Lord Durham’s Report, 1839 in Canada

After the Patriot Insurrection (1837-1838) issue, the administrator John Colborne dissolved the House of Assembly and appointed a special council to administer Lower Canada until 1841. England was becoming worried during this time, for riots were also breaking out in Upper Canada and discontent was again on the rise in its Gulf colonies. It appointed John George Lambton, Lord Durham, a radical Whig, as Governor General and High Commissioner to British North America. Lord Durham arrived in Quebec on May 27, 1838, to conduct an investigation.

In 1839, having spent six months on the new continent, Durham presented his report to the English government. It dealt mainly with various tactics he felt would restore peace: ensure the existence of a majority of loyal English people, anglicize the French Canadians who, in his opinion, had no chance of survival in an Anglo-Saxon America, and establish ministerial responsibility. To Durham, harmony could be re-established only by strengthening the influence of the people.

The imperial government immediately rejected ministerial responsibility, as it entailed broadening colonial freedoms. To put the Canadians in a state of political subordination, London introduced the Act of Union in 1840. Its purpose was to reunite the two Canadas under a single parliament and make English the only official language. Henceforth, according to the will of London, one was to speak only of United Canada. The English government felt that a colonial assembly dominated by British elements would guarantee that ties to imperialism would be strengthened and that British investors would be reassured.

Extracts in relation to the Colony of Newfoundland

Extracts from the report of Lord Durham on the British North American colonies, in which he mused about the possible incorporation of Newfoundland into a British North American Union

THE REPORT OF THE EARL OF DURHAM

HER MAJESTY’S HIGH COMMISSIONER AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA (1839)

May it please Your Majesty:

* * *

With respect to the Colony of Newfoundland, I have been able to obtain no information whatever, except from sources open to the public at large. The Assembly of that Island signified their intention of making an appeal to me respecting some differences with the Governor, which had their immediate origin in a dispute with a Judge. Owing, probably, to the uncertain and tardy means of communication between Quebec and that Island, I received no further communication on this or any other subject until after my arrival in England, when I received an Address expressive of regret at my departure.

I know nothing, therefore, of the state of things in Newfoundland, except that there is, and long has been, the ordinary colonial collision between the representative body on one side and the executive on the other; that the representatives have no influence on the composition or the proceedings of the executive government; and that the dispute is now carried on as in Canada, by impeachments of various public officers on one hand, and prorogations on the other. I am inclined to think that the causes of these disorders is to be found in the same constitutional defects as those which I have signalized in the rest of the North American Colonies. If it be true that there exists in this island a state of society which renders it unadvisable that the whole of the local government should be entirely left to the inhabitants, I believe it would be much better to incorporate the Colony with a larger community, than to attempt to continue the present experiment of governing it by a constant collision of constitutional powers.

* * *

With respect to the two smaller Colonies of Prince Edward’s Island and Newfoundland, I am of opinion, that not only would most of the reasons which I have given for an union of the others, apply to them, but that their smallness makes it absolutely necessary, as the only means of securing any proper attention to their interests, and investing them with that consideration, the deficiency of which they have so much reason to lament in all the disputes which yearly occur between them and the citizens of the United States, with regard to the encroachments made by the latter on their coasts and fisheries.

Durham Report

Definition of Durham Report by Rand Dyck and Christopher Cochrane (in their book “Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches”) in the context of political science in Canada: The 1839 report by Lord Durham that recommended the union of Upper and Lower Canada and the granting of responsible government to the colony of Canada.

Definition of Durham Report

The Canada social science dictionary [1] provides the following meaning of Durham Report: Lord Durham was called upon to investigate the rebellion of 1837-38 in Lower Canada. The report was anti-Quebecois calling for the unification of upper and lower Canada (and this was achieved with the Act of Union of 1840) and recommended a policy of assimilation of the Quebecois. See: REBELLION (OF 1837-38) IN LOWER CANADA related information in this encyclopedia, in the legal dictionary or in the world encyclopedia of law.

Durham Report: Resources

Notes and References

1. Drislane, R., & Parkinson, G. (2016). (Concept of) Durham Report. Online dictionary of the social sciences. Open University of Canada

Resources

See Also

• Politics
• Political Science