Читать книгу Canada and its Provinces - Various - Страница 21

Table of Contents

Had Elgin really known it, matters were in train for one of the most beneficial changes in Canadian history. The fate of the ministry was quickly settled. Their candidate for the speakership, MacNab, was defeated by fifty-four votes to nineteen. Morin, the opposition nominee, took his place, and the inevitable vote of no-confidence, proposed on March 3, was carried by a majority of thirty-four. Prorogation came at the end of March, and the new administration, led by La Fontaine, Baldwin and Hincks, promised when next they met parliament a livelier programme for ‘developing the resources of the provinces, and promoting the social well-being of the inhabitants.’

It was a turning-point in Canadian history, the peaceful establishment of absolutely popular government. A ministry, backed by the whole strength of a previous governor, and with the prestige attaching to the claim of unquestioned loyalty, had appealed to the country, had failed, and their successors, chosen without reserve or check from a party which, only a short time previously, had been called disloyal, were accepted by the representative of British authority on the sole ground of their approval by the people.

But the second La Fontaine-Baldwin administration had another noteworthy characteristic. Previously there had been little solidity or permanence about Canadian party politics. Reformers, eager for definite reforms but failing in the conception of organic progress, had fought heedlessly for their ends, and flung away the chances of permanent influence to catch some passing good. Ultras, on the tory side, had translated imperial unity into terms of their own sordid prejudices, and risked rebellion to gain a brief and accidental authority. On neither side had ‘the carrying on of the Queen’s government’ been the first ideal. It was to be the work of La Fontaine and Baldwin to make administration, varied and assisted by necessary reform, the first call on government. The term ‘Liberal-Conservative’ has been definitely appropriated by a later government; but all the essentials of liberal-conservatism, its solid legislative advances, its desire for the development of Canada, its union of British and French, and its stretching out after new triumphs of interprovincial co-operation, were present in the ministry which, with certain drastic changes, lasted from 1848 until Elgin received their resignation in September 1854.^[1]

For the moment, however, the centre of importance seemed about to move elsewhere. It was the year of European revolution, when even English stability was feeling the strain of popular demands. Ireland, too, broken with famine and decimated through emigration, seemed about to ruin herself finally in a fierce challenge to English authority. In Canada, while politically there was merely sporadic disaffection, the commercial conditions made directly for a movement of separation from Britain and annexation to the United States. Since 1846 the British connection had meant commercial loss to Canada, although the new freedom for importation into Canada, which 1848 brought, must effect some relief. The most obvious cure for the commercial ills seemed to be a simple transference of allegiance to the country the tariff of which was the chief stumbling-block in the way of Canadian prosperity.

Of the three dangers two happily came to nought. The revolutionary storm spent its force without reaching Canada. A reform ministry was in power, and men saw their hopes about to be realized in peace. It was not worth even a riot to hasten that which time was sure to bring. Throughout the year French feeling moderated, and in La Fontaine it found an exponent not merely of great weight and dignity, but endowed with an admirable moderation; and if ever there had been anything in the nationalist cry, the grotesque and foolish parodies of it, which Papineau published or declaimed from time to time, reduced that aspect of disaffection to a negligible quantity. It took personalities like that of Mazzini, grievances like those of Ireland, to make the national ideas concrete and effectual. French Canada was now without the grievances, and La Fontaine, not Papineau, was the true national leader. So the year passed without its French-Canadian rebellion; and Irish discontent fared no better. Rumours of general risings to be, passed over to Canada; the Irish-American party faction in the United States could be heard, if not felt, and malcontents whispered that ‘an American general lately returned from Mexico, was engaged to take command, presumably in Canada, when the proper time came.’ But there was too little reality in the agitation, and it passed. It was otherwise, however, with the annexation movement, and not until reciprocity brought to the Canadian merchant the prosperity he looked for, did annexation pass from among the irritating issues in Canadian politics. A great commercial revolution had been accomplished, not without haltings and inconsistencies; revolutions, no matter how beneficent, always claim their victims, and Canada was paying for the policy that Peel had introduced for the benefit of England. ‘I care not,’ wrote Elgin, ‘whether you be a Protectionist or a Free Trader; it is the inconsistency of the imperial legislation, and not the adoption of one policy rather than another, which is the bane of the colonies.’

And so a fateful year in the world’s history drew to its close: with little real political discontent in the province; with a government promising great things for the future; and with a governor-general, not merely soundly constitutionalist, but sure that if one thing had guaranteed Canadian peace more than another, it was the unreserved confidence which he had given to a ministry approved alike by French and British.

With 1849 it might seem as though Canada had passed at last into smooth water. The La Fontaine-Baldwin ministry had now settled to their work. In his speech at the opening of parliament Lord Elgin promised a year fruitful in reform. The last fragments of former discontent were to be lost in an act of mercy towards all who were still suffering from penal consequences of the Rebellion. The houses were recommended to consider legislation on the judicature of the province and its municipal institutions. Immigration was to be regulated, a university bill introduced to rectify previous mistakes, and a financial provision made in support of the common schools. When prorogation came in June the deputy-governor could congratulate parliament on ‘the many important measures which you have been able to perfect,’ and even a visionary grumbler like William Hamilton Merritt could record in his journal that parliament had been prorogued ‘after a session of unusual and singular productiveness of new acts.’ Among the measures to which the royal assent was given were a University Bill, a Municipal Corporations Bill for Upper Canada, and one for the more effectual administration of justice in the Court of Chancery in Upper Canada.

SIR LOUIS H. LA FONTAINE

After a photograph by Notman, Montreal

[1]

In this and subsequent pages I have ventured to use the term liberal-conservative in a sense differing from that recognized in ordinary Canadian politics. One party in the Dominion has appropriated a name which, strictly used, should apply to the union of factions before and after Confederation. But this seems to me too meagre and local an interpretation of the word; for, as is explained later in the chapter, it was liberal-conservatism, i.e. the subordination of party divisions to national ends, and the elevation of administrative above purely political ideas, which enabled Peel, Bismarck and Cavour to achieve the triumphs associated with their names. In this sense liberal-conservatism is a method of government rather than a party nickname; in Canada both Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier present notable examples of liberal-conservative leaders.