Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Life and Work

The Canadian Autonomy

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, one of those erratic but creative spirits whose errors are often as profitable to all (save themselves) as their sober acts. It is not here necessary to enter on the details of his emigration system; in that he was, after all, a pioneer in the south and east rather than in the west. But in the stirring years of colonial development, in which Canada, Australia, and New Zealand took their modern form, Wakefield was a leader in constitutional as well as in economic matters, and Canada was favoured not only with his opinions, but with his presence. In the Art of Colonization he entered into some detail on these matters. There was a certain breezy informality about his views, which carried him directly to the heart of the matter. He understood, as few of his contemporaries did, that in all discussions concerning the “connexion,” the final argument was sentimental rather than constitutional; and he accepted without further argument the incapacity of Englishmen for being other than English in the politics of their colony.

“There would still be hostile parties in a colony,” he wrote as he planned reforms, “yes, parties instead of factions: for every colony would have its ‘ins’ and ‘outs,’ and would be governed as we are—as every free community must be in the present state of the human mind—by the emulation and rivalries, the bidding against each other for public favour, of the party in power and the party in opposition. Government by party, with all its passions and corruptions, is the price that a free country pays for freedom. But the colonies would be free communities: their internal differences, their very blunders, and their methods of correcting them, would be all their own; and the colonists who possessed capacity for public business would govern in turns far better on the whole than it would be possible for any other set of beings on earth to govern that particular community.” He was, then, for a most entire and whole-hearted control by colonists, and especially Canadians, of their own affairs. But when he came to define what these affairs included, he had limits to suggest, and although he was aware of the dangers implicit in such a limitation, he was very emphatic on the need of imperial control in diplomacy and war, and more especially in the administration of land.[10] How practical and sincere were his views on the supremacy of the home government, he proved by supporting, in person and with his pen, Sir Charles Metcalfe in his struggle to limit the claims of local autonomy.

Powerful and suggestive as Wakefield’s mind was, he had, nevertheless, to own a master in colonial theory; for the most distinguished, and by far the clearest, view of the whole matter is contained in Charles Buller’s Responsible Government for the Colonies, which he published anonymously in 1840. Buller was indeed the ablest of the whole group, and his early death was one of the greatest losses which English politics sustained in the nineteenth century—”an intelligent, clear, honest, most kindly vivacious creature; the genialist Radical I have ever met,”said Carlyle. The ease of his writing and his gift for light satire must not be permitted to obscure the consistency and penetration of his views. Even if Durham contributed more to his Report than seems probable, the view there propounded of the scope of Responsible Government is not nearly so cogent as that of the later pamphlet. Buller, like the other members of his group, believed in the acknowledgment of a supremacy, vested in the mother country, and expressed in control of foreign affairs, inter-colonial affairs, land, trade, immigration, and the like; but outside the few occasions on which these matters called for imperial interference, he was for absolute non-interference, and protested that “that constant reference to the authorities in England, which some persons call responsibility to the mother country, is by no means necessary to insure the maintenance of a beneficial colonial connexion.”

His originality indeed is best tested by the vigour and truth of his criticisms of the existing administration. First of all representation had been given without {242} executive responsibility. Then for practical purposes the colonists were allowed to make many of their own laws, without the liberty to choose those who would administer them. Then a colonial party, self-styled the party of the connexion, or the loyal party, monopolized office. To Buller the idea of combining a popular representation with an unpopular executive seemed the height of constitutional folly; and, like Wakefield, he understood, as perhaps not five others in England did, the place of party government and popular dictation in colonial constitutional development. “The whole direction of affairs,” he said, “and the whole patronage of the Executive practically are at present in the hands of a colonial party. Now when this is the case, it can be of no importance to the mother country in the ordinary course of things, which of these local parties possesses the powers and emoluments of office.”

Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, he believed in assuming the colonists to be inspired with love for their mother country, common sense, and a regard for their own welfare; and it seemed obvious that men so disposed were infinitely better qualified than the Colonial Office to manage their own affairs. Nothing but evil could result “from the attempt to conduct the internal affairs of the colonies in accordance with the public opinion, not of those colonies themselves, but of the mother country.” It may seem a work of supererogation to complete the sketch of this group with an examination of the opinions expressed in Lord Durham’s Report; yet that Report is so fundamental a document in the development of British imperial opinion that time must be found to dispel one or two popular illusions.

It is a mistake to hold that Durham advocated the fullest concession of local autonomy to Canada. Sir Francis Hincks, a protagonist of Responsible Government, once quoted from the Report sentences which seemed to justify all his claims: “The crown must submit to the necessary consequences of representative institutions, and if it has to carry on the government in union with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence”; and again, “I admit that the system which I propose would in fact place the internal government of the colony in the hands of the colonists themselves, and that we should thus leave to them the execution of the laws of which we have long entrusted the making solely to them.” Public opinion in Canada also put this extreme interpretation on the language of the Report. (1)

Resources

Notes

1. J. L. Morison, “British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government 1839-1854” (1919), Toronto, S. B. Gundy

See Also

Law is our Passion

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This entry was last updated: October 29, 2016