of Lord John's, I should be led to imagine that the prospect of these sucking democracies, after they have drained their old mother's life-blood, leaving her in the lurch, and setting up as rivals, just at the time when their increasing strength might render them a support instead of a burden, is one of the most cheering which has of late presented itself to the English imagination. But wherefore then this anticipation—if foreboding be not the correct term? Because Lord John and the people of England persist in assuming that the Colonial relation is incompatible with maturity and full development. And is this really so incontestable a truth that it is a duty not only to hold but to proclaim it? Consider for a moment what is the effect of proclaiming it in our case. We have on this continent two great empires in presence, or rather, I should say, two great Imperial systems. In many respects there is much similarity between them. In so far as powers of self-government are concerned it is certain that our colonists in America have no reason to envy the citizens of any state in the Union. The forms differ, but it may be shown that practically the inhabitants of Canada have a greater power in controlling their own destiny than those of Michigan or New York, who must tolerate a tariff imposed by twenty other states, and pay the expenses of war undertaken for objects which they profess to abhor. And yet there is a difference between the two cases; a difference, in my humble judgment, of sentiment rather than substance, which renders the one a system of life and strength, and the other a system of death and decay. No matter how raw and rude a territory may be when it is admitted as a state into the Union of the United States, it is at once, by the popular belief, invested with all the dignity of manhood, and introduced into a system which, despite the combativeness of certain ardent spirits from the South, every American believes and maintains to be immortal. But how does the case stand with us? No matter how great the advance of a British colony in wealth and civilisation; no matter how absolute the powers of self-government conceded to it, it is still taught to believe that it is in a condition of pupilage from which it must pass before it can attain maturity. For one I have never been able to comprehend why, elastic as our constitutional system is, we should not be able, now more especially when we have ceased to control the trade of our colonies, to render the links which bind them to the British Crown at least as lasting as those which unite the component parts of the Union.... One thing is, however, indispensable to the success of this or any other system of Colonial Government. You must renounce the habit of telling the Colonies that the Colonial is a provisional existence. You must allow them to believe that, without severing the bonds which unite them to Great Britain, they may attain the degree of perfection, and of social and political development, to which organised communities of free men have a right to aspire.
Since I began this letter I have, I regret to say, confirmatory evidence of the justice of the anticipations I had formed of the probable effect of Lord John's declaration. I enclose extracts from two newspapers, an annexationist, the Herald of Montreal, and a quasi annexationist, the Mirror of Toronto. You will note the use they make of it. I was more annoyed however, I confess, by what occurred yesterday in council. We had to determine whether or not to dismiss from his offices a gentleman who is both M.P.P., Q.C., and J.P., and who has issued a flaming manifesto in favour, not of annexation, but of an immediate declaration of independence as a step to it. I will not say anything of my own opinion on the case, but it was generally contended by the members of the Board, that it would be impossible to maintain that persons who had declared their intention to throw off their allegiance to the Queen, with a view to annexation, were unfit to retain offices granted during pleasure, if persons who made a similar declaration with a view to independence were to be differently dealt with. Baldwin had Lord John's speech in his hand. He is a man of singularly placid demeanour, but he has been seriously ill, so possibly his nerves are shaken—at any rate I never saw him so much moved. 'Have you read the latter part of Lord J. Russell's speech?' he said to me. I nodded assent. 'For myself,' he added, 'if the anticipations therein expressed prove to be well founded, my interest in public affairs is gone for ever. But is it not hard upon us while we are labouring, through good and evil report, to thwart the designs of those who would dismember the Empire, that our adversaries should be informed that the difference between them and the Prime Minister of England is only one of time? If the British Government has really come to the conclusion that we are a burden to be cast off whenever a favourable opportunity offers, surely we ought to be warned.'
I replied that while I regretted as much as he could do the paragraph to which he referred, I thought he somewhat mistook its import: that I believed no man living was more opposed to the dismemberment of the Empire than Lord J. Russell: that I did not conceive that he had any intention of deserting the Colonies, or of inviting them to separate from England; but that he had in the sentence in question given utterance to a purely speculative, and in my judgment most fallacious, opinion, which, was shared, I feared, by very many persons both in England and the Colonies: that I held it to be a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British Colonies could not attain maturity without separation, and that my interest in labouring with them to bring into full play the principles of Constitutional Government in Canada would entirely cease if I could be persuaded to adopt it. I said all this I must confess, however, not without misgiving, for I could not but be sensible that, in spite of all my allegations to the contrary, my audience was disposed to regard a prediction of this nature, proceeding from a Prime Minister, less as a speculative abstraction than as one of that class of prophecies which work their own fulfilment. I left the Council Chamber disheartened, with the feeling that Lord J. Russell's reference to the manhood of Colonies was more likely to be followed by practical consequences than Lamartine's famous 'quand l'heure aura sonne' invocation to oppressed nationalities. It is possible, indeed, that I exaggerate to myself the probable effects of this declaration. Politicians of the Baldwin stamp, with distinct views and aims, who having struggled to obtain a Government on British principles, desire to preserve it, are not, I fear, very numerous in Canada; the great mass move on with very indefinite purposes, and not much inquiring whither they are going. Of one thing, however, I am confident; there cannot be any peace, contentment, progress, or credit in this colony while the idea obtains that the connection with England is a millstone about its neck which should be cast off, as soon as it can be conveniently managed. What man in his senses would invest his money in the public securities of a country where questions affecting the very foundations on which public credit rests are in perpetual agitation; or would settle in it at all if he could find for his foot a more stable resting-place elsewhere? I may, perhaps, be expressing myself too unreservedly with reference to opinions emanating from a source which I am no less disposed than bound to respect. As I have the means, however, of feeling the pulse of the colonists in this most feverish region, I consider it to be always my duty to furnish you with as faithful a record as possible of our diagnostics. And, after all, may I not with all submission ask, Is not the question at issue a most momentous one? What is it indeed but this: Is the Queen of England to be the Sovereign of an Empire, growing, expanding, strengthening itself from age to age, striking its roots deep into fresh earth and drawing new supplies of vitality from virgin soils? Or is she to be for all essential purposes of might and power, Monarch of Great Britain and Ireland merely—her place and that of her line in the world's history determined by the productiveness of 12,000 square miles of a coal formation, which is being rapidly exhausted, and the duration of the social and political organization over which she presides dependent on the annual expatriation, with a view to its eventual alienization, of the surplus swarms of her born subjects? If Lord J. Russell, instead of concluding his excellent speech with a declaration of opinion which, as I read it, and as I fear others will read it, seems to make it a point of honour with the Colonists to prepare for separation, had contented himself with resuming the statements already made in its course, with showing that neither the Government nor Parliament could have any object in view in their Colonial policy but the good of the Colonies, and the establishment of the relation between them and the mother-country on the basis of mutual affection; that, as the idea of maintaining a Colonial Empire for the purpose of exercising dominion or dispensing patronage had been for some time abandoned, and that of regarding it as a hot-bed for forcing commerce and manufactures more recently renounced, a greater amount of free action and self-government might be conceded to British Colonies without any breach of Imperial Unity, or the violation of any principle of Imperial Policy, than had under any scheme yet devised fallen to the lot of the component parts of any Federal or imperial system; if he had left these great truths to work their effect without hazarding a conjecture which will, I fear, be received as a suggestion, with respect to the course which certain wayward members of the Imperial family may be expected to take in a contingency still confessedly remote, it would, I venture with great deference to submit, in so far at least as public feeling in the Colonies is concerned, have been safer and better.
[Sidenote: 'Separation' and 'annexation.']
You draw, I know, a distinction between separation with a view to annexation and separation with a view to independence. You say the former is an act of treason, the latter a natural and legitimate step in progress. There is much plausibility doubtless in this position, but, independently of the fact that no one advocates independence in these Colonies except as a means to the end, annexation, is it really tenable? If you take your stand on the hypothesis that the Colonial existence is one with which the Colonists ought to rest satisfied, then, I think, you are entitled to denounce, without reserve or measure, those who propose for some secondary object to substitute the Stars and Stripes for the Union Jack. But if, on the contrary, you assume that it is a provisional state, which admits of but a stunted and partial growth, and out of which all communities ought in the course of nature to strive to pass, how can you refuse to permit your Colonies here, when they have arrived at the proper stage in their existence, to place themselves in a condition which is at once most favourable to their security and to their perfect national development? What reasons can you assign for the refusal, except such as are founded on selfishness, and are, therefore, morally worthless? If you say that your great lubberly boy is too big for the nursery, and that you have no other room for him in your house, how can you decline to allow him to lodge with his elder brethren over the way, when the attempt to keep up an establishment for himself would seriously embarrass him?
* * * * *
To the Earl Grey.
Toronto: November 1, 1850.
Sir H. Bulwer spent four days with us, and for many reasons I am glad that he has been here. He leaves us knowing more of Canada than he did when he came. I think too that both he and Sir E. Head return to their homes re-assured on many points of our internal policy, on which they felt doubtful before, and much enlightened as to the real position of men and things in this province.
[Sidenote: Self-government not republican.]
With one important truth 1 have laboured to impress them, and I hope successfully. It is this: that the faithful carrying out of the principles of Constitutional Government is a departure from the American model, not an approximation to it, and, therefore, a departure from republicanism in its only workable shape. Of the soundness of this view of our case I entertain no doubt whatever; and though I meet with few persons to whom it seems to have occurred (for the common belief of superficial observers is that we are republicanising the colonies), I seldom fail in bringing it borne to the understanding of any intelligent person with whom I have occasion to discuss it. The fact is, that the American system is our old Colonial system with, in certain cases, the principle of popular election substituted for that of nomination by the Crown. Mr. Filmore stands to his Congress very much in the same relation in which I stood to my Assembly in Jamaica. There is the same absence of effective responsibility in the conduct of legislation, the same want of concurrent action between the parts of the political machine. The whole business of legislation in the American Congress, as well as in the State Legislatures, is conducted in the manner in which railway business was conducted in the House of Commons at a time when it is to be feared that, notwithstanding the high standard of honour in the British Parliament, there was a good deal of jobbing. For instance our Reciprocity measure was pressed by us at Washington last session, just as a Railway Bill in 1845 or 1846 would have been pressed in Parliament. There was no Government to deal with. The interests of the Union, as a whole and distinct from local and sectional interests, had no organ in the representative bodies; it was all a question of canvassing this member of Congress or the other. It is easy to perceive that, under such a system, jobbing must become not the exception but the rule.
Now I feel very strongly, that when a people have been once thoroughly accustomed to the working of such a Parliamentary system as ours, they never will consent to revert to this clumsy irresponsible mechanism. Whether we shall be able to carry on the war here long enough to allow the practice of Constitutional Government and the habits of mind which it engenders to take root in these provinces, may be doubtful. But it may be worth your while to consider whether these views do not throw some light on affairs in Europe. If you part with constitutional monarchies there, you may possibly get something much more democratic; but you cannot, I am confident, get American republicanism. It is the fashion to say, 'of course not; we cannot get their federal system;' but this is not the only reason, there are others that lie deeper. Look at France, where they are trying to jumble up the two things, a head of the State responsible to the people who elect him, and a ministry responsible to the Parliament.
* * * * *
To the Duke of Newcastle.
March 26, 1853.
It is argued that, by the severance of the connection, British statesmen would be relieved of an onerous responsibility for colonial acts of which they cannot otherwise rid themselves. Is there not, however, some fallacy in this? If by conceding absolute independence the British Parliament can acquit itself of the obligation to impose its will upon the Colonists, in the matter, for instance, of a Church Establishment, can it not attain the same end by declaring that, as respects such local questions, the Colonists are free to judge for themselves? How can it be justifiable to adopt the former of these expedients, and sacrilegious to act upon the latter?
The true policy, in my humble judgment, is to throw the whole weight of responsibility on those who exercise the real power, for, after all, the sense of responsibility is the best security against the abuse of power; and, as respects the connection, to act and speak on this hypothesis—that there is nothing in it to check the development of healthy national life in these young communities. I believe that this policy will be found to be not only the safest, but also (an important consideration in these days) the most economical.
* * * * *
To the Earl Grey.
Toronto: December 17, 1850.
Although, as you observe, it seems to be rather idle in us to correspond on what may be termed speculative questions, when we have so much pressing business on hand, I venture to say a few words in reply to your letter of the 23rd ult., firstly, because I presume to dissent from some of the opinions which you advance in it; and, secondly, because I have a practical object of no small importance in view in calling your attention to the contrasts which present themselves in the working of our institutions, and those of our neighbours in the States. My practical object is this: when you concede to the Colonists Constitutional Government in its integrity, you are reproached with leading them to Republicanism and the American Union. The same reproach is hurled with anathemas against your humble servant. Lord Stanley, if I rightly remember, in the debate on Ryland's case last year, stated amid cheers, that if you were in the habit of consulting the Ministers of the Crown in the Colony before you placed persons on the colonial pension List, he had no hesitation in saying you had already established a republic in Canada! Now I believe, on the contrary, that it may be demonstrated that the concession of Constitutional Government has a tendency to draw the Colonists the other way; firstly, because it slakes that thirst for self-government which seizes on all British communities when they approach maturity; and, secondly, because it habituates the Colonists to the working of a political mechanism, which is both intrinsically superior to that of the Americans, and more unlike it than our old Colonial system.
Adopting, however, the views with respect to the superiority of the mechanism of our political system to that of our neighbours, which I have ventured to urge, you proceed to argue that the remedy is in their hands; that without abandoning their republicanism they and their confreres in France have nothing to do but to dismiss their Presidents and to substitute our constitution without a King, the body without the head, for their own, to get rid of the inconveniences which they now experience; and you quote with approbation, as an embodiment of this idea, the project submitted by M. Grevy and the Red Republicans to the French Constituent Assembly.
[Sidenote: Value of the monarchical principle.]
Now here I confess I cannot go along with you, and the difference between us is a very material one; for if the monarch be not an indispensable element in our constitutional mechanism, and if we can secure all the advantages of that mechanism without him, I have drawn the wrong moral from the facts. You say that the system the Red Republicans would have established in France would have been the nearest possible approach to our own. It is possible, I think, that we may be tending towards the like issues. It is possible, perhaps probable, that as the House of Commons becomes more democratic in its composition, and consequently more arrogant in its bearing, it may cast off the shackles which the other powers of the State impose on its self-will, and even utterly abolish them; but I venture to believe that those who last till that day comes, will find that they are living under a very different constitution from that which we now enjoy; that they have traversed the interval which separates a temperate and cautious administration of public affairs resting on the balance of powers and interests, from a reckless and overbearing tyranny based on the caprices and passions of an absolute and irresponsible body. You talk somewhat lightly of the check of the Crown, although you acknowledge its utility. But is it indeed so light a matter, even as our constitution now works? Is it a light matter that the Crown should have the power of dissolving Parliament; in other words, of deposing the tyrant at will? Is it a light matter that for several months in each year the House of Commons should be in abeyance, during which period the nation looks on Ministers not as slaves of Parliament but servants of the Crown? Is it a light matter that there should still be such respect for the monarchical principle, that the servants of that visible entity yclept the Crown are enabled to carry on much of the details of internal and foreign administration without consulting Parliament, and even without its cognisance? Or do you suppose that the Red Republicans, when they advocated the nomination of a Ministry of the House of Assembly with a revocable mandat, intended to create a Frankenstein endowed with powers in some cases paramount to, and in others running parallel with, the authority of the omnipotent body to which it owed its existence? My own impression is, that they meant a set of delegates to be appointed, who should exercise certain functions of legislative initiation and executive patronage so long as they reflected clearly, in the former the passions, and in the latter the interests of the majority for the time being, and no longer.
It appears to me, I must confess, that if you have a republican form of government in a great country, with complicated internal and external relations, you must either separate the executive and legislative departments, as in the United States, or submit to a tyranny of the majority, not the more tolerable because it is capricious and wielded by a tyrant with many heads. Of the two evils I prefer the former.
Consider, for a moment, how much more violent the proceedings of majorities in the American Legislatures would be, how much more reckless the appeals to popular passion, how much more frequently the permanent interests of the nation and the rights of individuals and classes would be sacrificed to the object of raising political capital for present uses, if debates or discussions affected the tenure of office. I have no idea that the executive and legislative departments of the State can be made to work together with a sufficient degree of harmony to give the maximum of strength and of mutual independence to secure freedom and the rights of minorities, except under the presidency of Monarchy, the moral influence of which, so long as a nation is monarchical in its sentiments, cannot, of course, be measured merely by its recognised power.
[Sidenote: Influence of a Governor, under responsible Government.]
Those who are most ready to concur in these views of Colonial Government, and to admire the vigour with which they were defended, and the consistency with which they were carried out, may still be inclined to ask whether the maintenance of them did not involve a species of official suicide: whether the theory of the responsibility of provincial Ministers to the provincial Parliament, and of the consequent duty of the Governor to remain absolutely neutral in the strife of political parties, had not a necessary tendency to degrade his office into that of a mere Roi faineant. He had in 1849, as Sir C. Adderley expresses it, 'maintained the principle of responsible Government at the risk of his life.' Was the result of his hard-won victory only to empty himself of all but the mere outward show of power and authority?
Such questions he was always ready to meet with an uncompromising negative. 'I have tried,' he said, both systems. In Jamaica there was no responsible Government: but I had not half the power I have here with my constitutional and changing Cabinet.' Even on the Vice-regal throne of India, he missed, at first, at least, something of the authority and influence which had been his, as Constitutional Governor, in Canada.[5] He was fully conscious, however, of the difficult nature of the position, and that it was only tenable on condition of being penetrated, or possessed, as he said, with the idea of its tenability. In this strain he wrote to his intimate friend. Mr. Cumming Bruce, in September 1852, with reference to a report that he was to be recalled by the Ministry which had recently come into power.
As respects the matter of the report, I am disposed to believe that, viewing the question with reference to personal interests exclusively, my removal from hence would not be any disadvantage to me. But, as to my work here—there is the rub. Is it to be all undone? On this point I must speak frankly. I have been possessed (I use the word advisedly, for I fear that most persons in England still consider it a case of possession) with the idea that it is possible to maintain on this soil of North America, and in the face of Republican America, British connection and British institutions, if you give the latter freely and trustingly. Faith, when it is sincere, is always catching; and I have imparted this faith, more or less thoroughly, to all Canadian statesmen with whom I have been in official relationship since 1848, and to all intelligent Englishmen with whom I have come in contact since 1850—as witness Lord Wharncliffe, Waldegrave, Tremenheere, &c. &c. Now if the Governor ceases to possess this faith, or to have the faculty of imparting it, I confess I fear that, ere long, it will become extinct in other breasts likewise. I believe that it is equally an error to imagine with one old-fashioned party, that you can govern such dependencies as this on the antiquated bureaucratic principle, by means of rescripts from Downing Street, in defiance of the popular legislatures, and on the hypothesis that one local faction monopolises all the loyalty of the Colony; and to suppose with the Radicals that all is done when you have simply told the colonists 'to go to the devil their own way.' I believe, on the contrary, that there is more room for the exercise of influence on the part of the Governor under my system than under any that ever was before devised; an influence, however, wholly moral—an influence of suasion, sympathy, and moderation, which softens the temper while it elevates the aims of local polities. It is true that on certain questions of public policy, especially with regard to Church matters, views are propounded by my ministers which do not exactly square with my pre-conceived opinions, and which I acquiesce in, so long as they do not contravene the fundamental principles of morality, from a conviction that they are in accordance with the general sentiments of the community.
It is true that I do not seek the commendation bestowed on Sir F. Head for bringing men into his councils from the liberal party, and telling them that they should enjoy only a partial confidence; thereby allowing them to retain their position as tribunes of the people in conjunction with the prestige of advisers of the Crown by enabling them to shirk responsibility for any acts of government which are unpopular. It is true that I have always said to my advisers, 'while you continue my advisers you shall enjoy nay unreserved confidence; and en revanche you shall be responsible for all acts of government.'
But it is no less certain that there is not one of them who does not know that no inducement on earth would prevail with me to bring me to acquiesce in any measures which seemed to me repugnant to public morals, or Imperial interests; and I must say that, far from finding in my advisers a desire to entrap me into proceedings of which 1 might disapprove, I find a tendency constantly increasing to attach the utmost value to my opinion on all questions, local or generals that arise.
The deep sense which he entertained of the importance of a correct understanding on this point is shown by his devoting to it the closing words of the last official despatch which he wrote from Quebec, on December 18, 1854.
I readily admit that the maintenance of the position and due influence of the Governor is one of the most critical problems that have to be solved in the adaptation of Parliamentary Government to the Colonial system; and that it is difficult to over-estimate the importance which attaches to its satisfactory solution. As the Imperial Government and Parliament gradually withdraw from legislative interference, and from the exercise of patronage in Colonial affairs, the office of Governor tends to become, in the most emphatic sense of the term, the link which connects the Mother-country and the Colony, and his influence the means by which harmony of action between the local and imperial authorities is to be preserved. It is not, however, in my humble judgment, by evincing an anxious desire to stretch to the utmost constitutional principles in his favour, but, on the contrary, by the frank acceptance of the conditions of the Parliamentary system, that this influence can be most surely extended and confirmed. Placed by his position above the strife of parties—holding office by a tenure less precarious than the ministers who surround him—having no political interests to serve but that of the community whose affairs he is appointed to administer—his opinion cannot fail, when all cause for suspicion and jealousy is removed, to have great weight in the Colonial Councils, while he is set at liberty to constitute himself in an especial manner the patron of those larger and higher interests— such interests, for example, as those of education, and of moral and material progress in all its branches—which, unlike the contests of party, unite instead of dividing the members of the body politic. The mention of such influences as an appreciable force in the administration of public affairs may provoke a sneer on the part of persons who have no faith in any appeal which is not addressed to the lowest motives of human conduct; but those who have juster views of our common nature, and who have seen influences that are purely moral wielded with judgment, will not be disposed to deny to them a high degree of efficacy.
[Sidenote: Defence of the colony,]
Closely akin to the question of the maintenance of the connection between the Colony and Great Britain, especially when viewed as affected by the commercial and financial condition of the former, was the question of throwing upon it the expense of defending itself; a problem which was then only beginning to attract the attention of liberal statesmen. For though it may be true that the practice of defending the Colonies with the troops and at the cost of the mother-country was an innovation upon the earlier Colonial system, introduced at the time of the great war, it is not the less certain that to the generation of colonists that had grown up since that time the abandonment of it had all the effect of novelty. It was a question on which, as affecting Canada, Lord Elgin was in a peculiar degree 'between two fires;' exposed to pressure at once from the Government at home and from his own Ministers, and seeing much to agree with in the views of both.
[Sidenote: against internal disorder;]
In the first place, as regards the preservation of order within the province, he thought it clear that, as a general rule, the cost of this should fall on the Colony itself wherever it enjoyed self-government; but there were peculiar circumstances in Canada which made him hesitate to apply the doctrine unreservedly there. Owing to the contiguity of the United States, the abettors of any mischief in the Colony might count on help constantly at hand, not indeed from the Government of the Union, which never acted disloyally,[6] but from the Unruly spirits that were apt to infest the borders; and it seemed to him at least doubtful, whether both justice and policy did not require that Great Britain should afford to the supporters of order some material aid to counterbalance this. Again, the peculiar social and political state of Lower Canada, arising mainly from the conditions under which it had passed into the hands of England, and from the manner in which England had fulfilled those conditions, created special difficulties as to the maintenance of internal quiet. On the one hand England's respect for treaty obligations had induced her to resist all attempts to break down by fraud or violence those rights and usages of the French population, which had tended to keep alive among them feelings of distinctive nationality; while on the other hand the effect of the working of the old system of colonial administration had been to confer upon British or American settlers a disproportionate share in the government of the province. It followed that the French-Canadian majority and the Anglo- Saxon minority were dwelling side by side in that section of the Colony without, to any sensible extent, intermingling, and under conditions of equilibrium which could never have been established but for the presence on the same scene of a directing and overruling power. In this state of things, while confidently hoping that an impartial adherence to the principles of constitutional government would by degrees obliterate all national distinctions, he saw reason to fear that the sudden withdrawal of Britain's moderating control, whether as the result of separation or of a change of Imperial policy, would be followed at no distant period by a serious collision between the races.
[Sidenote: against foreign attack.]
Similarly, as regards defence against foreign attack, while agreeing that a self-governing colony should be self-dependent, Lord Elgin felt that the peculiar position of Canada, having no foreign attack to apprehend except hi quarrels of England's making, made her case somewhat exceptional. And any wholesale withdrawal of British troops he strongly deprecated, as likely to imperil her connection with the mother-country, if it took place suddenly, before the old notion—the 'axiom affirmed again and again by Secretaries of State and Governors, that England was bound to pay all expenses connected with the defence of the Colony'—had lost its hold on men's minds, and a feeling of the responsibilities attaching to self- government had had time to grow up.
His first letter on the subject is to Lord Grey, written so early as April 26,1848:—
The question which you raise in your last letter respecting the military defence of Canada is a large one, and, before irrevocable steps be taken, it may be well to look at it on all sides.
The first consideration which offers itself in connection with this subject is this, 'Why does Canada require to be defended, and against whom?' A very large number of persons in this community believe that there is only one power from which they have anything to dread, and that this power would be converted into the fastest friend, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, if the connection with Great Britain were abandoned.
In this respect the position of Canada is peculiar. When you say to any other colony 'England declines to be longer at the expense of protecting you,' you at once reveal to it the extent of its dependence and the value of Imperial support. But it is not so here. Withdraw your protection from Canada, and she has it in her power to obtain the security against aggression enjoyed by Michigan or Maine: about as good security, I must allow, as any which is to be obtained at the present time.
But you may observe in reply to this, 'You cannot get the security which Michigan and Maine enjoy for nothing; you must purchase it by the surrender of your custom houses and public lands, the proceeds of which will be diverted from their present uses and applied to others, at the discretion of a body in which you will have comparatively little to say.' The argument is a powerful one, so long as England consents to bear the cost of the defence of the Colony, but its force is much lessened when the inhabitants are told that they must look to their own safety, because the mother-country can no longer afford to take care of them.
On the other hand very weighty reasons may be adduced in favour of the policy of requiring the province to bear some portion at least of the charge of its own protection. The adoption of free-trade, although its advocates must believe that it tends to make the Colonies in point of fact less chargeable than heretofore, will doubtless render the English people more than ever jealous of expenditure incurred on their behalf. I am, moreover, of opinion, that the system of relieving the colonists altogether from the duty of self-defence is attended with injurious effects upon themselves. It checks the growth of national and manly morals. Men seldom think anything worth preserving for which they are never asked to make a sacrifice.
My view, therefore, would be that it is desirable that a movement in the direction which you Lave indicated should take place, but that it ought to be made with much caution.
The present is not a favourable moment for experiments. British statesmen, even Secretaries of State, have got into the habit lately of talking of the maintenance of the connection between Great Britain and Canada with so much indifference, that a change of system in respect of military defence incautiously carried out, might be presumed by many to argue, on the part of the mother-country, a disposition to prepare the way for separation. Add to this, that you effected, only a few years ago, a union between the Upper and Lower Provinces by arbitrary means, and for objects the avowal of which has profoundly irritated the French population; that still more recently you have deprived Canada of her principal advantages in the British markets; that France and Ireland are in flames, and that nearly half of the population of this Colony are French, nearly half of the remainder Irish.
That Canada felt no need of bulwarks except against England's foes was a point on which he constantly insisted. On one occasion he wrote:— |
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