Great Administration

History

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On Metcalfe’s departure from Canada the administration passed into the hands of Lord Cathcart, commander-in-chief of the forces. He was one of the many fine soldiers who have had their part in the upbuilding of Canada and whose services have received the very slightest recognition. Of an ancient Scottish family, he had fought in the great Napoleonic wars from Maida to Waterloo, where he had greatly distinguished himself. After the peace he had turned his attention to the study of natural science, and he had made some important contributions to mineralogy. Cathcart held office from November 26, 1845, until January 30, 1847, some fourteen months. He wisely left Canadian politics to Canadian politicians, and merely watched the machinery revolve. At first he was merely administrator, but, on danger threatening from the unsettled dispute over the Oregon boundary, he was raised to the rank of governor-general.

His successor was also a Scot, James Bruce, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, directly descended from the patriot king Robert the Bruce. His father was the British ambassador who salvaged the ‘Elgin marbles’ from the Parthenon and sold them to the nation, thus drawing down upon himself the angry satire of Byron in ‘The Curse of Minerva’ and ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’ The new governor-general was young, poor, and able. Far more than his predecessors, he had enjoyed the advantages of a regular education. At Eton he had Gladstone for a school-mate, and at Oxford he was in the same college with Dalhousie, the future governor-general of India. He was also distinguished in two ways: he was a sincere Christian of the devout evangelical type, and he had a gift of speech that would have been remarkable in any man, but was remarkable most of all in a high official of a rather tongue-tied race. His native gift of eloquence was carefully cultivated and proved to be of great value in many points in his public career. His family ties are interesting. His first wife, a Miss Bruce, met a tragic fate.

The vessel in which she accompanied her husband to the West Indies was wrecked on the voyage out; she never recovered from the shock and exposure, and died not long after. His second wife was a daughter of Lord Durham and a niece of Earl Grey, who was, in 1845, colonial secretary, and to whose influence Elgin owed his appointment as governor-general. He was thoroughly well qualified for the post. At the same time it was a way of providing for a relative who was not rich. Like Metcalfe, Lord Elgin came to Canada by way of Jamaica, which he had administered in the dark days that followed the emancipation of the slaves. His broad training, his Liberal politics, his family affiliations all predisposed him to accept the rôle which Metcalfe had definitely refused, the rôle, namely, of a constitutional governor-general, guided solely by the advice of a ministry representing the majority in parliament. In other words, Elgin had his mind made up to conform entirely to the principle of responsible government as understood in the colony. He was not long in the country before he made his intentions public; and to his fixed policy he adhered through good report and through evil report, at no small cost to himself, for {100} never were a Canadian governor-general’s principles put to a more severe test.

Elgin reached Montreal in the end of January 1847, and was heartily welcomed by both political parties. He, on his part, was ready to admire the ‘perfectly independent inhabitants’ of this ‘glorious country,’ whose demeanour was certainly not that of the recently liberated slaves in his former satrapy. The ‘independent inhabitants’ voted him ‘democratic’ for walking out to ‘Monklands’ in a blizzard, when hardly any one else was stirring abroad. He was made welcome for another reason. The experiment of popular government was not working particularly well. The constitution did really ‘march,’ but with ominous creakings and groanings, which seemed to threaten a complete break-down. This must be the case with every government which tried to perform its functions with but a small majority at its back. The unanimous welcome accorded to the governor-general by both sides of politics implied a belief that somehow or other he could find a way out of the present difficulties and induce the governmental machine to work smoothly. It was a faith in the efficacy of the god from the machine.

The Draper government was growing weaker and weaker, being continually defeated in the House, and consequently discredited before the country. Its difficulties were increased by events outside of Canada over which the government could have no control. The hideous Irish famine of 1846-47 had its reaction upon Canada, for thousands of starving emigrants tried to escape to the new land, and, after enduring the long-drawn horrors of the middle passage, reached Canada only to die like plague-stricken sheep of fever and sheer misery. The monument at Grosse Isle does not tell half the shame and suffering of that tragic time. And the Draper government showed no ability to cope with the problem. At length, in December 1847, Lord Elgin dissolved the House and a new election took place. It resulted in a complete victory at the polls for the party of Reform. The leaders, Baldwin, LaFontaine, and Hincks, were all returned. Only a handful of the other party came back; but among them were Sir Allan MacNab and the young Kingston lawyer, John A. Macdonald.

The new House met on February 25, 1848. In the trial of strength over the Speakership the Reformers won. Sir Allan MacNab was again the nominee of the Tories; Baldwin nominated his friend, Morin, who had command of both French and English, a necessary qualification for the presiding officer of a bilingual parliament. And Morin was chosen Speaker by a large majority. In accordance with the rules the remnant of the Draper ministry resigned, and LaFontaine and Baldwin formed a new Cabinet. This is known in Canadian history as the ‘Great Administration,’ which lasted until the retirement in 1851 of both the noted leaders from public life. The distinction is well deserved, not only on account of the high character of the leaders, and the value of the political principles affirmed and put in practice, but also on account of the permanent value of the legislative programme which it carried to successful completion. The ensuing session was very short; for time was needed to prepare the various important measures which the Reformers intended to bring forward. The troubled year of European revolution, 1848, was rather colourless in the annals of Canada; not so the year which followed.

The eventful session of 1849 opened on the eighteenth of January, in a parliament building improvised out of St Anne’s market near what is now Place d’Youville, Montreal. The Speech from the Throne announces a programme of the more important measures to be brought before parliament. In this case the Speech was a promise to deal with such vital matters as electoral reform, the University of Toronto, the improvement of the judicial system, and the completion of the St Lawrence canals. It also contained two announcements most gratifying to the French: first, that amnesty was to be offered to all political offenders implicated in the troubles of ’37-’38; and second, that the clause in the Act of Union which made English the sole official language had been repealed. The governor-general displayed his tact and his goodwill by reading the Speech in French as well as in English, a custom which has continued ever since.

A striking incident in the opening debate on the Address was the passage at arms between LaFontaine and Papineau, between the new and the old leader of French-Canadian political opinion. In ’37 Papineau had roused his countrymen to armed resistance of the government; but he had wisely refrained from placing himself at the head of the insurgents. Together with his secretary, O’Callaghan, he had witnessed the fight at St Denis from the other side of the river, but took no part in it. He had afterwards reached the American border in safety. From the United States he had passed over to France, where he had consorted with some of the advanced thinkers of the capital. In 1843 LaFontaine, by his personal exertions with Metcalfe, was able to gain for his exiled chief the privilege of returning without penalty to his native land. Papineau, however, did not avail himself of the privilege until four years later; he found life in Paris quite to his taste.

A curious result of his return, a pardoned rebel, was his claiming and receiving from the provincial treasury the nine years’ arrearage of salary due to him as Speaker in the old Assembly of Lower Canada. In the elections of 1847 he stood for St Maurice, and he was elected. In the new parliament he took the rôle of irreconcilable; his whole policy was obstruction. What he could not realize was, that during his ten years of absence the whole country had moved away from the position it had occupied before the outbreak of the rebellion; and, in moving away, it had left him hopelessly behind. His only programme was uncompromising opposition to the government which had forgiven him, and the vague dream of founding an independent French republic on the banks of the St Lawrence. In the brief session of 1848 he attempted, but without success, to block the wheels of government. Now, in the second session, the fateful session of 1849, he delivered one of his old-time reckless philippics denouncing the tyrannical British power, the Act of Union—the very measure he was supposed to have battled for—responsible government, and, above all, those of his own race who supported the new order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet. His retort was as obvious as it was crushing.

If the French Canadians had refused to come in under the Act of Union, they would have been depriving themselves of any share whatever in the government of their country. If they had refused to come in, Papineau would not have been permitted to return, or to sit once more as a legislator and a free man in the national parliament. The reply was unanswerable, and it put a period to the influence of Papineau. Foiled and discredited, the old leader was never again to sway the masses of his countrymen as the moon sways the tides. His day was done. None the less, the prestige of his name drew after him a small following of the younger and more ardent men to whom he taught the pure Radical doctrine. In L’Avenir, the propagandist journal which he founded, he preached repeal of the Union and annexation to the United States. Before long he abandoned an arena in which he was no longer the great central figure for dignified seclusion on his seigneury of Montebello beside the noble Ottawa.

In spite of all blind opposition a broad and enlightened programme of legislation was carried out. Nearly two hundred measures, many of prime importance, stand to the credit of this busy session. The vexed question of a provincial university was finally settled. Baldwin’s bill for the founding of the University of Toronto, which had been laid to one side by the Metcalfe crisis, was taken up again and carried through all its stages to the status of a law. Conceived as the apex and crown of a comprehensive scheme of education as broad as the province, the University of Toronto more than met the hopes of its founder. A straight road had been devised from the first class in the common school to the highest department of collegiate instruction. The needs of the {107} democracy had not been neglected, but wise and ample provision had been made for the ambitious and aspiring few. How completely the university has justified its existence is attested by the spectacle of both political parties competing with each other in their benevolence towards an honoured, national foundation. By the multiplying generations of Toronto graduates the name of Robert Baldwin should be held in high esteem as of the man who made possible the seat of learning they are so proud to name their alma mater.

Another wise measure for which Baldwin deserves no little praise is the Municipal Corporations Act. The title has a dry, legal look, and will suggest little or nothing to the general reader except, possibly, red tape. Moreover, the system by which the subdivisions of the country—the county, the township, the incorporated village—govern themselves seems so obvious and works so smoothly in actual practice that it seems part of the order of nature, and must have existed from the time beyond which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. But the present extended system of home rule in Canada did not descend from heaven complete, like the Twelve Tables. It was a gradual growth, or evolution, from the old system, by which the local justices of the peace, sitting in quarter sessions, assessed the local taxes, with the difference that it was not an unconscious growth.

The plant set by Sydenham’s hand was tended, cultivated, and brought to maturity by Baldwin. The measure, as it became law in 1849, has proved to be of the greatest practical value; it has won the approval of competent critics; and it has served as a model for the organization of other provinces. Commonplace and humdrum as this measure may seem to Canadians in the actual domestic working of it, there are other parts of the Empire—Ireland, for example—which were to lag long behind. The lack of such privileges is a grievance elsewhere. Even to-day, the rural districts of England have not as extensive powers of self-government as the counties of Ontario. If the farmers of the Tenth Concession had to go to Ottawa and see a bill through the House every time they wanted a new school, if they had months of waiting for proper authorization, not to mention expenses of legislation to meet, they might appreciate more keenly the advantages they enjoy in virtue of this {109} forgotten Act of 1849. The lover of the picturesque will not regret that terms with the historic colour of ‘reeve’ and ‘warden’ were made part and parcel of a democratic system in the New World.

It was a session of constructive statesmanship. The judicial system of the province needed to be revised, extended, and simplified; and these things were done. The economic condition of Canada was anything but satisfactory. For years the country had ‘enjoyed a preference’ in the British markets, in accordance with the old, plausible theory that mother country and colony were best held together by trade arrangements of mutual advantage, by which the colony should supply the mother country with raw material and the mother country should supply the colony with manufactured products. Suddenly all Canada’s business was dislocated by Peel’s adoption of free trade in 1846. In consequence Canada had no longer any advantage in the British market over the rest of the world, and Canadian timber-merchants and grain-growers had an undoubted grievance. The general commercial depression, which had set in at the time of the rebellions, became worse and worse.

Lord Elgin’s often-quoted words picture the deplorable state of the country: ‘Property in most of the Canadian towns, and more especially in the capital, has fallen fifty per cent in value within the last three years. Three-fourths of the commercial men are bankrupt, owing to free trade; a large proportion of the exportable produce of Canada is obliged to seek a market in the United States. It pays a duty of twenty per cent on the frontier. How long can such a state of things be expected to endure?’ For a remedy the active mind of Hincks turned to the obvious alternative of the British market, the natural market just across the line; and he opened up negotiations with the United States looking towards reciprocal trade. He could scarcely obtain a hearing. The way was blocked by the complete indifference of the United States Senate towards the whole project. Not until five years later did relief come; and it came through the initiative and personal diplomacy of Lord Elgin. To him belongs the credit for the famous Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. This signifies that for the twelve years during which the treaty was in force the artificial barriers to the currents of trade between adjacent countries were, to a large extent, removed, certainly to the great advantage of all British North America. It was a unique period in Canadian history. Never before had the trade relations between Canada and the United States been so friendly, and never have they been so friendly since.

In another great enterprise of national importance Hincks was more successful. The forties of the nineteenth century saw the first great era of railway building. This novel method of transportation was perceived to have immense undeveloped possibilities. In Britain, where steam traction was invented, companies were formed by the score and lines were projected in every direction. It was a time of wild speculation, in which emerged for the first time the new type of company promoter. From England the rage for railways spread to the Continent and to America. While Hincks was working at the problem in Canada, Howe was working at it in Nova Scotia. To link the East with the West, Montreal with Toronto, Montreal with the Atlantic seaboard, Montreal with the Lake Champlain waterways to the southward, was the general design of the first Canadian railways. It was in this period that the first {112} sections were built of those Canadian lines which, in half a century, have grown into immense systems radiating across the continent. Hincks’s idea was to aid private enterprise by government guarantees of the interest on half the cost of construction. Canada is now laced with iron roads from ocean to ocean. The man who laid the foundation of these immense systems in the day of small beginnings should never be forgotten.

So the busy session went on, until a measure was introduced which aroused a storm of opposition, threatened a renewal of civil war, and tested the principle of responsible government almost to the breaking strain. This was the Act of Indemnification, a part of the bitter aftermath of the rebellion twelve years before.

War, even on the smallest scale, means the destruction of property. In the troubles of ’37 buildings were burned down in the course of military operations. For example, good Father Paquin of St Eustache had long to mourn the loss of his church and the adjoining school. As it stood on a point of land at the junction of two streams and was strongly built of stone, it was an excellent place of defence against the attack of Colborne’s troops. On the fatal fourteenth of December 1837 it was stoutly held by Chenier and his men, until two British officers broke into the sacristy and overset the stove. Soon the fire drove the garrison out of the building, which was destroyed along with the new school-house near by. His parishioners were loyal, Father Paquin contended in a well-reasoned petition; it was not they but the discontented people of Grand Brulé who had seized the town; yet the result was ruin. In the affair of Odelltown in 1838 a citizen’s barn was burnt down by orders of the British officer commanding because it gave shelter to the rebels. Near St Eustache the Swiss adventurer and leader of the rebels, Amury Girod, took possession of a farm belonging to a loyal Scottish family. His men cut down the trees about the farm-house, fortified it rudely, and lived in it at rack and manger until Colborne came to St Eustache. These were typical cases of loss, and surely, when order was again restored, they were cases for compensation. The loyal and the innocent should not have to suffer in their goods for their innocence and their loyalty.

Claims for compensation were made early. In the very year of the rebellion the Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act appointing commissioners to inquire into the amount of damage done to the property of loyal citizens; and in the following year it voted a sum of £4000 to make good the losses. Men were paid for a cow driven off, or for an old musket commandeered. The Special Council of Lower Canada made similar provision, as was only natural and right; but its task was much harder than that of the Assembly’s. Clearly, the property of loyalists destroyed or injured during the civil strife should be made good. This was mere justice. It was equally clear that the property of open rebels which had been destroyed or injured should not be made good. But there was a third category not so easy to deal with. There were those who were not openly in rebellion, but who were grievously suspect of sympathy with declared insurgents of their own race and religion. How far sympathy might have become aid and comfort to opponents of the government was hard to say. The village of St Eustache, for example, was set on fire the night following the fight; the troops turned out in the bitter cold to fight the fire, but did not master it until some eighty houses were burned. What claim could the owners have upon the government for their losses? In the winter of 1838 the sky was red with the flames of burning hamlets, says the Montreal Herald. (1)

Resources

Notes

1. Archibald MacMechan, “Popular Govrerment. A Chronicle of the Union of 1841” (1916), Toronto, Glasgow, Brook and Company

See Also

Law is our Passion

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This entry was last updated: October 29, 2016