Lord Elgin - Sir John George Bourinot (distant reading .txt) 📗

never showed any earnest desire to take them up as parts of its ministerial policy, and remove them from political controversy.

Indeed it is clear that LaFontaine's conservative instincts, which became stronger with age and experience of political conditions, forced him to proceed very slowly and cautiously with respect to a movement that would interfere with a tenure so deeply engrafted in the social and economic structure of his own province, while as a Roman Catholic he was at heart always doubtful of the justice of diverting to secular purposes those lands which had been granted by Great Britain for the support of a Protestant clergy. Baldwin was also slow to make up his mind as to the proper disposition of the reserves, and certainly weakened himself in his own province by his reluctance to express himself distinctly with respect to a land question which had been so long a grievance and a subject of earnest agitation among the men who supported him in and out of the legislature. Indeed when he presented himself for the last time before his constituents in 1857, he was emphatically attacked on the hustings as an opponent of the secularization of the reserves for refusing to give a distinct pledge as to the course he would take on the question. This fact, taken in connection with his previous utterances in the legislature, certainly gives force to the opinion which has been more than once expressed by Canadian historians that he was not prepared, any more than LaFontaine himself, to divert funds given for an express purpose to one of an entirely different character. Under these circumstances it is easy to come to the conclusion that the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry was not willing at any time to make these two questions parts of its policy--questions on which it was ready to stand or fall as a government.

The first step towards the breaking up of the ministry was the resignation of Baldwin following upon the support given by a majority of the Reformers in Upper Canada to a notion presented by William Lyon Mackenzie for the abolition of the court of chancery and the transfer of its functions to the courts of common law. The motion was voted down in the House, but Baldwin was a believer in the doctrine that a minister from a particular province should receive the confidence and support of the majority of its representatives in cases where a measure affected its interests exclusively. He had taken some pride in the passage of the act which reorganized the court, reformed old abuses in its practice, and made it, as he was convinced, useful in litigation; but when he found that his efforts in this direction were condemned by the votes of the very men who should have supported him in the province affected by the measure, he promptly offered his resignation, which was accepted with great reluctance not only by LaFontaine but by Lord Elgin, who had learned to admire and respect this upright, unselfish Canadian statesman. A few months later he was defeated at an election in one of the ridings of York by an unknown man, largely on account of his attitude on the question of the clergy reserves. He never again offered himself for parliament, but lived in complete retirement in Toronto, where he died in 1858. Then the people whom he had so long faithfully served, after years of neglect, became conscious that a true patriot had passed away.

LaFontaine placed his resignation in the hands of the governor-general, who accepted it with regret. No doubt the former had deeply felt the loss of his able colleague, and was alive to the growing belief among the Liberal politicians of Upper Canada that the government was not proceeding fast enough in carrying out the reforms which they considered necessary. LaFontaine had become a Conservative as is usual with men after some experience of the responsibilities of public administration, and probably felt that he had better retire before he lost his influence with his party, and before the elements of disintegration that were forming within it had fully developed. After his retirement he returned to the practice of law, and in 1853 he became chief justice of the court of appeal of Lower Canada on the death of Sir James Stuart. At the same time he received from the Crown the honour of a baronetcy, which was also conferred on the chief justice of Upper Canada, Sir John Beverley Robinson.

Political historians justly place LaFontaine in the first rank of Canadian statesmen on account of his extensive knowledge, his sound judgment, his breadth of view, his firmness in political crises, and above all his desire to promote the best interests of his countrymen on those principles of compromise and conciliation which alone can bind together the distinct nationalities and creeds of a country peopled like Canada. As a judge he was dignified, learned and impartial. His judicial decisions were distinguished by the same lucidity which was conspicuous in his parliamentary addresses. He died ten years later than the great Upper Canadian, whose honoured name must be always associated with his own in the annals of a memorable epoch, when the principles of responsible government were at last, after years of perplexity and trouble, carried out in their entirety, and when the French Canadians had come to recognize as a truth that under no other system would it have been possible for them to obtain that influence in the public councils to which they were fully entitled, or to reconcile and unite the diverse interests of a great province, divided by the Ottawa river into two sections, the one French and Roman Catholic, and the other English and Protestant.


CHAPTER VI



THE HINCKS-MORIN MINISTRY.

When LaFontaine resigned the premiership the ministry was dissolved and it was necessary for the governor-general to choose his successor. After the retirement of Baldwin, Hincks and his colleagues from Upper Canada were induced to remain in the cabinet and the latter became the leader in that province. He was endowed with great natural shrewdness, was deeply versed in financial and commercial matters, had a complete comprehension of the material conditions of the province, and recognized the necessity of rapid railway construction if the people were to hold their own against the competition of their very energetic neighbours to the south. His ideas of trade, we can well believe, recommended themselves to Lord Elgin, who saw in him the very man he needed to help him in his favourite scheme of bringing about reciprocity with the United States. At the same time he was now the most prominent man in the Liberal party so long led by Baldwin and LaFontaine, and the governor-general very properly called upon him to reconstruct the ministry. He assumed the responsibility and formed the government known in the political history of Canada as the Hincks-Morin ministry; but before we consider its _personnel_ and review its measures, it is necessary to recall the condition of political parties at the time it came into power.

During the years Baldwin and LaFontaine were in office, the politics of the province were in the process of changes which eventually led to important results in the state of parties. The _Parti Rouge_ was formed in Lower Canada out of the extreme democratic element of the people by Papineau, who, throughout his parliamentary career since his return from exile, showed the most determined opposition to LaFontaine, whose measures were always distinguished by a spirit of conservatism, decidedly congenial to the dominant classes in French Canada where the civil and religious institutions of the country had much to fear from the promulgation of republican principles.

The new party was composed chiefly of young Frenchmen, then in the first stage of their political growth--notably A.A. Dorion, J.B.E. Dorion (_l'enfant terrible_), R. Doutre, Dessaules, Labrèche, Viger, and Laflamme; L.H. Holton, and a very few men of British descent were also associated with the party from its commencement. Its organ was _L'Avenir_ of Montreal, in which were constantly appearing violent diatribes and fervid appeals to national prejudice, always peculiar to French Canadian journalism. It commenced with a programme in which it advocated universal suffrage, the abolition of property qualification for members of the legislature, the repeal of the union, the abolition of tithes, a republican form of government, and even, in a moment of extreme political aberration, annexation to the United States. It was a feeble imitation of the red republicanism of the French revolution, and gave positive evidences of the inspiration of the hero of the fight at St. Denis in 1837. Its platform was pervaded not only by hatred of British institutions, but with contempt for the clergy and religion generally. Its revolutionary principles were at once repudiated by the great mass of French Canadians and for years it had but a feeble existence. It was only when its leading spirits reconstructed their platform and struck out its most objectionable planks, that it became something of a factor in practical Canadian politics. In 1851 it was still insignificant numerically in the legislature, and could not affect the fortunes of the Liberal party in Lower Canada then distinguished by the ability of A.N. Morin, P.J.O. Chauveau, R.E. Caron, E.P. Taché, and L.P. Drummond. The recognized leader of this dominant party was Morin, whose versatile knowledge, lucidity of style, and charm of manner gave him much strength in parliament. His influence, however, as I have already said, was too often weakened by an absence of energy and of the power to lead at national or political crises.

Parties in Upper Canada also showed the signs of change. The old Tory party had been gradually modifying its opinions under the influence of responsible government, which showed its wisest members that ideas that prevailed before the union had no place under the new, progressive order of things. This party, nominally led by Sir Allan MacNab, that staunch old loyalist, now called itself Conservative, and was quite ready, in fact anxious, to forget the part it took in connection with the rebellion-losses legislation, and to win that support in French Canada without which it could not expect to obtain office. The ablest man in its councils was already John Alexander Macdonald, whose political sagacity and keenness to seize political advantages for the advancement of his party, were giving him the lead among the Conservatives. The Liberals had shown signs of disintegration ever since the formation of the "Clear Grits," whose most conspicuous members were Peter Perry, the founder of the Liberal party in Upper Canada before the union; William McDougall, an eloquent young lawyer and journalist; Malcolm Cameron, who had been assistant commissioner of public works in the LaFontaine-Baldwin government; Dr. John Rolph, one of the leaders of the movement that ended in the rebellion of 1837; Caleb Hopkins, a western farmer of considerable energy and natural ability; David Christie, a well-known agriculturist; and John Leslie, the proprietor of the Toronto _Examiner_, the chief organ of the new party. It was organized as a remonstrance against what many men in the old Liberal party regarded as the inertness of their leaders to carry out changes considered necessary in the political interests of the country. Its very name was a proof that its leaders believed there should be no reservation in the opinion held by their party--that there must be no alloy or foreign metal in their political coinage, but it must be clear Grit. Its platform embraced many of the cardinal principles of the original Reform or Liberal party, but it also advocated such radical changes as the application of the elective principle to all classes of officials (including the governor-general), universal suffrage, vote by ballot, biennial parliaments, the abolition of the courts of chancery and common pleas, free trade and direct taxation.

The Toronto _Globe_, which was for a