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

cost the country from first to last over ten million dollars, including a large indemnity paid to Upper Canada for its proportion of the fund taken from public revenues of the united provinces to meet the claims of the seigniors and the expenses of the commission. The money was well spent in bringing about so thorough a revolution in so peaceable and conclusive a manner. The _habitants_ of the east were now as free as the farmers of the west. The seigniors themselves largely benefited by the capitalization in money of their old rights, and by the untrammelled possession of land held _en franc aleu roturier_. Although the seigniorial tenure disappeared from the social system of French Canada nearly half a century ago, we find enduring memorials of its existence in such famous names as these:--Nicolet, Verchères, Lotbinière, Berthier, Rouville, Joliette, Terrebonne, Sillery, Beaupré, Bellechasse, Portneuf, Chambly, Sorel, Longueuil, Boucherville, Chateauguay, and many others which recall the seigniors of the old régime.


CHAPTER IX



CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

In a long letter which he wrote to Earl Grey in August, 1850, Lord Elgin used these significant words: "To render annexation by violence impossible, or by any other means improbable as may be, is, as I have often ventured to repeat, the polar star of my policy." To understand the full significance of this language it is only necessary to refer to the history of the difficulties with which the governor-general had to contend from the first hour he came to the province and began his efforts to allay the feeling of disaffection then too prevalent throughout the country--especially among the commercial classes--and to give encouragement to that loyal sentiment which had been severely shaken by the indifference or ignorance shown by British statesmen and people with respect to the conditions and interests of the Canadas. He was quite conscious that, if the province was to remain a contented portion of the British empire, it could be best done by giving full play to the principles of self-government among both nationalities who had been so long struggling to obtain the application of the parliamentary system of England in the fullest sense to the operation of their own internal affairs, and by giving to the industrial and commercial classes adequate compensation for the great losses which they had sustained by the sudden abolition of the privileges which England had so long extended to Canadian products--notably, flour, wheat and lumber--in the British market.

Lord Elgin knew perfectly well that, while this discontent existed, the party which favoured annexation would not fail to find sympathy and encouragement in the neighbouring republic. He recalled the fact that both Papineau and Mackenzie, after the outbreak of their abortive rebellion, had many abettors across the border, as the infamous raids into Canada clearly proved. Many people in the United States, no doubt, saw some analogy between the grievances of Canadians and those which had led to the American revolution. "The mass of the American people," said Lord Durham, "had judged of the quarrel from a distance; they had been obliged to form their judgment on the apparent grounds of the controversy; and were thus deceived, as all those are apt to be who judge under such circumstances, and on such grounds. The contest bore some resemblance to that great struggle of their own forefathers, which they regard with the highest pride. Like that, they believed it to be the contest of a colony against the empire, whose misconduct alienated their own country; they considered it to be a contest undertaken by a people professing to seek independence of distant control, and extension of popular privileges." More than that, the striking contrast which was presented between Canada and the United States "in respect to every sign of productive industry, increasing wealth, and progressive civilization" was considered by the people of the latter country to be among the results of the absence of a political system which would give expansion to the energies of the colonists and make them self-reliant in every sense. Lord Durham's picture of the condition of things in 1838-9 was very painful to Canadians, although it was truthful in every particular. "On the British side of the line," he wrote, "with the exception of a few favoured spots, where some approach to American prosperity is apparent, all seems waste and desolate." But it was not only "in the difference between the larger towns on the two sides" that we could see "the best evidence of our own inferiority." That "painful and undeniable truth was most manifest in the country districts through which the line of national separation passes for one thousand miles." Mrs. Jameson in her "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles," written only a year or two before Lord Durham's report, gives an equally unfavourable comparison between the Canadian and United States sides of the western country. As she floated on the Detroit river in a little canoe made of a hollow tree, and saw on one side "a city with its towers, and spires, and animated population," and on the other "a little straggling hamlet with all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness," she could not help wondering at this "incredible difference between the two shores," and hoping that some of the colonial officials across the Atlantic would be soon sent "to behold and solve the difficulty."

But while Lord Durham was bound to emphasize this unsatisfactory state of things he had not lost his confidence in the loyalty of the mass of the Canadian people, notwithstanding the severe strain to which they had been subject on account of the supineness of the British government to deal vigorously and promptly with grievances of which they had so long complained as seriously affecting their connection with the parent state and the development of their material resources. It was only necessary, he felt, to remove the causes of discontent to bring out to the fullest extent the latent affection which the mass of French and English Canadians had been feeling for British connection ever since the days when the former obtained guarantees for the protection of their dearest institutions and the Loyalists of the American Revolution crossed the frontier for the sake of Crown and empire. "We must not take every rash expression of disappointment," wrote Lord Durham, "as an indication of a settled aversion to the existing constitution; and my own observation convinces me that the predominant feeling of all the British population of the North American colonies is that of devoted attachment to the mother country. I believe that neither the interests nor the feelings of the people are incompatible with a colonial government, wisely and popularly administered." His strong conviction then was that if connection with Great Britain was to be continuous, if every cause of discontent was to be removed, if every excuse for interference "by violence on the part of the United States" was to be taken away, if Canadian annexationists were no longer to look for sympathy and aid among their republican neighbours, the Canadian people must be given the full control of their own internal affairs, while the British government on their part should cease that constant interference which only irritated and offended the colony. "It is not by weakening," he said, "but strengthening the influence of the people on the government; by confining within much narrower bounds than those hitherto allotted to it, and not by extending the interference of the imperial authorities in the details of colonial affairs, that I believe that harmony is to be restored, where dissension has so long prevailed; and a regularity and vigour hitherto unknown, introduced into the administration of these provinces." And he added that if the internal struggle for complete self-government were renewed "the sympathy from without would at some time or other re-assume its former strength."

Lord Elgin appeared on the scene at the very time when there was some reason for a repetition of that very struggle, and a renewal of that very "sympathy from without" which Lord Durham imagined. The political irritation, which had been smouldering among the great mass of Reformers since the days of Lord Metcalfe, was seriously aggravated by the discontent created by commercial ruin and industrial paralysis throughout Canada as a natural result of Great Britain's ruthless fiscal policy. The annexation party once more came to the surface, and contrasts were again made between Canada and the United States seriously to the discredit of the imperial state. "The plea of self-interest," wrote Lord Elgin in 1849, "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." He then proceeded to contrast the condition of things on the two sides of the Niagara, only "spanned by a narrow bridge, which it takes a foot passenger about three minutes to cross." The inhabitants on the Canadian side were "for the most part United Empire Loyalists" and differed little in habits or modes of thought and expression from their neighbours. Wheat, their staple product, grown on the Canadian side of the line, "fetched at that time in the market from 9d. to 1s. less than the same article grown on the other." These people had protested against the Montreal annexation movement, but Lord Elgin was nevertheless confident that the large majority firmly believed "that their annexation to the United States would add one-fourth to the value of the produce of their farms." In dealing with the causes of discontent Lord Elgin came to exactly the same conclusion which, as I have just shown, was accepted by Lord Durham after a close study of the political and material conditions of the country. He completed the work of which his eminent predecessor had been able only to formulate the plan. By giving adequate scope to the practice of responsible government, he was able to remove all causes for irritation against the British government, and prevent annexationists from obtaining any sympathy from that body of American people who were always looking for an excuse for a movement--such a violent movement as suggested by Lord Elgin in the paragraph given above--which would force Canada into the states of the union. Having laid this foundation for a firm and popular government, he proceeded to remove the commercial embarrassment by giving a stimulus to Canadian trade by the repeal of the navigation laws, and the adoption of reciprocity with the United States. The results of his efforts were soon seen in the confidence which all nationalities and classes of the Canadian people felt in the working of their system of government, in the strengthening of the ties between the imperial state and the dependency, and in the decided stimulus given to the shipping and trade throughout the provinces of British North America.

I have already in the previous chapters of this book dwelt on the methods which Lord Elgin so successfully adopted to establish responsible government in accordance with the wishes of the Canadian people, and it is now only necessary to refer to his strenuous efforts during six years to obtain reciprocal trade between Canada and the United States. It was impossible at the outset of his negotiations to arouse any active interest among the politicians of the republic as long as they were unable to see that the proposed treaty would be to the advantage of their particular party or of the nation at large. No party in congress was ready to take it up as a political question and give it that impulse which could be best given by a strong partisan organization. The Canadian and British governments could not get up a "lobby" to press the matter in the ways peculiar to professional politicians, party managers, and great commercial or financial corporations. Mr. Hincks brought the powers of his persuasive tongue and