Читать книгу Canada and its Provinces - Various - Страница 10

Table of Contents

Lord Durham’s Report contained a detailed survey of the causes contributing to the breakdown of the constitution in each of the provinces. His analysis of the political situation was clear and accurate, and his conclusions based on a thorough familiarity with Canadian conditions. Two main positive recommendations were made—the introduction of responsible government and the union of the Canadas under a single government.

Lord Durham approached the question of colonial government as a liberal and a radical. He saw clearly the necessity of establishing harmony between the executive and legislative branches of government. Governments would never express the will of the people until made responsible to the people; and the means of enforcing responsibility he found in the British system of government by a council selected by the majority of the popular assembly. He met the traditional conception of the essential contradiction between colonial self-government and the unity of the Empire by discriminating between matters of colonial and imperial concern. Under imperial interests he classified the determination of the constitution of government, the regulation of commerce and of foreign relations, and the disposal of the public lands. Responsible government, therefore, limited to the sphere of purely colonial concerns, could not endanger the stability of the Empire. The British system of parliamentary government recognized certain constitutional checks. Similarly, in Canada the legislative council was to be reconstituted so as to act as a check on the popular assembly. The control of public lands was to be retained by the imperial parliament, while all the other crown revenues were to be surrendered to the assembly in return for a permanent civil list. In fine, he advocated the British system of responsible government in the management of purely colonial affairs.

Local municipal government, in Durham’s view, bore an important relationship to general government. The absence of adequate municipal institutions in Lower Canada in particular attracted Lord Durham’s attention. ‘A general legislature, which manages the private business of every parish, in addition to the common business of the country, wields a power which no single body, however popular in its constitution, ought to have; a power which must be destructive of any constitutional balance.’ By the establishment of an adequate system of local government the general government was to be relieved of those matters which were not its proper concern. In addition, by participating in the responsibilities of local government, citizens would secure a training which would fit them for the better discharge of the duties of general administration.

Now that the principle upon which the Canadian problem was to be solved had been determined, Lord Durham directed attention to its application to the actual situation. In order to render possible the introduction of responsible government, the Canadas were to be united into a single province with one legislature. Union was a necessary condition to the granting of responsible government. Were it possible to conceive the same problem presented with Lower Canada English, instead of French, Lord Durham’s recommendation would have been the same. But the French character of Lower Canada made it even more necessary that a union should be consummated. The two provinces were to be consolidated with the definite purpose of submerging French-Canadian nationality. Canada’s relation to the Empire demanded that its national character should be that of the Empire. ‘I repeat that the alteration of the character of the province ought to be immediately entered on, and firmly, though cautiously, followed up; that in any plan which may be adopted for the future management of Lower Canada, the first object ought to be that of making it an English province; and that, with this end in view, the ascendency should never again be placed in any hands but those of an English population.’

As a means of anglicizing French Canada, Lord Durham advocated the gradual substitution of the English for the French language. The hostilities and animosities of race which Lord Durham had found in Lower Canada were aggravated and perpetuated by difference of language. The language problem he would solve by encouraging the use of English. ‘A considerable time must, of course, elapse before the change of a language can spread over a whole people; and justice and policy alike require that, while the people continue to use the French language, their government should take no such means to force the English language upon them as would, in fact, deprive the great mass of the community of the protection of the laws.’ Community of language was to be the necessary condition of community of institutions of government in a common empire.

The union which Lord Durham advocated was a real union of peoples and not a mere amalgamation of the Houses of Assembly. Representation in the new assembly was to be determined by a parliamentary commission on the basis of representation by population. The principle of equal provincial representation was definitely discarded. It is difficult to conceive how Lord Durham failed to see that the adoption of the principle of representation by population would defeat the scheme of English domination in the popular assembly. On the basis of population French Canada was certain to be the first partner in the union for many years to come.

The bold and unequivocal advocacy of the principles of coercion strikes a seemingly discordant note in Lord Durham’s Report and seems inconsistent with his professions of liberalism. Nevertheless, coercion was given a definite place in Lord Durham’s scheme of liberalism. To him it appeared as a necessary means to securing the fundamental principle of liberalism—responsible government. Coercion ceased to be coercion when practised for the sake of responsible government. Moreover, in Lower Canada the French language had been the instrument of a most reactionary conservatism, and in planning for its destruction Durham was consistent with his liberalism. But Lord Durham was an imperialist as well as a liberal. It was to the interest of French Canada to become assimilated within the larger imperial order. But imperialism to Durham permitted of no diversity of nationality. The benefit of the Empire and of French Canada as well required that English domination should be asserted.

The great merit of Lord Durham’s Report is his brilliant exposition of the principles of colonial self-government. The responsibility to crown and people—to the tory of his time a fundamental contradiction—was happily reconciled by his division of the functions of government. Responsibility to the people in issues of colonial concern was demonstrated to be compatible with responsibility to the crown in imperial interests. Imperialism was thus far placed on a sound moral basis—the right of self-government. The vulnerable point in Lord Durham’s Report was his treatment of nationalism. He failed to realize the permanence and virtue of nationalism. The situation in French Louisiana or in Dutch New York did not afford a parallel to French-Canadian nationalism—a most conservative and uncompromising variety of nationalism. Durham’s positions on responsible government and nationalism were essentially inconsistent. His error arose from treating as fundamental that which is secondary and derivative, and as secondary that which is fundamental. Nationalism is the prior consideration. Responsible government is an instrument of nationalism. Papineau’s position and Durham’s afford an instructive contrast. Papineau accepted responsible government as a means to secure nationalism; Lord Durham submerged nationalism in order to secure responsible government.

Lord Durham’s Report was bitterly attacked by the two wings of conservatism—the Family Compact and French-Canadian Nationalism. The Compact resented Lord Durham’s criticisms of its political methods and took alarm at the proposed invasions of its prerogative. French Canadians, as was to be expected, resented keenly the open attack on their nationality. On the other hand, the constitutional reformers in both Upper and Lower Canada hailed the report with delight, and awaited with eagerness the dawn of a new day.

Lord Durham’s Report presented the theory of responsible government as applied to colonial legislatures. Practical difficulties and the conflict of splendid theoretical principles with the reality of actual conditions had to be solved. This more tedious and infinitely harder task remained for the statesmanship of Lord John Russell and Poulett Thomson.

On Lord Durham’s departure from Canada, the government again passed into the hands of Sir John Colborne. Colborne’s firmness removed any danger from the insurrections which threatened at the time of the announcement of the disallowance of the ordinances. The retirement of Lord Durham and the temporary stilling of the troubled waters gave an opportunity for Canadian opinion to crystallize and settle into definite form. The British element in Lower Canada was zealously in favour of union, while the Constitutional Associations of Quebec and Montreal undertook to promote a campaign on its behalf. Union delegates were sent to Britain to influence opinion, and the Hon. George Moffat was given a similar mission to Upper Canada. In Upper Canada the situation was different. While the great mass of the people saw in union the prospect of commercial expansion, the scheme was bitterly opposed by the Compact on narrow and selfish political grounds. They did not propose voluntarily surrendering their vested rights in government for the doubtful advantage which the larger field of united Canada would afford. Only on the impossible condition of preserving its own influence in government was the Compact prepared for union. A scheme of British North American federation appealed with more force to the Compact party in that it guaranteed the supremacy of British interests and counteracted the vulgar democracy of the Canadas by introducing a loyal and aristocratic representation from the Maritime Provinces. Every shade of opinion, in fact, was represented by the Canadian factions—and British Upper Canada represented the extremes. The Upper Canadian reformers accepted both union and responsible government; the French of Lower Canada favoured responsible government but bitterly opposed union; the British element in the lower province favoured union but opposed responsible government, whereas the Compact was opposed to union and responsible government alike.