Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📕

said, we can yet see that his words were those of a man who rose above the level of the mere politician, and grasped the magnitude of the questions involved. What he aimed at especially was to follow as closely as possible the fundamental principles of English parliamentary government, and to engraft them upon the general system of federal union. Mr. George Brown took a prominent part in the deliberations. His opinions read curiously now. He was in favour of having the lieutenant-governors appointed by the general government, and he was willing to give them an effective veto over provincial legislation. He advocated the election of a legislative chamber on a fixed day every third year, not subject to a dissolution during its term--also an adaptation of the American system. He went so far as to urge the advisability of having the executive council elected for three years--by the assembly, we may assume, though the imperfect report before us does not state so--and also of giving the lieutenant-governor the right of dismissing any of its members when the house was not sitting. Mr. Brown consequently appears to have been the advocate, so far as the provinces were concerned, of principles that prevail in the federal republic across the border. He opposed the introduction of responsible government, as it now obtains, in all the provinces of the Dominion, while conceding its necessity for the central government.


[4: Mr. Joseph Pope, for years the able confidential secretary of Sir John Macdonald, has edited and published all the official documents bearing on the origin and evolution of the British North America Act of 1867; but despite all the ability and fidelity he has devoted to the task the result is most imperfect and unsatisfactory on account of the absence of any full or exact original report of proceedings.]


We gather from the report of discussions that the Prince Edward Island delegates hesitated from the beginning to enter a union where their province would necessarily have so small a numerical representation--one of the main objections which subsequently operated against the island coming into the confederation. With respect to education we see that it was Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Galt, who was responsible for the provision in the constitution which gives the general government and parliament a certain control over provincial legislation in case the rights of a Protestant or a Roman Catholic minority are prejudicially affected. The minutes on this point are defective, but we have the original motion on the subject, and a note of Sir John Macdonald himself that it was passed, with the assent of all the provinces, at the subsequent London conference in 1867. The majority of the delegates appear from the outset to have supported strenuously the principle which lies at the basis of the confederation, that all powers not expressly reserved to the provinces should appertain to the general government, as against the opposite principle, which, as Sir John Macdonald pointed out, had led to great difficulties in the working of the federal system in the United States. Sir John Macdonald also, with his usual sagacity, showed that, in all cases of conflict of jurisdiction, recourse would be necessarily made to the courts, as was the practice even then whenever there was a conflict between imperial and Canadian statutes.

Addresses to the Queen embodying the Quebec resolutions were submitted to the legislature of Canada during the winter of 1865, and passed in both houses by large majorities after a very full discussion of the merits of the scheme. The opposition in the assembly came chiefly from Mr. Antoine A. Dorion, Mr. Luther H. Holton, Mr. Dunkin, Mr. Lucius Seth Huntington, Mr. John Sandfield Macdonald, and other able Liberals who were not disposed to follow Mr. Brown and his two colleagues in their patriotic abandonment of "partyism."

The vote on the address was, in the council--Contents 45, Non-contents 15. In the assembly it stood--Yeas 91, Nays 33. The minority in the assembly comprised 25 out of 65 representatives of French Canada, and only 8 out of the 65 from Upper Canada. With the speaker in the chair there were only 5 members absent on the taking of the final vote.

Efforts were made both in the council and assembly to obtain an unequivocal expression of public opinion at the polls before the address was submitted to the imperial government for final action. It was argued with much force that the legislature had had no special mandate from the people to carry out so vital a change in the political condition of the provinces, but this argument had relatively little weight in either house in view of the dominant public sentiment which, as it was obvious to the most superficial observer, existed in the valley of the St. Lawrence in favour of a scheme which seemed certain to settle the difficulties so long in the way of stable government, and offered so many auspicious auguries for the development of the provinces embraced in federation.

Soon after the close of the session Messrs Macdonald, Galt, Cartier, and Brown went to England to confer with the imperial authorities on various matters of grave public import. The British government agreed to guarantee a loan for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway and gave additional assurances of their deep interest in the proposed confederation. An understanding was reached with respect to the mutual obligations of the parent state and the dependency to provide for the defences of the country. Preliminary steps were taken in the direction of acquiring the north-west from the Hudson's Bay Company on equitable terms whenever their exact legal rights were ascertained. The report of the delegates was laid before the Canadian parliament during a very short session held in August and September of 1865. It was then that parliament formally ratified the Civil Code of Lower Canada, with which must be always honourably associated the name of Mr. Cartier.

In the maritime provinces, however, the prospect for some months was far from encouraging. Much dissatisfaction was expressed with the financial terms, and the haste with which the maritime delegates had yielded to the propositions of the Canadian government and given their adhesion to the larger scheme, when they were only authorised in the first instance by their respective legislatures to consider the feasibility of a union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In New Brunswick Mr. Tilley found himself in a minority as a result of an appeal to the people on the question in 1865, but his successor Mr., afterwards Sir, Albert Smith, minister of marine in the Mackenzie government of 1873-78, was forced to resign a year later on some question purposely raised by Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton Gordon, then very anxious to carry the union before he left the province. A new government was immediately formed by Mr. Peter Mitchell, a very energetic Liberal politician--the first minister of marine in the first Dominion ministry--who had notoriously influenced the lieutenant-governor in his arbitrary action of practically dismissing the Smith cabinet. On an appeal to the people Mr. Mitchell was sustained, and the new legislature gave its approval to the union by a large majority. The opinion then generally prevailed in New Brunswick that a federation was essential to the security of the provinces, then threatened by the Fenians, and would strengthen the hands of the parent state on the American continent. In Nova Scotia the situation was aggravated by the fact that the opposition was led by Mr. Howe, who had always been the idol of a large party in the country, and an earnest and consistent supporter of the right of the people to be first consulted on every measure immediately affecting their interests. He succeeded in creating a powerful sentiment against the terms of the measure--especially the financial conditions--and it was not possible during 1865 to carry it in the legislature. It was not attempted to submit the question to the polls, as was done in New Brunswick, indeed such a course would have been fatal to its progress; but it was eventually sanctioned by a large vote of the two houses. A strong influence was exerted by the fact that confederation was approved by the imperial government, which sent out Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars as lieutenant-governor with special instructions that, both Canada and New Brunswick having given their consent, it was proposed to make such changes in the financial terms as would be more favourable to the maritime provinces. In Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland it was not possible for the advocates of federation to move successfully in the matter. The opposition to the scheme of union, as proposed at Quebec, was so bitter in these two provinces that the delegates found it useless to press the matter in their legislatures.

In the meantime, while confederation was on the eve of accomplishment, the people of Canada were subjected to an attack which supplied the strongest possible evidence of the necessity for a union enabling them to combine for purposes of general defence as well as other matters of national importance. In the month of April, 1866, the Fenians, an Irish organisation in the United States, made an insignificant demonstration on the New Brunswick frontier, which had no other effect than to excite the loyal action of the people of the province and strengthen the hands of the advocates of confederation. In the beginning of June a considerable body of the same order, under the command of one O'Neil, crossed from Buffalo into the Niagara district of Upper Canada and won a temporary success near Ridgeway, where the Queen's Own, a body of Toronto Volunteers, chiefly students and other young men, were badly handled by Colonel Booker. Subsequently Colonel Dennis and a small detachment of militia were surprised at Fort Erie by O'Neil. The knowledge that a large force of regulars and volunteers were marching against him under Colonel Peacock forced O'Neil and his men to disperse and find their way back to the United States, where a number were arrested by the orders of the Washington government. The Eastern Townships of Lower Canada were also invaded but the raiders retreated before a Canadian force with greater rapidity than they had shown in entering the province, and found themselves prisoners as soon as they crossed the frontier. Canada was kept in a state of anxiety for some months after these reckless invasions of a country where the Irish like all other nationalities have always had the greatest possible freedom; but the vigilance of the authorities and the readiness of the people of Canada to defend their soil prevented any more hostile demonstrations from the United States. The prisoners taken in the Niagara district were treated with a degree of clemency which their shameless conduct did not merit from an outraged people. No persons were ever executed, though a number were confined for a while in Kingston penitentiary. The invasion had the effect of stimulating the patriotism of the Canadian people to an extraordinary degree, and of showing them the necessity that existed for improving their home forces, whose organisation and equipment proved sadly defective during the invasion.

In the summer of 1866 the Canadian legislature met for the last time under the provisions of the Union Act of 1840, and passed addresses to the Queen, setting forth constitutions for the new provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, afterwards incorporated in the imperial act of union. A conference of delegates from the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada was held in the December of 1866 at the Westminster Palace Hotel in the City of London. The members on behalf of Canada were Messrs Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, McDougall, Langevin, and W.P. Howland (in the place of Mr. Brown); on behalf of Nova Scotia, Messrs Tupper, Henry, McCully, Archibald, and J.W. Ritchie (who took Mr. Dickey's place); of New Brunswick, Messrs Tilley, Johnson, Mitchell,