British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854 Part 4

The primary duty of the governor had now been accomplished, for he had persuaded both local governments to accept an Imperial Act of Union, and it might seem natural to pa.s.s over the intervening months, until Union had been officially proclaimed, and the first Union parliament had been elected and had met. But the _interregnum_ from February, 1840, to February, 1841, must not be ignored. In these twelve short months he turned {93} once again to the problem of Lower Canada, hurried on a short visit to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to settle const.i.tutional difficulties there, returned in a kind of triumphal procession through the English-speaking district of Lower Canada known as the Eastern Towns.h.i.+ps,[23] and spent the autumn in a tour through the Western part of the newly united colony. It was only fitting that a grateful Queen and Ministry should bestow on him a peerage; henceforward he must appear as Baron Sydenham of Sydenham and Toronto.

But apart from these mere physical activities, he was preparing for the culmination of his work in the new parliament. It must be remembered not only that he distrusted the intelligence and initiative of colonial ministers too much to dream of giving place to them, but that his theory of his own position--the benevolent despot, secured in his supremacy through popular management--forced on him an elaborate programme of useful administration. He must face the new Parliament with a good record, and definite promises. The failure of the home ministry to include the local government clauses, which formed a fundamental {94} part of the Union Bill, made such efforts even more necessary than before. It had been plain to Durham and Charles Buller, as well as to Sydenham, that, if an Act of Union were to pa.s.s, it could only be made operative by joining to it an entirely new system of local government. Accordingly, when opposition forced Russell to omit the essential clauses from his Act of Union, Sydenham penned one of his most vigorous despatches in reply. "Owing to this (rejection), duties the most unfit to be discharged by the general legislature are thrown upon it; powers equally dangerous to the subject and to the Crown are a.s.sumed by the a.s.sembly. The people receive no training in those habits of self-government which are indispensable to enable them rightly to exercise the power of choosing representatives in parliament. No field is open for the gratification of ambition in a narrow circle, and no opportunity given for testing the talents or integrity of those who are candidates for popular favour. The people acquire no habits of self-dependence for the attainment of their own local objects. Whatever uneasiness they may feel--whatever little improvement in their respective neighbourhoods may appear to be neglected, afford grounds for complaint against the executive. All {95} is charged upon the Government, and a host of discontented spirits are ever ready to excite these feelings. On the other hand, whilst the Government is thus brought directly in contact with the people, it has neither any officer in its own confidence, in the different parts of these extended provinces, from whom it can seek information, nor is there any recognized body, enjoying the public confidence, with whom it can communicate, either to determine what are the real wants and wishes of the locality, or through whom it may afford explanation."[24]

Nothing could be done to remedy the evil in Upper Canada, until the new parliament had met, but the temporary dictators.h.i.+p still remained in French Canada, and at once Sydenham set to work to create all that he wanted there, recognizing shrewdly that what had been granted in the Lower Province to the French must prove a powerful argument for a similar grant to Upper Canada, when the time should come for action.

About the same time, he established by ordinance a popular system of registry offices, to simplify the difficulties introduced into land transfers by the French law--"all {96} the old French law of before the Revolution, _Hypotheques tacites et occultes_, Dowers' and Minors'

rights, _Actes par devant notaires_, and all the horrible processes by which the unsuspecting are sure to be deluded, and the most wary are often taken in."[25]

Curiously enough, although his love of good government drove him to amend conditions among the French, Sydenham's relations with that people seem to have grown steadily worse. He had made advances to the foremost French politician, La Fontaine, offering him the solicitor-generals.h.i.+p of Lower Canada; but La Fontaine, who never had any enthusiasm for British Whig statesmans.h.i.+p,[26] regarded the offer as a bribe to draw him away from his countrymen and their national ideal, and declined it, thereby increasing the tension. Thus, as the time for the election drew near, the French were still further hardening their hearts against the governor-general of United Canada, and Sydenham, his patience now exhausted, could but exclaim in baffled anger, "As for the French, nothing but time will do anything with them.

They hate British rule--British connection--improvements of {97} all kinds, whether in their laws or their roads; so they will sulk, and will try, that is, their leaders, to do all the mischief they can."[27]

Meantime he had prepared two other politic strokes before he called Parliament: the regulation of immigration, and a project for raising a British loan in aid of Canadian public works. Immigration, more especially now that the current had set once more towards Canada, was one of the essential facts in the life of the colony; and yet the evils attendant on it were still as obvious as the gains. Most of the defects so vividly portrayed by Durham and his commissioners still persisted--unsuitable immigrants, over-crowded s.h.i.+ps, disease which spread from s.h.i.+p to land and overcrowded the local hospitals, wretched and poverty-stricken ma.s.ses lingering impotently at Quebec, and a straggling line of westbound settlers, who obtained work and land with difficulty and after many sorrows.[28] Sydenham had none of Gibbon Wakefield's doctrinaire enthusiasm on the subject; and, as he said, the inducements, to parishes and landlords to send out their surplus population were already {98} sufficiently strong. But much could and must be done by way of remedy. It was his plan to regulate more strictly the conditions on board emigrant s.h.i.+ps, and to humanize the process of travelling. Government agents must safeguard the rights of ignorant settlers; relief, medical and otherwise, should be in readiness for the dest.i.tute and afflicted when they arrived; sales of land were to be simplified and made easier; and a system of public works might enable the local authorities to solve two problems at one time, by giving the poorer settler steady employment, and by completing the great tasks, only half performed in days when money and labour alike were wanting.[29] The final achievement of these objects Sydenham reserved until he should meet parliament, but he had laid his plans, and had primed the home authorities with facts long before that date.

In the same way he had foreseen the need of Canada for Imperial a.s.sistance, both in her public works, and in her finance. a.s.sistance in the former of these matters was peculiarly important. Colonists, more especially in the Upper Province, had undertaken the development of Canadian natural resources, but poverty had called a halt {99} before the development was complete, or, by preventing necessary additions and improvements, had rendered useless what had already been done. Conspicuous among such imperfect works were the ca.n.a.ls; and Sydenham realized the strange dilemma into which provincial enterprise seemed doomed to run. The province, he told Russell, was sinking under the weight of engagements which it could only meet by fresh outlay, whilst that outlay the condition of its credit preventing it from making.[30] He was therefore prepared to come before the United Parliament with a proposal, backed by the British Ministry, for a great loan of 1,500,000 to be negotiated by the home government, and to be utilized, partly in redeeming the credit of the province, and partly in completing its public works. "It will therefore be absolutely necessary that Her Majesty's government should enable the governor of the province of Canada to afford this relief when the Union is completed, and the financial statement takes place; and I know of no better means than those originally proposed--of guaranteeing a loan which would remove a considerable charge arising from the high rate of interest payable by the province on the debt already contracted, or {100} which it would have to pay for raising fresh loans which may be required hereafter for great local improvements."[31]

There remained now the last and greatest of Sydenham's labours before his stewards.h.i.+p could be honourably accounted for and surrendered, the summoning, meeting, and managing, of a parliament representative of that Canada, English and French, which he had restored and irritated.

His reputation must depend the more on this political adventure, because he had already determined that 1841 should be his last year in Canada--he would not stay, he said, though they made him Duke of Canada and Prince of Regiopolis. And indeed the Parliament of 1841, in all its circ.u.mstances, still remains one of the salient points in modern Canadian history.

The Union came into force on the tenth of February, but long before that time all the diverse political interests in Canada had organized themselves for the fray. Sydenham himself naturally occupied the foremost place. He was acting now, not merely as governor-general, but as the prime minister of a new cabinet, and as a party manager, {101} whose main duty it was to secure parliamentary support for his men and his measures by the maintenance of a sound central group. By the beginning of the year he thought he had evidence for believing that, in Upper Canada, a great majority of the members would be men who had at heart the welfare of the province, and the British connection, and who desired to make the Act of Union operate to the advantage of the country.[32] But even in Upper Canada there were doubtful elements.

The Family Compact men, few as they might be in number, were unlikely to leave their enemy, the governor-general, in peace; nor were all the Reformers prepared to acquiesce in Sydenham's very restrained and limited interpretation of responsible government. Late in 1840, and early in 1841, the Upper Canadian progressives had organized their strength; and additional significance was given to their action by their communications with Lower Canada.[33] There, indeed, was the crux of the experiment. The French Canadians, already organized in sullen opposition, had just received what they counted a fresh insult.

But Sydenham may be allowed to {102} explain his own action. "There were," he wrote to Russell in March, 1841, "attached to the cities, both of Montreal and Quebec, very extensive suburbs, inhabited generally by a poor population, unconnected with the mercantile interests to which these cities owe their importance. Had these cities been brought within the electoral limits, the number of their population would have enabled them to return one, if not both, of the members for each city. But such a result would have been directly at variance with the grounds on which increased representation was given by Parliament to these cities. On referring to the discussions which took place in both houses when the Union Bill was before them, I find that members on all sides laid great stress on the necessity of securing ample representation to the mercantile interests of Canada....

Feeling myself, therefore, bound in duty to carry out the views of the British parliament in this matter, _I was compelled in fixing the limits of Quebec and Montreal to transfer to the county a large portion of the suburbs of each_."[34] Whatever Sydenham's intentions may have been, the actual result of his action was to secure for his party four seats in the very heart of the enemy's country; {103} and the French Canadians, naturally embittered, resented the governor's action as a piece of gerrymandering, which had practically disfranchised many French voters. Already, in 1840, under the active leaders.h.i.+p of Neilson of Quebec, a British supporter of French claims, an anti-union movement had been started.[35] In July of the same year La Fontaine visited Toronto, to canva.s.s, said scandal, for the speaker's chair in the united a.s.sembly; and in any case he was able to a.s.sure his compatriots that they had sympathizers among the British in the West.

The Tory paper in Sydenham's new capital, Kingston, in a review and forecast of the situation, settled on this Anglo-French co-operation as one of the serious possibilities of the future;[36] and Sydenham as he watched developments in the Lower Province, found himself growing unwontedly pessimistic. "In Lower Canada," he wrote, "the elections will be bad. The French Canadians have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing by the Rebellion, and the suspension of the const.i.tution, and are more unfit for representative government {104} than they were in 1791. In most of the French counties, members, actuated by the old spirit of the a.s.sembly, and without any principle except that of inveterate hostility to British rule and British connection, will be returned without a possibility of opposition."[37]

The elections began on the 8th of March, and the date on which parliament was to meet was postponed, first from April 8th to May 26th, and then, in consequence of the continued lateness of the season,[38]

from May 26th to June 14th. The result of the elections, known early in April, gave matter for serious thought to many, Sydenham himself not excluded. Absolute precision is difficult, but Sydenham's biographer has tabulated the groups as follows:

Government Members - - - - 24 French Members - - - - - - 20 Moderate Reformers - - - - 20 Ultra Reformers - - - - - 5 Compact Party - - - - - - 7 Doubtful - - - - - - - - - 6 Special Return - - - - - - 1 Double Return - - - - - - 1 -- 84[39]

{105}

In the confusion of groups, Sydenham still trusted to the centre--a party almost precisely similar to that which in 1867 was called Liberal-Conservative. This centre he hoped to create out of moderate Conservatives who had enlarged their earlier views, and moderate Reformers who anxiously desired to see Sydenham's proposed improvements carried out.[40] A shrewd observer, himself a member, and appreciatively critical of Sydenham's work, counted at least five parties in the new parliament. Three of these groups came from Upper Canada--the Conservatives under Sir Allan MacNab; the Ministerialists, that is the Reformers and moderate Conservatives, under the Attorney-General Draper, and the Secretary Harrison, and the ultra-reformers who looked to Robert Baldwin for guidance. From Lower Canada came the French nationalists, with some British supporters, under Morin, Neilson, and Aylwin, and the defenders of the Union policy, chiefly British, but with a few conservative French allies.

"The division lists of the session 1841," writes the same observer, "cannot fail to strike anyone acquainted with the state of parties, as extraordinary. Mr. Baldwin on several occasions voted with considerable {106} majorities in opposition to the Government, while as frequently he was in insignificant minorities. There was a decided tendency towards a coalition with the Reformers of French origin, on the part of Sir Allan MacNab and the Upper Canada Conservatives. The Ministerial strength lay in the support which it received from the British party of Lower Canada, and from the majority of the Upper Canada Reformers."[41] Well might Sydenham speak of the delusive nature of the party nicknames borrowed by his legislators from England.

Whatever were the characteristic faults of the parliament in 1841, sloth was not one of them. All through the summer it worked with feverish energy. Writing to his brother at the end of August, Sydenham boasted--"The five great works I aimed at have been got through--the establishment of a board of works with ample powers; the admission of aliens; a new system of county courts; the regulation of the public lands ceded by the Crown under the Union Act; and lastly the District Council Bill. I think you will admit this to be pretty good work for one session, especially when superadded to half a dozen minor measures, as well {107} as the fact of having set up a government, brought together two sets of people, who hated each other cordially, and silenced all the threatened attacks upon the Union, which were expected to be so formidable.... What do you think of this, you miserable people in England, who spend two years upon a single measure?"[42]

But the chief significance of the session lies in the persistent warfare waged between Sydenham and the advocates of a more extended system of autonomy. The result, as will be shewn, was indecisive, but, under the circ.u.mstances a drawn battle was equivalent to defeat for the governor-general.

Sydenham had never before flung himself so completely into the fight.

"I actually breathe, eat, drink, and sleep nothing but government and politics," was his own description of life in Kingston. He had accomplished with little resistance from others all that his opening speech had promised. His ministry owned him as their actively directing head. His power of managing individuals in spite of themselves pa.s.sed into a jest. Playing with men's vanity, tampering with their interests, their pa.s.sions and their prejudices, placing himself in a position of familiarity with those from whom {108} he might at once obtain a.s.sistance and information--such, according to an eccentric writer of the day, were the secrets of Sydenham's success.[43] Few men ever played the part of benevolent despot more admirably, and his achievements were the more creditable because he could count on no allegiance except that which he induced by his persuasive arts, and by the proofs he had given of a sincere desire to promote Canadian prosperity.

Nevertheless, throughout the summer months, there occurred a series of sharp encounters with a half-organized party of reform; and the end of the session, while it saw Sydenham successful, saw also his adversaries as eager as ever, and much more learned than they had been in the ways of political opposition and agitation. The opposition leaders ma.s.sed their whole strength on one fundamental point--the claim to possess as fully as their fellow-citizens in Great Britain did, the cabinet and party system of government. In other words, if any group, or coalition of groups, should succeed in establis.h.i.+ng an ascendency in the popular a.s.sembly, that ascendency must receive acknowledgment by the creation of a cabinet, and the appointment of {109} a prime minister, approved by the parliamentary majority and responsible to them; and Sydenham's ingenious device of an eclectic ministry responsible to him alone was denounced as unconst.i.tutional. The first encounter came, two days before the session started, and Robert Baldwin of Toronto was the leader of the revolt. In February, 1840, Sydenham had invited Robert Baldwin to be his Solicitor-General in the Upper Province. Baldwin, although his powers were not those of a politician of the first rank, was perhaps the soundest const.i.tutionalist in Western Canada. He had been from the first a reformer, but he had never encouraged the wild ideas of the rebels of 1837. Sir F. B. Head had called him to his councils in 1836, as a man "highly respected for his moral character, moderate in his politics and possessing the esteem and confidence of all parties,"[44] and only Head's impracticability had driven him from public service. There is not a letter or official note from his pen, which does not bear the stamp of unusual conscientiousness, and a very earnest desire to serve his country. So little was he a self-seeker, that he earned the lasting ill-will of his eldest son by pa.s.sing a bill abolis.h.i.+ng primogeniture, and thus {110} ending any hopes that existed of founding a great colonial family. The Earl of Elgin, who saw much of him after 1847, regarded him not merely as a great public servant, but as one who was worth "two regiments to the British connection," and perhaps the most truly conservative statesman in the province.[45] In his quiet, determined way, he had made up his mind that responsible government, in the sense condemned by both Sydenham and Russell, must be secured for Canada, and Sydenham's benevolent plans did not disguise from him the insidious attempt to limit what he counted the legitimate const.i.tutional liberty of the colony. It cannot justly be objected that his acceptance of office misled the governor-general, either in 1840 or in 1841. "I distinctly avow," he wrote publicly in 1840, "that, in accepting office, I consider myself to have given a public pledge that I have a reasonably well-grounded confidence that the government of my country is to be carried on in accordance with the principles of Responsible Government which I have ever held.... I have not come into office by means of any coalition with the Attorney-General,[46] or with any others now in {111} the public service, but have done so under the governor-general, and expressly from my confidence in him."[47] In the same way, when Sydenham chose him for the Solicitor-Generals.h.i.+p of Upper Canada in the Union Ministry, Baldwin, who had no belief in Sydenham's cabinet of all the talents, wrote bluntly to say that he "had an entire want of political confidence in all of his colleagues except Mr. Dunn, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Daly."[48] In view of his later action, his critics charged him with error in thus accepting an office which placed him in an impossible position; but Baldwin's ready answer was: "The head of the government, the heads of departments in both provinces, and the country itself, were in a position almost anomalous. That of the head of the government was one of great difficulty and embarra.s.sment. While he (Baldwin) felt bound to protect himself against misapprehensions as to his views and opinions, he also felt bound to avoid, as far as possible, throwing any difficulties in the way of the governor-general.

At the time he was called to a seat in the Executive Council, he was already one of those public servants, the political character {112} newly applied to whose office made it necessary for them to hold seats in that Council. Had he, on being called to take that seat, refused to accept it, he must of course have left office altogether, or have been open to the imputation of objecting to an arrangement for the conduct of public affairs which had always met with his most decided approbation."[49] At worst, the Solicitor-General can only be blamed for letting his abnormally sensitive conscience lead him into political casuistry, the logic of which might not appear so cogent to the governor as to himself, when the crisis should come. How sensitive that conscience was, may be gathered from the fact that his acceptance of office in 1841 was accompanied with an avowal of want of confidence, made openly to those colleagues with whom he disagreed. It was further ill.u.s.trated when he made a difficulty with Sydenham over taking the Oath of Supremacy, which, in a country, many of whose inhabitants were Roman Catholics protected in their religion by treaty rights, declared that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, {113} power, superiority, pre-eminence of authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm."[50]

The crisis came, as Baldwin expected it to come, when parliament met.

Already, as has been seen, the French Canadians had organized their forces and formed the most compact group in the a.s.sembly, while the little band of determined reformers from Upper Canada made up in decision and principle what they lacked in numbers. Hincks, who was one of the latter group, says that, before parliament met, the two sections consulted together concerning the government, and although La Fontaine had lost his election through a display of physical force on the other side, Baldwin was able to lead the combined groups into action. On June 12th, he wrote to Sydenham stating that the United Reform Party represented the political views of the vast majority of Canadians, that four ministers--Sullivan, Ogden, Draper, and Day--were hostile to popular sympathies and ideals, and that he thought the accession of Lower Canada Reformers absolutely essential to a sound popular administration. It was a perfectly consistent, if somewhat unhappily executed, attempt to secure {114} the absolute responsibility of the Executive Council to the representatives of the people; and a week later, in the a.s.sembly, when no longer in office, he defended his action. He believed that when the election had determined of what materials the House of a.s.sembly was to be composed, it then became his duty to inform the head of the government that the administration did not possess the confidence of the House of a.s.sembly, and to tender to the representative of his sovereign the resignation of the office which he held, having first, as he was bound to do, offered his advice to his Excellency that the administration of the country should be reconstructed.[51]

It was the directest possible challenge to Sydenham's system.

Baldwin's claim was that, once the representatives of the people had made known the people's will, it was the duty of the ministry to reflect that will in their programme and actions, or to resign. As for the governor-general, he must obviously adjust whatever theories he might have, to a situation where colonial ministers were content to hold office only where they had the confidence of the people.

The action of the governor-general was {115} characteristically summary. His answer to Baldwin reproved him for a "proposal in the highest degree unconst.i.tutional, as dictating to the crown who are the particular individuals whom it should include in the ministry"; intimated the extreme displeasure of his Excellency, and a.s.sumed the letter to be equivalent to resignation.[52] To the home government he spoke of the episode with anger and some contempt: "Acting upon some principle of conduct which I can reconcile neither with honour nor common sense, he strove to bring about this union (between Upper and Lower Canadian reformers), and at last, having as he thought effected it, coolly proposed to me, on the day before Parliament was to meet, to break up the Government altogether, dismiss several of his colleagues, and replace them by men whom I believe he had not known for 24 hours--but who are most of them thoroughly well known in Lower Canada as the princ.i.p.al opponents of any measure for the improvement of the province."[53]

The crisis once pa.s.sed, Sydenham hoped, and not without justification, that Baldwin would carry few supporters over to the opposition, and {116} that the a.s.sembly would settle quietly down to enact the measures so bountifully set out in the opening speech. The first day of a.s.sembly saw the party of responsible government make a smothered effort to state their views in the debate on the election of a speaker.

On June 18th, an elaborate debate, nominally on the address, really on the fundamental point, found the attorney-general stating the case for the government, and Baldwin and Hincks pus.h.i.+ng the logic of responsible government to its natural conclusion. Baldwin once more grappled with the problem of the responsibility of the members of council, and the advice they should offer to the governor-general. He admitted freely that unless the representative of the sovereign should acquiesce in the measures so recommended, there would be no means by which that advice could be made practically useful; but this consideration did not for a moment relieve a member of the council from the fulfilment of an imperative duty. If his advice were accepted, well and good; if not, his course would be to tender his resignation.[54]

{117}

The government came triumphantly out of the ordeal, and all amendments, whether affecting the Union, or responsible government, were defeated by majorities, usually of two to one. "I have got the large majority of the House ready to support me upon any question that can arise,"

Sydenham wrote at the end of June; "and, what is better, thoroughly convinced that their const.i.tuents, so far as the whole of Upper Canada and the British part of Lower Canada are concerned, will never forgive them if they do not."[55]

But the enemy was not so easily routed. There had been much violence at the recent elections; and, among others, La Fontaine had a most just complaint to make, for disorder, and, as he thought, government trickery had ousted him from a safe seat at Terrebonne. Unfortunately the protests were lodged too late, and a furious struggle sprang up, as to whether the legal period should, in the cases under consideration, be extended, or whether, as the government contended, an inquiry and amendments affecting only the future should suffice. It was ominous for the cause of limited responsibility, that the government had to own defeat in the Lower House, and saved itself only {118} by the veto of the Legislative Council. Nor was that the end. A mosaic work of opposition, old Tories, French Canadians, British anti-unionists, and Upper Canada Reformers, was gradually formed, and at any moment some chance issue might lure over a few from the centre to wreck the administration. Most of the greater measures pa.s.sed through the ordeal safely, including a bill reforming the common schools and another establis.h.i.+ng a Board of Works. The critical moment of the latter part of the session, however, came with the introduction of a bill to establish District Councils in Upper Canada, to complete the work already done in Lower Canada. The forces in opposition rallied to the attack, Conservatives because the bill would increase the popular element in government, Radicals because the fourth clause enacted that the governor of the province might appoint, under the Great Seal of the province, fit and proper persons to hold during his pleasure the office of Warden of the various districts;[56] and, as Sydenham himself hinted, there were those who regretted the loss to members of a.s.sembly of a great opportunity for jobbery. One motion pa.s.sed by the chairman's casting vote; {119} and nothing, in the governor-general's judgment, saved the bill but the circ.u.mstance of his having already established such councils in Lower Canada.[57]

There was one more attack in force before the session ended. On September 3rd, Baldwin, seconded by a French Canadian, moved "that the most important as well as the most undoubted of the political rights of the people of the province, is that of having a provincial parliament for the protection of their liberties, for the exercise of a const.i.tutional influence over the executive departments of the government, and for legislation upon all matters, which do not on the ground of absolute necessity const.i.tutionally belong to the jurisdiction of the Imperial parliament, as the paramount authority of the Empire."[58] The issue was stated moderately but quite directly, and there are critics of Sydenham who hold that his answer--for it was his voice that spoke--surrendered the whole position. That answer took the form of resolutions, moved by the most moderate reformer in the a.s.sembly, S. B. Harrison:

(i) That the head of the provincial executive {120} government of the province, being within the limits of his government the representative of the Sovereign, is not const.i.tutionally responsible to any other than the authority of the Empire.

(ii) That the representative of the Sovereign, for the proper conduct and efficient disposal of public business, is necessarily obliged to make use of the advice and a.s.sistance of subordinate officers in the administration of his government.

(iii) That in order to preserve the harmony between the different branches of the Provincial Parliament which is essential to the happy conduct of public affairs, the princ.i.p.al of such subordinate officers, advisers of the representative of the Sovereign, and const.i.tuting as such the provincial administration under him ... ought always to be men possessed of the public confidence of the people, thus affording a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious Sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the Provincial Government, will on all occasions be faithfully represented and advocated.

(iv) That the house has the const.i.tutional right of holding such advisers politically responsible for every act of the Provincial Government of a local {121} character sanctioned by such government while such advisers continue in office."[59]

Of Sydenham's own doctrine of colonial government the outlines are unmistakeable. A governor-general existed, responsible for his actions solely to the imperial authority. Under that government the people had full liberty to elect their representatives, through whom their desires could be made known. It was the duty of the governor-general to consult, on every possible detail, the popular will. Sydenham therefore held it essential that the governor-general in Canada should be one trained in the Imperial Parliament to interpret and to guide popular expression of opinion; and he believed that in such parliamentary diplomacy the governor-general would have to make many minor surrenders. But he never recoiled from a position, which was also that of Durham, that, as the proclamation of Union a.s.serted, the grant of local autonomy was subject to certain limitations, and that these limitations no action of the Provincial Legislature could affect.

Nor did he admit that his own responsibility to the Crown could be modified by the existence of a responsibility on the {122} part of his ministers to the Canadian people. Moreover, his own imperious temper and sense of superior enlightenment made him act in the very spirit of his doctrine with a resolution which few imperial servants of his time could have surpa.s.sed. It may be then that the final resolutions, and especially the last of them, were marked by a gentler mode of expression than before, but they were actually a reaffirmation of Sydenham's early views, and were quite consistent with the initial despatch of the colonial secretary.

The end was now near. Sydenham had already applied for and received permission, first to leave Canada, should his health require that step, and then, to resign. He had delayed to act on this permission, until he should see the end of the session, and the accomplishment of his ambitions. But, on September 4th, a fall from horseback inflicted injuries which grew more complicated through his generally enfeebled condition, and he died on Sunday, September 19th. On the preceding day, one of the most useful and notable sessions in the history of the Canadian Parliament came to an end.

Both by his errors, and by his acts of statesmans.h.i.+p, Sydenham contributed more than any other {123} man, except Elgin, to establish that autonomy in Canada which his theories rejected. Before self-government could flourish in the colony, there must be some solid material progress, and two years of incessant legislation and administrative innovation, all of it suggested by Sydenham, had turned the tide of Canadian fortunes. It was necessary, too, that some larger field than a trivial provincial a.s.sembly with its local jobs should be provided for the new adventure in self-government; and Sydenham not only engineered a difficult Act of Union past all preliminary obstacles, but, of his own initiative, gave Canada the local inst.i.tutions through which alone the country could grow into disciplined self-dependence.

But even his errors aided Canadian development. Acting for a government in whose counsels there was no hesitation, Sydenham expounded in word and practice a perfectly self-consistent theory of colonial government. It was he who, by the virility of his thought and action, forced those who demanded responsible government to test and think over again their own position. The criticism which Elgin pa.s.sed on him in 1847 is final: "I never cease to marvel what study of human nature, or of history, led him to the conclusion {124} that it would be possible to concede to a pus.h.i.+ng and enterprising people, unenc.u.mbered by an aristocracy, and dwelling in the immediate vicinity of the United States, such const.i.tutional privileges as were conferred on Canada at the time of Union, and yet restrict in practice their powers of self-government as he proposed."[60] Yet he had raised the question, for both sides, to a higher level, and his adversaries owed something of their triumph, when it came, to the man who had taught them a more s.p.a.cious view of politics.

But it may be urged that he roused the French, insulted them, excluded them, and almost precipitated a new French rising. Undoubtedly he was an enemy to French claims, but, at the time, most of these claims were inadmissible. The French had brought the existing system of local government to a standstill. Few of those who took part in the Rebellion had any reasonable or adequate conception of a reformed const.i.tution. As a people they had set themselves to obstruct the statesmen who came to a.s.sist them, and to oppose a Union which was doubtless imperfect as an instrument of government, but which was a necessary stage in the construction of a {125} better system. Here again Sydenham aimed at carrying out a perfectly clear and consistent programme, the political blending of the French with the British colonists. Unfortunately that programme was impossible. It had been constructed by men who did not understand the racial problem, and who, even if they had understood it, would not have accepted the modern solution. Yet French nationalism, between 1839 and 1841, had certain negative lessons still to learn. As, in Upper Canada, Robert Baldwin discovered from his opposition to the governor-general the methods and limits of parliamentary opposition, so La Fontaine, the worthiest representative of French Canada, began in these years to subst.i.tute const.i.tutional co-operation with the reformers of the West, for the old sullen negative nationalism which had failed so utterly in 1837, as the most suitable means for maintaining the rights of his people.

[1] I disregard Cathcart's tenure of office. For all practical purposes it was merely that of an acting governor.

[2] Instructions to the Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, 7 September, 1839.

[3] _Ibid._

[4] Lord John Russell to the Rt. Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, 14 October, 1839.

[5] Lord John Russell to the Right Hon. C. P. Thomson, 16 October, 1839.

[6] Greville, _A Journal of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV._, iii. p. 330.

[7] Quoted from _The Kingston Chronicle and Gazette_, 19 October, 1839.